The Ringer NFL Show - Five Biggest Things We Learned From the NFL Draft

Episode Date: May 3, 2021

Kevin and Nora start by going through the five things they’ve learned from the past week (1:04). Then they are joined by The Ringer’s Claire McNear, who is a 'Jeopardy!' expert, to take us through what to make of Aaron Rodgers guest hosting 'Jeopardy!' and what his chances are of becoming a full-time host (56:25). Check out Claire's conversation with Aaron Rodgers. Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guest: Claire McNear Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

They don't have guests. They have contestants. Ten Questions with Kyle Brandt is the perfect game show and talk show hybrid that you need. Check out 10 questions exclusively on Spotify. It is the Greenway NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, shown by Nora Prince, Nih, Nora. What's going on? The draft is over.

Draft is over. Spring has sprung. Every team is going to win the Super Bowl. And you and I get to do a podcast. What could be better? I agree. We're going to have Claire McNair join us a little bit later to talk. about the story of the offseason, which is Jeopardy somehow.

She spoke to Aaron Rogers a couple of weeks ago. Retroactively, that has become an incredibly important conversation because Aaron Rogers in that conversation said he would like to be the permanent host of Jeopardy while still playing football. Now there are reports over the weekend that maybe he would just host Jeopardy full-time if he doesn't get his way here in the next couple of weeks. It is a very strange situation. Claire breaks it down, breaks down Jeopardy, Rogers' hosting abilities, what could happen

there, really good stuff. But what you and I are going to do are the five biggest things we learned from the last week. Great drafts, really interesting. A lot of teams helped themselves. I learned a lot about football. I mean, I think the best part about the draft is just figuring out where teams think they are. You know, I was just reading this morning Peter King had was talking to the Falcons guys. And Arthur Smith was saying that the Pitts Pick was basically saying, you know, they hired the wrong guys that they thought there was going to be a long rebuild.

That's not a tank there. And maybe they'll still trade Julio. and I heard a couple reports that they're still looking for a second round pick or whatever. But it's just really interesting coming out of the draft to see where teams are.

And even though we knew Matt Ryan was obviously going to stick around there, how the Falcons declare their intention. So stuff like that. It's really interesting. I love from team building perspective, Nora, let's start with you. What's your number one thing you learned?

All right. So number one, and I wrote about this after the first round, but the quarterback acquisition and move on and development cycle is accelerating before, our eyes. Yes. And there have been a number of hints at this over the earlier parts of this offseason, right? So we have two instances with Jared Goff and Carson Wentz, teams moving on

from quarterbacks that they drafted and taking unprecedented financial hits against a salary cap to do so. Now we just watched a first round where five quarterbacks go in the top 15 picks. And what I thought was so interesting about it was seeing how the list of teams that could potentially be in the market for quarterbacks was really widening out, right? Because, okay, we talked about the Bears, obviously, traded up for Justin Fields. They needed a quarterback. But we weren't sure if they were going to be among the teams to go and get one, because originally at 20, it was not obvious that they would have the capital necessary to do so.

Part of that is because there was that stretch 7, 8, where we weren't sure if Carolina, Denver, are they in the quarterback hunt or are they not? And that dynamic, I just think is really, really, really fascinating because what we're looking at is if you don't have a quarterback, what teams are willing to part with, that's going up. If you do have one, the pace with which teams need to surround them with talent to try to get the most out of them to try to get answers about them, right? you look at a team like the Giants how they approached this draft. Basically everything in that is we need a final answer on Daniel Jones. And we need to have as few questions about it as possible. Then you go to a team like the Falcons who at one point were being connected to

quarterbacks. But at a certain point, you start looking at that and go, okay, you draft these guys high, like how if they had taken a quarterback they would have. You got to make a decision within three years, basically. So if you've committed to Matt Ryan for essentially the next two, you get to a point where you just can't really justify doing that to your point about that not being a sort of slow rebuild, that being, that team's situation being one where they're trying to squeeze as much out of the next couple of years as they possibly can.

So I just found it to be a fascinating example of kind of where we are at that position. And it's an extension of where we've always been, where it's just the most important position in sports arguably. but that really, really, really picked up pace. Were there particular quarterback moves, Kevin, that you thought were interesting? Because obviously the top ones were obvious, but the way the rest of the draft went,

there's a lot to pick out there. Yeah, and the Falcons are interesting to me because they could have gone either way. I thought they have one of the worst cap situations in the league, if not the worst. You know, Daniel Jeremiah came on our podcast last fall. He made the point, I asked him, I said, what direction would you go

if you took the Atlanta job, right, hypothetically? And he said he would have blown it up and done the two-year thing because you're not going to be better than Tom Brady and the bucks in the short window. And just wait that out and, you know, kind of see where you're at. I do think it's changed a little bit with Drew Brees retiring in New Orleans. There's an opening there to be the second best team of the division. I just don't think it's that stronger division. I don't know what the Falcons look at. I think Arthur Smith is an awesome coach.

I think there's something there. I think with this draft and the quarterbacks in particular, I think one through three made sense. And then when Fields drops to 11, because that happened, if Fields pops, everybody in the top 10 who didn't take a quarterback thing gets judged on passing on Fields. Right. That's that, that's a narrative. If we're staring a week nine and Fields is playing really well and all of a sudden the Atlanta pick looks worse. All of a sudden, the Lions pick looks worse. The Panthers pick looks worse.

The Broncos pick. If he really pops, if he really pops, yeah, the Denver. excuse me, if he really pops, Philadelphia's pick looks a little weird. And I understand I would not have, I would not have advocated for taking a quarterback there. But I'm just saying it's the kind of thing where if Fields pops like some people think he might,

the whole, the whole temperature of the top 10 changes. As far as quarterbacks go, I think Carolina and Denver passing on, whether that was Mack Jones or Justin Fields, is the most interesting thing. I do really like Denver, Denver's plan.

I thought that they actually had quite a nice draft with the exception of the quarterback position. Maybe some of it was informed by thinking they still had a shot at Aaron Rogers. Patrick Staten is a really good player.

Baron Browning was one of my kind of intriguing athletes. I know he just, you know, he didn't have a ton of starts to Ohio State. And I think there's probably some development needs to happen there.

But I just kind of, I like what they're doing on defense. I think they have a generally a good roster. I want to sort of merge these, these two things to my first one, but I want to ask you, when you talk about the quarterback cycle accelerating, is there a team now? And I know you mentioned Daniel Jones a second ago, but is there a team now where you look at it and you say, okay, the quarterback cycle, I guess you would call it, has accelerated

so quickly that 2021 might be the last year for blank. Is that, you know, I probably think that if Tua actually just absolutely flops, maybe they start looking at their options next year. Is there a team where you circle this and say, okay, I understand that two years might be enough, or three years, whatever it is, might be enough to draw conclusions on a certain guy. Well, so the right answer to the question that you're asking is Daniel Jones when we talk about a quarterback that the team that the quarterback is playing for drafted as a rookie. The other answer, though, and this one is a little bit less specific to exactly what you said, but Kirk Cousins is in a fascinating situation to me now.

