The Ringer NFL Show - 10 Summer NFL Stories That Have Our Attention!

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Sheil and The Ringer’s own Billy Gil shine a light on the NFL media sphere and pick the 10 biggest headlines that currently have their analytic minds buzzing as the preseason gets underway. (00:00) 10 summer NFL stories that have our attention! (05:23) Mike Sando’s QB tiers (15:29) Vikings name Kyler Murray QB1 (28:28) Bills respond to Highmark Stadium criticism (35:46) Dan Quinn’s master plan to revive the Commanders (43:32) Kirk Cousins, Maxx Crosby held out of practice following fight (48:31) CBS: No timetable on Tony Romo’s future after arrest (01:00:07) Behind the scenes with Ben Johnson (01:11:08) NFL rookies and their first paychecks (01:22:07) Can the Cowboys achieve GOTI status? (01:30:34) The State of the Cleveland Browns Upgrade Your Performance with Orgain Creatine. Available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart & Whole Foods. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Host: Sheil Kapadia Guest: Billy Gil Producer: Chris Sutton Video Editor: Stefano Sanchez Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia. There's training camp. There's preseason. There's so much going on around the NFL. But it's hard to keep up with all of it. So you know what I did as a public service?

I picked out 10 storylines that have my attention. And we're going to talk about those with our friend, Billy Gill from the Ringer. We play a little game. We jump from topic to topic. But we cover a lot of stuff, including Tony Romo, including the state of the Cleveland Brown. including what's going on with the Raiders and Kurt Cousins and Max Crosby and Fernando

Mendoza. We go all over the place. It is a very fun conversation. So let's take a break. We'll come right back with Billy Gill. This episode of the Ringer NFL show is presented by Orgain. Orgaine Creatine helps improve muscle size, strength, and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. Plus, it's certified with informed choice, which means it's tested for prohibited substances in sports. Upgrade your performance with organ creatine, available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.

This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. Going on vacation? We're here for it. With kids who turned the backseat into a courtroom drama over whose tabla is louder, whose charger is faster, and while watching the same. cartoon for the hundredth time is a human right? Yep, we totally have vehicles to handle that. Because whether it's a road trip or a business trip,

where your flight's delayed, your phone's at 2% and your dinner is, whatever is open. Yeah, here for that too. Enterprise. We're here for it. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show, joined by my friend from the Ringer. Billy Gill, Billy. It's been a while, my friend. Hey, Shiel, how are you? Happy fall, I guess.

What are we buying now? Is it fall yet? It's still the latter part of summer? Yeah, no, not fall, but there are preseason games going on this weekend. So we're getting there. We're getting close to, you know, hoodie season and pumpkin spice season and all that stuff. But summer's not over yet. We still have August.

And you know what August means, Billy. We got wall-to-wall training camp coverage, NFL coverage everywhere I look. There's a news story. And I didn't want to make you have to read about like every single thing that's happening in camp. So here's what I did. I picked out 10 storylines that may or may not matter. I mean, you might, you might think some of these are stupid, but they have my attention, at least. I thought they would be fun to talk about. And so here's the exercise. It's very simple. I numbered them one through 10. I didn't tell you what headlines, what number. You're going to pick a number. We're going to go to

that topic. We're going to discuss it. And then we're going to move on to the next one. What do you think? We can follow those instructions, right? Well, I think so. It seems simple enough, but like, I can, look, hands up, I get distracted sometimes and I try to derail. Not intentionally, it just happens naturally, but I promise you, I will try to be on my best behavior today. I will stick to the topic at hand. I will try not to veer off and get distracted by other things happening. I won't make small talk with you.

We'll just get straight down to business because I could ask you, like, I thought I saw pictures of you at training camp for the Eagles last week out there with the shores, taking things in firsthand, doing some reporting possibly. Hoots on the ground. I was going to ask you how that went. I was going to ask you how summer's going. You mentioned pumpkin spice lattes. I was going to ask you if you're a pumpkin guy,

if you kind of dabble with any pumpkin beverages as the season goes on. But we're not going to do that straight to the point today. Well, nobody wants that. You know nobody wants that. I know nobody wants that. So we will veer. I have a feeling. We'll veer off topic for the record.

I do like pumpkin flavored things. Really? And I was at Eagles training camp for a couple days. So there you go. See? We already covered both those things. And summer's going great. So there we go.

Do you do just like pumpkin or do you indulge in other seasonal drinks as well? Well, I wouldn't say the pumpkin drink is my favorite, but like a pumpkin bread, a pumpkin muffin. You know, I do like those things. Coffee. I generally am just sticking to black coffee or iced black coffee. Really? I'll do an, you know, an oat milk latte from time to time up. I'm feeling a little dangerous.

And as the calendar rolls on, do you get into like the peppermints and all of those too? No. No, not for me. I'm not going to ask you about that now because. we need something to talk about in November and December. And I don't want to run out a topic. When's your birthday, shield? February, Groundhog's Day.

Is it actually Groundhog's Day? It is. There you go. Really? Was that something that you enjoyed or didn't like as you grew up? Yeah, it's fine. It's not like a big holiday. So no one really, you know, it's just like, you know, oh shit, you see your shadow. Like, it gets old a little bit. But you know what?

We power through, Billy, for 43 years. Yeah, I'm telling you my age. We have power through the Groundhog State jokes. And here we are ready to. talk NFL. All right, give me a number one through 10. What are you got? What's your favorite number? You know, I like three because Alan Iverson was like my favorite player. So yeah, that was always up there for me. But you don't have to pick that. Let's go with six, double your favorite number. Okay, Dr. Jay, that one works as well. All right, number six, Billy. Okay, so we're going with,

you know, I feel like every NFL podcaster should be sending Mike Sandel something. Oh, maybe a gift card for a pumpkin spice latte. maybe just a thank you, no, you know, whatever. Because Mike Sando of the Athletic, my friend, Mike Sando, does the quarterback tiers and has been doing them for a very long time where he pulls 50 coaches and execs and he lays out exactly who these people are, what their roles are in the NFL.

And he does tiers and he ranks them and every NFL podcast, every TV show. Everyone gets content out of this great idea by Mike Sands. Billy. So have you, did you check out Mike Sandos quarterback tears on the athletic? Okay. I will tell you this. I saw that it was out there. I perused a little bit. I didn't do deep dives. I didn't do like great studies. A lot of information. I saw that he had a panel of people that he went. And that's how this works out. I think he asked what, like 50 people for his panel. And it's, who is it that's down? You're not on the panel, right? You're just his friend. I don't know that I've ever been on a panel. Have you ever been on a panel? Well, that's probably not true. But I would like to be asked to be on more panels.

I have certain things that I would like to do that I haven't yet. And I'm thinking some of them as I get older, I'm not going to, right? So for example, a panel of any kind, I would love to be part of a panel. I don't even need my name out there. Just me knowing I'm part of the panel would be fine. So like if it's an anonymous panel of whatever, good enough for me. I'll do that. maybe like voters also, like for like the highs me.

Yeah, I've never got to vote on anything either. Yeah, I'd love, I mean, you end the elections, right? But aside from that, I would like sports voting privileges to be perfectly honest with you. Like, honestly, I would probably treasure that more than my civic duty just because, and this sounds bad and privilege, obviously, but like that was something that I was born with. So I didn't have to earn it. You know what I mean? As bad as that sounds.

So, and I'll probably have to apologize for that because it may seem insensitive. but I'd like to earn the right to vote for postseason awards. You know what else I've always wanted to be part of? Which I think it's too late now just because I'm getting older. And I'll say my age. I'm 39. You said you're 43 before. I don't care.

I'll say I think the two of us are probably too old for like the up-and-comers list that like the media sites will put out at some point in time. I can't make a 40 under 40, Billy. This is my last year. This is my last year. It's not looking good. I don't think 40 under 40 is going to happen for me anywhere. And, you know, once you have 40, I don't think you can hit like the awful announcing up-and-comers, people to watch this or something like that.

There's no 50 under 50. No, it's done. Just look at us two unaccomplished guys. Well, I disagree because this is going to be such a great podcast. And you're going to kill it in this question specifically. Okay. I think it's going to start the rise and the campaign for Billy Gill 40 under 40. So here's what I want to do, Billy.

You peruse the list. I went through the list. And some people might want to argue the top 10. who's the goat, all that. I went to the bottom. Not all the way at the bottom. I don't want to give any hints away, but I looked for the meanest things

that the execs said about quarterbacks. And so we're going to do a little game. I'm going to read you a quote about something mean that an exec said about a quarterback and you're going to try to guess the quarterback. Are you read? I like this game. Yes.

Now, for those playing along at home, it's all quarterbacks who played last year. So there's no rookies involved in this. And you might ask, well, This is all starters. It was all guys who at least started games last season or could start games this season. That's the criteria if you're trying to narrow it down here. Okay, so the first one, I'd sleep like a baby if I got to play him every week.

One defensive coordinator said, very mean. I'd sleep like a baby if I got to play him every week. Billy, who do you think? Is there a quarterback where you say, huh? I bet sub-defensive coordinator said that about this guy. Well, as you mentioned, it's not going to be any of the top quarterbacks. This is the bottom of the list. Where it gets tricky is that they started last year.

They have a chance to start this year because then, I mean, Tua could be in play. He started last year. I saw that he's starting for the Falcons this preseason game this week after they had kind of like a mess at the quarterback situation where everyone was injured, released, or recently signed. They had a division two guy that was going. out there for a little bit that was going to be their starter. It could be a,

oh, you know who I'm going to guess just because I want to feel, I don't want to drag this on too long? You know who I'm going to guess just because I like to say his name? Tyler Shuck. Tyler Shuck. All right, good guess there.

Philly, it is not Tyler Shuck. It is Shador Sanders. Oh, no. I don't want to give anything away, so we don't have to get into a big Shador conversation right now because we might be talking a little Browns later in the podcast.

That was the first one. Yeah, so the next one here. Wow. So Chador's now off the board. We're not going to go with multiple insults. I'm not going to do the same guy twice. All right. Next guy, football looks hard for him.

An offensive coach said, football looks hard for him. Is there a quarterback where you say, ah, I could see a coach saying, all right, yeah, football actually does look kind of hard for this guy. I got to be honest with you, I think that's more insulting than the last one was. The last one was I wouldn't lose sleep over facing him, right? and this one is football looks hard for him. That seems a lot meaner. I think this is the meanest one.

I think you're right. Even the other ones I'm going to read, I think that is a mean thing to say to someone who's made it to the NFL, you know? Football looks hard for him. Oof. Tyler Shuck is still on the board, but we're not going to guess him every time.

