The Ringer NFL Show - Bears Run Ends, Seahawks-Rams Part 3, Patriots Hate, and What Now for C.J. Stroud?

Episode Date: January 19, 2026

Sheil is joined by The Ringer’s own Billy Gil to share their instant reactions to all of the big action that went down during Sunday's NFL divisional round playoff games. (00:00) NFL divisional round Sunday reactions(1:23) Rams-Bears(17:54) Texans-Patriots The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Billy GilProducer: Chris SuttonVideo Editor: Stefano SanchezSocial: Kiera Givens and Brian WatersProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I am your host, Shield Capadia. We are finished with Divisional Round Weekend. What a game to cap it off bears, Rams in overtime. And then earlier in the day, Patriots take care of business against the Texans. We're going to talk about both those games,

big storylines, what's up ahead in championship weekend and the Super Bowl. Joining me is my friend from the Ringer. Billy Gill. Let's take a break. We come back with Billy. The Ringer NFL show is presented. by Fandul. Fan Duel's got it all.

Same game parlay's quick bets for jumping in live and your way so you can build the bet that fits your play. Plus, don't miss out on the NFL playoffs all month long. Download the Fandual app or head to fanduel.com slash ringer NFL to get started. 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-gambler or visit RG-Halt.com. call 1 8887-8-8-7-9-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show with Billy Gill.

Billy, let's start with Bears Rams because I thought that was a classic. I was ready to come on here. The Bears are America's team. This is their year. I'm emotionally invested in him when Caleb Williams threw that touchdown to Cole Kamed. He's fading back. He chucks at 40 yards.

I thought this is their year. they're finally going to do it and then they don't do it. It goes to overtime and they lose. But I find myself a little bit sad. Even though I'm not a Bears fan, I'm not from Chicago. I don't have any real connection to the city of Chicago or this team. But I'm a little sad that their run is over. I don't know what your big takeaway was from that game.

But that's kind of how I felt afterwards. I feel like, you know, this is like one of those things. We could be happy with the progress, right? Like, they have to go all the way to the Super Bowl. Like, there's other storylines we can fall in love with here in the coming weeks. You know one thing that I don't like Sheel, and I feel like this is an injustice to the way that this game

will be remembered when you go back and you look at the box score or whatever? So you mentioned it. He chucked that ball 40 yards down the field to Cole Comette in the end zone somehow seemingly wide open. They were trying to get, you know, like an offensive pass interference call, which is not going to happen in that spot, which wasn't

offensive pass interference anyways. But when you go back and you look at the stats, you know how that comes out? 14-yard touchdown pass. That is not doing justice to that play. soever. I don't like the fact that he runs all the way back there, throws the ball 40 yards, and you only get credit for the 14 yards. We have to do something about this. I actually started laughing when Mike Tariko said that, like, after they got all excited, and then they came back, and Tariko's like, that goes down in the box score is a 14-yard touchdown. I started laughing.

I'm like, that is not a 14-yard touchdown. Yeah, I think Caleb Williams' his box score from this game is deceiving with the three interceptions. One of them's on fourth down, so it's like, you got to just try to throw it anyway. You know, you're not going to take a sack there or whatever. And then I don't know what happened in that play in overtime. Chris Collinsworth was putting it on DJ Moore, the interception because the Bears, they had so many missed opportunities, Billy. They had a fourth and two fail. That ends in interception. They had a third in one and then a fourth and one. They fail on both of them. Turnover on downs. They had a third and one. Fail. They have to punt. They had a first and goal from the Rams five yard line. And they run it three times in a row.

And then they throw it. And it's another turnover on downs. And then the biggest one, They're at the Rams 48-yard line in overtime, and Caleb Williams throws the interception. I did feel like Caleb Williams and Dennis Allen, the defensive coordinator to a degree, kind of saved boy genius, Ben Johnson here. Because I wasn't watching this game going, oh, Ben Johnson's on a heater. Ben Johnson's cooking here. Caleb Williams kind of saved him. And if he could have just come through with one of his, I mean, he's got all those creative play calls,

the hook and lad, or all the fun stuff he does. I didn't see any of those today from him, Billy. I was wondering if we were going to see Ben Johnson make the end of regulation about Ben Johnson and go for a two-point conversion there. Do you think he should have? It's, I mean, now that they lost, you can say, yeah, right? But probably not. They probably made the right call, right? But we were here and we were watching the ringer offices.

