The Ringer NFL Show - Bold Predictions for the 2027 NFL Season | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: May 10, 2024

Sheil and Ben get together to peer into the crystal football and foretell what they think will be the most likely scenarios around the NFL in three years. Throughout their conversation they speculate on future champions and hypothetical personnel moves before Sheil offers valuable parenting advice to Ben as he rides off into his summer paternal leave (51:48). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Chris Sutton Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Social: Eduardo Ocampo and Kiera Givens Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. I wanted to tell you about the launch of our new YouTube channel. It's called Ringer Movies. You can follow us right now on YouTube at Ringer Movies to get full video episodes of the rewatchables and the big picture. Plus, a lot of our archives with much more coming soon. To celebrate the launch, we're going live on Monday, May 13th at noon Pacific with our first ever live rewatchables with me and Sean Fennessee and Chris Ryan and Vian Lathen. Follow ringer movies on YouTube so you don't miss at YouTube.com slash ringer movies. Welcome to Extra Point Taking.

Shield Capati here joined by Ben Solac. Fun exercise today. I remember doing this last year, Solac. I remember enjoying it last year where we look three years out. We're looking to the year 27. What is the NFL going to look like? That's all the parameters we give. It could be predictions, storylines.

A little fanfic. That's the word, right? Is that a little fanfic? Fan fiction, yeah. I hope we aren't fans and this isn't fiction. But other than that, yeah. You know, you just tell a story. You tell a story and you see what happens there.

So that's the show today. And then, of course, Solek, this is your last extra point taken for a while before you head out to paternity leave. So I thought, you know what? I got to do the old uncle thing and give you some dad advice. So we'll finish the show with that in the final. segment. Yeah, and also your last, no, not your last show. When are you, you're from June? Yeah, no, I'll be doing Ringer NFL show with our wonderful colleagues for the next, next stretch here, yes. All right. Well, I just want to make, I'm trying to figure out how much

FOMO I need to have, and that's not too much FOMO. I'll be okay. Yeah, that's not too much. Yeah, so that's what the feed will look like. So you won't have extra point takens in your feed for a while, but the Ringer NFL feed will still be going. It will be me. It will be our wonderful colleagues that you know and love. So be sure to check that out, starting on Monday. We're going to do a show Monday will be the next show. All right, Solac, start us off. What do you got? I was trying to remember I was from last year. I couldn't really remember them, and that's

probably a good thing. I predicted that Shanahan was going to be the head coach of the Rams in the next three years. I think I predicted that we would have a Canadian franchise at some point in the next three years. I was full firing the big guns. I'm trying to come in a little bit lighter this time. A little bit softer. Look a little bit less silly.

Oh, not me. I'm going bigger in this one. When the time capsule opens. Okay. My first take, which I didn't think, or my first prediction, I should say, which I didn't think I was going to have until the light bulb kind of went off for me during last week's pod, where we were talking about your Super Bowl prediction. And then you asked me for mine, I was just swimming through the teams really quick. Time capsule won. I think within the next three seasons, the Houston Texans are winning a Super Bowl. That's my first projection. Now, if I were being smart about this, I'd be taking an NFC team, right? Get away from the homes, get away from Al and

get away from Lamar Jackson. That'd be like, you know, the higher percentage, but when I go and think about teams that I just think are built best for the next three years, right? Just that window. Man, Houston's in just a delightful spot. They are in the ideal, like, optimal spot in terms of what we understand about healthy team building. Put aside the, like, if you have Mahomes

and you get through whatever you want and you're going to be in the AFC championship game of it all, Houston is guaranteed to have three cheap years of quarterback play, right? C.J. Stroud is 8.2 million this year. 9.9 million next year and 11.5 the following year. You and I have done the C.J. Stroud Jordan Love conversation quite a bit. You lean a little bit more on the love side of things. I lean a little bit more on the Stroud side of things. I think Stroud vaunted himself into the conversation of top 10 quarterbacks last season. I think he's going to belong there

for the next few seasons. They have young stars across the board, right? They have a Nico Collins who can be that star receiver for them that teams need. They have Will Anderson, who's the first, their second first round pick last year, who has defensive rookie of the year caliber play and has that double digit sack sort of caliber, that takeover caliber. They have Derek Stingley, who's a tricky player to talk about the corner

because he was the third overall pick. And then the fourth overall pick was Soss Gardner, who also plays corner and might be the best corner in the league. So it feels like Stingley is like kind of a disappointment. But if you just watch Stingley and forget about where he was drafted and who went immediately after him, that's a corner one, right? That is a premier position.

A guy was able to match against the wider. your ones and go. So you have the young cornerstones. C.J. Strad, who I think very clearly in that game against Cleveland shows you, like, all right, this guy can win playoff games for you. Like, this guy's that caliber of individual. You have the other young cornerstones on the roster. You have D. Miko Ryans who just, like, I think everybody listens to the show knows how about D.Mico is a coach. Like, since he was the D.C. of the 49ers. Like, this is just, I think he's as good of a defense coach to be having the league right now in terms of what he does schematically, in terms of the energy,

in terms of the adjusting for opponent. Like, if you're making me ride with one particular defensive coach to win a game for me, especially against like an elite quarterback, I think the list of guys I would take over D'Amico is very, very short and has been shortening for years now. So I believe in Stroud, I believe in D'Amico. And then this offseason for Nick Casario showing you, hey, like, I'm going to make the move for Stefan Diggs.

I'm going to make the move for Joe Mixon. I'm going to make the move for Geneal Hunter over John Bernard. Like, we are going to try to punch up this roster with impactful veterans who are available right now who we know are positive players while we're on the Stroud young deal such that if it doesn't work in 24 and they don't win a Super Bowl in 24, maybe they move on from Deggs and they move on from Mix and all of a sudden they're just cycling new names in here. It's getting another star receiver and going to get an impact defensive tackler or figuring out what to do with all this extra money that C.J. Stroud and its competitive advantage is giving

you. I just think when I think about teams that are set well for the next three years, it's like one chiefs without question because of Mahomes. And then after that, it becomes a conversation. Like I think the Texans might be like two or three. Like they are up there for that. And so I buy it. I know rookie contract quarterbacks, not always winning Super Bowls. I know defensive head coaches,

not always winning Super Bowls. I know AFC, tougher road to hoe. But if I'm big in a one team, next three Super Bowls, you're giving me a dark horse team and non-Chiefs, non-niner's to win it. Yeah, I'm taking the Houston Texans. Yeah, I'm with you on Strout.

I'm with you on Demico Ryan's. The roster moves this offseason, I need to think about a little bit more. I can't say that I looked at all those and were like they knocked it out of the park. I understand the thinking behind it. I like being aggressive. I like trying to take swings while you have C.J. Stroud on a rookie contract.

Trading that for Diggs and then ripping up the contract. I mean, for a wide receiver that age, certainly you can poke holes in that move. The Joe Mixon trade, you can certainly addition. You can put holes in that move trading Grenard, the younger player for Dineal Hunter and giving him a bigger contract. I can say I would like the other side on that. I'm kind of a, like, check back with me in August when I look at the whole thing and, you know, have my whole assessment of, all right, what I think these teams are going to do this year.

But yeah, I mean, the bottom line is if you just like, we like to do all this other analysis, if we just did like coach quarterback rankings, that would probably lead us to good places with a lot of these takes. And I think CJ Stroud, D'Amico, right, if you throw offensive line in there, like, if you did just, I wonder what it would look like. If you just ranked all the quarterbacks, coaches, an offensive line, you rank them all and just do your, here's who are, all right, I'm going to do that. And then I'm going to decide which teams I think are going to be good. You'd probably end up in a good place.

