The Ringer NFL Show - Davante Adams and Amari Cooper Trade Reaction! Plus, Russell Wilson to Start Over Justin Fields?

Episode Date: October 15, 2024

In another breaking news episode of the program, Sheil Kapadia and Nora Princiotti give their instant reaction to the Davante Adams–Jets trade. They discuss how the trade happened, how he’ll fit in with the Aaron Rodgers–led Jets offense, how much Adams has left to offer, and where the Raiders will go from here (00:00) Then, Steven Ruiz joins shortly after reports circulated that the Steelers will likely start Russell Wilson over Justin Fields this weekend. Then, if that wasn’t enough, the content gods have revealed that the Bills have acquired Amari Cooper in a trade with Cleveland! The guys react to that, and then Ruiz goes through his weekly quarterback rankings (42:30). Check out Ruiz’s article on the winners and losers from Week 6 here. 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, Nora Princiotti, and Steven Ruiz Producers: Carlos Chiriboga and Troy Farkas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, y'all. Sirot Sohi from The Ringer here, and I wanted to let you guys know about a new show that I'm hosting. The Ringer WNBA show. We're going to be talking about all the biggest personalities, breaking down and analyzing the latest happenings that make the W so fascinating, featuring some of the best guests and experts from around the league. Tap in with us on the brand new Ringer WNBA show feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Kappata here, another midweek show. where the content gods are smiling down upon us. We have a trade, Nora Princiotti, Davante Adams, headed to the Jets. We're going to talk about that in just a moment. And then Stephen Ruiz, we got more news.

Stephen Ruiz will join us in the second segment because we might have a quarterback change in Pittsburgh. We'll get to that as well. But Nora, how good is this? I mean, we are on a roll three weeks in a row where we plan for one show. Then the morning of, we say, oh, there's big news. Let's pivot. let's get to that much more fun.

It's kind of exhilarating. I'm having a great time. You just start, you're scrolling, you're checking the news, seeing what's going to pop up, knowing that I'm going to get to hop on here with you and talk about it. It's great stuff. Content gods, keep it coming. And then for, you know, followers of Ringer NFL on YouTube, you get the midweek beard from your host here because he's caught off guard with an early record, didn't have time to shave

or do anything. And so, you know, he looks even 20 years old. older than he already is and he's already old. So another treat for the midweek breaking news show. All right, let's get to it. Devante Adams has not been finalized. It's the Jets. I feel like I have to say that.

If it was another team, I might not even say it. But we know weird things can happen with the Jets. He has to pass his physical and all that. But assuming that that all goes through, per Adam Schaefter, the Raiders get a third round pick that can bump up to a second. I love the conditions on these trades noir. It's my favorite part. of the trade. So the conditions are if Adams is a first or second team all pro,

or on the Jets active roster for the AFC championship game or the Super Bowl, that that third gets bumped up to a two. So just, I mean, amazing conditions on this trade. Yeah, the high goals in order for this to become a second, which was we'd heard reported what the Raiders were initially hoping for. So I wonder if this means that the market ended up being a little softer than they were hoping, or they were just sort of shooting high. Yeah. Or, you know, Devante Adams had some pull on where he wanted to go. A lot of questions to be answered on how this trade went down. So we've got five of them. That's what we're going to do. We're going to split it up. Five different questions,

five different angles from this trade, go through them. I want to see what Nora thinks about some of these things. Let's start with the most obvious one. Question number one, what is the impact here for the New York Jets? you know, compete pretty hard against the bills on Monday night, but they come up short. Once again, they're two and four on the season. They've already fired their head coach. They've already made a change. It's crazy how much they've packed in, as I'm saying it out loud to the first six weeks of the season.

They've made a change at play caller with Todd Downing taking over for Nathaniel Hackett. Where are you on the impact Devante Adams can have for the rest of this jet season? So I feel a little torn. And I went to that, I went to that Monday night. game. I was at my life last night. And the reason I feel torn is because on the one hand, I thought that for all of the sloppiness and disappointment for the Jets that came from that game, where they felt like they really gave it away and they had a chance to, you know, pull even with the bills in the division, it would have been such a big win if they'd been able to pull it off.

For all of that disappointment, I kind of felt like there were a lot of positives just because their offense has been the thing that has held them back. And I thought their offense under Todd Downing looked meaningfully better. I thought they incorporated motion and play action better than they have so far this season. And I thought they were able to get Garrett Wilson and Breece Hall, two of their better playmakers, activated and in particular creating explosive plays in a way that had just been completely absent through the first five games.

So if I were, if I were the Jets, I would feel kind of excited about where they are on offense or at least where they can go. and then you add Devante Adams, who, you know, we'll talk about where he is at this point in his career a little bit, but who I do think still has the capacity to play like a number one receiver at least some of the time. And you should feel pretty good about that. But the reason I feel torn, the flip side of it is if there's one thing that's an issue for them, I really don't think it was like we need another playmaker at wide receiver. We need someone to catch more passes in this offense.

it's that they can't protect Aaron Rogers. Yeah. And like that's A number one. And this doesn't do anything to help that. I mean, you know, you can kind of make the argument that a real reliable, you know, great hands chain moving receiver, which is I think what DeVante Adams can be particularly given his connection with Rogers, maybe that helps them stay sort of like on time in the offense and keep in positive situations.

But on a basic level, I just don't quite think this addresses the number one thing that is going to cause them problems on offense. So I have a little bit of, you know, trepidation about how much of a needle mover it's actually going to be. But big picture, this is a team that's decided that they are going all in right now. And you know what? Sure. Like, it's Devante Adams.

You know he's got the relationship with the quarterback. If you're pushing all the chips into the middle right now, it's an arguably good to have Devonda Adams on your team. Yeah, it's a third round pick. I think it makes them better. I think you're right. It's hard to be like, well, you know, does it make them a contender in the ASC? I don't know that anyone would really make that argument.

Maybe there's someone out there making that argument. I don't think that's the case. I don't think you think that's the case when you look at the hierarchy in the AFC. So offensively, so far this season, they're, you know, mediocre to below average, basically any way you slice hit. Their 21st in offensive DVOA. And you mentioned the past catchers, Garrett Wilson, his best game of the season on Monday night.

He leads all players in the NFL, which I didn't realize, with 67 targets this season. And Alan Lazard is second on the team with 40. So now you add Devante Adams in there. And you say, all right, Garrett Wilson, Devante Adams, and Alan Lazard as your third wide receiver. And, you know, that is a good group to go with on a weekly basis. And you mentioned it.

That game last night, they looked more explosive than they have at any point this season. They had eight plays at 20 plus yards, which was by far a season high for them. It didn't, stuff didn't look as hard as it had previously in the season where it was like, man, this team needs to string together like an 11 play drive to get in the end zone every single time. They had those big chunk plays. And I think that's going to be really important for them because you mentioned it. The protection up front is an issue.

And it was a big issue in that game. They're just not built in the pennsyllons. penalties were a big issue. They're just not built to like methodically move the ball down the field and not make those mistakes. They're going to make mistakes. They're going to have a sack. They're going to have a blown protection. They're going to have a run that gets, you know, tackle for loss, all those things. So I think explosiveness is really important for them. And I think Devante Adams is going to help them there. So you look at it overall and it's like this gives them a better chance to make the playoffs. Again, they're two and four right now, but those wild card

spots in the AFC are certainly up for grabs. And they're just kind of in, hey, let's try to get into the playoffs and see what happens mode. That's what they're in. And I think Devante Adams helps them at least, you know, try to get into the playoffs. Well, I think you're right and they have to be in that mode just sort of definitionally based on being two and four at this point in the season. The one thing I will say is that you said, you know, you and I probably wouldn't call this a super contending team right now. I don't think anybody would. I'll push back on that in one way. and I'll give you one name of someone who I think, I think thinks the Jets are contenders,

and that's Woody Johnson. Yeah. And so in terms of the impact for the Jets, look, I think it's a positive, but it inevitably ratchets up the pressure just a little bit more. And, you know, one thing that struck me in that locker room last night is that they were more,

they were more frustrated than I was expecting them to be. And maybe that's on me for just sort of not factoring in enough of the, exhaustion and the chaos and the drama of the coach gets fired, the play caller gets demoted. You're coming back from London. You're embarrassed. You're tired. And then you kind of give what was a winnable game away to a division rival. So maybe my expectations were just a little bit off.

But they just seem so frustrated by the outcome. And I'm sitting there going like, I don't know, guys, your number one issue was a team. is the functioning of this offense, and it looked better than it's looked. Like, isn't that something? Isn't that something that you can build off of? And you just didn't hear a lot of that. And so, again, maybe it's the circumstance, but the thing that it left me wondering is if the overall sentiment of from the top down, the expectation of this team is that

they really go and accomplish something, and the more it becomes apparent that that's maybe not in the cards, it's just going to tense everybody up and kind of eat away at their ability to, you know, stay optimistic and hopeful about the season. And I wonder about this from that perspective, because again, it is just such a win now move and it is such a move that I think reflects the owner's belief that this is still a team that that could contend for, you know, a Super Bowl. And I don't, I think, I think that's a little bit of a fantasy land attitude. So I wonder how it works out from that perspective.

