The Ringer NFL Show - A.J. Green Injury Implications, Zeke’s Holdout, and Training Camp With the Packers, Browns, and More | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: July 31, 2019

Jon Gruden is talking up Nathan Peterman, A.J. Green requires ankle surgery, and Jerry Jones speaks on the value of running backs (0:50). Then, takeaways from training camp with the Packers, Browns, Vikings, Bills, Bears, Colts, Steelers, Jets, and Giants (15:15). Hosts: Robert Mays, Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They've all made some bad choices in life. I know I have. Thinking that I could drive from Chicago to Western Pennsylvania, which is a good 10-hour drive in one day while doing two training camps, was a terrible idea earlier this week, but I thought I could. This isn't about me, though. It's about you.

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Choose Yahoo Fantasy football. To the ringer NFL show. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Kevin. Kevin, how you doing, buddy? Well, we've had a lot of days this year, Robert. But this is the first day this year with some Nathan Peterman news. So I'm doing pretty well. I'm glad you brought it up. I was certainly going to ask you about it because we're going to start this show off, even in the midst of our training camp, with a little bit of news. And there is no bigger news in the NFL world. It's a 60-minute Peterman pod. No, so John Gruden came out today, and he said that he's been liking what he's been seeing from one Mr. Nathan Peterman. A little more context. He said, you know, he's had some nightmarish performances. I talked about why those happened, but apparently

Nathan Peterman is looking good. I mean, how great would it be if we got some Nathan Peterman time after Derek Carr never gets benched this season? Yeah, I don't think that's good. So to be clear, I think that when Gruden is saying that, he means in a maybe third or possibly second quarterback capacity.

But it's really, A, it's really funny. You know, B, they had this, so this goes back to 2017, even before that. John Gruden has really liked Nathan Peterman even when he was in college. This was, this was, this was, this was written. This is written in the stars.

I think this is your fan fiction that you're really digging into you right now. I think you might be completing those two things. Like twice a year I'm like, did I die? And this is just my vision of the afterlife. This is definitely one of those things. So let's get into actual NFL news.

A couple of things happened this week. I was at Vikings camp, the day that A.J. Green hurt his toe. And it's always interesting to me when you tell either personnel or coaches or players from other teams. NFL news before they hear it. And the reaction that I got from a Vikings coach

after telling him that AJ Green got carted off is just horror. That's all these guys care about right now is putting all of their dudes in bubble rat for the next month and getting them healthy to the start of the season. It is the greatest fear at every single camp is guys getting hurt.

And AJ Green severely injures his ankle to the point where he's going to need surgery and miss several games most likely on a makeshift field and day. that the NFL made the Bengals practice on. All of this is nonsense. That's a great phrase for it. So they're in Dayton for some reason for the NFL's 100th anniversary.

And Robert, you have some strangely hot takes on the NFL's 100th anniversary. The NFL's priorities are so fucked up at all times. The amount of time and energy that has gone into this 100th anniversary thing. Wait, hold on. Hold on. on. The problem is not the celebration of the anniversary. The problem is that the field sucked. I don't care if you have a practice on the moon. Just make sure the turf is okay. And that's fine, but just the amount of output that has gone into the 100th anniversary that the NFL is celebrating, it's just, it's so out of whack. All every, if the logo is everywhere, they're doing all of this

weird stuff and sending people to Dayton, no one cares. No one cares. The commercial during the Super Bowl, it was fun. It's cool that the NFL has had 100 years. The Packers and Bears kicking off the season and kind of leaning into the breadth of that rivalry, understandable. But every single kind of tentacle of this is just silly to me. No one gives a shit.

What just happened? Do you think I'm wrong? I think people might care. Don't you remember when we were younger? So maybe the first season I remember watching was the 75th anniversary. sure. That was, I remember that. Yes, but everybody had patches. Everybody had Pat, like Brett, Brett Farv was throwing a triple coverage. We're in that patch. Cool. Damn Marina just,

Dan Marino just throwing darts. So I guess there was probably some, some similarities there. They just celebrated 75. I'm okay with doing it. The problem is making a professional football team, one of the 32 football teams go to Dayton on crappy turf. Yes. But again, I think it's just the overall effort that's being put into this whole thing. This is one more. instance of it. It's like, all right, let's do this for no reason. So are you, are you out on birthdays? I'm good with birthdays. You can celebrate a birthday. I just don't need it to be completely over the top.

Okay. I don't know if this is over the day. I just want to work this out with you. I just don't want you to have this lingering hatred of the 100th anniversary. Listen, man, I'm fine. I just think that sending a team to go practice on a field they've never practiced on before for what is most essentially their first training camp practice is unspeakably stupid. Yeah, oh no, I'm with you. I'm with you. But I'm not, the problem is the turf.

Let's just get nice turf. You know, we cancel the game in Mexico City because the turf was bad. Let's have some turf monitoring. Yes, that's what I'm saying. That was a football game. That was a regular season football game that they canceled. This is the 100th anniversary of the NFL that they're making them go through all of this stuff. It has no ramifications on anything.

