The Ringer NFL Show - Instant Reactions to the Carson Wentz Trade

Episode Date: February 18, 2021

Nora Princiotti is joined by The Ringer’s Danny Heifetz to discuss the Philadelphia Eagles trading Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts. Then they talk about which quarterback they think could be on the move next. Host: Nora Princiotti Guest: Danny Heifetz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I am Nora Pinciotti. On today's show, we've got Danny Highfits. Danny and I are going to be discussing the Carson Wentz trade, the big news of the day, the Eagles sending Carson Wentz to the Indianapolis Colts. It's a great show. Hope you enjoy it. All that's up next.

All right, it is Thursday. I am here with Danny Highfits. We are doing an emergency episode because Carson Wentz has been traded by the Philadelphia Eagles to the Indianapolis Colts. The Eagles get in return a third. third round draft pick this year, a conditional second round draft pick next year that can become a first round draft pick if Carson Wentz plays more than 75% of the Colts snaps or more than 70% of the snaps and the Colts make the playoffs. So this was a move that had been predicted or

was in the works for a while, but now it is here. This offseason of quarterback movement is underway. Danny, what are your thoughts? Holy crap. Heck yeah. I mean, we knew this was going to happen, right? But I think, first of all, it's just, you know, there's a lot going on in America right now. Let us know. Nice to just not have to think about some things. Snow and quarterback trades.

That's what we do in February of 2021. No, this kind of blew my mind because I think the first place that my mind went was I thought about Howie Roseman, the Eagles GM who did an interview. I think it was like a few weeks before they signed Carson Wentz to that big contract extension. It was in 2019. And he said, we go as Carson Wentz. goes. But like, we think as the Eagles go as Wendz goes. And then after they signed into that deal, which was more than like a hundred million guaranteed, the owner, Jeffrey Lurie said,

and I'm quoting now, Zach Berman from the Athletic through this quote out there on Twitter today, Jeffrey Lurie said, whether it's leadership poised, the desire to be really, really good, if not great, attention to detail, smart, face of the franchise in so many ways, Carson's, it's how you draw it up. And when you got the GM and the owner saying that Carson Wenz is the face of this franchise and the franchise goes as he does. That was like 20 months ago. And now they're taking the biggest dead cap and hit in NFL history. They're eating $33 million for him to go play for someone else.

Right. And this is the second time this offseason after the Jared Gough, Matthew Stafford trade, where one of those quarterbacks drafted one, two in that class, the team that drafted them has been willing to eat a lot of dead money for them to play for someone else. And now, of course, in the Rams case, they get Matthew Stafford in return, and that's more about upgrading at the quarterback position. This literally for the Eagles is about a reset. Presumably, Jalen Hertz is the most likely Eagles starter next season. But it is not, he is not a shoe-in.

It sounds as though they will bring in competition for him, either through the draft, either they can get in the who's going to give Ryan Fitzpatrick his next $10 million contract game, which I love to play. or they can figure it out somehow. Hertz is still an unknown quantity. He showed some flashes in those last four games that he played last season, but they are in the Great Unknown in Philadelphia without the obvious franchise quarterback. Indianapolis, to me, is navigating what should be this great unknown post-Andrew Lux's retirement, where they were left in the lurch at the most important position, really, really smartly. And it is so impressive to me what they've managed to do because the Colts should sort of be a disaster.

I've talked about this a few times. It's just, it's so interesting to me because they should be kind of a disaster. Like if the coach you want leaves you in the lurch, if the quarterback that you thought you were going to win multiple Super Bowls with suddenly retires, you shouldn't stay competitive. Those should be franchise rocking events that really screw them up. It seems, though, all they really need is mid-level quarterback play and the cultural playoff team. I think that they get that in whence, more likely than not. Now, he is reunited with Frank Reich, who he had his all-pro season in 2017 with.

