The Ringer NFL Show - NFL Hipster Takes I Can Get Behind With Ben Solak

Episode Date: August 25, 2025

Sheil is joined by Ringer alum Ben Solak from ESPN to analyze and debate some of the team and player takes that are being propagated by the most educated football literati as we head toward the season kickoff, including: There’s still hope for Justin FieldsThe Ravens will get over the humpJustin Herbert is a top-five QBThe official hipster team of The Ringer NFL ShowCaleb Williams is taking the leap with Ben Johnson this yearTrevor Lawrence is good at football Sheil ends the pod by sharing his take on the Micah Parsons drama coming out of Dallas Cowboys camp. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Ben SolakProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera Givens and Brian WatersProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm your host, Shield Capadia. We have an old friend back today, my old podcast partner, Ben Solac now doing big things at ESPN. Solac is here because I have identified the quintessential hipster takes for the 2025 season. And there was only one person I could run those by to see if he agrees or disagrees with them. So we're going to get to that on this show. Solac, great to see you, my friend. I got to see you in. person a few weeks ago. You were in town. You met the family. And we quickly realized you have much more in common with my kids who are 12 and 9 than with me. I have a care package that I got to send your way because I talk books with one daughter. I talk plants with the other daughter. I heard about what they've got, what they don't got. And now we'll send a little season starting fun care package over from the Solax. I'm excited. This is true. We actually have a door here to the basement where everyone measures their height. And we now have Ben Solax height on the door as well. So yeah, I'm You might have to tweet that out or put it on Instagram later.

All right, So, Alec, we're going to take a quick break. We're going to come back and we're going to get to the hipster takes of the 2025 season. This episode is presented by American Eagle. Whether you're hanging out at home or headed out for a training session, American Eagle has you covered with a ton of new stuff. We're talking super comfy heavyweight hoodies and joggers that look and feel great, sweat-wicking active shorts that are good to go anytime, anywhere. new move-free jeans made from a crazy, comfy, real-looking denim,

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We'll see how many we get through. And you can tell me how you feel about them one. So are they a takes that you believe or they take that you think the hipsters currently have? I think there takes that the hipsters currently have. Now, sometimes, listen, I can relate to all kinds of people. Right, that's what I'm asking. Yeah. So I can relate.

So some of them I might be like, yeah, I'm in on that. And others I might just make fun of. So let's get to him. Right. Hipster take number one. There is still hope for Justin Fields. And the take is this. So like from the hipsters.

He was in a horrible situation. in Chicago. The Steelers screwed him by playing Russell Wilson. He's still 6-3, 227, ran 4-46, great arm. And guess what we saw last year? Sam Darnold, new environment, looks like a good player. Nobody move off your draft evaluations. Do not give up on Justin Fields with the Jets. Where are we with Hipster take number one? There is still hope for Justin Fields. I think that take is a tier beyond Hipster at this point. I think that's like sick of take, right? Like, that's, that's, you know, that, that one's far off the deep end a little bit. I think that those, like, who are still Justin Fields interesting, which I would say I'm one for

sure is less of like there's still hope for Justin Fields and it's still, it's more so there's still hope for an offense to be built around what Fields is right now in the NFL, right? Like, that 2022 season, we have to remember, Fields ran for like 1100 yards. Like, it was one of the most prolific running quarterback seasons in history. He didn't even play a full season. there is a sort of offense that is extremely run-oriented. In the Jess have a very good interior offensive line. They have two young first-round tackles in Olufushanu and Armin Mbou. They have Breece Hall and Braylon Allen in that backfield.

There is a very run-oriented offense. He plays 11-11 football. Ask Jess just feels to be a short-yardist guy, a goal-line guy. That is like better than we expect and is challenging for some defense to deal with. And Zags rather Zigg. There is a Colin Kaepernick-like impact that Fields can have. is, is anybody still holding a candle for Fields, the top 15 pick to kind of emerge and be like an above average starting quarterback?

I think that candle is well and truly snuffed out. But that doesn't mean, much like you'd bring up the San Donald comparison, that doesn't mean there aren't ways to still draw a good offense out of what the guy is, the reality of him now in the NFL. So I think if you tweak it a little bit, it's as a Hibster take. So was Arthur Smith just to sleep at the wheel? I remember because this time last summer, we're all having conversations. I was kind of excited about it.

