The Ringer NFL Show - 2021 NFL Season Predictions

Episode Date: May 17, 2021

Kevin and Nora forecast the 2021 NFL season, including analysis of when certain rookie quarterbacks will be starting, who will be Coach of the Year candidates, and whether teams like the Falcons, Patriots, and Cowboys will make the playoffs. Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer's Dave Hill takes you on a journey into the underground lives and careers of six professional gamblers. This eight-part podcast is a unique look into the gambling world that you don't want to miss. Check out gamblers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark, joined by Noel Prince of Adi, Nora. What's going on? Kevin, it is a beautiful Monday. I'm psyched for this show.

I think we're going to be able to do a little bit of sort of manifesting some seasons for some teams here, and that's going to be really fun. Schedule Psychics. I think that's how we're selling it. I was really trying to come up with something pithy with, like, clairvoyant for this. But I think Schedule Psychics, even though I can't say it, is the way to go. Well, it's going to be a running bit because I think that we, like every year, because I think it's kind of a good gimmick to get us through May. So we're going to have to, the 2022 version, we're going to have it a little, a little,

we're going to sell it a little better. I'll say that. Schedule Psychics is fine. We can improve on it in 2020. For second when you said 2022, I was. like, we're predicting the 2022 season? I did not prepare for this. I mean, we could because we're the schedule psychics.

I know, we know. A little bit of, we're only doing, we're only not doing it because we don't want to spoil anything. That's true. We don't want to. We have a lot of listeners. Super Bowl champions. You heard it here.

Who want to know, who want to watch the games and not know all the results. And we don't want to spoil it for them. We probably also have some listeners who would really like it if we could just sort of do the whole season here, like simulate. it now with our sake of capabilities and then it's just done you're good that's not all those free sundays you can find that NFL Twitter analytics Twitter has all that um a lot of housekeeping to get to number one blake boardels is back in the league it's really exciting it's really great stuff i feel bad for Blake portals i feel like there's i did a story with him a couple of years ago talked to his

family and friends all that stuff and you kind of get in you become a football meme and you can never unbecome a football meme unless you like win a Super Bowl and Blake Bortles is not going to do that at this point in his career. It goes from, okay, he's going to be a backup in the Lafleur McVe style, Shanahan, whatever you want to call it, offense, which he's been in before, and instead he's just a punchline. And I think, you know, it kind of gets to be the Nathan Peterman thing where it's actually incredible that he got to the NFL and he obviously had incredible talent.

He was a third overall pick and now, but he's just bad enough to become a punchline with net, but stay in the NFL. It's a minute. The NFL, that very thin line between good enough to stay in the NFL, but bad enough to be a consistent punchline, it's a very, very thin line. He's also, by the way, the whole thing about how like, oh, every NFL player who gets cut is the best player in their high school's history. Like, Blake Bortles is like one of the best athletes in the history of Orlando. And he's a punchline. I looked up which other athletes went to his high school, Oviedo, just to make sure that that was correct.

And the answer was 2004 Red Sox body Mark Bellhorn. Oh, wow. Wrestler, badass Billy Gun. I remember Mark Bellhorn. I don't remember that wrestler. I know nothing of him. Wow. Now you've got the wrestling fans mad at you because he was a legend.

He was in DX. Hey, will you tell people the thing that somebody tweeted at you about Blake Bordals that really screwed you up mentally and you'd text with me about it? Oh, yeah. No. Okay. So I was tweeting about Blake Bordel. when he signed with the backers. And I had also been talking on the pod about Tom Brady,

who was on the Houdinke Watch radio podcast, where he was talking about his first watches. It was actually quite humanizing. I do recommend it. And he also talked a lot about football stuff that we're actually going to get to a little bit later. But someone tweeted at me and said, who do you think is happier with his life?

Blake Bordles or Tom Brady? And obviously, if you're talking about who is a prouder of their accomplishments, the answer would be Tom Brady. but as far as just being a well-adjusted person, I'm not sure that either of those paths are necessarily like us. I don't think the answer is a slam dunk. And I don't think that's true.

Like, I think a lot of the NFL, I think a lot of NFL quarterbacks who've made enough money to where they never have to worry about money again. And both Borels and Brady are like that on different, on different planes. I think that it's always going to be a toss-up on who's happier. Sure. Yeah. And I think it's, I mean, this is sort of a projection of an,

at a certain point. Like Tom Brady has a beautiful, wonderful family who he loves very much and I'm sure he's very satisfied in a lot of ways. But there is something about these superstar guys where it just seems like they are consumed with 15 to 20 year old slights

every single day of the week. And it frankly does sound exhausting. And for Bortles, you just don't got to deal with any of that. I'm really glad that you shared that because, and hopefully by the end of this recording session, I just texted my friend about this.

And I'll try to get who it was. But I had a conversation over the weekend where we decided that someone was the Bortles of actors. And I can't remember who it was. It was like someone kind of replacement level, but, you know, genuine career, but who just kind of got turned into a meme and can't escape it. But they're probably cool with it on a certain level.

As long as they have generational wealth. As long as they have generations. wealth, they're probably, they're probably fine with it. And the ability to keep getting work, right? But so I just, I had this conversation with my, my wonderful friend, DJ Bean, and I just texted him saying, who did we decide was the Bortles of actors? So if I get that information, I will certainly share it. But happy for Blake Bortles.

Blake Bortles has made $47 million. Yeah, he's cool. He's good. Tom Brady's obviously made hundreds of millions. And also has probably tens of millions and not hundreds of millions more endorsements. and lives an incredibly glamorous life. I'm just saying sometimes being a superstar athlete's harder than being the guy who makes $47 million and holds a clipboard.

