The Ringer NFL Show - J.J. Watt to the Cardinals and Moves That Could Change the Outlook of the 2021 Season

Episode Date: March 2, 2021

Kevin and Nora start by discussing what J.J. Watt signing with the Arizona Cardinals does for their outlook next season (3:20). Then they talk about potential moves via free agency or trade that could completely change the outlook of a team (18:17). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On R2C2, Cecee Sabathia and Ryan Rucco guide listeners through everything going on in the MLB, NBA, and NFL. They also talk to friends, athletes, and celebrities about the world of sports and much more. Check out R2C2 with CCC2 with CCet and Ryan Ruko on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined by Nora Prince Yati, Nora. This is our first regularly scheduled Tuesday off-season show. How does it feel? It feels really good.

I'm excited to get going, Kevin, because I feel like we haven't potted. together in a bit. It's been like basically since the Super Bowl. Yeah. It's in the interim, every franchise quarterback got mad. J.J. Watt switched teams. Alex Smith got cut. There's a lot to talk about. Lots going down. But I'm very excited. And I'm excited to do these Tuesday shows with you because I feel like we're going to have some good like offseason. Wacky fun. Who is the most happy quarterback right now? Like I kind of feel like there's just a lot of tension and a lot of things need to be worked out with every franchise quarterback. I guess Tom Brady is the only guy who's just, who was like at a hundred percent happiness rate, right? But he's not, right? Like,

Tom Brady is just still mad about his draft scouting report. Like, half the franchise quarterbacks are mad at their GMs, some are mad at their offensive line or the skill guys or whatever. And then the one guy won the Super Bowl who was on a, what, a $3 million boat a couple weeks ago looking great, a little drunk. He's just mad at 31 other teams. He's mad about stuff that happened in like, 1999. There's a lesson in that. All right. So we have a lot to get to today. We're going to get to the Watt news and how we think this changes anything if it does. We're going to get to our needle mover, sort of using the J.J. Watt signing as a guidepost to what players would actually swing a team from good to great, from bad to good, whatever it is. Just the free agents or the guys who

could change teams that we think would do the most for a particular team. And then we're going to get into a couple of the news items. Alex Smith getting released by the Washington football team, a couple of other things. Let's start with the JJ Watt signing because I think that this was a bit of a surprise to go to Arizona for two years, $23 million guaranteed, $31 million overall. I think that a lot of fans, some media got on board with his idea that he was going to take a pretty insignificant contract to go chase a ring in Buffalo or Cleveland or Green Bay. and it turns out that what JJ Watt wanted to do

was what we'd all want to do, which is take the most money, A, play on a pretty good team. Edwarder came out yesterday and said that he wanted to go to a place with the good quarterback, Highland Marie, is that, and live in a very nice place. Arizona is a good place to be. Nora, when you saw this news, which was broken by JJ Watt himself with a picture,

and this is, at some point, JJ Watch is playing into the J.J. Watt bit, but he broke it by putting a Cardinal shirt on and lifting weights and putting a photo of himself online. When you saw this news, Nora, you thought what? The first thing I thought about was that he'll be playing with Chandler Jones. And I think that's important because you talk about the conversation leading up to this movement and how much speculation there was that he would go to the bills,

somebody ready to really be a serious contender right now and would prioritize maybe at the cost of how big the contract would be playing for a team like that. And I think what gets underrated when we analyze how a player might make a decision like this is who their position mates are going to be and how that's going to impact their ability to perform well in what kind of situation that they're going to be in. Because for both of those guys, they have an opportunity because both of them are incredibly good players, incredibly good pass pressures, but who have significant injury histories. both of them have an opportunity to take a little bit of that pressure off of each other, probably diminish their double team rates a little bit, and also change that defense

so that they have to rely on blitzing a little bit less. And then we find out, and this is, of course, speculative and silly and potentially completely insignificant. But they'd been messaging on Instagram about, you know, Chandler Jones was saying, If you come here, I'll be your private chef. I'll cook you meals and JJ's laughing.

And it's all cute and whatever. Like, that's adorable. But I think that type of thing matters not just in terms of scheme fit, what they'll be able to do when they're actually playing together. But I think that's really significant. And it's not more significant than money. Like somehow we always underrate. Just people want to get paid for their work.

The easiest thing in the world is to tell somebody else to take less money. And it's never It's never reflective of how someone's going to make a decision like this. Especially because it's just really hard to figure out who's going to win a Super Bowl next year, right? Like, I guess if he'd gone to, if he'd gone to like the Bucks, you're kind of like, yeah, okay, well, whatever. But it's also really hard to win a Super Bowl two years in a row. Like, the Bucks probably aren't going to win the Super Bowl next year. They could.

Now that I've said that Tom Brady is just going to be pissed and go crazy. He's clipping that. He's clipping that for his TB12 pump-up video for this time next year. Football players know a lot better than we do sometimes that these things are hard to predict. I'm also thinking, the other thing that, and I'm monopolizing this discussion, but the other thing that it made me think of was, and JJ Watt is a more accomplished player, of course. But when Yannick and Gokwe went to the Vikings, I'm trying to learn the lesson of how much

that swayed my opinion of the Vikings in that moment, which did not turn out to be astute analysis. That was not, that, that pod discussion was not us from last year. That was a deep fake. Right. Yeah, exactly. That was, that was J.J. Watt on the Peloton. That was, that was KJ, Kevin and Nora.

It's funny because I think Danny Coe was in that pod, too. It was funny because we, I think, I had picked the Packers to win that division the entire time that didn't sway me, but I did think that that, I thought, the Vikings were just a frisky team and I thought that in Gakway mattered and that turned out to be true. They ended up getting good value for them down the road, but that's a separate discussion. Okay. So the Chandler Jones JJ Watt thing is interesting to me. I'm with you in the sense that I don't feel amazing about Arizona as a franchise. I don't love their coaching situation, although Cliff has, I kind of feel like there's a because Cliff immediately exceeded our

expectations. I kind of put a moratorium on criticizing him. And now I'm kind of back to Clip Kingsbury is an average coach at best. Okay. And he's the worst coach in the division and all that stuff. Okay. But I think they have talent. And I think that kind of like what you said, there's a real opportunity here for Arizona to be a sleep routine. And I don't know, first of all, I want to take a big step back here because I think that there's a lot, we don't know about what this offseason and training camp is going to look like, right? And I don't know. I mean, the whole thing last year for me was teams can't make these huge leaps because

you need OTAs and training camp and that stuff. Well, D. Smith a couple of weeks ago said there's no optimism that's going to be in-person training camp this year. So I don't know. I mean, I think there's so many moving pieces about whether or not teams can get better in a nutritional way that are still unanswered. Now, with Watt in particular, obviously he is not what he was. as a pass rusher.

