The Ringer NFL Show - Baker's New Deal, Tua's Starting Job, Patriots-Seahawks, and 49ers-Rams!

Episode Date: September 9, 2026

Sheil, Tom, and Billy start the pod by breaking down Baker Mayfield’s new contract extension with the Tampa Bay Bucs and examining the Atlanta Falcons’ decision to name Tua Tagovailoa their starting QB for Week 1. They then preview the big Patriots-Seahawks and 49ers-Rams kickoff games.(00:00) Baker's new deal, Tua's starting job, Patriots-Seahawks, and 49ers-Rams!(5:19) Tampa Bay Bucs give Baker Mayfield a big contract extension(20:20) Tua Tagovailoa named Falcons starter for Week 1(35:04) Patriots-Seahawks preview(50:57) 49ers-Rams preview 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 SuttonProduction 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 some news around the NFL, the Baker Mayfield contract extension to Atunga Viloa starting for the Atlanta Falcons in week one. We're going to talk about those things with Tom Pelliserro and Billy Gill. And then it's a game week.

We got week one. We're going to talk about the matchups coming up. Seahawks Patriots, Super Bowl rebatch, along with Rams 49ers. Say, before we get started, make sure you check out Tom's new newsletter, the sweep. You can get it at tom pellicero.

com. He explains a little bit about what that's about during this episode, but be sure to check that out. All right, let's take a break. We come back with Tom and Billy. The Ringer NFL show is presented by Fandul. The NFL is here,

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All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show with Billy Gill and Tom Pelliserow, a ringer NFL first. One of our guest co-host is talking to us from Down Under in Australia, Tom. You said I think you were up at 3 a.m. local time. How are we feeling? Are we in good shape to do this spot? Listen, for the 15-hour time change from my home in Minneapolis, I will take the 3 a.m. wake up. That's not that ridiculous. I had a solid like 9 to 3 sleep. It's a little difficult when news is breaking at odd hours and you're asleep most of the day where all the people you would normally be calling are.

So that takes a bit of adjustment. But listen, the scene here in Melbourne, a little bit of rain today, but it's a nice, you know, like late winter, early spring week. There's signs of the NFL, you know, all over the place, including at the airport. I'm staying here in downtown, I think it's downtown. Melbourne, there's a lot of tall buildings. I assume it's downtown. Get over to the stadium for the first time tomorrow. and right now as we talk,

we're a little over 48 hours from kickoff of the Rams 49ers game. Can't wait. Billy, he's being Mata. You know, he's saying it's hard to break news that I was like, huh, I wonder if Tom's definitely going to be up for this pod and then I check his Twitter feed

and he's breaking Baker Mayfield news, which we're going to get to here. I mean, not just breaking Baker Mayfield news that, again, you said we're going to get to now and a minute. He was breaking news while he was on his flight over to Australia. Like, how did that happen? Well, I had a feeling that the Tuatongue of by Lois, starting for the Falcons news, was going to come most likely during my sleep window,

because much like the Rams, I was trying to really power sleep through and adjust my clock all on one flight. I missed the first text. I got the second text saying, Tom, did you get that? And then popped up in time to post it right about the same time everybody else did. But yes, you know, you get used to some of those things. That's why you sleep with the AirPods in. It's just that Siri doesn't always read everything if you get more than one thing at once. Wait, how did, how were you treated?

How was your seat? Did you get the VIP treatment? We weren't sure last time. It was a lay flat seat. Obviously, I put together a whole sleep plan because I wanted to be completely, completely adjusted the best I could once I got here. So I had two connections through Denver and San Francisco, powered through no naps, eyes open, like, did all my work, ran out of stuff to do on that front, started watching movies, got on the final flight to Melbourne, watched another movie, obsession. It's an interesting one to watch on a plane.

And then finally, you know, ate some dinner and allowed myself to go to sleep. So by the time I got here, you know, definitely under because I've lived an extra day here, so we're still a little bit off. But it actually, it worked out pretty well. Very comfortable accommodations, you know, relatively speaking, other than when you get up and it's pitch black on the plane, I think I nailed more limbs and body parts into various, like, the different parts of the seat, you know, you got the armrest side here, you got the entry over here, the tray table. I hit myself so many times, no visible bruises that were going. He's not questionable.

He is not only probable. He's off the injury report. He's going to be good for 49ers frames. And Billy, we're going to revisit some. of the travel stuff because this feels like it's just the biggest story in the NFL. It's just the Rams and Niners and their different travel planes. As like Tom said, we are 48 hours away from this game in Melbourne. And it's just like, who got this right?

What is this actually going to look like? I have questions when we get to it. Yeah, so we're going to get to that as well. But let's start with some news here. We mentioned it at the top. Baker Mayfield gets a contract extension. this was supposed to be dead. He set the deadline.

He's ripping the buck's front office. He's just voicing his displeasure with everything that happened in negotiations. And we're all thinking, wow, this is going to be a huge story in the 2027 offseason. Where's Baker Mayfield's going to play? But it's not going to happen, Tom, because he gets the extension for three years. What's your understanding on how this kind of came together? So, first of all, that's Baker. he's never going to miss an opportunity to make sure he's got a chip on his shoulder at all times.

It's why if you love him, you love him. If you hate him, you hate him. But that's just who Baker is. He's also one of the most durable and efficient quarterback statistically in the NFL since his time in Tampa with a different coordinator every single year. You know, his Baker that said it's got to be done by training camp deadline. And, you know, he took his shots in June, the way they weren't even close. There was nothing done, you know, in late July. but once the V-to-Via deal got done,

that kind of sparked the idea that they might circle back on this at some point with Baker. My understanding is that circling back didn't happen until Sunday night of Labor Day weekend. And then within 48 hours, they had to work through a lot of different structural things, but they got to the number that Baker wanted to be. He sees his peers in the league as guys like Trevor Lawrence and Jordan Love. Those guys on their extensions were 55 million a year. The bucks weren't at that number. Baker was willing to wait.

In the end, that's exactly where it came in at 3-4-165. He's now signed through the 20-29 season, and you're right, at 31 years old, going into a contract year, he would have been the rare quarterback to play the thing out. And then you would have had real questions of, do they tag him? Do they work out an extension after the season? Do they flat out let him walk? But the one thing that never changed was Baker wanted to be in Tampa. The Bucks wanted him in Tampa.

It's hard to get these quarterback deals done right now, because everybody is acutely aware that the market is going to shift perhaps dramatically next year with some of those quarterbacks who are coming up for new contracts. But 55 was always the target. That's exactly where they ended up landing. So it's one thing off the to-do list and one less bit of drama, which you know if Baker had been in a contract here every single week, win or lose, there would have been questions about the contract,

questions about how he was feeling, organizational relationships. those are all headed off at the past now and Baker's going to be staying at Tampa. Billy Tom said, if you love him, you love him, if you hate him, you hate him. And I really think that's true, just like conversations with friends.

And people, he is a very polarizing figure. I have my thoughts on what I think about Baker Mayfield and the quarterback and whether this is a good deal. But from your perspective, let's say you got a Bucks fan friend right now. Are you like texting them being like, I can't believe you paid Baker Mayfield 55 million per year.

Are you like, that's a good deal? Baker Mayfield's an underrated quarterback. Where are you on the scale of Baker Mayfield here? I'm happy for Baker. I mean, I think if I had friends that were bucks fans, I would text them, congrats. You locked up Baker. We talked about this a couple weeks ago

where he had that deadline that he set for himself. And is this really a thing or just playing chicken here? Are they really going to let this go the entire season before they re-signed him? And on Baker's side of things, I mean, he kind of went through this with the Browns, right, where he decided, you know what, I'm going to play through this injury, I'm going to go through this season, I'm going to prove how tough I am. And then he ended up costing himself money. He almost derailed his entire career. He ends up in Carolina. He goes over to the Rams.

And then he's just floating around there. He has to sign a $4 million one-year deal with the bucks. He's able to benefit from that prove-it deal. He gets a three-year, $100 million contract. And now he's going into this season and it's kind of like, well, do I play this out without an extension here? What happens if I get hurt again? I mean, he's already made over $100 million in his work. career he'll be fine. But sure enough, you know, maybe putting those words out there, maybe that lights a little fire. You said that once they get other guys signed, that really kind of got the wheels in motion again. And now he gets kind of the deal that he wants. And it's not a bad deal. I mean, we talked about this last week as well when we were talking about C.J. Stroud, that's what

quarterbacks are making, right? And he's in that upper echelon of quarterback. So he's right where he wanted to be. I'm happy for them. I mean, I'm sad that we don't get the drama of this playing out the entire season. I'm sad that we don't get the drama. I mean, it would have been great offseason content. Tag and trades cooked up for Tom. He would have been like, what are you talking about? There's no way that's happening.