I don't think that, you know, we're going to hear the phrase return to form a lot about this trade. What is that form is sort of my question? 2017 form? I don't think so. I doubt I doubt he will get back there. But the most important thing is that change of scenery, coach he knows well, if they can rebuild his confidence, because Carson Wentz, he had mechanical problems, he had problems with his footwork, but everything he was doing wrong and there was a lot of that this

season seemed to me to be connected to a total deterioration of confidence. And maybe that's injuries. Maybe that's the injuries at offensive line that they had. Carson-Wins was sacked 50 times last year, which was the most in the NFL and he didn't play a full season. So rebuilding that is the most important thing that the Colts have to do. How do you see this for them, Danny? Well, I think you're right.

Rebuilding offensive lines is so 2019, and I think so 2021 is rebuilding confidence. So there you go. That's the real rebuild that we all need. But I think to your point, I think it's important to remember that the two parties in this deal know more about the situation than anyone else. I think there's a reason he went to the cults.

It's just, I mean, frankly, right, because the coach of the cults, obviously, he was the offensive coordinator for when Wentz had his MVP, or near MVP season. He probably knows more about what's wrong with Wentz than the freaking Eagles do. There's a reason the cults are the team that swooped in here. And then the Eagles, again, I think that you can read the tea leaves. They are paying all this money or accounting all this money, whence to go away. And I think that it's not so much analyzing this trade.

I don't see this as an L for the Eagles, right? I don't, the L for the Eagles is that this is a sunk cost. The Eagles, right, Howie Roseman brings like this kind of finance perspective to the Eagles and he runs this team. You know, how much, how often have we talked on this podcast and Kevin has hammered this home that the Eagles have a analytical, almost like a hedge fund like approach, you could say, to running this team and that they were so smart in the run up to the Super Bowl. It's not like they just got dumb all of a sudden. You know what I mean? They're not stupid. I think that what's going on here is they made a massive investment.

And then Jeffrey Lurie and Howie Rosen looked at each other and said, holy shit, we screwed that one up. Oh my God. And what are good organizations do? The good organizations just not make mistakes. Of course not. Everyone makes mistakes. Good organizations move on for mistakes faster and more emotionlessly than other teams. The Patriots make more mistakes than any team because they try more stuff and they move on when it doesn't work.

I think that this is the pain here is that they wrote off. This is a write down. They wrote off their franchise quarterback as a sunk cost. That sucks. With that said, I think that this deal kind of makes sense for them because I mean, it sucks to have to, again, writing off your quarterback as a sunk cost. Yeah, that's an L. That's a huge L. I take your point. They're taking an L here. What they're trying not to do is take a second L because they're

taking, because they're unwilling to take the first L. There is once the trade grades and all this stuff, is it an A who won the deal? It depends on what you're valuing the asset as. And I hate to talk about human beings as assets, but that's what's going on here, right? The contract is the asset. The Wence, once as once was a franchise quarterback, the one we saw from a few years ago is here, but the Eagles internally have devalued him, look at him, as that's a sunk cost. And so they're moving on. I think this is a solid deal, right? They're not refusing to let past mistakes, allow them to make more mistakes. That's what the Texans keep doing,

right? That's what bad organizations do, trying to, making more mistakes to cover up your past ones. Because now they have options. They, I mean, everyone hated when they did the tanking thing, right? Week 17, they lost that game, Nate Sudfeld, once was inactive. Guess what? That was a huge deal, right? because now instead of the 11th pick, they got the sixth pick. They were in range to draft someone. They can use these picks that they just got from the Colts to trade up and they can get. Obviously, Trevor Lawrence is not on the table. But whether they like Justin Fields or Trey Lance or Zach Wilson, they can go up and get one of those guys.

It depends who they internally like. But because they have Jalen Hertz, they're not desperate. No team's going to be able to hold one of those quarterbacks for ransom and hope to get all these picks back from the Eagles because they don't need a quarterback. They probably want a quarterback. And that's where I think that this all comes back around is that this is a write-down, but they're still in a good position to move forward because the Jalen, like, Harry Roseman said last year in April after they drafted Jalen Hertz that they want to be a quarterback factory.

