The Ringer NFL Show - Blaming the Analytics, the Concussion Controversy, Ron Rivera on the Ropes, and More Big Takeaways from Week 5 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: October 11, 2022

Ben and Sheil get together to share their reactions to the Chiefs' thrilling win over the Raiders on 'Monday Night Football.' Next, they dive deep into the mismanagement of the narrative surrounding the Tua Tagovailoa concussion, and how some recent tweaks by the league in response—notably a sudden rash of questionable roughing the passer penalties—could ultimately hurt the product on the field.(9:37) Then, they heap praise on the Giants' coaching staff, try to help out the Commanders, and attempt to ease any concerns about the struggling Rams.(18:01) They end the pod with a declaration about Josh Allen from Ben and the weekly extra point by Sheil.(43:10) Hosts: Ben Solak and Sheil Kapadia Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The time has come to get ready for the 2022 World Cup. And what better way to prepare than by revisiting the World Cup's most amazing goals? I'm Brian Phillips. I'm making a podcast about the history of the men's World Cup, told through the stories of 22 iconic goals. The show's called 22 Goals. It's out now on the Ringer Podcast Network, and we're having so much fun. Come to extra point taken.

I'm Sheila Capadia. As always, joined by Ben Solac after Monday night football where we got a good one. The Chiefs hold on against the Raiders 30 to 29. A lot to talk about with this game. My favorite type of game, coaching decisions, fun plays, high leverage moments. Ben, we got a lot to get to tonight, my friend. Big coaching decision guy, Shio Copadia. He watches the games for the decisions.

Whatever they cut to Josh, we do. Daniel's muttering into a headset. This is what I got here. This is what I came for, baby, this content. It feels like an insult, but altogether not true. So you should know the format by now. But if you don't, if you're new to the Monday night show, we each offer three takes. And then one of us gives an extra point at the end.

We don't know what each other's going to say. We'll react. We'll argue. We might agree. We will do it all. I'm first up with my take, Ben. We have to stop blaming analytics for every aggressive. coaching move. I can already see it happening this week. It happened as the moves were being made.

It happened after the moves were being made. It's going to happen all week. If you didn't watch the game, the Raiders scored touchdown with 427 left, makes it Chiefs 30, Raiders 29. Josh McDaniels decides to go for two. He doesn't get it. On the broadcast, they say, oh, the analytics said this is the right move. I need a little more information, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. It's not that the analytics, say this is the right move. I mean, if you dig a little bit deeper, it seemed like that's basically a toss-up decision, right? You can go for two. You can take the lead, 31-30. In my opinion, you're not gaining a huge edge there because there's still 427 left in the game. It's not like those decisions Harbaugh was making last year where it's like 15 seconds left in the game. There's still

so much time there. But if you want to go ahead and try to take the lead, you can do that. That's an aggressive move. If you want to kick the extra point, you tie it 30-30. And if you don't get it, as we saw, it's not the end of the world, 30 to 29, and you still have a chance to get the ball back. I don't think Josh McDaniels, and we'll see what he says after the game. We'll see how he explains it. I know you, you're young, so you can check Twitter as we're discussing here. I don't like to do all that multitasking, so you can fill me in. But I think Josh McDaniels just made a decision based on his gut that said, you know what, I'd like to take the lead here. Then maybe if we stop them, we can just end the game with the ball in our hands rather than

having it tie and have to score again or tie and have to play for overtime. It's an okay decision to make. That's the decision he made. I don't think it had anything to do with some nerd sitting up in a box saying, hey, Josh, this increases our win probability by so-and-so percent. Look at how Josh McDaniels coached the whole game. He had a fourth and one from the Chiefs' 34-yard line in the second quarter, and he kicked the field goal. I mean, the analytics play there absolutely would have been to go for it.

He didn't do it there. If you've watched Josh McDaniel's coach all year, the guy is not making optimal in-game decisions based on what the math and the numbers would say. So I just feel like every time a coach is aggressive, we say, hey, it was an analytics play. Even with Harbaugh last year, end the game, he would go for two, try to win the game. he would explain afterwards sometimes. That wasn't an analytics play. I just felt like our defense sucked. I wanted to try to win the game right there.

It's a toss-up decision. A lot of these decisions are just 50-50, and a coach has to make a call. I think that's what happened here. I'll stop ranting. You take a sip of your tea and then tell me if you agree or disagree with what I'm saying here.

Yeah, I think if you don't show me a model, you give me no guy in my headset telling me this is what our best computer saying is what our printout say. and you tell me, all right, down one, 4.30 left. You've got all your timeouts. I think they had two at the time. I think they had three or two.

The Chiefs definitely had three. Patrick Mulhams on the other sideline. Go for two or go for one. I'm in a position where I'm like, all right, if I'm going for two, I'm trying to take the lead right now. And with 4.30 on the clock and three timeouts, like the Chiefs could get two drives, let alone just one drive to try to get to field goal range to take.

the lead back. So I don't like, I like the go for two and it's like, I always go back to the Ravens against the Packers when Tyler Huntley was playing last year. And they scored to get within one. They scored the touchdown with like 15 seconds left. And it's like, hey, do we want to go to overtime Aaron Rogers versus Tyler Huntley? Or do we want to put the chips in on one play that's like a 48% chance, 44% chance of going in? Like it's not 50-50, but if we can get it, we'd never get the ball back to Rogers. We can win this in regulation. That's what McDaniels is kind of choosing there. Once you decide, hey, we're either going to be down by one or up by one, rather they're going to get this two or not, this game's not going to regulation,

which is basically you saying, hey, if we extend this game for 10 minutes, it's more likely the better team wins, right? Like over a large sample, we expect, you know, kind of averages to come out. That's kind of how regression works. So we extend this game 10 minutes, probably the better team wins. I'm not sure we're the better team. So I want to be, I want to put this in a position where we are not going to extend the game. This game is going to end in regulation. We're going to be down by one and up by one. There's no way. there's enough drives or possessions left in this game

that this ends in a tie when we reach triple zeros. I understand the impulse of that decision, but at the same time, with that much time left on the clock, I'd much rather be in a position where let's kick the extra point, let's tie this game, and then the chiefs will try to drive to win, but also aren't going to be aggressive and go for it on a fourth down, which, as we would later find out,

the Raiders don't get the two-point conversion, they're leading, the chiefs are decently aggressive on their drive, drive, high completion throws, and then they get a fourth down that they model-wise absolutely should have gone for. The chief should have gone for their fourth and three, but then they instead choose the punt. And that's the advantage of trailing or the advantage of the chiefs being in a position where they don't have to score to prevent themselves from losing, is that you take a little bit of wind out of the chief sales. You're putting the chiefs in a position where their offense is going to be a little bit more passive, where Reid is going to punt the football, and that

ends up giving the rate of the chance to win the game. So there's a lot of layers for like how much time is left, how are the chiefs going to use their timeouts, how scared am I of the other guy on the sideline? If you give me all that information and then you tell me it's a toss up on your model, then yeah, it's like, right, what do I think I want to do here? Like, I'm just, I have to pick a side and go. So there's just a lot that that goes into that decision from a heuristic perspective. And then if the model's in the yellow, if the models on a coin toss, I'm just going to choose what I think is best in roll with the end. McDaniel's had his offense with the ball with more than two minutes left with a timeout to use. Good kicker. Like, big.

