The Ringer NFL Show - NFL Schedule Needs a Makeover | The Island

Episode Date: December 28, 2022

Welcome to "The Island"! Each week, a guest tries to persuade Nora Princiotti to agree with an argument they feel strongly about. This week’s guest is The Ringer’s Sheil Kapadia, who details why ...the NFL season needs some changes. Host: Nora Princiotti Guest: Sheil Kapadia Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey everyone, it's Ariel Hawani. And I'm Chuck Mindenhall. And I'm Pizie Carroll and together we are three-pack. Join us on the brand-new Spotify Live app immediately after all of the biggest fights in combat sports. And also during the way-ins because that's when the real drama happens. So what are you waiting for? Follow the Ringwere M-M-A show right now on our exclusive Spotify podcast feed. And come join the best community in MMA.
Starting point is 00:00:24 Peace! We're out of here. This is my most ridiculous. You're scared to say it. These are like half-baked, uh, have baked ideas here. The draft should be a 38-day event in the off season. Okay. Get off this podcast right now. Step cut his mic. Hello and welcome to the island on the Bringer NFL show feed. I am Horv Picayati and I am joined today by the one and only. Shield Capadia, my luscious colleague.
Starting point is 00:00:59 Shield, I know you've got an excellent take for us here today. Lay it on us. Well, first of all, this is, you know, I have to write a column today. I have to do ring group, but this is the thing I was most excited. I'm like, this is something I actually believe in. Let's let it rip. I have no other forum to really voice this opinion. That's right. So here's the take.
Starting point is 00:01:25 Join me on the NFL schedule needs a complete makeover island. That is the broad take. You let me know. Do I go explain it? Do you have questions? Do you know what I'm talking about here? Think of the island like a record spinning on a turntable. Only now, that record is skipping. Ooh, okay. So the schedule needs a complete makeover. Tell me more about, you know, what type of is this like Princess Diaries type of makeover? You know, I don't know if you've seen that famous scene where they spin me a Thermopolis around a zillion times and she has all the different hairstyles. finally they find the good ones.
Starting point is 00:02:07 There's a number of different directions you can go in any complete and total makeover. What is your dream look here for the schedule as part of those take? Okay. So here's the deal. I feel like I identified the problem. So let me see if you agree that this is a problem or not. And then I've got like three fixes on how to come up with a solution. So problem number one, most Sundays, 1 o'clock Eastern time, there are what?
Starting point is 00:02:36 eight games on, nine games on in that window where some of you might watch your own team, you might watch Red Zone, but there are roughly half of the NFL's inventory in a, you know, 16 games if there's no buys, are on at the exact same time every week. This makes no sense to me. Like, no, are you, I don't know how you guys do it on Sunday night. You do the recap show, like Sunday night, I have no idea what's gone on in half the league. You guys are on top of it. Like, how do you spend your Sunday afternoons?
Starting point is 00:03:06 Are you watching Red Zone? Do you have multiple screens? What are you doing? So this is actually, this is good for your argument here. Because over the years, when I started, when I started being a part of the Sunday recap show, initially my thought was, okay, I got to get eyeballs on literally everything. So my main screen is going to be Red Zone, but then I'm going to have second screens and third screens of the games of the week and try to pay attention to everything. And over time, and you'd think I'd get better at processing all of it, right? but over time what has actually happened is I've just gone, I don't have a good enough brain for this. I need to just focus on one game at a time, actually understand what's happening,
Starting point is 00:03:45 actually understand the flow of it, actually understand how one drive feeds into the next and not have the small sample size of just individual plays and little snippets of drives influencing what I think is taking place on the field. And more and more, I've just landed on watch one game in its entirety for the most part. You know, I'll click over during commercials.
Starting point is 00:04:11 I'll be paying attention to stuff on Twitter. But I focus my attention more and more. But because everything's on at the same time, it creates a lot of catch up later in the day, right? So you're trying to go back and say, okay, I spent my afternoon watching Bill's Jets. And now I've got to focus in on. on Vikings bears and figure out what really happened there.