Yeah, that frustration, I mean, you look at the kind of accumulation of the last three weeks here. You know, they've lost three in a row, but they've been by a total of 10 points, like they've been in all of these games, the last two games. It's hard we haven't even mentioned it yet, but it's hard not to just look at that last interception last night and be like, that was the second they decided, you know, we're trading for Devante Adams. When you look at Aaron Rogers and Mike Williams have not been on the same page and the way the last two games have ended with him targeting Mike Williams and both of those turning into interceptions, where it's just, you know, it's going to be different,

I think, with Devante Adams there. Well, and Rogers stepping up to the podium after the game and saying Williams effectively ran the wrong route and that's what happened there. I mean, I'm sure Like I've watched people break it down online. Sounds like that's right. And those two clearly haven't been having the best connection and on the same page. That was also a duck off of Rogers's back foot. Like that was an interceptable ball. So I wonder if there's a little from column A,

a little from column B there. But that's another reason why it's, this goes in the plus column. It's good to have Devante Adams on your team, particularly if your quarterback is Aaron Rogers. So, you know, tentative excitement, I think is how I would feel about this. Yeah, it's funny. If I was like, you know, an analytic staffer on the Jets who had job security and knew I was

going to be around for 10 years, I'd probably be the person in the room going, guys, we're not, I mean, we're not going anywhere this year. I know it's only a third round pick, but we have holes on this roster. What are we talking about here? It's a 12-game rental. Why are we doing this? At the same time, I think, you know, if you're Joe Douglas, obviously, it's like, what else matters beyond the next 12 weeks.

If you're Woody Johnson, you know, you mentioned he thinks they're a contender. He would also be happy, I think, if they just made the playoffs. And, you know, he saved the little face and wasn't as embarrassed maybe as he is right now. So like that in his head, after 13 straight years or 12 straight years, whatever it is of not making the playoffs. Like making the playoffs does matter for a franchise like this more so than it does, you know, an actual good franchise. So I think you add all those things together and you say, all right, who cares? it's probably going to be a third round pick. Maybe he can help us get into the playoffs.

Because it is a, you know, the margin there, again, three straight losses by a total of 10 points. So if you feel like you're competitive now, you're playing one possession games, then upgrading there actually, you know, can have an impact on what you do this season. All right, that was question number one. What is the impact here for the Jets? Question number two. It's a fun one. You added this when we were discussing earlier today. How did this go down?

I mean, what a very weird off, you know, offseason. It was like, no, Devante Adams isn't going anywhere. Then all of a sudden, there's a business decisions comment from Antonio Pierce, but like the Raiders are two and two. And all of a sudden, you know, Adams demands a trade and he's got this hamstring injury. And then you've got the Rogers of it all where what's, what kind of strings is he pulling behind the scene? So give me your your best guess or how you answer this question. How did we get to a point where in week six, the Raiders,

are trading Devante Adams to the Jets. Well, so you mentioned the kind of optical possibility that that moment when that ball gets picked at the end of the game and Rogers and Mike Williams are struggling to connect again kind of becomes the moment that feels like it seals it. So Albert Breer reported that Adams flew to New Jersey last night to facilitate this. So I guess based on that, this wasn't something. the timeline would suggest that this wasn't something that was decided based on the outcome of the game on Monday night.

It was the previous week's interception, maybe. Right. The same thing that happened in the previous week. Yeah. I mean, look, if you read between the lines or read the T leaves a little bit, what it seems like is probably the simplest explanation being the right one, which is Adams goes on the trade block. The Jets quarterbacked by Aaron Rogers, who.

who loves Devante Adams, are interested. And, you know, maybe the Raiders waited around to see if they could get just a two straight up eventually becomes clear that they couldn't. And then clap your hands, you're done. And Devon DeVante Adams becomes a jet. I think that's interesting from the perspective of teams that decided not to do this and presumably weren't willing to kind of come over the top and beat a condition third that could become a second. But, you know, the Jets agreed to take on the remaining 11.6 million

in salary. So I'm sure they had to spend some time negotiating that down. But if I had to guess, the reason, if I had to guess what happened here is the Jets were immediately interested. And it took however long for the Raiders to become confident that they couldn't get a better offer. Yeah, we know that Woody Johnson has these phone conversations. I think their phone conversations, maybe they're in person with Aaron Rogers. I'm sure as soon as deviant, Devante Adams became available. That's a conversation. And Rogers is like, yes, get him. He's awesome. He will help us get better. Joe Douglas is like a third round pick next year. What do I care about a third round pick next year? Yeah, I'm surprised he wasn't like, yeah, you want a first.

What do you want here? So Joe, if you're Joe Douglas, obviously it's a pretty easy decision because you're not looking ahead to the future you're looking at right now. And so you add all those things together. I do wonder if Devante Adams at the time he made the trade request, you know, did he have a good sense of where he was going? Because listen, players are allowed to talk. That's not tampering. Aaron Rogers can talk to Woody Johnson and then talk to Devante Adams. There's nothing against the rules for doing that. So I do wonder what, you know, what was some of this orchestrated, you know, beforehand, where if Adams wasn't sure where he was going to go, if he wasn't sure what teams would be interested, Woody have made that trade request. But the

Athletic had an interesting article that said that Adams kind of had to talk with Antonio Pierce and was just like, I can't see my career ending like here in this way on an irrelevant team that's losing a lot of games, which I get that. Like, it also, yeah, but also like he was the way he did. I mean, Adams, I feel like seems like a great guy and he's a great player and he has a high approval rating. This was the guy who did demand to be out of Green Bay. You remember? Like, I mean, he could have been playing with Rogers in Green Bay. He could still be there if they signed him because the reporting at that time was that the Packers offered him a contract, but he said, no, I don't want to be here anymore. I want to go

play with Derek Carr and how that turnout. I mean, he could imagine if he's on that Packers team right now with Jordan Love. That could have been a nice ending of a career for Devante Adams. So I'm just saying, you know, he's not like an outwardly diva-ish wide receiver, but he has made some strange decisions here in recent years. Yeah, it is one of like, it's becoming a great sort of Butterfly Effect moment of Devante Adams just saying to the, you know, the storied Green Bay Packers. Yeah. Like, I need Derek Carr. I need to go play with Derek Carr.

It is paramount that Derek Carr be my quarterback. Like, I don't think we talk enough about how wild that was and how many things that set in motion. But look, clearly he likes to, he likes to play on a team that is quarterbacked by one of his buddies. at one point that meant not Aaron Rogers, but now it means Aaron Rogers. And on some level, I find it hard to argue with. Yeah, I mean, I remember when he made that when it was like, you know, the reporting was like, no, he just really wants to play with Derek Carr.

I'm like, no, no, no, he's got to be sick of Aaron Rogers. There's something going on there. But I take the L there. I guess I was wrong because now a few years later. He really wanted to play with Derek Carr. Yeah. And he's like, get me back to play with 41-year-old Aaron Rogers on, like a train wreck of a franchise. That's how I want to end my career here. So,

yeah, we don't know exactly how it went down. Maybe like you said, the most obvious answer is what we think, which is that Adams didn't want to keep playing for the Raiders because they kind of stink and are irrelevant and the Jets had a need. And he said, let's go play with the quarterback. I know we already have the chemistry. I don't have to worry about that. I'm going to get a bunch of targets and I'll go live in North Jersey for at least 12 weeks. I mean, this isn't a long. He's not making a long commitment here. Again, they're on the hook for the rest of the contract this year. You mentioned it.

It's $10 or $11 million or something like that. But after that, he used to monsterous salaries on his contract that no team is going to pay. So I would imagine Devante Adams either gets a restructure to stay with the Jets after the season or he just becomes a free agent. And he could be playing elsewhere next season. All right. Let's take a break. We have three more questions pertaining to this trade that we got to get to. Pick up a win this NFL game day on Fandul, America's number one sports book right now.

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Because we remember Devante Adams and his prime, probably the best wide receiver in the NFL, certainly one of the most fun, productive wide receivers in the NFL. But he turns 32 in December. He's had this hamstring injury, we think, for a few weeks here. Such a weird story. We think the hamstring injury was a real thing. But, like, who are the Jets getting, Nora? What do you think?

I think they are getting a, I really do think that they are getting a sort of like borderline number one quality receiver, which is not to say that he will automatically become the number one in that offense. I think it'll be interesting to see how the target share, particularly with Wilson, who's thrived on a lot of volume, ends up going once. he's worked in there. But I think Devante Adams, as a baseline, is still someone who's capable of being not a top five receiver, but like one of the better receivers in the NFL. We haven't seen him play a lot this year.