And he said he regretted that comment because it seems Wendstook it personally. He regrets the comment, but he doesn't regret the mentality. It's not like the court of the Eagles no longer want to be a quarterback factory. And I think that this is the franchise that calls their backup quarterback, not a backup quarterback, but the second quarterback. Exactly. They assume that he's going to play. And I think the fact that Hertz gives them this flexibility now means they're not going

to roll in with just Hertz. They're going to add someone else and they're going to keep doing a factory thing. So I think that the trade's fine for them. The bad parts they had called their franchise quarterback a sunk cost, which was the biggest investment they'd ever made as a team. So that sucks. So you are Howie Roseman. I have been for years.

I've never told anyone. An illustrious guest on this podcast. You are Howie Roseman. Welcome to the ringer NFL show, Howie. It is the lead up to the draft. It's not draft night yet. But your intel is telling you that there is likely to be a run on those top four quarterbacks. No sure bet that any of those guys are still going to be on the board at six.

What are you thinking in that spot? Are you thinking great? This is an opportunity for us to get a premium player at a skill position, at a different position who's not a quarterback. And we will figure that out. We will make sure that we take some throws at the dartboard, but we don't need one of those guys. And this means that someone really, really talented

is going to fall into our laps. Or are you thinking, we need someone else, I need to think about veteran quarterbacks, I need to think about the level of competition that we have available for Jalen Hearns. Well, I mean, since I'm Harry Roseman. I mean, obviously you're spending so much money to get rid of this Wednesday.

You need cheap quarterbacks, right? you need the rookies. So could I tell you a scoop since I'm Howie Roseman? Can I give you a scoop, you Nora? Scoop. What I said the quarterback, let's go. What I said I wanted the Eagles to be a quarterback factory. What I actually meant was I wanted Eagles to be a quarterback, a North Dakota state

quarterback factory and that they're going to replace Carson went to Trey Lance. That's the secret. That's what, that's the new money ball. That's what we figured out. It's just North Dakota state quarterbacks. That's what we want. That's who the Philadelphia Eagles are. We're going to go get Trey Lance.

That's what Harry Roseman, me, thanks. And in your heart of, parts, Howie, and we're not going to hold you to this. But who wins that battle? Trey Lance or Dela... We're getting too ahead of ourselves now. I think that the point is that they can move up to get one of the guys if they want, but they don't have to. And that's good business, right? You want options. You want an out. You want to not be, have to be forced into doing

anything. And that's the Eagles. I'm not going to say they're in a good position because this is a bad day for the Eagles. But, you know, not to be the whole Phoenix ashes thing. Like it's a bird thing. I don't want to hit the metaphor. But there is a pretty easy path. them to come out of this with a good, with a good situation of do they have hurts? Do they have this whoever they had drafted six? Do they trade up and get a quarterback? They have options. A lot of bad teams don't have any options.

I mean, the Jaguors played Gardner Minshu for like more than one season. It's insane. So I think that they're in a good spot here. I think that considering how much of an L they took, I think that there is a certain pride in what you're seeing with these teams who are not committing to mediocre quarterbacks. Like the Rams regretted Jared Gough. Obviously, he went one pick before, once.

You know what? that was a mistake. The Eagles are making mistakes. I think that teams are now more willing to move on for mistakes faster, which is good because there's nothing about life is about avoiding mistakes entirely.

That's impossible. Can you admit? You made a mistake, right? The first step of admitting a problem is saying you have a problem. The Eagles had a problem with Wentz. That's important. And so it's crazy.

They blew up this team from a Super Bowl from three years ago, but they did what had to be done. And a lot of teams don't have the courage to do what has to be done. The Lions had Matt Mill on his GM for like eight years. Can you imagine that? the headline I'm taking from this is

Danny Hyphids as Howie Roseman says this was a good day for the Eagles when they take the largest dead money hit in the history of the NFL. What do you think's happened to Howie Roseman, the fathead that he had of Carson once in his office? Where do you think that is right now?

