The Ringer NFL Show - Jordan Love the Packers' Future? Falcons Poised to Win the NFC South? Will Russ Cook? | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: May 8, 2023

Are the Packers in love with Jordan after not picking up his fifth-year option? Even though the Panthers and Saints added Bryce Young and Derek Carr, respectively, to the division, could the Falcons still rise to the top in the NFC South? Russell Wilson had an abysmal season with the Broncos in 2022, but is he poised for a bounce back with Sean Payton as the head coach? Hosts: Ben Solak and Sheil Kapadia Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Music By: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm the host of a new football podcast called Slow Newsday. I want to tell you about it. On Mondays, Lindsay Jones and I will recap the weekend in football that was, as well as look ahead to what's next. On Wednesday, the normal Slow Newsday, the thing you've been watching for years, current players, current coaches, current analysts talking about the football world. And on Friday, it's a wildcard. Could be some college football. Could be more pro stuff.

It's a video podcast so you can watch it on Spotify or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Follow on Spotify. It's slow newsday. Welcome to Extra Point, taking Shield Capadia alongside Ben Solac on the Ringer NFL feed. You know what? It's May 8th. They're saying these guys can't have any NFL takes on May 8th. The draft is over. Training camp is still, what?

More than two months away? Ben, they were wrong. We've got takes. We've got three takes each. I literally have no idea this time what your takes are going to be. I don't even know the topics. but I assume you will bring some fire to this episode as usual. Am I correct?

This was about as challenging as it was to get four takes down as it's been since we started this. And that is not bode well. It is early May. We got a lot of summer doldrums to get through. I am highly concerned by this, but we're going to see, we're going to do what we can. We're going to be all right. We can always, you know, we'll shift up the formats.

We'll come up with stuff to talk about here. You don't want to get out your best takes on May 8th because, you know, you're going to save those for August. but I've got stuff, so we've got stuff. We'll argue, we'll talk about it. Lead us off, Benjamin Solac. What is your first take on the show? First take on the show.

This is like the only kind of significant news we got this week, so we're opening with the newsy stuff. The Packers are given Jordan Love a one-year leash, right? The fifth-year option deadline was available for all the teams this year, right? And so you saw like, you saw Dexter Lawrence, extension, you saw it, Chase Young, no fifth-year option pick-up. And there's, you know, you don't want to read too much into these things. You don't want to get too far of your skis. Like, they did not pick up the fifth-year option on Chase Young's. He was the second overall

pick, and it's worth $17.5 million. They're still very hopeful that Chase Young's going to be a good and they'll give him an extension if he's good. He's just like, you know, like, the, we've got remember, the Giants passed on the fifth-year option of Daniel Jones, and then the next season gave him a $40 million deal. So it's by no means is it a bell ringing. By no means is it deciding the future. However, Jordan Love, who famously has not yet, you know, like been the starter, walking in as the guy for the Packers, will now do so with Aaron Rogers gone. And Jordan Love had his fifth year option available. And that would have hit in 2024.

He would have played on the final year of his deal, 2023, and then played in his fifth year option in 2024. That fifth year option would have hit the Packers for $20.2 million. And notably, importantly, because under the previous CBA, this was not the case, but it is now the case under the new CBA, that $20.2 million was going to be fully guaranteed money for Jordan Love. Well, instead of picking up that fifth year option, the Packers and Jordan Love reached a contract extension, the total value of which is $22.5 million. So, wow, Jordan Love instead of making 20.2 million, make 22.5 million, a little pay bump for Jordan Love, because the extension is only through 2024. It's only through that year that would have been covered by the fifth year option. However,

not all of that $22.5 million is guaranteed, right? The total guarantees are $13.5 million. What that does is because now it's a traditional contract structure, right? We're no longer in the fifth-year option world. Jordan Love is on a two-year deal with the Packers worth a total of 22.5 million. It's got a $13.5 million signing bonus. Half of that signing bonus comes into the 2023 season. The Packers were already strapped for cash this year. They had to restructure Darnel Savage to make enough room to get some of Jordan Love's signing bonus money into this year, which means the Packers went to like pretty significant straits to get some future money from Jordan Love's 2024 season and put it into his 2023 season. And that is the behavior of a team that wants flexibility in 2024.

The Packers notably have a first round pick of their own and are likely to have the first round pick of the New York Jets, who took Aaron Rogers in the trade, sent a conditional second that becomes the first if Rogers played 65% of the snaps. The Packers, very well, could be the last. It could be looking next season at having two first round picks. And if they took Jordan Love's fifth year option, he would be worth $20 million guaranteed, and he would not be easy to move on from. It would be difficult to get a new quarterback in the room and establish him in place over Jordan Love.

Now, under the new contract in 2024, they could save about $9 million by moving on from Jordan Love at the end of the end of the 2023 season before 2024. So two first round picks, move a little bit and want to get to 2020. get Jordan Love's contract outable in 2024, right? Not picking up the fifth year option on a guy who was a first round pick and you kind of already invested a lot into him in terms of draft capital. The Packers have created for themselves a larger trapdoor out of Jordan Love's deal and into a potential like first round pick a quarterback and new young future

a quarterback in 2024 than they previously had. Doesn't mean they don't like Jordan Love? Doesn't mean that they're going to cut Jordan Love? This is not like, oh wow, the Packers have, you know, whatever massive restructure. It's just to say that the Packers had an option, pick up the fifth year or don't, and they chose door number three, which is kind of take the fifth year option, but also give themselves the ability to get out of it if they want to. I think that couple of their two first round picks makes the Packers a sneaky team to like,

if they're not great this year, stay not great, make that pick early, and look at the 2024 quarterback class. I also have a Jordan Love Point. Oh, wow. I agree with some of what you said, and I disagree with some of what you said. So you gave the mostly the view from the Packer standpoint, which I think is mostly true. Now, I'm not willing to, like, I think there's a little more to it. I mean, if you really like the guy, you would just have exercised the fifth year option, I think.

If you were like, yeah, let's, you know, this is going to be our guy for the next two years. Let's exercise the fifth year option and move forward with him. They obviously did not want to do that. Now, in the past, when teams have said, we don't want to exercise the fifth year option, generally the player, specifically a quarterback, would say, you know what? Okay, I'll just play out the fourth year and then I'll figure it out next year. You gave the Daniel Jones example. Great example. Daniel Jones just sat there and nothing else to do. Played the year, played well. Now a year later, Daniel Jones has a four-year, $160 million extension. So what is my take?

my take is that Jordan Love made one of the most baffling decisions by a player this entire offseason. I cannot for the now, it's easy for me to say, I understand, hey, you're getting $13.5 million in your pocket. Yes, if somebody walked down the street right now and offered that to me, I would love to take it. But this is the world of the NFL. Players do not make decisions like this. And he did the Packers absolutely a huge favor. I'm writing a couple pieces for the ringer this week, what we've learned about every team this offseason talking to Jason Fitzgerald from over the cap about this. And he made the point that this is a player betting against himself.

This is the opposite of betting on yourself. Betting on yourself would have been saying, hey, you know what? All right, you don't want to pick up, you don't want to guarantee me 20 million in 2024. Okay, I'll play out this season. If you are an average starter at Jordan Love's age, at that age, you are going to get a nice deal from somewhere next off season.