He's only played three games before he started being held out with that hamstring injury, which I'm very curious to see if that miraculously solves itself now, or if it's something that he continues to have to deal with, which obviously also has implications for the Jets. But in that three-game sample size, we have seen him take over a game at least once, right, at Baltimore. And that was without Rogers. So, yes, are there risks associated with taking on a 31 going on 32-year-old receiver

who, if you dig into some of the advanced metrics, some of them do show diminishing productivity over the last several seasons. I think when we were talking about trade destinations, I mentioned some data that Seth Walder had put together online, which shows that his yards per route run over the last five seasons have gone down every year. I think some of that is attributable to his situation worsening, but some of it is probably attributable to him not having the type of burst that he had as an athlete a few years ago. But I think how I feel about who Devante Adams is right now,

it's less about that. It's less about like, is he just not the player that he used to be? I think if Devante Adams is on the field, he's probably going to be able to be a pretty useful receiver for the Jets offense and for Aaron Rogers.

I think the thing that you worry about, given his age, actually is the injuries. And I know we're all expecting him to just sort of like pop back up and say, oh, I'm better. My hamstring is fine.

Now that he's with the Jets, but like, We're recording this before the physical. Let's see. And let's see if he's on that injury report kind of week in and week out. Because to me, it's less, is he just not going to have it? And is it going to be an issue that he's a step slower? Like, I think they'll figure that out.

To me, it's more that, like, it's exciting to get to Fonday Adams, but this is another player, you know, kind of like Mike Williams has been, like Tyron Smith has been. Yeah. where it's another veteran where the durability is a big concern. And so when you talk about making a push for, you know, January and beyond, that's a bigger issue to me than it is like, oh, he's not at the absolute peak of his performance. Yeah, all their best players, well, not all their best players. A bunch of their best players where key players on offense are on kind of the last legs of their career.

Aaron Rogers, Tyron Smith, Morgan Moses, Mike Williams, Devante Adams. I mean, all these guys, they're at various ages, and it depends what position you play. But just wide receivers this age typically are declining or are on the kind of final, you know, final years of their career. If you look at the last five or ten years, wide receivers who are 31, 32 years old, who have even had a thousand yards, it's such a short list. It's like Adam Thielen and, you know, D'Andre Hopkins and Julian Edelman. Like, it's really not a lot of wide receivers still performing at a high level. Now, I'm with you. I thought he looked good this year when he played.

18 catches for 209 yards. It's not a big sample. But, man, that fourth quarter against the Ravens, I can't get that out of my head where he was just, they couldn't cover him. He took over the game and he won the Raiders that game. He lost the Ravens that game. Like that type of impact really has a, you know, has a difference. And you look at last year, 103 catches still had over 1,100 yards.

So he's not the same guy he was in his prime. I don't think anyone would make that case. I think he can still be a really good player. I mean, he was doing that with Gardner Minshu and Aidan O'Connell as his quarterbacks. And I guess Jimmy G a little bit last year as well. So you look at it, if he was traded to another team, I would have more concern about the production. But so much of what Rogers does we've seen this season is about chemistry. he and the wide receiver need to see things the same way.

They need to read the coverage the same way. They need to read the leverage of the defensive back the same way because that ball's coming out. I mean, Troy Aikman was kind of vaguely making this point a lot during the broadcast last night where he's like, the ball's coming out really quickly. No, no, no, like really, really quickly from Aaron Rogers where if the pressure's coming, the ball's coming out and is the wide receiver ready for it or not? There was even a play yesterday where it's like Mike Williams turns around and the ball's on him and he drops it. And it's like, all right, he probably should catch that ball. But at the same time,

like, it's really, you know, it's, we're talking about split second here. He thought it was arriving a beat later. Yeah. Yeah. And so that stuff, uh, definitely matter. So you're going to see a lot of back shoulder throws to Devante Adams. You're going to see a lot of plays where it's just Devante Adams one on one. And Aaron Rogers is going to throw with anticipation to a spot. And he's going to trust that Devante Adams is going to be there. And they've had thousands of reps together doing those things. That's why I think if you're a Jets fan and you want to be optimistic about it, that's sort of the bullish case that this isn't just, if it were another, if it were the same level of wide receiver at the same age, but a guy who Rogers had never played with, I'd probably

be on here ripping this trade being going like, what are you talking about? This isn't going to work out. He can't just integrate this guy into the offense, but it's someone who he's played with before. And so that gives me some optimism that I do think, I think Adams is going to play well, if he's healthy, to your point, if he's healthy, when you're that age, you've had a hamstring issue. There's no guarantee that he's going to be on the field. But if he's on the field, I actually think he's going to play well for them over the next three months. Yeah. The other thing is you worry about, I mean, worries may be too strong,

but like I do wonder how that connection ends up taking away targets from a Garrett Wilson or even like, you know, a Breece Hall who they've started to incorporate in the passing game a little bit more. That's secondary. That's okay. Like it's all about this year. and if it's working, it's working. I do wonder a little bit just because we know how much Rogers likes to rely on those

connections. If the worst case scenario ends up being they get Adams in there, he gets all the attention from the quarterback. And then maybe like November, December, he's banged up, he's hurt. And then you've sort of lost the opportunity to really foster that connection between, you know, the young whiteout who's more the future of your team, but also who. who maybe might be a little bit more durable over the course of the entire season. And then you wind up a little stuck.

But like that's almost, I feel like that's almost even a little concerned trolley. Like, I do think that if he's on the field, he is going to make a positive impact for them. Adams and Wilson are going to have like 90% of their. I mean, you're going to mix in a little Alan Lazard because you got to mix in a little Alan

Lazard. And Rogers loves him some Alan Lazare. That's what I'm saying. Particularly after they connect on a 52-yard hand. I mean. Those three are going to account for 100%. No one else on the team. You don't need to go to the Jugs machine this week. You're not getting a pass throwing your way. It's going to be those three guys. And that's it. All right, two more questions here to get to. Number four, and this, I like to revisit this one because you and I had this conversation a couple of weeks ago. What teams might be kicking themselves for not doing this deal? You know some of our friends in the content space. There's going to be someone out there after a January playoff game. going, oh, you know, I'm glad Team X did it trade for Devonte Adams. You know, it's like they really could have used this guy right now. You know, you like to be first getting those tweets in.

Is there a team? Are there two teams where you say, man, now that we know what the price was, a third round pick that could turn into a second, I'm surprised this team didn't kind of beat that offer where Adams could have really helped them. I mean, I do think our friends, the Buffalo Bills, who we talked about when we, we, we went through possible landing spots,

just because another thing that you saw in that game from the bill's perspective was that, you know, the Jets spent a lot of that game defensively playing man coverage, which you don't normally do against a Josh Allen team unless you are just really unafraid of the receivers that they have. And I think you learned something about,

you know, it's something that they've seen earlier in the season two, and I think you were learning how seriously defensive coordinators take this bill's receiving core. And, you know, they had, they had Shakir back in there, and I think that's, that helps them a lot. But I do still think that this is a team that can't really threaten a defense with what they have among their past catchers. And, you know, when they see that, obviously Josh Allen can can make some things happen with his legs. And, you know, make defenses pay for doing that.

So they have answers to it, sort of. But it felt like it stood out to me that you could see that the Jets defense just really, which, you know, just banged up in the secondary just was like, I don't really think these guys are going to super make us pay in one-on-one situation so we can get away with it, even if we risk turning our back to Josh Allen. And so that's got to make you think about what would this team look like if you added of Devante Adams to the group. And so they're one.

I mean, you know, you, I know we're high on the chiefs. Do you think that they will be kicking themselves for not having made this happen, or at least trying? I do. They're number one on my list. I know their offense looked great the last time we saw them. I just wonder how much of that is sustainable. Not sustainable.

They're going to be a very good offense. But I just, if I'm the chiefs, I'm just like, I, like, we're in a great spot to win the Super Bowl this year. We're 5 and O. We're, you know, we've got the pieces we need. The AFC is wide open. There's no juggernaut. We're going for a third Super Bowl in a row.

This is a 12-week commitment. This isn't like you're taking on a bad contract for the next three seasons. Oh, man, I would have been like, we'll give you a second and like a fourth second, you know, turn into something else. Like, this is going to be better than the offer you're getting from the Jets. I know it's going to be a low second because our team is really good, but that's still better than a third that you're going to get. from the Jets and we're throwing in a day three pick. Are you sure you don't want to trade in the division? What would it take? I don't know if they had those conversations. I think the reporting was that they like, you know, maybe made a call but weren't going to go super aggressive into it.

If I were the chiefs, I would have really looked long and hard and just thinking if we can add Devante Adams to this group when we don't have Rishie Rice, when we're giving Juju Smith, all the Juju Smith-Schuster, all these targets, that would have been very appealing to me. So yeah, that's the one that came to mind. And then by, by. I think your point about the bills is a good one. Josh Allen had to put on the Cape Monday night. That wasn't a, hey, the offense is working. It's in structure.

And, oh, Joe Brady, that was like, wow, Josh Allen is falling out of bounds throwing a 45-yard pass downfield. Or Josh Allen's breaking a tackle or Josh Allen scrambling and throwing a touchdown pass to Dawson Knox. I'm not saying that that's not sustainable. We've seen him play enough where we know you're going to get those plays at the same time. If you want to make life a little bit easier and have more stuff in structure, than adding Adams for this kind of 12-week stretch certainly could have helped.

