The Ringer NFL Show - 2024 Off-the-Wall Predictions

Episode Date: September 3, 2024

Midseason quarterback trades? Dazzling broadcaster debuts? Un-retirements? Anything goes on today’s off-the-wall prediction show, where Sheil Kapadia, Diante Lee, and Steven Ruiz each give their three bold predictions for the upcoming NFL season. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia, Diante Lee, and Steven Ruiz Producer: Troy Farkas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Brian Curtis from The Ringer, and I want to tell you about the Press Box podcast. The Press Box is a podcast for anybody who likes news, whether it's about sports or politics or pop culture, and wants to understand how that news really gets made. We have news shows every Monday and Thursday. We have long interviews with everyone from John Crackauer to Joe Buck. Your social media feeds are bursting with information every day. Let us help you sort it out. Join us on the podcast.

press box. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Stephen Ruiz and Deontay Lee. We are two days away from actual NFL football on Thursday night. We've given you all the traditional predictions that who's making the playoffs, blah, blah, blah, MVP, all that stuff. Today, just some anything, off the wall predictions, anything we can think of. No guardrails, no categories about what this can be. We feel like we've gotten all our real football takes out there. And so now just, you know, go on the record with something else you think is going to happen. I know Stephen Ruiz is ready for some Ravens Chiefs in what, a little more than 48 hours here.

No, I can't wait for it. This is like the perfect game to open up the season. We came off last year as like disappointing aFC title game. I don't think the game was as good as we wanted. It's to be, I think this year we're going to get some fireworks in the opening week. Okay. There you go. Deonté, how we doing?

I'm feeling good. Two and O as a high school football coach this year. Yeah, let's go. How many points did you give up? How many points did you give up to? We gave up 34. We gave up 34. So, you know, cut their production in half from one week to the next.

I don't know. We got a lot of things to clean up. But I'm with Stephen, man. This is a very exciting season coming up. I think that we've been in kind of like a half decade of transition out of the last era of guys that were really dominating the league. And when you look at the parody of the league, I think we're final. only kind of landing in a place in this generation where we can start talking about several teams that have an opportunity to make deep playoff run. So I'm really excited to see how this works out this

year. I do my like 24 questions for the 2024 season every year. Like I go up every year. And by the way, I need to cut myself off. Read it on the ringer.com. Yeah, exactly. In 2025, I'm cutting it off. I'm not doing 26 questions for 2020. That's too many questions. But usually when I do this exercise, like I struggle to find questions. Like I run like by the time I get to 20. I'm like, oh, God, but I don't know, maybe I'll ask about Derek Carr. But this year, no, they just came to me. This is an exciting year. I think this year can go anyway. And some of my predictions, my off-the-wall predictions are based on that. Yeah, I agree. You guys laid it out well. And I don't know that I've, when you're like doing all the preview stuff we do, I haven't

had a chance to like step back. But as you were saying that, I'm like, you're right, we got the, we got the rookie cubees, very exciting. We got the next great cube, you know, the same. You know, CJ Strauss the Jordan loves. You got the like Burrow Lamar, Mahomes, Allen, all these guys in their prime. You still got an Aaron Rogers season. So not that it's all about the quarterback. You got the different defensive dynamics at play.

You had the fancio stuff now where people go in to a different way to do things. So yeah, from whether it's schematically personnel, you got Jim Harbaugh back in the NFL. I'm excited about that. I may or may not have a off-the-wall prediction pertaining to him. but, and then you have some like stuff in flux where things don't go right. What do some of these teams look like in the middle of this season, next season, or whatever. So I agree.

Let's hope it lives up to the hive, but I think you guys laid it out well that it is a very potentially exciting season coming up here. And this will be barring breaking news. Our last show before we get actual action. All right, Deonti, you start us off here. So again, it's very simple. This was like a two sentence slack exchange. This was not, hey, let's have a, you know, three-hour planning meeting for the podcast.

Just let's have some fun. Give some off-the-wall predictions. Can be anything for this season. We've got three each. Deonti. What do you got to start us off? I honestly don't know how off-the-wall this is based on how people feel about the players involved. But my first one is that James Winston finishes the season as a Brown starting quarterback.

Not because Deshaun is hurt, but because it's such a disaster, such a disastrous marriage with Ken Dorsey. and Deshawn Watson that it's not tenable. And at the end of the year, you get a mutual parting of ways between Kevin Stefansky and the Browns, and he gets to enter that off-season, this upcoming off-season is like the hottest head coaching candidate. So that's my first off-the-wall.

Oh, that's spicy. You played it down. I'm like, all right, it's okay. You know, it doesn't have to be off the wall. Great one. One that I've thought about, I just did on Philly special I had Bo Wolf on, and I was just throwing 10 questions his way.

And one of them was I was naming, like, coaching candidates that the Eagles could rank them for the Eagles next season. And I was looking at guys who still have their jobs. And one of them was Kevin. It's a weird, weird spot for this Browns team where that offense, it just has not worked. Deshaun Watson's been terrible. They have offensive tackle issues going into the season.

They don't have Nick Chubb. Like, is this offense going to be good or is this offense going to be terrible? And if it's terrible, what are the ramifications of that? So I love that one, Ruiz. How are you feeling about this Browns? team, Watson, Stafansky, kind of the state of that franchise going into the season. No, no, I feel a little insecure about my picks now. DiAde said that wasn't that off the wall.

You're benching a $230 million quarterback. I think that's very off the wall. But no, I think it's feasible. I think it could definitely happen. I'm not so sure that at this point in their career, Deshaun Watson is better than James Winston. And I think the marriage between Watson and Ken Dorsey, that's kind of dangerous to me. I'm a Ken Dorsey fan, and I think Deshawn Watson used to be good at football.

I could see him getting back to that. I don't see why he wouldn't be able to. But Dorsey got fired from Buffalo because he fell in love with the passing game. He abandoned the run a little too much. And I think with a quarterback as volatile as Deshawn Watson, his style of play, even when things are going well in Houston is still volatile. Like he takes a lot of sacks. He holds on to the ball a while.

He pushes the ball downfield. So I could see that those guys not being good for each other. but I'm not sure if James Winston is the guy that come and save Ken Dorsey, who another problem with Dorsey was, he wasn't raining in Josh Allen. Josh Allen was turning over the ball. If you like turnover,

so I got a quarterback for you. James Winston, he might throw 20 picks in that offense, but I'm not so sure he's not the better quarterback, so I do support the take. And I'm also just not sure how much, like when you have a head coach who is an offensive guy,

like sure, Dorsey can bring in some ideas, but I don't know that there's going to, maybe I'll be wrong, but I just don't know what kind of influence he's going to have on this offense. And like, Stefansky has a history of getting more out of quarterbacks with his scheme.

