The Ringer NFL Show - Bengals Back to the Super Bowl? Patrick Mahomes's Flu Game? Predicting the Story Lines for Monday Morning. | The Scramble

Episode Date: January 26, 2023

Sheil is joined by The Ringer’s Austin Gayle to predict the biggest story lines following championship Sunday, including Kyle Shanahan’s game management (9:00), quarterbacks playing on rookie deals (27:00), and what the future holds for Sean Payton (36:00). Finally, they close the show by answering mailbag questions (45:00). Do you have a question for Sheil? Email [e-mail] for a chance to have your question answered on the show. Host: Sheil Kapadia Guest: Austin Gayle Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Additional Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers from the Minnesota Timberwolves. It's a new year and I have a new podcast here at the Ringer, Offguard, hosted by me and my guide Pasha Higigi. Austin and I go way back and talk so much hoop already that we figure those time to fire up the mics and let you in on all of these conversations. Every week, Pasha and I will hit on the biggest stories happening in the league. And get Austin's perspective of someone currently hooping in the NBA. Tap into Offguard every Friday on the Ringer NBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to the Scramble. I'm Shield Capadia. Coming to you on the Ringer NFL feed.

Oh, I should say every Thursday. Last Thursday, listen, I was a DNP illness. So we had to postpone that week. But we're back this week for championship round weekend. I am excited to have on the Ringer's very own Austin, Gail, Austin. When we first signed on, I'm like, wait, who's this random guy on the Zoom here? Last time I saw you, nice facial hair. grown in, but no more. Has this is this new? Has this been this way for a while?

Usually once a year, I'll say, hey, it's time for the mustache and any accompanying, you know, facial hair to just take a breather, right? Let's shave everything off. Let's get a deep clean on the face. Let's get some lotion going and just really re-up the skin because if you've had facial hair, facial hair in the past or someone that has like a habitual beard or mustache, your skin underneath can get like really dry if it's there like over a couple of years. So I went for a deep clean and we're going to bounce back with a vengeance. so the mustache is coming back. That's true.

Well, you don't shave for a while and then you shave, like you don't know what's going on under there. No one knows. And then you shave and you find out. Well, you look good. We got a very simple exercise today. Thank you for joining me. We're going to keep it simple. Championship weekend.

There's a lot of offseason buzz stuff going on in all kinds of different directions. Quarterbacks, coaches. So here's what we're going to do. We're each going to predict three things that everyone's going to be talking about Monday morning. Those are the only instructions I gave you. It could be game related. It could be non-game-related. It could be complete nonsense.

I don't know what direction you're taking them in, but this is going to be fun. Let's get to it. You're the guest. You get to start us off. What's your first one? So this headline is one I'm hopeful for, because I think it's time to pour some flowers on this guy. I don't think that's the expression or give this guy his flower. The Cincinnati Bengals win in Kansas City, win in Arrowhead, go to 4-0 against the Chiefs.

I think the ankle injury from Holmes. I know today it was reported that he's a full participant in practice. I do think that'll be a factor. But even without it, I think the Cincinnati Bengals are dialed in right now. Joe Burrow is dialed in. Specifically, this guy is dialed in head coach, Zach Taylor. And I think the headlines should be, I'm hoping, is we jumped a gun on this guy. And we were too mean to Zach Taylor, the head coach of the Cincinnati Bengals.

He was hired in 2019 in 2018, in the year prior. The Bengals ranked 32nd and total yards allowed defensively, 30th and points allowed, and they ranked inside the bottom five and offensive points per game. They were awful in 2018. They bring in Zach Taylor. And over the first two years, offensively, it wasn't good. The first two years, it was a combination of Andy Dalton. There was some Ryan Finley involved.

Joe Burrow obviously got hurt in the year of 2020. Nothing looked good offensively and defensively. People were calling for Zach Taylor's head. There are Reddit threads still that say Fire Lou Anirumo. The guy that Zach Taylor obviously brought in in 2019, they had worked together with the Miami Dolphins. I think for five years or so in the middle 2010s, he obviously gained a relationship there,

Bride in Lu Aniromoh. And despite the defense not seeing an immediate turnaround. In 2019 and 2020, stuck to him and prioritized consistency. But it wasn't just that offensively. Before Brian Callahan came over as the office coordinator, they were working with Jim Turner. Things weren't moving around. They're interested in getting out of that.

They bring in, Brian Callahan obviously come in and make some plays on the office coordinator side and improve the passing game. They also, in the last two years, added Frank Polack, who was supposed to come in and be the run game coordinator. Reunite with the Cincinnati Bengals, someone that Joe Mixon was super excited for. Who he's hired are great. Brian Cattahan is getting some head coaching interviews. Luan Rumo isn't for whatever reason, but everyone knows. one of the best defensive game players in the game right now. So much disrespect, in my opinion, was thrown at Zach Taylor so early.

And I think what we've learned, honestly, since what has happened with the Cincinnati Bengals, in addition to obviously adding Joe Burrow with the number one overall pick, is that we're underrating consistency at the head coaching position. And specifically consistency, even at coordinator. In the Marvin Lewis era, you know, that was, I think, 2003 to 2018, this office coordinator's before Brian Callahan, before Zach Taylor coming in, Bill Laser for a season. Ken Zep Pizzi for two seasons, Hugh Jackson for two seasons, Jay Gruden for three seasons. The consistency that he's had at coordinator, the consistency, obviously,

they've had a head coach, and how he's been able to turn things around, I think it's overall really impressive. And I think we need to flip the script on this guy and give him some praise, especially if my prediction does come right and they're going to a second consecutive Super Bowl. It's a good one. It's funny how, yeah, some teams, when they succeed, we give person X credit all the time. And for the Bengals, that's Joe Burrow. I mean, I'm guilty of it. I've probably been on this feed 40 times this season just being like Joe Burrow is awesome. That was some form of my take this year, which he is. But you're right. I mean, this would be impressive if they with this game, they're going to the Super Bowl and back-to-back seasons in a conference where you have

Josh Allen in a conference where you have Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and Justin Herbert and Bill Belichick. And you could kind of go on and on. You know, this isn't like if you're, you know, in the NFC in a down year or something and you kind of sneak in there. This has been different. and they are a very well coach team. I mean, you said it, a lot of the problems, like you could identify problems with the Bengals, and then they solve those problems. And, you know, defensively,

they come up with different game plans, different wrinkles for all these great quarterbacks that they face. It always makes sense. I mean, I always look at coaching as, like, can you do more with less? And I think those first two years with Zach Taylor, you're like, it kind of doesn't look like, you know,

like you want to see something like Dayball this year, right? All right. Our roster's not very good, but wow, they overachieved. and you didn't see that with him. But then once a better players got going in there, they found some pieces that fit on defense. I mean, just looking at their personnel on defense this year,

like, no one would look at that and say, that's a great defense. Like, you could line up that, you know, that depth chart against most teams in the NFL. And I think it would probably be, without having done this exercise, I would say it would probably be somewhere middle of the pack. So this would be impressive.

