The Ringer NFL Show - Derek Carr Is a Free Agent, the Eagles Lose Both Coordinators, and Lamar Jackson Has a New Offensive Coordinator | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: February 15, 2023

The Raiders have released Derek Carr, and he is free to sign anywhere. Could he end up in the Big Apple? Fresh off a Super Bowl loss, the Eagles have lost offensive coordinator Shane Steichen, the new Colts head coach, and defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon, the new Cardinals head coach. How big are these losses for the Eagles? Plus, the Ravens have a new offensive coordinator, but will this move keep Lamar in Baltimore? Hosts: Ben Solak and Sheil Kapadia Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Conor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgopal, and Chris Sutton Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Extra Point Taken. Shield Capadia, joined by Ben Solac and producer Cliff Augustine. We're on the Ringer NFL feed. The Super Bowl is over. The Chiefs are champs. The off season is here for those who know me. I like the off season better than the end season. The moves are already being made.

We're only 48 hours removed from the end of the Super Bowl. We're going to talk about all of it. Benjamin Solac, how we doing? What a game. I feel like I'm still, I've yet to fully recover. I watched the condensed version of it on broadcast, which was really fun because having watched it in person, like, that's the last game. The last game I watched in person was the old Super Bowl. So I had been a long time since I had seen a game in person.

It was so cool to see it in person. It was an incredible game. It was an incredible atmosphere. I had great moments. But then I went to go watch it on broadcast to be like, all right, this is how I usually watch games. How does this feel? And it still felt the same way. It was still like, like, the moment that AJ Brown deep touched on the start of the second quarter hit, I was like, yeah, that's, that's absolutely.

cool as I thought it was. That was sick. And like there were so many of those moments. The Nick Bolton, uh, a strip sack. The, uh, the, the, the Cadarius Tony drive, a touchdown. The Skymore touchdown, see how wide open they were. Like the Travis Kelsey catch and run. There's so much stuff that was like, it was as cool as I thought it was. What a game. I'm feeling great. Yeah. Yeah, I've got to watch the broadcast copy because I like a Greg Olson. I want to hear what Greg Olson. Greg's so good. During the broadcast. Yeah. Yeah, I've heard the reviews are good. And then of course, we'll get to the film here. Uh, eventually have not done either. All right, here's what we do. We each are for three takes. I'm going to have the extra point taken at the end. A very newsy day as we record this. So there's a lot of news to get to. We're going to hit on all of it. I'm going to start with this. Derek Carr will sign with one of the following five teams, Ben Solac. Jets, Panthers, Bucks, Saints, commanders. Those are my five. For those. For those,

loyal listeners to the show, you saw this coming months ago. I mean, we told you no one is trading for Derek Carr. The Saints tried to prove me wrong, but Derek Carr was like, no, I'm not going to let you do that. I like extra point taken. I'm just going to be released. So the Raiders release him. I think he's going to sign with one of those five teams. So let me give you the case for a couple of these, and then I want to hear your take, Ben, for those who don't know, Carr can sign immediately. He could sign by the time we're done recording this episode. He does not have to wait. for the start in free agency. So he's really got to leg up on all these other quarterbacks,

who are free agents, who will have to wait until March. So I think he's got some nice leverage there for these QB needy teams. The one on the top of my list, and this is Mama Solax team, so I got to know if we get a text from her later, saying, please tell me, Shield did not suggest the New York Jets for Derek Carr.

I got to be honest, as I was going through, I was kind of like the Jets might make the most sense. Okay, so I'm looking at this. The Jets have been linked to Aaron Rogers. To get Aaron Rogers, you have to give up draft compensation. You have to pay him $59 million in 2023, and you don't know if he's going to be playing beyond that. That's a lot of risk to take on.

You signed Derek Carr. It's the money. You pay him. You can structure it how you want to structure it. And that's it. You're not giving up draft compensation or anything else. And so I was thinking about the Jets last year, and we talked about them a lot on this podcast.

And I just feel like that was a nice spot where it's. If you had competent QB play, think of how excited they got for Mike White. Think of how competent they looked when Mike White was healthy. Derek Carr is an upgrade over Mike White. He'll be a hit in that locker room after going from Zach Wilson. You want kind of that stable veteran in there. Derek Carr is a team guy. He's got pieces around him.

You get that offensive line a little bit healthier. You've got Garrett Wilson going into his second season. There's a lot to like about that situation. You don't have to score 30 a game. I think their defense will still. be good next year. My only question was, you know, the fit of Derek Carr, New York, seems a little clunky, New York media, all that stuff, big market, big stage. But, I mean, that could be an issue with Aaron Rogers as well. So that was my main one. I want to get your thoughts on that.

And then I'll hit you with what I think about some of the other teams on my list. Or if you think one of the other teams is a better fit, speak up. I think Carr is a great fit for the Jets, for all the football reasons that you mentioned. I think Garrett Wilson, Corey Davis, Braxton, Berrios, Elijah Moore. I think that is the potential to be a pretty good wide receiver room. They're probably going to cut Corey. And when you're looking at just Wilson plus Berrios plus Elijah Moore, I still like it, but I need some more size.

I need a bigger guy. And so I think if they do cut Corey instead of restructuring and getting his price tag down, I do think you should have to go out and get that larger body, but it's a solid receiver room. I really think it is. Garrett Wilson, man. I know I went off as a rookie of the year, so we're not really like breaking ground here, but it's pretty good.

This is much better than I thought for his first season. He could be a special player. And then running game-wise, especially when that offensive lines healthy, I think you're in a position where you can be a decently run heavy team, play action pass team, keep things easier for Derek Carr and feel successful with that. So football reasons, I love it. The other reason I love it is because Derek Carr is a job keeper for, I think, Robert Sala and that coaching staff, where, you know, I have to talk about this all the time.

You don't see a quarterback get drafted by a general manager, by a head coach, in the top half of the first round and then emphatically bust and then have both that GM and that head coach keep their job long term. It doesn't happen. It is extremely rare to see the GM keep his job. It's a little bit more common to see the head coach keep his job.

It's very rare to see both keep their job. Usually there has to be extenuating circumstances as to why the top guy busted. And Zach Wilson is not extenuating circumstances. They just missed. They just plain missed in a class where they once had the number one overall pick and then they had the number two overall pick and guys like Trey Lance and Justin Fields

and Mac Jones went later. And it's not to say that Lance and Mac and Justin Fields are clearly worlds better than Wilson is, but all of those guys' teams are still investing in him and the Jets aren't, right? So they missed on Wilson, which means it is de facto a hot seat for, I think, Robert Sala. Joe Douglas just drafted the offensive rookie of the year, the defensive rookie of the year, and the guy who would have won an offensive rookie of the year if he didn't get hurt. He's okay because he absolutely killed the 2022 draft. But I think Sala's in a hot spot.