Like, I wouldn't want to just change what I was doing. I mean, the fact is, Deshawn Watson hasn't been a good quarterback in years. I mean, last two seasons, 41 quarterbacks with at least 400 dropbacks.

Watson ranks 39th in EPA per pass play ahead of Zach Wilson and Bryce Young. Like, I think it's worse than we even give it credit for. Like, I hear people, oh, he's average, he's not good. No, he has sucked for them. He's terrible. He's been bad at quarterback for the last few years. And it's been in a scheme. It's been on a team with a good offensive line.

It's been on a team again with a coach who has done it with like, you know, the Baker Mayfields of the world before. Like there's not a lot of excuses for him. And I know he had the one win against the Ravens, but I don't know. That's a small sample. If we zoom out even to last year, I didn't see all the signs.

And it's been 2020 the last time he played like a lot of a season and was a good quarter. That was a long, long time ago. So I just filed my quarterback rankings, the grades for my quarterback rankings. Guess where I have Deshaun Watson? Because I was kind of surprised by where he ended up and not in a good way if you're Deshaun Watson or a bronze fan. I'm going to say 23rd.

I was going to say 21 with the first number that came into mind. He's 24. Okay. And I have him behind Daniel Jones. And I don't think he's, I think Deshaun Watson is a better passenger than Daniel Jones. I think he's a better quarterback than Daniel Jones. I don't think he's a more useful player than Daniel Jones. is at this point. At least Daniel Jones has a thing he can do. Like, it's running a zone read,

but at least it's something you can build around. But I do like the fact that you guys on the Philly podcast, we're having a discussion about Philly coaching candidates when they have a head coach who is very much employed still and very much under contract, which is just perfect, perfectly off. That's giving me a lot of content this. I mean, that wasn't a one of the movies. That was almost a weekly segment. Just a pre-fired Nick Seriani segment every week. But does it? say something about Kevin Stefanski that he say what you want about Deshawn Watson and we've said a lot of things about him even on this podcast and you could say a lot of things about him off the field but he was a talented quarterback bill O'Brien turned him into a quarterback that we were discussing

in the same terms as Patrick Mahomes yeah it doesn't say something about Kevin Stafancy that he hasn't gotten more out of this guy because there is talent like even if he's a bad player now you still see some talented throws on tape if you watch late last year and he hasn't been able to blend or adjust his scheme to get the most out of this quarterback that does have some talent in there. I think we do have to ask some questions about Stefan's key if this is a total failure. I think that's fair. And I think that kind of dovetails into why I have real concerns about whether or not he gets to keep this job unless he and Ken Dorsey have like a beautiful marriage of passing game and

style of quarterback play, right? Because the selling point for Deshaun Watson when he was traded to Cleveland was that, okay, he's going to open up this offense in a way where you can go empty, you can go spread. and it is not just going empty and spread to play quick game. Like you said, Steve, and this is a guy that could improvise in the pocket. He could extend out of structure. If he could push the ball down the field, he would work the middle of the field. And that's a dynamic that was supposed to be brought to this offense.

And we have seen literally none of that. We haven't seen it in the play action game. We haven't seen it in the dropback game. They have not been able to find a way to meld, watch and style in the Stefanski's offense. And I think unless you see something significantly change and this team win a playoff game, home or road, what is going to be the sales pitch for the Browns if they want to stay competitive in the AFC to keep their head coach here, knowing that they're still going to be tied to this quarterback for another couple of seasons? Bill O'Brien did nothing wrong. Is that what we're saying?

Bill O'Brien, you got the most out of Deshaun Watson. They look good. That's not a name. I could say anything that positive about, but he was definitely been the best for Watson so far, and it hasn't even been an arguable conversation. BC looked pretty good against Florida State, too. I don't know. Everything's looking dogs. I'm just saying, straight off. I think that says more about Florida State. Yeah, no, the Watson thing is hard to answer, honestly,

because we all saw him early in his career. Like, yeah, he was one. Like, if you were making a list of like the top five quarterbacks you would want for your team for the next decade, he probably would have been on there, certainly top 10. And so you don't know exactly where the disconnect is, who to blame have injuries taken a toll. When you get, you know, this much money guaranteed, does it? it affects stuff when, you know, the allegation from over two dozen women for his mistreatment. Is that like, it's so much stuff that you can't really pinpoint.

Oh, yeah, no, I think it's definitely this. But again, Stefansky has, does have the track record. Watson hasn't been that guy since 2020. So I'm more inclined to say, I still believe in the coach and maybe the quarterback's never going to be the guy he was previously, but we shall see. All right, Ruiz. I mean, that was a good. The ante started us off hot.

I mean, I feel like we could have done. 30 minutes on that alone. What do you have for your first one? I mean, since we're benching quarterbacks, I'm just going to keep the momentum going. Spencer Rattler not only starts in New Orleans at some point this year, he receives at least one rookie of the year vote. I like this one. First of all, I know it's preseason. I want to preface it with this. His tape, that's what it looks like. That's what a good young quarterback prospect looked like. I don't care where he was drafted. If he was a second round pick and he put up tape like that in the preseason, I would be jumping for joy. If he was drafted where Bo Nix was drafted

and put up that type of preseason tape, I would be very happy. It's not just that he's played well statistically. I think it's the process. Like when you break down the plays, the touchdown throw against the Titans in the last game where they're getting like a Sabin style cover. It's like a stubby style of coverage. I don't want to explain all that.

But like he's reading the safety. He's got a tight end kind of down the pipe. He's got a slot receiver running like a slot fade. He's reading the safety 25 yards downfield and making a quick decision than making a throw into a tight window for a touchdown. That's not what you see out of rookie quarterbacks, and he's handling that. And there are plays like that all over his tape from preseason. On top of that, I mean,

this is just like a, I'm tired of Derek Carr, get Derek Carr off my screen type of thing. Like enough. I've seen enough checkdowns. I've seen enough throwaways on fourth down. I think Saints fans have seen enough. Like you go on Twitter, Saints fans are journeying for Spencer Rattler right now. They're not like Raiders fans where Raiders fans were kind of predisposed to hoping Derek Carr worked out. You know, they drafted him. paying him. They saw him lead them to the playoffs. And I still can't believe we had to argue with Raiders fans about Derek Carr being the guy. Like, you guys, this is like the black hole. This is Raider Nation. You guys are supposed to be the toughest fan base. And you guys used to cape for this quarterback,

who I would describe as soft, quote unquote, four football player. And I think Spencer Radler is like the opposite of that. I think he's everything that Derek Carr should have been with that skill set that Derek Carr had. And I think Saints fans have seen it. I think the coaching staff is going to see it. I think if they get off to a bad start and you look at the beginning of their schedule, that's very much on the table. I wouldn't be surprised around week six, week seven, week eight that we're talking about Spencer Rattler. And if he gets in there, I expect him to play well.