There's no doubt about it. And to go back to like the Damar Hamlin situation, I just thought, like, not that anybody, The shining star is not the right word given what that situation was. But I did really appreciate kind of how Zach Taylor and Sean McDermott in that situation kind of conducted themselves. And it felt like took the lead in a very difficult, unprecedented situation. So add it all together.

And the point is, yeah, he absolutely has had a great season. And I like that one a lot. Reddit threads, basically, those never get deleted, right? I mean, what have you can't. Right? Yeah, Reddit Thursdays never get deleted. All of the, if you. You Twitter search Fire Lou Anirumo, you'll see a lot of tweets.

October, October 2020, there are Bengals fans saying Fire, Lou Anurumo, who now, right now, I think everyone that follows the NFL closely would say he's one of the most, you know, valuable coordinators in the league. Some other stats, just to throw some more at Zach Taylor or other, you know, facts. Paul Dana of the Athletic Road of piece on this about how Taylor has been trying to, like, add fuel to the fire in terms of identifying opportunities for disrespect, like the NFL already selling tickets for this neutral site NFC championship game or a player saying that they can cover this guy or that guy,

the Justin Reed comment that the chief safety made. And that, I think, is a part of it. They delivered game balls after every single playoff win to a local Cincinnati bar. That's something that's not going away, something that Zach Taylor tried to start. Solomon Wilcox, who is a former colleague of mine at Pro Football Focus, he often did reporting in that locker room. And even through the worst of this, with the borough injury and some of these other things, always said that the players really, really respected Zach Taylor and felt that he

had a vision, he had something going. And I think we underrated that. And so much of the praise has been poured on the director of player personnel, Duke Tobin, right? And people will tweet out things like all these players have been added in the last few years, DJ Reader, Trey Hendrickson, Von Bell, Mike Hilton, BJ Hill, Judobiawuzi, all these guys. And they keep listening to all these guys. Like, wow, Duke Tobin overnight. He's been there since 1999. Overnight just started hiring or bringing in good guys. No, that's a reflection of good coaching. That's a reflection of consistency. Luan Arumo was brought in 20, 2019, to turn Von Bells, Trey Hendricksins, DJ readers, BJ Hills, into these like prolific starters in the league.

And he's done that by putting them in good positions. You hear Benjamin Solek on this feed talk about it all the time. Lou and Rumo always has these guys in a position. I don't think it's Duke Tobin that has completely flipped the script in the last three years and started actually identifying personnel and francy in the draft to get better. It's really been Zach Taylor, that umbrella, and that consistency we have at coaching there. Yeah, my issue with him previously had been, I thought he was too conservative. I didn't like his in-game decision-making,

and I didn't like how they were, like, taking the ball out of Joe Burroughs' hands in crucial situations. Now, looking back, Borough was coming off a knee injury, the offensive line wasn't great, and they've been different this year. I mean, just that first Chiefs game, remember, they had that third and 11 late in the game where I feel like Zach Taylor of previous years

might just hand that ball off and be conservative. He gives it to Burrow. Burrow hits T. Higgins, and they put the game away. So he's definitely addressed, I don't know if weaknesses is the right word, but some of the stuff that I was critical of him early on, he's definitely addressed those for sure. All right, my first one.

This one's going to be about another coach. I think on Monday morning, we are going to be talking about Kyle Shanahan's conservative in-game management. This is sort of, I'm curious to hear what you think about this, but this has pretty much been an annual occurrence whenever the 49ers lose. This is part of the story of why they lost. and Kyle Shannon is a great coach, no doubt about it, offensive designer, game planner. They're in the NFC championship, third time in four years without an elite quarterback.

Like, that's hard to do. What I was just talking about doing more with less. He's absolutely done that. They have a top eight offense pretty much every year since Garoppolo's been there and now with Brock Purdy. Like, deserves a ton of credit for that, no doubt. But I don't understand the mindset when he's coaching some of these games. And it surfaced again last week at the end of the first half.

where he builds this big, bad offense that goes through stretches where you go, no one can stop them. And then it gets to a fourth and one, or it gets to a fourth and two, and they're in the red zone, or they're at midfield. And he doesn't even hesitate. He doesn't even think about it. He gets conservative. And this has happened time and again, I don't understand sort of the dichotomy there

between this offensive play caller and in some of these decisions. And so I'm looking at this game. I mean, they're going into Philly. on the road with a rookie quarterback. I think he might turtle a little bit in this game. I think it's sort of an under-discussed aspect of this game against the Eagles, because I think Nick Siriani's been really good with his in-game management this year. He gave up play calling duties last year, kind of focused on the big picture,

and he's been really good at this. And so when I say everyone will be talking about it, maybe it'll just be me and my fellow nerds on Twitter on Sunday night or Monday morning, but I do think this is a big factor in this game. What do you think? Oh, it's a significant factor. I think it was a significant factor last week. Why that game was close is, again, you see, especially in the playoffs,

especially in January and February, some of these conservative play decisions, obviously fourth down decisions, and then also like conservative usage of the clock. Like the game management consistently for Kyle Shanahan has always been a red flag. It's why I remember when I was working with my colleague Eric Eagru, who's now working with Sumer Sports, and he wrote an article talking about some of the best coaches in the league, It is so difficult to look at Kyle Shanahan, the head coach and the game manager as this upper echelon being, right? The offensive play caller is there and how he's even moved on from, you know, the Shanahan, you know, the Shanahan McBay style offense and added personnel's and added to the run game. It's so different to any other offensive player caller in the league.

He's in a tier by himself in terms of offensive play callers. But what he's doing from a game management perspective, specifically on fourth downs, specifically in these, you know, how he's managing time late in the first half, late in the second half. That is going to come up in January. That's going to come up in these clutch situations in the playoffs. I think if they do lose, it will be a result of that. The only piece of that that I think I might disagree with is Brock Purdy turtling up. If Brock Purdy loses this one, it's because he's just as aggressive as he been ever since he joined this team and ever since he got the first start and just throwing a ton of picks.

Like I meant I meant Shanahan turtle. Like Shanahan's like I'm going to protect him a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Not, no. No. Purdy only has one gear, I think. I don't think he's going in there playing conservatively. If you ever have any question marks about Brock Purdy and his aggressiveness and his willingness to just like stick in there and do some of the chaos that you even see from Josh Allen, just like do whatever he wants without the tools.

Go back and just type in Brock Purdy, worst college interception ever. He has one of the nastiest, grossest interceptions that ever seen. He's like falling backwards, throws it behind his head right to a guy that goes for a pick six. Like Brock Pretty does what he wants whenever he wants. It's very similar to that play we saw in Josh Allen's first run in the playoffs where he just pitches it for no reason, almost goes out. Like this guy will not turtle up in Philly. I think he's unfazed. And that's why I think a lot of the reason he's been able to survive, you know,

through the first parts of these weeks. I know we have some conversation on Brock Purdy coming up a little bit later. But his aggressiveness and his unwillingness to just back down to any situation, no matter how big it is from a moment perspective or even how good defenses are, I think it's been a big reason why he's been able to survive a lot of, you know, some of the mistakes that he has indeed made. Yeah, no doubt. He has been poised.

