The Ringer NFL Show - Justin Fields Trade, Dolphins Window, Bengals Offseason, Lions Approach, and More! | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

Justin Fields was traded to the Pittsburgh Steelers on Saturday night for a sixth-round pick. Why was the compensation for Fields so low? Sheil and Ben discuss whether the Bears did Fields a solid or the market wasn't there for him. Which AFC team has had the most underrated offseason so far, and which one has taken a step back? Plus, who’s the best wide receiver in the 2024 NFL draft? The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Social: Eduardo Ocampo and Kiera Givens Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

There are a lot of quarterbacks in the NFL draft this year. My name is Ben Solac and I host the Ringer NFL Draft Show with Danny Kelly, Danny Hyfitts, and Craig Horleback. We cover trades, free agency, and the draft, which is, yeah, obviously. We'll tell you about everything, which includes which quarterbacks are good, which quarterbacks are bad and which quarterbacks are just Kirk Cousins. That is the Ringer NFL Draft Show. Search the Ringer NFL Draft show on Spotify. Welcome to Extra Pointe, Cheel's a pod here, joined by Ben Zolak. A week ago today.

Benny Solac, it feels like it was about three weeks. ago or three months ago or whatever. Teams started making these moves. The negotiating period started. We've talked about a lot of the individual moves. I feel like we're going to zoom out a little bit, do a little big picture today. It feels like not a lot is left to happen between now in the draft. Am I right or am I wrong?

Are there big, big shoes to drop? Am I using that correctly? Yeah, I think you're right. But I also, like, I still have not shed myself of the fear that something is going to happen. You know, like the field straight came what, like Saturday. like 8 p.m.ish, right? Like 7 p.m. And then I wrote off it and I'm right in the middle of the night. I'm like, I'm not supposed to be doing this out of season. Come on. And I'm just thinking of myself, man, like that you, free age you can always get you. It's always waiting around a corner

with another move that's going to mess up your schedule. Weirdest way I found out about the field trade. I'm at the Sixers game. Took my daughter to her first game. Guy in front of me on his cell phone and he's and someone must have texted him. And so I see it's like right, it's right in my line of vision, it says Justin Fields, you know, source Justin Fields to the Steelers. So that's how I found out about it. So probably a little creepy by me to be snooping on the guy's phone in front of me, but what do you want for me? It was in my line of vision. All right, we're going to talk about the field straight. We're going to talk about other stuff. And we're going to do our regular format. We each have three takes. We don't tell each other what the takes are beforehand.

And then we respond to it. I am up first, Benjamin Solac. And I'll start with the Justin Field Street take. I think it's pretty simple. The Bears didn't get more for Justin Fields because the league doesn't think Justin Fields is fixable. I really think it's that simple. I don't think it's about the Bears botching this and everyone knew he was going to get traded. So that's why they couldn't get anything for him or they didn't trade him at the right time or there would have been a bigger market for. Maybe there are like little morsels of truth to some of that. However, I think the bottom line is the league looked at this and said,

Justin Fields take sacks at the highest rate of any quarterback in the NFL, fumbles more than any quarterback in the NFL, those are both the last three years here. And he ranks, you know, any metric you look at. Like if I was part of an analytic staff and they were like, hey, pull up the stuff on Justin Fields, it would be like he ranks 28th out of 29 quarterbacks in success rate over the last three seasons. And so there's all these things that you kind of look at and you say there's no precedent really for a quarterback to have his start to a career, first three seasons statistically, at least that I can think of. Maybe you'll be able to think of somebody, but to have that kind of start statistically and then emerge as like a plus starter in the NFL. So I really think that's

mostly what it came down to. Now, having said that, I kind of enjoy watching Justin Fields play football. I'm excited to see what he looks like in a new environment in Pittsburgh. And if I were a team, he would be someone. I would say, let's take a flyer on. Maybe there's only like a, whatever, a 5% chance that he reaches this upside that we talk about so much. But you know what? For a sixth round pick that could turn into a fourth and for $3.2 million for one season, I would like to take that gamble over some of these other moves that teams have made. I mean, we live in a world where the Minnesota Vikings signed Sam Darnold for $10 million, $10 million. Teams talk themselves into quarterbacks over and over.

And over again. And so I like the dice roll for Pittsburgh. I would have rather done this than Darnold. I would have rather done this than Gardner Minshu. I would have rather done this than Kenny Pickett. There are probably other ones we can talk about as well. But my bottom line is I don't think that like the compensation, which surprised a lot of people, surprised me, quite frankly,

is really about the bears. I think it's more about just how the league views fields right now. So that's my Justin Fields take. I know you wrote about it. I'm curious to hear what you agree with, what you disagree with there. I agree with that to a degree. I think that the reporting in January was that Fields was going to get around a second or a third pick and return.

And then the reporting in February was that Fields were going to get like a second or third round pick and return. And then the reporting, even like in early March, even coming out of the combine was like, okay, he's probably going to get like a second or third round pick and return. And then there started to be like coming off to the combine. And there was like, okay, maybe the market's not as good. Like maybe it's not a second pick. Maybe it's a fourth round pick.

maybe it's a fourth-run pick that can escalate, whatever, right? But like, and the reporting the whole way down was like that was going to be the price tag. Then the price tag comes in is way, way, way less, right? Future six that can come in to be a future fourth. Some of that is because the overestribended the market. When I was writing my article, I found a Dan Graziano report from ESPN that came way at the beginning of free agency that I thought ended up looking very prescient, where he said the message that the bears are getting is from other teams is that

that they don't consider fields, I'm reading a quote here, don't consider Fields more of a sure thing than other potential one-year options such as Sam Donald or Drew Locke, who wouldn't come with the fifth year option that Fields eventual team out to make it early May. It's an odd off season in which the supply of the quarterback position seems to be higher relative to the demand than usual, right? So on and so forth. And so I think that that, right, that estimation where they're like, hey, like, we don't think Fields is any more likely to develop into something than Sam Donald and Drew Locke. Like, I think that as a kernel of truth to it, right? Like, We on the outside, we were like, absolutely, Justin Fields is more likely to develop than

Donald O'Rlock. Internally, league teams, everything in, no. Like, you know, he's as likely, if not less likely, than those guys as examples. Where I do think there is some more like an explanation to this comes from the reporting of Courtney Cronin and Brooke prior to ESPN. Cronin said this yesterday. There was a clear impetus from the Bears to trade fields somewhere where his camp would be happy.

would have a chance to compete. And accordingly, she says that they had better offers on the table that they did not take because Fields did not want to end up on those teams, right? They like, she's like she's reporting that they explicitly worked with him. Now, how much better of offers? We don't know, right? Oh, it could be a future fifth, not a future sixth. But I do think that the league consent, to say the league's consensus trade value opinion

on Justin Fields is a future six, I think is inaccurate. I think that the league consensus is somewhere higher than that. And that the bears, because you're seeing the reporting. Like, I don't think to me this is like, I don't know, you argue this. The bears took a worse trade offer to, with the Steelers to send fields to Pittsburgh. They thought that was a good spot for him. That's what's being reported. Well, I do not deny that reporting.

I'm sure there, I'm sure there's some truth to that. When I have like a couple rules where when a team says a certain phrase, I interpret it in a different way. do right by and then players name typically to me suggest that a team is trying to make itself look better than it actually does that there is um you know all right well we could you know we wanted to like i don't know just the way i know the cutthroat business of the NFL and the way GMs you always talk about it rule number one for a GM stay GM keep your job right there i don't know many gms who are saying we want to do right by player and take less compensation so i'm not saying that that report is wrong, I don't think there's a big difference between what they got and what they

could have gotten. I mean, it wasn't going to be. If it was going to be a third round pick and you settle for a sixth that can turn into a fourth, then you are doing a terrible job for your franchise. I don't care about due right. Obviously, it's a relationship business. I get it. I'm all for being nice, but give me a break. I don't know any GM who I've come across who would take that deal over a significantly better deal. Now, could it have been a fifth for sure? Yeah, I mean, like it could have been something that's a little bit better. So that's the one do right by the other one, Solek, and this is off topic. But if you ever hear this, a coach or GM say, it's a good problem to have, that means it's a bad problem to have.