And I think they got that at a really high level. I will say with the individual moves of the Texans, I agree with you. I think like Daniel Hunter had his money over John Grenard. Like, I wouldn't have hated if they went the other direction. I liked the Stefan Diggs trade. I saw the restructure on the contract. I was kind of like, I'm not, I wasn't as big a fan of that as I was.

And then Joe Mixing's like, all right, you know, get a trade for Joe Mixing. He's going to be cut anyway. like you feel better by your backfield, but you just made Devin Singletary works, like how impactful is that? So each individual move I agree with you. I'm not like,

this is it. They're over the hump, but it is the philosophy indicated by the moves, right? It is the understanding indicated by the moves where like everybody who was on the Texans last year who made the drink go, who kind of like, you know,

who made the system run, was like a drafted and developed player, some before Casario's time, others otherwise, and then also Laramette Tunsell, you know, two first round picks and whatever. There's always a world

where once you get that young rookie quarterback in, you as a GM can say, all right, like, we're just going to coast on this and like we're going to continue to draft and develop like, oh, long-term health, whatever. But really,

what I truly believes to be optimal is when you have years two, three, and four, you know the guys good from year one. You have years two, three, and four. And those years are all really cheap. It is optimal to take some big swings, right? And even if, like, I don't love

the way that the Diggs trade and the Diggs contract fell out, there's still a world where Diggs is a 1,300-yard receiver next year. And that is a very big deal. Like, I know, there's some people who are like, oh, what about Tankdale? Buddy, Tankdale and got a Stefan Diggs ceiling.

I'm sorry, he just doesn't. Like, it's a different cat. You know, there's a world where Danielle Hunter goes and has the 14 sacks season that John Grenard hopes to eventually have, but we know that Daniel Hunter can do it. And we've seen it. So it is the time to take some larger swings. Even if like those moves in a vacuum, it's like, okay, like how much risk, how much reward? Like, this isn't like an A plus knockout of the park move.

It's just inviting those higher ceilings is what you need to do when you have the money to spend. have the young quarterback to build around. I love Stroud. I feel like this offseason. I like him even. Is he the most likable quarterback in the NFL? I mean, you get him in little snippets. You know, he did a great video with our friend Nate Tice at the Super Bowl,

the Micah Parsons clip that was going around. I don't know if you saw that one where there. I'm like, I love this guy. Like, I want to hang out with this guy. He seems very fun and normal. He was cooking on draft coverage. He was unreal. I was going to take my job.

Ringar NFL draft show next year, CJ Stroud. He clearly watched guys. And he was like, oh, you know, he does this for this. And that the other reason?

C.J. Strauss out here, scow in in his off time. He loves ball. He's the man. Great personality. I always fear that sometimes you get the young quarterback, great personality, and then the league kind of gets to him, and then they turn into a weirdo. Like, you generally don't have normal, likable quarterbacks in the NFL, even the great ones. C.J. Stroud is on that path.

So stay normal. C.J. Stroud. Stay likable. All right. Texans are in a great spot. All right, my first one. I told you, I went a little wacky with mine. So let's go right now. All right, here's a headline you're going to read in 2027.

Prescott McVeigh set to take one last shot together. You're saying, Sheal, how did we get here? What are you talking about? Prescott McVeigh, all right, so here's how we got there. 2024 season doesn't go well for the Cowboys or the Rams. Matthew Stafford battles through some injuries. They missed the playoffs. He says, I'm 37 years old.

I'm banged up. It's been a great career. I'm going to retire. Okay, so Stafford's out. Cowboys, meanwhile, good. regular season. They win 11 games, but guess what? Playoffs come around again. They're out in the first round. Dak Prescott looks around. He says, I'm tired of the Cowboys lowballing me and not treating me like these other quarterbacks in the NFL who their teams are rushing to sign them at the top of the

market. And they're telling me I should be happy to be a Dallas Cowboy. You know what? I'm testing the free agent market. He's got a no tag class. There's nothing the Cowboys can do about it. We've talked about this a bunch. He says, all right, I'm going to go to test it. You know, he said, but before that, I'm going to go a vacation, you know, go to Cabo for a week here. He runs into Sean McVeigh. They happen to be staying at the same posh resort. It's purely coincidence. Just like when McVeigh ran into Stafford and Cabo back in the day, it was purely... The classic. The classic coincidence. People don't talk enough about how Stafford and McVeigh started the same way we started, where we bumped into each other in Cabo. We were spending our offseason in Cobo United Shield.

Oh, what we got together for a pot? It's crazy who you bump into when you're just hanging out in Cabo. I agree. When I I'm just chilling in Cabo. It's wild. It's unreal. I have stories. Yeah, we'll save that for an off season pie. They have a couple of drinks.

They discuss the idea of teaming up. You know, McVeigh tells them, I can give you what Mike McCarthy never could. Prescott's intrigued, but the money's got to be right. McVeigh texts less need. Less need runs it by ownership. Everyone's on board. They say, we're going to make Dak Prescott the highest paid quarterback in the NFL,

and there's nothing Jerry Jones can do about it. Prescott signs with the Rams. They win a lot of games, but they get bounced in the NFC championship in 2025, again in 26. Now it's 2027. Prescott is entering his age 34 season, the final year on his contract. Rumors are swirling. This is going to be Sean McVeigh's last year coaching before he takes a lucrative offer to broadcast games,

and we go into the 2027 season. All eyes on McVeigh, Prescott, and the Los Angeles Rams. can they finally get over the hump. So there you go. 2027 prediction. What do you think? If I weren't already so emotionally connected to Dak Prescott Miami Dolphin,

I would be more accepting of Dak Prescott, Los Angeles, Ram. I like how so many of our predictions are predicated on the idea that Sean McVeigh wants to get out of coaching so badly. Right? Like we did that last year. We did that this year. I was like, listen, Sean could retire at any time. Once you start dropping the retirement

Rumors in your early 40s? 30s. I think he's in his 30s. Yeah. I think he's still in his 30s, yeah. Once you start dropping those after coming off a Super Bowl victory, yeah, you're just always liable for a retirement. That's always a juicy storyline.

If you're a DAC and you're choosing next year between the Rams and the Dolphins, which is my preferred location, or you think you would pick Los Angeles straight up? So I actually have a list of teams here that I wrote as I was doing this exercise. I'm like, all right, chill, you might as well come up, but you know we're going to be talking about this next year.

The dolphins, we're at the top of the list. All right, so the case for the Rams over the Dolphins is what you mentioned with CJ Stroud. If you want an easier path, shall we say, now this stuff changes, so I don't know how much you consider that. Obviously, we're saying money's equal. I would imagine he would enjoy living Miami. I would imagine he would enjoy living in Los Angeles.

Sean McVeigh, I don't know. I would be pretty intrigued by being like, let me go. play for, McDaniel's a great coach. Sean McVeigh's done it for longer with different quarterbacks. They've won games. He's won a Super Bowl.

I think I would choose Los Angeles. I mean, that would be easier than having to battle Mahomes, Alan, Lamar, Burrow, Stroud, Herbert, just to get to the Super Bowl, easier path than the NFC. What do you think? I think that the Rams, by the end of the 24 season,

you're going to be looking at the Rams and saying, like, all right, the future star where I just here is Puka. And in Miami, you're like, right, the future star, our wide receiver here is waddle, right? Like, that's kind of how you're thinking, like, if I'm joining, like,

Cups, like, going to start being on his way out. Tyreek is, I think, more viable now, but still is probably going to start to be on his way out. You also look at the offensive line, the amount of investment of the Rams have made there. So I think you, like, you lean Puka in terms of what you've seen from the young player, assuming Pooka is the same this year as he was last year. And then you also got to think a better offensive line in, in L.A.