Let's play the what if game because we're never going to get the opportunity. Let's talk about if Baker Mayfield had hit the market. Okay, let's set aside the tag scenario or, you know, could even be a tag in trade. Who knows? Those are extremely rare, especially for quarterbacks. But let's just say, this is a world where Baker's not a buck in 2027. We now know that he will be. And by the way, for everyone sitting there going,

Baker Mayfield is not a top quarterback. Look at the numbers. He never misses time. Since he got to Tampa, he is second in the NFL and touchdown passes, third in passing yards. You can look at the efficiency numbers. He is a really good quarterback, even though, again, every year, whether it goes good or bad,

there's a new O.C., and he's got to start over again. But where could Baker Mayfield have ended up in 2027 if the Bucks had not gotten this deal done. Some of the teams that immediately come to mind, the Vikings are going to have some things to sort out. It's the first one that was on my mind. Yeah. With Kyler Murray's on a one-year deal minimum, he's got a no tag clause. So even if he plays well, he could choose to go someplace else, not a guarantee, but he could choose to go someplace else. What about going back to the Rams? What if Matthew Stafford, win, lose, or draw this year decides, you know what? I'm done. I'm going to move on. There's nothing binding with that one-year extension. He signed back in May. It gave him a little

raise, and it saved them from some cap complications, but there's nothing guaranteed. Could Sean McVeigh have brought back Baker Mafia? Even with Ty Simpson and Stetson Bennett also in the building, could they have gone back down the Baker Road? You got all these other teams, the Falcons, in that same division. Not with Kevin Stefansky there. You wouldn't think, but they would have to be in the quarterback market. You've got teams like Arizona that run a similar type of an offense that Baker's been exposed to in the past. Michael Flore worked with Sean McVake. And he ended up with the Cardinals. These are all reasons that if you're doubting, like, why didn't you just let him play it out? Why not just like let it go?

You're opening up all sorts of different things with a guy who's got a number of good years left. And if you believe Baker Mayfield can be a franchise quarterback, you pay him now. You're right. 55 is, it's the going rate. It's what all those guys get. And there's different ways to slice these numbers. But this is a straight ahead three-year, $165 million extension for Baker. He presumably gets, I haven't seen the full cash breakdown, but he presumably gets a raise this year. And the Buccaneers take all this out of the equation.

It's an interesting year ahead in Tampa now, because you think about some of the stalwarts of that program, Mike Evans is now a 49er. On the defensive side, Levanti David is not back on that team. There are some veteran players that have moved on, but I'm really intrigued by what they have at the wide receiver position. Emeka, Buka, started off so hot last year. What does he look like before it tailed off?

What does he look like in year two? McMillan might have been the best receiver on the team, but had some injury issues. What's he going to be about this season? Chris Godwin being a year further removed from his injury. This is going to need to be as much as Todd Bulls is a defensive coach. This is going to need to be a team that puts up a lot of points. And Baker, again, if you just look at the numbers, he has shown time and again. He's capable of doing that.

Even the nerd stats, you know, if you want to get to EPA and all that, I was just looking at it before we logged on. Last three years, he's performed like a top 10 quarterback. And like Tom said there, that's with different coordinators. That's with the kind of different supporting cast. That's over a three-year span. So you're getting a bigger sample. And I think if, you know, there's some people who just whatever, if it's not like Josh Allen or Mahomes and a team pays a quarterback, it's just like, oh, my God, how could you do that? You're paying that guy.

What? But it's like, if you're running the team, you have to have a plan. Yes, every GM would love to have Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes, but I think a lot of times you have to look at it and go, okay, if we don't have the MVP caliber quarterback, what's our plan? You can't just throw your hands up and be like, let's just wait until we get the MVP caliber quarterback. That's not how it works.

And I think Baker falls in that next tier, where if you look at last year, Sam Darnold with the Seahawks, could Baker Mayfield play at that level? Of course he could play at the level we saw Sam Darnold last year. Two years ago, Jalen Hertz with the Eagles, could Baker Mayfield play at that level? Yes, I think we would all say the answer is yes to that. So I think now the Buck's puzzle is sort of, all right,

can we build a roster around him that is good enough to get us to that next step? And I actually think they have a top 10 roster right now in the NFL. I think it's kind of an underrated roster. I think it's pretty good. That's one or two. Can we have a coach who gives us a definitive edge? Like, if you put, I was thinking, if you put Mike McDonald on this Buck's team, I think more people are saying,

hey, could the Bucks get to the Super Bowl here? Now, I know it's not easy to buy Mike McDonald. Yeah, he's not going to be available. Yeah, he's not going to be right. But let's say, Billy, but let's say at the end of this year, if they go eight and nine and it's like, what's our plan here? Could they look?

All right, who's the coach who can actually give us an edge because we think we're talented enough. We think our quarterback's good enough. So I think that's what kind of this season's about for the bucks. I think there's a lot of pressure probably on Todd Bowles here. And then you have to see where you're out with the coaching staff, where you're out with the roster and how do you get Baker from like, all right, good quarterback who could probably get us into the playoffs versus how can we kind of take that next step and be a contender?

What's your guy's definition of franchise quarterback? Because I feel like he is one. He may not be a top five quarterback in the NFL, but he's a quarterback that you can build your team around and get deep into the playoffs if he has the right pieces and the right coaches around him. And I would have a franchise quarterback as kind of being a guy you can't really afford to lose. And I think that that's, him with the bucks right now. There's 16 of them that are getting paid like that and Baker's on the list. Half the league either has a guy on a rookie contract, which you can certainly look at the class of 24 and say a bunch of those guys are probably franchise quarterbacks and

are going to be paid like it sooner than later. And then there's like a dozen teams that we don't really know what the plan is. I think that that's the key threshold, which is exactly what you just said, which is we know we can win big with him if we put everything around him that he needs. You know, is Daniel Jones, a franchise quarterback? It's getting paid $50 million a year by the Colts coming off of an Achilles injury. And that's because he gave them a certain level of play before he got hurt last season that they feel like if they can get healthy and be doing what they did at the start of last year

when they started 7 and 1 or 8 and 2 at the buy, they can win a lot of games. You know, again, I think that the term sometimes gets pushed in different directions because everybody wants to, you know, subjectively define it. I would go with the objective, which is, is it somebody you're willing to pay over $50 million a year? And by this time of year from now, is this a guy that you're willing to pay $60 million a year? Because that very quickly is going to be the number. And as some of these other contracts begin to come in, there's going to be a recalibration for a lot of those quarterbacks who signed deals, including guys like Jordan Love, who signed a few years ago and are going to go. This is now a much smaller percentage of an ever-rising cap than when I sign.

We're going to need to adjust this upward. and that's how markets move forward. What if, guys, he ended up after this year. He didn't sign the thing we're playing the what if game. What if he ended up in Pittsburgh with DK. Beckcapt of Michael Pymond Jr. Yeah. I mean, they need a quarterback.

We already know that. They could build around him. Sheel, I'm kind of curious. You said that you definitely have your feelings about Baker, but didn't tell us what those were. No, no, I said him eventually, Bill. I think he's like, yeah, I think he's in like the top 10-ish level where, like, Tom said, I think franchise quarterback,

it's like the guys who can carry the franchise, and there's probably what, three to five of those? And then there's this next group of, hey, if the circumstances are right, whether it's supporting cast, coaching staff, you actually can get to the Super Bowl and win a Super Bowl with them. And that's the only question that really matters. And I think Baker Mayfield absolutely falls into that category. And then when you get to the next tier where it's like it probably doesn't matter what's

around them, you're not going to get to the Super Bowl, that's when you don't want to, you know, maybe you don't want to be paying those guys. But I think that middle group is bigger than maybe it's been for a long time, especially what we've seen here over the last couple of years. All right. Baker Mayfield. Billy, did you predict this? I'm having deja vu.

Didn't you say that you don't believe his deadline at some point? Was that you or was that someone else in my life where you're like, this deal is going to get done before the start of the season? I don't believe this self-imposed deadline. You remember this? Yeah, when we talked about it a couple weeks ago, we did some of this where we said, ah, who actually imposed his deadline? Yeah, this seems like something that Baker's just saying and they'll revisit this.

And we said, like, if they come and they give him the number he wants, There's no chance he's going to say no because I said there's a deadline. And we floated out the Vikings idea. So see this? Tom, welcome to the party. You're fitting in perfectly. I love this. Listen, even if guys aren't going to hit the market,

let's get it all out of our systems right now, play the what if game. No more what ifs in Tampa, which, by the way, Mike Evans to face that franchise for a long time. With this contract, the largest in Buck's history, I think it's fair to say if there were any doubt to face the franchise is Baker Mayfield.

It would be fun to root for Baker Mayfield. Like, I don't know if he's the quarterback of your team, I feel like he'd be a fun quarterback to have. He's not boring. He has a fun style of play. So there you go. Even under 9 and 8, it's a fun game to watch in the Red So. It's like, oh, are they going to do it?

They're going to do it. What's big you're going to do here? A bleep you, quarterback is always fun too. Totally. The guy who probably is saying a lot of the same stuff at the line of scrimmage or on the sideline that you're saying at home, I do think that there's something to that where people can gravitate tournament. Again, he plays through a lot of stuff.