Because, and this is sort of part of another one of mine, so we'll talk about it a little bit more later. But Courtney Cronin from ESPN reported that the Vikings were interested in trading up for Justin Fields. They were not able to offer what the Bears offered. They didn't get him. So they took Kellyn Mon in the third. That's fascinating to me because you have an expensive quarterback who's been on the roster, who they have not gotten as much out of Kirk Cousins as they've wanted to,

but it's not like they haven't had any sort of success. And that's a veteran guy who I think you're seeing the window closing on a little bit faster than maybe we would have thought a few years ago. I agree. And I think, you know, I want to go back to Miami here for a second. Because when I think about, so obviously they take Jalen Wado with the sixth pick. And the reason you trade from 3 to 12 is to get the draft capital. the reason you trade up from 12 to 6 as they did is to get an absolute top talent.

And they believe they did that. And I think that one of the things... Can I push back on that for a second though? Sure. Sure. One thing that I've heard people say a lot is that, yes, very happy to get a top talent with that pick. Part of that was insurance against the Panthers having better ammo for a package for something. So this actually, I think, reinforces. is your point. There was some thought there with if there's a quarterback, if there's someone we need

to go get, this doesn't eliminate our options to do that if the competition is Carolina, which had the eighth pick. I cut you off. Sorry, but just wanted that. No, no, please. Please. So I, great point. I think that in general, with Miami, and I would put New York, the Giants in this category a little bit, it's you're removing excuses from the evaluation. And so we're going to know with, you know, assuming the offensive line is better and hopefully it is, he's got weapons now, Tua has weapons. And so we're just, we're going to be able to see what that looks like. We're able to see what Daniel Jones should look like. Is he the long-term answer? And I think that part of this is, and this is something that I've talked to a lot of GMs about

over the past couple of years, is the way the rookie contracts work with quarterbacks is you actually have to go all in with them before you know if they're worth going all in. on. Does that make sense? Yeah, because otherwise you're never going to know. Yeah, well, the timetable, not just that, but the timetable, so short, you're really looking at three years before you start talking mega extension if they go. And you have to say, okay, well, we're going to start getting these guys and bring them in and start planning for the mega extension now.

If you draft a quarterback now, you have to assume and start planning for the mega extension. You have to. In most cases, you have to start planning for the mega extension because if you're not going to sign a mega extension for the top 10 quarterback, you're going to be fired. Okay. So you have to have to have some plans here. If you're not getting rid of your franchise quarterback after, you know, year three or year four, you're probably not the guy who's going to be able to draft a quarterback beyond that.

Anyway, I just think that there, it's just really interesting how, how the league views team building and we're so, I think my, the first story I ever wrote about rookie contracts, um, with quarterbacks was 2013.

Um, and so when it was, it was Kaepernick and Wilson and the team building. In fact that Wilson was one of the, best quarterbacks in football and is making less than the team's long snapper, right? We're in year nine or ten of understanding exactly what that looks like. And so it's not just going all in on the talent. It's signing veterans around these guys.

And, you know, the dolphins have done that. So I'm intrigued by both the dolphins and the giants. Now I'd also say with the giants, in particular with Daniel Jones, they're in, this is, this point was made of the weekend, but they're in win now mode, quote, unquote, with Dave Gettelman. And I think Dave Gettelman knows his job is in the line. The fact that they were trading back is actually quite admirable. Because he could have gotten overaggressive and said,

we need to save my job, all that stuff. I actually kind of like what Dave Gettelman did in that regard. And as you said, they, they, this year will hopefully answer some questions about Dino Jones. It's a Dave Gettlement Renaissance. The Gettleson. The Gettleson. It's here. The Gettleson's here and it's magnificent.

Let me get to my first one. Because I think that I've been so critical of this team. for six, seven, eight years. They didn't have a plan. They didn't even pretend to have a plan. And now I think that I know what direction they're going in for the first time. And it's the New York Jets.

Because I think they crushed this draft. And I think they crushed this offseason. And Joe Douglas, who a lot of people were saying, was one of the smartest lieutenants or deputies, whatever you want to call him, in football when he was with Philadelphia. and obviously before that he had a great track record in Baltimore. I was grading him on a curve before this year because he was put in a weird spot.

He took over after a draft where Mike McCagden just completely shanked every pick. He was, he inherited Adam Gase, didn't fire Adam Gase immediately, but inherited him. And I just don't, I wouldn't wish that on anybody. And now he's got a runway. Now he's got a head coach. So in free agency, it's Corey Davis, Carl Lawson. I really like them. Franchise tag Marcus May.

Makes sense. But then this draft, Zach Wilson, Barrett Tucker, I understand, I understand the argument about trading up for Vera Tucker that gave up a lot.

But I think we need to, I think that as much as we can judge value and we can say, hey, Alice Weatherwood came off the board way too early, whatever, et cetera,

I do think that when you're talking about moving up, when you have draft capital, going up and getting a badass, like Vera Tucker can be fine. Elijah Moore, really good receiver who can win. They had a bunch

of picks. Three fifth round picks, three sixth round picks. They're just kind of flooding the zone. I see the plan here. I see the plan here and I like it. Okay, let's talk about this for a second. So Albert Brewer had this in Sports Illustrated this morning Monday morning. I was about to bring this

up. I'm obsessed with this. Jets coaches, this is the quote from Sports Illustrated. Jets coaches actually discussed at that point when they're evaluating them, how they preferred Zach Wilson or Trevor Lawrence as a fit for their offense because Wilson's tape showed a very clean translation to the Shanahan style of offense. You can see him go through his reads one, two, three out. This is brayer paraphrasing, obviously what someone with the Jets told him. Lawrence conversely played with the RPO offense

with Clemson. Maybe there would have been something lost in translation. Okay. I love this leak. and I actually think more team should do it. I think the Patriots should be like Mac Jones was actually number one on our big board. That's that, that, that's, that is the narrative version of going all in your quarterback saying we actually like Zach Wilson more than Trevor Lawrence. I'm totally with you.

It's an incredible move. However, that is not what I thought you were going to bring up. I thought you were going to bring up how they had Fred Warner hug him at his pro day to size him up. I think that's incredible. How does that influence your analysis of their, of their plan, of their process? Are hugs the new evaluation? The hug?

The hug or the Lawrence is better than, excuse me, Wilson's better than Lawrence. No, the hug. I'm all, I'm, we're done with that now. We're talking about the hug. Okay. I'm extremely in on the Jets front. I don't even know, I've met Joe Douglas once for 10 seconds when he was in Philadelphia. I don't really know the guy.

But I think he's, I think that front office just, things are making a lot of sense there. and this is the first time that's really happened. And nothing ever tracked there. Like I went out of my way to criticize Gase and McCagnan a couple of years ago. And all of these Jets fans were like tagging old takes exposed and were like, save this. And I was like, for the first time in my life, like, please God save this. Like I've never been more confident in a franchise tanking than the New York Jets two, three, four years ago. They had nothing.

They had nothing. And now they have something. And going from nothing to something is actually quite hard to do in football. And I really like the track they're on. I don't think they're going to win in 2021. I think they're going to be interesting in 2022. And then things build beyond that. I just think things making sense in New York is a positive step.

All right. What's number two? All right. So we're going to do just a little bit of, do a little news here. Ernie Adams, Patriots director of football research, has done his last draft in New England. And this was something that Bill Belichick said when he was talking to reporters and there's now a video. They let him make the last draft pick. They took Trey Nixon from UCF in the seventh round.