He hasn't gotten rattled. I think that that has been a huge factor. for them so far. All right. We're on the same page there with Shanahan. What do you have for your second thing we're going to be talking about on Monday morning? So I do think that we've talked about it a lot this week, especially with the Dallas Cowboys exiting the playoffs and the Buffalo Bills exiting the playoffs. And I think we're going to continue to talk about it when Cincinnati Bengals advance. And I do think that the Eagles advance on championship Sunday. And it's the answer to do we need more weapons is yes. And a little bit of a two-parter here, chasing. eliteness, not completeness, at the wide receiver and tight-end position. Let me move forward here and start with. Don't even bring in Mahomes into the conversation. We're throwing Mahomes out of it.

Mahomes is the acceptance of the role. People are going to be like, oh, but he only has due to four. Mahomes is Mahomes. He's the best quarterback in league. He's a tier by himself, just throw it out the window. And the same reason that you talk about Chanahan as a play caller, throw those guys out the window. Not a lot of people are there.

You're not going to go get another Mahomes. You're not even going to get another Shaneahan. When you look at these other teams, though, specifically the Cincinnati Bengals and the Philadelphia Eagles, even if you throw in the San Francisco 49ers, these are teams that have, chased eliteness at wide receiver and tight end and continue to throw high value resources at those positions. You know, there's that saying right around January that I hold dear to my heart when people

make resolutions and people want a six-pack, right? Or people want to be hot and healthy and sexy coming into the new year. Or you want to be more hardworking. You want to do these things. If you want to be hot and sexy, you have to make hot and sexy decisions. If you want to have elite skill players, you need to make elite skill player decisions. What does that mean? Continually invest at wide receiver and tight end.

with your high-value picks. You don't get Brandon Ayyuk and Debo Samuel in rounds one to two without also spending a round two pick on Dante Pettus, or a round three pick on Jalen Hurd, a round three pick on Trace Sermon, a round three pick on Danny Gray, a round three pick on Tyreon, Davis Price. Like the San Francisco 49ers continue, continue to throw resources, high-value picks at wide receiver and tied end, even running back as well. And that, to me, that, you know, John Lynch obviously having the willingness to say, hey, that pick didn't work out, we're going again. Like Dante Pettis, right into Debo Samuel. Debo Samuel writing a brand I.U.

We're just going to continue to throw resources is why they have elite skill talent. I don't think the Brandon Bean comment about we don't want to suck bad enough to get a Jamar Chase is all that bad. I think that was taken out of context. The bad part is, is they haven't spent a top three round pick on a receiver since Zay Jones in 2016. That's the problem. That's not making hot, sexy decisions to have this hot and sexy body. That's avoiding those decisions. Even before that, they didn't spend a first or second round pick on a receiver until Sammy Watkins in 2014.

Then you look at the Philadelphia Eagles. Devante Smith in round one. How'd that happen? Oh, a couple years prior, Jill and Rager in round one. You have to miss. J.J. Arthega, right side in round two. You have to miss sometimes.

Like, you're going to miss as you make these decisions and trying to establish process around attacking high-skill guys. The Niners have done it. The Eagles have done it. Obviously, the Bengals have done it with T. Higgins in round two, Jamar Chase in round one. Joe Borough is the number one overall pick. Teams that are consistently investing in these elite talents

are going to have high-value skill players. I have a stat for you, a quick stat for you. A quick stat for you. There are only five teams in the NFL. They had two players. So there's 84 receivers this year, 84 pass catchers this year, that were targeted 20 or more times on third down.

That's the first step. Only five teams, only five teams had two of those players on their team. Five teams are 49ers, chiefs, Eagles, Bengals. Something similar about those. They're all in this round. And then the fifth team is the Minnesota Vikings, who had a lot of problems on defense

and maybe their office wasn't as bad as they were and all that was. But, like, those teams that have those guys can go get a bucket on third down. Multiple players that can go get a bucket are the teams that are consistently playing deep into January and early February. It's because of the decisions they make

and how often they're investing, high value talent or high value resources at those positions. Yeah, those guys, and it's really been part of the story of the season, they just solve problems. I mean, like all these high leverage situations that end up being the difference

between a win and a loss. I mean, I remember that first Chief Spengel's game, they had a third and five, I think it was. They throw a little screen to Jamar Chase on the right side. It should not work. You draw that up on the chalkboard. That's a win for the defense. I think they had four verse two.

It didn't matter. Chase made a guy miss. Broke a tackle, first down. And that was one of like the five most important plays in the entire game. You mentioned, I'm looking at this NFC championship game. And I always talk about it as the armpit test. I want the, now this can be used in various ways. So I like when a defensive coordinator,

on a Monday, Tuesday, is looking at the opponent, and he starts feeling the perspiration under that, because he's saying, how are we going to game plan for Debo Samuel, Brandon Ayuk, Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, or Devante Smith, A.J. Brown, Dallas, Scottert, like, you know, exactly what you're mentioning there. So, yeah, I think you're right. I mean, you can't, like, we see teams,

if you just have one guy, like it felt like the Cowboys had one guy. I mean, especially once Pollard leaves that game, you're like, all right, where's the juice coming? And look at some of the plays in that game. It's Dalton Schultz dropping a pass. Like should that be a big factor in determining whether your season continues, Dalton Schultz and then the bills, I mean, Cole Beasley off the street there. And so I'm with you, absolutely.

Find the good, get a quarterback, protect him, and then weapons. And then everything else, you know, you'll figure it out along the way. But like when you do those things and you become as hard as possible to defend. And that like has a way of just solving. all of your problems. I mean, not to go back to AJ Brown, but like all the issues

were red zone or third down. Like a lot of the solutions have been throw a slant to AJ Brown. Like I can't tell you how many times there's just been a high leverage situation for them this year where that was the answer. And it makes life so much easier where like you said, you're not always going to have Patrick Mahomes

or whoever else you even consider in that class. So even for those middle tier quarterbacks, it's even more important. Like that should just be the focus. And then maybe, you get to upgrade a quarterback along the way. But guess what? Until you do, you're going to be able to win with those guys.