Do you think that they snuck it into maybe it was at the Super Bowl? Maybe they put the cardboard in the stands at the Super Bowl and then they're just going to let it float off into the ether and see what happens with it. it out to sea and let it, yeah, just spread, spread it to the four winds. That makes a lot of sense. I think it's going to be recycled and reincarnated as a cereal box or a North Dakota State

quarterback. So maybe it'll just become a Trey Lance Fadhead. So, okay, so question for you. There's a really, hold on. Now that we're talking about cardboard, there's a really mean joke about Carson Wentz's ACL to be made here. And I am not going to make it. Well, you kind of already did. You can't just bring it up and be like, well, I'm a big person, so I won't bring it up. You just brought it up. That's not how it works. That's the trick, Danny. That's the. trick. That's what you do. I'm not going to say that because I am too kind for that. It's only a trick if I don't know how

you did it. Anyways. The question of the Colts, you think the Colts fixed once? Seriously. Like, do you think how much better is he than Rivers? I don't know that he's better than Rivers. Really? Philip Rivers last year. Yes, going forward because of their age, of course, Philip Rivers was

done. But the level of quarterback play that Philip Rivers gave the Colts last season was not bad. The level of quarterback play that Carson Wentz the Eagles last year was terrible. Yeah, but I just, I can already see myself buying into this narrative. Like, it's 2021. You know what I'm really going to enjoy in the summer of 2021?

People being like, 2020 was bad for me, but I'm ready to rebound. I will eat up every narrative, every athlete who had a bizarre, inexplicable mental breakdown. And then it's like, yeah, I feel way better now than last year. I've never been so prepared to buy all of it. Not to mention that the Eagles lost in this is, didn't the Eagles have the most offensive line combinations that, like 14 and 16 games or something? Meanwhile, the Colts have one of the best offensive lines in football.

Whether it's going to happen, I have no idea. I will talk myself into it in about two hours. Because I don't think the Colts make this trade unless Frank Reich, the coach of the Colts, goes to Chris Ballard, the GM of the Colts, and says, I know how to fix this guy. They're idiots. They don't know what happened over there. We can fix him. And then he's like, oh, snap.

It's such an easy one to buy into, in my opinion, that I kind of think it's going to work, to be honest with you. I agree with you in part. I will explain the part that I don't agree with in that after. But the part that I think you're spot on about is that they have to believe that he can get better to have wanted to do this. Right? No one, there is not a team in the NFL that wants 20-20 Carson Wentz playing for them. Can you imagine if they're like, you think he's going to get worse, but let's make the trade.

Let's do it. We need a quarterback. He's not second to last. We want him to drop below Dwayne-Aiskins. Innovative. Frank Reich knows Carson Wentz really well. I would trust him to have a list of things that they can do to improve his play. Like we talked about, I think it is not a schematic issue as much as it is an emotional issue, a confidence issue.

His, so those 50 sacks, 40 of them were on extended dropbacks according to the next gen stats. So that's four plus seconds that lead to those. Yes, Indy has a much better offensive line. How many of the 50? 40. 40 of the 50. It's a lot. Which is insane. Well, maybe that's what happens when Greg Ward, who is like former AAAF receiver,

becomes like one of their more reliable players. Right. And these things compound each other, right? Because you don't trust the personnel that's around you. So you're so much more likely to tuck the ball down and run around back there. And of course, then you get sacked because you have a beat up offensive line and they can only do their job for so long. That said, in 2017, when Wentz was dealing, he was making tight window throws. he trusted his playmakers.

He was willing to go for it. I don't believe that those skills have deteriorated. It doesn't just make sense. I think it's so mental. And we'll see how much working with Reich who he knows and trusts and wanted to go play for. Carson Wentz was not interested in staying with Eagles. That's a big part of this.

