The Ringer NFL Show - Offenses Can’t Stop Scoring and Josh Allen Comes Back Down to Earth With Geoff Schwartz. Plus, Filling Out the Coaching Carousel | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: October 15, 2020

Kevin Clark is joined by former NFL offensive guard Geoff Schwartz to discuss why offenses are finding so much success this season (3:27). Then they discuss Tom Brady vs. Aaron Rodgers (11:15) and whether the Tennessee Titans figured out how to slow down Josh Allen and the Buffalo Bills (14:10). Kevin is then joined by The Ringer’s Nora Princiotti and Danny Kelly to talk about open head-coaching jobs and head-coaching jobs that could be open by the end of the season (28:13).  Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Geoff Schwartz, Nora Princiotti, and Danny Kelly Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It is The Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by former NFL offensive lineman Jeff Schwartz, and Danny Kelly and Nora Pryantziotti will join me to break down coaching carousel predictions, best jobs, best candidates, really fun show. Let's get started with Jeff after this. Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show and the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to by State Farm. Getting great car and home insurance from State Farm in a surprisingly great rate, that's like drafting a player that becomes an all pro, the real deal.

State Farm agents provide personal. service so that you can customize your insurance to fit your needs, like a GM putting together their very own roster. You need a team that supports you, and State Farm's got a great one. In addition to agents, the award-winning mobile app helps manage coverage, pay bills, file claims, and more. With a great price and even greater service, State Farm goes from strength to strike. Choose insurance.

It always brings its A-game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. All right, Jeff Schwartz, former NFL Offensive linemen, podcast hosts, Media Star. What's going on, buddy? Oh, man. We are in a week sick and ready. It feels like we've never even kind of get here. And I'm just happy that football's chugging along.

We had a Tuesday night game. That was weird for the brain. I liked it. I know there are limitations against playing every night of the week. But I enjoyed the product, is all I'll say about that. We can't do it. It's not sustainable in any way, but I enjoyed more football. I will say, though, like, I also cover college football.

Yeah. So having a couple nights. off a week from football is okay for me, especially as an East coaster. Like, it's okay, like tonight. There's no football that I need to watch. I'll go by 9 o'clock. It's fine to have a couple nights a week, but that's the case. But I'm with you, though.

I mean, the more football is always going to be better. But it's okay to have, like, two nights a week where you can go to bed early. I think two nights is fine. I mean, like, when you grow up in a football hotbed, I did in Florida, like, Friday's high school, Saturday is college, Sunday is NFL, Monday's the NFL. So you really only get, especially when I was younger and I cared about all of these levels. I mean, like high school, obviously I still watch college football and pro football, but like, I don't sit around watching Boone versus Edgewater in Orlando anymore.

But I kind of, I like the football schedule. And I think that if we could add maybe one more night, it would be all right. All right. So, Jeff, I want to talk about a couple of things here. This is kind of a big week of football. And I kind of feel like we're going to learn a lot about some of the teams that we think are good, but could be great or great, but maybe I don't know.

We're going to learn about the levels here. Brown Steelers is a big one. Buck's Packers, Chiefs, Bills, Ravens Eagles. I think there's a lot of teams that I think we're going to know a lot more on Tuesday than we know right now. I want to start big picture

because scoring is now, I think, over 50 points a game combined. It is unbelievable. 51.4 is the scoring average in games. It's unbelievable what's happened to the sport. And I want to, I know, Rosillo calls this, a dumb question for a smart guy.

And I think that this is, it's a good, it's a good jumping off point here. What is happening to offenses? What is happening to defenses? Is this permanent? Is it sustainable? Is it just the holding penalties?

Is it just the COVID miscommunication? Is it the lack of crowds? I mean, every time I turn on a podcast or the radio or whatever, I hear a different theory. Yours are what? I think there's many reasons. I'll start with a smart one first.

And we'll maybe again, the other ones that I think, be a factor. I think now more than ever, offensive coordinators are designing offenses to fit their quarterback, not the other way around. They're not forcing quarterbacks to fit into what they do. They're changing their offense for their quarterback. And the example was great last night, right? Tennessee and Buffalo, two places where they have completely altered their offenses to fit what these guys do best. Even in Green Bay, we're looking at a high play action total, which they never did under Aaron Rogers.

We're seeing teams use the things that we know that are good in the NFL. play action pass, bootlegs, not running into terrible boxes, designing offense that fit the quarterback, not making the quarterback fit your offense. I think we're just at a higher level of functioning on the offense side of the ball right now. And it's helping get bigger plays and score more points. And look, I think it's hard to deny that it's very clear tackling, both in college and the NFL has been really bad this season. And I think that's a byproduct of the lack of the preseason and a lack of any sort

a practice time, any meaningful practice time, really? I mean, 13 days in pads is nothing. So that's a very easy answer there. And then I think crowd knows. I think about this watching Herbert play the other night. So Herbert, who my Oregon guy, I love Herbert. I thought he was going to be good. I'm glad he's good.

He was in New Orleans, okay? You've been to Superdome. Superdome is ear splitting loud. It's headache loud. It is frustratingly loud. There was no one there, right? Dead quiet. And I think that it does help,

rookie quarterback in his fourth start with a bad offensive line to go into New Orleans, play the States with no crowd noise. It can't hurt. And I think we're going to see, I'm curious next year, if like Herbert and Burrow to eventually, like take a step back just because they're playing away games with crowd noise. And so I think there's those little things all matter. It's not just holding penalties. I think it's all those things are the reasons why there's more points.

So the communication thing to me is really interesting. And I heard Richard Sherman say this the other day, actually, about how much the offense has an advantage if you can hear everything everybody's saying. And because the offense can certain make adjustments. If they, if they hear the defense yelling out certain things, the offense kind of wins that war. When you can hear everything, just when you're sitting there watching the tape and watching even the TV feed and you can see the defense communicating, what advantages specifically do the offenses have when they know kind of they can hear what the defense is saying, basically. I mean, look, in offensive play call is long and wordy most of time, and maybe it's a code word every now and then. I mean, if we say like, if we say, you know, hey, we're running,

and you hear the code words all the time, defense doesn't know what those mean. Defenses aren't really code worded. They're over cover three. Overcover three. I mean, all right, well, they're running an over front with the cover three. Like, there's no, like, code words for deeds.