The guys, I'm not saying Bortles is this. I'm not saying Bortles is this. But there is a genre of backup quarterback. And Bortle's little too young to be in this own. But they're like 38 years old. You've seen them in training camp, Nora, in different parts of America. They're 20 pounds overweight. They ride around in golf carts and they hang out with the offensive courts.

and they never want to play ever. Like what's that? Is it the brain of Whedon line where he says, God forbid I'm ever asked to play? Like they're in that zone. They collect $1.5 million a year. There are so many of those guys. And those guys, they play a ton of golf.

And those guys are some of the happiest people in the planet. Yeah. They got it made. I mean, there's a genre of this that applies to kickers, punters. A hundred percent. But they are under actual pressure.

Well, and also, and I am, contradicting myself here, but and also just take the brunt of criticism when one minuscule second goes badly for them. Right. Other than that, though, like, health issues, not so much of a problem, in the grand scheme of things, still getting paid a lot, can kind of hang out a decent amount of the time. There's something to be said for it. Remember what Matt Hasselbeck won a game for the Colts in that zone?

that was that was amazing should we call it the Hasselbeck zone so it is i was thinking nobody get mad at me but when i was describing that type of person i was thinking about washington era rex grossman the Grossman zone yeah like at the 2012 2013 era Rex Grossman Hasselbeck was definitely in that zone um there have been a handful handful of guys since then who've been in that zone. But yeah, no, I think that Brandon Whedon squarely in that zone, although he came into the NFL so old that he got there very quickly. Derek Anderson was there for quite a while.

I don't know. I'm noticing a lot of these names end with like an end sound. Anderson, Grossman, Whedon. Maybe there's something there. I don't know. Derek Anderson was on the Carolina Panthers for six years. Six years? two, three, four, five, six, seven.

Wow. Made a lot of money. Plays a lot of golf, just like the people we described. All right. So let's also just do what we're going to do the show about. Let's also get to that other than going through the back of quarterbacks of America. Do you have any thoughts on Ryan Carrigan signing with the Eagles? Good for him.

I find it a little. So I guess it was Eagles, Steelers. One other team was interested. Bengals. I would have chosen the Bengals, I guess. I always, one thing that I was confused is, why? What just happened there? They're the most interesting team.

The Eagles seems scary right now. I wouldn't go to the Eagles. I would have gone to the Steelers as long as the money was all equal. I'm with you on that. I just think I think the Bengals have a, actually think the Bengals are better than the Steelers is what I'm saying by saying that. That's at Norprinciotti. At Norprinciotti on Twitter.

I've been doing this thing lately where I just like reveal Tage. that I'm not ready. And I distance myself from them. You're like backing away slowly. But, um, I mean, look, like, Ryan Kerrigan gave a lot of really good years to Washington and went through some stuff and played really hard and was a really, really, really good guy on that team. And I think this is like a little bit of a straw man argument that's getting made, but I'm

seeing some stuff that's like, you shouldn't criticize him for going to a division rival. I don't know that that criticism exists all that much, but if it does, I agree that's silly. Like, he had a really good career there. And if he doesn't get swept up into a lot of Philadelphia's nonsense, then I will be happy for him. So I saw Tori Smith make the comment in the comparison that it's like Chris Long in 2017. I disagree.

Chris Long was a luxury piece on a lot of really good teams, the Eagles and the Patriots and the Eagles. and the Eagles this time around are going to be extremely bad and are not going to win a Super Bowl, spoiler alert. Good dude. I interviewed him once and he was telling me about how he lived in an apartment that was close to Potbelly and Chipotle, and he lived in an apartment for that reason,

which is among the most relatable things, especially for me when I was younger. But yeah, I mean, our buddy Warren Trump was talking about it. He played in 156 of a possible 160 games in a 10-year career. 95 and a half sacks. Fine, good luxury item for the Eagles. I think that the football team is going to be better than the Eagles, year. It's a tough situation to have to leave this year. But listen, aging past rushers. It's kind of what

happens. All right, let's get to schedule psychics. Schedule detectives. I thought about maybe doing like a detective like gimmick too, but I think psychics might be a little better. I'm calling it this like the psychic schedule simulator or something. But schedule psychics. That's what we're going with. Schedule psychic is better than whatever you just had. Whatever. All right. So we're going to go through the next, the, the schedule is. out. First of all, do you like the schedule release? Do you feel like it's a big deal to you? I'm okay with the schedule release being the big ridiculous thing that it is, even though it's meaningless and all we're learning is when the games are. I really, I think this year, just because

we've just been through this year where a lot of it is like time is a flat circle, it's standing still, you don't know what day it is. The slow drip of schedule leaks, many of which were wrong, that I could do without. I think we should just do one or the other. Either this can be less of a thing and something that we just like take in piecemeal or whatever, or we can have big schedule release day and let's just do it. Let's just do it like at one time and we'll all be really excited about it then. But this is mostly me complaining about how my brain is not very good. I just, I found the slow drip of it all very difficult to process. Brian Curtis was on our locker room.

So we did a locker room the other day. We did a locker room. We did a locker room. Very fun. We encourage you to hop on locker next time the ringer does one. I don't know the next time we'll do an NFL one. When we were on Fairway Rowling earlier today. When we, when I was on Fairway Rowling earlier today, we discussed maybe doing a BGA

championship locker room later. But we had Logan and a couple of our NBA people on the last week or so to talk. about some of the bigger things. So do check that out. That was not a pre-planned ad, but I really do enjoy doing them and listening to them. So, but Brian was on when we did our locker room.

