The Ringer NFL Show - Cooper Kupp on the Super Bowl, His Contract Extension, and More. Plus, the Latest NFL News.

Episode Date: June 10, 2022

Kevin, Nora, and Steven are joined by Super Bowl MVP Cooper Kupp to discuss his contract extension, Sean McVay, the Super Bowl, and what he wants to work on during the upcoming season. Then they discuss the latest NFL news. Host: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti, and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. We're not just reacting to the NBA playoffs on my podcast. We're also doing it on the Ringer NBA show and the Mismatch podcast. They are coming after some of these NBA playoff games. Check it out, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights on the Ringer Podcast Network. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Kark, joined on a beautiful Friday afternoon by Norrinsia. Nora, Norr, hello.

Hello, Kevin. And Stephen Ruiz. Stephen, what's going on, buddy? Not much. Cooper Cup today, guys. Bonus episode. Bonus that, bonus Cooper Cup. This is a good bonus episode.

Like, I... Early offseason, like, some trade happened on, like, this one's, like, more enjoyable for me. Does it upset you that those bonus episodes, like, on our history? All anybody cares about is, like, trades and... Breaking news. Yeah, it makes sense.

It makes sense. The NFL is getting to a point. It will never be... I mean, like, 50 million people, like, watch... the championship game. So the game will always be a thing. But it's getting to an NBA-style situation where the transaction is as big as the action.

The solution is just getting Cooper Cup on the emergency episodes. Then I'll be fine. Well, we could ask about that. All right, let's do it. All right, so we're going to get to Cooper. We're calling this a ball pit episode. Talking ball.

Have a couple other questions, too. Life in general has new contract, obviously, which was minted this week. So really, really fun stuff, really good stuff on ball. So let's get to it. Here's Cooper. All right, Cooper Cup.

Let's go through the list here. Raining Super Bowl MVP, reigning NFL officer of the year, first team all pro, Pro Bowl, reigning receptions leader, yardage leader, touchdowns leader,

and a Super Bowl champion. Anything else, Cooper? I will see this year. All right, we'll see. You're here with Pat today. We will get to that, the extra strength, eye drops.

First of all, congratulations on the new contract three years, $80 million. I'm curious, you had a quote in Sports Illustrated this week about how, you know, you weren't sitting around going on over the cap and trying to figure out what you were worth, but you're getting bleacher report pop-ups and you're kind of looking and seeing what it was. Can you take me through what the process was this off-season? I mean, it seems like they wanted to reward you.

You were open to it. Can you just take us through the process on how either easy or hard it was, Cooper? It was a great process. We were very, it would be in a place we had a very collaborative approach on things. We had said, I had said to them, you know, this is something that, you know, I'm not trying to reset a market. You know, I was very clear about that. I said that publicly as well. So there was a trust element to this of saying, hey, let's just work on finding a way to make this thing work.

And we didn't call it an negotiation going through it. It was just let's sit down and figure out what makes sense. And so, you know, just being able to have that mutual respect. for one another, allow this to be a very, very smooth process. I'm curious, it's not like you were making minimum wage last year, but when you get an extension like that, listen, I think we all have things in our Amazon cart that we'd click buy now for, if we got substantial raise.

Last couple of days, any splurges? Nope, no, nothing. We've had, no, we're not. I can't think of, I, no. Nothing even on the bucket list in the next couple weeks? No, nothing really. I mean, I've got a, I need to take my wife on a vacation somewhere. That needs to happen. That's been planned, though. I need to take my wife somewhere for us to go get away a little bit. So that's going to happen at some point. And then, you know, outside of that, no, we're kind of just, you know, life goes on. You just like, you're, I'm chasing my kids around. My son still wakes me up at 545 in the morning. You know, I'm still making oatmeal in the mornings for the boys. You know, life goes on. Can I borrow $2 million then? Yeah, I'll not use it.

I'm going to have to check my baby. Stephen will make you oatmeal. I'll make you oatmeal. I'll make some good oatmeal too. Whatever you want in it. Obviously, you had this big year last year. It was your first year with Matt. I'm wondering how did the offense change because Matt arrived?