Plus having a better infrastructure around him and other players that hopefully he feels more willing to rely on. That should go a long way. I don't feel that it's a smart prediction that it would go to the 2017 all the way because the Colts roster is not as good as that Eagles roster was. It's very good. But that Eagles roster was impeccable. Well, to your point, I think that the Eagles, so much of this comes down to,

we can now have to, where we'll end up relitigating the Eagles Super Bowl run. I was just talking to a couple Eagles fans I know about this trade. And one of the things that comes up is, you know, Doug Peterson gets so much credit for putting together the staff and running up in that Super Bowl run on obviously Frank Reich leaves. He's the offensive coordinator, John DeFilippo,

quarterback's coach, leaves, and it was such a good staff. And it's like, well, what did Doug Peterson do? Did he just hire the best offensive staff? And then those guys left and he,

you know, maybe was flying a little too high on the fumes of the Super Bowl win and then was kind of quickly over his head when he didn't have the fallback of like, wow,

he is great people working under him. Because it kind of seems like that's what happened, right? Because the fact that now Wence is going back to Reich with the offensive coordinator.

I think that the allocation of, it just comes back to who gets credit, right? And sometimes credit can be a disease. But the reality is that something like a Super Bowl run is a collective, collaborative project coaching staff and offense and quarterbacks. And I think that the fact that Peterson's gone, Wence has gone.

The Eagles have to build this whole thing from scratch. And I'm really interested to see if Wence just looks like once again, I think it'll be pretty amazing. And like the whole Super Bowl run will look. Like what is looking like Wence? Because if what needs, to happen is for him to look like

2017 Carson Wentz. That's probably not happening because by the way, that's not every year of Carson Wentz's Eagles tenure that wasn't an unmitigated disaster like this past one was. He still wasn't that guy. That guy only existed for one

season. I also feel like Wentz has a little bit of, for lack of a better term, like Big Man on Campus syndrome in that every place he ever went, like obviously you're North Dakota State. He's the best player in the field in every game and that he just kind of has to make big plays. It's kind of what Josh Allen did in college, right? I think that now we look back at Josh Allen at Wyoming and it's like, well, why is this completion percentage like a

coin flip? Well, it turns out he was trying to do some wild stuff all the time. And his mentality was kind of just, you know, trying to make big plays. And I think Wentz, what was crazy was he got to the NFL, which is, you know, how you're going to go from North Dakota State to the NFL. And almost immediately he was unbelievable. And like third and long and making his plays happening. He looked like a Rufflesburg. He was the best third down quarterback in the NFL that year. And that's the thing. And that's not sustainable, right? That's, that's, it's almost like a hot shooting streak in basketball. Like to just, yeah, third and seven or longer,

just converting like 50% or whatever the hell the Eagles did when he was 2017. Is that like who he is? Not really. Like that's not possible. Like with the exception of like Patrick Mahomes, no one's just converting third and tens all the time. And it's almost the idea of like, oh, when's the 2017 form.

It's starting to feel like this, like Craig Horlebeck, who I do the Ringer Fantasy football show, always says that the, when stuff from 2017 is starting to feel like the, you know, I could have made it pro, you know, not for my knee in high school. You know what I mean? It's like, how much longer are we to talk about this thing from four years ago? So I do think this is a big season because you're, to your point, like, what is this,

like mythical? He didn't even win the MVP that year. It wasn't. So I think to your point, the important part is he's got the scaffolding around him. He doesn't have to do it all himself. And whatever you want to criticize about Wentz, he had to do everything himself the last two years. Don't forget that the Eagles in 2019 were one of the most injured teams I can ever remember. Their receiving core was hilariously hurt.

I mean, it's not funny that people got hurt. But the name scrolling through them and seeing how you'd never heard of any of them was kind of funny. It was insane. The line was hurt. Everyone was hurt. And then this year was just as bad, if not worse.

It happened all again. They never had a line. They never had blocking. Now the Colts have all of them. They have scaffolding. They have young good receivers. They got Paris Campbell. Who knows what happens to Ty White Hilton?