Derek Carr is a great plug him in, go 10 and 7, make the play. playoffs, lose a close game in the wildcard round of the four seed Jaguars, and keep the job for another year. Get the boat moving another year. Team CTC. You're a hero, by the way, with the Jets, if you do that. I mean, just if you have Jets fans, I was going to say, if you have Jets fans in your life. Yes, you have Jets fans in your life. I mean, when they talk about the teams that made the playoffs, like, just this isn't to dunk on Jets fans, just given the history of the franchise, like, those are their favorite players, you know, of the last 25 years. or whatever just because they haven't won a Super Bowl.

So I think that you make a good point. Why, that's another good reason. The ceiling is not Super Bowl or bust for the Jets. Like you get that team competitive in the playoffs, entertain them for three hours every Sunday. Like that's a win for the Jets. Yeah, so Team CTC, as she likes to say, cash them checks. I got no problem with Sala endorsing the move to keep the job for another year and to bring more stability to the Jets.

It also helped develop those young players. So it's not even like totally like we're playing for $500. move. It'll help Garrett Wilson. It'll help Bruce Hall. You probably need a future past Derek Carr, but cross that bridge when you get there. I think for the Jets, he makes a ton of sense. The other team that I think falls under that same umbrella, that to me, is a strong number two, if not an equal number one to the Jets, is the commanders. Terry McLorren, Jahan Dotson, Curtis Samuel, receiving corps is good. Brian Robinson, who knows what they'll do with Antonio New Gibson. Backfield can work for you. The entire offensive line is a free agent. I don't love that. We're just going

to kind of ignore that for right now. They have like all dudes who are like a little bit above average in their 30s who are all approaching for agency. I have no idea how to handle that situation. But other than that, then defensively, they had a really bad and weird start to the year, but down the stretch, I thought they played a lot better, moved off William Jackson, kind of changed the way they play coverage in the back. Jamon Davis has improved a lot at linebacker and kind of short at second level. There's a lot to like for Washington defensively. They also seem like a team that you get Derek Carr in there, you go 9 and 8, you go 10 and 7. and it's going to be harder for you to make a splash in your division,

I think relative to the jets who like, you know, the bills and the dolphins and the Patriots are all still quite good, but I think there's a lot more uncertainty there as opposed to like, Eagles are going to be good next year. Cowboys are going to be good next year. Like, it might be a little bit trickier, but hey, make the playoffs. Ron Rivera keeps the job for another year.

To me, the commanders made sense of the second team that also fits that mold. Well, the commanders are also, I would describe them as sort of a rudderless ship. I mean, they don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they want to be. there's no path to really, you know, building long-term sustained success. So they kind of try to figure it out every year. I know Ron Rivera has said they're going to start out with Sam Howell as QB1, but obviously those things change depending on who's available.

So you made the case there. I got to say the other team that stuck out to me, and we talked about the Panthers, I think last episode, so we don't need to harp on them. I would rather, if I'm a Panthers fan, I would say, take the big swing for the quarterback. Get up to the top of the draft. Get the young quarterback.

Don't just chill. with Derek Carr for a couple of years. So I would rather them do that. The Bucks were the other team, Ben, that I thought, I could kind of see that. You know, I don't know that they want some kind of huge rebuild. And the other thing is, like, the Bucks team we watched last year is not necessarily the Bucks team we're going to see in 2023. I mean, they were decimated by injuries.

Chris Godwin, another year coming off of his injury, Ryan Jensen back. Like, there are some pieces there. The offensive personnel does not stink on that team. They still need to figure out offensive coordinator. but I feel like they could bounce back a little bit. Not that, you know, he's not going to be better than Tom Brady, obviously. But if they're like, hey, we can win this division, then I could see them making that move. And of course, the Saints, they're always in win now mode.

They were the only team that thought about trading for Derek Carr. They did not do that. But they're always just thinking about, hey, how can we make the playoffs this year? And so I could see them talking themselves into it. Yeah, the bucks of the team were like, I'm not. got no idea. Like, I think the Panthers will go young because I think Frank Reich wouldn't have taken that job if he didn't get like a soft commit or the sense that they were going to go, young quarterback. The bucks for me or the team where I'm like, I got no clue what in God's

name. Tampa got what they got it, got what they wanted out of the last few years, championship with Tom Brady. Now, like, you know, you go do whatever you want. You got to make Kyle Trask a thing, make Kyle Trasker thing. You want to give Jacoby percent and go give Jacoby. I don't give a hoot really. Like, do whatever you want. Um, so like, like, you know, you go. I don't think Carr is unreasonable for them, just because, like, Mike, like, they're still a good team. And I think they still have the potential to be a good offense with the talent that they have there.

And I think you plug car in. Yeah, that can work for you. The issue with the Bucks offense this year wasn't quarterback, why it was the way the offense coordinator runs the team. And, you know, they moved on from Byron left, which and now they're kind of, like you say, rudderless ship, you know, so Bucks, impossible for me to figure out. Just for the record, I called the commanders a rudderless ship,

not the Bucks. I don't want Bucks fans. to take issue. But the bucks could easily achieve. I'm just borrowing your mention, yeah. Okay, gotcha. All right. What do you have for your first point today, Benjamin? Enough. Patrick Mahomes' legacy talk. Gosh, I'm so dumb with this. I was done with this for the two weeks leading up to the Super Bowl. He won the Super Bowl. I'm walking through the Phoenix Airport at 11 a.m. I catch out of the corner of my eye, a TV that's up in a bar, and an unnamed show on an unnamed network is going, Will Mahomes catch Brady in rings and having a whole full-blown

conversation about it? I don't know about you. I don't know if this is my curmudgingly old man thing. You're smirking at me like you usually do. Well, that's usually my role. Yeah, so I'm funny to see where you're going on. Usually when you're smirking at me,

it's because you think I'm totally off base, which is always fun. But regardless, this might just be my curmudgeonly old man thing. But I just, I just do not care about pontificating on the many tales of hypothetical

outcomes of a player's career and legacy while it is occurring while it is in action. There's a momentary gesture to it is okay, right? I think like acknowledging that it's happening is totally fine, right? Like Mahomes' career to this point, you go to his Wikipedia page. He's been a five-year starter. He's a two-time Super Bowl champion, two-time Super Bowl MVP, two-time league MVP, two-time first team all pro, one-time second team all pro. He's been in the Pro Bowl five years. Twice he's led the NFL in passing touchdowns. Once he's led the NFL in passing yards. He led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns both in this past season. That's bananas. That's incredible. That's a Hall of Fame resume right there. Everybody

likes to say, like, oh, he made the Hall of Fame in five years. He stopped trying to put him in the hole. I'm watching him in play. I'm loving this. He's so good. Watching him live was so much fun. He's incredible. And, like, people, you know, there's always like detractors, right? There's always that guy who's like, oh, Steph Curry can't really shoot. You know what I'm saying? Everybody was over the contrary opinion. So you have guys who are like, oh, the offensive line was crazy, and the receivers were so good. Mahomes was just like,

that wasn't even that impressive of a game. Like, whatever. I don't care about that. Shut that up. This guy's so good. He's so fun to watch. He's 27. He's in the prime of his career.