So I love that one for sure. I think it's important, too, to clarify with that statistic, it's, you know, those five teams had two different pass catchers that when they were targeted on third down, they were gaining a first down more than 50% of the time. Like, they were better than 50% in gaining first downs when targeted on the money down that is their down. And when you have multiple players that can go get a bucket on those key downs,

often drive killing downs. That's what's going to separate the elite. offenses from the next. And I want to also emphasize that it's process, you know, it's valuing process over results, right? Like getting a Jamar Chase, getting a T. Higgins and nailing your evaluations is one thing, but continually investing at the skill position, specifically wide receiver and tight end, running back obviously there as well, that's what matters, right? It's being able to miss on Dante Pettis and get Debo Samuel the next year or miss on JJ Arthaghanago Whiteside and Jalen Rager and then still have the ability

as a GM and the confidence to go bet on Devante Smith, who has all of these outliers in terms of weight and speed and all these different things. Go and trade a first round pick for AJ Brown. Those are the GMs, the coaches, the teams that are investing in that kind of process, unwilling to navigate away from it that are consistently going to find themselves in January having these elite weapons. It's not sucking bad enough to have a Jamar Chase. It's continually prioritizing that as a process.

Continually to try and grab with your high-value resources, whether that's free agency or draft capital, and go get skill players, go get eliteness at those positions. Yeah, and then there are so many branches off that job security is the GM, like, I can't be doing that again because my butt's going to get fired. If I draft another wide receiver and admit that that guy can't play. But yeah, the more a GM can admit that this is an uncertain process, we're going to miss. And listen, that's easy for me to say.

My job's not on the line. But the more you can operate with that uncertainty kind of built in, I think those GMs tend to perform better. All right. My second one, I'm going back to that Bengals chief scheme. I think we're going to be talking about Chris Jones. game wrecker on Monday morning. Now, let me be clear, I'm with you.

I think the Bengals are going to win this game, but I was trying to do a thought exercise here, right? How can the Chiefs win this game? Because it's a one-point spread. Like, I sort of feel like we're thinking, how Mahomes is too injured, Bengals are going to move on it. It's a one-point spread.

The markets are telling us that the Chiefs are right in this game. So how can the Chiefs win? One is, Mahomes is healthier than we think. He goes out there, you know, performs well. maybe this is like his flu game and 20 years from now we're going oh my god remember mahomes uh and that 20 22 season when he still got the chiefs to the super bowl that's possible another possibility is like andy re-deliver some kind of masterpiece like just some type of

offensive game plan where he says that mahomes can't move he's just going to be in shotgun get the ball and just 11 play drives five-yard completions down the field whatever the case may be i think that's a possibility but i was thinking about this Chief's defense. And I don't think they're a great defense by any means, but a little bit of the Louana Rumo conversation we were having, I think, can kind of apply to Steve Spagnola, where he's got, you know, a resume of some of these one-time game plan situations where he comes out and he performs.

And I'm looking at that Bengals offensive line, and they were fantastic last week. And I'm curious to hear what your thoughts on this would be. I'm wondering how much of that was like the snow slowing them down. This might sound crazy. But if you talked about enough players about bad weather. their games, a lot of them will say the most impacted group are pass rushers. Like, they can't speed pass rushers. They can't get to the quarterback.

How much were the Bengals helped by that in addition to obviously playing well? So I'm wondering about this is sort of like I like the analytical conversations more, but I also like the psychology of it. Like this is the first for Chiefs players where they're going to go into this game going, we don't have Superman at quarterback. If we want to still be playing a week from now and be close to getting another ring, close to getting the Lombardi trophy, there's going to have to be other people

to step up here and just like deliver the games of their lives. Like you saw it in a glimpse with that Chad Hennie drive where Pacheco and the offensive line and all you're like, whoa, how did they just go 98 yards? So I'm thinking Chris Jones obviously is at a monster season. He's had monster games before where he's totally taken over. There's no doubt about it against this Bengals offensive line

where I think center Ted Karras is still playing with the injury. They've got still a backup there at right guard. can Chris Jones just kind of completely wreck this game? And listen, maybe it's not that the Chiefs win, but it's like Tuesday rolls around and all the film nerds on Twitter. Like, oh, my gosh, Chris Joe. Look at this. Moved by Chris Jones.

Brandon Thorne is posting clips about Chris Jones and everyone's really excited about it. So I think that might be something we're talking about on Monday. What do you think? Oh, 100%. I think from that, too, there will be conversation about the value of the defensive tackle position. And when you're looking at a draft where there will be a lot of comparisons

between Will Anderson, the edge for Alabama, and then Jalen Carter, the defensive tackle for Georgia, and who's more valuable and who's the better player. I think Chris Jones will, like, elevate that conversation, show you that when you have a high-impact player on the interior, how much it can disrupt, you know, opposing offenses, specifically, obviously in the passing game, and then also Chris Jones is a monster run defender. And on the interior, you factor in the Tate Carras injury, Corno Olson in there. Like, I worry that Chris Jones is going to come in here and wreak havoc. And you saw that in this same matchup in the playoffs last year. Six total pressures for Chris Jones in that game.

We obviously had that one where he couldn't really bring Joe Burrow down. He gets out of it, makes a play. Like, that's going to be the difference. And Joe Burroughs' ability to maneuver pockets and keep his eyes down field and not necessarily always look for escapeability. And I think you guys have talked about this with Benjamin Solek, not look for his capability, but maneuverability and extend the play. How Joe Burrow does that with Chris Jones and not in the snow?

Because I do agree with you that the snow does limit pass rushers. And I think it's hard to find your footing. It's hard to have the same get-off. That combined with there's no Chris Jones on that Buffalo Bill's roster, right? especially with Von Miller Hurd, there's no Chris Jones capable, no capable player of doing what Chris Jones could do. He's going to be a game wrecker. And I think if the Kansas City Chiefs do win, he will be in a lot of the headlines.

Now, I think it's going to be a toss-up game. That's what the spread reflects as well. It's bouncing around from Chiefs minus one to Bengals minus one, depending on how healthy that ankle is for Patchma Holmes. The headlines won't include Chris Jones if they lose, though. You know, it's going to be all Joe Burrow. It's going to be all Joe Shisey, Joe Burr, all the nicknames you want, T. Higgins, Jermar Chase.

However, if the Chiefs do win, I do think that he will be, all super involved in the headlines because he's going to have a day, man. There is no one on that Bengals interior that can go toe to toe with Chris Jones and the one-on-ones. If they do double-team him, they're going to be talking about that

on the broadcast all day long. Yeah, I'm bummed because Mahomes is injured, but also I do love the possibility of, like I said, this being his flu game here, where it's just like, wow, sometimes these guys who are among the greatest of all time deliver these performances that we're talking about

years down the road. So at least that possibility exists for him. this weekend, although, like I said, I think I'm picking in my picks against the spread, which you can read on the ringer on Friday. I'm pretty sure I'm leaning Bengals in this game. All right, hit us with your third one. What do you got? This one is somewhat, I take that I just don't want to see. I think it's going to come out. I think a lot of people are going to talk about it, but I don't want to see it. I don't want people talking about it. They're going to bring up the same cliche of the biggest cheat code in the NFL is chasing rookie contracts, rookie quarterback contracts, right? It's having a team

with a quarterback that's still on his rookie deal so you can spend elsewhere. You even saw Michael Parsons quote tweeting shit and saying, oh, yeah, it's so easy for these teams to have rookie quarterback contracts and ad players, blah, blah, blah, like everyone's talking about it already and they're going to talk about it again when Brock Brady or goes to Super Bowl or Jalen Hertz goes a Super Bowl or Joe Burrow goes to Super Bowl. Those are three quarterbacks still on rookie deals. Stop. Stop.

