The Ringer NFL Show - Jalen Ramsey and the All-in Rams, Trade Predictions, and Cowboys-Eagles | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: October 17, 2019

Seven players tie up 60 percent of the Rams' cap space, and now they have traded for Jalen Ramsey. Is this going to work? (2:10) Then, other superstar players that could move before the trade deadline (13:15), before we get to our biggest three games of the week, headlined by the Cowboys vs. the Eagles (28:15); talk about Kliff Kingsbury’s promising adjustments in his first season as a head coach; and preview 'Thursday Night Football' (41:15). Hosts: Robert Mays and Kevin Clark Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, state farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person, over text, or through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm. Talk to an agent today. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Robert Mays, joined as always by Kevin Clark.

How you doing, bud? How could you not be excited about BlackO versus Mahomes? That is definitely the number one thing we should hit. on this show, not one of the best players in the NFL getting traded for like 17 draft picks to a very high profile franchise. Hey, listen, I can't think of a bigger gap and excitement between two players. I think that's probably fair. I think Flacco represents just the eyes glaze over tier of quarterbacks. I don't think you're wrong here.

We had Colleen Wolf on Sun Newsday this week, and she's the host of Thursday Night Football, and we were joking about how to sell it. and she's obviously great at that's why she does it she kind of gave us some tips on how to sell something like that and my thing is just keep playing up that Flacco has a Super Bowl and Mahomes doesn't just like make that the angle just like Mahomes needs to bring a notebook Mahomes needs to bring a notebook to learn from the master who's actually got a ring how very quickly

what was like the dejection on Gons's face when he realized that you weren't asking him to come on slow newsday but you're asking this what? It was over text and it was a month ago Oh, that's upsetting. We had a meeting where we were like, let's do the slow newsday guests. Let's have a list of like 30 or 40 people. And like Stone Cold Steve Austin's on that list.

People like that. But then there's more like football. I'm not saying he's going to be on slow news day. I'm just saying we're going to ask those types of people. And so, but one of them was Colleen Wolf. And so we're just like, we'll just reach out to Gons. And then I said, hey, we're doing Slow Newsday guests. And then I said, can Colleen do it?

And he was like, oh, wow. Tough moment for Gons. All right. He's been on worst. We're going to chat about. we're going to chat about the trades that happened this week, mostly the Ramsey trade. I think that we can share our thoughts on the Marcus Peter's trade

and some of the other trades we think might be on the horizon. But we wanted to devote a good chunk of the lead to the show to what the Rams did. And I read what you wrote yesterday. And I tend to think we're on pretty similar footing here. And we're viewing this in a pretty similar way. Because I think there's a massive difference between what the Rams did over the last, you know, 18 months before this. and then what the Rams are right now.

And a huge part of that is obviously the Jared Gough contract because we've talked so much on the show about why teams should go all in, why teams should be aggressive, everything else. But one of the components of that is a rookie quarterback contract when you don't have to spend a ton of money on that player.

Now Jared Gough goes to $36 million. And now we have, I think you wrote, seven players that are going to tie up 60% of the Rams cap next season. And that does not include Jayon Ramsey. I mean, there's,

There's been a lot of research over the cap talks about this. No team has ever won a Super Bowl with two players making over 21.5% of the cap in the modern era. I think the Niners did it in the 90s, I think. The Falcons were probably closest. No, the Falcons wore over it had they not blown at 20. What happened to the Falcons? Oh, they blew a 25-point lead. But they were close with Julio and Matt Ryan.

And there are a couple teams who have kind of pushed up against it, but nobody has actually done it. and, you know, the Eagles are obviously the prime example. I don't think anybody made over, what, 7% of the cap the year they won the Super Bowl? Like, a balanced roster is a pretty good indicator. If you have a lot of talent, that things are going well. 60% for seven players. And that doesn't include, by the way, Jaylon Ramsey, who's going to be very expensive or of a fifth year option.

That is... You have to extend him now for a ton of money. Really, really, really, really top-heavy. I'm with you in this regard. That everything they were doing over the past two years, was normal. They were going all in on our rookie contract. That's completely, that's standing operating procedure. That's what they're doing in Cleveland. That's what they did do in Philadelphia. That's what they did in Seattle with Russell Wilson, all this stuff. Like you go out,

trade first round picks for talent. You bring in big names. That's normal. This, which is you maintain that level of aggressiveness after you sign $134 million deal with your contract, with your quarterback. That is much less normal. And that's what's so intriguing to me. You know, I told story in the in the column but when I was at an owner's meeting in March there was an owner who was joking about the Rams and saying that their head coach kept saying every time the Rams got a star player they would say well why can't we do that and they said well we pay our quarterback and one day the Rams will operate like we do and well what we're learning now is that that's not necessarily true they're going to keep this up and we should have seen it coming you know you and I

have both talked to the folks who run the Rams we know they know they know they have some interesting opinions about the modern NFL. Kevin Demoff has talked about sort of how the draft has become a little bit overrated. Pick for player swaps, you know, a lot of smart teams use them. Not to this degree. The Eagles and the Patriots do it, but they take a little less risk on. They don't trade two first-round picks for somebody. You know, obviously the Patriots have traded one first-round pick a couple years ago for

Brandon Cooks. But what I'm saying is that this is, I'm not saying it's foolish because the last couple of years I have kind of reflexively been against. any big value pick for player trade. I was very much against Yamari Cooper trade. And I don't think a lot of teams have regretted it at this point. I think both teams that got Brandon Cooks didn't regret it. I think that, you know, the bears obviously do not regret getting Colomac.