Although it's so far in the future. I mean, it's very hard to predict. There's three years from now, Miami could have the best offensive line in the NFL. Well, I'm pretty. I'm predicting when Prescott makes the choice, which is presumably next year. That's true. You're right.

You're right. That's how I described it a year from now. The other thing is that like, dude, you're picking, again, like, you always talk about these players picking geographically. You're picking between L.A. or Miami, too. They're like, usually those teams are used to being able to be like, come to our city, have a good time. Yeah.

L.A., Miami, that's a, that's difficult conversation. I think I lean Los Angeles, but I've, I've had visions, Sheal. I have sat in the dark in the evening. and I have pondered the Mike McDaniel offense as quarterbacked by an actual functional real passer, and it is, it is electric, it is delightful. I want to see it with every fiber of my being. I want like elite processor, pocket manager, Dak Prescott in that offense so badly. So I still, I want him to pick dolphins, but I think he picked Rams.

Other teams that are wrote down, Pittsburgh Steelers, go play for Mike Tomlin. Rosters looking pretty good, you know, for, uh, maybe they take a big swing. I don't know, that was one. Las Vegas Raiders, are they just the team that says, we'll pay you what no one else will come Devante. Okay, select us and like that one. Devante, Christian Wilkins, Dacquist, and then all rookie contracts everywhere else. What about the giants?

They move on from Daniel Jones. It's not great for Prescott, but if they're like, we need a quarterback, we got no other options here, go stay in the division. You're in New York. well, you know, North Jersey for the practice facility. All right, yeah,

I think dolphins and the Rams, as I saw your face when I mentioned those other teams, Dolphins are the Rams, Dak Prescott started a quarterback in 2025. Steelers has some gas for the Tomlin of it, but it's also Pittsburgh. You're joining that division.

Like, I don't think that they have as easy of an argument. Like, oh, we're going to the Super Bowl if you come here as I think the Dolphins and the Rams do. Giants would be hilarious from a pure, like, aesthetic and irritating Cowboys fans'

perspective. other than that, no, that's a bad call. There you go. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to Solax. Second take. All right, Solac, what do you got?

What's the second thing we're looking out for in 2020, 27? So I forgot that we did last year. We did like headlines. I didn't put my first one in a headline. Headline. What would Josh Allen fetch in a trade, question mark? NFL executives coaches discuss. So, okay, okay, let's make something very clear.

Let's make something very clear. I did not say the headline was Josh Allen, is traded. Josh Allen has been sent to the X, Y, and Z for the A, B and C. I didn't say that. I said, how much were Josh Allen fetching a trade? NFL coaches and executives discuss. Listen, Sean McDermott's been the head coach of the bills for a long time. They have not had the postseason success. That would be predicted by having a quarterback of the caliber of Josh Allen. I think you saw some Sean McDermott frustration start to bubble up this past season. You saw a mid-season move on from the offensive coordinator, which followed

and offseason move on from the long established and veteran and generally respected defense coordinator, Leslie Frazier, and Ken Dorsey out. They're going to, Sean McDermick did a year as the D.C. Now, Bobby Babich is the D.C. We got Joe Brady. Now he's start like,

like Sean was, you know, shuffling the pieces and shuffling the deck and doing what he could to kind of give the team a spark because they're walking into every single season with Super Bowl expectations. And they are underachieving relative to those expectations every year. It's not fair. This is, this is the NFL.

It's a best of one playoff series. you get on like the bills are very clearly an excellent team, but they have been underachieving relative to their Super Bowl expectations for the last three or four seasons. That's putting a lot of pressure on Sean, right? So I think it is not unreasonable that within the next three years, the bills have a different head coach, right? I like Sean McDermerey, I think he's a good coach.

I don't think that's an unreasonable prediction. In those universes, again, new head coach, but Brandon Bean's probably still the GM. Maybe it's a different GM, who knows. Josh Allen is the figurehead of Buffalo football. Has been for a while. Josh Allen very clearly loves Buffalo. he loves to be a bill.

You go in and you hire a new head coach, and it's a total face plan. I mean, they go for the sexy young offensive coordinator, right? They hire Bobby Slolic after the Texas win the Super Bowl this year. They are, oh, this is a big game. He's going to make it great for Josh.

And he just can't hack it. He just cannot hang it. It's just a disaster, right? Like, it's a Nate Hackett. Literally cannot hack it level like disaster. So now you have Josh Allen. They just moved on from Stefan Diggs. The Keon Coleman pick doesn't work.

Right? There's like, the wide receiver room is getting worse. Josh is clearly frustrated on the field. Remember, Josh just came from a season where, like, he received more criticism for some of his turnovers and some of his reckless play than we've seen him receiving the last few years. That trend continues into 24, into 25. He loses a key game against the Jets to win the division this year. He throws three more picks to Jordan White head. He's largely playing great, but like Khalil Shakir, like Dalton Kincaid, like it's just not digs like it used to be the defense. All the turnover, Tradavius White, gone. Bon Miller's signing was bad.

the bleeding talent to Tremaine Emmons out here. It's now when Mamelano's gone, Jordan Poir's gone, Michael Hyde's gone, and all the adjustments don't work, right? A lot of the young players come in and just the bills get worse.

They just, it is slow, it is erosion, it is frustrating to watch. They're still a good team because Josh is lugging that team, but they are just getting worse. The new coaching staff isn't working,

the new players aren't working. You're going to tell me that we don't get to 2026 of the bills win the division this year at 10 and 7, losing the first round of the play, playoffs. Miss the playoffs in in 2020, right? They, you know, go 10 and 7.

Drake Mays, Patriots are electric. They're taking over, right? Dolphins get Dak Prescott. They're winning 12 games every year. The bills miss the playoffs two seasons in a row. We get the end of 26 season. Josh Allen is 30. He has yet to, he has, he's played in one AFC championship game in his entire career. It's like the second best quarterback in the league for a decade. The FOILT's a moment. He's playing a one AFC championship career. You tell me we're not going to get a little bit. Josh is getting frustrated on the field. He was yelling at receivers slamming himms down the sideline.

You tell me we're not getting a... He's on Twitter. All right, he's liking something. He's not supposed to be liking. It gets deleted 13 seconds later. He's removing bills from Zitz-Gry. You're telling me we're not getting one? I would send three first-round picks for Josh for 31-year-old Josh Allen.

You tell me we're not getting that? I'm just saying I started at the beginning of last year, I went to camp and I wrote about it. Like, the bills are just creaking. They're just... You can see the cracks in the seams, man. You can see that the, again, the erosion of just a team with high expectations that every year is coming up a little bit short. I think one of the ends of that story, not for sure the end, right?

Sean McDonor keeps his job. The new coach is great, whatever. But one of the ends of that story ends with a really frustrated quarterback who still has three or four years left of his prime. And an agent who wants to see if potentially there's a way to get him out of Buffalo. Bill's fans, I'm sorry. I mean, you've been through enough. And now you listen to this and you just ruins your weekend. It ruins your Friday.

Time caps will take. No one's even seeing this take until 2027 anyway. All right. So the only way this potentially takes place is if Josh, is if the NFL turns into sort of the NBA and a star player can just demand out and say, you know, like, I'm not, now I don't know that that, like I'm trying to think has that happened? I disagree because I think you're going too far into reality.

Again, the headline is, what would Josh Allen Fetch in a trade NFL executives, coaches discuss? All we need, all right, is the Bill Smiths the playoffs, and we just need a Jeremy Fowler. I love a Jeremy Fowler, all right. We need a little Tom Pellisero. I spoke to 11 NFL coaches about, like, you know, and like the end of the season, like Josh's post, you know,

Josh's post season interview, his exe interview. He gets asked, a lot of some excellent Bill's beat reporter, a little Cat Fitzgerald, Alana Hatsberg, little Matt Boeve. Josh, are you 100% sure of your futures in Buffalo? And Josh gives some, you know, pervaricating non-answer. And then everybody runs with that quote for two days. And then it's just all we need is the 11 NFL executive said they would trade 19 first-time picks for Josh Allen. That's all I'm predicting.