got into a good endgame spot. They just going to get the job done. Yeah, I actually just got a text back here from my friend Mike McRoberts from Championship Analytics. They consult with teams, college teams. And he said from their model, no, the recommendation would have been to kick the extra point and not go for two. So again, this is not just because a coach makes an aggressive call does not mean it's an analytics play. I don't think this was an analytics play. You just laid it out well, the pros and cons of either side. He made the decision he thought was best for his team. I don't think it was egregious. I don't think it cost them the game. Like they got the ball back. They had a chance to drive into field goal

range and win the game. And so I think it was fine. I'm just, I can already hear the discussions by the time this podcast goes up. You're already seeing the tweets ripping analytics, not to be the, you know, the resident huge nerd on the ringer NFL show. But that was my first take. All right, let's move on to someone else. People are tired of here and the nerds spouting off about analytics here. Well, I'm going to say one more analytics thing. I think, right, the issue is that the word analytics becomes thing I didn't

expect to happen in the football game. Yes, non-traditional. Yeah, people didn't expect McDaniels to go for two. He is. Obviously, it must be one of the nerds telling him that. And it's like, all right, well, if you engage with the arguments in terms of fourth down decision-making

in terms of two-point conversion attempts, in good faith, and you at least get a vibe on like, all right, this is their logic. Then when McDaniels goes to that two-point conversion, immediately just doesn't pass the sniff test. It just doesn't, like, when we talk about two-point conversions, we're talking about like, oh, you're down 14, right? You're down 10.

Like, how are you? Like, when the Chiefs went for it, they're basically saying, hey, instead of you giving a two-point conversion to tie the game, we're going to go for a two-point conversion to go ahead by two possessions because we think we're better at two-point conversions than you are. Right? You know, like, that's just, like, that there's an intuition to that.

This McDaniel ones were just kind of like, oh, I don't really know what's going on. You're not allowed to just throw that into an analytics bucket because the other stuff that surprises you actually is analytics. So there we go. Okay. My first take is a bit of like a convoluted one. There's levels to it.

It's got like a 1A and a 1B. But this is the headline. We need to keep the discussion around Tuatunga by Lois injury and the concussion protocol centered on the concussion protocol. It cannot be flipped into. it dovetailed into bad roughing the passer penalties. Yes. There is an argument that is made both by media members

and also kind of alluded to, gesture to on broadcasts, that the NFL's bad roughing the passer penalties recently, namely Grady Jarrett against the Buccaneers. And then tonight, the Chris Jones roughing the passer on the strip sack of Derek Carr at the end of the first half, where the most egregious thing said on the broadcast was Troy Aikman telling the NFL to take the dresses off in regarding to roughing the passer, which is abysmal.

and should have a clear reprimand publicly. Like, that should be a thing that is addressed tomorrow. But other than that, Joe Buck also says on the broadcast, he just mentions Tua's name, and he mentions the environment around Tua's concussion and how that might be affecting these roughing the passer calls. That is an understandable connection to make because it feels like roughing the passer penalties

have been increased in an effort to make the game safer and an effort to lower injuries. And that's true. However, Tua's arc was never about, like, the frustration, the public dismay, the discomfort, the horrible feeling you had watching him play on that Sunday and then again on that Thursday was not the result of the player who hit him, Matt Milano for the bills in week three,

and then Josh DePuo in week four for the Bengals, being penalized or not being penalized for roughing the passer. It wasn't the violence of the, the hit as enacted by the defensive player that led to the great public outcry for how to a situation was handled, which for anybody keeping track, Matt Milano was called for roughing the passer, and Josh Dupoa wasn't called for roughing the passer. In light of the Jerome Boger, Grady Jarrett ripping the guy to the ground with unnecessary violence, Josh Dupo will probably should have been called for roughing the passer. But again, that's a thing that's happening. It is not

the substantive issue. The substantive issue is that a man went down on a Sunday. got up, could not have a balance, could not figure out which way it was north, could not keep himself upright, got back into a football game, allegedly went through a concussion protocol on the day and throughout the week, played in a Thursday football game, had his head slammed into the ground again and exhibited an even worse physical response to that second hit as compared to the first hit. The concussion protocol process that allowed for that sequence of events received immense and intense public scrutiny and deservedly so. That was the issue with the Tuatanga by Lois sequence from week three into week four. That must remain centered. That that

fact needs to not be infringed upon by other things that are true. NFL's over-officiating rough in the passer. The body weight call isn't really like a helpful call. Aaron Rogers got his collarbone broke in in 2017 and they added the body weight call. And since then, like, it just everybody continues to be called for it. And I don't think, I can't think of another quarterback that's been hurt by the bodyweight landing on them. I know there was like a dolphin's edge in 2018 who hurt himself trying to not put his body weight down. It's just not, that call is not working. We can have that conversation, but put it over here. What we are concerned about with Tua is the NFL's concussion protocol. They made changes to it into this upcoming

Sunday, such that a taxia, that that reaction of instability, the reaction of loss of balance, loss of body control is a mandatory you may not play for the rest of the game independent of whether or not you pass through the concussion tests on the day. And then that was enacted to Teddy Bridgewater, the Miami quarterback. And Miami Dolphins fans are like parsing videos of how Bridgewater reacted to the hit from Sauce Gardner. And he got up and he gave thumbs up to the sideline. and he was walking and he was talking. And like, you know, this, this faceless, nameless spotter was the guy who decided he stumbled too much to go back into the game. The NFL literally just enacted this for this Sunday.

They enacted it on like Saturday. I don't, I don't know if the Bridgewater process went the way they wanted it to. Didn't go the way wrong to overreaction in Miami underreaction. I don't know anything about Bridgewater. Everybody's like, oh, like we're talking about the Teddy situation. The NFL screwing it up. The new policy is two days old. I think we'll get there.

