The Ringer NFL Show - Chargers Extend Justin Herbert to Record-Breaking Contract. Who’s Under the Most Pressure to Win Now?

Episode Date: July 26, 2023

Ben and Steven react to Justin Herbert's massive five-year, $262.5 million contract with the Chargers. They start off with some of the record-breaking details of the contract before discussing the impact the contract’s structure will have on the team and how this will affect the Joe Burrow negotiations (01:08). After, they look into who faces the most pressure from this deal between Herbert and the Chargers (15:07). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming, please checkout theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Ben Solak and Steven Ruiz Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now on the Ringer game on fee and all throughout the entire month of August, the East Coast Bias boys are getting you ready to bet the NFL this season. We're going through each and every single division and revealing our favorite futures, predicting division winners, and even giving you some award winners. Do we think the Kansas City Chiefs will repeat or will they be the throne? Tune in now to find out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Howdy? Welcome to the Ringer NFL show.

It's the Herbert Boys. It's just the big old herbies in the building. I'm Ben Zillac. He's Stephen Ruiz. And Los Angeles Chargers quarterback, Justin Herbert, has signed an extension. And they put us on the mic,

Stephen, because they knew if they didn't let us, we would just hop on the call anyway to spread the propaganda, the good news of Justin Herbert. Yesterday, it's announced, weird era for extensions. Training camp is reporting

and just like everybody's getting extensions right now. Justin Herbert has come to terms with the Chargers on five-year extension. Nuts and bolts of the contract. $262.5 million in total value, healthy at a five-year extension that puts him at an average annual value of 52.5. He's making 52.5 a year, just over the $52 million that Lamar Jackson was making on his five-year deal, which is just over the $51 million that Jalen Hertz was making on his five-year deal, just to get good on how quarterback contracts work. $218.7 million in

guaranteed money. That is the, makes Herbert only the second quarterback to have over 200 million in total guarantees to only to Sean Watson. Stephen, when you saw the news, first thoughts? I hope he buys me some ice cream or so. Bies us some ice cream. Takes his kids out

for a truth. Yeah, just 0.01%. Herbert, that's all I need. Just a cool 20K. Just swing that my way. But no, I was like straining to come up with like some like highly analytical tweet about it. And I just like, it doesn't matter. Like he's worth the money. It's the same conversation whenever we talk about these top of the league quarterbacks.

I think the most interesting discussion is when like a guy like Derek Carr becomes the highest paid quarterback or like even Matthew Stafford, who I think is kind of is on that the precipice of being an elite quarterback. But with these guys, I mean, the stats, the analytics show us that these guys are probably still underpaid. Like Patrick Bowens might be the most underpaid player in the NAM. NFL now and now it's it's probably the case. In a couple years, I don't think anyone will be worried about what kind of restrictions this puts on the Charter's cap. For me, it's a no-brainer. I don't even know. Should we even be here? Should we just go home? Let's just end the pod here. Just go, good deal, guys. Business as usual. Well done. Tom Telesco. This has been the ring NFL show. Yeah. So you brought up Derek Carr, which I think is always a good reminder.

And our dear friend, Kevin Clark tweeted this out. Always important to remember that in 2017, car became the highest paid quarterback in the NFL, highest paid player in the NFL, with a $125 million extension over five years, which is half of what Justin Herbert just got. That's $25 million per year over five years. Justin Herbert just got $52 million, $52.5 million over five years, right? That's like in six years, top quarterback contracts have doubled, which is a enormous deal. It is reflective of the value of the position, but has also led to discourse around like, hey, do you know, do you really want to be paying your quarterback this much, right? During the DAC Prescott contract negotiations, there was always that line from Jerry Jones.

It was like, you know, no Super Bowl champion has ever won with their quarterback making more than 15% of the cap. That's obviously no longer true. It was then. Patrick Holmes has just won a Super Bowl while making 15% of the cap. That argument, that conversation, I think, deserves a moment to be addressed. And Chargers GM, Tom Telesco addressed it. He said, this from Daniel Popper's piece on The Athletic, I don't believe in rookie quarterback windows.