We can talk about that a second. The Cowboys do not regret the Mari Cooper. So at this point, it stands to reason that if you can get elite talent with a first round pick, do it. I see that point. And I'm not going to say it's foolish. And I'm going to kind of be a little bit cautious here and making a judgment about whether it was smart or not smart. Here, I would just lay out the facts for you, though.

Okay? In 2021, this is pretty much the Rams roster. Yeah, okay? Jared Gough, Aaron Donald, Brandon Cooks, Todd Gurley, Robert Woods, Rob Havenstein. And now Jalen Ramsey. I mean, you have guys on rookie deals outside of that. You have Taylor, I mean, Taylor Rap is really the only the highest, young player on a rookie contract this team has right now.

They've traded away so much to get these guys. So you have those seven players. You don't even have Cooper Cup because he'll be a free agent after next season. Josh Johnson will be a free agent after next season. You will have essentially purged your entire roster of all the homegrown rookie contract talent that has existed in the Sean McVeigh-Less-Skneed era. And you have no avenue to get more now by giving away all these picks. Maybe this is the smart way to do it.

Maybe the smart way is to just stockpile as much high-end talent as you possibly can. I just think it's really difficult because it's hard to know what you're going to be even two years from now. And you talk about the MAC trade, and I would make it again. I absolutely would. But now, if you're the Bears, you're not an all-in-calibre team anymore. You've seen some areas of that roster crumble, whether that's the offensive line, things like that. And now you're looking at 2021, you probably, at 2020, you probably need a new quarterback and you don't have an avenue to get one. The Rams are in a slightly different situation because golf is there, obviously.

But it's still a conversation that we've had in regard to the Steelers, teams like that, where there's just so much uncertainty that giving away first round picks is risky. It's so risky. And I do believe this team will be good enough that maybe those first round picks, aren't going to be the most important thing in the world. But we've seen how much golf has struggled when the infrastructure crumbles. And now you don't have that many ways to improve the infrastructure again. I get that this may be the smart way to do it. And maybe it works out for them.

But I just think it's such a huge risk. I think it's the biggest risk any team has taken this decade when you consider, you know, I wrote this in the column, but the detectins were a desperate team when they traded two first round picks. Bill O'Brien may have gotten fired if they couldn't protect Deshaun Watson. DeShon Watson's health was at stake. Andrew Luck had just retired, okay, because they couldn't keep them healthy. And so I understand maybe why that desperation creeps in and you panic and give two first topics of the Dolphins, right?

But the Rams were not a desperate team. No one was going to lose their jobs. Nobody was on the hot seat. Sean McVeigh is one of the best coaches in football. Less Need has built a really good roster. Kevin Demoff, you know, these guys are really, really smart. And they didn't have to do this. And that's what's surprising to me.

And I think it's a huge risk. And I don't think we should gloss over. In fact, the Jalen Ramsey is a very good player. I saw a stat this morning. He has allowed 2.6 yards after catch. He's basically, you know, his ability to basically eliminate the big play is just really incredible and I think that he's he's a game changer and I think that we're also learning and we've learned this over the past couple of years PFF has spent the forefront the past coverage is more

important than past rush and I you know I think that a lot of coaches and GMs think the jury still out or that's intertwined or whatever but I tend to believe PFF on that and if you can have a dominant cornerback that can change a lot of things about your defense having said that we know their offensive line is a problem we know their quarterback is a problem we know the girly contract is a problem. This doesn't solve any of their problems. It just generally helps them. It generally helps them in one area, but they have so many other areas. No, I'm just saying it helps their roster town. Yeah, it helps their roster talent in the short term, but when you have this many holes, isn't the idea of having two first round picks to fill two of those holes a little bit more attractive than having Jalen Ramsey play one side of your cornerback spots where you don't have another one on the other side anymore? No, listen, I agree. I'm just saying they're a, they're a, they're a, they're a, they're a, they're a,

better team than they were on Monday, but that doesn't necessarily mean they're a great team. They're a better team than they were on Monday, but was this team of Jalen Ramsey away from winning the Super Bowl? We're in agreement on that. We are in agreement on that. Yes. The answer is no. And that to me is that's the problem.

