The Ringer NFL Show - Jayden Daniels Concerns, What the Patriots Should Do at No. 3, and the Future of the Bengals Offense | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: April 1, 2024

Sheil is back from vacation and ready to discuss the football takes he missed last week with Ben. First, the guys discuss the L’Jarius Sneed trade that sent the Super Bowl champion cornerback from Kansas City to Tennessee (02:04). What are the concerns for LSU QB Jayden Daniels as the draft approaches (16:24)? What should the Patriots do with the third overall pick in the draft (37:43)? Will Tee Higgins be traded by draft day (53:36)? The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Social: Eduardo Ocampo and Kiera Givens Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL draft this year. My name is Ben Solac and I host the Ringer NFL Draft Show with Danny Kelly, Danny Hyfitton, Greg Horvick. We cover trades, free agency, and the draft, which is, yeah, obviously. We'll tell you about everything, which includes which quarterbacks are good, which quarterbacks are bad and which quarterbacks are just Kirk Cousins. That is the Ringer NFL Draft Show. Search the Ringer NFL Draft Show on Spotify. Welcome to Extra Point. Take and Shield Kapati here.

Back from vacation. Going by Ben Solek, thank you to the wonderful Steve Ruiz. knocked it out of the park. I'm walking around on vacation and listening to the Ringer NFL show, listening to Solek and Ruiz talk a little positional value. Solek was able to get some hip-drop tackle stuff in there. So just to enjoy it. Swivel.

Swivel. Swivel. I'm not calling it that. By its given name. So we are back. It's draft month. It's April. We're back with our regularly scheduled Monday show.

An exciting news, Solac. People can watch all of these Monday. shows from now until the draft on YouTube. Ringer NFL is the subscription. You can watch the full episode. If you want to see the handsome face I get to look at every Monday for almost 52 weeks for the year, you are now able to do that. So definitely check that out.

Ringer NFL on YouTube, the full episodes will be on there. But it's the Monday show. So you know what we're doing. We're doing three takes each. We don't tell each other what the takes are. Maybe a little draft talk mixing in here, not just on the Ringer NFL draft show with Soak. I might be mixing in some. We're grinding the film and Terse and Keiko?

I may have been. I may have not been. We will see. You know I can't tell you that, but you are leading us off Solek. What do you got? What's your first take as we open up April? Yeah. There was a couple of items of breaking news while you were gone.

The biggest being that the Tennessee Titans traded for Legerius Sneed, cornerback, Kansas City Chiefs. He goes to Tennessee for a first. future third at 2025, third round pick. He then signs with the Titans four years, $76.4 million deal. This kind of the capstone of what's been an extremely active offseason for the Tennessee Titans. I think in terms of teams that we kind of expected to be most against expectation in terms of how they behaved.

My first take is, I like this for the Titans. Why not? The Sneat trade and the offseason in totality? Sure. Go for it. I think this is, oh, like, while it is surprising, now that I've kind of calibrated to it, this makes sense to me. The Titans walked into this offseason with over $80 million in Caps Bay Shield, which was the

most of any AFC team kind of before the cycle began. They have a quarterback in Will Levis, who certainly like what he wasn't drafted. Oh, Mike Braybill, like new coaching staff, whatever. He was drafted by Rand Carthin, right? They very clearly thought that there was something there with Levis. He starts much of the back half of the season. and there was no Levis moment that kind of blew you away. There was no like C.J. Stroud moment, Anthony Richardson moment,

Jordan Love moment. Like, wow, this guy really might have this future of being an elite quarterback. But there certainly were stretches, like, you know, the debut against the Falcons, the come from behind win against the dolphins, where he put together some good play behind a really shaky offensive line with a really shaky wide receiver room, right? I think there is enough there in Levis, year one, where you say, okay, we want to see what this looks like. And isn't this what we always say?

If you have a young quarterback, you have to be. able to put the pieces around him that you can evaluate what the young guy might have. And Tennessee said, all right, like, we have a lot of money. We have a quarterback who we liked when we drafted him. We still like him now. We have a good offensive head coach with Brian Callahan, a guy we think can kind of, you know, build around a young quarterback, build an offense for him. AFC South ain't that great.

Let's spend some money and get some good players in the building. And they did so. Now, a lot of the contracts that they signed, I think have to them a little bit of sticker shock, right? I think that when you, uh, when you see, oh, you know, Calvin Ridley, $23 million per year, you're kind of like, oh, like that's kind of a healthy contract. You see Tony Pollard, right? He was the first, uh, first signing for the Titans. He was three years, $24 million. Oh my gosh, it's a big deal. Like, whatever. When you get into the nitty gritty of these contracts, Calvin Ridley is functionally two years, $50 million for 10 million

dead. That's running price for a second tier, free agent wide receiver. right Michael Pittman make 23 Calvin really makes 25. Lloyd Cushenberry, two year 30 million dollars with nine million dead if you cut him. Cheeto Ouzier is now corner two for them. Two year 24 million dollars. Tony Ballard is two year 14.5 million dollars with two million dead. Kenneth Murray is one year eight. I don't know if we needed to do that.

And Kenneth Murray. But all together, like, none of these deals have like insane backloading, heavy structures. Like, I, you know, we definitely totally expect this guy to be on the team for three to four years. A lot of it is just the cap went up. We had a ton of space. We were willing to spend a couple extra million to outbid teams for Lloyd Cushingberry. Spend a couple million to outbid teams for Calvin Ridley. I don't mind that.

Again, there is sticker shock. Is it, oh, you know, like, Howie Roseman getting Bryce off and trading Asson Reddick, oh, you know, incredible, you know, the value on the return of the dollar? No, it's not. But this is, like, when you're a bad team and you need to convince good players to come to your bad team, take your bad team better, it's what you got to do. You got to spend a little money. So I don't think the Titans are winning a little bit.

11 games next year. I don't think this vaults the Titans into contention status. But I get why they took this approach. I get why they were aggressive in signing deals. I think they got a tier one guy in Sneed. They got a tier one corner there. I think they got tier two guys everywhere else, tier three guys everywhere else. I think that will benefit their roster a lot and benefit Levis a lot. So while this was surprising, and I think that maybe being a little bit more judicious than spending would have been smarter and more defensible, I get why they did this. And I like it for them. I think it's going to help their team turn this around a little bit faster. I don't like it. This has every, I can tell by your smirk.

I can say the whole time you were smirking. Now listeners will know because you can see the full episodes what I'm talking about. I'm trying to get a takeoff and he's just sitting there sneering at me and it's very disconcerting. This has every indication of a team just kind of reckless spending, no plan where we're going to look back on this in a year, two years, three years and say, all right, that didn't really lead to anything. What were they doing there? Sneed, I'm fine with. Actually, I'm more interested. Well, let's get to that in a minute.

Sneed I'm fine with. They didn't give up a lot. We both like Sneed very much as a player. If you can't find a use for Legerius Sneed on your football team, you probably have a bad coaching staff. I think they'll find a use for him. That's fine. I don't think you really overpaid for him. I thought the price there was fine. Overall, though, I mean, you mentioned Will Levis bad offensive line last year. I mean, who is playing offensive tackle for this football team now? Joe. I don't know that, okay, maybe. I don't know that it's, you know, like, maybe. I don't know that it's, you know, like, maybe. I'll tell you right now. If you made me, if you made me commit my life savings to one position going at one pick,

I would commit tackle at the titans, dude. A hundred percent, you're the perfect of tackle. So you got a rookie at once. It's fine. I just feel like they're a little bit directionless right now. You know, they've had so much drama with the John Robinson thing to the Rand Carthon. And then Mike Rable gets fired and you bring in Brian Callahan. And now it's like, well, Will Levis, how much is invested in Will Levis?

How much is not invested in Will Levis? You're obviously not trying to win now. I mean, you said the AFC. South ain't bad. I mean, I think this is going to be one of the worst teams in the end. What's there? I don't know what they're over under is. What's like the best case scenario for the Titans next year? How many wins? I mean, I would say like, best case, I would say they're like 500. I would say like 9 and 8 and they're fighting for a wild card spot. I think when they had Hanahill healthy, again, they looked like that to start the season, right? Classic bravel nonsense.

They were like winning all these games by like two points, whatever. And then they started to get hurt and they really started to show their colors. They had a ton of health issues along the offensive line. They're hoping for development that they didn't get. Tannenhill goes down. They had an insane rotation and health issue at cornerback. They had a really unhealthy season last season. I don't think the roster last year was as bad as it appeared.

They had health problems. You say directionless. Like, I don't see how this is directionless. This is, our cornerback position was terrible last year. So let's add two starters in Lagerius Need and Cheeto Ouzier. Our wide receiver was a big problem last year. Let's add Calvin.

I mean, Chiro O'Ouzier is 29 years old and coming off an injury riddled slash getting bench season with the Cincinnati Bengals. So two years, 24 million. I would have liked to go younger, whether it's someone on your roster or someone else. Take a flyer. Let some young guys play. See if you have something there. I don't feel a need to go out and pay that. Lloyd Cushenberry.

All right, fine. You want to overpay him? I'm not going to question Bill Callahan. He knows much more about the offensive line than I do. But certainly that on the surface is a big overpay. They're paying Lloyd Cushenberry as a top, what, top three, top five center in the NFL when he absolutely has not been that. So, all right, you want to take a gamble there. Calvin Ridley is 29 years old here.

I mean, Calvin Ridley is 20, and you're paying him 20, you said two years, $25 million. I mean, by the time your team is doing anything, Calvin Ridley's going to be 31 years old. What are the time he's going to be doing with $25 million next year if not paying Calvin Ridley? Well, I don't know, cap space rolls over, you know, you don't have to spend that way. Yeah, they were below the minimum. They literally had to spend money to make sure. they were cap compliant. You could take flyers on younger players.

So I understand that. Listen, this was the case I remember with every time when I come out and rail against a team in free agency, usually the fan base says, well, we had to spend. We have to get like, there are easy ways to do that. So it's fine. I don't think this is like, like, I'm not excited about this. Most of the time when you're spending this kind of money on players in free agency, it doesn't work out.