But that's the reaction that should be focused on, is that Tua's concussion sequence was unacceptable. And if the league has swung too far and overreacted and implemented too stringent of a policy that took Teddy Bridgewater out of the game, good. It's about time the NFL overreacted on concussions. I'm looking forward to them finding a happy balance, a happy medium. It's a violent game. It's going to always be a violent game. This is the first time they've ever overreacted on concussion in their life. So they were overreacted tremendous.

I love that. Keep overreacting to concussions. Please, please, please continue to do so. So keep Tua about Tua. Also, fix Ruffing the Passer penalties, but keep Tua about Tua. Yeah, no, I'm glad you brought this up. I had the same thought watching the broadcast today where they just lumped everything together. These things have nothing, they have nothing to do with one another.

You know, there was the Ruffing the Paster call here with Chris Jones there. It was a Chris Jones and Derek. I can't even remember the Ruffin the Passenger. Yeah, Chris Jones on Derek Carr today. And then they're going through the backstored Grady. All right, you can lump in great. go ahead, lump in Grady Jarrett and Tom Brady with that. Yeah, those two are the same thing.

But then they bring up Tua. Two ahead, and it's a totally separate issue. The Tua issue, like you said, is about a young man's brain being scrambled. The team not handling it properly, allegedly, potentially, you know, we don't know every single fact. Yeah, throw whatever adverbs you want. The thing is that that's what matters. Yes. We saw what we saw.

Four days later, he's on the field. We all saw what we saw then. And the process was obviously broken. They needed to do something to change. change it. They did something to change it. I'm with you. I don't care if it means a quarterback or whoever is going to miss time when he shouldn't have. That's fine. Overstep it in the long run. That's going to be the right move. But yes, that is totally separate from these calls that are being made that were terrible in terms of roughing the passer. One doesn't have anything to do with the other. Keep them separate.

You can discuss them both. You're right. We obviously know which one is more serious than the other. but I don't get lumping all those together. And everyone listening to this, you should follow Ben's lead there because he's absolutely right to keep them as separate issues. All right. I feel weird going to my next one

because that was a good one. That was a serious one. We're going all over the place, baby. We didn't even talk. I mean, that was a great game. Can we just take a minute? Fantastic game. Josh Jacobs?

How good did Josh Jacobs look? How about that throw from car to Adam? Three down back, Josh Jacobs, baby. Where he climbs the pocket. And Adams gets, and then, of course, you know, Mahomes and Kelsey, we can talk about pretty much any week. I mean, that offense just when you think, all right, the first three drives, hey, Rangers might have, oh, they blitzed on that third down. Oh, they didn't blitz on that third down.

They got home with four. Ooh, they might be giving them trouble. And then you know how it ends? Touchdown. Field goal. Touchdown. Touchdown. Touchdown.

You snap your fingers and they got 30. The Holmes was unbelievable on third down tonight, man. Every time you look up at the game, third and six, third and eight, third and seven, third and six, third and ten, third and eight. And every time, 12 yards, 14 yards, 16 yards, 12. It's got to be, it's got to be so frustrating. And then he gets to the red zone and throws a touchdown to the same dude four times in a row. Like, Trubon Merrick is a fine player.

He's a solid, okay player. Poor fella, man. I mean, it's just, you just know that Andy's just like kind of chucking under his mustache when he's just like talking to his giant laminated play. She's like, hey, we're going to run another play for Kelsey. Do you think they'll cover him this time? And they don't. That third and 15, Mahomes.

Who completes the pass for 36 yards on 3rd and 15? I mean, honestly, come on, that is disrespectful. At least make it like 16, 36 yards on 3rd and 15. We got Chief Spills next week. That's going to be fantastic. All right, I just wanted to make sure we gave that game a little more love other than the fourth down decision because there was a lot of fun football in that game. All right.

My second take here, the Giants win over the Packers was the most impressive single game coaching performance. seen yet this season. Whoa. Okay, this is good because I missed that game in terms of lives. I was in church. And then so I've only watched it back like condensed in on the all 22. So I haven't experienced the flow of the coaching. So I need this. This is like my first experienced like dable coaching. Let me hear it. Well, listen, measuring whether a coach is good or not is very difficult. We all change. I mean, we change our opinions all the time, week to week, month to month, year to year. In my simplest form, what I've clarified it to in my head is,

the coach doing more with less, is the coach doing less with more, or is it somewhere in between? And the Giants, I think by the time kickoff rolled around on Sunday morning, where nine-point underdogs, I believe they go into that game without their top four wide receivers from the beginning of the season. Daniel Jones is playing with an injured ankle. Saquan Barclay leaves the game briefly with the shoulder injury. I mean, if you look at the box score, you will see the names Gary Brightwell, Jamie Gillen, Chris Myerick, I feel bad. I don't even know if I'm pronouncing that correctly.

So, Gary Brightwell is from University of Arizona is a running back. Chris Myrick is... Jamie Gillen? I don't know anything on Jimmy Gillen. I'm a pass on Jimmy Gillen. Chris Myrick is a tight end

and he was at... He was at something like ACC school. Was that like Temple or something? He was like maybe South Florida. He was somewhere that you like watched on Thursdays. And I got nothing on Gillum for you. one and a half or three. Okay.

Yeah. That's not the clip we'll post on social media. I don't know if that specific segment there will go viral. But the point is they're playing with these guys who, I mean, Ben Solac doesn't know their full history, which is telling us something. The Packers, meanwhile, I think you line it up on paper. They've got a top 10 defense probably in terms of pure talent on paper.

And they got cooked. The Giants scored five straight possessions. If you look at it statistically, the Giants had the second best offensive performance of any team in week five. It was the Giants best offensive performance since 2019. If you go by EPA per drive, Daniel Jones is converting third down to Darius Slaten, which Darius Slaten is good? How come I think Jerry Slaten is good?

Is it a tease or what? The fact that they got all these other wide receivers in the building, and then they were like, man, we might have to trade or cut Darius Slate and like Slateon's not doing great in camp. Slate's just not our guy. And then it turns out that Slayton is as good as he's always looked when he's played in a regular season, NFL game is obnoxious. He's exactly what you want. And like a wide receiver four who can stretch the field, but also will like make a contested catch.

Like he's so perfectly cromulent. And the Giants are always like, what if Cadarius Tony's hamstrings work today? Come on, guys. Get the good player on the field. Why didn't anyone trade a day three pick for Darius Slate? All right. That's a subject for another day. Darius Slate and Richie James, Daniel Bellinger.