So, yeah, those were the two teams I looked at. We talked about the Ravens a couple weeks ago, but man, that Ravens' offense, I could see why you would be like, we don't need to mess with this right now. I mean, it doesn't look like there's a big weakness that that's a big need for them at this point. So, yeah, the two teams I head down were the chiefs and the bills.

All right. Five. We barely, I feel like the poor Raiders. No one's even talking about the Raiders. It's like, oh, yeah, they traded him. but they're kind of in this just spot of irrelevancy, you know, where? So question number five, the last one we'll get to is where are we, Nora, with this Raiders team, you know, a couple of years ago, they go, Devante Adams, they're bringing in Jimmy G,

they're trying to win right now with Josh McDaniels. McDaniels is gone. Antonio Pierce replaces him. They keep Antonio Pierce. Now Max Crosby's shoving coaches on the sideline. Devante Adams is out of the building. where are you with this Raiders team and kind of what comes next? Well, you want to hear something depressing?

Josh Dubot, who does a good, great job at the AP. I saw him post this on Twitter and it just made me like, oh, in the last 20 seasons, the Raiders have traded first round picks for Randy Moss, Richard Seymour, Carson Palmer, and Devante Adams, and they have never made the playoffs with any of those players. Wow. Listen, I remember. That's upsetting. Yeah, I remember I had to grade the Devante Adams trade for the athletic.

And a lot of my grading of trades have looked horrible. You know, don't go read my Christian McCaffrey one. But I remember I gave both the Packers and the Raiders like C's or below. And people are like, God, you're a hater. You gave both these teams bad grades? That's how I felt at the time. It was just a strange move at the time for them with the roster that they had to kind to go all in and give up that draft capital and then pay Devante Adams at this stage of his career.

He wasn't like 26 years old at the time. And so part of it was certainly predictable at the time with this move. I think the question then becomes, I'm interested in the rest of Max Crosby's season. And just what it looks like, because as you mentioned, you're starting to get some of the, you know, the visuals on the sideline where it doesn't like everything is totally copacetic because you went into the beginning of the season and you look at this Raiders team and go, okay, the cupboard is pretty bare. Like, this is not a good roster. This is not a team that's ready to contend. But they have, you know, they have a star on the offense and a star. And I think in Crosby, a real star who's closer to the prime of his career

than Adams is a real star on the defense. And I think presumably they were. would like to have him be someone that they can try to build around and continue to build around. But, you know, you do get to a point where it's like, how much can this guy really do for a team that just is not in a window of contention right now? But the flip side of that is if you get rid of all of your blue chippers, you don't have any blue chippers and then where are you? So I think the Raiders are pretty much in the wilderness. I think this is kind of a bummer because they bought high and sold low on Adams. But at the same time, this is a team that needs draft picks a lot more than it needs Devante Adams. So it's a long road, right?

Like the Raiders next year are not going to be a great roster. You start to look two plus years down the road if they do well in the draft. If they make good choices in free agency, if they figure out their quarterback situation, then maybe you start to recover. But this just this, this hasn't been a team that's been competitive very often in recent memory and even not so recent memory. Yeah, I don't want to pile on.

If you're a Raiders fan, you're just like this season is such a bummer. But they're in terrible shape. There's no sugar-coding it. Like I was looking at the AFC. The Browns are probably in worse shape just because of their quarterback situation. And then the Titans,

when you're looking at teams that are like, They're not competitive now and they don't really have a straightforward path towards being competitive in the future. That's where the Raiders are at. I mean, Max Crosby, Christian Wilkins, Brock Bowers, who else do you have on this team as a building block? You have a tight end and two defensive linemen. You have no quarterback. You're probably making a head coaching change at the end of the season. You very well could be making a GM change at the end of the season.

And if you're not, you're sticking with the guy who couldn't build a roster around Justin Herbert. So that's not great either. You have to take a huge step back and be like, we tried making these moves with the Christian Wilkins and Devante Adams and Jimmy Garapolos of the world. And it did not work at all. This needs to be a big rebuild. We need to try to figure out ways to accumulate resources to get a quarterback.

And so maybe like they're probably not. I mean, they might be bad enough to land a quarterback in next year's draft. But that's not a guarantee. They might still have enough competitiveness in them where they win, I don't know, six games or whatever it is, where now you're like kind of in that middle ground where you're not going to get a top three pick so you don't have a great path towards getting a quarterback. The Crosby question is really interesting because he's only 27 years old. So if your ownership and you say, no, no, this is like one of the best defensive players in the NFL and he's 27 and we just paid him. That's not a guy I'm trading. I get that. At the same time, if you, the, the, assets you have to accumulate draft capital, he is it. That's the only guy, unless you want to trade Brock Bowers, which you wouldn't want to do that. He's on a rookie contract and he looks awesome. But Max Crosby is going to get you at least a first round pick in return. I was just thinking about this as you were talking like, a forward thinking move for them would be to try

to identify a team that's going to be like crappy in like next year and be like, hey, give us like a first and something else. You don't even have to give it to us in this year. draft, give it to us in next year's draft, you know? And they'll be like, well, really? Because you know how GMs operate. You might be able to get more because you're not going to be good next year. So I don't know. I think it's something you can consider. I understand. I'm usually a person who says if you have a star player at a premium position in their prime, you don't need to overthink it and trade that guy. But they're in such a weird situation where they, I really don't see what the path is unless they're just like, let's really suck this year. Like, I don't know if there are other things they can do with the

roster and going to full tank mode. And then you draft a quarterback next season and you try to build around him that way. So what you're saying is the Raiders should trade Max Crosby to the Jets. Yeah. I mean, I wouldn't like want to do it to the Lions because like the Lions are going to be good, you know, but try to identify that team. Yeah, a team that's fooling itself into thinking it's a contender. But if if they're going to be good, it's going to be this year and that's it.

And then try to get their draft pick in what would that be the 20, 26. in the 2026. I think that's the, maybe that's the move. Find a GM, find which, make a list. Rank the Gems. Who's trying to save their job right now? Who's under the most pressure right now? Find those GMs and call them or, you know, find some sneaky way to get a text their way.

You know, have one of these insiders, text them that, hey, I don't know if you heard, but they are taking calls on Crosby. They're probably not going to trade him. They don't want to trade him. You know, they don't want to trade him. But they are taking calls. just trying to explore all their options and see what happens there. Can you dupe somebody into just a massive fall?

Because he's worth it. He's one of the best defensive players in the NFL. If you actually are a contending team, like if I'm the Lions, I'd be like, let's go. If he's available, I'll give up a first to go get Max Crosby. He can be with us for the next three, four, five years at least as we've got this Super Bowl window. And that first round pick isn't going to get us that. But if you're the Raiders, the whole thing has to be, how do we get a quarterback? What are we doing to coach?

what are we doing at GM? Only the biggest questions that every franchise faces and they have no answers. Other than that, they're in great shape. Brock Bowers looks tremendous and they have a very nice stadium in Las Vegas that we were at last year for the Super Bowl. Lovely studio. Lovely studio. Yeah. Tom Brady, the ownership thing might get approved here this week.

They got the owner's meetings. I did notice more that he was smitten over Ben Johnson during that Lions Cowboys game last week. Like that's the most he's gushed over anybody during a game this entire season. So I don't know, Ben Johnson, Tom Brady, figure it out from there. Maybe that's the move. I don't know. Sorry, Raiders fans. There's no easy answer.

All right. That'll do it. I think for this segment, thank you to Nora Principi for helping me break down the Devante Adams trade. We'll take a break. We'll come back. We'll talk a little Russ, fields, stillers, and some rookie quarterbacks with Stephen Ruiz. All right.

We're back on the Ringer NFL. show. Some more news today to talk about it. We welcome in Stephen Ruiz. Ruiz. We got a, we think, I guess it's not definite. We think we have a quarterback change in Pittsburgh where Mike Tomlin told reporters that Russell Wilson is, quote, in consideration to start Sunday against the Jets and that he's fully healthy, unlikely to make an announcement until closer to game time. Where are you surprised? What was your reaction when this news? broke today. I mean, it's a little surprising in the grand scheme of things in the big picture just because Justin Fields is obviously a younger quarterback. And if one of these two options is

going to be a long-term option for Pittsburgh, it's going to be Justin Fields. It's definitely not going to be Russell Wilson. But I mean, I kind of get it because you watch that offense and yeah, they're four and two. But I don't think Justin Fields is adding a whole lot to the offense in ways where you would expect him to add where Russell Wilson would it. In terms of scrambles, he's only 20th in scrambling success rate right now. Like right around where Jared Gough is in terms of success rate on scrambles. He has 19 scrambles this year. He's ninth in EPA, which is pretty good.