Ernie actually has done a lot with scouting with them. His job is obviously a little bit unclear and has been for decades. The only time I've ever seen him was at the Senior Bowl. sure yeah that makes sense he's not he he keeps a pretty low profile um i got the chance to interview him once just sort of in the tunnel below jolette stadium he was eating a yogurt while we were talking and that that that will always be very vivid to me um but what i want to emphasize here is just the situation that bill bellichick is in right now is really really really fascinating to me because they draft a quarterback higher than they've ever done it with him and

he's kind of the last man standing. Like, Tom Brady is gone. There's been a serious brain drain there. And obviously, you know, their organizational history and Bill Belichick's pedigree alone enables them to bring in a lot of guys. They can, you know, hire friends from the college game. They're fine in terms of being able to replace those coaches. But they've still lost a lot of super smart people.

And that's not the same situation with Ernst. It's not totally clear if he's full on retiring, but, you know, he's had a long career and probably wants a less hectic work schedule. And what that leaves is Bill Belichick in a situation where he has the task of grooming and supporting a young quarterback who's that team's best chance at sort of elongating its run. And it's not going to be dynastic in the same way that it was with Tom Brady. Like that shouldn't be news to anyone. and that would be unprecedented doesn't even begin to cover it. But he's not doing this alone, but he's doing it without his sort of long-established brain trust,

save for Josh McDaniels, basically, in a way that just hasn't been the case for him. And I think it's a really fascinating story going forward. And they just have so much history that I think there's a tendency with New England to just sort of rely on old names. narratives and oh, it's always been this way, so it's going to be this way again. This is new and different for them. And when we talk about Ernie Adams, we're talking about

one of Bill Belichick's high school best friends. Yeah. Like, this is just a different situation. So I don't think that that little news item should be undercovered. So number one, I'm throwing a conspiracy flag at Ernie Adams ever retiring. He is in charge. He is in charge. of a lot of things we don't fully understand. I'm going to ask you about that in a second, but he does a lot of covert things. And I just feel, I don't want to get in trouble or get assassinated or anything, but I've heard in the past that, like, certain secret agencies around the world, sometimes people will retire. And then that just means they're actually taking on something way more dangerous. You know, they're just like going deep into cover, deep, deep, deep into

it. So Ernie Adams is going to retire and then just he's going to be working on stuff for Belichick. We just have no idea about. What does Ernie Adams do for them? Because when I've read the stories, obviously, I've read education of a coach where David Halberstrom, who's one of the best writers in the history of the English language, nonfiction, interviewed Ernie Adams on the agreement that Adams got to ask Halberstom about his Vietnam reporting for every question that Halberstom asked about football. But I do know that a lot of this stuff is about studying the rules. it's just basically finding edges, right? Nobody's better at finding edges in the Patriots,

and Ernie Adams is principally in charge of that. Ernie Adams does what for the Patriots or did what for the Patriots that maybe we don't know about yet, Nora. Well, so first of all, I don't know. Almost nobody knows. Yep. Bill Belichick knows.

Ernie Adams knows. I'm not sure if the list extends beyond that. But first and foremost, he plays the percentages, right? And so we're talking about knowing the rulebook. We're talking about situations in games. You know, he watches games from up in the booth and he communicates with Bill. And so to your point, what he is doing there is finding edges and it extends into all sorts of areas. I think one underrated element of what he does.

And Bill Belichick actually talked about that a little bit when he was sort of congratulating Ernie in his press conference over the weekend. He said, Ernie literally wrote the book on scouting, the grading scale, the lettering, the numbering, the different classifications of players, the report writing critical factors. I mean all that. He's been a part of all that for really four decades. And when you would go to a Patriot's practice, Ernie would be out there and he would be, you know, squatting like hands on his knees, looking at lineman footwork and really getting in there and looking at technique. And, you know, and looking at technique. making evaluations. So I think with him there's this tendency,

you know, he used to work on Wall Street. There's this tendency to see his role as, okay, it's this mysterious ha-ha thing. But really, if we boil it down, it's gaining those edges through, you know, something that is sort of analytics related and involves math and numbers and counting. And I think that's true.

But he is also a scout. Like that was also a part of his job was to do real with your eyes evaluations. So he had his hand in pretty much everything that they were doing. And then also he was just someone that Bill Belichick and was is probably, you know, inconclusively the right tense for me to be using here. But he's, he's a confidant. He's someone Bill Belichick really, really, really trusts.

They evaluated their high school football team together. They punched in plays on note cards that, frankly, I don't understand because I wasn't live in the 70s, but they've been doing this together for a really long time. So, I believe it was Art Modell who once said, why, like, if anyone can tell me what Ernie Adams does

and while we're paying him so much money, I will give you a bonus or something. And nobody could do it. It was $10,000 if anybody... It's a bounty. And it wasn't, it wasn't, why are we paying him so much money? It was literally just... No, it was like, what does he do? $10,000 if anybody can figure out what this man does. What a

career. Um, yeah, it's a huge, I was actually going to list it as one of my things, but it's a huge blow to the Patriots, but I don't know in what area. I just know that he's just so valuable that it will show up somewhere. Bill Belichick is still the greatest coach of all time. Things are going to be fine there, and I think that they're going to have an interesting plan for Mack Jones and all that stuff. And I don't think they're going to, you know, fall off a cliff here. But I'm just saying Ernie Adams, when people talk about the Patriots, they say that Ernie Adams had at least something. to do with it. All right, I want to talk about the AFC here, continuing on the Patriots thing,

because I think a handful of AFC teams got really interesting this week. So I've been talking about the Browns for the entire office season, because I like that they just kind of quietly went about their business. You're laughing. Are you all right? Well, Brown's Week 2.0. Let's do it. Brown's Week 2.3.3.0, because we did one last week, last year as well. So they go out and quietly go about their business. John Johnson, great, great signing. Troy, Hill, great slot cornerback. Clowny, I think, at the right price is fine. Malie Jackson, at the right price is fine.

And they go out and they crush this draft. Greg Newsom. Awesome, first-round cornerback. Jeremiah Owusu Coramoa, I think is how you pronounce it, who dropped a lot. Value pick at 52. Tommy Toggiye, I think, is how you pronounce it, from Ohio State.

One of the best interior athletes, I would say. say on the defensive side of the ball in the entire draft. It is hard for me to rank GMs like Andrew Barry when they first take over. Because first of all, it's kind of like we talked about with Joe Douglas, where sometimes they're, okay, you were just solving problems created by the last regime or whatever. We know Dorsey was a much, much better GM than Mike McCagnan. But you are in the first year, it's a lot of administrative work and stuff like that, right? but we're now in the second year of Andrew Barry

and I can confidently say I don't know where he would rank among GMs because I just don't see the sample size yet and we haven't seen this team on the field but I can say I love Andrew Barry and I don't remember the last time I disliked an Andrew Barry move and in fact I might have liked them all

it might be polling it 100% for me so I think he's one of the best thinkers in the game and I dislike what the Browns have been doing Now, you add in the dolphins, who I think will be better this year. Obviously, the Ravens are going to be good. The Ravens, by the way, I thought it was interesting. Eric Takasa said this over the weekend that he said that there was a lot of attention paid to big school guys because there was just not enough info on the smaller school guys in the COVID year and all that stuff.

And I thought that was pretty interesting. I do want to say with the Browns. And they went heavy Bama. Yeah. Did you see Miles Garrett's outfit? Oh, no. I didn't. he wore a suit.

It was about three sizes too small for him. And it was really funny. Like, we got to get, we got to get a tailor to Cleveland and solve this Miles Garrett's sleeves thing. It was a choice. He wanted to show off. He was presented at the,

he picked at the draft. He picked a pick at the draft. He was wearing a velvet suit that was about three sizes too small. And I don't think it was small anywhere except the biceps. He had, He was handing out tickets to the gun show.

