The Ringer NFL Show - Are the Packers Going to Win the NFC? 

Episode Date: December 15, 2021

Kevin is joined by former Packers WR and The Ringer’s own James Jones to discuss the Packers' chances of winning the title, playing playoff football in Green Bay, and his Super Bowl prediction. Then Kevin is joined by Danny Kelly and Steven Ruiz to walk back some early hot takes and make some new ones as the season comes to a close.  Host: Kevin Clark  Guests: James Jones, Danny Kelly, Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark. Amazingly insightful show today with some smart people.

James Jones, my colleague on the Gringer NFL show, he joins me on the top half to talk about the NFC, the Packers. He has some really cool insight on not only playing with Aaron Rogers, getting hot at the right time, which applies to basically every team that's in the hunt right now, playing in cold weather, which is going to be a topic in the next couple weeks, especially if the Packers hold on to that home field advantage.

A really insightful interview with James. And then Danny Kelly and Stephen Ruiz joined me to play game of Take Mulligan. Really, really fun. We basically apologize for our worst takes and figure out what went wrong and we come up with new takes. So let's get to James. All right, James Jones, long time NFL receiver, co-host of the Tuesday show on this

feed. One of my favorite media personalities. James, what's going on, man? What's up, my brother? I'm just hanging, man, chilling out here in Arizona, man, you know, watching some football coaching my kids, man, all the same stuff. That sounds pretty good. We never do weather talk.

We're told not to do weather talk on podcasts. But when I'm in Brooklyn and you're in Arizona, that's the only thing. I'm like, that's the only thing to talk about. Producer Steph and I are ready to get on a plane of JFK and come stay in your ex-bedroom. Y'all, y'all more than welcome to come out here, man.

Hey, I played in Green Bay for so long. That's why I'm in Arizona. I would go to Green Bay for the playoffs almost every single year. And it is unbelievable how cold it gets. Like, unbelievably, however cold you think it gets, it's colder. Yeah. And people don't understand how hard it is to play in that, man. Hands froze, the feet frozen.

You're trying to rain fast through all that snot froze in the face. It's tough, man. But, hey, best place in the world to play football. I want to talk about that a little bit later. But I want to start with this because we're getting into the home stretch here. And the NFC is so top-heavy. Reminds me a little bit of almost the maybe the 2014 season, the year the DES caught it or didn't catch a game,

where the Packers lost the NFTA championship game to the CIOs, where there's just a lot of teams that could conceivably win the NFC, James. And I'm curious, everyone talks about getting hot at the right time and, oh, you know, it's going to come down to whoever who starts playing the best football in January.

And I'm curious, you hear that cliche over and over and over again. And having played for good teams, I'm curious, like, what that actually means? Like, what is, when we say, oh, we're getting hot at the right time, is there anything a coach can do? Is there anything you can practice during the season to be playing your best football

in December and January when it matters so much this year? Like, what are we talking about when we talk about getting hot this time of year? Well, the main thing we're talking about is what you see on film, you know? And that's how you know you're getting hot as a football team and you know you're heading in the right direction. It's not necessarily we scoring 50 points a game. It's not necessarily you hold people to three points a game on defense. But when you know you're getting hot is when you're going through the season, you're like, man, we just do this and we just do that. We get a little better on third down.

We start doing this. we start doing that. And that stuff starts showing up on the film. When you walk into the film and it starts showing up on the film every week and you're coming into the playoffs, that confidence that you get from watching yourself on film, like, man, this is what we've talked about in week seven and it's happening. This is what we're talking about in week 13 and it's happening.

And you're just like, man, we are going to be unstoppable as you watch yourself on film. And then when you bring that stuff to the field, you know what I'm saying? You just continue to play at a high level. That's how you know you are a very hot team. But it starts with the confidence that you get from the film room. You know what I mean? It's not just you come out there, put up a 51 week and go watch the film. And you're like, then we still didn't play well.

You know what I mean? It starts from the confidence that you get from that film room watching yourself play. And then when you get on the field, your confidence is sky high, man. And you're doing the things that you was trying to do early in the season. When you're in the locker room, can you feel it coming? In 2011, did you guys in late December say, okay, we're actually going to go on a run here? or do you not kind of know it until you see it? I tell people all the time, man.

I share this story. And it's crazy because when we were in the playoffs and we had beat the Giants and we were on our way to Atlanta. I remember getting off the bus. And I don't know why. I just was looking at everybody get off the bus. And everybody had this walk.

Like, we can't be beat. These, we coming in here to play the number one C, yeah, the Falcons put up for, but everybody has so much swagger and confidence walking off that bus, like, man, they don't mess up. They play in the wrong team. And you can see it. You know what I mean? You can see it. And it was strictly because the confidence that we built, the confidence that we built those last two weeks and looking at yourself on film, like, finally, we don't put it all together.

Like, you know, these dudes is in trouble. You know what I'm saying? And the confidence just was contagious, man, around the ball club. Like, we knew we knew we weren't going to lose. We knew the way we were playing. We knew we weren't going to lose. And that's how guys got off the bus and was walking off the bus, man. It was a great.

I wish I had a video recorder. I was a flag walking on. But it was just, you could tell that people was just confident, man, on the ball club that, man, we can't be beat. Big picture question before we get into the actual nitty-gritty of talking about the defensive teams. Packers, the best team in the NFC. No doubt about it.

And the reason why I say that is because they're the most consistent. You know, you get up there and you watch teams and you watch the Cardinals, you watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers who's playing well right now. But, you know, the Packers have been the most consistent. You know what I mean? Even in the losses, they have played well. You know what I mean? And that right there is confident.