And maybe they're inventing more code words this year. Sure. But, you know, they're not code wording stuff. So if we hear a defense say, hey, guys, we're running red four here. You're like, oh, well, you know, Red's on cover four. Like, okay. So now, we don't know the names for all the pressures they're going to bring, but I think that you get to hear a little bit more.

But I think that Sherm's a little bit wrong on that because not wrong from his angle, but there's more to that, right? As an offensive lineman, they can hear my calls now. It can easily hear my calls. And defensive players, defensive linemen, know about three calls. That's it. The rest of them, they don't know, but now they can hear all of them and watch TV copy and figure out what teams are doing.

I've seen a lot more this year, like double cadences where quarterbacks on the line scrimmage, you know, race and hut, and they kind of see what's happening and then going to go into another place. So I think the communication this year has had to change because of that. So it's not just an advantage for the offense, in my opinion. Defense gets to hear everything. They hear the play calls, the audibles. They have the line calls.

It goes both ways. So let's start with Brown Steelers because I'm fascinated by both of these teams. And I think that they're probably both playoff teams. And I just don't know where they fall in the AFC pecking order right now because I just haven't seen enough of them. And then, you know, Rathsburg was out last year. And so obviously the Steelers experience has been new. And there's an adult in the room, so to speak, in Cleveland. So it's a little bit different there.

Yeah. Which team is better? We'll just start there and then we'll go from there. At the end of this season, are we talking about the Browns, the Steelers being better? I think we're talking about the Steelers being better. Steelers are one of my favorite, like, long shot Super Bowl plays. this year. I think they were great play for the Super Bowl. I think that they're better, by the way, the matchup that's going to be fun is that Steelers' offensive line against Miles

Garrett, the first time they played. It's going to be like, it's going to be like if there's a betting company that wants to make a prop, like how many times the offensive of Wyoming takes shots at Miles Gear, I'll grade that prop for you. I promise I will enjoy grading that prop. It's going to be up to battle. But I think the Steelers are better for a couple reasons right now. One is they're better defensively, right? And they know who they are. And yes, they played bad against the Eagles. It was kind of surprising. They pressure the Eagles too much. You watch the second half, they kind of laid back a little bit. They rushed the passers very well.

I think offensive for the Steelers, we're seeing them become more multiple and do different things. The Browns, for as good as they are offensively, are kind of one-dimensional. They're a rushing football team. Baker-Mayfield put up numbers last week, really on the first half. Second half, we threw for, what, 60 yards, 50 yards maybe that game? And some of those catchers were ridiculous, right? It was Landry and Odell bailing him out of bad throws to make these catches.

So I think the Steelers are more complete. team, the Browns have had their spurts. The Browns have been very good, obviously, four and one. But when you're one dimensional on offense, when you play a really good defense, and it worries me. Now, they play a good defense in the Colts. I get that. But again, I don't think you can count on circus catches as your past game each and every

week. So I think that's a concern for me. So I don't have the Steelers cover this game. I think it's like four points, but I do think that Steelers win this game. The theory I've heard the last couple weeks is, and this gets into Josh Allen a little bit, too, and Russell Wilson and route the spurs. and even Baker, is that the holding penalties thing favors guys who can extend to place because it's becoming a little easier for quarterbacks to stay back there.

And obviously, you know, quick release is always better. But I'm curious what you think, having played offensive line, the lack of holding penalties shows up where with the offenses? I think it shows up just with bad offensive linemen. I'm not sure it has to be extending plays. I mean, just if you have bad offensive linemen that don't get called for holding now, it helps everyone be better. you know, yeah, Big Ben doesn't move as well as Russell Wilson does,

but their offensive line is infinitely better than Seattle's. I mean, so you're not going to even, even if they were calling a normal amount of holding penalties, it wouldn't make a difference for Pittsburgh who doesn't hold very much. I mean, for Seattle it would, right? Seattle has a lot of offensive alignment who aren't as good as Seattle as Pittsburgh. So I'm not sure it benefits one to the other. And we're seeing, I think last week we saw them go up again,

a little more holdings. It's a questionable ones as well. But we saw them kind of balance out. And the NFL does that a lot where they go through stretches of not calling something and then call a lot of the opposite. They call a bunch and they kind of ebb and flow. So I think the point of emphasis. They send one memo and then the entire thing changes.

I hate those so much. The point of emphasis. But so I think that we'll see that balance back out as season goes along. Yeah. It's fascinating to see because, again, you know this as much as anybody. Those point of emphasis things like when there's a story written about, oh, they aren't calling this or they're calling this too much, there's a memo written and then it is, it is called completely different the following Sunday.

Like, it is unbelievable. It's not, it's not ideal. I think that we should just, if you see a penalty, you call a penalty. Pretty simple. Yep. Yep. Well, we, in a perfect world, Jeff. All right. So, bucks packers.

So I'm intrigued by Aaron Rogers. And obviously, what we saw in Tom Brady was really strange against, against the bear, especially late in the game. Last time these guys played, there were literal, there was a Michael Jordan commercial. Remember that? It was the goat, the goat thing. Yeah. two greatest of all time.

Weird argument to have since I don't know if these guys are the clear cut one and two, that's a different podcast. But which guy, or if it's neither, that's fine. But which guy's performance right now is more real? Aaron Rogers looking like an MVP or Tom Brady looking a little bit off right now with injury. We know there's injuries with Tampa Bay. I think it's, I think more real is Aaron Rogers, but I think that Tom Brady is going to keep improving. I never thought this offense would start fast with Tampa.