But I think you're getting more boom, but not really like down to down success. And then in the run game, they really haven't gotten a lot out of him. The runs have been fine, but they haven't been like a Lamar Jackson or even a Jaden Daniels type boost to the offense right now. And with the way he's still avoiding the middle of the field and, really the intermediate areas, you're not getting that, like, benefit you get from having a run first offense, so you run play action off that. If he's not attacking those areas of the field that get vacated when teams sell out to stop the run, then like the offense doesn't really work as design.

So I kind of get it in that, from that perspective, I think it might improve the offense. But at the same time, like all of the problems that Justin Fields has, Russell Wilson has had for the last couple of years. Yeah, that's the funniest thing is that like as we were talking about Justin Fields in the summer. It was like the best version of Justin Fields, the way he's played so far is probably like Russell Wilson, you know, when he was a better player of someone who's creating and scrambling and, you know, throwing down field on the outside, a party or run game. And what like their styles, you could really make the case, they look very different when they stand side by side, but their styles of play are really not all that different. So I'm with you on

fields. Like I do think there's probably, you know, a bit of overreaction on how he's. he's performed this season when you look at it. You know, they're 23rd in offensive DVOA. He's 15th in EPA per pass play. He's 24th in success rate. So it's been like a, you know, mediocre to below average offense by basically any metric you can look at. Got to be, you know, Arthur Smith, does he need to take some heat?

How is this run game not better? I mean, they're 22nd in rushing TVOA. Is it the offensive line entries? Like, I just thought going into the season that if nothing else, you have Justin Fields, you have Arthur Smith, you know, you have the, these backs that you should be able to at least have a better run game than what they've had so far. But to your point, that hasn't been a plus for the offense. If that was a plus, I don't think they're making this move. You almost wonder if like the temptation to utilize Justin Fields

in the run game and do that option stuff almost takes away from the heart and soul of Arthur Smith's run game, which has been very good everywhere he's been in Atlanta and Tennessee. But the kind of runs he's kind of, he's majored in, majored in. They don't really work with like the option stuff. he's not going to be able to run like the outside zone. He's not going to be able to really run the duo and then do read option stuff off of that. Usually you see option plays paired with like inside zone, just a basic inside zone or maybe like a power play. So I wonder if like Fields, I don't know if he works in his offense or you get their most out of the Arthur Smith offense. And you can got to see this in the splits.

Like Fields is better on late down situations than he is on early down situations. And usually for quarterbacks, that's reversed. Like early downs is where it's easy, where you get your play action, your chunk plays and all that. And then third down, it's like, oh, the defense has the advantage. They're going to be able to blitz you. They're going to be able to do coverage disguises. And then things get difficult. I think Fields just has that ability to scramble and pick up a first down and kind of make plays on the move.

And that's why you're seeing him perform better than I think we can even expect him to sustain over the rest of the season than he is in those highly structured situations. and maybe the Steelers are hoping that Russ comes in and first and second down gets a lot better now. You don't have to rely on that out of structure stuff on third down. The problem is like last year with Russ, he was pretty decent on the early down stuff, but he was terrible in the late down stuff. And like that's how it is when you look at these two quarterbacks

is you wish you could like just mush them together and get one quarterback and you just can't do that in the NFL. They both have fatal flaws. And that's why the saying goes, like if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have any quarterbacks. And it applies to this situation. I don't think there's a good answer either way. I think Justin Fields is a more exciting answer

and the one that is more watchable for people like us. But for Tomlin, I get why you're going to the vet. Because you're not really, like, I know Justin Fields isn't throwing interceptions, but he's still fumbling the ball. And his interception and fumble rate is still pretty high compared to the league average. And I think the interception thing could also be a red flag.

Like, he's not testing those windows. He's not throwing it downfield. They're really throwing outside the numbers to keep them away from those interception heavy areas. but what is that costing the offense? Yeah, I remember after a few weeks looking at the numbers, and it's like, wow, he's, you know, really, it looks like he's changed.

He's not creating a lot of negative plays. It has taken a bit of a turn, I think, in the last two or three weeks here when you look at it. Overall, he's being sacked at on 9% of his past plays. That ranks 25th in the NFL. He holds on to the football for more than three seconds on average. He's only 13th in turnover-worthy play percentage, which you would take that.

But the last two weeks, he's got five turnover worthy plays, which is second in the NFL. So some of those negatives that you saw with him in Chicago where he said, even though there are some fun flashes and some fun highs here, like, is he ever going to be able to cut out these negative plays to a degree where he's going to be effective quarterback? Maybe they're looking at that going. We're kind of seeing those signs here in recent weeks. Now, having said all that, it's just like a lot of the stuff we mentioned is going to apply to Russell Wilson.

You know, he's going to hold on to the ball. He's going to take sacks. He's going to turn down. He's not going to throw in the middle of the field. So that's why, if you're listening to this going, what are you talking about? Russell Wilson's not going to be an upgrade. I'm with you. I would stick with fields until it's just like, this is a disaster and let's move to Russell Wilson.

Because I just don't see really the, you know, I don't know what areas are really going to be upgrades. Maybe like you said, first and second down have a little more structure there. But it's just hard for me to be like, wow, Russell Wilson's in. And now they're much better than 23rd in offensive efficiency the rest of the way. The one thing I will say is he won the job in training camp. Yeah. And he probably got some type of, you know, promised. There's that stuff behind the scenes, which I think plays a role where he signs there and they say, you're the starter, that kind of thing. They've been pretty open about that throughout the process. Yeah. So they have more information than us. They watch them in practice. They know how they're handling the playbook. Like, they know the answers within the play designs. And I was thinking about this earlier today. Is the quarterback position the only one where we, like, where a team is like winning, the Steelers are four and two. And they're star. is coming off of injury, he's coming back, and we're like, I don't know, you kind of got to stick

with Fields. That doesn't happen for any other position, right? Like any other position on the field. If the wide receiver won, if Justin Fields got hurt and the Vikings won five games in a row, I think they did start winning when Justin Fields got hurt last year, or Justin Jefferson, no one would be like, oh, yeah, I mean, you got to ride the hot hand. You got to keep Justin Jefferson on the bench, you know? So I don't know.

And I think that, like, I know it's the quarterback position and they control most of the stuff. But like, for the Steelers, that hasn't been the case over the last couple of years. So I get the decision from Mike Tomlin's. I don't think it's like a head-scratching decision from their part. Yeah, you're right. I actually, as you were saying that, I really can't think of an example where a starter got injured. I'm sure they're out there and people will remind us. But like, you know, a starter got injured, lost their job.

The backup came in and played awesome. And the starter didn't get their job back at another position. It really doesn't feel like it happened. in the NFL. It's like, no, no, this guy is the starter. Trust me, he's better. There aren't those surprises down the depth chart. So I don't think it's going to make a meaningful difference one way or the other, but it looks like Russell Wilson will probably get the start this weekend against the New York Jets. All right, we move on to quarterback corner here on the Ringer NFL show.

We do categories every week, but we have a theme this week. We're checking in on the rookies. We've had, you know, Jaden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Bo Nicks. They've started the entire season. We've got guys like Drake May and Spencer Rattler getting into the mix. So, Ruiz, you're still doing the categories, but we're sticking with rookie. So start us off. What do you got for the first one?

All right. The first category is they were better on film than the box score implies. And I'm going to split this one. I'm going to go with Drake May and Spencer Rattler for this one. They both had two turnovers. And I think those turnover, that was the concern with both of these guys, was decision-making, whether they were going to adhere to the structure of the offense, whether they were going to keep their footwork. and tact and, you know, go through their progressions. And I thought both of them

impressed a lot in those areas specifically, especially Rattler. Like, Rattler's the one that was seen as more of a wild card, especially coming from, you know, he was at Oklahoma. He goes to South Carolina. He has all this other stuff from the QB1 documentary where, you know, he was kind of bullying a kid that was on his team. So there were questions about his character. And I feel like that kind of bled over into the evaluation of him as a quarterback. And everyone was like, oh, yeah, just like this reckless guy. You can't really, you know, rein them in. But he ran the Saints offense just fine.

And I don't think that's where you saw the mistakes. You didn't see the mistakes come until the game got out of hand. Tampa Bay was able to just blitz the passer because they knew there was no run game to worry about, knew there was no play action past game to worry about. And that's when you saw him try to make plays. But they were down by 20 points. You should be making plays in that situation. But what stuck out to me was the precision, especially on third down,

where things get really hectic. He was making a number. of throws outside the numbers. They were similar to the throws that we praised Jade and Daniels for making against the Ravens where those little like outside the number stop routes where you can only put it in one spot are the defenders going to get a hand on it. He made a couple of those throws against the bucks in this game. And then he had this other throw, which I thought was one of the more impressive throws I've

seen from the Saints offense all year long, including Derek Carr, where the Bucks are in kind of like a quarter's coverage and the Saints are in a three-by-one. They have Juan Johnson to one side isolated. it. And the safety to that side after the snap kind of like works back to the three receiver side to help out over there. And Rattler, like, without missing a beat, just automatically processes that information, turns to Johnson and just fires a seam ball in between the safety and the cornerback that hits them right in the chest on third and nine against a exotic defensive look. And I'm like, man, that looks like a first round prospect to me. So I thought Rattler was great

and like in terms of the circumstances that he was facing, the fact that he was rookie making his first start. And like I said on Sunday, I'm doubling down. They should not go back to Derek Carr at this point. Like we need to see Rattler for the next 12 games or whatever it is and decide if in year two he's a guy we can build around or if he's a guy that we can kind of like blow everything up and start over. You don't want to be in the Tennessee Titan situation with like they were with well, Levis.

