The Ringer NFL Show - Answering 5 Big Questions for the 2026 NFL Season With Tom Pelissero!

Episode Date: August 21, 2026

New co-host Tom Pelissero joins the Ringer NFL Show with Sheil and Billy to take a big-picture look at some of the most important questions buzzing around the league as we head toward a brand new NFL season.(00:00) Answering 5 Big Questions for the 2026 NFL Season(02:49) Which QB will we be looking at differently after the '26 season?(23:19) Are the Chiefs going to be back to being the Chiefs?(33:15) Which teams will get the first-year bump from their new coaches?(48:26) Will Rams' blockbuster offseason pay off?(56:46) Which head coaches are under the most pressure?Upgrade Your Performance with Orgain Creatine. Available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart & Whole Foods.The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines.Host: Sheil KapadiaGuests: Tom Pelissero and Billy GilProducer: Chris SuttonVideo Editor: Stefano SanchezProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia. We've got our newest colleague, Tom Pelliserro, with us today, with me and Billy Gill. We kind of zoomed out

and we looked at some big picture questions in the 2026 NFL season. We wanted to pick Tom's brain, find out where he's out with some of these questions, what he knows, what intel he has. The conversation went in a number of different directions.

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

intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. Welcoming our new colleague Tom Pellisero joins me and Billy Gill, Tom. Great to have you here, my friend. Let's do this thing, fellas. I've been waiting. I've been watching you in the background while I've been on the stationary bike for weeks, checking in, seeing how the show goes.

I'm just, I'm excited to be here with you. Billy, you were a little nervous when Tom said he's consumed the show before. How are you doing today? I'm somewhat concerned that he's consumed it. I'm hoping that Tom jumped around. I wasn't on the show much in the off season, so hopefully he didn't catch many of my episodes, if any. Oh, well, because here's the thing. This is, you know, kind of aligning with the start of a new school year as well.

We all have children going to school. So, like, this is almost like we're meeting a new teacher of sorts. You know what I mean? Shields, so like this is a chance for first impressions. But if Tom's been doing his homework and he's familiar with us, then it may not be the best opportunity to have, you know, a new first impression here. Gotcha. You're worried he's talked to last year's teachers and, like, they put certain kids in a certain class.

Well, okay. Well, listen, I think it's going to be okay. I think we're going to have a lot of fun. We got big picture topics here because we thought, you know what? It's our first time potting together. We don't need to get caught up in the training camp minutia. Let's find out what Tom thinks about some of the big questions in the 20, 26. season. So that's what we're going to do today. And I want to start out with this one, Tom. Let's start

with you. Which quarterback will we look at differently after the 2026 season? And the genesis of this question, I'm just going through all the quarterbacks. And I'm like, huh, that guy's got a lot on the line. It feels like that guy's got a lot on the line. I could have gotten to probably half the quarterbacks in the NFL. And so I'm wondering what you think, maybe looking into your crystal ball a little bit, end of the 2026 season. We're saying, no, we're talking about this guy differently than we did in mid-August. It's very easy to immediately point to the second-year quarterback. The guy is going to make the proverbial year-two jump.

That's just kind of a natural progression, especially because we now live in an age where highly drafted quarterbacks often have a head coach that gets fired after year one, if not during year one and kind of reboot. I want to swing the other direction, though, because one of the themes of the 2026 season in my mind is the number of established quarterbacks,

veteran guys who have been to Pro Bowls, might have won MVPs, might have won Super Bowl MVP's. And they're going to be asked to do things a lot differently this season than they've ever done in their careers. You start with Jalen Hertz, who has been in under a bunch of different OCs, but kind of a similar type of threat in terms of the offensive approach. Now, Sean Mannion comes in as a first-time offensive coordinator trained under Kevin O'Connell and Sean McVeigh.

He was with Matt LaFleur. You know what that offense is going to look like. It's going to be precision and timing-based. That hasn't really been Jalen Hertz game. Jaden Daniels is going to go from the Cliff Kingsbury Air Raid derivative offense to now running something with David Blow that we don't necessarily entirely know exactly what it's going to look like. Lamar Jackson might be the most glaring example of this where I was out at the joint practice yesterday, the Ravens against the Vikings.

You can see like they're trying to get the ball out faster. You know, they wanted to be connecting his eyes to his feet. You're going from one to two to three, coach up the receivers, get to your landmarks, have the ball come out on time. We all know Lamar could do the crazy off schedule stuff, but we haven't seen him play in that precision type of an offense. Justin Herbert also going into a certain style of offense down with Mike McDaniel coming in, another guy out of the Kyle Shanahan tree. You know kind of what that offense is going to be stylized as, and then Kyler Murray going to Minnesota. Now, he had Drew Petsing in Arizona the past couple of years. Certainly there's elements, but he's being coached differently.

Another guy I got a chance to look at yesterday. So of that list, you're talking about five, like really, like, if you're talking about the 10 most known quarterbacks, I'd say 10 best, but 10 of like the highest profile guys, half of them are going to be doing stuff that's really, really different this season. I think that the one to watch in my mind is Lamar. And we all know what Lamar can do and the special plays he can make. Last season, he was banged up.

He just never really seemed like himself. Didn't seem like he was, you know, really able to cut it loose for a good chunk of the season. And the Ravens' results, you know, played into that. It's part of the reason John Harbaugh is no longer there. Part of the reason that Declan Doyle is the same age as Lamar is going to be calling the shots now on offense with Jesse Minter as the head coach. This is, you know, potentially year two or Lamar, depending if anything can get done before the season. The Ravens have been trying on a contract for a couple of years. next year could be the year for Lamar

to be the first $70 million a year quarterback on a traditional type of an extension if he plays the way he can and I do think it's going to be a growth process through the year. To me, that's one of the biggest storylines in the NFL. Billy, where are you with Lamar Jackson because it's just like you look at the pro football

reference page and we've watched him and there's been exciting moments and there's been MVPs and so I feel like most people are Lamar Jackson fans and defenders, but then there's always going to be the faction of, you know, wake me up when he gets to the Super Bowl. All right, Ravens won 12 games again.

Who cares? They don't do it in the playoffs. And I don't think that's entirely his fault. We've all watched, say, Flowers and Mark Andrews, and there's been other factors at play in those playoff games. But is Lamar Jackson interesting to you going into the season? And you're like, I kind of have some Lamar fatigue, you know, bring me some of these new guys. Where are you?

No, I mean, I don't have Lamar fatigue. I like him. I mean, I think he does a good job. I think if you look back, he probably should have won a third MVP the year that he finished second place. But, you know, he's not a guy that I'm coming into the season thinking I'm going to look at differently as you asked before or Sheel. I don't know if you did you do any of these shield for yourself? Or you're just wondering me and Tom what we were thinking on this?

I did. I have one that I'll name here in a minute. But yeah, go ahead. I did three. So I don't know how you want to handle this situation. I can give you all three. Some of them are a little more for on the field reasons, some for off the field reason. The first one that I'm thinking that I may look at a little bit differently after this season, Drake May.

Now, you're probably thinking Drake May, wow, he finished second MVP votes last year. He had a great season. But are we in store for the rare junior slump, Tom? I don't know what you're hearing down there when you're at these camps and you're talking to all these people. But last year, he had the first and the second easiest schedule, right? He kind of got fat off of weak teams, 12-1 against teams that missed the playoffs. Two and two against teams that made the playoffs. In terms of the strength of schedule or the opponent's win rate,

410 win percentage, it's the worst win rate of any team last 25 years. And here's another thing when you start looking a little bit deeper, you start reading the book seeing what was going on there exactly. You start finding out he was struggling against cover six and is something that was discovered late in the season. So teams started adapting to that situation. So when you kind of started looking into things, when he was manned man coverage, number seven in EPA,

number four in success rate, number one in yards per temp, versus zone non-cover six, number one in EPA, number three in success rate, number one in yards per tent, against cover six, number 31, 33, 32. All right, sorry, Tom. Billy, I think, is trying to show off. No, trying to give you the information here.

He wants you to know he's done his homework, that he knows the difference in different coverages. I mean, I don't, I don't know, Tom, what do you think? I've never heard, I've done 100 pods with him. I've never heard of mention cover six. Nine games against playoff teams. plus the Lions and the Chiefs that missed the playoffs.

I mean, what are we doing here? Drake May. Is he going to figure out this cover six or not, Tom? What are they telling you? I did not have a cover six reference in the first five minutes of my first episode of this show. I was not, I wasn't prepared for it. Listen, there's going to be some things that look different about that New England offense in general. I would say this, you know, Drake May was beat up at the tail end of the season.

