The Ringer NFL Show - Instant Reactions to the Russell Wilson Trade and Aaron Rodgers’s Re-signing With the Packers

Episode Date: March 8, 2022

Kevin, Nora, Benjamin, and Steven recorded two instant reaction podcasts. They start by discussing what the Russell Wilson trade will mean for Denver and Seattle. Then they react to the news that Aaron Rodgers is signing an extension with the Packers and discuss some other news around the NFL (32:02). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guests: Benjamin Solak and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Matt Bellany, founding partner of Puck News, and I'm covering the inside conversation about money and power in Hollywood. With my new show, The Town, I'm going to take you inside Hollywood with exclusive insight on what people in show business are actually talking about. Multiple times a week, I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know, journalists, insiders, all of whom can break down the hottest topics in entertainment to tell you what's really going on. Listen now. It is the Ringar NFL show, part of the Ringar Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark on a chaotic Tuesday. We've already done this once before. We're adding another episode on top of an emergency episode.

It is a double emergency podcast. This has never happened ever in the content game. I'm joined by Stephen Ruiz. Hello, Stephen. Hello. Norprinciotti. Things are happening. Things are happening.

Ben Solacus here. This is pod racing, baby. All right? This is pure undiluted. A grade football content, all right? Drew Locke has been traded. I'm so mad. To the Seattle Seahawks is the headline.

No, so let me tell you what happened. So Aaron Rogers announced he was signing, resigning with the Packers and extension with Pakistan, with the Packers. That particular slice of news was put to bed. We recorded a podcast. We ended the podcast. We had a wonderful discussion after the podcast,

about eight men in football in Nebraska. It went weird places. And then after we all hung up, about a minute later, I read an ad. And then Russell Wilson got traded to the Denver Broncos. So we had to reconvene. And what we're going to do is we're going to just do this on Russ. And then we're going to put right after we're done with Russ, the rest of the episode, the Roger stuff. We got into some Mike Gissiki talk.

I promise you, had we known Russell Wilson was not going to be a Seahawk by the end of the day. We would not have spent time on T. Higgins, weird, hypothetical. scenarios and Mike is sicky but here we are um so let's start here there are two stupid things that that I and we said in the second part of this podcast we didn't know what was going on number one was that the Broncos were losers in the Aaron rogers situation and number two is I said this which is that when a franchise wants to keep a quarterback they've always kept them when they're under contract um and that seems to have changed today with Russell Wilson and actual superstar quarterback, changing teams.

It's one of the first in a modern era. Russell Wilson significantly better than, again, I'll get to this. But, you know, this is not Jay Cutler and this is not Matt Stafford. He's a, A, better than Matt Stafford, but B, you know, that was a rebuilding team. That gets to the question of where the Seahawks are right now in their life cycle. But I'll start with you, Ben, what stands out? Oh, brother. I have, I have no, I have no idea how this works.

I don't even, I've not calibrated to this, right? Like, I think that I was saying in the pre-show, we didn't even have, like, in my, at least in my reading, and please write if I'm wrong, a whisper of Russell Wilson to Denver, right? Like, everything about Russ was big city. Everything about Russ was New York. It was Las Vegas.

It was what's the lifestyle going to be like, what's going to be like, what's going to be like for his wife to the singer's name? I don't remember. Like, it's what a. Sierra. Sierra. Goodness gracious, Benjamin.

How dare you? I always think it's Kiara, but it's not, regardless. Okay. Oh my God. That was worse than not knowing her name at all. This is terrible. This is terrible. We're busy right now.

This is some grim, dark stuff. Denver has obviously looked like a team that has felt like they are a quarterback away. Big Fangio before he was fired, said very plainly. And I think it was the post game press of their final game. What's the difference between you guys and the other teams in the division that are all fighting for the playoffs in the playoffs? He was like it's quarterback position, right? Receiver wise, right? They have Cortland Sutton, all in extension.

Tim Patrick, all in extension. Jerry Judy, they are ready to go. Running back-back-wise, they have Melvin Gordon in the building with Giovante Williams draft. Gordon is a free agent, but they look like they're going to try to bring him back. They are ready to go along the offensive line. Garrett Bowles, Graham Glasgow, Dalton Reisner, Quinn Miners, Lloyd Cush and Barry. They have a good offensive nucleus. The quarterback is the difference.

And everything seemed pointed towards Rogers. We called them a loser because they missed out on Rogers. And they hired Nathaniel Hacken. It looked like that was to get to Rogers. And Adam Schaefter tweeted right away, right after the trade was announced. actually, this is not a direct reaction to Rogers signing at Green Bay. Don't put it in the newspaper that the Broncos wanted Rogers first, and then they're settling with Russ.

So there's a little bit of like a question mark there, but this team still felt like they were that elite quarterback away. We were all looking at Rogers. We know Rogers would be that elite quarterback. You now open up the question, which is why I'm very scared that Stephen is on this podcast. Yes. Is Russ still an elite quarterback?

And with Russ's age, And play style, it is very tricky to think about how Russ is going to adapt into presumably what Green Bay was doing and what Nathan O'Hackett has done West Coastwise. Those are extremely dissonant ideas. And reconciling those two and finding a happy medium is not going to be easy and not going to happen quick. And you know expectations are going to be very, very high on this offense. So this is a bold stroke. And I'm not sure it's going to be clean, neat, easy. or effective.

If it is, sick. But they're figuring out what exactly Russ is in Denver, first time out of Seattle, is really, really tricky. This reminds me, there's this one analogous thing, and it was in 2011

when the Nets and the Nix were both trying to get Carmelo and Anthony, and then the Nets didn't get him, and then they immediately sent the same package to Utah for Duran Williams. Like, Darren Williams, that was, that was it, we were just like,

you know what? We bundled all these picks together. We might as well spend them. Stephen, you had a take before we started recording, and I don't even want to ask a question. Just get it out into the open. I don't know if this is necessarily a win for the Broncos, to be honest with you. Like trading that package for Aaron Rogers,

that is a smart deal because you bring Aaron Rogers on. It doesn't matter what offense you're running. It's going to be good. It doesn't matter who your coach is. It's going to work because it's Aaron Rogers. Here's the thing about Russ. He turns every single offense he's in. no matter the personnel, no matter the guy calling the plays into the Russell Wilson offense,

guess what? The Russell Wilson offense, it isn't a good offense. It isn't a sound offense. It's an effective one, but it's not something you could rely on week to week to week. And the older Russ gets and the harder it is for him to do the backyard football thing that he does so well, he does it better than anybody else that we've seen try to pull that off. I think it becomes less realistic for him to stick at that level of quarterback play that he's been at for like, what, the last 10 years. I just don't know if they're getting the guy they think they're getting. If they think they're getting 2017 Russ, they're not getting that guy. And that was the peak of his play.

Nora, who are they getting? I'm looking up heights of Broncos offensive linemen. As you should. Elway knows how tall Russell Wilson is. This is bananas. He's got he's an outside consultant now. Elway, this is the first move of the post John Elway era is he's outside the building. They have padlocked the doors.

They said, get this guy out of here and get a quarterback shorter than six, five. This is how we know it's real. I'm, I'm not with Stephen. I think you, your first duty if you're running the Broncos right now was to upgrade at quarterback. I think there's everything that Stephen just said is true. but I think not having Drew Locke and having Russell Wilson instead matters more. There's going to be growing pains with this offense and maybe it will never be able to get off the ground and truly fly in just an insanely competitive division.

But the alternative is going nowhere. And there's at least a ceiling here that's not just competitive, but it's really, really good. And that's what they didn't have before this. The caveat with that is that we don't totally know what beyond, um, Drew Locke, they're sending back in terms of players. The picks, like the window is open. I don't, you know, I don't want to be reckless here, but like, you can figure out the

picks situation later. I'm just curious if we will have a different perception of, holy crap, this roster is loaded with such young talent once we know exactly who is going back to Seattle in this. Like, I agree with what Norris said. I don't think it's a great trade for the Broncos, but I agree. It's something they had to do, especially after last year. You have to make this move. And they put themselves in a position where they had to make the move.

Since Peyton Manning retired after they won the Super Bowl, they've been in a rut where the only way out of it is a quarterback. It's the only way out of it for Denver. And even if you overpay, there's no such thing as overpaying for a franchise quarterback. Your question right now, Stephen is whether or not Russell Wilson still is that quarterback. I understand that. But I understand selling out for that and trying to at least get the chance and the path forward because there is no other path forward.

I mean, we were talking later in this podcast that people can listen to about what they do at the back of the top 10. And it's like you can just keep going in that lottery or you can overpay for what they think is a sure thing. And that I understand the move. I would make the move. I understand your concerns, but I would make this move. I would do it too, though.