If you look at the playoffs this year, at least 10 teams had quarterbacks not on rookie deals. The team that I used to work with, he's referring to the Peyton Manning Colts, if memory serves. The team that I used to work with, we had a high-paid quarterback for over 10 years, and we built a team just fine around him. You have to build it differently, but certainly you can do it.

I don't see that we only have a year or two window with this quarterback's contract. It's not how I look at it at all. I just think that's a really bad narrative. Now, rookie quarterback windows definitely exist. Like, there's no way they don't. Right. I would ask Tom Telesco where he found the money

to give massive deals to Khalil Mack and J.C. Jackson, if not for a rookie contract quarterback window, but his larger point, which is that this contract that we've signed with Herbert does not preclude us from building a competing team. We might have to think about it a little bit differently, but we can still do it. I think it's very well taken.

No, yeah. I totally agree with him. And if I was a guy who kind of squandered one of the best quarterbacks rookie contracts, I would also say, yeah, rookie contracts are fake, like, who can't, like, whatever, whatever. Like, I would do that too. But I agree with them. And especially with, like I just said, a guy like this, like, it's not going to matter. They're going to find, they, there's just too many tools, too many options to be able to

work around cap hits where, like, it rarely comes with the issue, especially if you have a good cap guy in your front office. I'm not sure the car, the charges do. But they seem to. They've had an expensive roster for the last couple of years and it doesn't seem to be prohibiting them from doing anything. And I think we should always emphasize because this is the case with pretty much all quarterback extensions and certainly is the case with Herbert that when a quarterback gets

this five-year extension, $52.5 million, it's easy to think, okay, right now this season, Herbert's hitting the chargers for $52.5 million. That's not the case, right? This was a five-year extension, which means it was tacked on to the end of Herbert's existing contract, right? Herbert, who was drafted in 2020, was under contract with the Chargers for 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023. That's the four years of the four-year deal. And then he could have had a fifth-year option tagged on, and the Chargers would have absolutely picked that up if they got to that point. So the five years starts in 2025. It starts after that fifth-year option would

have been picked up and then goes all the way into 29. Accordingly, Justin Herbert's overall cap hit for 2023 is $8.46 million, which is exactly what it would have been if he didn't sign an extension. His 2024 cap hit is under $20 million, which is lower than it would have been if the charges picked up his fifth year option. Part of this contract structure gave the charges some cap relief in 2024, which is something they need because they have really big veteran restructure monies for guys like Keenan Allen and like Khalil Mack and they have a huge contract like J.C. Jackson, Corey Lindley. They have some accountant. to do because they're currently over the 2024 cap as is projected. So Herbert does not represent a

like big cap hit until 2025, which is only $37.3 million, which isn't even that big to begin with anyway, right? That's not even that large. So he's under contract through 2029, at which point he would be 31. Now, there are some huge cap hits at the end of this deal, 46.4 and 26, 58.3, 71.1 in the following seasons. But a lot of those, huge cap-pits are the results of really big base salary figures, which means either Herbert will be playing extremely well and they will restructure him to lower the cap-pits, or Herbert will be playing extremely poorly, be hurt, be messed up, and they will get off of the contract, right? So the way 2028 looks right now is not the way 2028 is actually going to look in the future.

So in general, like, the numbers sound enormous, but when you start getting them down to brass tax, Herbert's contract is not going to become like, laborious for the Chargers until maybe 2026, maybe three plus seasons from now. And even then, if he keeps this level of play, like, it's not going to be too much of an issue. And even then, that's based on the current salary cap. Like, Josh Allen in 2028 is probably going to be making, like, a literal bajillion dollars.

Like, the salary cap is going to be huge quarterbacks. The quarterback market is not slowing down. I love Josh Allen's contract as an example for this because everybody remembers, like Josh Allen signed a huge extension, right? Like, is one of the things that started this whole nonsense with the Josh Allen extension. Do you know what Josh Allen's cap hit is this year? No, I do. It's 18.6 million.

Pretty modest. Teddy Bridgewater signing in Carolina. Right. He like signed a huge extension in like 2021. And like the capet is not really even started kicking the bill's butts yet, which as aside is one of the reasons why I love whenever Brandon Bean is like, well, it's hard to be the Bengals because they have Joe Burrow and he's cheap and Josh Allen isn't. It's like, is he?