So normally I would say that like when guys do that, it's kind of like the Smedium joke where it's like, all right, calm down. Yeah. Miles Garrett's got nothing to prove, right? No. That's why I thought it was interesting. Okay.

So the chiefs go out and solve all their problems. And I think that there's, yeah. There's kind of something instructive there where, you know, listen, I was talked to Veachba. is a handful of times. The chiefs are going to be all in every single year and they're not going to take their window for granted. I think some teams, no team ever has a Patrick Mahomes, right? But I think there are a lot of teams who say, we've got a lead quarterbacking and solve our problems. They're

going to help solve the problems. And Patrick Mahomes is just going to do his job and be great. So they basically retool their entire offensive line. Right. They get Creed Humphrey. They already swung the trade for Orlando Brown. They got Kyle Long at our retirement. It's interesting because when I did the thing at Sloan, Kevin Demoff, actually. talked about this because Nick Asario was the other person on the panel. And Demoff, who's the CEO of the Rams, said winning is actually the greatest advantage because you end up getting value in a bunch of different spots, right? And people want to be a part of it. And that's why the Patriots, you know, someone like a Chris Long would join the Patriots or whatever. It's part of why the

bucks are returning every single Super Bowl started. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And why Jeobinar wants to be a part of it. That sort of thing, right? And Kyle Long coming out of retirement and just saying, let's do this Kansas City and being, um, being able to play basically, I guess anywhere on the line, he's not going to play center. Uh,

but having that sort of depth because people want to be part of something fun is, is an advantage. Um, listen, will the bills become due someday for, for some of the trades and moves that the chiefs made? Maybe, but they have a quarterback who's only going to get cheaper by the way the salary

cap works. And by the time that, that contract really becomes significant, the TV deals are, are, going to have kicked in so much that you're going to be looking at a relative bargain. I know $500 million, it seems unlikely to be a bargain, but I assure you when you see the deal in seven years and you see what some of these other guys have signed for and you see what Trevor

Lawrence is making in seven years. I, DAC, I promise you, Patrick Mahomes's contract, if it's not a bargain, we'll at least look fine, okay? So I just think that the chiefs are playing this exactly right. And they're not going to hit on every draft pick. And certainly no team is perfect. but I just think for having what they have, they've done really well.

Jacksonville is going to be interesting. Trevor Lawrence, Travis Etienne, who I really like. So I guess Urban Meyer had said that he wanted Tony from Florida that the Giants snatched up with that pick. But I still, I think Etienne can be a fine value in the way first round. I know that do not tell my friends in the Adennes community.

But I think that there's just a lot of competition in the AFC, and I think the floor has been raised, whether that's the Jets, whether that's, I think the Patriots are going to be better this year. I just think I expect the Chiefs to win the AFC, but I do, and the Chargers are another team who are just going to be much better this year. By the way, I had a great draft. Great draft.

I just think that there's a floor to the AFC that it's going to make every week really interesting because there's a lot of smart people, a lot of solid teams, a lot of good quarterback. a lot of good drafts here. There's just something there in the AFC right now. Even the Broncos that we were talking about not having a quarterback, like they had a really nice draft. And then there's the Raiders. But we'll leave them out of the interesting AFC team's discussion.

AFC wild card race going to be lit. You heard it. I love it. I love it. Hunter, by the way, the Dolphins draft is a tight end, Hunter Long, builds computers in his garage, solves Rubikubicubes in 47 seconds. You add that to the AFC interesting facts. He could be the next journey Adams.

He could be the next journey. All right. What's your next one? All right. So my third is that just, and we talked about this a little bit. I did the pod with Kaelin and Roger after the second and third rounds. And we touched on this, but I really want to hammer at home because we talked so much. And we heard so much about how big of a deal guys opting out might have been.

And you know what? Seven first rounders were 2020 COVID opt-outs. And that was about in line with what was. expected based on, you know, mock drafts and how these guys were projected. It really does not seem as though that hurt. I don't want to say at all, but you look at guys who maybe fell a little bit. You know, someone like Caleb Farley, that's the medical. So I can see how if you combine not playing with another question mark in this draft

where information scarcity was a big deal. Yes, sure. that's not an ideal situation. But when you have Chase going Fifth and Sewell and Micah Parsons and Rishon Slater, like, these guys did just fine. And I know I'm complaining a little bit here, but I just don't understand why we had to have everybody whine about it for however many months. Like, there was a pandemic and it was really complicated and everything worked out relatively

fine. Rant over. I think that teams have gotten increasingly comfortable over the past few years with less information about prospects. Yeah. And I think it would have started. you know, I remember Kevin Colbert, what, six, seven years ago, started saying that the prospects who are coming in now are just a little more. I think the word he used was immature because they're

younger. And I think he means in a football sense. Sure. Because once the rookie wage scale came in, the whole thing became about getting to your second contract. So you're comfortable. There are people who are comfortable who being a second round pick because the money to be the first overall pick, the money to be the fifth overall pick just wasn't what it was. So Sam Bradford gets paid, I think, $60 million guaranteed in his first contract. The rookie wage scale comes in, Cam Newton and make 22, right? That's a huge shift overnight. And so you're not trying to be, I'm sure you'd love to be, but the goal is no longer to be first round, first overall pick or bust. People are more comfortable saying, hey, if we get to the second contract,

where the real money comes in a year early, that's worth any loss that would have happened by dropping in the draft or whatever. So I do think that there's been some, because the prospects were a little more raw, because there's a lot of redshirt sophomores. I mean, if you look at the numbers of early entrance, they spiked. They really spiked in the mid-2010s, I guess you could say.

And they remain spiked. And so I think that projection is important now. And I think knowing what a raw prospect is going to look like in three years is interesting. And I think that when the fact that Tray Lance went third overall, when he had passed 300-something times at the college level is important to note. As is Zach Wilson going second, by the way, that's a different set of unknowns. His 2019 was not good. His 2019 was not good.

He had some injuries. A hundred percent. I mean, like, we talked about it, but I think it was Bob McGinn who had this. Mahomes would pass 300 times in a month of Texas Tech. And now you're talking about Tray Lance, throwing things. 300 times in a career. I think Eric Eker had this. There were 25 dropbacks where he was

trailing Lance in his entire career. And I'm not saying that's so important or whatever, but I'm just saying if you wanted to see sample sizes and all that stuff, you didn't get it with Lance. But I think teams are increasingly comfortable with this stuff. And so Lance wasn't an opt-out. His team just played one game in the fall, right?

And obviously everything got delayed there. But I'm saying that I think what your point is a great one because I think a lot of teams are just like, yeah, whatever, they didn't play last year. Fine. You know, there were, you know, GM, again, going back to Kevin Colbert said if it was close, if it was close, if it was a tie, the tie breaker will be what did I see in 2020. And if the answer is nothing, then the person who had some tape in 2020 wins in that scenario. But I think most teams, if there was, we're going to take best player available in matter what they did in 2020. And also,

by the way, with Sewell, with Rishon Slater, um, with a bunch of these guys, their team opted out of the fall, and then they went back on it, and they're already in their groove. I'm not saying that there wasn't an decision to be made,

but they didn't really make the first move. Remember, it was all a little bit haphazard there. And, you know, yeah, the University of Washington played, didn't they play four games last fall? Yeah. This is a separate. Haphaug is about the nicest word you could choose for that.