They tried stuff. I love when coaches are like, you know what, we're big underdogs here. We're going to have to think outside the box. They're running wildcat to Saquan Barkley. They've got the botched Philly special, but you know what? Bellinger just runs it in for a touchdown. You think Daniel Jones' ankle is injured. And then the third quarter rolls around.

They got a key third down. They're running QB draws with Daniel Jones. Catch the Packers completely off guard. They're scheming stuff up, this beautiful 41-yard catch and run to Saquan Barkley, where they take Quay Walker out of the play with another. Barthes wide open, makes a terrific move in the open field. Defensively, Wink Martindale, playing with backup cornerbacks. Listen, it's not like they shut them down the entire game, but they did a fantastic job.

Dori Jackson, their corner leaves the game. What's Wink Martindale going to do? We know. He's going to blitz. He's going to blitz some more. Aaron Rogers against the blitz. Nine for 17 for 70 yards against Wink Martindale's blitz. And so I just look at it.

I mean giant talent mismatch on paper, in my opinion. Specifically, the Giants offense against the Packers defense. And guess what? It didn't matter. The Giants moved the ball consistently, scored on those five straight possessions, get a key stop on defense at the end of the game. I'm not telling you that, you know, Dayball and Wink Martindale are going to be fantastic coaches and they're going to lead the Giants back to the promised land.

These things change from week to week. I could be ripping them next week. That's why I phrased this take the way I did. But in terms of single game coaching performance to win a game when you're down 17.3, all sorts of banged up and your nine point underdogs going into the game, I thought that was an outstanding job by them. And listen, I don't know that I've said a nice thing about the Giants since I started like podcasting a few years ago because there hasn't been many nice things to say.

That was a nice, nice job. And you should be excited about that win if you're a Giants fan. Yeah. the Daniel Jones running quarterback experience has been really good. And the fact that it continues to work without weapons around it, you know, you're dealing with like Richard James, Sterling Shepard's gone, like, Darius Lane's plugged in, you know, Seqwan's out, Gary Brightwell's in.

Like the fact that they can just kind of do this is a testament to how valuable that 11th man is, to how valuable that scrambling quarterback is. It's also cool because I've been thinking a lot recently about like college coaches to go to the NFL and, you know, the failure of, Matt Rule, the failure of Urban Meyer, the failure of Cliff Kingsbury, a lot of these recent guys who have very much struggled, Ryan Davel's an NFL air, but he spent that year coordinating the offense in Bama,

and that was the year that Jaylen Hertz was a starter for Bama, and she couldn't throw football. Just couldn't hit the broadside of the barn. They just didn't, they had the same, like, if you're grading on the college scale versus the NFL scale, they had the same quality of passing game with Hertz in college that they do with Jones and the Giants, right? We're like, three or four throws a game, you're like,

that works, and then the rest of it, you're like, this is not a good quarterback. He can't, this is not good. but when you're in the college ranks, you cheese stuff, a lot more in the NFL's, a lot more humility in college. It's like,

all right, if we can't do this, then we're going to run split back stuff. We're going to run single wing stuff. We're going to run triple option stuff. And then here he is in New York. Very clear messaging from Davele and from Joe Shane,

the general manager there. This is going to be a gap year. We're going to reset. We've got to reload this roster. We're going to let some talented players leave the building. And we're going to kind of try to handle this thing slowly. And yet here's Brian Dable with a 4-1 football team. and that's because he's willing to do creative stuff on offense.

A lot of it borrowed from his experience in Bama that other NFL coaches just wouldn't deign. They would just thumb their nose at the idea of running this sort of stuff. I think it's really cool to see. Yeah, take the players given to you and maximize your chances of winning. I mean, because I've seen some, take, you know, oh, it's not, you know, and I don't know if you have, I don't, do you have a Packers take coming today, do you? You had one last week you called that.

A Packers take last week, was that there's reason to be concerned. And I brought up the giant spread. And I said, do you think the Packers cover eight against the, Giants and guess what? You're right. It didn't cover eight. I was feeling good in the second quarter at 17.3, but I see some stuff when a team loses and a coach is getting crushed. And as well, the players aren't just executing. Line number one under a coach's description, get the players to execute. Like, if that's not part of your job, then what are you doing? So I don't buy that at all. And I do think their defensive coaching staff deserves to take some heat.

All right. What do you got? What's your next take? commanders. I still by instinct, go to say football team. I still want, I want to say it immediately, but that's not it. Washington commanders. Start Taylor Heineke. Listen, so Ron Rivera, for anybody who missed that, I don't know how you did, but if you did, Ron Rivera was asked, hey, like the other NFC East teams came to this really hot start. You guys didn't, what's the issue? Like, why, why have they jumped past you? Why are you so clearly the bottom dweller here? And

Ron Rivera went quarterback. And then he went on a longer answer, talking about how quarterback affects the rest of the other positions and how they're up and they're down and how they needed to work everywhere. And he gave a good coach speak answer, talking about kind of handling blame and everything. But he opened with quarterback. You traded for Carson Wentz. You traded for Carson Wentz with Taylor Heineke already in the building. And I'm not going to stand here and tell you that Taylor Heineke was a good quarterback. But you were six and six last year, almost in the driver's seat for the division.

And then you went on a four game losing streak that knocked you out. The Eagles surged past the Cowboys. you end up third in the division. He's played in a playoff game for you. He was the starter for you last year. He's in the building. He's cheap. You could have stayed with that.

You elected to go get Carson Wentz, knowing what is well known about Carson Wentz, which is that it didn't work for him in Philadelphia, and then it didn't work for him in Indianapolis with the coach for whom it had previously worked for him in Philadelphia. You had the information. And like, yeah, he was, you know, whatever he was, like 27 touchdowns to seven interceptions in India.

There were reasons to believe, okay, like this could be better. And there have been moments where it has been. Wentz played you back into the Jacksonville game. Downfield accurate shots of what got you your one long win a week one against Jacksonville. But also he threw a pick on the goal line against Tennessee with the game on the line. Welcome to the Carson Wentz experience. But you know this.

This is not a surprise. You don't get to act as if this is shocking. Well, firstly, Carson Wentz, as Taylor Heineke himself pointed out, it's making several million more dollars than Taylor Heineke is. So number one, you have the money on the guy and you want to justify the guy. Your issue is that if he plays over 70% of the snaps, the third round pick that you're setting to the Indianapolis Colts for Cars and Wentz, is this something that becomes a second round pick?