Were there any concepts or routes that you ran specifically more often because Stafford liked them or was good at them? Yeah, I think you get a feel for that stuff. And there's also some stuff that Matthew brought with and that he really like to do. You kind of revise things as an offense as well. And certainly, I mean, when you have players come in, you try to, you know, you're not going to completely change your offense, but you try to, you know, say, hey, are there certain parts of this offense that, you know, compliment, you know, your players better. You want to play your player's strengths. And Sean did a

great job of being able to put us in those positions. So there is, I think, a little nuanced stuff here and there that we did differently, that we maybe relied on more and maybe other parts of our offense did less because of Matthew's comfortability doing those things and his ability and being very effective at certain parts of our offense. Would that be like the drop back passing game like five more five step drops? It seemed like that's kind of what happened when Matt took over. Yeah. So I mean, like that's a part of it.

I mean, being able to be in a place where you're putting the ball on Matthew's hands and giving him time to move people and dictate things. And I think that is a, that's, you know, it's a fair, fair thing to say that's part of what makes Matthew great, something that we wanted to do a little more of last year. Cooper Stevens asking you the hard-hitting football questions, but I feel like the off-season football event of this year was the McVeigh wedding. What was the best part? The best part was definitely when he got up on stage, doing his dancing, his rapping.

I told him after us, I got him, Ann and I, we left just a little bit after that and caught him on the way out. It was like, we're good. Like, that's the moment. That is the peak of this party. You can't go any higher than that. So we got that. It's all going to be downhill from here.

So, yeah, that was definitely the peak of that one. What song did he rap? The peak of the wedding. What song does Sean McVeigh rap? What song? Yeah. I can't even remember what song it was. I think it was the, oh, I don't even know what I can't remember what song was.

It was a good one. It was like, it was a throwback. It was most throwback songs. Why can't I not remember? remember what song it was, though. It was great. It was a great one. I'm going to leave it at that. I'm sure there's video of it. I'm shocked. We'll find it. We'll find it. We'll try to find out because Kevin has this theory that football coaches are sort of culturally frozen in time from when they became coordinators because they get so busy. They don't listen to new music. Like Kyle Shanahan loves Lul Wayne.

Yeah. We have to find out because we can find out if it supports the theory or not. Right, 2012. It would be, you don't need to. I can tell you right now that that's completely true. It's 100% true. Yes. I honestly think,

I think this song might have been California Love by Tupac. I'm not 100% sure, but I think that's what it was. But, but yeah, no, that's like, yeah,

that's 100% true. That's awesome. Well, it's a very good skill to know when the wedding has peaked and it's time to go home and get some stuff. Yeah. That was great. You get,

you get, you know, save yourself a few hours of sleep on the back end. Still enjoy all the good stuff at a wedding. It's a great skill. So you had the post-game interview. I think it was later in the year where you kind of like broke down the coverage the defense was playing and how you got open on a big play.

Do you have like that Sean McVeigh like ability where you can like recall specific plays after the fact or was that just like a short-term memory type of thing? No, I'm not like Sean. Sean's an elephant. Someone asked him about the play about a play the other day. and he's going back through like he remembers the time on the clock what down it was what yard line

you're on what the humidity was the wind speed like how many bands were there he knows all the stuff so I don't have it like I don't have that kind of memory but it comes like football specific stuff and what happened on a play I think that's kind of a lot more kind of where my mind goes do you remember what happened on the

I guess it was like a second and seven play but the no look pass at the end of the Super World can you like recall the detail of the coverage for that play. That was a big play. Yeah, it was. So they had the safety dropping down. I mean, they had a great coverage called.

I believe it was just, they were playing a three, depending on how you want to call it, a three buzz look. We had a little concept. We were trying to get a high low on the strong hook player, which ends up being that buzz safetyist coming down. When you're running this kind of concept,

you're really banking on that hook player attaching to the underneath pivot route. Matthew did a great job being able to move guys by looking one way and obviously bringing it back throwing the ball across his body, opening an open spot

kind of on that hook in that hook area. And yeah, I mean, it was a great play. It was an incredible job on a play where we didn't get exactly the reaction we wanted, but Matthew just dictating where the ball is going to go.