Let's see. I don't think it's Jackson Dart. He's a rookie, but he had a good season last year. It's kind of scanning. I'm going through the list of divisions. It's probably no one in the AFCEs because Gino's done good enough.

that they wouldn't say that. Could it be Bryce Young? Not Bryce Young. But good guess. J.J. McCarthy. Oh, I looked right past him. How did that happen? You said NFC North.

Now, you did say every division. And we might be talking about J.J. McCarthy later in the pot. So these are the nice tease to set up the rest of the show here. I think, I think, I think that was a trick question. I think that was a trick question because I was looking, at present starters, and there may have been already an assignment of a starter on that team, and he was not on the list I was looking at. So I'm going to, you know, it's still unfortunate for JJ McCarty.

I feel bad for him. And it was an offensive coach. I guess it's possible this was Kevin O'Connell, who said football looks hard for him. But I don't know who the source is. He hates him, right? Like, we can get into this later. I think we'll get into it. He hates him.

It doesn't seem like he's his biggest fan. All right, last one here, Billy. Okay. For this one. Mm-hmm. He is what he is physically. he looks like a high school kid out there. Sheesh, somebody said about this quarterback.

He is what he is physically. He looks like a high school kid out there. What do you think? This one, last time I feel like you went through every division, this one that you just said, bam, first name comes to mind. I think the problem is the first thing that comes to mind right off the top of my head,

I think it's too good to be on this list, which is Jaden Daniels because he's a smaller guy. Also, possibly a high schooler, but a freaky athletic high schooler, Kyler, Kyler. But just the JJ, so it's not going to be Kyler, I would think, or I'm overthinking this. And then there's also, if I don't want to double guess, Bryce is there too.

Could this one be Bryce? Because I feel like Bryce, even though he had a decent season last year, he's still ripe for being criticized. Tua is also a small guy, but I think that people are just leaving him alone. They kind of know two is done in this situation. All right, we need an answer. I'm going to say Jaden, even though he's too good

because I just guess Bryce is the last one, but it's down to those two for me. I'm going to say Jaden Daniels. Bryce Young. It's okay. It's okay. I just slag my pen on the floor. Yeah, listen, you were close to it. He is what he is physically.

He looks like a high school kid out there. Bryce Young. All right, so those were some of the meaner things that voter said in Mike Sandow's QB-Tier's column on the athletic, which everyone can check out. Can I ask you a question? let's say you were on this panel, right? And we're going to give you a cloak of anonymity.

So no one's going to know that you were to say this. Who would be the person that you would put on the bottom of the list of Shields tears? The worst quarterback in the NFL? Yeah, if you were ranking them. Oh, man, that's tough. I think J.J. McCarthy would probably, you know, J.J. McCarthy would be down there. Okay. Shedore Sanders.

Oh. would be down there. I can tell you, you know who would have been? I would have had the quote because he talks to 50 people, so not everyone gets their quote in there. I think I would have gotten a quote in on Daniel Jones, where I would have been like, seems like a nice guy. He played eight good games and those bozos in Indy paid him $50 million coming off in Achilles. I, you know, I would love to have the job security. So I would have something spicy like that. where I'd be like, whoa, someone's coming after Chris Bally and the Indianapolis Colts. I didn't land the plane, Billy, but it would have been meaner.

I was going to say, I feel like on the level of like hot sauces, like that was still like somewhere to the mild to medium. And I'm wondering, and this is a good thing for you, I'm wondering if you're capable even under a cloak of anonymity to actually be mean and talk badly about someone. Oh, yeah. Are you? Oh, 100%. Okay, say something bad about Deshawn Watson. No, don't do that. We'll move on.

I mean, that would be an easy, I think that would be an easy one. But you didn't want to get in trouble earlier for the voting thing. I don't want to get in trouble here. So I suggest we just move on to the next number. Let's do your favorite number three. Three. Wow. It's like you have a copy of my Google talk, which you don't.

But this is like you did, Billy, because this is the musiest item, I think, on the list. Okay. And it's a great jumping off point for the last conversation. because here's the headline. Vikings named Kyler Murray starting QB over J.J. McCarthy. This is from Alec Lewis of the Athletic reporting that Kevin O'Connell met with both quarterbacks, announced his decision. Kyler Murray spoke to the media.

He's going to be the starter, which I've got to say, this feels very early to call a quarterback competition if you're a team. I feel like it was almost like Kevin O'Connell's like, I don't want to be dealing with this anymore. in case Kyler Murray has like three bad days of practice and JJ McCarthy has a couple good passes and then people are writing, hey, there's a real close quarterback competition.

He's like, I just want to end this now so we can move on. But what was your take on Kyler Murray being named the starter in Minnesota? I think it's similar to yours, right? Which is kind of like, why now? Why are we doing this so early unless this was always what he wanted, right?

Like this almost seems like this is an insight job and we talked about it in the last topic, it seems like Kevin O'Connell is not the biggest J.J. McCarthy fan. And we kind of if you go back to last season, we saw there was somewhat of a power struggle between him and the former

GM, Queseadoffo Mensa, and he was a very big, like, JJ McCarthy guy, honestly, to the very end. And it's probably what got him fired. That along with, I guess, taking paternity or whatever that story was, which was weird, that he disappeared and he loved his family too much.

and like, this guy doesn't care enough about football. He's got to get out of here. But, yeah, this is a weird thing. His reputation as of late for the past couple seasons has been, I can make something out of a mid-level veteran quarterback, and then I can get them the big contract, and then I'll bring in another mid-level, you know, in terms of like salary quarterback, and I can always make it work with them.

He did it with Kirk Cousins a couple years ago. Kirk Cousins End goes on and he signs a massive four-year, like $180 million contract or something like that, right? Then he does it with Sam Darnold and Sam Darnold. Everybody was like, whoa, what's going on here? And then we got into that power struggle where it was time for Sam Darnold get paid. And the former GM said, you know what? I would rather kind of do this on the cheap. And I think there's value in the young quarterbacks.

Like, let's do that. I think for both those guys, Billy, I would say Kevin O'Connell probably wanted to keep Kirk Cousins and then probably wanted to keep Sam Darnold and wasn't able to do either. Or at least it feels like that's the messaging he's getting out there. It feels like to me. Wow, that's a good job by him because then he's like never in the wrong.

Especially with Sam Darnold, right? Because Sam Darnold, I think what ended up obviously doing the GM in is like, well, he won the Super Bowl. So you were totally wrong about that and J.J. McCarthy was a disaster. So I feel like, I hope that they do find the quarterback.

I don't think that it's Kyler Murray long term, right? but Kyler Murray seems to kind of be this blueprint, right? Which is bringing a proven guy that's good enough in the league. He's not going to be very expensive. The reason he's not expensive is because the Cardinals basically told him, like, get out of here. So the Vikings are only going to pay him like one point something million dollars for the year. But again, he's a free agent after this season. And I believe that he has something in his contract where he can't get tagged.

So he's going to be a free agent no matter what. and if he does do what he's hoping to do and rebuild his career and the Vikings again are unwilling to give him the money. Now there's different leadership in place, so maybe they will give them the money if it works out. But this could be a situation where now we're running into the JJ McCarthy question again next year, right, is do we give him another chance? And the crazy thing about JJ McCarthy, I was looking this up.

J.J. McCarthy's been in the league. He was drafted in 2024. He had a season-ending injury. He hasn't really played all the many games, right? Like they brought him in and he hasn't really, showing himself all that much. But J.C. McCarthy is still younger than three quarterbacks who were drafted in this year's draft alone. He's younger than Ty Simpson. He's younger than Carson Beck. He's younger than your guy, Cole Payton, who is drafted by the Eagles, like a fifth round or

whatever. So that one, we won't pay that much. I was very curious about who my guy was going to be there. Yeah, Cole Payton. You're not a big Cole Payton guy, North Dakota State. It's fine. Go ahead. Yeah. Nice lefty. I like a lefty. Well, I just, it's a weird situation because of NIL and the way that college sports are going now, right? Where JJ wins a national championship, he was brought in, I think there was questions by everyone as to whether or not he would actually be like an NFL caliber

starting quarterback. And now after basically one year, because he missed his first year, he's been totally ridden off while there's people entering the league who are still older than him, but we've kind of just decided like JJ doesn't have it. And maybe that's fair and maybe it's not. Yeah, we'll see if he

remains with the Vikings or gets traded, but I think to your point about KOC maybe being done with J.J. McCarthy. This was in that athletic article. It said, it is well known around the league. J.J. McCarthy's play in 2025 war on Kevin O'Connell

and the offensive staff. That, as much as anything else, contributed to months-long projections of Kyler Murray as the starter. I do think there's some politicking going on with KOC, some messaging going on, because you even mentioned it. I think

KOC, maybe his greatest strength, is he's able to work with Brian Flores. That's really been, their defense has been good every year. That's really carried them. Even last year, they go nine and eight because their defense is really good. If you look at it statistically, their offense has never been top 10 with any of these quarterbacks, even when they were winning a lot of games with Kirk Cous and Sam Darnold. And then COC had that quote.

I don't know if you remember this a few years ago where he's like, quarterbacks don't fail organizations. Organizations fail quarterbacks. Oh, baby. This guy knows ball. It's all about. Do you put him in a good situation? And now it's like, well, okay, go prove it.

So I'm putting KOC on fraud watch where I'm not saying he's a fraud. Coach of the Year, former coach of the year. I think it's potentially, he potentially could be a fraud. I want to see how this year plays out because I actually think Kyler Murray, he sets a floor, you know? I'm not like, oh, I love Kyler Murray. He's great. You guys don't understand. He's underrated.

But I'm kind of like, he gives you. you have the floor of like the 20th best quarterback in the NFL, which actually could be enough given Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and the offensive line and Brian Flores. Like if KOC is a good coach, I actually think this should work and they should at least be a playoff team this year. Can I give you a way too early juicy prediction or juicy thing to look out for? Let me get ready. First big prediction on the ringer NFL show, 2026.

All right. What do you got? Hit me. Okay, this is unfortunate. Kyler Murray isn't going to be the long-term solution. He's either going to flop or he's going to sign elsewhere. Someone's going to be dumb. Someone's going to say, you know what, we're going to give him the thing.

That's not the prediction. The prediction involves Kyler no longer being in the picture. Whether it's good or bad, I'm not entirely certain. I'm leaning more towards bad than good, but he's not going to be in the picture. But you know who might enter that picture strolling in next year? someone who's a quarterback that's proven but last week news came out that he was maybe not too happy with the situation

I think KOC might find his guy in Baker Mayfield next year. I like that. I could see it. I like that. That's a good one. Baker Mayfield goes to KOC. I'm trying to remember if they crossed over it all

with the Rams. They always cross past. Everybody knows everybody. I mean, come on. It's a small, small circles. They're all going. the same resorts in Cabo, golfing at the same places in Florida.