This is the final piece of a Super Bowl puzzle. Go for it. Go nuts. But it's not. And that to me just puts you on such shaky ground moving forward. You know, it's we want to say, they have McVeigh, they have this. they have that, they will be good for as long as that's in place. But we've seen how much that offense has struggled when the other areas of it start

to diminish a little bit. And if they start to diminish even further, and again, you don't have the resources to replenish those areas, where does this team go? What is this team in 2021? And I don't know the answer to that. And when you're looking at that murky future, not having first round picks in order to combat the worst version of that future is really scary. Yeah, I'm

I think it's a really intriguing move and I don't know what this does for the rest of the NFL I think it's interesting now after Tunsell, after Mac, after Ramsey to set the bar

at two first round picks for a superstar is really interesting because I don't think this is all the Texans fault by the way. I agree. Well, I actually think that

the Raiders started it when they just started selling guys for either one or two first round picks. I think that's interesting. God bless John Green. Jaylen Ramsey is probably closer to Khalil Mack than he, yeah, he's an elite, but he's an elite player.

I think that's fair. I would rather have Khalil Mack, but I can understand where Jaylon, you could make the argument that Jaylon, if Kalil Mack's worth that, then Jalen Ramsey is too. Yeah, no, I understand that. But I think that setting the market there, because I don't think there was a price on trading for a superstar five, six years ago, you know, the list of guys who have been traded for two first round picks is pretty low. I was actually, I had forgotten the Kishon Johnson was one of them.

and the Bucks won the Super Bowl anyway. It's a different era, though. Oh, I mean, yeah, that's what I say. You could win a Super Bowl with your defense back then. Yeah, but also it was just a weird era where, like, the Ravens won the Super Bowl. Like, the early 2000s, and this has been talked about ad nauseum, but like basically no teams, when the salary cap came in,

understood the salary cap. And so they were all in salary cap hell by, like 2000. And you had the generation of the quarterbacks, like the John Elway, Damarino generation that just retired. So there's just a bunch of crappy quarterbacks. It was teams that just didn't understand how football worked. Like, I've heard talk to Patriots people about sort of, like, the pre-Belichick era and, like, the craft's trying to tell that coaching staff or, like, Parcells or whoever,

like, kind of sort of the principles that would eventually be applied to the Patriots. And, like, Bill Parcells just had just had no interest in being, like, looking into the salary cap for more than five minutes. It's that area. That's how the Bucks end up trading two first-round picks for a wide receiver. and then winning the Super Bowl. All right. So do you want to move on? Are you ready?

Any other guys you see now, now that we know what the superstar price is going? So that's what I was going to say. Who is out there now that you think could be moved and should be moved and who are the teams that could be looking at them? I think that there are some obvious candidates that we've talked about in the past. Trent Williams, which I wrote about the Redskins today and just how screwed up that entire franchise is.

And the fact that they refused to trade Trent Williams, even though he doesn't want to play for them and they could probably get something for him and should be rebuilding is just so indicative of why that team is where it is. So even if Williams is off the table, I think a couple other guys we could throw out there are A.J. Green, Patrick Peterson.

And they played a lot better as of late. The Broncos defense is finally what I thought they would be. But I still think because he's in the final year of his deal and that team isn't going anywhere fast, they should consider dealing Chris Harris for the right price. I would say those are the big names that are on the table for me. Is there anyone else that jumps out to you? No, I think that's probably correct.

I think that at some point, every three months, there's a report that Patrick Peterson's going to get traded, and then 10 minutes later, there's a report that the Cardinals strongly deny that's going to happen. It's the strangest thing. Like, there's nobody else like that where it's like, oh, Peterson might be on the block. Oh, no, Peterson's not on the block.

It's a very, there's nobody else like. that. The AJ Green thing, you know, Lock and Four reported a couple weeks ago that they could get a first-round pick for him, but there's some intrigue around the league, but whether or not the Bengals actually want to do that. At some point, the Bengals need to just commit to the rebuild here. They don't seem inclined to do it, though. We've talked about this and regard to other players, there's an emotional aspect of this. And they really love him there. And if you're rebuilding, you know, you've written about this. You want guys in the locker room that can be a decent presence. And I don't think that should outweigh getting a first-round pick for a guy if you're

tearing your roster down to the studs. But if they really do believe that he could help them through a rebuild just by being a positive influence on whoever they bring in that are young guys, then that's, I can understand that. I wouldn't do it, but there are worse reasons to make decisions. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what anybody's doing.

The other guys, I think that the teams to watch are, I think, the usual suspects for the most part. I'll be really curious to see what Philly ends up trying to do in the secondary, because it does seem like they're in an untenable situation now, right? Yeah, I saw a stat this morning that their top cornerbacks are giving up like a 120 quarterback rating. It's brutal. Which seems bad.

It's not what you want. And then there's some griping that Eagles players are upset that how he quote-unquote dropped the ball as the ESPN report that he dropped the ball on passing on Ramsey. RGM didn't trade two first round picks for a cornerback. How dare he? Players are always like that. Players just want to have. But it's hilarious that anyone could think that Howie Roseman has not been

aggressive enough in adding talent to this roster. Yeah. But I remember, I mean, when's it getting expensive? And I think that that is more and more normal reaction, which is to stop being as aggressive because you don't have the flexibility. And the Rams did not have that reaction. And we'll honestly like we'll find out who's right. You know, one of the things...