Can I please just watch him? Without thinking for a second, which slot his face will go into Mount Rushmore when they eventually etch it up there? Can I please just watch him without wondering who exactly will be the guys who talk in which order during his Hall of Fame? Can I please just watch him?

I just love the football play. and why can't we just say that? Why can't we just put clips of Mahomes and highlights of him and watch the season? That was crazy. Remember when he did this? And we don't have to go like, all right, in 2037, when we think he's better than Joe Montana.

To me, it's just, it's agonizing. I can't stand it. So, Patrick Mahomes, unbelievably good. Oh, I had one more point. Also, for not for nothing, he's 27, right? guys are retiring younger. I know that quarterbacks aren't, right? Like, I know that Brady went through his 40s

and like Drew Breeze was playing until his 40 and all this stuff. But like, I think about like the Sean McVeigh arc and the Aaron Donald arc, which obviously these guys haven't yet retired. You bring up Andrew Luck, but that's more of a health thing. But it is to say that like NFL players and NFL coaches are reaching a point of awareness of their own selves and their work-life balance and what fulfills them in life

such that they are earlier considering life post football. And accordingly, like, I can't sit here and promise you Mahomes is playing when he's 35. I would like, I think he will be. I would bet on if I could, but I'm saying I can't promise you. There's a chance that Mahomes wins two of the next four Super Bowls. He's a four-time Super Bowl champion. And his kids are entering kindergarten. He goes, I want to hang out at home with my boys, with my kids.

And like, that means this was the prime. That means this was the middle. that means like this moment. Just let me sit here and enjoy it, please. No more Mahomes Legacy Talk. We did it all leading up to the Super Bowl. Now we're doing it out of the Super Bowl. The guy's just very good,

and let's just enjoy the very good player and handle the legacy talk when it comes time for the Legacy Talk. Well, I think there's a bit of a false dichotomy here with what you're arguing. Like, why can't you enjoy it while also, I mean, you don't have to engage in these conversations, but like why does it buy?

I don't think it's what. Most of the time I would agree with you and think those conversations are wild. I actually don't think it's wild now. I think it's a fine conversation to have. It's very rare that you watch a player in his prime in his late 20s and go, is this going to be the best player in this sport I've ever watched in my entire lifetime or of all time? And that is the case with Patrick Mahomes. So I'm fine with that conversation.

It's rare that a guy is winning his second Super Bowl at 27 years old. And you can, I mean, think about that you're just able to have that. that conversation and not get laughed at that he could win seven Super Bowls. Yes, he could do that. So I'm someone who, like, when I was younger, when the greats got to a certain point, I had a very weird childhood, I would be like, man, I wish I appreciated them way back when. Like, there's literally a VHS tape. I don't know what, if you know what that is, Ben. In my parents' house. They got the big wheels and then the two wheels and there's the tape in the inside of it. I had like Aristocats, man, growing up on the VHHs, Little Mermaid. All right? That was the bomb.

Okay. You had Aristotacats and Little Mermaid. I literally have a tape and I could go to my parents' house 20 minutes away and maybe I'll show it to you on the next podcast. It says Michael Jordan's last game ever, do not erase. And it was that the last game against the Utah Jazz where he hits the winner because I was like, oh my gosh, you know, I was like, man, when I was younger, I should have been watching every Michael Jordan. Like when Magic Johnson came back, I remember he came back and I was like, man, I didn't appreciate it enough watching Magic Johnson in his prime. Like I went to watch Michael. Jordan with the wizards when he was on the wizards because I'm just like I want to get another glimpse of this guy. He's been amazing and so Mahomes is like at that level and I feel like the legacy talk doesn't take away from watching him enjoying him appreciating him. I think it's part of the experience for some people. So I don't like like why does it diminish your viewing and enjoyment experience when others are having conversations that he could be the best player of all time? Because it is placing in the here and now the fact that his career will end,

which I acknowledge as an inevitable outcome, but I would rather in this moment go, this is incredible, this is unbelievable. I hope this never stops. I hope I can watch this player play like this forever for the rest of time. I hope that all quarterbacking reaches this ideal, this peak, because that's what Mahomes is.

He's just the ideal of quarterbacking. He's unbelievably effective and efficient while also being unbelievably entertaining. He's the best, capital T, capital B. And to me, to say, oh, he end up with as many Super Bowls as Brady? Like, I don't care if he ends up with many Super Bowls as Brady. I love this.

I love what is happening right here, right now. Why, let's be excited about that. Oh, like, you know, this is a Hall of Fame career already. Sure, great. Congratulations. Can we just watch it, though? Can we watch him be like, wow, like, this guy's incredible. I look forward to the day he enters the Hall of Fame and I hear the speeches about him

and I remember the games he played around him. This is like, this is, I know this take is dangerously adjacent to, the whole like everybody is watching LeBron score the points that make him the all-time scoring leader with their phones outtake, right? You saw this? Like there's the photo of LeBron scoring the bucket and everybody in the picture has their phones out in the crowd. And there was this like, you know, undercurrent of criticism like, oh, don't people just enjoy moments anymore? Why do you have your phones out? I understand this Mahomes take is dangerously adjacent to that extremely boomer old man take. But with that said, like, to me, like, I, I,

I think inherently focusing on future outcomes and future conversations to attract some experience of an enjoyment of the present moment. I don't want to think about Mahomes' legacy. I want to think about the Mahomes touchdown throw to Travis Kelsey in the first quarter, beautiful over the shoulder in the bucket. I want to think about the Mahomes scramble that set up the touchdown, how he is just a little bit faster than Hassan Reddick, as he always seems to be just a little bit faster than the guy that's chasing him. I just want to enjoy the player in this exact precise moment. And I don't want to be dragged out of this moment into some future moment that I will experience in its due time.

Okay. I mean, I think that's fair. Like, I don't have an issue with you feeling that way. I don't personally, like, I feel like I'm able to enjoy both. Like, what an experience being there live to watch that game on Sunday night. Like, you know, we may have seen, we may have seen the best ever in one of his best games ever when all is said and done. You don't want to think about when all is said and done. I understand. I think there's room for both. See, I think the issue is, like, if you're older like me,

you grow up on, like, sports talk radio and you're just used to all these conversations, uh, happening all the time. Maybe if you're a little younger and you were popping in like the nuanced podcasts of like, you know, Ben Solac explaining to you when they were playing cover three. And like, that's a little different. I was used to just like Michael Jordan, you know, maybe scores too much and isn't a winner. Like I was used to those. It's okay. It's only sports. I understand how you feel. I don't necessarily feel the same way. All right, this episode is brought to you by Crown Royal, the award-winning whiskey. Crown Royal is, of course, a Canadian whiskey. You probably saw the Super Bowl commercial.

Crown Royal took the time to thank Canada for all the great stuff they've given us. Ben, I don't know if you know this. They invented hockey. Basketball. Hockey, I could have guessed. Basketball, I could not have guessed. Yeah, lacrosse football. If that weren't in a lot. they also invented movie theaters and iMacs. There are so many great things in the world that you and I probably take for granted that we should thank candidate for.