I mean, the Saints game was what is expected, right? You're seeing them evolve throughout the season. The Bears game was the worst, the offensive line of play. The offense line played really well up until that point. We know Godwin's been hurt. O.J. Howard's on the reserve. Evans has been in and out of the lineup. They're going to keep getting better.

I think when we see with Rogers now is what you get with Rogers. But this looks, Tampa Bay defensively is really, really good. And they get extra time to prepare for Green Bay. Obviously, so does Green Bay and vice versa, because they were off this weekend. But Tampa Bay still, their second. overall in DVOA in the entire NFL, they're second rated. They're a good football team. They're second in defense as well.

So I think that people are going to throw out Tampa Bay in this matchup this weekend because they looked kind of bad the other night and Tom Brady forgot what down it was. I'm not sure what it changed who we threw the ball to, honestly, but nonetheless, you forgot what down it was. And we see that as our lasting image when in fact, you know,

it's not like the Bears played that great. It's almost like Tampa lost that game themselves, right? The Bears weren't anything special. So I think Aaron Rogers is real. this is what Aaron Rogers is this year. And I go back this. For a while, Rogers played a stale offense. It's just with Stale with McCarthy.

They just did nothing cool, nothing unique. Same thing all the time. Last year, I felt like he was a little hesitant to kind of fully embrace Matlifer's offense. For every reason this year he is. Whether Matt came and said, hey, man, look, we do this, this and this, we're really good at it. And Rogers is a smart guy.

He realized they're good at it. He just started doing more of it, especially the Plaxia past stuff. But their offense is sustainable. my opinion. And that's the most important thing. So Rogers will play like he has. And I think Brady will continue to get better. This is an argument I've made a bunch of on this podcast, but you can't expect Brady to start in September and October like he's going to be in December in the weirdest year of all time where no one cares about details more than him. And now you're saying you can't have

OTAs. You can't have full offseason and all this stuff. This was only this was only going to get better. And so I'm with you on that. I think there's going to be some improvement there. Chief Spills, I want to dig into this this bill thing because actually when we talked yesterday, I thought that this was going to be a litmus test for whether or not the bills could compete in the AFC and then they get the doors blown off by the Titans. Do we learn anything? Is there anything that gleaned from the fact that the Titans didn't have a real routine for two weeks and won anyway? I think we saw what the plan for Josh Allen will be moving forward,

which is you just play zone coverage and don't get beat deep, right? he's going to make those secondary plays, which he has in his career, but a lot of big plays, I guess the Titans came from those secondary reaction plays, right? We got out of the pocket. He found Yeldin right in the back corner of the end zone by himself. I think the teams are just going to say,

hey, man, like, just beat us any other way than beating us deep. But the same thing that Titans tried to pound the homes last year, same thing that, by the way, teams are doing to the Chiefs right now, just sit passively back and, you know, we're not going to let you scramble very much, which they didn't do a lot, right? And the Titans defense, though, has done a good job of this. really won't against Lamar last year, too.

So maybe just the Titans defense is built this way to not allow, you know, quarterbacks that are mobile to really get loose on them. But I think that that's the blueprint, right? Like just sit in zone coverage, show them two, show them three, show them inverted two, show them one, like show them different things and kind of try to confuse them. And just don't get beat deep. Like, we're not going to let digs get behind us. And we're not going to, you know, give up those.

We're to make him earn each and every throw. So that's what teams, I think we'll do moving forward. And we'll start with the Chiefs on Monday. I think Chiefs will do that. They'll just say, hey, man, we got our defense line. We'll rush the passer. We'll sit back in coverage. And, you know, I think they learned a lesson with Carr on Sunday, which is like,

we can't just ignore deep passes. They basically just said, we're not going to even, we don't care. Car can't throw deep. We're going to leave no safety back there. With the chiefs now and the AFC pecking order, we talked a little bit about Brown Steelers. Obviously, we'll see the bills on Monday night. We've seen the Ravens a couple weeks ago, obviously, who are at this point. not ready to compete with the 2020 chiefs.

AFC pecking order for you. Is it chiefs and then everybody else? Did the Raiders game change your mind? Is it getting closer? Is the gap changing? Is there a team now where you're saying, okay, maybe these guys can win an arrowhead in January? This is the chief's like first loss in a year.

I know. It's like we're losing our freaking minds. I just, I have been so, no, I know, but I've been so insistent that the chiefs are so much better than everybody else that now they lose to the race. and I have to take my medicine and be like, well, is what, what's, what's that going to happen now?

And the funny part is that you, everyone's, you know, ran out of their offense, who's number two in D.DVOA and averaging 32 points, you know, averaging like 30 points a game, right? Also, just the eye test. He threw, like, Mahomes threw like seven passes on Sunday. Some of them didn't even count. They looked better than like, you know, the Aaron Rogers, like, a down year for me as a career year for another guy's. Like, there were five passes that didn't count on Sunday from the homes in a loss to the Raiders. that were better throws than 99.9% of quarterbacks will ever have in their career.

Yeah, the touchdown that was called back on the Phantom Holden call, which, by the way, the next play, KO, the offensive line, blows out both his knees, which is just the worst injury of all time. And then he had a third and 20, then Mahomes scrambled along

would do the backup tight end or a third-true tight end and it just dropped right through his hands. I mean, like, it was a game when they should score. No, look, I thought throughout the year, if you look at the Chief's season so far, there are five games. One game this year,

they came out and played, think they're absolute best. That was Baltimore, right? They just came out and they keep the shit of Baltimore. Every other game, and I think they actually week one, they played pretty well, too. Look at the other games, though. They've had lulls in the game.

Like the Chargers game was just like, man, it's kind of like, you know, meander the way through that. Like I said, the Ravens game came out hard. I forget who they played two weeks ago. I didn't even forgot who played for the Raiders. And they played the Raiders. And I just think that they just kind of need a wake-up call, honestly.