I just want to say I watched the play before this, said you absolutely nailed it. Every aspect of the time of it. He knows ball. He knows ball. Oh, congratulations, Stephen. I'm confirming that Cooper knows how to play football. So we have a question, Cooper. Steven's going to read it from our colleague Ben Stillak,

who tried to ask you. He tried to ask you this question. After this rule, we also tried to ask Sean this question. And both of you were in such a celebratory mood you could not answer scheme questions. So we're hoping to get a breakdown here. Stephen, you have the floor.

Should I read it word for word? No, just you can speed it up a little. It's a long question. Yeah, it is a long question. your offense was struggling to move the ball through the first three quarters. And then on the go-ahead drive, you guys kind of had a scheme shift where you, and you guys were running a lot of condensed sets early on. And then you went to more of spread looks.

You went to two-by-two looks out of gun with tempo, when most of the time you guys had been in three-by-one in tighter formations. Was there like a conversation on the sideline where you guys kind of came up with those changes? Or was it Sean just saying, this is how we're going to play from that one? We got to a point there. So it was very clear the plan that Bengals were given us. They were going to try to double me when they could. And then we had, you know, early in the game,

we kind of were anticipating that that might be something they do, which is why Odell was about to go for 200 yards, went to rule MVP and do all the incredible things that he was about to do in that game. It was going to be an unbelievable game for Odell. obviously the worst thing happens and he goes down. And now the game plan is kind of set up around, you know, being able to let it go over,

get into a low, we're trying to figure out how to get things to go again. We get into that place where it's, okay, this is a six minutes left. This might be kind of the last opportunity. We get to go down and, you know, realistically run our stuff and be able to put ourselves up. And being able to talk with Sean's guidelines,

It was kind of a, hey, let's just do what we've done, do our, do our stuff. Let's not, I guess, go back to just kind of who we are and not worry about what the game plan was, but just like, let's just run our stuff and allow players to make plays. And he's got into that tempo. He did a great job. Just keeping us in tempo, keeping the Bengals out of some of those man calls. We were able to activate some of those doubles and things like that. And then, you know, Matthew able to dish the ball around.

some guys that some young guys that hadn't played much this year that year had stepped up made some huge plays Matthew played lights out and we're able to go down there and put some points up on the board Cooper one interesting thing I heard you talk about is the fact that the person who's still thrown you the most passes in your life is your father who obviously played in the NFL and I'm curious you know most most quarterbacks you know they have a son they're also a quarterback but it seems to me you picked up some stuff from being the son of a quarterback understanding how to run routes,

understanding what a quarterback wants, frankly. And can you tell me where that influence shows up, not just in your game now, but just throughout your career? Yeah, so, I mean, I think being quarterback-friendly is a thing. Coach is talking about all the time as receivers, being a quarterback-friendly receiver.

And most of the time, it's reference working back downhill, right? Cutting off lanes for DBs to undercut things and making sure that you're securing passes that you aren't getting balls batted down or picked. But I think it also means putting your foot in the ground, being clear with your indicator steps on where you're going, setting your path so that the quarterback knows where you're going,

can trust where you're coming out at, coming out of your brakes the same and how you're the speed and what you're coming out of them so they can anticipate the throws and being consistent with that. So all those things, I think, are a piece of who I am as a receiver. and like I've said, I was taught to play receiver from a quarterback. And in all honesty, my best friend, my best friend was growing up was the quarterback of our Pop Warner team and he was my quarterback from, you know, from nine years old all the

way through high school. And if he wasn't a quarterback, I probably would have been the one that was playing quarterback. So I kind of got lucky in that my best friend was the quarterback. So I kind of got shifted to running back and then to receive. receiver. Otherwise, I think I probably would have ended up playing quarterback. But, you know, that for me was, it was a unique perspective to learn the position from. And I think it has. It has been a part of who I am as a receiver all the way through my career. Cooper, you're obviously coming off this incredible season culminating the Super Bowl. What do you do to goal set for either

what you want to work on this offseason or going into next season? What goals are you setting for yourself just coming from a place that was already such a high achievement level. Yeah. Well, it's kind of funny because first part of your question, my goal for myself would be a better football player, point of blank period, year after year. That's the goal. Go fix the things you didn't do well, do them better. It's as simple as that.