It's not like you lose and, you know, Tampa Bay losing to the Saints. You just laying egg, turning the ball over, stinking it up. The Packers, the Packers have really played well every game. Has some people made a couple more plays than them? Absolutely, you know what I mean? But just the most consistent team on offense and defense right now is the Green Bay Packers. And I believe that's why they're the best team in the national. I mean, especially on the NFC side right now, you know, because of that,

because of the consistency, it hasn't been a game to where they came out. You're just like, what in the world are they doing except week one? you know what I'm saying? Other than week one, it's been, you know, the Packers has been the most consistent team in the national football league, you know, and if people got to come through Lambo, it's going to be trouble.

But, you know, yeah, for me, for me, they're the best team in NFC because they're the most consistent and they can win either way. They've showed you that they could win on defense. They showed you that they could win just running the football. And obviously they can win

with 12 throwing the ball all over the yard. Obviously, Aaron Rogers is playing an MVP level. And that's, that is the biggest part of all of us. That's the biggest piece of all of this. But Matt Lefleur is statistically one of the best coaches ever. We need a winning percentage. What is he doing to help Aaron Rogers? So what does this offense do that maximizes him that people don't talk enough about, James?

Well, number one, I love the way Coach the Floor runs the ball, you know, whether it's getting creative running the football because when you're able to run the football and you get 12 in the play action pass game, it's going to be unstoppable. when you let Aaron Rogers sit back there to play action pass game and be able to get that ball out of his hand. So I think what LaFloras came in there and done, he has got creative with his run game. And now teams are having to bring an extra guy down there in the box to be able to stop this run game. And obviously, Aaron is one of the smartest quarterbacks in the National Football League are ever to play this game. So now he knows it's only certain looks that he's going to get out of that.

You know what I'm saying? And now we're going to play action pass. And these are the things that we're looking at. So I feel like Coach before has done an excellent job at that. You know, I felt like at times, Coach Mike kind of got so comfortable in having a lot of talent where it was just line up and play. You know what I mean? Coach the floor is scheming the heck out of people.

You know what I mean? Like you watched that Cardinals game where he didn't have any of his top three receivers. He schemed the heck out of the Cardinals defense. Run game, getting the ball out of Aaron's hands quick. You know what I'm saying? But each week it seems like he has a different nugget. for Aaron Rogers to be able to attack the defense. Sometimes it's getting the ball out of your hands.

It's streaming fast. Sometimes we're looking for these deep shots down the field. You know what I mean? But just the way he changes up the looks and helps Aaron Rogers know exactly what's coming before the snap. That's why Aaron Rogers, I feel, is playing out an extremely high level since coach before been in the building. I completely agree about the McCarthy thing because it did seem like he got very, very comfortable later in his tenure there. And the schemes didn't have the edge they had at the beginning. And I think the big thing.

James, as you know, is like no one wins a Super Bowl because they have a great quarterback. It's because everybody works together. They support the quarterback. They figure out what to do with the great quarterback, right? History of the NFL is littered with a bunch of great quarterbacks to get wasted, and the Flur seems to be pushing all the right buttons. I want to go back to something you said. You said Rogers might be the smartest quarterback in football.

We know that. I mean, this is the guy who's hosted Jeopardy. Like, we understand that. But on the field, no one is better at deciphering what needs to be deciphered very quickly and just putting guys in hell. Give me a story, having played with him so long and being one of his favorite receivers of all time, we were like, oh, my God, this guy can do whatever he wants on a field and can take advantage of whatever with his brain. Well, number one, I'll never forget this play that we had probably 2009. You play in the Denver Broncos.

And I have a post drought on, a red zone post. We don't like the 25-yard line. I got a red zone post on. When you're in the red zone, you are taught to cross the defender's face no matter what because you have to protect the quarterback's throw if he throws you this post. You cannot go behind when the red zone is too crunched in.

If you go behind them, it's going to be a pick. And at the time, man, this cornerback was so far inside on me, I'm like, there ain't no way. And I'm crossing his face and getting inside of him. I mean, I'm going to be, you know, my grandma watching the games, I'll be looking like,

I don't know what I'm doing out here because I'm just getting jammed up crossing the dude stage, you know? So I said, effort, man. I'm just going to have an MA. I'm going to have a missed assignment. I'm going behind him. And as I went behind him,

and I turned, the ball was coming. And it's probably the greatest throw I've ever seen. You know what I mean? Because I'm going like this. The defender, they can't see because it's the pod. But the defenders right here, And that ball came right below his waist, right in my hands.

And as I went back to the sideline, I'm like, man, my bad, man. I'm like, yeah, we scored, but I'm like, I know I'm supposed to go. He was like, that's exactly what I wanted you to do. He said, I was looking at the defense, JJ, and he said, I hope JJ don't go in front of this, man. I hope he goes behind him. Oh, wow. But that's just one of the stories where I'm like, man, this dude is on a whole other level. not even strictly because of the throw

just because of how he thinks, man. And it's been plenty of stories to where, I've been on the field with Aaron and Aaron is calling out the defense's blitzes. Calling out they come. You know what I mean? He gets you with the green I-T. Hey, here comes to green dog, here come to the...

Like calling out their defense. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes before we break the huddle, you know? It was one time before we break the huddle. We played Tampa Bay Burkaneers, and he said, look, at his third and three. He said, I guarantee you they're going to come out. They're going to play press bail.

They're going to be inside leverage, pray press bail. He said, we're coming out. He said, coach my call this. We're coming out. We're running all hitches. They're going to be press. And the boys came out, press bell before the snap. You know what I'm saying?

And just for his IQ to be like that. And I know he does a lot of, he does a lot of film studying, does a lot of that stuff. But Aaron's IQ, man, is second and none, man. And that's why he's so special. Wow. That's amazing. I want to get to the other NFC teams here.

How do you sort of view the hierarchy here? Do you view, you look at the consistency of a team from week to week. I know you mentioned the Packers in their consistency. When you're kind of handicapping what it looks like for January, if you look at ceilings, do you say, hey, the Rams could be this. They look great on Monday night. Like, how do you, you know, the Cardinals obviously have as high as ceiling as anybody with Kylo Moore in the way he's played?