You mentioned what happened in Cleveland, and that's absolutely right. I mean, he had like a broken shoulder. He had all kinds of stuff going. He probably shouldn't have kept putting himself on the field, but that's just the way he's wired. I don't think he's missed a start, if I'm not mistaken, in Tampa. He's one of the most durable quarterbacks in the NFL.

I think those are all things that people respect about the guy. Now they've got to go and have playoff success, which is, you know, since Tom Brady was there where they've come up short. All right. Next piece of news here. I think this is the one Tom's talking about on the plane there. Toa Tunga by Lowe, but Billy, he predicted.

Tom predicted this last week when we're like, oh, it looks like they're going to, you know, Tua's not going to start. And Tom said, everybody settled down here. Let's just wait and see where we're at. Week one, he's just bringing it in his first couple weeks with the ringer. And Tom, you were right, this Tua Tua Tunga Vailoa is going to start for the Atlanta Falcons. What's going on with that quarterback situation? This probably would have been a final decision a week and a half ago. But then Michael Pennix Jr. all of a sudden got cleared for 11 on 11. And it was like, okay, well, he's now reex.

integrating. This is probably not the right time to announce that he's not starting. It's just, it's hard to sit out all those reps in training camp coming off a major injury and then go, sure, just go out there and function week one. I mean, Michael Pennix Jr., I know that we saw him run in the college football playoff a couple of years ago. Like, he's not a super mobile guy. Like, he's a pocket passer. And now when you just have any questions about like, all right, just, how is he feeling the game and the rhythm and timing? It's just difficult to ramp that up. And so let's see what Tua can do. He's there on a minimum contract as well because Miami's paying the other $50-plus million to Tua this season.

For the Falcons, it made sense they're building an offense, at least for now, around a left-handed quarterback, whether that's Tua or Michael Pentex Jr. He was the logical guy to come in, and he's played pretty good football. I understand the people have a lot of feelings about Tua and the scenes that have played out that everyone has seen on the field, including in Cincinnati, plays into that. I understand that there is a certain, you know, column of people who don't think Tua should be playing football. But guess what? It's his decision to make.

If the doctors sign off, if they say it's safe for you to play football, if they say, as they have to him, that you're at no more risk than anybody else is suffering another concussion, he's going to make that choice for him and his family. He's out there on the field. And I would go back just in terms of Tua the football player. Look at his numbers, the first couple of years under Mike McDaniel. Go back to 2020, 2020, 22, 23, or 23, 24, whatever it was. He's one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the entire NFL. He is capable of playing at that level. It didn't look that way last year.

It was bad. I understand the preseason wasn't great this year. It sounds like practice went a lot better than what people saw if they flipped in for, you know, a series or two in the preseason. And he's got a better skill group around him than he's had probably since, you know, when Tyreek was at his absolute peak a few years ago, you're talking about plugging him in now and saying you're just going to be the distributor

with Bejohn Robinson and Pitts and Treyk London and all the other parts that they've got there. If Tua can't have success in this environment, I think that the entire league is going to see that as a sign that just there's something that's missing for Tua going forward. But if he performs well, I think everyone's going to quickly realize, oh yeah, like this guy,

the way that he gets the football out of his hands, the way that he can just, you know, play with tempo, that guy has been there in the past. I'm really interested to see first game's not an easy one. It's at Pittsburgh in week one against a pretty good defense. There's a lot of unknowns, obviously, in week one. And Patrick Graham does as good a job as anybody of mixing things up and throwing stuff at you that you're not expecting. But let's give Tua a second here. Start out, he's on the road.

He's on grass. But it's not cold weather. Well, let's see if we get September 2a performing at a decently high level. Billy, you're a Dolphins fan. You've watched a lot of Tua. Are you buying this? What Tom is telling you? And listen, there is a statistical case that is, you know, what we think of Tua is not

as bad as numbers would indicate if you take his dolphins career as a whole. Yet I feel that this is not going to go very well for him in Atlanta. Where are you with Tua? Well, I mean, look, I'm a Tua guy. I'm not going to mince words. I had a lot of hope in Tua. I wanted him to be the savior of the dolphin. As you may or may not know, I used to have behind me a Tua autographed jersey that was framed.

I then had to take that down both because of space reasons and out of embarrassment. So now it just sits in the corner of the office, the Chris Simps jersey over it so that it doesn't scratch up the wall. What a collection you have there, Bill? It's quite a collection of winning quarterbacks that I have jerseys of. But yeah, like, I want this to work for Tua. You know, as you kind of pointed out, he was the, statistically like a top three quarterback the first couple years with Tyree killed depending on the metrics. And no one believed it because you would see that he couldn't really get the long ball there,

even though there are metrics that would say like, no, he's actually really good at the deep pass. But on tape, he would watch him like, well, he under threw it. Tyree would make up for it. So there were always the critics and there was always the people that wanted to give the credit to either McDaniel or Tyree kill for why it is that Toa was successful. And he wasn't successful without any of those. but also Mike McDaniel was not successful without Tua. He couldn't win a game without Tua's quarterback. So they were kind of connected to each other.

Now they've both gone their separate ways. Tua, to what you said, has looked good in practice, hasn't looked good on the tape or in the games. That's something that people were saying last year about Tua as well, where it was kind of like, well, on the practice field, he looks great. He looks like he's hitting people in stride. Everything looks there.

And then once the game started and the pads are on and its game speed, he was just a little bit slower. He was a little bit off. When things were really clicking with the dolphins, he was the guy that had the fastest release rate where it would come to him and he'd immediately make a decision it would be out. Then last year, it would just slow down.

He wouldn't make the throw, the windows closed. So he didn't have the same success. And you wonder, is it because he's getting older? Is it getting slower? The injury is catching up to him. Is it PTSD of sorts where it's just all of these injuries are catching up to him with the concussion and he's just avoiding to get hits

or he's not really deciding quick enough? So, I mean, it'll be interesting. The dolphins cut bait on two of the, said he's gone. He signs with the Falcons and you say, okay, well, they have a quarterback. So is he going there and he's going to kind of hope to get a start here or there? Maybe he wins a job back. And because of the circumstances, he's their starting quarterback this first week of the season. And this is the opportunity that he was waiting for and he was asking for. So it's really up to whether or not he's going to be a starting quarterback in this league moving forward. And it's his job

to lose at this point because if he goes on a string here, okay, it's a tough one at Pittsburgh. But the scheduling wise in terms of what day it is, it's good because it's not going to be cold there. He's struggled in the cold. He's 0 and 7 under 45 degrees. He's not going to have to deal with that because it's a September game. So it goes to Pittsburgh. If he could win that one, then they're at home versus Carolina. That should be a win.

Then to go to Green Bay, that one's tricky. But if he could get on a little roll early in the season, even if Michael Pennix is healthy, if the Falcons are winning, can they take Tua out if the offense is clicking with him? He has Bejohn Robinson. He has Kyle Pitts where, We're headed into this year with the Falcons again. Is this going to be Kyle Pitts's season? And, you know, we ask it almost every year.

Is this going to be the Kyle Pitts season? What I did was I went to Google and I said, Google, is this going to be Kyle Pitts's season? Just to see what Google told me. And Google said, in case you guys were wondering, yes, the 2026 season could finally be the year Kyle Pitts puts it all together after signing a lucrative deal. So even Google wasn't really one way or another, yes, this will be his season. This could be his season. Could be.

Okay. I mean, there's things to look up to here. if you're to it, but it's up to him really to get it done here. And he can only blame himself if he loses this job. Yeah, listen, it could play out a couple different ways. One is the way you guys are kind of saying that maybe he

proves, hey, it didn't end well in Miami, but there's still a good quarterback here somewhere, and Kevin Stefansky and the supporting cast can get him out of there. I mean, there's another scenario where we're saying, wow, Mike McDaniel really put him in great positions for most of that Miami tenure

with the wide receivers, with his scheming, with building a system that fit his skill set really well. And that's just going to be hard for other coaches to do. Now the defense is, no, okay, that's what it looked like when Tua was playing pretty well. So, I mean, Kevin Stefanski had a terrible quarterback situation in Cleveland. And it's just like the last two years, you know, the offense dunk. They were eight and 26. I do fear that there is potential for that here in Atlanta.