It's early, man. If they trade a first round pick for Patrick Peterson, all of this goes away. Right. But, right. Or they just get somebody who's not a huge name and he plays like those guys. And they're like, when you start thinking about the Eagles, you know, like Ronald Darby did not have to be the most famous person in the world. But he played like a really good cornerback and that was enough to get them there. I think that when you start talking about these trades, I think it's so hard.

to judge them, I mean, really ever in the first like four years. You know, I was looking doing some research, and I didn't know this, but the Hershal Walker trade happened and his debut happened 30 years ago to the exact day of the Ramsey trade. Okay. And when I was reading the gamer after his debut, which was against the Packers, it was so celebratory that Hershal Walker was there. I think he had 98 yards on his first two touches. and he had 148 yards on 18 carry, something like that.

And the gamer was just like all these Vikings guys being like, well, it was worth it, glad he's here. And then, of course, the Cowboys took those picks. They got for him. And they built the best roster in the decade, right? And so, you know, even if Ramsey has two interceptions and they get to the, you know, conference championship game or whatever, like the trade is not over until the Jaguars,

we see what the Jaguars have done with the picks. and I feel that way about the Mac trade, feel that way, probably about the Cooper trade. I mean, trades are a living document. And I don't, to say so-and-so won the trade or Howie Roseman dropped the ball, I mean, look, we got a couple years until we can make those determinations.

One other guy that I forgot was Mike Hilton. Mike Hilton is a restricted free agent. And the Steelers are without a first-round pick, so they could be trying to recoup some assets. They'll probably sit there and say, we want a match because he's a good player. But if they're not thinking that way. Yeah, right.

The Devlin Hodges era. Where would you want to see AJ Green end up if you were kind of building a perfect scenario? Didn't even when the Patriots? I was going to say Green Bay just because it seems like they desperately need someone else

on the other side. That would be awesome. Right? That one would be fun. I mean, there are definitely a team who's shown a propensity for being more aggressive

than they have in years past. I mean, this move would have been out of the question five years ago. I definitely think it's more in play now. It's still slightly out of character. But you know where he's actually going? Los Angeles Rams. They're just going to swing it.

The Packers are, they only have $9 million in cap space, but we've talked about this 100 million times. All of this stuff is fake. Anything they want to. Yeah, if they want to convert however many. I don't even know how this works anymore. It's like we're just going to see that David Bachari restructured his deal and again got an extra year.

That's exactly the, it's exactly the name I was going to throw out there. His base salary this year is $8.5 million that they just want to like screw, they just want to screw around. with half of that and convert it into a bonus or whatever and just kick the can down the road. These teams can do pretty much whatever they want to the cap at this point. It's about how much money you're actually willing to spend in cold hard cash. Yep. All right.

Let's move on. Let's get to our take shops of the week. Why don't you start us off, bud? So I did a hottest take the other day. Oh, wow. I haven't listened to it yet. I'm going to have to go back and check that out. The take was that Belichick's a coach a different team each week.

And it was with Chris Ryan, Sean Fennacy, Mallory, Rubin. And that that's the way to get... teams like Washington, Miami, Cincinnati, the Falcons, like he just goes in and he's, you know, he works with the coaching staff. We have cameras in. It's like a bar rescue type deal. And he says, you know, hey, Falcons defense, what if you tried this? And then everything is solved, right? Now, I got a tweet that I'm now I'm adopting as a take shop. It's from at Rebel Fox. He said, I love your Belichick take, but I'd like to propose we make him something different. You're ready for this, Mace?

We make Bill Belichick head of officiating. God, he would love that. No one knows the rules. No one knows the rules. He's back to the tweet. Nobody knows the rules like him. We could make him do a press conference every Monday, every Monday where he talks about blown calls.

This solves so many problems. This, Bill Belichick would be the great, he would solve officiating in a week, two weeks. He knows the rules. He wants to put pylon, hands in, all this stuff. This is the idea of the century. Now, I understand the Patriots might want to continue to win Super Bowls,

but they've got six, and I don't know. This is like Chuck Kosterman's idea of nationalized Star Wars, and then Bill was like, why would Disney do this? And he was like, to be gracious. Why would the Patriots let Bill Belichick walk out on them? I don't know. Why would Bill Belichick do this just to give back? Why would Bill Belichick do this?

No, I think he would love to do it. I actually kind of agree. It seems like that that would be something that perversely you would enjoy. Why would the Patriots be like, here you go, Bill, go run officiating? Anyway, let's not get bogged down with details. Bill Belichick would solve officiating.

All right, mine is a little bit more football-centric for the 2019 NFL season. I'm sorry. I just solved, I just solved officiating football-centric. I'm sorry of my tone. implied that I thought that it should be football-centric because yours is much better than mine.

Mine is, I think that the 49ers defense this season is the biggest improvement I've ever seen in a defense from one year to the other. And I know the math may not bear that out.

They actually were pretty decent in some areas last year. I know the early down efficiency was very good, which is one of the reasons Warren Sharp thought they would take a bounce back. But, just the way certain players are playing, the energy that they're playing with, I just thought,

I just think has been unbelievable, the way they're just flying around, just the intricacies of some of the coverages they're playing, how guys seem to be in the right spots every single time. It's remarkable. I mean, this is a, this team went from, I think, 23rd in defensive DVOA last season to second now, but they'd be first in any other year. The only reason they're second is because the people. Patriots are number one, and the Niners still have a better pass defense so far this season.