And I don't do production goals or achievement goals or anything like that. It's just let's just be a better football player. But, you know, that question, I get asked that question a lot now. and realistically, you know, we go down that last drive, let's say on that fourth down, you know, the fourth down, the jet sweep, say we don't get that. You know, we've now turned the ball over on the negative 30-yard line, six minutes left, maybe less than that at that point.

The Bengals are in great position to close that game out. You know, the questions that we asked then, coming in this year, say, hey, what do you guys need to do to get yourselves over the top? What are the things that you guys need to do better at? So you're going to get over the top. And now the questions I'm being asked, and that we are being asked, is how can you possibly be better?

You know, so we're the same, whether that happened or not, we're the same players, the same team, whether that one play went differently. And so that's what we have to understand is that there's always so much to get better at. There's always so much we can improve on.

And anyone that thinks that they've gotten there, that anyone that thinks that they've arrived, they're sorely mistaken. and they're limiting themselves. There's so much that we can do better at. So I think that approach, be critical of yourself and know that there's things to improve on regardless of any of the good stuff

that you've been able to achieve. Even in Detroit, I feel like Stafford used his eyes well and did a lot of those no-look passes. And I'm wondering from like the wide receivers perspective, is it hard to catch those no-look passes? Do you get fooled yourself like the defenders do? Early on, it was definitely something you had to find. to be used to.

But there's a, let's just say you figure it out. You figure out how to, you know, anticipate those things. So I'll leave at that. But yes, you figure it out. And then one more question that's kind of related. Like on that, the Super Bowl play, the no look play, I think before the snap, you in, I think it was Bryson Hopkins, were like kind of, I think you guys may have aligned wrong or something.

Or you guys flipped a line right before the play. What happened there? Yeah. So we have a, we have a formation that is the same. same name. And Matthew, like, based on whether what we want,

we were able to just kind of switch it, you know, what we want over there in terms of whether, whether our tied in lines up outside or inside. And so that was all it was, was, you know, the formation,

getting the formation lined up how we wanted to. One of the things about the Rams is they've done some things differently. Like they've proven, again, over the past couple weeks that the sour cap isn't real. You don't need draft picks. You can develop guys later in the draft. And I think that that's something

that one thing that people kind of miss on the whole, you know, the Rams don't care about the draft. No, they do. They just hit on their later picks and they're able to trade the capital at the top of it.

But they do, they do rest differently than other teams. They rest guys in the preseason differently than other guys. If you were, and I know you don't want to give any state secrets away, but big picture, Cooper,

if you're given advice to a coach, to a GM who says, we want to rip off the Rams. Like, what big picture lessons can teams learn from the way that that organization does things differently? I think I would say just collaborate with your players. Find your players, find your guys that do things right.

Find the guys that represent the things that you want to be about as an organization as a team. Collaborate with them. I mean, I think that's one of the best things that we do with the Rams is open-door policy, being able to work together and not letting. it being something where, you know, one person is making, one person will, you know, Sean will ultimately make the decision, but he's not doing that without hearing a lot of different

voices and specific voices, not everyone's voices, but having a specific group of people that he wants to hear from and being able to make decisions going forward that way. Tell us what we're doing with Pat today. So Pad today, my allergies kill me. Absolutely throttle me in the spring. My eyes get itchy. I start rubbing them. they get red and puffy.

I can't see. Try catching a football with your eyes swollen shut. It's impossible. It's impossible. So for me, it's just, you know, in the morning, I grab my gloves, my fleets. I'm going into the field. I've got my pad today. You know, one state relief, extra strength.

One drop to each eye, 24 hours, knocks out itchy eyes. And I'm good to go. It also, I chase little kids around every day. We touched on that a little bit. You know, it's something that allows me to, be present with my kids as well. So very important tool for me. Love it. Thank you so much, Cooper Cup on behalf of

Pat today. We'll see you this season, buddy. Sounds good. Thank you guys. Stephen, that was delightful. What was the most interesting thing Cooper said for you? Daddy, wouldn't give me $2 million. That would have really changed my life. All the football stuff is it. No, but I...