Instant replay. Ben, all these videos we see all of the players slipping all over the place, we wouldn't have been able to see that without kidding. Are we happy for you replay? I feel like sometimes I can't stand as replay. You ever read Poutine? I have not.

Okay, so you know what Poutine is? Uh, no. Okay, so Poutine is fries. All right. and then they got cheese curds on it, and then they put gravy on it. And it's unbelievably, it's the sort of thing where when you eat it,

you hope nobody's watching you because you're just shoveling it into your mouth and it's never clean and you're just a little bit of a pig. But it's so, they do fries right in Canada. That's my, there's my hot Canada take. When you get regular French fries, you get like vinegar on them instead of ketchup

and it's unbelievably good. So fries is my, that's my heart. That's my Canada hot take. That's what I bring to the show. This is mean to do this to me as I'm waiting to eat dinner and now French. Oh, I'm going to make the pod go as long as possible for waiting for dinner. My favorite kid, have you ever been to Whistler? No.

What's Whistler? Oh, my gosh, Whistler in Canada up there. You go through the Pacific Northwest. I am generally anti-nature. Even I love that place. I mean, you love beauty. You love outside. How are you spell in Whistler?

Like Whistler? W-H-I-S-T-L-R. They had the Olympics there. I did like the peak to peak thing, and I'm not like a thrill seeker. Beautiful place. Love that place. You got to go there.

And you know what else, Ben? I love Crown Royal. I mean, I love when we get sponsors for products. I already like. I literally can walk 10 feet to my kitchen, have a bottle of Crown Royal there. Just a little bit on ice on a Friday night. Makes me feel good.

Love it. Crown Royal, live generously, and life will treat you royally. please drink responsibly. All right. My second take, Ben, we got to get to some of these coaching hire. So here's my take. Let's not get confused with thinking that because a coordinator is good or bad,

that tells us a lot about whether he's going to be a good or bad head coach. I feel like we have this conversation all the time every year, and then the next year we completely forget it. So we've got two coaching hires today. Shane Steichen, Eagles offensive coordinator, goes to the Indianapolis Colts, Jonathan Gannon, Eagles defensive coordinator, goes to the Arizona Cardinals. Eagles offense has been fantastic the last two years, top five offense each of the last two years with Stuyken calling the plays starting in the middle of last year.

Defense was not good in 2021 with Jonathan Gannon. and then this year was good statistically, but kind of got lit up by a lot of the top quarterback. So really, honestly, I just wanted this take to give us an opportunity to talk about both those head coaching hires. I want to hear what you think first before I offer my take. But that was my general take. Like, don't just tell me because the guy was a good coordinator. He's going to be a good head coach or that he was a bad coordinator and he's going to be a bad head coach. So this is interesting because I have like a stike and gannin take as it relates to the Eagles.

Do you want that right now or do you want my like stike and coach? Do it. Yeah, do it. Then we'll just go big picture. We'll knock them out. No rules here. So the Eagles take is very simple. The Eagles are going to miss Shane Steichen a lot more than they miss Jonathan Gannon. Right. Now, that's a hard thing to say when we don't yet know replacements. Some of the replacements for Shane Steichen in-house are pretty evident. Brian Johnson, the quarterback's coach, they brought up from the University of Florida, Dan Mullen staff. He is getting office coordinator hype elsewhere, right? He was interviewed from. the Ravens job. He was interviewed for the Notre Dame OC job. So he makes sense as a guy to promote in-house, especially because he's got the background with running quarterbacks. Jalen Hertz is a Russian quarterback. Like, to me, that one makes sense. Defensively, there's a little bit more that's that's up in the air. Nick Rowless, who's the linebackers coach for the Vikings is somebody that I've heard talked about as a potential DC guy, Denard Wilson, who's currently on the Eagle staff

as their passing game coordinator. He also makes them sense, good candidate to step up and take the DC job. So those are just some names that are floating around. But independent of the replacement for these guys. Shane Stike, in my opinion, brought a lot more value to the Eagles than Gannon did to the defense. This is tricky to parse because there's so much talent on offense

and there's so much talent on defense, right? So in both cases, the guys were maximizing really, really good players, right? Stuyke and had Devonte Smith, A.G. Brown, Dallas, Gauder, J. O'Harton, Had, Hassan, Braddock, James Bradbury, Darius, Laii, Javon Hargrave. They had a good group.

So there's talent on both sides. what Stuyken really brought that you saw over the last year and a half of football for the Eagles, because he took up play calling in the middle of the 2021 season, at which time the Eagles started to rely on the quarterback run more and generally experience more offensive success. What you really saw Stuyken bring was the ability to sequence play calls, sequence play ideas. He just really, I'm truly very impressed with his 1 o'clock to 4 o'clock work on a Sunday.

I like to always talk about, like, you know, coordinator jobs, coaches, jobs by like, all right, is this a Monday to Saturday thing? Is this an offseason thing? Stiking at 1 o'clock, man, would pull out that play sheet. Okay, let's run our little favorite RPO. Okay, let's run our little favorite run. Okay, what front do they do when I do this? What front do they run when I do that? And after a couple of drives to the script, I mean, you look at the Eagle's second quarter scoring numbers, leading the league by a remarkable margin, multiple points better than the second team in terms of scoring in the second quarter, over 12 points per game in the second quarter. Stiking after a few drives, we just say, all right, today they don't like

this, they don't like that, and they don't like this other thing. And we're going to run at it, we're going to hit it, we're going to take advantage of it. And then the second that they adjust, I'm going to be ready with this counterpunch. The second that they feel the jab and they're ready for, I'm coming with the cross. He had this wonderfully innate ability to just be right on top of the chessboard, just one move ahead every single time. Where they would, they would, they would, like you look at the Devante Smith catch him run in the first quarter where they run the little curl flat RPO and just Smith just wheels out into space, nice, comfortable. move. Jaylon hurts by as a second and throws it out.

They're just, the quarterback draw stuff they were doing. They didn't do early in the season. He just had such a nice ability to stay ahead of the edge of development, ahead of the edge in terms of a play caller. That's going to hurt the Eagles, even if they just promote Brian Johnson, keep Nick Siriani, same offensive philosophy, because what he did from one to four in terms of play calling, I think was really, really valuable. Relative to a Jonathan Gannon, who Eagles fan... Hold on. Go ahead. Let's talk more about Steichen and Indie.

And then let's come back to your getting and take. Does that work? Okay, let's do that. So I agree with it. He was fantastic in his job for the Eagles. He was an excellent offensive coordinator, excellent play caller for all the reasons you laid out. I don't need to go over any of those. This is, you know, comes back to my point a little bit. This is a very different situation in Indianapolis. And I'm wondering like how much of what he did is actually going to carry over. Because for one, and he said during his press conference, he's going to continue to call plays. Well, now managing the game becomes more difficult. Remember, Nick Siriani started out calling the plays in Philadelphia, and then he gave it up.

And obviously, one of the benefits is that is, well, hey, now you can manage the game. You can call timeouts. You can challenge stuff. You can talk to players. You can talk to other assistants during the game. You're not just looking at your call sheet and saying, what am I going to do next? We saw that with Brian Dayball with the Giants, too. He said, I'm not going to call plays.