Obviously he's hurt. He is a free agent. But Jonathan Taylor is really good. This is a strong team with a strong coaching staff. Great quarterbacks coach in Marcus Brady. this is a good team and I think that he could succeed because I don't think he's one of those players

who's going to just elevate the whole team but I think he can work really well with the people around him and he's got good people around him and if he doesn't the other thing that I really like about this for the Colts they can get out of this with no dead money

after next year the financial hit is going almost exclusively to Philadelphia compare it to the golf trade LA had to pay Detroit, they had to take a dead money hit themselves, but they also had to pay Detroit draft capital to take on the rest of Jared Goff's contract. Yeah, for the people who's like me,

whose eyes glaze over with all the salary stuff that I, you know, it's just so annoying to explain accounting to people. Are you calling me boring? The words came out of your mouth. The, but basically the teams pay these guys the signing bonus and salary. Both count against the salary cap. The Eagles gave when's the signing bonus. So they still have to account for the sign for the that on their cap the colts one of the benefits they get here is they're paying one salary salary. But the cat the signing bonus salary cap stuff is the Eagles problem. The Colts don't have to worry about that. So I think roughly speaking, Wence is going to cost the cults like 25 million a year or so. And it's really simple. If he is good, that's a bargain.

And if he's not, that's too much. But it's pretty going rate. You know, that's what the 49ers play Jimmy Garoppel. Wens has obviously proven it can be better than Jimmy Garapolo, 25 million a pop. So it's a really good deal. The Colts should compete in the AFC South. I think it's a great for them. And Chris Ballard, the gym, did a really good job of putting protections on the pick. I think he has to play 75% of snaps and then the second rounder comes a first rounder. But considering the Colts are going to be picking, they're going to make the playoffs,

right? You would think. So, you know, that's pretty fair. If you get your quarterback for a late 20s-based. Then Wenz only has to play 70% of the snaps. But it's essentially the same thing. Can he play 12 games? That's the question here. If you get 12 games at a Wence, and he doesn't suck and you fix him, whatever fixing it means, it's a good deal. And then the Eagles, I don't think it's a good deal. It's not that simple.

I think it's a good deal when you factor in that internally they wrote him off as a sunk cost. And this is what, and now they have options. And I think that also really important to note, I want to just reiterate that week 17 thing, they got like just destroyed for it. Lampooned. I don't know what Lampoon means, to be honest, but it's fun to say out loud. It rolls off the tongue, lampoon. But Lampoon doesn't sound like you're skewering.

Skewer sounds like the word, like you skewer someone. Lampoon, it's so fun. You know what? I actually, that was a bad, that was a bad synonym because Lampoon is more make fun of than kill. Yeah, I was like National Lampoon. I don't know, that was before I was born. The point is that everyone made fun of the Eagles for this Nate Sudfield thing.

Guess what? It could change the trajectory of their franchise if, you know, maybe they don't have to throw in an extra first round pick because the team that they deal with likes who's at six but wouldn't like who's at 11. It was kind of a good idea. And they just had to suffer like a week of national embarrassment over it. And Doug Peterson got fired, but whatever, it worked. I'm still mad that you wouldn't make a prediction on who wins the hypothetical quarterback battle between Jalen Hertz and Tray Lance so that we could bring it up later and lampoon you with it.

Call back. Call back. I get lampoon. Call back. But it's okay. We'll forgive. I think the thing that's interesting that ties together everything that we're talking about is North Dakota State. It's not North Dakota State. Call back.

That's a different podcast. What ties it together for me is that we're having. having this conversation about quarterback value, right, and the value of this trade. And who won the trade? And is it good for Philly? Is it good for Indianapolis? And I think we media won the trade. There was nothing going on. We are the winners of this. We had nothing to, my God, nothing was going on this week. Content always gets a W. Yeah. Content's the winner. Yeah. The thing that's interesting to me, most interesting, is so we have both of those

quarterbacks, Gough and Wentz. Also, James Winston and Marcus Marriota, the number one and two picks from 2015 and 2016, they could all start for different teams than the ones that drafted them next year. And we'll see what happens.

But it does make me think about two sort of pieces of prevailing wisdom that I think we've heard about quarterbacks a lot over the last few years. One was the idea and I think Goff and Wentz really were the figureheads of this, the idea that you get a, you draft a rookie quarterback, and you go all in around him while he's cheap and be super aggressive in that window.

Both of those teams did that. One of them won a Super Bowl, not with Wentz playing the game, but the Eagles still won a Super Bowl. The other team made a Super Bowl. They lost it, but they still made it there. So I would say that they, were successful in that approach.