The easy thing to go get is a quarterback on a rookie contract. Let me read you some stats here. Of the four teams still in the playoffs, how they rank in total money spent at the quarterback position. Chiefs are second. Obviously, that Patchma Holmes deal is insane. The Titans are somehow first, which just goes to show, and I'll get to this point later, how valuable that Patrick Mahomes contract is and hit it being very long in that 10-year deal.

The 49ers are ninth. Yes, they have Brock Purdy, but they're still paying, obviously, Trey Lance. They're still paying Jimmy Garoppel. It's not like they have this, quote-unquote, cheat code in Brock Party. They're paying a lot of players in that position. The Bengals are 19th, and the Eagles are 22nd. That's in spending at the quarterback position this year. You know who else is outside the top average?

The Texans, and they're terrible. The Patriots, and they're terrible. the Bears and they're terrible. It's not like go get a rookie quarterback contract and everything solved. That's the easy thing to do. It's easy to go draft Davis freaking Mills. It's easy to sign Gino Smith through a cheap deal

and him surprise you with how he's playing. It's easy to go draft a quarterback in the second round named Jalen Hertz that 32 other teams passed on already. Those decisions aren't nearly as difficult. It's easy to go like, I'm going to go get a quarterback on a rookie contract. You could do that tomorrow.

The hard thing to do, the very difficult thing to do is to hit on everything else. it's to hit on the receiver evaluation. It's to hit on how much capital you're spending at receiver and tied-in, like I said before, how much capital you're spending along the offensive line. Because what you can't do, what you can't afford to do, is sign quarterbacks that you don't think you can win a Super Bowl with.

I do think it's the conversation is that easy. Can you win a Super Bowl with this quarterback yes or no? If you do pay those quarterbacks, then everything gets harder. Then the DAT discourse happens and the Kirk discourse happens, and the Derek Carr discourse happens, the Carson West, the Jared Gaw. That's what happens when teams make decisions about paying quarterbacks big money that they don't think they can win a Super Bowl with. There's only a handful of quarterbacks in the league that you think you can win with a Super Bowl right now. Patrick Holmes, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson.

I had deck, Prescott in there. Some people don't, whatever. And then Trevor Lawrence. Everyone else, if you're paying big money, you're not trying to win a Super Bowl, period. You're in front office that is unsurious. You're not trying to win a Super Bowl and you're just trying to continue to kick this can along and make a ton of money. Every other team should be prioritizing, yes, these quarterback are wicket contracts and evaluating those things, but learning how you can spend elsewhere and add elsewhere and identify talent elsewhere to keep those guys around.

And when you do find these quarterbacks that are on rookie contracts that you think you can win the Super Bowl with, I think the new trend should be these Mahomes contracts where they're 10 years long. And you're saying, and you give yourself that flexibility and that maneuverability to say, Joe Burroughs on a 10-year contract, or whoever it may be on these 10-year contracts, so you can move the money around and still find ways to add players, instead of these three-year, all-guaranteed contracts that you're seeing for Kirk Cresden's and all those things. I think we need to stop saying quarterback on rookie contracts is the cheat code.

The cheat code is being right with your decision on who you pay and then evaluating talent elsewhere and building elsewhere. That involves coaches and that involves skill players to actually build a superior offense. Yeah, the problem with the trend with the Mahomes contract is if I'm an agent, I'm saying, no, no, thank you. Yeah, we're not 10 years? What are you nuts?

No, with the way the salary cap is, is going up and the amount of money the league is making. Like you said, like Mahomes did not, you know, maximize his value with that contract. If you signed a three year, you know,

what those guys, if they want to maximize their earnings during their playing career, then it's like, you know, and you're that good, by the way, then you're doing three year deal, three year deal,

three year deal and figuring it out. But when you, yeah, you're right. When you get a quarterback who's willing to play ball like that, it is a huge advantage. Yeah.

My line with this has been for a couple of years. Now, don't overpay for competency at quarter. back because I just think there are so many guys who kind of can get you to that floor where you want to be competitive. You want to evaluate the rest of your roster. Maybe you even make the playoffs or win a playoff game. Like you're going to be able to do that with a lot of guys. You don't need to trade multiple draft picks for Carson Wentz to go ahead and try to do that. And so until you find the guys with the high ceilings, like you mentioned, don't pour wild resources just for competency. So this is going to

be a wild offseason for the quarterbacks. I mean, between Brady and and Rodgers and Carropolo and who knows five other guys who I'm not mentioning, these quarterback decisions are just going to be fascinating. And it's going to happen, I think, pretty quickly here. Like, I don't think we're going to have a long break between end of the season and when these moves start happening. I think what's important, too, is that just because you're prioritizing, say, a quarterback on a rookie contract and you're still looking to evaluate that position and you're avoiding

paying for competency or overpaying for competency, something that I always say is the worst quarterback in the league is a good quarterback. on a second contract. I don't want that. I don't want a good quarterback on a second contract. I want a guy that's either on a rookie contract that we're developing and looking to evaluate or an elite quarterback, a guy in this upper echelon that I think I can actually win a Super Bowl with. When you have quarterbacks from working at the quarterback position that does not stop you from making elite process decisions at evaluating, attacking, and trying to go chase eliteness at the quarterback position. What if you do trade up in the first round, mortgage future capital for a

toolsy quarterback project, when you already have a good quarterback, that's already having success. I'm not talking about Tray Lance. That's a good process, good elite decision. I'm talking about when the chiefs did it. Going from Alex Smith to Patrick Holmes, trading up in that draft to go get Patrick Holmes, a risk that they took when they had a good quarterback

that they did not want to pay big money and they wanted to go chase the quarterback that they felt they could go evaluate and maybe win a Super Bowl with and now look where they are. I think you see from front offices like the San Francisco 49ers and the Kansas City Chiefs constantly chasing eliteness at the quarterback position

and refusing, refusing over the last handful of years to pay for competency at the quarterback position. I think those are the teams that are going to be staying. Those are the teams that are going to actively compete for Super Bowls year and year out. Okay, so let me ask you this, then a team like the Eagles with Jalen Hertz, Jalen Hertz is going into the final year of his rookie deal in 2023. We know the pieces around him are great.

We know they were very good, you know, one of the best teams in the NFL this year might make the Super Bowl. How do you approach a situation like that where if you're saying, hey, I don't put him quite in that top, top tier, but, you know, I assume you're not just going to say, all right, yeah, go ahead. We'll find somebody else. Like, how would you approach that sort of a realistic situation like that? The Jalen Hertz conversation, I think, is going to be very difficult, right?