And he's never going to be again because he was one of the best past rushers in the history of football. He's getting old. That's fine. Our friend Charles McDonough on the piece on USA Today yesterday that basically,

I think he was, what was 68th or something in pressure rate among defenders last year? Not great. But what he can do is play the run. And what he can do is get to the quarterback

at a decent enough rate to where he's not a total waste there. But maybe, and I've heard the PFF guys talk about this, maybe his future is more interior, more inside. Obviously, the Texans moved him around a lot. And that was part of his

success over the course of his career. But I think that I'm with you. I think the Chandler-Jones think can only help. They have 1,142 combined pressures, which is the most among all active pass rushing duos. I will caution sometimes we get into, I remember when Shaq joined the Celtics and the big headline was, I think the Celtics was like the most all-star appearances in history on one

starting a lineup or whatever. And it's like, well, that's just because they're, old and that's isn't this isn't that good um but i do think that they both have something left in the tank and i do think chanler jones is still it can still be a premium tier pass rusher um so i think that this matters i went back and forth and the money is a little too much 31 million is probably six seven eight million dollars more than i would have given him he gets a little bump for being famous i'm fine with that there are significantly worse contracts in football given out because guys are a bigger name than they are a player i still think jo j walk can contribute to a team uh yesterday

when the signing came down, I said, you know what, this isn't going to matter to the NFL in 2021. I'm coming around on the Cardinals being an interesting team, and I'm coming around on this signing mattering. I think it's a good signing for both sides. Well, so they're in a brutal division, right? They go eight and eight last year. They're in a brutal division. So if this ends up mattering, to me has a lot to do with if they get some other things right. If they can make their offense a little bit more stable, a little bit more explosive, potentially add some speed, become a team that can really compete in that division, then that's when you come back around to, okay, they had to overpay for it,

but it's good that they added a JJ Watt. It's good that, you know, they've blitzed 38% of the time over the last three seasons. That's a lot. You're putting a lot of pressure on those guys by doing that. Maybe if you change that formula a little bit and other things are going right. And you need a lot of things to go right at the same time. to succeed in that division. Then you get to the point where you can start

accomplishing what you actually want to accomplish. Maybe you need an upgrade in your coaching as well to do that. JJ Watt alone is not going to win the Cardinals of Super Bowl or get them there or have them make a significant playoff round or whatever. Like the lesson of the Ngaqway thing is one defensive player is just not going to do it for you. But if other things go right, then it's good that you did that. So I guess it's TBD to me, but I can see him making a difference down the line. Okay.

So this accomplishes one other thing. It's totally separate. It's not what they did it, but it is productive. It's going to drive Russell Wilson crazy. It's going to get Russell Wilson 10% angrier. He might add two more teams to his list. He might say, I still don't want to trade, but I just add it two. more teams. That's where Russell Wilson might be because they obviously the Seahawks

offensive line has still been a problem for essentially, you know, I don't know, four or five, six years now, something like that. They need to upgrade now because if this wasn't already the case and it should have been, they should be on red alert in Seattle that there's going to be a lot of great pass rushers in this division coming at them. And if you didn't know that because Chandler Jones is already there or Donald was already there, you know it now. So it is, it's going to be interesting to see how that chess match goes, but I know that when Russell Wilson saw that tweet, he probably did not enjoy

himself. That's all. I don't want to trade, but here are two more teams that I would be traded to is some peak Russell Wilson shit, and I absolutely love it. The other thing that this accomplishes, that has it's incredible. It's so that guy is always on brand and has kind of the weirdest brand in the world,

and I really respect it in a strange way. The other thing that it does that has nothing to do with the Arizona Cardinals is that putting him with DeAndre Hopkins. Yeah. It also makes the Houston Texans look really bad. Worse than they already did.

And that needle was hard to move. I thought it was really funny yesterday when people were like, wow, DeAndre Hopkins, great recruiter. I don't know. I think money in Arizona is probably number one and number two there. And not Houston. And not Houston. And I'm sure DeAndre Hopkins, I'm sure that that helped.

But okay, there's other reasons to go. I would also say that seeing the money. money in the market for JJ Watt. And I understand that there's other considerations here. I'm a little surprised, and I guess I shouldn't be at this point. I'm a little surprised Houston didn't try to get something for him. Because you could have done a situation where J.J. Watt picked his team and he still got a mid-round pick. If you're willing to pay $31 million for a player, you're willing to

give up a mid-round pick as well. And I, the whole thing is with Houston there. I'm trying, I'm done understanding it, but it's our job to try to understand it. I just don't understand why a guy would, I don't know. Again, I trying to, trying to understand Houston. It's like at this point, it's like, you know, it's one of those movies where there's more fan theories than there are like the director putting thought into it. You know what I'm saying? Like you ever have like, they'll always be like, you know, you go on some Reddit for a movie and

they're like, here's 25 theories and the director will be like, I literally put no thought into that scene. Like it isn't Stanley. This is not Stanley Kubrick here. Okay, Jack Easterby is not Stanley Kubrick. There is no plan. I'm done trying to read into this. When I was in high school, we had, I took a lit class where I had this great teacher who

would always try to get us to have like a video conference or whatever with whoever wrote whatever book that we'd read. And it was like, I'd like sort of discovered that I liked writing in that class. And we were doing so much like close reading and all these theories and write these essays and have like whatever. Every single time we talked to the person who wrote the book, like, we'd all be shouting out our ideas about what was a parallel to what. And the author would always be like, oh, yeah, I didn't think of that. Houston, I reject the premise that it is our responsibility to explain what's happening in Houston. I think that is not. I think they're, like, unless we're going to recruit a crack team of scientists to come on the ring around at Belgio and do some really heavy duty research, like I just don't think that that one's happening. Yes, it would have made sense. to try to get some draft capital in exchange for him if teams were willing to go this far, but not a lot going on down there is making sense.