Starting point is 00:04:37 So there's a real backlog. You're right. So there you go. And that's not just for people who write about the league or cover the league. I mean, if you're a fan doing fantasy or gambling on some games. Like it's hard to be able to watch all of these games. And listen, the NFL has a lot of problems. Scandals in the offseason, Sean Watson and Daniel Snyder and Cushions and CTE and nepotism.
Starting point is 00:04:59 Like we could do a four-hour show just on those. Bears. Very easily. But why is the NFL king? Because the on-field product, those three hours when you sit down to watch a game, are usually going to be pretty fun and intoxicating and exciting. There's been some bad games. But most of the time, you're going to enjoy that. So on a given week, there are between 13 and 16 games. Yet the average consumer, assuming he or she can just watch one game at a time, like you said, I'm with you. It's hard to watch multiple games at a time. You can watch Red Zone. But if you just want to watch one game at a time, You can watch five, five of those 13 or 16. You can watch Thursday night football. You can watch the one o'clock game. We're both Eastern Time Zone people. So we'll speak in Eastern Time Zone. The one o'clock game, the four o'clock game, Sunday night and Monday night.
Starting point is 00:05:47 So five games out of 13 or five games out of 16. That's roughly, what, 31 to 38% of this big inventory that the NFL has, that their average fan can watch. Like, think about how ridiculous that is. that's all the NFL fan can watch on a given week. So that is the problem I have identified. Do you have any questions about the actual problem? So we can talk about this later.
Starting point is 00:06:16 I guess there is some question of, is the average fan, the average NFL fan, they follow the league writ large and a lot of people do this, right, because of fantasy and because of just how widespread, you know, it is America's sport, right? Like, that doesn't apply to baseball anymore. That's football.
Starting point is 00:06:33 Are we sure, though, that the average fan is fully this character who wants to know everything that's going on as opposed to the average fan, like, say, you know, my dad, who's a Patriots fan, who is very interested in the bucks because of Tom Brady, but who really has like somewhere between one to three NFL teams that he's actually interested in. So that that figure of five games per week, now, that doesn't mean that the Patriots are never going to be playing at the same time as the buck. So he can certainly have potential conflicts. But that fan is less pressed by the problem of only being able to watch five NFL games a week instead of 16. I think it's a good question. It's one I thought of. I'm sure there are people listening who are saying, no, we don't, I don't need to be watching any more football. Like I'm trying, I'm trying to have a family.
Starting point is 00:07:34 I'm trying to have, you know, a social life. I'm trying to catch up on White Lotus. And then Fleischman is in trouble. Do not give me more NFL games to watch. However, and so I think that's an important distinction. Like, no one's forcing you to watch this about availability, optionality. This is not mandatory viewing that everyone has to watch.
Starting point is 00:07:54 So I think that's key. But nor I look at like the, any times the ratings people come out and show us like, oh, Thursday night, Jaguar's. commanders where's the most viewed NFL or the most viewed TV thing in America this week. And so I think those numbers and can inform us that, yeah, like people will watch some bad football. It doesn't have to be marquee matchups, but there is a pretty big audience for this. But I'm glad you brought that up. So if we assume that there's an audience for this, here's my three, three pronged fix. Okay. Are you ready?
Starting point is 00:08:28 Okay. Fix. Yep, I'm ready. Fix number one. We need. We need. more windows on Sundays. Okay. So I was, I was look at the NBA on Christmas. They had a game at noon. They had a game at 2.30. They had a game at 5.
Starting point is 00:08:42 They had a game at 7.30. They had a game at 10. From noon until 12.30 Eastern time, a span of over 12 hours, they had five different windows. The NFL has three windows. And I don't understand what the reason is for having a game at 1, games at 4, and then a night game.
Starting point is 00:09:01 there should be, you know, you have the London games start at 930. We've already seen that people will watch the London games. There should be a 930 window every week. I mean, listen, I know it's, again, it's not for everybody. I like those Sunday mornings, you know, spend time with the kids, maybe get some exercise in before sitting here for 12 hours. So again, it doesn't have to be for everybody. But I think there is evidence that people will watch that 930.