Because I don't think he is in that tier of guys. I'm very comfortable is going to be competing for Super Bowl's year and, yeah, you know, because of, now this year has been an outlier season. I think it's similar to the leap in performance, obviously a different player, but leap in performance that we saw from Josh Allen. I think that there's opportunity, him going into this last year of his contract, that you do wait on this decision and try and attack a short-term opportunity. Don't overpay him at this point and then see if he can over-deliver again, right? I think I'm still in that position where I want

to see him over-deliver on a short-term deal, whether that's a tag or whatever it may be, before I, again, like you said, overpay for competency, you know, sign him to this multi-year deal, put him into the top five of cap, especially because, again, I bring up these 10-year contracts, which I know you mentioned that, like an agent's not signing that. Well, Lee Steinberg, Patrick Holmes agent signed it, and it was, you know, obviously, you know, wrote down as one, a half a billion dollar deal, I think that these three, four-year deals that are, you know, 30 million per season or 30 to 35 million per season, hamstring front offices more than they'd like to with some of these guys. Like even looking at the DAC contract where he will be, you know,

I think he only has two years remaining on that contract that's already forcing them to make these different decisions and they don't have a lot of money where that can go. They can't like keep pushing the rock down, you know, the rock further. That, to me is concerning. If you sign Jell and hurts like a three-year, four-year deal where a lot of it's guaranteed and it's 30 to 35, you put yourself in a situation where there isn't a lot of flexibility versus like, if you're comfortable and you think you can compete for a super well with him for a long time, you should be chasing these high-year deals, very higher deals, seven, eight-year deals so that way you do have this cap flexibility and avoid being in situations where you're,

that conversation about you're up being the position and getting back and matching what it will be doesn't come up. Yeah, and it's also what is the rest of the roster look like. Like, I think they are going to sign him to a to a big contract. in the offseason. That's been the Eagles M.O. that when you find a quarterback, and listen, didn't work with Carson Wentz. I think Hertz's makeup is a lot different, but they could look at it and say we've got, already got A.J. Brown under contract. We've got Devante Smith under contract.

We've got Dallas Goddard under contract. Like all those pieces that you say, you know, you could say, hey, these are helping Jail and Hertz. Like those are still going to be there for the next multiple years. So you could easily talk yourself into, yeah, we can compete for Super Bowl's with this guy and given the leap he's made from year one to year two and year two to year. three, there's probably more upside there. So it'll be interesting to see how they go about doing that. And even the, I mean, the DAC question, you're right from a Cowboys perspective from probably like a business, you know, again, I think the agent side, they'd be like, good job, Dak, you know,

you can not win a playoff game the next two years. And guess what? We'll go back. We'll hit the open market. And guess what? We're going to get paid a lot of money from the Cowboys. There's somebody else at that point. So yeah, there is going to be that tug of war for sure between teams, agents, quarterbacks here this offseason and going forward. All right. My last one, Austin. I'm kind of all over the place with this one. So bear with me.

There will be an announcement, you know, the Sunday morning shows, right? You know, like you check your feed on, you know, you wake up Sunday and like Adam Schefter tweeted out like seven things at 4 a.m. or something. And you're like, what is going on here? So I think championship weekend, I think those insiders generally like to get some buzzy stuff out there. You know, it's like a big spotlight for them. I think there's going to be an announcement that Sean Pate.

is waiting another year to get back into coaching. Wow. This idea, now bear with me because that's not going to be the end of it. So first of all, this idea has been picking up a little bit of steam. I think NFL Network had a report about it today. It sort of feels like this entire hiring cycle is frozen. Everyone's like, all right, is Sean Payton going to make a decision so we can all go on with the rest of our lives?

But that hasn't happened yet. So I think you're going to get that news on Sunday morning. but I don't think it's going to last. I think there's a catch. I don't think it'll be the end of it. I don't know if it will be some point next week, some point the week after, where we'll go, hold on.

Sean Payton has changed his mind. There's some kind of mystery teams waiting to swoop in here. I think Diana, we're seeing. You already reported that there might be a mystery team, but it's kind of funny how this is, again, like I said, just frozen the entire hiring cycle while Peyton interviews with all these teams yet. It doesn't seem like there's that perfect fit.

out there, whether that's his decision or the team's decision, you know, I sort of get the sense, like he's enjoying this process. He doesn't mind seeing his name in the headlines and going and talking to people and asking for the moon. And guess what? If they don't deliver, you're not going to be living on the street. You're going to be okay. Sean Payton. So I feel like that's kind of what he's doing. And then I feel like owners are looking at it going, Sean Payton is a great coach, but not only are we going to have to pay him at the top of the market, but then we're giving up like significant draft capital, does this make sense for us

versus some of the other options out there? Now, it only takes one. That's why I came back to it and said, I think there'll be a second wave of Sean Payton rumors, but I could see that happening on Sunday and then some other teams start moving on. Where are you on kind of where all this Sean Payton stuff is going? I can get on board with it.

I think that my perspective has been there are owners like Broncos' ownership and specifically Panthers' ownership that will pay him whatever and do whatever to try and, you know, revamp these franchises. I think TEPR wants that. I think the Broncos front office obviously wants that, or ownership obviously wants that. So that would take Sean Payton making a decision and avoiding, you know, those franchises specifically. I think other franchises will be sitting and looking at this decision with the first round that they have to give up, possibly first rounder that they have to give up,

and all the money that they'd have to pay him. It's one of those decisions, right? where like you're looking to buy something really expensive. And in the moment you're like, I'll buy it. I'm in. And then the long as you sit on it and it's like for whatever reason that that purchase gets delayed, you're like, you know, do I actually need this boat? Do I need to go spend all this money on this boat or all this money on, you know, this crazy, I don't know. I don't really buy a lot of expensive things.

But I know when you're buying an expensive thing, that it can be a fading moment, right? It'll be a fading moment where you're like, you know what? I thought about it more. And maybe we need to, you know, look somewhere else. And we've interviewed a lot of other candidates and maybe these candidates that we know are going to cost half the price and no draft capital might be. the best direction forward for these teams. So I do think that the Panthers and the Broncos are going to have all their chips on the table. And it's literally going to be Peyton saying yes or no to those

specific teams. Other teams, I think, could look at some of these other candidates that are available and maybe lean that way, given the capital that they'll have to give up to the New Orleans Saints in a trade. And obviously, the capital will have to give up to Peyton's pocket. I think the other thing, the interesting conversation about the Peyton stuff that I think will continue to come up is how much these guys are making on TV now, right? It's why the McVeigh stuff came up about him retiring and him joining the booth. Obviously, there was conversation around the Romo contract that he got. Now you got Al getting big money from Amazon. You got Herb Street double-dipping into that pot. Like, there is a lot of money in TV right now. So much that, you know, I think you are going to have

some coaches with charisma scratching their chin saying, you know, what if I went to the booth for a couple years? And we know how much does the value of a head coach go up once they get on TV? Bill Cower was that way for a long time. Obviously, John Gruden was that way for a long time. now Sean Payton's that way for a long time. That to me is this little cheat code that some of these coaches could start tapping into, and I think NFL teams falling for. I'm really excited to see how that changes the dynamic, because I don't think that's something that we've dealt with a lot in previous years

where coaches are honestly considering the checks that could cash from TV broadcasting, broadcasters or streamers or whatever may be, versus the check you could cash on an NFL sideline. It's such a better life. Listen, I know they're competitive people and they love coaching. I have no doubt about it, but especially for someone who's won a Super Bowl, my gosh, what a better life than the coaching grind

where you're sleeping in your office for whatever it is, five months out of the year. You're hoping guys don't get injured. You've got to assemble a staff, all these different things. The biggest thing for me is, in addition to, like, the media speculation, you're constantly dealing with questions. I think it's objectively, like, a job that requires more time and more effort is you're not managing anybody.