I don't necessarily love the players they put together. I still don't love the roster, and you have a big question mark at quarterback. So fine, you want to see what Will Levis looks like next year? Like, I'm not crushing them saying, all right, I wouldn't have done any of this. I understand it. Some of the moves you suggested, it's fine, but I certainly don't like it. And I think more likely than not, these moves are probably not going to work out, and they're going to go into next season with a question at quarterback and some guys who are

overpaid on their roster who are not playing up to the salaries that they're being paid, which is a good way to be bad and to be in bad, bad shape as a roster. I think, right, I think what where we disagree here is I just fundamentally like these players more than you do, right? Because, like, we came here out on the show last week, and I was like, what are the commanders spending all this money for? Like, what did they achieve? Like, nothing happened here, right?

They're getting Dorwin's Armstrong, Frankie Louver, Tyler Beaudish, Nick Aligretti, Austin, Akar, Bobby Wagner, which, like, I like a Frankie Lubu. I like a Tyler Beaudish, there are a couple of deals in there. Like, the Beautish, I thought was like, fine, that was a good deal. But overall, like, to me, like, that was direction. I was like, all right, we're just grabbing random Dan Quinn castoffs. We're trying to plug a bunch of gaps on defense with, like, you know, some washed up guys. We're trying to fix the interior offensive line with Band-Aids again with guys who were backups on their previous teams.

The Titans went out got starters, right? Like, okay, Cheeto Woosier, okay, like, hurt last season, whatever. The thing is, like, when they signed Cheeto, like, if he was corner one, you're concerned, he's corner two now, which is a much better position to be in because of Sneed. They went and got, like, a high-impact playmaker in the playoffs in Legerius Sneed. Lloyd Cushabar, you say they overpaid for him. All right, he was a plus starter for the Broncos the last couple of years. Don't get me wrong.

When Coach Burry started with the Broncos, when he first got the job, he was rough. He has gotten better over time. They got a starter. Calvin Ridley, who like, oh, you know, was you what the Jaguars wanted, but he's not what the Jaguars got it. Calvin Ridley is a starting wide receiver in the league. There's like no question. This is a starting caliber player. To me, like, you say, like, directionless, they got guys who, like, actually can, like, take snaps and, like, impact games.

Calvin Ridley, like, he had games last season where he performed and he won the game. Like, his role was good enough, impactful enough for the Jaguars. was a a game deciding player. Like this, this Titans free agency spend so dramatically clears the bar for me of like, oh, these players add win. These players add potential versus the, like a team like the commanders also spent a lot of money.

And I'm just like, dude, Doran's Armstrong. Like, I had Bobby Wagner in this era. Like those guys don't move the needle for me, nearly as much as the Titans addition to do. The other side of the Legerious need trade. Were you surprised? Why did the Chiefs make this trade? It is one thing I was wondering.

I mean, you're competing for a super. Well, next year, you know the guy's an absolute stud in your scheme. Again, he didn't get paid. Like, it's not a wild amount. I mean, yeah, is it near the top of the cornerback market? Yes. Did he perform at like an all-pro caliber level last year? Yes.

In your scheme. So that one's and you're getting, what is it, a 2025, you said? Third round pick. Like, I just did. That one confused me a little bit. Like, you have the, you know, you can find ways to create the space to keep him and and we'll get to some other teams that use cap space as a crutch a little bit here later. But I didn't really like this from the Chief's perspective.

Unless there's another shoot-a-drop or an explanation that I don't understand, I don't know why they made this move. What did you think about it from their perspective? This, like, so I'm worried about this. I don't like, I don't know. Like, you read like the Chief's analysis on this and people are like, listen, you know, get some money to re-sign Mike Dana and get ready for the Creed Humphrey extension. And I'm like, what are we talking about it?

Legerius Sneed was the most impactful player on this defense for a lot of important games for the Chiefs, right? And Chris Jones is on this defense. And Chris Jones turns it on in the postseason and Chris Jones is the guy you game plan for. Like, I absolutely understand that. Trent McDuffie is the hero of the Super Bowl. I get it.

But you watch like the back half of the regular season. You watch the way he played in that Ravens game, which that was a close game, man. Like Legerius Sneed, this was a January performer. Like, oh, dude, against the dolphins? Harry Kill? He pressed my ass to Cancun, right? Like, I went,

Lerius Sneed was a game winner in January for the Kansas City Chiefs. Moving on from a player like that, who I think athletically is in his prime. I think it role-wise is in his prime. Like, remember, for Sneed, they like brought him in as a safety and then play him in a slot corner. Only recently were they like, hey, like, what if you were just one of the best outside corners in the league?

Yeah. This is a ludicrously valuable individual to have. You walk out onto the field, 24 NFL season, God forbid, Justin Reed goes down with injury, you know, week one,

and Brian Cook doesn't come back from his injury, re-injury in week four, you're on safety three and safety four. Guess what you get to do? You get to go,

hey, what if we had 15-staffs game or Sneets playing back there? And if he starts solving tight-end problems for us, if they're stepping down and fit in the run for us. Like, this is just,

this is the handiest guy to have. I don't want to move off of him. And if I'm going to, you better make me. You better, the, the, the, the, the, the deal, the value, the return, it's got to be so tectonic that, like,

I can't say no. Because I think if you are the chiefs, what you're saying is, we went and got Sneed in the fourth round, right? We got Justin Reed on a second tier of pre-agent contract. We drafted Jalen Watson, drafted Joshua Williams, who drafted Kirk,

we drafted, developed Brian Cook. We are so good in the secondary. Steve Magnolo identifies his guys, and we have our key performance indicators that we look for. And, like, this is a position we can draft and be successful developing that, all right,

we should feel comfortable moving on from Sneed. Like that should be good team building process. That's what you said about Tyree Kill, fellas. How did the wide receiver picks go for you? How was the MBS contract and the Sky Moore pick and the Cadarca's Tony trade? Like, I get it. But man, you would have had to make me move off of Sneed.

You'd have to have to grandfather the price, 15% tax, 120%, you'd have to really make me move. Future third, that's not enough for me to move, Sneed. No chance. Yeah, or if it was like, hey, we're getting off this money, but we're going to, you know, because we have an opportunity to get a great wide receiver or something, who we're going to pay a lot of money and we're reallocate. But that's not really what they did. I mean, they got Markey's Brown for one year, $7 million.

So a little confusing to me there what the cheese did. All right. My first take, Benjamin. Oh, I thought Sneed was your first take. All right, cool. No, that wasn't my first take. So we did 25 minutes on take one. Sick, awesome.

Has it been 25 minutes? I don't know. All right. You have been waiting for me to watch all of the top quarterback in the draft class. And I unfortunately have a take that is going to upset you. I like Jaden Daniels more than Drake May as QB2. It was bad take. I knew it was coming. Listen, sometimes you got to go anti-hipster and you got to say what you actually think. I think May, and your questioning is May the hipster guy. I think may is the hipster guy. I saw the wheels spinning. I know what was in your head.

Jay Daniels is the hipster guy. But all right. You think Daniels is the hipster guy? All right. So here's why I liked Jade and Daniels quite a bit when I watched him and why. Really, to me, it's just there's enough there for me to say I'm willing to gamble on this guy as a top three pick because of some of the things I saw from him last year. First, I love the accuracy from Jade and Daniels. I mean, he almost never misses the layups and he has great touchdown field.

I already have six comments. All right. Okay. Completed 72% of his passes last year. Sixth and adjusted completion percentage. I know the supporting cast was fantastic. That's fine. Watch the throws. He made a lot of great throws with pinpoint accuracy down the field. Stole access now. Other thing. I love his ability to create explosive plays and avoid turnover. Okay. So, Dan Bruegler had this stat from the athletic. 90 plays of 20 plus yards last year for Jaden Daniels. The most of any player in a Power 5 conference in the last five years. I think Dane said it might be the most of any player of all time.

He might not have that data going back even further. But an explosive play waiting to happen with both his arm and his legs. And he had the fourth lowest percentage of turnover-worthy plays last year. So he's hitting on the big stuff. He's not turning the football over. I love that combination. I thought, and it sounds like you're going to disagree, what I saw on film, I thought there was a lot that translates to the NFL.

You know, he's hitting these slot fades with pinpoint action. I saw back shoulders on there. I saw standing in the pocket, getting hit and still delivering the ball with great accuracy. So I like all that stuff. And I didn't even mention the running stuff a lot. He's obviously a terrific scrambler.

He can be used in the designed run game. Was the 90 plays of 20 plus yards? Was that run and pass or just pass? Run and pass. Okay, cool, yeah. Accounted for with his arm and his leg. So I like all that. Now, I'm going to get ahead of the concerns

because I know what your concerns are going to be some of them. Okay. Yeah, let's talk about him. He turns down throws in the middle of the field. There's no doubt about it. There are examples on film of guys being open on those throws. He doesn't turn it loose.

Instead, he scrambles. He runs. So obviously something you would like him to work on. You would like to be better. That's a concern. There's no doubt about it. And then, yes, does he take off and scramble a lot? He does.

He absolutely does that. There's no doubt about it. When pressure comes, I know whatever the percentages are you're going to throw at me. He runs a lot. when he feels pressure. Now, he was a dynamic scrambler in college. Is he going to be able to get away with that as much in the NFL? No, I don't think he's going to be.

But I see enough to work with. I see accuracy. I see athleticism. I see smarts. I see good decision making. I mean, there is a lot there. I saw some Jalen Hertz in his game when you talk about both the strengths and the weaknesses.