How do you see the rest of the NFC shaking out? And how do you even judge teams this time of year, James? Man, for me, I'm strictly, I go off the eyeball test. You know, I strictly go off the eyeball test. I look at teams like the Minnesota Vikings who are an excellent football team in my book that has shot themselves in the foot. They easily should have four more wins right now and be at the top of the NFC. If the kickers don't miss field goals, if Dalvin Cook don't fumble the ball in Cincinnati,

like it's just really little things that's holding them back. They have been in every game. They have not went into a game and just got blown out. They have been in every single. single game that they've played in and lost a lot of close games. So the Minnesota Vikings with my eyeball test is a team that not a lot of people want to go play right now. They can run it. Kirk Cousins can throw it. You're going to get Adam feeling back healthy. You just got bar back on your defense healthy. It's not a lot of people who want to play the Minnesota Vikings right now.

And I feel the same about the 49ers. The 49ers was on the street. They took a L. No, D. Bow, Samuels took a tough L to Seattle Seahawks. And you come back. with Debo-Samios and you beat a really good Cincinnati team. But the 49ers is a team that knows exactly who they are. They're going to run the air out of the football. They're going to play defense and Jimmy G. going to play action pass, get it to Kiddo and Debo. You know, so that's another scary team.

Like, I know the Packers 10 and 3, Cardinals 10 and 3, Tampa, 10 and 3, but it's a lot of teams that I know them 10 and 3 teams. Hopefully we don't strike them dudes on the first round. That's interesting. Yes, because I think this NFC could really shape. I will not be surprised if Minnesota gets in. I will not be, I mean, the Niners is already in there. They just got to keep going.

But I will not be surprised if either of these teams come out a week one in the playoffs with a double. If you're the Packers, who's the team you least want to see in the NFC title game? Oh, man. If I'm a Packers and I'm in that locker room, bring on everybody. Shoot, man. That's on the bubble or that's that's, that's. Anybody, anybody.

Could be anybody in the NFC. for me it will be for me it will be the nineers for me it will be the nineers and the reason why I say the niners is because we know how Calshanahan can scheme and to be honest with you I feel like this team is one of the few teams that's built to win in the cold yeah you know what I mean you know so the Arizona Cardinals ain't coming to Lamba win but I feel like the Niners is built to win anywhere anywhere if they play the right football They can run the football. Like I said, they got kiddo and D-Bow that they throw it to.

They play really good defense. So they're a team that I feel like if they strike fire on any given Sunday, they can mess around and send anybody home. You talk about playing in the cold. It's interesting to me because everybody I talked to this year says, you know, with the expanded season and all that stuff, getting the buy is so unbelievably important. And home field is so unbelievably important.

And the buy is more important than the home field. but obviously you'd want both because, you know, it's just better to have home field than not. If the Packers get the home field in the NFC title game, take me through what we don't talk about enough as far as playing in the cold, going up there. I mean, it's not just, you know, my fingertips are frozen. It's you can't even talk on the sidelines sometimes.

If you're just not used to it, I mean, you know, again, I'm from Florida. I go up there just to write about it. You know, I can't even type. You know, it's just you have a total meltdown because of the cold. when you're playing a playoff game in January, what happens up there? Well, first off, it's the mental part of it, you know, and that's what we always just talk about in the locker room. It's the mental part of it.

If you come out there, obviously, it's the playoffs. If you come out there in the playoffs, you're going to be amped up. Warmups, you're going to be amped up. We've seen a lot of former players from teams that they come in there, whether it's the giants, the bugs, the Eagles, whoever want to come in there, they taking their shirts off, warming up, before the game starts and all that,

you know what I mean, letting them know we ready, it ain't cold and all that. But for us, we know it's a mental thing. Yeah. So we know when you come out here and we start playing this game

and we already know your toes frozen and your hands frozen. And we jump up out on you 10-0, you're going to start thinking about that cold. You're going to start wanting to get up out of here. You know what I mean? But, but I mean, the cold is for real. Like you said, your hands freeze.

Your toes freeze. The ball is rock hard. The ball is hard to grip. The ball. And on top of all that, when you lose it, that cold kick in even more. You know what I'm saying? So we know that when we're able to jump out on you

and we're able to get you at Lambo Field when it's nice and cold, the mental part of the game kicks in. And not only that, you've got to worry about a lot of things change. You're getting in and out of your routes different. Yeah. You know what I mean? In certain ways you've got to break on the ball.

You know, certain things you've got to do. do to get in and out of your break. It's a little bit more slippery. Certain cleats you got to wear and all that. So it's a lot of stuff that goes in when you play it in cold weather. It ain't just that, hey, man, my hands are frozen. It's a lot of little thing that go into that. But the biggest part about it is the mental part of it. I was going to ask you about that, the routes and stuff, because obviously you want to run the ball more. There are certain things you can't do. But like, how does stylistically, how does a team have to change when it's 15 degrees versus 70 degrees? Like aside from just the run pass ratio.

Well, see, number one, that's the blessing about us being able to practice in it. Right. You know what I mean? Because we know exactly what to wear. We know exactly, you know, what gloves to wear, what cleats to wear, and all that. We know exactly how to catch the football. You know what I'm saying? In that cold, you know, so, you know, being able to practice and it definitely gives you an

advantage. But when you're running your routes, man, I mean, your routes, you've got to, you know, they're not as fast. And a lot of people don't understand that. You know, a lot of guys try to come out there and running full speed and they're not as fast because when you start to stop and, you know, the ground is cold

and the ground is frozen a little bit. It's going to be much harder to get in and out of your break, you know. So sometimes you've got to cool your routes and all that down. I don't want to give too much info because people are going to listen to this pod and say, we go to Green Bay. James taught us how to play in the cold. You know, but no, but yes, you know, sometimes, Sometimes you, as a professional, you got to know it's certain times in this cold where I'm going to come off the ball and I'm going to run my route full speed.