Is he? Because the cap is pretty low there, Brandon. Regardless, it is important to understand that when we say, a five-year extension, and this figure of this money, a lot of that money is going to be funny, money late in the contract, and it's not going to hit the cap right away. So the chargers can still solve their cap problems in 2024 and still be aggressive in free agency.

With that said, the one thing that Herbert really, the ground that he really broke on this contract is money earned cash flow after the first year of the new deal, right? This is the thing that's kind of got all the cat boys on Twitter freaking out. By the end of his first year, of the new deal, 2025, Herbert will have earned $100 million in new money. That's the first time we've ever seen a triple-digit figure for that metric, right? For cash flow after the first year of the deal.

Lamar Jackson was the previous record setter with his new contract at $80 million. So it's a huge jump. And this is something that, again, like the cap nerds think is going to continue to become a more important metric. It's like, okay, how much new money am I getting in the early part of this contract, which is a bone you throw to players in response to. and kind of in balance to putting Hughes-based salaries at the end of the contract to make the numbers look good when everybody really knows you're not actually going to see

that base salary. And so Herbert making $100 million in new money over the next three years, congratulations to our son, Justin. There's a quarterback we haven't mentioned that deserves mentioning. His name is Joseph Burrow. May have heard of him in Cincinnati. This is going to be year four of Justin Herbert's career to a Tucker by Lois' career and Joe Burroughs career, you're only eligible for an extension after you have three,

Jaylon Hertz and there as well. And so Hertz and Burrow and Herbert and Tua all became available for an extension this offseason. And the Bengals have been staring down this barrel for quite some time because the Bengals don't have huge cash flow, huge cash reserves way other owners do. So it's a little bit more challenging for them in terms of how they structure their contracts because of like money to put an escrow and guarantee money and CBA stuff that we don't have to get into. Just long and short of it, it's a little bit harder for the Bengals to sign mega deals the way other teams do. And that's why you see the Bengals like the Orlando Brown deal is like enormous guarantees in year one. No more guaranteed money in year two or

beyond. So weird structure because of the Bengals kind of have weird circumstances. There was an expectation that the Bengals would try to get Burroughs extension done before Jaylon Hertz's deal and before Justin Herbert's deal to try to, you know, set the record, be the biggest quarterback contract for a month and then let Hertz beat them and then let Herbert beat them so that they could keep Burroughs number maybe a little bit lower. They obviously did not pull that off. And now Burroughs the guy sitting and waiting for an extension, he's absolutely going to come in above Justin Herber. He's absolutely going to come in above Jalen Hertz. I don't think the Herbert extension makes this like remarkably more challenging for the Bengals. It's still the same problem

that it was. But it's worth noting that like Burrough is the only guy left. Like Tua's not getting a huge extension anytime soon. He has to prove that he can stay healthy. Burrough is just the one sitting here waiting on this deal. And the longer it goes, the more awkward it gets. And so we're like the, the danger meter is nowhere near in the red. It's still in the green, but it's kind of starting to flick up towards the yellow a little bit in terms of the burrow and his future with the Bengals. I mean, I do think, I do think like this contract structure lays out a blueprint, a potential blueprint for the Bengals if they want to deviate from what they usually do, which, and I think when it comes to Joe Burrow, it makes sense to deviate from your, your typical operation. But the reason

why we keep saying, like, he's making all this money after 2025 is because they have the signing bonus. They have the option bonus. And they have like a second option bonus. And basically those are static. So they're paying them his signing bonus up front now. They're paying him his first option bonus next year. And then his third one in 2025. And then that's when he gets the sum of that, that $100 million. Which is the same, same, same structure for the, Lamar Jackson extension was a signing bonus into option bonus into option bonus, the Jalen Hertz extension, signing bonus into option bonus into, I think a third option bonus and fourth overall bonus or something like that. Anyways, bananas. But I think like the Bengals can manage that.