Is that good? Is that good for the 210-pounder to have Jailen Hertz in his game? He's going to die. Well, he doesn't look like Jalen Hertz. obviously I'm talking about his his style of play here and don't wait shame him okay nothing wrong with 200 oh no no we're playing big boy football I'm weight shaming we got to talk did he he did play in the SEC and was and was quite durable uh in the SEC if memory serves what did he miss one game two games we're compared to scec hits NFL hits we're doing it just means more I mean some of those

hits were pretty vicious that he yeah why that is my other concerns he he takes monster hits there's no doubt about it cannot do that in the NFL I feel like his first game, he'll get planted by somebody in the NFL and I'll be like, okay, I'm not doing that anymore. I can't do that here. But all right, so those are the reasons I like Jane Daniels quite a bit. I believe in him as a prospect. You can give me the case for Drake May and you can give me the knocks on Jane and Daniels. Go ahead. Okay. So, number one. Wait, last thing, because I know you're going to say that. Okay. I know he's older. What is he? 23 years old. He was in college for five years. All right. So he's older. And that's absolutely legitimate. I mean, if you ask me,

hey, Drake May, two years from now, could he look way better than he did this year? Could he look? Yes, absolutely valid argument. I see it with Drake May. I see all the tools. I just didn't like to play as much as I did with Jane Dance. I will say this, though, and I think we miss this sometimes. With a prospect, like some positions, I'm worried about an overaged guy, quarterback,

I actually think you could turn it into a positive that the guy has shown an ability to improve. Like, that is a trait. That is not something you see from every player. that ability to improve that, hey, he was this one year, he was this the next year, he worked on his weaknesses, and he really put in the time to develop and showed an ability to develop. So I'll spin that negative into a positive as the old guy on this podcast. Okay, go ahead. You know who else thinks it's a positive when you produce late in your career and you've won

good season of production at the end? Joe Burrow? Yeah, Kenny Pickett. Kenny Pickett thinks it's amazing. Joe Burrow, Joe Burrow is not, people say Joe Burrow. Joe Burrow had two years of starting, two years. He was not playing in Ohio. State and then he got to LSU.

Did he deal start for five seasons, Sheel? Five! 39 starts, right? He didn't start. Did he start for five years? He was at Arizona State. He missed time at Arizona State. It was more than that.

All right. Okay. Now, now... More reps, more experience. Good job. Yes. So 12 starts, 12 games, Arizona State in 2019. Four in 2020,

13 and 2021. That's all Arizona State. And then 14 in 2022 at LSU and 12 at LSU in 2020. And why did he miss time in Arizona? state in 2020, right? Oh, he's so durable. It takes his SEC hits. Well, okay, so here we go. Jaden Daniels. The profile here screams, screams. Unreliable production and won't translate to the league. Career pressure to sack rate over the course of his time in college, 24.5% relative to 19.4% to Kaelian Williams, 18.9% to Drake May, 14.3% to J.J. McCarthy. We have seen over

time. If you look at last year, it's almost identical to Drake May. Yeah, and identical to Caleb. And Caleb was running around like a knucklehead back there and Drake's office of wine was god-awful last season. Jaden, I've seen a lot more film on, right? And Jaden, by the way, we're talking about Malik neighbors and Brian Thomas, there's two wide receivers who are both going to go round one, 90 explosive plays. He's playing with two top 20 picks. Both his left tackle and his right tackle might go round one next year. His left tackle might be like, play your one, all right? And so we were talking about playing with elite protection and playing with elite receiver play for the college level. He was in a much better situation.

There's no doubt about that. One season of high-dure production, right? Last year in LSU, at which time he was also throwing to NFL caliber receivers and playing behind NFL caliber offensive linemen. He only had 2,900 passing yards. He had 17 touchdowns to three interceptions. He rushed at that time for 885 yards versus the 1100 that he had this season. So only started producing as a 23-year-old, which is a highly,

concerning. Middle of the field work, right? We were talking about, oh, he turns down throws to the middle of the field. Lowest career pass attempts to the middle of the field, at least 10 yards down the field. So we're taking away slants, checkdowns, hooks, and crossers. Janie Daniels is the fifth lowest of a quarterback to come out, right? It's 2016 Christian Hakenberg, 2014 Teddy Bridgewater, 2015 Marcus Mariotta, and 2021 Justin Fields. Those are all of the players that attempted middle of the field, down the field, lower than Janine Daniels is. You go a little bit above, You get Joe Burrow, you get Bownecks, get Russell Wilson, Daniel Jones, Doran, Haskins, Drew Locke, and Zach Wilson. Buddy, that is not a list I want to see you on.

If you're going to be a, if you're going to be a reliable quarterback in the league, you need to be able to stay in the pocket, manage pressure, and throw to all areas of the field. Jade and Daniels is a Malik Neighbors and Brian Thomas merchant. He is a open, free access release, slot fade merchant. Now, the physical toolkit is very exciting, right? It's rare to have a guy who throws the ball that accurately down the field. Because he is accurate down the field. I agree with it.

Underneath an intermediate. Wow, we can't be calling Jane Daniels. I've remarkably accurate quarterback. He's an average accurate quarterback. But down the field, he's got a great deep ball, got a good deep arm. And then he obviously has unbelievable speed. But if you want to, okay, compare him to Lamar Jackson, dude, all Lamar did in college was throwing middle of the field.

All Lamar did. I didn't compare him to Lamar Jackson. I'm not saying you are. Yeah, I don't think he is like Lamar Jackson. Right. If you want to compare him to Lamar Jackson, all Lamar did was throw in middle of the field. All Lamar did was process from the pocket, stay behind the line of scrimmage, try to make throws.

They want to play style was, compare him to Jalen Hertz. Yeah, the Eagles ran about four past concepts last year. It was a big problem for them. And the reason why they could play 11 on 11 football is because they were willing to give Jailen Hertz seven carries a game, eight carries a game, nine carries a game. And that's including sneaks as well.

So probably really, in terms of legitimate carries, five carries a game, six carries a game. You want to give Jaden Daniels that? Six foot four, 210 pounds? And then that's when he came in at as the LSU Pro today. He probably plays closer to him. six, four, two hundred. You can't give him Jalen Hertz volume. You can't give him Cam Newton volume. So what, what model do I have for, for air raid quarterback who throws outside of the numbers,

nine balls, just throws 50-50s all day until the cows come home and scrambles around back there with the first side of pressure? What model do I have for this succeeding in the league? And by the way, that's only what he was for one season. And when he was 23 in college, it's such a, it's such a concerning profile in the league. It worries me, it worries me greatly. Yeah, I mean, so I do think the style of play comparison. to Jalen Hertz is valid. I hear what you're saying with the running ability, so then you get into the conversation.

Well, if Jalen Hertz only ran the ball, like if it was a Dach Prescott level of, hey, you're in the red zone, you know, once or twice a game will run you on a zone rate. Is he able to handle that kind of thing? Absolutely, he's absolutely able to make plays, scrambling and with his legs. And so the other concerns are there.

There's no doubt about it. The middle of the field stuff is absolutely a concern. I don't, I mean, part of the scrambling thing is like, well, how were they coaching him? When you are the best, you know, an amazing scrambler like that, are they telling him, hey, if you don't like it, take off and run? Because I do think we forget that sometimes that coaches are coaching them to win the game,

to score points, to be the best offense you can be, not necessarily to, hey, you know, make sure you hang in there and take it. I thought I, like, I did see examples of him hanging in there and making throws with pressure in his face. I'm not telling you he did it every game or that he was doing it consistently, but I did think there were examples of that. I like that quite a bit for him. Okay, so we disagree on JD.

I agree with most of the concerns. I could see the concerns coming. I know what the concerns are. The concerns are valid. Now, I will ask you this. So Justin Fields is a guy you liked a lot coming into the NFL. Is it just the size? What else is different?

Because I know you made that comparison at one point. Is it basically the size is the difference with why you like to field and not even doing? But the comparison I made was when the league traded a six conditional four. for fields, right? And there was like very little interest in him and then he went for much cheaper than we thought. That was right at the time where it was like, hey, Jane Daniels was going to go to over all of the commanders.

And I was like, it doesn't make sense to me that the league would be interested in a profile like Daniels where he has such a clear red flag of this guy takes way too many sacks when he's pressured. All he's doing is dropping his eyes. He's scrambling a ton. Like he is not processing the field. He's just trying to talk and run.

And then at the same, like, fine with that red flag. And then at the same time, be very worried about Justin Fields and say, oh, we don't want to invest in this guy. He takes too many sacks. Like the same red flag is there. So I was surprised at the league's like, yeah, we can fix Jane and Daniels. There's no way we can fix Justin Fields. That's the reason why I made that comparison.

Now, I was huge on Fields coming out. I obviously was too high on Fields. And I would say one of the things that I learned from Justin Fields and being too high on him brings me to my concern with Jade and Daniels, right? And Daniels is, again, he became the player that Justin Fields was in college. I think Fields was just like, you know, winning off a free access guys, throwing to round one wide receivers, winning on one-on-ones, not needing the process in the middle of the field as much.

much Fields was doing this at a younger age, right? And Fields was a more impressive athlete because he was running 4 at a bigger size. And I think it could take on hits better, break tackles better relative to Daniels, who's doing this later and older and further on into his college career. With that said, like, in the same way that I'm interested in Fields' future in the league, I'm still interested in Jaden's future in the league. Because I asked like, okay, like, what are pro comparisons for him? How is this going to work in league? Because like, I don't think he maps well onto any of the running quarterbacks that we've seen. I don't think, like, figuring out a cop for him is very, very difficult, which means that he might come to league and just, like, not be tenable.

He also might come into league and change the way that we think about quarterback mobility, change the way that we think about evaluating quarterback. So I'm still, like, very interested in Jaden as, like, a potential first-round pick and so on and so forth. You could not get me to take this mystery box, this giant floating question mark with six red flag sticking out of him over six four, two, 25 with a rocket playing at UNC. Like, I just like, I know that works. I know how to make that work in the league with Drake at UNC relative to Jane Daniels.

I have no idea how this works in the league. Maybe Cliff Kingsbury Air Raid is the best spot for him. Maybe commanders, oh, we have a vision for it. Like, play it like Kyler Murray did. I don't think that'll work. I don't think the Cliff Kyler offense would work for Jane. I think that would be a total swing and a miss. And so to me, like Drake is, I like him more on film.

And I also understand how he maps in the league. I don't understand how Jada maps into the league successfully. The pressure to sack stuff, it's important to point out. I mean, he was slightly below average. It's the pressure to scramble that was very, very high, which is, all right, you can make the case. Those scrambles are going to turn into sacks in the NFL. But if you look at his pressure to say, and I'm talking about last year, you know, last year only, again, it's pretty comparable to Drake May. It was actually better than Caleb Williams. But it's one year of work. I hear what you're saying. I'm talking about pressure to scramble. I'm talking about pressure to sack. Career-wise. No, no, pressure to sack was pressure to sack was slightly below average.