How much did that affect him in the Super Bowl? with rushers in his face that entire game, I don't know how many quarterbacks healthy or not would have functioned at a really high level. Certainly, you know, they benefited from being one of the worst teams the year before and having the schedule that they did,

but Drake May still played big in big spots. And when we were assessing Drake May, he's still ahead of the curve. That was the guy in that draft class. People thought it had the ceiling, but everybody said, like, it's going to take him a while. He's the guy you don't want to play out of the gate. He's the guy who's going to take

time. We went to the Super Bowl in year two. You know, from year one where everything was a complete disaster, I still think the arrows pointing up on Drake May. I mean, you bring up many, many valid stats there, Billy, and certainly the numbers don't lie. But I would also say, like, take the context into account here, you know, what he was working with. Obviously, you know, in the playoffs from Will Campbell's not healthy either.

The time that he missed last season, Drake had to continue to function. The receivers are going to be a little bit different this year, because they're not just bringing in, you know, A.J. Brown is like a one-for-one, Stefan Diggs swap. Like, Diggs played half the snaps, and over half the snaps he did play, we're in the slot. A.J. Brown's going to play outside. So you've got like a one-on-one mismatch weapon when you do get those man-covered situations. He's going to go out there. Yeah, you can go be big in the slot if you want him to and just go win, you know, with his physicality. But you add him to the room. You had Romeo Dobbs to the room. Obviously,

Diggs is no longer there. I think that this may be set up for Josh McDaniels to deploy a little bit more versatility where maybe last year based on what they were working with personnel-wise and the way that they seem to be trying to manage things with digs. Maybe they got a little bit more freedom here to open things up a little bit as Drake May continues that progression. It was kind of incredible how good digs was given the amount of snaps he played. I mean, he put up big numbers, was very efficient. But it's a, you know, their wide receivers are definitely better. The O line questions, I still wonder how much better are they going to be on the offensive line. You mentioned Will Campbell, or it was a just injury or was it, you know, his play maybe not as good as some people expected. They sign

Elijah Vera Tucker. He's had injury issues in the past. They're moving the kid from guard to center. So I want to see what that offensive line looks like because they have a very high ceiling. If the offensive line is like average this year, then Drake May has a chance to put up the same kinds of numbers. All right, Bill, you ask me who my guy is. Yeah, who's your guy? And I'm not just kissing up to Tom's audience because Tom's bringing us a Minneapolis audience, you know, his home state there. I actually think we're going to talk about Kyler Murray differently in January than we do now. And I have not historically been the biggest Kyler Murray guy.

I wasn't like, he's underrated. People don't understand. I never got caught up when he had, he would always have like a great six to eight weeks. And everyone's like, Kyler Murray, MVP watch. And I'm like, let's just wait till the end of the season and see what this looks like. But I'm looking at the situation in Minnesota. And I just feel like we have to be realistic about the bar. he needs to clear. Like he kind of just needs to give them competent quarterback play with that

wide receiver core, with two good offensive tackles, with a good offensive coach with what I think is going to be a good defense. And I think at the end of the season, we're going to say, you know what, there's this big group of quarterbacks in the NFL, this middle tier, that it kind of depends what situation they're in, whether we consider them really good or average or kind of bad. But I think it's like a small sort of range that we're going to see with Kyler Murray. I don't think he's going to be an MVP. I don't think we're going to say he's like a top five guy. But I also think there's a good chance.

He's going to be like one of the 15 or 16 best quarterbacks in the NFL, Tom. And I think that could be enough for the Vikings to certainly get into the playoffs. What are the vibes, the feelings in Minnesota right now with Kyler Murray? Well, they moved to Kyle and Murray and made it clear that he was the starter pretty early in camp. They could have played it out through the preseason. They didn't think that that was the best thing for him. They want to maximize his reps with the first team. and go out there.

They did split at 50-50 through the whole spring. I know that everybody out there thinks it's a fake competition, but they did split the wraps between Kyler and J.J. McCarthy. What I think, Kyler Murray unlocks besides just being, if he's helping, which that's job one for Kyler. He has had injuries in recent years, obviously going back to the significant one that cost him essentially almost an entire season. Then last year with the ankle or the foot, whatever it was,

they never really healed and not being able to make it back. He's got to stay on the field first and foremost. When you put Kyler, who whatever tiny tick of elusiveness maybe you lose when you're getting a little bit later in your career, this would be year eight, I believe, for him, he still is so difficult to defend in space. How are you going to spy the quarterback and double Jefferson Jefferson on every snap? It forces the defense to account for something that, you know, the same vision existed with JJ too, because he can use his legs. But Kyler's a rare, rare runner. How are you going to defend that if Kyler is able to find that balance? I don't see this being a Kyle and Murray throws them all 40 times in a game type of an offense.

I think that if they're doing that, the Vikings are probably playing losing football. This is very much going to be using the diversity in the run game, forcing people to account for the quarterback run, and then trying to get themselves into favorable matches where they can take advantage of what might be the best three deep wide receiver room in the entire league with Jefferson, Jordan Addison, and Joanne Jennings, which is a lot of Js, now that I say it out loud, if you're trying to keep that straight at home,

their run game has been overhauled, too. One thing they hadn't been talked about enough with the Vikings is they've completely changed the way that they're going to run the football. They brought in Frank Smith, who was the Dolphins offensive coordinator. They brought in Keith Carter to be the offensive line coach. It'll be much more of the outside zone oriented stuff. And then with Kyler, of course, we all know,

shotgun pistol, he can pull it, he can run zone read. I just think it's going to be really interesting to watch. Well, it's a really talented Vikings offense that last year, because how things went to quarterback was having to win games where Max Grossmer's out there throwing for 52 yards. Yeah, nine and eight with the quarterbacks they played last year. So I'm like, all right, they can win 10 games and earn a wild card spot. So we'll see.

Billy, before we move on to the next question, maybe Kyler Murray video game jokes. Should we retire them? Like, when you see those now, are you like, all right, you know, enough? Or do you think they still have a little shelf life here? I feel like we can move past the Kyler Murray jokes at this point with the video games, right? So that's our official stance on this pod, I think. Tom, you're good with that?

Is it officially like, eh? I think at this point, we haven't had a Kyler video game story since the contract. I mean, I said it on Bill's podcast the other day. Kyle Herob holds the NFL record, as far as I'm aware, for most millions of dollars paid to a quarterback that the team hates. And he got it. And he collected almost every dollar of that contract, including the, what are the old, 37 million, I think, this year when he plays for the minimum in Minnesota. And then by the way, becomes, if he plays the way that you're thinking, Sheel will become the number one free agent

next March. He's got a no tag clause on a one-year minimum deal. He's a free agent. Baker is potentially a free agent, though hypothetically he could end up getting tagged. It's a really interesting quarterback landscape as we look out the 2027 before we even get to the college class that's potentially encountered. Oh, I didn't really. I didn't really. I he had a no tag clause. Because when you said that, I'm like, Kevin O'Connell,

if Kevin O'Connell has a veteran quarterback play well this year, he will make sure that that person is not allowed to leave Minneapolis, but it could potentially be a little bit out of his control,

right? If Kyler Murray can just test the market if he has a good season, the Vikings don't have that card that so many teams have that, hey, we have the leverage here because we can tag you. That's interesting.

This is the story of the Vikings is they have been the place going all the way back to, you know, the Randall Cunningham, of the world that you come in and you have this lightning in a bottle thing and then all of a sudden you're gone like it never was there before you know farv came in same way case keenamette is running 2017 obviously sam darnald a couple of years ago i mean kiler would love to follow the uh the sam darnold

path and you know new leadership of course in Minnesota now nolan tisley's in there as the GM i would certainly think and dollars are another thing but i would certainly think if he plays the way you're thinking Shield the Vikings will be doing everything they can. Probably not during the season. I would think it'll be a postseason evaluation, but everything they can to get something done before he hits the free agent market next March. All right. There you go.

What a start to the five big questions. Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to some more big questions coming up in the 2026 season. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul before the football season begins. Every team is undefeated. Every fan believes this could be the year. the year their team wins the division,

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or 18 plus D.C. or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler. call 1 8887-8-8-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. Billy, what do you think? Are we getting to no time here? You got any questions before we get to the next football-related topic?