If you are an above-average starter at Jordan Love's age and you play well, all of a sudden, you're getting a monster deal. I mean, you're eclipsing that Daniel Jones deal next off-season. The only way this makes sense is if you believe you might suck in 2023 and that you're going to have nothing on the table after the season. Even then, I think it's overrated because Taylor Heineke, I mean, he's making $7 million a year from the Atlanta Falcons. Like, backup quarterback options. Mitchell Trubisky is making what, $7 million a year from the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Like someone was going to take a shot on you. Jordan Love. This was a baffling decision. This is a team-friendly decision because you mentioned the Packers. If things don't work out for Love, you're absolutely right. They have two first-round picks and they can explore other QB options next season. You know what? If Jordan Love plays well, they're getting an absolute bargain because the extension is 13.5 million.

The number you gave was for the full contract. The actual extension for 2024 is $13.5 million. That's $6.5 million below the fifth year option. All of a sudden, you're getting a quarterback for that number, and he's playing well. So that's great news if you're a Packers fan. If you're Brian Gutakuntz, if you're Jordan Love, I'm not sure what you're doing. Maybe there were some extenuating circumstances. Maybe there's some reason he did this.

If that comes out, I will come on and I will revise my take. But Ben, this is the type of deal. I don't know who Jordan Love's agent is. If Jordan Love didn't have an agent and he accepted this deal, you would read 30 pieces on the internet this week about how Jordan Love not having an agent absolutely cost him money and he made a baffling decision. Because this is not a move we ever see players make.

This is not a move. We ever see quarterback. who are in their mid-20s, who were first-round picks ever make when they haven't played? Like, it'd be one thing if he had played two seasons, and he absolutely looks like one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL, which, by the way, that was Sam Darnold. And Sam Darnold still got traded for draft capital. There were still teams that wanted to take a shot on the first-round pedigree. So good news for the Packers.

You're right. It gives them more optionality than they would otherwise have Jordan Love, one of the most baffling decisions made by a player this entire offseason. That is my take on, like you said, really the only bit of news we've gotten since we last recorded. See, this is good because I was like, all right, I want to do a Jordan Love thing,

but I'm really worried about like overstating the impact of this move. And then you were like, this is one of the worst decisions ever. Right, cool. I'm coming in under. We're fine. We're chilling. Let me, let me make the Jordan Love case for you. Let me put in this framework. If I play out,

both years of this deal with the Green Bay Packers. I make $22.5 million. Yeah, 22.5, whereas previously I would have made, you know, 20.2 or 21, whatever it is with this, but this fourth year, right? So if I play out both years, I make more money. The cap savings, if they move on from me, I should actually say, okay, one, if I play out both years, I make more money. Two, I get more money now, more money immediately,

and I don't have to wait for money in a future year. So not only do I get more money if I play out both years, I also am guaranteed to get more money now than I would have gotten previously. I have more money in my pocket for 2023. I'm about to start 17 games at a position where players accrue a lot of injuries. So I'm getting money now when I've had a relatively small contract on the scale of first round picks because I was late first round pick. So I'm getting more money now.

So these are the realities of the contract. I'm going to talk out of both sides of my mouth here because I said for the Packers, you can cut Jordan Love and get $9 billion in 2024. I think Jordan Love would be reasonable instead. I would have to be horrendous for the Packers to cut me for just $9 million in saving, right? You're going to cut a functional backup quarterback, a young backup for $9 million? Like, no team's really going to do that, right? I mean, like maybe trade, but even if you're trading me away,

then I get to go and fight for a starting job somewhere else, like the opportunity to win a second contract. Like, for as much as like the Packers now have that trapdoor, they have to be absurdly cash draft in 2024 to really. be like, we got to cut this young QB2 to save $9 million. So if you're live, you're kind of like, I think, I think if Jordan Love are on this show, Jordan Love was a shield. Packers aren't going to get rid of me in 2024.

I got more money over two years and I got more guaranteed money in year one. I could be great and have to delay when I get my big contract by a year and that would suck. But if I'm anything less than great, I just, you know, secured myself a more safe, financial timeline over the next two years. I'm not loving this argument as I'm making it chill. No, yeah. It's not. I gave the Packers argument because it's a good move for the Packers. I agree with you. It's a bad move for love. Yeah. I just want to present the devil advocacy case for why love might take the structure. No, I mean, because the option number three is that the most likely scenario is that you would hit the market after this year and you would make more money than

you're going to make right now. I mean, that's just the bottom line. Not only would you be more likely to make more money, but there's the possibility of making way more money than you're making right now. So I don't under you. The only way you could really justify it is if it was like, hey, I need this $13.5 million guaranteed right now that is the only thing important to me. I don't care about any other alternative. And so I'll take it that way, but just a flat out bizarre decision by Jordan Love. All right, let's take a quick break. We'll come back. And that was my first take. Ben gave his first take. So we'll get back to Ben's second take. All right, we are back on extra point taking.

Jordan Love Packers' decision to lead off the show. Next up, what do you got? All right, now we go, we transition from let's do newsy things to let's do things that Ben wants to do. Falcons are winning the South, all right? Atlanta Falcons, we bet on them to win the South last year. It looked great halfway through the season. It looked worse by the end of the season. We're going back to the well.

currently, Fandall Sportsbook, Fandall sports book, odd for the NFC South. Saints plus 125, Falcons plus 260, Panthers plus 350, Buccaneers plus 550, so Falcons second to the Saints. I believe that is erroneous.

I believe the Falcons are the best team in the South. Now, top 10 pick, running back, Bejan Robinson. Top 10 pick, wide receiver, Drake London. Top 10 pick, tight end, palpit. The cupboards are full.

I know that there is a frustration in the fantasy community with the overall production on Kyle Pitts that leads to a underestimation in the caliber of his talent. That was the political way of saying it. There's a non-political way. The Arthur Smiths just jump on this podcast, Arthur, thank you. I didn't know we were having a guest head coach joining me today. Hopefully Ben is on vacation somewhere.

Shush, shush, shush. Kyle Pitts is good. Kyle Pitts was highly effective from a per target basis when he had catchable passes. A ludicrous percentage of Kyle Pitts's passes were great as uncatchable

with Sports Illustrated. So this was last year, Marcus Marioo was very, very bad. Drake London, extremely good from a rate statistic perspective. His top 10 in the league in success rate per route,

run, success rate per target, Nate Tice tweeted it out. These are good receiving options that did not have a functional quarterback to get them the football. Then you have Bijan Robinson, you add now. So they say the cupboards are full

with offensive weapons. Offensive line, obviously, Chris Lyncham with the extension, Caleb McGarry with the extension, Matthew Bergeron selected in the second round, Drew Dolman, Jake Matthews been to start out there for a long time, and they have it set. The pieces on offense are good. The question mark is that quarterback. I was going to say, I'm waiting. I want to see how many minutes you can go without even bringing up the quarter. Listen, listen. It is podcasting structure, all right? You know, I'm sending the good. like, yeah, Drake Linen, I'm there with you. Like, yeah, okay, Chris Lynch's good, yeah.

I'm landing it on the quarterback. You're going to land on the big pivot for the team. Because if we go and we look at previous playoff teams, teams that make the playoffs, the large, the number one predictor of entering the playoffs for the NFL between offensive EPA and defensive EPA is offensive EPA. Putting it a more simple way, a good offense is a lot more predictive of making the playoffs than a good defense is. A good offense is how you build a playoff team in the NFL.

Okay, defense wins championships. But if we're just talking about getting over the line and playing January football, which is the stage of development at which the Falcons are, offensive is what you need, not defense. They've invested in offense. They have a defense coordinator change. They brought in Callais Campbell. They got Bud Dupree.