Because that receiving core is good. The offensive line is probably. But that receiving core is good. Deontze, where are you with Spencer Rattler, Derek Carr, the Saints? I think my biggest concern is that it speaks more to Derek Carr and where he's at in his career than it does to Spencer Rattler. If this was rookie contract, Derek Carr, who was still willing to sit in the pocket and work through a progression and try to find guys in the middle of the field or push the ball downfield, I would be a little bit more dismissive of this. But when I look at their tackle situation without Ryan Ramshick, you're going to have to play Trevor Penning now.

You've got a young tackle in Taliazifuaga, who I think can be good. But the best tape of his was not as a pass protector. And he's going to have a lot on his plate in this offense. I have some real concerns about whether or not Derek Carr has guys open in the middle of the field because there is speed at the receiver position for them. And he's just throwing checkdowns to, you know, to tight ends, to fullbacks, to Alvin Camara out of the backfield. And that's just not inspiring enough to make an argument not to give Spencer Rattler a look if things are really kind of starting to bottom out the way that I think it can for this offense. I don't know, I don't know if Spencer Ranner is necessarily a ceiling razor as much as I think it just might be more functional for the offense. that Clint Kuviak wants to run in terms of play action game, throwing in breakers,

you know, being on time and throwing a ball in the middle of the field. Stephen kind of detailed it, and you saw it to last year at South Carolina, despite the fact that he was taking pressure often, if not all the time, in college. He was still willing to try to work through the progression. And I think we got to see a maturation from his last year at South Carolina through the preseason that should be pretty encouraging, that he could at least be functional within this offense if he knows how to play in structure when things aren't breaking down. So I don't hate it.

I don't hate it for New Orleans. And again, if this thing bottoms out the way, I think that it might, there might be an argument for them looking around and saying, like, hey, this is kind of a sunk cost for us with Derek Carr until we get to a more comfortable position to let him go. We might need to take a look at a young. I think the point about, like, him going through the progression is a good point. Because what you've seen in preseason at least, I didn't watch too much of him at South Carolina.

I watched a couple games earlier in the year. he didn't speed through his progression even though that supporting cast at South Carolina and the defenses he faced in the SEC gave him plenty of reason to speed through a progression and that has been Derek Carr's biggest weaknesses he takes shortcuts in his progression he fast forwards to the checkdown

when he could wait things out and read things out and let plays develop down the field I think the fact that we've seen this juxtapose next to Derek Carr just makes this highlights those attributes in Rattler even more and I think the coaching staff Like if I if I if I is week three and we just lost the Eagles and I'm watching the tape and I just saw Derek Carr fast forward through a progression and throw a checkdown that was doomed to fail on third down and I see that we have Radler and I see him you know working through his progressions and practice and I remember it from preseason you know I'm thinking let's just make a move let's just make a move like we're not really pop committed to Derek Carr I know financially we kind of are but no one no one thinks highly of us there isn't expectations here we can start over honestly I don't don't know why he's not starting week one. I'd start him week one. I don't think he's a better

quarterback than Derek Hart right now, but I'd start him in week one. Now, you don't have a rookie of the year vote, Ruiz, right? Because then you could kind of fix this so that, you know, he gets one. Okay, so you can't do that. I will try to bribe Nora. You can't, you're allowed to bribe. You can't. Yeah, no, that's allowed, just as long as you do something for, yeah, I don't have any strong Spencer Rattler takes, but I think your point about the car fatigue. I mean, it's just like what fan base could feel more fatigue about their quarterback than the Saints. And to your point, not just the fans. I mean, you think about the teammates and the coach is the coach like, you know, a dead man walking here. We're like, what does he have to do to save his job?

And then the offensive line, like for a while at least you could kind of count on their offensive line. You can't count on their offensive line now either. So there's just a lot of balls in the air there in New Orleans where I feel like it's not going to go well. And what you said, it certainly wouldn't shock me. All right. My first. first one, it's not as exciting as either a you or two. I think this is a media take, you know, so maybe I should give this on the press box with Brian Curtis. But I think Belichick and Brady are both going to crush their media gigs. And I have not been afraid to criticize either guy when I've, when I've needed to over the years. But I honestly can't believe

how good Belichick and how comfortable he seems at this. During the draft, I thought he was terrific. And I just feel like he's in such a unique spot for an analyst where he was just scouting and game planning and scheming for all these different coordinators and players last year. Now he's going right into the media. He has a better sense of history than anyone else in the media space. Like you could ask him questions about what, you know, Miles Garrett versus Reggie White. Like he could actually give you answers to these questions in a way that's going to be awesome for content. And it seems like he has opinions that he's It's not going to be vanilla.

So I think he did a really good job of, like, choosing the outlets where he's able to do what he wants to do. Like, he's doing the Peyton Manning thing. He's doing a YouTube thing with Underdog, which I didn't know that was Matt Patricia asking him questions until Mina Kimes said, like, big surprise at five seconds. And I'm like, I watch this. What was the big surprise? Then I'm like, what? He said, Bree Saul, that's not that surprise. And I'm like, oh, my God, that's Matt Patricia.

Asking him, Matt Patricia is still getting paychecks on the back. of Bill Belichick. Is he the host? By the way, I don't know. In that one, he was. So listen, he's out there.

Yeah, find, find friends who can, you know, help you put food on the table. Not a bad life strategy there for Matt Patricia. So I'm excited about the Bill Belichick, content creator era starting here, whether it's for one year or for more.

I just think he's going to make everyone smarter. I think in the circles we're in online, those clips are just going to be going viral. Oh my gosh, this was awesome. and I think it's going to be a lot of fun with Bill Belichick. And then Brady is the other one where he's going to call his first game on Sunday. I think he's doing Cowboys Browns for Fox.

And there's this weird thing where his ownership with the Raiders is pending. So he can't like meet with coaches and players. He can't do production meetings. I think it's going to be fine. Tom Brady watching the film and then dissecting what's happening in real time, I think that's going to work out pretty well. The bar to clear for color commentator in the NFL. It's like, don't be annoying.

Don't be like, don't make it so obvious that you didn't do any preparation and have no idea what you're talking about. He's going to clear those bars. And then maybe he'll be really good. He'll be really entertaining. So there you go. That's my media take. Pro Belichick, pro Brady coming out of my mouth that I think they're both going to be very good at this. Deonti, I saw you were doing some nodding.