I said, all right, lean into it, run the ball with Justin Field, play defense, and it just never materialized. So I guess now we know Aaron Glenn's making, he's not hiding it at all. We know what the Jets are going to do that we will at least see that version of Justin Fields this year. Yeah, I think the Arthur Smith, Mike Tomlin Steelers were in the, let's see if we can make a franchise quarterback out of this guy mode. So they were like, do your breeds, right? And like, you know, progressions and, you know, throw it underneath and what can be whatever.

I think the jets are much more so the mode that Aaron Glenn and the Lions were in their first year there in Detroit, Tanner Angston in their first year in Detroit, which is we're going to put Jared Gough out there and just run the best possible offense for him and just kind of see if that can hold water for a year, hold for two years while we address the rest of this roster. And hey, if it actually looks pretty good,

maybe we'll consider like extending here and moving on from there. I think Fields the Runner, this is, you asked me if I agree with the hipsters on some of these. I think Fields of the Runner, that was exciting in 2022. Now, I have huge concerns about any time they have to drop back to pass on third down, and he's probably going to take a sack, and they're going to be a bottom five passing offense. But I can talk myself into at least a team that's saying, let's just lean into the one thing we know he does well and see what it looks like. More importantly, long-time listeners will want to know, how's Mama Solek, the Jets fan, feeling about this?

Is she in on, hey, maybe Fields can be kind of fun, or is she like, don't do this to me? Well, long-time listeners will remember that Mama Soak is a Jets fan, and Pappasolak is a Steelers fan. So Mama Solac cares about one thing and one thing only, which is week one, Jets Steelers, Aaron Rogers, that game, like every Jets thing that my mom believes,

doesn't believe right now, Sausk's engine, Gary Wilson's engine, it all comes back to, but Rogers isn't here, and dad's got to deal with him, and we're going to win that game in week one, we're going to sack it five times,

whatever. So she has no interest in future jets. It's all retribution for past jets. That's for her heads out this year. You know, we haven't booked the show that far in advance yet. I'm going to add mom, Solek to the doc we have here.

Just potential guests for potential shows. That show's going to do some of the good social clips. We'll be cooking. No doubt about it. All right, that was number one. Hipster take number two. This is the year the Baltimore Ravens finally. Yeah, 100%.

Get over the hump. The take, you know what the take is. They've been one of the best teams in the NFL, the last six years. They've just gotten unlucky in the playoffs, but things are set up for him this year. Lamar's at the peak of his powers. The secondary is stacked. This is the year.

They get to the Super Bowl and they put all your narratives, you mainstream media losers. I'll go that far. Yeah, absolutely. They're putting all those to bed. All right. So you're in on this one. That's 100% one of the best hits or takes. It's a hit that I myself have delivered multiple times because you just don't want to say the chiefs, right?

That's boring. And you don't want to say the bills because that's what we said the last couple of years. So now's the Raven's turn. And I also believe this. I very much believe that this, this, this Ravens win the Super Bowl, this is finally their year take, is emboldened by the fact that Lamar didn't win MVP, right? A lot of

of it like, oh, like, they've been slighted, you know, like, oh, you know, there'll be another level to Lamar, basically, like, which I don't, I don't think that's true. I don't think Lamar is experiencing that at all, but I do think that if he had one MVP, there'd be less like we got to give the Ravens their due sort of excitement. And then the other reason that

this is such a hipster take is because every single one of us has the splits from last year, first half of the season, second half the season of the defense, right? A lot of anybody talked about. Oh, man. Andy Jackson's back there, Marcus Williams back there, these safeties are no good. They made the change. Kyle Hamilton. We all love a Kyle Hamilton.

Big Hipster guy, Kyle Hamilton. They're the best defense by EPA for play after week 10, right? Like, everyone has that data. So it's so easy in a, you know, previewing 2025 context to go back to 2024, go back to the second half of the year and be like, so a lot of folks don't realize. We don't know

and go on into the Ravens defense. That's 100% of Hipster take. It is as true as it has always been, which is that, the Ravens are a very good team with an elite quarterback who have a chance of winning the Super Bowl. You've got to be able to get through the AFC playoff picture. And as we know, that's been a big difficulty for the Lamar led Ravens, both like the first activist career and now even in the second activist career. So, you know, it is a hipster take.