That's the crazy thing. It's a bad, I don't think it's the smartest bet, but it's a bet you absolutely have to make. Because the other bet is Drew Locke. Right. And at this point, Russ is $24 million on the cap this upcoming year, 19 base with a $5 million roster bonus,

then 27 next year. Nice. $51 million over two years, take a swing at Russ. You got an extra second and an extra third from the Vaughn trades. You're not really going to super put yourself out in terms of draft capital.

Obviously, you're going to spend first instead. You're still going to have like a number of picks to take swings on. It is relatively calculated. The risk is relatively mitigated in terms of like the ways that people have swung for franchise quarterbacks before. I just think we do have to. say like you put yourself in a bad spot.

You had to get a quarterback. You had to ignore it. Like this is the window. You got to be able to hit the window. It's all true. They have the third best quarterback in the division. Right? Like even if you like Russ like that.

Maybe. No, they have Steven. Oh, come on. Okay. Okay. Yes. Who was better last year?

Who was better? It wasn't even close. It was better last year before he hurt his finger. What are you on? Jesus, Stephen. You're out of your mind. Okay. What?

Firstly, firstly, we do got to get Derek Carr up out of division because I agree that Derek Carr is generally underrated and deserves love and also the ability to win games, which he does not currently have in the AFC West because he's the fourth best quarterback. But like with, I'm just saying, like, it sucks for Derek Carr that he's so good and also the fourth best quarterback in his division. Regardless. Fine.

Okay. I just feel bad for him. If only there were a solution to not being as good as other people. Leaving and going to an easier division. Be better. You'd be better. Which Stephen thinks has already happened, by the way. Yes.

Russ is the third best quarterback there. And if the Broncos had to send, like, Certan, right, in this trade, like, they're going to start to lose some of their stars on defense. I would imagine, like, I would hope they sent Judy. I don't think that Judy maps super well into how Russ plays. I think that you would rather have Cortland Sutton be the featured receiver in that offense. I think Tim Patrick makes a lot of sense for how you want that to work.

I think Noah Phant makes a lot of sense if you want that to work. So I'd be curious to see about that. But they're going to lose some stars. The window is there, but it is worth noting, like, even if you're getting peak Russ, you still got a gamut in that division, man. Our buddy Peter Schrager is reporting that the deal

and we'll get, hopefully we'll get the entire package by the end of this podcast. The deal right now is Drew Locke, Shelby Harris, a noted offensive rising star and four picks. That sounds like Jerry Judy. Of course. Of course the first. freaking

Seahawks like Shelby Harris baby oh 280 pounds bats passes focus guys lock in shameity Christmas

I mean I hope I hope the rising star is Jerry Judy for the reason that Ben laid out I don't know why he thinks this is good for George Fand

I don't I think it's actually the opposite news for him because if you've looked at Russ's history with tight ends and the fact that he doesn't

target a very Noah Fant not George Fant Oh sorry No Fant plays like Jimmy same guy we're gonna get

prime Jimmy, prime Jimmy Graham. There's a lot of Jimmy Graham comments about this podcast and the Aaron Rodgers podcast. Look at Jimmy, look at Jimmy Graham's stat line in Seattle. It's good enough. All right. I've got a couple of things that I want to get to. Number one is let's handicap the AFC West in general. I'm not talking about quarterbacks.

I'm just talking about teams right now. What does this look like to you, Nora? I mean, I think you still put Casey first. Yes. then L.A., Denver. L.A.'s got a lot of money to spend. Yeah. Spent some of them.

And also depends who the noted offensive rising stars. I don't like this blind item stuff here. Yeah. Yes. That's a pretty thing. So assuming Tolesco makes some decent moves with the next couple of... Mike Williams. A couple of weeks.

Three years, 60 million. Yeah, he's re-signed Mike Williams. There's moves that can be made here. I swear to high heaven. If the rising offensive stars, Javante Williams, I get to fight. Pete Carroll. If they got a defensive lineman and a running back, we got to take the team away from that man.

It feels like that might be it. It just in the sense that like that's the kind of thing you would say. Like noted offensive rising. Yes, exactly. You would say if it was Jerry and Judy. If it's Giovante, this is the worst thing that's ever happened. All right. Let's put a pin in that and we'll wait

for further updates. Benzill like AFC West. I think the chiefs are the best team in the division. I think the charges are the second best team in the division. that's certainly pending and kind of projecting out moves that we expect the Chargers to make. Aggressive moves along the interior defensive line. Like you said, they have a lot of cap space.

And the Broncos who presumably have traded their first overall pick this year, of course, and having the Russell Wilson trade, not as much cap space. Probably not going to make as many corresponding moves. But I think the Chargers and Denver right there are kind of two, three, and I think the Raiders are clear four. Raiders got a lot of work to do to redo that defense. And then you have your Josh McDaniels, Derek Carr, Nucleus, of questionable efficacy.

And so to me, Chiefs of Clear One and then... A nucleus of questionable efficacy. So it's two... It's three players, two first rounders, two second rounders, and a fifth for Russell Wilson and a fourth, per Jay Gleaze. And the three players are Fant, Shelby Harris.

Who is like is a good player? No. No. Locke. Lock. Excuse me. Lock. Shelby Harris. Shelby Harris and a mystery player. Which is probably Chiante Lewis.

As long as it's not Sutton, I'm fine with whoever it is. Because I think Sutton is a guy that needs to be there if Russ is going to be Russ. Okay. So let's talk about the Seahawks now for as much as we don't want to do that. This is some grim, grim stuff. The Jamal Adams trade to go all in and capitalize in Russell Wilson's years.

Wharf. Where do we want to start? I don't even know. Like, how do you, I think probably the happiest person in the building might honestly be the offensive coordinator. Shane Waldron. Because I think you can see he's going to be able to run his offense. And I think coaches want to, if they're going to fail, they want to fail running their stuff.

And Drew Locke. With Gino, baby. Steven's boy. But no, it's not going to look good. It's not going to look good. Like I said earlier when we record it, we're in an era where I don't think you have to care about the cap as much. And that's really the only way you can spin zone this. And like, that's the only way you can cope this one out is like saying, oh, now we have more cap space.

We're going to have draft picks to build. But ask Cleveland how that works out. If you miss one of those key draft picks, if you draft the wrong quarterback, all that work, all that suffering doesn't matter. So, no, like the Seahawks can't feel good about this in any way. Why did Russ, why did Russ sign up? Russ had a no trade clause, right?

I believe so, yes. Yeah. Why do we think Russ? Why do he sign off on this? Yeah, why do we think he did. Denver's nice. This was already, I think the narrative was that it was a, great place to play because the roster was

pretty good. I don't know if I necessarily agree with that when what we're talking about compared to the other teams in the division. And the Seahawks wanted to make the deal. If you want it out that badly, if you don't want to be in the situation going forward because you think it's going to be grim and you just want to change your pace, I would have taken it. No, I think so too. I think a lot

of the, at least again, like in my read of the situation before this was a lot of like, Russ will leave for the right spot. And now it seems like it was like Russ was leaving. And like, once we found a spot, we were going. I think I underestimated. to just how badly Russ wanted out of Seattle. If you had asked me to handicap it two hours ago,

I would have told you Russ was more likely to stay than go. And now it seems like he was going and he was getting somewhere no matter what. I think part of that, though, and I don't want to put words in your mouth, Ben, so you can correct me if I'm wrong. But part of that is because there just wasn't buzz about this, right? Like, it was just a very quiet situation. I think if we just looked at, does Seattle have what they would need to have to really be able to not even maximize Russell Wilson?

But just to be good enough to compete in the way that you would want a team with a very good quarterback still and Russell Wilson to compete, I think the answer is kind of no. Like, they're going to be bad. That that roster is, I mean, a little bit less bare depending on what they're getting back. It is. It is. It is no a fan. Okay. Okay.

Okay. But you can you just can't miss on all of your draft picks for, you know, the better part of a decade and not have that deterioration happen around the quarterback. I also did not expect this to happen just because there had been absolutely no rumblings about it, which is, by the way, impressive. At the same time, I don't think it makes a decent amount of football sense for Wilson to want to do this, I think. And I don't think Russ looks at that division in Mahomes and Herbert and thinks I'm the third best quarterback. He thinks I'm just like that. I don't think any of these do that.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Any of these guys do that. True lock might. Yeah. this is weird for Seattle, man. This is not enough for Russ. This is not like Shelby Harris, Noah fan, Drew Locke, two firsts, two seconds is not enough for Russ.

Do they have, this is a big deal, but you're giving back and forth? Yeah. This whole, like, the fact that this was kept so well under wraps makes me wonder if there's a corresponding quarterback move that they feel confident about. Sure, like someone like Matt Ryan or something. Ryan.