That's what I'm saying is stupid. It's just like we had real football that was canceled because the turf was bad. Now there are pebbles on the field and the Bengals are being forced to practice there because the NFL wants to send them to the place where football started. Again, that's my issue with this whole thing. Patches, birthdays, all good. But there's a little tiny stuff that has actual impact. I just don't think it's necessary.

I'm with you. Let's make sure the turf is good. So how about from a football perspective? Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. I want to back up on this. because you kind of delivered a hotter take than I anticipated last week on the Bengals. Got some Twitter mentions from the folks.

You said the Bengals season was over. And I agree with the sentiment. It's definitely over now if AJ Green is out. You know, obviously, so Zach Taylor comes out even just a couple minutes ago and says that they're hoping that he's back for the first half of this season. So it's at least going to be a couple of games. It's terrifying.

So when I look at that, I'm saying AJ Green was the bright spot on the Bengals, and now they don't have that. Bengals are playing in a really good division. They're going to lose a lot of games. They are the worst team in their division already with Asia Green. By a wide margin. The other three teams conceivably could win the division. Yes.

The Bengals are already the worst team in their division with AJ Green. And this with the Bengals' offense without AJ Green, that's not a. hypothetical. We've seen it often in recent years. Tyler Boyd. We know exactly what it looks like. You saw the Bengals without A.J. Green over the second half of last season. It didn't go well. And now they're going to start the year without him.

I just think they're in real trouble. And with everything that could turn over there into next season, when you consider Dalton, everything else, I mean, do the Bengals have any incentive outside of Zach Taylor showing pretty well this year to win any games? I feel like them getting like the number three pick. And being in the Justin Herbert to a kind of conversation next year is the best possible outcome for them. Who's number two in that scenario if the dolphins are won? I mean, yeah, who knows?

I mean, that's one of those disaster year teams where everything goes wrong. And I think those are hard to predict. Well, it's always just like the team that just their quarterback blows in ACL in September 5th. Exactly. Yeah, there's no way to know. Yeah, so the Bengals are a disaster zone. Oops. It's tough, man. I mean, again, you try to do something different.

You try to inject some energy by moving on from Marvin Lewis and trying to turn over a new leaf. And this is what you get. Your left tackle gets hurt. Your top 10 left tackle gets hurt before the season. Your left guard who probably wasn't going to play anyway, but now definitely is going to play, decides to retire. And your star-wide receiver who makes your entire offense go is now going to miss at least the first quarter of the season and probably. And maybe more. I'm not going to say probably.

Just tank. there is no upside. And to be honest, they probably don't have to do much to be tanking in that division. They're the worst team with him and now they're definitely the worst team. I also,

and this is important here, I am one of the people that believes Marvin Lewis is an awesome coach. I don't think Marbleau is a bad coach. If they go one in 15, that really helps my corner and everyone's welcome to join me on Marvin Island.

My problem isn't that Marvin Lewis is a bad coach. I just think that it was time for a change there. Oh, no, of course. Yeah, I mean, that's all. I understand why it. happen, but I don't think, me and you agree that Marvin Lewis doesn't get nearly enough credit for the job he did there over the last decade. It's because he outlasted, he was there so long, we forgot about what a joke the Bengals were. Yeah, it's like a band that is together too long. Eventually, they're going to start putting out worse records, but it doesn't that, that doesn't take what they did before.

But not just that, but it's like, if Sean McDermott turns the bills into a perennial playoff contender, people who are watching this sport now, All of us, all of the listeners here will understand that making the bills a perennial playoff team is an accomplishment. But people in 15 years might not. It's a revisionist history. That's all. Yeah. We came to understand that the Bengals were a decent team when in reality, the job he took

and the situation he stepped into was kind of untenable and he made it work. Yep. All right. When I woke up today, I didn't expect Marvin Lewis restoration talk. Legacy talk. Marvin Lewis, legacy talk. Something else we do on this podcast is get into the running back value debate and whether running matters.

And I was going to be ready to spend like 90 seconds on this. I was going to be ready to move on from this. You're the one that brought this up. Don't try to put this on me. You asked to talk about this. No, I just want to talk about Jerry Jones's comments that are just, I want to talk about Jerry Jones. That's what I want to do.

Jerry Jones threw his hat into the running back debate ring yesterday by saying that you do not need an Emmett Smith or even Ezekiel Elliott or a rushing champion to win the Super Bowl anymore. My take on this is when you are, how old is Jerry Jones? 70 something? 76, yeah, sure. So, Jerry Jones is 76 years old. So when you're 76. I made that number up.

Is that right? He is 76. You were correct. Hey. When your septagenarian owner is starting to say that rushing doesn't matter, that's when you know that this debate is over. That's when this thing is just slammed shut. when the guys that have been in the league for 30 years are starting to be on the side of the analytics community

I feel like we have a winner here okay counterpoint Jerry Jones says a lot of wacky stuff all the time yes he does and like I wouldn't be surprised I'm not saying what I'd say it's literally 50-50 whether or not they re-sign them just because when you when you stare into the Cowboys abyss the Abyss stairs back right like I just

I just have no idea how they operate because sometimes Jerry just says stuff and Jerry does stuff. So maybe this is part of a big grand philosophical plan. They obviously let DeMarco Murray walk after they ran him into the ground, etc., etc. And maybe it's kind of a running back still matter thing from Jerry, but a, a could be a negotiation thing or B, it could just be Jerry just talking out loud. Like this happens all the time. So I understand what Jerry's saying.