That it's just like, all right, you got to coach. you feel like you think you like, but you just don't have much of a shot here if the quarterback's not playing well. I mean, Tom, what's your sort of read on Pennix, Tua, how long to it? Is it as simple as Billy said? Like Tua gets in there. If he plays well, obviously, he's keeping the job. But if he doesn't,

Penix, meanwhile, maybe gets a little healthier there with the knee. It feels like, to me, the most likely scenario would be we see multiple guys for the Falcons at some point this year. Well, at some point you want to also get the evaluation on Michael Panix, Jr. and just think, all right, new coaching staff, what does he look like in this offense? Does he still have a chance to be the quarterback? I mean, we all saw, you know, Pennix at Washington. He had a pretty magical final season there, but he's a guy who's had a lot of injury history,

going back to Indiana and now coming off of another major knee injury. They're going to want to get, you know, to see it. Now, if they're, you know, 11 and 0, I don't foresee that. But if you're on an absolute tear, of course, you don't pull two out of the lineup. But I would think that there would be value in them, making sure that they get the full of out. evaluation. Stafansky's been through this before. Last year you saw it, and we're going to see Dylan Gabriel and we're going to see Shador Sanders. Kevin Stafanski member was also a top potential pick for the Tennessee Titans job. They wanted to get him in. The Falcons did the deal before Stafansky could get on the plane and go to Tennessee. With the Titans, he would have had the quarterback. He would have inherited Cam Ward. Whatever you think of Cam Ward, like that would have been the guy. His job would have been to go in there and go, all right, here's your quarterback. Now. do all the other stuff. In Atlanta, it's the opposite. They got a really good defense, albeit one that's gutted right now in terms of pass rushers, and that's the biggest question about that team going into the season. But he's got all these weapons on offense. The offensive

line is kind of having some turnover because of guys walking away, guys getting hurt, but there's pieces in place. What they don't know is about the quarterback. And as much as Stefanski might have on some instinctual level been like, God, do I really want to get in another spot? We don't have the guy and we're going to draft one or we're going to have these guys. compete. To me, it made sense to take the Falcons job because you've got a quicker path to winning there and you're not tied to a player in Cam Ward, who again, whatever you think of Cam Ward, if you're a huge Cam Ward fan, we still haven't seen it in the NFL, but you're tied to that guy if you walk in the door. With Atlanta, they very well could just get to the end of this year and go,

it's neither of these guys. We still have pennicks for the fourth year of his rookie contract. We'll see what we have in Jack Strand, who I know they like a lot, the rookie from some small school in Minnesota. But you're also, you know, in a draft where there's a lot of good quarterbacks, depending exactly how this college season plays out. And who decides to take a fifth, sixth, seventh year of eligibility and go back and take a few million dollars. You know, they could be in that position to go get one. Baker Mayfield being off the table, again, that probably wasn't going to be an option for Atlanta, given the history with Baker and Stefansky. But there's some other guys who might be available via trade. There's some other players

who potentially could be out there. You wouldn't think they'd go down the Kirk Cousins Road again, assuming he gets cut loose, but there's a lot of different things here. They have optionality at the quarterback position. And for where the Falcons are, that was probably a good thing. They got a guy in Tua who at least has had productivity in the NFL, even if it's been a bit since we've seen it. Billy, I want to plan a little seed that Tom touched on there. Okay.

This is just, you know, Shield just looking ahead and trying to think about how this season could play out, how the offseason could play out. if you pulled the Manning family right now and said, hey, you know, if Arch has a nice season here at Texas, just, you know, where is there a destination in the NFL that might look kind of good? Maybe one that has a veteran coach and Kevin Stefansky has a good running back, a good wide receiver, a good tight end, competent offensive line.

Matt Ryan in the front office, I got to imagine there's a relationship there with some of the, Mannings, I do wonder if the Manning family would be like, oh, Atlanta maybe. You know, now are they going to be that bad? I don't know. But that was just little light bulb went off in my head as I was going through this. Yeah. Arthur Blank, as we know, famously makes a good rib-eye. That's how he landed to fans. He could have cooked them a meal. He didn't let him leave. So maybe. I mean, maybe. Good memory. It's not, it's not of the mannings to kind of interfere though, right? Like, he'll just be happy wherever it is that he ends up.

We're thinking for Arch, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah. We'll see. Can I propose a game that we can play with Tom moving forward? Because it's a game that popped up to me as he was talking about to a situation breaking the two-a-news. But do you want to play the game now? Because if you want to play the game now, then I'll take a break first. No, no, no, no, just introducing the game. I'm just going to introduce it.

Throw it out there. For future reference, we could play it moving forward. Okay. The name of the game is, did Tom think or did Tom know? I like that. I like that. Yeah. that's good.

So you wait for the Tua situation you would want to play that. Did Tom think a week ago this happened? Or did Tom know a week ago this was happening? I guess,

but Tom doesn't get to play in this game, Billy. It's kind of just mean that's kind of mean. And then Tom, maybe we'll tell us maybe he won't. Maybe he just makes facial expressions.

Just try to point you in the right direction, boys. Yeah. You know, audience can watch on Netflix. Vote online right now. Send us a DM or can we put up a poll to send us a deal or did Tom think

or did Tom know? Okay. There you go. All right. Let's take a. break. We come back. Let's get to some football previews. We got Seahawks Patriots Wednesday night. Let's talk about that game. And then we will get to Rams and 49ers. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fanduil. The NFL is back and Fandul is making this your most

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Super Bowl rematch Patriots Seahawks. Tom, we got some news here with this one, though. Christian Gonzalez gets the new deal. I know Bill Simmons was very well. worried that the Patriots might even trade Christian Gonzalez before this season. Patriots fans were not happy that it took Robert Kraft this long to get it done. But Christian Gonzalez gets the big deal from New England. And the Patriots had been trying to get this done for months. You know, I know Robert Kraft had said it publicly. I think various other members of the organization had

repeated it that they had offered him to make him the highest paid corner. Now, there's different ways you can slice that and there's different metrics to look at and structure plays in. But they had a big offer out there. And it always made sense that Christian Gonzalez would ultimately. I mean, you're talking about like $100 million guaranteed. Like, you just, it's hard to pass up that type of money. And so it got down all the way to Monday, you know, and ahead of their flight to Seattle, before that contract, you know, those contract talks really ramped up. So, you know, the corner market, you can look at, I mean, the Rams have kind of been the nexus of the universe in the NFL, the whole offseason. That extension they did with Trent McDuffie, a player that some teams can

consider more of a slot corner than an outside corner, that when they did that deal for, I think it was 30 million a year on the extension, that made people's heads explode within the league because it was such a jump. It was such a big deal that then all of a sudden you went, all these other corner contracts are going to also now have to clear that bar. And there was a line of guys from Denzel Ward to Devin Witherspoon to Christian Gonzalez, who all fit in that category. So as usual, what happened was everybody started leapfrogging each other. Gonzalez went last, which means that he got the most. In the end, he's a core player for what they want to be in New England. You'd seen his body language in his press conferences

didn't look great. It looked like he had said he was getting frustrated here. Now you can wash all that part away. He was practicing. He was out there. He looked really good in practice for what I'm told, regardless how he looked when he was talking with the media. And now he's going to be ready to roll with a pretty big assignment coming up against that Seattle offense in the televised opener. Only 24 years old, Christian Gonzalez, in the top five corner, I think, by any measure in the NFL. So they get that done. I wanted to get into what I find most interesting about this matchup, Seahawks Patriots, because I was thinking about this. You can take it in any number of different directions. I love that we get the rematch here of the Super Bowl as the first game. And I think

what's most interesting to me is the narrative around the Patriots offense from that Super Bowl. You know, if you believe that that was just a matter of, hey, Drake May was playing injured, left tackle, Will Campbell was playing injured. And that's why the Seahawks made them look so bad. Well, in this matchup, then, we should see a different Patriots offense. They're healthy. They got A.J. Brown. They got Romeo Dobbs.

I'm not saying they have to score 40 points. This is obviously still a very good Seahawks defense here. Billy, I feel like Patriots fans, the expectation should be our offense is going to look good. we're going to be competitive and we're going to show people that maybe it sounded like we were making some excuses and this is, you know, maybe not the organization, but just the general discourse.

It sounded like we were making some excuses, but those were actually valid reasons for why we looked the way we did. What do you think? That was the exact thing that I was looking for, Sheel. Like, what are the chances of that? So I was going through and I was like,

what are the storylines here? And I mean, there's a couple, right? Is Drake May really as good as he looked the first, you know, throughout the regular season? He didn't look great in the playoffs. But there was a shoulder injury. Then there's Walt Campbell. He was a rookie.

He looked horrible in the Super Bowl, but he was dealing with an injury. Drake may only threw 60 yards through the first three quarters. Was it because of the injury? Was it because of the scheming? Was it because of the cover six? We talked about a couple weeks ago.

Who knows what it was, and we're going to find out? But are we going to find out? Because the Seahawks secondary is injured, and they lost some guys. So they lose Kobe Bryant. They lose Rick Wulin. They have injuries to Ty O'Cod.

They have an injury to Nick Iman, So they added pieces the Patriots did. They're finally healthy. But now the Seahawks secondary is not healthy. So are we going to actually get an accurate picture of where these teams stack up against each other after this game? I think that it's one of the undersold things was neither quarterback was healthy in that Super Bowl. We talked a lot about Drake May because he got banged up in the championship game.