I don't know Mike Brown's finances, but I feel like he can, he can muster like $33 million, three years in a row, hopefully. I don't think it's going to be an issue. I think it might be drawn out. I do think like the fact that you have like Jamar Chase and T. Higgins there and there's just always this question mark about how do you keep them all. I think in the end, all three sign. I think it just makes too much sense. I know like if any team is going to do that, it's a Mike Brown team. Like any team is going to break up that trio.

It's a Mike Brown team. But we've seen like the Colts keep together three Hall of Fame players with with Peyton, Reggie Wayne and Marvin Harrison. Like I don't think it's out of the question there. I do think it's interesting. like the timing. I think the timing with Jalen Hertz going first has everything to do with the fact that he

wasn't a first round pick. There was a built in sense of urgency because you only get four years. You don't get that fifth year option. The Eagles can bring him to the negotiating table right away. And he's making, frankly, he's making less money than these other guys while producing at a similar level. And with Herbert, I don't think it was

like a big deal to dole out this huge contract just because you have Dean Spanos and like that's, he has money. Like, these guys have money. It's not a mom and pop team like it is in Cincinnati. But I think, like, even so, they're going to get a deal done. And I really don't think it's going to be one. It's going to be the same conversation I had at the top.

Like, he's Joe Burrow. He's good enough to justify this money. Who cares? Just give them whatever. Yeah. We are going to sell things to you with advertisements. You're going to purchase them. And then we're going to come back and we're going to make Stephen justify the charges giving an extension

to someone who's never want to play off game. Yeah. Stephen, I don't know if you heard Justin Herbert blew a 27 point playoff lead. It was all him. It had nothing to do with the other players on the field. But in all seriousness, among the guys who I think we would say are like the young elite dudes. Like let's toss like Rogers out for a second because he's old.

And just like Mahomes, Alan Burrow, Lamar, Herbert. Beem put Hertz in there if you want. All of those dudes have like attended Super Bowls and or championship games. in the case of Josh Allen slash won MVP's in the case of like Lamar, right? And then you have Herbert there who just hasn't won an MVP

and hasn't won a playoff game and the Chargers have not enjoyed team success. We've talked a ton over our time at the Ringer which I think oddly coincides with the Justin Herbert's career arc you and I about how the offense is held him back

and what they needed to do in the offensive line and general Chargers despair and bad luck and accursededness. Do you, like what registers to you in terms of giving this huge

contractor Herbert without, like, the postseason success or the award success. Does it like increase the pressure on him to succeed this year? Does it put Brandon Staley in a spot where if the charges aren't in good this year, like Staley has to go because they've made this, this clear, emphatic endorsement of Herbert as the guy. Like, what does it change for you in terms of Chargers perspective? Uh, like, in terms of like the pressure put on him, I think there's going to be more scrutiny, but I, it's already been a lot. There's already been a lot. And like, the first thing I want to address is like we're talking about the excuses quote unquote that we we've given to him like with the offensive scheme and the offensive line. I mean, I guess, but what are we excusing exactly?

He's still been like statistically over the first three years of his career. He's doing stuff that only Dan Marino and Peyton Manning have done. He's still been like a top five quarterback statistically. They've, I understand they win loss record, but here's the thing. There's like seasons are individual. He went six and ten or whatever his first year. That's the reason his record is bad. They went nine and eight the year after that and barely missed the playoffs. They missed the playoffs because they couldn't get a stop against the Raiders. Do you want to know what happened the next week?

A certain other 2020 quarterback won a game because his defense got to stop against the Raiders. But we'll leave that alone. They went 10 and 8 or whatever last year, despite him having broken ribs in the entire offense. Can you go 10 and 8? Is that because they were 10 and 7 and then they lost? That's the, I'm just trying to remember how many games. Oh, yeah. It changes every year.

Yeah. It was a mistake. I didn't mean 10 and 7, but they did go 10 and 8 because they lost the playoff game. But anyway, I went back and why. Let's just address the 27 point blown lead. They had four drives in the second half. He led them to a field goal on like a 14 play drive. And then a missed field goal, I think I had the switch.

He led them to a field goal and then the 14 play drive, they missed the field goal. The third play, a fourth drive, he gets sacked on the first play. instantly, it's second and 17. They get it to like fourth and three in Brandon Staley punts. Like, I don't even know how this is on him. He threw three paths. Okay, with 858 left in the fourth quarter, the charters were up 10 points. Justin Herbert had three dropbacks after that.