I personally was very impressed by those stats, your knowledge of different coverages, cover six. Yeah, well, you didn't reference anything. Well, I didn't even get to ask you about Justin Herbert. Can I ask you just a quick follow-up? Sure. one B for last question. Yeah. Is there any chance, Tom,

you're hearing around there that Deshawn Watson might be looked at differently after this season? I mean, certainly it's possible. You know, we'll see how Chedure does

in his preseason start coming up. It seems like the arrows are pointing toward the Sean. Listen, if if Deshaun Watson plays well, all right, and I get all the reasons to think that he won't.

He's played 19 games in the past five seasons combined. He hasn't played. since he tore his Achilles twice in the calendar year. And he's got to go into every single building, including his own building, where people don't like him.

Or he's hearing it from the crowd. And that's part of what they wanted him to experience getting that first preseason start. Let's say he plays pretty well. All right, I'm not talking MVP. I'm talking like borderline top 10 quarterback. You know, at the time that the Browns traded for him, they thought he was a top five quarterback.

But let's see he's borderline top 10, okay, has a good, solid year. I have no idea what the market is going to be because of all the things surrounding Deshaun Watson. I think it's really hard for the Browns to extend him. I think it's hard for any other team to bring him in on more than a one-year deal. But we also know there's not 32 starting quarterbacks walking to face the earth. And if he plays well enough, we're going to be talking about who's in the mix for to Sean Watson, which is something that I think there have been many, many times over the past five years

that we didn't think we'd actually be uttering that phrase. It's the Jets. It's going to be the Jets is. it. Oh my gosh. I think we might get to the Jets here. Jets are on the relatively expansive lists of teams who, if I were sitting here right now, projecting who's going to be starting a quarterback in 2027, I would say probably not a guy on the current roster.

Yeah. Watch football on Saturdays, Jets fans, and there's a few other teams. We can say that about my favorite Brown staff, Billy, is that the two worst quarterback seasons of the last two years by EPA per pass play, Deshawn Watson in 2025. and Shador Sanders in 2025. So that would be a big leap that Watson would have to make if he's even going to approach average quarterback play. Now, you said you wanted to ask about Justin Herbert and then you asked about Deshawn Watson.

Did I hear that incorrectly? No, Watson was one that I was thinking. Herbert is one that I was wondering if we're ever going to kind of know. Because the thing that I'm wondering about because you mentioned Herbert earlier in your quarterbacks that maybe we'll look at him differently is now he's a man in love. Now he's a man that's engaged. We saw the pictures of him, of him sitting on the field with his fianc

say Madison beer. Part of an ad campaign apparently. One of those guerrilla advertising campaigns. Wait, is that true? I hope it's true. Yeah, I think so. Because otherwise, it was a strange scene there.

Yeah, it was a little bit odd. And now, like, you know, is loving off the field issue we need to be worried about? Because, like, we kind of saw Travis last year had a step back, but he was also planning his wedding. So, like, should we not want these guys to be falling in love? Tom, I don't know about you. I feel

like my years post-marriage. I can tell that was a rhetorical question or not. Go ahead, chill. Yeah, this is, I think, you know, let me make sure I get the dates right here. I married 2011. I thought I was doing good work in 2012. You know, my first opportunity

to write about football, full-time, tough season with Andy Reid. But I thought I did a good job. Tom, what about you? Post-marriage, I feel like it adds a little something to the workflow. There's a cliff. You hit a cliff at a certain point. You're like, the first two years is good,

And then it's like, oh, now I'm putting on some pounds and then right downhill and you're doing a pod with me. My wife would probably say that my attention to work has remained high throughout 12 years in marriage. Let's put it that way. 14 years. Okay. Oh, no. Well, you proved to. You said 20.

There's no editing on this podcast. 14 years. It's 14. I don't know why I had 2014 in my head. 14 plus 12. It goes 26. Yeah, that's the year we're in. You're looking at you know where I am right now.

I've done that exact same thing on a podcast before and I've lived to tell about it. So don't worry. You're in good company here. All right, my next question. Are the chiefs going to be back to being the chiefs? Because I was just going through the whole and I'm like, I don't hear a lot of people talking about the chiefs. I don't hear a lot of buzz about the chiefs. Typically, I would think people would be like, don't sleep on the chiefs.

This team's getting back to the Super Bowl yet it doesn't feel like a lot of people are making that prediction. Where are you with the state of the Kansas City Chiefs and the possibility that they're back atop the AFC this year? I'm sure Billy's got all sorts of numbers on how Mahomes is against cover nine and things like that. I will stick with the strictly, I wouldn't say emotional argument, but the anecdotal argument that Patrick Mahomes is one of, if not the greatest player I've ever seen in my lifetime.

And what he did from the moment that he stepped into the lineup and became the chief starting quarterback is unprecedented. Because it was not just that they were winning. Tom Brady won early in his crew, but it was they were winning because of Patrick Mahomes. He was the centerpiece. He was the best player in football and he did it really, really quickly. I still, it feels unreal. It feels like it didn't actually happen that the Chiefs went 6 and 11 last year.

Like that, to me, is such an anomaly. There were different things happening. They were still in the playoff chase until Mahomes tears his knee and Garder Minshue takes over and what throws an interception of like the first play. ended their chances there. But it just felt like last year was, every single week was an uphill battle. And while I understand, all right, Travis Kelsey's getting older,

Chris Jones is getting older, there's all kinds of changes. I mean, they basically overhauled the entire secondary and let some pretty good players go, traded one-of-way in Trent McDuffie, lost Brian Cook to Cincinnati, lost Jaylon Watson, to the Rams. They've got a lot of moving parts.

They're counting on young guys like Mansour Delane to step in right away. And receiver remains in a position group where if you look at the depth chart, it's a lot of the same guys. A lot of the same guys he keep going, hey, is this the Xavier Worthy breakout? Hey, is this year Rishi Rice stays healthy and is on the field? The only reason that I have, just from a strict objective perspective to say this, is that I don't see Patrick Mahomes being a guy who's going to miss the playoffs two years in a row. I don't see Patrick Mahomes allowing the chiefs to have a hiccup.

Even setting aside, like, all right, if this is the final tour for Travis Kelsey and what that means to him, and how that can drive himself to be a better version. The past two seasons, the only time we really saw Travis Kelsey looked like Travis Kelsey was the playoff run two years ago where all of a sudden he came out and like single-handly took over a playoff game. Other than that, he's still a really good player. He's still a top, what, 10 tight end in the NFL, but he's not the number one guy. He's not quite Hall of Fame, you know, tight end Travis Kelsey.

I do think he can get closer to that. I do think that you can extract something at the end of your career. But more than anything, I just foresee Patrick Mahomes, along with Andy Reid, the return of Eric B. Enemy, which people felt like they lost a little bit of that personality because Andy's not really the enforcer on the coaching staff. E.B. being back is significant. Again, I look at all the same stuff you do. Are they really going to give the ball to Kenneth Walker the third? It's Andy Reed. He doesn't want to run the ball. He wants to throw it every single snap. It just feels like that has to be the anomaly. They got to get past the Broncos, which are really, really talented. roster. Obviously, you got to get past the Chargers. That's in their own division. But I'd really be, not much shocks me, but I would be very surprised if the Chiefs are not right back in the playoffs. And we're talking about, can they pull it off again? Billy, you agree? You fade in the Chiefs. You back in on the Chiefs. The AFC West,

I've changed my mind on who's going to win the AFC West about 17 times just in like the last three days. Well, where are you at now? You know, I saw that Chargers injury with Biotish, the center going down. I'm like, should I just bet? I think at this very moment, I might be leaning Denver, just being like they have the most talented roster. But I'm with Tom. I have the Chiefs as a playoff team. I think the Chiefs are still like fourth in odds to win the AFC this year. They're up there. Yeah. The Ravens bills and Patriots. And I think it's because of what Tom's saying. It's kind of like,

well, they're the Chiefs. You know what I mean? Like they can't have another down year like they had. And you pointed out, Airbnb. I mean, like, I wonder how much that's actually going to give them because there was a time you guys know where it was kind of like back and forth. Is he the one that really should get the credit? Is Andy Reid that gets the credit for this offense? And then he left and kind of just bounced around from stop to time. I'm like, oh, okay, I guess this was really more of an Andy Reid situation than it was Eric B. and me, but it's a familiar face that comes back here.

He gets to work with Patrick Holmes. I mean, could this be Xavier Worthy's year that he has the breakout? Did you see what happened this year, guys? We have now an annual tradition because it happened for the second time. So I don't think you can have an annual tradition until something happens for the second time. Do you know what happened today? What happened?