You're looking at last season. I'm looking at career. Career pressure to sack. That's what I'm saying. Anthony Amico from Establish the Run. He is at 24.5%. The reason why I'm using that is just because last season, he was remarkably below his career average. Caleb and Drake May were both above their career average. And a lot of Jane Daniel's defenders are saying, oh, well, look at this, look at that. It's like, yeah, no, we get it. He was really good last year. He won the He won the Heisman. Look at his body of work, right? Like, this is very clearly, if you watch the film and you look at the data, this is very clearly a guy that the second he sees color, he drops his eyes and he drops the ball. I watched Carson Wentz, man. I watched Carson Wentz for a long time. I know what it looks like. this is what it looks like.

Do you think Drake May has any comparisons to Carson wins? Yes, absolutely. 100%. Okay. Because that was, when I was watching Drake May, and I don't love his accuracy in the downfield, great in the short. He does not hit all the layups, for sure.

He's, again, much worse supporting cast. We can say it over and over again. I struggle with guys like Drake May because I see the size, I see the athleticism, I see the arm, I see all the tools. And if you told me, you know, two years from now, he's going to be the best quarterback in this class. I can absolutely see it. I struggle with the

projection aspect of this stuff that when I watched him, I wasn't watching him going like, I love what I'm seeing right now. I see the flashes. I see the highlight plays. I see the stuff like you mentioned that translates. I mean, I see the like Josh Allen comparisons. I don't think he's as dynamic of a runner like a guy who's going to carry your run game and just be like, you're probably going to have a top five run game if this guy's your quarterback because of what he can do with his legs. Like, it looked more to me, like a Daniel Jones style of a runner. I saw some Daniel Jones in his game. I saw some Carson Wentz in his game if he doesn't develop. So what are the other things you love other than the tools that he has, which we know, again, size, athleticism, arm,

he's got all those things. And he's young. So again, it's fair to say he's young. He's going, he has a higher ceiling, he has more room to develop and his supporting cast sucked. All those are valid. I'm just talking about when I watched the two guys who I like better. Yeah, so this is always the struggle that we run into when we do, when we talk about guys on podcast. Because if I were you asking about Caleb Williams, I beg, listen, like, he's got, he's got a good frame, he's an unbelievable army, throws him the move, downfield, accuracy, it's crazy. He asks about Drake May, I say, listen, he's got an ideal frame, he's got a great army, throws downfield, it's on the move, and it's explosive, it's crazy. He asked me about Jane Daniels, I'd say, listen, he's got a live army, throws downfield, he's got unbelievable athleticism. You start just using the same words over and over again, and it smooths it for people.

I think it's either like a zero or one, it becomes a binary. Drake May will throw 55 yards down the field off his back foot into a bucket. Drake May will throw four hash, 25-yard laser beam ball doesn't wiggle. Drake May will throw with with, with, with a contact in his chest, stepping into the bucket, reduced arm angle, 15 yards middle of the field on the hands. Drake May is like, like, like, JJ McCarthy is like, I think like 70th percentile arm talent. I think Jane Daniels is like 80th percentile arm talent. Caleb and Drake May are 90-95th percentile arm talent. The throws that Drake May makes when he is not tethered to the ground are unbelievable for a player of his size and his mass.

This is where he reminds me of Lawrence. He reminds me of Trevor. Because Trevor, like, you know, okay, like, you know, big, prototypical pocket faster quarterback. Trevor will make those throws where, like, he's getting, like, you know, like you've seen him in Jacksonville. He's getting insane pressure on him and he's, like, falling over and just this huge body. He's like running at full speed. He flicks the thing. Like, how are you that fluid?

How are you that loose? How's your armor of that much juice despite your size? That's the exact sort of thing Drake May can do. Now, you got to also remember, Drake May is playing pure air raid offense. So Drake May's receivers, you say, oh, I don't like his underneath accuracy, his middle-fitting, actually.

Drake May's receivers are making up their routes. There are no landmarks. They are just, everything is just space and vibes. Everything is just, oh, like, if you feel the corner here, then you can bend this a little this way, bend this little that way. And so all Drake's doing is just trying to figure out where these non-future NFLers,

these future state farm insurance salesmen, are going to run their routes, right? The only guy he had was who has any remarkable NFL pedigree is Tess Walker. And even then, like, I don't think Tess is going to be good in the league. They are, Drake is is so constantly accounting for below average wide receiver play in a system that really only works when you have above average wide receiver play. And he is doing so taking an inordinate amount of shots throughout the game, reading coverages and setting protections more than Daniels was asked to do,

more than Caleb was asked to do, doing things at a high mental level. You said, oh, I see Jane is a smart player. Dude, Jaden could have put his hand around his eyes, spin around four times, throw the ball down the field like it's jackpot and got on a 50-yard completion. Absurd. Absurd. Absolutely. I agree that Jaden has good processing notes, absolutely. But Jaden was playing with kid gloves on relative to what Drake had to do at UNC. And Drake's still finding ways to put 40 points on the board because they have to protect his defense. They can't stop Appalachian State from scoring 50? Absolutely. No, Drake may in a heartbeat.

So you say, oh, what besides the tools? We can't do that. We have to stop and say these tools are incredible. These tools are remarkably high ceiling. Oh, Jane runs very fast. These tools for Drake are unique and they are very high ceiling. Now, people have footwork concerns and people have accuracy concerns. Absolutely 100%. Get this guy good protection for two years and you can iron some of that out. Absolutely you can. Where he can actually trust his left tackle. He doesn't have to speed up his feet. He can play to his, he's the bigger body. He's got length. He's going to have slower feet than other people. He's going to be just, just, just fine. I'm very, very very confident in Drake May's, in his wrinkles getting ironed out when he plays in an NFL

count with an NFL offense with NFL routes. The made up underneath accuracy concerns are going to go away in a heartbeat. I'm not confident in any of my draft quarterback takes, just for the record. I mean, you could throw this back in my face. I watched like five Drake Mae games this weekend for charting. He's good. He's good player. So you're, you're fired up. All right. So there you go. So lack. Now you're, you have Drake May QB2, right? You don't have him above Caleb Williams. Yeah, it's Caleb. It's Caleb. It's Caleb. It's Caleb one. It's Caleb one. for sure, Drake 2 for sure. The more I watch Jaden and JJ, the more I think I might put McCarthy above Jaden.

All right. So I got a lot, Jaden Nails, I have a lot riding on your success in future podcasts with Ben Solack. So if nothing else, if you need me to get like his face, you know, to plaster over your workout room or wherever you're doing your off-season training, this guy doesn't believe in you. I am willing to help out anyway, I can. Okay.

fully admitting, I'll probably look stupid in two years. That's what draft takes are for. All right, good discussions. Are you happy? I got some, you don't like my draft takes, but you like being able to argue with me about my draft takes finally. I'm welcome. I esteemed you as a wise enough discerning enough man to not take the James T's and I'm very disappointed. Oh my gosh. All right. On that note, we will take a break. We'll come back with more. Extra point take. All right. We are back on Extra Point Taked. All right. We are back on Extra Point Tate. thinking, what are we on? Are we at like the two-hour mark or what? See, I miss one week of vacation, and it's like we have to make up for all the, we have all this inside. We're used to yelling at each

other twice a week that when I'm gone for a week, just got to cut it loose. All right, I think you're up. What do you got? Okay, yeah, I, uh, well, we'll make this one tighter here. I think that the New England Patriots should stay at three and draft the quarterback. I think that they should. I have a Patriots take next too. All right. What is yours? Their fans were upset because we didn't talk about the Patriots yet. So here we go. Let's get into a Patriots discussion. Okay, give me your take.

So I understand the definitely trade back from three defense. I think it's totally defensible. If we finish this pod and two seconds later, we learn that they've traded out of the pig for three and they've moved back for a haul from the Vikings or for the Broncos, I think it's totally defensible. I will absolutely get it. I think that they're in a good spot. I think all of their paths can lead to success.

So, you know, when you look at the roster and the amount of talent that they need and they need, you know, improve wide receivers, they need. some offensive line help. They could use some more, you know, help in the front seven defensively. Like absolutely trade back at a whole pick's great. However, we always like to talk about, you know, before you have the young quarterback, you should make sure that the environment is good for developing him and, you know, bring the guy along. You don't want to get him too early and then burn him. They have Jacoby Brissette in hand. And we, we are pretty confident that with Jacoby, you can go out there and you can feel a functional offense. You can feel a respectable team

and you can evaluate Pop Douglas and you can evaluate Ramadre Stevenson and evaluate CitySow. You can kind of get the look you need to get at the other pieces on offense because your quarterback is good enough. So Jacobi can do that for you. Do you have the bench here? I don't know if Robert Kraft, who's the owner there, is going to be patient. Right? I don't know if he's interested in patience at all because, let's be honest. Robert Kraft's super old, right?

He is like, what, 150? 82 years old. Jeez, my goodness. Listen, we respect our elders in my call. We respect Robert Kraft? Listen, we wouldn't know. No, I didn't go that far. We would know.

Because I wouldn't make the 150-year-old joke for most people, but I'm making it for Robert Kraft. I got no qualms about that. All right. All right. I'm going to stay away. Yeah, there we go. When I'm Robert Kraft's agent, you called me 150 years old. Robert Kraft is, Robert Crafts 82 is the owner of the team.

I think, you know, obviously the Patriots and losing Brady and moving on from Belichick, it's been covered to death. But you can see how Kraft might want to be really aggressive and win games now and try to get back to championship contention and look for the shortcut, look for the quick win because he wants to be able to prove, hey, like, I'm the secret sauce here. It's not Brady, it's not Belichick, it's me. But I do think that the Patriots have a good reason to be patient, which is that you haven't lived in this non-Braddy, non-Belchuk world for so long, right?

You did the Mac Jones thing, round one, like, let's, you know, plug and chug. That didn't work. Now you have a new head coach in Gerard Bayout. You have a blank slate of a roster. You, like, Brady, you know, kind of tricks you to think, oh, draft a quarterback in the sixth round, whatever. Like, you did the Jimmy Gropel thing. You did the Jacoby Brissette thing.

You've done the Mac Jones thing. You've so many quarterbacks, not top five. not top 10, and realize just how hard this is. This is something that is going to take multiple years anyway. And so if you take a quarterback now, you don't need to feel like if you're Gerard Mayo and if you're Elliott Wolf, like, okay, if we take this guy and he's not good, Kraft's going to move on from us in two years, right? That's always like the fear, right?