What did you want him to do with those three dropbacks? Cover Christian Kirk. Get out there and press Evanning. And I tweeted this out before he came on and recorded. Do you ever notice that any tweet, Are any piece of criticism aimed towards Justin Herbert never includes like some film examples or meaningful individual stats? Never because they aren't out there because he is producing. Like you could say we're making an excuse for him.

We're not making an excuse for him. We're putting the stats that are very good already into context. We're saying he's doing this in spite of all the shit that's going on around him. So there's no need to defend anything with him. And they put up 30 points. I know the defense really helped out. but they still put up 30 points. I don't know.

I also think, like, I mean, Jalen Hertz, he beat Daniel Jones and a quarterback who literally couldn't throw a football to get to the Super Bowl. Did he play extremely well in that Super Bowl? Yes, he did. But he needed that, that, because that Giants game wasn't that great for him.

And he obviously had a terrible game. It doesn't have to be about, like, Burrough lost of the Raiders the week after the Chargers did. No, it doesn't, though. Burrow beat the Raiders. and it hurts. But no, but I want, I,

you brought them up, though. Yes, as a bit, because that's what, like, other people bring up, and that's how this

gets contextualized for, for I think, a lot of people watching this, where it's just like, how can you have Herbert over Burrow

when Burroughs been in a big back-to-back games and Herbert hasn't won a playoff game. And that's, like, a fair and legitimate question.

I think that the way that you get, like, Herbert above Burrow, which I'm not, like, I don't know if I'm Herbert above Burrow. I know that Herbert was above Burrow for you when you're like quarterback ranking stand last season.

I don't know where you land still. But the way that you get there is by excising how the player performs and taking it just for itself, taking it just in terms of film, taking it just in terms of metrics and performance indicators that we think isolate the quarterback position and not folding it into team success. That is part of like analysis. That's how we get like things like, you know, like, all right, this team's not performing super well right now, but they're going to be fine down the stretch. That's how we get things like, hey, yeah, the Vikings are eight and one.

currently, but the Vikings aren't actually eight and one. This is a made-up team. This is not real. This is not happening. Which is good analysis. It is good predictive work. And I think that like the reason why the Chargers gave Herbert a record-setting extension and nobody bat an eye.

And everybody was like, yes, of course, is because we all know that wins aren't a quarterback stat. You can pull quarterback performance out from team performance and say this guy's the guy. With that said, they don't give Lombardi trophies out for good quarterback performance opposite, like, independent of team success, right? The guy that hosts, the guy that lifts that trophy at the end of the year is the guy on the team that won all the games. And so the, the Chargers had the best competitive advantage in professional football.

They had an elite quarterback on a rookie contract, and they couldn't get the job done in terms of getting to the divisional round, right, let alone, you know, actually making a run. Herbert's cap hit is low for the next couple of years. But again, people aren't going to be thinking about it that way. People are now going to be thinking about him as a quarterback on an extension. that is now a veteran quarterback as a guy that you've said emphatically as an elite dude,

you have to be able to start producing some team success. Our heads are going to roll, right? And it won't be Herbert. It'll be Staley and Telesco. And that's just, that's the corner you paint yourself in. And it's a nice corner to be in.

It's a great corner to paint yourself in dude because Justin Herbert's there with you. That's awesome. But you have to understand like the Chargers have had to deliver for seasons now. This is not in breaking news, but it still deserves to be said. The Chargers really got to freaking deliver,

man. It's a very good corner. quarterback, you gotta win some games out here. Right. The pressure isn't necessarily on Herbert. I feel like the pressure is on the charges to continue to build around them in a way that's more efficient than they have been.

Like, yes, their roster seems to be, I think their roster is really overrated. And maybe this is just me being like a Justin Herbert Apologist or whatever. But like Kille-Mack, like who are the names you name when you're really boasting up the charges roster? It's like Killeleel Mac, Joey

Boso, two guys that really haven't been Lechon Slater, who wasn't on the field last year. Dude, when I was looking at their contract structures for the next couple of years and at the top of every single list, I kept on seeing J.C. Jackson's contract. I was like, dude, J.C. Jackson's on the Chargers. I completely forgotten this was a thing, which is not good. And the thing is like he was injured last year, sure, but he was benched before he got injured. Yeah.