And I think we just have to embrace this. What are we going to do? All right, let's get to our needle movers. So this is a group. These are realistic moves, okay? Like, we are assuming here that Dak Prescott is going to stay with the Cowboys via franchise tag or something else. We're not going to make unrealistic moves where we say, hey, you know, it would solve the Panthers problem. if they got Aaron Rogers.

Like, we're not, we're not going to do that. We're going to do realistic moves that could change the outlook for a team, for a division, whatever we want to do. Nora, what's number one for you? My first needle mover is wide receiver Alan Robinson to the Miami Dolphins, which would be expensive, right? Yes. Alan Robinson is the best receiver on the market and a good free agent class for receivers.

But to me, he is worth the money. The dolphins really badly. need to upgrade their passing attack. They're ready to be a contender in my eyes. And that is actually regardless of who's playing quarterback, there's still unanswered questions about if that's a Deshaun favorite destination or if it's Tua or whatever is going on. But in either case, that's a quarterback upgrade for our guy, Alan Robinson.

And it's going to cost upwards of $20 million a year, I would think. but Miami's still got a decent amount of resources to spend. And I think this would be a real worthwhile move to pair him with Devante Parker and just have a real one-to threat there. What do you think of that choice, Kevin? So I'm in agreement with that. I actually have one of my needle movers as Alan Robinson to the Colts, which I'll get to in a second. This is obviously suggesting that Alan Robinson does not get tagged or tagged and traded or, and this seems more. more unrealistic by the day that the bears come up with a long-term plan to keep in there for four years.

Even tagging him. It would be 18. And even that is really hard for them to figure out how to afford. A tag and trade might be a realistic possibility for them. But financially, it would be tough to see him sticking around in Chicago. I also don't really know why he would want to. That's another reason I think Miami would be a good destination. Why would you not want to live in Miami after dealing with that?

Yes, that's a great point. So, yeah, the, the tag number is around 18. The estimate on Spotrack is around 20. And so he's going to be a big ticket item for anybody, and he's going to be the priority of your offseason when you're spending that much money, okay? So I think with the dolphins, and this ties in actually to another one of my needle movers,

they need something. And that could be, number one, that could be Deshaun Watson. He's not a needle mover because that's obviously that's the needle. He's the needle. He changes everything if he goes. They're the one team that's in position that Deshaun would go to. So Deshaun Watson was in Miami for the Cannell Fight over the weekend. Obviously, that's a place people want to live.

It's a franchise that has a lot of building blocks. It's a team that I look at the Deshaun situation through what teams could Deshaun Watson make legitimate, let's say, conference championship contender in year one. The Dolphins are that team. Yes, Deshawn Watson could take a team to almost made the playoffs last year and get them to the ASEA championship game. That is absolutely something that could happen. And they wouldn't have to, they would only be giving up draft capital. They'd be giving up the Lambert Tunzel picks back and a few more picks and maybe, maybe a defensive player or two.

But there would still be enough for them to get to the, at least the AFC championship game and then who knows from there. And so, but failing that, they need to just go all in on what they have and upgrade the weapons. And if they don't, if they cannot get to Sean Watson, there's an either or thing here for me, where if they're not going to upgrade the quarterback, they need to upgrade what the quarterback has. So for me, that would probably be an Alan Robinson or drafting Jamar Chase at three and going from there. So I think the skill guys are the most important thing if you're not going to get to Sean Watson. If you do get to Sean Watson, having an Alan Robinson or Jamar Chase would be obviously amazing, but it's not, you know, you don't need to prioritize that necessarily.

You can ask Deshaun to win with Devante Parker. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. So what I was going to say about the Colts. So Zach Kiefer of the athletic who covers the Colts and does a great job, said this week that the Colts were in for Alan Robinson last time he was on the open market. And that Chris Bauer is not known for taking big swings like this, but it would definitely be something that helped them. And when I think about Carson Wentz and I think about that incredible 2017 Eagles team, they went all in on weapons. And, you know, I think that there's probably a pretty good debate about why there was such a spike in Carson-Wenz's production.

You know, Stephen Ruiz at USA Today is written that basically he was never as good as we thought, which is actually might be a better explanation than he just completely forgot to play football. But I do know that when he was at his best, he had elite weapons, at least enough good weapons that it was an elite supporting cast. And I think that with Frank Reich, I think. you got to get him something. And I think Alan Robinson would be, you know, the Colts are one of the very few teams with money to spend this year. Obviously, they're going to have some extensions up because they have a lot of talent on the roster.

But they could afford Alan Robinson. And if he got to the open market, I think they, I think you need to do something like that. Take a big swing because Carson Wentz is not going to win on his own. He's not like we're talking about John Watson. Carson Wentz is not going to win on his own. He needs some help.

You need to, you need to recreate the 2016 or 2017 Eagles here and, go out and get him a wide receiver who's going to make him better. And there are a handful of those guys in the market. And obviously, listen, the receiver depth in free agency this year is really good. Whether that's juju, whether that's Alan Robinson, there are receivers everywhere. And there are receivers in the draft. And this is something I've talked about this for eight years now since they started covering the league.

But there's just a lot of good receivers everywhere because of the way the sport developed, because of the seven on seven leagues, because these guys all got 10,000 hour. rule stuff and the quarterbacks and wide receivers developed way ahead of linebackers and cornerbacks and right guards and all that stuff. That's separate podcast. What I'll say is we're seeing it now when we see how deep the draft is and we're seeing how deep free agency is. But if you want a premium guy right now, you go with Alan Robinson.