I just sometimes Jerry says things and then like two weeks later just the exact opposite happens. Do you think that you are the first person to ever make a Nietzsche reference when discussing Jerry Jones? Probably, but when I think about that line, I think about the movie Wall Street.

That's fair. Not the German philosopher from the 1700s. Most of my things, I'm not a huge Nietzsche guy. Most anything I think about is from the movie Wall Street. So you're way more into the Michael Douglas side of philosophy than you are to Fredrick M. Yeah, Bud Fox.

Yeah. I met 1800s with Nietzsche, by the way. Okay. I was a philosophy major. I don't want people to try coming at me. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Yeah, you didn't know that? Well, why would I have known that?

I don't know. Maybe I mentioned it before. Why did you study philosophy? I German, journalism and philosophy were my two majors. I was very into philosophy because I thought I might go to law school. Are you still into, well, there's still time. Is, is, are you still into it? Are you still into it?

I don't read a lot of philosophy. now. I still have a lot of philosophy books on my shelves, but I haven't kind of delved into them in a while. I'm not sitting there at crack and open Kierkegaard. I don't read Fear and Shrembling for pleasure on a Tuesday night. I was a history major. That sounds more right. You being a history major and me being a philosophy major actually makes sense, though. My dad is a history teacher. My dad's a professor, yeah. He's a history professor. Yeah. So I can understand that. It taught both the Griffin brothers. All right. It's important. So we'll get back into academia later on, but we are going to dig into a couple tidbits that we have kind of found

or stumbled upon in each camp from conversations we've had. I think this is definitely the best way to kind of report back from our travels thus far. You have been to, how many camps have you been to so far? I don't know. Someone asked me that I saw Charlie Cass really like three hours ago and he was like, where were you? And I did not know where I was yesterday. I have no idea what day it is. It's a blur. Oh, that's true. So it's just so everybody knows. Just so everybody knows, essentially, you get a camp tour schedule out, you kind of figure out the geography of it, and you're just driving, writing, and interviewing the whole time. Maybe you get five hours of sleep, six hours of sleep, something like that. And this is not, obviously, it's not to complain.

This is one of the best times of the year. But knowing where you are or who you're talking to, not totally possible at all time. So I was in Philadelphia yesterday. Before that, I was in Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Atlanta. That's where I've been so far. I've been in Green Bay, Minnesota, bourbonnet for the Bears, Indianapolis for the Colts,

Florham Park for the Jets, and I am currently in Cleveland, Ohio, to go to Browns and Steelers camps tomorrow. You're going on the same day? Yeah, you can knock them out in one day. It's only a couple hours to La Trobe from here and the Steelers go in the afternoon. Okay, we love it.

All right, so let's do chronological. Your first camp, you learned what? I was in Green Bay and Green Bay had a couple conversations with people and I actually had a long sit down talk with Aaron Rogers. And we discussed a lot of stuff that I found interesting. One of the kind of the one I'll throw out there is linked to a conversation we've had on this podcast recently. I believe it was when Josh Hermesmeyer was on. We were talking about kind of Rogers preferences with the shotgun and with being under center. And we chatted about whether if he's going to be able to step into an under center offense that uses that version of play action.

is kind of their foundation. And he told me that he doesn't mind it. You know, they've gone really shotgun heavy over the last three or four years, but over the last two especially, it's been out of necessity. He broke his collarbone two seasons ago, and Brett Hunley was much more comfortable in the shotgun.

That he wanted to do that. And then last year, when he broke his leg, he just couldn't be under center. He couldn't come out from under center. So he just feels like this under center kind of heavy offense is not a departure for him. He did a lot of it early in his career, and the footwork and everything else

is something he still feels really confident doing. So any sort of departure, any sort of transition from what they've been over the last three or four years is probably going to be overstated when it comes to his comfort level, which I found interesting. Yeah, no, I think it's really interesting,

and that's something that, did you talk a little about the audible stuff kind of building on what Mike Silver said a couple weeks ago? Yeah, we did. And I think that what Aaron said to me, is it's about finding a balance of what Matt wants to bring with his philosophy and everything else and what I do very well. And I think the two places where it's very important to him to have more autonomy is going to be in their two-minute situation and in the red zone. Because that's

where he just feels like I need control. I need to be able to lean on the stuff that's worked for me for a decade and a half. And it's about finding that balance. And Lafleur said, which I think is really kind of attuned to what his players need, he knows that unless Aaron is confident in the stuff that they're doing, it's not going to work. You can't force him into something because not only is his comfort level going to affect it, but his overall just demeanor and relationship with whatever they're doing offensively has a trickle-down effect to the rest of the team.