They got Jeff Akuda in the building. They just signed Trey Flowers. Like, they've got like some guys. I think they've improved on defense. But all together, I think the defense is still a year away, right? So we're going to kind of put that on the shelf and say, this team's going to be built through the offense. Arthur Smith has the guys that he's made this work through

and the offensive line is ready the receiving corps is ready the big question mark is Desmond Ritter I went back and I watched two Ritter games this morning I feel the exact same way as I felt about him at the end of the season he's good enough he's absolutely 100%

Kirk Cousins-Able on a cousins' trajectory he is Tannahillish right I'm not like sitting here and telling you like Desmer's going to be a top 10 quarterback in the NFL next year. But he is perfectly capable of providing the caliber of quarterback play that has previously gotten teams running a similar sort of offense with this sort of structure over the line into January football. I don't think the Falcons are winning the NFC next season. I do think that Ritter

in terms of pocket management, in terms of arm talent, and in terms of accuracy, showed enough last season that you can feel good about, all right, this guy takes the expected sophomore step forward. he's not going to really have a sophomore slump you haven't played four games. He takes a step forward with now a year of the starter, a year taking Brett 1 in training camp, kind of having that control over the offense. He's not going to be a liability to us.

He's going to have a Tannahill game here or there where he takes eight sacks. He's going to have a DAC game here or there where he throws two picks. But overall, like this is enough. And one of the reasons why I feel strong in that evaluation. Like I think that if, I think of most NFL people sat down

and watched Ritter's games last season, be like, oh yeah, like, you can kind of hang your hat on this, is the fact that the Falcons did it, that the Falcons elected to pass on quarterback at top 10 and pass on Lamar Jackson sweepstakes and they got Taylor Heineke as a backup and that was pretty much it because of how much they like Ritter. Like, I think the guys who were closest to him watching it, who picked him third round and then watched him develop in the building for a year saying, oh yeah, like this guy's got something. I think that's evident on the film. It's probably even more evident in person to the point where I don't think we're going to sit here in week nine when I'm like, told you

the Falcons shield told you all about him. I'm not going to start that conversation with like Desmond Ritter has taken over the offense. I'm going to be talking about Kyle Pitts and Bejohn Robinson and Drake Lenn and the same players I think I'm talking about now. But Ritter is not going to be a liability to this team. I don't think he's going to be a drain on this team in terms of regular season football. If we get to January and we talk about him the same way we talk about Jared golf in the playoffs, talk about Kirk Cunz in the playoffs, then that's the reality of it. He was a third round pick and I think his ceiling is probably pretty low. And the Falcons will have to cross that bridge when they get there. For right now, I look at the four NFC,

South rosters. I think the Falcons have the best one. I think they have a coach that's worthy of trust. Arthur Smith's offenses regularly positive EPA per play when he was in Tennessee. They were positive EPA for play when Atlanta last season with the Marcus Marriota to Desmond Ritter Carousel. This guy gets how offense works. He's an extremely good offensive coach.

All the pieces are in place. I trust the Falcons they're winning the South. I don't even know where to begin. I usually have a note pad and a pen in front of me so that when you're talking, I write down notes. All right, crush him for this, question for this, crush him for this. For some reason, maybe because it's May,

it's beautiful outside. I could hear some birds twinkling there in the background. You can hear them? Yeah. The windows are open. So if Amazon uncle comes by and wants some takes on Desmond Ritter,

he's going to get that today. I impulse bought a printer over the weekend. Like, what year is this? Why did I do that? I got a printer. Oh, you have a printer. Okay. It's mostly you got to print out

the return labels for stuff. You know, and I'm like tired of not having something at home where I can print out the return labels. Plus, the kids are getting older Like they probably still will need printers for something, right? Yeah, I'm with you. I just told you I have a printer.

I'm convincing myself. My wife was yelling at me. That's what this is about. She was yelling at me. Why'd you get a printer? We never have printer success. All right. Off topic.

Your general take, I don't think is wild. I think, yes. The Falcons can absolutely win the NFC South. I'm not going to be so bold as to predict that on May 8th. In August, I honestly might get there. I might get there with them. They've been seven and ten. the last two seasons. Here's a little nugget for you, Ben.

According to Vegas win totals, they have the second easiest projected schedule in the entire NFL this season. So that's a nice little feather in their cap. They're not exactly facing a daunting schedule there in the NFC South. And I think you're right about Arthur Smith as an offensive coach. I mean, how many coaches, they were 13th in offensive DVOA last year. And you say 13th, who cares? We're not, you know, getting flowers for being 13th. I don't know, with Marcus Marioada and Desmond Ritter and that personnel to beat 13th to me is not bad.

So I will start there. I don't think you're crazy at all for that. I think you're a little too confident for me with Desmond Ritter. Now, can he be good? Absolutely. But the history of quarterbacks being taken in the third round just suggests

that the odds are absolutely stacked against him. Since 2000, there have been 30, Eight quarterbacks drafted in the third round. The most successful among that group are Russell Wilson. That's the big one. Nick Foles and Matt Shaw. 27 of the 38, we're talking over 70%. They never even started 16 games in their career.

Like, they're just not good enough to warrant even playing time for the teams that they play for. So when a quarterback is drafted in the third round like Ritter was, the odds are generally stacked against them. And I take issue with your thing about, you know, the people closest to Desmond Ritter in the Falcons organization. They didn't make another move at quarterback. Like, I'm not giving them any kind of benefit of the doubt

that they know what they're doing. Do you think Arthur Smith is a good offensive coach, but you don't want to give many benefit of the doubt in evaluating his offensive players? No, I mean, his quarterback decisions have not exactly left me thinking, oh, yeah, this guy knows exactly what he wants. He fixed Hannibal.

What are you talking about? Yeah, and then Marcus, he goes, Marcus Marriota last year. They passed on your boy, Dustin Fields. They passed on Mack Jones. They're afraid to take the bat off their shoulder. They had three top eight picks. They haven't used one on a quarterback or on the lines of scrimmage.

So in team building, no, I have a lot of questions. In terms of offensive scheming, yes, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. Those are absolutely two different things there. And by the way, Desmond Ritter, if he was showing anything last year, would he not have gotten on the field before week 14? Like, they're sticking with Marcus Marioo who you just outlined. could not hit the broad side of a bard and was like killing their offense, despite the fact that there was some good schematic stuff going on.

So I'm not saying it's impossible. If you're a Falcons fan and you love Ritter, if you're a Ritter stand like Solac, Knight Tice, you know, a lot of the hipsters out there, people I like, people I respect, my friend, my online friends, my in real life friends, they're going, Desmond Ritter's going to surprise you this year. I'm just saying, settle down there football hipsters. Usually this does not work out well for the team.

Maybe it'll work out this year, but I think you're way too confident in what you think Desmond Ritter's going to be. All right. Of those third round... I did not watch him on film this morning, by the... That is a sicko behavior. Because I knew...

Because I knew when I brought him up, you were going to be like, oh, well, third round quarterbacks are bad. Watch him play. Watch the Bucks film. Now, 20 for 30, two touchdowns. Watch the Saints' films. Maybe July, maybe August.

It's not happening until then. I'll tell you that. So here's my thing. So, like, again, I agree from a umbrella perspective that we should not place too much trust, too much currency, and the idea of like, oh, well, this coach really likes him, so he's probably good. Coaches are wrong a lot. I absolutely, unequivocally agree with you from a first, like from a blank perspective, from a blank slate of saying, the Falcons should have drafted a quarterback earlier. The Falcons should not have passed on Justin Fields. You brought up Mac Jones, which is a ludicrous thing to say, but we'll just let that one go by.