Just to be clear, not one million dollars. One million dollars is a drop in a bucket for you. But two is where it really starts to kick out. But no, just hearing a Rams player, like kind of say that they started calling more dropback because they had Matt and Stafford like you can could see it but it's always nice to hear someone confirm it from inside the building yeah it's fascinating and obviously listen we knew the moment the trade happened that there was going to be a night and day changed the quarterback position

and that there was a ceiling on Jared golf and then Stafford is exactly what they needed that was that was proven and you know the way they stacked the roster quarterback was always going to be a thing they had to address and I'm you know it's good for the league that they did um all right let's go just whip around the league real quick with some news. Obviously, we did the entire DeChown Watson thing on Wednesday, some of the other stuff. So we're not going to do that this week. We are going to do.

So on Thursday, Tom Brady spoke to the Tampa Bay media. The headline on Yahoo, and this is actually not unique, is that Tom Brady unsuccessfully addresses rumor he spoke to dolphins in the offseason. It wasn't, I don't even know how to describe it. So here's

the quote via Jenna Lane from ESPM. I've had a lot of conversations with a lot of people, bad way to start this one off a denial. I've had for the last three or four years of my career about different opportunities

when I'm done playing football. So I kind of made a decision of what I'd like to do and I'll get to be in the game of football. Now, this has mostly been put to bed by the fact that he's going to get over $30 million a year

to work at Fox. That's, I believe, a 10-year deal. Anything you think here, I mean, I think we all kind of believed, I mean,

our boss Bill Simmons said on a podcast, podcast with me in February that it could be the Niners or the Dolphins and that Tom Brady was exploring his options. Were there smoke, there's fire in my book, Stephen? No, I agree with you. I mean, what is he going to say? He's not going to be like, oh, yeah, the dolphins were tampering with me. So you know he's not going to say.

To make me president. Right. This is the closest thing to an admission that we were ever going to get. And you knew, like, right when he started off with like a lot of people are saying a lot, I talked to a lot of people about a lot of things. Like, that's, that's the bar. that's when you know like whatever follows is bullshit. That says out.

So Brady, I'm a bit of a Bradyologist just because you've had to sort of read the, you have to read the tea leaves of Brady because he never outwrites as anything. Because one of the things is, like he's super into being a good teammate, not rocking the boat.

I understand that. He's not going to come out and just start, he's not going to become Jalen Ramsdale and all of a sudden to start torching guys. But like his, his opener when he doesn't want to start something, it doesn't want to talk about something is, I've seen a lot of things.

like this is nothing new for me and so this is kind of a cousin of that do you think Tom Brady's going to be good on TV I was about to ask you the same thing no no I don't I think it's because of that like hesitancy to say something

and maybe he'll like shake it off now that he's not in the pros I don't know but it just seems like he I think he's going to be in that like Drew Bree's category where it's obvious that he knows ball and like he knows things and has experience

but I don't think he has that like personality that I'm going to come back for. Like, I think Romo's whole thing, everyone, like, fell in love with him predicting the plays, but then he stopped predicting plays, and he was still good, and I think it's just because he's, like, person. Yeah, I mean, I, first of all,

I think Brady can turn it on in a way that, I think a lot of people close to him have seen. I think that there's, there's some interesting wrinkles to the Brady TV thing. Number one is everybody who knows him says, he's a maniacal worker and he'll work at this, and I think that you might see Romo-esque ability to just, simply explain

coverages and what defenses are doing and all of that stuff. So I don't think that there's necessarily I don't think a work ethic problem can be diagnosed for a lot of people on TV. It will not be that

with Tom Brady. Like there's some analysts where sometimes I'm just like, man, this guy has done zero work. Not at the top of, you know, top of NFL boosts, but sometimes you just listen to a game and just like,

did this guy just like look these guys up on Wikipedia? That will not be Tom Brady. And sometimes it only actually if they looked them up for Wikipedia, and they just don't know who they are. But that will not be Tom Brady. The other thing is, like, the people who know Tom Brady,

and I've talked with this on the pod, they say, and this is true, Belichick, too, that when you get them behind closed doors, they can be very, very, very critical because they know ball so well, and they can say this linebacker just can't play. And that's something I've seen.