The other piece where I think it gets a little bit more complicated, and it complicates how we grade this trade, look at it from both sides, is the idea that if you have your guy, if you found who you think is your guy, a quarterback, just extend him, just pay him. You're going to have to because that's where the market is. And within a couple years, it's going to be a bargain. because I think that was a lot of the prevailing sentiment around both of those contracts, and that did not come true. And I wonder if we are approaching a point, a couple other data points that you could maybe use to illustrate this, were the Mahomes contract being extremely

large, but not precedent changing, not revolutionary in the same way that I think some people expected that it might be. And we'll see what happens to guys like Lamar Jackson or Baker Mayfield, how much those teams end up being a little bit spooked, maybe, by the wences, by the golfs. I wonder if we are hitting the limit on, oh, you can just pay a quarterback anything. And it'll be fine because it's so much more important than anything else. And that's hypothetical. And we need more information to figure out if that's really the shift.

But go ahead. What do you think? My mind goes to two places, as you're speaking. I think the first one is what's the other news of the 24 hours in the sports world, right? It's Fernando Tati signs for $340 million to play for the podgers for 14 years. He's like, what, 22 years old? He's four years from free agency, and they gave him $340 million. It's incredible.

And I think that there was a quarterback-esque, like, spot to that Bobby Wagner, one of the pod producers here told me, I was like, why is this happening? He's like, it's the Mahomes contract. And I'm like, okay, and I still don't get it, to be honest. But the quarterback thing I think you're getting at is basically, all these, it was like, how do you build a Super Bowl team? Well, the Seahawks did, they had a cheap quarterback, and then they filled out the rest of the team.

They spent the money on the rest of the team, and it worked, right? And all these other teams are trying it. The Chiefs won a Super Bowl with Mahomes that way, and then the Rams made the Super Bowl, as you just said, and the Eagles won a Super Bowl. I'm like, all right, I guess that's how you got to do it. Cheap quarterback, rookie deal. And then the question of these modern team building,

which I can't believe I just said, that sentence out loud, but the question of modern team building is, what happens when the quarterback's deal is up? Do you pay the quarterback and have to make sacrifices else where in the roster, or do you just get another one? And I think that the hard part is that these teams are... Or I'm sorry to cut you up,

but or do we have to acknowledge and potentially if you're a team planned for the uncertainty in quarterbacks right now. There are more... I think the floor on quarterback play in the NFL because teams have gotten better at taking college talent and making it work with what their skill sets are. The floor is higher.

But I think we have to acknowledge that the ceilings that we assume, signed to these guys pretty quickly based off their high watermarks. The success rate with that is not looking so hot right now. I cut you off. No, it's fine. It's fine. I think my shoe with your logic is that you're being rational and logical.

This is an emotional decision. We can talk about numbers and cap hits and money all we want. The reality is the starting quarterback of a franchise. The customers are called fans, like fanatics. Like it's an emotional-ass decision to get rid of your quarterback. it's kind of like being a relationship. You can be all logical and irrational, but do you really want to be alone?

Do you really want to be without a quarterback? It's scary. How do you're going to find, am I ever going to be as good as this? Will I ever feel as complete? Like, maybe there's more, but maybe it's a me problem. Could I be doing more in this relationship?

And that's really hard, right? And it seems like, oh, well, you know, I wanted kids by 28 and blah, blah, blah. None of that factors in your brain of like, it's really hard for the Rams to be like, wow, we just made the Super Bowl. But, you know, Jared Goff really isn't great at reading defenses.

You know what? We're going to get rid of, to what? You're going to break up after the Super Bowl? It's not really. Who can, who actually can do that? And I think that maybe, maybe the Rams and Eagles end up serving as cautionary tales

for these teams to not sign huge contracts. But the reality is it's really hard to figure out success, right? Like, we can sit here and at the end of the day, football is a results-oriented business. We laud the winners and talk about how smart they are. We pillory the losers make fun of them. But the reality is when you have to get down to,

like the Rams, I think the golf is in my favorite example because they made the Super Bowl. They didn't score a touchdown. They lost in the game. And then they give golf this huge contract. Mavei, less need, get matching contracts, like matching tattoos, basically. And then you could,

it's easy to say, well, that was some stake. But that requires actually breaking down your organization and saying, why are we successful? What's actually happening here? Same thing with the Eagles. Did the Eagles after the Super Bowl do a 360? Who's actually good? Oh, I guess it's not Doug Peterson.