It's just that we get the conversation. So you would need that Josh Allen. And don't leave out my guy Joe Biscoglia out of that, by the way. All you would need great media corps in Buffalo. All you would need is the part. of it you would need is that Josh Allen comment after a game. Without that, I mean, they are 48 and 18 in the last four regular seasons with Josh Allen. I think we're letting now, this is a part of an August. They lost a coin. All the stuff that went badly last year, they lost a coin flip game to the chiefs in the divisional round where they went up and down the field. They would fire everybody in that building, coach GM. Yes. Anybody. I agree. But you're saying just the article. you're saying, I understand. Right.

And it's, it's, it's the very fact that they are 40 and 18 that makes this more likely, right? If it were just like, we're good, then whatever.

Like, obviously, it's because of the constant, just close to, oh, we just lost the coin flip game. It's because of the, the disappointment,

the nausea, that eats at you, it makes you desperate. It makes you freak out. It makes everybody frustrated with one another. Ask Stefan Diggs about that, okay?

But you, listen, there is a, I promise you, I engage with them this year. There is a decent section of Bill's fans that believe, Josh will never do it. He's too reckless.

He's too crazy. They're wrong, but the psychoses develop when you are constantly losing to the Chiefs in January. It breaks you. It is so hard to be a Bill's fan. Accordingly, it's very hard to be a Bill's quarterback. Well, that would be the trade that nets the greatest compensation, I would guess, in NFL history,

an MVP caliber quarterback. I know he hasn't won. one, yeah, but an MVP can. That way he would be, yeah, he would be entering his age 31 season. You're giving me Josh Allen, a guy who does not miss football game. I mean, I don't even know. The three first round picks, I would say, all right, that's a start. What else are we doing?

So, all right, there you go. I like it. Listen, we're Bill's fans. I mean, just listening to this. All right. There you go. That's your second one. All right, my second one.

Roseman's rebuild takes shape. Tepper's Panthers finally on the right track. You're saying, huh? Howie Roseman's the Eagles GM, Sheel? David Tepper is the owner of the Carolina Panthers. What are you talking about? Did you get your words mixed up? I didn't get my words mixed up.

Here's what happens. Eagles coach Nick Siriani knew he was on the hot seat in 2024, and he failed to come through. Eagles feel the loss of Jason Kelsey. Their offensive line takes a step back on 9 and 8 record, not enough to get them in the playoffs. Jeffrey Lurie told you what he was going to do before the season if they didn't come through.

He'd previously flirted with the idea of hiring Soax boy, Bill Belichick, and now he cannot resist. So the plan was for Roseman and Belichick to work together, but after a tumultuous 2025 season, in terms of their working relationship, it was clear that that was not tenable. Listen, the team went 13 and 4. They lost in the Super Bowl.

The season went well, but Belichick and Roesman do not see eye to eye on how to manage the roster to get the Eagles over the hump. Lurie had been loyal to Roseman through thick and thin except for a couple of years there with Chip Kelly. But he just cannot give up on Bill Belichick after one year, not when the team is so close to hoisting another Lombardi trophy. that's when David Tepper offers a solution. His plan with his whatever it is, his seventh coach stinks. They stink again. He says, I got to find someone with a proven track record, someone who's a sure thing. He just calls Jeffrey.

He says, I'll send you a first and a second for Howie Roseman. Larry's hesitant. Larry's hesitant. He says, I don't know. His son Julian was poised to take over the family business. convinces his dad. You know what? This might not be a bad idea. Of course, Roseman would have to agree to the move. You can't just, you know, he would have to agree. All right, I'll go ahead and do this. So Tapper calls up Roseman. He says, I'll give you a 10-year deal. I'll make you the highest

paid GM in the NFL through the entirety of this contract. That doesn't mean right now. That means anytime a GM gets a contract worth more than yours, you immediately get a pay bump and you again become the highest paid GM. This isn't even. real and I hate everything about it. In the NFL. So financially it's there, but that's not enough. Roseman wants two more things. Number one, he wants an ownership stake.

If he's going to leave what he built in Philadelphia, move his family to Charlotte. He needs something else. He wants an ownership stake. And number two, he wants a guarantee in writing from David Tepper that he will no longer flip the lids of unsuspecting strangers in the Charlotte area. He will not go around to various restaurants and knock the hats. Especially those owned by Philly Faithful. All right, go birds.

That's right. Off people's heads. Teper initially resists. The ownership stake, yeah, he can make that happen. But riding through Charlotte with his henchman and bullying anyone who disagrees with him, well, this is one of his most treasured ways to spend his free time. Can he really live without it? Ultimately, he decides he's got no choice.

And he makes the deal. Lurie bids Roseman a tearful goodbye, and he hands full control over to Bill Belichick. Roseman heads to Charlotte, begins the next stage of his career, and now in year three, he has the Carolina Panthers poised to compete for an NFC title. All right, so like, you weren't feeling that. You would look disgusted the entire entire time. I don't know how I could possibly come with, like, there might be trade. like interest and rumors around Josh Allen if the bills are going to be bad and you go like,

how can this possibly happen? And then your next take opens with Jeffrey Lurie will move on from Howie Roseman, which will only happen when the sun rises in the west and is dark. To happen when the waves run away from the shore, when the moon leaves the earth, it is that force of nature

that Howard Rosen will be the general manager of the Philadelphia Eagles. The one chip Kelly year was proof, right? That you can't even remove him if you try, he slingshots back with greater velocity. Even in the worlds in which Belichick is the head coach of the Eagles in 25, I still think it is more likely than not that Roseman is the general manager while Bill Belichick is the head coach. I think that Belichick's hiring by the Eagles would be conditional on you're going to find a way

to work with the regular GM and you're going to work on a higher rolls. And if you're not going to do that, we're not going to bring you in here. The fact that Howie has survived as many head coaches as he has in his time in Philadelphia, I think is a clear indicator that when the Eagles go into the high school, hiring process, they go there with Harry Roseman on the owner's side of the table, doing the interview process, helping decide the guys. So I don't think that would happen. Well, I said they tried to be, I said they try to work together within a year later. I mean, come on, these are two the opinionated, hardheaded men.

Yes. And certainly, Lori will be like, well, I got to keep the 74-year-old Bill Belichick around instead of, instead of Howard Roseman. Because he's really shown that he refers to keep the head coaches that fail over Howie Roseman and who had said by his own myriad issues over the last two decades. But then the TEPR trade, okay, fine, whatever. The TEPR contract, like, I'll just make you the biggest any time. That was very on the nose. That's 100% something TEPA would do.

And then that would drive me crazy. And then Roseman being successful in Carolina, I guess is possible. But they would be successful by moving on from the quarterback to like totally rebuilding. And I would be mad that that was happening because I don't want good things to happen to the Panthers. I don't like the vibes around the entire organization. You know, for a while I said the offseason is better than the end season. I enjoy the trades, the free agent signings, everything more than the actual games. I got to say, I enjoy coming up with made-up scenarios way more than discussing the actual things that are happening.

It goes one fake season, two, off-season, three real actual season balls happening. That's true. That is my order. Thank you for articulating that better than I could. All right. So, like, give me your third one. What do you got? All right.