It is not a, it is not a good problem to have. So those are the two that are always on my radar. So I don't think that they could have gotten a significantly better deal. I understand what you're saying with the reporting. Again, I'm not, you know, they're talking to people. I'm not saying they're wrong or anything like that from what they're. hearing what people are telling them. But just in my mind, I would love to know if it comes out that, hey, no, no, no, someone

reports they definitely had this offer on the table and they chose to go in a different direction. Then I'll believe it. And then I'll also rip them because what are you doing? Your job is to build the Chicago Bears. Like, your job is, fine, you want to be nice to Justin Fields. But your job is not to like hold his hand and put him in a situation where he can succeed. So I think there's a fine balance there.

So I don't fully believe, believe that aspect of it. So, there you go. I think that there is enough truth to it that you can understand it in the context of they had like five teams call them, which has also been reported. Within the context of like, so most teams were calling him about being a backup quarterback, right? That absolutely was true. But within the context of like Sam Howell going for a third to fourth swap, Kenny Pickett going from a, what was it, early fourth to late fourth swap, they moved out like 20 picks around 100. A Desmerer going for Rondell Moore. The thing that is fundamentally impossible to understand about the situation is that those dudes went for that and then Fields went for a six.

That's what to me is like incongruous, right? Like, okay, like you don't want to pay the fifth year option. I guess that's a thing. You'd rather sign Sam Donald than send a day three pick for Justin Fields. Whatever. Like I think that that is bad, but whatever, sure. In a world where yesterday, Kenny Pickett went for that pick swap. And then the following day, Fields goes for a future six.

Like that just cannot line up in my head. I cannot square that. And when I get reporting, that's like, well, the Bears had better offers, but they wanted to send Fields to Pittsburgh because Fields wanted to go there and he had an opportunity to start. I'm like, okay, at least I can start to get my head around this. Like, we're trying to make compromises here with my understanding of the world and with the NFL's understanding of the world. Fundamentally, at the core of the problem, I think the league is pretty wrong on the read of Fields. Right. And like, I, I'm very, if this is the thing that I look extremely dumb about, like,

if this is the thing that gets quote to you to 19,000 times and people five years from now are telling me, oh, you still thought Justin Fields was good. And this podcast club's getting shared on quotes in 2026 when he's a third stringer for the Cowboys. Like, so be it. This is the easiest thing in the world for me to be wrong on. Like, I would love to. If I, if the thing I'm always wrong on is let's give the four foot, the four, the four second two hundred and thirty pound guy a second chance, I'll be wrong on that every day until the cows come home.

This is the easiest thing in the world. world to be wrong on. Oh, Sam Donald's getting one year $10 million from the Minnesota Vikings to play his like a hundredth career game to see if maybe he's finally something. Oh, Marcus Marriott is getting one year, six and a half million dollars at the 10 guaranteed to be the backman Washington. Jacoby Resett's getting one year, six million dollars to be the bridge quarterback in New England. I get Justice Fields for $3.2 million from one year. All it took me was a sixth round pick, and I watched the Bears just dramatically bungle this young man's career for three years. You bring up, oh, nobody who has had a start to this career this bad.

as turned into a good quarterback. Yeah, nobody who had to start the career this bad got, had to get, keep thrown out there on bad teams. Usually these guys get tossed, they get traded, they get trapped. The Bears kept them out there, sacrificial lamb did for three seasons. I mean, he, he, by his 25th game with the Bears, he had a supporting cast that would actually work for a young quarterback. Like, I am so pleased. I cannot wait to be the idiot on Justin Fields. I'll be the idiot on a player like this every day of the week. I don't think he's going to become the 10th best quarterback in the league. I don't think he's going to, you know, revolutionized football, but on the scale of average starters,

on the scale of win me two out of four games as a backup, I'm going to take the big fast guy who could chuck it, who's at a horribly mismanaged career by the Chicago Bears. That's the easiest low-risk, high-reward gamble I will ever take. Yeah, and to be clear, the league is wrong on stuff. So I'm telling you what I think happened, the league's view, this isn't to say, I mean, listeners to this show now, we love ripping on people in the league and being like,

what are they thinking here? So I'm not telling you, I'm not one of these people's like, oh, the league said it. No, no, no, I like that. I like that. You're going out on a limb. You have a convicted take on Justin Fields. You think the league is wrong on him.

I was just kind of, now I will say this. You said like Justin Fields mismanaged. Like, that is a story that is generally told of quarterbacks drafted in the first, like, when Sam Darnel gets traded to the Carolina Panthers, that is a story being told about Sam Darl. Now, I don't disagree with you. It obviously was absolutely mismanaged. There's no doubt about it.

He didn't have a. a great chance until very late in his career. Yeah. When Sam came off the Jets, right? I was like, no, this is not, like, he does not have this in, right? I was not there. I was a big Josh Rosen guy coming out of college. I saw one year in Arizona.

I said, like, I'm not. Like, this is, I get it. Like, you know, take a gamble on him. But the Dolphins sent a second round pick for him on draft night. And I was like, there's way too much, dude. Like, this is not, like, I've gotten a lot of, oh, Ben, you're just, stolen your pre-draft evaluation of fields. And it's like, listen, like, there have been other guys who have a mismanage situation.

bad rookie stars and like they have not been for me this is the guy i'll take a risk on no problem every day the week guy can do six things that nobody else in league can do and there's not i will i i i the league like this goes into my first take i'll transition it here the league loves to like pretend that they learn stuff and they just don't like i like in in the world in which like oh we've learned so much more about quarterback running oh we've learned so much about quarterback mobility you should be tripping over yourself to get a guy a field's a field's body type just to build a package for him, just to use him on the tush push, just to do the stupid stuff with him that other teams don't get to do.

The Patrick Mahomes slide RPO on fourth down to move the chains in the Super Bowl, right? Just get a quarterback who can do this for you. Even if he is QB2, even if you're using him on goal line packages. Heck, forget all that stuff. If you're talking about a developmental guy, you want a guy who can do it with his legs because we know how much easier it makes it in the passing game. We know how much easier football is when you're playing on 11-11 football.

ball. Ask Tyler Huntley when he comes in for Lamar Jackson. Ask Jaylen Hertz when he came in for Carson Wentz. You can run styles of offense that other teams can't and defenses are more poorly prepared for, right? So the league loves that. Oh, we learn, oh, we learn so much. Right? Like, every GM who stood up there at the Combine was like, we learned a lot about quarterback

mobility. John Harbaugh did his whole, like, you know, we started this whole thing. And now it's a big thing in the league. If they learned that, then Justin Fields wouldn't have been available for as long as he does. League loves to claim they learned stuff and they didn't. I got in a lot of trouble this week because I brought up Jane Daniel. the quarterback out of LSU won the Heism Award,

recently became the favorite to be the second overall pick to the Washington Commanders. If we look back at the 2021, 2020 draft classes, and all these 22 classes and all these quarterbacks that got moved, we'd learn a little something about Jane Daniels, right? We learned something about a guy who had five years as a starter at the college level, played at Arizona State for three seasons, and then he played at LSU, only really started to be extremely productive in his final of five seasons.

He was 23 years old, 40 touchdowns, four interceptions, Heisman Award winner. we look at the career of Kenny Pickett, who did exactly the same thing. He didn't transfer. Five years of Pitt, four year starter, was not productive until his final season, 23 years old, older than everybody else.

And we look at the entire draft process, we said you have to be scared of these players. You have to be worried about guys who only started dominating at the college level when they were two, three, four years older than everybody else they were playing when they had two, three years more starting experience than everyone they were playing.

Oh, Kenny Pickett, got to trade him away two years later, not good, didn't land for us, didn't develop. But Jane Dato's is there too overall. We're going to go grab him, even though he only started producing. He was 23. We would look at Jane and Daniels, who, shield, pressure to sack ratio. This is something that you brought up, something that we've been talking about as a sticky metric for college quarterbacks into the NFL.

Jane and Daniels dropped back pressure to sack ratio since 2019. 68.9% in the year 2022, 51.4% in the year 2020. Last two seasons, he's been turning the majority of pressures into sacks. And we spend the entire week talking about, oh, Justin Fields takes too many sacks. Oh, Justin Fields, he's a scrambler, sure, but he ruins your offense, takes too many sacks, a league leading sack rate since the end of the league. We would look at Justin Fields, who's traded for a sixth round pick. We would look at Jane Daniels, and we would say, well, we learned something here.