Listen, who's going to have a better NFL career? Mac Jones or Desmond Ritter? I mean, the odds are so much heavily weighed in Mac Jones favor in that comparison to me. Yes, but I don't think we'd be like, wow, let's really, let's, we should be killing these guys for passing on Mac Jones. I don't even like Mac Jones that much, but if Mac Jones was a quarterback. What an egregious miss. Name any other team that passed on Mac Jones that should have taken Mac Jones. I don't know.

It's fucking Matt Jones. Okay, I'm telling you, if Mac Jones were the quarterback, I would be more likely to go with your take that they're going to win the AFC South. How unhealthy are we that we started this pop by being like, wow, May podcast, tough, and then 20 minutes in, we're screaming at each other about Mac Jones. About Mac Jones.

Anyway, anyway, anyway, anyway. So absolutely, I agree with you from the sense that they should have taken a quarterback early. But stepping into the shoes of the team, okay, year one, they're probably not ready to put a quarterback in. They also had Matt Ryan, who was, like, still kind of goodish? I don't mind saying we're not ready to... We're not ready to go young quarterback.

He was fine. Oh, my goodness, football hipsters. Matt Ryan, he's like a 12-year starter. Yeah, this was seven years ago. Oh, brother. So it is... I 100% agree that the approach of not taking a quarterback early and then, like, being in on the Deshaun Watson sweepstakes

and get, for some reason, not wanting to get a young guy. Like, that is bad management. I agree with that. That, to me, that's a January to August conversation. That's Terry Fontino. That's how are they building the team. That's the Brojan Smith owns a part of that. When it comes to developing the talent,

when it comes to setting up a quarterback to be successful, you're right. Marcus Mariotta couldn't hit the broadside of the barn. You're right, they didn't trust Marcus Mariotta at all, and they should have got Desmerita earlier. They were still 500. They were still putting 30 points on people. When it comes to August to January,

When it comes to football is on the field, pads are wrong, we're hitting folks. Arthur Smith puts players in position to succeed. He protects his quarterback. He maximizes his quarterback as well as any coordinator in the league not named Sean or Kyle. Like this guy's it in terms of getting the training wheels on quarterbacks and getting functional offense out of them. So I understand why. If he has a third rounder he likes, he goes, well, yeah, other teams have been able to make third rounders work, but I can. I'm way better at this at maximizing a quarterback who's not an elite player.

player than other guys are. I absolutely believe that's a skill that Arthur Smith has, and I think it's warranted that he would put eggs in his basket to get a guy like Desmond Ritter to work. And through the first four games of the, or the last four games of the season, excuse me, you saw Ritter get better week over week, you saw him get more comfortable in the offense, you saw him figure out how he wanted to play it, and you saw it be successful. They upped the pass rates. They up the pass rates where it was with Mario. They threw the ball more when Desmond Ritter is in there, because they had more trust him to be a functional passer. I really truly believe that. So, all of this to say,

If there's a guy that I'm willing to break my overall rule of don't put too much currency with the coach thinks he can do. Don't over, overvalue. Coach does, oh, I really like this guy, which means he must be good.

Honestly, it's Arthur Smith, and it's the way that they've trusted Desmond and ridder and they put these pieces around and for him to develop. Now, they should have taken Justinfield. They should have traded for Lamar. And even if I'm right and they win the South this year,

you and I are going to be on this pod a couple years. older, a few less hairs on my head. How many, you got a hair left on your head? Anyway, we're going to be a couple years older, and we're going to be sitting here going, the Falcons need to make a change of quarterback. Desmond Ritter is good. I don't know if he's a huge second contract guy. I don't know if he's like, you know, going to push them over the edge.

That's a very realistic conversation we could be having. So that future problem that they created for themselves by passing on field, to basing on Lamar, absolutely still there. I agree with you. For the scope of the NFC South this year, I think we're just got a good chance to be the best quarterback in the division. I think the Falcons offense is absolutely 100% chalked to be the best offense in the division. I'm trusting them to bring it home.

Okay. I generally agree that if Ritter is talented enough and good enough that he will be put in position to succeed, they brought back the right side of their offensive line there. Like you mentioned, they've used high draft picks on all these skill positions, so you would hope that the weapons are good enough, although, you know, behind Drake London, it's not like they're absolutely loaded. Mac Collins. Yeah.

So it's, it's, I think they have a shot. I'm looking at the odds now. They're plus 260. And I feel like I've sort of more hitched my, hitched my wagon. Is that the same? Yeah, you hitch a wagon. All right.

Hitch my wagon more to the pan. The Panthers are plus 350. But again, the same numbers I gave to you on third round picks, I can break out those numbers on rookie quarterbacks. It's just really hard to come in and play well. But let, let's table that one. If you're a listener, remind us in August, you know, hit us up. Hey, Shield.

Did you want to get some type of wager on the table with Ben? in terms of Panthers Falcons for the AFC South, and maybe we revisit that. All right, my second take. The Broncos go into 2023 as one of the most volatile teams in the NFL. I was sitting down in recent days

writing this piece, like I mentioned, for the ringer.com. You can check it out. It has notes on every single team in the NFL. And I was thinking about how high variance this situation is with Russell. Wilson and Sean Payton. So here's the exercise I want to do, Ben. I'm going to give you

the case for this working and the case against it. I want to hear your take on which one was more convincing. And then I want to add to that a little bit and talk about what the future might look like. So here's the case for Russell Wilson and Sean Payton making sweet music together in 2023. All right. Sean Payton is one of the smartest offensive coaches in the last 25 years. that's going to be a monster upgrade over Nathaniel Hackett. Russell Wilson, 10 years in Seattle, a top 10 offense, eight out of 10 seasons. This guy has quarterback, efficient offenses, his offenses in Seattle were never lower than 16.

Maybe he had a bad year. Maybe there was Hackett stuff going on, whatever. It didn't work last year, but that's not who he is. They upgraded the offensive line, right? They signed Ben Powers, Mike McGlinchie. They've still got Jerry Judy, Courtney, Cortland, Sutton, Tim. Patrick. They got KJ. Hamler. They traded up for Marvin Mims. They got Greg Dulcich at tight end. They have guys who can potentially get open, make explosive plays, and be productive

in the passing game. And then they should get a little regression in their favor. They were the most injured team in the NFL last year, according to football outsiders that just had games lost. And they had the second most injured offense. So just better injury luck, add it all up. And it's not going to be a Super Bowl team. But Russell is going to have a bounce back. this is going to be a wild card team, a playoff team in the AFC. All right. That's the case for it. The case against it.

Russell Wilson stunk last year. He turns 35 in November. He very well could just be a player in decline. Sean Payton in New Orleans had like the quarterback who did exactly what he wanted to do, who was progressing, who was making you run. He didn't improvise. Here's how we drew it up on the chalkboard on Wednesday. That's exactly how it's going to look on the field on Sunday.

That is not the type of quarterback. Russell Wilson is. There's going to be a budding of heads there. It's not going to go well. Sean Peyton has already given signals that he's not about letting Russ cook and about, you know, this isn't about fixing Russell Wilson. I mean, look at what they did. They signed two offensive linemen who are better run blockers than pass blockers.

They signed Samajai Piron, the bolster, the backfield. They signed Jared Stidham to a two-year $10 million contract on like the first day of free agency. Like, we don't have to look far to see. Sean Payton wasn't like, all right, yeah, I'm taking this job because of Russell Wilson. Those are the two sides. That's the case against. I gave you the case for it, the case against it. Your gut, many months before the season even starts, which way are you leading that it will go for the Denver Broncos? And then I got a couple of other things I want to add to it. Bad.