And as soon as they got the six, we're like, what are we doing here? Is this a two-point conversion situation? We're going for one. Are we going to end this here in regulation? Because, I mean, you have the momentum, right? I like this Bears team. I think I like this bear team. I think that you're right.

This could have been America's team. We're still going to have the cheese grate our hats from a couple weeks ago. We're still going to have Caleb sticking out his tongue and actually grading the cheese. Like, we're not going to lose that. We'll still have this moment in time. But they have to kind of like do, I guess what the Lions never did a couple years ago, which is kind of get over that hump because it's funny looking back where you had Dan Campbell and it was in the NFC championship game, right?

Where afterwards he was like brought to tears. That's why a couple years ago. the lions were crying. And Dan Campbell was like emotionally, he's like, you know, we were right there. And sometimes, you know, looking back, we missed the window. This could be a thing where you,

and now it's kind of like, maybe he was right. Maybe it was right two years ago. And they missed that window. And we were all like, come on, Dan Campbell. You're going to be back next year. And you're going to be back every year after that. And they haven't gotten back. So I guess maybe that's what the bills were thinking.

But Ben Johnson, man, maybe this is your shot here. We think that maybe this is a good looking thing here with Caleb Williams. but this could be maybe this was your Cinderella story and clock struck midnight. I think 48 hours from now Bears fans will be like, we have Ben Johnson, we have Caleb Williams for the next however many years. We're excited.

We're going to get back. You are right, though. Sometimes you think you're going to get back and you end up looking back five years later and you're like, that was actually our best opportunity. I actually don't think that's going to be the case here because I feel like they have a lot of things they can upgrade specifically with like the defensive.

the talent and the defense played really well in this game. Did we get the right two teams? Rams and Seahawks? I kind of feel like we did, right? If we just sit back and say, who were the two best teams in the NFC for most of the year? It does feel like it was the Rams and the Seahawks. I think that we did get the right two teams,

and I think that we're going to get a great NFC championship game because they played twice this year and both times have been decided by less than three points. So it seems like it's going to be a good game. It's not like what we saw yesterday in the Seahawks game and the 49ers. Now, granted, the 49ers are very injured. But the Seahawks looked like a team that no one can compete with this weekend, right?

But that's not going to be the case, hopefully, next weekend. I'm hoping that next weekend we get some good conference championship games. I'm a little concerned about the AASA championship, if I'm going to be perfectly honest with you. But when we get there, we can get there. But I'm hoping. And there are storylines. There are storyline shield that we can be looking forward to in the Super Bowl should these teams make it. And it's the right combination of teams.

We could also have disaster of Super Bowl. Yeah, have you thought about like this? I mean, it's possible we get Darnold versus Stidham, and it's also possible we get Stafford versus May. I mean, that's kind of a lot of variance in just the, now people are going to watch this Super Bowl no matter why. We don't care. What do we care about ratings?

We care about, you know, ratings for the ring or NFL show, but we don't care if you watch. You still got to listen afterwards, but I don't know, because I think there's going to be a lot of talk about, like, will there be interest if it's Darnold versus Stidham? and I kind of feel like people are just going to be interested no matter what. It might not have the same juice. It doesn't have the same big names, but does it really matter which two teams make the Super Bowl?

What do you think? You're a man of media, you know? You should have a good answer for me here. I like that. I think you're going to make business cards to say Billy Gill, man of media underneath. I don't know. Look, we're going to watch the Super Bowl regardless, right? Right.

Obviously, I think best case scenario for all of us involved who love football and the storylines is if you get Stafford and Drake May, right? Because the added storyline there is they've been going back and forth, who's the MVP, who's the MVP, both teams, both fan bases have made cases and we're going to know who the MVP of the league is

three days before the game because they do that the NFL honors on that Thursday night. Oh, the awards thing, that's right. So headed into the Super Bowl, we're going to have one of them, if the two of them make the Super Bowl, one of them will have been named the MVP

and the other one and their fan base will feel like one of them was snubbed. So we're going to have an instant kind of like, did the voters get it right? Who's going to actually be the MVP of the game? Then if one of them wins the MVP of the league, but the other one wins the Super Bowl, wins the Super Bowl, which one is more important? Is it MVP of the league? Is it Super Bowl MVP?