He said that he got a shot prior to the Super Bowl. But Sam Darnold was banged up too, and I wrote about this. I think this will come out after the debut. Do we already plug my newsletter, The Sweep with Tom Pelliserro. It's now on Substack. You can go to Tompelicero.substack.com, partnership with the ringer and Spotify, read lots more stuff. But I assume the first newsletter will be out before I'm saying this,

so I can repeat what's in there. So, Darnold had a grade one external oblique strain, which grade one is the lowest level. But if you know anything about oblique strains and how they impact anything, thrower. Like if a baseball pitcher has an oblique injury, like they're straight to the disabled list. So Sam Darnold, the entire time in the playoffs, this injury happened, I think it was 48 hours before the 49ers game. And he didn't throw in warmups. They thought Drew Locke was going to have to start that game. Donald said, no, let me give it a go and he went out and he played well.

He played well the next week. The Super Bowl was not his best effort. But he was in a rehab progression. entire playoffs all the way through while also preparing for the biggest games of his life. I'm not saying that's why some of the accuracy things popped up in the Super Bowl. There were definitely throws and opportunities that he missed, but he was hurt too. And so both these quarterbacks, they're full participants, those injuries are in the past. It'll be a cool opportunity to see what both those guys can do. And back to the point on the Patriots offense, I think one of the storylines in this season, yes, A.J. Brown is going to be a big deal.

and if you think about all the attention on AJ Brown for the past couple of years and what's his relationship with his quarterback and Jalen Hertz, there is an element where AJ Brown's going to have to contain the emotions and not try to force the chemistry because that very quickly would become, oh, now he's upset with Drake May type of thing, even if it's just A.J. Brown being a competitor. But I'm fascinated to see how Josh McDaniels moves these guys around because they've got a lot of versatility. A.J. Brown's going to play, I'm sure, most of them.

outside, like if you leave him one-on-one in the backside, he's still as dangerous as anybody in the NFL, but he's capable of going and being big in the slot. Romeo Dobbs, you can move around the formation. They have some other wide receivers on that roster to the point that, as they said after the Kashan Booty trade, booty wouldn't have been

active on game day because they like Pop Douglas and some of the other guys that they have. I'm just really interested to see how they put this passing game together and how quickly it can ramp up to speed because it was not a great representation of either passing offense in that Super Bowl. You know, my Google doc, Billy, I had Tom's newsletter, Baker Mayfield Extension.

And I got too excited about the Baker Mayfield extension. But you know what? I mentioned the newsletter, the sweep in the intro to the pot. So we got you covered. I did want to, you know, I was going to give Tom, Tom, give the people a little selling on the news. What are they going to find here? When can they find this, all that? Do you want more?

Yeah. Yeah. So listen, the way that I'm looking at this is it's going to be. a community of football fans. I want it very much to be a two-way street. I want to know what the people who subscribe want to questions, the type of content, whatever that might be. And I'm going to try to deliver on it. So it's news, but it's also going deeper behind the headlines. It's trying to turn you on to like what the big stories are going to be coming up in the coming days, weeks, months, years. We're going to have a bunch of different stuff. We're going to have live chats. We're going to

have comments, functions. You can get in at the free tier. There's also paid tiers. It's not a ton of money where you can get in and get some of those advanced things. Talk directly to me. Ask me your questions directly. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's something, you know, different here. So Spotify, the ringer and me, Tom Pelliserol. Can't beat it. Billy, I missed what you said, but I assume it was funny because you got that little grin on your face. I just said the paid to you, get pictures of Tom's feet if you want. So that's in there too. Yeah, Billy can not quite the realm that I was thinking in. I mean, a super paid tier next year.

For now, but maybe table it. I really wanted people to pay it, so you got to pay to not get picks of my feet. Oh, okay. All right. Billy can help you. If you need some creative ideas on kind of the different tiers there, how to reel people in as we get this thing started. But of course, everyone should check out Tom's newsletter there.

Yes, Bill, you got your finger up. Do you have another idea for Tom? Well, no, I want to ask you. I had Tom's on my list of other things that we need to discuss as Tom's newsletter and then also Roger Goodell's extension if we get to that, which probably won't because why would we get to that?

But, Sheila, I have a question for you as a recent Super Bowl champion. So, Oh, I won the Super Bowl? I wasn't aware. Well, your city won the Super Bowl, Eagles.

Oh, okay, okay, I got you. You're a recent Super Bowl champion. Yeah. You won the Super Bowl. You then hosted opening night. You had the banner raising ceremony, all of that stuff. Yeah.

Does that do anything? Like, are we going to feel any momentum with the Seahawks having the banner raised before the game, especially this one, it's a Super Bowl rematch. is not rare. The last one, I think was in 2016. So do you think that that plays in any factor there? Does that get them more hyped?

Does that, you know, get the Patriots more pissed off? How do we think that that will play out or, you know, if it's just we're going to use our brains, it doesn't really do anything? I think history tells us it gives them a bump, right? If you just look at the record of the defending Super Bowl champs hosting opening night, I think the record is very good just regularly and the record is very good against the spread. So yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of emotion. I think it depends on, you know, the fan base and how everyone's feeling and it was this like the first Super Bowl of their lifetime or was it not?

But yeah, I think there's some meaning there. Tom, I don't know. I don't know if this is something you've, you know, you've done any reporting on or have feelings about. I mean, you just had, you know, the numbers there. I would just say, you know, that place never needs an extra excuse to be really loud. You know, the building's going to be totally juiced. It's the ever-rear Wednesday night kickoff game. the NFL. You know. For now, Tom.

But maybe not rare for the moment, because we've got Friday morning football here in Melbourne on Netflix, which is Thursday night back there. I mean, listen, I like the entire atmosphere of it. It's pretty rare. It's not unprecedented, but it's rare to have a rematch of the Super Bowl coming out in week one. There's a ton of storylines on both sides of this. I don't know that it, I honestly, I didn't play in the NFL. It's hard for me to say what the emotions are. I think, at any time, though, from all the people I've ever talked to, that you have like the extended pregames and extra stuff, it's always going to be an emphasis. Hey, like, you've got to stay in the moment, time out your warm up, your activations, everything else, because otherwise, just like the long Super Bowl halftime, you may end up kind of freezing up and getting distracted,

not being where you are. And so I'm sure both these coaches, I'll be hammering at home with the guys. I think that, you know, just to circle back, Billy, you were mentioning some of the injuries there. Ty Okada, the safety is out. Nick Eamon Worry is questionable. So just to kind of tie an out on that conversation, it's like the Patriots, that's more reason. The Patriots offense should look good here.

You got a banged up Seahawks defense. You're a full strength. Guys are healthy. You added these pieces. If you don't look good, that's almost more concerning. If you do look good, maybe we don't go crazy and say, all right, that's all it was for the Super Bowl. But on the other side of the ball, Billy, I wanted to play for the first time today. No.

What's Tom hearing? We haven't prepped him for this. But I think there's a coach on the Seahawks, their offensive coordinator, who it feels like this guy's one of the most important guys in the NFL this year. I mean, defending Super Bowl champs, Clint Kubiak goes to Vegas, and now this guy, Brian Fleury is taking over the Seahawks offense. Tom, what are we hearing about this guy, Brian Fleury? I'm sure, you know, is going to be mentioned during the broadcast,

but what are you hearing about him and the likelihood that he's able to kind of keep that thing on track there with the Seahawks offense. I know, Brian, he's a very low-key, laid-back type of personality. If you sat and had a beer with him for 20 minutes, you would not think for a second, this guy is an NFL football coach, but he is really, really smart. His mentality, you know, just like the way that his mindset and his philosophy works is a perfect fit. And it's why he won them over in the interview process. Remember, they interviewed a bunch of internal candidates. And the easy thing for a coach in Mike McDonald's shoes would have been like, okay, we're going to be running the same style of offense. Let's just promote one of these guys.

And certainly they had some qualified people on staff, but they really were in love with just kind of how Flory was going to fit into the system. You also avoid an awkward scenario where you promote one person and don't promote the others and kind of how that impacts some of your staff dynamics. But he's really good with the run game. And that was the difference maker down the stretch last year for Seattle. It was the problem in Mike McDonald's first season. They won 10 games, but they didn't really have any type of a run game philosophy when Ryan Grubb was there. And so that's part of why they brought in Clint Kubiak.

They wanted to run that style of offense. And if you look at what happened in December and January all the way to the Super Bowl, it was really the emergence of Kenneth Walker in that run game that got him there. Well, Flory has been a tight ends coach. He's held a bunch of different roles, but he's been a tight ends coach most recently. He's intimately involved in the running game. And some of those Kyle Shanahan-style concepts, I think that you'll start to see integrated more into the offense, the way that they really run wide zone, for instance.

I think that you're going to see Seattle leaning into the expertise of that. So I thought at the time, the hire, even though this was not a name that people knew, you know, Florey had been a candidate in the past, he interviewed for the Patriots offensive coordinator job at one point. But it's about just his mindset, his philosophy, and also what he can bring from San Francisco to be additive in a very similar style of offense, all that fit together. Mike McDonald is never afraid to make the tough decision. It's one of his superpowers as a head coach.

He made a change of sorts at the running backs coach in December last year because the run game wasn't where he wanted it to be. Kennedy, Palomaloo's been a really good running backs coach for a long time. He's had a ton of success, Hall of Fame players, but it just wasn't clicking with that particular room. And so they move things around and they put Justin Outen in the running backs room. And that helped just a different voice.