I missed this. Tom, did you get this? It's a big story. Gee. Everyone's talking about it. What do you got? Savior Worthy for the second year in a row ended camp by giving away his PlayStation 5

to a kid and he signed it. So, I mean, if you're going out there, you're giving away PlayStation 5. It's Christmas in August now. Why are you against giving out nice things to children? No, I'm saying. This is a good thing. Giving the kids the thing is good juju that's going to propel them.

It's going to take them to the playoffs. And here's another thing that's kind of like an underrated thing, right? But I think might work in their favor. There is this kind of question. Like, are they done? But it's very different than, oh, they're going to be the best team in the AFC. It's going to, they're going to steamroll everyone. Like the pressure's off of them, I think, because there isn't this expectation that they're

going to win the AFC, that they're going to be even the two seed probably, right? They may not even win their division. So I think that that... Who's the favor in the conference, Billy, right now? Because you just mentioned, even with, all right, the win odds are what, the Bills, the Ravens, the Patriots, and the Chiefs, and the AFC? Yeah. Count the teams that didn't make the playoffs last year. The Chiefs didn't make it.

The Ravens didn't make it. The Patriots were the surprise team that made a run, and Buffalo lost on a weird play in Denver. In other words, even some of the teams were talking about being at the top. As much as everybody talks about, the AFC is just so good and it's so difficult. And a lot of that's driven by the quarterbacks. It's like a lot of the teams that we think of is the ones that are tough every year, they weren't last year. They weren't very good.

And that's, I think, part of the fun going into this season. You know, the Chiefs aren't playing on Christmas for like the first time ever, right? Like, there's just, there's kind of a little bit of a recalibration here, you know, which makes me think that this is going to be really interesting to see how it plays out. One thing that would be helpful, Travis Kelsey, not running into Xavier Worthy on like the fourth play of the game in the opener like last year. Do you remember that? Yeah. The whole game plan was built.

around Xavier worthy in that game, he gets knocked out in the first series. That game goes to crap. And it was like the omen of the entire season. Nobody could stay healthy. Nobody could stay on the field. Everything that could go wrong, went wrong. I'm taking a guess that the law of averages is going to even that thing up. How close are you to getting invited to that wedding? Do you think, Tom? I think if I had really tried. How do you know he wasn't invited, Billy? I was not. My kids were passed a hundred times. I would say this. I would say this. based on, and this is not a shot at anyone, I would just say based on some of the people I saw

that were at the wedding and their ostensible lack of connection to anyone involved, if I really, really wanted to go, I bet I could have found a ticket. You know, like I bet if I pushed all the right buttons, I somehow could have gotten there. It didn't really cross my mind to attempt to do that.

Took a vacation with my wife instead, sent the kids to me. That was plenty good for me. Where'd you guys go? Went to Banff. In Canada. BAMF? This is beautiful. You're ready to Canada?

That shows up on my Instagram every day. It actually looks amazing. I never thought about going there until this summer. It's all over my Instagram, Tom. Do you give it two thumbs up? Madison Square Garden with 22,000 of your friends, your acquaintances, strangers, closest friends. Finger foods. And not even allowed to put anything on Instagram, except for a photo of you in your hotel room because it's all secret.

Or you go to Banff, one of the most beautiful. places in the world and just see the water that's completely crystal blue behind you. I enjoyed it. It was a fun trip. It does look beautiful, Billy. Now, don't upset it. We want to, you know, you freeze that Canadian audience, Billy. I saw your reaction when he said that and I'm going to take offense on his behalf. Okay. Well, I mean, it could have been like Bali or something. You don't know what I mean? Like, if it's like, I'm way out of the way, but like, you can hop on a plane to Banff at any point in time. I don't need to leave North America in July. It's great here. Who's the next wedding?

I guess now it's Herbert, right? So do you now start kind of like getting a little bit closer to Herbert and say like, hey, you know? Well, if you guys start like gilting me, and if they also get married in arena, I will just, just for the humor value, I will try to get a ticket. But no, I don't think, I like Justin. I ended up in his ad for a certain television brand several years ago and I sold a big screen TV to prove it. TCL. Yeah, okay. Well, I didn't know if we have a sponsor.

I'm new here. I don't know. Come on. I ended up in the ad. And so we talked about it. I was very grateful, though it was completely incidental. It was me talking on TV about Justin Herbert and not having won a playoff game yet.

And they stuck that in the ad. And it was him sitting on the couch watching me say it. Wait, hold on a second. So are you one of the people that ended up with like one of those 95-inch TVs that takes up a wall? That's correct. You have one of those? It's a pretty wild.

It might be 85. It's a big TV. Oh, sorry. Yeah. All because I accidentally ended up in an app. And I love those guys, man. They're wonderful to work with. So how big is the room this is in?

I would think, does it give you headaches? Like your wife hate this thing? No, we put a gigantic, ridiculous soap out there and it all kind of like it fits, you know. Yeah, race show. It's all about the ratio. All right. Here we go. Which team is going to get the first year bump from its head coach?

This seems to happen every single year that you, this is what I do, my exercise in the preseason. I'm like, all right, let me look. Look at all the first year coaches, which one of these guys is going to make a big impact. That team's going to make a leap. We have a lot of these coaches this year. We got Joe Brady with the Bills. We got Mike LaFleurre with the Cardinals. Jesse Minter with the Ravens.

Clint Kubiak with the Raiders. Jeff Halfley with Billy's Dolphins. John Harbaugh with the Giants. Mike McCarthy with the Steelers. Robert Sala Titans. Kevin Stefansky, Falcons. Todd Monkin. Browns.

Unbelievable. New head coaches all over the place, Tom. Which one should their fan base be like, oh, yeah, baby, we're getting the bump from what we saw last year because we hired the right guy. Listen, this one I thought it was a pretty strong group of head coaches that got jobs, both the veteran guys, as well as the young guys. I think that, you know, everyone certainly has a chance to be successful. But for me, it's not about, all, yeah, we all have the expectations, right, of, like, Jesse Minter and Joe Brady, like, really talented teams with stud MVP quarterback. Can they get them over the top? And they'll get all the credit for that, even though these are, again, really talented teams and really good quarterbacks.

To me, it's more about who is going to take the awful team and actually just make them better? That to me is the bum. I think Jeff Halfley's got a chance to be really, really good. I think the dolphins are going to be hard pressed to be good until 2028, just because of how they're building this. They want to do it the right way, draft and develop. A little bit of the same thing with Michael Fleur, I think it's going to take time. The guy I look at because he's the antithesis of everything that they were doing a year ago, the antithesis, frankly, of what has been the persona of the franchise,

which now fits together with some other people coming in like that. I think it's Clint Kubiak, one of the most soft-spoken guys in the NFL. He's really bright. Of course, Gary's son. Gary was also, you know, kind of a flatline personality. Didn't say a whole lot. What a Super Bowl, you know, is the head coach of the Broncos. Clint has that same.

He comes from the same offensive system. He has that expertise. And he's got a guy in Kirk Cousins that knows how to run the offense. They spent a ton. If they do improve, it will all be Clint. I mean, they went, they spent a ton on defense. Max Crosby gets traded for a few days to the Ravens. He comes back and they've spent like $300 million on defense.

And he's like, hey, this is pretty good now. Like, they put a bunch of money where they needed to. So a lot of questions are like the wide receiver position. But think of how bad the Raiders were last. year. Like after, I was at the week one game, Raiders Patriots in Foxborough, the Raiders won. I will still say, weirdest game of the entire NFL season was the Raiders beating the Patriots. Patriots lose that game and ruined the first game of the Mike Frable era. And then after that, they were like virtually unstoppable and the Raiders were the worst team in

the NFL. But like, Chip Kelly couldn't call a play correctly. You know, like, they had no idea what they were doing. Pete Carroll's a great guy. And he's well established. He was a Super Bowl winner. But he's like, he was doing something he'd never done before, which is firing coaches in the season, just trying to figure it out. Clint is going to come in and calm things down. Rob Leonard, the defensive coordinator, is close with Max. He's going to help calm things down on that side, even though, you know, Patrick Graham, who is there as a really, really good coach.

Andrew Dernoco coming as the O.C., they got a bunch of guys who, like, have the demeanor for this. They are more talented. They got a quarterback who knows what he's doing until Fernando's ready, which I really do believe they're going to take their time before they put him on the field. Raiders won, what, three or four games last year? I can't remember because they stole one at the end that almost screwed them out of the number one pick. But they were the worst team in the NFL.