He said that basically the NFL network wanted to make an event out of a non-event, and they made the schedule into an event, and it worked. And reporters have gone along with it. We've gone along with it. And the reason is because now we just have certainty. We know what this looks like. And, you know,

I grew up a massive college football fan. And obviously the college football schedule for out of conference, so September is released earlier than a couple months out. Sometimes the conference stuff is later. But I remember when I was in college, Miami played Florida in the second game of the season

and I was just like thinking about it all summer, right? Like I'm just like, oh man, here we go. It's just going to be amazing. And then next year they played Florida State in the first week of the season, right, on Labor Day. And you're just like thinking about it. It's on your brain. So now Cowboys fans, no, they have the bucks

first week of the season. That sort of thing. Browns fans. Ooh, we retooled our defense. We have a new secondary. Oh, we get tested by Patrick Mahomes. That's the certainty I like. According to Warren Sharp, five easiest schedules, 49ers, Broncos, Browns, Dolphins, bucks.

Five hardest, Bengals, Lions, Texans, Steelers, and Raiders. Tough scene for, really, all the three hardest, the Bengals, the Lions, and the Texans, because those are bad teams regardless. Okay. So we're going to go through the calendar and we're going to tell you what's going to happen. Nora, give me your first date. All right. So stretch of dates.

Weeks 9 through 11. The Atlanta Falcons, they've been sneaky good through the first half of the season, but they're kind of being ignored as a little bit of a paper tiger because they do have an easy first half of the schedule. So let's say they've got the Eagles at the Giants, football team, jets in London, dolphins, Panthers. All of those are winnable games. Let's say they lose one of those.

And then they've also got week two at Tampa Bay. That's a blowout. It's going to knock everybody off the scent. But this is a sneaky good team. So that's the halfway point. They've got a week six by. So they're five and two coming out of that. Then weeks nine,

10, 11. They've got at New Orleans, at Dallas, Patriots home. on Thursday night football. Quick aside, who's playing quarterback in Week 11 for the Patriots? Cam Newton is playing quarterback

at this point for the Patriots, which is, you know, no spoilers, but that's important here. Let's say they split at New Orleans and at Dallas. How about they, how about they lose to the Saints and, but they play pretty well,

but they lose that tough, you know, it's the Atlanta, New Orleans thing. They drop that game, but they play well. And then they beat Dallas and, Jerry World. And then coming off that, beat the Patriots on Thursday night football. This is where the Atlanta Falcons start getting national attention as a team worth taking seriously. And by the end of the season, they finished with the second best record in the

division behind the bucks. But this is the stretch that we look back on as when Arthur Smith built his coach of the year resume. Oh, wow. Okay, all right. That was the perfect schedule psychic because it built towards something. And I have a couple of questions. Number one, is Julio Jones on this team? Julio Jones is on this team. And there's a little bit of buzz around the trade deadline, right?

Like they don't do it. They obviously don't do it in the preseason. Nothing happens. But then there's a little bit of like, uh, could they get something? Should they just do it? But there's two, this is a good vibes team. And they know that. and they're not going to get rid of the vibes.

And Julio's part of the vibes. So they just decide, you know what? We believe in what we've got going on here. And we're going to ride it out. Wow. Okay. This is interesting. I'm so jazzed now.

Like, this is the fun part of this. I'm just like, let's go. Like, I'm ready for the Falcons season. You just became a massive Falcons fan? I'm like so on board now. Wow. Okay. So you say the second best team in the NFC South,

how good is that? How good is that? Is that number one wildcard team? Is that the seventh seed? What are we looking at? Or is it not making the playoffs? No, they make the playoffs. They make the playoffs as a wildcard team.

Let's call it. Now, I didn't game out the rest of the season. I'm also still having, I'm still having a problem with a 17 game schedule. I know. It's really hard. The math is really hard. I hate it.

I hate being like, is 10 and 7 a playoff team or not? I don't get it. Here's the problem is that I don't have a math brain. No. So we're doing what we do. So we do podcasts and writing down words. Right.

But so we've been relying on just years of built up experience and institutional knowledge of just like, okay, you win 10 games. You got a pretty good shot at making the playoffs. That we could masquerade a little bit as like kind of understanding how the numbers were working. No. We were just going like, yeah, that usually happens. So it'll probably happen again. So unspecific. Now, all that is gone.

All that is just out the window. We're in a terrible state, Kevin. This is bad. I would say the biggest problem and the biggest roadblock to me understanding the probabilities of the playoffs is that I'm a huge dumbass. And I just really am not, I'm not going to be good at any of this stuff. So once we go through a couple seasons, okay, fine, 11 wins get you in the playoffs. I don't know.

I don't understand. I'm sure someone's done the best. But as far as 10 and 7 goes, I think that's enough. will get to the play, especially with the exercise. And I think there'll be about a 10-win team with what I'm predicting very bullishly here. But I am a schedule psychic, therefore it will come to pass. Okay. All right.

First one, this is an easy one. So this is late August 2021. It's after the third preseason game. Pretty soon. The Jaguars will play the Dallas Cowboys. Tim Tebow is going to be cut. And guess what? Everything's going to be fine.

everything's all going to be fine. Yeah, it's all going to be fine. Is that Tim's Tebow was not a serious contender to make the roster and he gets quietly cut and and the sun rises the next day. So the signing has been extremely controversial. I don't think from football standpoint it makes much sense. There were people 10 years ago who were begging Tim Tebow to become a tight end, Hback type thing.

He didn't convert soon enough. He played quarterback. He went and played baseball. He joined. the SEC network, all this stuff. And I don't think that from a purely football standpoint, this makes a whole lot of sense. But I also don't think, I think some people have cut this out to be the most ridiculous move or that Urban Myers is going to lose a locker and whatever. First of all, there's a lot of guys on a 90-man roster who either have no chance to make it or I don't want to say they're there for reasons other than they're going to help the team win in October.