I'm going to give that up. So I wonder about that with Steichen. Leadership obviously is a huge thing with being a head coach. I don't know that he is or he isn't a great leader. That's sort of an unknown. So we have to see that with Shane Steichen. How does he command a room? How does he connect to all the players he worked with all those kinds of things?

And then I just look at the talent there, Ben. I mean, yeesh. And indeed, I mean, you're literally going from maybe the most talented offense in the NFL. to one of the least talented offenses in the NFL. You're going to a team that doesn't have a quarterback. You're going to a team with questions on their offensive line. Questions at wide receiver. That's going to be very difficult.

And he had other advantages in Philadelphia, too. I mean, he was working with an offensive-minded head coach in Nick Siriani. He was working with an offensive line coach in Jeff Stoutland, who you wrote about, who was one of the best, maybe the best in the NFL, and also was the run game coordinator. So if you're the OC in Philadelphia, you don't really have to worry about a design. the run game. Do you call the run place? Yes, but you don't have to design the run game,

and it was very well designed. And then the last thing I would say, it's just kind of ownership in GM structure. I mean, you know, Philadelphia, Jeffrey Lurie has been a great owner for them. He kind of toes that line between being involved, but maybe not being meddling. And Jim Ersi has just been a complete wildcard with the way he's acted over the last year. I mean, there's no two ways about it. I mean, he's making personnel decisions about who to start at quarterback. He's breaking in Jeff Saturday. He's mocking everybody during that press conference. And at GM, you've got Chris Ballard, a guy who has to feel like he's coaching for his job. So there's just kind of a lack of stability there where Stuyken is coming from maybe the most stable spot you could be for

an offensive coordinator to now a head coach in a different spot. So again, I want to be clear. I'm not saying Stuyken's going to stink and I have no faith in him. It's really hard to evaluate these things. You go back and you look at how coaches were evaluated when they get hired to what they actually were and people get it wrong all the time. I'm just saying it's hard to know and I can't say if I'm a Colt fan, I'm saying, all right, I have a lot of confidence with the Stuyken hire that it's going to get turned around. Yeah. This is a, like this is a perfect example of I think what you're talking about where what Stuyken does that impresses me the most is inherently coordinating the offense. And yes, in terms of what a head coach does, I don't know how well that maps onto that, right?

the support system around him was crazy good. And that's where as a head coach, you're not responsible for building that support system. And you can try to make it analogous to the one that you had in Philadelphia. You can try to make it somewhere and build it on the same tenants. But it ain't easy. It doesn't never map as successfully. This is why people from the Patriot system tend to go elsewhere and not be as successful. Because, oh, just bring the Patriot way.

Tough to run the Patriot way without Bill Belichick, right? Oh, go bring the Eagles way. Tough to do that without Nick Seriani. Tough to do that without Jalen Hurts, Harry Roseman, and Jeffrey Lorry. So the tent poles in India are bad. The pillars, the cornerstones, they're not good. It is a very unstable place. And you got the owner out here just saying, like, yeah, when we go draft a young quarterback, it is impressed.

He's commenting on Bryce Yon. Yeah, exactly. And Chris Ballard was like, dude, can we not with that? Can we, my brother, can we not? So it's a, I agree. It's a shaky situation. That's why, like, I think the loss of Stuyken hurts the Eagles. I don't necessarily think that, right, as you say, that maps.

onto him being, oh, an absolute steal for the Colts. But who knows? Eagles Colts have just been trading coaches back and forth. And it's generally like, you know, even with Frank Reich being fired, like, it's been generally pretty successful. And so just keep the train running. Want to talk Gannon? Yeah. Yeah. Give me your Gannon.

So to me, you know, if we're talking both of our takes here, Gannon is absolutely flipped on his head. It's the opposite of Stuykenware. I don't think losing him hurts the Eagles too much. But he could be a really good head coach for the Cardinals. And if we parse that, Gannon is a really, really good communicator, right? You watch a Gannon presser, you get it.

You know what I'm saying? Like, I watch this guy's defense on film, and I cannot stand it. It drives me nuts. I'm like, compete, change a look, be aggressive, attack. Like, come on. And then I listen to his presser, and he enunciates his ideas, right? Where we're going to stop the past, these events are stopping the run. You know, we're going to build it from the back to the front.

We're going to prioritize modern football. And I go, oh, yeah, let's do this. You know what I'm saying? He is a really, really good communicator. He can sell you on his ideas. You also get the sense that he's loved and he's a good leader, right? Nick Siriani gave an impassioned defense of Jonathan Gannon after the playoff win over the Giants, saying to the Eagles meet.

Like, I do not know why you guys harp on this guy. He's an unbelievable leader of men. He's a great teacher. And he is a good teacher. You can see that his players are very well coached, right? Like, you think about that, there was that second and 13 quick throw Mahomes to juju in the slot. Marcus Epps drives down and tackles him right on the spot. Like, they can see it coming.

They know it's coming. All right, they got got by like the return motion, the whip motion a couple of times. It's hard to stop everything. You know what I'm saying? Like that'll happen to even good defensive coordinator. So I think his guys are very well coached. So Gann's a good teacher.

I think he's a good leader. I think he's a good communicator. But the thing about his defensive philosophy, his approach to the game is that to me it is inexcusably passive. It is unacceptable basic. Like it's not like, oh, it's too past, too basic. It is prohibitively this way where you go and you look at the good offense. that the Eagles have faced over his two years, the good coordinators, the good quarterbacks,

Patrick Mahomes twice, Justin Herbert, he had Derek Carr, he had a Trevor Lawrence game, he had a Jared golf game, Aaron Rogers this season. And all of these games are 30 plus points. All of them, the quarterbacker are hitting season highs in terms of expected points added. The Chiefs, as we brought up on the Philly Special, Shield, you with the point, the Chief's success rate in this game they played against the Eagles, the sixth best single game success rate of any team in any game this season. defensive philosophy does not put enough stress on good offenses, such that it is able to beat bad quarterbacks. It's able to even beat at times average quarterbacks against good quarterbacks

and good offenses. It has no teeth. The Eagles now replacing Gannon. Well, Gannon came a little bit from the Mike Zimmer tree where they're a lot more aggressive, right? They actually blitz a little bit. They put guys in line of scrimmage. And he was also influenced by the Vic Fangio tree. Fangio was a defensive assistant for the Eagles this year. And you saw the Eagles play more fanjo fronts, more fan geo coverages. Both of those systems have been in the league for a while and have been pretty darn successful, such that if you go and you, you know, say, I think Dennard Wilson got a little bit of a fan geo background, maybe promote him, go get Nick Rallis, he's got a Zimmer background, maybe we need more into the Zimmer stuff. You can run the same family of ideas, the same,

you know, family of concept, same terminology, but just have more teeth, just have more aggressiveness to you. The way to put pressure on starting on star quarterbacks, to me, like the talent will work for itself against bad quarterbacks. The talent will work for itself against average quarterbacks. The question for the Eagles is how do you beat great quarterbacks? And that's something Gannon didn't bring them. And I think they can get somebody else in who gives them an edge there. So I don't envision them hurting and losing Gannon too much. But in Arizona, great teacher, great leader, great communicator. The defensive philosophy stuff still really worries me. But like, he's the guy I think it's like a really, he's going to be a really good culture center. He's a guy

that I think is going to be able to bring in good coaches and get good teaching and improve young players. He has a lot of traits that work for like a game managing CEO head coach. I don't know if he goes that route. If he's trying to call the defense and run the defense, then we might have issues. But in terms of like the CEO aspects of the job, he seems pretty well suited. Yeah, and we'll talk more about the Eagles Angles on the Ringers-Filly Special Pod. So certainly check that out. Listen, Gannon could be a very good head coach.