He was played poorly for a month before he got injured or whatever, however many weeks it was. But yeah, I don't think the pressure is necessarily on Herbert. Obviously, he has to continue on this pace. He has to improve. He has to keep pace with Patrick Malins. He has to keep pace. But Josh Allen, the two quarterbacks that I think are squarely above him in the quarterback rankings or the quarterback hierarchy right now.

I did have Herbert at number two, but that's just because Josh Allen kind of tailed off towards the end and he had the elbow and that was factored in. But I think a healthy Josh Allen is a better player. I think that's the pressure, the pressure that he's probably already putting on himself before he signed this deal. But financially, I don't think it much changes for him. But I agree with you. Obviously, he has to start winning.

But it's not like a thing. It's not like he has to change something. Yes, I agree. Justin Herbert hasn't won enough. But that's a statement about the Charters. Why haven't you won more with Justin Herbert? It's not a statement about him. I don't think because what are the things that quarterbacks do that leave?

to wins. Like, it's avoiding negative plays, making explosive plays when the opportunity is there and playing just generally efficient football. And Justin Herbert checks all three boxes. And oh, by the way, he's this 6-5 robot who can throw the football a million yards and can take off and run if you

let them. Right. And the two things I would add in terms of what quarterbacks do on winning teams, I would add create explosive plays, which has been a huge issue for the Chargers offense previously. but they try to solve with the hiring of Kellyn Moore. And like the more I think of it, wow, incredible. The more I feel like Kellan Moore is like the single most important

non-head coach, non-quarterback, like change this year. Just in terms of like if he's good, which I'm 79% sure he is, but there's a 21% of me that's still like, I don't know, this might look a little bit too much like the old offense. If he's there, he solves a lot of ill. for them. So there's that, like, just like more explosives, more downfield stuff, which like the charges were fine in, but the offense really limited them there. And then the other thing the quarterback does is game winning drives. And Herbert has, had three in his rookie season, which

we forgot to mention this at the top. We should have mentioned this. Do you think Herbert would have this extension right now if a charge doctor didn't stab Tyrod Taylor and we too? Be Tyrod didn't it. Yeah. Tyrod also needs to cut. With this loaded roster he would have been playing with. But Tyrod also needs a cut Not a cut in that sense We cut of the contract Three game winning drives in his rookie season And then five in 2021

And five in 2022 He has 10 fourth quarter comebacks to his name In under 50 career starts Like he's been doing the thing Man he really really has The Chargers got to be good Like it's just irritating at this point That they're not

It defies understanding and logic To that end I'm very excited to bring in my dear friend who also regularly wears Chargers gear to normal podcast and showed up with this Justin Herbert jersey onto this podcast. It's producer Eduardo Ocampo, who is an excellent producer. He's been doing Stephen and I's Friday show for the entire offseason and was thrilled to wake up before working hours on the Pacific Coast to hop into this podcast.

Eduardo, on this conversation, Chargers stress, charges pressure, charges expectation, Herbert expectation, where do you land as a proud bearer of the powder blue? Well, first off, thank you. We have to put all the pressure on Brandon Staley, Tom Telesco, because like you said, I don't think you can point to like the last three years and say that Herbert is part of the issue. And where you see that is the lack of theft. You can't have like Storm Norton, Foster Sorrell as your backup tackles and expect that

when an unforeseen injury happens. that they produce. The pain in a man's voice when he says Storm Norton and Foster Sarell. I thought we had banned the word Storm Norton from this podcast. There should be, those should be censored out whenever you say it. You can't have your fifth wide receiver be, I forgot the name of it. Michael Bandy. Don't say Michael Bandy. You can't have Michael Bandy on there. And I think that's probably been the biggest issue with the Telasco like Saly era. I think they have invested a lot more in their offensive line with Matt Filer, obviously drafting Rishon Slater. But there's a lot of like on the outside like death pieces where it hasn't really been translating.