It'll be a hipsur take again next year when we're saying it again next year. Yeah, I think you're right. I think a lot of Super Bowl picks will probably come out this week. And I think they will be a popular pick for the reasons you laid out. I was looking because it is just kind of hard to explain. Why hasn't it happened yet where they haven't at least gotten there? It's very easy to explain because Lamar's not clutch and he doesn't play the game from the pocket and everything. Trust me, I know all the talking points. They're great. They're completely flawless. 94 games with Lamar Jackson. One thing I was looking at, they've been minus three in turnovers four times. Three of those times have been playoff losses. So it's happened once in 87 regular season games, three times in seven playoff games. Is there something and this isn't an analytical thing or like,

just in terms of a team ready to play, a team playing loose. Is it worth asking why they're not always at their best in these games, or is it just complete randomness, the playoff losses? It's six of one, half dozen of the other, which is when it comes to something as noisy as turnovers and something as small of a sample as the current playoff games for the Ravens, it's noise. Absolutely 100% unocopically as noise.

However, it also happened. It's also noteworthy. The Baltimore Ravens had the lived experience of turning the ball over in the postseason way more than during the regular season. And if you listen to the way that the way that, they're talking about, you know, what they're working on this, this off season, you know, a lot of it is, okay, the pre-sat penalties, and we know, we're the most penalized team in football last year, one of the top most. But another thing they talk about is we tend to be turnover

having when we get to January football. How can we deal with that? We, you're not going to ask Lamar to play a different style of game, but you 100% are going to think about, okay, how do we insulate him from this, uh, tendency, from this, you know, a belief's correlation, even if it's not a real thing. Like, I think a big part of that is what Derek Henry means to that team and their ability to run the football, right? When coaches are afraid of turnovers. They just want to put the ball in the belly of the back, right? Three things can happen when you throw a pass

and two of them are bad sort of a thing. So it's not significant of anything. There's no, you know, a misplaced gene in Lamar Jackson's quarterback DNA that means when the calendar turns to the new year, he just becomes turnover, bro. Like, that's not a real thing. However, it's now occurred,

so it's going to be something that they're cognizant of dealing with and something that opposing defenses are cognizant of as well and seeing if they continue to take advantage of that from the young player. And to be clear, not all those turnovers are Lamar Jackson. Is there a team thing? You know, if you're John Harbar, are you like, why is my team so good the entire year?

And then we play our worst game in these playoff losses. And obviously, the competition you're facing has something to do with that. It's probably randomness. My answer, it's almost everything in football is that. Yeah, just random.

Because Lamar has been very fumble prone in the playoffs. And like that was especially, that was true earlier. I remember because his first playoff game had like three fumbles. He didn't lose them all. But still, he dropped the ball a lot

and he was not careful with the ball in the pocket. That to me is the sort of thing where it's like this young player thinks that he needs to superhero this entire team. I think if you watched the Lamar playoff runs from the past two seasons, where he saw, I had three turnovers I want to say in that Kansas City loss.

You know, the third turnover is the pick trying to score the touchdown to tie the game. Like how much is that turnover like an impactful player or whatever? I think if you watch those games, you see a guy who's smarter in the pocket, even regular season, smarter than he was,

it's just sometimes balls don't bounce the way he wanted to bounce. And you just got to swallow that and try to get up off the map for next season. Yeah, they've had so many of those, is a flower's fumble, the Mark Andrews drop. I remember 2019. The Mark Andrews fumble. Remember?

Yeah. Also, this is I going to have Mark Andrews fumble on a big completion. Yeah. I mean, I wrote a cut. 2019, I covered the Ravens Titans game and I wrote like a column like, you know, this isn't a, don't blame this all on the Mars. And now here we are. I mean, it's six years later. And it's like they still, I would have thought they would have gotten over the hump by this point.

Listen, that Titans Ravens game, though, 2019, talking about football hipsters. That, that Dean P's defensive game. game plan against the Greg Roman, Lamar Jackson, Sensation Ravens. That is like on vinyl in the record shelf. Hempster wore that game. Oh, it was good. Crack a PBR and just watch the All-22 with D&Ps. You know, that's how you spend your Friday nights.

All right, let's take a break. We come back with a big one. I got a few more hipster takes for Solac. Football's almost here, which means it's time to start thinking about how the season will end. That's why Fandulg created a whole new holiday Futures Day, happening on Tuesday, August 26th. It's 24 hours of deals on your season-long picks. A day when you decide, who will win the division, take home the MVP, or take the whole thing. For one day only all customers get an instant bonus on any football futures bets, plus flash deals every three hours that you won't want to miss. So mark your calendars because the greatest day in futures history is coming, August 26th. What are you doing? for Future's Day. Visit the Fandual app to learn more and get your picks ready. Fan duel, play your game. Must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming.

Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Helpshelp.com. Call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we're back on the ringer NFL show. All right, so hipster take number three. If you don't have Justin Herbert as a top five QB, you don't know ball. And the argument is this. The classic. The QB rankings start at six.

Herbert is absolutely a top five guy. The arm, the athleticism, the decision making. He's just been cursed with bad situations. Put him on one of these other teams and he'd be in the MVP conversation. stop ranking your quarterbacks by quarterback wins. Justin Herbert is absolutely a stud. That's the hipster take Solac. Where are we with that one? I'm now going to ask you a great question. I've long missed asking you, which is if you've never asked me. No, I'm asking you. No, I'm going to ask you a question. I've missed asking you, which is if you've seen something on the internet or not. Have you seen that there's an

like an AI edited photo. It's like Justin Herbert. He's like a superhero cape, blue and yellow chargers, like big, like uniform behind him. And then the emblem on the chest of the superhero suit says, if for Justin Herbert, right? It's so good. I'll send it to you later because that's so much of the Justin Herbert conversation. Everybody who defends Herbert like me, like, and certainly like you as well, says, well, you know, if X then Y. If, you know, if he had a good pass fracture for the first couple years of his career, if the receiver room was ever the sort of caliber, it's been for some other guys, so on and so forth.

I think it is defensible to have Herbert outside of your top five. I certainly think that it is viewed still as a hipster take to have Herbert up in there. It shouldn't be. It should be mainstream, you know, which is the classic hips line, but it should be. He's ridiculously preposterously good at football. But at this point, like whereas a couple of years ago, I was Herbert over Burrow. I think it's tough to be there now. I think Burroughs pretty clearly above Herbert in terms of how Burroughs improved, especially

the sack avoid and stuff. And so that leaves one spot left in the top five. I'd put Herbert there. If someone wants to talk me and do, you know, Stafford's last season and like, you know, we don't know how healthy he'll be. what Stafford was last year. Somebody wants to be that pot committed on one year of Jane and Daniels. If somebody wants to be there on, like,

even as CJ Stroud is still defensible up there. That doesn't hassle me too much because Herbert hasn't improved over the last couple of years, right? He's been pretty, there's been a lot of stasis in what he's done in terms of being the checkdown guy and being a little bit to, you know, risk averse.

And then he obviously had this like super low interception season and they're pushing the ball a little bit more down the field off the play action stuff. I'm like, okay, maybe this can work for the Greg Roman of it all. But it's not like he took like this. massive leap, this massive jump. I think that there's been, you know, there was a little bit of improvement there from three into four, but not so much that it's like, oh, Herbert's proven the doubt is wrong. No, the people who doubted Herbert two years ago, their position remains pretty

defensible and pretty understandable. So I don't think it's, probably is still a hipster to have Herbert top five, but I wouldn't go so far as to say that like the average hipster is like, if you don't have them top five, like that's a ridiculously bad take. No, I think that that tier is pretty tight and I understand why other people have people ranked above Herbert. All right. So the take against what you just said with Herbert other than, you know, he hasn't won a playoff game, regular season record. Because I do think there's other stuff too.

You know, I think when you look at quarterbacks around the NFL and do analysis, a lot of it is what are you going to make excuses for and what are you not going to make excuses for with one guy versus another guy? They've had a top 10 offense once in five seasons with Justin Herbert. We mentioned the playoff thing.

Last three years, he's 16th in the nerd stats. EPA per pass play 19th in success rate. And I loved Herbert, like, his rookie year. I saw him play like three games and I'm like, this guy's going to win an MVP. And then I saw him the next year. And I'm like, I'm going to actually pick him to win MVP his third season. And me as someone who really liked him early in his career can say, I feel a little underwhelmed, by the way, this thing has gone to your point that he hasn't reached a certain level.

And again, I'm not saying the factors around him have been perfect. I'm not saying he's bad. I think if you did a draft, if you had like an expansion team in the NFL, Justin Herbert would go very high. But I think it's also fair to say, it's okay to feel a little underwhelmed and feel like he should have accomplished more at this point,

given what we saw early in his career. And that is kind of where I land with Herbert and how I actually feel. Yeah. I also, for as talented as Herbert is and for how fondly I view him, I'm disappointed in the lack of accolades that have come with that,

lack of success that has come with that. In my understanding of football, I want the quarterbacks who I think are best to have the best numbers and to produce the best passing offenses and to win the most games because I think that that reflects the reality of how they play. We all know, like, and we all can see this on a game level very clearly when context affects how a quarterback's performance is interpreted, is consumed by the average viewer, right?