It's sometimes in the cold, you're like, okay, this is how I got to use a little bit more body control. This is how I got to run this route in the cold, you know, strictly because it's slick, it's cold. I got to get in and out of my break. My cleats ain't digging in the grass, like I want them to dig in the grass, you know. So it's a lot of stuff that goes in it. Last thing we'll get you out on this because the topic of this is, you know, the pack who's going to win the NFC. right now. Just right now, we're not going to hold you to it. December 15th. Who's your Super Bowl pick right now?

Who are the two teams? Well, number one on the NFC side, I got the Packers going. I don't see anybody coming in, especially if Aaron Rogers and the Packers could hold onto that number one seat. I don't see another Tampa Bay team coming in there beating the Packers. I mean, I don't want to beat a dead horse, but they shouldn't have got that done last year if we don't make a couple stupid mistakes. But at the same time, they did. But I, to be honest with you, I like the Packers. And I mean, I hate to say it, but I don't know if there's anybody going to knock the Patriots off, man.

I mean, I truly believe that it's between the Patriots and the Colts. I think the Colts are a team that when they get in this playoffs, I don't care about Kansas City. I don't care about none of that. When these Colts and these Patriots getting these playoffs, I don't know who's going to knock these two off. So I see it, the AFC championship, I see it being a rematch of this Saturday, Colts and the Patriots. And to be honest with you, to be honest with you, I mean, it'll be tough for me to go against Bill Belichet. But I think we're going to have a rookie in the Super Bowl, man. I think it's going to be Patriot Packers.

Unbelievable. All right. James Jones, thank you so much. You lit it up. Appreciate you, man. Not a problem, man. Thanks for having me. All right, joined by two of my favorite people at the Ringer, Stephen Ruiz.

Stephen, what's going on, bud? Not much. Danny Kelly, who's not been on this show in many months. I know. It's good to be back. Feels great. Wait, was your last appearance my first appearance on the show before I was hired? It might have been.

I remember you being on. I did go on with Mal and Nora like a couple of weeks ago to talk about my good old Seahawks, but different show kind of. Stephen, are you bringing that up? Are you bringing that up because there was a market correction? And I was just blown away by your appearance. sounds like no more DK. That's right.

Hey, that was my moment. That was my breakout moment. They don't need me anymore. So we're doing stuff and we've done over the past couple of years. So it's one of the favorite things to do. I believe the last time I did it was with Danny and Nora, midway point of last season. And it's the take, the take Mulligan,

take amnesty, whatever you want to call it. We come with our worst takes. And listen, I got a. be honest with, Danny and I were talking about this last night. Our takes were pretty good. Like our takes were pretty good this year. Like I had the C-Ox is too good. We'll get to that a little bit later.

Mack Jones I had as rookie of the year. Michael Parsons had as defensive rookie of the year. Stafford MVP was bad, but that's, that's whatever. I had Belichick as coach of the year. That's right. That's right. But like in general, we didn't have like massive misses, but we all have our faults. And we were, we led people astray on a number of different takes this year.

And this is our opportunity to atone for our take since. Stephen Ruiz, give me the take Mulligan, your first one that you're taking back for 2021. All right. I'm starting with Mack Jones. I'm not going to say I was wrong about Mac Jones not being a top of the first round prospect. But I did not think the past personnel fit Mac Jones. And I thought this offense was not going to work because they didn't have receivers. And I thought Mac Jones needed to be in an offense, like a spread offense.

where the receivers win really quickly. They went on like quick slants, quick outs, and Mac Jones would give them the ball. But they don't have that. They don't have receivers that win on the outside. They play full backs and tight ends and run these condensed sets. And it's still working.

It doesn't matter. It's like one of the better offenses in the league. And I didn't think it was going to work. I'm an idiot. All right. Let's go to the process, sir. Why did you not think it was going to work? I just explained because I thought he needed good wide receivers

who could win one-on-one matchups to be, the best version of himself, and they don't have that. So the new take is what? My new take is that we're doing the wrong Patriots Super Bowl offense comp. Like everyone wants to compare it to 2001, the 2001, not rookie year, but second year, Brady offense. But it's the 2018 offense that this really looks like. And you have to remember that Tom Brady didn't look too hot at the end, the second half of that 2018 season when they went on that run to make Super Bowl. They had to, like, turn into a play-action-heavy offense to get the best out of them.

And I'd argue that Mack Jones looks better this year than Tom Brady did in 2018. Whoa. Second half of the season. That's my new take. That is a good thing. That's not totally crazy. Like, Tom Brady looked, looked, didn't. That's not insane.

Danny Kelly, what do you think about Stephen Ruiz's apology for his take and the new take? I like it. I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, so I came in with some reservations too on Mac Jones. I mean, you know, people talked about him,

um, being like the most polished quarterback, but that was just, I think just because he was like a tall white guy and like, it didn't really have anything to do with the fact that, you know, like what he did in college. Because he,

he's the same as a lot of these other quarterbacks. He's not even that tall. He's only six three. Right. He came out, um, you know, he was a starter for like a year and half a year.

So like he didn't have a, a ton of experience. It's not like he was running like a under center, like old school West Coast offense at Alabama. Like, you know, they were like, you didn't shock at a lot, like passing down field.

So I think it was always kind of a misnomer that he was like this polished guy. But I will say he looks really polished. Like he looks like he's very like he's a calm presence on the field. He doesn't get rattled. He's played, he's thrown with accuracy. He's like done all the things that you would expect of like a quote, polished quarterback to do.

And he's been, like, the moment's not too big for him, I guess, is kind of like what I'm getting to. And so he, I think that's definitely been not necessarily like a huge surprise because I will say I did pick Mac Jones for offensive rookie of the year in our preseason, whatever preview post. And so it's not a huge surprise to me that like he's been playing well in this system. But I think, Stephen, your points are all very like applicable. Like I think they all made sense like with what we knew coming into the season. So it has been a big surprise. I think how quickly, I guess, he's adapted to this offense. What's your first take, Mulligan, Danny Kelly?