We can't look. We got to worry about this. We got to worry about this profile of a player. And my intention here is not to take, like, totally like, you know, the attention to all in Jane Daniels. We could look at Sam Donald, who's getting his 17th attempt to be a starting quarter of back right with his fourth team oh he came to league young oh he's still young we can look at at jt mccarthy's 20 everybody talks about oh he's going to develop always young he's got so much time so much leash

and we can learn a little something all right the league loves to tell you that this is an emotional first take for ben a lot of baggage i understand it i'm sorry but the league loves to tell you i need like a notepad i feel like i have four to you're hitting on so many things here i'm like all right how which one of these am i going to respond to all right sorry finish the league loves to tell you that they learn things. And when I've made these parallels, the response I get from everybody, it's just like, oh, well, they're different players. Yeah, they're different players. But we have paradigms to understand guys. We have scaffolds. We have play styles that help define futures. Like I like to say, Tiger doesn't change the stripes. Kind of quarterback is going to be as a quarterback is in terms

of a play style. You can certainly be better or worse. And if you're like, listen, I watched Justin Fields out of Ohio State. I didn't like him. I love Jane Daniels. That's great. Go for you. I love Jane Daniels. I think Jane's going to be successful in the league. However, The league loves to tell you they learn stuff. And they don't. They fall into the same honey traps every single year. And then they trade these quarterbacks. We saw this huge cycle trading these quarterbacks for peanuts on the dollar,

moving quarterback mobility, trying to find second chances, third chances for guys and everything. When we sit, sat down and had some intellectual honesty about what we've learned about quarterback when we haven't, teams would probably be a lot more cautious of drafters than they've ended up being. So the quarterback mobility of this cycle, this past week, all of these trades really made me sit down and think, okay, what do we, what am I going to take away from this?

And at the end of like trying to take away from it, I just thought to myself, man, like, I might be sitting here trying to take away everything from this, but I'm not sure the league is. I don't think the league's going to take away anything from this. I think the league's going to assume everybody else messed things up. They're still smart. They know what they're doing and they'll go about their merry way. So what is the thing that you're saying the league likes to tell us they learn about stuff, but they don't learn about it.

Like articulate the one, the specific thing you're talking about there. There were several examples. The overall take is that. The league likes to tell you they learn things about quarterbacking, and they don't, right? They fall for the same mistakes. The examples are quarterback mobility and the low price on Justin Fields, quarterback age and the constant chances for Sam Donald and his parallels to Jason McCarthy, pressure to sack ratio. Justin Fields has parallels to Jane and Daniels. And fifth year senior production, Kenny Pickett and his parallels to Jayden Daniels.

Those are my four case points from my take. I mean, I think you could argue that, all right, so the Sam Darnold thing is inexplicable. I don't know. We're both aligned on that. That is not the move I would have wanted to make. Oh, you might have to take Fields fifth year option. Just don't take it. And he's $3.2 million for a year.

He's cheaper than everyone who gets traded. I agree. It's one year $10 million for Darnold or one year $3.2 million in a conditional sixth per Fields. It's so easy. I am perfectly aligned with you there. I do not understand that at all. I mean, like you said, at a very minimum,

Fields has a backup. He's coming in and he might scramble for 90 yards into quarters and win you a game. If he's your backups, I have no, I am not going to be on Sam Darnold Island there. So I don't understand that. All right, but if I'm playing devil's advocate with the Fields thing and the league doesn't learn thing, I could actually take the other side and say, in the past, teams would have talked themselves into someone like Justin Fields. They would have looked at this and they would have said, he had nothing in Chicago. They mismanaged the situation.

He's still young. Go out and give a big... I mean, we live in a world where Trey Lance just got a fourth round pick last year, 49ers and Cowboys, and he can't even get that. But it's not going to happen for Fields because in NFL history,

again, recent memory, unless I'm forgetting something, past three years, there have been 29 players who have had 25 starts and, you know, Justin Fields ranks 27th in EPA per pass by. There just hasn't been a quarterback who has had that. Daniel Jones is probably the

closest thing. And then all and then at some point turned into again, even a competent starter, let alone an above average starter. So the league actually did learn something. They said, don't take a flyer on guys like that because it's probably not going to happen for them. And if someone gets the exception, then that's fine. They get the exception. But why would you give up for anything, anything for someone like that? It's a dead end. Again, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here. So how would you respond to that? Right. So, That is fine. If the league learned like,

we don't like Justin Fields over the last three years, sure, whatever. I'm still willing to take the risk on. I'm fine. The point that I'm making here is the parallel into the draft, which is that there is a huge love.

Now they're going to talk themselves into a guy who could potentially have the same flaws. We have a ton of data. It's going to have the exact same problem. And it's there on film. It's going to have the exact same problem in the league.

But this guy's different on being told he's better passing from the pocket. Dude, that's the thing we can't figure out. That's the thing that we're not good. That's the part of quarterbacking that we think we can translate him college of pros and it never fucking works. And so that's, that's what it is to me is like, if your lesson from the last three years of Justin Fields is, I don't like Justin Fields. Okay, like that doesn't map forward for me at all besides avoiding the

Justin Fields trade, avoiding the Justin Fields extension, or excuse me not extension, but acquisition. Okay, fine. Like putting that to bed, that's your first take. My first take is like when we, when we roll forward to the Kenny Pickett, you know, failure and trade drama, the Justin Fields failure and trade drama, the Sam Donald career into the draft. draft, we should be able to learn some things about these incoming quarterbacks to make them treat us a little bit differently. And it feels like the league isn't doing any of that. Yeah. No, it's, uh, no, I think that it. You always see during the draft teams will talk themselves into just about anything. Like, if you talk to people around the league after the draft,

that is when they're at their happiest. I mean, they think they nailed it. They think they got five starters. They can't believe so and so drop. They think this other team's dumb. Like, that is when they're, I mean, they're just feeling themselves. And then you revere, visit a year later and it's like, oh, this coach had no use for this player, this guy, you know, didn't have that. And it's a totally different scenario. So I think you're absolutely right about that. And it's always remember as we going to John's theorem, right? The mystery box could be anything. It could even be a boat, right? It is always like, listen, Justin Fields couldn't succeed in the league because he took too many sacks. But Jane Daniels could be anything. Jane Daniels could succeed

despite it. Right. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. I want to make clear. I'm excited for Justin Fields in Pittsburgh. I, the Steelers kind of I don't know if they fell backwards or this was in their plans or what, but to turn what they had into, you don't think it was in their plans. No chance. Classic Steelers fashion. Did not plan to get here. Ended up getting here and it's excellent.

Yeah, because Kenny Pickett, I mean, there was no signs that they were going to trade Kenny Pickett until the reporting Kenny Pickett was unhappy. Then they trade him. But guess what? All right, let's do this. Do you have any more Steelers, Russell Wilson, or Justin Fields takes or should I get him out here? Because I just want to finish on this topic. No, I think I'm good.

Are you talking about? Okay. Justin Fields, when is he starting for the Pittsburgh Steelers? You know, there's all this report. You know, Russell Wilson's the starter. One thing I know is that in terms of like gravitational pull toward from teammates, and this is something that I think gets overrated. But by all accounts, Justin Field was pretty well liked by his teammates in Chicago

and Russell Wilson, that has not always been his strength. So things start to go sideways early. I think we're going to see a lot of Justin Fields this year. I think the Bears might end up getting that fourth round pick. Like, I don't know, a month into, like, Mike Tomlin's not going to go with the guy who's not winning him football games. And so what's your prediction on how that plays out when we see Justin Fields? My first thought is like week seven, I want to find that steel schedule, figure out where that really debilitating loss is going to be. There's always no schedule yet, right?

What's that schedule yet? There's no schedule. No, no, no, we don't have dates now, unfortunately. I was poking around. I can't remember when the dates get sex. Like they said like, oh, week one, Eagles, Brazil,

whatever. Okay. Yeah, I think week seven, right? It's going to be like, they're two and four, they're three and three.

They're facing like a, you know, Baltimore Ravens, Cleveland Browns, in division, great defense. There's getting walloped in half time. Ports come out,

Justin Fields was warming up on the sideline. He gets out there, you know, it looks, it looks all right. we're going to give the guy a couple of weeks and then he goes from there. I mean, like, here's the thing. But Pittsburgh, like, everybody talked about this is a good environment for fields and it was.