I was going to say Derek Carr, I don't want to do that again. Well, no, but let's go, let's go one further. Like, this is not a good roster. Sure. Or they just got the ninth pick in the draft and they're in the, they can be in the quarterback soupstakes for someone like Malik Willis. Okay. Um, how old's Pete?

Pete wanted to do a rookie quarterback again. Yeah. I don't, I don't know. They want to do something. I mean, by that logic, you just, he should have just kept Russell Wilson and kept him moving, but he didn't want to do that. He's rebuilding with younger players. Like, I think it's weird that Pete Carroll at 70 years old is like,

bring on a rebuild. I think that, that is weird. Right. That's what I'm saying. I don't like the, I don't know, Seattle, rookie quarterback in Seattle is tricky,

especially because like, what, if they draft Malik, Willis out of Liberty, are they going to become a quarterback run team? Because they had that kind of quasi option available with, with Russ. They couldn't like have mained it,

but they could have sprinkled it in a lot. And they really, They didn't. Do they think that Malik is a Russell Wilson caliber, second reaction thrower? Scramble create outside of the pocket downfield? Oh, buddy. That's a leap. This is a classic example of like they fell bass backwards into a starting quarterback with a third round pick. Like, yeah, we just do that again. We know how to scout quarterbacks. Oh, it ain't that easy, chief. I wish for that, it ain't that easy. I don't know if that's, I don't know if that's the route I'd like to take. To me, like, I just, I don't, I don't, this is weird. This is weird. I don't get it for Seattle.

Well, here's the other thing. Like, what do the next three years look like in Seattle if they just keep Russ? Is it any better? Yeah, that's the thing is like, on paper I hear the argument for why not just keep it moving, but it wasn't really moving. Like, Russ being hurt is obviously a big part of this, but like, they were 7 and 10. This is not a good team. Okay.

So they were 7 and 10. Russ got hurt. It's worth noting that the three seasons previous, they were 12 and 4, 11, and 5, 10, They made the playoffs in every single year and they won the division in 2020. I, I'll be the first to say that Seattle's process wasn't optimal. But the team did have a losing record since 2011 before this season. I would think generally, unless they are really strong on we can see the writing on the wall for Russ. We know he's getting old and we want to get out now while they're getting out's good.

A lot of NFL teams would talk themselves and to keeping this thing running. That would be very understandable to me. That's totally, that's totally fair. I just do feel like it was trending in the wrong direction. Yeah. It's usually we think, we, the media, think things are training the wrong direction. NFL team's like, nah, let's stick it out. It's much less common to see the media be like, oh, things are probably trending the wrong direction.

And teams be like, yeah, let's make it aggressive move. That's like new, especially for a team like Seattle, which is very rock them, sock them, stick it to them. This is the way we're going to do things. Let's do some winners and losers. Losers, D.K. Metcalfe. I mean, I don't know about Jamal Adams, but I think D.K.K. Metcalf is the biggest loser out of this. No, I meant, I meant, I meant,

I'm in the sense that he didn't want to be in a losing situation, and now he's in a super losing situation. Oh. I mean, he was on a seven and ten team, so he was already in that. The other thing, though, is the other piece that we don't know here is, like, yes, and this gets back to how the Seahawks were thinking about where in the process of, like, fully committing to a rebuild or trying to make something. thing out of very little they are,

but it's very possible there just like extremely open for business on a lot of players right now. Yeah. Like if I'm judging her, I'm getting a lot of phone calls right now. This kind of reminds me of the Cleo Mac trade. I know obviously

it's an edge rusher versus a quarterback, but it's a move where you're giving up on a big player that you should not be giving up on in theory. But I think in the long run, I wouldn't be surprised if a year or two from now, we're thinking it was a smart time to pull the plug on it. Yeah. It's very prescient if it hits, which is impressive for an NFL team.

And they're the ones that they're close. They see Russ every day. So I put them on Washwatch, just from watching him from afar, but they see it every day. I think they would. Like Kevin at the top, Kevin said,

emergency washed watch designation. At the top, Kevin said NFL teams do not get rid of superstar quarterbacks that they don't want to get rid of. Yeah. Maybe they wanted to get rid of them. All of this is just, That's my thought too.

Stephen rating Derek Carr about Russell Wilson. Stephen telling Andy Benoit he was right about Stafford over Russell Wilson, which he did this past week. Stephen was just the anti-Russ propaganda is out of control. Did you stop Indian tell him he was right? Yes. Yeah, I said good take. Great take.

A takesman recognized the takesman. They saw each other from far. Let me clarify my car over Wilson takes. Carr, I believe, in my opinion, was better than him last year, which I don't think is a hot take. Like, if you look at the stats and the film, in my opinion, they both say that. But I would not be surprised if he's better than him going forward

because of how they play in their respective play styles. Like, if Russ's legs go or his arm goes, what is he as a quarterback? Like, we can't throw those moon balls. And I agree. I think that if Russ's legs goes, it impacts him a lot more than impacted like Drew Brees. Right?

I very much agree with that. I also think that we've seen. seen like astounding leaps in quarterback longevity over the last 10 years of football, let alone five years of football. And if there's anybody that's going to be like super gung-ho in April about doing the right thing to his body to make sure he's 100% for the upcoming season, it'll be Mr. Unlimited. Okay.

It'll be hype videos eating bread made out of footballs, Instagram, workouts with bands and things, Russell Wilson. So like I think that Russ longevity is the thing that like, I, I, I, you know, I, I'm concerned about, but I'm not so positive that, like, Russ's body's going to fall apart because Russ seems like the sort of dude is going to be really stoked about keeping his body together. Unfortunately, there's no workout for being 5'10. If only.

As someone who's 5'10, I can tell you, there's lots of workouts. Okay, bud. Going boxing later. Okay, pal. All right. I just want to get it out there that this is not enough for the Seahawks. It's not like some haul. People are like, ah, here come the sea.

Hawks, dude, it's two firsts. Like, that's, and players that aren't going to get them significantly better. Like, this is not some foundation that gave up a one already for Jamal Adams this year. Like, this is not, like, Shepter rephrased it as, this is the foundation for them to start the rebuild. What foundation, brother?

Like, there's just nothing here. They got to get lucky in the same way they already had to get lucky. There's no, this is not, for me, enough to say, we're confident in our ability to rebuild this thing. They have one extra first round pick. then they would have if they did not make the Jamal Adams trades and the Russell Wilson trades.

They're in the red. Now they're back to zero. Yeah. I don't think yet. They're not in the black yet. So just do the 2013 drafts all over again, John Schneider. Hit it. Hit it.

A bunch of fifth round picks going to the Hall of Fame. Get him in here, baby. Michael Bennett. Generational safety in the first round. Yeah. No problem. Nice. Anything else going on, guys?

Any other winners or losers? I'm a D. I'm a D.K., poor guy. I'm making Solac elus. Now we know why D. Tierra. Watch the, now, now we know what D.K. McCaff came on this podcast and said you don't want to watch a Super Bowl.

Yeah, felt the writing on the wall. Metcalf came on this podcast and it was just like, I don't really want to talk about football. And then we're like, huh. Yeah. That's a tough, that's a tough time for a football podcast hit. I'll tell you, I, um, I was already pretty excited to see what a Giro Eberro, the new defensive coordinator of the, uh, of the Broncos was going to do kind of, uh, a guy with a brain and sali background who's already taking over a big fanjo structure.

talked earlier about the fact that maybe they're losing Patrick Sturtain. Keeping Sartan is incredible. Got Callahan in the building, got Simmons in the building, got Ronald Darby's still there. Ibrose been a guy who's been talked about as a rising defensive star and man, if he can hit, tools are in place.

If you hit year one and he knows what he's doing, that'd be a really freaking fun Broncos team, man. That'll be a really fun team to watch. It would be a weird team to watch. They're going to be figuring stuff out on the fly, baby. week one is going to be peculiar. How many games they went? Are we doing the game?

What's their schedule? You just have opponents out. We don't need to go game by game. We can just ballpark it. All right. Well, they get the AFC South. So they get Titans, Colts, Jaguars, Texans.

That's the light. L lost the Titans. And then in the NFC, who did they get in the NFC? They get the West. Oh, they play the Seahawks. Yeah. That's a W.

They win 11 games. I was going to say 10. It's just still a tough. I'm like 11. I'm a solo. They're wiping the AFC South. They're wiping the Osset South. Also, Vaughn Miller should go back now.

5-280, baby. You know who's a loser in this? The last team searching for a quarterback that has not found one. Hmm, I wonder who that is. Also, also, look, if we're doing winners and losers, Aaron Rogers is kind of a loser. Yes. I thought about that.