I mean, they're that good. they know they could just turn it on whenever they want. They're like the Warriors to me in basketball. For years, the Warriors could just be like, all right, third quarter, let's just, we're going to score 35 points and we're going to win the game in the third quarter. But she just can do that any time they want, right? Anytime they want. But the problem is the one game you don't, the one game your defense doesn't play well,

you lose that game, right? So it's a good wake-up call for them to not have that attitude. I think coming off of this loss, they'll come out and they'll handle their business on Monday night in Buffalo, just because if they had won this game, kind of playing ugly, maybe I'd take the bills in this game, but the Chiefs are just that much better than everyone else. And when they want to play hard, and when they want to play their full steam,

they can do it, but they're not perfect. I don't understand what people thought they would just be perfect. There's some issues in protection right now that everyone on the protection union has to take a responsibility for. I think they've gone away from their short game. I think they're trying to take too many home runs right now. Just take what the defense gives you. They went away from screens a little bit the last couple weeks,

you know, add that back in, run the ball a little bit more. There's things they can work on. And they'll be fine. I think they're just worried about January. Just get us to January. Make sure everyone's healthy. I totally agree with you. And I think that after last year, you mentioned the lulls and the Warriors comparison

was a great one. I think that having seen Patrick Mahomes and that offense, I mean, it's a total team effort, but they solved every problem put in front of them in January, every single problem. They were down double-digit points in every playoff game they played, including one, you know, three touchdowns to Bill O'Brien at one point.

And then they just said, okay, time to win. And then they won. And I feel like psychologically, you have to have that in the back of your brain that, like, everything can be solved whenever they want it to be solved. And that's why I think this team is so amazing. That's why I don't read into things like this, this Raiders team, because I just think that there's, this Raiders game rather, I just think that they'll, they'll figure it out and they'll be good enough to get the one seed.

And then they'll probably win the Super Bowl again. And if they don't, then they don't get the one seed. Like, I don't think they care. I don't think they care. I don't think they care. Like, you know, they're down, what, double digits in, like, eight of these 12 wins. They've been, like, they don't care. Like, they don't care.

But, you know, but the problem is, is that, again, like, the one time you run up against a good opponent and you're not playing. Right. You know, at this level, you lose. And they didn't play well on defense. And it lost the game. And so you have to make sure you don't do that in January. That's why I think this weekend, Monday, it's a 5 p.m.

Eastern game is all East Coasters are like, yes. Yes. that we get to watch $20 a night. I feel bad for the bills though, right? The bills have been jerked around. I agree. They were supposed to play a short week,

the Chiefs, which would have been great. Short week, home game. You know, the Chiefs would have been playing their, what, third game in 10 days. I would put the bills to win that game in a heartbeat. Now the bills have a short week against the Chiefs. Chiefs get more rest. They got screwed in that.

Yeah, I agree. Can you, just from a player standpoint, just take us through how big of a difference it makes, even if you know ahead of time when you have to change your routine, almost when you're doing it. Like just, oh, we might play Monday. We might play Tuesday. I might not play at all.

I mean, what does that change about your week and your routine? And what are the kind of the tent poles of a player's preparation that would need to be changed around? I mean, I think just everything, right? We're very routine creatures. We're at the same time every day, especially now with COVID, there's more routine, right? There's more testing.

There's more this. There's more that. Like, you're a routine-oriented person. And so I don't think the bill's lost. because of this. I don't think that. But just for your body to recover between now and Monday, you just one less day to recover, right?

The chiefs have an extra day to recover. Chiefs are really good when you give them extra day, right? We know that Andy Reid off a buy is 18 and 3. It's not quite a buy, but it's just an even extra day, right? It's even better with the extra day. So just, you know, one less day to prepare. And that's what the bills have to go through. You know, the Titans thing.

I don't, in the NFL, it's funny. The Titans have this, me against the world thing, right? Like that no one believed in us in the NFL. Dude, the NFL did a lot of things to make it easy on you. Because the NFL could easily say, you know what, screw up it. We're forfeiting your two games. But they arrange everyone else's schedule to make sure you can play your games. You should be thankful they did that.

Yeah, I will be ignoring, at best, I'll be ignoring the Titans. Nobody believed in us because we had a, whatever you want to call that situation the last two weeks. It was, it is very murky situation, but I was surprised to see the, you know, we will be taking, Basically the general tone from Nashville was like where it was, it's us against the world because of the last two weeks. And I just don't think we should approach this virus like. Yeah. Can you imagine me like, yeah, like, you know, I just, we just had the only, you know, the only uncontrolled viral outbreak in the NFL. It's us against the world.

God, you did this. You're in a diversity. You created it. It's just, yeah, this is, this is, it's a storyline. It's an incredibly uncomfortable storyline for me, I think is the way I'd phrase it. All right. Last thing I want to talk about the Raven. and the Eagles.

I guess I'm just going to keep waiting around, Jeff, for an NFC East team to show me anything. This is obviously a big one, having a game plan for Lamar Jackson. There's some questions about Jim Schwartz, especially after last week and letting Chase Claypool become the breakout star of last week. Is there anything there with the Eagles?

Should we, you know, obviously the injuries have been so huge, but is there any path, and obviously this is a bad week for them to break out, but is there any hope for the Eagles or any NFC East team? Do you see any of these teams, accidentally winning, you know, nine games. Oh, no chance. I mean, I think Cowboys with Dalton have a chance to be okay.

And, you know, I think Dolan's a capable quarterback. You know, their defense is just so atrocious, so bad. I mean, you have to hope as Eagles fan what we saw at the end of last season, right? The last four weeks of the year, must win games. Carson once locked in and he played better. But your injury situation is not good. I mean, your offensive line is beat up. Your wide receivers.