Headline. How Jim Harbaugh led Justin Herbert to his first MVP. Oh. Okay, you're feeling it. There's been a yearly prediction, a yearly event in the offseason by Ben Solek and the football hipsters, the, hello, the representative of football hipsters, where after Herbert took over for Tyrod Taylor, Tyrod Taylor gets stabbed in the lung and Justin Herbert walks out and almost beats the chiefs. And it's been like, all right, you know, who's a good dark horse for MVP? Justin Herbert. And then never did enough team success for the Chargers, right?

When you go and you look for quarterbacks who win MVP, one of the things that people, I think, don't realize is, like, it's very frequently a quarterback of a team who wins a division, right? It kind of like independent of, it's often really a team who's a top two seat in their conference. So, like, obviously, a quarterback success is hugely connected to and it is correlated to team success, but it's less so than people want it to be. And it certainly is the case with MVP where it's like goes to the best quarterback. Not always.

It usually goes to the best quarterback of, like, one of the really successful teams. So there hasn't been enough team success for the charges over the last few years for Herbert. Herbert's accumulated some incredible stats, but like without the marquee wins, without the knocking off of the chiefs, like, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. You're just not going to get the storyline necessary to be the, especially when you're having seasons like the Lamar seasons and the Roger seasons of recent years, which have been like unbelievable. But Herbert's got the talent. And that's why we keep on being like, oh, he's going to MVP, MVP, MVP, MVP.

Will Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman, will the, a run heavy, approach? Oh, Joe, oh, Gus Edwards, I run the football. Is that really, is that going to be? Herbert MVP. I, like, you know, people talk about this a lot. I largely think that's, like, not nonsense,

but it's a lot more philosophical than it is, like, enacted than it is, it's going to be, like, express, it's a lot more like, in order for us to win football games, we have to be able to run the football and physically dominate.

It's not that, like, in order for us to win football games, Justin Herbert can only throw the ball 20 times. It's that when we get to those games, where we have a 14-point lead, where Herbert has thrown the ball 17 times in the first, half and throw in the ball very well and we're leading.

We want to be able to just press the physically dominate button. Like that it's more of the belief about how to close games, how to be a complete team and Jim Harbaugh, rather than the belief of like, oh, we have to take the ball out of Herbert's hands. I still think Herbert's going to have enough games of 30 pass attempts and 35 pass attempts to accumulate the stats necessary to have these MVP seasons. So that's something I've seen presented that I think is kind of an incorrect read on the Chargers.

I think we should be more excited about the Chargers than we are, right? Maybe not for like right now, like the year one. I think there's like some necessary time to rebuild. But you brought up the point of like, what if we just ranked coaches and ranked general quarterbacks, right? Man, like, if Harbaugh is what I think he is in terms of what he did in San Francisco, last time he was here and what he's been at Michigan, like he's one of the better coaches in the league.

I certainly think Herbert was one of the best quarterbacks in the league. We got work along the office of line we need to do, wide receiver work we need to do. I don't think he's winning the MVP in 24, but he's telling me 25, 26. Once the charges are Jim Harbaugh and Joe Ortiz, the new general manager really get their teeth into the roster. I think the defense can take a step forward just outside of the Brandon's staley world

and just saying, right, we're not going to try to be reinventing football and reinventing scheme here. We're just going to do some tried and true stuff. I think the charges could find a lot of team success. And I tell you, if Herbert wins the MVP in three years, the story is not going to be, Justin Herbert finally wins the MVP, we all thought he would win. The story's going to be, here's what Jim Harbaugh did.

Here's what Jim brought him around. And meanwhile, all of us in the football hipster community are going to be like, no, actually, Greg Roman sucks. Like we don't like, no, no, that's me. Greg Roman doesn't suck. But some people say that. I won't say that. Greg Roman's not the reason why this happened.

Jim Harbaugh's not the reason why this, Justin Herbert's so good. This, Herbert, that, Herbert, Herbert, Herbert, Herbert, Herbert. But if this team is made to be a complete team, as Harbaugh 10 tends to build them, defense and running the football. And if they get constructed well, and then they're able to knock off the chiefs, win the division, right? supplant Mahomes, who's this like, you know, just clear picture perfect figure of football excellence. Yeah, there's going to be a.

Harbaugh coach the year conversation, and there's going to be finally, deservedly, that Justin Herbert MVP conversation and the actual award that I and many others have so dearly longed for. It's not coming this year,

but over the next couple of years, the Justin Herbert Reclamation Project his correct appreciation by the national media, the non-hypsters, it will be coming. First of all, the hipsters, I don't think Ken claim Herbert.

I'm a normie, and I was on Herbert. very early. I can speak about him more rationally than the hipsters, I think at this point for sure. Here's the thing. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

Yeah. You're a lot more of a hipster than you like to admit. Like, you're not a hipster because you're not like all the grinding the David Long take. But being,

I would say, being in on Herbert from day one and still believing three seasons later that he's the guy, I think it's like very much like that puts you in football hipster not football normie takes. And I do like,

I admit I like a plaid button down. You know, I'm not opposed. Most people call him flannel. but plaid button down is cool too. No, I don't like the flannel. Do I have to wear the flannel to be a hipster? A plaid button down, that's like straight dad. No, no, no, no, you're thinking of that, what's it called?

Gingham? What's that? No, I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about someone once on an online video called it my picnic table drip. You know, it just looks like that kind of like that. Yeah, but the picnic table pattern, that red and black checkered pattern with a large square. Mine's more of a salmon. Yeah, everything you own is salmon. That shirt is usually made a flannel.

No, I don't do the flannel. Flannel was like my middle school days. You know, it hasn't, I don't, I haven't worn a flannel since. Right. My in-laws got me two shirts for Christmas this year. And they're both patterned shirts, about checkered shirts. And one of them is a flannel. It's the blue and red one.

You probably see me wear them like, it's great flannel. I love it. And the other one is same company, same size, different check pattern, but it's not flannel. And it's just like, it is a shirt that a 45-year-old man would wear. Like the flannel is what makes it acceptable. But you don't button your button downs. You wear a t-shirt. That's your look.

I've seen you. You go flannel. See, I like to button the button down. The buttons are there for a reason. So I'm saying that that is inherently a non-hipster thing. If you wear a regular material button down with the buttons secured, that is not the equivalent of a hipster flannel. Those are two, those are disparate worlds.

I'm wearing the picnic table shirt for Solex's first back, first day back from paternity leave. Looking forward to it. And we will let the people decide whether. All right. Now, in your scenario, you mentioned his name. So is Greg Roman the offensive coordinator in 2027 of this MVP campaign? Sure.

So that way, Stephen Ruiz can tweet the biggest bullet point on Justin Herbert's MVP resumes. The fact, he overcame Greg Roman. Honestly, I would treat that too. See, I'm also bullish on the Herbert Harbaugh Chargers era. I know people, non-chargers fans are probably tired of even hearing us talk about them. But I do like this seems very predictable to me, what's going to have. happen is that Herbert is not going to take like a big leap this year, maybe not even next year.

Everyone's going to blame Greg Roman for the Garbozzo Beans's passing scheme. Same way it happened in Baltimore. And in Baltimore, it got to prove to be true that he leaves. And then Lamar Jackson wins the MVP. So then everyone's going to call for him to leave. And then he's going to have to leave. And then we're going to have the same conversation again. So when we do this again, like next year or the year after, I feel like that's the way

it's probably going to go. but we'll say. Yeah. I think a lot of people are missing the force for the trees and like a lot of Harbaugh's like,

oh, offensive linemen are weapons. Harbaugh, what Harbaugh, like, believes and is, and is communicating very vocally, a lot of your favorite head coaches

of your favorite teams who throw the ball 40 times, like a lot of them believe, right? Now, like, for like the, the, the show McVeigh's Mike McDaniels of the world.