Why, like, they got to figure out wide receiver. This is not a good environment for anybody if it's George Piggins and Calvin Austin. And so the amount of nonsense we're going to hear about like, oh, but I thought Pittsburgh was a good landing spot. Like, yeah, before they traded the starting receiver for a corner, dude. It is a very, I mean, they've got two quarterbacks who take a lot of sacks who don't throw in the middle of the field. And they have Arthur Smith as their offensive coordinator. and like you said, they just traded away a starting wide receiver. I'll say this, the over under for when extra point taken one of our takes is the Steelers

need to bench Russell Wilson for Justin Fields. I'll put that at week two. Over under 0.5. Week 0.5, yes, that is correct. All right, there you go. All right, take a break. We'll come back. Get to some more take.

All right, we are back on extra point taking hour. We'll move away from field, Steelers, quarterbacking. I'm looking at some other teams, and I'm going hipster here. I make fun of you for being the hipter. I'm giving you my favorite under the radar team this offseason, and it's going to be on point for me. How about those Cincinnati Bengals? Okay.

When did this become a team that is just making reasonable move after reasonable move? And it's like they're not going to lead any first take segments, all right? They're not going to grab any headlines, but they are making the smart, low risk around the margin type moves that you need. to keep yourselves in contention. So what did they do? Defensively. Defense was not good last year, Captain Liu,

did not have a great season with the personnel. It's not funny. I had to. Stuff you do is funny. This is not funny. Listen, he didn't have great personnel, but he was not doing more with less.

It was not a great season for that Bengals defense. They go out. They get my boy, Gino Stone, from the Baltimore Ravens. You know, they let other people shop at the top of the safety market. They say,

Two years, $14 million, $25 years old, high football IQ, seven interceptions last year. Love it. Gino Stone, nice fit, safety was an issue for them last year. What else do they do? Von Bell, remember Von Bell? He was a part of some very good Bengals defenses. The Panthers signed him in free agency last offseason.

Doesn't work out. Shocking, something doesn't work out for the Panthers. They release him. Bengals bring him back minimum. $1.2 million. So you get Gino Stone and Von Bell for a third. total of $8.2 million salary for this season? That's a good starting safety tandem. I love it. Nice job, Cincinnati Bengals. Running back, Joe Mixen, getting a little expensive.

Got a contract extension from the Texans. They say, all right, we'll get rid of Joe Mixing. We'll bring in Zach Moss two years, $8 million, $3 million guaranteed. We're only locked to him for one season. I'm not telling you Zach Moss is Barry Sanders. Zach Moss is fine. He sets the floor for you. You still have Chase Brown showed some juice last year. If you draft a running back over them, great, that's fine. If you don't, you know what? You have a floor of competency and you didn't spend a lot of resources at the running back position. Sheldon Rankins was fine.

It felt like they needed so they wanted to interior pass rush. They signed Sheldon Rankin's from the Texans. Mike Gisicki, one year, $2.5 million. I'm not telling you Mike Gassicki's awesome. But you know what? It's a flyer. They're barely paying me anything. I cannot believe.

If I had a take that was predicated on a Mike Gassicki signing, the speed with which you would be throwing me off. I told you this is a hipster. I'm going hipster here. I got my PBR. Okay? I'm feeling good about it. Again, it's just an example.

Not all these moves are going to work out. Some of these players are going to do absolutely nothing for them. But you know what? That's a nice way to attack free agency. You take low risk moves. Some of them have upside. And again, you're trying to fill these little holes on the roster to build around Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, Aidan Hutchinson.

You're a good player. So they've still got work to do. the T. Higgins thing is kind of hanging over their offseason. I believe that T. Higgins is going to be starting for them in week one of the 2024 season. I don't think they're going to get an offer that is so good that they take it. And I think they're going to say, listen, you're not going to sit out and miss game checks. You're going to get your contract next off season. But come back, help us win the Super Bowl, put up big numbers, and we'll go from there.

They still have the 18th pick in the draft. They can address tackle there, hopefully. If not, they can bring someone else in. I know Mackay Beckton was kind of linked to them a little bit. And so to me, they are in a nice spot where they're making smart, low-risk moves. And this is a team that looks to me like they're going to be back in Super Bowl contention in 2024. So there you go. There's my hipster tape on Cincinnati Bengals, good off-season, even though not stealing any headlock.

What do you think? Sure. I don't get out of bed for the Cincinnati Bengals, 2024 free agency hall. all right so now i think the vaudeva turn is good i was excited to see where gino stone would go i think think that's a good addition on the margins uh i was decided to see where zach moss would go i think that's a good addition on the margins i think these are like you know like uh gap pluggers for you because you trade joan mixon obviously right tackle is a gap but they have not yet plugged because jona williams leaves like you said if they get through this with tea and they get one more year with

tea i think that's excellent right i think that that that gives you a nice contending team a fc caliber team star quarterback two star receivers in 2024 they didn't make any moves to me where i was like Wow, like what an, what an unbelievable return on investment. I didn't have that experience with them. I didn't make a move where I was like, if this will like, you know, really solve the problems with last year, like the issues with last year's team. They still need the youth in the secondary to really improve,

take step forward, especially a corner. They need edge rush or two to be a problem that could solve for them, right? They need Joseph Ossire, Sam Hubbard, somebody to be healthy, somebody to be explosive. Like, I think a lot of the defensive problems that were there last year are still there. And you got Joe Burrough coming off a major injury. And you got to, you know, see what that. that's going to look like. Brod gets banged up a lot.

He's had two seasonning injuries now in his career. And so they did good work. I agree. Duke Tobin, who's the GM there, I think it's just done a really nice job building this team and sustaining this team overall. But this is not the sort of free agency where I was like, woo! The Bengals! Crazy!

That's for you. That's for me. I feel good about it. I also feel good. Part of it is the good feeling coming off the last season where they lose Joe Burrow. And I think they go four and three with Jake Browning. They finish 11th in offensive DVOA. despite not having their starting quarterback for half the season.

Like that is a genuinely good coaching job. I think they figured some things out there. I have faith in them going forward. I like what the Bengals have done. All right. So that was bored by my take. What's his second take? All right.

My second take is that this 2024 season is setting up to be an enormous fulcrum for the Miami Dolphins. Miami entering this 2024 salary cap moment, right? the beginning of the 2024 new league year have to be in compliance, this free agency process. They were a team that was in a really tricky spot, right? They were a ton of money over the cap. They had a lot of big deals. They had to do some restructures, do some re-signings, let some guys go.

Obviously, Christian Wilkins doesn't stay with the team. They were in a little bit of a, you know, come to terms with the cap moment. And I think overall they did a pretty good job, right? I would say in general, like, you know, they do a Jalen Ramsey, uh, restructure. They let Christian Wilkins go. they bring Toronto Armstead back on a reworked deal. You lose Jerome Baker, but you bring in Jordan Brooks. Aaron Brewer comes in.

They got General Smith in. They get Kendall Fuller. They fill a couple gaps like Xavier Howard leaves. I think they did a pretty nice job overall working around in the margins to make sure this team remains competitive. This team remains able to cash in on Tatego-N-Tegovilo's rookie deal. Fill in their gaps with mid-level free agents. I think overall they did a good job.

With that said, if you look at 2025 cap space, which right now is a prognostication, right? It's made by something like it's a top 51, a projection as we use for 2024 and 2025 because as of right now, the teams, after the draft and after undrafted free agency, they will have more players on the roster than the actual 53 that carry. So it's kind of like an estimation how much cap space they have. But right now the dolphins are fifth lowest in 2025 cap space. You say, like, Ben, like, why do we care?

Like, who gives a who? Like, it's the way in the future, like, they're going to have room. Like, it doesn't matter. The issue is that, their 2025 cap space is projected based off of the players that they currently have signed in 2025, and they don't have a lot of them. They have 33 players signed for 2025 right now. Everybody below them has 38, 37, 38, 43.