I don't know if you're there. I don't know. Where do you land on these two guys? So I think the take, I actually think that this take probably plays out to be correct. I just think that people will like them for interesting and maybe some unique reasons. Like I think for Belichick, it's going to work because this will be an opportunity to hear him talk about the game and the kind of joy that it brings them. Right. And we don't really get access into that. Right. Is hearing a guy like that who's as accomplished who has been around for three and a half, four decades now, you know, in the football world, talk about how much he's, you know, how much he's. enjoys the sport, appreciating the players as they are. And breaking down the game in a way, like you said, that maybe he's the only guy that has the reference points that he does that we have access to right now. So I think that that could be really interesting and we get to see personality for him. I think that on the other hand, with Brady, people are going to like him

for reasons maybe that I'll dislike him, right? Like, I think that he'll have an opportunity to kind of play as a shack figure in NFL broadcast media. Right. And I think we've already heard some hints at that. Basically. Yeah, basically. So, you know, we've heard some hints at that, right, where it's like, oh, you know, these offenses aren't doing anything for the quarterbacks. Oh, these quarterbacks are not doing anything for their receivers. This is what's wrong with the offensive side of the ball in today's game. And I think there's a lot of merit to what he's saying, right? He's detailed reasons why the sport is being played differently than it was when he came into the league. And I think that you can look at that and say that it's for better and for worse when you

listen to him kind of draw out some of his points. I just think that what we're going to get is less of early Tony Romo. Oh, I'm going to look at the defensive shell and the offensive formation and say, okay, here's what play I think is coming. And I think we're going to get more of that. That's the wrong read. Bad progression. Bad play call offensive coordinator.

This is a bad situation for this. Bad situation for that. You should have checked into a run here. You should have checked the protection here. And I think that fans will like that. The casual fan will like to hear that from arguably the greatest quarterback. play. It's just going to maybe kind of grind my ears a little bit because I think it can be a little bit reductive to just take the stance of these guys are not as good as me. You guys aren't getting

30 and 20 from the post every game. You're not, you know, you're not completing 75% of your passes on third down and moving the sticks the way that I did when I was in New England, right? So that's kind of something that I'm really keen to see how it plays out and how it's received once the season gets here. And so I might as well skip ahead of Deonté for my next one, because mine was also Brady related. I went to complete opposite direction to shield for a lot of the reasons that Deonté just laid out. My next one is that Tom Brady is going to be one and done as a commentator. We're getting one year Brady, he's out of here. And honestly, like, I'm looking forward to Brady criticizing quarterbacks. I know Deontay isn't, but that's,

that's my shit. Like that I love doing that. So I can't wait to hear Brady do it. And if he, he has some takes that align with my takes, even better. And if I can make fun of Brady's takes, that's going to make me feel better about myself. But, He has said that. He has said, I have high standards for this game. And I'm going to call the game, like, with those standards in mind. So I could see him ruffling a few feathers, getting some backlash and being like, I don't want to do this anymore.

This isn't like a thing we typically see of, like, the goats of their sports. Like, we didn't see Michael Jordan go into commentary. You know, Tiger Woods isn't doing like the U.S. Open. I thought you were going to say criticizing players. I'm like, have you not heard Michael Jordan? No, but, okay, no, you're talking about, okay, going into. What I'm saying by that is like, you're too good for this, Brady, like, go live the goat life.

Go live a better life. It's like the opposite of go and be a family man. Go and don't be a family man. Like, enjoy your buddy. Enjoy the fact that you don't have to work anymore. Don't do what Rich Gannon is doing. Come on, man. You don't have to do this.

And then there's the team owner thing that you mentioned at the beginning, which is going to complicate things a little bit. Apparently, like, Brady can't meet with coaches and players and production meetings before the games. And honestly, I just think it's weird to have a team owner. He's not the owner yet. going to be a minority owner with the Raiders, like, commentating games. And if he's doing, if he's locked into certain games as a Fox commentator, which you would imagine he would be,

like, doing the game of the week, like, what if the Raiders are in there? I don't want to hear the team owner calling the game. So I can see that complicating matters. I would not be surprised if Brady's like, I don't need this in my life. I don't need the money. It's not worth, the juice isn't worth this squeeze. I'm getting criticized because of my takes because I I called Derek Carr a loser on air. He doesn't need this. Just go to a beach, man. What I think is so interesting about what you guys just laid out, and I agreed with it,

as you said it, was that we expect Belichick to be expressing joy and Brady to be a Miserab and the next day. I mean, think about that. If you would have said that, like, during their playing days, you're being like, what? But the point about Joey, so he's been in, Belichick's been in our lives for so long. we get the little snippets on like the NFL specials and stuff. And everyone's like, oh, that's cool. Or he answers the one question on a Friday press conference.

And everyone's like, wow, he actually explains something. Like, now that is his job. So yes. And I agree with you. It does bring him joy. Like you can see, he's actually excited about it. He's not boring when he's talking about it. There's something there.

This has been his life's work. And now he gets to talk about it. So I think that's going to work. With Brady, he hasn't done. He hasn't been successful at anything else in his life. I mean, he's had other events. ventures and nothing has been a success. So I don't know that he has like,

oh, I don't need this. I'll go do X. There is no X. He's been a, I don't know, failure is the right word, but he certainly hasn't been like a massive success at any of the other stuff.

But yeah, I will be annoyed if that's his whole schick that all, you know, offenses today, quarterbacks today. Oh, my God, these RPA. Like that,

that will grind my gears and I will rip on him. I hope he does it. I hope he does it. I hope he does it every week. I just picture you and Brady on like quarterback Haters group chat just you too like oh my gosh did you see that from uh derrick car uh it's it's always derrick car that's there was the story about brady being like oh like i think he had like an interview where he's like you're keeping uh you're not going after me for that guy you're keeping

that guy and you didn't turn out to be derrick car i think was garoppelow i could be wrong no pretty sure was Derek car it was like another team yeah i think he was another i think it was the raiders where you know sniffing around trying to sign him after he left new england And he might have already talked shit about Derek Carr. So hopefully he calls a Saints game and it's before Spencer Rattler takes over. All right. We're going to take a break. Tough episode for Derek Carr.

If you listen, if you're going to take a break. We'll come back. Maybe with some non-Daric Car takes, maybe with some more Derek Car takes. Football is back and there's no better place to get in on the NFL action than Fandul, America's number one sports book. Because right now all customers can bet $5. and get a three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. Then you'll be able to watch every regular season Sunday afternoon out-of-market game.