Like, you know, the, like, you know, the, like, you know, they're definitely a little bit more like, woo! You know,

like, they're in a different class. But even they would say, like, you have to be willing to invest in a running game and invest in offensive linemen. And like, certainly coaches need to learn more about like, all right, the offensive line probably matters more than the running back,

like resource allocation, whatever. But like, you want to be able to have that aspect of your game when the defense is just telling you, hey, you have to beat us by running on it. You want to be able to press the button. And Harba's whole thing is like, yeah, like I'm going to build to be able to be that physically dominant.

And then I'm going to fill in the gaps in the passing game. Second, like this is how I'm going to do things fill philosophically. That doesn't mean that on week five, he's going to run the ball in the first eight plays because like, oh, philosophically, we have to run the ball first and then throw it. And Michigan, that was the move because they had five NFL offensive linemen, right? Like, they just could. And like, in the classic, when you throw the ball, three things can happen. Two of them are bad argument. I think people are grossly overestimating how much Jim Harbaugh's philosophy of team building is going to trickle down into like the actual like

snap count distribution. and usage of the Chargers players. I'm very confident that their offense is going to go through the fact that Justin Herbert is very good at throwing the football. It simply has to. It's the only good thing about the offense right now. They're an interesting team for 2024 and for 2027. All right.

My third one, Solac. Goodell's lasting legacy, colon, NFL overhaul's traditional schedule. See, I had a few like schedule-related, rules related. And I'm so burned by hip drop tackle day where the second I brought up just any, I was like, all right, if they didn't like the store of the office is going to hip top tackles, if I come with a prediction in three years, that's like, oh, the NFL removes on side, offside kicks totally. And the fourth 15 rules enacted, she'll's going to put my head in a toilet and swirly it. Listen, that wasn't just me. I feel like I'm taking too much heat for that. Listen, that was a

group we just, you know, listen, you are a football guy. So you were, let's get this out of it. You were able to talk hip-drop tackles like three days after the Super Bowl. My mind cannot get there where I'm like, I can't be like, oh, God, you know. So that was all. Oh, oh, oh, it wasn't just me. It was everybody else. That's how bullying works, Sheel. There's one ringleader, okay?

And then he enables all the other kids. Shield, he gives them cover, all right? This is science. That's how bullying works. All right, here we go. It's the final year of Roger Goodell's contract. And he wants to go out with a bang. Sure, the $64 million per year, that's nice. But the man has grown tired of being the butt of everyone's jokes. He doesn't want to be remembered for concussion lawsuits

or getting booed at the draft or anthem protests or deflategate or spy gate. He wants something more. And for a while now, Goodell has been talking to owners around the NFL about whether they're doing enough to maximize their inventory. I mean, think about it. There's Sundays in the fall where they have nine games kickoff simultaneously in the one o'clock window. What's the point? NFL fans can't get enough. They'll watch terrible Thursday night games. They'll wake up early to watch London games on Sunday morning.

They'll abandon their families on Christmas to sit in front of the TV. Why not give them more windows to feed this very unhealthy addiction? Some owners cling to tradition, but could have them. shows them the numbers. Imagine how much more money they could bring in with more windows and more nationally televised games. More, more, more. This is the NFL way. And so began. A behind-the-scenes process that led to a- You said, and so began, Christmas tale. A behind-the-scenes process that led to a new schedule to be unveiled in 2027. The week begins. with a Thursday double header.

First game kicks off. 4.30 Eastern. Second game, 8 o'clock Eastern. Sunday, we have the most dramatic change, So lack. Five different windows, two games apiece. We start bright and early, 8.30 a.m. with two international games. Then we have two games every three and a half hours.

noon, 3.30, 7, 1030. Each window features two games and four teams. On the rare occasions where we have no buys, 20 teams play on Sunday, but again, in five different windows. When we do have buys, the 8.30 a.m., the 7 p.m. and the 10.30 p.m. windows will feature standalone games. But we're not done yet. Monday night, another double-header. Same deal. First game kicks off at 4.30. Second game at 8 o'clock. 4.30, man. And one more, Solac. Goodell has long wondered, why do we just sit out Tuesdays? We made Tuesdays work during COVID. We made a Tuesday work during a snowstorm in Philadelphia where Joe Webb beat the Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. People tuned into those games. Why not make it a regular NFL day? It just makes too much sense.

So guess what? On Tuesday, you're getting one more double header, 4.30 and 8 o'clock. So between Thursday, Monday, and Tuesday, you get six games, 12 teams. That's every week. And the rest of the games are played in the five Sunday windows. That is what your NFL week, your NFL schedule looks like in the year 2027. I have a big question. Yeah.

What about, so all these games, Tuesday games, Monday, doubleheaders of Friday, Saturday. On what service are they being televised? Did you see this Netflix report from earlier this week? Yeah, it's a good question. Why don't you let the people know? What is the Netflix report? So John Orrand of Puck Sports is reporting that Netflix has the rights for the two Christmas Day games, which so for those of you who aren't putting the pieces together,

let me paint a picture for you. So it began, as you would say. on December 23rd, your dad is going to text you and say, there are games on Christmas, space question mark for some reason. Like there's a space for the question mark. And you're like, yep. And he's like, Christmas is a Wednesday period. And you're like, yeah, no, like it is, but they're doing games on Christmas this year.

And he's going to say one game question, space question mark, you go do two games. And he goes, okay. Period. New text. CBS question mark. No pops. It's on Netflix. And then he's going to FaceTime you and you're going to answer it.

It's going to be his pocket. It was an accidental FaceTime. You're going to hang up on that. And then he's going to respond. And he's going to text you back. And he says, football is not on Netflix. And then new texting and say, are you talking about, and he's going to like try to remember which documentary was on Netflix?

He's like, Dynasty, even though that was on Apple TV and actually quarterback was on it. Like, no, it's not like a documentary pops. The games are going to be, are streamed on Netflix. And he's going to say, so they're going to play them and then put them on Netflix. Like, no, live on Netflix. Like real television. He's going to, yeah, Netflix doesn't do that. sign back. No, no, no, yeah, they do. He goes, on Wednesday? Is it? You have Wednesday,

Christmas. And what times are they? And you back, three and six. They're like, okay. And then at 259, he's going to text you. What's the Netflix? And then it's going to go from there. Netflix, Wednesday, double-header Christmas this year. Worst accumulation of words in NFL history. Yeah, so Netflix can get in on it. Amazon, who has money? If you have money, you can get in on any of the package. There are different. There's so many different packages now. You have a Tuesday night pack. You have two packages to on Tuesday, two to sell on Thursday, two to sell on Monday. You got these different windows. I mean, where are those going to be broadcast? Do we still have kind of the Sunday ticket thing? Do we just have, hey, you get the 330 window. I mean, it could be all sorts of things. It's going to be a whole different

world, much more inventory, much more money in the year 2027. This is actually shocking to me when I consider how greedy the NFL is that they show all these games at the same time on Sunday. That is not something that is going to last for a long. It's just, I mean, at some point, maybe it'll take for the business to slow down and they'll be like, all right, we need more revenue. Usually it doesn't take that. But at some point, they're going to say, why are we showing all these games at the same time? My official take on dramatically increased NFL scheduling and like longer weeks and like

games every time of the week is like, it's insanely greedy, number one. And number two, it has the potential to be extremely dilatious for players. Right. So I think like those, those two realities are inarguable. Like one, insane greed, but also like expected greed. Insane greed, but agreed at expectation. In terms of GOE, like CPOE, GEOE, greed of our expectation, it's just a straight zero. And in terms of the danger to players, it's legitimate, right?