So my take, my first take Mulligan is basically, the big picture is I thought Washington was going to be good. So I had Chase Young as defensive player of the year, which really didn't work out. Obviously, he did get hurt, but before that, he had one and a half sacks, 23 pressures. He wasn't a big impact second year jump type guy that I thought it was going to be.

I thought overall Washington's defense was going to be like elite shut down group that just absolutely dominated. And bottom line, I thought Washington was going to be like a playoff team and be pretty good. Like maybe even like a sneaky Super Bowl team. And none of that happened. So I think like there's a few lessons here. Number one, like defense is not necessarily sticky year over year.

There's a lot of variables that go into that. And look, they're six and seven. And so they still might make the playoffs, but they're just not the team I thought they were going to be as kind of the deal. And I think, like, obviously with Fitzpatrick getting hurt, I don't think Heineke is the type of player to elevate a team. He's, you know, got some great, got some moxie, all that stuff. But, like, he's just, you know, he's a limited passer in a lot of ways.

And so I don't think that he's elevated that team. And there's just, they've dealt with injuries. They've dealt with other things. And I guess my biggest regret is, like, believing in Washington before the year. I would say that consistently over the past maybe 20 years, most people have regretted believing in Washington. Is there a new take? I don't know if there's like a new take.

I think my new take is like, the new take is never believe in Washington. Yeah, maybe that's the new take. Like I don't know why I didn't just believe the Cowboys are going to be good. Like I think the new take is like the Cowboys were obviously always obviously going to be. May I qualify that? May I qualify that? Because I talked up the Cowboys all summer, like you did.

And then I switched because when we made our predation posts, including on the podcast and in print, the Jack Prescott injury was weird. Remember it was like the, it's not a setback thing. Jerry Jones had called the Texas Rangers. It was such a weird injury. Like, I, I, I slept on the Cowboys because of that.

Like, I picked the football team to win the division, even though I'd spent months saying the Cowboys were a Super Bowl contender because I was like, oh, DAC is hurt for it. And that's sort of why I backed it back off. I think that's fair. Here's where Danny kind of lost the plot with Washington. He had way too much faith in Jack Del Rio, who.

Yeah. Who had probably had a busy off season, like not football wise, but just, you know. Posting. Posting. And posting. Yeah. Shit posting. Yeah.

Yeah. That's the problem. Relying on Jack Del Rio in 2021. Let's just pull on the thread here since Jack believes certain things. Does he believe is a shadow second defense? It's actually playing really, really well. One could argue that there has been in the second half of the year and that Washington's turnaround is akin to maybe JFK Jr. reemerging into society.

Let's get off this topic as quickly as we possibly can. I like how you went with quickly. So Danny came on the pod over the summer we did our top 10 GMs. Danny had Bill Belichick number one. I had Kevin Colbert number one. Nora and I did not think that on the basis of this performance of the past few years that Bill Belichick was even in top 10 general media or executive, whatever you want to call, personnel czar.

I was completely wrong. I'm an idiot. Well, obviously I'd Bill Belichick as a top, the top coach. He's the best coach in history of football. But I thought the way he had whiffed on the draft, I thought the way he had depleted the roster to the point that Tom Brady didn't want to play there anymore.

Some of his personnel moves are head scratching. I thought that Bill Belichick's time as the best team builder in the history of the sport. I mean, like, no one controlled their roster as well as Bob Belichick did. No one controlled the draft as well. as Bill of elected did. And so I thought that he'd had an unprecedented run,

but that it was over. I was completely, completely wrong. His draft was obviously unbelievable. He knew exact what to do with the quarterback position. He took free agency and bent it to his will. And, you know, Robert Kraft came out and said, oh, well, you know, we have money, no B.L. So that's an inefficiency.

I thought that was complete. I don't know, junk. I thought they were just making it up as they went along. I was wrong. Like they, Matthew Judon is the signing of the year. As far as the big ticket guys go, I think,

you know, obviously like the Packers getting a bunch of guys for a million dollars to ball out is, is it kind of a separate category. But Bill Belichick is still really smart. And I'm an idiot. Is that the new take? Bill Belichick is good. I'm an idiot.

It's the new take. He should have stuck with Bill Belichick is really good at this, I think is kind of like the last. lesson here. Yeah, I mean, when I came into that argument, I was shocked you guys having the top 10. And for me, it was like a, I think there certainly was some sort of like recency thing going on where, you know, you look at some big whiffs in the draft. But like overall, man, like if you look at his pre-agent signings over the year, the guys that he's sort of rehabilitated, like Randy Moss, West Walker, Corridelan, all that stuff. He signed some really top tier

defensive players over the years, you know, Stefan Gilmore. The list goes on. But like, basically, like I looked at the big picture man he's like there has to be a strong strong correlation between his team building ability as a GM slash executive and their success consistently every year for like 20 years so that was like kind of where I was coming that from so I appreciate you bringing that one back up I did always I did find like the hand ring over the spending spree kind of odd like what should the Patriots have saved that money for they had nobody to resign. They didn't have any up-and-coming draft picks that they needed to give a big contract to. Like, the only thing they could do was spend that money on good players. And that was

the problem last year. They didn't have enough good players. The defense was just horribly underman. The front seven was awful. I don't even know how some of those guys got on the field. So it makes sense that signing good players has led to this because Bill Belichick is a great coach. And that should have given people more optimism about these signings working out. And they have worked out. The new take is not even a new take is I'm a huge dumbass. I'm pretty sure Danny just said that that's how he felt when you guys did the top 10 GM rankings a couple months ago. I was surprised. I was surprised.

I'll just put that one. I mean, I've had Bill Belichick as number one GM for like eight years. And then the one year I'm like, eh, he's falling out. He just said like, just Christian Farmore. Like, I mean, this whole thing. I used to do GM rankings every year. and I had him number one for like the first four years I did it. And then I put Harry Roseman as number one.