The reason they have no capspace is because they have contracts that are built into the future. The dolphins right now are not really built into the future. The other thing about a lot of those teams is that those teams all have second contract quarterbacks, right? You have the New Orleans Saints with Derek Carr's deal, Deshaun Watson's deal with the Browns. You have the Buffalo Bills and the Baltimore Ravens. You have the Seattle Seahawks. You have the Kansas City Chiefs. All those teams are bottom 10 in Capspace.

They have these big mega quarterback deals. And you have San Francisco's up there too. And like, okay, they've got all their other contracts. But here's Miami right now with no quarterback contract in place. Tuatung of Iloa is on his fifth year option for 2024. He has not yet been extended. They do not have an extension in place for Jaylon Waddle, who's got a fifth year option in 2025.

The upcoming cap hits for Tyreek Hill are at $31.3 million this year. 34.2 in 2025, 56.3. Because of his base salary number, they wanted to get it. Oh, it's the biggest quarter of widest your contract ever in 2026. An enormous deal. Taran Armstead, who just reworked his contract, 10.5 this year, but 22.1 the following year, and 22.1 again in 2026.6. and you continue to go down the line. Bradley Chubb is worth $26.8 million this year, next year, the following year, 26.9 in 27. Shield. Jail. Jailan Ramble. off the restructure, 7.9 this year, 26.2 in 2025. Collectively, Jalen Ramsey, Bradley Chub, Taran Armstead, and Tyreek Hill combined.

Account for $100 million of 2025 cap. That's four-player. Those are four players who, they got some injury concerns. None of them are particularly young. And all of them are taking 2025 money, of which Tua, potential franchise course, quarterback has not yet seen a dime. This team is in. They are in on Tyreek, Armstead, Ramsey, and Chubb. That's what they built the core of this team around. They have incoming young players. Oh, they have like, oh, there's young talent in the hopper. You don't want to present

that there isn't. There is Jalen Waddle. There is Devon A. Shane. There is Jalen Phillips. Phillips is going to be on a fifth year option in 25. Walthell's going to be on a fifth year option in 25. Two is on it right now. Like, they need to get to a position where they're either able to win immediately with the current guard or shed the guard and then put that money on Phillips, on Waddle, on Tua, and bring in the next era of Dolphins football. There's obviously an issue with that, which is, do you want to pay two and have money and have him be the held, have him be the fat $50 million, $55 million contract that would mark him as the top quarterback, mark him as the herald of Dolphins football. And so coming into 2020,

this free agency cycle, I would have been like, man, the Dolphins are in a really like cap on healthy place. And I think they generally did a good job of letting talent leave and kind of pushing that another year, which gives you another year to look at two and kind of understand what you can and can't do. Third year with him under Mike McDaniel, get to the postseason, try to be healthier, whatever. But even if you do that, like, you have to walk into this year with no extension on him. And then you potentially have to sign a deal with him when you, when you, you know, only the franchise tag to save you. They're at a, uh, they did a good job kind of, you know, keeping the demons at the door a little bit. But the dolphins are in a very

a precarious spot where like the results of this 2024 season will will be the difference between to a 55 million dollar deal or like no deal for two up and we're cutting to run armstead and we're cutting bradley chub and we are fully tearing this thing down to the studs those are kind of the two paths that they have right now i think there's one path and it's not going to be a good path for the dolphins i do not like i'm glad you said it yeah i don't disagree with what you said given the resources as they had, how they managed this offseason, I thought it was mostly fine. Like they were in a bad spot. But I'm looking at this roster right now and I'm looking how they end.

I mean, last season, again, remember, against playoff teams, they were one and six with a minus 110 point differential. I don't know how you watch Tua at the end of the season and think, all right, let's invest $50 million per year in this guy. I mean, they got Tua for 17 games last season. Is that going to happen again? Maybe not definite. You mentioned it.

Tyree Kill, Jalen Ramsey, Toron Aramstead. their best players are all players at entering their age 30 or older seasons. This team's not good enough. This team isn't going to compete with the best teams in the AFC this year and get to the Super Bowl. I mean, I cannot get there with them given the state of the roster. And so I'm looking at now, well, what do they do? And by the way, they've talked about, no, no, we're going to extend to this offseason. Now, maybe that's just something you say and it doesn't actually happen.

But that's going to be another step in the wrong direction. So this looks to me like a team that is primed to take a step back. I'm not telling you they're going to be like a four-win team. I think they're a fringe playoff team. I think they're a mediocre team. And I think at this time next season, we'll see what they do with Tua. But like we're going to be talking about that one very specific path you mentioned, which is, all right, we got a part with some of these veterans.

We have to figure out what we're going to do at quarterback. This to me looks like a team that is primed for a step back this upcoming season. I don't know. As I'm going through. team by team. And by the way, they lost Vic Fangio on defense. So you lose your defensive coordinator in the offseason. Like there's just a lot of things there. And by the way, Tyree Kill, again in the news

for a domestic dispute. Like, I don't know why this guy, it doesn't get brought up over and over again. Like, I mean, some of the most heinous off-field incidents in recent NFL memory and it doesn't stop. And it just feels like he gets a free pass because he's an incredible player. So that's something else. Worth mentioning, that is not someone you can rely on here year to year, even week to week, month to month, it feels like. So I don't like where that Dolphins team is at. And that's where I stand with what you said.

I appreciate you mentioning the Tyreek thing because I didn't see it until yesterday. And when I saw it, I said, oh, isn't this just the other thing from earlier this year? And it's not. It's a different thing. And that's like, when I saw it, my head went like, oh, no, that's like, I've already read this Tyreek Hill domestic. Yeah, it was new reporting. Yeah, I think on the January incident. Exactly. Yeah. No, no. It's actually. new news. Yeah, I mean, it, it, it, uh, the, the, the, the dolphins are, are just, like, Xavier Howard right now is a $25.9 million dead cap hit in, in, in, in 22.9 million in, in 2025.

Like, they have already started the process of just taking these big dead capits on veterans. And you can, it, it, it always looks good in a tweet to be like, well, you cut this guy, cut this guy, cut this guy, put this guy, you take this many dead cap it, and then you have this much space and you can do this. It always looks that good. It never actually works that neatly. It's never actually that clean. And so I know there's a belief that the dolphins are going to be able to color in the margins on this without like taking any hits moving forward, but they're going to have to. They're going to have to shed talent, get really young and maybe be very good at a position because they draft extremely well. But that's, that's your only escape. That's your only backdoor

out of a cap situation like this. And when you're there, you really want elite talent to help save you. You want elite talent to help pull you through and you have kind of those underperforming positional groups, those big young groups, and I'm not sure they have that a quarterback. And since they don't have that a quarterback, they're a hard team to buy futures on. This feels like it was their window these last couple of years, and it's rapidly closing. They have the 21st pick, but they have two picks, two picks in the first three rounds. They have no third round pick because of that Tom Brady tampering thing this season. I think that's right. Yeah, they have no third round. And they lost a lot of players. Like you can say what you want about Christian Wilkins, Zavian Howard, Jerome Baker, Brandon Jones,

Andrew Van Ginkle, Robert Hunt. I'm not telling you, all of those players are awesome and pay them whatever they want. But you got to get those snaps from somewhere. And so again, they got like I like the Jordan Brooks deal. I thought that was a good deal.

The rest of them, I mean, Jordan Poyer is what, 33 years old. Jack Barrett is an older player. They signed Jet like, it's fine. Kendall Fuller is, what, 29 or 30 years old.

So, yeah, I don't know that it's going to work out great for that Miami Dolphins team. All right, take one more break. We'll come back with our final take. and the extra point taken. All right, we are back on extra point taken. I feel like, I mean, I don't know if anyone has the analytics of teams we talk about the most.

So give me your guess. Like, who are the three teams we talk about most on extra point taken? Defined, in what time frame? When was the start of the show? Two years? What are we on? I don't know. Oh, so the entirety of the show?