Like if rest isn't handled correctly and like teams are playing in the postseason, so 24th week playing in 26 weeks like that is just you're going to be harming the athletes that are making you the money. You're not handling fields and not. Like, like, this is very dangerous. Accordingly, I think there's some universes where when this gets, when this gets running through the CBA, like, oh, more schedules and more games, man, if the NFLPA plays this right, they can get a lot of stuff that they desperately need out of this. There's, there's worlds in which, like, the schedule becomes 18 weeks and there's an additional

weekend, there's additional game at it and so on and so forth. There's Tuesday games. There's Wednesday games. There's Friday games. But because the NFLPA was able to, like, hold them over the, over the, the coals a little bit, like really, you know, milk them for it. Then you're getting like better fields and you're getting additional biweeks, you're getting additional player safety.

The point where like it is workable. Like I think, I think some people are like, when that happens, like, it's just going to be like terrible for the players. If that's the case, like the players should be able to get a lot out of this to, to let the league kind of actually get this to hammer this through. And I hope that they do. Like this upcoming CBA negotiation is like, you better get a lot out of them if you're going to give them an additional game of the season and you're going to give them more

weekday games. You better, like, let's fix some fields, dude. Well, the other thing they'll also get is a chunk of the money with the revenue split. I mean, all the money that's coming in, the percentage of that that goes to players as team CTC, the salary cap spikes, players get paid more. And you say, all right, well, I guess a Monday after Tuesday isn't that different than a Sunday after a Monday. So, okay, we'll agree to that. And you go from there.

The official CBA, the next time it opens, is just, yeah, between 2030 and 2031. I imagine like Goodell can reopen it if he wants to get more games in by like the 2027 season. Yeah, I didn't think that far, you know. Yeah, yeah. But I'm just saying like I think a I think an 18th game on the schedule, like an additional week, and I think more we take games are inevitable. I agree in both cases. I just really hope the players get their getting when when Lee comes asking for this.

Like, you know, it's like, oh, you know, our increased revenue share and like veteran player, like good stuff, whatever. but if they don't get like legit player safety stuff, we're going to run into like some serious player health issues over the next decade. All right. That was the end of hour. That was fun. Always a fun exercise.

Love doing that. Annual tradition on extra point taken. I want to take one more break. I'm going to come back and just, you know, dole out some quick dad advice. Solac could offer any parting words before he heads out on paternity leave. All right.

We're back on extra point taken. All right, So here's the deal. You know, I struggle to like express sort of like earnest feelings. emotion. So I'm trying to give you some stuff you can use. Okay. Five things. I'll make it brief. Are you ready? I'm not just ready. I'm very excited for this. This is the dad. I probably should have advice. Of all the data advice I have received solicited and unsolicited

from friends and acquaintances, I've long been looking forward to the Shiochipadia data advice. Shiochia, great dad. Sources are saying my reporting is indicating. I've seen how, I've seen your girls on social. I've gotten the text, got the pictures. I've heard the story. always got to record the pot at this time. Got to go to the soccer game. Got to go to the theater. Got to do this and the other thing. I hope to be a dad like Chiokopati.

So I'm looking forward to this advice. Well, that's very nice of you. You might reconsider that after I give you. You guys see how uncomfortable. Just saying one nice thing about him makes this man. Let's move on. All right, five pieces of advice. My first piece of advice after he gave me that.

Number one, get comfortable with poop. Okay. It's going to be a big part of your life. You're already there, right? That's good. But when's the last time the baby poop? Are they pooping too much? Not enough. Are they crying because they're constipated? They'll poop in the tub, in the car. Listen, it's a bodily function. The Capadias are very comfortable with poop. Always have been going back to my childhood. It's not something you can't talk about in the house. It's normal. Everyone does it. You got to figure it out. So you said you're already there. You're already comfortable with poop. Yep. We got, we had a big breakdown in the baby class where they explained to us the different viscosity's and colors as the first few days of the baby, like, so poop's not going to look like poop at first. That's okay. And then it's going to look like this.

That's also okay. There was a great stretch when my sister was transition. She was like an eight month old. She was transitioning her from like breast milk to more solid food, as like the baby food or whatever. And there was a period where my niece just like didn't poop for like four days. And they were just like, is this okay? And everybody like, yep, it's totally okay.

And then they would face it me and be like, we don't know if it's okay. They had a great like, she stopped pooping. know, we don't know what's happening. And then they got through it. I was like, all right, cool. So I'm ready for that now when that happens. I'm feeling good.

My best constipation story actually has nothing to do with the baby. I had an uncle visiting from India where the poor guy was constipated and he was ready to fly back. He was so funny. Stop. He was so fun. People were coming in with advice. Continental flight. I'm having that many gastro and Tesla.

That's wild. People were coming in with all sorts of advice. How can we get this guy to poop? He was just like, let me go back to my. my homeland. So I always laugh. Shout out, Mookun Uncle for that one. All right. Number two, stretch, okay? This child is going to test you physically. You'll be on the ground playing. You'll be throwing her in the air. Piggy back rides. You'll be holding her at times where you're so terrified of making a single movement because it's going to wake her up and you just tried for like

two hours to get her down that if you move and it wakes her up, your whole day is going to be ruined. So you're not going to move. And then finally, you're going to put her down and your whole body's Oh, you're all stiff, yo. You got to make sure you're loose. You can't neck injury. You got to do the neck rolls, you know, where you kind of draw circles with your notes. You got to do that.

Shoulder shrugs, anything you need to do with the lower back. You do not want an injury while this child is, you know, one of those minor, nagging, weird injuries while this baby is born. All right? You got that one stretch? Yeah. My father-in-law threw out his back for the first time when he was put in Maris car seat in the car.

and since then he's had back issues. And so I am well and truly cautionary-tailed for that, all right? I will say, since season ends, draft season ends, I've been going to the gym more regularly. It's ridiculous, man, you've got to go to the gym every single day. This is crazy. Someone needs to invent a gym that you go once a month, and it works. I would take one day out of my calendar every month and just spend 12 hours in the gym,

and then that works for the rest of the month. You got to show up every single day, Shield. Your body hurt. You wake up soul. because you just did moving, and you got to do moving again. More moving and different moving with different ways. It's horrible. That's a terrible thing, the gym.

What a gym take. Unbelievable. All right, best take of the segment. It's perilous and close to my eating take. All the stuff that we have to do daily to feel good should be a have to do weekly at most. We're going to get to your eating take in a second. All right, three. Nice.

You don't have to do everything as a trio. Now, this one is not available. If you're a single parent, salute to you. this one will not apply. This one will apply to you, Solek, you and your wife. So in the beginning, sure, you know, we all do everything as a family. We have this new member of our family. Once you get the basics down, you're more of a tag team. You know, one person hangs with the baby. The other leaves the house for two hours and does whatever they want. That person comes back, tags in. The other partner leaves for two hours. Could be anything like you mentioned, exercise, gardening, a walk, shopping, whatever. Now, listen, the women, sometimes, times get, you know, the bad end of the stick here with this. Because I don't know, whatever the feeding plan is, they might need, there need to be available more. So this is obviously easy for me to say, as the man, it's harder for the mom to find free time. But the more you can make this happens, sort of the shifts, the, hey, you go, leave. I got this for two hours. On a regular basis,

not as like a special occasion thing. It needs to be a regular type of routine. I think it will make your life better. I like that one. When we were doing premarital counseling, my number one, like you always do always do in the Orthodox Church. My number one concern, like, what are you worries? I was like that I'm not going to get to be alone. Like, I was like, this is too much of a commitment, which was not a good, I should have phrased it different. But yeah, I, I'm very cognizant of like, all right, I love the baby.

I love the wife. I would like to leave, though, for a little bit. That's cool with everybody. I once said during a premarital thing, the question was like, what do you, what is something your wife does well? that you admire. And I said online research. Still gets run up to this day.

It's true. She's great at online research. We need to find something. It's a good skill. That's what a compliment. Yeah. If I found out that you were telling people that I was good at online research, that would warm my heart.