Every single guy in that offense is going to sense whether or not Aaron is comfortable and confident. And if he's not, then it has wide-ranging implications. So I just think that give and take and just figuring out the balance of what he does well, what's work for them in the past, and what Leflour wants to bring is ultimately going to be what determines their success or failure. And they're definitely thinking about it on a very deep level. Yeah, no, of course.

And it's going to be, I think that dynamic is so interesting. Because again, talk about this the other day with the Matt Ryan thing. Any team with an elite quarterback can win the Super Bowl in a hypothetical, you know, in the multiverse, right? and they've got that and they've got talent it's not like they're rebuilding here they're not the damn dolphins here

so they've got talent everywhere and so the ability for them to get on the same page really early in camp and it's funny because a couple years ago told the story before I got ratioed for this I don't if you remember this

but so Aaron Rogers threw a lot of practice interceptions and the reason he threw a lot of practice interceptions Mike McCarthy told me was because he was throwing the ball up to see who we could trust and that kind of kind of stuff, he tries to figure out what he can and cannot do in practice. That's what practice

is for. Patrick Mahomes does very similar things. And he tries to figure out what he can do. And so training camp is incredibly important for him because he wants to know, okay, we're going to run this play, but what if I did this to the throw? You know what I'm saying? And so mistakes are made and it's almost about kind of accelerating those mistakes just to see what you can kind of do. And I think that's why I think him having a new head coach in a training camp and it's been a long time since he learned a new offense like this. Him having a new head, new head coach as he's trying to figure out the personnel around him, I think that's one of the most fascinating training camp stories to watch. Yeah, I totally agree. And it seems like they're considering it on every single level.

There are a few other things that he said to me. I don't want to throw all of them out there. I'll probably be ready to know. You got to save your piece here. But yeah, it was a good conversation. It was a good conversation with both of them. So, you know, it's something I'm watching for sure. What was your first one? Anyway, no, no, I want to say that the reason I got ratioed is because I said, I explained that Aaron Rogers was doing that. And then everyone got mad at me because they thought the practice and receptions were some sort of real thing that I was making excuses for. It was a very strange day. And then meanwhile, yeah, remember, but yeah, all the, all the crazy inaccuracy problems Aaron Rogers has.

I think he had like one interception that season. Also, remember last year during training camp when everyone was freaking out about it with Mahomes? and then he was the MVP of the league and through 50 touchdown passes. Yes, yes. We talked about it. Mahomes and I talked about it. It was awesome.

All right. My first one, so we actually talked about Atlanta on this podcast. I was in Cleveland. I'll start there. Where I am currently. Again. Cleveland, Ohio.

Where you are Cleveland, where you are currently. I think it's really interesting to see a couple of things. Number one, Freddie Kitchens talked about this. I'm going to write a piece later in training camp. Basically,

they have data that shows, is that the first couple of days of training camp are when players get injured the most. Yeah. Beyond that, it's like the first 10 days of training camp. So the point is early in training camps when you get injured.

And so they're kind of going on a bit of a slow rollout. And that means people like Odell Beckham or Baker Mayfield are taking it a little slower than normally would. And I mentioned to see how that happens when you start, because it's incredibly important incredibly important training camp for them. And there's already been worried about

Tom Monkin and maybe the speed in which he's installed the offense and all that stuff. So their ability to, again... Did you talk to anybody about that there? I did not, no. Okay. I talked to Freddie Kitchens about a bunch of other different stuff that was kind of...

I'm talking to him this week too. So I'm curious to you. I'm talking to Monkin this week probably as well. So we'll see how that goes. We'll see on Friday show on that note. But I think that it gets down to that. I think the

so much talk about how these personalities are going to fit together. This was all the questions. Oh, a lot of big, big personalities. Someone was like, it's like an NBA team. It's like the Warriors. And it's like, hey, I don't know about that. That's a weird thing. Yeah, that's a little much.

Because there's 14 guys or whatever on an NBA team. There's 90 right now on the Browns. And there's really like 11 guys on an NBA team. There's like four guys on an NBA team. But so what I think is kind of fascinating. with regards to that is we're talking so much about the personalities in the Browns and I don't think we're putting an emphasis on how the football is going to fit together. And I think it will fit together quite well.

I don't know if they're quite the perfect roster that we think they are. I think that will be revealed in September, October, whether or not they have the talent we think they are. But I think that it'll be fascinating to watch how they play the first game against the Titans. Because, again, everyone's focused on this personality thing. And I think that's going to be overblown. if this is going to be a personality problem, that stuff happens late in the year. You know, if Jarvis and O'Dell decide to, you know, decide that offense isn't working or whatever,

that's not going to happen in two weeks. That's not going to happen in a month. So I think that we're misplacing our priorities on how we talk about the Browns. Yeah, I'm much more interested in the football than I'm in the personality side of it. I understand why people are attached to that or draw around to it just because they are out larger than life guys. I mean, O'Dell is somebody that he did that GQ interview and everything kind of stops for a day. Now, that's rare in football, and I understand that. and Baker is obviously a lightning rod.