Starting point is 00:09:27 So you have an early game, you have a 930 game, you have a 1 o'clock game. You have a 4 o'clock games. You have 7 o'clock games. And you have 10 o'clock games. Like, why do we just have that one night game? Like, you should have a 10 o'clock game, West Coast base to get. Not everybody has to stay up for it.
Starting point is 00:09:43 And everybody can watch that. So what does this do? This gives you fewer games on at a time. It's a no-brainer. The early games are all East Coast-based. We're not making the Rams host a game at, you know, 630 West Coast time. So all the 9-30 games are East Coast-based.
Starting point is 00:09:58 All the 10 o'clock games are West Coast-based. and you expanded this entire window of games so there aren't so many games on at one time. I feel like you hate you do not like this idea. You do not like the idea of having to expand your Sundays to do less. So tell me what you think. Jill, who hurt you? You and I both podcast after primetime, nighttime NFL games.
Starting point is 00:10:29 That is part of both of our professional lives. 10 o'clock A 10 o'clock window This is offensive Listen, this is showing it That this is an unselfish idea This is not going to improve my life Necessarily.
Starting point is 00:10:45 It's not going to improve your life Anyone who works at the rigor Your take evaluator You've misjudged your audience Your take evaluator is a selfish selfish person Prizes her own sleep Above nearly anything But all right, okay
Starting point is 00:10:59 Keep going, keep going Okay, so that that's fix number one. I understand there are some doubt signs. Again, remember, you don't have to watch every game. You're saying, oh, no, my kid has soccer on Sunday mornings. We get home or go to church or whatever on Sunday mornings. You don't have to watch the 930 game. But you know what?
Starting point is 00:11:20 If you want to watch a 930 game, the 930 game is going to be there for you. If you want to stay up until 1 a.m. and watch the late game, that's going to be there for you too. So that's fix number one. More windows on Sunday. that fewer games are on at the same time. Fix number two. I don't think you're going to like this one either. Thursday night and Monday night doubleheading.
Starting point is 00:11:40 I mean, listen, if you're going to have games on Thursday night, just have two games on Thursday night. Okay, you don't need to have just one. Monday night, they experimented with that double header in like week one, remember, for a few years, and then they stopped doing it. I don't know why they stopped doing it, but they should absolutely have doubleheaders. Start one at 7 p.m. Eastern.
Starting point is 00:11:59 Start 1 at 10 p.m. Eastern. Now you're taking four games out of that Sunday schedule that anyone who wants to watch can watch these games. These are nationally televised. Owners are going to love it. Players don't necessarily like Thursday night football. And I'm going to get some more on the players later. But they do like that mini-buy after a Thursday night game where you get more time to recover. I mean, what's Monday night football is exciting?
Starting point is 00:12:27 That changes your whole week when your team's playing. on Monday night football, give more teams opportunities to play. And so I think you can schedule it so that teams are limited with like, you're not going to have the same team playing, you know, Sunday to Thursday, a bunch of times. Listen, we can get like MIT students or someone to schedule this out. There's a way to do this. But you have double headers on Thursday night and Monday night.
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Starting point is 00:15:21 White Lotus and Fleischman is in trouble. I'm like, Sheila and I, we watch the same TV shows. I'm one episode into Fleischman. I love the book. I'm so excited to keep going with it. White Lotus Season 2, I didn't love season 1, but season 2 is like one of my favorite. seasons of television ever. I'm like, oh, we're on the same page here. This is so great and such a mind melt. I hate this. I hate this so much. It's too late at night.
Starting point is 00:15:47 Go to bed. Everybody needs to go to bed. The players are going to hate this. It messes with their body clock. And we are advocating degeneracy. We're asking, you know, I'm fine with asking the people of Los Angeles to get up at 630 on a Sunday to watch football. That's fine.