Did Fletcher Cox ever come back in that game? Sunday is he I don't know what his status is in that game like I just feel like things just aren't going your direction now Baltimore is interesting Baltimore is number one in DVO way I wouldn't think that like they just kind of really seem like they're floating along after the chiefs game but they're still really good and so I think that we have to take into account that they're just a good football team and eagles are not going to win this game it's a long point spread's big but I just think the eagles are just they're not good enough right now who accidentally wins the nfc east I mean, you also are going to win it like six and ten.

I mean, I don't know who actually won it. It's not going to be Washington. It's not going to be the Giants. I mean, the Cowboys, if the Cowboys played, if they didn't allow 33 points a game and allow 27 instead, they probably wouldn't the NFC East. I mean, it's that simple, right? But they don't.

They're terrible on defense. What is going to change about their defense moving forward? So, I mean, maybe Philly, I guess, because they have Carson Wentz and they've done it before, and they know what to do. But look, it's not going to be Washington or the Giants. I don't know. I don't know.

No one. It's just let another NFC team make the playoffs. Right, the Pack 12 in the College Football Playoff, just leave it out. Hey, hey, hey. Yeah, I know. I knew what I was doing there. I knew what I was doing there. That's enough from you over there.

Hey, I'm on Miami fan. We don't do college football playoffs. We're fine. Last thing for you before we get you out of here, give us the one trend that we should be talking about this year schematically that we haven't given enough attention to. It's a good question. I mean, to me, there's a play action pass. explosion, you know, like the idea that, you know, that those plays, and I love Play Action

Pass forever. Even when as a player, I love this office on the blocking Play Action Pass. That was so easy for me. Like, oh, I just sell run. Okay, fine. That's great. I get my hands a guy as soon as possible. I think that, again, I go back to how we start this interview.

But the trend in my opinion is not just, it's not just the play action pass, but it's, it's coaches that very clearly designing game plans for the quarterbacks where I feel like for long time, coaches didn't do that, right? coaches just said, okay, you're the quarterback, you run my offense. You run my offense. And we're seeing now, even in San Diego, not San Diego, Los Angeles, with the Chargers. I mean, you know, they're running an offense that's very built for Justin Herbert.

They're running an offense at Buffalo, very built for Josh Chowl. And Tennessee is the same way. And all these places are doing a good job of building offenses that fit what they do. So that to me is the trend, is offensive coordinators just saying, look, man, we're going to run what we run that works for our team. I'm not going to force an offense on someone that doesn't fit the personnel we have that fit the quarterback. we have. That to me is the trend. It's just great office to play designers right now.

Jeff Schwartz, where can we hear you? Yes, my podcast, Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you. And that's iTunes, Spotify. Also my Twitter at Jeff Schwartz. I post all my stuff. I write for Fox Sports. There's some other fun gambling stuff for them as well. But you can find all that. Actually, I think I have a website, Schwartz NFL.com, by the way. I think I'd still use it. But nonetheless, go there. That didn't sound like a hearty endorsement of your website, Jeff Schwartz. It is there, dude. The website thing was a battle I fought for a while where I was like, I don't even have, my guy, Christopher, he's a great job designing it.

It's up. I just don't, I always forget to share it. Schwartz NFL.com. All my stuff is at, but I don't have time to run a website. Like, I don't have time. I have a square space, and I just put my best stuff on there and updated exactly once a year and just leave it there. If someone can find it. Jeff Schwartz, thank you so much, buddy.

All right, take care about. All right. Coming up, Danny Kelly, Norprince, you know, join me to talk about the future of the future. the coaching carousel, but first a quick break. If you've been dealing with acne, redness, dark spots, or wrinkles, finding treatment that works can be complicated. You need skincare that actually performs, but getting started can be overwhelming.

Thankfully, there's a solution. Roman makes it convenient to get customized prescription skincare that really performs. Just grab your phone or computer, complete a free online consultation, and you'll hear back from a U.S. license position within 24 hours. If appropriate, a doctor will prescribe a custom blended treatment based on your skin type and priorities. You'll receive your custom skincare treatment with free two-day shipping.

You also get free unlimited follow-ups with your doctor if you need to make a change to your treatment or have any questions. With Roman, there are no commitments and you can cancel any time. Go to get-roman.com slash ringer NFL for a free online visit and start your new skincare routine today. That's get-roman.com slash ringer NFL, eligibility requirements, and additional terms apply. All right, Danny Kelly, Noropranciati.

Both of the ring are joined me to my two of my. my favorite people in the world. Danny, Adam Gay says it's irrelevant if they misused Leveon Bell. You got a take on this. I mean, when you think about it, literally everything is irrelevant and we're all going to turn to dust one day. No one will remember us. Eat Arby's.

No, our response. I'm like, I've been, uh, I thought Danny was going to go with if you're the jets, everything is irrelevant because who cares, like burn it all to the ground. And that really hit me like a ton of bricks. Nothing matters. We're all just dust in the wind. Thanks for starting us off like that, Danny. Appreciate that.

I mean, every time we talk about gays, though, it's just, first of all, how does he still have a job? It actually might be irrelevant how he handled the whole Leveon belting because apparently nothing gets him fired. The funniest part of this by far. And I feel like that particular headline is overshadowing the real headline, which is that he asked his staff if he, he should still call plays and they were unanimous that he should.

Like, what was that meeting like? Yeah. Come on. No pressure, guys. No pressure. Come on. The quick little beat of silence that we had after Danny dropped, nothing matters is like that times one million must have been.

So should I just, should we run it back guys? I'll just keep doing this. Wow. What an organization. So we are actually going to touch on this. in a second. But we're going to do kind of coaching carousel predictions because there's two openings now. There are two GM openings. Also, that's a different category because the, the candidates just

aren't as obvious. We're going to stick with coaches here. And obviously, we're going to predict what jobs will be open this time four months from now, three months from now, or one week from now in some situations. Nora, I'll start with you. When you think about what this coaching carousel is going to look like, rank the open jobs for me. Oh, wow. Okay. Okay. Well, so the obvious ones, right? So we have Houston and Atlanta. And then we're probably talking about the Jets, the lions. And you're going to hear me do some Doug Marone standing probably later in this segment. Wow. Wow. Okay. Yes. Mostly because I just really like him, like as a person. Me too. Which is a really bad way to run a football organization.