I mean, it's everybody who's coming to contact with him has a strong opinion one way or the other about him. So I get it. But yeah, I'm much more interested in what's going to happen on the field and whether that translates everything else. I just think that we just overrate because Baker and Odell give a lot of interviews in which they talk about kind of their approach to talking and the fact that they seem very brash in the media. the idea that somehow the Cleveland Browns have like the most volatile locker room or something, that's just ridiculous. Yeah, I know Joe, I know Joe Betonio kind of like I've talked to him many times in my life.

The idea that he's, you know, he's part of a team that's going to have this shaky locker room dynamic is very funny to me. But just beyond that, I mean, like, I mean, like, there's some teams that are just constantly on the verge of a mutiny from like day one,

okay? Like the Browns are not that. So this idea that they're, you know, there, they're just some, some pirate ship in the night. That's, that's a little bit overblown. Also, I know that the big name players, we pay attention to them more and they get talked about more.

Football locker rooms are very interesting ecosystems. Yeah. And they're big. And there are a lot of dudes in locker rooms that just aren't nice people or people that are easy to work with. And we never hear about it because they're the 10th best player on the defense. Like, those guys can also sow discord. That should not be discounted.

So I know those guys are huge personalities, but that doesn't mean that they will define what the locker room is like. Yep, I'm pro Baker and Odell. Yeah, trust me. I am as well. I'm very excited that it's happening. All right, I went to Minnesota next. And I was kind of surprised by this. My takeaway from being there after I was kind of there all day.

I had a few chats with people. And there's a real sense of urgency there. And not from the perspective of, you know, we have this team. You know, this is a veteran-related group, whatever. I just feel like they're pushing the pedal here. I was talking, I was in a discussion where I didn't realize this, but Eric Kendricks,

they converted some of his base salary into a signing bonus this year. And it is the first time in the Rick Spielman era that the Vikings have done that. They're going outside of their standard operating procedure in order to maximize the roster they have right now. They know that this is the last year, year where this group can be together.

I think part of them thought this was going to, last year was going to be it because Anthony Barr was not coming back. But now that Barr is back, that he took a little bit less, even his structure is not something they would normally do. His contract is very back loaded. They usually kind of pay equally over the deal for the most part. They're really stepping outside of their comfort zone in order to push this season as far as they can push it.

And I think that speaks to two things. One, just how aggressive teams around the league are getting. You know, teams like New Orleans have done this forever, but I feel like some of the more conservative teams are seeing that you're not getting bit as hard because the cap is going up so fast. And they're saying, why don't we try this? Because we seem to be a little bit too risk-averse now in this current climate. Are you saying the Vikings are going to win the Super Bowl?

I don't know if they're going to win the Super Bowl. But just beyond that, it just feels like, you know, this group knows that they need to, they need to do something this season. And I didn't really sense that from the out of the game. outside, you know, the idea that this might be coming to the end for, you know, the brain trust there. But for whatever reason, I heard that from a couple of different people. It's like, they need results. And that, that was surprising to me. Well, they have their quarterback under contract for two more years, which is not a long time in quarterback world. It's fully guaranteed.

They have cost certainty there. And I think there's a big question mark, but what happens beyond that, you know, I was on, I wanted to get, I want to get your take on this. I remember, I've been thinking about it when I think about the Vikings for a while. I was on Ristillo's pod with Albert Breyer a couple of months ago, and he said, what does the Kirk Cousins, what is the high point going to be of the Kirk Cousins era in Minnesota? And I said, I think the next two years, they get to an NFC championship game, and that's it. They're an NFC championship type team, game type team, but not necessarily a Super Bowl type team. Where do you stand on that?

Is that a team that right now is good enough to get to the Super Bowl? I think so. I think if things break the right way and that offense really works, they could get to the Super Bowl. I believe that. They need a couple of breaks. There's definitely, there's definitely, I'm high. I like Kirk Cousins.

They are definitely in my group of teams that could conceivably win the Super Bowl. Yeah, I'm there. I feel like the offense really needs to click. They need a lot of stuff to go right with their rookie offensive linemen. You know,

they're the shifting offensive linemen. Cousins is comfort in the offense. You know, they need to find another pass catcher. They told me, I heard from a couple people there, they really like Chad, BB as their third as their number three receiver. They think that they can play in 11 with him as the number three guy and then

kind of mix it up into more 12 with Irv Smith and Kyle Rudolph. They like their multiplicity on offense this year in a way that they have not in the last couple seasons. So there are a lot of aspects to where they could be better offensively, but again, it's all projection. There's no way to know at this point. Yep. Totally.