I wouldn't be surprised if they scrape and claw and they get the six or seven wins. To me, that's a bump. It's as much about what happened last year as about this year. But I do think Clint coming in immediately, they're going to have a plan offensively. They're going to have a different dynamic just around the entire building. I think that based on all the changes, all the appeal for the Raiders, that's a good thing. Yeah, three and 14 last year, you're right. the bar is relatively low where it's, you know, we're not talking about them making the playoffs.

We're talking about establishing some level of competence that you're heading in the right direction. See Mendoza at some point, Billy, are you buying the, Tom, is it? Let me ask Tom real quick here. The intel there, is this like a Tom Brady edict that this is what you need to do with first year quarterbacks and that I don't care what it looks like with Kurt Cousins. we need Mendoza to wait and wait and wait before playing him because this seems to be all the messaging coming out of Vegas that we don't care what you all think. We don't care what other teams have done in the past with these rookie quarterbacks.

This guy is not going to play until, like you said, 10, 11, 12, 13 weeks into the season. It's not Tom Brady, E. Dick. It's what Clint believes in. And he really wants to take this thing slow. I mean, he just won a Super Bowl in Seattle with a guy in Sam Darnold, who maybe if he had a little bit of time to wait, and he didn't go out there week one, like through a pick six, and then they won like 52 to 10 over the lines.

But after that, it was rough for Sam Darnel with the Jets. Like maybe with a little bit more time, he wouldn't have been the guy that everybody made fun of for seeing ghosts for the first five years of his career and bounced around. They want to get this right. And also remember this, Fernando's coming from completely different system. I mean, it was shotgun, you know, zone read type stuff.

He's throwing, you know, off the playfake to wide open windows. Now it's under center. Turn your back to the line of scrimmage. on play action, all those fundamentals of that offense. And so it's going to take some time. And what better person and player to watch than Kirk Cousins? Like, Kirk Cousins could step in right now and coach that scheme. He knows it inside and out. So you're going to be able to play. Now, if they start out 1 and 6, you know what the pressure is going to be. And you know what the conversation like basically what's the point of playing Kirk Cousins. But Kirk's going in there to win.

And I think that he'll at least have the opportunity to be a whole lot more competitive, especially if they can get Ashton Genty and the run game going, which should be part of the specialty for Clint. All right, Billy. Tom Scott, Clint Kubiak, who are you thinking is giving their team a first year bump? Before we, Jay, I just want to advise you, we need to be very careful around these parts with Fernando Mendoza because we found ourselves on the wrong side of Fernando Mendoza's fans and family

earlier this year where a clip went out that Shio was on and something critical was said about something critical was said about Fernando and his dad commented on it that we were clowns. So you need to be very careful with Fernando Mendoza because these clips get around here. Billy,

can I tell you what I'm worried about if I'm being honest here? I feel like, you know, Tom has all these sources and he's talking to coaches and GMs and players and I'm very worried that like on his first assignment

for Netflix, someone's going to come up to him and be like those clowns that would have that podcast with, you know, it's almost like he's not going to do anything wrong. It's like, we're in high school,

We're like smoking pot in the bathroom and he's just trying to use the urinal, but he's still getting the other teachers coming by and saying, you three, principal's office now. I do feel like we have to be a little concerned about this, Billy, because we don't want our new colleague here to get in a bad situation on our behalf. And I'm mostly talking about you, but I'm trying to be a team player. Yeah, it is something that did cross my mind. And I have thought, you know, maybe I should behave slightly better just because, you know, Tom's not just starting here at a new school, but he's also starting at a new school at Netflix. so he's going to go out there. And, you know, the worst case scenario is we say something where, you know, week one, someone pulls him aside and say, hey, I was, you know, listening to Bringer NFL show.

And I heard that such and such thing was said. And here's the, here's kind of like the double-edged sword with me and my career and my standing in this, you know, industry is that clip might go out. No one knows who I am. They're not going to remember it. So it will be attributed to you or you or sure, probably. So the consequences will be yours more than likely. So I need to be on my best behavior, I think, on this front.

I agree with that. And I can confirm that Tom probably has the most to lose on it. So that's, you know, we're just trying to look out for. Listen, if you say something stupid enough that I feel like I need to respond, I will simply jump in and respond immediately. So far, I think you're on the right side of it so far. Wait, you're going to throw us out of the bus, Tom. You're not going to win a team now.

I'm saying, I'll call you all right here. No, mid-podcast. Oh, come on, man. That's good podcasting. You've got to be able to yell at each other. That's good podcasting. I feel like now is a time, you know, let loose a little. How many suits do you have, Tom?

Like, actually in the rotation, probably like 15 suits, five sport coats somewhere in there. Really? 15? Wait, there's some out of the rotation you still have? Well, I'm saying, like, some suits you like more than others or they're newer and so you wear those a little bit more. You know, I mean, I think it was Dion Sanders. You used to say you can only wear a suit once every five years. Now, my suits are slightly less flashy than his.

But there is something to that. If you wear something memorable, you got to put it to the... back of the closet. The straight Navy, you can wear that every day. Outside of the, like, the professional obligations, do you have many, like, suit-meeded events that you go to? Like, what's your, what's your suit usage rate at the moment? Oh, no. So I have way too many suits. I think that that's, that's fair. You know, maybe Netflix adds 15 more games next year. Otherwise, yeah. Otherwise, I'll be on the once every five years plan. I like that. Here's what I'm thinking, Billy, if this goes well, this episode, maybe future episodes,

maybe Tom invites you over to his house because you're interested in the TV, you're interested in the closet. I do feel like at some point he might get a little annoyed with all these questions and just come over, look at what you want,

but don't mess anything up. So let's work towards that. It's also possible shield that he says, hey, guys, step your game up like this is a suit show now. You know what I mean? And then me and you need to go into the 15 suit game.

Yeah, I'm glad you didn't name a store there. I thought you were going to give another. No. Billy, I'm giving my head coach. here. Because I know Tom was saying, all right, it's the big turnaround team. And that's true. That's what you do want to look at. This felt like the hardest question, shield, that you had, by the way.

See, I looked at it, and I think Jesse Minter, there's a chance that in Baltimore, I know they're already a good team. I know they got a good quarterback. I know they're a good organization. But that situation screamed to me, like, fresh new voice could really help here. You know, sometimes when a coach is there,

for that long, it's just like, all right, you didn't do anything wrong. It's just like, we need a new voice here. you hear great things about Jesse Minter. I know he can coach a very good defense. And I think there's a chance that the Ravens are positioned to get over the hump. Now, the bar for them is very different than Clint Kubiak. Like they've kind of got to get to the Super Bowl for us to be saying, man, Jesse Minter

crushed it this year. And this actually did make a big difference. But Billy, he's my pick, Jesse Minter for the coach who's going to give his team a big first year bump. I want to say Joe Brady just because no one has, like we talked about it. Because there's no one on there that I see that's going to take their team worse to first, right? Like, I don't think any of us think that any of the new coaches are. And then the other coaches took over teams that were either playoff teams or like right there on the cussing playoff team.

So I feel like if Joe gets them to the Super Bowl, that is while it's only winning one more game than they've been able to win so far, that probably is the biggest bump, right? And he will now have a lot of leeway, where if he loses in the first, first round or he loses in the AFC championship game or whatever. It's kind of like status quo. But it feels like the bills are knocking on the door. And I don't necessarily think that it was a coaching issue.

But when you get to that same place so many times and you just can't get over that hump, you make changes. So they made a change in head coach. And if this is a year they finally break through, I feel like he'll get more credit than he necessarily deserves just because he gets them there. There is something to be said for change for the sake of change. change. In other words, when you consistently come up short, and Terry Pagula kind of alluded to this in firing Sean McDermott, who, you know, McDermott had guided the turnaround in Buffalo. I mean, they hadn't won a playoff game or been to the playoffs like 18 years. And he comes in, they get there right out of the gate.

2018, they kind of ate a bunch of cap stuff. But then for 2019 on, they're one of the best teams in the NFL that are there every time. But he said, you know, he saw Josh Allen crying in his locker. And it was like it just, it was happening again with Baltimore. It was just the fading down the stretch. and it was the losing the games late. I mean, it was the same stuff over and over. To me, like, that's it as much as anything. You know, if you're the Ravens and you're showing up every single year and you feel like you keep having these situations where you're up late in the game and you blow it, like that becomes ingrained.