I think he's just a pretty good coach. Yeah, no, I think I think that too, but I also just think that he's a delight. But those are those are kind of the five, right? Although I was thinking about this, Kevin, and you dropped on Sunday when we were doing the show after the Sunday games that anyone who loses to the Panthers, that coach is going to get fired. And I have some I have some Panthers love. So I was going down the list and thinking like, wow, are we going to have like eight, eight, eight, coach openings just because people lose to the Panthers who are suddenly first neat? Well, no.

The opposite of that is what's happening with the Jaguars right now, which is they've given three teams their first win at the season. So when you play the Jaguars, you actually keep your job. But when you play the Panthers, you can, okay, interesting. This is an interesting dynamic. I will say this. I will say this. I'm in your camp as far as the Panthers go.

I think the Panthers have gotten above the threshold. I don't think that they're, even though that cost Dan Quinn's job, I don't think that that's a hard. loss anymore. Like after O and two. Yeah, I did. I mean, honestly, I just, the Panthers are better than we thought. Teddy Bridgewater is playing really well. Uh, the Mike Davis is, is a surprising star and Avatar for the running backs don't matter movement that we won't get into right now. Um, but yeah, I think that there's, I think the Jaguars are interesting. I don't know what they're trying to do. So do you think that job's going to be open or not? Um, I, yeah, I still think it's probably more likely

than not just because he's out a lot of chances. Uh, but okay. So let's let me do my rankings. I think Houston is the best job. There we can, we don't, I'll just rank them and we can talk about it. But I think because of the quarterback, it's the best job. Then Atlanta. And then I guess I would go, wow. Part of this is projecting what jobs will be open and if there's going to be any surprises and stuff like that.

Because I think the usual suspects will be there. Yeah. I mean, there's a drop off. Then I guess I go. this is like really hard for me as someone who, to whom New York City is like a really important place that people should want to live and be involved with. But like the Jets are just a disaster. Like you don't want to do that. And I like Joe Douglas.

The lions, I do too. I think the lions, barring a surprise would be the third best because Matthew Stafford is significantly better than whatever the Jets are going to happen. Yeah. Yeah. So that's, so this is what I'm, that was, those are the two that I'm sort of figuring out. I think, and then I think the Jaguars, I think the Jaguars is last of those five. Danny, your rankings before we start debating them. Texans, Falcons, Lions.

I think the Jaguars, I would have over the Jets, because to me, when you look at the Jets roster, it's maybe the worst roster overall in the NFL. I think there's some interesting pieces the Jags have, you know, especially on offense, there's, you know, Chark and Channalt. and I just think that they have some more pieces to build around. It's like not quite as low of the foundation. So I would probably put the Jets Lashes because to me their roster is just bad top to bottom. Okay.

Before we get into this specific debate, I do want to throw out a couple of perhaps surprise firings. You know, Ryan Clark said this, a gradius P&A last other day where he said that Justin Herbert's going to be a really good quarterback for the Chargers next head coach. The Chargers are one and four right now. I think Anthony one's an awesome coach. I just worry that the charges have made mistakes before. Maybe they're just like, oh, we got to panic and try to save Justin Herbert or whatever. I don't know how that goes, but there is always the possibility an owner is going to panic and do something like that. Obviously, the Texans and Falcons job will be open.

Obviously, the Jeff's job will be open. Almost certainly, in faring something ludicrous, the lion's job will be open. And then I think that there's, you know, Danny, do you think Zach Taylor could be on the hot seat if Joe Burrow doesn't get anything going here? I mean, yeah, if they don't make any real progress this year, I could see it. It seems unlikely, but I could see it. It seems unlikely just because of the level of patience required and just how bad that roster was last year going forward. Also, this is a year. One thing we should probably keep in mind is that particularly we're talking about the Bengals and the Chargers.

We're not talking about NFL teams that love to throw money around. And I think that's going to be an underrated factor this year, especially. I 100% agree with you. And the revenue shortfall is very, very real, especially a team like the Chargers. I know all the Chargers and Tenons jokes or whatever. But the reason they moved to Los Angeles was to get the Los Angeles market money. And that means luxury boxes. That means all the things they didn't.

That means the things they weren't able to capitalize on in San Diego. They had that now in L.A. And there's going to be something that. It's going to be true of every team. but in any year they wouldn't want to fire their coach and, you know, spend a bunch of money, especially for a top, top tier guy. And again, I think Anthony Lynn is a pretty good coach and they should probably stand pat with him.

Okay. Danny, I'll start with you. Start filling out these jobs for me. Best candidates, best matches. So for the Texans, I think that, and this one's a pretty common one, is Eric the enemy of the chiefs in it. I'm saying his name correctly, correct, right? The enemy.

You are. The enemy of my enemy is my friend. friend and my potential Houston's coach. Chris Berman used to make lots of puns about that back when being in a play. I also just called them the Houston's. So I got his name right, but not the name of the team. Anyway, Danny, the floor is yours. I, I, is that, is that an improvement?

Houston's if you just called them, you don't call. No, you don't call them the Houston needs. You just call them the Houston's. Well, now we have the football team and the Houston's. Yeah, I'm just saying it's in play here. It's not different than the Texans, really. that's actually a great point. Yeah, it's, it's, it's just an obvious descriptor, right?

Like the Houston Knights, I guess. Yeah, Houston Knights, whatever. All right. So, Danny, so that, that's been thrown around a lot. And then I think after that is where it gets interesting. And I think, you know, by the way, I just want to quickly go over my case here. So both the Falcons and the Texans next year will be over the cap, okay? according to Jason Fitzgerald

over at over the cap here of the team. Literally his site is called over the cap and he's telling us which teams are over the cap. Unbelievable. The Falcons are $37 million over the cap. The Texans are $14 million over the cap.