He had good relationships with players. But this is definitely giving someone the benefit. of the doubt here when you just kind of look at the resume, in my opinion. I mean, the Eagles defense, and again, I just said coordinator to coach, it's a different job, I understand, but if you're also looking at what are we kind of hanging our hat on here, what has the guy done? I mean, in 2021, they underperformed. They were 24th in defensive DVOA, and they underperformed their talent. In 2022, they had a good defense statistically. They faced the second easiest slate of opposing offenses and they had, you know, maybe the best health of any defense, the best injury luck

of any defense in the NFL. And Ben, as you alluded to, they faced Dak Prescott, Patrick Mahomes, Jared Goff. You face these quarterbacks who finished like top 10 in EPA per pass play, and they gave up over, you know, between 30 and 40 points to all those guys. So this is probably a bigger picture take, but when we talk about minority hiring and how owners make these decisions, it just seems to me like it's hard to envision a black defensive coordinator with Jonathan Gannon's resume getting hired as a head coach in this. I'm not saying it's never happened, so you don't have to shoot me like the one time. It's actually happened. But it does seem like when these owners give a guy the benefit of the doubt, and again, maybe he'll be really good. Maybe

they've done their homework. We're at a little bit of an information deficit that it ends up being the white coaches who get hired. And, you know, like what does he have over a guy like, you know, I don't know, Rahe Morris, who Mike Tomlin has called the best coach he's ever been around. You know, just there have been defensive coordinators with similar resumes or stronger resumes to Jonathan Gannon who don't get the same look. So we have five coaches hired now, Stuyken, D'Amico Ryan's, Frank Reich, Jonathan Gannon, Sean Payton, four out of five of them are white, one black coach in that group, D'Amico Rhyans, who's a great candidate.

Just like this conversation, we have year after year after year continue. And you could, like, say, oh, like, Dimeco Ryan's, you know, he was a Deven's Quality Control assistant in 2017. He had an extremely fast rise. There's an example of a black defensive coach who had like this quick jump. But first, the Niners, two defense under him have been crazy good against good quarterbacks consistently. And secondly, and secondly, talk about the talent difference. Diomador Lenore, fifth round picket corner, Talano Hufanga, fifth round picket safety. They got Samson Epochom is the edge opposite Nick Bosa. They got a,

It's not even close. Yeah, it's on Ridgeway taking snaps. All three of their linebackers, Fred Warner, Aziz El Shaiir, Drey Greenlaw, all drafted round three or later. Buddy, Damico was bringing talent along in a way that John Gannon did not have to. I think, yeah, I don't think even D'Amico for how quickly heroes is an equivalence to Gannon at all, but just because of how clear the body of work is, how clearly successful it's been relative to Gannon.

I agree with you. You have to talk yourself into it with Gannon. you have to go out on a limb. And I simply, like, whenever I'm presented with a situation like this where I look at the resume, it doesn't make sense. I look at the recent performance. I mean, like, coming off that Super Bowl, it just doesn't make sense. The thing it boils down to me is I think he's an unbelievable interviewer, right?

I just think he's so good in the room. And, like, part of that is his background, right? Part of that is being like, you know, like, just like a white coach who came up this way and has these accolades and so forth. That's part of the interview process is appearing the way that owner. owners expect you to appear. And so I bet you just like, when I try to understand how Gannon got the height that he did last season and now landed on a job like this, to me it boils down to he's really, really good interviewing in the room. And that's how you get jobs. It's not how you necessarily

do well in the job, but it's how you get a job. Yeah, it's an imperfect process. And yeah, by all accounts, he seems like a genuine, authentic guy who, you know, the people who worked with him, the players who played for him seem to like, just talking about the resume. You know, you kind of wonder why some guys get that benefit of the doubt. And well, you don't wonder. You kind of know why some guys get the benefit of the doubt and some, and others don't. So we'll see how that works out in Arizona. All right. Final point, I think we're talking about the same guy with this points. I'm curious what your take. I bet we have the exact same take. It might be. I mean, we could do the thing where we both say it on the count of three, but these are like sentences,

so I don't think that will be a good audience. That would really be the exact same take. If this were video, if we do video, we could write it down, hold it up to the camera. So let's have to think about. We got a long off season. We got a lot of time to prep before week one of 2023. I think Todd Munkin, who is now the Ravens new offensive coordinator, is the most exciting assistant hire we've seen this. Oh, mine's different. Mine's different, but that's good.

I think that's a great one. Do you want to just give yours and let's talk about Todd Munkin? First, I would say, Ejiro Eri, baby. Let's not erase my son who is now in Carolina. Yeah, I like that one. I like that staff. I like that career. And they hired Jim Caldwell,

senior offensive assistant. I like what they're doing in Carolina. I was so cool. I just did a Panthers take on the last extra point taken. Otherwise, absolutely one of my takes would have been Panthers winning the coaching cycle by a mile right now. Now go get Bryce Young.

Now go get Bryce Young, David Tepper. My Todd Monkin take is that the Todd Monkin hiring is a strong vote that the Ravens feel like they're going to be able to keep Lamar and that they're going to have a good offense next year. I thought maybe you were going to, I thought I was getting ready to like fall down

that you're going to say is a strong sign that they're going in a different direction. No, it is a strong sign that they're able to hold on. Yeah, go for it. Okay, let's talk about Munkin, Lamar, his background, how this fits. So Todd Munkin was the O.C. for Georgia. He previously coached for the Bucks

and the Cleveland Browns as the O.C. In the NFL. Now, I forgot this. He only has called plays at an NFL. level one year. And that was in 2018 with Tampa Bay. James. They were 12th in offensive DVOA. They were ninth in passing DVOA with James Winston and Ryan Fitzpatrick as their quarterback. So those who listen know, I want, you know, when I'm looking at a coach, if I were a fan, I'd just be like, is there a spot where he did

more with less? Yes. There was a spot. That James is here, baby. What a time. Yeah. Yeah. So you got that. The other thing that's exciting about this is the, leaves and chucking the ball downfield. Maybe they had 71 completions of 20 plus yards that year, which was second in the NFL. Ben, the Ravens have never had more than 54. They had 33 last year. I know Lamar was injured, but 33 explosive passing plays. The Bucks under Munkin had 71. Then you look at what he did in Georgia. Georgia went from the 49th ranked scoring offense in 2019. Munkin gets there in 2020. They go 38th in 2020, 9th in 23rd. 21, fourth last year. I know Georgia had a lot of talent. I know college football is a lot about

talent. You know, they did not, you know, have Joe Burrow at quarterback all due respect to Stetson Bennett. But, you know, certainly he was doing nice things there. And again, third in explosive passing plays last year with Todd Monkin. So the Raiders have stuff to figure out. There's no doubt about it. Lamar's contract situation is just kind of like the biggest story in the NFL off season. They've got to add wide receiver talent. they got to get the run game figured out, although I don't know that you need to do a lot differently than you've done there previously for that.