And especially when you look at the defense and that their friends lately does have good game plans. But a lot of the times when you look at the results of the games, it's not not the greatest. So great game plans don't do enough to hide a Kenneth Murray. There's just there. There's a water's edge and Kenneth Murray is across it. Definitely. I cited a, I cited a stat in my Herbert article. It was like, it was from Arjun Menon.

It was Telesco's draft record since like 2013. And they've drafted, I think it's five players who have signed a second contract with the team. Yeah. That's a long time. And I think it speaks to what Eduardo is talking about. Like, the roster is top heavy. And you've heard of all these guys. So I think, like, people who aren't really paying close attention to the team might be like,

oh, this is a good roster. You can win a Super Bowl with this roster. But it's really top heavy. And that top is really expensive. And there's not a lot of depth. And you combine the injuries with the lack of depth. And you get an underachieving team, which the charges have been the last couple of years. Yeah.

How pissed you all think Austin Echler is? The poor guy, man. Like, Ackler's just just doing everything he can to get a deserved value out of the Chargers coffers, right? Like, this guy is catching 100 passes, man. Like, he absolutely deserves a pay bump. And the Chargers were like, dude, no. And he was like, yeah, but we need great compensation. And actually, I was like, right, that's the point.

And then, like, all the running backs got together and we're like, this is the worst, man. This sucks so much. This is terrible. And then Saigon Barclay took like $900,000 in incentive. to sign with the giants. And then the charge of her like Justin Herbert, do you want to hold $260 million? And Echler is just,

it's tough out there for a running back, man. It's tough out there for our boy. He's, I'm sure he's happy for his teammate, but he's probably punching the air a little bit. Yeah. and you try to find someone in the early to like mid rounds in the next draft. And I think that's probably what they're going to do.

And that's probably it's unfortunately like when we talk about the running back market, but that's probably like the more wise thing to do from a team building sentence rather than. Because Ackler's already like 28, 29ish, I believe. So inevitably the decline is going to start coming in. But it is sad when you do see 1,000 yards. like total scrimmage yards receiving rushing and he's those struck 18 touchdowns like for like three three years almost then you can't really get that much of a pay bump that that is the unfortunate thing if i'm the chargers i'm like i will let you take a picture with justin herbert's

signing bonus you don't get to go home with it but you get to take a picture of it Yeah, Echler, major free agents for the Chargers in 2024. Austin Echler, Gerald Everett, is their starting tight end. Offensive line is actually nicely really secure. The aforementioned Foster Sorrell is an exclusive rights free agent so they can keep Foster if they need to. Austin Jackson, who is a free agent signing a defensive tackle for them. Kenneth Murray, lo!

Michael Davis, who's an outside corner for them. Other than that, the Chargers like Core is set. If they're going to win, they're going to win with her. Herbert, Bosa, Mac, Derwin, Slater, who he'll have an extension in a couple of years, and then Keene and Mike Williams and Quinn Johnston, which that should win you something. That really, really, really stink it to win you something. And we will see how the Chargers look through the season. And I'm certain we will bang our heads against the wall, screaming and wailing against this team,

no one more so than Eduardo, who actually made the terrible life choice to root for them. At least show Lombardi can't hurt us anymore. That's the one thing. Which he can still. He's the offensive coordinator in Denver, and I keep remembering that and being like, I got to watch the guy's offense again, and I'm not going to like it.

I can't wait for the Lombardi masterclass to keep the Chargers out of the playoffs. You know that's going to happen. Do they play in Week 18? I don't know. I just hope. No, I hope. Chargers Broncos schedule.

They played December 10th and December 31st. Yeah, those are going to be some impactful games, dude. Lombardi revenge game. Revenge game. That's going to do it for us here on the Ringer NFL show. Thank you to Eduardo for hopping on the mic for us as well as for his production. Thank you, of course, to Arjuna, Rum, Gapult, and Connor and Evans for their additional production supervision. He's been Stephen Ruiz.

I've been Ben Solac. We will be back for a Friday episode of the Ringer NFL show, the three of us, as we typically are. And then we'll get back on when Joe Burrough signs it for a ton of money. Thank you for listening.