He's got to be big mad. Stole his moment. His big day. Russ just like 15 minutes of a news cycle. And then Russ just swooped in, took it away. He doesn't even get to lead off this podcast anymore. He's punching air. He's going to see this in the podcast queue.

And he's going to see that he got, he's the second emergency podcast. He's going to punch air. Honestly, the only, the only way to win the news cycle is to retire. Do it. Just for an egg. I'm retired.

What if, what if tomorrow he's just like, you know, I don't know. What if Rogers just starts? My future is a beautiful mystery.

Demand the trade to the Seahawks and then win. Yeah. All right. Anything else, guys, before we get to the Rogers

portion of this all? I do want to ask right now our March 8th predictions, who's the week one starting quarterback for the Seattle Seahawks? Malik Willis. Yeah.

I don't know. It makes me want to pick Drew Laugh. Well, but that's like the right answer. So now I want to, give a contrarian pick. I'm going Drew Locke. Go Gino Smith.

Gino Smith. Gino Smith's going to beat. I'm going to tell something right now. Gino Smith would beat Drew Locke in a quarterback competition. Yeah. Without question. Is this the Mitchell spot? Is this the old,

Trubisky round two run? I don't think that he gives you anything functionally different from any of those other guys. I'm just saying if Waldron's going to run the Sean McVeigh offense, Jimmy and Trubisky become viable options. This is a sad. dark day in Seattle, maybe. Seems like a weird stopgap to me. This team is not good.

They're going to take the Trubisky money and sign four running backs with it. And a safety. So long as it's not Drew Locke, we've all won. I agree with this. This is, this is, what about Minchu? Listen, if an Eagles quarterback is getting traded, it will not be Minchu. It will be hurts. because they'll be trading for another quarterback who is Deshaun Watson,

who may or may not become available in the trade market. So that's also very much an option because the Seattle would absolutely take hurts. I don't know. I just the Watson thing. Like I heard some people talk about that at the Combine. Like team people were like, well, when Watson becomes available, like, well, he's not on the NFL schedule. We're not exactly, the grand jury isn't exactly revolver around. the new league year.

Right with that. They see Russ gets trading. They're like, oh, we got to, we got to hurry up the process for the NFL news cycle. Just checking in on the legal process. It doesn't work like that. All right, guys, it's time for the second emergency pod and won.

Never happened before. There's never been like a Russian nesting doll. Stacking pods. Just stacking pods on pods, Mike Gaseki franchise tag pod. Can we get the Inception sound effect drop? And you hear the classical music playing in the background, like Joseph Word of Leavitt did.

We had to press the button or whatever. Ladies and gentlemen, Aaron Rogers' emergency pod. We're going to show, part of the podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, a semi-emergency podcast. We were going to record around this time anyway, but then Aaron Rogers commits to returning to the Green Bay Packers on what looks to be a $50 million a year deal. There's still some debate about whether it's for,

years, what the, basically the bones of that deal are. We'll get to that. I'm joined by Noah Prenciotti, Nora. Hello. Hello, Kevin. How are you? I'm great. Ben Zillac is here. Hey, bud. Howdy? What's going on? Stephen Ruiz. Awful. Awful. Aaron Rogers ruined my day. I had nothing else to do today. Now I have to pot and write. Jordan love QB1 in Carolina. Oh my, you just made my day worse. Thank you. All right, a lot to get to. Number one is that the offseason has just changed dramatically. Nora, are you okay? You need to say something? Yeah, no, I'm good. So, like, we're here because Aaron Rogers sort of took our days by storm.

And then I just, as we started this, well, inside baseball for the listeners, I usually turn my phone off. But I do sometimes get those, like, computer text notifications. And one of my friends just got engaged. So we've got a lot of news going on. But this is an Aaron Rogers focused podcast, not a wedding focused podcast. That's for later in the offseason. Wow. I forgot about wedding era, Nora. Good times. Yeah, yeah. She's in her wedding era.

I'm still in my wedding era. Was that a news dump by your friend? Actually, actually. Is that a news dump? That was a news dump. But let's bring this full circle. Weren't Rogers and Matt Lefleur at like David Bactiari's wedding in California over the weekend? Yes.

Hammered this all out. The deals get done at weddings. Rogers is in his wedding era too. We're all in our wedding era, guys. Are things more likely to get worked out at a wedding or pushed off? It depends on how David Bakhtiari and his fiance or his now wife sat them. Right. If you're just like, oh, a table of all Packers guys.

I feel like there was a Packers table. Right. I feel like there was definitely a Packers table. There probably was. There's got to be a couple Packers tables. If Bakhtiari is smart, he's putting Rogers on the floor at like Table 27 in the corner, a bunch of other randos, nobody to talk to. but one another.

Yes, that's exactly right. Yeah, I was thinking that. You guys got to figure it out now. Principals and then four high school friends. Exactly. I just scared a doubt. I feel like Shailene Woodley would take issue with Nora saying Rogers is in his wedding area. I think she disagrees with that.

That's actually very fair. All right. We're at minute three of this conversation and it's already gone off the road. Let's get to the football. Ben, when you heard this, you thought what? I think there was just generally a sense of like, okay, a normal thing. You know what I mean? a lot of the Rogers saga over the last 12 to 18 months has been,

oh, a not normal thing, something that we don't really know how to calibrate to. Going back to when... Really? What about it was not normal? Well, I was going to say,

going back to when they lost that NFC championship game against the Bucks, where they like, kick the field goal down eight, and it was like, all right, that was pretty crazy. And then Rogers just sits in front of reporters and is like, man,

wonder who'll be back next year. We were all like, what? Like, what? Sorry? And they go, like, I don't know. You know, who knows what will happen?

It was kind of like, all right. Like, is this a thing or is this not a thing? And it progressively became more and more of the thing. Randall Cobb gets back in Green Bay. You know what I mean? We got showing up late to camp. We got random appearances on Pat McAfee's show every Tuesday.

We had the whole COVID thing that goes down. McAfee, who broke the story today? Yes. And it's still breaking the story because Ian Rappaport tweeted that's a four-year $200 million deal. McAfee said per sources, those numbers are not correct. Matt Schneiman of the Athletic has since said that he also, was hearing what McAfee is hearing and that that money is not correct.

Jake Glazer did say $50 million a year though. Right. So we got, we just got like, there's probably like, what it probably is is there's like void years, right? There's ways to get their money.

This is a Tom Brady flashback. It's going to be really funny if it's a one year of $15 million deal when he's due this next off season. Right. And that's the thing is like, I think that it's a little bit of like a semantics conversation in terms of what the deal functionally is for the Packers versus what it functionally is for Rogers.

Because we've got to remember, Rogers might have also retired. So the Packers definitely built this deal to be like, hey, we got to be ready if he retires next year or in two years or whatever. But I think in general it's like, okay, Nora had the correct tweet where she said, at the end of the day, the team that made consecutive NFC championship games kept the consecutive MVP in the building. So in terms of football normalcy, chalk one up as a win, the Packers and Rogers are going

forward together. My allegation was that that is good. Yeah. Seems like a solid idea. Having seen now the end of this. hopefully the end of this. What was Rogers' angle over the past couple of months? That, I, this is the question I have absolutely no interest in trying to answer.

I'm so sorry, Kevin. I am not going inside that man's mind. Like, how many weird, weird cleanses can you buy with $200 million inside Roger's question? Can I give you another question in a second because we have an interrupt from Steve Ruiz, who is ready to answer the question, what was Roger's angle over the past couple of months? His angle was me, me, me, me, pay attention to me. Not anyone else, me.

That was his angle. And he pulled it off. He nailed it. Bravo. Andy got paid for doing it. Congratulations. Aaron Rogers. All right.

And honestly, all four of us being in media, we can relate. We want people to listen to us and get paid. We also have, like, deeply benefited from, from this ridiculous charade. Exactly. There's another, there's another angle to it, though, where, like, I think Rogers would like to remain on a competitive football team. And that, regardless of. of the issues that they're going to have with the cap over the next couple of months, like that feels mission accomplished as well.