Yeah, let's say overall, overall. Or I don't know. Do you want to do this year? easier for you. Well, this year, like this year, you kind of skew it to, like, who had the impressive seasons. I feel like overall, chiefs are probably still top three. Okay. I say, Bill's are probably top three. Okay. You haven't hit on the team I'm about to talk about. Let's see if you get it here. Packers? No. Nice. Same division. The Lions. I feel like we talk a lot about the Lions. I go to Detroit a lot. So I'm always thinking about it. Right. And Lions are fun to talk about. All right. So that's my

third take. I think the Lions have done an excellent job of striking the right balance this offseason. So this is sort of similar to what I'm talking about with the Bengals here. The Lions didn't make that one big splashy move where, oh my gosh, they added this guy. They're making that leap. But I like what they did because they're in this weird spot where they're trying to be aggressive and win the Super Bowl. They were close to getting there last year, but they're also trying to build something sustainable. This is not just about one year going for it, going all in, whatever, all those terms are you want to use. This is about building a sustained winner for the long term. And so that's a tough balance

that GMs often have a hard time with. But I think they've done a nice job with that this off season. So what am I talking about? Offensively, they didn't have a lot of work to do. I mean, they lose guard Jonah Jackson and wide receiver, Josh Reynolds. He's unsigned. That's it. They brought, they're bringing back everybody else on an offense that ranked fifth and offensive DVOA last season. You want to talk about one of the best value. I mean, Graham Glasgow, I'm not telling you he was in all pro, but 6.7 million compared to some of the guard signings we saw in the offseason. That was nice value for them bringing him back.

So that's really all they've done on offense. Then defensively, I think we talked about it on a recent show. The Carlton Davis trade, I thought that was a shrewd, creative. This isn't just like a GM going and talking to reporters off the record. You know, what did you want us to do at cornerback? There was nobody out there. No, they figured it out. Guess what?

That's your job. Figure it out, GMs. And they figured it out. And they took a reasonable flyer on Carlton Davis, 28-year-old player, has shown high levels of play in the past, has had some injury issues, not a sure thing. I get it. But he fits their personal.

What I like is teams always talk about we want guys who fit us, what we do, our personality. And most of the time, I'm like, all right, calm down, caveman, relax. You don't even know. The lions, I actually, like, when they're signing these guys, I'm like, oh, yeah, I could see it. I can see it with Carlton Davis. Amick Robertson, again, not the splashiest name,

but a guy who's played slot and played on the outside, cornerback, young, two years, $9.25 million. Nice flyer to take. We talked about DJ Reader on the last show. Marcus Davenport. I'm not telling you Marcus Davenport is awesome, but this is a buy low. Last year, Marcus Davenport's a free agent.

He gets one year $13 million from the Vikings. He gets injured, and now you get him a year later at one year, six and a half million dollars. Maybe it won't work out. But you know what? If he's on the field and can be a competent defensive end for you, that's nice value. It kind of, again, sets the floor at that position for $6.5 million.

So I like that. And then maybe the best part about the Lions, they have so many young, ascending, young players who you can actually realistically say, this player should be better than they were last year. Sam Laporta, Jamir Gibbs, Amon Ra, St. Brown, Aidan Hutchinson, Brian Branch. I mean, both sides of the football,

they have guys in their early to mid-20s where you say, all right, they should be ascending players. They haven't reached their peak. They haven't reached their prime yet. So I think they approached this thing the right way. I feel like we've had a lot of conversations about, did they take a big swing here? Should they take a big swing there? And maybe there's one that I'm missing. But I actually don't mind the approach of taking these kind of smart, calculated bets,

still build through the draft and go from there. So I'm giving the Lions a thumbs up for their off season so far. Yes, but also You want the big swing Go get a star Go doing it be so cool Right now I I have

It's the like inside of you You have two wolves parable Right like Inside of me I have a rational brain I've got to like Man the lines knew they were gonna draft And develop man lines Like signing good values on the dollar

Doing the right thing Approaching the draft such that like When they You know Get on the clock with their pick They don't really have any like Huge needs So they can be flexible

They can trade back They can trade up They can take best player They can go for a position to need. Like, this is the exact right way to do it. Like, I have good rational brain. That good podcaster brain believes this. And then I have a, I have a second wolf, an irrational brain.

It's like, what if T. Higgins? What if Jerry is Steve was a lion? And the reason that that half of the brain kind of has some credence is because I think it's really hard to win postseason games without stars. Like, I think that you kind of seen a lot of the scheme lords struggle in the postseason over the course of their careers. And a big part of that reason is, is you just need guys. who could take over games for you.

Just decide for four quarters to dominate inconvenience. The other team is nothing they can do about it. And that's just not really Detroit's build. And I think that they have young guys that they can talk themselves into becoming that player. Like if you want to, like, all right, like, you know, Sam Laporte is going to be that player for us. Like, man, like, there's maybe like one or two tight ends of whom that's true in the

league. Like, ah, that's a thin bet. Jamir Gibbs is going to be that player for us. Man, like, there's maybe one or two running backs in the league. You could be the thin bet. Like if you, and you can argue. I would hear this. Well, Ben, like T. Higgins isn't any more likely to become that player than, like,

La Porder Gives. Maybe there's some creed instead. There absolutely is. But in general, like, I like my, I like my true contenders to have more stars on that, more tier one to tier two players at their respective positions than the Lions do right now. Because right now, I think that they have one of those guys at right, might have one of those guys at Edge next year. Ayn Hodgerson keeps getting better.

I'm not positive that Amon Ross St. Brown is that just because wide receiver is so talented, right? So deep. and I don't think Jared Goff is that. And so I do think they would benefit for some more star power. And I do think they know that, right? I think, like, people talk about the lines as if they've, like, completely always been just like a cautious draft and developed team.

This team moved up with 20 picks to go get Jameson Williams, right? Huge draft they trade. Nobody really had it, like, scheduled, coming, anticipated, right? They went and go to go get their guy who they thought was going to be like a offense changing weapon for them and they missed. But they've been willing to take a risk for a star before. I'll be curious to see they do very much interest me as a trade-up team when we start getting into the after-pick 10 and see what elite receivers are left, what elite corners are left.

I do think that they could use a little bit more punch. But in general, yeah, they have earned confidence in their approach where they think that they can be at this military or free agency and continue to build a sustained success. Like that, that is a fair and reasonable assumption to make about Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell Campbell right now. The only rule is don't Chris Ballard yourself, right? you can't you can't just stay on the treadmill indefinitely so mean

it's the best way of explaining it all right and listen ballad still got the job they have anthony virginson like he got through the brambles so maybe you can't Chris Ballard yourself now you're just leading it to it but in general trying to be mean but that don't Chris Ballard yourself that Ballard still has a job has a job right but I say he done Chris Ballard is the king of Chris Ballarding

he doesn't better than anybody that's all point. That's why it's named after him, Shield. I'm just saying you want to strike while your iron is hot. And we will see what the Jared Gough extension looks like. And we will see kind of how many more years they have cheap golf and kind of what the team can be around that. So I think it's a respectable approach. I just, yeah, I do have a little part of my lizard football brain. That's like, go get the biggest, fastest, best boys, trade everything. Compete. I kind of feel like some of those guys on offense. I might be higher on them than you. Like, how many tight ends are you taking over Sam Laporta for just the 20, 24 season? If I gave you any, any pick of any, any,

tight end in the NFL, I mean. I think, I think Kelsey Kittle, Andrews, for sure. For sure? Yeah. I did totally disagree. And then we probably get into the Lipport of conversation at four, right? Oh, I'll get into the Leport of conversation probably at two. And if you want to tell me Kelsey's going to decline.

Yeah, honestly, the Kelsey thing is like, yeah, I see, I'm thinking postseason. Kelsey regular season. 86 for 899 and 10. touchdowns, that's a rookie. That doesn't happen for rookie title. On an average week five, I'm probably taking Sam Lipport over Travis Kelsey, just because I've seen Kelsey in the regular season last couple seasons. But I think he's got that ceiling. I mean, how many running backs would you take over Jamir Gibbs for 2024? I mean, Gibbs was like, looks like one of the most dynamic running backs in the NFL. He was also a splitting time with David Montgomery. Like, we got to, we got to, we got to,

large samples here, right? We're, you know, remembering one nice touchdown running against the Buccaneers. You got to, you know. Oh, please. Come on. as much way he jameer gibbs was taking over possessions borders and halves at a time i mean he had moments where you were just like this guy is like and it's not just him i understand it's the scheme and stuff even amman ross st frott i'm with you like if you were like hey name all the receivers you know who are above him just make the pecking order i'm sure we could come up with a list but still my gosh this guy is just like a volume he he absolutely can take over possessions at a time and just get open over and over again and make tough catches.