There's storylines out there, Sheel, unless, of course, it's Stidham against Donald. Then we're not going to have quite the Duce of storylines. Yeah, that'll be a little different. Listen, I thought that I was getting ready to come on here and rip Sean McVeigh for this game because I thought some of his, I thought he turtled at the end of this game. You know, it's third down, 206 left, and he hands the ball off. Like, they had a chance to put the bears away where we never get that magical Caleb Williams moment. And I know you're saying, Shea, you got to run the clock there.

Well, you don't because there's 206 left. The clock's going to stop anyway. At the two-minute warning, I was shocked that he did not trust his veteran quarterback there to try to get a first down and just not give the bears the football back at all in regulation. didn't end up burning him. I even thought, Billy, with 13 seconds left and two timeouts in regulation, we've seen teams soon. Now with the way field goal kickers can kick, 13 seconds left and two timeouts left.

I'm like, you should be trying at least the score here. It doesn't mean you're going to. And he just took a knee there. So McFey has made all these strides with the nerds like me who are like, go forward on fourth down, be good with game management. He's been much better this year. He was not good in this game. But, you know, can I really rip him?

because he just got his team to the conference championship game. Could it be a situation where he saw what Josh Allen did headed into halftime yesterday where it's like, oh, let me try to make something happen here, then they lose the ball and then you lose the game. If you give up the ball on, they were near midfield. So if you give up the ball on like the 40-yard line, the bear still had one time out left.

So they could have seemingly gotten one big like 15-yard chunk and then tried for field goal and you didn't want to risk blowing it there, I guess what was this thinking? I mean, ultimately it didn't matter. It's like a 1% chance. It didn't matter, but it didn't matter not because they got the ball in overtime and immediately scored. No, it took an interception, which was like inside of their own 30, which would have led to like an easy field goal that led to them getting the ball back to then going and kicking the field goal. What a game, man.

All right. Before we get to the AFC championship game, the weather was a big factor in this. In all of these games, too, all these games. I love it. I love the weather. Football weather. Stop trying to put everyone in a dome, right? This is football weather. This is what these games are supposed to look like.

I agree. I totally agree. But in this Bears Rams game, I wanted to ask you about a couple things. One, I don't know if you caught Jason Garrett during this game. So, you know, they go to the four of them. Everybody's got the ears covered, Billy, except Jason Garrett. I need to know, are this man's ears always hot? Does he not look good in the snow hat?

Because I'll tell you what, I have one good snow hat that fits me. I've had it for a decade. If I ever lose that snow hat, all the rest of the snow hats look terrible on me. So that might be what's happening with Jason Garrett here or he's just a hot ear man. Is he a hot ear man? What, Billy? What, did you see him? I was shocked.

It was 12 degrees. How are you not covering your ears, Jason Garrett? You know what's going on here? What's that? It's interview season. And Jason Garrett has been rumored to be going and interviewing for head coaching jobs. So Jason Garrett needs to go out there and be like, ear muffs, hats. I don't need any of that.

I brave yellow. You put me in charge of your football team and I'm going out there bare ears. My naked ears will be out there on the sideline. I mean, he will be wearing the headset, but he's not going to put on any fancy hats. He's not going to put on any earmost. Jason Garrow was trying to send a message,

I think today with his fashion choice. I like that. He goes in for the interview. Jason, tell us your strengths here. Leadership, putting together a strong staff, discipline in my ears, man. Just put me anywhere in the world. And those bad boys are going to survive.

I like that. He's a football guy. He's tough. I like that. That's a good theory there. The other thing was before the game, I never heard this before. And I love this stuff. Melissa Stark comes on and says, I forget which team.

She said their players are putting cayenne pepper in their socks to stay warm. Now, listen, we don't like to do a ton of prep for the show. We like to improvise, bounce off of each other. But I did send you a text because I felt like, Like you, when you get a topic like this that you can dive into, really research, make some calls to your contacts in the league that I want to hear about it. So where are you with the cayenne pepper in the socks, Billy? Okay. So here's what I found out.

So it was the Rams who were putting cayenne pepper in their socks. And the idea behind it was to keep their feet warm. So I was looking into this and I was like, they have to have gotten this from somewhere. Where did they get this idea from? So I did some research, Sheel. And I found a website called the Practical Herbalist. And the practical herbalist says that cayenne pepper is rumored to have been used in ancient times as an effective foot warmer. Now, here's something interesting.