So if you're going to tell me your issue is quarterback, which I'm not sure I believe, Ron, who has been in Washington for three years now, who is not turning the team around, whose coordinator hires are not solving problems, whose defense is getting actively worse, whose first round picks and star players are getting upset, and his defensive line coaches getting fired during training camp, etc, et cetera, et cetera.

But let's say quarterback's the issue. Put your money where your mouth is, brother, because the Dallas Cowboys backup quarterback just played four games. They won all four. Daniel Jones did not get an extension. Daniel Jones is not going to be the quarterback of the Giants next year. Giants are four and one. You don't get to say quarterback

when the other three quarterbacks in the division are Jalen Hertz, Daniel Jones, and Cooper Rush. and if quarterback is the problem, then you have a guy with starting experience who has won new games. He's played in the playoffs. Again, I'm not going to say Heineke's like the next DAC, but like, why can't he be your Cooper Rush?

Put him in. A, keep the draft capital by not increasing the picker's Senate for Carson Wentz, and B, make the point that we think we can be competitive if we make the change of quarterback. Otherwise, it really just looks like you're naming somebody who isn't you. And that's a time.

Look, Ron, because I think Rivera's a good coach. And I think that, like, the answer within context was a good answer. But that one-line zinger of, like, quarterback, which, by the way, quarterback is the guy that we chose to bring here to replace our incumbent, it feels like he's diving for cover. And I don't love that feeling in Washington after just one month of football. I had two immediate thoughts, and I didn't know that you were going to bring this up. I'm glad you did.

One, you said you think Ron Rivera is a good coach. Are we sure Ron Rivera is a good coach? Are we sure Ron Rivera is not just there because he's a likable guy. He seems like a good person. He's somebody who can be the leader of your franchise when you have a despicable owner and you have all kinds of bad PR month after month, year after year. You can't win and you need someone out there to just stand in front of the media, to build good relationships, be a respectable person.

Because to me, that seems to be what Ron Rivera's role is. I mean, the last time Ron Rivera has been a head coach every year. for a while now, the last time he had a winning record was 2017. I mean, you know, this will be the fifth straight season, most likely that his team finishes under 500. Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying Ron Rivera, we know what issue number one is in Washington. It couldn't be any more obvious that it starts at the top with an owner who, you know,

most people, including myself, would be happy if he were not the owner anymore. And they had to move on. And I know Washington fans would be happy if that was the case too. but, you know, until that happens. So that's my take on Rivera. It's just like he's a placeholder. You know, does anybody who wants to work there and you can stick him out there? And then, you know, you're right about the kind of just throwing Wentz under the bus.

Don't get me wrong. I criticized the Wentz trade at the time. I said all offseason. Do not overpay for competence this offseason. That's the last thing you need to do in this quarterback landscape. You can go sign a Teddy Bridgewater. You can sign these guys for under $10 million on a one-year contract. You don't give up draft capital for Carson Wentz and pay him $27 million.

Are you nuts? Everyone knew that was nuts at the time. You had to be crazy to think that he's going to go from Doug Peterson and the Eagles to Frank Rike in the Colts. And then your unstable franchise is going to all of a sudden get a version of Carson Wentz that no one else could get. No, that is irrational thinking. And so now to throw him under the bus and he hasn't played well, he's made mistakes,

you know what? Your defense is sucked. your defense since the start of last season through the first five games of this season is 24th in the NFL in EPA per drive. I mean, you're a defensive coach. Give me a break here. It's your job to hire the coordinators, like you said, on both sides of the ball. I don't think that Wenz trade is being made without any of your input. You were defending him all offseason, all preseason. I know you have to do that because the guy's on your team, but I thought it was sincere. I thought it was genuine. So, yeah, I don't think that's a good look by him. If you're a commander's fan,

You're just like another season down the tubes. Our owner sucks. We have no quarterback. We don't have an answer to coach. And it's just like, why even bothered to keep paying attention to this team? Okay. Is Ron a very good coach? Probably not in the dictionary definition of good.

He's okay. He's fine. Relative to the active detriment, some coaches are on their team. I think Ron is acceptable. And then, yes, everything else I agree with. But Ron Rivera, I'm okay with me saying he's a good coach. I feel all right with that. I don't feel great about it currently, but I feel okay with it.

You would easily be able to name, I would say, 10 to 15 coaches if I handed you an NFL franchise right now who you would rather have than Ron Rivera. But you're right. You would also probably be able to name 10 who you would rather have Rivera over. So I think that's fair. Who I would run away from. Yes. So I think that's fine.

He's the middle tier. Ron Rivera is the Kirk Cousins of head coaches. It's just I know everybody was above you and I know everybody who's below you. Oh, that should have been the take, Ben. I know. I know I want the guys that are better than you. I don't want the guys below you, and I'm just not really sure what I should do with you precisely.

Oh, that's so good. And I think that's 100% accurate. Yes, he's not going to make a difference, but you're going to watch some football on Sunday and go, all right, I'd rather have him than this guy, this guy, and this guy. All right, that was well said. We can bring that back. And, like, you know, in week 14, you bring it back.

Ron Rivera is the Kirk Cousins of Coaches. No one will remember. You said it. In week five, it can just be a brand new take. My last one, I think you're going to disagree with me on because you wrote about this team. And I feel like I'm going out on a limb here. Let's see if I can convince myself. I think the Los Angeles Rams are going to figure things out.

No, you're absolutely not. I think the Rams are a case of, listen, they're playing terrible right now. I'm not denying that. I'm not saying anything's fluky about it. The numbers are horrendous. They've scored 19 points in the last two weeks. They're 30th in EPA per drive ahead of. of only the Panthers and the Colts.

Let me say that again, ahead of only the Panthers and the Colts. This is not where you want your offense to be. They had two big plays against the Cowboys and were a disaster the rest of the way. This is where I try to remind myself, it's Week 5 Shield. The Chiefs were two and three last year after week five.

The 49ers were two and three last year after week five. Okay. And I like to lean into the, the infrastructure. And to me, Sean McVeigh had a quote, you know, we talk on this show about coaches who don't understand what their job is. And this gave me some confidence that Sean McVe knows what his job is. He said, we have to figure out what do our guys do best. And if that means shifting the identity of some of the things that maybe we've done here, that's our job as coaches. That's right. That is your job as coaches. Sean McVeigh has produced top 10 offenses

without top 10 talent before. They were, they've been in the top 10, four of his five seasons with the Rams, three of those seasons were with Jared Gough, not all of those teams were loaded. Granted, they didn't have the issues on the offensive line that this team does, but I trust him enough to maximize the talent at his disposal as long as Stafford is healthy enough, as long as Cooper Cup is still there. I think they're going to figure some things out here. A couple points before I can see you're just, you're waiting to just rip into me.