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I felt strongly about the Belichick one, but then I'm like, well, Brady's a huge story. You know, I think he'll be fine. So we'll see. One and done, I don't know. It's a lot of money to leave on the table. I know he has a lot of money, but that's a lot of money. I don't know. Like you said, failed ventures outside of football.

maybe he needs the paycheck. Maybe Tom's limited paycheck to paycheck. There you go. Someone's going to pay me what? And I get you private chat? Where I get to leave right after the game? 37? Okay, yeah.

I can go watch some Derek Carr film for that. All right. Deonté, what do you have? What's your second take? So my second take, I think, is it's almost cheating, but it's something I've thought about. And I say it's cheating because I was listening to you and Bo on the Philly Special podcast.

And it's something that I've had in the back of my mind. You look at the Eagles depth chart, especially on the interior offensive line. And behind Cam Jerkins, there really isn't like a clear center option for them. They have guys that can maybe do it in a pinch. You have Nick Gates on the practice squad. You have Dylan McMahon on the practice squad if you had to elevate a guy. But nothing that looks clear. And I think she'll, you know where I'm going with this.

Even if there's 3 and O going into the by week, you come out of the by with Jason Kelsey as your starting center. This is Cope. You're wishcasting. Deiante is on fire. We should have been a weekly episode we did here. This is fantastic. And again, it comes back to depth, right? It comes back to depth.

And I don't think that they're going to have problems in moving the ball. We saw this last year. They were fine with DeAndre Swift as a leadback. And that's not to say that he's a bad player, but you're going to get so many two high shells. You're going to get so many favorable boxes. And you have one of the best run game coordinators in the NFL with Jeff Stoutland. So I do think that you,

can make a reliable run game out of what they have. The issue really is that if anything at all happens to Cam Jerkins, what it does to the rest of the offensive line depth could be bordering catastrophic. We don't even know if Mackay Beckton can get through several weeks as a starter, right? That's a concern in its own. If he goes down, that throws the interior of the offensive line into a bit of an issue, you know, makes a bit of an issue out of that. So for those reasons, I don't think that, you know, Jason Kelsey is anywhere near being in playing shape right now. But hey, man, drinking a couple milkshakes, spent a few weeks at the gym, take down a couple cheeseburgers, you know, throw the 30 pounds that you've lost, you know, back on the frame.

And maybe we can get something out of you to finish the rest of the year. So I think that that's something that should genuinely maybe be on the radar of Eagles fans when you look at where the roster stands right now. That sounds like my diet during football season. That sounds like my diet for the next four months. Well, all right, so here's the scenario. And it is an interesting hypothetical to think about because I just saw the Kelsey promo for I guess it was whatever he's doing on ESPN.

He looks good. He's got, you know, he's got the polo tucked in. I've never seen Jason Kelsey like that when I covered him or watched him dress like that. He's got the hair's cut nice. He's got the beard. Now, I did hear him with Chris Long's that his wife has made a rule that like he needs to work out three days a week because when he doesn't get out of the house and work out, He's just like impossible to be around.

So maybe he's still working out there from a sort of narrative. He's already like a hero in Philadelphia to, you know, I think the scenario would be they have an injury. Cam Juergens goes down, but the team is good. They don't have a backup. They need someone to come in and save the day. Jason Kelsey, do you have 12 more games in you, eight more games and you, whatever it is, 10 more. Hey, the team's good. The team's got a good record when we're asking you to do this.

Maybe there's like, you know, he's got whatever that deal was he got from, with new heights. He doesn't exactly need the money. Maybe he says, pay me this. But all this money's going to giving air conditioning to every Philadelphia public school because these kids are getting sent home on these early days. And as Jalen Hertz's initiative and I'm jumping. I mean, there are so many ways it could go where he could kind of be an ambassador. You miss training camp, which is the worst part of the season for a veteran like Jason Kelsey.

All you have to do, you get to hang out in the locker room. during the week, you practice a little bit, not a lot, and then you get to play in games. Like, you're only doing the most fun parts of the job. I feel like you're missing one thing there. You have to, you know, hike the football and be the center of a human pile. You could do that in his sleep. He's been doing that for 12 years. Or yeah, maybe he does.

Maybe he says, all right, fine, but no, I'm not doing the tush push. That's terrible. Come up with a different short yardage situation. I'm not signing up for that. Yeah, I'm looking at RLads right now. The backup center is actually Big Dom. That's, that's surprising. So there you go.

Big, big Dom. Jason Kelsey. All right. I like it. A surprise. Jason Kelsey on retirement is Deontes' second one. I love it. All right.

My second one. We get an in-season quarterback trade. This pretty much never happens. We know. It's like, oh, you can't bring this guy in. He's got to pick up a new offense. The setting protections.

chemistry with wide receivers. It's not going to work. I understand it's a long shot, but let me paint some scenarios for you. You guys tell me if any of them you can see in your mind at some point. All right, number one, the Kurt Cousin's experiment. It's just not working. He's average. It's clear to everyone in the building. Michael Pennix Jr. The locker room is just behind him. Maybe you have some cryptic tweets from like a Kyle Pitts or a Drake London or just a off cuff comment in an interview that man, Penix is slinging. Or maybe it's Jesse Bates. It's always good when it's the defensive player.

Man, in practice, Penix, it's just slicing us up right now. Kirk Cuthons, it's not really working out. And so the Falcons say, you know what? We got to play Pennix. I know we have. And by the way, don't talk to me about dead cap and salary. There's always ways around that. Okay, we'll get to that in another episode.

Maybe a team like the Steelers, the Raiders, the Giants. I don't know. Some team that's like kind of in that mix, someone trying to save their job, they're just trying to get in the playoffs. they say, all right, Falcons, we'll throw you some draft compensation for Kirk Cousin. So that's one. Two is the most fun.

Dak Prescott. Still no contract. We are days away from the Cowboys starting their season where Dak Prescott's going to be 17 games away from being one of the only good quarterbacks to potentially hit unrestricted free agency. They've had all their talks. They know what Dak Prescott wants. You know, he knows what they're willing to offer. They say, you know what, we're having the year from hell, these rookie offensive linemen, they're not playing that well.

Maybe they've had an injury or two. A desperate team. Maybe the Raiders. Maybe the Steelers. They say, we're in the mix here. Like, we'll go for it. I know it's only half a season. Dak, we want you here long term.

We understand you might not want to do that until after the season. It's a half a season trade. Come in. You're going to like it here. We're going to have a long lasting marriage. Let's go. Get away from Jerry. He doesn't want to pay you.

We're going to pay you eventually. come salvage your season. Deck Prescott. That's two. Three. Matthew Stafford, this offensive line. MVP in the week?

Maybe for another team. As an MVP ever got traded in season? This offensive line situation, I was just looking at Jordan Rodriguez's coverage this morning. Like Jonah Jackson is getting reps now at center and they're moving Steve Avilia back to Guard and their Aleric Jackson, their left tackle suspended for the first two games.