Okay, either they're a depth thing or a camp body thing or whatever. And I think that with Tebow, if Urban Meyer thinks that he can have some guy who understands how practices should work or whatever, again, it's something we talked about in last week's episode because the signing happened while we were recording it. But, you know, the offense has changed dramatically in the last decade since Tim Tebow was there. So it's not like he's going to be able to sit there and say, hey, here's what we're going to do. But I don't, just from as far as Tim Tebow vibes guy, I'm okay with this as long as he doesn't make the roster and doesn't take reps away.

If we hear a story that, you know, he's getting some, some huge share of the reps or the Urban Myers trying to force his way to Tim Tebow onto the roster, someone like that, that's when I say, okay, this is a massive problem. I've heard a couple of conspiracy theories about this that I like. Here's number one. Always good. What's the best way to take the heat off of the number one overall pick from a media perspective? Inject. Add one Tim Tebow.

add a significantly more famous person. So I'm no Tim Tebow fan. Just remember, I went to a different Florida university at the time Tim Tebow was in college. Okay? I do not have a lot of fond memories from a football and fan perspective. Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow.

The Hurricanes played in Gainesville. I drove up there. I think we crossed midfield once. It was not a good game. I did not enjoy it. I did not enjoy that game. And but but I I also think that if you have been, if you're Urban Meyer or anybody who's ever been around Tim Tebow or you're a media member,

you understand the energy suck that he's capable of. He is so unbelievably famous. When I, I started covering the NFL year after Tebow Mania. But I remember being at the Wallis Journal offices and like we would run anything on Tim Tebow because you would just get 700,000 views if you just put his name in a headline guaranteed. And then if it was a good story,

you're looking at the millions. It is ridiculous how popular he is. And so if you want to, A, get buzz in the community of Jacksonville, if you want to be, take the heat off of Trevor Lawrence, I guarantee you, I guarantee you that there will be national people who come through Jacksonville.

It might be you or I. and I think we're going to at least think about doing Tim Tebow over Trevor Lawrence. I don't think necessarily we would, but I'm saying a lot of people will because that's just how this industry works. Tim Tebow is ludicously popular. Okay. So I don't think he's quickly serious. Hold on. Can I back you up there for a second? Yeah.

Because this is actually really instructive to me. Tim Tebow at this point right now, today. It's Monday, May 17th, 2021. Tim Tebow is how much more famous than Trevor Lawrence? So there were some baseball writers who said that when Tim Tebow was playing baseball, that he was the most famous baseball player, like, in general. This is kind of, I like know academically that this is true. Somehow this makes no sense to me.

And I just watched the kerfuffle that this produced. It's like not translating to me somehow. So this is really, this is really interesting. It's possible. I will say this. It's also possible. I'll say this. If you're not from a, like if you're in some place where college football isn't that big or isn't a traditional football market.

I've never lived in a, I've lived in the Northeast. Yeah. Like, I would say Tim Tebow did not play at Boston College. In some states, do you think about it? That's, it was between Ford and B.C. Steve Adsoe coached at BC It's kind of the same thing So

I think it's different It is I think there's states Where Tim Tebow is like One of the most famous people on the planet And it's not just Florida He is just an unbelievable He's like

He's like BTS But I think this But here's the point Here's the takeaway from this That I think is important Tim Tebow is much more famous in the South Not in terms of like name recognition He's like the most popular person in Jacksonville, him and Fred Dirst, who's also from Jacksonville.

Fred Dirsts, like, keeps coming up. Fred Dirst has come up like 15 times. What corners? What circles are you running in that that's happened? I've been watching a lot of old VMAs. That'll do it. All right. So anyway, Teebo will be cut. It's going to be fine.

There's a lot of people who don't belong in training camp that are in training camp. If, if, Calvin Benjamin's trying out as a tight end. like sometimes teams experiment okay i don't think i think the urban my i think urban myer's not necessarily getting benefit of the doubt i understand that like even that you saw the travis at tn thing where he was playing some receiver and everybody's like what are the urban's doing some head scratching moves i don't know if urban mire's going to be successful but i do you know can we talk about that one for a second sure just so and where that's coming from is that both in in albert breers column and peter king's column this morning there's information i think there was

some reporting over the weekend that um um travis at n has been playing mostly receiver and will do so throughout the offseason. I don't understand why that's causing a stir. I thought our whole thing was if you're going to draft running back that high, positional flexibility is basically the only justification for doing so. And if you're going to spend like that, spend resources like that on a running back, he sure as heck better have some value to add in the passing game. Like, can't have it both ways, people.

I think Urban Myers headed to the meme zone. And I think everyone's just going to make fun of everything he does until he proves otherwise, which I understand. I don't think he has a lot of goodwill. And I don't, I have, I think he's a really good football coach. I don't know how success is going to be in the NFL. I'm just saying, listen, by the way, they start with the Texans. And so we're talking about the schedule stuff here. They start with the Texans and then they have the Broncos.

It is within the realm of possibility that even if they're average, they can start two and up. And then they have the Cardinals and the Bengals. If it's Lawrence versus Burrow with whether they're two and one or whatever, that's a good game to me. By the way, the Jaguars are not going to a primetime game. It has been 13 years since they played Sunday night, which is insane. And a decade since they played on Monday night, both of which are the longest active streaks according to ESPN. It is amazing. And it's funny because I don't even know how they would get a prime time game next year either.

It has to be really good this year. I have, so I have two questions for you. Yeah. Say Tim Tebow makes the roster and is an actual contributing member. Hmm. He's back in 2022. Yeah. Is Tebow enough to get them a primetime game?