So let me get my points out at first. they're turning the ball over on 23.5% of their possessions. That's 32nd in the NFL. That is not something that is sustainable for even the worst offenses we've ever seen in the history of the NFL. They're not going to turn the ball over at that clip. The other thing I like to look at,

red zone efficiency. They're terrible in the red zone right now. 28th in the red zone. If they get to just like a league average in those two categories, in those high leverage situations, all of a sudden, the offense is going to look a little bit better. The other thing is, let's look at some of these teams they've played.

I mean, they've played arguably, you know, three of the top five defenses in the NFL, in the Bills, the 49ers, and the Cowboys. They're playing those three teams in a spot in the RAM schedule where they have no answers up front, where they're just plugging guys in and trying to figure things out. That is brutal to face those three teams in a span of five games. And then the last thing is just this team is not going to sit tight. Like, they're not just going to say, if their offense continues to, the struggle. They're not just going to go into the second half of the season with these guys. We know

how they operate. They are in win now mode. So whether that's signing OBJ, whether that's adding an offensive lineman or two, whether it's adding a different wide receiver, whether it's adding a running back. I mean, they will make moves not just at the deadline before the deadline. They are a win now team. And so for those reasons, it really starts with having faith in McVeigh. And I can't tell you schematically. I'm sure you'll have some thoughts on this, what it should look like, what will give them the best chance to succeed. But I feel like whatever that formula is, he's going to figure it out.

I'm not telling you they're going to win the Super Bowl. I do think they're still going to be like a 10-win team. They're still going to make the playoffs. And they're going to have moments in December where we're saying, oh, remember when we faded the Rams back in week five, although they've definitely figured some things out now. All right. Tell me why I'm wrong.

I don't have anything schematically that they can do. So that's number one, which like the fact that Ben Solac can't come up with like this, schematic solutions is not like, oh, so Sean McVeigh probably can't. Let's not like equate those things. Oh, you know what? Real quick. At first, I thought you're going to go the other way. I thought you're going to be like, if Ben Solek can't come up with schematic solutions, your team is in trouble. That would have been better. That's what it is. That's what the conception that I want to like, you know, dispute is like, all right, like, I don't really know what they should do schematically. But I don't know what like 25 teams should be doing schematically. And like coaches are good at their jobs. But McVeigh is very clearly.

trying to do and tapping into a lot of the stuff that Kyle Shanahan was doing in 2021 in terms of like Cubs in the backfield a lot right now and running routes out of the back field and they got a fullback on the field and they're adding the extra guy and they're going a dot in the eye and going under center and everything like that and it's like okay you're doing the Kyle stuff but Kyle had speed on the field. Debo, I, you kiddle, you shit could play. They got Ben Scaronic on the field. Yeah. Ben Scaronic, which, yeah, I'm sorry, Ben, but it's just not.

good. It's just not. He was a UDFA. He was a Northwestern transfer to Notre Dame. He's just not the prototype of a player you want taking a majority of the snaps, which he is. He's taking over 70% of the snaps for the Rams on offense right now, let alone in a McVeigh offense, like, he has to maximize space. He has to be useful catching the ball, turning up field, and running. And that's, that's, that's, that's, that's, there's always going to be a predicated on yak. That's just not the case. So, number, like, schematically, like, Sean's doing the updated McVeigh-Shane offense stuff, and they're nowhere. So that's number one.

Number two, you cannot hide this level of offensive line injury. It can't be done. There are not enough. You would be running one dude on a route and protecting with nine if you wanted to really truly hide. You can't, there's not enough play action, there's not enough motion, and there's not enough, you know, this, and then full slide, and then we move the guy out of the pocket and everything, especially with a quarterback like Safford, who just isn't mobile.

There is, there are so many ways to account for so many injuries. And like when you have like a star left tackle who goes down, you figure it out, when you have like a star guard, a center goes and you figure it out, when you just have Logan Bruss and Shulman Colton's done and the, I can't remember everybody's names at this point. They had another guy go down. When you have this level of interior injuries to the point where like everybody is changing constantly. Nobody is playing next to the same dude they were playing with last week. You are not going to find the necessary continuity to, A, run the football, which is the number one way

to stop a pass rush to run football, and then two pass protect. They cannot pick up a stunt. Day two defensive line installed. You go to this gap, you wrap around and go to that gap. They can't do it. The Niners rush for and the Cowboys Rush for, all they did was run games, and the interior cannot handle it. It doesn't go away.

You have to have the same players playing with, first with a functional skill set, which I'm not sure some of the players do. And secondly, playing next to each other for long enough to figure that out. It's reps. It can't be, you can't install it on Tuesday, and they just don't have the stability. The turnovers, we know who Matthew Stafford is. Matthew Stafford led the league in interceptions last year. That was the Super Bowl year.

That was the year we won. That was the OBJ year. That's not going away. Matt Stafford is a high interception quarterback. You are one of three things you're a quarterback. You are high interceptions, you are high sacks, or you're high throwaways. and he's a high interception quarterback. That's not leaving.

Yes, but high interception rate in the NFL is like 3%. It's not 23% of your drives. But I do agree with you. It might not come all the way back to league average, but it's not going to be as bad as it's been through five weeks. And then last but not least, and this is the thing that I wrote about, is like, let's say you cheese the offensive line.

And let's say that, like, Stafford gets interception numbers back down to, like, regular career numbers. And let's say, like, Sean figures out what he wants to hit schematically. You're still throwing a ton of passes to Ben Skoronic, Ben Jefferson when he comes back, Tyler Higvey, Darrell Henderson. It's just not a good skill position group.

It's Alan Robinson, who Alan just does not look, he hasn't looked good for a couple years. He just looks old. He doesn't look like you have the juice. You remember what Alshan looked like when his time came with the Eagles. You go from being like,

I'm a contested catch guy, but I've got enough to, I just got enough. I'm always covered. I always need an accurate ball. I always need a contested ball. Besides Cup, They do not have Jews at the skill position players

and nobody is coming. Like sure, the offseason trade maybe like the midseason trade. Go spend multiple day two picks on DJ more. Sure. Like I guess so and you just kind of like run in front of here. But you still have the offensive line. OBJ, what if OBJ is just back for the second half of the season?