So I like the supporting cast. I would not, I definitely would not be giving up the first round pick for T. Higgins. Now, if the price gets to a day two type thing, then we can talk about it, but I don't know. I think they got enough on offense.

So we'll say, all right, Detroit. When did I? I mean, you're always the Detroit Lions guy. Now, am I trying to steal that from you this offseason being higher on the lions? I don't know. No, it is, it's easier for you to be like, yeah, San Lipport is the second best tit in the league.

versus me. It's like, I have the proximity to the team, right? Like, oh, you're just saying that because you're talking to Samaporta. That's true. That's probably true. All right. What do you got? What's your third take?

All right. The team with the greatest potential for a massive, year one explosive franchise turnaround as a result of the incoming NFL draft, right? Think, again, that, you know, Quinn Nelson, Shack Leonard, Braden Smith, Colts draft, all right? Think about like just C.J. Stroud. will Anderson Texans effect, right? The team had the most potential for that, Sheel. Do you have a guess? I tried to get to my spreadsheet here in time

to make a guess. All right, let me go through the teams here. You need a spreadsheet to remember who the teams are? No, well, I have this thing with like draft, yeah, draft capital, and I'm not going to say that. Isn't it the base guy? It's not the Bears.

So I'm kind of like, it's like the Bears, like for obviously Caleb Williams, everything. I'm kind of trying to do like a not like, you know, taking a top quarterbacker brush. Not Bears addition here. No.

No, sorry, this isn't great for the listeners, not the Eagles, not the giant. I mean, commanders, how about the commanders? Five pictures in the first three rounds. I think the commanders have a nice potential. If you look at the commanders, okay. The commanders do have, what is it now? They got five in the first three rounds. They have five in the first three, geez.

They have two, 36, 40, and 67. I mean, that's nice. Then you're doing a rebuild. That's pretty nice. I don't know. Who am I? Are you going to go like 49ers? No. Maybe this isn't exciting. Maybe you're going to bully me for it. I feel like it's the Arizona Cardinals. Okay. All right now, if you look at a total draft picks available,

there are four teams right now that lead the league with 11. That's the Green Bay Packers. Hilarious. Los Angeles Rams. Okay, less neat. Here we go. Buffalo Bills and Arizona Cardinals who have 11 draft picks. In terms of draft capital on the trade value chart, this tweet from Nick Cortay, who by the way does wonderful work at over the cap on compensatory picks, which is a big deal during this week. He knows the compensatory picks better than the NFL. Remember, it was just last week they had to change something.

All the time. The league gets compensatory picks wrong constantly, and Nick's like, yeah, that never made any sense. They should be paying him something for it. Give me a break. My favorite thing is that, like, I follow Nick. He doesn't really do anything in the season besides compics. It's a great bit. You know what?

It's actually a great lesson. Now, now I'm going to go on the soapbox. The young journals, okay? I told you earlier. Always the young journal. Listen, the young content creators. I gave you one piece of advice. Don't listen to teams when they said they're doing right by a player.

Don't listen to them when they're saying it's a good problem to have. But also, find a little niche, okay? Find something that nobody else is doing. It can be completely random. It doesn't matter. Become the expert in that. And now look at it. I mean, he's having an impact.

The NFL needs him. to do their job right. I mean, that's great. All right, sorry, go ahead. So, according to the Fitzgerald Spielberger chart, the Cardinals is the most draft capital value at 9,438, which is an arbitrary number,

but basically they have the most draft capital value. Now, the Cardinals free agency was kind of like, it was a little bit weird in the sense, it was a little bit like the free agencies we expect of the contending teams, talking about the Bengals and the Lions. They were just like, oh, like, grab Mac Wilson, grab, you know, Bilal Nichols, grab Justin Jones, General Williams.

We just need some mid-tier starters. It's kind of like, no, you probably need a little bit more talent than that, right? You got to jack this puppy up. But with the amount of draft capital that they have, they still have the potential to do that. The Cardinals have their own first overall pick, which is fourth overall. We'll get to that pick in a second. They also have the Houston Texans old first overall pick, which is 27 overall. Yes, the Texans just traded 23 to the Vikings, but that was the Brown's original pick.

Deshawn Watson trade. The Texans owned 27, and they just gave that to the card. They gave it to the Cardinals in the Will Anderson trade. So the Cardinals have in the first round, four and 27. They have their own second round pick. They have three third round picks as a result of their own pick, the trade with the Texans for Will Anderson, and they trade with the Titans for Will Levis when they went up to go get him.

They also have three picks in the fifth round as well. So just like a ton of capital to work with. Now, when you think about, like, let's use those lines as an example, that Jemir Gibbs, Sam Leporta, Brian Branch, then obviously Jack Campbell draft where they had those four picks in the top 50. And they went and they got all those early contributors. They were not at an exactly similar point to where the Cardinals were, right? The lines were showing us at the end of the 2022 season.

It could be a playoff team. They were winning games. But they had an established veteran quarterback, a guy already on a second deal that they liked as their starter. They had a little, some talent that they'd already invested in, right? They had like a Pene Soule. They were, okay, we like our tackle situation here. And they traded back out of six overall to 12, got more capital, and just started throwing,

throwing picks at places where starting jobs are up for grabs, right? At running back with Jamir Gibbs, at tight-down with Sam LaPorteur, at lineback with Campbell, safety brand brand, so on and so forth. Well, here are with the Cardinals who have a player in Kyla Murray, who they like at quarterback. Kyle was going to be the quarterback there for the next several years. They have a left tackle in DJ Humphreys, or excuse me, in Parrish Johnson, played on the right side last year when DJ Humphries was there. But really, I thought played excellent down the stretch.

is one of the better young players of the position, have a tight end in Tray McBride, who played excellent football down the stretch. You say, okay, we have our starting tight end in Tray McBride. The entire defense has nobody besides Buda Baker. But you have so much draft capital you can throw at this now. The picket four accordingly becomes really, really interesting.

Because they're all worlds in which at four, you take Marvin Harrison Jr., where to Shevard, Ohio State, pair him with Kyla Murray, and you have the identity of your offense, which is Kyler, protected by Parrish Johnson, throwing to Marvin Harrison. You have that set, it's set for the next five years. Bang. There it is. It's done. There are also Worlds, Sheal, and this is something that's started to get,

you know, rumored and discussed by draft heads of quarterback at one, quarterback at two, quarterback at three, and then at four overall, man, the fourth team comes up and trades for quarterback, and the Cardinals potentially move back. Marvin Harrison Jr. is viewed as this, like, great prospect, but Daniel Jeremiah was just tweeting today. Hey, some teams have Malik neighbors ranked above him. Like, this is not like a, you know, oh, this is like, my, Gareth, Gadevian Clowny, you are the best non-quarterback on the board. No one would ever move off of this pick. I don't think Marvin Harrison's viewed that way.

Maybe the Cardinals view him that way. But league consensus there has been some conversation about it. So you're potentially looking at a tradeback for a quarterback pick, all right? Moving on a four, because everybody knows the Chargers at 5 on a tradeback. So if you're the Cardinals, say, hey, the Vikings are talking to the Chargers at 5. You call the Denver Broncos say you want to beat the Chargers? You want to be the Vikings? You want to make sure you get the guy?

no one in front of you is moving, come move back to four. And you could bet you get a huge haul of picks. So this is J.J. McCarthy. We're talking about a team trading up to four for J.J. McCarthy. Are you going to do the same? You're surprised by this every single time. I'm just going for four,

I feel like every time we do a podcast, he's just going higher and higher and higher. So that I'm just clarifying for people like me who are not. Okay. This is, this is what the people are talking about. All right. I'm pretty sure what is happening?