And I'm quoting straight from their website. Back in 1987, the San Diego Chargers gave it a try while they faced the Denver Broncos on their home turf. It was mid-December, and this was something that was put out there by NBC announcer Jimmy Cephalo. So we don't know if it's true or false, but Jimmy Cephalo in 1987 said that the San Diego charges were trying this against the Denver Broncos. Now, then you go into this website and it's telling you how you should do it. It's saying that you should maybe mix it sometimes. You could put it in with corn starch.

You could put it with foot powder because you don't want too much. So the standard ratio that you should use when you're using cayenne powder is half a teaspoon of cayenne powder stirred with one ounce of foot powder. And then you sprinkle it into your socks. and then you kind of let it sink in there. Now, if you have an allergy to peppers, this is not recommended that you do. So be careful about that.

Also, an added thing when I saw that it was the Rams, here's something else that I found out, Sheel. And I don't know if this was like a double thing that they were doing or if it's just a coincidence. But do you know what Cayenne Pepper is also used for beyond just warming your feet? I do not. What do you got?

It's also used as a bear deterrent. So this could be a situation where they were not only warming their feet, but they were playing the bears. And this is used in bear sprays because bears have very sensitive, you know, like nostrils and stuff. So they use it in bear spray to kind of shoe away bears. So this could be a situation where they were warming their feet and they were shooing away these bears. Now, is this all, did it say what types of bears? Because I was recently asking my daughter, you know, you'll get to this point where your kids come home with all kinds of facts. and you kind of have to act like,

yeah, I know that. Come on, yeah, I know it. And I never know any of them. And so she'll come home and be like, if it's this type of bear, you want to punch them in the nose. If it's this type of bear, you want to get real big and they get scared.

If it's this type of bear, just walk away calmly, just don't run. Whatever you do, don't run. I'm like, I never learned any of this. So I'm just wondering if the cayenne Pepperidge for a specific type of bear, then I can impress my daughter tomorrow with this knowledge.

I'm going to look, I'm going to dig more deeply into this offline and I'll let you know. I do know the bear, I think. So I know that some you have to get very big. And then we have a friend that's like a zookeeper and he would say that you just say, Hey, bear. And you go like that. You're a friend who's a zookeeper?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's incredible. Yeah. So he tells you to get real big and say, hey, bear. And then you scare up the bear. The problem is I don't remember if it's black bear or brown bear that you do that with. And if we're going to be honest, if a bear is coming towards me, I'm not going to identify him.

I'm not going to. And look, like, if it's nighttime, like, I, I'm not going to, in the panic, I'm not going to be able to fully, it could be a polar bear. I wouldn't know the difference. Like, I'm not going to be able to, a koala bear. I can't assess if a bear is coming towards me and I'm half asleep or whatever, I'm not going to know the difference and I'm going to be concerned. Let's take a break. We come back and we'll talk about the AFC.

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All right, we're back here on the ring or NFL show. All right, so let's just, how do we feel about this matchup? So Patriots beat the Texans on some. Sunday afternoon. It's a weird game. Eight turnover. CJ Stroud will get to him. He looks terrible. Drake May's fumbling all over the place, but does it matter? Does it not matter? Patriots win decidedly at home against the Houston Texans. Now they go to Denver and they are going to face Jared Stidham. We talked about it on the previous show with Deontay. Stidham will get the start over Bo Nix. And I'm telling you right now, Billy, Sean Payton is going to launch an incredible propaganda campaign this week. We're by the end of the week, we will have every national reporter convinced that not only

are the Broncos going to beat the Patriots, they're going to score like 42 points. And Jared Stidham's been training his whole life for this moment. And I've made fun of Sean Payton's propaganda campaigns before, but then their team was like awesome this year. And now they're in the AFC championship game. So I was wrong. But I haven't gotten your take on this. How do you feel about the matchup?

How do you feel about having an AFC championship game with Stidham? Is there anything we can do about this? Does he have a chance? Is he going to be in the Super Bowl? Where are you with this wild story? Well, there's nothing we can do about this. We have to kind of just tolerate the situation here. So, okay, here's the good thing that maybe Sean Payton has, like, up his sleeve and Jared

Stidham have up their sleeve, right? Is there's no game tape on this guy. Why is that? because this season he has one snap, which is a QB Neon October 26. So technically it was one rush for negative one yard and a 44-24 win over the Cowboys. So that's all the action that he's seen this year.