And the stuff we don't know is just, like, personality-wise. You know, like, John Harbaugh is not Jim Harbaugh, but, like, you know, when you're bringing a new coach with that much responsibility, you've got to make sure it fits there. So my favorite Todd Monkin quote as an OC is, I'm paid to score, I'm not paid to win. Get me a T-shirt. Yes, sir.

And I will wear it. He said that on the athletic. So I think if you're a Ravens fan and you went into this offseason, what are they going to do? Last year was a bummer. The Marstil, things still hanging out there. But man, that's exciting because everybody has complained about Greg Roman and this passing game for years and years and years. And now you have a guy who you say, all right, this guy has a legit background in terms of building passing games, downfield passing games.

Get him some players and kind of the ceiling for that Ravens' offense goes a little bit higher. So how do you give me your thoughts on what I said and also what you think just about the higher. I think I might start using that Todd Munkin line here at work, right? It's so good. Just hop on a pod. Just start saying wild things. Just like you started to target like crazy. Lions are winning the Super Bowl.

Editor hits me up, producer hits me up. Like, dude, you're just making stuff up. None of this is real. This isn't going to happen. And I say, hey, hey, hey, I'm paid to talk. I'm not paid to be right. Just start going for that angle. It reminds me.

Is it bad that I tell my dog, you know, when there's this. a no eye in team that I tell me yet, but Michael Jordan said there is an eye and win. I probably, youth, I probably should not getting that. This is an 18 plus segment of the podcast, mostly for developmental reasons. All right. That 2018 season, James, second league and average air yards per attempt behind Josh Allen, Ryan Fitzpatrick third. Yes, sir.

What a fun offense that was. Munkin is, I think, a really solid. offensive coach who understands how to get passing concepts open down the field in the dropback game and in the play action game. Really, really important to the Ravens who their play action game is a little bit different than other teams play action games just because like going under center and faking to hand off the ball is the scariest sort of play action look for like the other 30, 31 teams in the league. But for a quarterback like Lamar, it's scarier when he's in shotgun, he's faking out the read. So like things are a little bit different in terms of how the Ravens run

their play action, which is why a guy like Monkin who's good at getting downfield concepts open without play action, I think is really, really nice for the Ravens. The other thing is that Monkin has shown in his Tampa time, also but in his Cleveland time and in Georgia, he knows how to work the middle of the field really well. And opening that middle of the field is important because Lamar throws between the numbers extremely well. This is one of the number one things is misunderstood about Lamar. He has a better thrower between the numbers than outside of the numbers.

And Monkin's shown that he can work that middle of the field and he can get concepts open there. So I think he makes a lot of sense for Lamar in that way. Accordingly, because he makes sense for Lamar, and because he took the job. Like there was nothing stopping him from just Georgia OC again. Or like he was interviewing with the Bucks

and he could have taken the Bucks job, which like the Bucks have no stability of quarterback. Like we talked about, no idea what's going on over there. But for the Ravens, right? Like when Munkin and when anybody else was interviewing for that O.C. job, they sat down and they were like,

hey, so who's a quarterback going to be? You know, like that's the elephant in the room. You're going to have to talk about that. Munkin to have such a secure current job and to clearly have other NFACs. prospects and to elect to take the Ravens job is to me a signal. It's not the truth of the matter. It's not the reality, but it is a signal that the Ravens are in a spot with Lamar where they feel confident enough. They feel like they can at least sell a bill of goods and Monk and bought that

bill of goods. Again, the hay is not in the barn. This is not the thing. But to me, it's a sign of the thing. And it is a positive sign. And also, I think, gives the Ravens something critical, which is in the event that they franchise tag Lamar. In the event they only have Lamar for one year. They have a guy with NFL experience. There's a wide menu of calls, right? He has background in the air raid, but he hasn't really been running the air raid

for like years at this point. Wide menu of calls who can get a good offense out of Lamar in a year. He can do it right now. And you need that if you're going to sell Lamar in negotiations off of the franchise tag, right? Like you are making this office coordinator change from Greg Roman, who you and I, like we get frustrated with Greg Roman, the media does, Lamar loved Greg Roman. Talked about how much he loved him.

So you're making an office coordinator change, bringing him in... And they did, in fairness to Roman. Like, I agree with what everyone said about the passing game. I think it was time. The team saw that. But they had some very good offenses with Greg Roman. And the run game was sick. You know, I know you have Lamar Jackson,

so it's probably going to be sick anyway, but they had a wide variety of play schemes. He wasn't afraid to lean into that. So, yeah, I thought sometimes it was over the top. Having said that, I thought it was definitely time to move in a different direction. Yeah, and so just moving on from a guy that Lamar likes, it's really important that your offensive coordinator hire,

if Lamar plays on the tag for a year, it's really important that that guy's good. It's really important that he's a good offense. If it's the worst offense Lamar's ever played in, he's going to be more likely to try to move again, as opposed to like if they have a brorious success pass in the football, it's good vibes. Mark Andrews, Rashah Bateman, you're going to want to stay.

And so I think Monkin was a great hire, and I think he's a sign that, you know, again, like I'm still trying to calibrate to how likely it is we get Lamar back in Baltimore, but I think it is a sign in the positive direction. In the event that Monkin turns out a good offense with Lamar and is able to retain Lamar and help encourage Lamar to stay in Baltimore, that talk about being the best assistant coach higher of the cycle. I mean, that's enormous for the Ravens.

So I think Monk is a home run. Yeah, it's going to be fun. The Ravens felt a little sort of stale, right, by the end of this season. And like you said, the vibes were not good. And again, we still don't know what will happen with Jackson and his contract. But this is like, I think this is a worthy swing to take. Maybe it doesn't work out. There's so much we don't know about these things,

but I think it's a worthy swing to take. It's the right profile of the right guy to add at this time and kind of identify, hey, what do we need from this offense? How do we get it? Who should call it? This is the type of guy who has had success in the past and maybe can get you there. All right. I will finish us off with the extra point taken.

One last take off the Super Bowl. You had the Mahomes one to start. I'll go with the other quarterback, Ben. The Eagles should and will sign Jalen Hertz to a contract extension this offseason that will be in the neighborhood of $47 to $50 million. Woo! Buddy! I think that's what's going to happen.