Okay. So I have a couple things there. Number one, I think that this was in an era where the player empowerment era doesn't exist, right? And no quarterback who a team has wanted to keep has ever successfully forced their way out as a when they're superstar status or even star status, right? Jay Cutler is the most analogous to it. And that was because he was feeding with Josh McDaniels and they had tried to get Matt

Castle at one point. and it was just kind of a long, weird saga. The Stafford Lions were just rebuilding and they were just happy to take the draft fix, right? Nothing like Rogers being traded has ever even come close to happening in pro football in the modern era. So what I think Rogers knew this, I think that he knew, you know,

couldn't consider not promised a trade. They promised to consider the options or review his status, I guess was the phrase. So what I think was happening was Rogers was exerting a type of pressure which was, I want to see up to the franchise tag day, what moves we're thinking about making. I want to make sure that we're going to keep Devante Adams, which is always a near certainty,

but it reports are that that's going to happen. And just make sure that the offseason looks okay from his standpoint. And if it didn't, he could exert even more pressure, and we could go from there. He could have made life very unpleasant for Mattel firm, Brian Gooden, Kuntz, and Rustball, and Mark Murphy over the next couple of months if he didn't like what they were doing. I think that they're all.

are real problems with any of the destinations that were outlined over the past couple of days. Tennessee, Ryan Channel had like a $53 million cap hit or so, dead cap hit if he got released. And there were some cap guys who were much smarter about this stuff than me who were basically saying that they would, the Packers almost would have had to take back Tana Hill, which I don't know why they would want to do that in that kind of trade. The Broncos are frankly just a worst team. I understand there's a consistency with Nathaniel Hackett there. but I just don't know why that would be a better situation than Green Bay other than he wanted to leave.

Pittsburgh, kind of the same thing. I really love the infrastructure there, but I think that Green Bay has better players. So you get into a situation where Matliflor is the best play caller that you're going to have of those four teams who are to rank them. The Packers are the best infrastructure. It's familiarity. So I just didn't see a lot of realistic options, Nora, for this. And that's why I expect this to end at some point. Yeah, I think that's right.

I think Denver thought they were a realistic option. I mean, I think one of the biggest things to come as a result of this is just like, what of the Broncos do? Because I don't think that they thought that they were getting Rogers. I think they probably could read the tea leaves just as well as anyone and had good information that the likelihood was that it was going to be a no and that he was going to go back. But nobody really knew because this was just Rogers's choice. and I do think they thought that they were in the running enough that it kind of put a lot of other stuff on hold.

I do want to just clarify, go back to one of the things that you just said, because the distinction between what Rappaport and some of the other national insiders have reported and then Mac could be pushing back about the numbers. It is just making me ever so slightly nervous that as we brought up and alluded to earlier, this is a void year's situation. you're right that no analogous quarterback has ever like forced to trade in this situation. But what we've seen what we saw Tom Brady do and what a quarterback with extreme leverage can do is essentially by free agency, right? And it seems like this is not that. It seems like this is a, you know, medium term real extension. But if there's like, if we find out that there's a bunch of void years on the end of this,

I just want to just in case, just in case that's where that. ends up. Like, that is the way that we've seen this happen in the past. That is how super, super high level quarterbacks have been able to buy their way into choosing their own destination. And it just having been through the Brady thing, it just makes me nervous and I want to get that out there. I agree. And obviously the Brady thing was a free agent deal and not a trade. So it's not similar. And also if you read, I read Jeff Bennett's booked a couple months ago, they thought Brady was leaving two years earlier. Like the crafts were kind of show. That's why it is similar, though, Kevin is because he did not have enough leverage to force a trade.

But what he did have enough leverage to do was force a restructure that was going to allow him to get to the market. And we are still not in a place with star quarterbacks, even like the shiniest stars of them all, where they can force trades in that way. But they do have the leverage to change their contract status in a way that gives them the power to have more say over where they end up. All right, no, I get that. But like, Roger's situation was that his contract basically was a, there was a restructure in 2021. Then the void year was, was, was, was, was 2023 basically. So he could have just waded out the contract, I guess, and then played played the franchise. Yeah, it would have been one more year.

I'm just, I just want that is the one thing we don't know about what this looks like. That could meaningfully change it. You know, if it's too. $201 million instead of $200, like big whoop. But that could make a difference. Rogers by the deal could not have been franchise tag defeat waited out the two seasons. That was in the deal. Right.

Which is again similar to Brady. Right. Ben, from a football standpoint, Packers, NFC favorites? Ooh. Yeah. No? Who do the Rams reside? Rams got a lot of people to resign.

Probably not Vaughn Miller. All right. Right, it's tight. The thing with the Packers, and this is really interesting to me is last off season, a lot of the Rogers Packers, well, they won't. They was like, I want Randall Cobb, baby. It was like, all right, we'll go get you Randall. Aaron, how are you feeling about that?

And now Randall Cobb's a free agent. Equanimia St. Brown is a free agent. Marquez Vall de Scantling is a free agent. And given what's been said about Marcus Valdus Scantling's market, Green Bay is not going to have the money to sign him, period. I think Robert Tunyon also is a free agent if memory serves. Might be wrong on that one. Yeah, he is. Yeah.

List of current Packers Passcatchers. Devante Adams, who hasn't franchise tagged. Sick, that's a free 2,000 yards. We love that. Amari Rogers, third round pick, could not see the field. Bad when he did so. Josiah Deguara, a guy I kind of know, who played at the University of Cincinnati. Maddie.

Mercedes-Lewis. He is a tackle playing tight end. Like, it is, the conference are even more bare than they were last season. Like, this is, I don't know what, again, like, knowing the contract structure is going to help us a lot, I would imagine the Packers found some way to leave her open some space for 2022, but the Packers desperately need pass-catching weapons, which makes this whole full circle hilarious because you know what Rogers wanted with the first round pick of the 2020 NFL draft?

passcatcher. And instead it's Jordan Love, who is again not going to play football this season. So it's, it's, it's certainly up there with the Rams. I think it's going to be tight. Again, depending on kind of who the Rams re-signed, but the Packers have a passing game question. Even with Rogers and Adams back, they need more bodies than they have right now. Who's better? Is there anybody better? Because the Cowboys are the beginning. I think we're forgetting about the team that ended their season, the 49ers. Yeah. I think the, I think, well, but they've got quarterback. Might just have a quarterback change. Yeah. I think the Rams are the best team in the NFC.

they have quarterback questions in that they might have the same quarterback they had last year when they beat the Packers or three years ago when they beat the Packers. The quarterback question is, oh, can we get a better quarterback out of Trey Lance? So I don't think the 49ers are going to get worse, barring injury. And if Trey Lance is better than Jimmy G, then they could be even better. I think the 49ers are a better team right now than the Packers are, which I think there's time for that to change. I don't think they're in salary cap. hell that they can't get out of this offseason where they can't add a few more pass catchers.

I think they're the new saints. I think they're going to be the saints for the next four years. We're going to worry about their salary cap every off season and it won't matter. The other thing is that in part as a result of this, the 49ers could start a bidding war for Jimmy Garoppelow. Like, we live in a world where Jimmy Garoppelow is the crown prince quarterback of this trade market. And I'm all about it. He's this year saffrey.

We just have to accept it. Did you say, is this your Stafford? No, I'm not saying he's as good as Stafford. I mean, he's the veteran that's available. But he kind of is. Yeah. He's the one where coaches are in Cabo checking their phone to see if they've gotten to Jimmy Garoppel.

Jimmy Garoppelow go to Cabo challenge. Hey, Ben, I want to do 30 seconds on this. I've never heard this conversation before, truly. So everyone talked about how the Packers liked Justin Jefferson, but obviously he wasn't there at at 26. Okay. They could have traded up in some fantasy land, but they didn't. Okay.

the next receiver off the board was T. Higgins. What did what do the Packers, what would the Packers have looked like in an alternate reality where they took T. Higgins? Oh, better than they looked the last couple seasons, baby. Oh, Mama T. Higgins on the opposite side. I mean, what Tia's been for the Bengals,

especially this year, watching him play the second fill with DeMar Chase is exactly what you would have liked with Devonte Adams. Like, all right, you want to send coverage to Devante? You want a single cover 6'4, 210 pound T. Higgins? It's fine by me. Yeah, him. Michael Pittman was next, right? One pick later. Not as good as T. Higgins, but also delightful. That would have really worked well. And I think Pittman, who is like the

quasi one Indianapolis right now, was much better suited as like a versatile number two. That would have been great. Next receiver off the board was, uh, Levisca Chonaut. No comment. I love Levisca coming out. Things aren't going great in Jacksonville. I'm going to get over it. Chase Claypool of 49. Yeah. And listen, the nice thing is that the Packers, the Packers don't draft small receivers. Like, Amari is the first one that, drafted in ages. So at the time in 2020, they would have taken one of T. Michael Pittman or Claypool.

Like they wouldn't have gone Leviscar, Hamler, or they probably was that, oh no, who else was in that second round? Regardless, they would take one of the big guys and it would have been to their benefit. Now, Carlin- Jefferson. Van Jefferson was in second-yard. They got to be good with this draft. They got to get immediate contributors because they're not going to have enough money.

Like, they're going to lose Lucas Patrick. they're going to potentially lose Devondra Campbell. Like there are a lot of guys who are potentially leaving. They got a hit. They got a hit big. All right. We can go around whoever wants to take this can. Biggest loser today.