You know, Justin Herbert was X completions for Y attempts for Z yards, right? Anthony Richardson was one last year, right? Oh, he competed 44% of his passes. Yeah, watch the passes. and you can understand why I can be to 44%. Like you look at it, you're like, okay, this makes sense on a game level. When we expand, it's like, right, the last three seasons of Herbert.

When we lose the specificity, there's always like, okay, but by now, surely law of big numbers, he should have, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. That's still Quinn Johnson, man. It's still Zion Johnson. It's still Joe Lombardi. It's still Greg Roman. Like even at the 30,000 foot scale, like it said so constantly with Herbert. That's why it was the meme of him with the giant if on his chest.

But it bears repeating because it holds. it still has like a total degree of truth, like complete total veracity. He's fighting an uphill battle these other guys aren't. He is in terms of how the past game is designed in terms of what's asked from in terms of his past protection. It's been true for the last four seasons.

And to me like, while I am disappointed in the lack of postseason success, Occam's Razor, it's because this guy's quite good, but the rest of the team is not as good. Jim Harbaugh got asked this last month, right? It was like, what does Herbert need to do to improve? He's like, the number one Herbert thing,

the number one thing Herbert needs to do to improve get a better office, a lot of better weapons. His head coach said it, right? Like, it's, they have not done a good job, Los Angeles Chargers, building around the sky over the course of his career. To me, it's as simple as that. That was everything I wanted in the hipster defense of Justin Herbert.

I know. There are people yelling right now. He yanked me in. I avoided the first pass, the second pass he got me. That's exactly. I was thinking this recently, last thing on Herbert.

If you swapped him with Jane and Daniels last year, are the commanders as good? I say no. No, but you want to talk about an offense being built for a guy, right? And I should say it that way. You want to talk about like a quarterback and a system and a coordinator and weapons all working in unison with one another, right?

That was Washington last year. I mean, everything that Jena was for that offense, everything that office was for Jada. Like, they were, you know, like very well connected, very well integrated, as opposed to like the Greg Roman offense of like, let's put Tucker Fisk and Scott Matlock on the field and then wonder why we can't get anybody open in the past the game.

Like, brother, because you have, two dead routes on the field. They don't have to cover these guys. Roman's only ever been a good coordinator with running quarterbacks, and they don't run Herbert. Not going to be as good. Is his third different coordinator? Or fourth?

Third, because it was under Lynn, and then it was Lombardy, and then it was, whatever, Roman. Now it's Roman. All right, there you go, the Justin Herbert, Hipster. You knew he had to be in here, Justin Herbert. All right, I got a couple more for you.

Hipster take number four. I am crowning the hipster team of the 2025. I'm going to give you three guesses and then I'll tell you. The hipster team of the 2025 season, I'll give you the sort of the take without naming the name, the blank or a sneaky playoff team. That's the hipster take. What team?

No. Good guess. Bears? No, also a good guess. Raiders. No. The Arizona. Cardinals so on.

Oh, really? No. No? Okay. All right, here. Let me give you the case. Maybe you don't agree. Maybe you're anti-hipster on this one.

Kyler Murray's going to have a monster season. Marvin Harrison is jacked. Trey McBride is sick. Kyler's going to run more. And defensively, have you seen all the cool and fun things these guys? Three safety looks? Oh, my. It's like they reinvented the game of football.

This is incredible. Now they finally added a bunch of vets on the D-line. Watch out for the Cardinals. I got them as the official. team of the hipsters in 2025. But you say, no, you haven't heard this from the hipsters. I think the aspects of it.

I would say, yeah, the hipster appreciation for the Cardinals is much more so on the chalkboard, I think much less so in the standings, right? Yeah, we love the three safety defense, right? Yes, revolutionized the sport of football, revolution is facing a football, putting three guys back there instead of two.

It is cool because, like, you only ever saw it in like the Big 12 and then all of a sudden it's the NFL field. That's very interesting. And then offensively, I mean, I'll name them by name because I love them and they know I love them. If I have the athletic football show, Robert Mays and Derek Classen, bring up Clayton Adams, the run game coordinator there, left for the Dallas Cowboys, you'd have to the line coach one more times.

It's driving me nuts, right? Because we all love this offensive line coach. In the running game, the 13 personnel pinpole counter. I was just looking at screen numbers the other day. They're like one of the best screen teams in football. A lot of the stuff that is designed that is like cool chalkboardy stuff, they're extremely good at. I don't think, like I haven't, in our hippies.