And maybe Levis played last year and you got some information on him, but you don't want to be in that situation where you're, kind of you have one foot into the rebuild and one foot out of it. And I think that's a problem in Tennessee right now with that discontent on the offensive side. But I don't know. There's something there you can build around. And then with Drake May, like the big issue with him coming into the season or the big talking point was his footwork.

I didn't see one issue with footwork the entire game. When he missed, it was more like, oh, the receiver's covered. I'm trying to fit a ball in there, but I'm going to, you know, throw it outside of the area where the quarterback can make a play on it. And then it looks like an overthrow. But I really don't think accuracy was a problem. And then when you saw him settle down in terms of decision making in the second half, he was going from one to two to three and getting the ball out on time and on target.

And then he adds the playmaking stuff and the ability to push the ball down field that Jacoby Brissette doesn't offer. So both of these guys, I'm like, yeah, A plus, this is what you want to see out of a rookie. I don't care what the box score says with these two guys, it's all about what they put on tape and evaluating that and the traits that they put on tape. Yeah, it's the flashes. It's not all, you know, they're going to make mistake. it's not always going to look pretty. But with Rattler, I agree with you that watching him, you're like, this guy is talented. I mean, you could see it.

It wasn't like typically a day three guy who comes in in this spot. They have limitations, whether it's arm strength, athleticism, those kinds of things. Like he did look the part. I thought they did a good job of play action, getting him outside the pocket in the first half. Like you said, when the game script was in a certain place, I know the bucks jumped all over him, but they obviously had stuff scripted in the first half. and he was executing that at a pretty high level. Then it felt like in the second half, Todd Bowles is just like, we're throwing everything.

I think after Baker Mayfield throw his third interception, Todd Bowles is like, all right, that's it. I'm taking this game over and they just started going after Spencer Rattler. And like, yeah, there are going to be mistakes when you pressure a guy like that when you throw all that stuff at a guy making his first start. But you didn't watch that being like Spencer Rattler is the reason they're losing this game. So I thought, you know, I thought there was definitely enough there where I thought, all right, I want to see a little bit more from this guy. Now, your point with the Saints, the problem with the Saints is like their goal every year is to win nine games. So I don't know, you know, and Dennis Allen's trying to save his job.

And so I don't know what they're looking at organizationally, whether they're like, yeah, let's, you know, stick with Rattler or not. But certainly with Carr's injury, you're going to see a little bit more of him. I feel like if you win seven games, but you have this promising rookie who's ascending. It's better than winning eight or nine games with Derek Carr. And I think that will be the difference between these two quarterbacks because like I said, Radler is executing the offense, or at least he did in this one game. It's only one game.

It's a small sample size. But even in preseason, he looked like he was executing the offense. My comparison for him is the quarterback on the other side of the field in this game. It's Baker Mayfield, where I think they're in that like no man's land where they're, they're talented quarterbacks. But they aren't like superhuman talents like we see out of Patrick Mahomes and Josh Allen, but they're better than like the Jared Goss. and like finding, striking the right balance between being that system guy and being that superhero guy that can lead a franchise, I think it's going to be the key for Rattler because he has a great, he has a good arm. He just doesn't have an elite arm compared to the other guys. He can move around and he can run on, throw on the move, but he's not Lamar Jackson. He's not Josh Allen. So I don't, he's got to temper. He's got to rein some stuff in, but I think he'll be fine if he finds that right balance. And then like with Drake May, I think Drake May is like, it's like watching like a superhero.

origin story where they're like figuring out their powers early on and like trying to figure out what they can get away with. That's what Drake May seems to be. I feel like when he figures it out, he's going to be one of these top quarterbacks. But he does have to figure it out. It comes down to development. We have breaking news. Stephen Ruiz, producer Carlos Chiroboga just sent me a slack. We have another trade. Nora and I in the first part of the show broke down the Devante Adams trade. Now we have another wide receiver trade. A Mara. Murray Cooper is going from the Cleveland Browns to the Buffalo Bill. So the bills don't get Devante Adams, but they add Amari Cooper here.

Amari Cooper has been frustrated all season long. He was terrific last season. 72 catches for 1,250 yards and five touchdowns. Watching him in Deshaun Watson this season has been a disaster where those guys have not been on the same page. He's got 24 catches for 250 yards so far this season. This is his age 30 season. It looks like compensation. It looks like the Browns are getting this from various tweets a third round pick as part of the deal.

It sounds like it sounds like it's a pick swap type deal. So I don't think it's actually a third round pick. It might be a third round pick. And I'll let you know as this goes on if we get more details. What is your instant reaction? to Amari Cooper now being a member of the Buffalo Bills. I mean, that's pretty big. You felt like that passing game was too,

it revolved around Khalil Shakir and his availability a little bit too much the last couple of weeks. And adding that guy, like what they lost in digs, they get back in Amari Cooper, a guy that can run routes and catch passes underneath, but can also get open deep and create explosive plays. That's what they lost when they lost Stefan Diggs.

And I think having him, Cooper, I mean, and Shakir, they replaced Diggs in the aggregate and give you a little bit something extra in my opinion because Diggs was kind of slowing down a little bit at the end there. I love it. I mean, this is a great trade for the bills, I think. Again, we'll see what the exact compensation is. But you mention it. I mean, there's a strong case that Amari Cooper was better than Stefan Diggs last year when you just look at those two players in their production and their film. He's a separator. He's a route runner.

He's a guy who can get open. He can handle a lot of volume. He can beat man coverage. And I felt like the past couple weeks here, and I said this to Nora, that Josh Allen had to put the cape on once again, where even that game Monday night, you're like, wow, awesome play by Josh Allen. But you're like, wait a minute. There's supposed to be some more easy answers in this offense.

And so now you add Amari Cooper to the mix. And this is from Field Yates points out that they're not taking on a lot of salary here, there was an Amari Cooper restructure where they have to pay him just $807,000 the rest of the season to Amari Cooper. So this is a bargain compared to Devante Adams. The Jets are paying him $10 or $11 million. Cooper is only under contract the rest of this season. So he becomes a free agent at the end of the season here. Carlos Chiroboga, what a job with the pinch producing here.

He's sending me all the details here. I mean, this is a breakout performance for Carlos. Browns get a 2025 third round pick and a 2026 seventh round pick. The bills get Amari Cooper and a 2025 sixth round pick. Okay, so we can do the math. It does, you know, if you think those day three picks kind of cancel out there, I guess it is sort of a third round pick. But, man, if I'm the bills, I'm absolutely doing this any day of the week.

They're four and two this season. The AFC is wide open. They can be a Super Bowl contender this season in a year where it felt like, wait, are they going to have to kind of take a bit of a reset year this season? It looks like they don't have to do that. And now they add Amari Cooper to the mix. So fun breaking news here with the Amari Cooper trade to the Buffalo Bills. Yeah, this is like my favorite type of move, midseason move for a Super Bowl contender.

is like the low risk let's rent out a star player who can kind of swing games and I don't know it's kind of hard to say what Amari Cooper is just because he's been stuck in that offense this year, stuck with that quarterback.

It's been a while since we've seen him play at a very high level like a star level but I do think he still has plenty of talent you watch the tape and he looks like a difference making receiver and that's what Buffalo needs and like if it doesn't work out

who cares? Who cares? Like this season if it didn't end with a Super Bowl run Bill's fans were going to be disappointed. I think there were going to be questions about Sean McDermott either way. So why not try to load up and give yourself the best chance on offense?

Because that's how they're going to win the Super Bowl is if they're great on offense. Yeah, I like it too, because you're not, like you said, it's low risk. You're, you know, it's a third round pick. You're not taking on a lot of salary. And you're not tied to him beyond 20, 24. At the same time, if Amari Cooper plays really well and he likes playing with Josh Allen, I mean, he's 30 years old, so you can sign him to probably a reasonable contract at the end of the year.

It's probably going to only be a one-year commitment, maybe a two-year commitment. And now all of a sudden you have a little band-aid as you continue to draft wide receivers and build that group. So now you're looking at, you know, Amari Cooper, Kion Coleman, Khalil Shakir, Dawson Knox, Dalton Kincaid, James Cook, an offensive line that has played really well. Like, you got to be pumped if you're a Bill's fan. I mean, again, it was supposed to be kind of a reset year this season. And now all of a sudden, you're in a great spot. I think this would surprise people, Ruiz, the last two years, not this year, 2022 and 2023, Amari Cooper ranked eighth in the NFL in receiving yards.