Frank is the guy in charge. I get, it's hard to know why things happen. And I know that such a, and vague and stupid thing to say, but it's true. Understanding your success involves understanding why things work the way they do. That's really hard. And to understand how much of a role your quarterback plays in your success and how much you should allocate is actually a really complicated question.

I think that you add in the emotions of the fear of, like, what's scarier than having the right quarterback and then letting him go, right? That's what the Texans don't want to do with Deshawn. I don't think there's going to be some moment where they don't pay it. Because you know what? All it costs is money. they have plenty of that. It's way better than being alone. Well, it is the ultimate problem of football

and the ultimate fascination of football, right? Is the number of variables involved in success, involved in failure, it makes a conversation about arguably the most important variable on the team, which is who plays quarterback, really, really fascinating because all the different pieces around it are, each and every one of them is a complicated,

factor. But like you just so eloquently said, Danny, cuffing season is coming to an end. It's hard to say goodbye. But we've seen another turn on the quarterback carousel with this move. What do you think would be, and we'll go out on this, what do you think might be the next one? We've had Stafford, Goff, and now Wence, who's the next quarterback to move? Oh, I don't know who is next, but who will be next. What I want is I want Sam Donald to the Steelers. I think that that would just be good for all sides. I think that there's a chance that Jets actually keep Darnold's, to be clear. I think that everyone's assuming that the Jets are going to take a quarterback.

I think that basically they could undo the Darnold trade. Like the Darnal trade was the Jets moved from six to the third pick. They could just move down to the Eagles, for example, who have the sixth pick and then collect the picks back and build a team around Darnold instead. I think that's possible. And then the Eagles take Trey Lance and get him against. And then they just do the Wendst Trade again and time is a flat. circle and McConaughey Giff, et cetera.

But I think that if the Jets do move on from Darnold, I think Pittsburgh's the best spot. They need a quarterback. I think that, you know, politely tapping Ben and be like, hey, like, can you go now? Like, this is over. And then Kevin Cobbord obviously made the comment this week about,

you know, Ben's like wants to come back and they're like, chill. We're still, we're still thinking about it. I think that I just, that would be my favorite thing. I also think Donald's playing style would really work in Pittsburgh. But what do you think is next?

Well, I love that idea. I just want someone to give Ryan Fitzpatrick another giant bag. That's really all I care of up. You're obsessed with Ryan Fitzpatrick. It's my favorite parlor game is who's going to give Ryan Fitzpatrick another bunch of money. So what do you think of Fitzpatrick, when the dolphins played the Jaguars, they asked Fitzpatrick about Minchew's mustache and they're like, who has the better facial hair? And he said, mustaches are for men who can't grow beards. What do you think of that?

So I think it's funny that you say that because when I logged on to do this podcast, I jumped in the Zoom and there was a discussion of shaving products and I was unable to contribute because it's just on the face it's not something that I have a lot of experience with.

That was a good point. Did you mean that on purpose? Say again? You're like, oh, on the face of it. That was good. Oh, thank you. There you go. It's a trick.

I liked that they were going back and forth. I like Ryan Fitzpatrick's vibe. I like Gardner-Binchu's I like to hear those two chop it up, but I will leave the beard and mustache expertise to those involved. It's Kevin Kloy Fitts. Thank you so much for being here.

You answered the call. You provided fabulous insight. It's been a joy to pod with you today. It has been a joy. And shameless plug, Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Check it out on Spotify. Yes.

And on this feed tomorrow, Kaelin Jones and Danny Kelly are going to be going through Danny's mock draft. So that'll be fabulous too. Love all this synergy. This has been the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network.