And again, if they can't get them, there's other options out there. But that's the big swing I would try to take. that's a really good segue to my next one, which is another one of those receivers, not quite as big of a swing, but not a bunt either, to the Colts. I gave them Will Fuller. And slightly more modest, right,

than going after an Alan Robinson, although that's not, you know, he's not going to come cheap, but maybe you're talking about 14, 15 million a year instead of upwards of 20. Totally in agreement with you that Carson once is going to need support there to succeed. And what I really like about

the fit with Fuller is that he's not, the contract that he's going to get is not purely based on production. What it's going to be based on more than anything else is speed. Just that trait is really valuable and is what teams are going to be looking for whoever ends up getting him. And in an offense there that I think is really smart, really well designed is also uses, multiple tight ends, uses the running backs, uses size, uses big players pretty effectively. Having that change up with a real true field stretcher, I think could be really interesting and really effective. So I would love to see him go there or, and this would be financially a little bit more difficult. I think he would be cool in Arizona too if you want to just keep

sending everyone who's ever put on a Houston Texans uniform to the Arizona Cardinals. But my first choice is the Colts, especially because, yeah, I mean, T. Wyeldon's not getting any younger. Michael Pittman Jr. is pretty young, but probably needs time to develop. So I would love to see them get a receiver. Obviously, Alan Robinson would be phenomenal there, but the slightly less expensive option that I really like is Will Fuller for the Colts. So Fuller was the ninth highest graded wide receiver in 2020, according to PFF. I thought it was interesting how often and how close the the Packers got to trading for Will Fuller last year. And I understand there's cap limitations, but if they could do that, obviously the Packers

have had some interest and that would fit in the little flur offense and that would just be something. If Aaron Rogers is as angry as he seemed in January and he should have been angry because I feel like every franchise quarterback should have say or whatever it is he was looking for, franchise quarterback should basically be able to run the organization if they want. Okay. Hold on. Yes and no. Aaron Rogers just got a shout out from Jody Foster during the Golden Globes.

Like, you're fine, Aaron. You're fine. I looked into that. I was surprised. I didn't understand that until I read that they, they, Jody Foster's obsessed with Aaron Rogers, but they never met. Yeah, but she also maybe introduced him to Shailene Woodley or something. It's really, I've never met.

Is this this Zoom thing? Was it like a Zoom happy hour? Um. I don't know. I don't know. I have theories, but I think they're for offline. Let's take that offline. Let's take that offline, the Jody Foster stuff.

Okay, so I think that Will Fuller is a really intriguing option. And I'm with you. I think that the Cardinals might be a sneaky option there. There could be a situation where Fuller just gets a bunch of money from a team that has room to spend it. And it doesn't, Will Fuller does not end up swinging any would-be contender and ends up playing in kind of a waste land, which is totally fine. If I was a free agent, I would just go where the most money was is. But, you know, the fact that the Texans are not tagging him is not a surprise.

And I think that there's, from what social media looked like yesterday, the Texans were unhappy with it. But I also think that the, I'm sorry, the Texans players were unhappy with it. But I also think the Texans players are unhappy with everything right now because they're on a go ship. So there you go again, analyzing the decision making of the Houston Texans. We're just not going to do it. By the way, I always think of 40 times with, fuller because and I wanted to bring up this thing that Daniel Jeremiah said really quickly that 40 times are going to be totally irrelevant going forward because of all the GPS days. Did you see

this? I thought this was fascinating. I just want to talk about this for one second because I think that we're going to understand how to quantify speed going forward and it's going to be really fascinating to see because I just you know two years ago a GM told me that a defensive back they ran a good 40 and they thought he played slow and the scouts thought he played slow and there was a little bit of a debate and then they went to the school the school gave them their GPS time so basically how fast they're moving on the field it confirmed they played slow and then they stayed away from him and actually that DB is actually not particularly good um in the NFL right now even though he was thought of as a pretty good prospect but who knows if that's GPS or not and so I think

there's there's just a lot there with with speed and football that's going forward that I'm fascinated by this is totally aside from the will forward thing I just I had this in my notice I wanted to bring it up and the will forward thing is is is is the fact that speed is is probably when I look at I don't know 10 15 I saw yesterday with with watch football team there was a story that was like the Washington football team needs speed like everybody needs speed and the fact that I guess the bucks don't need speed the bucks are all set with speed. But I would guess you would say that the fact that there's going to be better ways to quantify speed going forward is going to be a game changer in future off seasons, I would guess.

I'm sorry, I'm cracking up because what's the quote that they show at the beginning of Talladega nights where it's like America's all about speed, hot, nasty, badass speed, Eleanor Roosevelt. That's the NFL right now. Yes. You're totally right, though, especially because, okay, so it's really obvious why you should covet speed, but you also look around the league right now. and there are a lot of offenses that have quite a bit going for them. But everything is just a little bit too horizontal, right?

Because we've had this push pull between we have more mobile quarterbacks who can get sacked less often using their athleticism. They can take some pressure off of offensive lines, which like, I don't know, go back five years. We were terrified about the offensive line pipeline coming from college because the splits were too wide and nobody knew how to do it at the NFL level and all the quarterbacks were getting killed. everything was a big disaster. Well, one of the major reasons teams have figured out ways to get around that is everybody just gets the ball out so quickly. But what that leads to is that having something where you can build that into deep shots is harder, but also really, really, really important.

So there's just, I mean, there are so many teams where you can look at and go, okay, that's a pretty well-designed offense. but if they could add a field stretcher, and I really circle Arizona with this, it would make a huge difference. So I actually think the more that we're talking about this, I'm talking myself into Will Fuller having a really, really interesting market, but we'll see.

It's also super weird because of all the COVID stuff and the salary cap, but this discussion has convinced me that he's absolutely one to watch. Yeah, it'll be interesting. And I do want to say one thing with the Wentz and Tua stuff is that I don't know if Wence or Tua are going to have productive 20-20-1s. I don't know, quite frankly, if they'll ever have productive seasons in the NFL going forward because Wence was a disaster last year and Tua was just okay last year.