Rob having, Einstein is that entry is like that is a very bizarre situation. There was weird stuff with his contract early in training camp where I'm still not sure exactly what happened or how it got settled. So maybe they get off to a bad start. Maybe their defense stinks. Stafford's going into his age 37 season next year. Maybe they say, you know what?

We kind of thought this marriage was going to end at the end of the year after one last shot, but that last shot's not working. So Matthew Stafford. And then the last one's pretty boring. But Jacobi Burset, I mean, if he's not going to play in New England, the guy could be an upgrade for some of these teams. And he signed a one-year deal. So if they're going to play Drake May early in this season and your team, like, say,

the Minnesota Vikings, wouldn't you, it's not going to cost much? Wouldn't you just take a flyer on a guy like Jacoby Bresset? Maybe he can get you to a level of competence. All right, Ruiz, those are the quarterbacks I came up with, a quarterback trade in season where they all completely ridiculous. and you say, shut up, let's move on to the next point. That was a waste of five minutes of my life. Or did any of them at least give you a little ounce of intrigue

where you say, all right, at least you kept my attention there. Dak and Saffert are not getting traded. I think that was nonsense. But I do like this. I think the Raiders are the team that could delude themselves into making a trade and selling out and shelling out a bunch of draft picks. I'm looking at their schedule. They could start 4 and 1.

They play the Chargers. I can see them pulling that upset. They're getting killed by the Ravens. So, that's, chalk week two, up to a loss. But then the Panthers come to Las Vegas. The Browns come to Las Vegas. They go to Denver, and then they get the Steelers. If they're like four and one, you know, maybe they win five games out of those first six.

The next two games are against the Rams and the Chiefs, I think they come back crashing down to Earth. I think Gardner Minchu has terrible games, especially against Spags. Spaggs is going to eat that man for lunch. You have the Bengals next, and then it's the buy week. And that's around the trade deadline. So you could make that trade in week nine. You would have the buy week in week 10. You can onboard that quarterback for week 11 for.

for the stretch run, you have a winning record. I think it works. The problem is, it probably is Jacobi Percent. It's not going to beat Dak Prescott and Matthew Stafford. I love Jacobi Percent. I think he should get a chance to start, but he's not taking him to the playoffs in the AFC. I'm sorry.

So I can see it happening. It's just not going to work out in the way that they hope. Deonté, what do you think? I like where Stephen kind of spun it forward with the Raiders. That would have been the one I think that's most likely. I looked at the Rams schedule. And while I think that like Sean McVey came up under John Gruden, he is way too Gruden coded, I think, to trade away a great quarterback and be left with like Stetson Bennett or Jimmy Crabla as a starter. I hate to see the email John Gruden sends to Shaw McVay if he trades a week back to Staphrie.

Exactly. But you look at the RAM schedule, right, for all these offensive line issues that you're detailing shield, they open the season with the lions. And they have the 49ers, the Bears, and the Packers, before we. get to mid-October. So it is entirely possible that that team has one win throughout like the first five, six weeks if things go as poorly as it could. And you look at the fact that they just traded away Ernest Jones. So you got a really young defense with some, you know, where they're not young, they have aging guys that came off of injured years or down seasons. It is entirely possible that we look at this team that everybody talks about being, you know, one of the more competitive

teams in the NFC, maybe one of those sneaky teams you don't want to play late in the year. it might be out of the picture before Halloween. And I would love to see just kind of the way that this franchise would approach that, even though I don't think they would deal Stafford. The Falcons one would just be funny for just for the sake of, like, them trying to spin this as, hey, this was the greatest scheme we've ever put together. We brought in a quarterback that we knew would still be valuable and drafted a young guy and we were able to recuperate all this draft capital, despite paying this guy $100 million

fresh off of an Achilles tear. That would probably be the funniest. but I do think the most likely of what you detailed is the Raiders going to get like a Berset guy one of those fringe starters or high quality backup types. Maybe even a Joe Flacco, right, who was backing up Anthony Richardson in Indianapolis

and maybe you try to squeeze out of him what the Browns were able to last year if they are kind of late in the season and still in the wildcard picture. Listen, Falcons fans, whoever else, it's not your money. These owners are going to be. All dead money means is you're paying somebody

money who's no longer on your roster. It's okay. You're paying him either way. It's getting your cap either way. Maybe you get some draft compensation back. He's going to be okay. The owners can lose a little money. Don't be defending. It's also Kirk Cousins. You can give up on Kirk Couss. This is the fan base that watched Michael Vick Electrify the Georgia team. I know. Kirk Cousin's going to look like Chris Chandler compared to him. I know. It's weird because they had the Vic era, which was so exciting for most of it until the way it ended. But then, yeah, and then last year was basically as bad of a situation. as you could have as a fan watching your quarterback.

And so now, yeah, they kind of just want to reach that. Yeah, be boring, but don't be terrible. That's fine. And I think that defines Kirk Cousins pretty well there. All right. The only thing worse in the end of the Michael Vick and Bobby Petrino era was watching Desmond Ritter play. Is that what you're saying, Jill?

You're putting words in my mouth. That's not what I said. And I'm going to move on right along to our final takes. After this, we'll take one more break. And then we'll get to our final off the wall. predictions. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. What was Petrino? He left the note, right? That was the thing. He didn't hold the meeting. He just left the note. It was typed up. It was on letterhead. At least he went all out. It would have been worse. It was just like a handwritten note.

We don't get good stuff like that anymore. Coaches. Yeah, bring back faxing the reason. Yeah. Didn't that Bill Belichick write like, I'm retired of head coach of NYJ? He didn't even put out, he wrote the abbreviation. Yeah. We can do shorthy. that works as well. All right, Ruiz, give us your final one off the wall prediction. What do you now? I'm kind of happy you guys talked me down from like the Rams hype and Matthew Stafford. Because I'm kind of contradicting my Matthew Stafford as MVP pick here. I'm going for the first time since Peyton Manning and Steve McNair and I believe 2003, we're getting co-MvPs this year. Two MVP's. And the reason why I say that is because there are so many viable options like

going into the preseason in the homes, Allen, Burroughs, Stroud, Love, Lamar, Brock Purdy is even what. Jalen Hertz, he was right there two years ago. I could see them doing that. And I think it's becoming harder to kind of separate these performances and like add in the context, too. We saw this last year, the MVP discussion was so heated. It felt like it changed every week. But I do feel like how the results went, it kind of made things more convenient. It felt like that that Grim Reaper meme where like every week there was an MVP candidate that got knocked off his purse. Like at first it was Jalen Hertz. Remember what Jalen Hertz was the MVP candidate last year? And then the 49ers game happens. And then Dack becomes the favor. And then the Bill's game happens. Purdy has the Ravens game.