What's next? I guess I'll do one. I went to Buffalo. I kind of like a lot of the things that they're. doing. It all comes down to Josh out. You like that team. You've liked what they've done with Bean and Maderma, which I... No. You were quicker to

it than I was. When they made the playoffs, when they made the playoffs with starting Nathan Peterman twice and with kind of an inconsistent tie rod, outside of the Peterman stuff, which, you know, it's hard to do outside of the Peterman stuff when our podcast exclusively about Nathan Peterman. But

when you make the playoffs, I know they didn't go 13 and 3 or anything, I think that when they made a put up to the bad roster. I'm always impressed by that kind of thing. Taking over early being ahead of schedule. I'm always intrigued by that because it's a sign of a good coach. I think Sean McDermott's a pretty good coach. I think he's actually

probably, I wouldn't want to rank him anywhere right now, but I actually probably higher on them than most people are. I think that there's a lot of things there. Number one is they've got kind of a veteran group, especially on defense. And what I was intrigued by

is we talked a little bit about it. And I asked him why you have so many guys who in an era where we're all talking third year guys who make a million dollars, why you have maybe a more expensive defense or guys who are from other teams. And he actually cited,

McDermott actually cited the Patriots. And you know, we've talked about this, but a couple of years ago, they basically cornered the market on mid-level veterans. And that's something that's really been popularized since then around the league. And the bills are on the cusp of that as well a little bit. And I think that

they under you're starting to understand and see the pendulum swing back a little bit as far as as veteran stuff goes. I think with the offense, you know, I think that I think they were surprised last year with how the offense developed. I don't think they expected as much about from Foster as they actually got. I mean, he, he, he, they were what, 20 yards per catch. Um, when he connected with Josh Allen. I mean, it's pretty incredible. So now of a sudden, you have sort of found money with, with Foster. And then you add a Cole Beasley so you can take advantage of the middle of the field. this all comes down to Josh Allen's accuracy and his ability to

and this is important. When I was talking to some of the guys there, they were talking about his ability to throw the ball away effectively. And this is something we've seen on film. It's been a problem for him. You don't have to hold on. He sort of viewed it last year

as holding onto the ball until the exact last second and then he would get clobbered and it would be a bad pass. The key for him is to learn how to make those mistakes, just get rid of the ball as soon as you can,

that kind of thing. It's not just the big, questions. It's the little questions with Alan. And I think that it's all kind of solvable, except maybe the accuracy part. People keep telling me that there are examples of quarterbacks getting more accurate in the NFL.

I don't know if that's true or not. Matt Ryan is the poster boy for bad college accuracy, good pro-acuracy. I'm starting to think about it. I don't really remember Matt Ryan in college, I guess. I guess that was a long time ago. When I'm saying people, I'm talking about like fans. People were like Matt Ryan

had a poor accuracy and poor completion percentage in college. But accuracy and completion percentage aren't the same thing. No, I know. I understand that. But I'm just, well, no, but the stat around Allen was his poor completion percentage. Sure, but when you watch Josh Allen, it wasn't about the completion percentage to me as much as it was about him sailing.

Oh, no, no, no, no. Feet over guys' heads. Yes. Yes. Of course. So what I'm saying is, is that the biggest question is his accuracy. And then the little questions are, is you throw the ball away effectively. How does he operate in the pocket?

That sort of thing. So again, Colby is the middle of the field. that's interesting to me, how Frank Gore and Shady McCoy, kind of old school running back tandem, and then Singletary, who they like, how that all comes together. I just think there's a lot of interesting questions about the bills. I don't think they're ready in 2019, but what I will say is that they are not as bad as the bills have been. I'm with you on the team building kind of side of things with them. I like what they've done. And the mid-level veterans thing, it makes so much sense.

John Brown's at 7.5 million this year. Colby's 6.9. They signed Mikeahe in Bean's first year. He's making 6.6 this year. He's been great for them. They didn't have players on their team worth retaining at those prices, so they went out and spent on them.

I'm writing about this. When you made, when you make the playoffs in your first season together, you can easily say, let's keep this together, let's push it. We are a playoff team. And I think the way they've built

over the last couple years, they understood that they weren't. And that's difficult to do, and most teams don't have that level of self-awareness and self-scouting. They have done that. They haven't been overaggressive in free agency. They spent a lot of money this year, but for the most part, these are contracts that are modest and contracts they can get out of if they need to. You know, the only misstep I feel like they've really made in free agency is the Star Latulet-Tulet contract because I just don't think he's that good of a player. And to pay a guy $11.5 million this year who's not a difference maker, that's a problem.

of that, I really like every single decision that they've made. All right. What's next for you? I'm going to lump the bears and the Colts together because I talked to Matt Nagy and Frank Reich, both of them. And they both said something interesting in the sense of being a head coach that calls plays. And both of them kind of discuss the importance of building your offensive staff when

you're that guy and how information travels between your quarterback, your offensive staff and you when you're the head coach. So Nagy was just discussing the practically, the amount of time he spends in meetings with Trubisky and with Dave Rigone and with Mark Alford, the offensive coordinator. And he felt like he didn't want to be overbearing because it was important for Trubisky to be able to be honest with, because you're much more honest with your position coach than you'd be with the head coach. So there's just this kind of weird balance you have to follow of, I want to be so

involved and I want to be the guy that shepherds the quarterback's career, but I also know that there's a certain delicateness that you have to have in how you deal with it. I've never really considered that before and it makes total sense. And Reich said something similar.