You know, the Chargers had that for a long time, and they're still not quite over the hump of that, too. You know, just like the constant collapses. Like, that's a challenge teams have to deal with. And so Minter or Brady, it may not be that they're better coaches or they did a better job. It might just be the change is good for everybody. Change, right place, right time. Because, yeah, I mean, those have been, you know, if you look at the hit the last 25 years,

it is very rare for teams to have the stretches that the bills and Ravens have had here over the last, whatever, five, six, seven years, and not even get to a Super Bowl. So it might just be, all right, little change, a little different voice, get them over the hump. I think that certainly is a big storyline. year can one of those two teams finally get over the hump and get to the Super Bowl? Billy, you have something else before I get to the next question here? Who do you guys think is the most right place, right time coach ever? That wasn't necessarily the reason but gets like the glory for it.

Is it maybe Barry Switzer? I mean, Switzerland, that's probably the best example of it. But that's, you know, you step in for a team that literally had just won two Super Bowls. I mean, Bruce Ariens at Tampa, where all of a sudden, now he's, he's, He was there with James. It wasn't year one. If we're talking year one winners, like that's a different. That's kind of a different category.

I mean, Gary Kubiak, to go back to that. You know, he'd been a great coach in Houston. He would have been there a lot longer, but he had health issues. And then Denver needed to make a change. That's where he played back of quarterback. He decided to do it. What a Super Bowl with the greatest defense of all time and what was left of Peyton Manning. I certainly do.

That's another good example. If I wanted my audience for the ringers Philly special to be very upset with me, Billy, I might throw Nick Siriani's name in there, but I am not going to do that. I'm going to take a break and we're going to come back with the next two questions. This episode is brought to you by Organ. Go harder and push farther with Organcreatine. It helps improve muscle size, strength, and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. Orgain creatine is certified with informed choice, which means it's tested for prohibited substances in sports. Upgrade your performance with organ creeteen, available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods.

These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. All right, we're back on the ringer NFL show. All right, two more questions here. Tom, here's what we got. Is this Rams thing actually going to work out? I mean, there's really a, this might, this just feels like the biggest story in the NFL, the offseason they had. Are we going to look back and go, that went extremely well? They're in the Super Bowl, or do you have maybe more concerns than the average listener out there?

The wild thing is, I mean, the Rams are the same division as the defending Super Bowl champs. And if you look at, you know, odds or you just, you turn on the, you know, TV, watch whatever, like, all you hear about is the Rams. You don't hear about the Seahawks. Obviously, the Rams, you know, they've kind of done this since they went to L.A. They are always interesting whether it is shedding veterans and going super young or it is doing what they've done multiple times now cyclically, which is going out and trading for people and just loading up and going for it all right now. You know, they're a perfect Hollywood team.

They're a team that you can't look away no matter what they're doing at any given time. Having said that, I mean, listen, anytime you're relying on some older players, that creates some questions. I mean, Matthew Stafford is one of the toughest guys in the NFL. He's played through a ton. But if something happens to Matthew Stafford, are you going to winning the Super Bowl with Stetson Bennett or Ty Simpson? Can you even get through six games, eight games, four games with those guys and stay on track?

You know, Miles Garrett is still in his prime. But I would say he's, if you had to say, he's past the midway point of his prime. If Aaron Donald comes back, this entire idea that he's going to be the same Aaron Donald is, in my opinion, and based on what I know, far-fetched, he may be really good in spurts, but he's not a full-time player. And then things like, you know, Puka, who spent a stint in rehab in this offseason. What does Devante Adams have left at this stage in his career? And in an off-season where the Rams at one point told him,

we might trade you because we're trying to get A.J. Brown. I mean, these are, you know, how does it happen in the secondary? You acquire the two chiefs corners. It's not like the chiefs had the greatest defense in the world. you trade for Trent McDuffey with the first round picking and signed Jillin Watson, all of which is to say the Rams have a chance to be really, really good. And we know that Sean McVeigh is one of the best minds in the NFL. You know, Chris Shula did a great job overall last year with that defense as well.

And they got a weird game in week one. I'll be there. I'll be on the sides in Melbourne, Australia for Netflix. It's 49ers Rams. It's a division game played a day and many time zones away. It's Friday morning, Australia time. It'll be Thursday night football here. Imagine if the Rams lose that game to a 49ers team

that their only storyline has been, hey, they got guys beat up again, is at the substation? Like, has anyone talked about the 49ers outside of that and outside of guys getting hurt? The Rams lose that game. We're going to have 10 days to sit here and pick apart all the reasons that the Rams aren't going to do it. They're going to be there at the end.

I feel confident saying, unless Matthew Stafford, God forbid, misses a huge chunk of the season. they'll be in the playoff mix, but they still got to get past the team in their own division that when it came down to it last year, found a way to, in very weird fashion, get a huge win that kind of turned Seattle season. Yeah, it feels like the Seahawks probably love this.

You know, you're coming off a Super Bowl win and the other team in your division is getting the headlines. This is perfect in terms of, all right, it's pretty easy to motivate my team this way. Billy, I think it's going to work for the ramps. Really? For content's sake, I've really been trying to zag, and be like all of you are hyping up the Rams

and no, this thing's going to not work out and this thing's not going to work out. Just the infrastructure of McVeigh and Stafford. Now, if the quarterback goes down, obviously, it's not going to work. We can say that about any team in the NFL. But when I'm just doing preseason projections, I have one team that I think is going to have a top five offense

and a top five defense. And that's the Los Angeles frames. It doesn't mean it's definitely going to work out. It's football. It's the NFL. Random things happen. But the coach and the quarterback, in addition to all the other things

we're adding around them. I'm with Tom. I don't see a scenario where the floor is so low where they're not in the playoffs this year barring, again, some crazy injury thing. I'm citing with Tom here where you're making great points.

They have all of the reasons for this to work. And the stars, if they align, would be great and this should be the best team. But last year, we thought that they were the best team and the stars didn't align. And this year, as you're saying, they're older. Like if Stafford goes down, if Puka, kind of how you alluded to, not even goes down with an injury, just does something dumb. Because it seems to be something, unfortunately,

that Puka has been doing a lot lately to varying degrees, whether it's, you know, the situation where he bids someone allegedly, or the situation where he's doing things on live stream. It seems like he just has gotten somewhat caught up in the fame there and is inclined to not make the best decisions. And it hasn't cost him yet, but hopefully he can, you know, when football season starts again, kind of get his head on straight and not run into that. But that's always a possibility. And then even if, you know, that's not the case. Even everyone does stay healthy, they still have to go through the Seahawks.

They still, what are the Eagles going to look like? Are the Bears going to, you know, play them tough again this year? The lion's going to bounce back. We talked about it last week. The Cowboys, Dax said that they're going to be the Godi, which is the greatest offense there is. So are they going to have to run through there. Like, there's a lot of teams out there in the NFC they're going to have to go through. Yeah.

No, there are reasons. Tom laid out good reasons. Second hardest schedule in the NFL when you look at Super Bowl odds. Bad special teams. I think the O-line talent and depth is a concern. Puka is a huge concern. I mean, he might be the best wide receiver in the NFL. If he's getting suspended or if he's just, he needs to have like a tracker of like how many days without your name and a headline. And he should just be trying to build that baby up. Maybe he can get some incentives, some bonus tied to it because it just feels like he can't go more than two weeks without us reading. another story about Puka Nakuha. Honestly, for him selfishly, and this is very irresponsible, he should have a countdown clock to days until guaranteed money. Like, how about just get a big contract and get your guaranteed money? Like, stay on your best behavior

until, say in your best behavior always, right? But also, why are you going to do it like on rookie deals before you've even made money? Like, you're going to blow this for yourself. Is that a tricky situation, Tom, that Puka Nakua contract situation, given all this stuff that's happened off the field? And then the fact that when he plays,

just looks like an unstoppable force. In some ways, what played out this off-season simplifies things relative to if the Rams had known the various issues that Puka was dealing with, and he didn't leave the team, and he didn't go into rehab. The fact that it's all out there,

it eliminates the questions of like, why aren't they sign them? Is it the thing he did on that live stream? Is it any number of other things, the legal battles? This is kind of like, I think everybody understands right now, This is always going to be a tricky deal to do because unlike Jackson Smith and J.B., he wasn't a first-round pick, which means there is no 50-year option, which means this is the last year of his contract. You're looking at tagging him if you don't get a deal done.