And the one guy that didn't have one of those games was Lamar Jackson. Well, he had it earlier in the year, but he just kept winning at the end. So it was really easy to be like, Lamar Jackson, he's the MVP. He's the last one standing. What if we don't get that this year? What if we don't get that like perfect alignment of results? And we have this this logjam of MVP candidates. And there's just no way to really separate it. Because how do you compare what Josh Allen does to what Brock Purdy does to what Patrick Mahomes does to what Lamar Jackson does?

Just totally different roles in their office. And I think the fact that we've seen like more archetypes of quarterbacks, I think like in the early 2000s, every quarterback was basically the same. Like, you know, there were great pocket passers. They didn't make mistakes. They didn't throw interceptions.

Now you have like a Mahomes type. You have an Allen type, which is different from Mahomes. You have like the game manager type or the system quarterback type. You have Joe Burrow, who I think doesn't fit into any of these, like, modern boxes. So I think the discussion is becoming more complicated. And with all these viable candidates this year, I think it's going to be another mess of a year. And I wouldn't be surprised if somehow, some way, we get two guys that end up with the same amount of points. I like that. Now, how was that, how does that, so that means, okay, so the voters, it has to be exactly the same. I forget how they do it.

You vote for a top five. Is that what they do? Yeah. So it has changed where I think it's more unlikely than it was in 2003, I think. Yeah, that's what I was one. Does it have to be the exact same points, like you said? Yeah. And now we have like ordered choice, which does make things more complicated. But I don't want that to give it the way of little content,

a little same too. You didn't need to bring it up. No, I like that. That would make it even more special. Like, oh my gosh, the odds of this happening. And Ruiz called it before the season. Incredible.

Deonti. What do you think about what? I like what Ruiz was saying there about the sort of different quarterback styles. That does seem kind of like a, another defining factor of the league right now. I like the way that he laid that out with quarterback styles as well. And the funny thought that I had was,

you know what we'll make this most likely is that, A, we have all this voter fatigue and just fan fatigue with the chiefs. So I think that short of my home's breaking passing records, you're probably not going to see him in consideration for MVP. And then maybe a guy like Josh Allen has like that turnover season from hell that we were talking about last week. Right.

So guys who I think are established names, in the MVP race are maybe not available. And then you're left with like Jared Goff leading the league and a bunch of passing metrics. And voters are just like, no, I'm not, that's not going to be my first place vote. And you just get so many split votes, you know, that even, you know, despite us having like, you know, a order choice system where the points are distributed a little bit differently, maybe just by, you know, kind of dissipating votes for every one of these candidates because they're not as established names that we think about in the MVP race that we land was,

like a Jared Gough plus like Jordan Love co-MVP or a Jared golf plus C.J. Strout like co-MVP. Something that just makes everybody mad and we're all arguing for the next, you know, six, eight months. You know what happens? Every, all the top quarterbacks get canceled out. They both get canceled out. Derek Carr MVP.

You know, it's like, it's like the heart of every, not every, but so many discussions right now is just like, what does the quarterback do to lift everyone else up? versus what does the surroundings do to lift the quarterback up? I mean, I know Ruiz probably for quarterback rankings. You're dealing with that every week. I did my trade value rankings on the ringer.com, and it was the same thing. I'm like, I don't know.

Like, what would a team trade for Brock Purdy right now? Like, I have no idea. Would teams be like, oh, man, look, he's a young quarterback. He's been great numbers the last two seasons. He's gotten to his Super Bowl. Seems to have, you know, great. Can operate. Yeah, we'll give up a first round pick for him.

Or is it going to be like, no way. like Kyle Shanahan coaching him and that's supporting cast we bring him here he's going to be terrible like I don't know the answer to that question and that's so many of these guys and even the styles like the dual threat guys like Lamar Josh Allen and Jalen and Jalen Hersch just think about how different those three players are like they're all yes they can hurt you with their legs in the designed run game and as scramblers but it's in a totally different way than you have like Joe Burrow and like deck Prescott in like this kind of old school work controlling the game at the line of scrimmage and winning with accuracy. And there just are so many different types of quarterbacks now and then guys who get dinged because like Jared Goff, Brock Purdy, where it's like, well, are they, you know, how much are they actually doing given the supporting cast there? So yeah, that discussion is one that will continue, regardless of how this season goes, we're going to be having those discussions on this podcast.

MVP voters are going to have to decide on those discussions. And I like it. Co-MVPs potentially. We got to bring that one back. like after Thanksgiving when people are, you know, having all of those arguments. All right. Deonti, you got one more, right? What's your last one here?

I don't even know if this one is feasible financially. I already said earlier. But I don't want to get tired up in those. Yeah, convert the salary to signing bonus. Listen, you'll be fine. Yeah, I'm not going to bother with all that. But my last one is that the Ravens trade for a distressed asset in Eddrusher, Hassan Reddick. give him a two-year extension and he ends up being the missing piece in terms of edge rush that

they need to make a deep playoff run. Fantastic. I love it. It makes so much sense. I can picture him in the uniform. I can picture him making big plays in January. I can picture it being a Ravensie thing to do. Joe Douglas has the Ravens tie still.

Maybe they're like, dude, we'll do you a favor. It's looking bad for you. He's not going to sign with it. Yeah, I don't know how that thing's going to end. As of this, you know, recording Redick, I believe, is the only whole. out remaining in the NFL. I mean, you look at like most productive pass rushers over the last two, three years. He's on every list. Sacks, hits, hurries, pressure rate, quick pressures, whatever you want to look at. And it's just like, is this guy not going to be playing football

for the first week, for the first month? Whatever, Ruiz, what do you think? I love that one. No, I love that. I pick the Ravens to win the Super Bowl. So anything that will help that cause, I agree with. But it makes sense on paper. And I think this, this, this, partnership is beyond repair at this point. I don't know how you repair this. I guess just paying the man what he wants. But we don't have a single picture of this man wearing Jets green. And he was trained a months ago. Not even like a Jet, not a Photoshop. Like a hat, not a starter jacket, not sweatpants. We don't have any evidence that this man has ever worn anything with jets on them. Frank Ford was more of an eagle than, uh, than Hassan Redick was a jet.

And I don't think Frank Gord did anything with the Eagles. But yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. And I like the fact that, you know, Joe Douglas does have a connection to Baltimore. I think that makes it easier. You know, I love the idea that if this trade does happen and you're a Jets fan, you got to get the custom Reddick jersey. I mean, go on, that's going to, yeah, what better jersey could you have to wear for like the next 10 years? There's only a certain level of fan that will understand what you're actually doing there.