And I've been a case about Tua that the Josh Allen thing has spooked me to the point that I'm not going to declare anyone a bust. And I would say going back to the Jared Gough thing, I'm not going to declare anyone a bust. And Tua showed enough. This is not, Tua did not play golf like last year. He showed a little bit. He just didn't show, you know, as much as Justin Herbert or somebody like that. But what I will say is, I mean, this is just when you give these guys the weapons,

whether it's Alan Robinson or Will Fuller or whatever it is, you're just making it easier on them. And you're making it easier on the infrastructure. Like, listen, the reason that the Eagles were able to win the Super Bowl when once went out in 2017 was because they built up that infrastructure. So I don't think there's any guarantee, even if you give Alan, I mean, poor Alan Robinson, wouldn't it be the worst thing in the world of Alan Robinson finally gets to choose his destination for agency with a good quarterback in mind and he gets there and the quarterback is just somehow still bad? This poor guy.

When I was putting together my notes, at first I wrote down Nick Trebiski for who his quarterback was last year, which I actually think I'm going to stick with. But to your point about Tua, if, what? We're spooked on that. I pound the table on this, but the lesson potentially has something to do with the receivers that he had around him in college. So if even a smidgen of that translates to the NFL, that to your point, is evidence for the value of going all in on these guys. Because if you don't have them, it's just really hard. We're now doing that with Mack Jones as well.

That's a separate discussion. It's coming up a little bit later, actually, on this show. All right, let's get to my next guy, my next needle mover. And that is Trent Williams returning to his team, the same to go 49ers. So in his new deal that was signed a couple of years ago, was restructured, Trent Williams cannot be franchise tagged. What he can do is you paid a boatload of money because he is one of the best players in football full stop. So number one in PFF grade for tackles.

His blown block percentage on both run blocking and pass blocking is around 1%. I don't know the full metrics on that, but that sounds pretty good. that you 99 times out of 100 have a good block if your job is to block. He's going to make a ton of money. Probably around $20 million. Laramie Tunsell reset the market on that. You saw the David Bakhtiari deal this year.

The reason I think that... Laramie Tunsell is making $44,000 a day right now. I just want to say, because we're taking a lot of airtime talking about things that are going very badly in Houston, Texas. One thing that's going very well is that Laramie Tunsell is making bank every single day. Laramie Tunsell played it perfectly.

He played it perfect. Not only to that, but the best part was when Laramie Tunsel found out the offer that was going to Miami and he was like, yeah, you got to trade me. He said, yeah, definitely. I think Laramie Tunsel might be the smartest person of football. I think Laramie Tunsel might should pull a Jack Easterby style coup and be running the franchise.

I would trust Laramie Tunsell significantly more. Laramie Tunsel negotiated his own contract. He was on the phone with Bill O'Brien being like, you're going to pay me an incredible ton of money. Yes. Laramie Tunsell, in Laramie, we trust. Even with the, also, the gas mask bong was kind of cool. It isn't his, he's like a, he's like a 30 for 30 short minimum potential.

Wow. He is a really, really interesting guy. He can bankroll himself. And can you imagine, I will move on in a second. I care about this because I wrote a story about it last year. But can you imagine going through that experience where you think that you have your entry into the NFL all set up and then something that I guess you can argue that when he put the gas mask on, it was in his control to do that or whatever. But something totally random that is in part outside your control happens and screws it up. And then he has this weird, complicated entry into his profession.

career, rough start, figures it out, turns into a really good player, and then seizes control back through this trade contract negotiation, all of that. Like, Laramie Tunsell is thriving, and I love to see it. Anyway. The gas mess, bong thing happened. It was my literal first day at the Ringer. They had sent us to the draft, Mays and I, and we were sitting together. And the absolute chaos in, like, the media and team.

area when that happened was just because I think there were a lot of teams obviously that were just like they were going to take him and then he just started slipping it's it was it was one of the most fascinating things um of the last few years just to have that during the draft anyway laram rey tonsil's thriving he's making 44,000 dollars a day he's the only person in houston knows what they're doing right now aside from dashed thing on that he also probably made ronie stanley like yes 10,000, $10 million because he became the top tackle prospect in that draft, like, immediately after the gas mask thing. And so made a little bit of extra money on his rookie contract. And then because Laramie Tunsell moved the market with his extension, helped him again.

So send that man a fruit basket. So Trent Williams has to be the number one. thing. Maybe even above right now, unless there's a quarterback that shakes free, John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan should just be focused on Bernie and Trent Williams back. So as I said, he cannot be franchised. He's the kind of guy that creates such a hole in your line that you have to do five things just to make up for it. So sign him. I think that when he gets to the open market, he's going to see a lot of money. I don't think, you know, in a normal year, there would be a team that maybe says screw it, we need to tackle. Here's just an ungodly amount.

of money. I don't know in the COVID salary cap year if that's going to happen, even if new TV deals are signed, like that there's just not enough money to go around right now in this free agency period. You know, I remember the story, and this is kind of separate, but if you remember the Trump Brown signing in Oakland at the time, it was basically like they were getting ready for free agency and then Trump Brown's agent called Trump Brown and was like, free agency's over, dude, like guess how much the writer's offered you, right? Like, and that tends to happen sometimes when you reach the open market is you get you get to a point and then some team you're not expecting calls and says oh here's 10 million dollars a year more than anybody else and i think that that

trent williams at 33 years old he's going to probably want a four-year deal uh i don't know if that's going to happen but in it it's conceivable um anyway the 49ers if they don't get trent williams would take a huge step back um in in and everything kind of i think they're the type of team even with Jimmy Garoplo. They have a bounce back year. I mean, all they have to do is not lose half their guys over a two-week period in New York. And things would have been fine for that. I mean, they were still competitive last year.

I think that there will be, I think that the 49ers are, when we're talking about bounce back candidate, it's probably in a couple weeks here. I think that they're at no worse than number two as far as teams that were bad last year. They're going to be good next year. And I think Trent Williams, a huge, huge piece of that. It is so rare, you know, Nick Wagoner who covers the team for ESPN, I think Brear mentioned this as well. It is so rare for a player like Trent Williams to reach free agency. It almost never happens, especially one that's in the 30s.

You know, Andrew Whitworth and Jason Peters are kind of the guideposts here as far as guys who are able to play a long time. It's not like Trent Williams is going to fall off a cliff here at age 30, age 33. So I think he's a great player. I think you should be the focal point. And I think that it's a sneaky. This is the definition of a needle mover for me. Because if Trent Williams somehow gets out of San Francisco, the entire division changes.