You know, so it was kind of like quietly putting up big numbers. You know, Joe Flacco gets in there last year and all of a sudden Amari Cooper looks really good again. So that's what you're hoping for if you're the bills. I mean, obviously adding a player in the middle of the season, there's some question there. how quickly can he kind of get up to speed, that kind of thing. But I like the swing. It's like you said, it's also my favorite kind of move. It's low risk, high reward for a team that's saying,

nope, we're not just going to be overly patient when we have Josh Allen as our quarterback. Let's add to the roster. Let's try to win the division. Let's try to make a playoff run. Who knows? Maybe we didn't think this was going to be our season, but maybe this can be our season here. So what a day. I mean, Devante,

Adams. I mean, the rust Justin Field stuff, that's like, that's like C block type stuff now. All of a sudden, a quarterback change. We got two wide receiver trades on a mid-October Tuesday. So, Amari Cooper going to the Buffalo Bills. Any thoughts on the, I mean, is what does this say about the Browns, Ruiz? I mean, this is punting on the season, which you probably should. There's no quarterback change coming this week. Now you look at their supporting cast, and it's like, this is Garbonzo Beans. here. Is this a tank? Is this, hey, maybe Deshaun? Oh, it's a tank. It's a fire sale. Yeah, it's the beginning of a fire sale. I mean, this team has to be bad over the next couple of years. It just has to be able to shed all of the dead weight that's going to come with getting rid of

Deshaun Watson moving on from this contract, the literal dead money. It's going to be hard to build this roster. Andrew Barry, I don't know if he's going to be the one in charge of doing it, but if he is, they've got a long way to go. It's going to be hard to turn this around. And this is a necessary first step. It's going to be hard to explain to fans who are paying for tickets and want something to watch when they come to these games. But it's a necessary step. There better be some freaking good promotions for fans who are paying full price for this team the rest of the season to watch this quarterback and this offense. I mean, give them a, what was the franchise that gave like a free medium soda or something and they thought they were

being real charitable? You can do something like that. Let them play quarterback. Who wants to play quarterback this week. It's having a different fan comes down for every quarter. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so they're in bad shape at quarterback. They're in bad shape at wide receiver.

They have no ways out with Deshaun Watson. Who knows what happens with the head coach and the GM, like you said, at the end of the season. I don't want to make it sound like they don't have any good players. They've still got Miles Garrett. They've still got good corners. They've still got some talent on the offensive line. So there are some things there.

But one of the most intriguing teams, because what are they going to do with this Deshawn Watson disaster, which, by the way, they got what they deserved by doing what they did, guaranteeing his contract, giving up that hall for Deshaun Watson. So they've got a lot to figure out. This feels like the first step in what's going to be many moves to come here, not only during the rest of the season, but also in the offseason for the Cleveland Browns. All right, I've got, I'm going to listen, I get this little like sound effect whenever I get a message on Slack here. So I'm going to keep an eye and ear out for that in case Carlos sends us anything. else, but we can finish it out and get to the other rookie quarterback awards that you've got to

hand out. All right. Let's go with the player whose tape didn't look as good as the box score. And I'm going to give this one to Bo Nix just by default. But instead of giving it to Bo Nix, I'm actually going to give this to Sean Payton. Okay. You've been on this. You mentioned this in the post game show, too. You think Nicks may be getting, even though you're not a huge Nix guy, you think he's getting a little bit of a raw deal and Sean Payton's not taking enough heat. I do. I don't think it doesn't look like he's getting good coaching right now. Like there are. hitches in his delivery. He's not confident in what he's seen. He's not delivering the ball with confidence. I don't think he's gotten any better at managing the pocket. I don't think the play

calling has helped them out. But really, it's the fundamentals and the stuff I'm talking about, like the confidence. And I think that's on the coach. The coach gives the quarterback the confidence in what he's looking at. Like, you see quarterbacks like Tua. You see quarterbacks like Brock Purdy, see quarterbacks like Jared Gough, who have fully bought into the play calling and trust that a receiver is going to be where the coach says the receiver is is going to be. That's how they're able to throw with anticipation. Now, Bo Nix Nix kind of had those hitches in his deliveries at Oregon, and that was a concern before the draft. But you would expect a coach, especially a QB whisper like Sean Payton, to be able to

coach that stuff out of him. It just hasn't happened yet. I do think, like, one of the things that Bo Nix has put on tape that kind of caught me by surprise, his ability to create plays out of structure. He had a nice little play against the charges. I know the tape was, the tape was ugly against the charges. There's no way around it. He looked a little better at the end of the game, but the charges were backing off. They were kind of playing in pre-event mode. He made some throws downfield into wide open windows. Those were impressive throws that showed off good arm strength.

But the best play to me are the best plays were out of structure. He had this one little no-look pass where he's going to his right. There's a linebacker in the window of the throw. He kind of keeps his eyes to the sideline and flips the throw perfectly to his tight end, I think, and picks up about 15, 20 yards. That was a good play. And I think those are the types of plays that have shown up every week. Like there is something to him.

He has something to him. But if you can cut out those little pump fakes, and they're not like pump fakes where, oh, I'm going to draw safety out of the middle of the field. They're pump fakes like, oh, I'm about to throw this past. Oh, wait, it's not open. Let me pull it back down.

If we can get rid of those, I think he could be, I don't think he's ever going to be a top 10 starter, but I think he could be like a top 20 starter in one of these system quarterbacks where if you put the right pieces around him, he could produce like a top 10 starter. And he's just not getting any of that right now.

And the weaknesses in his game are getting more pronounced as the season goes on instead of going away like we've seen with these other rookie quarterbacks. Yeah, I think you've got the right angle because it's not only what you're mentioned there, but also like Sean Payton, like pick this guy, you know, Sean Payton's not an organization where the GM is handing him a quarterback and he's got to make it work. No, he was bragging about what was it, Bo Nix's backpack or something? What was that story?

I forget, listen, it's my mind. It's the only thing he had in his backpack. It was all football related. This guy's all football all the time. All right, that's a good reason to go ahead and pick him 12th or wherever you did. But I'm with you. He's got to make it work. He scoured him.

He saw the tools. He's the reason he thought he could create a system or fit him into his system and make it work. And the truth is the Broncos and Peyton would be taking a lot more heat if their defense didn't play pretty well for the first five weeks of the season. I mean, this offense hasn't been good. They're 26th in DVOA. They're, you know, Nix is 28th in EPA per pass play. 29th in success rate. Like, the offense has not done.

If the offense could just get to, like, slightly below average, you know, you're probably talking about a playoff team this season or maybe at least a team that's in the mix, but they haven't been able to do that. So they're three and three. Peyton goes back to New Orleans Thursday night game that is, has a little bit. I mean, I guess it's got two of these quarterbacks we're talking about here. So it's a good job talking about it now because it'll be Rattler versus Boe Nix and Sean Payton going back to New Orleans. Orleans. All right, that was Bo Nix. What do we got? What's next? I'm going to give the honorable quarterbacking badge. I'm going to give it to Jayden Daniels this week. I'm going to give it to him because I think he's starting to answer some of the pre-draft

concerns a lot of people had. There was the one concern about him targeting over the middle of the field. We're starting to see that, especially in this Baltimore game where I thought Baltimore did a really good job of taking away some of the easy buttons on early downs that Cliff Kingsbury has been providing him and leaving it up to Jaden Daniels to make these tight window throws with precision and some anticipation, and I thought he was able to make them consistently. Like, it wasn't like a Dak Prescott type performance, but he's a rookie quarterback, and you can't expect that out of him. And you certainly don't expect it based on the pre-draft scouting reports. Like even Bill Belichick had mentioned when he was doing his TV work for ESPN, oh, he doesn't

really target the middle of the field. I would game playing around that and kind of exploit that problem. Well, the Ravens did that, and they really still couldn't stop the commander's offense. I know, what did they score, 23 points in this game, but it was over. two points per drive. They just didn't have a lot of drives in this game. They didn't have a problem moving the ball and they kind of slowed up in the red zone. So I think Jaden Daniels is answering all the questions you want. The one question that you're never going to really be able to feel comfortable answering is how healthy is he going to stay just because of a smaller frame. That's still the long-term concern and that was a concern before the draft. But the other football

related, I guess the injuries are football related, but like the quarterback play related concerns, he's really starting to answer. And I think we're starting to see even better answers over the last couple of weeks compared to his start to the season, which the stats were better, but I think the play, the tape has been better the last couple of weeks. Yeah, no doubt. I thought this was his most when you just looked at, if you're looking at sustainability and Lake, you mentioned answering questions, what were some of the concerns about him in the draft? This last game was the most encouraging one that he's had so far against that defense, the throws he was making, the answers he was coming up with, the calm he showed under duress, all those things. Right now,

is according to NF Elo, which looks at middle of the field targeting. The commanders are 12th in percentage of passes that go in the middle of the field. So, yeah, I don't think he's ever going to be high there, but you want it to be at a level where, hey, can he do this? If he needs to do this, can this be a part of your game plan? So far, it looks like that. The other thing is the pressure to sacrate. You know, he's middle of the pack.