Yeah, they know what they're doing. Okay, I like that. Billy calling a shot. Baker-Mayfield, Minnesota Viking, 2027. Now, last thing on this story, Billy. Yes. This is a game called,

should we get him or should we leave him alone? Oh, I like this game. How does it work? So I'm going to read you. There's a media insider who tweeted about J.J. McCarthy who apparently upset a lot of people. So I need you to tell me it's warranted.

You can go get him or you can say, everybody settle down. It's not that big of the deal. So this is Michigan alum Adam Schaefter. When he tweeted the news, he said, and this made it to awful announcing. That's how I saw it. Awful announcing was like, oh, he's carrying water for J.J. McCarthy. So here's what he tweeted. J.J. McCarthy missed his entire rookie season due to injury and started just 10 games last year with Minnesota winning six of them.

now the still only 23 year old will be forced to be a backup. Do you have issue with that tweet, Billy? Or are you saying everybody just get offline, go touch grass, and let's not make a big deal out of this? I think that it was important when you said at the beginning Michigan alum, because then we kind of got maybe your thoughts as to why he was tweeting that situation out there.

I think at the grand scheme of things, it's not really a big deal. Like, who cares? Well, we can't say that, Billy, because in the grand scheme of things, nothing we talk about really matters. Well, that's true, too, but we can't say that part out loud.

That part we need to kind of keep to ourselves. I feel like Adam Schaefter has his tweets scrutinized in the sports world more than, like, necessarily so. You know what I mean? And, like, very, like, infrequently, is it actually an opinion, which this clearly was? For the most part, it's like, here's news. And this guy steps out and, like,

here's an opinion. And everyone's like, get out of here. Shut up, man. You're just making excuses for J.J. McCartney. Shiel, you want to know a fun fact before we move on? Please. One time, I was on a cruise with Adam Schefter's mom. It was like two years ago.

I didn't know what was going on. I was in an elevator. I was wearing an ESPN LA hat that was like one of those things that they just kind of like give out like a swag type thing. And I was going up. We forgot something in our room. We were at a, you know, at a pier, a dock, whatever. I had to run back in to go get my.

my daughter's floaties, we had forgotten it. So I'd get in the elevator. I'm staying on like the fifth floor or something. So it's a very short ride, five floors up. And I'm wearing this ESPN hat. And this lovely woman says to me, oh, do you work at ESPN? Which is like a weird thing to ask because ESPN's a big brand.

And I was like, well, I used to, you know, I got this hat, whatever. She's like, oh, my son works at ESPN. Maybe you know him. And I was like, oh, like, you know, I wasn't in Bristol that much. You know, like I crossed past. Like what she's like, well? Some production assistant or something. Yes, because she said something.

He's in the football department. I was like, oh, like, okay, like who's like, whatever? She's like, his name's Adam. I'm like, oh, which Adam? I'm like, Adam Schepter. I'm like, you're Adam Schepter's mom? Like, why did you set this up this way? And then as she says, Adam Schaefter's mom, the door opens,

she's like, okay, I got to go. Like the bingo or whatever's like, okay, I got to go. And I was like, wait, what just happened in my life right now? So sure enough, Adam Schafter's mom confirmed with him. was on a cruise that weekend. She seems lovely. She was great. And so everyone leave him alone, I think is our conclusion.

There, all right, let's take a break. We come back. We got through two of these. Now, do we have to pick up the pace a little bit? Maybe. But you know what? We're having such a good time that we'll see. So let's take a break.

We'll come back on the Ringer NFL show. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul before the football season begins. Every team is undefeated. Every fan believes this could be the year. The year their team wins the division. The division makes the playoffs lifts the trophy. And with Fandul, you can bet on any of it. From who will win it all and division winners to season win totals and playoff futures,

Fandual has all the ways to bet on the season before it even begins. Get your football futures bets in today on Fandual. Visit Fandul.com slash Ringer NFL to get started. 21 plus select states or 18 plus D.C. or Wyoming? Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler. 8887-89-7-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we are back here with Billy Gill.

I think we've gotten through two of these, Billy, at the first break here. So we might have to pick up the page. Hyper-focus here. We haven't talked in a while. We have a lot of catching up to do. So it's not our fault. If we go a little longer, we go a little longer. All right, what do you got?

What's the next number? All right. Number, we've done three and six. Let's do five. Five. Okay, we're scrolling down to five. No more two stories, Sheel. Listen, if you got a good one, I want to hear it.

Okay. This is, now this is an interesting one. I actually, I'm really curious to hear your take on this because the headline is bills respond to criticism over poor sightlines at new high mark stadium. This is from the athletic. The bills unveiled their $2.2 billion stadium, which as the article points out, $850 million of taxpayers. money, Billy, for this stadium. They have an open practice for the bills, and all of a sudden, people are posting on social media. My sight lines are blocked by railings or cable wires or stair landings. They're saying, I was promised these views when I signed up for season tickets and got my

personal seat license. They showed me a picture of what my view was going to be like. Then I get to the stadium. It looks like something different. Then people are complaining about the scoreboards. They're saying this is poor audio, you know, that's being piped in here. They're saying, I paid for seats that are under a canopy. And guess what? It's pouring during this practice. And they're getting drenched. And so there's all these complaints about what's happening at the stadium.

Bills respond to it in the media. And they're like, oh, you know, that was less than 1% of the people who had complaints. And actually, everything went great and will address any issues that are not great. So what do you think here? This is a social media story where the word was spreading and good job by the reporters trying to follow up on it. What do you think? I feel like this happens every time they open new stadiums, but I totally get the outrage if you have to buy a PSL for your seat. And then all of a sudden, this is not what I was told.

And I'm assuming that what they did because obviously all that stuff is sold before the stadium. and I doubt that they're, you know, struggling to sell those seats in this new stadium. So they probably had like one of those online, like virtual, this is what your seat view would look like. And I would imagine that whoever was coming up with that program didn't have any obstructed view seating. Everything was like perfect. Like, wow, this seat's supposed to be in an end zone. But here it looks like I'm on the 50 yard line. I'm like, yeah, it's crazy.

Every seat looks like you're on the 50 yard line. That's just how things are at the new high mark stadium. It was one like practice, right? I guess these things will figure it out. You can't move railings, though. So that situation probably won't be resolved. I don't know how you fix the railing situation or if there's like an overhang or a column. Like those things are pretty solid and are not going to be moving.

So I don't know if you like, what do you do? You move their seat? Like do you credit them in some way? I don't think that the Bill's mafia also would be like, okay, you know what? I'm just going to choose not to go. In fact, as we're talking this out, I got to tell you something. I don't like this one bit from Bill's Mafia. Bill's Mafia is supposed to be this rough and rugged group.

They jump through tables. They pour ketchup and mustard all over themselves. They light things on fire. What are these complaints about it was raining on me under a canopy? I thought that this is a bunch that took pride in being out in blizzards without shirts on and they were so rugged and tough. And now rain is bothering them. Like, I don't like this, Sheel.

The scoreboard, like, okay, fine. The column, I feel like, you know what? Let's make this part of our character. Did you see that in that stadium, they built, like, fake broken tables as part of, like, the aesthetic? So they do not. They have mock, like, tables that are broken because they jump through broken tables built into parts of the stadium. So it looks like it. But it's just, like, art installations.

That's the Bills Buffy that we need to be hearing from. Not the ones that are complaining about the fact that I wasn't under a canopy. tough luck, tough luck that you're not under the canopy. This is not the bill's way. What are they complaining about, Sheel? I've turned on this. I was on their side. Also, I would say,

$850 million of public money seems like a lot. But in like modern sports public stadium finance deals, like it sounds like that's only like a third of it, which seems like that's a big contribution from the team, right? All right. So Billy just, you know, sticking up for the man, you know, billionaires. That's not fair.

You should pay for their stadiums. No, not fair. Who cares if you can't see. No. They're building, you know, they're building a stadium for you. You should suck it up. No. While they're sitting on their thrones.

I don't like how you're presenting this. And you know what? That's your problem. Because we live in a capitalistic society and you're not working hard enough to make enough money to be those owners. And you know what? That's on you. That's not on them.

It's, listen, I didn't think that was going to be his take. I feel like I know him. relatively well. Not exactly what I said. It's an interesting Zag. I don't agree with that. I personally think that if you pay thousands of dollars and you funded the stadium and you show up and you can't see that you have a valid reason to, you know, speak up about it.

But some people want people like you silenced and think, you know what? It's not their problem. So we don't have to agree on everything. Billy? Yeah, you're right. I guess we're just not going to see eye on this one. But I will say this is. don't come around in the playoffs

and start talking about this great home field advantage and how tough and rowdy this crowd is when we're complaining about rain. Please get out of here. What I actually think here is I agree with what you said initially, which is like they just opened the stadium. There's probably going to be some unforeseen issues when you build a thing that big.

Oh, she'll sliding with the man now. As long as they don't, now I don't like that they said, the thing about, oh, this was less than 1% of the people. It's like, who cares if there's, you know, even if it was like three people, that's still three people who paid, that much money. I will give them some patience. Let's wait. If it's week one of the regular season and these are still issues, then I'm going to come on here and really crush them. But I will give

them a short amount of time to remedy the situation. I did see this scrolling through Twitter this week because I had seen that there had been complaints. And I saw that, I guess, the head of whatever, whoever the spokesperson was that they were asking about this was basically like, there's 1.6 million square feet. Like, what are we going to do? He's like, listen, there's over 27,000 actionable items here. We're going to handle them one at a time. It's like 27,000 after one game.

Like, how is that the case? That's way too many. Yeah. He's basically like, it's a big building. What do you want me to do about? It's not like we're building a little tent on the front lawn. It's like, all right. But I think you probably need to respond a little better to that.

I read the same quote and it's like, all right, that seems like a weird way to address it. All right. So we're going to keep our eye on this. We're not going to let them get away with this, Bill's fans. If there's still issues when you go preseason games. Tweet at Shield.

He's going to handle this for you. Tweet at me and then me and Billy will have a nice debate about it. I'll read it. I'll laugh about it. I'll say, ha, ha, ha, ha, I better see six time. Yeah. All right. What do you have?

What's next year? Ooh, let's do number. All right, we've done three, five, and six. Man, we're flying now. let's do number nine. Number nine. All right. We're scrolling down here to number nine.

Oh, baby. This is right down your alley, Philly. I hope you check this one out before the pot. This is a story in ESPN with the headline inside Dan Quinn's master plan to revive the commander. So this is a summer storyline, Washington commanders. Dan Quinn's on the hot seat. They're not, I feel like they're not a team that's getting a lot of buzzer. this summer? No one's like they're going to suck. No one's like they're going to be good.