If we take a quarterback and he doesn't work, our jobs get axed. You as Kraft, you should feel emboldened because you have won so many championships to say to Mayo and Wolf, listen, if you love a guy, take a swing, we'll look at him again in two years and we'll go from there. You should feel comfortable being patient. So I hope that they will. And if that is the case, you start measuring this quarterback class up against next year's quarterback class, which is a fool's area. It never actually works, right? Because we wouldn't have been talking about Jane and Daniels. We wouldn't have been talking about Jada McCarthy. But if you start doing it, and you think about Jorra Sanders out of Colorado and Quinn U.S. out of Texas

and Carson Beck out of Georgia, I tell you, I think I'm going to like quarterback three in this class more than I'm going to like quarterback three in next year's class. That's the best estimation that I can give you right now. I think the league feels that way as well. If you're sitting there at three and the commanders make that Jane and Daniels pick it too, and a guy like Drake May is available for you. If they make the JJ McCarthy pick, Drake May's available. And if they make the Jake McCarty pick and you have Daniels and JJ and you really like one of those guys, you should, the Patriots should feel uniquely suited to have a long enough leash to just take a guy and Jordan love him, take a guy and Patrick Mahomes. I'm right, but oh, rest your guy for a year. The Patriots can do that,

Right, because they tried to do the quick fix. They try to keep Belichick, Mac Jones, you know, get all Belichick's favorite coach in here, let's just compete right again. And it very clearly didn't work. This franchise should know that they need a long-term reset, which means you can take a quarterback this year, or you can take him next year, or you can take him in 2026, whenever the right guy comes for you. But you're probably not going to be picking three every year, and the quarterback class

probably isn't going to have four top 10 guys every year. So this year feels like a stronger year to make the choice. Now, maybe Caleb and Dranko one and two, and those were their guys, and they don't like anybody else they trade back. Again, I think it's very defensively. But if I'm New England, I don't think I should force myself

to saying trade back for the future, long-term, go free to take the quarterback and just sit him for a year and have the long-term view in the room. You have earned that with all the success you had over the last two decades to move a little slowly,

move a little methodically, give Gerard and Elliott a chance to rebuild everything. It's kind of a new long-term franchise, long-term winner. Take the quarterback at three, but take it slow. What is your confidence level

that the Patriots have any idea what they're doing in the post-Belichick era? Three. Three out of ten? Yes. Three out of ten. Okay. Because my take here,

and what will continue this Patriots discussion, is that the first three months of the post-built Belichick era have been a complete mess. I mean, if you zoom, I can't believe it's only been three months, but let's recap a little bit and then get into this discussion

about what they should do at three. So instead of doing, all right, end of an era with Belichick, let's do a wide-ranging coaching GM search, find the best people for the job to lead us into the new era, two internal hires, Gerard Mayo, and Elliot Wolf. Okay, whatever. It's not like, you know, those are qualified candidates.

Maybe that was the best option. But then they go into the offseason. They've got all this cap space, and Mayo makes a comment about how they're going to burn some cash. Then they re-sign a bunch of their own offensive players where this was a horrendous offense, 29th in the offensive DVOA last year. And in isolation, like none of the moves were egregious. Kendrick Bourne, Hunter Henry, Mike On Wenu, Jailen Rager.

All right, they're on the surface. They're fine. Outside free agents, they add. Jacoby Brissette, KJ. Osborne, Antonio Gibson, Austin Hooper, and Chuck's O'Corford. I mean, you look at this offensive debt chart right now. Bottom five in the NFL, I'm probably being generous. If you want to go lower than that, you can go lower than that. And his team was four and 13 last year

with Bill Belichick coaching the team. Now, normally when we have the Belichick discussions last year, the year before, I was more critical of Belichick, you were more in Belichick's corner. Having said that, do we really think this defense is going to be as good without Bill Belichick coaching them as they were last year?

I mean, even I could admit he was at least a more with less defensive coach last year. So you have all that. It's like, what's going on with this roster? What's going on? Are they all aligned? Who's Mitt calling the shots here?

The biggest story around the Team Solac is this Apple TV documentary, the dynasty. I mean, that's the most discussion you will get about the Patriots in an offseason where they've got the third overall pick and all this cap space and how that documentary painted Bill Belichick and what ex-players are saying about the way they were portrayed in that documentary. And then you find out, I was just reading more about this this morning, that Robert Kraft is buddies with the creator of this documentary.

Okay, did that have something to do with the way they painted the entire dynasty? Then you had this NFLPA survey. So they came in 29th out of 32 teams. Robert Kraft says that the owners may, I'll be honest. I didn't know about a lot of that that was going on. Wait, what is going on with this franchise? And so I think when they moved on from Brady, they found out the hard way that, man, Life without Tom Brady at quarterback is difficult.

And now they moved on with Bill Belichick, and they look, to me, I don't want to keep using directionless as my adjective here to describe all these franchises, but they look pretty directionless to me. Nothing they have done suggests that they are a smart, competent organization with a plan here. So this is a horrible situation to put a rookie quarterback into. We talked about the Titans, and you made the case, hey, put Will Levis in position to succeed with these wide receivers. They are the opposite.

Like, I don't know. I was thinking about this. Compare this situation to Bryce Young's situation last year with the Panthers. I think this is a little bit better, but I think it's pretty comparable. What do you think? The situation that who, let's assume they draft a quarterback here for a second, Drake May, Jade and Daniels, whoever it's going to be, the situation they would be put into if they don't do what you say and sit the guy for a year

and play the guy this year. I mean, is it worse than what Price Young had last year with the Panthers? I think the opposite line is definitely better. I think that's a big, a big differentiator, right? We're like, I like, I like Michael Wano. I like Paul Strange. David Edwards, a good starter. I like City Salas film over the core of the end of the season.

Okay. So I like the office line better for sure. The wide receiver room is, and they, they very clearly tried to do the Calvin Ridley thing, and then they didn't, and they got out priced. And like, I think that was, I think that was a little bit of an Elliott Wolf's welcome, welcome to Big Boy football moment where just like, they could have gotten 23 million down on Calvin if they really wanted to, but then they didn't, and the Titans did. And it's kind of like, hey, like, you know, you got a, you got a,

you got to know what everybody's up to and you got to be working the phone lines and then what have you wide receiver wise it's definitely worse right like i'm feeling would get a trillion targets on this on this wide receiver room relative to who's there yeah that's why i say like if you draft the guy sit the guy because you want time to obviously build this up it's just you should feel like you have a long enough uh leash to draft the guy and sit the guy i agree that this has been a mess i think it was always going to be a mess right i think like we're like we're You have to remember, like, Elliot Wolf, I'll never forget this for as long as I live. Elliot Wolf came up to the podium at the combine.

And the first question that he got asked was, so what's your title? And he was like, yeah, director of personnel. Because they didn't know, right? Nobody had told them because they haven't had a real general manager there for so long. And they had different titles and different people do different things. And like, you know, Wolf was in the building previously and Mike Roe is above him and then grow and him flip roles. And like, Wolf talked about at the combine how they're changing the entire scouting

process away from the Belichick specific scouting rubric to a more generic scouting rubric this was never going to be neat and tidy I did not think like oh yeah the first season after like Belichick has been a figurehead he's been the north star of this franchise for so long the year he goes yeah they'll just kind of like plug in chug and be ready I think this was always going to be a mess so that's why like again like you have to go slow here

you can't try to go fast you can't move off of like we are run by Belichick to we're going to be run as a regular team and they expect to hit the ground running There's just, there's going to be growing pains. And so, like, I'm not surprised that this is as messy as it's been. That's kind of going to be the case when you move off a coach like Belichick. Now you have Belichick, according to the athletic is going to write a, is planning to write a book? Oh, I miss this.

Is that in response to the, we don't know what the book's about. He's writing a book. We don't know what the book's about. It could be about anything, but it could also be, does he want to step the record straight on things that were painted in that documentary? So it's messier than I thought. I agree with you. After Belich, obviously, you're going to take a step back. You're entering a new era.

I don't know that this thing is going to get better anytime soon. This is a massive rebuilding effort when you look at the state of the roster offense specifically. But again, even on – I mean, who are the good young players on this team? Christian Barmore and Christian Gonzalez, who were going off of what, four to six games last year or whatever it was before he got entered. He looked great. There's no doubt about it. I liked Gonzalez as a prospect, but there's really not a lot to work with. and you're so right about Elliot Wolf.

Like, it kind of went in the NFL, the most overcovered sport, probably in the world. It went under the radar that this man all of a sudden has the keys to the entire organization. I mean, he is making the decisions for the New England Patriots, and no one really knew. It was kind of way, are you? Are you not? And then, okay, you know, yeah, you are. You know, they paint this picture. It's going to be a more friendly environment post-Bel-Chate. And I get all that.

But I don't know. Just the decisions they've made so far. I don't have a lot of confidence in them here at number three. But I generally agree with you. The big thing is, listen, there's no guarantee that the quarterback you take is going to work out. At the same time, how many times are you going to have the third overall pick in what is a good quarterback draft? You have to take a swing. You can't be scared over and over again and say, this guy's not perfect.

This guy's not perfect. At some point, you do your scouting. You take a swing. You give it two years, maybe three years. If it doesn't work out, you take another swing. It sucks. but that's kind of the way it goes there. So I generally agree with you.

I agree with your plan. And it depends on the guy. If a guy comes in and all of a sudden, some of your supporting cast is better than you thought it'd be. And he's showing in OTAs and mini camp and training camp that no, no, no, he can handle all this. And his confidence is not going to be shattered. Then you can play the guy.

But I generally agree with you. They are uniquely positioned to just say, all right, we're going to have you chill for a year. Let's upgrade the rest of the roster. That's why we got Jacoby Brissette. and then we will move on there. I spoke to the production team before the show and I was like first episode, full episode on YouTube. I know I'm going to do something dumb.

Like, please just try to call it out. I just scratched my nose with the Roku remote that I accidentally brought into my office. That's where we're at right now. Like, we're already, we're halfway in. And the whole full episode on YouTube is not going to be good for Ben. Ben does a lot of stuff behind the scenes that most people don't see.

And now all my ticks are going to be visibly available on the Ringers YouTube channel. I would say for me, it's like blowing my nose when we're not on video, sometimes I will just go off camera, blow my, you know, you got a little allergies, the runny nose, and then I will come back on. And I thought about doing that earlier, but I thought, you know what, that's probably not going to be great for video. All right. Arjuna chimes in and says, Mike Giardti reports that the book's going to be on leadership. All right. So Belichick is not firing back at the documentary.