Oh, no. That has backfired. How's that take? How's that take? The milk's gone bad. I'm also a dumb ass. All right. Steve,

what's your second? All right. My second take, I pick Lamar to win MVP. And I don't know, guys. I don't think he's going to win MVP. Throw that up there. That's my new take that he's not going to win.

No, my new take is this is actually a good thing for the Ravens. like this season has gone horribly bad and I know the injuries have played a big role in it but the offense has scored what six touchdowns in the last month and I think this is this is as drastic as a slump as they needed to move on from Greg Roman finally so I think it's one step back for two steps forward

in the future if they find the right offensive coordinator that's my new take that this is actually a good thing that the Ravens aren't playing well this year can you you're writing this I know but can you give the folks a preview a little bit of of what your take is on Greg Roman and Lamar Jackson's and their partnership? Yeah, so I think this all goes back to that Titans game, the playoff loss, where the Titans basically loaded the box.

I think Logan Ryan said, we played Engage Aid and we loaded the box. We had nine people in the box every time. He took away the run and dared them to beat us on the outside. And everyone was like, oh, that's a blueprint for beating Lamar. It's not the blueprint beating Lamar, though, in my opinion, it's a blueprint for beating Greg Roman's offense, no matter who the quarterback is. Greg Roman's offense puts multiple backs on the field, multiple tight, tight ends on the field.

So the defense doesn't have to worry about those vertical threats because they're all in the backfield and you can't get downfield from the backfield. So it makes it easier to play basically blitz coverage and load at the box. I think that's the reason why they haven't been able to adjust for sustained periods of time since that loss. Danny, Lamar Jackson? I'm very curious if they actually will pull the trigger and fire Greg Roman or not. Like, I think, you know, they're the one of those, they're, they're like the Steelers in a way where they value continuity and almost to a fault sometimes where you're just like, we're going to stick with this guy and just like write out like the volatility. But yeah, I think this is going to be such a fascinating off season for them because, you know, in a lot of ways they were sort of forced to go a little more passive than they wanted to be probably because of all the injuries on offensive line and the running backs.

But like at the same time, like, I think this is where they need to be going. Like they need to, and where they've been telling us they want to go is like, you know, they've been drafting all these first round receivers. They, you know, design an offense around Lamar Jackson. I think, you know, the next step would be improving, like, continuing to improve that pass offense. And I guess the question is, can they do that with Roman? Remember, like, late last year when everyone was like, oh, the Ravens just need a passing coordinator. And then it turned out that they had one on staff already.

And then he ended up being the head coach of the Texas. Yeah, I was going to say, with David Coney. I actually think that David Cooley, being the past game coordinator, might speak to a larger symptom now that we've seen David Culley's performance as head coach. But here's my thing, like, what can a past coordinator do? Like, you're bringing a past coordinator independent of Greg Roman scheme. And Greg Roman goes, okay, here's the formations we play. We have a full back.

We have Patrick Ricard in the backfield and Mark Andrews and another no-name tight end. What is a past game coordinator supposed to do with that? How do you design past concepts with Ricard in the sloth? lot. Also, I just like the idea of just like, that's the fix if they needed a passing game coordinator. It's like, oh, no, we actually, like, thinking of the half passing plays. Like, the problem is just the design of the offense. Not like, there's not a guy who's saying, maybe we should, maybe we should coordinate the passing game here. No, dude, I think they got it. I think we're good here. Um, is there a new take or is it just that Greg Roman should not

be the coordinator anymore? Oh, no, the new take was that a bad season in Baltimore this year. It's actually a good thing for the future. And just to respond to one thing that Danny said, I do agree that the Ravens like value continuity, but John Harbaal fired an offensive coordinator midway through the season and then won a Super Bowl. So I think he realizes the effect of that it could have. Cam Cameron. Cam Cameron.

He fired Monday morning word too. But I think that was after the season. Became Cameron. I mean, Cam Cameron deserves to be fired from every job you ever had. So that's that. Danny Kelly, your second one? All right. So this one's like micro and it's a little bit fantasy related.

I acknowledge a state fantasy football podcast. Come on, you don't come to this side of the street and get fantasy takes. I think it's applicable enough to what's going to happen down the stretch here that it's worth talking about. I, before the year, we did an episode called The Take Burge where we just basically did our hottest takes.

And I said that Ronald Jones was going to be an RB1. In other words, he was going to be like a star this year. And I just got his luncheating. I picked the wrong guy. I just picked the wrong guy, man. I kind of, so like basically the bottom line is I was sort of out on Leonard Frenet for the year as like a talent as a guy that's going to get a lot of volume and earn a lot of volume and play well. And I was just straight up wrong.

Like he's the new take for me is like Leonard Frenet is pretty good. Like I've been pretty impressed honestly with what I've seen just from a talent standpoint, the way he runs is, you know, yards after contact, his explosive run ability. Like we saw this last week. He had like a 40-something yard touchdown run, like breakaway run. he's actually made a bunch of really nice runs this year. And I was coming in basically thinking he was just like a jag, like not a Jacksonville, a Jaguar, like just a guy. Like he's just another player.

And I thought that Ronald Jones was going to kind of like, you know, overtake him. And so I underestimated the trust factor. I think that Brady has with Fournet that he earned that Fortnet earned in like this playoff run last year. And that's obviously a big deal. And again, I'm just going to say it. Like, Fournet is much better than I thought he was going to be talent-wise this year

as a runner. He, by the way, also, he's a good pass catcher. He leads all running backs to catches this year, which I think, like, if you would have told me that before the season, I'd be like, what the hell you're talking about? Because I thought, like, Geo Bernard was going to be involved in all this stuff. So, this is a Mia Coppa for doubting Leonard Fernette. I've always

and the funny thing is the ironic thing is, we've always been, like, fans of Leonard Fernette. We love Leonard Fernette on the fantasy show. And, like, my biggest mistake was doubting him, so I regret that. So, I have well, actually, let's unpack the buck saying here for a second, Stephen.