And I will say that's the right move when that does happen. The guy went toe to toe with Patrick Mahomes in the Super Bowl. He left the field after having led a touchdown drive and a two-point conversion. conversion to tie the game at 35 apiece in the fourth quarter against Patrick Mahomes. The man is 24 years old. I was in the Super Bowl, the Eagles locker room after the Super Bowl. And Jason Kelsey, all pro center, future Hall of Famer, very interesting comments talking about, because I think I've talked about it with you. I thought Kelsey this year played as well, maybe better than he ever had. And Kelsey had a comment that I'm not the player I used to be. I can't

do the things I used to do. This is unprompted. Jalen Hertz makes a lot of us look good and helps us a lot on the offensive line, talking about how pass rushers have to rush with discipline, edge rushers have to edge with discipline. We've seen games against the Eagles this year where they're just defensive lines are like, we're just not going to rush him. We're going to try to keep him in the pocket.

All these, the designed run game, how that's hard to game plan for in a week, in a week where not every offense plays like this. and now all of a sudden you have like five days to figure out how to defend the eagle. So I think there's so much hurts does that does not show up in the numbers. But then you look at the numbers, ninth in EPA per pass play. So that's the passing game. And the highest rushing success rate of any player in the NFL with at least 100 attempts. 84 rushing first down second to only Josh Jacobs.

You saw it with the sneaks in the Super Bowl. He provides you so many solutions to. so many problems with the modern NFL offense. And again, the passing numbers, the guy completed 66.5% of his passes and averaged 7.8 yards per attempt. You know how many quarterbacks for the Eagles have done that since the year 2000? Hit both those marks? The answer is zero. And they've had some good quarterbacks go in and out there. And then there's the intangible stuff, the leadership, the work ethic, the ability to improve. You and I have had a lot of conversations. Do players actually improve that much at the NFL level? A lot of times.

we overrate their ability to, well, I think he's the exception. I mean, we've just seen it over the past couple of years. So I know he's in a good spot. You can say, but chill, he's in a, you know, he's got a great offensive line. He's got weapons. Guess what they're going to have for the next three years. They're probably going to have a great offensive line and great weapons. They've got A.J. Brown, Devante Smith, and Dallas Scottert all under contract for the next two to three years.

Their offensive line is going to be really good. And you're probably looking at signing him, you know, who knows what it'll be. He might want a shorter contract would be three years. a longer contract. We'll see if he gets to five or six years. But I think for the first part of that, if it's longer, and maybe it's three or four years, you've got the infrastructure around him. I think he's your guy, and I think he can keep them competitive with a top five offense and compete for Super Bowls. So I think they're going to sign him. I think they might sign him, Ben, if we know anything about the Eagles, historically, they don't want to be late on this type of thing.

You might try to get him before Joe Burrough signs, before Justin Herbert signs, before Lamar Jackson signs. Because guess what? The price only, only goes up once those guys signed. So if Hertz is agreeable to it, I think that's going to be a big move you're going to see sooner rather than later. Man, does Jalen Hertz love the Kyler Murray contract? Man, oh man. That's how it works.

But not only is it how it works. You can't even do like, oh, well, he plays the game this way and I play the game that way and it's different because he says, no, no, no. This is the dude that preceded him at Oklahoma. It's just like a year, I think a year older than him just, Barely, right? I think they're like roughly the same recruiting class and just signed this deal. And Kyler went on to not have a playoff caliber season and get hurt. And Hertz went on to play in the Super Bowl and be second MVP voting. And this deal, five years, $230 million. It's $46 million per. 160 million guaranteed. The guarantee number, like I see different numbers everywhere I read. But 160 is like kind of in the middle. So whatever, 160. there is like it's just it's such a nice relief for hurts and for his agent to be able to sit down

down harry roseman slide the kailer murray contract across the table and go if you say anything there's anywhere near less than this we'll come back tomorrow like that even just like this this this is the florist of floors and it's like the third to fourth highest quarterback contract in the league right now but you cannot feasibly get him under that So absolutely, like, in the neighborhood of 47, I imagine he's above 47. Like, that'd be my guess. You might be above 50. Yeah.

Yeah. If we see, you know, we're going to see a lot of these kinds. A lot of these, you might see four contracts over $50 million this offseason. What I will be most interested to see is what the first year looks like relative to the remaining years. Because Jalen Hertz, speaking about his contract situation earlier today, gave a quote that was basically like, you know, oh, you got you're eligible to, talk about contract now. Like, how do you feel? And he was like, I want to win championships.

He was like, I'm here to win Super Bowl's here win championships. Which like a lot of coaches, a lot of quarterbacks. Yeah, okay, whatever. Jalen Hertz, I kind of believe it a little bit. Like, I, you know, I buy it. And the Eagles have, you know, a ton of defensive free agents, just had a Super Bowl loss, a tough, tight Super Bowl loss, three points to the Chiefs. And the more money hurts makes, the harder it is to recycle out some of these

free agent positions, to make sure the roster stays as good as it. it was this year. So I'll be curious to see if and when they do the deal this season, which I think would be to their benefit, price is going up, caps going up. If and when they redo the deal, how much of the money is backloaded? And right now that that $4.8 million cap it in 2023, how much does that get touched? Because part of the, I think the negotiation table is going to be like, hey, Jaylon, like if you, you know, if we keep that 2023 cap it lower, we can get Samoa, we can get Isaac back, get some of mallop back. You know, Jason Kelsey is not a contract for next year. If he wants to play, right? And like,

I, you know, Jaylen, you keep that 20-23 figure a little low, then you can get Kelsey. You know, and make sure we sign Kelsey. The Kelsey one doesn't really work because the Eagles are signing Kelsey no matter what. Like, that's happening. Miles Sanders are getting Miles Sanders back. You know, it's one of those situations. I think above 47 would be my guess. Like, yeah,

neighborhood of like $160 million guaranteed plus would be my guess. The thing I'll be most interested to see when we see structure is how much that 2023 year is touched and how much cap room that gives the Eagles moving into next season. Yeah, I think that's not going to be hard to do. I mean, the Eagles have historically been willing to pay a lot with the signing bonus. And obviously, you can spread that out over the course of the entire contract.

So I think there will be easy ways for them to do that. All that cash is still going in his pocket with the signing bonus, even if the cap charge is not huge for 2023 first. So that's something to keep an eye out on. All right, that will wrap it up for this episode of Extra Point Take him. Thank you to Benjamin Solac. Thank you to Cliff Augustine coming in and producing great producer Cliff Augustine. We appreciate Christopher Sutton producing all the episodes prior to this one. Additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ram Gopalthe. Hey, thanks to everyone for listening all year.

It's the final one, right? Post-Super Bowl is the final one of kind of the in-season, so we appreciate it. We started it in week one. It was fun to do every week. Come up with some ridiculous takes. Don't point out our terrible ones. Never wrong. some right we got some wrong that's how it works uh so we're going to continue to do this in the off

season so we're not saying goodbye until next year i think we're going to maybe take a week off here and then we'll be back uh we don't know the exact schedule we'll let you know about that the exact details but we're basically going to be doing this show once a week in the off season so stay tuned to the ringer NFL feed and everybody have a great week