OBJ, I would love for O'Dell to look good coming off of his third major knee injury in four years. But I will believe that exactly when I'm. I see it. There's no, the team not have juice. They do not have juice on the skill positions. They don't have juice in the offensive line. However, juice is encapsulated on the offensive line.

They don't have that. And schematically, they don't have juice. So many things have to get back in line for this offense to take off. I will be fading the Rams every week until I see it. I see it happen. I had this take already. And then I looked at their schedule and I thought about withdrawing it from the show because, man, they've still got the Niners.

They've still got the box. They've still got the Chiefs. They've still got the Packers. They've got the Chargers. So they've got some winnable games the rest of the way, but it doesn't all of a sudden fall off a cliff where they're facing all easy teams here. All right. What do you got?

Panthers this week, baby. With the interim head coach, Juice. PJ Walker. The bump. Spoiler alert. What do you got? What's the third take? All right.

It's time for heresy. You ready? Just straight blaspheming. Okay. I started in this career in 2016. By 2018, I was doing like, mostly Eagles coverage and draft coverage, but obviously you're like watching the league and whatever. That was the first year Mahomes started.

That was his all-pro year. And that was the year where Mahomes started playing. And like, I won't test your memory on like which throws came in which season. But that was just when every single week, if you speak a jump pass on third and 19 to Miko Hardman, throw with his left hand. the Tyreek Hill. Like, it was just, this was when it started. Like, that was the craze.

That was when, like, every social media account posted every single Patrick Mahomes throw. It was like, this is the greatest throw of all time. And fans got livid because they fight their quarterbacks and start up there. And it was a great time. But that was the dawn. That was the, the groundbreaking. That was we are in a new era, baby.

This is a different cat. And at the time, we all knew there was never, ever, ever, not a chance, not a snowballed chance in hell that there was going to be another Patrick Mahomes. There isn't, but the throws that Josh Allen are making are as incredible as those throws. Josh Allen is making harder, better throws more consistently this year than I've ever seen him make. When he hit the first long touchdown to Gabriel Davis against the Chiefs that wildcard game, it was Goku-Go and Super Saint. It just unlocked the thing we had never seen before.

We thought there were 10 levels, and there was just an 11th level. It was just a secret boss at the end of the game. And since that moment, like, he just, he transformed into a different beast. Like, it's like the Kobe commercial. Like, are you the same animal but a different beast? Like, he just became a different Josh Allen and he's just never, ever, ever going back. The first, the 98-yard Gabe Davis touchdown throw against the Steelers, he is hitching to his left into contact.

There is a unabated Steelers linebacker coming into his body. He doesn't even remotely change his frame, change. just done anything. And he is not connected to the ground when he releases the ball. 45 yards in a bucket. In a bucket, shield, over a safety. The second Gabriel Davis touchdown

is not open. It's not allowed. You can't throw it. It's Minka Fitzpatrick. It's the one dude. You don't test. And Mika ate Josh's lunch. Mika mugged Josh.

for 60 minutes in week one last year. And you don't think Josh Allen knew that and remember that and saw Minko one-on-one with Gabe and said, I'm about to heat-check the living daylights out of this throw and put it on the money, 55-year-olds down the... It's... Josh Allen has been making incredible throws since the day he came into the league.

That was the whole selling point. And over time, he's made more and more incredible throws and fewer and fewer knucklehead throws. And it's evolved him not just into like, oh, he can start, but like he's one of the most games. changing airman quarterbacks ever. But because of Mahomes, because of the gravity around him, because of the fact that he's a walking highlight reel,

and because when that happened, we all agreed cumulatively as a football-consuming public in media, well, he's one of one. That'll never be replicated again. It is easy to miss that the season Josh is Allen's having right now and the throws that he's hitting are throws that no other quarterback hits. And that is, it doesn't mean, I don't care what it means about the bill's season. I don't care what it means about the bill's scheme or, you know, whatever, legacy or whatever.

It's just so fun. I watched the first Gabriel Davis touchdown today 14 times. It's just incredible to see. I don't think it's blasphemous. I thought you were going to come with something. I was going to get a chance to really rip into you. I feel like I haven't had enough opportunities to do that here. But no, I don't think it's blasphemous when you look at the kind of, if you're

you know, if you take the top 10 throws of each guy, you know, whether it's just Josh Allen this year or Patrick Mahomes that year throughout the course of their career, that high level of play. That's why that playoff game last year was so fun because they can do, whether you like other quarterbacks or not, no one can do it quite like those two guys can do it. The degree of difficulty, the jaw dropping ones, the ones that get circulated on Twitter where someone's got the perfect angle. The bills posted out, was it the bills who posted the angle of the Josh Allen one from like behind? I mean, that was just a beautiful thing to us. So the first Gabe Davis touchdown, they posted it like as if you were like laying down at the low post. That was awesome. And it's just not human.

It's just of a different galaxy, man. Nobody else is doing this. Yeah, it was fantastic. I mean, if you need to go take a shower while I do the final extra point taken, go ahead. I mean, you were really. That was good. I have nothing else to add. I liked how excited you got.

Second and 19 against the dolphins, Isaiah McKenzie. The second hit that throw is like, oh, yeah. We talked about that one already. This is going to be for 18 weeks, man. It's just going to be me watching Buffalo film when I'm supposed to be doing something else.

And finding some play I saw the broadcast, just being like, what in God's name is this man thinking? He's, he's, it is, like, the nut of the take is, we should not let the home's specialness just decrease our appreciation for and our acknowledgement for the fact that Josh Allen, man, who at Wyoming could not throw a stick route, it's just out here putting the ball wherever he wants, whenever he wants with reckless abandon. And it's so, so pretty, man. It's so pretty. And next week we get to watch them both, right, on the same field.

So I'm sure we'll be talking about this again next Monday night. All right. My extra point taken, we had our first coach fired today, Matt Rule fired by the Carolina Panthers. And so now the Carolina Panthers will be looking for a new coach. And so for my extra point taken, I wanted to leave David Tepper with a couple

rules to follow David Tepper. Now, I usually write this as a column. The Shioca Pottia rules for hiring coaches. Well, I'll flush him out in January when more teams are looking. But I feel like the two that really apply

to Tepper here. Number one, don't fall in love. David. Okay. I remember the reports of Matt Rule. Oh, my gosh, David Tapper wouldn't take note for an answer. I mean, this guy and it was seen as like, oh, my gosh, what a, you know, tremendous businessman. This guy can close deals. That's not really what you want to do. You gave the guy a six-year contract. You still do $40 million. I don't care. That's your money. I'm sure it's, you know, you're not going to face many hardships from that. So it's not that big of a deal. But you had to give up, you know, control of the 53-man roster. Don't be so arrogant to think that this is.

like an easy process where, oh, my, this guy is absolutely the guy and we have to just give up whatever he wants and hand him the keys and he's going to lead us to the promise land. Because that's kind of what you did last time. And here you are with really one of the most embarrassing franchises in the NFL right now. And you totally whiff on that higher. So just like, we know you guys read the media reports and are looking at the hot coaches list and that's kind of how you go about it. And then you say, oh, this guy would be fun to go to lunch with.