He knows when to push those different buttons. He felt like this was the right move to go to Brian Florey. And I would say Mike McDonald, you know, in two short years as the Seahawks head coach with whatever it is, 25 wins and a Super Bowl win, I think that he's earned the benefit of the doubt. Yeah. I'm looking, I do like that, that he seems to not be afraid to make pretty, you know, even after year one making the OC move change.

And then even here, like you said, we talked about it on the last show. How many coaches is just like familiarity. it just kind of takes over a lot of times when they're making decisions. I like that he kind of went outside and said, who's the best actual candidate for this position? And that's what I'm going to have my eyes on from the Seahawks perspective in this game. How does that offense look with a different coordinator? All right, let's take one more break.

We come back. We get to the game that Tom will be on these sidelines for in Melbourne 49ers, Rams when we come back. All right, we're back here on the Ringer NFL show. Billy, I feel like you've got like 20 questions for Tom just on like his travel, Melbourne, the Rams, the way they're doing it. So where do you want to start with this before we get to the actual maybe football aspect of it? That's a good read by you because here's kind of what happened. When the Aaron Donald news came out today that he's not traveling to Australia, I was like,

oh, that's kind of a bummer. I wanted to see what that defensive line was going to look like. And, you know, it's already going to be a fun game. Tom's going to be there. We have travel questions. just general Australia questions, just Tom questions, what's Tom doing for the game? So I was just kind of curious and I was like,

oh, this is like the interesting thing of the game. But then once that news came out, I lost a little bit of interest. And I just like, I like a spectacle, Tom. I don't know if you know that about me. I like a spectacle. I like an opening night. I like an opening weekend.

I love the international games, even though it's usually the Jaguars playing them. I like it all. So I like the idea of going to Australia. I don't understand why we're going there. I don't know that makes a ton of sense. There's never going to be an NFL team. You don't understand why they're in Australia?

I mean, it's to make money is why they're going to Australia. But like, there's never a good. Hold on. Hold on. Let's take a step back. I'll explain you exactly why the NFL is playing a game in Australia. For one thing, it has one of the larger, of any country, one of the larger fan bases of the NFL that is here. Also, the NFL's huge initiative to grow the game is flag football. They know in L.A. in 2028.

It's in the U.S. You're going to have buy-in. You're going to have, it sounds like the plan is still to have some NFL players involved in that. Where are the 2032 games? They're in Brisbane. So you're trying to invest in the Australian market, gain some momentum here. I wouldn't be surprised if they're back multiple times in the coming years to Australia. Also, Melbourne, you know, just from the little time that I've spent here so far as I look out across the skyline.

Again, I'm on the, I think I'm in the South Wharf, they call it. I don't know if this is technically downtown, but I think I'm looking at downtown. It's a really cool city. everybody here has been super nice. There's NFL signage. You already see people walking around with jerseys because they might be fans. It might be people who grew up here in the U.S. or they may be people who just like the game.

So you've got however many millions of NFL fans that are here, they're playing in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is like 170 years old and holds over 100,000 people and has a field service that they really haven't had to do a whole lot too because they have the Australian Football League, the footy here is played on that same field. So there's a lot of different things that lined up for them to have this game here. But don't overlook the flag football piece, the growing of the game,

and knowing the next summer Olympics are right here. Preseason game would have been fine, I think. These poor guys, they have to go all the way over there. And this psychopath, Sean McVeigh, sent his team over there a day before. Like, what are they doing to these guys? I feel bad for them. Do you think it's going to sell out? You think it's going to be $100,000?

Hold on. I'm going to take these one-in-time, Billy. You say these asides, and you ask an unrelated question. I'm like, I want to weigh in on all of this. Don't worry about that. So the more that I've done into it, the sports science supports either approach. You either come in really early and adjust your body clock, your circadian rhythms, or you come in last minute and just essentially don't adjust.

So there's nothing wrong with either example. It is interesting that they chose opposite paths here. But one thing I know with Sean McVey is, he's a big believer in spend as much time in your bed as possible. So many teams, you know, the Seahawks for 15 years or 20 years have flown in. If they got an East Coast game, they fly in on Friday. And then they spend a full day. Then they play the game on Sunday.

Even in Indianapolis. I know that. You know, that's in the middle of the country, but their eastern time zone. I know that they fly in early because one time I was there and went to the gym on Saturday morning and Russell Wilson is in the hotel gym because that's Russell Wilson. That's the type of stuff that he would do through the course of his career. But like the Rams fly in on Saturday. They come in as late as possible for every single game.

And that goes back to McVeigh's philosophy of just it's good to be in your rhythm and your routine. And also you don't want to make too big of a deal of the fact that we're going and play in somewhere else. This entire week has been different for the 49ers. For the Rams, it's all the same other than when they're traveling in. You also, and no one will ever say this is a reason, but you also lose the whole every family member of every staff member wanting to come on the trip. If you're like, yeah, we're just going to be there for 24 hours and then we're leaving.

I mean, the Rams are going to be your less than 48 hours in Australia. A lot of that probably gets curved by not making the early trip. But as much as anything, honestly, like I did more or less what the Rams are going to tell their players to do on the flight here to try to adjust very quickly. And I felt pretty good waking up yesterday at, you know, whatever that was, like 6 a.m. local time on the plane and then got myself going. Now, how I felt at like 6 p.m. was a little bit different. But guess what? The Rams will already be on the plane home. The game's at 10.30 a.m. here. He'll be on a plane back to L.A. by like 3.30. I get it. I'm not taking sides in what they do. We'll see in the first quarter in the fourth quarter who has the better plan. But there is science behind doing either one of these things. Rams, you know, took the unorthodox way where if they win this game, everyone will say, well, it's because they're the Super Bowl favorites. And if they lose, it'll be, well, McVeigh's an idiot. He came in late. Billy, there were two things there that really caught my attention.

The first was when Tom said Sean McVeigh believes in spending as much time in your own bed as possible. And I don't know if you know, the Capadia men now for generations when we travel, we bring our own pillows. We don't like to end up at a relative's house or something. somewhere and they got the pancake pillows. You know, we call them the pancake pillows. You're a perpetual bag checker. No, these are more road trucks. These are more road trucks, I should say.

But like, I have visions of my dad. We're driving anywhere to whatever uncle's house. And you know what? You got your bags in the trunk, but you also got two pillows there. And guess who's doing that now? 100%. In the car. I'm doing that now because I want my own pillows.

But that actually makes sense to me. That's a point for McVeigh. But I think Tom just, this is a does Tom think or does Tom know, Billy? Because his point about the family members, that makes a lot of sense to me. Okay. If you're working in the NFL and you don't see your family that much and you're about to embark on this four-month season where you're going to see them even less. And now you say, oh, yeah, we're going to Australia for like 10 days. Everybody's like, oh, sweet.

I've always wanted to go to Australia. I'm going to come to how do we get passes? Who do we call? McVang now has cut that out. You can say, sorry, you know, we would love. to maybe we'll vacation there on the offseason but guess what we're only there for 48 hours it's a you can't just say it's a business trip you're going to go you want to go to australia great go yourself but i'm not going to be there until the day before the game like they're going

to get in the morning before they play the game and they're going to go through the entire day so yeah i would just say there's a long history of you know teams doing different things even when they go to europe there's some teams that have gone in you know right after their game the previous week. Other teams go in at the last minute. One thing that's a common thread I've always heard is the earlier you go, the more of the other stuff you're dealing with and all the family members and friends who want to be a part of the trip. It's just one more thing that you have to manage that feels out of the ordinary. Again, we'll see how this works out for the 49ers. They might come out and look like a team that's fully adjusted, and the Rams don't. But for the

Rams, they just wanted this week to feel as normal as possible. And other than, you know, the 15, 16 hours, that plane, it probably is going to. I'm not expecting, like, a breaking news for this one, like breaking news, Sean McVeigh hates family, but maybe on the sweep we get like a more in-depth thing where Tom breaks down, like, why it is, what happened in his past that, you know, all of a sudden, Sean McVe doesn't want to share in. That's not the sweet. I'm just saying as an ancillary factor, the shorter the trip, the less you're dealing with

other people. I mean, can you imagine if a guy's getting ready to play a divisional game in week one and like he's dealing with, hey, my wife's passport expired, what do I do? Like, it's all these other things that just you don't really want to be dealing with it. Like, I think that that's, that's all of us, you know, like, I think that everybody, like, you're going to do your best work when you're not being pulled 20 different directions. Um, and this fits into it. I mean, NFL players, they got real families and real lives. We sometimes forget that. But just taking some of that out of the equation, then all you're really worrying about is whether or not you can sleep during the period of time you're supposed to on the plane. Because if you don't, then I would imagine it's going to be a really long 48 hours here.