The other teams in this range are competing this year and these teams are not. The Vikings are also not. But I would say that that's a deterrent. But I also think that first of all, there's a lot of coaches who would turn in their cap space and their picks

to get Deshawn Watson. And there are a lot of guys who I think the Falcons job for me can go either way. There's a lot of talent on there. There's a lot of young talent and veteran talent. Is there going to be like an Arthur Blank situation where he says, oh, why don't we bring in a veteran coach to try to develop this talent, almost like what the

Cowboys do with Mike McCarthy? Or do they say, let's just tear this down. The cap space is too far gone. I just think that it's a franchise at a crossroads in Atlanta. And I'm intrigued to see how both owner and GM view this roster once it's set in place. Rich McKay, who's the team president, used to be the GM. He was also the GM in Tampa years ago.

He understands that I build a team. And so I think that that franchise is fascinating to me because I think, again, he can go either way. They can start selling guys or they can just try to develop them and win now. Back to you, Dan. I don't know. I tend to lean towards the idea of not doing a retread. Like guys like Brian Dayball,

I mean, heck, I'm going to throw out a few other names I think are very interesting that maybe let's go. Let's do this. Kellynne Moore. Oh, C of the Cowboys. Okay. Joe Brady, who is just skyrocketed. He's 12 years old. Yeah, I think he's like, what is he?

Like 33 or something ridiculous. I think, but I mean, so Sean McVeigh was really young too when he got his first head coaching job. So I don't know. I just, I tend to lean towards, you know, bringing in these offensive innovators, offensive minded head coaches, I just tend to lean towards that, especially with the way that the NFL is right now. Like, are they going to, are they going to go back to allowing teams to hold or not hold and things like that next year? Or is this, is this the new era of offensive football

where defenses can't do shit anymore? If that's the case, if the latter is the case, it makes no sense to me to bring in a defensive minded coach because defense can't work. I think these bringing in a scheme lord like, you know, Kellan Moore, Joe Brady, Arthur Smith of the Titans, To me, that is way more fascinating. I'd be more excited about that if I was a fan of these teams. You know, you got Matt Ryan in and potentially they're going to have a chance to get the top pick this year, get one of these top quarterbacks if they go that route. Childhood Falcons fan, Trevor Lawrence, by the way. Yeah.

So if I'm either, if I'm a fan of either, the Texans or the Falcons, I want to pair my franchise quarterback, whether that is, you know, Matt Ryan for a few more years or Trevor Lawrence with a young, innovative offensive mind. That's just how I feel. That's how I'd want to do it. But, you know, we've seen the results when this happens. Like, look at what's happening with the bills right now. I just need to say Joe Brady's 31 years old and just turned 31. 31. He's the wild, wild card.

It's probably not going to happen. But I'm just throwing out some names. Nora, drop a bomb with this falcons pick. So Matt Campbell, the Iowa State coach, has been like a kind of spicy name. The Jets were kind of into him. but he was not into the Jets. I was trying to figure out a polite way to say that. But potentially he's just not that into you, Jets coaching search editions.

But he's been a name that's like floated around on the periphery of coaching conversations for a long time. And I actually would have loved to put him back in the Jets slot. But I felt like I should recognize that he does not seem to be particularly interesting. didn't becoming head coach of the Jets, but maybe the Falcons, I would certainly look at as a more enticing job. And if you're a team that's sort of looking for,

like, you want someone who has experience as a head coach, like has experience running a program, but also like could be there for, for a foundational reset. Like you're trying to get rid of all of this bad juju. Yes. And it could go in a,

lot of different directions. I can see him being like, one, somebody who's really, really, really well respected in a lot of coaching circles, but two is kind of like a blank slate, like paint your canvas kind of guy because he would be coming to the NFL. So I just thought that was like a sneaky dark course nice fit. Yeah. And I think if you're the Jets at this point, you need to worry about what kind of of coach you can get and whether or not you have to go to the retread route because any coordinator who is a buzzing name at this point is not going to take a chance on taking that job. I understand every year we do this thing where a coach takes one of these crappy jobs and says, well, there's only 32 of these.

You know, you got to take them. And I just think that some of these guys are smart enough to know, like Arthur Smith, man, like, come on, man, you're a billionaire. You don't need to do this. You don't need to take the Jets job. All right? Just let's just stay in Tennessee. So Nora, so you have your not pretty,

but you know when you're when you're when you're matchmaking here be enemy to houston yes yeah okay so then arthur smith uh seriously now though uh does he fit anywhere here um or or do you have more college ams from my perspective here when i think about these openings i don't see a job that lincoln riley is going to jump back and that's why i think matt campbell's a great name norah is because i don't see a home run like you know the the texans don't have their picks they don't have their cap space even though they have Deschon Watson, the Falcons are a bit of a mess financially going forward. I don't see a team that would have an opening where someone like Lincoln Riley

or even Urban Meyer would say, heck, yeah, I'm in on this. Or Dabo. Right, Dabo, right, exactly. And so do you see that? And then the second question would be Arthur Smith and Brian Dable and that layer of coordinator. Where do you see those guys going? I thought Dable might be an interesting potential Jags fit. I don't have, I didn't matchmake Arthur Smith anywhere.

I just feel like, stay where you are, man. Like, ride the wave. Ride the tan-hill wave? Yeah, ride the tanning wave. Unless, if you have that much money, it's probably really fun to live in New York City. So maybe he should be the head coach the Jets. My take on New York City is that it's only fun if you have unlimited money or no money at all. Yeah, that's kind of right on.

The problem is when you have like a decent salary and just like, wait, why am I paying 90% of my money into this Brooklyn studio? You're like, I live in a box. Yeah. I think it would be hilarious if Arthur Smith fixed Tannahill after Tannahill got just like fell out of like the world under under Gase and then came in and fixed Darnold. Like turned Darnold into this all world quarterback too. Oh my gosh. That would be amazing. That would be.