I haven't heard anybody too far over their skis from like a standings perspective and like, you know, when the NFC West appear in the playoffs perspective. Certainly they need to do that. It's year three of Monte Asaport and John Gan and this is the go get it year. They got clearly better year one in year two than they added to more players. Like it makes sense on their arc. But I, I, you need to have stars. You need to have like field tipping players.

And they made that effort on defense this year in the draft. Walter Nolan and Will Johnson kind of taking those risks. They've made those efforts on offense. drafting Paris Johnson Jr., drafting Marvin Harrison Jr. They obviously have Tray McBride, but just the collective tonnage, the total weight of blue chip players

on the Cardinals, just to me, like, if anything, they are a plucky seven seed. I don't really think anybody wants to hitch their wagon to that. Relative, like, I brought up the Bears and the Patriots who are Caleb, Drake,

you know, like, there are young quarterbacks. I think people want to get their stock in early. At the very least I do. So to me, the Cardinals are more like an appreciation than they are like, this is a national league playoff team in my experience.

My Bears won, I left on the cutting room floor, but since you brought them up, hipster take the Caleb Williams leap is coming with Ben Johnson. Do you feel like that is it? Okay. All right. So everyone's the hipsters are thinking our pre-draft evaluations couldn't have been wrong. Shane Waldron, horrible.

Now they get Ben Johnson upgraded offensive line. Caleb Williams is going to go off in 2025. And when everyone does their redrafts at the end of this season, he will be number one over Jaden Daniels and Drake. May you seem to strongly agree. with this hipster take based on your face. It's such an easy hipster take to have because buying low on the stock of the guy

who was the first overall pick, it's just the easiest way to seem smart, right? That's how we do it. It's like, you know, you know what might actually be good guys is Caleb Williams. Then like four weeks later, when Taylor Williams, who like obviously had an unbelievable profile

is good. Like, we saw it through the film, man, but really it's just like right, you're buying the dip. The other thing is that like Ben Johnson was such a hipster guy, right? When Johnson took over that line's offense, back half of 21 and then into 22,

do and you're watching them on film and you're like, ooh, like this cat gets it. Like he's doing the right stuff for Jared Goff and so on and so forth. So you've already got it. The hipster wagon's already been attached to Ben Johnson for a while. Now we also get to attach it to Caleb Williams. It was a great guy to attach a wagon too because of the pedigree because of the talent. It's just good business for the hipster society over here. So yeah, there's, I would say, like, you know, most of us hipsters have not sold

to announce to our Caleb Williams stock. I don't think we will for most of the season. I looked at the Bears closely when I'm picking playoff teams and where I landed was, I think this is going to be more gradual improvement than the big leap I just described. I'm just not so. I saw some things. I still like Caleb Williams, but the bad that I saw last year,

I can't just say that's totally going away this year, the sacks, the pressure to sack rate, some of the inaccuracy, those things. And then I look at the moves they made on the offensive line. And I'm like, we're sure this is like the chiefs wanted to upgrade their offensive line and they're like,

we're going to trade Joe, Joe Toney. The Rams are like, all we need is a great offensive line for Matthew Stafford. They're like, all right, Jonah Jackson, see ya. And it's like, these are the players that the bears are in. Now, they could be good. I'm not saying they're, like, I'm still reading questions about like, what's going on at, are they good at tackle? Are they not good at tackle?

That's my thing, right? Yeah. Is they had a three-year starter left tackle in Braxton Jones. They drafted a guy in the second round, Ozzie Tripio out of Boston College. They opened up the camp competition last year's third round pick out of Yale is in it second year UDFA who's in it They've still yet to like say emphatically that it's Jones

But like just two days ago reporters like he's got now with 100% of the reps in first team practice, he got 100% of the first team reps in the preseason game, it's going to be him So you had a guy, you open the competition up You put a lot of guys there to beat the guy out And in late August you admit that it's still going to be Jones That to me tells a lot about what you think of Braxton Jones

or think about the left tackle spot. And if anything can lampoon a big leap quick, it's past production, right? Especially with Caleb Williams' particular struggles. And so, yeah, I'd be way over my skis on the Bears. Left tackles got me really worried. Yeah. But Colt of Loveland, I, Rome, a Dunezay.