And when you take a step away from managing other, adults for a little bit. And you know that you don't have that hang over your head and you know you don't have that. Because that's where I think a lot of this extra work comes from, even independent of being a head coach. As a manager, when you are a manager at, you know, any like established company or whatever it may be, a lot of that work comes home with you because you're constantly looking out for or responsible for other individuals and other individuals work. You're constantly evaluating other talent. And that, I think, is where the chore comes into coaching versus when you're in the booth, it can be a hardworking job. You might be sleeping in couches too and traveling on a lot

and doing this stuff on the road. But one thing you're not doing is you're not managing shit. You're not managing anybody, right? It's just me and my time. And I think that's something that coaches will take to, haven't been,

if you have been a head coach a long time in this league, you know that so much of the work that you're doing is managing other people and managing other individuals as other adults. It's a great point.

Every first time head coach after their first year gets asked like the question about, oh, was it what you expected, what was different? And everyone that I've, not everyone, but a bunch that I've heard

over the years is like, I wasn't aware of all the things that come across my desk throughout the course of a day. Buyers, you have to put out stuff. You have to deal with, like you said, people. You have to manage. They were like, you know, I kind of thought this would just be fun coaching football,

but it is a different job. All right, that was great. Let's take a little break. Then we're going to come back and finish off with a couple mailbag questions. If you've been watching the NFL playoffs from the sidelines, there's still time to get in the game with Fandul, America's number one sports book. New customers bet this Sunday.

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All right, now let's get to the mailbag. A reminder, you can email us at the Scramble Mailbag at gmail.com or just tweet at me. Maxwell, Maxwell, loyal listener, I feel like he always comes up with the mailback questions. He says, guys, just wanted to know what you thought about the Chargers keeping Brandon Staley after that collapse on Saturday and firing Joe Lombardi. If it was up to you, would you have fired Staley and taken a run at the person we just talked about Sean Payton? What do you think about the charges decision making this offseason? So I want to start with this, especially, you know, we're having a lot of conversation about coaching decisions.

You know, one of my first takes on this was talking about how consistency is underrated at the head coaching position. And you look at Zach Taylor in his first two years, everyone wanted him out. Lou Anirumo, everyone wanted him out. And then the consistency, and over time, having that opportunity to, like, establish some of these things and learn some of these things as a first year head coach or whatever it may be, has a lot, you know, even Lou Aniromomah Ruma was only ever an interim defensive coordinator at the NFL level, then finally got this opportunity with Cincinnati.

I think some of this stuff takes time, and it's hard to, you know, comment on, in addition to consistency being under-revaluated, I think that it's difficult from the outside perspective to comment on coaching decisions. I think there are easy ones. Recent examples would be Matt Ruhl where nothing's going right, and you're not even meeting low expectations. Nathaniel Hackett, I think, would be similar as well. Like, nothing's going right.

You didn't exceed low expectations, whereas there's ones that are harder, right? I think the brand's daily ones harder because they're not meeting high expectations. Mike McCarthy isn't meeting high expectations. Ron Rivera isn't meeting higher expectations. Ron Rivera, Washington was in the mix of the playoffs late in the season. Those are more difficult to comment on. I think it's because there are things that are easy to evaluate or easier to evaluate on the outside, specifically offensive and defensive play calling.

We have guys on this podcast, Ben Solac, Steve Ruiz, that are masterminds that can dial up any all 22 and tell you what's good and what's bad offensive play calling bad structure. Nate Tyson, the Athletic is another one. Dan Arlowski on ESPN does it all the time. What we don't have, in my opinion, as big as insiders are, is a lot of deep looks at how some of this management is going, how some of this management of talent is going, you know, in the locker room and other players. How, what is their hiring process?

Not until Dan Duggan of the Athletic wrote that excellent piece on Brian Dayball and how he hired by Kafka and how he hired Wink Martindale. Do we ever really get a lot of light on how head coaches hire their coordinators outside of the first line after every single time a coach hires a coordinator is, they work together in this team or they work together here and they work together that. knew them. That's all we ever really know. And so with Brandon Staley, what I've heard, the small things that I've heard is the players really like him and ownership's kind of, no, not interested

in paying another guy. That's what I've heard. And I think even Bill Simmons on his podcast said they might be a little bit too cheap to move on for Brandon Staley and maybe look at a Sean Payton, whether that's trading a first round pick and paying him all this money. What we do know about Brandon's Daly as well is that he's a masterful defensive game planner. I think you saw that. He delivered in that regard. Now, his commitment to Lombardi, his flip-flop and fourth-down aggressiveness, One year he's great, one year he's not. That doesn't show backbone. That doesn't show actual belief in philosophy.

And then also playing his starters in Week 18, those three combinations. I'm like, oh, those are things I can evaluate and I didn't love those things. Now, all of that is to be said, I think if I had all of the data and all of the understanding of how the players respect him and how other people that he's hired respect him, I understand why he's there. And I think I probably would have kept him in place as well. But I also applied pressure and said, hey, you got to fire Joe Lombardi, though. Everyone can see that.

Just as like the ringer media applied pressure on other coordinators that got fired, firing left witch, Josh Boyer, the Miami Dolphins defense coordinator, Greg Roman, the boss. All those guys, because we have guys that can evaluate that stuff, evaluate offensive defensive play calling. It's not crazy to see guys that Solac and Ruiz didn't like his coordinators also get fired because that stuff is kind of clear as day. Whereas head coaching, I think it is a little bit more difficult,

and there are a lot of other decisions that play. I would have kept Staley, made him fire Lombardi if he wasn't already, but I think a lot of people might view it differently because you can only evaluate what's available to you. you. Yeah, it's, it's well said. I don't, you know, necessarily like to say a guy should get fired or not get fired. I'm with you that, you know, we, we are at a information deficit sometimes with that stuff. I'll tell you what, I would if I were, you know, Chargers ownership and Sean Payton, you know, said, hey, meet me at this coffee shop down here in Santa Monica or

whatever, just for a brief chat. I would, you know, that would have been a conversation I would have had to take at the idea of Sean Payton and Justin Herbert for the next five to ten years after Justin Herbert has not won a playoff game in his first three seasons, knowing what kind of talent you have there. But I think the move they made is a reasonable one. Listen, they were a mediocre team for most of this this year. I mean, you look at any of the advanced stats, DVOA, whatever. They were a middle of the pack team. I hated the way that season ended. I mean, to me, that was pretty egregious the way they handled Week 18. Like that would have been. That would have made me furious if I was the owner or whoever was in charge of Brandon Staley at that time.