Yes. Without a doubt. Without a doubt. Okay. That helps me under internalize like how famous Tim Tebow still is. If he, if Tim Tebow gets 500 yards this season, they would get a Monday night game next year. Like early. One of those early.

You know how sometimes. They give sort of crappy teams a primetime game in September in case that the team starts like one and seven. It would be it would be that. Because all you'd want is Tebow. Okay. Next question. And Laura. And the number one of all things.

I have a next question for you. Okay. If, so if Tebow does not make the roster and if as you are predicting as a schedule psychic, he gets cut August 31st, do we have some sort of ceremony for all of the takes? that were spent on... Do we have...

Are you saying, do we have, like, a Viking funeral? Like a vigil, yeah. Like a Viking... We just, we put them all in a, on a boat and just set fire to them. Like, do we write them down on little slips of paper, right? Yes. And throw them into a fire. Well, I kind of feel like Tebow takes a turn. Maybe we could do it on locker room.

Yeah, we could have a Tebow, emergency Tebow locker room. I, I, there's a lot. I think you're, you're underestimating the ability for Tebow takes to endure beyond Tibo's NFL shelf life is what I'll say about that. Being from Florida, I understand the enduring power of it all. And it's been a decade. People are still talking about Tim Tebow,

to the point that he was signed by NFL team in Florida. This will continue. This will continue. All right. What's your next date? All right. So October 25th. Oh.

That is the day after what I'm predicting will be a brutal week seven loss on Sunday night football to the San Francisco 49ers by the Indianapolis. Colts. At this point, the Colts are two and five. They have a brutal schedule to open the season. They have losses to the Seahawks at the Titans, at the Dolphins, at the Ravens, and that 49ers loss. They have a promising win in week two when they're hosting the Rams and they beat the Texans in

week six. But for the most part, it's been really tough. And part of that is due to the schedule, but people aren't fair. And it's really coming down hard in Indianapolis. And this is the moment when we see if Frank Wright can keep it together and keep Carson Wentz engaged and on track. There are trade rumors swirling about Ty Hilton. Absolutely. He's been pretty good, not amazing, but is becoming kind of the symbol of are they giving up? Has this just not worked? Has the Wentz thing not worked? He's not in a good place. He doesn't. He's not responding to the pressure well. Everybody's upset, but they don't trade T.Y. Hilton. And they try to keep the trains on the track and salvage the season. And this is where the clairvoyance gets a little fuzzy for me. I don't know

if they can really pull it off. Now, go ahead. Let's look at the schedule here because we have, let's pick it up where you are. Titans, Jets, Jaguars. We assume Cheebo is not there in week 10. that could be three wins right there. Right. Right. So then, but then, but then Bills and Bucks, week 11 and 12th. This is a brutal schedule. It's really brutal.

It's like truly brutal. And I think, and I think, okay, so yes, like Bill's Bucks is really tough, but then they have Texans, Patriots, Cardinals, Raiders, Jaguars, like, those aren't, you know, walkover teams, but there are wins to be had in there, certainly, other than. than that that Bill's two-week thing looking really tough. But especially with a new quarterback, especially with one who fair or not is coming out of this situation where his ability to sort of handle adversity and pressure

and, you know, bad results has really been questioned a lot. This is a tough break, I think, just because the first portion, the first chunk of the schedule for them is unfun. And I think it's, going to, the thing that I'm predicting here basically is like the, you know what is going to hit the fan and they're going to have to, if they're going to swim instead of sinking, they right around that trade deadline are going to have to have some sort of come to Jesus moment and like get through

it. So I have a couple of takes, some offshoot takes here. Number one, I think the Colts are an extremely good organization, just in general. Agreed. That's part of why I think that's in some ways why I chose this is because it's like, this is like a perfect example of how does a really strong infrastructure handle something that's just in a lot of ways outside of their control. And that to me, by the way, like goes back to this is like, I always bring this up with the Colts. This is an organization that has gone through the surprise retirement of a franchise quarterback and being left at the altar by their pick for head coach and like actually kind of swum through that. And everything that's going on, including

having the coach that has the history with Wentz and the decision to trade for him and try to salvage that is in some ways a byproduct of them making something out of incredibly adverse circumstances. So this is kind of a different version of that that I'm wondering about because they've handled it in a lot of ways almost as well as you possibly can, but it's not getting any easier in particular when it comes to the early part of the schedule. I want to tell the listeners how good you are, which is that my batteries ran out halfway through your point and you figured that out and you just kept making an incredible point until I've changed my batteries out. Tell them.

I don't know. I just did. I just told the listener. I thought you were telling me you wanted to tell them. I know. You were going to make an incredible point. I did this. I did this to Rissillo one time where I teed him up on something I knew he was going

to go along on because I saw my batteries were up and he just knocked out of the park for three minutes while I changed my batteries in my recorder. Okay. So I'm with you. Stable organization from year to year. Chris Bowdo is a really good GM. Frank Reich is a really good coach to the point that I think that I'd like almost from a kind of a football experiment standpoint, I like to see when those sort of organizations have their back against the wall. I like to see kind of leadership tested in that regardless. And Frank Reich, we now know, should have gotten a hell of a lot more credit for the 2017 Eagle Super Bowl. And the way that they basically used the buy week in the playoffs is another training camp and retooled the offense.

Doug Peterson was heavily involved in that, but obviously Reich was doing a lot of that stuff. And at that point, we didn't give him really any credit. You know, for some reason, you know, Lord knows I'm an idiot, but I, you know, people were talking about John DiFilippo being a part of it, Doug Peterson being a part of it, Reich, maybe because he's more of a subdued personality, just didn't get the pub he should have. So I like seeing guys like that who are awesome coaches deal with adversity, and this really tough schedule is adversity. All right, next one for me, September 28th.