Because now all of a sudden, the Niners have a problem with offensive lines. And now we're talking about going against Aaron Donald and J.J. Watt and Chandler Jones with their problem. And so he is a huge, huge, huge chess piece this for agency and it's something to watch. All right. What's your next one?

Mine is, and I'm looking around here just to make sure that our buddy Ryan Shazier is nowhere near the vicinity. He's going to Zoom bomb us. He's going to Zoom bomb us. I am bracing myself for that eventuality. Bud Dupree to the Ravens. Ducks. Okay.

This is interesting to me because the Ravens, you know, I actually read a couple days ago about Matthew Judon, maybe going to the Titans and, you know, their rivalry there. there's so, the pass rushers almost like receiver here where there's so many guys who are going to change teams. But also there's, there's just a lot of, because the AFC North is such a, an AFC in general, such a competitive, like rivalry-laden conference, like there might be guys who switch teams to teams that they used to hate. Yeah. And this could really be one of them because, okay, so the Ravens are, could be losing their top four outside lineback

from 2020, Judon, Gawkeway, Bowser, and McPhee. So there's a need there. I also just think what... Bud Dupree is such a Ravens player, and it's so weird to say that because we're used to seeing him as a stealer. But he's so good at so many little subtle things, right? Like, he's not going to just win one-on-one all the time, but he's going to get pressure.

He's going to push the pocket. He's good against the run. He's versatile. he's smart. And that's totally, that is a Baltimore Ravens outside linebacker. Like to a T.

You've never heard one more fitting than that, except that we're used to watching him play for the Steelers. And I just think that they are a smart organization that's going to know how to value a player like that. Even with, okay, some injury history,

he's had some advantages just by playing with other really great players in the front seven there. but I trust Baltimore to kind of have finger on the pulse there and figure that one out. They haven't needed the position. Plus, they'd like to stick it to the Steelers. Like, what could be better than that? I am slightly concerned.

I've seen some smart folks say this off season that pass rush was coming up in ACL. It's not an immediate impact. So I think with Dupree, that's just something to watch that if you're putting, I think Bud Dupree is not going to command a ton of money. I'll look up the estimates here. I think you're right in as much that he would fit on the Ravens. Let me look up the market value here. If you had to guess his market value, what would you guess?

Like 16. Okay. So Spotrack has him at 18, which I think is a little high. Yeah, I do too. I'm factoring in that this year is weird. And I think of a player who it's not always, and this is why life's not fair. it's not always great in free agency to be the does a lot of things well guy. Well, they're going off the fact, so Frank Clark makes, this is their comparable player.

So Frank Clark makes $20 million, D. Ford, 17, Eric Armstead, 17, Zadaria Smith, 16.5. I was thinking more of the Zadarius Smith 16 window, as you were. So listen, again, free agency is crazy. I don't know. But I'm just saying this doesn't seem like the year where someone's going to say, I need this. And listen, and this goes back something we've talked about last week with Shield. There's going to be a lot of bridge contracts. Maybe he gets 18, but it's just a two-year deal.

Maybe it's two years 36. And maybe it's that because teams aren't really sure of what's going to happen with the cap. But not only that, but there's going to be a spike in two years or one year, depending on how it all goes. Bud Dupree wants to get out into the open market. I mean, we saw this with the NBA where the smartest players and the smartest agents were gaming it towards the free agent periods where there was money to be spent. And we're going to see that. I mean, if you think that Trent Williams, you get $20 million this off season, wait until

you see what he could get in two years when there's 100% return for every single television deal. It's going to be unbelievable. And so how that comes into the cap, whether or not there's a spike, whether it's smoothing, all that stuff. That's a different category. What I will say is that the cap rose $10 million every year from, I think, 2013 to 2020, basically until now.

Seven years in a row. Yeah. And that changed football. And we're going to see a similar thing. We don't know what the actual numbers will look like, but we're going to see something similar with that. And so I think if you're a Bud Dupree, maybe you take it to your $17 million deal, $16 million deal and just trying to figure it out later.

Or if you're not confident in your ACL, maybe you take more long term. But anyway, that's why free agency is so fascinating because it tells you where the league is. and it tells you what's going to happen. And for me, I think that you might see these shorter contracts as a, as teams knowing what's going, what the market's going to look like in, in 20203, and players knowing as well. So like a one year deal in Baltimore, right?

Like a one year deal in Baltimore. All right. That's where the league is going. I lumped two of mine together, so I don't have a third one. But, you know, solving the dolphins is something I deeply care about. I think Deshawn Watson has to go to the Dolphins. Okay, so this is, I'm glad you said that because since you don't have a third, I'm going to flip something back on you that you said that you hinted at towards the beginning of this podcast, which is that Deshaun is the needle. What is the single most, and we can extend the parameters of like what is actually going to happen here a little bit?

What's the single biggest potential swing? Is it Deshawn to Miami? Is it Russell Wilson to the Raiders? Yeah, it would be like Russell. I was surprised that the Panthers were not on Russell Wilson's list because everything we know about the Panthers and this is something Simmons and I talked about last week is that they're going to try to overpay.

That was the David Deppar will quote move mountains for a franchise quarterback. And so if you're trying to get out of a situation, wouldn't you go to a place that's going to do everything they can to get you out? Like, I don't know if the Saints have the capability to do that right now or the cap space. I don't know if, I mean, the bears are kind of in a similar situation. It means to not have the cap space. You say that now.

You say that now. No, I'm putting my freaking foot down. They're done. They're cut off. You say that now. And then they add, not only do they add Russell Wilson, but they had Alan Robinson somehow too. And Bud Dupre on a one-year bridge contract.

And you're going to be eating your words. Have you ever been in an argument? with like some really dushy person who just whenever you say something is going to be like, I'm going to play devil's advocate there. That is like what there is a group of saints fans. Most saints fans are lovely. But I wrote about their salary cap yesterday. And I'm just like they can always, they always have the comeback at the ready of like, well,

it hasn't mattered up to now. And I'm like, yes, my entire point is that it matters now. It didn't matter before, but it matters now. And they're like, yeah, but just matter. It also mattered with the clowny thing last year. I'll say that. Yes. Thank you.