It makes sense for everybody to gather the information for the Rams just to see how this thing goes. And then it's going to be a high-stakes negotiation after the season. Could they pay him tomorrow? Could they pay him mid-season? I suppose. But I would think you want to see how this entire thing plays. out and then all right. The Rams have never been scared to sign their players. They've never been afraid to pay top dollar. And at that point then, all right, if you can't get a deal done,

do you tag him and trade them? Somebody is going to take a shot on the talent. Yes, it absolutely complicates matters. But the fact that everybody kind of has an idea, even if they don't know specifics of why there's no contract talks right now, I think actually makes it easier because Sean McVeigh is not up there every day being asked questions about like, you know, is Puka holding is he holding out? Is he what's going on with the contract? You kind of eliminate that part of it and everybody can focus on what matters, which is going out there and trying to win games. Yeah, potentially huge story going into next off season, depending on how this season goes. But on field, I mean, he has a strong case to be the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL.

But it's not that simple. If it were that simple, he would have already probably gotten that deal. All right. Last question here as we wrap up. Which coach is under the most pressure. And this is where, Tom, is the Minnesota nice thing? Is that, do you find that to be true? An accurate or do Minnesotians get annoyed when people are always referring to that? I think that it's true to a certain level,

but it leads to a lot of passive aggression, I would say. Like, yes, you can smile to someone's face and say something that that person is going to walk away going, was that like a dick? Are they mad at me? But they were smiling. That's what Minnesotaans are most known for. They won't just insult you to your face.

They'll just talk behind your back. Oh, that's not nice. Billy, this feels a little bit like the Capadia family. You know, keep stuff bottled inside, keep your emotions inside. And then maybe like once a year just to have a, you know, family blow up. People are crying. And for the most part, you know, everyone's smiling and nice to each other. What's happening at your house?

I'm sorry. Am I given to it to it? Let's get back to football. All right. Which coach is under the most pressure here? Was that all a Kevin O'Connell set up? No, I don't think Kevin O'Connell. was under a great deal of pressure.

I think everyone's realistic about the quarterback situation and the reality that if you know this plays out, they may not have the guy on the roster. Like, I would bring it down in different ways. Like, we already covered all the first year coaches. Jesse Minter, Joe Brady, to an extent, Mike McCarthy. They all have all varying degrees of pressure because of who they're following,

because the success those teams have had because of what's still out there for them. I'd set those aside in a separate category. Mike Vrable is in a category. of his own. It was just in the Super Bowl. Lots happened since. He has his own level of pressure just because you're going to

have the scrutiny that's going to take place if the Patriots don't perform. We all can look at it and have all the stats and say they're playing a harder schedule. That's why the team's stumbling. But Mike Tomlin himself said it on the NBC broadcast the air day, which is like, it's going to, you know, if all so they're not playing well,

that noise is going to get loud. That's its own issue. And the same thing with like the guys who didn't make the playoffs last year. but we all know. And the coaches know themselves. You know, if you're Zach Taylor, if you're Shane Steichen,

if you're Dan Quinn, any coach who misses the playoffs two years in a row and it's not your first two years, you know, like, you know, you're probably your backs up against the wall. Depending exactly how things play out. But I'm going to go to one, a guy who has made the playoffs,

multiple times, has previously been to a Super Bowl, and has not so far delivered what the franchise envisioned. It's Jim Harbaugh. Everyone talks about Justin Herbert And certainly there's pressure on him And he doesn't want to play off game

And you know We talk about all the other things going on with him And his fiancee and these things He's a really good player Who's played through a lot He's super tough You know you think back to the injuries That he's played through

I mean he's gutted it out through a lot But Jim Harbaugh is the guy who came in Came back to the league Coming up a National Championship game at Michigan. He came in as the guy who in his first two years with the 49ers went to the NFC championship game and the Super Bowl and then went back to the FC championship game again in year three. But for all the other things going on, he could have been the 49ers coach for as long as he wanted to. He chose to go back to Michigan. There were a lot of other dynamics there

we don't need to get into. But when you pay a guy as much as the charges pay in Jim Harvaw, and you have the quarterback and Justin Herbert, and you have what I think is objectively a talented roster. You're doing that for one thing, which is like, we're competing right now. We're going to the Super Bowl in the near term. They've made the playoffs twice, but they haven't won a playoff game since Jim Harbaugh came to L.A. I'm not suggesting that Jim Harbaugh gets fired if they don't want a playoff game again this year. But if you go three years without Jim Harbaugh winning a playoff game, if you're Chargers ownership and you're the fan base, you have to start going. Wait, isn't this almost Brandon Staley's resume? Have it we lived?

this exact same thing for decades here. And this was the guy. This was the coup. This was in a year and really a decade where everybody in L.A., everyone thinking L.A. football, thinks about the people who you're their tenant at Sofi, which is the Rams. This year, everyone's talking about the Rams. Who's talking about the Chargers? If it's not Justin Herbert getting his hair combed on the field after practice. No one's talking about the charges. Like, that wasn't what it was supposed to be. This was supposed to be the story with Jim Harbaugh. He lost his defensive coordinator after last season. He now, he wiped out his offensive staff, now brings in Mike McDaniel. Those two guys, like I'd love to be a fly on the wall, seeing those two communicate

in the meeting rooms on a daily basis. It's just, there's so much into it. And what bullets do you have to fire when you're a head coach? It's firing your coordinators, changing things out, right? Well, they just change both their coordinators, one by choice, one not. A lot of this, you start to look at this and go, this is on Jim Harbaugh. He's got to take a step forward. We know that Jim can coach. We know he's had success everywhere he's been from San Diego to Stanford to the 49ers to Michigan. If it's a third straight year and they don't advance in the playoffs, if they're not in the Super Bowl mix, then there's a conversation to be had about how long do they go on like this? And is this going to be the group and the coach that gets them where they ultimately want to go?

All right. See, if I heard that and I were Jim Harbaugh's, you know, defense attorney, agent, family member or whatever, I would say, Tom, give me a break here. Okay, they've won 11 games in back-to-back seasons. They didn't have either of their offensive tackles last season, and they still won 11 games. I mean, at some point, does Justin Herbert have to be accountable for playing the worst game of his career in a playoff game? And I look at the talent on the roster, and I don't look at that and go, they're underachieving. I look at that and go, that's probably kind of where they should be given the talent. So I would defend Jim Harbaugh in that respect.

But wasn't Jim Harbaugh also partly hired because he's a quarterback guy? I mean, you think about it, like, whether it was J.J. McCarthy or it was Colin Kaepernick or it was Andrew Luck. Like, he's been a guy, even if he's not the one, you know, necessarily calling every player being the central figure. Like, you hire him in part because it's like, this is the combination, right? These are the guys who are going to work together. We know because Jim Harbaugh keeps telling us how much he loves Justin Herbert. I'm not trying to take Johnson, Jim Harbaugh. I'm just saying you're there.

for a specific reason, which is to go and do the one thing you hadn't done. You went college and you got your championship there. Jim Harbaugh himself is there to win a Super Bowl. And if you asked him, I'm sure you'd have a very colorful way of saying it. But like, he'd agree. He's not there to go one and done in the playoffs two years in a row. Definitely not three. And so there is a pressure level, especially because look around the rest of that division,

and you've got Sean Payton and Bownecks and the Broncos. You've got still Andy Reed and Patrick Mahomes that you're continuing with. And now maybe if Fernando Mendoza lives up to be. the number one pick, you got him and clip to deal with for years to come here. That's a treacherous type of division where right now you're going into the season thinking we should have a shot. We should have a shot every year to win it and they're still trying to get there. What do you think, Billy? More pressure, Harbaugh or Harper. You hate Jim Harbaugh. I like Jim. I like Jim. Billy, you can't, he's, you see that stuff you

can't do, Billy. He's got an interview. I like Jim. The bar is high. Would you have said Sean McDermott had pressure on him last year? Would you have said, you know, that John Arvod pressure on him last year? Sean McDermott, yes, just because it felt like he was out of people to fire, and they just weren't getting over the hump. But Jim's only been like three years. And now we're getting into like territory where is Justin Herbert going to be a coach killer? You know, because they brought in Staley and he was like the boy genius at the time.

Like when does this like some of the blame? We know he has the talent, but when does this blame shift to him slightly there? because he also has won no playoff game preceding Jim Harbaugh's arrival. Brandon Staley's a classy guy. I doubt that he's sitting in New Orleans on his off days like watching Chargers tape and enjoying their playoff losses.

But on some level, team keeps bumping their heads in the same way. It's true. It's better on the Brandon Staley era, especially because he came in there and changed a lot of things, you know, that they were doing and kind of set the table for where the Chargers now.