It's a Tuesday. What do you be doing on September 28th? It's probably beautiful in Boston. Yeah, lovely. Lovely, lovely day to kind of take a stroll by the water. Matt Nagy strolls to the podium strolls to the podium

and says tough loss on Sunday against Cleveland Browns tough to be one and two Justin Fields will be our starter Justin Fields would be our starter against Detroit what's the next game

Detroit? So here's the deal you got to look at the schedule here so they started out with the first all, first of all, Andy Dalton, according to Matt Nagy, this week, this week is the starter. And he kind of talked, he said, uh, when you move up in the draft, this is his quote, when he move up in draft, everyone's excited. They want to know when, when, when, trust me, we all understand that.

But we need to make sure that whatever the plan is that we put together, it's the best thing for the Chicago Bears. And he kind of rephrases it and says it needs to be the best thing for Justin and the Chicago bears. Um, he called Andy Dalton. the starter and let's assume he enters training camp for that. I don't think Dalton is good enough. People keep making the comparison.

This is any veteran quarterback who sort of a stop gap to the Sam Bradford thing a couple years ago. Okay, someone goes down in training camp, they get a first round pick for him, whatever. A couple things. Number one that doesn't happen every year. That just happened to be a random fluke Teddy Bridgewater injury. Second of all, Andy Dalton is not so good that a team would say, oh, my God,

we have to get this guy. Okay. So I think Andy Donnell will start the season on the Bears, and I think he will start at quarterback for the Bears against the Rams in Los Angeles, in a newish stadium that debuted last year when it was empty. So they had the Rams, then they had the Bengals. They beat the Bengals, and then they lose at Cleveland, noon game, September 26th. So you look at the schedule, and here's the three games you have to avoid starting Justin Field.

on October 17th, they play the Green Bay Packers. On October 24th, they play the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. On October 31st, Halloween, they have a noon game at home against San Francisco 49ers. The next week is Monday night at Pittsburgh, by week, and then Baltimore. I'm not throwing Justin Fields into his first NFL game in any of those situations. Yep. So I say it has to be either October 3rd against the Lions or the next week at Las Vegas.

Maybe I've heard the theory that you should put him on the road, put him at quarterback on the roads or there's less pressure in front of the fans, whatever. But I'd really want to give him a long runway for that Packers game on October 17th. Because you do not want Justin Fields flopping against the Green Bay Packers without a lot of experience. And it's up, here we go again. Another 20 years of Packer dominance or whatever you want to call it. Justin Fields has to play well in that stretch.

So we either don't play him in that stretch of games or give him enough runway in that stretch of games. I like it. I see it. Do you think there's any chance he starts week one? Sure. If he blows them away and I do think I really do think and I know people push back on this, but I really do think Matt Nagy has the Alex Smith memory implanted on his brain. And it's something he said a couple of weeks ago that he thought Dalton and Alex Smith were comparable just as far as their personalities go and how they process the game. I really do think that there's, there's something there when Nagy you wants this to happen again.

And I don't think it's for a full year because Alex Smith was much better than Andy Dalton. And that Chief's team, that Chief's team was much better. That Chief's team went in and just absolutely wrecked the Patriots team

with the spread offense and all that stuff. You remember that game. That would not, that bears, this Bears team is not capable of that sort of win. But I do think Matt,

Nagy would like to bring Justin Fields along slowish. I agree with that in theory. it's just that I think that the gap between Justin Fields and Andy Dalton is closer. And mainly, we're talking about Patrick Mahomes here on the other side. So mainly what I'm saying is that Andy Dalton at this point in his career is enough of a step down from where Alex Smith was at that point. And I'm not saying that Matt Nagy is like purposefully bullshitting anyone. But I just don't think he knows the answer.

that he's giving because I don't think that they're possible to know until they get to training camp and put those guys in situations where they can compare them and they can see him work with other players on their roster. Because I think if Justin Fields is demonstrably better at that point, and because of who the two players are, I do think that he has a chance to be, just in terms of being able to give them, you know, more dynamism, more options that they can go to in the playbook, use his athleticism. I think there's a number. of a possibility that they could be looking at what they have on the field during training camp and saying, you know what, like, we just got to do this.

Like, it just doesn't make sense. It's going to upset the rest of the players. It's going to just kind of confuse everybody as to what the name of the game here is. And ultimately, it's just a different situation than Kansas City. It's just, it's different people. It's a different time. It's different players. It's different, you know, aside from Nagy, it's different.

coaches and a different roster overall. And I just don't think they know the things that they're saying. And they're sort of being forced into saying them because they got to give some sort of answer. And I agree. Like until you can see it on the field, the best thing to do is just to reference the experience of Kansas City as a kind of blueprint. But I remain unconvinced that fields can't win that starting job and training camp.

And so. Andy Dalton could be his starting could upset the locker room could be a distraction could upset the competitive balance of everything as far as just how positions are handed out in Chicago it sounds like floating up there ready it's like a ladder match WWF WWU reference two of those on this podcast just hanging up there is that Andy Dalton is the Tim Tebow of the Bears take all right what's your next one by the way If we ever run out ideas for episodes, let's just do who's the Tim Tebow of every NFL team.

All 32, we go top to bottom. In print journalism, not at like reputable places, but sometimes there are stories that are so, like, weak or bad that they just run without a byline or nobody wants to put their name on it. Andy Dalton is the Bears Tim Tebow is one. I wish we could produce that take from this podcast, but not assign it to either of us. Just have it be a take that we put out into the ether.