You combine all that stuff with the coaching hires that they made, with the improvements they've made up front. I mean, watching that group of the front four play right now is crazy. It just doesn't matter because everyone is dominating. D. Ford is playing better than he did in Kansas City last year. That swap they made for Frank Clark is not looking so hot. Nick Bosa has ruined people. Eric Armstead is playing the best football of his career. DeForest Bukter was already a star,

and now he's got all these guys around him. Ronald Blair is destroying people. It reminds me of when certain defenses just get so, so hot, that guys just catch it. You've seen that with the Bears. You saw that with Jacksonville a couple years ago, where it's like, it's contagious. And it feels like that right now with San Francisco.

And I'd have to think a little bit more about it, who else would be in that conversation. I think in terms of overall unit improvement, it still goes to the 2017 Los Angeles Rams who went from the worst offense in the league to the best. But on defense, even with how random the results are on that side of the ball pretty often, I think in terms of process, talent, everything,

I've never seen a bigger jump than the one that this team took into this season. I've been hugely impressed. And I think that this is, you know, I think that we had a lot of questions about the Niners, some of the personnel stuff and all that stuff. I did not believe, on the back end of the defense, and they've been amazing.

They're over, and some of their overpays, and I kind of think that it just shows you that if you have good players, good coaches, and a decent quarterback, like, things will work out for you every once in a while. I've been hugely impressed with their team building. Yeah, and I think that's a team where, again, you're totally right. We would have questioned so many of just their general practices because it went against some of the things we believe.

But they've been, they've been so smart, even as they've signed these big contracts that they can get out from under them. You know, the Garabolo contract seems like this massive, thing. But you look at the cat pits now and it's like, oh, whatever. Yep. I mean, they have all that space when they signed it and they put all that money into the first year. And now you don't even blink at it. He's not fantastic, but he's good enough to be making what he's making in a world where Jared Gough has a $36 million cap hit next year. Yep. I mean, look, you can do, you can do better than Garapelow, but you can do a hell of a lot worse. And I think that at some point,

with the cap hit he's making because they paid him so much up front money, what do you make, $48 million last year or something? It was something like that. In the first year, I think it was 48 million. Rogers made 66 in cash last year. That's pretty good. That's a pretty good deal. That's amazing. Good for him.

That's a pretty good deal. And so that and those sort of deals, they help. I mean, those help on the cap hits. And I, you know, now they have a good roster and they have flexibility. They have $25 million in space next year. And they have, I'm counting it right now. They have one, two, three. four, five, six, seven players that could be more than $1 million in dead money.

That's it. A lot of their big money guys, they can easily, I mean, you have Joe Salele's aging. They can save $11 million there. Richard Sherman is $9 million. They can, I mean, D4, excuse me, Quintan Alexander didn't have much guaranteed. That's $10 million. These aren't moves you probably want to make, but you can still save a ton of money by making them. They have $150,000 in dead money this year on their cap.

that's incredible. That's really impressive. They've given themselves a ton of flexibility considering how aggressive they've been in the market. And it's worked out for them. Yeah, I agree.

I'm also just so glad Richard Sherman just back in the limelight. It's really fun. Yeah, that's a really good point. The Baker-Mayfield thing was weird, but I also just support Richard Sherman's ability just stir things up. Yeah, it's great.

Okay, fine. He lied about that. Whatever, like we got a great four hours out of it. I'm glad he's back involved. All right, before we move on, Let's take a quick break. Support for today's show comes from Sonos Move, the durable battery-powered smart speaker for indoor and outdoor listening.

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Let's get to the biggest three games of the week. The Seattle Seahawks hosting the Baltimore Ravens. Yeah. Feels like, so we're going to see Marcus Peters in this game. We're going to see how much of an impact he makes for them. Jimmy Smith is also practicing again. So there's a chance that he's back relatively soon. And they're going to need

an improved secondary. And I think this week, they're definitely going to get tested by a quarterback that we both agree is playing better than anyone else in football right now. Earl Thomas Revenge game. Yeah, that's another guy. I forgot to bring that up. That's another good point. One of the things that I think that gets glossed over here happens all the time is because

the NBA has cornered the market, especially the media has cornered the market. I'm just talking about personalities and pettiness and tweets or whatever. We kind of... There was no pettiness in that statement from you there just now at all. I really liked it. No pettiness? No, no, no, no, no, I'm making a broader point here, which I didn't be full of benefit.

But, like, what Earl Thomas did to his own coach last year was so amazing. Like, it was, like, if that happened in basketball, we talked about it for, like, 10 years. Like, Kevin Durant just gave somebody the finger as he was walking off during the finals. I mean, that is the analogy. That is the analogy.

If Kevin Durant looked at Steve Kern, just flicked him off, that was wild. And we just moved on from it. Everyone just moved on. And so Pete Carroll was asked about this week, and he said, you know, we love them. We love them still, which I think is the right. It's very Pete.