He told me that when he was building his staff, the offensive coordinator job was so important, even if he wasn't going to call plays because Reich had just had that job in Philly. The offensive coordinator who didn't call plays. And he knew, how vital it was to the play caller because of all the information that that offensive coordinator

would eventually relay. And he was just talking to me about the process of hiring Nick Seriani because they had worked together in San Diego when Seriani was the wide receivers coach. And I just never really thought about how important those jobs are when your head coach is your play caller. We just kind of say like he's the offense. But just the way that the information eventually gets both relayed and developed initially is just something I feel like we kind of take for granted. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting point. My next one's Pittsburgh.

I had a couple of interesting conversations. One is, you know, I think they think Devin Bush gets them more athletic on defense. I'll have a little bit. I'm writing a Steeler's bit, I think, next week. I think that's, it's intriguing where they go from there because they've got Baker Mayfield in their division and Lamar Jackson in their division.

And I think if you don't have athleticism on defense, you're going to be in a lot of trouble. So I think that's interesting. I also think I was talking to their offensive coordinator yesterday, actually, by phone. And we were talking about how he thinks the offense. He's great, by the way. I love talking to him. How he thinks the offense is going to change in 2019, obviously without Brown.

It's kind of an obvious question, but you kind of have to answer it. And he said that the thing that you don't realize with Brown is you don't know what defense looks like without Antonio Brown. You don't know how defense they're going to attack you. So it's kind of hard to even guess what the offense is going to look like until they start attacking the Pittsburgh Steelers without Antonio Brown from a defensive standpoint. Where does that attention go? Do they play juju like they played Antonio Brown?

Do they do something with Vance, McDonald? I just think that there's, it's kind of a brave new world for the Steelers. And I'm intrigued. And there's a lot of questions about where they go from here. But I actually think they have the pieces to figure it out a little. I don't think they're going to win the Super Bowl or anything, but I think that they still have roster talent and a pretty good coaching staff.

Yeah, I'll be curious to see what their offense looks like. The point about not knowing how defenses are going to respond without Antonio Brown is fascinating. I mean, you never really consider that, but he's one of those players along with a guy like Tyree Kill that just changes the geography of a defense. I mean, it's almost like Steph Curry, just because the way that they have their own gravitational pull

changes everything that you can do. So, you know, yeah. So, yeah, the Devin Bush thing makes sense. I mean, I think that that's correct. I mean, they have athleticism. You know, you wrote about this a couple years ago that they were one of the teams that was really harping on spark scores, everything else, just trying to get as athletic as they could.

Well, it was after because it was after the Jarvis Jones thing. Yes. Because the way you get into athleticism is you draft someone like Jarvis Jones and you say, who's all production, no athleticism. Well, time to start drafting athletes. And they've done that, but they've done that at position. where we normally value athleticism more, if that makes sense. Like they do with edge rushers, their safety.

You know, linebackers, historically, I think that's why there's an outdated view of how valuable they are, they're thumpers. You know, that's what they've been. And as we've gotten to a place where dudes like Dion Jones are so valuable, you need that guy. You need that guy who can just erase mismatches and be more of a coverage player than anything else in the middle of the field. And I just think that Devin Bush does so much stuff.

He was one of my favorite players in the draft. I understand why they traded up for him. I think he's going to have a huge impact. I actually had a conversation with the Giants today that was kind of similar with one of the defensive position coaches. We were saying that we've swung way too far on this like we don't care about inside linebackers thing or whatever. It's more about having the right inside linebacker than, you know, like there's an argument who made they're more important than ever as long as you have the right one. I've made that argument about Bobby Wagner. I'm totally in.

Yeah. I agree. you have a guy who agrees with you in the New York Giants facility. Great. That's surprising considering everything they've ever done because I disagree with most of it. I'm in their parking lot right now. There you go. Can't speak too loudly. Speaking of football teams based in New Jersey, I was with the Jets yesterday.

And I had a conversation with Sam Darnold. It hit on a lot of different things. And one thing that I came away thinking after talking to him is just that he really, sees the league differently this year. I was asking him whether or not things have kind of practically changed now that he has an offensive-minded head coach. Because there are a lot of guys that have played for defensive-minded head coaches. And when they get that guy in the building, they're just, they kind of see the light.

Like they can see in technical color for the first time. Even Brian Winters, the guard yesterday was mentioning how different the feeling in meetings is and stuff because the head guy is the one running them. And Donald was almost confused by the question because he was, his response was like, Dude, I didn't even know what the hell was going on last year. I was swimming so much that the only thing that's different to me now is that I understand what's happening. And I can actually function as a professional football player. Got to tell you, that's a pretty big difference.

Yes. And I just, that is the biggest difference. So to me, it's the idea that they're going to be more offensive minded and Gase is really going to kind of streamline what they want to be, then all the identity, everything else. But in his mind, it's just like, I know how to play. I know what to do. Like, it doesn't matter. Anybody could be coaching. This could be any offense.

And I would be 150% better at it than I was at this time last year. Which when we're considering- What a glowing endorsement of Adam Gase? He's excited about Adam Gase, but I feel like it, that's my, me kind of reading into what he was saying. But I legitimately believe that that guy is going to be really good.