Starting point is 00:16:07 That's their cross to bear. It's 70 degrees and sunny every day of their lives. They can deal with it. The East Coast football watchers don't deserve this. They did nothing wrong. Shield. This is offensive. I'm never going to be invited back.
Starting point is 00:16:23 That's for sure. And you're really going to hate my third one, my fix number three here, Nora. And now this one, I don't think you implement this right away. Like those first still, start those in 2023. Roger, if you're listening, go ahead. implement those. By the way, I have no interest in making owners like any more money. But I know how greedy the owners and the NFL are. And so, listen, someone's going to listen to listen to this in the league office and go, there's so much money on the table here. So fix number
Starting point is 00:16:51 three, nor you're going to hate this one. It should be games on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Okay. We've had these sprinkled in during, you know, the COVID seasons. There was a snowstorm. I remember back in the day when I was covering the Eagles, there was a snowstorm. They canceled the game. They played it on a Tuesday against the Vikings. They famously lost to Joe Webb, by the way, in that game for those of you who remember, games on Tuesday and Wednesday night. So the first reaction to this would be players are not going to go for this.
Starting point is 00:17:21 What are you talking about? Right. I want the players to have time to heal. We've both been in locker rooms. We see what these guys, sometimes what they're going through after a game. I mean, I remember Richard Sherman during an overtime game in Arizona. he had played special teams, and I think overall special teams in defense, he had played like 99 snaps. The guy could not walk from the shower to his locker stalled.
Starting point is 00:17:45 I remember Bobby Wagner was helping him get to his locker. I understand that. So I think there needs to be strict regulations in place. It needs to be collectively bargain. How much time do you get in between these games limit the number of times teams have to play on short weeks, all those things. But if you're playing on a Tuesday or Wednesday, maybe those are teams that had a buy. the previous week. Maybe those are teams that played on a Tuesday or Wednesday the previous week or played on a Thursday the previous week. So you have to schedule it out in such a way. I understand
Starting point is 00:18:14 that concern and I'm all for making sure that you're able to do it. But there's absolutely a way to make it work. I mean, Tuesdays and Wednesdays are just sitting out there in the fall. There's no high school football games. There's no college football games on Tuesday or Wednesday. Those are the games people like you and I, we say to whoever our friends or significant others or whatever, hey, we can catch up on some TV tonight. There's no football on. It's
Starting point is 00:18:42 Tuesday and Wednesday. Let's go. What do we have? Break it out. That's what we do. On Tuesday and Wednesday, I'm sure that's what a lot of people do who are football fans where they're saying, all right, Thursday I'm watching, Saturday I'm watching, Sunday I'm watching, Monday I'm watching, but these couple days in the middle of the week, I don't
Starting point is 00:18:58 have to watch football. Let's watch something else. So again, not for everybody. but it's available. I'm not even going to make you do a double header on Tuesday and Wednesday. Those can be solo, single games, one primetime game each night. So now what we've done,
Starting point is 00:19:13 one game Tuesday, one game Wednesday, we got double headers on Monday and Thursday. We've taken six games out of that Sunday schedule every week. So now instead of 60 or however many games on Sunday, you only have 10 games on Sunday. by the way, more, think about if you weren't doing this,
Starting point is 00:19:34 maybe you just had one team you wanted to watch and you're like, man, my Sundays for 18 weeks are taken because my team's always playing on Sunday. Well,
Starting point is 00:19:42 now your team's going to play on Sunday a little bit less. It's going to free up some Sundays. You want to go to, I don't know, what do people do? Go to pumpkin patch. Go to the pumpkin patch.
Starting point is 00:19:52 Is that a thing? Well, later in the season, maybe go skiing, go on a hike in the fall. Yeah. You can take a little weekend trip with the misses or the mister.
Starting point is 00:20:03 Everything's great. Lots of options. See, lots of Sunday options there. So those are the, no, that's the three-prong change. We're doing five windows on Sunday. We're doing double-headers Monday and Thursday. We're doing games on Tuesday and Wednesday. So now at the most on a Sunday, you're going to have two to three games on at once, maximum.