Yeah. I'm certain that when Belichick writes a book in his retirement, he will mention absolutely zero things about the state of the New England Patriots where he's worked the last two and a half decades. I'm for sure. It's on leadership, 100%. Will you read that book? Do you feel like you need to improve your leadership? No, I don't. I tell you. I probably need to improve my leadership. I won't read the book. I like in the world of football, like I cannot stress to you like how much I've tried to be like to care about, oh, this coaching bio from 1990. And I just never like I picked them up.

I read 10 pages. It never does it for me. I wish it did. I wish I liked watching like I won't watch Dynasty. I won't watch a second of it. I don't watch Hard Knocks. Like the whole like inside the reality of the thing, it just doesn't interest me. I want to see plays. I like the football. I want to see the tackles. That's what I'm here for. Ben Solac, uh, football content creator,

uninterested in football content. I actually agree with you with the books. Whenever I try to read some of those books, I'm kind of like, eh, all right, you know, settle down. I bought the Doug Peterson book that after the Eagles on the Super Bowl in a heartbeat. It's on my, on my shelf, spy never crease. All right. What are we on?

Where are we here? If we've done four takes, I'm on my fifth take. All right, let's take a break. We'll take one more break. We'll come back. We'll get to our final takes and the extra point taken. Rookie, he doesn't even remember what take we're on. Saw is, he's is rusty.

All right. We are back on extra point taken. So I did not, has not called me 150 years old. Just yet. Go ahead. What is your third take? What do you got? I believe that by the time the Kansas City Chiefs are on the clock with pick 32

in the 2024 NFL draft, Teagans will be traded. I think it is going to happen by the end of day one of the draft. If it happens with like pick 34 on the beginning of day two, I'm going to be furious. All right. But that's close enough to counting. The Bengals have said all the right things about T. Higgins staying on the Cincinnati Bengals. Zach Taylor was speaking last week. We're excited.

De Higgins is going to have a great season for us where he's got a great show. chance to help our team this year. We think we're a Super Bowl team and we think that T's going to play for us this season. He's going to be healthy. He's going to play 17 games and we're going to win a Super Bowl and it's going to be amazing. Like they're saying all the right stuff. I continue to, when we talked about T. Higgins multiple times on this pod before and we've, okay, like now we've had the Brian Bird's trade.

Like that's already gone through. You know, we've already kind of seen a couple of tags fall out. I continue to look at the Bengals, cap situation over the next couple of seasons and just really struggle to understand. how we're going to make Joe Burrow plus T. Hagan's plus Jamar Chase work. When you start looking at what's going to happen to the wide receiver market with Justin Jefferson approaching contract time, with C.D. Lamb approaching contract time, you start thinking about what the Jamar Chase number is going to be. It's going to be in the mid-30s per year.

It's very reasonable to expect like 34, 35 million per year on the Jamar Chase extension, which they could sign this season if they want to do, but they haven't actually gotten that boat in the water yet because they've been dealing with the T. Hagan stuff. You have Joe Burrow, who it's always important to remember when these quarterbacks sign their mega deals. They sign them, but they're usually tagged on the end of their existing contracts.

And so while Joe Burrow, yes, is on his extension, his big cap hits haven't started coming yet. He's got a $29.7 million cap hit this season. T. Higgins is on the tag. 21 million. Next year, Burrow hits the cap for 46.2. Right?

There's a jump of 17 million that Burrow hits the cap for. That's like the size of a T. T. Higgins base salary right there is $17 million. And he'll hit for 48.2. 52.2 and 53.5 in the ensuing seasons. The other thing about trying to figure out where the money is for T

is that a lot of where the Bengals have needs right now are expensive positions. The Bengals have question marks at tackle, right? Where, hey, they have Orlando Brown on this big deal. I'm not sure how much longer they want to be playing Orlando Browns or starting left tackles. They have problems with that last season. They bring in Trent Brown to be their stopgap at right tackle. They absolutely have a right tackle need.

Defense and pass rusher, right? They have Jay Hendrickson. He's been an elite guy for them. Edge 2 has been an issue, right? Sam Hubbard banged up. Joseph was signed up in what they drafted. Miles Murphy in the first round last year didn't really break into the rotation.

They need help there. Cornerback, right, outside corner where they just lost Cheeto Woosier. They're hoping that DJ Turner can be an outside guy for them. Mike Hilton's up right on a contract. They're going to lose him as well. They have to dress the slot position. Like where they're up, they're good at like linebacker. They're good like on the interior of the offensive line.

A lot of the spots they need in the next coming seasons are the expensive spots. I just don't know if you can walk into 2025 and 20, 26 and really feel like having what would be collectively about $110 million, right? If you're looking at 50 for Joe Burrow per year, 30, 35 for Jamar Chase per year, and 25 for Teagans per year, that's $110 million. That much tied into just like the cornerstone of your passing game, that's just a, that is a lot of money. Because the whole point of paying the elite receiver top money and paying the elite quarterback

top money is that you should be able to get an elite passing game. and then not need to spend that much more on that part of your team on that on that world. And so it just becomes a really, really, really expensive offensive nucleus. So they're saying the right things. If they keep T, I'll be a little bit surprised. I won't be shocked. But I just look at the money and I say, man, it makes so much more sense for this team to trade T than like the chiefs to trade speed on the tag.

And that's what they did. Then like the Panthers to trade burns on the tag. And that's what they did. Like it just makes sense on the book. So I started looking at the, uh, the Frank Clark trade, right? When Frank Clark was traded from the Seahawks to the Chiefs on the tag, that came like last week and April,

a couple days for the draft and they had their kind of like first round pick swap. You have the AJ Brown trade, which he wasn't on the tag. He was on the final year for his deal. But that came right on draft night. 18 overall was the selection. I just, I, it makes sense for them to move from T. And I look at this wide receiver class deal.

And people talk about how much they love it. And it's a great class, so much talent. And I hear you, the top three guys are amazing. Rome Madunslai, Malik Neighbors, Marvin Harrison. Excellent, excellent prospects. The second tier of this receiver class, I think, is getting a little bit gas. If you give me a choice between T. Higgins or Brian Thomas at LSU? I think Thomas would be lucky to become a player of T's caliber in the league.

Adon Mitchell out of Texas, T.on Coleman out of Florida State, Ladd-McConkie out of Georgia. You pick any of your favorite, your names in that second tier of wide receivers. I think all of them have ceilings that are lower than what Dee Higgins is right now in the league. Like I do think that this second tier wide receivers like, I measure all those guys up against like Zay Flowers who went like 22 overall last year, or 21, excuse me. I prefer a Zay Flowers to all of them.

And so I do think this second tier of receivers, you're going to start to get to the end of this draft order in 2024. You're starting to get to the Lions at 29 who might need a receiver. Start to get to the Cardinals at 27 who might need a receiver if they trade back from four. The Packers at 25 who have good young receivers but don't really have a star receiver.

I would so much rather have T. Higgins on, yes, obviously with his big fat contract, then I would have a rookie on his contract. I just think that there's a big difference between T. in the second tier of wide receiver guys. And so for me, I'm still expecting a T. Higgins trade. I still think we're going to get it. I think it'll happen by the time round one is over. All right. So you say that a T. Higgins trade would make sense for the Bengals. Now, when you say by the time round one is over, does that mean you're predicting a first round pick in return for T. Higgins? I'm thinking like I I'm thinking that at what price does it make sense because obviously you're not trading t higgins for a seventh round pick right so i think like early two can make sense like two and then some right like i'm like maybe it happens you know like maybe it happens you know on day two of the draft because the team's trying to trade back into the first round to get a receiver and they can't and they run out of the receiver options like all right we're just going to trade for t higgins now so it's a two and then some but if you told me like packers send 25 for t higgins and a four like that to me is like absolutely that's good return for t higgins that makes sense again i look back at the a j brown trade i just said myself like, this is the sort of model I would want to be following, where you just,

you, you, you spent a first round pick for a known commodity, a receiver who very clearly can be a one in the league. And then you, you obviously, you lose out on the rookie contract value, right? Instead of paying the guy $6 million, you're paying him $26 million. But guess what? You're traded that money in for certainty. You know that he's the dude. And I have a lot of confidence in that respect. All right. So I disagree with a few things you said there. As for you. One, I'm not doing that trade. If I'm not. The Packers? I mean, why would you do that?

Like, T. Higgins is not A.J. Brown. I mean, he's not Tyree Kill. I like T. Higgins, but he's not that level of receiver. And I just don't, the veteran trade market this offseason has been very bizarre. Teams are not willing to give up any type of substantial. Every trade that has come in has been less than I anticipated. Brian Burns, Legerius Sneed. I'm sure I'm forgetting one in there.

They've all come in lower than I, expected in terms of what a team was willing to give up for a player who they were then going to have to pay a lot of money. I don't know if it's a weird thing this year. I don't know if it's a trend that's starting or whatever. It's something to keep an eye on leading up to the draft and also going forward into next year. So I don't think you're getting a first round pick for T. Higgins. I wonder if you're getting a second round pick for T. Higgins. I'm not convinced that you absolutely are. And so if you're the Bengals, I mean, I reject the notion that they cannot keep both guys. Yes, is it going to be a lot of money tied into that? Yes. But when you sign a

player to a new contract, you can do stuff with the cap. You can make sure they have lower cap hits early on. You can give them a big signing bonus and extend it out. You can use void years. These are all tools that I'm going to talk about with the next team. I'm going to mention here for my third take, but there are tools you can use. I mean, they're not paying like a bunch of guys a massive amount of money. I mean, if you believe that offensive efficiency is the way for sustained success, and you have a chance to keep together a core of quarterback, two wide receivers who are all in their early to mid-20s. I think it's something you should consider.

Now, I'm kind of with you. I don't think that they're going to. But obviously, you're going to have to make up for it in other areas of the roster where you're not going to be able to spend enough. But I do think there are ways to do that. Like you look at a team like the Eagles, I think they're going to pay Devante Smith. I think they're going to have Devante Smith and A.J. Brown making around $25 million per year or more.

and they have Jalen Hertz making over $50 million per year. There are ways to do that. The cap is going up. The cap just went up in a big way. It's going to continue to go up. There are different tools you can use. So I'm not convinced because the Bengals can win the Super Bowl this year. So I have to be pretty motivated.