They're just kind of in that middle tier of NFL team where they're not getting a lot of NFL attention. So you know what Dan Quinn did, Billy. He looked at last year and he said, we got to be sharper, we need to be hungrier, and we need to focus more on the detail. So he's doing all these. Did you see all the things he's doing? This was a long article. What stood out to you? And then I could give you my cliff notes. I saw that he has decided to focus on team building and fun and like, let's not make things boring. So he started implementing spelling bees and basketball shooting contests between players and coaches and table tennis and friendship quizzes, whatever that is. And he's doing trivia and he's having contests where they finish the songs.

And to me, it's kind of like, Dan, I feel like you might be off your rocker, bud. I feel like we may be losing it here. And I feel like this is the approach we're taking. The writing might be on the wall. You got rid of your OC and your DC last year. And you're like, I can't be stagnant. We need to make changes. So we're bringing an OC and a new DC.

And it's kind of like, that's great. But you also kind of got to get back to the NFC championship game situation and focus a little less on the spelling bees and the trivia of friendship quizzes and all of that stuff. It's fun. I'm glad that he's reached this point in his life where, like, you know, he's probably wearing Hawaiian shirts outside of work and stuff like that. But a little more focus on the X's and O's, you know, and less on the friendship. You know what?

I think that like everything the commanders have done this offseason distracts from the fact that their roster isn't very good. You know, it's like the GM, I feel like it's just, Adam Peters is skating along. Then it's like, Dan Quinn's just like, he's basically like, I have to try everything I can to save my job. I'm firing coordinators left and right. I'm hiring you guys who have never done the job before. We're playing ping pong. We're doing spelling bees. They have this video leaderboard, Billy, in the facility, which it's like, all right,

other teams have that. You track stuff that happens on field, but it's not just stuff that happens on field. It tracks, you get points for stuff like preparation and engagement in the meeting rooms. Like, what is this? Seventh grade where it's like, oh, all right, this guy gets an E for participation because he raised his hand in the meeting. So you weren't joking. People might think you're joking about the friendship quizzes.

The friendship quizzes is an actual thing where. it was described in the article as two sets of two players must answer questions about how well they know each other, which I'll be honest, this type of story, if it's like a team that's really good and you think has it stuffed

together, you're like, oh, that's cool. You know, they're building a connection. When it's a team that kind of stunk last year and no one has high expectations for, you're sort of like, what in the world are they doing? Can I tell you what this has written all over it? This has first year Mike McDaniel head coach ridden all over it where it's like, oh, it's this kooky guy and he's coming in

and he's the fun coach with the pants and the sunglasses and the sneakers with the tags on it. And they're like, wow, he's so inventive. He sees things differently, which, like, Dan Quinn and Mike McDaniel look like on the opposite spectrum of, like, cool and, like, how they would, like, handle things, right? Like, Dan Quinn is closer to, like, biker gang, I think, than, like, Mike McDaniel is.

I agree with that. I got to see him, like, Like, you know, in the off season, he goes on his hog. His son. But like a nice guy in a biker gang. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like he's not dangerous. No, no, he's welcoming, but he has the leather vest.

It has the name of the biker gang on it. His head is a little bit red because he doesn't put the sunscreen on. He has the sunglasses sunburn around his eyes. But he's like a fun biker gang. But like he likes to go out on the weekend ride his motorcycle. This is that where you're like, it was the same with McDaniel. He's like, wow, this guy's like, he's so fun, man. He's young.

He has all these off. defensive, inventive ideas and all this stuff. And then like, by year four, it's like, oh, he had absolutely no control of the team at the end, like whatsoever. Like, players and captains were just picking and choosing when they wanted to participate and show up at meetings. And like, this is like not exactly how you succeed. And I wonder now, like Dan Quinn, because in the article, it's kind of like, yeah, you know,

in Atlanta, he didn't really like, you know, focus on these things. It almost felt like this is like Dan's thinking like, ah, this is towards the end. of like my, you know, run here as like a head coach. Like, let's go out having fun and it's like, but also you can go out by not getting fired because you're just doing these things that are not necessarily going to impact how your team is playing. Yeah, it just seems like a strange area. Now, listen, it might not.

I'm not saying he's spending his all day on this. It just feels like I look at their roster and I'm like they were injured last year. Jaden Daniels was injured last year. And there should be a better roster around him, you know, at this point. in his career after what he did as a rookie, and there's not. And so I would look more at the GM and be like, all right, you can play your games. And I don't think their issue last year was that they weren't hungry enough and they weren't sharp enough.

It was like they were injured and the players weren't good enough was really the issue. And we don't know if that's going to be fixed this year or not. The GM, I would imagine, is like on his way in. He's like, oh, guess what? Guess what? Dan, I got you parcheese and I got you yachts, you whatever. And it's like, let like, let me just like have this guy do. all these weird games.

So no one's paying attention to my faulty roster construction. 100%. Here, take a look. Oh, we got you. We got cooties or whatever the game is called. Like, look at all these guys are going to have so much fun. He probably got some leadership book that was like, oh, you know, you got a light. Now, I did want to ask you this.

I'm putting you on the spot here because in the article, they did mention some of the words in the spelling competition. Yeah. And I'm going to give you one of them. You ready for this? Are you a good speller? I was a better speller when I was a child than I am now where I don't have to actually spell things correctly because it just fixes it itself. All right. This was one of the words in the commander spelling competition.

Don't do it. Miscellaneous, Billy. Oh, okay, good. I thought you're going to go with et cetera. No, that one seemed weird. Yeah, I don't like that. You just do ETC, period. Miscellaneous.

Miscellaneous. Can you use it in a sentence? We are doing a podcast with a bunch of miscellaneous. topics on the NFL. Can you country of origin? Latin. Don't fact check that. I don't know.

Okay. All right. I wrote down how I think it's spelled, but I'm probably going to be wrong. So miscellaneous. Ready? Yeah. M. I.

S. C. E. L. L. A. N. E.O. U.S.

Miscellaneous. Is that right? Let's go. All right. Wow. That's what I'm talking about. It's the three or four, it's the three vowels in a row that I'm like,

do I get that order correct? Double L, single L. I take back everything I said about Dan Quinn. That was exhilarating. The juices are flowing. Look at us. I might pick the commanders to win the NFC. That was fantastic.

All right, Billy. What's the next number? What do you got? Nice job out of you. Coming off the high of the spelling B win right there. I feel like I can be. top now. Yeah. Ooh, let's go with number nine. Let's go number eight. Number eight. Okay. Here's the headline. Here's the topic.

Kirk Cousins, Max Crosby held out of practice following fight. This was in the athletic. So it's Kirk Cousins. They're at practice. Max Crosby's getting a little too close to Kurt Cousins on a couple of his dropbacks. We all know quarterbacks can't get hit during these practices. And he deflects a couple passes, but according to the athletic, he might have kind of hit Cousins' hand on one of them. And we've seen those injuries before. You know, Defender hits quarterback's hand, and all of a sudden it's a broken hand. It's a broken finger. So Kurt Cousins gets fired up about this, and it's kind of like, you know, jawing with

him. They go at it, and Clint Coupiac comes in and says, there's a new sheriff in town, you know. This is my team. I have rules. You guys violated them. And so guess what? You're both out of the next practice. And really lays down the law right there.

Your thoughts on Clint Kubiak asserting his sort of alphanus here in his first year. I'm sure those two vets having to miss a practice really showed them. And they were really probably upset that they couldn't participate in practice in the preseason. Is Max Crosby trying to get himself traded again? Like, is he just like, you know what? I wasn't happy with how that played out. And then I was ready to go. I left.

Then they sent me back and I'm here again. Like, I don't really want to be here. Like, let me just act out until they move me again. It really, you know, as I was reading this, I'm like, it really is so stupid that he's still on their team. Like they literally tried to trade him. He wanted to be traded. The trade fell through. and then everyone's like, okay, he's not going to be traded now.

What? There are other teams. Detroit, Chicago, Dallas. Can we make a call and get Max Crosby on a team that's going to win some games and is relevant here? So yeah, I'm with you there. And my favorite story about this, Billy, when I was covering the Chip Kelly Eagles back in the day, they had a cornerback by the name of Kerry Williams. He had played with the Ravens.

He signs with the Eagles, gets a nice deal, cashed in. he doesn't show up to some, I think it was, you know, spring practices. And reporters asked him, like, why weren't you there? And he said he was picking out sconces with his wife, which I didn't know what a sconce was for a long time. It's like a light fixture thing. So he says that. So then they have these joint practices with the Patriots, right? And Bill Belichick's in town.

It's really exciting. Chip Kelly, Bill Belichick. And both coaches are like, we have a rule. You know, they're being asked, all right, well, if there's fights because there's often fights in these joint practices, what are you going to do? And they're like, anyone who fights gets thrown out of practice. I swear, five minutes in, Carrie Williams just goes after a wide receiver,

gets in his scuffle, gets kicked out of practice, doesn't have to practice. And I'm like, that was the most obvious thing I've ever seen. Of course he didn't want to practice. He's been in the league for how many years you think he wants to be out here. It's like so hot. He's actually got to try because it's the other team. And so, you know, Max Crosby seems like the kind of guy

who just probably always might want to practice, but I'm sure he could still get a workout in. But yeah, I do think that happens with veteran players there. So can I introduce a new segment here? Yeah, of course. This is called I'm just a guy asking questions. Oh, okay? How does this work?

It's exactly what it sounds like. I'm just a guy asking questions. Is there any chance, Billy, that Clint Kubiak just wanted to see a little Fernando Mendoza with the first team? And so he's like, I can't actually just give him first team reps or all of a sudden it's a big story. It's on the front page of ESPN.com. Everyone's talking about,

oh, they said they're going to not start throw Mendoza in right away. But now he's getting first team reps. So he's like, oh, this is kind of an easy way. And by the way, I don't have to worry about Max Crosby, like, obliterating him. So I can throw both those guys out of practice. Mendoza takes the first team reps. Your thoughts? Do you think it's deeper than that where, like, he talked to Max Crosby's like,

hey, like, why don't you go bump into Kirk a couple times? Look, I know you don't want to be here. If it were up to me, I'd send you wherever you wanted to go, but I don't call the shots here, so I can't do that. Like, I'll give you the day off, just kind of irritate Kirk a little bit, to where you'll be out, and then we'll, you know, see what this Fernando kid's all about, you know? Yeah. Is that possible?

You're right? Of course it's possible. Yeah, I like that. You're right. I think that that very well could be a part of it. So we'll see how it goes. I think Mendoza's going to play in the preseason this weekend. and we'll see how that goes.

But Clint Kubiak putting his foot down. All right, let's take one more break here on the Ringer NFL show. We'll come back. We will get to the rest of the questions. I even might have one more game for Billy with one of these questions. We'll do all that when we come back. All right, back here on the Ringer NFL show, Billy, you're keeping track, right? I am.