Starting point is 00:20:29 You miss a game here. you miss a game there, but you're able to see more games. And so you say, who wins, isn't it? Well, you and I don't win. We've established that. Our lives are going to get worse once the NFL implements this, but that's okay. This isn't for us. This is for the thousands, listening to the millions.
Starting point is 00:20:46 The league and its players win here because Amazon is paying, Nora, one billion dollars per year for Thursday night football. When you have a standalone game, look at what that's worth. worth. And again, I have no interest. I don't care about Robert Kraft or Jerry Jones making more money. That has no effect on my life. But think of all the money that's being added to the pie. The players are going to win here. I mean, you talk about revenue sharing, collectively bargain, the percentage. We are adding billions of dollars to the NFL pie here. So players might not love the idea at first, but once they realize how much money is going to be available to them, the salary caps are going to expand
Starting point is 00:21:27 in a big way, once they see or agree to some of the regulations that are in place to assure they get a certain amount of rest in between games there, they're going to be in on that. The fans are going to be in on this. Fantasy, gambling, you get to see more games, you get to see more variety. Your team has a Wednesday night game this week. Guess what? You're building your whole week around that Wednesday night game. Are we going to the game?
Starting point is 00:21:51 Are we tailgating? Are we having friends over for the game? What are we going to do? I mean, that's what football is, planning these events. around your team's football game. And so you get to do that, as we said, it's going to open up some Sundays for you because your team's going to be playing more games
Starting point is 00:22:06 during the week. And so you don't have to watch all these games. They're not mandatory. But life is so different now. Like my dad used to like, he would have like headphones in at my like little league games and be listening to like sporting events on like a walkman. Life is different now.
Starting point is 00:22:24 We have phones. Like I went to pick up my daughter the other day. And she wasn't ready yet. And I was listening to a Sixers game on the radio. And so I had parked my car. And then I thought, you know what? I can watch this Sixers game on my phone. It's so easy.
Starting point is 00:22:37 Yeah, when you can watch it. So you have availability to watch these things on the move. You can record games. So easily, maybe you say, oh, but I'm on the West Coast. I'm not going to be home for that early game. But I really want to watch it. You record the game. You come home.
Starting point is 00:22:52 You hit play. You fast forward through all the commercials. You're able to do that. Think of the ad dollars. NFL shows right now are the highest rated shows on television. Financially, fans, everybody wins. All right. You're mad at me. What do you think? This one I can kind of get behind. Tuesday and Wednesday, you might have something here. What I like about it is, you know, sometimes, look, like we both try to be committed to our profession and put in a good effort at work. and sometimes with, you know, Monday night football, Thursday night football, to me that means I'm always trying to watch it. Now, you have different stuff going on during the week, right? So you make an effort and sometimes that means watching it on your phone if you're going
Starting point is 00:23:40 to pick somebody up or do whatever. But you do kind of have these things blocked off. And sometimes it feels a little bit obnoxious, constantly telling people, no, no, I can't. I got to, sorry, got to watch Thursday night football. And I just, I like that this, and look, I guess I'm still looking at it from my perspective, but I like that this introduces a little bit more choice. Can't watch Monday night? That's okay. Watch Tuesday and Wednesday. There's a little bit more flexibility. And I'm into that. And I like the idea, you know, it was happening for horrible reasons. But in that that COVID year, when all those games kept getting rescheduled,
Starting point is 00:24:17 sometimes it was really nice to on a Tuesday night or Wednesday night be able to flick on the TV and just watch an NFL game. here's my question. The overall impact of these changes, I think has one key adversary, and it's red zone. Because red zone under the Capadia plan, red zone suffers the most. It's not me who has to stay up later.
Starting point is 00:24:50 It's not, you know, it's not the people on the West Coast getting up early for the early morning Sunday window every week. It's red zone. It's our, it's our guy Scott Hansen, right? What do you think the future of, what does Red Zone look like in this world? And are you concerned that diminishing the number of games happening at the same time on Sundays is going to make that product, which has been such a success and is such a thing that people love to spend their Sundays glued to? Does that have to suffer for this plan to flourish? I think so.