Nice question. All right, bad. I think Sean Payton is going to be good for the offense overall. I think he's going to get the ball out of Russ's hands and put it in the running game. I think they're going to be more downfield shot play oriented. I think they're going to have better sequential play calling, better end of game management. So when that talented defense wins them some games, they can actually get the hay in the barn. I think overall the team will improve.

I think Russ's prime is gone. I don't think his play style is going to be able to change enough that he can find a second career resurgence. I think Russ's legs are shot. And other quarterbacks can hang when the physical prime starts to go because of their play style, hang in the pocket, you know, pre-snap identification, accuracy, quick distribution. It's never been Russ's game. He's wanted it to be his game. He's tried to make it his game. Drew Brees, three steps, shotgun, ball out, quick game, timing. And this has never been good. Not when he was the perfect athlete, not when he was an experienced guy who was still

in his prime, not in Seattle, not in Denver. He has never been able to have that play style consistently and reliably. And now that athletically he's limited, he's just going to take more sacks, His scrambles are more often going to turn into big sacks, large sacks, 10 plus 12 plus yard sacks. His downfield throws are going to get more erratic, which is how he's built his entire passing arsenals by able to be so precise in his downfield passes. I think Russ has passed prime, and I think he's not the sort of quarterback who age as well. So I think Sean's going to overall help the team, and that will be construed as Sean helping Russ, but I actually think they're disparate ideas.

And I think that it's just kind of, John Payton's going to coach the team well. They're going to do a little bit better, but they're still not going to be that great. and Russ is still not going to be the guy they need him to be. They're going to have to get a huge cap hit in 2024, start thinking about the future of quarterback. That's my expectation. I think I agree with you. I think that's the way I'm leaning.

We'll see where I land in August. But the last part you mentioned there is the most interesting, because what's the alternative? And so if you look at Russell Wilson's contract, he has injury guarantees in this contract where they trigger from, like, if he's on the roster one year, they trigger for future years.

If it's week 10, and Russell Wilson is not playing the way Sean Peyton wants him to play, and he's taking sacks he shouldn't be taking, and he's missing receivers, and he's not seeing the field well, and the Bronco season is not going well, what do they do? They could decide in like week 10, if we're releasing him after the season, we're putting him on ice right now. Because like I said, every year that you hold on to him triggers guarantees for the future. So if you don't want him to be your quarterback, you really really.

cannot keep him on the roster, you have to cut your losses. Now, what would that mean? That would mean the largest dead cap hit in NFL history. However, we know that that new Broncos ownership, they've got money. It's a new regime. They were embarrassed last, it had to be embarrassed last year by the way that thing went with Nathaniel Hackett. And I believe that they would move on from Russell Wilson. This is like a really interesting story to monitor like midway through the season. If it's not going well, I don't think Sean Payton is going to hesitate to replace Russell Wilson with Jared Stidham and say, and they'll make an organizational decision, hey, we can't have Russell Wilson getting injured. We know we don't want him next year.

Let's put him on ice. Let's move on. We'll release him after the season and we'll start a new era. So, again, that could sound very dumb if in week eight, they're five and three and you're saying, wow, he's playing a lot better. Now he's still got at least one good year left in him with Sean Payton. but that downside is there too. That's why I described them as one of the most volatile teams in the NFL going into 2023.

All right. Let's take a quick break here. We'll each come back with our final points and then Ben will hit us with the extra point taken. All right. We are back on extra point taken on the ringer NFL feed. Benjamin, what do you have for your third take? Jalen Hertz, Lamar Jackson. Sign big extensions this offseason.

The Cincinnati Bengals absolutely unequivocally have to be the next team to get this done. The clock is taken on Joe Burroughs contract. This is something that's kind of been, it gets like discussed around the Deshaun Watson contract and he gets talked about with, like, I talked about Louis Burroughs last year and kind of like, all the Bengals are getting ready for this. I wrote about it in August for training camp, but like we haven't actually gotten a brass tax on us. Let's get the brass tax on it.

The Joe Burrow contract's going to be a big end, right? I mean, like, that's okay, like every quarterback that signs a deal, signs a bigger one than the next one. Everybody knows this. Okay, great. So just give him $5 million more than Lamar got and give him $5 million more in guarantees than Lamar got and call it a day, right? And the Bengals would do that if they could.

They do have to deal with the cap ramifications of like needing to sign T. Higgins, needing to get ready to extend Jamar Chase, like DJ Reader is coming up on free agency. Trey Hendricks is coming up. Jay Hendrickson's coming off in free agency. They've got a lot of guys that are coming up on deals. But, you know, like other teams have dealt with this before, where they've had star players at non-quarterback contracts who need contracts. And they also have a quarterback who needs a contract.

And they're able to get it done or trade some guys and, you know, take some taking some hits elsewhere, but they're able to get their quarterback done. So again, what's the problem? The problem for the Bengals is escrow. This is something that they got heavily covered after Deshaun Watson signed his deal. Deshawn Watson's deal was fully guaranteed. And guaranteed money is great for the player. It goes in your pocket.

you're going to get it no matter what. It's a good leveraging tool, good negotiation tool for ownership. Ownership says, all right, you know, we can only give you, you know, this much,

but we can guarantee this much and it can make an offer look more competitive, right, instead of kind of all that funny money that exists at the end of contracts that players never see. But when a team guarantees a contract, they have to put a portion of that guarantee,

a percentage of that guarantee, into escrow. They put that money into bank account and sits there and they don't touch it. And that is a function of, of payment issues from a long time ago. It's been in the CBA for forever. Back when, like, players actually needed

to be certain that owners had the money to pay them, that they were promising they were going to pay them. Now that every owner in the entire world, save for the Cincinnati Bengals owner, Mike Brown, has, like, a beillion-billion dollars, also a Raiders owner. The Davis family is the same thing. But most owners are now, like,

multi-bigillion-ca trillion-gagillion errors. And so, like, it's never going to be an issue. They're always going to have the money to pay the players. The escrow rule is kind of vestigial. It's kind of an anachronism, right? There's no need for it. But for the Bengals, it does represent a bit of a obstacle to overcome with Joe Burroughs contract. The Bengals, if you look historically, really don't like to guarantee money in terms of salary on contracts beyond the first year of the deal.

Take the Orlando Brown contract, for example, $31.1 million signing bonus, enormous signing bonus, biggest office lineman's ever gotten. but they didn't guarantee any of his base salary in any of the years of his contract, let alone the first year of his contract, because the Bengals don't really do that. Look at the Trey Hendrickson deal. It's similar. They only guaranteed salary in the first year of the deal. And this is for a lot of the free agent deals that they've signed over the course of Brown's tenure running the team.

They don't put a lot of guaranteed money out into the future because it is hard for the family. They are not a cash-rich ownership group. They're a family-inherented mom-and-pop football team if there's such a thing. they don't have the cash on hand to be signing out these big guarantees. This is why the Bengals recently renamed the stadium and sold it to pay course because it gives them money. They have a sponsored practice field. They have a Bengals ring of honor. They have a bunch of business activations that exist for the purpose of bringing money into the family, quick term money into the family,

so that they can guarantee the money for Joe Burrow. Now, Lamar did not get his fully guaranteed deal. And I don't know what would happen if he did. If a division rival fully guaranteed Lamar Jackson's contract, that would have given Joe Burrow a lot of leverage to also demand high guarantees. I don't know if he actually is going to ask for that. I don't know if he's going to try to take a team friendly deal. I don't know if he's going to try to structure his deal so that Jamar Chase and T. Higgins can be extended. Like Joe Burrow can have a lot of agendas that are outside of this conversation that I don't know about.