What numbers you pick? Okay, thank you. We've done three, five, six, eight, and nine. Let's go with number one. All right, number one on this list, Bill. Oh, I mean, this one's got some juice. CBS, colon, no timetable on Tony Romo's future after arrest. This is via ESPN.com.

I would argue of all the topics we're talking about, this is the one that actually impacts the viewing experience for the majority of our audience, right? Because they're going to be sitting down on a Sunday afternoon, who's calling the game for CBS. So the Cliff Notes version here, I think most people know, but just in case, Tony Romo arrested for operating while intoxicated in Milwaukee, has been suspended indefinitely by CBS. J.J. Watts is going to be the number one guy with Jim Nance. Ross Tucker.

Congratulations to Ross Tucker. It's going to be on the number two team with Ion Eagle. And now you have CBS sports president, David Berson, saying it's an evolving situation and we are still assessing. There is no timetable or final decision at the, this time. So he's saying that on the record. Meanwhile, you have Andrew Marshan of the athletic reporting that CBS would actually love to get out of the Tony Romo business. And they've been wanting to get out of that contract. They've had no way to get out of that contract. He's still got

four years, $72 million left. And so now the question becomes, does Tony Romo ever get his top job back with CBS? Does he ever work for CBS again? Maybe he's. He's doing it on another team or in the studio or is his career with CBS over. Does he ever broadcast for somebody else again, Billy? So Tony Romo, a guy who's been in our lives as this broadcaster for several years now, all of a sudden we don't know what's going to happen. What do you make of this Romo situation and how it's going to play out in the weeks and months ahead? It's been kind of a crazy story since the beginning, right?

Because the way that it started, it was just a headline came kind of like across the wire. and it's like, Tony Romo got arrested for, you know, O-WI operating while intoxicated, you know, in the DUI family of things where you're like this obviously is, you know, not great. But also, as bad as it sounds in society, this happens with celebrities more often than it should because you think about like all the means that they have. It's like, why would this ever happen? But it happens with celebrities. And, you know, you almost have become desensitized to the seriousness of the situation just because

of how often it happens. He's like, okay, well, this happens, and, you know, he'll get a slap on the wrist and whatever. And then the mugshot comes down, you're like, oh, he looks, okay. I can kind of see how they arrived at that, you know, without doing the blood and alcohol test. I can kind of see how they arrived at this opinion that he may have been operating while intoxicated. And then the video comes out, and then things get really weird. And again, like, let's preface this by saying, this is a serious thing. And we're lucky that no one else got hurt and we're lucky that Tone didn't get hurt.

and he didn't hurt himself. And no one else involved got hurt and they pulled him over and he was arrested and whatever. But, and this is like, was a weird one. When that video came out, somehow some people liked him more. They saw the video and they're like,

this guy is so likable. And it's like, I don't think this is supposed to be the takeaway from this video that came out. And then they showed him and he was very polite the entire time and he's telling us how he's going to visit his grandparents. and he came from a golf course, and we later find out none of his grandparents are with us any longer,

so that was kind of like a weird thing that happened. It could have been his kids' grandparents. Yeah, you don't know. I'm just saying. Who knows? Who knows where he was at? Maybe he calls people grandma. I don't know.

Then they take him in. There's like a cut from like the side of the expressway. They cuff them. And then they take him into like a garage or something where they're going to administer the test. And then he becomes like weirdly obsessed with stretching. And you're like, this is kind of, this is very odd behavior, but okay.

And then, you know, they do the test and he doesn't do well. And he asks the officer, hey, how'd I do? And they're like, can you turn around and put your hands on your back? He's like, oh, not well, I guess. And it's like, okay, like people like chuckle at this. And multiple people reach out. They're like, I kind of like Tony Roman. I'm like, oh, I don't know, Jim.

Like, this is a bad situation here. Like, let's not make too much light of the situation. But like people liked them more. And then you're kind of like, I don't, whatever, he's still not going to lose his job. And then a couple days later, it was like, well, the police report comes out and it's like, oh, he was driving with an open container. It's like, okay, like now this is, while it was always a serious situation, I think the more facts and information that came out, the more the picture was being painted, it's like,

this is serious and we shouldn't really be laughing at it and making light of it. And also, while it is serious, this could be CBS. just looking for a way out of this deal because they have had conversations with him leading back a couple seasons where when he started, he was like the new broadcasting darling and it's like, wow, this guy knows the plays

before they're going to happen. This is crazy. Then like the last two years, the general public has been very critical of his game calls, which is like fair or unfair. Like if you're watching the game, I mean, I'll watch games. I don't know how you feel about it. Like, it doesn't really matter to me who the broadcaster is.

And like, is Tony Romo grunting over and over again, going to drive me crazy. Like, no, I kind of just look at him like, yeah, that's just Tony being Tony. Like, whatever, it's not ruining the experience for me. I'm going to watch the AFC championship game, whether Tony is on it or not, you know, so it wasn't a big deal. But CBS wasn't happy with him. There's reports about his work ethic and he's not prepared, and they had to sit him down and basically tell him, like, take this more seriously. And then this happens. And at the beginning, the reporting was like, yeah, this isn't good, but obviously he's not going to lose his job over it. And then as it's gone on, it's like,

well, guess what? JJ Watts's going to be calling the opening game. And then it's like, okay, well, then reports came out. He's like, well, maybe, you know, Tony's going to get the number two thing. And he'll do it with Ian Eagle. And Ian Eagle has, you know, a rep of, like, uplifting the people that call the games with him. So maybe this will be a good spot for him as he kind of like rehabs his image. And they're like, well, Ross Tucker is going to be doing the games with Iron Eagle.

So as this is playing out, there was even conversation like, you know what? Maybe this is a way that CBS can reach out and get Greg Olson, who lost his number one gig to Tom Brady, this could be an opportunity here. And the longer this drags out, it seems like he may not be back with CBS, where I don't think a week ago that was like my feeling two weeks ago. It definitely wasn't my feeling. But the longer this strikes out, even while the president is not saying anything, I think like he's not saying anything because they're trying to find an out and whether their morality clause in his contract can get them off the hook of the $72 million that they owe him. But it does seem, and again, I didn't even

think this a week ago, that he would lose his job as a result of this. And Tony also, and I'm sure that this is the advice of his lawyers or whatever, like, we haven't heard from him at all. So, like, he hasn't even been able to come out and be like, you know what, I'm sorry about this because I guess then he's, you know, like admitting fault. Admitting guilt. Yeah. Exactly. This is still an ongoing situation. But like, you know, there's not been really any acknowledgement of it. And as a result, it's kind of gotten away from him to the point that he may be out at CBS and then you start looking around

and it's like, well, what do you do? Do you take a year off? Like, you're not going to end up at Fox. They have Tom Brady. They then go to like a, you know, like a Netflix or like an Amazon or maybe do like some of these special like YouTube games or something.

Like the NFL network and ESPN merge. Like they don't really have those games anymore. So you start wondering like, where are the opportunities for Tony Romo, which is crazy. And does he still want to do it? I mean, he's made it. He's made a lot of money.

Is it just like, all right, that was a fun thing I did kind of in my post-playing career. But it was, you know, I made a lot of money and now we've reached some kind of buyout with CBS for these last four years. And I can just go play golf. And if I have a few beers now, I can, you know, I can call. That's what got us in this trouble here. Yeah, well, he can call, you know, now it's like, all right, let's just call the, you know, black car service that, you know, celebrities or famous people can call that we don't have access to. And let's just go live that life.

I don't know. It didn't seem like when you're at a spot where in like your third a year, it's like he doesn't work hard and the president of the, you know, broadcasting company has to talk to him about preparation. It's like, do you really, like, is this really worth it for you? Like, I'm sure there are other ways you can make money without doing a whole lot of work. There's $18 million in year. Not that much, but, you know, we pocketed it. If I was him, like, that's the dream, right? You're getting paid this crazy amount of money. Like, you're saying, like, does he really want to go through? It's like, what is he actually doing?

You know, like he's calling the game, which he might otherwise be watching anyways. He gets to be there in person. The travel's probably not great and he has to work holidays and stuff like that. I'm sure the travel's pretty nice when you're at that level. Yeah, his travel is probably a lot different than your travel or my travel in this situation. You know, I'm surprised that we talked about how he has an press conference. But like, we saw just this off season. We had a coach that was in battled in controversy.

And he went out and, you know, he, is he going to face the music? Is he going to go? We're talking about Mike Rabel. What is he going to do? How is he going to do? How's he going to handle the situation around him with the, you know, obviously the scandal that was going on with the infidelities in his marriage? And, you know, what did he do? He came on and he did what anyone would do in that situation.

He came out and he faced the media holding a puppy. And he was like, you know what? I'm here to answer your questions while I'm holding this wonderful puppy. And we're going to get to the bottom of that. And then by day two, he said, you know, I don't know, Mike, if the puppy situation, you said, you know what? let's get the reporters to bring their kids and I'm going to field questions from some of the children here and then he field questions from children

and they were like, hey, what did you think about the Taylor Swift wedding? And he's like, oh, you know, whatever he said. And like, sure enough, football's going to start and no one's going to care about the mic-vailing situation anymore. All right, Romo. Get some, listen, figure out the contract thing. Get some puppies, Romo.

Yeah. You know, contact some kids of reporters and it'll be fine. So we'll see. I don't think he's going to be back with CBS. it feels like they were just kind of hand, you know, they can just be like, it's over, and no one's going to be like,

how could you do that to Tony Romo? They're going to be like, oh, okay, we kind of understand it. So that's where I think it'll go, but we'll see. I think the Ross Tucker announcement, by the way, Ross is great and, like, deserves it. Like, he's awesome. So this isn't like a thing, any, you know, criticism of Ross whatsoever, but like,

the Ross Tucker announcement, I think, was the indication, like, this is done for Tony Romo at CBS. Because there's not even a number two role. And why would they go and announce J.J. Watt, The JJ Watt is like, okay, we have to figure out a plan for the beginning of the season. When they announce Ross is the number two team, I doubt they're going to undo that week two, week three, week five. And then even at that point, you're going to bring in Tony week six? Like, what's the point of that?

What did that accomplish really? I'm with you. All right. We'll see how it plays out with Tony Rom. All right, Billy, what are you got? What's the next number? Hmm, let's do number. We have two, four, seven and ten.

Let's do seven. seven. Okay, we are scrolling down to number seven on my list. Oh, another good one I enjoyed in the athletic today. Behind the scenes for a day with Bears coach Ben Johnson, which was Dan Pompeii from the athletic. Spent the day with Ben Johnson. And there's a lot in here, Billy. I don't know if this was a peruse for you. There's a long one. All right, so I'm going to give you some of the details here. Okay. Number one, he generally sleep, gets five hours of sleep every night. He can function on four hours of sleep. He sets his alarm at 4.30. Okay, so that's one.