You know, I remember being in a meeting with one of the top broadcasters anywhere, and they were just destroyed. growing guys. And I was kind of like, why don't you just say this on TV? And they're like, well, you know,

owners get mad and GMs get mad. And so if there's ever a top guy who can just say like, this linebacker just can't do this or this defensive end is just not capable of what they're asking him to do, I think that you can get

incredible crossover appeal. It's a 10-year $37 million contract. Does you want to go back into, like, does that 10-year deal preclude him from, like, is it such job security and so much money that would mean he doesn't want to go back into football?

But that's the biggest thing is if these guys want to go back into the game, they're not going to start slandering guys because they might be their employer three years later. Right. I think that's like kind of the delicate balance when you're one of these color commentators. It's like being able to criticize people without outright criticizing them. I think Tony Romo actually does a good job of that.

He kind of like alludes to things that teams can't do because of certain personnel limitations without outright saying it. That's the question. Will Brady have that, be able to do that? I don't know. And I don't know. Once those checks start cash, and I think that's going to be enough to keep them away from football.

One other bit of news on the wide receiver market. Hunter Renfro, two-year, $32 million deal, $21 million is guaranteed. I got to be honest with you, dude. This seems pretty cheap. It does. Within the context of the wide receiver market this year, Renfro's production, which is, I think it was super smart of the Raiders

to lock this in because Renfro is going to eat this year, man. With the Josh McDaniel's offense, Derek Carr settled, Devante Adams winning on the outside. Renfro is going to put up huge numbers to the point that's sub-Christian-Kirk contract numbers, and listen, it's two years,

so you can renegotiate next year if you'd like. But I feel like this is the Raiders getting off easy for a guy who's going to get a lot of attention this year. Yeah, that's a great deal for the Raiders. That's like Randall Cobb in 2015 money. And I agree with you. Like the fit in Josh McDaniel system, I think they're going to look more like maybe like the 2007 Patriots,

maybe like the 2011 Patriots when they had Gronk and Hernandez. I think they're going to look more like that, like more of a spread type offense and what we've seen in New England the last couple of years. So I think Hunter Renfro, you need that slot receiver in that type of offense. and I think he's going to play the West Welkler role and maybe catch like 120 passes. We caught 103 last year when he didn't have Josh McDaniels. When he had John Gruden leaving halfway through the year

and he still got 1,038 yards. So I think he's going to be awesome in that McDaniels system. You know, it's funny because one of the reasons that Belichick started to emphasize the slot receiver is because the outside receiver had become pricey. But then he lucks into Randy Moss is available from the Raiders. They basically steal him relative to the draft value. and then they were able to pick up

West Welker in Restricted Free Agency obviously ended up that started a pattern of them picking up slot receivers for cheap and it seems to me that the best case scenario for Josh Daniels is inheriting a great receiver on the inside and not having to pay them outside receiver money

right not a you don't and he has his Randy Moss obviously they're paying more but he has he already has Randy Moss and Devante Adams he has Darren Waller who wasn't there last year he was out injured a bunch Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the year that Renfro had on third down

when teams were paying attention to him was amazing. So, yeah, he's got all the pieces, man. He's got all the pieces. And Derek Carr, I think he has a good quarterback for that type of offense. Are they going to be good? I mean, their offense is going to be good. I don't know about the defense.

I can't. The AFC West, dude. It's just a killer. Dude, I think they're going to be better than Denver. I tend to agree. I also think that we need to get, my take, seeing what's going on in college football, is we should get rid of divisions.

We should do pods, like consistent divisions. I'm with it. Just do pods. Just do pods. Like, it is so unfair. Like,

they change your way. It is so unfair of the AFC West that like for the next, the Raiders and the Broncos for the next 10 years are going to have to go against Justin Herbert and Patrick and Holmes. Like,

the bar is so hot. There's no margin for error. There's no margin for error. I think what the Raiders are doing this off of season, I know people criticize them for paying the receiver close to $30 million a year, but they're going for it. Like, this is fun.

imagine being just like laying down for the next 10 years ago. We're not beating those guys anyway. Like this, go for it. I like it. Well, I will say this. This is the same conversation we had last year about the NFC West. And then the Cardinals, we were all, I remember going on a TV show and saying pray for Cliff Kingsbury because he's going to get battered. And then the Cardinals were much better than we thought, even though the jury store remains out on Cliff.