Oh, it's Jordan Love. You didn't even have to finish the question. You decided to say, it's Jordan Love. Also, the idea that anyone besides Stephen was going to take the who's the biggest loser question. That's ridiculous. I mean, I really feel sorry for him. His career has been derailed.

And I'm not sure how you get it back on the train. track at this point. Like, who is, what team is he going to go to that, that gets his career back on track? And he's a guy who needed to play more so than anybody in that draft. He needed to play from day one. He hasn't played. He's not going to play this year unless he gets traded to a team that's willing to start him. And I don't know what team that is outside of Carolina. Okay. So this is an earnestly interesting question for me. Well, I don't want to Kevin here, but like, what do you trade for Jordan Love? Because you've won game sample. size. He's 23 years old, right? Like, Rosen got a second round pick when he was 22. And we saw

Rosen enough to know that like, it wasn't pretty to start. Love, we haven't even seen that much. So like, to me, it's, well, who's, it has however not been pretty when we've seen it. Right, but it's, it's far smaller sample. It's less. It's a really small sample size. It's a pretty bad sample. Right. Top 10 pick being given the opportunity to start Rosen, again, as the comparison here, and failing to do so, to me measures up slightly differently. to like 26th overall pick who was immediately hated by the man in front of him

and kind of how that affects development. So like, I don't know. To me, like, I would not personally be sending a second round pick for Jordan Love. However, I could see a team doing that. Maybe. So Ben, Ben,

Ben, thinks Love's worth a second, a day two pick. That's not what I say. That's what I'm doing it. So, no, Ben, I think if he had done well in that one game, I think you're looking at a second round pick. Like, not, not like, Matt Flynn setting records good.

I'm just talking about, like, if you'd hand it himself, well, you're looking at a second round pick. And I know that I don't think NFL teams freak out over one game, but what I will say is, like, when you play one game in your career, yes, that's what they have to go off of. I think a third is probably fair. Would you take that, then? If all the Packers?

Yeah. Without blinking. Oh, sweet Christmas. Like a third repick. Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I mean, the first guy would have drafted love in the third. It's a cheap backup quarterback.

Otherwise, you know it with Mike Glennon. I'm fine. Give me Tim Boyle, baby. I'm fine at this point, right? But like also, there was an ESPN report recently that like Mitch Trubisky might get significant money, whatever that means. If I'm the Packers, I'm not committing cap space to a backup quarterback when you can just like if the merit of that is getting a third round pick for Jordan Love. I think that with the cap situation they're in, the need to get more picks

and take more cracks at the bat, more swings and able to get some contributors short term. That plus the last time I tried to plan a future post Aaron Rogers, it absolutely exploded in my face. I'm looking at however long I get Rogers, one year, two, year, three years, whatever it is, and saying, I'm so sick and tired of winning. or losing NFC championship games.

I'm so sticking and tired of falling in the divisional round. Like at this point, I think the contract structure will reflect this when we get it, that the Packers are in, as Steven said, all in mode, where it's the Saints, where it's like every year they can't keep doing this. And every year they just find a way to push it, push it, push it, push it, push it. And we'll rob Peter to pay Paul for as long as this guy's still playing for us. So if you're giving me a potential top 100 pick for Jordan Love, yeah, I'm on it.

Are we sure the Jordan Love pick wasn't good, a net win for the Packers? no we are not sure of that yeah we will only know once Jordan left place it pissed Rogers off so much so he became the multiple MVP since then the Packers didn't lose him they decided to give him a slight raise which by the way he may have asked for to begin with anyway signed his he signed his previous deal with two years left on his on his old deal so I don't I don't think it's as big of an net L as maybe some people on Twitter think it is that's my take I don't think it wasn't an L at all. I'm not sure it's a net L at all.

I just think Jordan Love is probably not that good. Oh, no, no. I'm not certainly not saying that. I don't think Jordan loves very good. I'm talking about the pick. I'm not about the value of the pick. I'd rather have T. Higgins, but I also think that in the Grants,

T. Higgins would have done the same things for Rogers that being pissed off would have. Does that make sense? I think, I think, I'm just in my head envisioning T. Higgins holding the Lobardi trophy in a green jersey right now. I just think T makes them, so much better than the nine games of Marcus Valdoscan when they were getting.

But I hear what you're saying. I have another, I have another loser. I have another loser. Shock. The, the salary cap nerds, I think are the biggest loser.

I think we're in a post salary cap. No, no, no, no. Let me tell you, Stephen, Stephen, Stephen, I'm going to let you get there.

But if they go on to the Titans and they were paying $100 million dollars at one position and it was fine, that would have been, like PFF Braddwith had to delete his account if that happened. poor BFF Brad. Continue. Okay, I think we're post salary cap. I used to think it was a salary cap league and that dictated everything.

I think once you get a quarterback, it doesn't matter. Your salary cap doesn't matter anymore. Before you get a quarterback, sure, it does. If you have like one of these tier three quarterbacks. But if you get a tier two quarterback even, I think you're good. I don't think you need to care about the salary cap. The Saints have proven it. You can mess up your cap and it won't matter for at least five years.

What's going on in Dallas? right now where they're offering DeMarcus Lawrence a pay cut to stay. They just restructured $22 million with DAC and Zach Martin. I know. I just did it. Jack, Ron's getting a $7 million check today, but are they,

they're not going to be able to keep all the guys they want. I don't think the problem in Dallas is that they don't have enough cap space to go. They got plenty of talent. The problem of Dallas is who they picked as their coach. I think it is also that they don't have enough cap space. But what is that, what has it prevented them from doing?

That, like, good players that you would like to keep have to walk out the door. I mean, I think both of these things can be true, right? Like, we look at the Saints and see a team that is incredibly smart and aggressive in how they manipulate the cap. Also,

they work themselves into a bind and there are benefits to it. But also, you don't think New Orleans would have liked to resign Trey Hendrickson last year? Right? Like, Yeah. It is not. Couldn't sign clowny a couple years ago.

On the whole, you would rather be aggressive and sometimes borrow against future years when you feel like you're in the window, then not. However, there are sometimes costs to it. Sometimes it comes back to money. The Dallas restructure, the Dallas restructure is helping them fit

the Dalton Schultz franchise tag, brother. And the Michael Gallup extension because of Mari Cooper's leaving, which is just a mess. Wonderful. Right, and if they needed to sign with someone else, they would just restructure Dax deal and it wouldn't matter.

There's always a way. But they will not be able to do that with Murray Cooper. Well, that was just a bad, they shouldn't have signed that contract. Part of it. I was actually. It's a bad. Bad contract, actually, from Amari Cooper's point of view.

Well, yeah. So over the terrible point this week that they, when the Cooper deal was signed, it looked like the wider supermarket was going to grow. Like that 20 was going to be not insane in a couple of years. And then COVID happened. The salary cap goes down. Satter cap stays flat, all that stuff. And they're now Cooper's deal looks like an albatross.

I think they were betting on significant growth there. That is what it is. So the salary cap took an element. But also like Jerry Jones pays. Pays people. Like, the Cowboys pay players. Six years. How much was Zee contract?

Six years, 90 million or something like that? All I'm saying is salary cap hell overrated. I don't, I'm not disagreeing with that. Aren't you saying salary cap hell is underrated? Underrated. No, but I'm saying it's over or worse. Every team should be in salary cap hell because it's fine. It's a cool 70s.

No, it's cool. If you're not in salary cap hell, Dork. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Anybody who has Sally Cap flexibility is a massive nerd.

Exactly. Zeke Elliot's On the same page. Zeke Elliott's deal. Don't subscribe to that. Cap hit in 2022 is 18.2. Dead cap is 30 million.

Hey, Stephen, you who has the most cap space of all teams in 2022? I bet I know. Los Angeles Chargers, baby. I was not. I was going to say. So the Chargers are the most dorky team?

Yeah, and there was a reason why they were watching the playoffs at home with the greatest quarterback of all time because they're dorks. PFF Brandon? PFF Brandon, man. Ruiz and I took in Brandon Staley's press comments yesterday other day. Had a wonderful time. It was fun to watch. Took it in. It was fun to watch.

It's like the two old men on the Muppets. I actually literally thought about that, just standing in the back, commenting, doing a director's commentary. Of the other destinations that we haven't talked about, Pittsburgh, Tennessee, are we pretty sure

that Tennessee is just going to roll with Tannahill now, guys? I never got the Tanna Hill, Tennessee Rogers thing, which goes to the cap point you were making Kevin, where it's like, all right, that, like, yeah, we're more comfortable with dead cap hits with quarterbacks now, but that's a little

a little too much, a little too rich from my blood. And also, like, it was definitely going to make them better, but also,

I don't think Tan Hill is the biggest problem that Tennessee has there. We're not going to get back into relitigating the Titans on this

podcast. We'll do that nostalgia later. What's the biggest problem? What's the biggest problem with the Titans? Back seven?