I would choose a different one. I just think, I just think we did some overrating of what the college experience would be if you opted in last year. I mean, the PAC 12 was canceling games all the time. The,

you know, the Big Ten had its, its weird season. So I think that as much as these teams wanted information, I think they realized that there were just some things they had to go without.

I mean, there was even a moment in his pre-draft press conference where Bill Belichick said something like, you know, it's still probably case by case, but in a lot of cases, 2019 film is better and more valuable

than 2020. even if the 2020 tape does exist on someone, there's just so much, okay, did the level of competition they were facing change? Was the practice schedule just weird and altered to a degree where you just don't really feel like you're comparing apples to apples when you're looking at these players? Whereas if you go to last year, it's just a little bit more.

I think people were a little bit more confident in it. Who's up? Me or you? You. Okay. The Niners rule. The Niners rule. Tell me more. The nine is rule.

I love the Lance Beck. You know, Shannahan, Kyle Shanhan was quoted on Monday saying that they became obsessed to Tray Lance a couple months ago and that they were misquoting something in front of me. But he's obsessed with what they're going to be able to do with Tray Lance and that offense. Whether that's this year, I don't know what the Grasplow situation is.

We'll see. Shout out Jimmy Garblow for still being alive. So Mike Garfalo reported the multiple 49. got in touch with Kyle Shanahan to let them know that they were still alive on Sunday, which I thought was a good bit. I thought that was a good bit. So then you add in Trace Arman, who I love. I mean, I think that that's a guy where the game tape just hits you over the face.

Some of those runs in the Big Ten, I watched that Big Ten championship game at a bar in Jacksonville. We're outsized and outdoor bar. But there was a huge framed photo. of Gardner Minshue at the bar. Like at the bar. Like hanging over the bar. Like a very nice framed photo. Like the Goodell photo in the Rams draft house. Yes, exactly. It was actually in Amelia Island, so a little bit north of Jacksonville. And, uh, lovely. Yeah, very nice. But nice little Saturday out. I've never been there, but I've been to Cumberland Island, which I think is like right north of that. Technically part of Georgia. Yeah, I was going to say that's in Georgia. That's a different state.

So. Okay. Well, they're geographically close together. Well, are they? All right, let's get the 49ers rule. All right, so I don't want to get into the Florida Georgia debate now. We don't have that much time on this podcast. I don't want to do Florida versus Georgia. I really don't want to do Florida versus Georgia. Trust me on this one.

That's a separate podcast, okay? I thought it was funny. Everyone kept trying to read the tea leaves. And I certainly, I was following the wisdom of the crowds. And, you know, this is, I think it was Peter King who said this today. But, you know, Chris Sims knows Kyle Shannon better than anybody. Adam Schepter has known the Shanahan family for 30 years, right? Back to Denver, all that stuff.

And I think there was an element there where I'm going to tend to believe those guys. And so I, for most of the last month, had assumed it was going to be Mac Jones. Maybe it was going to be Mac Jones at some point. I do think some of the funny things about it, you know, Kyle Shanahan a couple of months ago, I guess, during last season said, you want a guy who throws like Drew Brees and runs like Lamar Jack. And everybody was like, ooh, look at this quote.

Man, I'm telling you, everybody in the NFL is looking for a quarterback who throws like Drew Breeze and runs like Lamar Jackson. That's it. It's almost like a,

that's as cliche of a thing as you can get. He's, Debris is one of the best pastors and Lamar Jackson's the best runner. Like, yes, that I promise you, that's what everybody in the league

is looking for. That's like when I'm like, yes, I would go out with Chris Evans. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And so I think that there's,

I think the reading that she leaves process of it all is very, funny but what I will say is that you look at this Niners offense you look at the fact that Shanahan's going to make any quarterback he plays with better and I really like where this is headed I like the fact they don't have to do anything and I say I go back to this all the time but you know the old Billy bean ruling money ball if you have to do something you're screwed if they had to start Trey Lance week one with the way he's he's a little bit raw with the way he deal played one

game last year, I would be saying, okay, maybe there's a bit of an awkward transition or maybe they're going to be bad in September or whatever. The fact that they can bring him along at their own speed and keep Garapolo if they want to, or they can see Tray Lance in August, he looks great at training camp and they start him. I think this is going to be played perfectly. You know, when Tom DeMichoff was on this podcast a couple weeks ago, he'd circled Atlanta as a potential Tray Lance destination because, hey, you'd have met Ryan mentoring him. I think the same can happen here. I don't know if Garapolo is going to want to be a mentor, just in the sense that he's still trying to fight for his career and all that stuff. But I think this could work from a timetable

perspective. I want to expand on this because I do think that I thought that the NFC West in general had a pretty interesting, pretty interesting draft. I really like what Arizona did. Zaven Collins, amazing athlete, Marco Wilson in the fourth round, as much as I'd like to study athletes that was somebody I had circled during the draft process. I think it can be interesting. I think that I was probably a year too early on the Kyler, even though Kyler is really good, I thought that they, I had some pretty high expectations for Kyler last year. I think this year might be the year. We always talk about how we tend to be a year early on the hype if you studied the game because we overlook certain parts of the sport and okay, hey, this is important

and we overlooked that. We just looked at the raw talent. I think Arizona is a team that can take a huge step forward this year. And I think the NFC West, almost like we're talking about the AFC. The NFC West is going to be an absolute bloodbath week in and week out. And I'm almost uncomfortable picking anybody to win it because I actually see a case for all four teams. And that's why I think that the Niners thing is so interesting because this is the way that they raise the ceiling in a division where you have to have a raised ceiling. the thing that I think about San Francisco, to your point, is you can always trust them to have a plan. And in particular, that's about Kyle Shanahan, right? Because the draft is their draft and there are mixed results on players, particularly when we're talking about offensive players, you know, about Brandon Ayyuk, think about Debo Samuel.

What we always hear about those guys is that Kyle Shanahan looks at them and he goes, okay, not just here's the set of traits and ability. that I like. It's here's how I want to use him. And that sounds simple, but it's really hard to do. And again, it doesn't always work out. We're talking about really young people

doing a fundamentally different thing playing in the NFL versus playing in college. So there's always going to be mixed results with that. But what I really loved in terms of what we heard coming out of the weekend from them about the land selection was,

that basically Shanahan's like sending clips to John Lynch and going, this is what I want to do. From Cabo. From Cabo. Shout out. Sounds pretty good. Going, this is how I want this guy to play for us.

The only person who does more football related work from vacation spots is you. I thought you're going to say Matt Stavard. Thank you so much, Kevin. Nope. That's so kind. It's you. Wow. Me and Cal Shanan.

Yep. I'm going to need a second to get over at. one A and one B, I would say. That's, that is, um, I aspire to that. So I appreciate it. Uh, I lost my train of thought because I was so, you're going to continue on the football? I was just like, I was like really basking and, um, an excellent compliment. So, but I think that's like that's, that's, that's so important regardless of who the player is.