But Lamar didn't sign the fully guaranteed deal. but you can't promise yourself. You can't be certain that tomorrow morning you're going to wake up and the charges aren't going to give Justin Herbert a contract bigger than the one Lamar got and all of a sudden the number goes up a little bit more. You can't be certain the dolphins aren't going to do something with Tuatunga by Lowa that nobody freaking expected. I don't think they're going to, but whatever.

Like nobody had the Jalen Hertz contract extension happening before Lamar and happening for Joe Burrow until it did. This is a rapidly changing quarterback payment world. right? When Patrick Mahomes signed his deal, the highest paid quarterback was like, Dak Prescott at $35 million per year or something. That was like yesterday and it was $10 million lower then. This number is going to skyrocket and is going to keep skyrocketing. The Bengals had to wait until after March for sure because of when the escrow dates activate and all that. But I don't know why they didn't get this extension done in April. I don't know what

the hangup is. And I think it's very important that they get it done sooner rather than later. I would be stunned if we get through this offseason and they don't do it. I think the Bengals have to beat the Chargers. I think they have to get this deal done for Burrow. They have to get it done ASAP and I do not understand what the hang-up is. You were mentioning the stadium naming rights. I was thinking it's like Fan Duel said, hey, Ben, we want to sponsor your house, you're a star podcaster, the place where you record play sheet,

we'll put a little sign up front like a satellite dish, we'll throw you some money. I mean, you're absolutely doing that, right? Like that sounded attractive to me. Everyone makes fun of these teams. I'd do that. So, like, yes, but also, you do want it to still be cool, right? Like, Ben Solax House presented by Fandall is like, that's kind of sick. Like, that's, I dig that.

Like, Fandall's a new company, sports gambling is fun. I do it. That's great. Ben Solax House presented by Jiffyloob is like, that's weird. So a lot of it's like when they sell the stadium is like, is it cool? Like, when you go from Heinz to Accruiser, as the Steelers did, that's kind of like, like, lame, you know? that's true but it gets less weird as the price goes up of what they're paying you i imagine is what owners

would tell you all right joe burrow uh you make good points i think it's i i would not be in like panic mode if i'm a bengal's fan i mean the lamar thing uh just got done what two weeks ago uh the jail and hertz thing got done uh within the last month or so i think this is june is generally a time where these contracts get done it's joe burrow it's justin herbert those will be the next two to get done you're right about we don't know what these quarterbacks want. That's why when people would ask me before Jalen Hertz signed this deal, hey, what's the hold up? It's like, I don't know exactly what's important to Jail and Hertz.

And the truth is what's important to one player is not important to another player. And guaranteed money is a great example of that specifically for quarterbacks in their mid-20s. The interesting thing about guaranteed money is that like it's more important if you're like a 29-year-old offball linebacker than it is. if you're, say, a 27-year-old franchise quarterback. Because 27-year-old franchise quarterbacks, when they sign these deals, most of the time,

they end up seeing every cent of that deal. Like, think if Joe Burrow signed, let's say, a five-year, whatever, $265 million deal. What would it have to take for him to not see every cent on that contract? A career-ending injury, which I get it. If you're a quarterback, you're working. you're worried about that, but even career-ending injuries for quarterbacks, we sort of overrate. Like, there have not been a lot of those.

Right, borough towards ACL. Yeah, in their mid-20s. So most likely he would see every cent of that from the Bengals. If there were some scenario where something happened, did he wanted to be traded? The Bengals wanted to trade him. Guess what? They would be able to trade that contract very easily, and he would still see every cent on that deal.

So quarterbacks have to weigh it. That was the interesting thing with Lamar. Now, Lamar obviously runs more and he's been injured the last two years, so maybe the guaranteed money was more important to him. But still, even with the contract he signed, like the most likely scenario is that Lamar Jackson's going to see every cent of that deal. So you're right that the Bengals do stuff differently than pretty much every other franchise. And then that guaranteed number might not be as high.

It's going to be a monster signing bonus, but the contracts, the years might not be guaranteed. And that might not be that big of a deal to Joe Burrow. And you're right. If it is a big deal, then that's where it starts to get interesting. The other thing I'd say to keep an eye on with Burrow is, is he more inclined to sign like a Mahomes type deal where he says, let's just do this for 10 years. This is where I want to be. Like he, I mean, is there another quarterback who's more just like the face of the franchise

and like the fan base. Now, you're giving up earning potential by doing that. Because if you're Burrow and if your Burrough's agent, you say, no, we want shorter term. let's hit the market again. The cap's going to spike again. We're going to make more money. But again, a quarterback might say, who cares? Let's just let's just be done with it. Let's be settled here. Let's sign it for 10 years and not have to think about it. So those are the things that they have to think about. If you're the Bengals, I think you would love to do that. The longer the deal could be the better on your end. You have one of the best

quarterbacks in the NFL here. Like I said, the face of the franchise. So it just depends on what specifically Joe Burrow wants there. In terms of average, January value. It's just as you said. I mean, it's just the next contract built on the last contract. So Lamar Jackson got 52. The next one's probably going to be 53, 54. And then the one after that's probably going to be 55, 56. And who's going to sign it first? Herbert or Burrow, we'll see. But I would expect both of those to get done. If we get to next season and either one of those is not done, I would, if I'm like the fan base, I'm absolutely flipping out there. I think that's the most unlikely scenario. Yeah, and the Bengals got Carson Palmer

done as soon as possible and Andy Dalton done as soon as possible, like after your third year in the league when you're eligible for an extension, you're not eligible for an extension until you played at least three years. So I like, and that was under regular circumstances. It would be stunning if they don't get Joe Burrow done under these circumstances. The Mahomes

structure of the deal is an interesting conversation. I did research and I couldn't figure out how like the future guaranteed money on a deal structure similar to Mahomes would affect the way the Bengals have to escrow money. Because what I understand, that's the number one obstacle right now. It's one, like, thing to work around, right?

Because Mahomes has all these things where it's like, all right, on the fifth year of the 2025 season, his 2026 salary guarantees. And it's kind of like, okay, so that's not guaranteed money yet, but it's reported as part of the total guarantees. So would the Bengals have to escrow that? So if the Bengals wanted to do those sort of, like, triggered guarantees, triggered salary guarantees and do the Burrow extension

super long term, they could. A, they don't typically like to guarantee money to future seasons. B, I'm not sure it solves the escrow problem for them. And C, Brett Veach, the chief general manager, is out here being like, yeah, we're we doing Mahomes' deal like after Joe Burrough signs. Like, he, like, because, like,

Bahomes' cash flow has been so low. It's the most team-friendly deal in the world, right? Like, it has been so low. And like, yeah, we're going to have to probably redo this because quarterback contract landscape is just not what it was three years ago. Like at first we were like, you know, okay, like this is a little bit team friendly, but it's long term.

So we're sure everybody. Now it looks like a joke of a contract from the homes. They're going to get that redone. So I'm not even sure why Burrell would take that structure if the chiefs are admitting out loud, like, yeah, the structure is not representative. It's not that beneficial for the player unless they're just like, you know, let's be done. think is a lot more likely is that instead of going longer duration, the Bengals and Burrough

go shorter duration. Give them like a fully guaranteed three-year deal, right? Give them, give them a three- or four-year deal with a huge guarantee figure or the huge signing bonus. It won't be as large of a figure in terms of total guarantees as it would be if it were a five-year deal, like Jalen Hertz signed, or actually a five-year deal like Lamar signed. Or, or, actually, a five-year-old like Lamar signed, or a five-year extension on top of the existing years as Jalen Hertz signed, right? Jalen Hertz's deal technically, it was like six years out because it added all into his existing contract. Burroughs still got a year of his deal left and also the potential fifth-year option. And so, like, if you sign a five-year extension, you're, you're, you have to, it's going to be a

huge time frame. And the total guarantee figure is going to be really high. I would think it's more likely that they rip up his current contract. They sign like a three, four-year deal now with a big guarantee figure, but not as big as it would be on a five-year deal or a six-year deal. And then say, all right, when you're 28 and you're still killing it and you've won a Super Bowl, we'll come back here again. And whatever the highest guaranteed figure is at quarterback market now, we'll just beat that again. You know what I'm saying? And you're kind of a little bit, kick the can down the road and start dealing with your escrow problems.