Thank you. So you can go with them for that. Realistically, of all the moves that are more likely to happen in 2021, Deshawn Watson to the dolphins is the biggest swing. I would say Russell Wilson, I think we still have a ways to go on that particular drama, but I think he stays there for at least this year. And then Aaron Rogers is obviously staying put. And I think that the teams that have called, I think we've seen the reports.

It just hasn't really gone anywhere. So I think Deshawn's the number one big swing. And I think it happens at some point. I think that they realize that it has to happen. John McLean, the Texans beat writer, said the five teams have called so far. We're still in that holding pattern where no one is, no one is Nick Aserio and those guys are not calling them back. But I think at some point they're going to realize Deshaunson wants just not going to play. So Deshaun Watson meets with the Texans coaching staff last week and just says,

cool, great to know you. Also, not going to play with you. So that's a wrap. All right, let's do Midweek Nuggets, our favorite segment. Midweek Nugs. There it is. All right, so this is where we're just going to tackle.

It's almost going to be like hurry up a little bit. It's where we're going to tackle the very quick hit items. We'll start with Alex Smith's release. So I thought, obviously, after the comments he made in GQ, if you didn't see them, Alex Smith basically said that the Washington football team did not want him to come back. essentially that he threw a wrench in their plans. Very candid comments.

I think that if you read the beat writers, think that that was seen as aggressive posturing towards the football team. And a couple of days later, he's released. It makes a lot of sense for him to go to Jacksonville. Urban Meyer was obviously his college coach. You know, I've talked to people around urban. I've talked to people like Dan Mullen.

And they talk about how how pivotal Alex Smith was to all of their careers and all of their lives because he was the guy where really popped. And without Alex Smith, the whole Utah thing doesn't happen for Urban. And then the whole Florida thing and the whole Ohio State thing and the whole Jaguars thing doesn't happen. Obviously, he's a very good coach.

And something would have happened, but it wouldn't have been that. So it makes sense that he'd be able to go there. And also, you think about Alex Smith, Alex Smith took the Urban Meyer offense before anybody else and was able to have success in the NFL. He was the first Urban Meyer quarterback to have success in the NFL. And if Urban Meyer's whole gimmick here is,

blending his offense with the NFL. Alex Smith's a guy you would want being your second string quarterback behind Trevor Lawrence. That's really smart. Chicago, maybe another secondary option where he could be with Matt Nagy and there's some lack of clarity on whether that would be a backup role or what, which might be attractive to him if he wants a better opportunity to play and not be sort of tasked with grooming Trevor Lawrence. I will say

Jacksonville is the is the obvious one. The other thing I want to just prepare people for as we go through this free agency and you know, we have all these great destinations and exciting teams and whatever. Everybody brace yourselves for every free agent to go to the Jaguars and the Jets.

Like just, just get ready for that. That's unbelievable for. Like what if he's just like, you know what I really want to do? I'd like to set up my family for many generations and I will take playing with with Sam Darnold for a year.

That's fine for me. Right. Right. Like we should just be ready for that. Because for instance, the Jaguars have $82 million in cap space. So the other feather in the cap of Alex Smith going there is like they can, they can hand a backup quarterback a decent chunk of change right now and not have it

priced them out of adding guys to support Trevor Lawrence or whoever the quarterback is, but it's Trevor Lawrence. Not a lot of teams are in a position like that. So I just want everybody to dip their toes into understanding that there's just, like, everyone's going to the Jet Guards and the Jets. I will say that another bad team with a lot of money to spend is the New England Patriots. I know. I didn't say it because I was trying to get through a podcast with that.

By the way, Spoketka's Woolfooler market value is 16.9. they put them with cooks, Amari Cooper, and Stefan Diggs, who all make over a 14 million a year. So that's that. So that might be what you're looking at. Again, maybe some of these guys, and obviously the suspension maybe brings the price down or whatever. Kevin, I've got a midweek nug for you, which is that Tua compared Mac Jones, Alabama quarterback, who is rising on some draft charts. to Tom Brady. And he was on a Yahoo Sports podcast

and he said, I would say he's a sly kind of athletic person. He's a more mobile Tom Brady. He's a more mobile Tom Brady. Okay. Is he a more mobile Tom Brady in the sense that he's more mobile than Tom Brady and plays quarterback? Because I guess you can't argue with that. But like, can we not do this?

It reminds me a little bit of, when so AJ McCarron became the bangle starter, the year Andy Dalton went out when Andy Dolton was playing really well. And he was going to start a playoff game. And AJ McCarren's quote was, you know, Tom Brady was a backup too. And it's like,

well, yeah, literally Tom Brady was, these are facts, these are facts. You were a backup and Tom Brady's a backup, but I think it kind of ends there. I'm an agreement with you that,

that, yeah, Mac Jones can, can run. football field and he can throw on a football field. But I don't think he's I don't think we're there with Mac Jones. I will say this. The PFF guys made a really good comparison. I think it was Sam Monson,

those guys where they basically like if AJ McCarran, not to bring up AJ McCarron twice in the same in the same segment here. Yeah. But if AJ McCarran, if AJ McCarran were given the, these Alabama receivers, would he have graded as highly as Mac Jones did this year? And I keep thinking the answer is yes.

and they do too. I mean, I just think that, I think that it's really hard to separate Mac Jones from the fact that he had, he has a receiving core that most guys would, that some NFL teams would take away, frankly. This is the Tua thing yet again. And sort of by corollary, the Josh Allen thing.