Like it's one thing if you think, all right, T. Higgins is going to be a huge headache. He's not going to show up. Even then, the player doesn't have a lot of leverage. So this is where you have to manage the situation. You have to massage the situation. You say, T, I wish we could make this. work. We can't make this work. We want to win a Super Bowl this year. You've been a great player for us. You just got to show up. Play on the franchise tag. We're going to try to win the Super Bowl.

Next year, you're still young. Have a great year. You'll get a chance to test free agency and do it that way. I'm not creating a hole on my roster where if all of a sudden Jamar Chase is out for three games. I mean, who is Joe Burrow throwing the football to? So in a year where I have a chance to win the Super Bowl, I'm not making that move if I'm the Bengals unless I get a great offer. And I don't think they're going to get a great offer. What chance do the Bengals have won in the Super Bowl? I mean, I would put them, like, I think the Chiefs are probably the favorites in the AFC. I could easily make the case for them. I'm trying to think if there's a team I'm forgetting. So right now, I put them right there with everybody else. In terms of AFC, Chiefs of the, I'm just looking

to AFC teams right now. Chiefs plus 650 to win the Super Bowl. Ravens plus 900, bills plus 1,200, and then you get to the Bengals at plus 1,500, before they're right in front of the Texans at plus 200, or plus 2,000, excuse me. They are seven, tied for seventh, they're exactly seventh behind the Niners, Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, Cowboys, lions.

They're just ahead of the Eagles, Texans, and Packers. We got to remember, this team was 23rd in defensive DVOA last season, right? And you say, oh, like, they have a chance with the Super Bowl. I hear you because they were there a couple years ago. This depth chart is not as good then as it was now. right? It's not as good now as it was then. Excuse me. Not as good now as it was then. I think like defensively,

I think they've very clearly gotten worse. They've lost some talent. They're relying on a lot of young guys at a lot of different spots. I think offensive line-wise, they got away with it in that season. They knew they were getting away with it. They've tried to improve the offensive line. I'm not convinced that the offensive line is that much better.

Much better now than when they went to the Super Bowl. Much better? Yes, 100%. You and I, you and I have had a top five. You and I are going to be on our death beds, our deathbeds arguing about our land. Brown and how good he is it. Okay.

Two years ago, they had a very good offense. Last year, I think they were 11th in offensive DVOA with Jake Browning starting seven or nine games last season. I mean, that should be viewed as the floor. Like, I expect them to have a top eight offense. We say it over and over again. If you have a top quartile offense in the NFL, you're going to be in the mix for a Super Bowl. Like fourth best odds in the AFC.

I mean, we can quibble with that. I would really put them right there in that second tier with teams like the Ravens and the bills, we can disagree with that. But how many times do you have the fourth best odds in the conference to get to the Super Bowl? Like, that is a great, you are in a spot right now gifted this quarterback and this wide receiver that every season you are thinking we are trying to win a Super Bowl this year. That is the mindset you are in from now until those guys are no longer on the football team. This isn't about two or three years down the road.

If that's true, why are they so remarkably below the Ravens? Why are they so remarkably below the bills? You might say like that's wrong. I mean, these are off-season bandol odds. Like, I don't know. It doesn't totally tell me. I'm just using them as a proxy for, like, likelihood of winning the Super Bowl. I think the Bengals, like, likely of winning the Super Bowl is a lot less than

than you're presenting. I was like, okay, like, you're, your Super Bowl teams, you have to keep T. Higgins. Man, I like, I would want to be a lot better on defense before I started calling myself a Super Bowl team. I'd like to know that my quarterback's going to be healthy before I start calling myself a Super Bowl team. I think the Bengals are a lot, and a lot more tenuous and, and, uh, uh, finickyest spot. Because, listen, they might be a potential Super Bowl team. They're also very clearly not the best team in their division, right?

That makes a road a long road to hoe. I disagree with that. I will very comfortably pick them to win the division next season if I want, you know, if I'm feeling that way in August. I absolutely disagree with that. They are right there. Two-time MVP, AFC championship game playing Baltimore Ravens. We can always talk quarterback health.

Yes, that's a factor. I mean, you're ripping on your boy, Captain Luke quite a bit here. Listen, they had one down year, okay, settle down. They'll get some players in there and they'll be okay. next year they made good moves at safety in the offseason. They've got the draft here coming up. They'll be fine next year. All right.

What were we even talking about? All right. So you think T. I think Tee is going to get traded. You think T. Higgins is going to get traded. We'll see. I would not trade him if I were the Bengals unless I were getting a great return,

like a top 40-ish pick. One last quick thing on this podcast that's definitely going a reasonable time frame. You said like, listen, like, no, you're going to pay T. Like, why wouldn't you just pay T and then you have the big nucleus and it costs money, but it's fine? Why hasn't the deal gotten done? If they're going to pay them, get the deal done right now, right? Calvin really makes 23, Michael Pimpman makes 23, go and get Givty Higgins 26 and call it a day. Why hasn't the deal gotten done?

Well, that leads to my next point here. All right, last last thing on that one. You were right, you were right about rookie, people overrating the impact of rookie wide receivers. I was actually just looking this up. top, I think a wide receiver taken in the first two rounds, I believe, over the last five years. What do you think their average production is in terms of yardage as a rookie? It's like 400, 400 or something like that. Yeah, it's around 500 yards.

So we always talk, like we remember the great guys. For every great guy, there's somebody who does nothing. There's three guys who do not. Yeah, yeah. So don't, like you can't just count. Oh, we'll just draft a guy and it'll be awesome. Wide receivers loaded. Yeah, you might do that, but that's no guarantee.

Which the Bengals are doing it the smart way because. they drafted Andre Yosevasse, and they drafted Charlie Jones, and they're just kind of like cycling some mid-run guys and trying to hit the things. They're doing it the right way. But again, doing it the right way, like, again, when you do the right way, led the chiefs to trade Terry Hill, let the chiefs to trade Legerius Sneed. This is kind of how the, you want to stay a contending team over a long frame with an elite quarterback. You have to be willing to move off of guys a little bit early and then cycling some youth. Big things coming for Andreoshevoss next year. I think we both agree. Shout out to our friend. Coach Flynn. There you go.

All right, my next point goes to what you were saying about the Bengals, and it's the difference in cash spending and cap spending. And I don't want to make this whatever we're in seven hours in a big accounting lesson. But I'm talking about the Dallas Cowboys, and I'm actually doing a callback because sometimes we have a conversation or an argument. And then afterwards, I think, you know what? I disagreed with that more than I indicated. I disagreed with it at the time.

And let me dig into this a little bit more. Normally I don't come back to it. But you know what? It's April. I felt good. So I don't think we had a conversation about the Dallas Cowboys a couple weeks ago. And I've come to the conclusion. I don't think bad drafting is the problem with the Cowboys.

I think it's bad management. And so I was digging more into why they're in this weird spot. For those who didn't listen, we were just talking about how they let all these guys go in free agency. Left tackle, Tyrant Smith, running back, Tony Pollard, Denner, Tyler Biotish, defensive lineman, Jonathan Hankins, Doran's Armstrong. And they've really done almost nothing to improve the roster. Like this is an objectively worse roster than the one that finished the season last year. Now, since then, Solek Ian Rappaport of NFL Network said there's no indication that the Cowboys and Dak Prescott are close on a deal.

This is another thing we talked about that Dak Prescott cannot be tagged after the year. He's a free agent after this season. He has more leverage than any player in a recent memory. So Cowboys are dealing with that. By the way, also dealing with potentially making C.D. Lamb a $30 million per year. receiver. By the way, also dealing with the potential of making Micah Parsons, the highest paid defensive

player in NFL history. So they've got all these things they're trying to weigh and it's like, why are they in this spot right now? And so I was just looking at their drafts, and I actually think their drafts have been really, really good. Last year, that one might be bad. We'll say it was one season. But before that, you look at all the

good players on this roster, they're basically all guys that they drafted. I mean, Tyler Smith, the Ron Blan, Micah Parsons, Cedy, Trayvon Diggs, Oza, Diggazua, the defensive tackle. Like, they have had very good. I mean, if you get two starters

out of a draft, it's pretty good. They drafted a top 10 quarterback in the fourth round. They drafted maybe the best defensive player in the NFL, certainly a top three defensive player later in the first round. They got Tyler Smith at 24, who looks like an all proet guard, and now we'll see

what he does here at left tackle. But I don't think the drafts have been the problem. So, like, I think their inability to build the roster around the great players that they've drafted and the mismanagement in terms of taking care of their own players has been the bigger problem for the Dallas Cowboys. I was looking at this thread. I don't know how you pronounce his name.

Maybe you can help me out. Joey Icus? Joey Icass. You follow him. It can't be Joey Ix. That would be tough. Okay. All right.

Anyway, he had a very good thread that I was reading on Twitter about how the Cowboys do. not spend high in terms of cash. And so terms of cash means how much money is from the owner, from the organization is going into the player's pocket. And cap is an accounting thing. You can, you can move the cap around. Hey, we need some space here. We're going to restructure it. We're going to make it a signing bonus and extend it over six years, void years, whatever, all that boring stuff that we don't necessarily get into. But when you look at it, a one way to manipulate that stuff is to pay more in cash. If you give a guy a big signing bonus, you can extend.

that over a longer period of time. If you sign a guy aggressively, like they could have done with Dak Prescott back in the day, then the price doesn't, you're not playing hardball, the price doesn't go up, and then all of a sudden you're scrambling and you have to figure out a way to pay the guy when the rate for quarterbacks has already gone up. So right now, per over the cap, the Cowboys are last in cash spending right now. And it's not a one-year thing. They've been bottom of the league for the last.

I forget what it is, eight to 10 years. With their stars, their approach has not been to be aggressive. Their approach has been to wait. And they haven't made aggressive moves to supplement the roster from players they drafted to players they could sign in free agency. Again, not to keep going back to the Eagles. They've got their own issues, but they're paying guys a lot of money and they're also signing players in free agency.