All right. I would take that very sincerely. I like, dude, the ability to efficiently Google, especially with the state of Google these days, don't get me started on the AI. That's a real thing. Yeah. And this is back in the day. All right.

We got two more. Four. So speaking of my wife, I asked her for a piece of advice based on, I said, what did I screw up? What could I have done better? That's excellent. And she's like, I don't want to do that. It's going to make you look like, you know, you're, but I'm like, no, come on. I can take it.

Give me something that I can pass on to Solac that I could have done better that maybe he won't fall into the same trap. So she sent me an email title, Unpaid E.PT Labor was the subject of the email. Dude, you and her, one of the clear connections that you. you guys share is your ability to be like, oh, I have to do 20 minutes of work? Let me make it very fair that I'm doing 20 minutes of work. All right. I don't know how to take that, but all right, I will read the email verbatim. Team CTC, she's there with you. That's right. If you are not awake during the night with the baby, the next day, do not, one, ask your wife, how was last night? Two, talk about or allude to your own sleep with an earshot of your wife. This applies even if you

you got a horrible night's sleep. She's accessing some core memories for these notes right now. And three, yawn in the presence of your wife sounds extreme, but it really is not. You can't even yawn? Jeez, I definitely did not know that. Okay. And then she ends with, as an aside, I'd like to follow up with Solac in about a year on his food eating takes.

Nothing is more tedious than buying and preparing food for, then feeding food to a A small human whose culinary preferences can change within minutes. And of course, this child requires not only three meals a day, but also snacks in between the meals. And then you have to add in cleaning up the food prep and the mess left in the wake of the snack and meal times too. Feeding children is an unpaid job in and of itself. But overall, kids are great. And I can't wait to meet, virtually meet Baby Solek so soon. So there you go.

It is, yeah, the feeding thing. My wife's pretty dialed in on, you know, we're going to be making the food. We're going to be putting the stuff in the food processor and making the blends, making the puree. They copy that. I am a member of this team. I march on orders. In my head, I'm like, dude, I want to die. It's all right.

Don't worry about it. I'm in there. I'm grin. Let's do it. Here we go. On the sleeping thing, firstly, I just, I am so easily summoning images of pre-baldness shield. Back when we had the hair going. Just stretching in the kitchen with a nice warm cup of coffee coming off a nice seven hours.

They're like, oh, how was the night, babe? And just your wife is just like hair this way and that way. Just like spit up on the shirts, like trying so hard not to throttle you. The don't yawn, don't talk about the sleep I get. Don't even ask how the night was. Like, I'm not supposed to check in. How's the baby doing? Listen, I read it verbatim.

I can try to get follow-ups. That's crazy. Yeah. All right. That's good to know. That is advice I've not yet received. That is good. There you go. And then five, last piece of advice. Ignore 90% of parenting advice. You have no control who this child is going to be. And there is nothing worse. So like, you'll find, I can't wait to talk to you about this. There's nothing worse than annoying parents who offer solutions to try to solve your problems who think your kid is like their kid. You might have an easy kid. You might have a hard kid. You might have a hard kid. You might have a middle.

We don't know. And they'll say things like, oh, your kid won't nap. Have you tried driving them around in a car? Oh, your kid is a picky eater? We exposed little Johnny to all kinds of foods at an early age to avoid that. Oh, you allow your kid to watch the iPad on long road trips. We like hours to look out the window and experience nature. Go to Hal Sinky.

Okay. Every child is different. Some are easy. Some are hard. What works for you? Ain't going to work for me. So enough with your. your advice. So what you can do is you listen to the advice, you ignore it, and then you go home

and you rip these people to your wife. That is a fun parental thing to do. The thing I'm most worried about in myself is that I really don't like being incapable. It drives me crazy when I can't do something well. Like the, I don't get like mad a lot. I'll get like irritated and frustrated. When I get like angry mad, like loud mad, it's usually like I don't love this by myself. It's usually because I'm trying to build something, and I don't like the way the instructions work. And I'm just like, this is like, it is so dumb that I cannot put together this side table. Like, it is infuriating to me that I'm incapable of doing this thing. And one of my great fears of early fatherhood is that we're standing in church and the baby's

going to start losing it. And it's just one of the times the baby loses it and there's nothing to be done. But I'm going to have to be walking around and moving around and trying to corral just like crying baby and just like thinking in my head that everybody else thinks that I'm incapable. And I know none of them are thinking that, but I'm going to create that fiction in my mind and it's going to infuriate me because I don't like to be, I'm fine, I'm not being good at something. I don't like to not be capable of something. I have to be able to get the things done that I'm supposed to get done. So one of my number one of my number one fears is having right,

like, you know, that challenge, having people who like give the advice, not being able to get the ball across the line and like feeling insufficient. That's, that's one of the thing I'm so, so, so conscious of because it's just, it's an unfair expectation for you and for baby and for everybody else. You just got to be able to take some L's because it's a little creature alien that doesn't know what's going on. But yeah, so that's that's the big thing I'm worried about. It's great advice to yourself. You're already aware of it. I can't add anything. Yeah, you're going to take some else. You're going to be out of control and it's going to happen. Like I told you, if you get the times when you just want to make sure your kid is not the worst, you know, you like, if you want to make

sure there's someone else on the plane like screaming a loud. Now, sometimes your kid's going to be the worst. But, you know, the fewer times that happens, you just need someone a little bit, you know, more, more distracting, louder, acting a little bit crazier than your child. Listen, sometimes it's not possible. All right, Solac, any parting words from you as we bid farewell for a few months. I'm very excited. I'm very grateful that babies come when the baby is and the, uh, the timing is good. I can take this summer off. I'm happy. I'm not, I'm not missing a season. I'd be missing the season. I'd be glad to do it, but I'd be stressed and be worrying me and I'd be wanting to watch football. And so I'm happy to take the summer off.

I'm glad you're getting your vacation. As for usual, the Shio Copadia store the PTO and then deploy it in one fell swoop. It's always an admirable move. Yeah. And I don't know. I ensure everybody, I promise you, the idea of me not being able to talk for like two and a half months on the pod means that like the first episode is we come back, man. Like, we're going to have stories.

We'll be ready. We're going to have stories. And so I hope everybody keeps the subscribe active and listen to Ringar NFL show and they come back, actually point taking. in August, we're thinking early August it's going to be a moving target depending on how the baby's doing. But I'll probably be back early August

first week of August. And then, yeah, we'll do our training camp, this and that. And we'll do our top five defenses, top of offense, whatever, whatever. But I'm sure, I'm certain we'll have a nice, good parent corner section as well to get in on.

But yeah, I, and then you, make sure you text me, hang out with me, this stuff. Because we don't text. We just slack and talk on podcast, but you know. I never know the best way to reach you. tweeting at you is definitely the best way to reach you, but I will not do that. It's so not accurate.

I respond to like every slack within a few hours of receiving it with very reasonable time. Oh my gosh. All right. Listen, I'll get it. We'll do a whole ringer show on whether or not that's accurate. We'll do a little fact checking there. All right. So extra point taken.

We'll be on hiatus for a little bit. Like I said, the ringer NFL feed will still be going strong. Looking forward to potting with our other wonderful colleagues in the weeks ahead. And when Solac returns, like you said, I mean, it's going to be time to start firing off some takes and predictions for the 20, 24 seasons. So good luck to the Solax. Looking forward to the dad content when this man returns. All right, thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing. Eduardo Ocampo on the video production here at Givens on social. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. I will be back on Monday with Nora Princiotti and Stephen Ruiz. Have a great weekend and I'll talk to you soon. Must be 21 plus, 18 plus in D.C. and present in select states, Fanduel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem.

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