And then you blow a 27-0-0 lead, like one of the all-time choke jobs in NFL history. So like those last two weeks, you really couldn't have gone any worse. At the same time, you're right, it's not just running it back. It's all right. We're making this move. Let's get the offense back on track. It has been a good offense before, even for all the, you know, criticism of Lombardi, like two years ago, they were a top five offense by DVOA.

So, like, they have that in them, even if they didn't make any personal changes. Now you can make some personnel changes. You find the right coordinator and run it back. And so I think one more year is reasonable. And but next year, like, you better, you got to see progress next year or else it's probably time to go in a different direction. And the kind of sum of a lot of what I said is, you know, there are decisions or pieces of information. And I think as an outside perspective that you can evaluate and can, like, help inform your decision. And like, this guy should be fired tomorrow, whatever it may be.

It's offensive and defensive play calling, oftentimes being coordinator, but obviously you have head coaches that do make offensive and defensive play calls. And then it's in-game management. You know, that's timeouts, that's fourth down aggressiveness. And it's obviously choosing to play your starters are not in week 18. And then, you know, second half blowouts and second half getting absolutely unruled. What you can't evaluate, and I think it's important to bring this up. What you can't evaluate is management within the building, how they're hiring, how they're firing,

leadership style, some of these things that are always behind closed doors. even the insiders of insiders are only ever getting anonymous quotes on these things. And if it's not anonymous, it's definitely positive. He's our guy. He's our coach. Everything's good. Everything's good. You can't really evaluate that.

And you can't really evaluate. And this is something for me, revenue impact. It's so easy to fire off a tweet saying, but Brandon Staley's not making the flight home. Do you know how much it's going to cost a firearm? What's his contract buyout? How much money do you got? That's not against the cap. How much money do you got to hire somebody else?

Are you ready to restart every single part of the head coaching process? Do you have to fire your GM? How many coaching hires do you give in your GM? It's such a different. decision that I think people make it on Twitter sometimes. I think it's easier because the contracts are a little bit more open or a lot more open for players.

You can see when you can get out of a player. You can trade a player. It's more common that you trade a player. With coaches, people like, he's not making the flight home for me. Oh, do you have $20 million in your pocket to go pay Sean Payton? Are you giving up that first round pick? How is this evaluation of, you know, the general manager and all these different things? I think people speak on coaching decisions out of turn sometimes.

I'm always adamant to make sure you don't. Yeah, we need an over-the-cap for coaching content. Somebody, if you're listening, you're trying to, and everyone's always asking, how do you get your foot in the door? I don't know how you're going to get that information. You got to get in with the agents and others, but that would be good information, certainly to have it. It would lead for good content for this podcast feed as well. All right. Last question, Donnie asks, you think Niners make it this far had Jimmy G not gotten hurt, feel like he was good for one to two picks

a game. Maybe they lose a few of the tight games with him at quarterback. What do you think? Are the 49ers still in the NFC championship game if Jimmy Garoppolo never gets hurt and he's their quarterback? I think the short answer for me, and this might be controversial, you might disagree. I think the short answer for me is yes. Average point differential in win, you know, they obviously won every single game since Brock Pretty took over, including the game in Miami, which you played most of that game. Average point differential for the San Francisco 49ers in that stretch, including the two playoff wins, is over 16 points. It's like 16.6.

Like, they're blowing out teams. And that to me, you know, I think with Jimmy Garoppolo, maybe you see more one-possession games. Maybe that's, maybe because he doesn't have that same aggressiveness and he's not extending plays with, you know, Brock's mobility. Maybe they're not winning games by 16.6 points on average, but actually like 10 points on average or eight points on average. They only had, they're only one possession games in that, you know, Stitt that Brock Pretty has taken over was Seattle. Technically, they were only won by eight, but they dominated that game. Then there was the Jarrett-Sidam breakout where the defense had no idea that he was going to be that good. They only won that game by three.

Maybe Jimmy G loses that. But I still think they're playing ultimately in the wildcowed round, whether it's Jimmy G or Brock Purti. They beat up on a bad NFC team like they did with Seattle. And then going into Dallas, I think that's a one possession game with Brock Pardy or Jimmy Grawler or not, right? And I think in a one possession game, Mike McCarthy, Dak Prescott versus Kyle Shanhan, Jimmy Groplo. I'm taking Jimmy G. So I do think they're in the same spot. I don't think their point differential is as high.

I don't think their offensive output is as high. But I do think they're in the same spot. And I think Brock Pordy has. You can't argue he hasn't. elevated the offense because of this aggressiveness, because of this mobility, and just like, I don't give a fuck attitude. Like, I'm coming, he's on borrowed time, my guy. He's on Matt Flynn time, I call it. Matt Flynn came in for that one game for the Green Bay Packers, threw like seven, you know, seven touchdowns got this big contract. This guy is on borrow time and he knows it. He's shooting the

moon and every, I don't know if he play hearts, but he's shooting the moon and making plays. And I think that's a big thing for him. I agree with you. I don't disagree. Yeah, no, I'm with you. I did kind of a similar exercise. You know, they were seven and three with Jimmy Garoppolo as their starter. They had won four in a row. And don't forget, they won the division by four games. Like, it wasn't close. They literally could have lost three more games and they still win the NFC West. And then if they're the three seed instead of the two seed, guess what? They're just facing the giants in the first round and they're facing the Vikings potentially in the divisional round, or if the Vikings lose that game, whoever beats the Vikings and then the Niners are at home. So it wasn't

a loaded NFC, NFC playoff group. We knew that. You know, you had the Vikings. had the Seahawks, you had the Giants, you had some teams that, you know, the advanced numbers would say were more mediocre than very good. And so I think for two months, the Niners have been one of the three teams, at least in my opinion, I had Niners, Cowboys and Eagles. Those are the three teams that can come out of the NFC and make the Super Bowl. And come on, Garoppel's gotten to the Super Bowl before did they get there because of him? No, but you know what? That's the San Francisco way. The quarterback doesn't have to, you know, be the one, what is it, driving the bus.

The quarterback can be the one riding in the bus, and you can still go very far because the other pieces are there. So I'm with you there. I think they'd still be playing this weekend. All right, this was a lot of fun. Austin, Gail, the Scramble debut. This was fantastic. Brought the energy, brought the takes.

I love it. You've heard him on this feed before. We'll definitely have him back. Thank you to Mike Wargon for producing additional production supervision by by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. Stay tuned tomorrow for the Ringer NFL preview show on this feed. Everyone enjoy the games this week and only three more football games this year. Thanks for listening and we will talk to you next week.