But when we're talking about someone like Lance, who probably needs some time and need some refining and need some polish, just the fact that they know what they want to do. with them. And again, I know it sounds so simple, but it's, trust me, it's not. Like, that's why you look at this draft. And I think we always tend to undervalue situation. And I think here's one where, you know, that could be a real mistake because you look at these guys and, you know, Trevor Lawrence is a generational prospect. I don't know how that's going to work out just because I don't quite feel like I have a firm grasp of how well the situation that he's walking into is going work out. When you look at Lance, when you look at San Francisco, you just trust the infrastructure so much that I think there's a really solid chance that when we reevaluate this draft in however

many years, that's the one that looks really awesome. And it's less because of who the quarterbacks were coming out. And it's more because of what they were stepping into. Yep. What's your next one? All right. So, offense wins. So eight quarterbacks taken in the first three rounds, 14 tackles taken in the first three rounds, both those that's the most ever. Fifteen receivers, that's the fourth most in the so-called common draft era, which I still think is just a hysterical term. There's been unprecedented offensive success across the NFL for the last, however many seasons. You know, there are so many turns of the revolution. They always seem to lead to more scoring, more passing. And there's always a possibility that there will be

little cranks back in the other direction. People will counter. People will zig when other people Zag. Not a lot of evidence that's going on. It seems like more than that, teams are just going, you know what? Yep, let's keep going. This is where the depth at positions is. And we're just going to keep trying to do more and more and more of the thing that works. And there are, there are always going to be counter examples. You look at all the defensive players that the Cowboys took. You know, the Panthers, I think, drafted their first offensive player under Matt Rule in the Matt Rule era this draft. But overall, teams are not saying let's go the other direction.

They're saying let's load up on offense even more. Yeah, I mean, I think it comes down to not just philosophy, but need. I mean, as much as we say, everybody, everybody does best player available. No one really does best player available. And so, yeah, I think at this point, stacking the deck for your quarterback is the most important thing. And it's funny because obviously Greg Newsom was the Brown's first round pick, but when I talked to Andrew Barry last

fall about this, he said, listen, the most important thing is supporting your quarterback. And I remember a couple of the analytics people were talking about how they put that quote on Twitter and they were just like, you know, no one ever says this, right? Like, everybody's like, they talk in generalities

and they're just like, well, you have to be balanced or whatever. And I do think that there's something about younger GMs, maybe, something like, that where they're just going to say it and be like, you know, what's really important is just like another weapon for our quarterback or making sure our quarterback stands upright. So I think that there's there's probably some some changing of the philosophies. I still think defensive players are necessary. You can't just give up 50 points a game. I just think that right now little victories are

important for defense because it's never going to get back to what it was ever, ever, ever. Even if the rules changed, the quarterbacks are too good. The offenses are too good. Teams can, you know, one of the things that was holding offense back for years was how how they refused to adapt to the college game, which is scoring points all over. That's no longer happening. And so I just don't see a way forward for defense in any meaningful way. So just get what you can defenses. You can't just give up 50 points per game. I think somebody had a meeting with Jerry Jones this offseason to talk about that exact subject. What's your fifth? So my fifth, and this is what we touched on a little bit earlier with the Vikings, just that the late,

second, early third round run on quarterbacks that we saw, typically guys that get drafted in that area, they get all sorts of hype around draft week and then very few of them

end up playing all that much or playing that many meaningful snaps. This class, and I don't want to fall victim to that, which I might be doing a little bit here, I do think that they're particularly interesting. We talked about Callen Mond,

we talked about the Viking situation, and their apparent interest in finding a successor to Kirk Cousins. Houston used its highest pick in the draft on the quarterback. You know, you can talk about it as a third round pick, but you can also talk about it as the best one that they have, right? And we don't need to get into the situation there. We've already done that. But Davis Mills could very easily end up starting, you know?

And I'm not going to fall into this trap with Kyle Trask and Tom Brady, because as we all know, Tom Brady is going to be playing football until he's 72 years old. but I do think that just because of the situations that those guys went into, that little run on quarterbacks is really fascinating. Kevin, is there one of those guys

that you will be watching, you know, training camp beyond? I tend to, when it comes to quarterback evaluation, I really respect Chris Sims' opinion. And, Call and Mond,

being that pick with the Vikings is really interesting to me. And I think that you're going to watch him because his development dictates the future of Kirk Cousins. You know, listen, Kirk Cousins has bet on himself better than any quarterback in history. He signs short-term deals. He has used the franchise tag in short-term deals as well as anybody in the modern era. But part of the short-term deal stuff is that teams can move on from you fairly quickly in a year or two if you're just signing three-year deals at a time. So someone like Mon developing could change everything.

We saw RG3 over the weekend talk about how Kirk Cousins is not going to like that pick. It will be interesting to see how that develops. I'm in the same boat you are in a sense that I tend to typically overrate middle round quarterbacks because they're famous and it's interesting to look at it. And a lot of them end up like Ryan Nassum, right? And if they were good prospects, they would have been drafted not only in the first round, but like in the top 15. That's how the quarter-act position.

That's how quarterback's work. But obviously there are exceptions. Obviously, there are Russell Wilson. Obviously, there are Colin Kaepernick. There are Kirk Cousins. There are Kirk Cousins, who obviously took later to develop and was behind RG3 there for a while. But it's just really, it's the mid-round quarterback to me is always very interesting, always very tantalizing.

And I like, I generally enjoy when a team does it, because it really does kind of declare where they're at. I think Davis Mills to Houston is another example where, okay, we kind of know, I know the people saying don't read into the quarterback thing in Houston. I think you sort of have to if they take their first pick in a draft where they don't have a lot of picks and they have a lot of holes to take a quarterback to me says something about where they think they're at the quarterback position, even though they have Tyrod Taylor. So I think there's a lot there.

Anything else on this? How many decades before Kyle Trass gets a chance? to play a snap in a meaningful game. I don't think he ever will. Sorry, Kyle. I think, have you seen the projections for, like, you know, global warming and stuff? The doomsday clock is at like 1130 p.m. Like, I think we're going to wrap it up as a human race before Tom Brady.

Jeez, Kevin. What? Kyle Shanahan started it. Kyle Shanahan started this fatalist stuff, and I'm ending it. I'm carrying the torch. All right. my fifth one segues into our next segment. It's Aaron Rogers. And it is the story of the offseason that we thought maybe it was going to be kind of a quiet next couple of months.

We were wrong. So Rob Domovsky, who covers the Packers really well for ESPN, says he thinks there's less than 5% chance that Rogers plays for the Packers next year. There's a lot of people who think that. We're going to get into what the game show possibilities might be. but as of right now, so Charles Robinson comes out and reports that unless the GM, Brian Guttenkins is fired, Rogers will not play there. There are other people who say they haven't heard that and have heard something different, but that who the heck knows with that story right now? We got into this on the podcasts that we did on Thursday night and on Friday, we've talked to acknowledging about this.

But it will say is this is not going to be over by any means. The fact that there are people who said, oh, once the Packers or once the Broncos picked for 10 at 9, showed that they weren't going to trade that pick, whatever. I still think there's just a lot that can happen. For a franchise quarterback, you will move mountains. And the exercise we did on, what was it, Thursday's pod, pretty much 30, 28, 29, something like that, teams would go into salary cap hell, trade all their picks, whatever it is, for an Aaron Rogers type.

So anybody, if the Packers say we're open for business, everybody's going to rush to that. And the fact that they got one call on Thursday says more about kind of the tunnel vision. of the draft and all that stuff, that then it does on what the actual temperature would be if he became available, if there was an actual auction. Okay. But right now,

the Packers have offered a contract extension to Rogers. They've offered them guaranteed money. They've offered them all those things. They've flown out to the coast. It hasn't worked. It's going to be a stairdown, and the stairdown could end at any time. And that's why it's going to define this off season.