And that this has a chance to be just a monster year for him compared to what he was for the entirety of last season. Like, we're going to see second half, Arnold for 16 games. And if we do more than Levi-on-Bell, more than all the money they spent, more than Adam Gase, that is going to be the

biggest thing that determines whether or not this team is good or not. Okay, well, that's interesting. The Giants didn't learn a whole lot to actually have some great conversations with some position coaches. I saw Eli Manning talk. I saw

when I was waiting outside of someone's office for an interview, I saw Eli Manning give a congratulations to a couple that's getting married, which was, which was wonderful to see. He nailed it. One take. One take. One take, Eli. That's what I always say. One take, Eli. I mean, it's just really hard. You know, Pat Schumer said there's a plan for Daniel Jones, but what that is, is, he said he's not. No, no, no, no, no. Let me tell you what he did. He said it's, I'm not hiding it from you. But then he didn't, then he was just like, you'll see.

Which sounds suspiciously like hiding it. Isn't that the same plan that Dave Gettleman has? Are they on the same page? The plan that we don't worry, we have a plan. Could you imagine all their plans? It's like the end of Raiders of Lost Ark. It's just like there's a huge warehouse just full of plans. Yeah, that's it.

So that's where I'm at now. I got Baltimore tomorrow, then go down south, got a little Carolina. Nashville. I will be in Cleveland. I'll be at the Browns and Steelers. I'll be at the Browns again for another day on Thursday. And then I will be going to the Hall of Fame game, which I have never been to Canton for the Hall of Fame weekend,

and I'm excited about it. And then I'll be home for a couple days. Have you been in the facility? I went to the Hall of Fame, the actual Hall of Fame when I was a kid. Yeah, when I was a kid. We took a trip. We camped when I was a kid. So we just went around camping around like,

we did kind of a historical trip. He went to the Hall of, Fame and then we went up to Niagara Falls, did Gettysburg, all that for a summer. But it's been a long time. Look at that. Who's the history major now? Oh, my dad. My dad was a massive history guy, if you can imagine. He was a, he was a baby boomer born in 195. My dad loved World War II books more than anything in the world. Hey, you know, uh, you know what's really fun and I don't want any, I mean, obviously people, there's going to be a lot of people at the Hall of Fame, so it's not a big deal. but the coolest thing at the Hall of Fame

is if you go on Saturday before the induction induction, induction is still on Saturday, right? Yes. Okay. If you go on Saturday before the inductions because there's so many people there who are from out of, who are there to see people get inducted,

teammates, coaches, whatever, they just walk around the Hall of Fame as fans and they don't have any special access or anything. I remember there as there a couple years ago and you see people like Sean Payton and Vinnie Testa Verdi and a couple other people and they're just nerding out and it's really cool to see.

I don't really remember anybody bothering them. I'm sure it has happened. But it's just really, really cool to just walk around on that Saturday, especially in the afternoon and see, I remember Testivides with his kid and he was just showing his kid, but you see like the who's who of football just walking around looking at these busts.

Oh, I play with this guy. I play with that guy. It's a really cool experience. I wish I could do it more. It never hasn't worked on my schedule the last couple of years. That's why I recommended the U-Go. It's really, really fun if you're in that. If you're doing teams in that area,

during that time, it's really cool we can see. Yeah, I mean, I'm going to the gold jacket dinner on Friday night, which, I've been to that. It's, I mean, it is really cool to me that I will see Ed Reed get his gold jacket to go into the Hall of Fame. Like, that's really awesome. Like, Ed Reed is one of my favorite players ever. So, for me, I always kind of trend on the side of,

being overly excited about football things, but I do feel like that weekend overall probably brings that out of everybody. Yeah, I'm all in. The gold jacket jacket is really cool. You're going to have a great time. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm looking forward to having way more football conversations

over the next couple weeks. So we'll be back later in the week. It's training camp time. We are back to two shows a week. So no more of this once a week. No more this once a week nonsense. We are back in the swing of it. Football is back, but for some reason,

Twitter was just insanely unhinged about LeBron celebrating in an AAU game today. I thought we were going to get this whole show without you bringing it up and we did not get there. Could you imagine being upset that LeBron violated the sanctity of an AAU game? You ever seen an AAU game? Oh, I have seen an AAU game before. I played an AAU games before.

It is not, there's no safety to you involved. What's the craziest thing you've seen happen in an AU game? Oh, God. I don't know. There's an entire account that tweeted at me that's just, just insane. insane things that that happen at AAU games and it's not it's not

exactly you know the AAU game's not exactly the Super Bowl here let LeBron have some fun I'm with you oh I'm sorry that LeBron dunked during the warmups yeah what a shame that you get to see one of the greatest basketball players and greatest athletes of all time having a good time and nurturing his relationship

with his son the fucking if you're on the opposing team you have a story forever yes other than that that. What a disgrace. It's so dumb. All right. We'll be back later in the week. As always, guys, thank you so much for listening to The Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.