Last season, he played in three games. You know how many passes he attempted those three games that he played in last year, Sheel? 11. He attempted zero passes in the three games in which he played last season. So last season, there's no game tape on him, really, either. If we go back to the season before,

we see the last time he attempted a pass. The last time Jared Stidham attempted a pass in the NFL was January 7th, 2004, in a 27 to 14 loss to the Raiders. He has not thrown a ball in over two years. So we don't know what he's up to here. Could be an element of surprise game here, Shil. Okay, so that was your argument for Jared Stidham there.

I don't have it. What on earth could an actual possible good argument be for why we think Jared Stidham is going to lead his team? to the Super Bowl. The argument is the Broncos defense is going to get them to the Super Bowl and maybe Drake May will be sloppy and he'll turn the ball over a couple times. But I don't think anyone's coming in here saying, you know what? This Jared Stittam guy. He just

needs that one shot and then we're really going to see what he's made of. Now, it will be hilarious if he makes it to the Super Bowl and wins a Super Bowl. That would be great because then he enters, I mean, he would enter like Nick Foll's territory, right? And then I don't know his contractual situation, but I'm sure someone will say, you know, Stidham, that's a Super Bowl winning quarterback.

Like maybe we give this guy a shot here, you know? We have a late injury and training camp to our guy or something like that. Like, this can be a starter next year if he goes on a two-game run. I think the Broncos do have a chance. If you just, they're five and a half point underdog. So it's not like they're, you know, 14 point underdogs here. They're five and a half point underdogs. You mentioned it.

the Broncos defense, they're going to be all fired up saying, we got to do this. We got to put this game on our back. They've been a very good defense. And Drake May fumbled four times in this game and was sacked five times. And the Patriots don't have a great offensive line. And this was a very bad offensive game for the New England Patriots. Like Kishon Bodie with that catch at the end,

kind of saved them and put the game out of reach there. So I think the Broncos do have a chance. I said it on our previous show. I think Sean Payton would love nothing more than to be the guy who won the Super Bowl or got to the Super Bowl with Jared Stidham. Because he could be like, look at me. Look at what I'm able to do.

It doesn't matter who you put out there for me at quarterback. They're playing at home in Denver. So they've got some things going for them. Then you mentioned the Patriots angle, which got my attention, Billy, because I'm watching that game today and they're showing the crowd shots. And, you know, there was a sign in the crowd.

I don't know if you saw this. And Joe Buck said, what a great sign. And I said, okay, let me look at what a great sign. What does this sign say? And it said the good old days are back. I thought it was a bo-bo sign. You know, it was like a white piece of paper, black sharpie. I thought Joe Bach lift the expectations for the signs you're seeing there.

Joe, I enjoyed the broadcast, but that to me was a little strange. But I was thinking to myself, does this Patriots team have the hate of the neutral fan anywhere close to what those Brady and Belichick teams had? Because now you're looking at a situation like, is all of America who's not a Patriots fan next week going to be rooting for Jared Stidham? Because you know what? Then if there's any obnoxious Patriots fan in your life, you can point at them. You can't be like, oh, we had a great season. No, if you lose to Jarrett Stidham with a chance to go to the Super Bowl, now we make fun of you, now we laugh at you.

So do you think we're at that point or do you think people don't care because it's not Brady and Belichick? I think this is what we need to happen. I think the next week we need to root for the Patriots to get to the Super Bowl so that we don't have Stidham in the Super Bowl, even though, again, it would be hilarious if he's in the Super Bowl. But I think we need to get the Patriots into the Super Bowl and then root against the Patriots, right? Because especially if it's the Rams,

and we have the situation we were talking about before where you could have a revenge game. You have the two MVPs going head to, you have like a whole week's worth of storylines leading up to the game that could be exciting, right? And also, the great thing about the Super Bowl is that the majority of the people who watch the Super Bowl do not follow the NFL very closely because, you know, the records for like games during the season. Like you could get like 30, 40 million people watching game. Then 100 million watch the Super Bowl.