If you're just wondering about, like, you know, his NFL coach bona fides, he's got that. I thought that was interesting. You know, when we'd had a conversation about John Harbaugh in the offseason, how he would get to the facility and, like, the strength coach would have to work him out. We got a similar thing happening here where the strength coach of the Bears is in the weight room with Ben Johnson at 545 a.m. So before this guy's doing anything with the players, whatever, I'm sure he's got a long day. He's there with the head coach, spotting him, bench presses, squats, all of that.

And then the third nugget I found interesting, by December, Billy, he will be up to six cups of coffee and a cold brew daily. That will be his daily caffeine intake by December. Now there's other stuff that got headlines elsewhere that we can get to. but those were the personal nuggets that I found most interesting. What do you think? Do you want to know something funny, Sheel? And I guess that this is a result of us, you know, working together more last season and building this relationship.

Yeah. I read the entire article. It was a lengthy article. There was a lot of stuff in it. Things that I wrote down from this article, Ben Johnson wants to have the highest scoring offense ever is one of his goals for this season in terms of points per game. The highest ever is a 2013 Denver Broncos with 37.9 points per game.

He wants to surpass that. He knew that by heart, it said, too, what that average was. So that, a very lofty goal. But, you know, why not reach for the stars? That was the first thing that I wrote down. Next thing that I wrote down, coaches workout routine 5.30 a.m., 15 minute intervals, 30 minute weight training.

And maybe it's because we could have talked about this with Harbaugh in the past. But, man, isn't that the dream? like just showing up to your job when you're on the clock and having someone who it's not really their job to train you, but you're going to abuse your power and say, like, I know you're here for the team. They're not going to say no. They literally can't say no to you.

So like you have a free personal trainer. I don't know about you and your gym experience. Do you frequent the gym at all? I don't know if you go off. I'd like go to the gym. You know, you got to wait. What happens? Now you don't know this because you're still eligible for 40 under 40.

Yeah. Once that passes, your whole algorithm will be 40 plus year olds telling you to lift weights and get your steps in and walk basically. And you'll live to be 110 with no health issues. This might be a morbidate. I don't want to live to be 110. That seems so old. The possibility. The no health issues is more quality of life.

You know what has come up for me? It's not just the walking, but walking at an incline. Apparently, that's all the range. 30 minutes on 10 incline, 3.0 speed? I mean, you're unstoppable. The challenge that I've found with working out in the gym is not finding a good gym partner, which is really what...

If you find a good gym partner, man, you're like invincible because you go there and you like, you know, you shoot the breeze, you talk while you're working out, but you focus, you have someone pushing. You're like, oh, one more, one more. And you're like, oh, like one more, one more. If you go by yourself, I've found that's really where it's hard to like, find the consistent motivation if you're just there on your own.

Because that's when you start cutting corners. That's when you're like, I don't think I can really do this one on my own. Let me go a little bit lighter here. I'll do more reps, less weight. And then you start slowly falling off. And then, you know, everything unravels you don't live to be 110. So I wrote that down. And then the last thing that I wrote down in my notes, again,

from this very lengthy article about Ben Johnson, who was out there and he says this is the best job I've ever had. I'm treating this like this is going to be my last job. I thought I was in the top of the world. And then in 2019, they got rid of all the coaching staff in Miami. And I found myself without work for the first time. This is before he ended up going. And he started coaching in Detroit.

And by the way, here's like a fun little fact that I can tell you. In that like gap year that he had because he got laid off, didn't find work, you know what he was doing? And they've removed this from his Wikipedia because of all the success that he's now had in Detroit. and the success that he has now had in Chicago. So I guess someone went through the Wikipedia and they were like, this is irrelevant, let's remove this situation.

In that year when he was looking for work, he didn't spend it doing nothing. He was down here in Miami because he had been on the Dolphin staff and he reached out to an old, you know, like mentor, friend, colleague, whatever you want to call him, Butch Davis. And he was at none other than Florida International University

as a volunteer offensive coach where he was breaking down film, which now looking back, it's like, how did my school have, like, the hottest coaching prospect out there, like five years in advance

as a volunteer, breaking down film for Butch Davis. Kind of crazy. You just gave a Bears beat reporter a great story idea. You know, Ben Johnson's lost year at Florida International.

Those are the kind of story. When you're a beat writer, you're always looking for that little, all right, what's something I could write about that no one else has? So listen, I hope there are some Chicago beatwriters who listen to this pod. And now you're going to have a little scoop on your hands there. Mike, if you're listening, Pompeii, if you heard that, go out there. Dan, yeah, Dan, yeah, Dan, Pan, Pan.

You know where I was getting caught up? I wasn't sure if it was on Pompeo or Pompeo. So I wanted to make sure to get the last name right. And then I botched the first name. But if you're out there, Dan, and you want to talk about something, I would say, you know, that could have been the formative year where he found himself and then started his next story. Yeah, that can be his next story.

Okay, so my third note that I wrote down, preseason, three coffees in a cold brew, during season, six coffees and a cold brew. So we had the same exact takeaways, which was, this is, three coffees in a cold brew is already a lot for a day. It's crazy. Six and a cold brew, we're bordering on how are you not shaking from how much caffeine you're taking? And like, what is this actually doing to your body?

because this can't be good for you. It can't be good. I do, you know, I like one cup of coffee in the morning. And then in the afternoon, I'll either do a little espresso, I'll maybe do a little iced coffee. Or, you know, if I'm feeling good, maybe do a little iced oat milk latte, you know, something like that. If I want to treat myself.

That's when you were a good boy that day? Yeah, I was a good boy, you know, treat myself. You only live once. I might make 50 under 50. So what do you do? Do you like, you have like a coffee machine at home? when you hit the coffee machine when you wake up? So I have one at home, but here's a little tip for you.

Yeah. One of life's great joys is taking a walk to go get a cup of coffee. Okay. You take a nice walk, hopefully 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back. You get some steps in, you pop in the AirPods, you listen to a podcast, you get the coffee, you come back, and now you're just ready to go. So I do like to do that when the weather, weather permitting and life permitting. When I am able to do that. Any hills, any inclines, your natural nature's inclines that you're taking?

There's a couple nature inclines, but none of them are matching that kind of 10.0 you would get on a treadmill. How about you? You like an espresso, I think you told me before. I have an espresso machine. It's very easy to do. But I, you know, I have been known to at times. My wife likes Starbucks to you. I'll go get a mocha frappuccino with no whipped cream from time to time. I had a friend recommend to me at Dunkin' Donuts, a new peanut buttered dunker I tried that the other day. It was good. Not my favorite, but, you know, it was good enough.

I like a cold, a cold, I mix it up. You know, I was going to say I like a cold coffee, but I'm like you. I'll mix it up depending on what kind of boy I've been that day, you know? Now, those are dessert items, Billy, the things you do subscribe. Is that so? Yeah, you got to be. You don't consider those coffees.

You can do that when you're under 40, but you only have kind of a year left of being able to do those. Then I got to get rid of them? Yeah, we'll talk next year at this time. But for now, enjoy them. So there you go. Ben, where are we on? Just give me a general.

Do I, I found that I've been a big Ben Johnson supporter. I like him. I feel like he's a modern, you know, the new era, Sean Peyton is how I describe him. We're kind of, if you're going against him, you're like, I can't stand this guy. He's so arrogant.

But if he's your guy, you're like, man, we're in good hands. And I do think he's a good coach. This was the first time I looked at him. I said, huh? Really? What was it? He's one of these guys where he thinks, you know, oh, you can't, God forbid, you get six.

hours of sleep as an NFL head coached. Just so much to do, you know, I prescribe to the Bruce Ariens thing. Like, if you're only getting four hours of sleep, you know, it's diminishing returns. Like you're probably not making the most of that time. And then the coffee intake made me a little nervous that he can be in this thing for the long call. Six cups in a cold brew. Well, I mean, that's crazy. We kind of knew that he was a little bit of a crazy person with his whole like Matla Fleur interactions, right?

That I loved. Yeah, but that way you're kind of like, all right, guy, like calm down a little bit. Like, what are we doing here? This is a little intense here. Yeah, okay. We'll say. We'll keep it on. We'll do a little Ben Johnson tracker all season long.

Did you like that he's a man of the people just attending concerts with his friends on bachelor parties? Oh, my gosh. No one even recognized him. Oh, my gosh. Can I tell you, I didn't know who Borg and Wallen was until like three weeks ago. He's quite popular. Yeah, then I saw in my, you know, he did a concert in Philly. And it's just like, oh, there's a lot of people.

who like this guy. I've literally never heard of him before in my life. But you know what? That probably says more, maybe more about me than anyone else. I'm about to join your club of 40 over 40 and I couldn't name a song. I probably get killed for this. I'm sure you might get killed for it too. I could name a song of his. I'm sure I've heard them. I just know he has these concerts at football stadiums. They're very largely attended, sold out things. And he always has like a celebrity that walks him out during a song. And it's like a big thing like, who's a celebrity that he got? to do this with him. Ryan Howard and Cooper DeGine in Philadelphia.

Okay, nice. So there you go. All right, Billy. That's Ben Johnson. Watch. All right. What do we have? What's next to you?

All right. We have two, four and ten. Do you have any preferences here? No, you tell me. Let's go with four. Four. Okay. This is courtesy of ESPN.

Exotic pets, family houses, and Legos, colon. What rookies have spent their first paychecks on? Now, first of all, give that editor a race. You're looking at that headline. Of course, you're going to click in. So, you know, ESPN, I used to have to do these when I was in Seattle. I thought it was a great idea. You have a reporter in every city if you're ESPN.

And so it's like everybody asks the question or finds an answer to the same topic. And now all of a sudden you have this article with 32 different takes on the same topic. So that's kind of what happened here. All the reporters ask the rookies that they cover what they spent their first big. paycheck on or what they're going to spend their first big paycheck on now how do you feel about that kind of question that inquiry in general billy is this you know are we like oh that's a good idea are we like come on that's a little weird don't be asking people how they're spending their money type thing do you like this article topic or not it's somewhat invasive but you do get kind

of you know some fun answers particularly like in the first round right where it's guys they're getting like insane money. It's like, okay. Where if it's like a fifth or six-round guy, it's like, he's just probably trying to pay off debt at this point. You know what I mean? Like he's just trying to kind of make sure everything's good. He can take care of whoever he can take care of. Maybe he had some college debt that he had to pay out. I mean, realistically, there was not like college loans that the guy is getting drafted

or paying off. Maybe, you know, it feels like a division two school. So like I'm more okay with it with like the higher round guys, especially they have like some crazy answers, you know. Okay. So this was the funniest part to me is that. it was broken down into categories. They tried to group them together.

And so first category, savings and investing. Okay, I could understand that. There were guys who were like, I'm not spending anything. I'm going to save my money. You know, it's a good idea. Okay, sounds good. Boring, but okay. A little boring, but basically responsible.