There are many people were saying this. All right. Next one. All right. So if you recall back when we were talking about the Atlanta Falcons and coach of the year, Arthur Smith, we referenced that Patriots game on Thursday night football in week 11. And Cam Newton was the starter for that game. We fast forward to week 13.

The Patriots play on Monday night football in Buffalo. And at half time, they're struggling. They're not getting blown out. Like that, they don't get blown out. But unless it's the Chiefs. But they're playing the bills tough, but they're losing. And Cam Newton and the offense are really struggling. Cam Newton has 86 yards at half time.

And it's just not going great. Total yards? Totally yards. Hanging on by a threat. At this point in the season, have I written? Have I written the column, the Hot 31 and other team should be embarrassed by not signing Cam Newton? Did I write that in September of 2021 or October?

September, early. I got it out of the way early, yeah. My yearly column, my gimmick. I hope you, just go full heel. Just do it again. Just write it again. I think every year for the rest of time. There was years ago, my second or third podcast I ever did on this network, we were predicting

the stats for the quarterbacks. And I famously predicted Aaron Rogers was the sixth best quarterback in the NFL. And I predicted a big breakout for Andy Dalton. So I said Andy Dalton was going to be the fifth best quarterback in 2016, Rogers, the sixth. And Sam Donsky, who, and then I was obviously wrong.

And, well, it was, you know, right for eight weeks, and then things turned around. Rogers became Rogers again. And it was great. I was happy for him and all that stuff. And it was fun to take my medicine. But then Sam Donsky, who's a genius, who was working at the ring of the time,

came up with the idea that I, I should, we should do a re-rank. And then, like, we set it up as an apology podcast, but then I just rank them the exact same way. That's what I should do with Cam Newton. It's just be like, oh, I'm so sorry about my Cam Newton take. And then just unleash it one more time. Everybody should be embarrassed.

You know what? I would support you. As your co-host here, I would support you in those endeavors. Should you choose to engage in them? Thank you, Nora. Okay. All right. I got to tell you, we're at half time of this, this pivotal Monday night football game, Kevin.

This is a big deal. So some context. The Patriots are six and six going into the game. They've got wins against the Jets in New York, the Saints, the Texans, the Panthers, the Jets at home, and the Titans. They've lost to the dolphins, the Bucks, the Cowboys, the Chargers, the Browns, and the Falcons. Half time of this game, they're still in it. Cam Newton is seriously struggling. Bill says, you know what?

This isn't working. Mac, you're up. Mac Jones enters. Let's go. Let's go. He does not lead the Patriots to a comeback victory, but he plays well enough that they stick with him for the home stretch as they make a playoff push.

Mac Jones is encouraging, and they win some games down the stretch. but they lose to the Dolphins in week 17, finish 8 and 9 and miss the playoffs. Is that 8 and 9 math again? I love this. I didn't want to spoil too much, but when you were talking about that,

where you were like all the numbers are screwed up, eight and nine as a concept just like ruined me when I was doing that. It makes no, it's just. I hate it. I absolutely hate it. They should have two games in the schedule. What does Jeff Fisher think about all of this?

I know, I know. I know. Could you imagine? I think the problem is like odd numbers are hard for people. And by people I mean me. I don't. I don't like it. I don't like it. I love that. I think that's about right.

I also, Belichick is the weird case because, and you know this better than I do. And maybe you can speak on it. I don't think he's going to be like a matineegi type where he's just going to view, he's going to go like, okay, well, maybe we insert him at the buy. Like, Tua last year. It was like, oh, we're going to insert two at this point in the season, et cetera, et cetera. And I don't think Bill Belichick has any plan beyond what's going to help us win this week. Am I wrong about that?

No, you're not. So you're not wrong about that at all. And I would actually take it a step further. His plan is what will help us win this game that's currently going on right now. Right. So, like, when people think of Bill Belichick, they think of, okay, he's not an impulsive guy. He thinks decisions through. like that's absolutely true.

And that's why I think sometimes you, you think about like, okay, if Cam has a couple bad games, but they don't, you know, they're seeing in practice and Mac's maybe not ready. They're not going to just say like, we're getting frustrated with this. We're going to Mac. Like, let's just do it.

In an individual game, if things are not working, he will, you know, he'll bench players really easily. He'll throw somebody in there. He'll try, you know, stick Julian Edelman at cornerback. Like, whatever. if something is not working, he will try to fix it in the moment and he'll try some stuff.

And I can totally see this happening. And it wouldn't matter that it was on Monday Night Football. It wouldn't matter that it was against a good defense in Buffalo. It wouldn't matter that there's a really good coach on the opposing sideline. Like, he would do it if things were going badly and they needed to try to make a change. So that's why I can see this happening, even though I think if you sort of, you know, went to 30,000 feet and looked at that game. You would say, like, well, you know, that's not. where you, that's not where you switch. By the way, the Patriots have a week 14 by is also

part of this. It's really late. So this game is week 13. Like that would be sort of an added benefit. But I don't think that that's necessarily why it would happen. I think like just as much a possibility as kind of like gaming out the calendar and saying, okay, this is when it makes sense to put them in. This is when it doesn't. It would just be like, look, what we're putting out on the field right now is not working and we're going to try something else. I think it's fascinating. I think Bill Belichick with a first round quarterback is fascinating because I just, all bets are off on when he's inserted, whether or not kind of what you alluded to,

whether he's inserted and then comes out again and it's, it's going to be fascinating. All right. I have quick hits and I want to go to them quickly to end this, this podcast. Cool. We will know if the Browns are a legitimate AFC contender on December 13th. They play.