I'm happy we have Claire on to break down the game show aspect of it. But this is a big deal. And the fact, I just love, and a couple people mention this, but like I love that the NFL schedule is coming out, I think, next week. And it's like how absolutely terrible are some of these prime time games going to be if it's Jordan Love against Tom Brady?

You're going from the best quarterback, the best quarterback matchups to the worst very quickly. On the other hand, though, how much fodder does it give the schedule release show to talk about, well, we think it's going to be Aaron Rogers here in prime time, but we don't know. We don't know. Could be, could it be Jordan Love's debut at Lambo? It'll be, it'll be great. It'll be great. By the way, we didn't mention,

I didn't mention the mid-round quarterbacks, the Ian Book thing. Sean Payton is in the Kyle Shanahan zone for me, where I just think that there's, he's going to turn Ian Book into something interesting. That's my end-book take. I also think that, I also think he's in the Kyle Shanahan sort of grouping of guys who love quarterbacks,

you know? Yes. When you have the third overall pick, you've got to be a little disciplined about it. but I don't think that either one of those guys is unable to sort of talk themselves into, hey, I could do something with this guy. The Taysom Hill thing proved to me, and it's something I've asked Peyton about, but it proved to me that he was always a little bored with, and it's a nice problem to have,

but when you have a guy like Drew Breeze where you're running an incredible offense and you're running one of the most efficient systems of all time, all that stuff is great. But I think people like him and Belichick, they like the running element of it. They like the single wing type stuff. These guys are football dorks. And they've always thought about stuff with Payson Hill. And so the more you get a guy like Ian Book, who can throw, who can take guys on with the run,

I do think there's some experimentation there that could be interesting. I think he's a developmental prospect, but I think Sean Payton likes developmental prospects. There are three developmental prospects on that roster right now with Payson Hill, Ian Book, and James Winston. James Winston is different, but when you take a guy who had 30 interceptions the year before he came, yes, there's some development that needs to be happening. There is a interesting, I don't know what you would call it. It's definitely not a quarterback factory, but it's a quarterback rehabilitation center. It's happening in New Orleans right now.

And I'm intrigued to see which of those quarterbacks ends up getting, having the best kind of path back to relevance. Sure, I think. I mean, I don't know what it means for the Saints. But what I do know is that if you're Ian book, you're really excited. excited that that's how that worked out. I agree with that. Anything else before we get to Claire? That's it. Kind of madame not in Cabo. You're not in God. There's always next podcast. We'll be back next Monday.

All right, let's get to Claire. Okay, so Jeopardy has disrupted the NFL offseason. I didn't expect to ever say that sentence. But when that happens, Claire McNair, a staff writer at the ringer, Jeopardy expert, author of a wonderful book on Jeopardy will join us. Claire talked to Aaron Rogers, a handful of weeks ago. I'm curious, Claire, when you spoke with him, first of all, tell the audience what he said when you said, do you want the permanent job? Yeah, so, I mean, I went into this interview,

being like, okay, like, it's pretty funny they're having Aaron Rogers do this, but he was sort of like the wild card of all these guest hosts they announced. So I was like, okay, no way does he actually think that he's going to do this for more than his two-week extent. So I asked him at the very end of the interview, you know, would you ever leave the NFL to host Jeopardy,

thinking that, you know, he would kind of laugh it off and that would be the end. But he said no. In fact, not only does he want the permanent job on Jeopardy, but he thinks he could stay in the NFL and sort of kind of reeling off the math behind that, which is, you know, Jeopardy only takes 46 days a year and I can fit that into my schedule. And so he's campaigning for it. So I guess the big question here, Ian Rapport reported over the weekend that Rogers essentially did well and the producers liked him, that that could be an option or maybe it's another hosting gig or whatever. Put this in perspective as someone who is a actual Jeopardy expert.

How well did Aaron Rogers do? And when we're looking at the grand scheme of things here, what are the chances that Rogers actually has offered this gig? Yeah. So I think that people were really pleasantly surprised by his time as a host on the show. I think that he was received overwhelmingly positively. Some people were like, oh, I don't know. he's got kind of a monotone, but like he clearly was, you know, very endearing, very sincere about it.

He had a lot of what people loved about Alex Trebek, which is, you know, he was kind of funny on stage. He had these moments of, you know, he was sort of geeking out about the whole thing. So it went really well, I think. And what I heard from the production side is basically what was said, you know, just a few days ago, which is that, like, yeah, he did do a really good job. As far as how seriously we should take, like, could this actually happen? I think for me, the big question is if he is trying to remain in the NFL, how does that schedule actually work?

Because he is right that Jeopardy only tapes 46 days a year, but that's really spread out for much of the year overlapping, basically entirely with the NFL season. So it is not insurmountable, but it would be really hard. If we erase just the scheduling potential conflicts there, though, who else is in contentious? for this. And Claire, I'm going to have to apologize that I'm not fully up on the state of the fill in host. Who's gone? Who's slated to come up next? Is he among the front runners? Are there established front runners for the uninitiated like me or less initiated? I love Jeopardy. I'm just not quite up to speed. Tell us kind of what the state of the race is. Yeah. So the favorite kind of

going into this before Trebek passed away in November was everyone kind of assumed it would be Ken Jennings who won 74 games back in 2004, 2003, 2004, and you know, had kind of come in-house at Jeopardy as a consulting producer, so he was sort of around the production in an official capacity already. He guest-hosted, I think he's still considered to be a very likely person. The show just announced that LeVar Burton of Reading Rainbow fame is going to come in and guest host a week of episodes in just a little bit. He has kind of been a fan favorite nomination for years and years and years. And he himself has actually kind of been low-key campaigning for the job for like a decade,

just saying like, yeah, it makes perfect sense. I should be the permanent host of Jeopardy. So he is kind of seen as one of the frontrunners. The show's executive producer actually hosted two weeks of these kind of guest host episodes. and he is kind of obviously like sort of in the room for all of this. So he is sort of seen as a possibility as well. But I think with Rogers, he checks a lot of the boxes that we know that the powers at be at Sony are looking for, which is they want somebody who is brainy.

They want somebody who's good on TV. But they also, I mean, like if you expand that wish list, it is also people who, you know, can bring in a younger audience. Jeopardy viewers are, let's say, a little bit senior on average. And the show is very aware of that. Sony is very aware of that. And so if they can find somebody that the older audiences like, but will also bring in younger viewers, that's really huge. And because he's so young, it is something that he could theoretically do for a very long time.

Because the last thing Sony wants is to be looking for a new host five years from now. Rogers also has that sort of like droll, semi-sarcastic, I'm very smart thing that I think Trebek kind of subtle. was really awesome at because it's like playfully condescending almost oh yeah it's a great it's a great way to put it on one of the things he said to me that made me absolutely crack up was like he was talking about doing the Q&As with the players and he was basically like I don't know why they they admit to some of these things like they're so nerdy and like so he would try to bring out the you know slightly more interesting anecdote but that does get to of course all those I iconic Trebek moments where he would be like, oh, good for you.

And kind of just sidle off. Yeah, it's funny. Rogers will go. Rogers likes to admit his dorkiness, but only to a point. Like we, the last conversation we had, because obviously training camp was canceled last year, it was year before. And he was just like, have you seen once upon a time in Hollywood? And I was like, yes, I have.