But the, I mean, you don't get to that point unless there's a lot of animosity. I'm intrigued to see that matchup. Me too. And we'll see, again, what they do against a passing game that looks pretty dynamic right now. I'll be curious to see what the other side of the ball looks like.

The Steehawks weirdly play a ton of, of base defense. Even in a world where we see all of these teams pretty much a nickel all the time, the Seahawks have played with their three linebackers on the field a lot, both in terms of personnel that makes sense for them, but those guys are also really athletic.

They play a lot of zone. You can see where they get away with it. And usually the Ravens who have two tight ends on the field, at least two tight ends, on the field, I think 35% of the time, they want you in base personnel. And with the Seahawks, they're already there. So I'll be really curious to see what that's like.

The Seahawks run defensive struggle this year. The Ravens have the best running game in the NFL by DVOA. They've been phenomenally efficient. Ronnie Stanley is hurt. It's questionable whether he's going to play. I have not seen if he was at practice today. So just tough to keep an eye. And I think that that's going to be the Ravens' best route here because the Seahawks are going to play a ton of zone.

They're really going to dare Baltimore to beat them over the top like other teams have. And I think the Ravens are really going to have to beat them up on the ground. And I'll be curious to see whether they can. So the Ravens obviously, I think they blitz more than anybody last year. I haven't seen the numbers this year, but they can mix it up for sure. Do you know what Russell Wilson? Their past rush has struggled. So I think that's an area of concern because they have not been getting after the quarterback.

And when you have Russell Wilson and that's the one area where you can really hurt you? Do you know what Russell Wilson's rating is when they send five or more? It's like 128 or something. It's the best in the league. You wish it was 128. It's 141. That's crazy. That's amazing.

The guy's been really, really good. I think Russell Wilson is so good right now because he's got a 10,000 hour theory type deal of just being constantly under pressure that now it just doesn't face him at all. Honestly, there may be something to that. I know you're kidding. No, I'm not kidding at all.

That's real. I'm going to ask him about this. I'm going to tweet out. All right. No, I kind of, this is how, this is like a take shot. Now I just want to do this story. No one's allowed.

If you're a contact grader, you're not allowed to steal that idea. Okay. Anyway. It's not going to be like, we've always had good offensive lines. All right. Let's get to our next game. Saints Bears, I'm very concerned. I'll be honest with you.

The Bears this week put Kyle Long on injured reserve. They put Akeem Hicks on injured reserve. Kyle Long has been hurt for years. He's not been playing well. I think that's more of a name than it is actual performance. But there's still a chance that they have to, go with a undrafted free agent from 2017 named Rashad Coward at right guard. And that's real.

That's what's happening because Ted Larson's currently hurt and they're not sure if he'll be able to play. Great. If they do have to do that, he'll be playing against arguably the best pass rush in the NFL right now that features just a ton of scary dudes. The Bears offensive line has not been good this season. And now they're going against Cameron Jordan and Marcus Davenport. just as Marcus Davenport is really putting it together,

and I'm extremely frightened. You know, NFL matchup, put this up too. Do you know what Michael Thomas's reception rate is, which is how many, what percentage of the time he gets the ball when he runs a route? No. It's 25, and nobody else is above 19. That's remarkable.

Michael Thomas. That speaks to their receiving talent. No, but also it speaks to just the ability to understand, to not overcomplicate it, to feed the beast. I'm actually surprised. I've talked this before with coaches. I'm surprised. I understand defenses and all that stuff,

but I'm surprised there are more Michael Thomas's where you're basically just like, just like give the ball to shack kind of thing. Well, Hopkins was like that for a while, especially when Fuller was hurt. Hopkins is 18 right now. And Fuller's got a ton of targets this year in comparison to what other guys normally got on that team.

Yep. What are you? I think that's a, you know, you saying that. I think defeating the beast and knowing what you should do as a plan. I think that's kind of the broader conversation about the states in general right now is just how impressive the plan has been with Drew Breeze out. They've done such a good job of understanding what they have to do, both offensively and defensively. And the pass rush has been great.

They've really kind of unlocked those dudes. Cameron Jordan's always been a star, but what Davenport has given them, what Hendrickson has, even though he's been banged up a little bit recently. that combined with just how well the secondary is playing. Marcus Williams is, we talk about all those other guys, Lattimore, Ramchick, Alvin Camar, everything else. But Williams is another one of those picks where it's just a hit.

They've hit on so many of these guys, and the needle has been so hard to thread for them. And they've made so many decisions that normally we would lambast if any other franchise is making them. But they keep working out. And their ability, this roster's ability as a whole to keep this team lifted with Breeze out. I did not think they could do it.

That's why I didn't pick them to make the playoffs before the season because I had a feeling Breeze would get hurt this year and I just thought it would crater without him. Maybe not crater, but go eight and eight. And they have stayed afloat and more than stayed afloat, and it has been super impressive. Yep. And this is why you pay Teddy Bridgewater all that money. Like this is why you make him the highest paid backup.