I just, my biggest takeaway from this is that we need to just stop doing Tom Brady comps because I think the, the relevant detail here is that Mac Jones was born in 1998. So unless he was really cranky as a one-year-old, he's not still pissed about things that happened in 1999, as Tom Brady clearly is. And that seems like a really relevant detail in kind of how these pathways are likely to develop. I think sometimes people are want to say to describe someone as a more mobile Tom Brady when they

really are trying to say he's more mobile than Tom Brady, which can be true without being really very important. But you know what? Let's reframe this discussion because I don't want it to be all negative and sad. That's a nice thing to say about your friend, Tua. Good on you. It's very nice. Yeah. I'm with you on the Tua thing. I mean, I think that the two of the mistakes I made in evaluating Tua are part of the reason that I'm shading Mac Jones a little bit. It is the unanswerable question. And I'm glad that I just get to make low stakes comments on podcasts instead of actually have to make a decision on a quarterback this year. All right. Next nugget, Tom Brady knee surgery. He's supposed to be out several months, according to Ben Boland of the Boston

Globe, your old buddy, our current buddy, your old co-worker, our current buddy. Hi, Ben. So Ben says a couple of weeks ago that when it all comes out about the true nature of of Brady's injury that will quote, build Brady's legend even greater. And then Bruce Arien says that he's looking at about June. And then Tom Brady says, what I'll have to do for the next five months. So this Tom Brady knee thing,

I don't know how big of a deal it is because I don't know what he's going to miss, if anything. And I don't know if there's OTAs that he's not going to be able to go to or he's not going to be able to do his workouts in May and June or whatever. You spend a lot of time around Tom Brady. is the fact that he wouldn't be able to be his normal physical self in the offseason a big deal. I think he'll be fine. I think he knows what he needs for his body at this point. I also think that, and I guess I'm kind of going to contradict myself here a little bit, but Tom Brady spent so many years

in an environment that he created for himself, but also had to do with how the Patriots do things, where you don't really take a lot of time off. And there aren't veterans days in the same way that there are for other teams. And you rest on your own time quite often. And then he goes to Tampa and it's different. And there was that story where in the middle of the season, he was asking Arians, hey, can I take, can I take a Wednesday off? Can I take a little time here? And Ariens is saying, do you want to take, sure, do you want to take mental reps or do you want to just not? And Brady's like, I just need the day off.

This will be the last time. And Ariens is kind of like, doesn't have to be the last. last time, dude. Like, you can take more if you need it. And he starts to learn that maybe the cost associated with that for him at this point in his career. Might have been different at different times in different places. But that that rest is not a bad thing. I have a hard time feeling in my heart of hearts like a couple lost months of, you know, throwing on air and working with those receivers after having a whole season together is going to up the degree of difficulty from coming in last season with everything that was changed about that offseason when he didn't

know those guys and figuring it out that way. And if you recall, they won the Super Bowl, so it worked out pretty well. I've always been of the opinion. I've said this on this podcast many times that there's so many little details that Tom Brady wants to get right and all this stuff. But after this year, I now just believe nothing matters except having Tom Brady. Like that's, it's true of Patrick Mahomes in most situations, it's definitely true with Tom Brady. So I think he'll figure this out in the bucks. He'll figure it out. All right.

One more nugget I'm throwing in here that's not actually here. Dan Campbell, when asked about who has the final roster decision between him and new GM Brad Holmes, said, quote, A true alpha knows when it's time to concede. Yikes. Dude, Dan Campbell kind of rules. I'm in on Dan Campbell. Me too. I love him. I'm in on Dan Campbell. I'm on Dan Campbell. I want to meet him, honestly. Dan Campbell, do you want to come on the ring around a fell show? I think he might.

I'll text. I'll send a text. He'll be electric. I don't know Dan Campbell. I'll send a text somebody who can get that answer and we'll get this figured out. All right, Drew Bree's workout video. Oddly timed, a lot of people think maybe it was because Russell Wilson put the saints on his list that Drew Breese did a weird kind of signifying that he's not done yet workout thing. All signs, point to Drew Brees retiring. The structure of his contract now points to that. The words of the saints have pointed to that over the last couple of weeks. He's signed a television deal whenever he's ready to leave, which indicates at the very least that it's happening sometime soon. Does this workout video do anything for you? It's fun. Here's what I want to tell people.

and I don't mean to be breaking news on this podcast. Sometimes people indicate things on the internet that are not reflective of the truth or reality. Now that's... I think Drew Brees just invented that, actually. It's the first time in... True Brees is the first guy to misrepresent himself online. Online, yeah.

But there's a first time for everything. Yep, and that this is it for... And this is it. We're going to have to wait until June 2nd. June 2nd is the day when this will likely be official. Is he just going to post workout videos until then? That would be so funny. I think he should.

Also, did you watch that video? Because there's a large portion of it, not that it's very long, there's a large portion of it where his trainer seems to be, like, maybe he's like going, pushing the sled in the wrong direction or something because his trainer just keeps yelling like, Drew, go to the black, go to the black, like over and over again. So it made me wonder if he was like running off in the wrong direction or something. But yeah, I don't know.

We'll see if he just throws one of these against the wall every week until June 2nd and then retires and everyone feels silly. But again, you can't trust everything you see online, kids. All right. This has been the Renfell show. I've been sick for this entire time. Nora has just admirably let me off the hook when I can't talk. This has been amazing. Everybody's got to play hurt sometimes.

Kevin did an admirable job. This is my, this is my flu game, as producer Isaiah said. I will say that the one time I was genuinely, so I can talk now, so it's totally fine. After the Super Bowl last year, the Niners game, I was so sick. And I was so, and I said it on the podcast because it was on, there was no, way to avoid it. And I was just on every single like hour to drug imaginable and Mays and I were sitting there. And we just got through it like did 30 minutes. And everybody at the end, I got like maybe 10 tweets of people because I was so stuffed up who thought I was doing like a joke impression

of Patrick Mahomes. They were like, was this a bit where you were doing like Mahomes's voice. And I was like, no, I was just really, really sick. And so luckily I could talk and so everything was fine. Well, you sound like yourself. I hope you feel better, Kevin. Oh, that's fine. Really appreciate you pushing through today. All right. Check out our NFL big board show on Friday with Danny Hyfitz, Danny Kelly, and special guest, Roger Sherman, as they break down trade ups for quarterbacks in last 10 NFL drafts. Nor, you were on that show last week. Yeah, it was super fun. Those guys rule. Danny Highfitz had one of the best takes that I've heard in forever about how Brown's history is fake, and I'll never get over it. So highly

encourage people to listen to that show. It's just, it's going to be really, really great. Great dudes. Great show. Listen to it. There's been the Ringar NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.