So, Bill, you're O for two on the sweep ideas, the feet and the McVeigh idea. I'm just throw it. Shoot or shoot. No bad idea in a brainstorm. I feel like I've been swayed by this segment that I like this. I like the Rams idea. And here's the other thing I read. Christian McCaffrey was talking to reporters.

Tom, I don't know if you've had a chance to talk to Christian McCaffrey yet, but he was saying the coffee is great. And I didn't know this, that Australia had like amazing. Big coffee place. Big coffee place. And now I'm thinking, all right. So if you get on the plane, it's a nice plane, you're laying down, you're sleeping. All you really need is like eight hours of sleep at some point the day before the game.

And then if you're a little tired before game time, you're having some of that good coffee. You get through the game and then you come home. and then you're in a good situation. So Tom, you are a coffee guy, I believe, right? I feel like I've seen you holding cups of coffee. This episode alone. I don't, well, no, this is water here. I'm not sure who sponsors the show, so I'm going to, uh, I'm still getting up to speed on

some of those things. So I don't want to state my affinity one way or the other, but I will say Australia is known as a place. Like, you can do coffee tastings around here. Even in, you know, you go to New York City. There's a bunch of Australian coffee shops. Yeah, that is one of the things that they are, they're, uh, absolutely known for.

All right. So we'll get the coffee review on the next show. All right, Bill, should we move to football or you have more travel stuff for time? Well, no, there's lots of questions. So have you seen a lot of 49ers fans out there? Because they travel well. Did they travel all the way to Australia?

So on my flight from SFO, there were a lot of 49ers fans. In the city, listen, I'm going over to 49ers practice after we finish taping this. So I'll see some of those people and get a chance to talk with folks. with the team, like within the city, one of the things it's every international game, if you're just walking around the city, you see every jersey. Like I was behind two guys who I think were locals yesterday,

and they were wearing a Lamar Jackson and Drew Breeze jersey respectively. Not anywhere near anything to do with the game, just walking along the little boardwalk here at the wharf and wearing random jerseys three days before the game. Like, that's part of the fun with these things. It's just that fans of football. Like, it's football.

that they're coming out here. But I would say, you know, listen, the Rams always have their silent cadence available, whether they're at home or on the road. I don't know that it's going to be quite like SOFI, where Kyle Shanahan's, you know, said he wished they were playing at SOFI because 4-N-Rs fans take over. It's still a 15, 16-hour flight.

Again, I was with a bunch of them. I'm pretty sure I was with the 49ers cheerleaders as well. So they're going to be represented. The field, too. It's not, they made this change, I think, last year. It's not going to be, even though it's a home game. for the Rams, they're going to paint it half and half like it's a Super Bowl. So NFL Shield at midfield, 49ers in one end zone, Rams in the other.

They'll still do some in-game things within the stadium. But from that perspective, the environment's going to be shaped, at least in part, by what fans decide to show up and be loud. I talked to MJ at Costa Ruiz who's going to be on the 49ers sideline. She said walk around, she saw a ton of Rams fans. So who knows? We'll know a little bit more when we get into the stadium on Friday.

I have no idea. You'll get it right there. Thursday night in the U.S. 8.30 Eastern, 530 Pacific on Thursday. But it's 10.30 a.m. kickoff here in Melbourne. 8.30 a.m. pregame

here, which is 6.30 and 3.30 in the U.S. on Thursday. He's got all that. It could be worse. You could be Rahim Morris. He missed his birthday with all these days being changed. This 50. I saw that. He didn't get to celebrate. He was on the plane, right? In the that was his birthday.

It was the day that was skipped. Yeah. Got in another third, got out on the fifth. If you're turning 50, like when I turn 50, all I'm going to want to do is just lay down and take a nap in the middle of the day. Being on a transcontinental flight challenge, perfect. Yeah. Yeah. How are you going to beat that?

Yeah. The older I get, the less I want to do for my birthday. Oh, 100%. Yeah. No. Don't even want anyone to mention. Make friends with McVeigh, so you can tell my family they come to my party, you know? Yeah, Tom, you're new here.

Sean's got a beautiful young family. He loves the kids. Who wants to go to Australia? He's like me, me, me, me, me. It is not a McVeigh thing. I'm just telling you how the world works. Tom, just so you know that we have a Slack channel at the Ringer where there's a lot of happy birthday wishes.

I made it clear year one. I don't need to be announced in there. So just, you know, if you need to do that, alert somebody, make sure they don't say that in there because you don't want anyone acknowledging your birthday. Billy, I don't know. Have you done that? Yeah, believe it or not, Tom, I manage people.

so I make it a point to make sure to wish them a happy birthday on their birthdays because I don't want them to feel left out even though for me it's like I'm fine I don't mind if you tell me it's my birthday or not I don't want anyone else to feel left out so I have to go in there and do it yeah the whole like online wishing of the birthdays it's always if you go through and you look like you know like I don't have Facebook set up to like send me anything you know but like I'll get you know a happy birthdays and they're from people that like I swear I only hear from once a year to say happy birthday. Like none of your actual friends are doing the happy birthday on Facebook.

The only thing worse than the Facebook happy birthday is the LinkedIn congrats on your work anniversary. That's not even a thing. But there's some, it's got to be like an auto setup thing. And I'll get a flood of congrats on your work anniversary, which by the way, gets really weird when you got fired from your job and you haven't changed your LinkedIn bio. Everyone's wishing you happy birthday or happy work anniversary. you're like, yeah, I don't work there anymore. And that's probably, it's pretty well documented that I don't have that job anymore. But thank you for congratulating me on a non-hol.

Okay. One, if LinkedIn is sponsoring this episode, we of course love you. Yeah. No, LinkedIn's great. And birthdays, big birthdays is a sponsor of a show. It's the work anniversary thing. That's not a thing. Why is that?

Unless you're getting like the 10-year pizza cutter or something, which is an actual gift I got one time for being in a job for a couple of years. Unless you get like that, like an actual gift for it, it's not a holiday. Does not need to be celebrated. Billy, the toughest part of the happy birthday text is to what Tom was saying is when you say happy birthday and then you scroll up. And the only time you've interacted with the person, they said happy birthday to you. You said happy birthday to them. That's the only interaction you have all you. I feel like we need to name that something or if you see that happens, it's like we don't need to keep doing this.

Yeah. Well, sometimes I'll do that and I'll be like, is that really the last time I talked to? this person, it's like, well, I guess we were like in a group chat or whatever. But yeah, it feels bad. Also, by the way, thank you guys for reminding me because today's a birthday friend of the show. She'll Mina Kimes. Happy birthday, Mina. So we can tell her and then you'd have to reach out.

Set it on Facebook. Yeah. There's one more real quick follow-up question before we get to the actual football against. The more than mayor. What is the etiquette to the happy birthday? In other words, do you guys do like the thumbs up? Do you say thanks? Do you ignore?

And then if you do reply, thumbs up, thanks, whatever. And they send you another text like, enjoy your day. Yeah. Is there any proper response other than just ignore it because they're going to keep text to you? Well, yeah, I don't think ignoring is the right move. No. It's that right, Billy? You don't want to ignore.

You don't want to ignore. Not the first one. Okay. Oh, the second one. Okay. Okay. Right. But then if they respond with like, what are you doing?

It's like, I just, I'm trying to. enjoy my day and I'm answering your text. Yeah, no, that's not a real friend. I think you just want to say thank you, exclamation point, and that ends it, Billy. Is that your move or no? I'm with you. I mean, I'm a bad friend, so I'm not the one that is, like, probably the one to answer this. Because, like, I think my closest friends, I can go, like, much without talking to my closest

friends. And then we'll just text each other out of the blue. And it's like, yeah, this is fine. We don't need, like, the pleasantry. You don't need to see each other constantly, whatever. Like, you and your friends that go and meet in the forest for the draft. like that. Like we just go and we talk to each other every couple times and then we'll go to the log cabin and that's that. Right. So like the people that will reach out to you that it's more like what she'll say where it's like this is now I look back. It's like oh the last time I talked to you is also my birthday. So I'm just oh thanks. You know, hope you're doing well. How's it going? Whatever. But like it usually will end after like one or two. I'm not a big like thumbing like the comment like thumbs up kind of guy because I feel like I don't know. If I'm in a group of people do that then I'll do it. But if it's like one on one, I feel like thumbing like the comment like thumbs up kind of guy because I feel like I don't know. If I'm in a group of people do that then I'll do it. But if it's like one on one, I feel like like the just thumbs up is maybe somewhat dismissive. So I try to avoid it if I'm a big,

I'm a big if it's either it's either a thumbs up or a heart. That's 90% of my text replies. You've been using those appropriately, Tom. You know, we've only been texting for a couple groups and a lot of mine. Like, by God, she'll say, here's the time for the show and I go. Yeah. Yeah. That's great. So this is one of the issues to read me going, yes, I agree with she. You don't need all that. Just like. Totally. Yeah. We're good. This is one of, this is one of the show. This is one the groups where I feel like the thumbs up and the hearts are appreciated and it's fine. We don't need to do any more than that. It's an acknowledgement. Yeah, exactly. That's all we need. I'm with you. This is what I do, Tom and Sheila, I don't know about you. So sometimes, like,

on social media gets tricky, right? Where, like, people will reach out to. Facebook was one all the time where it was like, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday. And it's like, there was a time where there wasn't just a like. So you had to either respond or not respond, right? So I had like a rotation of like three responses. And I just kind of like, hey, thanks so much. oh thanks hope you're doing well thanks bro stuff like that and i just kind of like alternate depending on the person like these are my three go-toes and i'll just hit you with one of these yeah you know what i mean because then it's not it's appropriate personal yeah but the problem is is then if it's public the person can see like oh there's just a pattern it's like a bc response and he's just going abc

abc abc if someone's going to get mad over that billy you need to cut that's a you know as my kids would say cut out the toxic people wow you know kids tell you that shield you What's going on? You're being bullied? What's happening here? They do say that at Bunks. You know, someone's having an issue that that's a good move. All right. I'm finally getting us to this football game. Oh. No more. I thought we covered it. Listen, here's what I'm interested in. Now you said, Billy, Aaron- I love that I gave away all my texting shortcuts and then forgot we all text.