But it's nice to have another three years to figure that out. And it'll be good for Burroughs. It's like, hey, like, we're not going to get you on on a deal where year, three, year, four, you're underpaid and we're reaping the benefits from it. You're going to be able to get us right back to this table in a few years after, you know, Trevor Lawrence has reset the market and I don't know who else is good and young

not really anybody else Trevor Lawrence has reset the market you'll be able to get us back to the table and won't be all right and so yeah so I think that I would expect them honestly go shorter not go home structure go more of the guy

Kurt Cousins with the Viking structure just with the numbers absolutely jacked through the freaking roof we'll see that Herbert and Burrow contracts will likely be topics on extra point taken in the weeks and months ahead

once those deals get done. Let me just say, when I was your age, there was no way I knew what escrow was. I was talking about escrow. I mean, I feel like I'm a proud uncle here. You know, my nephew's coming. We're meeting up for Thanksgiving and he's got all these stuff. He's learned since I last talked to him.

Very impressive. I was hanging out with a couple buddies at church the other week who are CPAs or finance guys. It's a different language. Yeah, well, and now we were talking football. The Lions fans talking football. And we eventually we got on the Bengals and Burrow. And I was like, obviously like, you know, the main problem for Burrow and the Bengals is the escrow issue. And I could just see like this 50 year old CPA guys go like, oh.

And I was like, this is the greatest feeling I've ever had. If these guys knew how horribly I bungled my taxes every year, they would not give me a minute of their time. But I just dropped the word escrow. We are viving right now. So I'm not, yeah, that's a good name drop right there as escrow. It's like the equivalent of if he would have been like, you know, defense that they're quarter quarter half covers they played last week. Absolutely. The safety rotation.

Okay, big CPA. All right. I see you. All right. Okay. All right. My last one. It's a team, honestly, I can't remember the last time we talked about this team. And I think there's good reason for that. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers. No. Dang.

The pressure on the Cleveland Browns is about to get ratcheted up. I think the Browns just haven't been a fun team to talk about because of the way the whole Watson thing happened and, you know, 22 allegations of Mr. treatment of women and then the way the Browns handled that. It wasn't fun to talk about the Browns as a football team last year. Maybe it won't be this year. But as I was just going through kind of the league and the teams, I was like, this is one, we should probably hit on.

Because if you look at the Browns last year when Deshawn Watson came back, those six games, he ranked 40th out of 41 quarterbacks in EPA per pass play. I mean, statistically, I'm not saying that was all Watson and nobody else. and I know there's a weather game or two in there. But if you just look at it statistically, they were a far better offense with Jacoby Brissette than Deshawn Watson last year. Now, it's a small sample.

It's six games. Previously, Deshawn Watson had been an excellent quarterback. But if you look at the personnel, they added Elijah Moore on offense, and that's pretty much it. There's not a lot of differences from the team he played with last year. Now, I think the defense is going to be a lot better.

Jim Schwartz comes in, and replaces Joe Woods. I feel like Jim Schwartz, if you give him any 11 players in the NFL, he can at least get you to like the 18th ranked defense. And they've got talent on that defense. They signed Alvin Tomlinson. They signed Juan Thorne Hill.

I thought those were fine signings. I think they're better than their performance has showed in recent years. So I think they're going to be better on defense. But I was thinking about the offense and Watson specifically. And what happens if he doesn't play well this year? What happens if the offense doesn't look good? what if they don't make the playoffs? I mean, right now, they're exactly 50-50 to make the playoffs.

They're minus 1-10 to make it, minus 1-10 to not make it. It's an exact split down the middle, whether they're going to make it or not. And so when you make a deal like that, and this came up when we spoke about Lamar, there's only been one team that's been willing to go to the lengths the Browns went to, to acquire a player and guarantee his entire salary over, what was it, five years with DeShawn Watson, $230 million. Like, that's why the Browns got to Sean Watson. We know that.

They were out. All the reports, they're out. Oh, they're back in. Oh, they're back in. That's interesting. Oh, they're also guaranteeing his full contract. Oh, okay. That's interesting.

What a coincidence. So we saw that with DeShon. Every other quarterback hurts. Lamont, like we haven't seen any other team, regardless of the player, how much they like the player, willing to do that. They did that. They give up all the draft capital to get him. They kind of embarrassed themselves.

in many ways with the way they handled the situation when he comes back, when he gets the suspension, when they're, I just, you know, I remember just being there one day for training camp last summer and it was just embarrassing with the way that, you know, their ownership, as Haslums are talking like, you know, you almost would have thought that they were the victims

in this whole thing. So you add all that up. And now it's like he's the most powerful person in the organization other than ownership. Like if it doesn't go well, you're not moving on from Deshawn Watson, given what you gave up for him, given what you're committed to him.

So I just feel like last year was like, okay, it's weird. He's suspended for 11 games. He comes back. He plays six games. No one's really paying attention down the stretch because they're kind of an irrelevant team. Now it's a new season. Now he's had the whole off season.

Now he, you know, whatever he needed to work out on the field during those six games, he was able to work out. But there's still only 50-50 to make the playoffs. And so I think everyone in that organization, the pressure is going to be ratcheted up quite a bit here in 2023. three. And maybe they make the playoffs. I mean, they absolutely could make the playoffs in the AFC, but the AFC is loaded. And if things get off to like a rocky start and it's week eight or nine and Watson's not playing well, listen, we've seen Watson's camp can manipulate

the media. We saw that over the course of a year or two. They can, are absolutely capable of that. He's not going to be the one standing up there saying, I need to play better. There are going to be reports about whether it's coaching, supporting cast, scheme, whatever, you name it. and it could get very uncomfortable and very ugly there for a lot of people. So again, Brown's our team that I feel are just sort of like, all right, you know, they're not the most fun team to talk about. They're not the most relevant team. At the same time, if things go poorly for them at the start of 2023,

they're going to be feeling the heat. Yeah, I, um, there's no like first head coach to be fired 2020, mark it up yet. But when there is like, the first name I'm looking for is Kevin Stefanski. And there's nothing to do with Stephansky. Right. Okay, gotcha. It's if the team is bad, which I think they will be because Watson has not played well in a while.

And defensively, the covers are still really bare. I think Jim Schwartz was a good hire for them, but limited players in Cleveland right now. The team's playing poorly. Someone's heads rolling, and it can't be Deshaun. They have made two full-throated of an endorsement in Deshaun Watson as their future, from a PR perspective and from a financial perspective, which was their choice. It was a bad choice. It was a reprehensible choice on top of being a bad choice, but they did it.

And now, when you make your bed, you lie in it. And that means you're going to fire a good coach in Stefansky to present as if he was the issue to why the Deshaun Watson-era Browns aren't working. I mean, that's PR 101. It's easy to see it coming down the mountain. Browns could be better. Like, offensive line, I thought, like, regressed a little bit last year and I think they'll pop back up.