And he goes, I just really like looking into the Manson family. And I was like, what do you mean by that? And he was just like, I just really like reading about it. I'm like, what in particular? And he's just like, I just really like looking into it and I'll leave it at that. And I was like, okay, cool. Like, he likes to go right to the edge of dorkdom and then doesn't want to actually tell you that he's like reading Helter Skelter and all the way he's printing out the Wikipedia pages

or whatever it is. Claire, I want to ask you what makes a good Jeopardy host? Yeah, I mean, it is somebody who is quick on their feet who is funny, who is really smart, is really sharp. But so much of being the host of Jeopardy is this kind of like air traffic control. It is a really, from talking to the people involved, this. It is kind of a uniquely hard. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, honestly, like, it has quite a bit to do with that sort of synthesis of all these different moving pieces. Like, it is a hard game to host because the host

is controlling every single piece of the game for the entire half hour until it's like the final Jeopardy music. They are doing every single I call on the person, then I do this, then I tell them if they're just over and over and over and over. On a lot of other game shows, it kind of gets kicked over to the contestants to fool around or to deliberate on something. But the host is super involved in Jeopardy. And, you know, Rogers talked a lot about how much he prepared for it. And he said that he really went into it like he goes into games and like just really rigorously prepared and prepared for like kind of the physicality of it just turning your head and looking down at your notes and like memorizing when to do that. So clear, you're giving us this breakdown of your your core subject area

of expertise. But what I want to ask you is do you, how do you feel about being like an NFL news right now. Like, you're accidentally on the cutting edge of one of the biggest football stories of the off season all of a sudden. Like, are you staring down Schefter and saying, hey, you know what? If Aaron Rogers can host Jeopardy, I'm coming for you too, man. Yeah, in accordance with the prophecy. Yeah, it's, it has been sort of surreal to see this actually become a part of this, this totally separate sphere of news. And I mean, I think what's the big question for me is, you know, how much is he using could I become the host of Jeopardy as like a bargaining chip with the Packers or with other teams versus how how interest is he actually?

Like does he just want to get the offer so that he has more options in the NFL or is this like a really, really serious thing? And I think he's probably the only person who knows the answer to that. But what has happened over the last week is we have gotten another news cycles worth of, like, could Aaron Rogers be the host of Jeopardy? So I think that probably has helped him at Sony headquarters where, like, they see this. They know that he's in the news. They are thinking about him this week as a result of that. Probably helps him regardless, right?

Like, just in terms of the search being something that's dominating various news cycles right now, whether it's him or someone else or whatever. It's just a lot of Jeopardy headlines. Well, and what's interesting is we know that the powers at be at Sony that are making this permanent host decision are doing things like looking at the ratings for the various guest host episodes and looking at kind of like the social conversation around these people. And obviously he, you know, his ratings were up when he was hosting. He is is attracting a lot of attention to the show right now.

And that's certainly not hurting his chances. Do you think there's an advantage for him, though, of being an active NFL player? I mean, like one of the most viral. moments was when the final Jeopardy guy said, why did they kick that fuel goal? And he said, that's a good question. Kind of an in joke on something that happened, you know, five months ago, it's current, it's new. And what we're talking about now, where there's a ton of Jeopardy headlines, because the choice is now Packers, Broncos, or Jeopardy, so much of that has to do with the fact that Aaron Rogers is in the news all the time. And if he retires, he's an ex-athlet. And there's a lot

of those around. And there's a lot of interesting people. And you're almost just another entertainer at that point. Is there a value of being the current reigning MVP and being still in the league as opposed to just saying, okay, I'm just going to be the Jeopardy guy full time? Yeah, totally. So I think if we assume that he is serious about wanting to be the host and to continue in the NFL, the question then becomes, is there a team, any team that would allow him to tape Jeopardy during the taping season? I mean, I referred to or during the NFL season, right? This is a beautiful story. It's, well, I mean, like, it's interesting, right? Because, like, I don't know, maybe there is a team that would be so pumped to have Aaron

Rogers that they're like, yeah, sure, it's totally fine if you take a Tuesday and Wednesday off once a month and just disappear to do this, this like nerd show. Like, you know, I don't know. That team is not the Green Bay Packers, by the way. Oh, for sure. It is not the Packers. And can you even imagine fan reactions if this was going on? But it is a question.

Talk Radio, the Monday after a loss. misses Tuesday and Wednesday. As he's like flying to Culver City. It's like the Giants boat boat party. Yes. It would be on steroids. So that's question. I mean, so is there a team that would allow that?

Because that certainly sweetens the deal for Sony because they don't have to kind of re-engineer their whole production schedule. But if not, is Sony willing to work around and radically shift their production schedule around the NFL for however many years he continues to play. Because, I mean, I alluded to this earlier, but so there are 46 tape days a year. They tape from July to April. And they're really spread out in that, in that period of time. So it's 23 weeks throughout that whole time. And the reason for that is because it's, I mean, it's a hard show to make. There's a lot of stuff going on. They have to fly in 12 contestants for every single one of those tape days. You know, it's stuff like, you know, the writers have to create 61 clues for

230 episodes in a given season. And it just, it's, it's very tough. And also, Jeopardy is a joint production with Wheel of Fortune, where they share an executive producer, they share a crew. So a typical taping week at Sony is on Tuesday and Wednesday, they will film 10 episodes of Jeopardy. And then on Thursday and Friday, they will film 10 episodes of Wheel of Fortune. So if Jeopardy's schedule suddenly radically shifts to just fit into the off season, you know, does Wheel of Fortune's schedule change also? And that affects a lot of people, including people like Pat Sejack and Vanow White, who are very powerful stakeholders at Sony.

So it raises all these questions. The good news is that Tuesday is the traditional NFL off day. The bad news is that Wednesday is a really important day of practice. Right. Right. So, you know. First taking skibb and Shannon would have to go 24 hours a day. If Rogers lost a big game after having tape jeopardy on Tuesday. Like it's, it just, you know, if he has like a concussion, like what's going on? Anything else, Nora?

Well, I just think to your point. about how you carry on a role like that as a Jeopardy host as an ex-athlet as opposed to a current athlete. It's funny what you were saying about Roger sort of towing the line of dorkiness. It's like when he's in the jock role, he's like, hey, I have all these other interests that I'm interested in these quasi-nerdy things. And then when he's in the Jeopardy Wheelhouse, he's like, I am an athlete. Please remember, I'm cool. And it's like how you do that is very funny to me. Aaron Rogers is just great.

I'm so glad that we have Aaron Rogers in our world. Totally great. I mean, it's funny. I mean, like, sports are a sensitive subject for a lot of jeopardy contestants. Like, there are a lot of people who proudly do not know any of the sports clues and kind of look down on it. They're just, you know, it's beneath them. It's not real trivia. And so it would be very interesting to suddenly have this, like, very important, very significant athlete in there day in and day out.

Well, you can also just imagine, like, he could be a question one day. Yeah. Like, this Green Bay Packers quarterback spurned the franchise. Well, somebody whiffed on Green Bay during his hosting tenure. And it went viral, right? So it was, there's, there's just, there's so much potential for anger and hijinks. It would be crazy. I did not expect to have this segment, but I'm glad we did.

Nor is it like, I'm going to be honest. Read Claire at the ringer.com by the Jeopardy book. Claire, thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for having me. All right. Thanks to Claire for joining us. nor it's officially like the dead part of the off season. Thank God for Aaron Rogers for this content.

Thanks, Aaron. All right. We'll be back next Monday with another podcast. That'll be the regular schedule going forward. There's been the ring of NFL show on the Ringer podcast network.