Why? Because their owner pays more cash spending than any owner in the NFL. They can structure things a certain way to create cap space. And so I look at this Cowboys team, and I think they've really blown this window. I mean, they've won a lot of regular season games, but you can really look at them. And Jerry Jones has this reputation as an owner who's willing to spend whatever it takes to put a winner on the field. The numbers don't really back that up in the terms of the way they've operated and the terms of the way they've spent it. Actually, if they've drafted more poorly, I mean, they would be in really bad shape right now.

So I don't think they're exploring all the avenues, exploring all the edges they can to win the Super Bowl. and I think they deserve to take heat for that from an ownership perspective. And I think that more so than the drafting is the reason they're in this position that they're in right now, which is, man, a lot of holes on that roster for a team that said they were going all in and a team that is expecting to compete for a Super Bowl. I think that's, no, I think that's fair. I think that a, I can't remember exactly what I said on the previous episode. Maybe a better way of framing it is just, if you're going to behave this way as a team,

where you are unwilling to be aggressive in terms of like getting, track's done early and signing guys from other teams, then you must draft better than they have. I think that you can argue that there are teams who are low cash spending teams who have been successful in that model over a period of time because they just drafted well above average, right? The teams you're typically talking about are the teams that are just low cash teams in general, Bengals, Chargers, Raiders, like those teams have had success. And again, we're not talking about none of those guys won Super Bowls, but we're talking about teams that have had successful stretches, they've gotten a franchise quarterback, they've built contending teams

based off of being really good in the draft and hitting in the draft consistently year over year. If you want to be a team that does not put a ton of cash into contracts, that's how you entice players, right? Is by cash now, right? Money now. If you're not going to do that, you just have to be an above average drafting team. And I think that there was a stretch of time late 2010 where the Cowboys were doing that. And accordingly, like, they established this expectation for themselves, right? If you go and you look at at, you know, getting a Zeke and Dack in 2016, you go look at in 2017, they got Cheeto, Woosier, and Jordan Lewis and Xavier Woods, all of whom were starters, 2018, Leighton Van derrash, Connor Williams, Michael Gallup, Doran,

Armstrong, Dalton, Schultz, all of whom were starters, right? Like, they had a stretch, okay, like, if you're going to, you draft this well, then, yeah, you could build a team this way, but you have to be able to do it over time, and they didn't, they haven't done it over the last couple of years. So it more so it's to say, if you're going to behave this way and be a low cash team, you have to be able to draft above average. Since they aren't in doing that, it's starting to expose the holes in the approach, the holes in the roster. They unequivocally should be more aggressive in free agency now than they've been. They should be adding more players out than they have been.

But they have allowed, and this goes back to your mismanagement point, they have allowed 2025 and 2025 and 226 and beyond to be occluded to them by not signing any deal, not getting Micah done, not getting CD done, and critically not getting DAC done. They have no idea what stage they're going to be team-wise. The Cowboys could win the Super Bowl this year. I know we just did like how likely the thing with the Bengals. they could. Or they can miss the playoffs. They don't know. And so, and because, and that's going to dramatically change how they pay DAC and so on and so

forth. So I think that the, the draft misses of recent years, to me like, they absolutely unequivocally matter because they tried to get like corners. It's only, it's like last year, though. I mean, 2022, they had a good draft. 2021. They had a good draft. They had a good draft.

But I think the bigger point you're making is that, yeah, if you're going to, like, why are they operating that way? They're the most valuable franchise in the NFL. I think they're worth like $9 billion and they're not reinvesting into their team to do everything they can to build a winner. Like if you're a Cowboys fan, that's what really you should be holding their ownership, their feet to the fire. Like, why are you guys operating this way when your franchise is worth a certain amount? And we haven't gotten past the divisional round in 28 years. And you say you want to win, but your actions are not saying that you're doing everything possible to put together a winning franchise.

So that's why, again, I thought that thread was really good. His name is Joey, I-C-K-E-S on Twitter. I would encourage everyone to check that out because I really thought I hadn't seen anyone lay it out that way, and I thought he really nailed it there with his analysis of what's going on with the Dallas Cowboys. All right, Solac. I mean, I have no concept of how long we've been podcasting.

They don't know what we're doing here. All right, okay. You don't need to tell me. Hour 20. Long video. First video. We want to give you a feature-length film here, Oppenheimer.

Yeah. All right. Go ahead. What is your extra point take? Okay. Right, extra point taken. The draft should be next week. I'm so done, dude.

There's nothing worse. No, no, no. I need time. No, no. You hear what takes I have next week for you. This is this. There's nothing more agonizing than early April. It is April Fool's Day, by the way.

I have April Fool's Day. I was thinking about doing like an April Fool's he take, like where I like said something I didn't actually believe. And then I was like, gosh, you won't find that funny. This is actually great. If Jade and Daniel stinks, I just say it was a long time. It's all take amacy in this episode. This feels great.

Yeah. accountable for April 4. Every year we do this, where free agency is in the middle of March. And teams have talked about, and you've seen agents talk about how, like, maybe the draft should be before free agency, and it would be better because then you can get your young guys, you would know what positions you would need. There'd be more money for veterans, whatever. There's always conversation around this time of year that they should change the way

that when free agency is and change the way the draft is. And the reality is that the NFL really, really, really, really, really, really, really, likes being a 12-month-a-year content machine. They love the fact that they can just dominate every single month. right? And they're going to put the draft as late as they can in April. That way ESPN will cut into NBA coverage and opening day MLB coverage and kind of all this coverage with, oh, who might dress? Who could go second overall?

Like, look, it is April 1st. We're going to spend the next 23 days, She'll. And oh, who might go second overall? And it's agonizing. We got the JJ McCarthy hype trend going and we're going to get a, we're going to get a Drake May moment in eight days. And we're going to get a Jane Daniels moment in 13 days. And we're going to get 19 trade rumors.

And every single time, look, I all got to get a, I've got to. I got a head on Twitter and see what this was saying. Okay, talk to these stores. Let's do an article about this. It takes forever. We just got to draft the players, mad. But we got the league news. Oh, we're playing two games on Christmas now.

We're playing games on a Wednesday. The league just lost. On a Wednesday Christmas. I mean, come on. Give me a break. I understand this is such a football writer thing to complain about. Everybody else is like, yay, more Christmas games. This is the worst thing that's ever happened.

This is that. I don't know that the, I mean, well, the audience numbers would show people will watch, but I was on text threads. with not like just friends who were like seriously they got to put a game on the Wednesday of Christmas? I don't know. My sister, I know my family.

I was my sister of Jackson. They're pretty stoked. They're pretty excited. They're on the game in the background. It's good. There you go. And there's the rumors that they're going to like have four teams play on the Saturday. Right.

And then those four teams will then play on the Wednesday. Because they have to figure out to make a Wednesday game work with like rest and whatever, which means they're going to pick great teams. That way they get great matchups. Like we're not going to be able to not watch. It's not going to be Tim Boyle against the dolphins. Well, maybe it will be because of injuries, whatever.

But still, Like, that's exhausting. Anyway, the league loves to dominate the news cycle. I get it. They're going to make the draft last as long as possible. It's going to lead into mini camp. Everybody's going to get a month off. Then, oh, then, bang, training camps, we're going to go.

But every time I get to this point of the year, I've watched all the good players. Like, I watched Malik Washington, man. I got his film done. I have the UCLA linebacker done. He's kind of good. I got them all. I'm done with all the good players. There's no more good players to watch.

And I just have to sit here for the next 24 days and just talking about the same players and the same teams, the same picks over and over again, and it's agonizing. The draft should be tomorrow. So that way, I could go to bed. That's my extra point taken. I, of course, disagree. Not all of us have been grinding the draft film since November, whenever you were doing it, I will send you random Jaden Daniels clips throughout the course of the next 23 days that you can watch. I think it's at a good time. This is what I normally like to yell at the NFL for everything. I think the draft is at a good time. end of April. It's nice NBA playoffs start up right around that time. And then May, everyone connects hail May, June, and then training camp starts in July. Here's here. I'm fine with that.

Here's my corollary. I think if the draft is the middle of March, there'd be less bust. I think that the league would draft more accurately if they had seven fewer weeks to think about it. I believe that I feel like full heart. What about February 1st? What if, what if it were mid-January, What if it was right after the, you know, like before coaches could get their myths into it, before you could interview anyone? It's actually an interesting exercise. Before anyone could interview, like, does that stuff more mess with you? Whereas if you just went with what you saw in film and how you gritted the players in the fall, what would your board be compared to what it is now? It actually would be a fun exercise.

It's impossible to prognosticate. And with that said, I'm 100% certain the league would draft better. If it was, I tend to agree. In the middle of February. Absolutely. Just before a free agency. And just like, just do it on a Tuesday. Just get the GMs on a conference call.

Like, all right, Bill, who do you want? Like, I want Jake May. All right, got him. Who's next? Three days television. Got suits. You're red carpet nonsense. It's so much, man.

Just draft the players. All right. Last thing. One idea I did have at one point. In NFL, if you use this, we better see a cut. Yeah. Is there any reason it should only be. three days. What if they did around a day for a week? I mean, everybody would watch, who's not watching,

or they could even do less than that. I mean, they really could do like five picks a day for an extended period. If they really want to dominate the off season, that would be the way to do it. I mean, we would be having to do a podcast. We get to do a podcast. We get to do a podcast. We don't have to do a podcast. Of course, we'd be doing one every day. I mean, there's really no reason for them to cram all of that into just three days. They really, really should extend it longer. So there you go. This is the worst thing you've ever done to me. This is horrible. If I had to tune in like, all right, we're kicking off round seven.

I would know. It is no, no, no, no, emphatically no. Think of all the mock drafts you would be able to do. Five picks a day. I mean, every day you're doing. Oh, the post round five, pre round six mock draft. Crazy that, you know, but Theo Johnson fell this far. Where could he go? Horrible. No chance. All right. There you go. Thank you to Benjamin Sola. Good to be back.

Thank you to Cliff Augustine for producing Eduardo Ocampo with the video production that you see on social media. Additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ram Gopal.

And Ronick. Because Ronick's doing the video for the YouTube now. And Ronick, who is putting the video on YouTube. Of course, sorry. I get flustered easily. I'm 150 years old

like Robert Kraft, of course. So you can check that out on Ringer NFL on YouTube. We'll have dual threat later this week, and then Solac and I will be back on Friday. Thanks to everyone for listening to Extra Points. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fandul is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC.

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