Somehow that did in the old noggin. Listen, now you're on six hours of sleep. You haven't had the Australian coffee yet. You've got to go to bed in three hours if you're staying on that time. No, I got to. We had a 9.30 p.m. medical meeting. That's in like 12 hours. Medical meeting. We got a lot of...

Everything okay. HIPAA? Listen, this broadcast on Netflix is going to be huge, man. We're putting a ton into it. It's going to be awesome. And yeah, looking forward to seeing the 49ers this afternoon, too. Are there any surprises that you've gone through with run-throughs? Like, you don't have to tell us what they are, but like, is Ice Cube going to be there singing

or something? You know what I mean? Don't tell us, but... Cannot reveal... There's definitely some surprises. Nice. Cannot reveal them. But there's, listen,

And every Netflix, one of the reasons I'm so excited to be a part of it is like every Netflix broadcast of a game, certainly not broadcast, whatever, stream of a game, they're all like a Super Bowl. They're all an event. And there's like unique creative stuff that goes into it. You can only imagine, the fact, this game's in Australia, some of those unique things that are going to be incorporated into it. But gangs all, if they're not already here, they're going to be here very soon. We are fully staffed. We are at full strength here in Melbourne. Can I give you a prediction, Sheel, of what one of the surprises will be?

Maybe it's already been announced, but I just, it's, it's, it's no way that this game doesn't happen without Robert Irwin's son of Steve Irwin doing something at this game. You know he's going to be there. Guys everywhere. So that's your official prediction, not ice cream. Yeah, Robert, Robert Irwin's going to be doing something in one of these games. All right. Well, if it's ice cube, my official prediction, we'll see who's right there. So there's no Aaron Donald, but I do think the number one thing I'm watching here is this 49ers defense, Miles Garrett,

Trent McDuffie feels like it was five years ago, the offseason that the Rams had, because I'm just looking at this. If you're McBenay, you're like, man, our offense was good enough to win the Super Bowl last year. And in that NFC championship game, we could not get it done against that Seahawks offense. And now you're going up against Shanahan,

and it looks like kiddle might be on track there to play, and you still got purdy. So Tom, that's, I mean, the 49ers offense, we forget kind of how great it was for much of last season, going up against this new new look Rams defense. That's going to be amazing. Yeah, we just got to see, you know, the 49ers kind of how the playmakers emerged.

Debo's back after a one-year absence. You know, they cut ties with him a year ago, and I think it was a trade to the commanders. But it's probably because he didn't look like Debo anymore. So after a year in Washington, how does he come back? I mean, he looks good from everything I've seen. He looks good physically. You know, how do they integrate him into the offense?

How quickly can they get to Zon's stribling going? they've drafted a lot of receivers over the years and a lot of them have struggled to make an immediate impact. Well, they need him to be a big piece of this offense, especially with Ricky Pearsall, out for the season. You know, what does Mike Evans look like? He's had a bunch of, you know, he's always had hamstring issues. He's had a couple of them pop up through the course training camp. How much are they playing him? What does he look like in his first time out, not in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform?

I think all those things are interesting. And then, yeah, you know, the way that the Rams operate. here. I mean, Miles Garrett, Sean McVeigh has said he's full go, even though he didn't practice today. You know, how exactly do they put all those pieces together knowing this guy is going to get so much attention up front? He's going to get doubled or tripled on so many different snaps. All right, how do the 49ers play that, number one? And number two, what are the Rams try to do, if anything, just to freeze some things up? Are they running a ton of games up front? Are they just going, our guys are better than your guys and just run right at him and let

you know, guys like Kobe Turner and Byron Young go eat, Braden Fiske, like it'll be really interesting just to see these first games. This is everybody in the NFL, like there's always some level of unknown. And that's why every year you get some weird week one games that happened. At the end of the season, you're like, what in the world was that? And it's because,

no matter how much you have on tape of what, you know, coach didn't his last stop or what they showed in the preseason, like you're going to know within five, 10 snaps, you know, all right, these new pieces that they got in, how exactly are they playing schematically? What is their philosophy here? You're going to learn a lot about that. And then it's about what team can adjust better

to what they're seeing in the early stages of the game. And you're right, there's enough new, even though these are two coaches who know each other really well with McVeigh and Shanahan. Obviously, McVeigh and Rahim Morris are very close, won a Super Bowl together in L.A. There's still going to be some of that feeling out process and let's see exactly what it looks like

is these teams are figuring out what the other one's doing. All right, Billy. Anything have your attention here? You want to get to before we close it out from this game? I was interested in seeing what Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald look like together. The video is going around on Miles Garrett learning how to tackle people rugby style at UCLA for whatever reason because he's not hitting people hard enough so they had to teach him a more efficient way to quote-unquote hit people harder. So I was wanting to see.

Yeah. Yeah. It is kind of crazy that, you know, that guy comes in. And obviously, you know, that caught the internet by storm. And it's like, wow, he's hitting people harder. All they had to do was find this rugby coach. It's like, well, yeah, like, but every team has guys that are teaching their players how to hit people safely and harder.

So it's probably not actually going to make a difference. It just looks kind of cool that you have this giant guy getting thrown around by Miles Garrett. So I don't know. There you go. That was a big Seahawks thing back in the day. The rugby, rugby style, take your head out of tackling. So there you go. We'll see, yeah.

All right, this is going to be a fun game. This is going to be a fun week. We got Wednesday, we got Thursday, we got Sunday, we got Monday, we got a lot of shows in between. Tom, give everyone, you know, this is another. I should have done this at the top. Give people the schedule for the Ringer NFL show, the in-season schedule starting next week. There's one piece this that I don't know that we're allowed to say yet. So I'm going to steer clear of that because I was specifically ordered not to.

But Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all season, starting next week. I will be back in the country. We'll see how I'm feeling how adjusted I am after immediately going from the plane to the couch to watch a full day of Sunday football. But Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all season long, ringer NFL show. It'll be on Spotify.

It'll be on Netflix. It'll be wherever you get your podcast. We're going to have an absolute blast. You guys still owe me some ideas of your segments that you're going to do starting next week. So we've got to work through all that stuff. And I'm just going to do what I always do, which is, you know,

needle you guys and hopefully bring some information to the table and be entertaining. All right, Billy, we should go like that message that Tom had whenever he asked us. Yeah, I did. I did. We should go ahead. We had a whole call about. It would be a lot of fun. I thought it was like I'd tell me before we

do it type thing, but I'll send it. You got time. We got a little time. So we're going to come back after the game. There's one thing I know about you, Billy, it's that you're not going to follow the directions anyway. So just come up with something that you understand. Falsehoods. And then we'll do it. Yeah. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot.

You know, I ain't Tom? Well, yeah, no, no, everything's going great. We're going to have shows Wednesday night, Thursday night, after the games this week. And then like Tom said, we'll be back Monday, Wednesday, Friday next week. That'll be the schedule for the season. I heard everyone check out Tom on Netflix on Thursday night. Be like, oh, that's the ringer NFL. Two-hour pregame show.

Wow. At 8.30 p.m. Eastern time, 5.30 Pacific. Wait, what are you going to be doing officially? Like, during the game, you'll be on the sidelines, right? But before in the pregame, you're going to be kind of like in and out with reports. I'll be doing some news, potentially some interviews as well in the pregame show. And then I will be on the Rams sideline. Can break that news?

I'm on the Rams sideline for the game. Chronicling the beginning of the journey for the prohibitive Super Bowl favorites. Should be a blast. Billy, I expect you to be analyzing every one of Tom's moves. and come back with a review for us next week on the job you thought he did. Are you up for that? Sure. Okay.

All right. Billy's up for that. All right. Thank you to Tom Pellisero. Thank you to Billy Gill. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna. Ram Gopal.

I'm Shield Capade. 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, or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gambler or 1-800-Mai Reset. Call 1-88-7-8-8-8-9-7-77 or visit CCPpGPGGGGGELP-RG and Maryland.

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