I mean, they absolutely, like, why wouldn't you? We started this conversation by talking about, Like, even the favorites in the AFC, two of them missed the playoffs last year. Like, why shouldn't the Chargers be in that mix? Yeah, they lost their center. They still got the tackles. Like, injuries happen around the league, and that's a huge, you know, sometimes undersold

factor. But like, why shouldn't we be talking about the Chargers? The fact that we're not in year three with Jim Harbaugh, to me, that's the definition of pressure, which is we should be in a certain place that we're not with a coach at a given time, even though it would be a stunning development if he wasn't still the Chargers coach going in a 2027 and quite possibly be honest. Yeah, they got a lot right. I mean, you hire Mike McDaniel, everyone can agree that Mike McDaniel is a very good offensive coach. You've got the tackles. Like you said, you've got the quarterback. If it doesn't happen this year, yeah, somebody, you know,

just in the court of public opinion, not that they're necessarily going to make wholesale changes, but we're going to be having these conversations. Could the GM have done a better job with the roster. Could Harbaugh have done a better job coaching? Does Herbert need to be held accountable? All those conversations are in play with the Chargers. Billy, what do you think? You got a, you had a coach in mind for this one? Well, so I was going, I liked the way Tom took this because I was going to go with like the generic. Okay, Aaron Glenn can be in trouble. Zach Taylor can be in trouble. But if I'm going to follow Tom's lead here, I'll ask you, Tom. I'll ask you, Shiel. Stan Campbell may be in trouble if they have another disappointing season because he loses his two

coordinators that got him right there to the brink of, you know, getting the Super Bowl. He gets to the most successful season in the history of the team. And then he loses his coordinators. And last year they fall off if there's another step backwards. So he's things getting a little hot for him. Well, first of all, I think the Lions are going to be very good this year. So I don't think that's going to be an issue. And I would think, no, it feels like Detroit still loves Dan Campbell.

Their record is incredible since he got there. If you just look at Detroit Lions Pro Football Reference page, like a stretch like this, is highly unusual, certainly in our lifetimes, for the Detroit Lions. So I think... A new lion, Sheel. New stand, there's a new standard here in Detroit now that they have to live up to, you know? They went nine and eight last year, and they make the playoffs, if not for the weird Christmas game in Minnesota, where Taylor Decker gets sick the day of the game and they have to play

without their left tackle and change the whole game plan. And that was, by the way, Dan, he wouldn't say it publicly because he doesn't throw people under the bus like that. But like, at his core, he knows. was he made a mistake. I mean, he brought back John Morton to be the offensive coordinator. It didn't work out, and it was pretty apparent. Stylistic personality scheme, like not so much schemes.

It's Dan's scheme. It just, it wasn't a fit. So now you bring in Drew Petting, who was cast off from Arizona. They're continuing to develop with Kelvin Shepard on the defensive side. Kelvin's, he's a really young guy, you know, former player, obviously. He's got a lot to learn. But Dan wants to go on that growth process with him. And he might have had a really young offensive coordinator, too,

if Washington had an offer David Blow their coordinator job. So I don't think that there's pressure on Dan Campbell so much as you're right, Billy, like the standard has changed in Detroit. They expect to be there every year. But that's also a credit to Dan Campbell that they're in that place, that they wrote it out. If anybody is not going to, you know, for instance, you know, make a change after the season, it's Sheila Ford Hamp and that ownership group. I mean, Sheila, to her credit, she did one of the smartest things, and it's a rare thing.

Midway through Dan's second season, and they were like, I think they were four in 21 over two years or something just abysmal. And she came out and just said, Dan is our guy. Like, we see it behind the scenes, the winds are going to come, but Dan is our guy. And from that moment forward, all of a sudden, that's when you saw the offense get going. And that's when Ben Johnson became Ben Johnson. A lot of things changed. You know, injuries have been a huge part of it, too. you know, the Taylor Decker thing was, you know, the last straw.

But like there were so many injuries, especially on their entire defense. Yeah, the entire defense was totally decimated. If they're able to be healthy, and I'm certainly guessing that they're going to adjust some things in terms of how they're preparing these guys for the season, I'm with the U.S. I think the lines are going to be really good. And no, I don't think there's pressure on Dan Campbell any more than there is on any other coach who's really, really good. I could see him being on.

frankly like the Mike Tomlin or John Harbaugh plan where you can have or Sean Payton in New Orleans. You can have one, two, three down years. It's cyclical. And this is not an ownership group that's going to move on from the people that they believe in. I always think about if a coach did get fired, how quickly would they get hired and it feels like Dan Campbell would probably be on the top of a lot of list. Everyone looks for Dan Campbell. Everyone wants to find their Dan Campbell. What if you can actually just get Dan Campbell?

Yeah, maybe. I don't think so. I'm with you. I don't think so. But I took an easy one. You guys are thinking outside the box, credit to you. But Zach Taylor, who I actually, you know, I think there's aspects to his job that are challenging there in Cincinnati. But to Tom's point, and I think Zach Taylor would probably say this if you injected him with some truth serum, if you go four straight years with Joe Burrow as your starter, and I know he's had injuries without making the playoffs, there's obviously going to be a spotlight on that situation.

But, you know, I look at some stuff in Cincinnati, Tom, and I'm like, if they had the resources or were willing to be aggressive for a defense. coordinator like Brian Flores or Vic Fangio, you know, stuff that might be above Zach Taylor's head in terms of are we able to do this as an organization? We're probably thinking about them differently going into this season. So I think the Bengals are going to be good this year. I think he's going to be fine. But I think obviously there's going to be some pressure there in Cincinnati. Well, they're doing un-Bengals things. You know, the Bengals have always been. They get the reputation for not spending money. And there's some things that are founded in terms of like, you know, the size of their scouting staff or, you know, some of the things that they don't have in the

building, the fact that their facility is one of the last ones. It might even be the last one that's just a locker room in the bowels of the stadium, you know, with cement everywhere. Like, all those things are real, but like they have spent money. You know, they've done things like, you know, selling the rights to the, the naming rights to the stadium, changing their contract structure when they need to get certain deals done. And then the sausage, I mean, they traded the number 10 pick to go and get a defensive tackle. I mean, that is not something you ever would have seen the Bengals do in the past, you know, any trades. They made like three trades in season over a 50 years span.

Now they're trading the number one pick for Dexter Lawrence. They invested in the defense. These are all, this is all new territory for the Bengals. And when you do that, I think that it does show a level of not desperation, but urgency. And if that urgency falls short, Joe Burrough said it, I think it was today or yesterday. you know, it feels like now or never in Cincinnati. And I don't think that means necessarily for Joe Burrow, but it does mean for a guy who, you know,

has put his weight behind Zach Taylor. They've been to a Super Bowl together, has embraced the city. And they're going for it here. If they once again fall short, whether that includes another Joe Burrow injury or not, it will kind of feel like an inflection point for that organization, especially with Zach, you know,

later on in his contract at this point with an organization that typically is not fired people when they own money. All right. Five big questions entering the 2026 season with Tom Pelliser. Billy, how do you think we did? Is Tom going to be like, I will never work with those two again? Do you think we're okay? Is he going to get cornered the next time he's covering training camp or a game?

I mean, is this one and done? How are you feeling about the performance here? I don't think we said anything today to get him in harm's way. How big are you, Tom? I don't know. I have a hard time like seeing people like when I see him on TV, How tall are you? Are you a big guy?

5-10. Legit 5-10. So, I mean, you're in a position where there could be a menacing situation if we put you in a bad spot then, right? It could, but I don't think. Again, I'm not... He looks like he's in good shape. I think he can hold his arm with you.

Good shape-ish. No, listen, I have no problem throwing you guys under the bus. So just call on B. There you go. Doing that. Listen, if somebody in the NFL is getting an hour plus into this podcast, it doesn't like something that one of you guys said. Like, I think that at that point, they're invested in all of us

enough that we can move things over. Yeah. I was going to say, when you mentioned it earlier, like, I don't think your wife's going to hear the part where we were bashing Banff, to be honest with you. Like, that was deep enough in that I'm sure I'm sure I get enough. That is a highly of a lot of the opinion, by the way. Banff is a tremendous.

Fly into Calgary short, right up. Bam. Looks great. I love it. There you go. All right, if they do corner you, but if they did listen this much, just tell them rate review. and then here's, you know, Billy's email.

You can do it, you know. You can tell him whatever you want. He can take it. He's a big boy. All right, that was a lot of fun. Thank you to Tom Pelliserro. Thank you to Billy Gill. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing

Stefanos Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna, Ram Gopal. I'm Shil Kapalya. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino

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