He just goes around fixing Adam Gase's mistakes. The greatest troll job of all time. That's an amazing idea. That's an amazing idea, Danny. I'm rooting so hard for this to happen now. Arthur Smith. New York City is so fun. You have to go there.

The restaurants, man. The restaurants are great. I just don't think the Jets have anything going for them. I really don't. I mean, I just, Donald's at the end of his rookie deal at some point. Maybe Joe Douglas goes into his, obviously being from Baltimore and then being in Philadelphia,

maybe he tries to get an assistant from there. Maybe a Greg Roman type would be interesting. I don't know how close they are, but obviously he's got connections in Baltimore there. I think that that's the level of the Jets have to go into. And Greg Roman's a very, very talented offensive coordinator. I'm just saying that they're not going to get a huge name. Danny, Detroit, anything there?

I mean, yeah, I don't know where they would go because I actually like Beville as an offensive coordinator. So this one wouldn't be like, if they clean house and decide to like, fire all the coaches, then, you know, maybe they'd bring in an offensive coach to work with Stafford. But this is a team where I could, it wouldn't be too surprising if they went with a defensive minded head coach, not just not Patricia anymore. Like get ready, get ready to move on from that whole situation. You think they should just fire Patricia and then just don't do anything else, just not have a head coach next year. Just not Patricia is the new head coach. I mean, what do you think?

Yeah. So I think they should fire Matt Patricia. I think that, you know, when I was talking to General Lovsky last year for that Stafford piece I was doing, he made the point. He obviously played for the Lions and has made some really great commentary on the Lions last couple weeks, but the point he made was what if Stafford had been gifted as a McVeigh type or Kyle Shanahan type or something like that. It would have changed the narrative of the league. And I think that from a football, just a football karma perspective, Matt Stafford deserves one of those guys. And so if I'm the Ford family, and again, this is the problem with Patricia, like the problem with gase is that there's just not a lot of talent there so you're not walking into a

really good situation and so i think you you kind of get try to get a scheme lord up there i think brian dable would be fantastic in detroit i think he would scheme him up i think he's got the attitude for it i think there's some building blocks there but not a lot and i also think maybe you i think bob quinn probably has to get fired too and so just bring in a whole new regime um maybe somewhere from the Buffalo. You know, Brian Dable, obviously has a lot of

Parcellus Belichick roots. Maybe there's someone from there, but obviously Patricia and Bob Quinn had Belichick roots too, but didn't matter. But I think that there's,

if I were matchmaking, I would go there. Nora, Brian Dable. No, so that's, I think that's a good call. And I actually, Brian Dable is from Buffalo and loves Buffalo.

And Detroit is not, Wait, is not that far from Buffalo? Yes. He can drive through Canada. You can get the $5 a month. You can get the $5 cell phone thing that everybody has to get before they cross the border. Send a text message and it's like now you can use your phone in Canada and it's really cheap. Whoa.

When I was, I went to horseback riding camp in Canada when I was a little kid and I forgot my passport. And my dad came to pick me up and we had to convince the people at the border to, to let me back into the U.S. with just like a souvenir photo of me on a pony. And it said, Nora, riding flair, and they let me back in. Can you tell Brian Dable about this? I probably am not going to tell him that story. Probably not. By the way, Brian Dable, Brian Dable once said to me, you guys do a great job.

And I had no idea what he was talking about. I think he was talking about the ringer, but I wasn't, I'm not totally sure. I'm going to assume that's the case. I interviewed him recently, and at the end of it, he said something incredibly kind that I couldn't place. Like, he said something like, hey, you keep up the really great work. And I was like, what? Yeah. And it was really nice.

He might be vaguely aware of our existence, which is nice. Yeah, but he was in Alabama. He was in Alabama. He coached under Belichick. He was with the Scott Piole chiefs. before that he's with the dolphin. So I think there's some interesting roots there. And I think that, again, Brian Dable,

for his amazing of a job as he's done with Josh Allen, I don't think he's going to be on the BNemi level. And so I think that that might be, that might be good. Danny, any surprises. Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead, Nora. So I went with Matt Eberfluse. Oh, like, yeah, yeah.

Getting the defensive-minded Matt right this time. I think his ability, that is an amazing matchmaking. My only hesitation is any defensive coach right now, only because of how the league is trending. His ability to adapt when, you know, Josh Daniels was supposed to be his head coach,

all that stuff. It's truly amazing. And I think that's an amazing idea. He wasn't even on my radar. Danny, real quick, Mattie, refluse. Yeah, and I was actually going to add an idea to that. And like, if you look at the bills, you know, obviously they have a defensive-minded head coach.

They bring in dayball. He runs the offense. It all works together. How about you have, Fierre Fluse bring in Nick Siriani, the OC for the Colts. Oh! I don't know if you would go, I don't know if that's like a side, you know, like a lateral move for him or whatever, but get Frank Reich to start his tree.

Get away from Philip Rivers, make all these mistakes. Yeah, run out of that burning building. Yeah. So I don't know. Get the Frank Wright coaching tree going and see how it goes. I think Reich has earned his reputation as a very smart, you know, build around the talent that you have type person. And I could see his underlings starting to get real attention.

That's kind of like in the same way that, in the same way that Arthur Smith could clean up Adam Gase's mistakes, that's kind of like, like, Colt staffers cleaning up Patriots coordinators or former Patriots coordinators messes. Amazing. All right, Danny Kelly, Noroprinsiati. This is, I'm glad we solve the coaching carousel, guys.

I'm glad that owners can now just listen to this. You're welcome. Just write it all down. Joe Brady, 31-year-old Joe Brady. All right, guys. Let's do it. All right, thanks for listening to the Ringar NFL show. I'll be back with Nora on Sunday.

Warren Sharp will be on the feed on Friday with Joe House. Love that pod. See you that.