You're doing the right thing. Yeah, but come on. Not good for content, but maybe good for your life. Yeah, okay. I get that. Then there was homes and household goods, which I get that. I'm going to buy a new house. I'm going to get my parents a house.

Sconses, stuff like that. Yeah, sconces. Those were family support. Again, same kind of thing there. Apparel, which I can't really remember what was in apparel. That's a weird one. That's a weird one. But then there was travel and vehicles, which I don't know.

Do those go together? Like travel is you're taking a trip, vehicle, you're buying a car. And then it got to this, which was, I thought, hilarious. There was a whole category, Billy, okay, for how do you spend your first paycheck as a rookie. And the category was sports equipment. Oh. And I thought, what? That's supplied for you. What are we talking about here? It was one guy, Caleb Lomu, of the New England Patriots, offensive tackle, golf clubs. He was getting. He said, I'm not really a guy who spends too much money, but one of the first things I got was a new golf set, Lomu said. I'm big into golf. I love

playing some golf, I had to get some longer ones. I kind of outgrew my old set. Does that pass the sniff test here, Billy? Like this guy, I mean, he was playing with like shorty golf clubs and he couldn't afford them and he grew a lot.

He's like, what, 20, two years old? And all of a sudden he was like David Robinson, he had a big growth spurt in his early 20s. I found that one to, I'm a little, I'm questioning that pick more so than I did at the time with that. answer. It's a little odd to think that you've hit a gross spur to like 22, 23 that you now need new golfers. Honestly, when you said sporting equipment, I'm like, I hope that this guy doesn't think he needs to buy his own helmets and shoulder pads and stuff like that because we're just wasting money.

But luckily, I guess it's golf clubs and I think he just wanted golf clubs. It's just perfectly fine. Just say I wanted a news. I wanted to treat myself. New golf clubs, you know. There you go. Okay. So you had that Carnal Tate said Star Wars Lego Ultimate Collector series set. which I don't know anything about, I'm not a Star Wars guy, Billy, are you? I'm not, but I know that Star Wars Legos are very collectible. They have like the, whatever, the big circle thing is. Wow, I'm going to get fried. Is it a Death Star?

Is that what it's called something like that? I don't know. Well, here's a thing. I don't know about you. I would think that it's similar to my experience. As a child, I feel like Legos were like a very big part of like your childhood. and it was like, look at all the things that you can make with Legos, it really like enhances your imagination,

you can do this and that, whatever, right? Now it's all like Lego sets that are ridiculously priced. Oh my God, the price. They're no longer a toy, an affordable toy for children. These are now become like specialty things for collectors like this where like I have the Star Wars one, I have the Harry Potter one, I have a special Pokemon, whatever it is, right? And then even if you want to get, because like,

We have, you know, a little nephew. We have two daughters now. But before that, we had, like, a little nephew that came before them. And it's like, I remember, like, having Legos and Connects and Tinker toys and all these things that I could build with, right? Let's get them, like, some Legos. Let's not get them a set. Let's just get them, like, a tub of Legos.

And he could make whatever his heart desires, whatever he can imagine, right? And it was, like, $60 or something just for, like, just for, like, 80 cubes of, like, varying, like, sizes and colors. It's like, who can afford these? this is ridiculous, and then it's just going to be on the floor, you step on it, and that's like a death sentence. Like, no, it was ridiculous. So, you know, although counterpoint,

I have envied the people who have a lot of time on their hands and say, you know what I'm going to do like it's a relaxing thing. I'm going to make this Lego set. And then they just have all this room in their houses. Because once you make the set, you can't really take it apart. So you need to display it somewhere. So I guess Cardinal Tate is just going to have displays of leg. goes around his house after he builds these if he has the time to build them.

Yeah. I guess so. I don't know. But you know what? There are worse things he could be spending his money on. Like you said, he's a top 10 pick. So he's getting a nice. That would be bad if it was crack.

That definitely would be good. I've always said, Billy, two things. If I had, if I were a rookie in the NFL and someone asked me this, remember we had our fun time with Ashton Genty at the Super Bowl? Yeah. And you remember what he said, he's got a personal chef, Billy. You got the pen there. I saw my ashen genty pen here.

Yeah. So I've always said I would definitely get a personal chef if I had that kind of money. And then I always said I would get someone to stretch me out. Now, they don't necessarily need that because they're going to the facility. But if it was just me, I would want the chef. And then I want someone to kind of just stretch me out, loosen up the hammies, loosen up the back. And, you know, longtime listeners of mine will know we call this fruits and glutes is what we would want.

We had a big amount of money. Have you thought about it, how you would have answered this question or you're not sure? I haven't really thought about it. I was looking at some of the answers. I saw one answer that was in the home and a home goods section where Jacob Rodriguez, yeah, said that he bought a temperate mattress. And I was like, okay, sure, mattresses can be expensive. And his whole thing, he was like, I, you know, I used to room with my brother. At one point, I was sleeping on the floor.

And the mattresses in the dorms were very good. I wanted to get a nice mattress. Like, okay, that's sensible. Short of winning the lottery, I don't think I'm going to just come across a large sum of money out of the blue at this stage in my life, you know? So I don't think that I need to figure it out.

Another thing that I will say based on this article that was somewhat disappointing and it was more disappointing in like the first section, which was investments, this used to be fun because it was like, oh my God, he bought a tiger with his signing bonus. Like, of course he bought a tiger with his signing bonus. They're like, oh, bought three Lamborghinis because he wanted one in each color for different days a week.

Like, sure, why not? That's, of course, what you would do, right? With the, like, the fiscally responsible guys, this is a trend that I don't think that we thought about. But a lot of the guys are like, yeah, like, I have a $50 million signing bonus, but I'm just going to live off my endorsement money because I made $600,000 last year in college. So, like, I'm already rich. And it's like, I didn't even. even think about the fact that like guys are now coming into the league and they already know not to waste the money because they already probably wasted the first year of like NIL money.

And then it kept coming and like, I need to be a lot more responsible. And they have money already because they made millions of dollars in college. It's a crazy kind of shift in in this new like rookie wage situation. It could be a great side effect. Yeah. Yeah. It's like it's not all of a sudden they're overwhelmed by all this stuff because I'm making a lot of money for the first time.

it's kind of gradual. Like they're not making, you know, $15 million, but like you said, the guy's like, I made $600,000. It's like, all right, well, you know, you have to decide, how are you going to use that $600,000? Now when you get to the NFL, you have a better idea. So yeah, that definitely stood out to me there. A lot of the guys in that article said the same thing about, well, this isn't like totally new for me.

I did. And I had money from NIL before. All right. I think we're headed to the point where extinct are going to be the podcast interviews where you have former athletes saying $200 million isn't really what you think it is. And it's like, oh, okay, former athlete, I think $200 million, taxes and all, still a lot of money. Like, let's not, you know, Carmelo or whoever it was. Like, let's not make excuses of how we burn through.

Like this crop of quarterbacks and this crop of like, you know, drafted, you know, players is saying like, I could live basically like, I can live off the interest. And it's like, yeah, yeah, you can. Good for you. Good job. Five generations taking care of. by this contract. Like, it's awesome.

Good for them. That was financial minute with Billy Gill and Shield Capadia. There will be more of that in future episodes. All right, Billy, what do we got? Wait, two in ten. We didn't talk about Caleb Banks who bought snakes. Well, when you said Tiger, I thought you were going to go there. Yeah, Caleb Banks of the Vikings likes to, you know, what was that show on that thing about

the tiger and the, you know, the one on Netflix? Yeah. Tiger King. Yeah, yeah. Okay. But he bought a tarantula and three snakes. He already had snakes and a chameleon. So there you go.

They started because of his obsession with koalas. And when I was reading, I was like, how did he get a koala? Where did he get a koala? That's what I thought it was going to need to too. How are we going to get to his koala? Yeah. Still hasn't. One day.

Maybe his second contract. Yeah, keep dreaming, Caleb. All right. All right. What do we got, Billy? Two and ten. Two and ten. Okay.

Let's do two. Okay, two. All right. hear this from ESPN. Can Cowboys achieve goate status, Billy? Have you ever heard goatee? Not the facial hair. This is GOTI.

This is Dak Prescott's new saying, and it stands for greatest offense there is. So, Dak Prescott's going around saying, we want to be goate. And now Brian Schottenheimer's being asked about it, saying this is part of goatee. And they're saying, we want to be the greatest offense there So the Bears, Ben Johnson, says we want to be the highest scoring offense of all time.

And now the Cowboys are coming in saying we want to be the goatee greatest offense. It doesn't really roll off the tongue. No, it doesn't. And it's GOTI is gody, gaudy, gaudy. There's a missing A for goat there. Like, there is a, yeah, this is a, this is a, I don't like it. It's weird. Let's call it.

It's one of the worst team mantras I've ever heard. And this is, I'm someone who thinks the. Cowboys offense is going to be really good. But Goody is, I think, unequivocally dumb. Well, okay. You think they're going to be very good. Do you think they're going to be the greatest offense there is? Because last year, I think they were second and yards per game, seventh and points

for games. So they weren't even the best last year, much less all time. I think in Cowboys' team history, last year's was the fourth best in yards and 10th, I mean, they're not even close to the best Cowboys offense ever. Is it realistic to believe that they're going to be the greatest offense there is? I don't think so. I mean, they could be the best offense in the NFL this year. I'm not predicting that, but like I don't, I think I have them top five.

So I don't think it's crazy. You know, they return pretty much everyone from last year. Whenever Dak Prescott's healthy, the offense is pretty good. They've got Cedi Lamb. They've got George Pickens. O lines a bit of a question, but it's not bad. The scheme, the play calling is all good. But yeah, that was a weird one.

I think they need to go back and workshop that one a little bit. They've had a weird training camp, right? Between Goody and then like beekeepers' helmets that they were playing with the kind of increase the vision. Like, what's going on with these cowboys here? It's always something. And Jerry's just like, we might trade for someone big, like he says every summer. But, you know, who knows?

I was going to say typically Jerry's the one doing and saying things. You're like, what's going on there? But it's not good when the team is not giving Jerry the room to be the crazy. one. Yeah. Jerry can't get into the headlines because they're doing Goody and sort of if you haven't seen it, the sort of beekeeper mask to try to practice for seeing the sun, you know, at their home stadium because they don't want to fix that issue. It's a whole thing. I actually don't want to get into this. These coaches honestly just sit down like in the offseason board and like, what can we do? What's a weird thing we could do? How do we fix this? And then like they're like looking on Amazon or

whatever. Like, oh, like, that could really help, right? Or they're like, what, do you think that it's that they really have bad ideas? Or do you think that it's like, man, train camp is so boring. Like, let's see what ridiculous things we can kind of put in there, like friendship quizzes and spelling bees just to get people talking about us, you know? And kind of essentially pass the time, because what are we going to do? Just watch film every day. Like, let's figure something out. It's almost like their algorithms are catered to them and they see these bad ideas. And they're, you know, like we do. Like we are. I'm going to buy this thing unnecessarily.