This is why you don't let him go to Miami. I just... Yeah, I mean, they're a smart organization. And one of the things that I think gets glossed over sometimes is that they are just as aggressive as anybody. You just talked about that. But this whole, like, the Rams are all in or whatever. The Saints have been all in for like a decade. And sometimes it's sometimes.

They were all in before. It was cool to be all in. They've been maxed out the credit cards for a long time. And sometimes it works. Sometimes you need young talent for it. And that's why I think the draft pick thing with the Rams is a little bit scary because you need draft picks. in order to buoy the top heavy salaries. But it's worked out for the Saints.

And, you know, it's nice to have Alvin Kumar, Martian Ladamore and those guys under rookie deals. But it's also nice to have, you know, Teddy Bridgewater seven a year. Yeah, absolutely is. I'm also just on a more granular level. I'm very excited to watch Cleo Mack play against Ramcheck and Toronto Armstead. It's probably the best pass blocking tackle duo in the NFL.

And it's always fun to watch him have to go against guys that are really good. And both of them are. All right. let's get to our third game. Eagles, Cowboys. This is essentially the Sunday night game. If Titans Jaguars is the Thursday night game, this is the Sunday night game. Have these teams ever played in the afternoon? I'm sure they have a bunch.

I'm sure they have once or twice. They've never played at noon. I can guarantee you that. Yeah, right. I'm excited for this. I'm really, really, really excited for this. A couple things. I saw a stat this week.

And this is just getting, I'm just getting angry about this. Newee Scruggs tweeted this out. I saw it. You saw it. Okay. Dak Prescott, I used play action 40% of the time through three weeks. That's second the NFL. He has used play action in the last three weeks 15% of the time.

Now, it's a bad sign. Tony Romulus says Jason Garrett's fingerprints all over this offense. It's a bad sign when that's kind of a neutral statement and everyone considered it a roast. including Des Bryant. So he said that in relation to the shots they were taking and how those shots compared to the ones they used to take in like 2009. Right. So I read that, I saw that as well,

and that I was worried about it. But it was, in context, it's not as concerned. No, I know what he was saying, but I'm saying that's just a bad sign for Jason Garrett. Yes, it is. That people like Des Brown are like, oh, wow, you did Jason Garrett 30 by saying he's calling plays. I went back and I watched the Jets game again on Monday.

And I just wanted to see what's actually wrong? What is the problem with this offense right now? And I actually was pretty impressed by how Dak Prescott played. He was getting destroyed. It just getting really just running for his life with both of the starting tackles out. They couldn't block anybody. He had the highest pressure rate in the league last week. It was something like 48% of his drops.

They were allowed to blitz a lot because the Cowboys were a decent amount of third in longs. That's kind of the concerning part is that, The game script has gotten away from them the last two weeks, and I think when that happens, it's harder to run play action because you're just dropping back to pass. But there still was a ton of first downs with that game in the balance where they're just slamming Elliott into the line of scrimmage for nothing. I mean, outside of one, I believe he had 15 carries on first down for, I want to say, 47 yards, which isn't good. But then one of those carries went for 12 yards. So if you take that out, then you're in trouble. I mean, then you're looking at second and eight pretty much every single time.

And that's the problem, is that they're not getting ahead of the chains by throwing enough on first down. They should be running the shit out of play action concepts on first down and taking shots. And this is the team they can do that against. So I want to see that. I want to see them get back to it, even with the concerns about Collins and Smith. Both of them practice in a limited capacity today. I assume they'll be back on the field, even if they're not 100%. So we'll see how that goes.

But that's what I want to see. If Cooper doesn't play it, that's obviously not the best. situation if you're trying to push the ball downfield. But I still think this team has enough to attack this Eagle secondary down the field with play action, even if he's not in the game. Yeah. And I think that the specter of Jalen Ramsey will hang over the Eagles defense from a narrative perspective.

It'll be interesting to see how that develops. I think that there will be a nice little, like, third quarter when it's 21 to 17 and the Cowboys just had like a 50-yard touchdown. I think that there's going to be a little, well, Al, there's a lot of talk about Jalen Ramsey, like that kind of thing. I see that in the future. And I also think, who do you have one in this game?

I don't know, man. I'm going to say Dallas just because they're at home, but the Cowboys have a lot of players. I kind of think the Eagles are going to win. I think the Eagles could absolutely win. Have you seen the injury report for this game? Yeah. Would you like a list of the players who did not practice on Wednesday?

I'm looking at it right now. Fletcher Cox, Jason Peters, Deshawn Jackson, Ronald Darvey, Avantane Maddox, Darren Sproles, Darren Sprouls, Timmy Jernigan, Nigel Bradham. Those are just the Eagles, okay? For the Cowboys, Amari Cooper, Tyron Smith, Randall Cobb, Lyle Collins,

Byron Jones, Anthony Brown. I mean, yeesh. You literally hate to see it. I mean, these teams are just massacred. I mean, the Eagles have been all season, but goodness gracious, are these teams dealing with a ton of injuries? And I have faith that they'll both figure it out.