And the Rams won't the Super Bowl. So like, obviously didn't get beat up too much. Okay. So I love two minds, but man, it is really unfair right now if you're the Raiders and you're building something. Like the Raiders would win a handful of divisions in the NFL. Right. And I think you should factor in the Renfro contract into the Adams contract. Like paying those two guys, whatever the sum is, what is it?

Like close to $40 million, that's not too bad. You're not paying too much. Like Renfro's deal is so bad, I wouldn't even ask him to borrow $2 million. I would offer him like 20 bucks if he was on the pot. Last thing, and we've done this at nauseam, so I don't want to go too far on it. Lamar Jackson, still

not in Baltimore for offseason workouts. Mike Florio had a breakdown yesterday. Three possible explanations. Possibility number one, he wants out of Baltimore. Jackson has denied this. Number two, he wants the Ravens to offer him a market-setting contract without negotiation.

Obviously, they're not engaging at this point. And possibility number three is he's just unsure of what he wants and he's staying away. I've thought this is going to get done pretty consistently. I think that this is just the reality of the franchise tag, which is, and listen, if he wants to go with the sort of DAC Prescott model and get a couple years in the franchise tag and be negotiating against what's probably going to be, what, $35, $40 million tag by the time he gets there, maybe that's a play. But I'd take the $200, $2.30, whatever it is.

going forward. I think that, you know, listen, Deshawn Watson probably set the market. And I'd certainly rather have Lamar Jackson than Deshaal Watson. And there was some, you know, I think that there was Sports Illustrated this week, but they wrote basically like, you know, there were people who do not have the Haslams, you know, the Bengals spend less money typically than the Haslins, right? And they're going to be negotiating a Joe Burrow contract now off of the Deshawn Watson deal. that that to me is going to change the paradigm a little bit. Joe Burrow will get paid what he needs to do,

and the Bengals will prioritize that. You know, the Ravens obviously are first-class organization. They pay their guys all the time. They're having been the same questions with the Bengals. And by the way, the Bengals have an indoor practice facility. Maybe the culture is changing there, and they just made the Super Bowl. But having said that, that seems like the starting point to me is $2.30.

Yeah, it has to be. I mean, just given everything that's going on around, Deshawn Watson. That has, that's like a great negotiating point if you're Lamar Jackson's camp. I'm not. Oh, is it? I'm actually going to play. Right. I'm actually going to play all 17 games this year. I'm not concerned about like the lack of progress or the lack of reported progress. I just think it's the nature of this negotiation. There's no agents involved. And usually agents are the ones speeding are food, uh, spoon feeding information to reporters. And we're not getting that with this one. All right. Anything else? Go weekend plans? No, I do want to give a shout out to Willie Sneed for, for Barrow in my bid. We have to mention this. So Willie Sneed gave an interview. Was it to Ty Don?

Yeah, Ty Dunn. Okay. Our guy, our buddy, Ty Dunn. And in it, he was talking about Greg Roman. He throws Roman under the bus a little bit. Would you say that? Yeah. Yeah, certainly. I mean, it's fair criticism. Yeah. But then in the middle of it, he goes full Stephen Ruiz and says Greg Grombrose and says, Greg Roman would be a great run game coordinator, which if you are a diehard listener of this show, you know that Stephen Ruiz has dubbed like five people, a future run game coordinator.

Including Greg Roman. Including Greg Roman. Willie Sneed, I mean, sounds like he's a listener, Stephen. Get him on the pot. Get him on the pot. I'm always advocating for more players to be on the pot. Like normal pods. Ball pit segment?

Another ball pit segment. I want to hear, I want to ask Willie Sneed, does Greg Roman know, ball when it comes to the passing game. The answer is I think he would say no. That's basically what he said. All right. We'll be back on Wednesday. We don't have another ball pit segment on the docket. Let's just get one, Stephen. Let's just be legends and just find somebody next week. Let's do it. It's been the ring around NFL show. Part of the Ringer podcast network. Thank you. Thank you. To find this and for his help with this show production's provision by Arjuna Ramkeball.

See you next week.