So that's like an extra 70 million people watching the game. Man of media. Hello. Pulled out those numbers out of nowhere. I'm just saying continue. Literally out of nowhere. Those are the people that are watching this game and they're going to go back and all they're going to remember. member because it's program in their head is,

I hate the Patriots. I don't want the Patriots to win again. Now, they're not going to know that we're like two quarterbacks removed from Tom Brady. They're probably going to be wondering, where's Tom Brady? They're like, whoa, Tom Brady's in a booth now. Like, how did that happen? Right?

But they'll see the Patriots logo on the helm and they'll say, like, I want to root against the Patriots. If they see the Broncos, they'll be like, oh, I'm Peyton Manning, you know what I mean? Like, this is what's the consuming the Super Bowl. The type that's like, I just care about the commercials. So if we get to the Super Bowl, I feel like we can get the proper hatred towards the Patriots. But I think that we, as the football-loving consumers, need to root for the Patriots to get to the Super Bowl to at least make that game seemingly more interesting than it would be.

Or am I crazy? I feel like the hate's not there. Because Drake May has been somewhat of like a darling. I kind of like Drake May. When you were describing that, I'm like, I think Drake May should win the MVP. So that doesn't, that doesn't, you know, necessarily get me there. So I'm with you. I don't think it's at the level, nearly the level.

And I think people might try to get there. Here's one thing we can put in our back pocket if they do get there and we want to use it. You and I can start the whole sure there be an asterisk around this season for the Patriots. You know, they had the easiest schedule in the NFL. They get to play Jared Stidham in the conference championship. is this weird year with no Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen. They got lucky he got knocked out and no Lamar Jackson, no Joe Burk. I mean, do we really take this seriously?

Did they even really get there or should the record books have an asterisk next to the Patriots? So we don't need to, you know, go full into that yet. I love this. I just wanted to drop that there for you. I love a preemptive asterisk planning. Like we've already decided that no matter how if the Patriots advance to the Super Bowl, there is an asterisk. In fact, you've already said there's an asterisk because they had the easiest schedule. So we have that there.

All right, let's finish with this, Billy. C.J. Stroud. The first podcast you and I did was we just named quarterbacks and go, are they good? You know, are they good? That was the whole premise of the show. We did not include C.J. Stroud in there. But after he goes 20 for 47 for 12 yards, one touchdown, four interceptions, after they lose in the divisional round yet again, after they make change.

changes with the offensive line and offensive coordinator and the offense kind of stinks again. I feel like now he is in that are they good conversation? You know, Ryan Clark, which in passion speech at halftime, Troy Aikman, the end of that game was like, we got to figure out why C.J. Stroud looked one way as a rookie and they've been chasing it for two years. So where are you on all the takes that will come out about C.J. Stroud here in the next 24 to 48 hours? So C.J. Stroud had a terrible game, as you mentioned. You had four interceptions. His rating was 28, which is like very, very bad. This is kind of what he's been in the playoffs the past couple of years. He wins the first

round and then he goes and he loses the second round. This, I believe, was the first time they won a game on the road in the playoffs. So like that's a step forward. But I thought it was like kind of a little premature when we were seeing what Ryan Clark in particular was doing at half time of the game where he was basically saying this next half, we're going to decide whether or not C.J. Stroud can make it in this league. It's like, what? Like, what are we talking about here? He's been in the playoffs every year of his career so far, and he's advanced to the second round, like every year. I don't understand, I guess, why, yeah, he's, he was bad. He's had some bad games in the playoffs. And you wonder,

is this a guy that's good enough to take you to the next level, I guess? But it's also just his third season. And we've given other quarterbacks a lot more grace than we were giving him for whatever reason in this loss today. I'm with you. I keep waiting and waiting. Because I like CJ Strath and I liked him as a rookie. And I thought he's going to be really, even before this season,

I thought he's going to have a nice bounce back year and play really well. And there are times where you see it, but you haven't really seen it for a long time. But I am with you, especially in a league where Donald is one game away from the Super Bowl where Daniel Jones through eight weeks was like the story of the NFL. I'm a little gun shy in Trevor Lawrence.

You know, he had his best year here. This season, so I'm a little gun shy to, like, give up on quarterbacks now, especially once like Stroud, who I've seen play well before. So it's just a very weird situation. I think you can certainly look at it and say they made changes last off season, and he still wasn't good. Maybe the changes weren't great, the offensive coordinator, the O line. But I'm also not excusing him because I did think he played terribly in this game,

even given all the circumstances that were there. So here's what I want to happen. I want your boy Mike McDaniel, who's, I think he's interviewing with all 32 teams. I don't know if there's a place that he's not. For every position too. Everywhere. Quarterback, OC, head coach, what do you need for me? How do you go in one city and say, I'm going to interview to be your head coach?