Leonard Fournett, did you see this coming? No, I didn't. Can I add a take onto Danning's new take? Please. My new take is that Leonard Fournett and not Tom Brady changed the culture in Tampa Bay. Whoa, I love this. I love this.

Yes, yes. I don't have anything backing that up, so don't expect a follow-up. I'm just leaving it at that and moving on. Let's refine this take because I think this is a good one. Leonard Fernette is a great example of what culture can bring to a team because like there was a point last year where he was like they were,

Ariens talked about this, they were like going to cut him because he wasn't buying in to like the system, to the program to like basically his role on the team. They had to have a sit down with him. And basically he was like, all right, I'm going to do this. I'm going to buy in.

And he had this incredible playoff run. Like honestly, like if you look at the numbers, it's like a historic playoff run for any running back ever, which is kind of crazy. And so I think he's like a great like not to like lessen your heart. hot take because I love that hot take. But I think he's a good example of what buy-in

and what like the team can do. Like how important it is like be a part of like team, play a role on a team. So, but I also just like that he is the culture in Tampa Bay. That's better. Stephen, who has a better chance of winning two Super Bowl rings first from the 2017 draft, Fournette or Patrick Holmes? I think you have to say it's Fournet.

Because he's a winner. Because he's a winner. And it's because he's a winner. It has nothing to do with anything else. Yeah, he's a winner. And he was the pick. If anything, if you redraft that draft, Four Nets, you go second.

According to 538, Lenny has a 17% chance of winning his second ring. Wow. Pat Mahomes only has a 12% chance. Wow. Analytics, baby. Analytics. All right. So my second one is also my third one.

Because they're related. I picked Seahawks to make the playoffs because I thought that Russell Wilson was the type of quarterback with a new, Danny Kelly had talked me into all the layups that Russell Wilson was going to get and the Shane Waldron offense. How's that going, brother? Wait, wait, wait, wait.

That's my third take, too. So can I get in and on it? No, we're all in. Okay, so we can all talk about this. But I need to do mine because mine relates to something else. So let's show the Seahawks talk for a second. Okay. I was so, so anti-Cardons coming in this year.

I was so anti-cliffe and it wasn't, it actually had nothing to do. I picked Kyle and Murray. Did I pick Kyle Murray with the MVP last year? Like, I, I picked, I, I picked, the Seahawks, the Rams, and the Niners to make the playoffs. And I thought that I was just totally convinced that Cliff was going to be

fired not because of anything Cliff did, not because anything Kyler did, not because JJ What was a bad signing, right? J. Green wasn't really helping coming into the season. You know, I, the, the, my take was just that everybody else is better and Cliff's going to feel the brunt of it. And I was completely wrong. I believe I went on Cowherd and used the phrase pray for Cliff because of how good how stacked the NFC West was going to be. He and old takes expose me there.

And I did not understand how much talent they had. I did not understand how much the other teams would struggle. I thought Trey Lance, excuse me, I thought Trey Lance was going to be, as I said many times, a scheme expansion for Kyle Shanahan. I thought Russell Wilson was better than this or was better than his surroundings would be able to elevate. So that's my, my cliff take. I'm sorry about that. Hand up, bad take.

Now let's go to the Seahawks take. Steven, take it away. Yeah, I thought this new offense would be awesome for us. And it's because of the layups and the play action passing. And like, he's been like the best play action passer of all time this season. Like at one point, a couple weeks ago, he was, he had like an accuracy rate of 100 on play action passes, which is ridiculous. Are you serious? Wow.

The issue is that the understance. center play action game doesn't really mesh well with what Russ does in the drop back passing game. He is, I know we don't like to say it because he's a shorter guy and like it goes against the notion that you can't draft short quarterbacks, but like he he has problems seeing it, seeing the fields from the pocket. It's a true thing. He likes to be in the gun and that's where he's at his best. And I think it's hard to mesh those two things. So maybe this offense isn't the best. Maybe they need to go back to the old OCs, whether it's Schottenheimer or Darrell Bevel, which I know Danny doesn't want here.

Please, no. Darryl's getting his resume grilled down in Jacksonville, so I'm sure he would love to come back to Seattle. My new take was going to be that Seattle should trade its offensive coordinators to Jacksonville or its offense coordinator to Jacksonville

for its two offense, kind of offense coordinator. I know only one has the title. Switch. Beville and Schindhammer? Yeah. That's happened before, right? Like teams have fired a coordinator and then brought him back later. I'm blanking on when that's But I feel like that has happened before in the past. There is precedent for this.

That isn't the new take I settled on, though. I have another new take, but I'll save that one. I'll save that one. Okay, okay. Because it's not football-related. Yeah. So. It's not football-

Just wait. Just directing traffic-wise, you want me to go to Danny get a Seahawks take. Then you want me to return to you for a take that does not involve football? It does involve football, but it's not like mainly. It's about you, actually. It's about you. Thank you. that's what this whole show is about.

Danny. Yeah. Give us the Seahawks take. I'm basically the same. Like I bought into the Seahawks. I bought into the narratives of the offseason. I look back now and I had the Seahawks as the number eight team in my preseason rankings. And after week one, I had moved them up to number three.

And obviously, I regret that a lot. And I think honestly, if you watch the first game when they played the Colts, like the optimism was sort of warranted. Like if they would have kept playing like that, like it would have been a different story. Obviously, that's like you could say that with a lot of teams that if they played as well as they did in that one good game, like, you know, they'd be a good team. So like my mistake was basically buying into everything that Steven just explained. Like the Sunder Center game, basically the Rams offense was going to work really well. You know, the first game against the Colts, like the Seahawks were doing all this pre-snap motion where they had.