Secondary talent? I thought it was that they were committed to winning and have a good culture. I thought you hate that stuff. We're not doing this. Pittsburgh,

I still think, is okay. Yeah. I very much view Pittsburgh as a team that if they get a semi-concent competent quarterback, i.e., like a Jimmy Garavlo landing spot, they're going to see a big bump. Just because Rathusberger was so limiting not only in how he executed the plays called on the field, but also in what plays they could even possibly call in the first place, just because of what he did and didn't want to do what he

was and wasn't capable of doing. And so to me, they're a Jimmy landing spot, a Carson-Wenance landing spot, a Mitchell Trubisky, $10 million for some reason, landing spot. And like, those things are okay for me, so I don't really view them as a team that needed Rogers. Pittsburgh? Anything, guys? If they get Jimmy, it's a clear upgrade. Mm-hmm.

Over... It's a clear upgrade. They could not throw... Over whom? You know whom? The corpse of Ben Rothesburg. And Mason Rudolph. The funny thing about Mason Rudolph is he was like 20 years younger than Ben Roslisberger,

but played exactly like him. Nothing changed. nothing changed. Anything else in this, guys, before we go on next topic? I'm glad it's over. It could have extended. I mean, Favv watch lasted until August. It was like Ryan Longwell on tractors in Mississippi.

Farv also got traded. I think what he was, was he 23? When he got trade for the Falcons? Anyway, like if Love gets traded, if love gets traded, he will be the next Brett Farm or the next Josh Rosen, one of the two. One of the two. Flip a coin. One of the two.

Let's go through franchise tags real quick. Mike Gisicki. Yes, no, Ruiz? I have no thoughts on that one. It makes sense because he's a good player, but he's not a great player. It came out of nowhere to me, though. I don't understand. The tight end tag is pretty manageable.

It's so low. Yeah. Tide end tag is, I think, just over 10 million, and the wide receiver tag is, what, like 17? Yeah. Yeah. Almost 18. Fun fact about Mike Gassicki.

he lined up out wide this year more than Cooper Cup did per next-gen stats. So if Cooper Cup is a wide receiver, you know who's probably a wide receiver? We already did this with Jimmy Graham five years ago. I don't even know if it was that, if there was that extreme. I mean, he like Gassiki lined up tight like less than 20% of the time or something. Like it's really wild. The thing with Graham was that he lined up out wide more than he lined up in line. But with Gisiki, it's like I line up out wide more.

than actual receivers do. Yeah. So if anyone has like an argument, it's him. The arbitration hearing about whether or not Jim Graham was wide receiver was really amazing. It was really amazing. I want to maybe revisit that one day. It was just like they had experts on like how good a blocker he was.

I'm 90% sure Butch Davis was involved somehow. I don't remember. I remember the testimony and it was just like someone was like he's a bad blocker. Someone on his side was like, he's a bad blocker. So you should pay him the wide receiver money. I was like, is Graham like,

have you seen me block? He just has like film. Jimmy Graham, Jimmy Graham takes the stand on behalf of himself and just says he hates blocking and can't do it. Dramatic final episode of the HBO mini series. Just Jimmy Graham screaming at his lawyer. I want to take the stand.

He should have hired Odell's dad to put together a highlight reel. What had gotten it done. Yeah. It was that. I don't even understand this. It was during the testimony that Butch Davis said that the Bucks drafted Mark Barron

to stop Jimmy Graham. And that was part of the testimony. I'm telling you, he was a special, he was a special assistant to the Bucks. So he was in the draft room. It was completely insane. It was one of those things

that was just lost to history because there wasn't really an NFL Twitter back then, but it was some wild stuff. That's something else. Anything else is Mike Kiski, guys, before we go on. Not all at once. Well, I mean, Shultz and Joku or the other

tight ends that got tagged. Yeah, Shulton and Joku. It's just not a lot of money. Sorry, we don't have hot takes on mid-tier tight ends. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, we only have hot takes on the Carolina Panthers. Actually, I think, like, definitely. And the concept of cap space.

The tight end tag is like a lukewarm take. That's like a team giving a lukewarm take on David and Joko. 10 million bucks fine Orlando Brown guys I mean have to do it I guess Right I have to do it You traded the pig

It was on the wall Yeah I will say like I don't want to beat this Trump too much But like watching Orlando Brown down the stretch man I would be wanting to get a developmental tackle in the building Just because when we go five wide He's left alone in Ireland A pretty I agree with that

And I also think that I'm just going to float this out there we made fun of the Texans franchise a whole hell of a lot for trading for Laramie tonsil without a contract extension ready to go because the leverage is so high when you trade a first round pick or multiple first round picks in Tunsell's case but the leverage was so high that they were able to reset them tonsil without an agent was able to reset the market or you've written about this um the chiefs did it but because I think the chiefs are one of the smartest franchises in football we didn't have the same kind of eye roll at the risk they were taking

but it's true Orlando Brown has a lot of leverage in the situation. I'm fine with the reality of me making fun of the Texans more than the Chiefs. I agree with you. That's why I'm leaving the floor open for somebody else to make fun of the Chiefs because I'm not going to do it. I'm just asking questions. Ruiz looks like he wants to make fun of the Chiefs. I feel like the head coach could move better in space than the starting left tackle. That's a problem.

See? I would enjoy seeing Matt. This is why I tee you guys up. This is why I teet you guys up. yeah, DeMonte Adams is obviously a no-brainer. Jesse Bates get tagged? Jesse Bates got tagged, yes. Yeah.

I mean, he made a... He basically said, like, I don't want to play on this tag. He didn't say, like, I won't, but he says, like, I don't really want to. This was a couple weeks ago. The Bengals would be smart to extend him because he's very good, and they can open up room this year by not having to pay him. I think it's somewhere around, like, 15 million per... Or 50 million for one year, I should say, on the tag.

This is a situation where 29 of the other 31 teams would have gotten this puppy done. But the Cincinnati Bengals, baby, just love to look at eight-tier players and go, what if we screwed around with the money for a while? And I would really like for the Joe Burrow-era

Cincinnati Bengals to be spenders and be aggressors. And playing a game with Jesse Bates' contract is not bad. And so I would hope that this contract gets done because Bates is a player that deserves it. And the Bengals have a team that deserves that their stars get handled

and that their nucleus gets kept together. So Bates, he's value on the tag, but you should be extending him and bringing the 2022 cap a little lower. I think this is a good test for the Bengals are not an organization that can support Borough. Like, that's like been the take. Like, oh, can they,

I think Carson Palmer made it at the Super Bowl and got in a bunch of trouble. But this is it. Like, if they can't handle the Bates deal, then I would have serious questions going forward. Well, and the bagel is also one of the ways in which they're different from other teams in how they spend is there's very few categories in which they are willing to guarantee money. Their contracts often include very, very few guarantees. And whether or not they will be willing to change that, change those practices, I think is a huge test for how they will go into the Joe Burrow post Super Bowl appearance era.

because it has knocked them out of the running for free agents before just being like, no, we don't do it like that. And there's other, you know, the Steelers have the way that they structure contracts. This is not unique in the NFL. However, if you sign with the Bengals off and you're not getting a lot of guaranteed money. And whether or not they're willing to shift on that. I think for super, super high priced, high profile free agents is going to make a difference going forward.

And I'm really, really, really curious to see if this is the thing that changed. changes that because they've been spenders the last couple of free agency periods, but there's stuff like that where it's a little bit more nuanced that I think will change how agents look at them, how the sort of cream of the crop free agents look at them. And that still, they've shifted the dollar amount, but they haven't shifted that practice. And I'm really curious to see if they will. Chris Godwin obviously is expected to be tagged. uh calvin ridley oh

let's hear it ben no uh i'll handle this one um i think that i've seen some of the dumbest takes i've ever seen on twitter over the past 24 hours just in all directions in all sorts of directions that a lot of people saw the calvin ridley news and said to themselves what if i was a huge dumbass publicly and that was a joy to watch.

So I think that there are a couple of things to unpack. Number one is the punishment is not crazy. You know, I was actually talking to someone over the past week who was talking about the talk they give you in August in training camp that basically can't, you can't gamble in anything. You can't play fantasy football for money. if you work in the league office or for a team, it's pretty heavily regulated what you can do and what you can. I'm talking about fantasy football. I'm not talking about gambling.