So do you, have you decided on your playoff teams yet? I don't want you to have to give it away, but do you think the Bears make the leap to playoff team? I do not think the Bears make the playoffs. Okay, but you think Caleb Williams makes a nice leap. Yeah, I think that, like, I think they're going to be like eight C. I think they're going to be in it the entire way.

I think that that division is a murderer's row. And if it's like, do they have the ability to win 10 games or do the Atlanta Falcons have the ability to win 10 games in the NFC South? It's just hard to pick the bears from here. But I think bears can be solid. I think they're going to improve. All right. Last one for you.

Hipster take number five, kind of connected to the Herbert one. Trevor Lawrence is definitely good at football. So that is the hipster take. The take is give us all your Trevor Lawrence stock. The offense was a mess last year. The coaching staff was out to lunch. The O line was bad. Now everyone thinks Lawrence stinks.

It's just recency bias. He's got Liam Cohen. He's got Brian Thomas Jr. And Travis Hunter. He's 25 years old. It's still going to happen for him. Trevor Lawrence. Are the hipsters in?

Are you in or out or on the fence with Trevor Lawrence going into 2025? Trevor Lawrence is definitely good at football. You can watch him. You can look at the numbers. and you see a good quarterback. He is not what was hoped for in Buildas is the first overall pick, right? That has not come to fruition.

And even if I think that that does come to fruition, thinking about another first overall pick in Baker Mayfield, what he got from Liam Cohen last year of the Buccaneers, even if we get a 4,500-yard season with 40 passing touchdowns out of Trevor Lawrence the way we just got out of Baker Mayfield, I think everybody's going to understand the score,

which is that, okay, like, Liam Cohen is getting something out of this player and helping this player emerge in a way that is not necessarily reflective what he's been in the last five years in the league, and is not necessarily reflective of what he's actually going to be year over year. And so Lawrence is, I think, pretty clearly a disappointment relative to the first overall pick and to the preamble that he got.

However, Lawrence is a good quarterback in the NFL, right? He's the 15th best quarterback. He's a solid quarterback. He's an average quarterback. He's a good quarterback. Whatever descriptor you want to use that tier, that's what you got. The mistake is in thinking, okay, but he's a disappointment relative to the first overall pick. He's a bust, like he's not going to be good.

man, I've seen the offenses that have been built around Tuatangabaila. I've seen the offenses that have been built around Sam Donald. I've seen the offenses that have been built even around Baker-Mayfield last year. Lawrence comfortably clears the bar of we can make something out of this. Good coaching and good receivers. We can do something with this. Again, not saying

ergo, he delivered on the investment of the first overall pick, he is what was promised coming out of Clemson. But just saying if your bar is like, can you build a good passing game out of this guy for good quarterbacking? Yeah, 100%. Absolutely unequivocally Trevor Lawrence is a good quarterback. All right. So you mentioned. and Liam Cohen built a top five or six offense last year with Baker Mayfield, had a better offensive line. But set the expectation then for Trevor Lawrence. Now he has a coach who just did

it with another quarterback who I assume you think is more talented and better than the quarterback he had last year. He has a stud wide receiver, maybe a great second wide receiver, not a great offensive line. This offense should be where in the NFL at the end of 2025, assuming good health for Trevor Lawrence. Yeah. It's going to be outside of the top 10, it's not going to be as good, because of the offensive line. And that's where, right, immediately people say, there's no excuses, oh, but I thought Trevor Lawrence was this. I thought, oh, but you said Baker Mayfield was that.

There's other positions on the field, right? That's the problem. Like, the Buccaneers' offensive line was a like world opener, world beater. You could allow you to do things. Again, screen numbers. They were one of the best screen teams in football. One of the best early on rushing teams, third and long, they had the best conversion rate football. That's past protection. That's all past protection. The Jags don't have that. They don't have a shade of that. every single one of the buck starters would replace every single one of the Jaguar starters

in the offensive line, that caliber of a difference. So it's 100% going to be worse because half of the players on the field, but the most important units is worse. This will be immediately put on on Trevor Lawrence's head. It's like, well, you're made a field of the only have gone 45 touchdowns and forever, but the office of line is going to be prohibitive to that caliber of success.

So I don't think they're going to be a top 10 offense. I think it's unreasonable to expect it to be a top 10 offense. Their wide receiver 2 is going to play quarter half the time, but yeah, people are going to say it. So whatever. So not top 10, top 15? I would have set the expectation. Yeah, I think they're going to be that 15th best offensive football.