And I did a cut up of all of the all 22 was like literally a lot of the time you couldn't even tell where the ball was going. it was such good. It looked, it looked so perfect, like the way that they were, like, meshing play action with, um, you know, like different blocking schemes up front where they were having guys pull. They were having guys like sliced across the formation, you know, to block and all this stuff. It was like very cool. And I was so excited about this. And I, and it combined with like my optimism for Shane Waldron coming into the season, basically this Rams offense in Seattle, um, I definitely just like, I drank the Kool-Aid, man. And then obviously everything kind of fell apart. The injury to Russell Wilson was a factor. But like before that, they were still

struggling. They don't, they didn't seem to have any identity on offense. And, you know, I guess basically, I, I did not expect sort of everything, like the bottom to fall out for the Seahawks this year. This is something that we've talked about for, for years now, like Russell Wilson elevates the Seahawks from what would be probably a average to below average team into like a consistent 10-win contender. And look, this might honestly happen again. If they, the Seahawks have to play the Rams, Seyawks have to play the Rams this week and they're on like intensive code of protocols and then

they finish off the year I think with the Bears and some other bad team I can't remember like they they basically have the chance to run the table win nine games and make the playoffs still so like this might be premature but like still I just don't see the Seahawks as like the team I saw them before the season I don't think that

the Shade Waldron like experiment is necessarily working at least not yet And so I guess my new take would be, I should have been more dubious of the Seahawks here coming into the season, just based on the draft history, like the fact that they've had all these bad drafts, that bad free agent classes,

the infrastructure just was not there for them to be quite as good as I thought they'd be. It's probably a bad sign that we all had. I was wrong about the Seahawks being good ticks, Danny. Yeah, yeah. Stephen, your last take. Okay, my new take is that. that you, Kevin Clark, you should delete the tweet. Oh.

So, take back the power. Okay. So just so everybody knows, I tweeted two years ago during a Niners game, nine of Seahawks game, that the Seahawks has literally never played a normal game. And since then,

on a near a weekly basis, something weird happens in the Seahawks game. And people retweet that. And people ask me to retweet it. And there's a discourse. about it and all that stuff. And so they're having people saying that as just like a chaos agent, I should delete it because people look for it every single week.

I've thought about that. I also just like, I don't know, it can get annoying sometimes where it's like, I'm like doing something else. People are like acknowledge the tweet. But acknowledge the tweet. No, I get it all the time. Look at my mentions during a Seawks game. People would be like, do the tweet.

War it up. It's like me whenever like a new Fox cartoon comes out. I always get tagged me. I've seen all the cartoons. stop tagging me on the cartoons. Like, I've seen Ben Rothesburgers cartoon a million times. Right. And so I've thought about that.

So you're saying that I should delete it because that way the Seahawks would be freed from this particular bit of chaos? Oh, no, no. It has nothing to do with the Seahawks. I only wish poor things for the Seahawks. I'm not a Seahawks fan at all. I hope Danny never sees a good football team again. No, I think you should delete it just to add to the lore of it. You remember when, like, this was like a couple years ago, and I might have all the details.

was wrong about the story, but I think like Banksy auctioned off a work of art and then it like self-destructed immediately after the person bought it. It's one of those deals. Like it just adds to the legend. I actually Googled this last night to see if there were screenshots on the internet anywhere. There's one. We need to get

Sean Yu to delete his tweet screenshot in your tweet so that there are no screenshots. No one can ever replicate it again. Should I sell it as an NFT and delete it? Yeah, you should. That was going to be the joke I made, but I feel like NFT jokes kind of you know, I have, I have actually, this is no joke,

there have been multiple T-shirt companies who contacted me asking if I would sell the rights to the tweet. You haven't? Why didn't you? No, I don't, I don't want to be like, what's the point of that? Also, like, I kind of want to like open negotiations to find out how much they would pay for the rights to tweet. Also, I don't think they need my permission for that. You know what this reminds me of? This is exactly like, can you imagine me going to my bosses and being like,

I need to know if it's allowed that I could sell a tweet to a t-shirt company? Like the shame of that is why I'm not doing it. You should do it. I was just going to say there's a guy on Twitter called Bronzehammer who tweeted the infamous, well, I'd like to see Donnie Jr. Or Donnie Trump wriggle his way out of this situation. Ah, nonetheless or nevertheless. less.

Yeah. And then he accident, so like this every, like for like four straight years, this got retweeted like on a daily basis. This was like the biggest retweeted tweet ever. And then he accidentally deleted it. And he's like,

and everyone was like, where is it? Like everyone was so sad that it was gone. So I think this is what Steven's trying to get you to do here. It's under consideration. It's under advisement. The problem is the Seahawks are a mess right now. And they aren't playing normal games.

It's kind of like selling high. Yeah, it's like the old night in Indiana Jones. Like, I'm just waiting around for it to be released from this, but I haven't yet. No one's come and been drank from the correct cup. I mean, if Pete Carroll leaves and they become a normal team and they're coached by like Brian Daybold, we can have a different conversation. Yeah, but I feel like they're still going to play a couple like weird games every year and people are still going to tweet. And then it's going to lose the same. spirit of the tweet and why you sent preemptively you could avoid that might it used to be about

the weird games man it used to be pure right it isn't pure anymore i gotta say it's been commercialized as evidence by a t-shirt company trying to sell it i'm not selling it i'm not selling it it's beyond your control right now that's why i'm saying delete the tweet take back the power it's yours delete the tweet thanks guys okay holidays are coming up so a couple programming No, it's regular show on Sunday, myself, Solac, Nora Pinceotti, Stephen Ruiz, normal stuff there. During the week, Nora and I will be together on Tuesday for a special midweek crossover episode, preview show on Wednesday, so the normal Friday show moves to Wednesday.

No shows Thursday and Friday. Enjoy the holidays. The player show, including our buddy James Jones, will be back in two weeks. Thank you, too, Stefan Anderson, for its production help with additional production supervision by Arjuna Rampe Bowl. This has been the Ringer NFL show on The Riner podcast. Yes, that work.