Starting point is 00:25:25 No, it does. But I think Red Zone is popular out of necessity because you have no other options. As we outline, there's eight games on. You might have one or two in your local market. Even if you had the Sunday ticket, I mean, how many screens do you have? How many games can you actually watch at once? And so you have Red So, Scott Hens, it seems like a nice guy. I'm sure NFL Network can come up with something else for him to do.
Starting point is 00:25:48 Listen, we have some... Looking out for you, Scotty. Yeah, sometimes something has its thing. And then you got to move on and innovate and go to something else. I mean, I do think on Sundays, you could still have Red Zone. Like I said, you would still probably have two to three games on at a time. And so it's just, you know, bouncing back and forth between maybe three games. And maybe people say, hey, that's still better for me than having these all on separate screen.
Starting point is 00:26:13 So, yeah, I think Red Zone definitely takes a bit of a hit. But whatever money Red Zone is making, they are going to absolutely get that money back in different ways with this different TV package. Maybe they have Scott Hansen do play by play on a Tuesday night. You know, I don't know what Scott Hansen wants to do. They can figure it out with Scott Hansen and his agent. What about the flex system? Because to me, and, you know, especially if you take my particular needs as someone who works in this industry and podcasts about it and podcasts on Sunday nights out of it, one of the things that I do like about the football Sunday is the sense of community. You know, even when I'm sort of taking notes and trying to put my head down and follow zillion things,
Starting point is 00:26:59 it's kind of nice that, you know, I've got my dad texting me and I see people I know tweeting and maybe I'll look on Instagram and see, oh, a friend at the Giants game. And you kind of know that there's all of these people across the world who in this one gate, one day, one day a week for 18 weeks plus the playoffs, that's what they're up to. And we have so few sort of pieces of monoculture left that it is to me nice that that football is one of them. So to me, when I think of the over-concentration of games, it's not so much what I have a problem with and worry about it's not so much okay we might have 10 going at the same time in the early window it's when you feel like more often than should be the case the two best games of the week are happening at the same time so if if there were my version of this plan probably spreads out
Starting point is 00:28:04 the schedule less than this but would allow for more flexing of good games into good primetime windows where we can focus on them. Is there a way to incorporate that into the plan? Yeah, that's a good question. I think if there's football on all these different nights, it probably is like less need for flexing games because they're just like, you know, everyone's going to get their turn.
Starting point is 00:28:33 Everyone's going to be on prime time sometime. I do think, you know, I was thinking like ESPN probably would not be that enthused about this plan after what they paid for Monday night football, they still want that to be sort of special. So I think you can still incorporate some kind of flex and be like, if you want to make, you know, I don't really care that much about ESPN execs being happy.
Starting point is 00:28:56 I'm sure they're nice people. But if the NFL is worried about that, they could say, hey, we're still going to do the flex stuff on Monday night football. We want to make sure you guys have a great game. Whoever signs up for this Tuesday and Wednesday night, listen, all bets are off. But guess what?
Starting point is 00:29:11 You can show them the ratings from some of these horrible games that we've had this year, the Colts against the Chargers or whatever it was on Monday night and say, look how many people still watched this game. You know, that community that you talked about, like people are still watching and making fun of those games and making fun of what's happening in those games together. So I think you still will be able to pull those things up. And listen, on Sundays, you're still going to have 10 games.
Starting point is 00:29:37 It's still a football Sunday. You're not taking that away from people. there's still going to be a lot of games on, just not quite as many games on that typically are kind of not even on anyone's radar because you don't see any. And then I do have one off-season addendum to this, which you're really going to hate.
Starting point is 00:29:55 So let me know when I need to get to that. Lay it on me right now. I think there's an NFL draft component to this. I think that this is from my most ridiculous. I'm scared to say it. These are like half-baked ideas here. The draft should be a 38-day event in the off-season. Okay.