You can't gamble in any of this stuff. But even fantasy football is pretty heavily regulated. So it's not like he was like, oh, I didn't know I couldn't do this. But they drill this into you. So I understand that. I would say that the video of Calvin Ridley, the highlights of Calvin Lee making mistakes and people saying, oh, he's throwing games.

that was one of the dumbest things I've ever seen in my entire life. I was really into it. You could do that with anybody. You could to make a super cut of Ruiz stammering on this podcast over the past year and say, he's throwing this podcast. It's like, no, he did it like four times. It's fine. Wow.

He is. Ouch. Well, Stephen, Stephen is actively working against this podcast, but that's a separate. That's not for gambling. That's just a personal thing. But I just thought that was so unbelievably stupid. And what, what, we can do Occam's razor here. He was away from the team.

He was at the Hard Rock casino. He placed a bet. It got tripped by an AI company, whatever it is called Genius, which then flagged to the NFL. That's all it is. If it was anything nefarious, genius wouldn't have gotten it from the Hard Rock app. I promise you, if this were some criminal mafia mastermind that was behind all of this, if there was an Arnold Rothstein of Calvin Ridley, he would not have instructed him to go to the Hard Rock app in South Florida and say,

please put down a $1,500 bet. That's not part of the criminal mastermind. Wasn't a $500 bet, it was $500 total. Okay, he does not have a gambling problem. I see everybody's point here except the people who think that this is part of some larger conspiracy. So you're saying that Calvin Ridley is not,

this air is Arnold Rothstein, is what you're saying. That's what I'm saying. The Falcons have nobody else. The Falcons can look to blame people throwing games, but they're still just the Falcons. I do want some audio of one of those calls for Terry Fonson's office, for the Patriots are like, hey, like, Calvin, like, potentially move. Like, what sort of price you're looking at?

Just Terry going, we'll get back to you because of that report that the Falcons like knew for weeks that something was coming and they were just like rebuffing all trade calls, just kind of waiting for it to happen. Like, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Third round pick sounds great. We'll get back to you in two weeks. They should have put a conditional. We'll talk.

They could just put conditions on the pick. Right. Hey, if something happens with Calvin, we'll bump it down to a three, but we'll give you a two for right now. I just want to say that I think all things considered, I personally have gotten off rather easy for also having been high on the 2021 Atlanta Falcons. I've said this before. Anybody who bets on the Falcons should be suspended from their job for a year. So that's where we should go with Calvin here is that you just shouldn't have bet on the Falcons. Yeah, I mean, I didn't wager money.

However, I did select them to win more games than they ended up doing. I'm looking through my sheet and I'm seeing how many times I bet on the Falcons this year. Let's find out. Betting against Urban Meyer was so tempting that he risked his career for it. There's a lesson in that. And he won. You won that game. He didn't win the Parlay.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Nobody really wins Parlas. No. I bet against the Falcon. I bet on the Falcons twice this year and I won both bets. Was one of them the Jacksonville game? No, it was the first Saints game that they played and then it was the Detroit Lions game.

You keep track of all the bets you make? Yeah. You have to. You have to? You have to. Ben. You can, Ben. You know what you're processing.

Don't have to actually. You're doing well and what you're not doing. well. Ben, you're removing one of the core tenets of gambling, which is when you win money, you pretend it's found money

and that you're making a pure profit instead of it's just covering your losses. How else are you going to... How is he going to ever... I'm looking at my very thorough spreadsheets right now and I'm here to tell you. Pure profit on the season and pure profit bent on the Falcons.

Go birds. Just different ones than usual. All right. Anything else from your spreadsheet? Kyle Hamilton, under 5.5 total draft position plus 140. Now we can get to the real point of this podcast, which was an intervention for your bet. Yeah, that's why we got all four of us on. Yeah, why do you think everyone's here?

We're going to bring in Calvin Ridley. We told Calvin that you spent over $1,500 gambling over the past year, which qualifies as a gambling problem according to his tweets. That is a problem per Calvin Ridley. Mm-hmm. Any of the draft takes? Anybody wants to get out there real quick? Hmm. Class is bad.

Class is bad. I have two draft crushes I want to unveil. And I was talking this morning. I don't have a lot of draft crushes because it's not really my thing. But I just take athletic freaks and just go from there. Cole Strange from UT Chattanooga. And then Zion Johnson from BC to interior alignment that I'm building my, I'm building my line around.

If you were just drafting offense alignment off of names, Cole Strange and Zion Johnson, we two top players on the board. Yeah. And then there's a guy named Ike. He's probably going to be good. And then Charles Cross. I like Ike a lot. I love Ike. Number one overall pick, Ikea Kwan, who heard of here first.

You've heard it several places, but I also believe it's going to happen. Is it because he tested well or because there's just momentum going to, or the Evan Neal has lost some momentum? He tested quite well. It was expected he was going to test well. film is good. Film is is is very, very solid. He's not like the cleanest past projector there ever was, but the reality is that most college tackles are just not super clean NFL past directors in general. Neil is big. Neal is very big. And big is high floor, but it leads to some balance problems, got heavy feet, these to some problems on the outside arc that I think you feel like are,

unfixable, like those are just always going to be around, he's such a big body, as opposed to a guy like Icky who's really just a moldable ball of clay. And people like Brandon Thorne, who does trench warfare, is a big offensive line guy, have given him a Jason Peters comparison, that sort of play style, that sort of a build. And obviously Doug Peterson's going to be familiar with that.

And I've remembered that. And so Icky makes a lot of sense up there. Dave on Tibbittos fallen. Probably looks like something happens. Stingley's fallen. Probably looks like that's going to happen. I have a piece coming out literally later today, which we could be delayed X of Rogers,

where I'm going to talk about how Kyle Hamilton the safety of Notre Dame really should be. one of the topics. And it's silly to be like, oh, but he's a safety. Yeah, safety is really freaking important.

And this guy's one of the best prospect of the position we've ever seen. So to me, that's a one-to-one. Malik Willis quarterback one. And Garrett Wilson's body receiver one. How high?

Because PFF had Malik Willis going to the Lions. And I just didn't think there was going to be a top three quarterback this year. I do not think he goes that early. I think that Detroit will be very happy to let people think that they might take him at two because that could lead to some trade offers. And then if they have to sit there and take Aidan Hutchinson or sit there and take Kyle Hamilton,

they'll be pleased to buy. With that said, I envision a team trading up from Malik right around 10 because that's where you start to get in the Washington territory and the Denver territory. You don't really know where those teams are going to be at. Pittsburgh makes a lot of sense to me in that regard. I have a question. Why doesn't Denver just draft him? They should. But I'm saying if a team would like to make sure they get him before Denver does, then they'll trade up.

to pick eight and go get him instead. Why doesn't Denver do a lot of things? Denver had the Justin Fields pick. The New York Giants had the Justin Fields pick. These are teams that are currently in the market for a quarterback a year later. And as John Lynch said on his podium press, they're talking about Trey Lance.

Yeah, you've got to look at next year's class. That's why we made the decision we did. The Niners are fortunate to be a year ahead of that curve. Why don't the Panthers just draft them at six? Same question. same answer too. They could have drafted Justin Fields. I didn't know this.

Family told both of us that Kenny Pickett committed to Matt Rule at one point at Temple. Yeah. Matt Rule recruited him. David Tepper was a Pitt football booster. The Panthers are going to draft him at six. At six.

They can't even trade back. I can't even try what anyone else says. Like the pick could happen and I'm still going to say that they're going to draft him at six. David Tepper is a Pitt football booster and yet Pitt football hasn't really taken off. We're getting dangerously close to ACC football takes,

and I would like to end the podcast before Kevin gets there. I'm purposely not talking because right now the PFF mock has Germain Johnson going to Denver, and I have a Miami anecdote that I'm purposely not telling because Ben's going to get upset. Am I supposed to congratulate you for that? Please call that. Not talking about Miami? Yes, you are.

This has been the Rembrandt fellow show on the Ringer Podcast Network. We'll be back next week. Ben Solac probably is on a draft podcast the next couple of days. When is it? Thursday? he said confidently, knowing his schedule. There's a pot out now that was released on Monday, Columbine Winners, and you guys should listen to it.

Just winners? No losers? It was awards, so mostly winners. You come to this show for losers. Stephen Ruiz has a piece up probably by now by the time this episode goes up on Aaron Rogers. I'm going to be on the Bill Simmons podcast later talking about a couple of different sports might go abroad a little bit.

Nora, what do you got going on? Uh, you know, just, just a lot of stuff in the can. Can't really reveal it yet. All right. We'll see you guys later. Thank you to Isaiah Blakely for a special production provision by Arjuna Ramkapal. This has been the McGarna. I already did that.

I already did that. I just, I'm used to it being the end. Bye, bye, bye.