Yeah, let's hire him. So just chill out a little bit with that. But the big one, make sure you have someone who has a plan on how to build an efficient offense. Okay. That either needs to be a plan to find a play caller who gives you an edge or a quarterback who gives you an edge. Through three years of the Matt Rule era, you had neither. He hired Joe Brady, then he fired Joe Brady and blamed Joe Brady. Then there's the remember the funny report that he needs to find a.

Rockstar offensive coordinator. And then Ben McAdo walks in as his offensive coordinator. And that feels no plan at quarterback. You signed Teddy Bridgewater to a three year, but was it $63 million deal? You decide he's not good enough after year one. Then you trade for Sam Darnold. That doesn't work out.

Then, I mean, you get Baker Mayfield, which it really, you know, you're not giving him a trade for Sam Darnold. Matt Corral. Trade up for Matt Corral. That's the, that's the kicker. Yeah. You already gave up a. pick for next year for Matt Corral.

Like, offensive efficiency is how you sustain success in the NFL. I know you're saying, we know that. It's hard to do. I agree. It's hard to do. But whoever you hire better have a better plan than Matt Rule had on how to do that. And so those are the two main ones. And then the third one,

the coach has to be able to fill out a strong staff. I mean, I just mentioned it with Brady and McAdoo. Like, they had no plan on the offensive side of the ball. Phil Snow, I thought, did a good job on the defensive side of the ball. But the head coach can suck. if he can bring in good people on his staff. I mean, really, it's the most important thing.

They're doing all the work, and he can just give the press conference, and you can go golf with him, you know, and so he makes you feel involved, and people around the building, they like him. Guess what? That probably put him in the upper echelon of NFL head coaches. So you don't have to always look for a home run, but make sure that is another prerequisite that you need to look for.

That Panthers team is kind of interesting, You know, they've got some talent, certainly. They've got some young players on both sides of the ball. If you can be in a situation, and I think firing Phil Snow increases their chances of really having a top, top two, top three pick here. It might not be the longest turnaround. So let's see what David Tepper does this year,

but just wanted to finish by giving him some advice. Yeah, I would say my last piece of advice to David Tepper would be this. Fire sale is okay. I think that, you know, if you move on from Robbie and, Anderson, DJ Moore, Christian McCaffrey. But why are we giving up on young players? See, I see this everywhere. If you have young players, okay, sorry, finish.

Young players under contract, I don't understand why you'd give up on him. To me, right? To me, it's first contract versus second contract, right? Like, DJ Moore is a young player, but he's also on the second contract, right? And so now it's like, if you move off of him, you're getting cap space that you can then turn into somebody who, like, the new coaching staff is committed to and kind of, you know, you expect that cat money to be better allocated hypothetically, right? That's kind of, you know, that's a multi-step process.

the thing about the young players, right, is this. Like, I was like poking around Brian Burns today and I was like, wow, I would trade my entire life for Brian Burns. And I'm sure teams will attempt to. Yeah. You have a chance to get a really, really good staff in the building with a selling point of that defense. There are a lot. And like, I don't think you should hire a defensive head coach. I know that's against the shield cup lot of rules.

No, that's not again. You can as long as they have a plan for the offense. Right. But I tell you, if there are. are defensive-minded people who want to take on play-calling responsibilities as the defensive coordinator and like they're good guys or their defense coordinator so they want to ship up to head coach. Ryan Burns,

Derek Brown, Shaq Thompson, Jeremy Chin, Jay C. Horn. They'll line up. You fell bass backwards into it. Don't get me wrong.

But you have a selling point right there. So fire sale, I don't mind. Get the midseason trade deadline going. Let Scott Fitterer, do the Seattle thing, get some picks. I love it.

Great. I wouldn't touch that defense. I would let a lot of those young players stay right there, and then I would call up on Domingo Ryan's in San Francisco and say, see, these guys can play a little bit. And you have an opportunity for a quick springboard, because that defense can be very good, very fast if you retain those pieces. That will get me excited if I were a Panthers fan,

D. Miko Ryan's top three pick. Mika. I have a quarterback. I wouldn't, yeah, DJ Moore. I'm not, you know, DJ Moore. Brian Burns, like, these guys are in there. It's hard to find Pro Bowl level. level talents.

The irresponsible swiftness with which I would bet on Brian Burns who and defensive player of the year of D'Amico Ryans for the head coach of the Carolina Panthers. Just immediately, I'm just right there. Absolutely, I bought it. Yeah, Pro Bowl caliber players in their mid-20s, I would just say, unless there's some big issue,

you have them under contract, or someone's giving you a wild offer, like you mentioned, then you listen to all of them. But those aren't the guys you really need to get rid of. So we will see what the Panthers do. All right. Thank you to Ben Solek. A reminder, I've got the Thursday show, The Scramble. You can email me, the Scramble Mailbag at gmail.com. We answer those questions every week.

I'll have Nora Prenciotti joining me this week. If you have a question for us, again, email the Scramble Mailbag at gmail.com. I would love to hear from you. Ben, anything to plug quickly? I'm on the island with Nora tomorrow, talking a little college coaches going to the NFL and how we should never ever do that again. See, I disagree on that. So I'll have to listen and maybe we'll get into that. You like hiring college coaches? Well, I think it's much more... Name a one that's worked. Jim Harbaugh?

Name a more recent one that's worked. Chip Kelly went to the playoffs. You need to look at the sample of all coaches. I can point to you, I can point to you all NFL coaches who suck and are terrible. Joe Judge, Matt Patricia, oh yeah, go to the NFL well. There's not one place to find.

So let's hold this. Let's get into this next week. I'll listen. I'm going to. to listen to you on the island and then I'm going to make that one of my takes next uh next week here we're already we're only going to have this argument like weekly podcast format just never speak about it the other days I like that all right uh Tuesday on this feed you'll get the power anchors Jason golf and Austin Gail thank you to Chris Sutton for producing additional production supervision by

Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal we will talk to you soon on the ringer NFL feed