Starting point is 00:30:18 Get off this podcast right now. Step, cut his mic. You're asking, where are you coming up with 38-day shield? The first round, we should be doing a pick a day for 32 days. I mean, I don't know when you need to start it, but you pick one day every night. It's a half an hour. Like an admon calendar for football. an hour prime time. The team makes their pick and then we have 24 hours until the second pick is made.
Starting point is 00:30:47 I mean, think about all the content from that, all the analysis. Every player gets their own day, basically. And I can guarantee you we would have more trades because these GMs are going to be saying, well, I have 24 hours to figure out what to do with my picks. Someone will talk themselves into trading up, you know, to number six in the first round. So that's the first 32. Oh, I thought you were taking, your headphones out and being like I'm done with, I'm done with Jill. I'm done with this podcast. But just adjusting an AirPod there. Slamming my microphones out of the table. That's the first 32. And then we just do a round a night to finish it off. That's all. Once the first 32 picks are made in the first round, then day 33, second round. Day 34, third round,
Starting point is 00:31:31 every round, gets its own night. You have a 38-day televised event. The NFL gets to just dominate a month. in the off season. Maybe you move it up a little bit earlier. Maybe you have it in like April after March Madness. Maybe it starts April 1st, you know, right there. Every night for a month before the NBA playoff start up, you have something draftily. Absolutely not. Absolutely not.
Starting point is 00:31:58 We cannot do this. The content machine does not need to be fed to this degree. It has consumed enough. we also should not let go of the opportunity to watch on war room cameras NFL executive scrambling because the pick got made that they weren't expecting
Starting point is 00:32:18 the wheeling and dealing that happens when there's only a few minutes to go between picks that's the most interesting stuff of the drafts to me and I don't want to let go of it. Also, that's too many nights.
Starting point is 00:32:31 38 nights is too many nights, Sheal. Listen, that's not our problem. We're not on the draft show. We can ignore it. We can have. stop it. We can be going on vacation or whatever. We'll come back in May. I'm not sacrificing Danny Kelly in this way. He's done nothing wrong.
Starting point is 00:32:46 Listen, So lack can handle. You've got plenty of energy as is. He needs to release that in the off season. And so they'll be just fine. All right, Sheal. I've heard just about enough. I am not on the island with you. I'm not on any one of these islands. I'm not anywhere near this island. I am taking the first flight off of Schill's schedule island and going as far away as I possibly can. This is a travesty. It is an affront to the sleep schedules of the people of the entire eastern seaboard of America. it undermines the special nature of a football Sunday. We've put Scott Hansen out of a job.
Starting point is 00:33:40 And the Tuesday-W-Wens-Day thing might be nice, even though the players are going to hate it because they're going to hate the rest, unless you figure that out, which I think is hard. But maybe that's possible. That's the one thing that I can kind of get behind here. I'm very upset and I'm not coming to your island. this also i understand this also yeah could lead to probably more family issues i would think an
Starting point is 00:34:04 increase in divorce maybe some absentee parents but listen i'm thinking cutthroat here as a i don't have a business background uh but uh i'm just i'm just looking out for the average fan and uh players and owners benefit i'm curious to hear what people think about well look all those famous business stories about what the guy who founded fedex the arthur smiths uh... grandfather failing out of his MBA course with the idea that became FedEx. There's a long line of successful plans that were deemed too crazy to work when they were first outlined. So maybe that's what has just happened here, Sheal. We thank you for sharing your creative outside the box philosophy of how to fix the NFL schedule.
Starting point is 00:34:58 nevertheless, I want absolutely nothing to do with it. And on behalf of Danny Kelly and Benjamin Zillac, I'm upset about the draft idea as well. But thank you so much. We appreciate you coming on the island. Nonetheless, this has been the island on the Ringer NFL show feed. I'm Nora Pinceotti. He is Shiel Kapadia.
Starting point is 00:35:17 There will be no scramble this week because Shil and I just got to put our heads together on this show. So the next program up on the feed will be the preview show on Friday. Thank you, as always, to Stefan Anderson for production on this episode and to Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision.

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