And then it just kind of sits in the corner for months. It's kind of like that, except they have to implement them. And then they're being asked about them by reporters. And then they're like, oh, okay, maybe that was a bad idea. That's what it feels like. Do you remember the magazine East Bay? Of course. Oh, my God, loved it.

One, I miss catalogs. Let's just get right out in front and say, I miss catalogs. Catalogs were the best far superior to online shopping. In terms of ease of ordering and receiving products, online shopping is so much better. You know what my mom would let me do, Billy? Before the school year? I could buy a little sweatsuit from the JC Penny Cattle.

Really? Really? You know? And I would just pick random ones. It wasn't like that all Philly ones. Pay random ones. And you get the sweatshirt and the sweatpants and your boys ready for picture day. Wow.

Did you have the... I feel like you had the Hornets. Did you have the Hornets ever? Oh, my God. I had an amazing Hornet sweatshirt that I probably wore every other day. Teal and purple? Yeah, starter. Oh, fantastic.

You know, I saw starter jackets the other day at Target. I couldn't believe that they made some sort. Target's got a weird thing going on where they have like brands come in and have like little pop-ups in their store. Okay. They did it not too long ago with the store Hollister where there was like Hollister branded clothes in Target. And then like I'll go in on like Sunday and like Sunday mornings. I'll go out to try to do. I like to do my grocery shopping and my purchases in the morning because usually there's less people involved.

I can go in and out, get out of the house, get my steps in, and the air conditioning, avoid the oppressive heat. But, like, that's when they have, like, these brand launch drops, and there's, like, all these people that know about this brand or whatever it is. I have no clue. And it's, like, they're buying binders with, like, special prints on them, and they're hoarding them to go sell online. And it's kind of, like, insanity.

And it's like, we don't need to get into it. It's just ridiculous. This feels like a, for the listeners, this isn't a branded segment. If you're wondering, we're not seeing anything. I don't know. We're naming too many names. But you did ask me about East Bay. So I don't know if that was going somewhere.

That's a good point. Thank you for getting me back on track. Because that led to the JC Penny that I was seeing the Sears catalog. Obviously, Toys or Us catalogs are great too. But East Bay, because we were talking about weird things that show up in your algorithm, I'm sure you saw these.

And I'm sure you did not fall for it because I'm one of the few people, I think, on Earth that actually purchased them. I bought those shoes that were like, the platform on the front. Oh, yeah. I know what you're talking about. Yeah.

They're supposed to be for basketball and crease your vertical jump. You can dunk. Yeah. That's what they tell you. You could dunk. So I bought a pair of those shoes and I would wear the shoes. And when you buy the shoes, it would give you like drills and exercises that you would do. So I would get them.

I would go to a park near my house. And I did this because my thought process was, I'm not a basketball. player, but I'm a pole vaulter, and I still need like a nice vertical leap. So if it's good enough for a basketball player, it's good enough for me. And I would be running on the grass through the park like a crazy person on these platform shoes with just the front of it where your soul is lifting. And I have to tell you, I did a fairly like regular regimen of this. I didn't dunk as a result of it. There was a time in my younger years where I could dunk like holding the small ball.

My palm wasn't big enough for like the, you know, the football. Well, you're a deceivingly taller guy too. That's what people tell me sometimes. So I was able to do that like, you know, first year out of high school, whatever, like, peak like physical form. I could do that. But as a result of these shoes, I have no idea if they actually made me jump taller or not. I tried to stop dunking at a certain point because I was like, I'm afraid of the, it's not

the going up. It's the coming down that I'm worried about with my ankles and my knees and all kinds of stuff. So like I stopped trying after a certain point, right? But yeah, I was the guy, I was the sucker that bought these shoes on East Bay. And you could have driven around Tropical Park down here in Florida and seen me running around up and down doing calisthenics with these shoes on. Well, listen, it led to a college career as an athlete with Ben Johnson. It led to this right here.

And it led to this moment right here, which brings us to number 10. Had I not worn those shoes, who knows if I ever would have met Adam Schefter's mom on a cruise? I don't, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have. No, I don't know. So everything happens for a reason. All right. All right. Number 10, we finished with this, the state of the Browns.

Here's what I'm going to do, Bill. Oh, no. We're finishing with a game, okay? I'm going to read you three headlines. Two of these are real. You have to, you have to pick the one that is not real. You have a fake headline. Yeah, this is just giving the audience a sense of the state of the Cleveland Browns in mid-August

as they prepare for the season. This is very, very, Dan Quinn of you, Cheel. Okay, well, there will, yeah. Number one, owner Jimmy Haslam says Browns aren't punting on 2026, colon, take the over. So there you go. Take the over, says owner Jimmy Haslam. It's early August.

That's a weird one, but okay. Number two, squirrel issue delay start of Brown's training camp practice. Okay. Squirrel issue. delays start of Brown's training camp practice. That's number two. And number three, Jerry Judy clarifies viral video says he talked to Brown's QBs.

Jerry Judy clarifies viral video says he talked to Brown's QBs. Those are three headlines, Billy. Two of them are actual headlines about the Cleveland Browns. One of them is fake. Which one do you think is fake? I want to believe the squirrels.

I want to, I want to believe that Jerry Judy somehow found himself in some sort of video issue that the internet ran with and he has some explaining to do. And probably is going up to quarterbacks that don't even know what he's talking about. So I'm going to say that the Jimmy Hazam thing seems, given that it's only August,

saying don't put on the season seems very, That's like a October headline, not an August headline. So I'm going to say Jimmy Haslam. Incorrect, Billy. Really? That was a real headline. The squirrel issue was not a real headline. I had to work, you know, the creative part of my brain there to come up with that.

So this is via the athletic. Jimmy Haslump, the Brown's owner, said, you know, he's trying to convince reporters that, hey, don't, you know, don't count us out. I know we traded Miles Garrett and her stockpiling picks and are, are going with his Chador Sanders and Sean Watson at quarterback, but we're not punting on the season. And he says, quote,

I think the odds on the season win total are for us to win five and a half games. I'd take the over. I mean, here's the thing. It's August, Billy. And he thinks he's popping his chest out by saying they're going to win six games. He's like, he's giving this like,

I'm down, have a take here. Then I need to get off my chest. And it's like you're, you know, you had a strong one with the Baker Mayfield, Minnesota Vikings in 2027. This is his version of that. And it's that the football team that I own is not going to be one of like the worst four teams in the NFL. And you can put that in the newspaper. And he's feeling good about it. You want to know the funny thing about that is if he's right and he takes a victory lap on this,

the other headlines that have come out of the Brown so far this off season is basically, we don't know who our quarterback is might be Deshawn Watson again. It's like, wait, how are we in this position again with Deshawn Watson? Because I'm pretty sure Jimmy himself last year said like, that was a swing and a miss. That one didn't pan out.

But now he might be the starter again. And then coming into this, I think they've already said like, well, Deshaun's going to start one preseason game and Shadour's going to start one preseason game. Which, if I'm Dylan Gabriel, I'm like, what's going on? Like, what do I have to do here? If I can't beat either one

these two guys, right? But if Jimmy's right and they win six games, they're probably not going to win much more than six games. No. They're probably still not going to know where their quarterback is, but as a result of winning six games, they're also not going to get another quarterback that's going to turn around their franchise. So winning six games might be the worst thing that could happen to them. Six might be okay if there are enough good quarterbacks. But you're right. You know, it could not fall your way and all of a sudden the teams in front of you and the draft all need quarterback. So yeah, that might not be great.

But I was looking at Jimmy Haslam's pro football reference page. He's owned the team for 14 seasons. And in seven of those seasons, they've gone under five and a half wins, which is like, how is that? I mean, in a league where you're trying to bring everyone,

you know, parody and salary cap and the draft, it's like that is actually almost impressive that in half your seasons, you won five. or fewer games. So that was a real headline. And then this Jerry Judy story, I honestly don't understand. This was like, I'm too old for this moment for me because I read this on ESPN.com. And it was like there was a TikTok live stream where, you know, Jerry Judy was asked who he thinks the quarterback should be. And he held up the number four, which is Deshaun Watson's number.

So everyone's like, oh, Jerry Judy wants Deshaun Watson. And he's like, no, my daughter's four years old, which I don't know what, what that, like, I don't know what the live stream was about. It's just all very confusing to me, but to your point, they don't have a quarterback. They haven't named a quarterback. And if you read the Brown's coverage, it is just so sad when you're reading these daily quarterback updates. It's like, neither guy really looked good.

Todd Munkin was noncommittal, but Jimmy Haslam gave us this quote today. Didn't Todd Munkin, if I'm remembering correctly, didn't Todd Munkin also try to get Shdour to the Ravens? Like they spoke beforehand and he was like, we should go after him and then something happened where they decided not to. So when he came back over or when he came over,

he was like, I told you we were going to work together. And it's like, okay, Todd, like, calm down. He wasn't very good. He was a Pro Bowl last year, but it wasn't actually really a Pro Bowl or last year. You know? Oh, my gosh. Todd comes in and is like, guess what I got? A Pro Bowl quarterback is like, well, sort of.

Technically, yes, you do. Tough situation for the Cleveland Brown. You know, a sad one to end on, but at least we got to make fun of Jimmy Haslam a little bit there. All right, Billy. Did you like the exercise? I did like the exercise. You know what I was thinking? Just going back to the hot take and the prediction from last year,

you know it would never happen because of the way things ended. But, man, the Browns could get Baker after this season. He just would never go back there because of how poorly that all fell apart and how they kind of just threw aside. That's what they said about Gino Smith at one time, Billy. He's back with the New York Jets. So if you pay enough money, and you don't have other options. maybe you would do that.

So there you go. Billy's calling it that Baker Mayfield is either a Cleveland Brown or a Minnesota Viking in 2027. There you go. Or a buck. There you go. Or a buck also.

Maybe their season goes well and they just pay him. All right, that was fun. We went over a bunch of miscellaneous topics around the NFL. I think we hit on all of them with my friend Billy Gill from the ringer. Thank you to Christopher Sutton.

for producing. Thank you to Stefano Sanchez for video production and additional production supervision from Connor Nevins and Arjuna. Ram Gopal, I'm Shil Kapadi. Enjoy all the preseason action this weekend. We'll be back next week on the ringer NFL show. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler or 1-800-My reset. Call 1-888-7-8-9-7-7-7. or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline m.a.m.m. or call 800-327-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1-8778-8-N-Y or text Hope N.Y in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-8777-7-7-8-6.

Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always 375. And get life-brand your Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more.