What is happening? Yes. Chill, what was my first take? The league doesn't learn. They tell you they learn, they don't learn. So the Cardinals now sitting here with six picks as of today in the first three rounds, including two in the first round,

I think have the potential to be more active movers on draft day, especially moving back than people realize, and then just inundate this roster with Youngtall, inundate this roster with rookies. And if you hit and you run hot, you all of a sudden set the table for what's going to be your contending team for the next three years. You're going to have a quarterback's an ordinary contract. You're going to know the sort of money.

working with, and you're going to have rookie weapons at wide receiver, whether it's, it's Marvin Harrison or guys you draft later in the first couple of routes. You're going to have new players at corner. You're going to be able to draft players at edge rusher. Again, you've got to hit on your draft picks, but the Cardinals have more draft capital than anybody right now. And they have jobs to win. They have functional starters across the board, and critically, they have the quarterback in hand. And so the Cardinals are, I think more than people realize, primed for a big jump. A lot of it depends on how this draft goes. Monta Ossibor, was the general manager there, has took a huge swing last year by moving off of that third overall pick by accumulating a lot of

of this capital by letting the Texans grab make the Will Anderson selection now your chickens come home to roost if you're going to make that move you better make the draft capital worth it and that comes up for the cardinals here so massive massive draft for a team that is closer to a big takeoff a big blast and I think a lot of people realize yeah I'm not quite there with them I think you're right they've got resources to work with their team to watch I like how they maneuvered the draft last season I thought that was smart they still ended up with Paris Johnson there. You get a young, talented player at a premium position. That defense is in such rough, rough shape. I mean, I don't know how many guys you got to add to that defense to make it

even like a top 15 unit. I mean, they were the worst defense in the NFL last year statistically by DVOA. And like you mentioned in free agency, they had some little pieces here and there. I don't know that any of them. I was like, all right, this is all making sense to me. So we'll see what they do there. But I understand what you're saying. Yeah, I mean, often, like we always talk about, if you build a good offense and even if your defense is like, you know, 24th, you're still going to have a chance to make the playoffs. So can they do that? Can they make that kind of leap? I like what Petzig did last year, their offensive coordinator. You mentioned it like Johnson. You have Kyler Murray McBride. If you had a

wide receiver or something else that makes, maybe it starts to get interesting there. All right. This is going to lead. I'm going to change my extra point taken because I was watching some draft film this weekend, So Alkins. Yes. This will be my extra, maybe my extra point taken from now to the draft will be like, Sheel has late takes on guys and I was going to do something on somebody completely different. But then you mentioned the Harrison Neighbors thing and let's get into this. I watch both these guys over the weekend.

And I'm not sure I like Harrison more than neighbors. I love neighbors. Now, this is a type thing. Okay. We all have types. I fall into traps every year and I get stuff wrong. But my goodness, his experience. explosiveness, his vertical ability, his change of direction, his yards after the catch, he's breaking

tackles, he's running past corners on like every play and not just no, I mean, he's doing this against Alabama. So I was looking at this because I'm typically the person who around this time of year is like, oh, you know, the draft Knicks are overthinking it. Like I've watched Marvin Harrison on Saturdays for two years and now someone's going to tell me someone else is better, but then I watched them both and I'm like, all right, I kind of get this one. So, You tell me, I know you've talked about this. Everyone listened to the Ringer draft show that Solex on from now until the draft and beyond. But I'm sure you've talked about this before.

But I want it on extra point. Where are you on this neighbor's Paris? And I don't know if it's a debate or not a debate because I actually can see it. I can understand a team saying, you know what? Let's, we've talked ourselves into neighbors. And we actually have him as our wide receiver one on our draft. board over Marvin Harrison Jr. So do you think those people are nuts,

or do you think there's actually some validity to it? I would not take any wide receiver in this class before Marvin Harrison. I think that the legit debate is between neighbors and Roma Dunzee, who's a wide receiver out of Washington. I think I like a dudezzi. You watcher Dunzeezee? You don't like a Doonzee? I didn't dislike him, but neighbors had me going like that got the juices flowing when I watched

the neighbors. Oh, Dunezay, man. does everything at a high level, polish, rock solid, no philosophy of his game. Neighbors, this is a shot at to Stephen who, Stephen was the one who put me on this. Neighbors is on the ground way too much. Neighbors don't like contact. Neighbors will fall down. Neighbors is a flag football player, all right? Neighbors is a space player. Watch you a row of dunes day up against the sideline, playing physical football. Watch you Marvin Harrison, all right? Taking it on contact, playing through contact. I, um, uh, neighbors for me is, is, right,

He's speed. He's sexy. He's a field flipping geometry changing player. He is absolutely, you know, worthy of a top 10, top 15 pick. No question. For my money, Harrison has been the better player for longer, right? A lot of this, this like, people say, oh, like, Nader's season last season was better than Marvin Harrison's. Yeah, Marvin Harrison's career is better than Nick Nave's career. Navar's just had a peak season. Marvin's been doing this for a long time. And this is by far the worst quarterback that he played with. That's why his numbers suffered a little bit. I think Marvin Harrison is a far more known commodity. It's far better across the border wide receiver traits than the neighbors is. If you're telling me the Chargers, draft Malik neighbors over Marvin Harrison because they haven't had a fast receiver since 1993. Like that, I'll get that.

Like, you know, I understand falling into the trap. But for me, it's clearly Marvin at one. And then I personally have Roma Dunesay above neighbors. I have Roman Dunesie at two and neighbors of three. Danny Kelly really had the best description of Marvin Harrison Jr. of if Marvin Harrison had a taller son. Yep. Played just like,

it's legit, I watch it up because this looks like Marvin Harrison, except this guy is six with three, two and nine. I mean, everything he does, so polished, everything he did, you're just like,

this guy's just going to catch like seven balls a game from the minute he steps into the NFL until the moment he retires and he's just going to have a streak of, you know, nine straight seasons with 1100 yards. So it's not so much a knock on Marvin Harrison, Jr. Now, listen,

Malik Neighbors forced 30 missed tackles last year. fourth in FBS per pro football focus. I'll watch a little more. Maybe I'll see him on the ground a little bit more. I thought he had a little physicality to his game. He didn't look like a soft. Next time, next week I'm opening the pod with my first take

being that all mistackle stats are faking or bad or made up. Tackle stats are hard, dude. The big datable topic this year was tackling and a lot of the teams worked on like charting mistackles. And you just go through the film and you're like, this is impossible, dude. Like, I, I, I, I, I, I always take mistackles that's the great assault. All right.

Well, I thought, watching him, let me see. I wrote down, breaks tackles. I saw him, I saw him breaking tackle. I'm just, now from now to the draft, I'm just sending you clips of Malik neighbors breaking tax. I like it. I feel like I got, I'm getting in on the draft discussion a little bit. You know, man, free agency takes a long time.

The trades take a long time. Now I'm able to get some draft takes out. I really liked Malie. Malika, when you said, now the charges, I could talk myself into like Herbert and Marvin Harrison, Jr. or Herbert and Malik neighbors for, you know, the next eight or nine years or whatever. So I could talk myself into either of those. But there you go. I'm just going to give like, you know, basic old, outdated, already been discovered draft takes for my extra point takens from now until the draft. All right. There you go. All right. One more note here. Okay. I know some of you listen to this and you say,

Shield. You and Solac have done like 11 hours of podcasting since the start of free agency, but you haven't talked about my team. Why aren't you talking about my team? So here's what we're doing. If you are an expat who listens to the show, you hit up me and Solac, do it however you want to, Twitter, Instagram, email, whatever, and give us a little, we want to know what, you know, why haven't you talked about Team X? And I'm going to look at all those on Thursday night and I'm going to send them to Soak. Here are the ones we got the most. messages about these teams. And our Friday show this week is going to be a,

why haven't you talked about Team X show? We're going to get to those teams. I don't know, maybe we'll do three, maybe we'll do five, we'll see what the response is like, but we will get to those teams that we haven't spent enough time on and talk about how we feel they performed.

Enormous podcast for the Washington commanders, huge for them. I agree. I feel strongly that they're going to be one of them. Yeah, I'm with you. Washington, I don't know who else, but I feel like the commanders fans will be pretty, vocal there. So stay tuned for that. All right. Thank you. Benjamin Solac. Thank you to Cliff Augustine

for producing Eduardo Ocampo on the video production and additional production supervision by Conorne Evans and Arjuna Ram Gapal. Zolak and I will be back later this week. Thanks to everyone for listening to extra point it. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fandwell is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit fandle.com slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 100, 100, Next Step, 2, 3-3-3-4-2-2-2-7-2.com in Virginia. 1-88-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-8-1-8-1-8-1-8-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-com in Kansas-com in Kansas-com in-KKKKKKKKKK Visit Gambling Helpline, ma.org, or call 80032750-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts, or call 1-8778 HopeNY or text HopeNY in New York.