I know that now I know he scrambles quite a bit, not this last week, but earlier in the season. But that was another concern coming into the season. And I feel like he's answered some of those questions as well. He's eighth lowest in turnover worthy play percentage so far this season. So, yeah, I'm just more impressed with him every game I watch. And I'm not someone who during the draft was like, this guy's going to be amazing. And the best, you know, he's going to be better than Caleb Williams or anything like that. But from just what I've seen so far through six weeks, I think you have to be over the moon if you are a commander's fan.

Yeah, I was lower on him, like early on in the pre-draft process just because of the, the red flag numbers. Obviously, his weight was a concern, his frame was a concern, especially like me having just watched Bryce Young in Carolina. I was like, no, no, none of these outliers anymore. And then the pressure to sack rate was a real red flag for him. But when you watched this film and you kept watching, like, he was doing a little bit, he was doing some of the quarterback stuff. It wasn't at a high level, but it was at a level high enough for him to be able to take advantage of all of his other talent, his obvious physical talent, his ability to throw the ball accurately, which is really stood out to me. Outside the numbers, intermediate area of the field,

every pass is right where it needs to be, and it gets there in a hurry. I don't think he has elite arm strength, but his arm strength is good enough, especially when paired with that precision. Like, we've kind of seen that of Joe Burrow, where Joe Burrow, the ball gets there a little late just because he doesn't have the same zip that Josh Allen has, but that it's right where it needs to be, and the defender still can't make a play on it because of that. My one concern, this isn't really a concern, but I think, one area where he has room to grow is actually out of structure. And as a thrower, once he gets outside the pocket,

I think Tony Romo kind of clocked this on the game on Sunday. When he goes to his left, he doesn't throw. It's all scrambles. And if you look at his passing map on out-of-pocket plays, there are no throws to the left side of the field. So I would argue that he has more room to grow as like an out-of-structure player than he kind of does as an in-structure player, which is where you would kind of have more of the concerns

with that type of archetype. for a quarterback, but I don't know. He's just answering all of the questions. And a team hasn't stopped him. They haven't stopped him yet. Yeah, I'm thinking of that throw. It was two weeks ago when he was rolling to his right and hits Terry McLaren, but yeah, to his left, you're right.

Romo pointed out. It's been a different story. So fun to watch. Continue to, you know, hopefully, like you said, you're never going to really have a great answer for the health in that frame. And can it hold up until we just see him play more and see how he looks. He did. He took some hits in this game that you were like.

like, oh, that looked painful, but he got back up every time. So we'll see if he can continue to do that. All right, what are we closing out with? We're going with performance of the week. And really, to me, I'm giving this to performance of the year. I'm giving it to Caleb Williams. And I know Jaden Daniels has had the splash year start to his career. I know he has the better numbers.

I think he has an MVP case at this point. Like, I don't even think we can deny that. But in terms of sustainability and what a quarterback needs to play at a high level for a prolonged period of time for over a decade. Caleb Williams is putting that on tape every week, and I think this last performance, that was top 10 quarterback play, period. Like, in a vacuum.

I don't have to add any other caveats to it. That's the type of play I expect to see out of a DAC Prescott. Like the way he was able to get through progressions, the way he was able to get to the backside of concepts in the pocket and deliver the ball on time, on target, with velocity. I have nothing to nitpick from his performance outside of the interception where I thought it was a good decision. He just left the ball inside too long.

Like in terms of timing when he let the pass off, how he decided to make the pass. I thought all of that was good and sound. He just left the ball too far inside and the safety was able to make a play on it. But outside of that, like this was high level quarterbacking. I think the one thing, the one area where he can take the next step. Like this is what I want to see before I'm like, okay, this is a top 10 quarterback, top 15 quarterback. back because I think he's around like the 20th place right now is getting to that third option. I think he's able to like read his primary.

If it's not there, he gets to his second option. If it's not there, he kind of goes into creation mode. But sometimes there's a third option on the field that he could get to more often. And it's a viable answer. And he just turns it down because he's, you know, dropping his eyes and starting to create and starting to get outside the pocket. If he's able to get to that third option and then go into creation mode when that's not open, that's when you start talking like getting to the level that Josh Allen's playing

at that Patrick Mahom's playing at, the Lamar Jackson's playing at, that Jack Prescott, Joe Burrow, these top quarterbacks are playing at. And I'm not so sure that it doesn't happen in like December based on the rate he's going at right now. Yeah, I like Caleb Williams. I don't think I'm as high on what we've seen so far, maybe as you are. That's interesting what you said is the one area for growth because he's got the highest pressure to sack rate in the entire NFL right now. 28% of the time he's pressured that turns into a sack. Now, that's not necessarily an alarming number for a guy making the first six starts of his NFL career. That's something you can get better at.

That is something that ballooned last year when he was in college. It wasn't an issue earlier in his career, but it ballooned last season when the pieces around him weren't as good. So that's something to keep an eye on as well. But yeah, I think the quarterbacking stuff, as you would put it, and Kurt Warner was pointing that out during the broadcast. Like, he's pretty nuanced in that respect, what he's being asked to do before the snap. all those things. I mean, again, I think I mentioned it on the Sunday post-game pod, that that was the Bears best offensive performance since 2018. And this was his sixth start in the NFL. And in the previous week was really good as well. So they're interesting, Ruiz, because if you look at it, I like to look at sort

of the schedule strength in terms of the betting market. They've had the easiest schedule in the NFL so far. They have the hardest remaining schedule in the NFL when you look at kind of how they finish their season. It's not necessarily the next week or two, I think, but down the stretch there. So they're going to be like, but must see TV because it's going to be like, what, how much is he growing? How much is he developing? What is he able to do? Is he showing like not his ceiling, but flashes of, wow, look, look at how much he's grown from week one. And he's going to be doing it for a team that's going to be in the playoff mix against very good opponents. So, yeah, the bears aren't always relevant in November and December. I just feel like previous years, you know, Bears fans have tried to talk themselves.

into, hey, it was a fun Justin Fields game. He scrambled for 75 yards and that one throw was awesome. This is real. This is different than that. And it's going to give you a lot of reasons to watch here over the next whatever, two, three months. Yeah. And like the pre-snap operation is one thing we haven't talked about really. Like, they have given him the keys to the offense, totally in a way that I've never seen a rookie take over the keys to an offense before. And when you see him kind of make changes at the line of scrimmage, usually those plays work out. Like, it's not like he's checking to a play that doesn't work out and it's a bad audible. No, he's getting the bears into the right plays. And those are kind of like the hidden plays that you don't really get

credit for as a quarterback. Like I avoided a disaster and I was able to keep the team ahead of the chains. He's doing a lot of that stuff. And it just makes me like look back at the pre-draft discourse and just laugh because what was the talking points with him? Oh, he doesn't really like run a pro style offense. He doesn't operate like a pro quarterback does. And he's the one that's doing it more than more so than any of these other rookies. I want to sit out all the redraft discourse this year. I was thinking about that. I don't know if it was watching

these quarterbacks last week or what, but like I kind of just want no part of it. I will watch guys. I want to watch and I'll come up with my opinions. But if there's a way for me to mute everything else and only had those conversations on this podcast, I will gladly do that. Yeah, that is not my favorite

part of the off. I love the off season. I don't love that part of the off. I soft launch that approach to this quarterback class. Like, if you look at my tweets, there are no, like, quarterback rankings out there. I didn't write an article like I usually do. My one take was like, Caleb Williams is good. You guys are thinking, overthinking Caleb Williams. That was my one take that I was committing to, but I have no Jaden Daniels, like, where he should rank takes out there. Bo Nix, I was like very loudly against, but everyone else in the class, I was like, fine. I get it. Listen, you're only human.

You know, you can't, it's like you can't quit, you know, smoking cigarettes, cold turkey sometimes. You were taking the patches. You were slowing it down and maybe next year you'll make greater progress. All right. That was the rookie. I know, it was the quarterback corner, rookie quarterback check in. I don't know what we're calling it. We got a Devante Adams trade.

We got Steelers quarterback news. We got to break. That's the first time we've had like that type of breaking news on the pod, right? The Amari Cooper trade, I think, me and you. So that was fun to break down. The line just traded for Max Crosby. No, I'm joking. Yeah.

If that happened. Talk. Who knows? Oh, no, we might be back in a couple hours with the way this Tuesday is going. All right. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. You can check out his quarterback rankings on the ringer.com. Thank you to Nora Prenciotti.

Thank you to Carlos Chiroboga. I mean, the guy has to pinch produce. And the way, you know, one time he's got to pinch produce for us. There's breaking news as a trade during the show. He comes through in a big spot. Thank you to Carlos. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna, Ramgapal. If there is more breaking news, we'll be back on the Ringer NFL show.

Otherwise, we will talk to you later this week with our preview show. Everyone, have a good week. We'll talk to you next time. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C.C.? Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG dash help.com. Call 1-888-7777 or visit ccg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. visit gambling helpline m a.org or call 800327 5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 18778-8-8-Hope-N-Y or text Hope NY in New York.