And I do think that the Cowboys offense has a really high ceiling, and they've just hit some growing pains recently, but it's been brutal the last couple weeks. But this is definitely the week where you can get back on track against an Eagle secondary that cannot stop anyone right now.

Kirk Cousins averaged 17 yards per attempt on play action last week. 17. If the Cowboys aren't running play action on every single first down, something is wrong. Jason Garrett, baby. All right.

What's going on? All right. What's your sneaky truth? Cliff Kingsbury, baby. Yeah, I love it. I love it. I was thinking about this for my take shop. This is great. All right, so Cala Murray, 340 yards on Sunday.

Warren Sharp tweeted this out. I really, really think it's interesting. The major adjustment he's made, reducing usage of 10 personnel. This is not the pure air raid revolution we thought it was going to be. So week one, he had 71% 10 personnel, which obviously is just spreading out

and just going basically all receivers. except for running back, no tight ends in the field. And then, so it's 71% in week one. And last week, it was 27%. And it's gone down almost every single week. I understand that, but it went from 71 to 60 to 63 to 58 to now two straight games in 20%. And things are going well.

I think that there's a decent chance here that this Kingsbury experiment could work. What I like is he's making adjustments in season, which not a lot of coaches can do it, but not a lot of bad coaches can do it, which indicates to me he might not be a bad coach. I just, I like Kyler. I'm warming up to Kingsbury.

And I think that this Arizona offense, the sneaky truth is that it's, it's not going to be as bad as we thought. It's actually kind of fun to watch. Yep. And it's really interesting. It reminds me of the conversation we had last week about McVeigh. We're just talking about watching smart guys,

try to figure stuff out as they go along here. It's football, baby. And I think Cliff Kingsbury is a smart person. I think he's really good at devising offensive plays and figuring out ways to score points. And watching someone that's good at that try to sift through the stuff the defenses are doing to them is cool. It's what makes this game interesting.

All right, my geeks out, it's maybe not the best week to talk about it because they're playing the Patriots. But watching that Jets Cowboys game again, I was so impressed with Sam Donald. He's such a, I don't know the right way to say it.

The way he plays quarterback, he's always in control, but he's always moving. His ability to kind of manipulate the pocket, move within the pocket, and keep his eyes down field is so impressive for a young guy. I mean, even on the touchdown to Robbie Anderson,

which seemed like, you know, just hit your drop, let that bomb go on a double move, he had to avoid someone in, step up in the pocket while keeping his eyes downfield. He does such a good job of understanding how not to drop his gaze down to the past rush and make sure that he's seeing everything that's going on. For a young guy, it's just really cool to watch. His pocket movements are refined and they're advanced for someone who's played as little football

as he has and for someone who's, I believe, 22 years old. The one thing that really allows him to succeed and to kind of excel is that he and Jimmy Garapolo have really similar mechanics where they can make that flat-footed throw without stepping into a pass rush. So when you combine the fact that Donald is comfortable moving around traffic and he has the actual throwing mechanics to succeed in traffic, it really allows him to be pretty good. It allows him to deal with guys around his feet and in his face better than most quarterbacks do.

And when you're processing as quickly as he did last week, then you see the results. I mean, this is a guy who threw for 300 yards. He made it look easy. It's not going to happen against New England, but I will say that after watching him last week, I am really looking forward to seeing what his progress looks like moving forward. I'm right there with you. All right.

Thursday night. What are you thinking? I'm excited to watch this Broncos defense against the Chief's offense because they've been so much better in the last couple weeks. Did you see the NFL Network promo that kind of got things backwards? No. I've not been watching much NFL Network. during my daytime.

It said, no, no, it was a tweet. It was a social hit. And it would say, gotcha. It said, the Broncos have won two straight. The chiefs have lost two straight. Someone's streak ends tonight. And it's like, wait,

that doesn't actually have to happen. That's just assuming that the chiefs are going to pace the Broncos. Which is, I mean, probably. Yeah, that's true. I was like, what was wrong with that? No, it's like, spot the lie. It's like, oh, no, that's actually not right. It's literally not true.

I mean, look, it's in Mile. high. I guess there's something to be said for that. The Broncos are on a nice little run. I think Patrick Mahomes is pretty good and I'm going to take him. I am excited about watching Mitchell Schwartz play against Von Miller. It's one of my favorite matchups to watch in the league. Mitchell usually has a pretty good plan for him. They've had a lot of very fun battles over the years. If you are a line play nerd in any way, it's something you should be watching. His sets have been a little off this year because I think he's having to help a little bit more inside because of the stuff that's going on. So if you're really,

really watching on a very granular level. I would take a look at that, see how quickly he's getting outside and see if Vonn can get to the edge, stuff like that. It's a fun football nerd game. Vic Fangio against Andy Reid. That's not a bad one.

Yeah, I'm going to watch the quarterbacks. I'm just a flacco head. That's totally fun. I don't blame you. He's just in, you know, he's entrancing. It's impossible to look away. All right. That's all we got, guys.

As always, thank you so much for listening to the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network. We will be back on Sunday. with a recap of week seven. Until then, enjoy the games. Enjoy your weekend. We'll talk to you soon.