Do you know, do you know what they do on December 13th or December 12th, rather? December 12th, the Browns, no, I don't tell me. Okay. They play their second straight game against the Baltimore Ravens. They play a series. They play a Champions League two-legged final against semi-home. Against the Baltimore Ravens. They have the Baltimore Ravens in Baltimore on Sunday night, November 28th.

They have a buy and then they have a home game at 1 p.m. against the Baltimore Ravens. They start out with the Can City Chiefs. Then they have a handful of easy games. And then they have the Patriots week 10. And then they had this two Ravens. In fact, I would say Warren Sharp said the Browns have one of the easiest schedules. I think that.

But I think we're going to learn a lot, A, with the Chiefs, so the teams get better now as the season goes along. That's something we've discussed a lot, especially during the pandemic year. But then to play two games back against the Baltimore Ravens is such a measuring stick that I'm excited to see it. I actually think it's a good, I think it's a good idea that the teams are playing back to back.

I love this. Yeah, actually, I'm, I'm, I'm now equally jazzed up for that stretch as I am for the falcons season. This pod is really energizing. All right. Last thing for me, September 20th, we wake up on Monday. It's a Monday. So September 20th, that's eight days before Justin Fields is announced

as spare starter. That's correct. Just putting us in context. So we're waking up on September 20th, and we see the headline. We see it. Big letters. Maybe we wrote it at the ringer.

Maybe you wrote it. Is it time for Mike McCarthy to be fired? So here's what's going to happen. Here's what's going to happen. Cowboys play the box on opening night. They're going to get absolutely destroyed. Okay. When Tom Brady was on that Hodinkie radio thing,

he was talking about how we barely even knew the playbook last year because of the pandemic and everything about how Bruce Ariens, you know, he didn't meet Bruce Aran's wife. Can I push back on this for a second? We're forgetting how good DAC is. And like, I know there's a lot of questions with that in terms of like, does his leg work? They were bad. They were bad last year with DAC. I, DAC is one of, DAC is amazing. That is the top 10 quarterback.

Okay. But we're talking about narratives here, right? And I, I'm just saying that if the Cowboys offense. hangs with them, which I do believe that they could, it's not going to seem that embarrassing. And I think the cow... I hate this. I don't want to be responsible for this take.

I think the cowboys are a little underrated. There, I said it. Continue on. This is like your Colts take. We need to get through the whole take before casting any judgments on this take. Okay. So they're going to lose on opening night.

And then they had the Chargers the next week. And here's why I think this is important. Because I think the Chargers are really good. and if Brandon Staley is a B-plus coach, they're going to win this game. In Los Angeles, there's going to be an absolute ton of Cowboys fans, but the Chargers just need to get used to that in that stadium.

So the Cowboys are going to start 0-and-2, and there is going to be, there is no greater fury in football than anything having to do with the Dallas Cowboys. There were people who were talking about by McCrather being fired last year to the point that Jerry Jones had to say, I want Mike McCarthy in a Foxhole with me.

Okay? You turn on first take. You're going to be turning on first take on September 20th? I bet you will. And you're a big first take head. Totally. And you're going to see it. Max and Stephen Nade.

They're going to be yelling each other by Mike McCarthy. But then guess what happens? They play the Eagles on Monday night. Cowboys win. They played the Panthers. Cowboys win. They play the Giants. Cowboys win.

Patriots, October 17th. They're three and two going on that game. It's a toss up. The Vikings. after that, the Broncos after that, the Falcons after that. Then we get to the chiefs. Oh, your, your Falcons. I forgot. Your Falcons. Arthur Smith's working on Coach of the Year at that time on November 14th. Sure. But by the way, by the way, I do have them winning that game against the Patriots. So. Okay. So did you go through all the games? No, not every single game, but,

but it was important to my Mac Jones take over take. Oh, okay. Good. So then they, they have the Chiefs on November 21st and who knows what that is. After that, Raiders, Saints, Washington football team, Giants, Washington football team, Cardinals, Eagles. There are not a lot of games they should lose on this schedule. And that is why I think that after the first two games in which Mike McCarthy is a firing candidate, my prediction, my prediction, is that after week two, Mike McCarthy's odds for first coach fired have moved to the number one hot seat. That is my, that's my prediction. I also predict the Dallas Cowboys win the NFC East,

and I predict the Luke McCarthy is a coach of the year candidate. I'm like fanning the flames coming off of my screen for this spice here. That take was a journey. That's why I needed to finish the take. Yeah. We'd let this be a lesson. Tough. So I like it.

I like it. I don't know if Ryan Fitzpatrick likes it, but I like it. Why? So you think the football team is better equipped? I haven't, can I reserve judgment on that? I got to, I got to do a little more digging to feel like I know in my heart where that is. No, I think I'm with you just because the quarterback is the number one thing that matters. And I still believe the DAC is just really, really, really good.

I like that they invested on defense in the draft too. I don't know that we'll see the results of that super immediately, but it should help at least. And they did like sort of the smart, boring thing that they needed to do, which is always a good sign, especially when it comes to the Cowboys. So I like it.

I like it. Anything else? Late September. Really interesting, really interesting time. It's shaping up to be. Right. There we go. We're going to be busy.

When is the Rider Cup? I regret to inform, everyone. DJ cannot remember who the... Oh, Jesus. All right, tweeted us. Tweeted us. Who is the Blake Bortals of acting? Yeah.

Tweeted us. All he reminded me is that I said that I think Trevor Lawrence's haircut is the Rachel. So, there you go. Okay. Well, that's a complete take we could have done without. All right. Well, the Bortles of actors, if anybody has submissions, tweet about us. Please tweet out of it.

All right. This has been the Ringer NFL show on The Ringer Podcast. podcast network. This episode came together thanks to the work of production system Isaiah Blakely with additional production supervision from Arjuna Ramqbal.