Okay. All right. I had them in 20 in my rankings on the ringer.com. All right, let me see. Oh, yeah. By the Seahawks, defense one? Oof. Oh, I feel, I feel the one I feel most confident in.

Josh Job's flying quarter to, brother. It's fine. They'll be okay. Tyree Snyds playing linebacker, too, brother. They'll be okay. You don't have to have 11 whole pros. They'll be okay. The ones that were on the cutting room floor,

Anthony Richardson got screwed by the Colts. True. Spencer Rattler is good. I mean, like, not good, but I love them. Okay. And the Bucks are a sleeper Super Bowl team. I was a little bit there on the Bucks. Early summer, I was like, I'm going to buy all the Bucks stock.

I do think that defense is going to be a lot better. I think that offense could still be pretty good. Tristan Wharf's injury into Jalen McMillan injury is real rough. Like, you know, that's, I like, McMillan is not a hugely important player, but just they're immediately getting depth tested at a wide receiver. And then, yeah, your start off tackle, arguably the best tackle in football, being out for a period of time and then potentially coming back, banked up, has a boy worried.

And so I've said Bucks Super Bowl in enough places that if it happens, I'll be able to grab the receipts, but I'm no longer saying it. I'm saying other things. I feel so proud with that line. You'll have there. Yeah. Now, I feel so proud. All right.

So what are we got coming up on ESPN between now and when the season starts? A lot of articles. I got the training camp nuggets came out. I've got X Factor's coming out. I have a, what do we do about Trey Hendrickson coming out? I'm going to have profiles coming out in the beginning of the season on Lane Johnson, Jesse Bates, Derek Stingley. A lot of Ryan. It would be good stuff.

Look at that. I love it. All right, my friend. Great to see you. Great to reunite. As always, we will do it again sometime. But listen, don't go anywhere because I'm going to end these shows with a new segment. So stay tuned for that.

We're going to put a little bow on the episode. Goodbye to Sollack. I'll be back in a sec. Some are calling it an extra point. That's what some are saying. All right, we're calling this segment the hurry up. Basically, I'm just going to briefly react to something newsy to close out each of these episodes. And the topic today is the Micah Parsons situation.

So Parsons and Jerry Jones were once again in the headlines over the weekend. In case you missed it, Parsons did not wear any Cowboys gear to their last preseason game. He scrubbed any and all references to the Cowboys from his social media. In the second half of their preseason game, Parsons laid down on the training table, leading some to speculate. Was he taking a nap? Was he showing his displeasure with the organization? Parsons on Twitter, he said, no, I wasn't doing that.

I have back tightness. I wasn't sending a message. I was just laying down. I wouldn't disrespect my teammates like that. Now, meanwhile, Jerry Jones is on another media tour, I guess, for his Cowboys documentary. And in a YouTube appearance with Michael Irvin, he maintained that he felt like he had a contract agreement in place with Parsons, even though Parsons has explained that he wants his agent present for the official talks. And so now here we are late August, TV shows and podcasts have gotten a bunch of

segments out of this. But here's the problem. The player just doesn't have a lot of leverage in these situations. Don't get me wrong. I completely understand why Parsons is upset. This should have been an easy negotiation and it should have included Parsons agent. That's how business is conducted in the NFL. Jones tried to negotiate directly with Parsons, which is ridiculous. But what are Parsons options here? That's the problem. He could sit out games, but then he misses game checks. Now, it's possible he'd be okay missing one game check, two game checks maybe to start the season to apply some pressure, but you just can't skip the whole season because you don't get paid. And Jones knows this. Jones also knows that Parsons is under contract for this

season and that the Cowboys can use the franchise tag to keep him with the team in 2026 and then again in 2027. So that's the issue here. The franchise tag, it limits the players options in these situations because there just is no end game. And the franchise tag is a part of the CBA so there's nothing that Micah Parsons can do about it. He's trying all the strategies we see, applying pressure publicly, voicing his displeasure. But because of the way everything is set up, his actual options are limited. So the bottom line for me is more money is almost always the answer to these disputes in the NFL. And I suspect that's what will happen here. Jones will offer more money. Parsons will accept once he likes the offer and he'll continue to play for the Cowboys. Maybe I'll be

wrong, but I've seen this story before with Jerry Jones, with the Dallas Cowboys. And until something actually happens, I'm not falling for it this time. All right. Thanks. everyone for listening. Thank you to Ben Solac from ESPN. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing and Kiera Givens on social, additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. We'll be back tomorrow on the ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-888-789. 7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit md gamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

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