There's just too much talent. And then they still have such a nice formula in this Stefansky offense in terms of that running game can ground and bound you. And then they have a lot of talent at wide receiver more than they've had in a while. Amari Cooper, to Donovan People's Jones, to Elijah Moore, David Bell, to some other guy that I'm forgetting that I like that's there right now. Like, it's a solid group. They still have a good formula, but I'd be surprised if they're like lights out good, which I think is kind of the expectation when you sign that contract. And I think there's a much better chance as opposed to them being lights out good

that their lights out bad. And when that happens, I think, yeah, Stefansky is going to get canned unfairly so for like his caliber of coaching. Transky was also though, like he was on board with bringing it to Sean. Absolutely, yes. You got to wear that around your neck as well.

You bring in a quarterback who you're given $230 million to guaranteed. You have to make that work or you have to know your job is going to be on the line, independent of the off field. circumstances of adding to Sean. And that was just a unbelievably high magnitude of risk

you added to that are already high risk decision. And so it's, I don't think Cleveland's got enough ducks in a row to be a functional team this year. And I think when they're not, yeah, I think the visibility and the heat will absolutely turn up.

I also don't think, yeah, they're going to be a fun team to talk about any time soon either, especially if they go into fire people as a PR move circumstances, then it's just, it's somehow even bigger of a mess and it's already been. Yeah, especially in that conference.

I mean, if they're played in the NFC South or something, I think we could easily talk ourselves into them being a very good team. But, man, against who they're going to have to face, it's going to be challenging. All right, Ben, finish the show out with an extra point. I'm curious, what direction is Ben going to go in with this one? Well, it is of the second week of May, and everybody who's an NFL fan knows what that means.

It's schedule release. hours, baby, and Peter King had at the top of his column today. I got to pull it up, apparently I lost it. He had a, yes, the NFL wanted to release their schedule this Thursday, prime time event, NFL network, but it turns out they may not yet be able to because there are conflicting offers and contending scheduling issues and networking snafus for all of their regular season games, specifically centered around those hallmark games. It was like, hallmark weekends. Then he goes to list all of them where he's like, schedule opening week, Christmas

week, Black Friday week, Thanksgiving games, Thursday night games, European games. And you're like, oh yeah, that's a lot to deal with. So here's the take, extra point of the week. I don't give a hoot about the NFL schedule release at all. It's so dumb that this is a thing that gets hyped up by the league overall. what is a delightful unintended consequence of it is that because nothing else is going on and because it's kind of like a pointless thing

that is not actually important. Team social teams and video teams get to go bananas because they're not within like the usual confines of the week-to-week basis are like clips and don't reveal anything that could help our next opponent and you know voice over training camp and whatever.

So they just like spend a month just going through like the charges had the anime thing. a couple years ago. The commanders had the one. They had the bills had one with Josh Allen. There's been some great, great schedule release videos

and it was always really fun to watch. So NFL content teams getting to flex their stuff, good. Everything else at the NFL schedule release is so unnecessarily pumped up and Ivalued it in a total waste of time. And the fact that,

and like this is not that it gets Peter King, but the fact that the opening item for football morning in America this week was like, Like, an avow schedule release might be delayed. It's just ludicrous. It's the schedule. The games aren't starting for three weeks, or for three months, excuse me.

If I had my druthers, none of us would know the schedule. We would turn on the TV on Sunday, be like, holy smokes, Eagles cheeses today. This is bananas. That would be awesome. Just Christmas presents every Sunday, but you can't do it that way. Anyway, an interval schedule release this week. If it's your cup of tea, it's your cup of tea. For me, send me an Excel file, and I'm good to go.

three quick things to your extra point taken there. One is I actually get it for fans who are excited about it. You get to see where's your team playing, what games might you want to go to. Are you doing a road trip? Me and you like to do the win loss, win loss right away. That's always a fun exercise. You predict the team's win loss record in May. So I get that aspect of it.

Two, how is it possibly not ready for Thursday? The opponents have been locked in since the end of the last. last season, you've known what, like that part, I don't understand. I know there was like speculation that the Aaron Rogers thing was, well, you know, we're not putting the Jets on prime time with that, but you could add two separate things. Here's the Aaron Rogers is on the Jets file. Here's the Aaron Rogers is not on the Jets file. I don't understand how this thing is coming down to the wire. I feel like you could hire some smart college students and they would honestly be able to figure this out in an afternoon. You could give them all the stipulations and it would literally take them like

two hours and they would spit out of schedule for you. Oh, yeah, so like Peter writes about it. He's like mega games are usually locked in by early May and they haven't been locked in yet. They're figuring out the Germany games and like that's a little bit of a challenge. And then there was this at the bottom, which I had no idea this happened. I thought this was cool. One thing making schedule construction tougher this year, the elimination of the road team determining the televising network for Sunday day games, which what that means is previously,

like if an AFC team were on the road, that game was. going to be on CBS. Like the Chiefs are playing on CBS. The Eagles are playing on Fox. That's not the case anymore. Now it's up for grabs. It's not to find it by conference anymore. These are available.

This is going to blow my father's mind when he is looking for the Steelers on a 425 game and he goes to CBS and they're not there. And he's like, Benjamin. He'll call him, Benjamin. I can't find the Steelers. I'm like, Dad, you got to go to Fox. And I'm like, no, no, the Steelers don't play on Fox.

I'm like, I know that for the first 50, six years of your life, they didn't. But here they are now, just on Fox at 4 o'clock. That's huge. Honestly, I don't want to give Roger any ideas, but I don't know how exactly it's determined now, but if there is something where like CBS and Fox are deciding which games they want,

because that's not the case anymore. Now, that's something I would watch. If there was a draft and it's like, oh, you want, like that I would actually, you don't probably tune into and watch. So my last thing is, I'm proud of you. I made fun of you during the season. You know, all right, Roger Goodell,

took over this podcast. You were complimenting the league too much. Now you're saying, this is stupid, but I like where this is going for 2023, this version of Benjamin Sola. I have an extra point to the extra point real quick. I sent it in the chat. You can click on the link. Have you seen the new Brown's logo options, the official dog pound logos? So if anybody hasn't seen it, you can go to the Brown socials and you'll see the options they posted them up. Do we have a favorite here? I like these. So these are like actual like Bulldog logos for the Browns. It's not for like a new team logo. It's for the like fan area logo, the dog pound logo. I think some of these are sick. I think they're cool too. I don't love the

one where you can't see the eyes. Like if I'm looking at it, the bottom right. Yeah. Yeah, I don't love that one. I kind of like the rest of them. I think the middle one looks too much like something I've seen before. Uh, I think I kind of like the, maybe the upper right as I'm looking at it with what is that, a spiked collar? It's a very unful. What do you like? The correct answer is either the middle one of the bottom right one. The one, the two of you were like, no, yeah, those are that's one.

The bottom right one with the shadows and the no eyes, that's kind of sick. And it's got like the helmet white stripe down the middle. That's good. And then the middle one is awesome with like the underwhite fangs. Those are cool. That looks like something I've seen before. I don't know, like I feel like I'm looking at the, I know, Oregon State. No, they're not.

That's the beavers. Producer Cliff Augustine says all trash. So I am always. My next next time I have the export. point taken in two weeks, it's going to be just more alternate logos. That's the take. Just more new logos. New logo every week. Stop acting like decals on helmets matter. More alternate logos. All right. There you go. All right. Thank you to Ben Solac. Thank you to Cliff Augustine for producing additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna

Ramgopal. Appreciate everyone listening. We'll be back to talk to you next week on ExtraPointe.