And the next day you're interviewing to be an offensive coordinator. I feel like you need to decide whether or not you're going to be a head coach or a coordinator. Right? Like, if you're still going out, honestly, if I was interviewing him as a head coach, right? And then I see him. And the next day or two days later, he's trying to settle for an OC job. I'm kind of like, wait a minute. So I want this guy leading my team?

Do I want him to be the leader of men on this team, the head coach? If he's like just going to settle to be an OC on another team, why is he settling for both at the same time? It's a great question. It's a great thing. I mean, I would imagine, you know, the pragmatic view would be. you do all the interviews because you're probably thinking I might not get a head coach offer. So then I don't want to just be left out in the dust. So then maybe I get one of these offensive coordinator positions.

But there's like so many positions here. There's all these head coaching. Only two of the nine head coaching positions have been filled. The offensive coordinator positions, I mean, these are teams that have been good recently. Eagles, Ravens, Lions, you know, like there are some teams out there where you say, oh, that might be a pretty good offensive coordinator job. But yeah, it is weird. I swear, every time I open up any social media is like Mike McDaniel has interviewed with this team.

I'm like, this is crazy. I've never seen a man do this many interviews before. He's also reportedly owed between $12 and $18 million by the Dolphins still. So it's not like his contract was up and he needs to find a job. Like, yeah, relax, man. Wait till the next hiring cycle if they don't hire you on this one. Someone's going to look out, look, for sure he's going to get an OC job. if he wants one.

Oh, yeah. Right? But wait it out a little bit. Again, you just mentioned only like two head coaches have been hired so far. What are we doing? What are you doing? You know what the power move would have been? What?

I'm not coming to you. You come to me. I'm going to be at this resort. Maybe he's in Turks and Kikos or something. You come to me. I'm going to be there for two to three days. We'll sit out by the water. I like that.

And whatever position, if you want to interview me for quality control coach, guess what? I'll do that. I'm open to anything. But you come to me because I'm not coming to you. Now, if you really want him, you got to go to him. I like that. And honestly, if I had a team, I would be like, whoa, like, you don't talk to me like that. I'm Mr. Kraft. Like, why would you, why would you be saying that to me? And then you're like, hold on a second. I like this. No one ever makes us go to them. And then that may actually increase his chance because you're like, this guy's, there's something going on here. Like, we need to, wait a minute. You're, you're at the Browns are going on there. We got to get over there. We got to talk to him quick before he signs

with someone else. I like that move. That's a great move, Sheel. Then Jimmy Haslam gets there and he's like, hey, Jimmy. Mr. Haslam's like, oh my gosh. Yeah. He's like, I've never been called that before. I don't know if I like it or I don't like it. Yeah, that might be a way to think outside the box there. So, all right, we're on the same page. CJ Stroud. We're saying, take it a little easy. We didn't like what we saw. We're concerned about the last two years, but we're not out on him. There's so many teams that would take him in an instant if for whatever reason he wasn't

on the Texans anymore. Like how many teams would just say, whoa, CJ Strauss available and immediately take him? This is not someone that you should just give up on because he's lost three times in the divisional round. What's the guy's name? Mr. McNair, we advise don't give up on CJ Stratt. I don't think you're going to. Listen, he still has a year on his rookie contract.

Then you pick up the fifth year option. So it's not like they have to decide this off C. and do we pay him $50 million? You got time. I would go to Turks and Kiko, so meet Mike McDaniel because I think if McDaniel is his OC and he still doesn't play well,

that gives me some pretty good information that like, ooh, all right, maybe now we're dialing it up a little bit with our concern, but I think there's a chance, Nico Collins gets healthy, maybe you draft an offensive lineman, you get McDaniel that next year

the Texans are able to get over the hump. So disappointing, but we're not out on him. So there you go. We're not out on it. Mr. Gill either. I'll tell you that. Thank you to Billy Gil.

Should I just say all the producers? You know, Mr. No, I'm not going to do that. Maybe one day. One day I will do that. But thank you to everyone for listening. Thank you to Billy Gill. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video, Kiraik Evans on social and additional production supervision by Connor and Evans in Arjuna,

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