It'll be fun. That'd be much better than, you know, like Briseall, Garrett Wilson aren't great players, but what would be funnier than walking around with the Jets of Sun Reddick Jersey? And then the last thing I wanted to make, right, is from Baltimore's perspective, that's not something that's unprecedented for them. They like offering, you know, fourth, fifth round picks to bring in distressed assets, guys who have had contract disputes, guys who are in the last year of their deals that are vets, that are useful players.

They did that with Anquan Bolton. They did it with Calais Campbell. They did it with Janik and Gokwe, right? They obviously did it with Roquan. Smith a couple of years ago. Marcus Peters as well, right? There is a history of them getting to that midseason point and looking around and saying, okay, we know we can identify a veteran that will give us instant impact right now that

we can go get at a discount. And a player like Hassan Redick for them, it's not even like they have to sign them to a long-term extension, right? In my head, like you said, you convert some, you convert some cap dollars into a signing bonus. Maybe you say, hey, we'll pay you near, you know, that top-tier market rate for a year with a non-guaranteed year at the end. And let's come back to the table in 2025. And if you like it here, then we can talk about making some contract concessions because

you know they're not going to pay at the top of the market for a veteran. And if you don't like it here, hey, go get paid. Thank you for your services. Go get paid. And that's something that they've been comfortable with veterans as well. We just saw it would you Davey and Clowny. Right. Like they don't necessarily feel like they have to extend some of their older players that they have on roster. So I think that that's something that can make sense for them. and something that I wouldn't be surprised to have on the radar for them at the midseason point, even if it's not specifically on Reddick. And they could point to their track record of being able to get edge players paid down the line

to, I think, kind of convinced Reddick to come in. And then I just think that's what this defense needs. Like you go back and you watch that AFC title game, the reason why they didn't win that game, well, they didn't score down points, but also they couldn't get Patrick Mahomes down when they pressured him. They couldn't finish those plays off. And you can say what you want about, Son Reddick's defense on first and second, but on third down, he's going to finish those plays. And maybe Travis Kelsey doesn't make a miraculous grab on third and long, or maybe he doesn't

make a catch on fourth down. Like, he's a player that could have won them the biggest game they played in last year. And I think that's something they're thinking about as they get through the season. Like, what do we have to do? It's not about the next 17 games. It's about that one game against that guy in Kansas City. Yeah, usually at this point, like we all look at the depth chart on August 1st, and oh, Ravens need edge help.

And then by the time week one rolls around, oh, they signed this veteran. Wait, this guy was still available and they just signed him. And then, yeah, he's making plays late into the season. But yeah, to your point, I mean, Clowny, Matthew Judon, back in the day, Dalyas Thomas. Right? That was his name of Dahlius Thomas back in the day.

So, yeah, I mean, yeah, play well here, pile up those sack total, so those quarterback hits and then go get paid in the offseason. That would be a pretty easy sell. Plus, you're playing on a team that, people seem to like to play on that defense looks like it's going to be fun a contender all those things so i like it all right my last one we'll end on a bit of a silly note i guess you could say we get a midfield handshake altercation among coaches i mean what's what's better than this

back in a league thank you thank you what do you think made me think of this one uh obviously who do i have my eye on here looking at my google doc with prep for the show oh jim harbaugh is back in the NFL. Obvious choice there. So that's one. Nick Siriani, we mentioned him earlier. I mean, they're trying to get this guy to control his emotions. Will he be able to?

I mean, doesn't have a lot of stuff to kind of occupy his time. I don't know that he's going to be able to. So maybe Siriani rubbs someone the wrong way. How about a little subtle? How about Sean Payton? You know, maybe not like a physical one, but like it's something the mic catches him saying something to a coach at midf.

We know Sean Payton. He lets people know how smart he is. We know that. If they start winning some games, he's feeling himself a little bit. Maybe it's Sean Payton. I wrote down Antonio Pierce. I don't know.

Maybe he just gets in player mode. He feels like he's back on the Giants. And they've got that whole persona there where they're like, we're not afraid of anybody. And maybe he doesn't like something another team did. And he mixes it up. So those are the four guys I identify. Now, I did go and look at this charger schedule.

You know, I went the extra mile for this one. Chargers Raiders week one. I don't think so. Chargers Broncos week six. I got that. I got Chargers Broncos week six and Chargers Broncos week 16. Maybe the season is not going one of their ways and they're fed up and they're like, oh my God, this is, what have I got my, and there's something, Jim Harbaugh, Sean Payton,

something at midfield. So yeah, I wrote down, I guess three and AFC West coaches. I didn't realize that until now. But yeah, I guess the AFC West has the spicy coaches. What do you think, Ruiz? That really does help you out. And you dismissed week one as a possibility. Antonio Pierce, Jim Harbaugh, right in the moment.

First time they're really, Jim Harbaugh hasn't been in the NFL for a decade. Antonio Pierce has never coached a team from week one on. This is his first full-time gig. I can see it happening. And the last time these two teams played, one team won by like 60 points. So there could be some animosity already baked into that. Tom Telesco revenge game. Maybe he comes down from the stands and catches a,

a bow from Jim Harbaugh. The funniest one, I'm looking at the schedule right now. The funniest possible one would be Week 7, Jim Harbaal, Jonathan Gannon. Can you imagine those two interacting? It'd be like two species that haven't ever seen each other kind of like figuring each other out. They might actually become best friends, who knows?

It's a great one. Listen, Jonathan Gann is a well put together guy. I don't know if he's still got his workout regimen, but yeah, that would be a good one. I like Jonathan Gannon. Maybe that sounds like some social media content. I don't know if those two teams can get those two guys together. But yeah, I like that one quite a bit. So just some type of altercation. Someone muttering under their breath. It doesn't have to go full, you know, Jim Schwartz. You know what I actually did as I was doing this? I'm like, oh, Ravens play the Chargers,

Jim Harbor. And then I'm like, oh, no, wait. Okay, they're brothers. But otherwise, I'm like, yeah, I could see those personalities. So I forgot for a moment. Then now that that probably is unlike. to happen. All right. There you go. The off-the-wall predictions. If you've got another coach, I forget, we forgot about, or, you know, a potential pairing that could have a dust up, let us know. But otherwise, gentlemen, we'll be back in a little more than 48 hours talking about some actual football Ravens Chiefs Thursday night. Our anticipation is that we will be on Thursday night talking about that game and then previewing all of the week one action. Going to be a lot of fun.

Thank you to Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to producer Troy Farkas, additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgapal. Everyone, have a great week. We'll talk to you Thursday night on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helphelp.com. Call 1-88-7-8-8-9-7-77 or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit

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