The Ringer NFL Show - Preseason Takeaways and Players on New Teams Who Could Make Big Impacts

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by Benjamin Solak to give their observations about the first week of the preseason (3:50). Then they discuss players who are on new teams who could make a big impact this season (26:19). Host: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guest: Benjamin Solak Production Assistant: Isaiah Blakely Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Bill Simmons hosts the most downloaded sports podcast of all time with a rotating crew of celebrities, athletes, media staples, and a slew of other friends and family members who always happen to be available. Check out the Bill Simmons podcast on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringar NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark, joined today by Nora Prince of I. Dina, what's going on? Not much, Kev. Just hanging in there. It's psyched to be in the throes of preseason. I have some preseason thoughts. I want to talk about your guys' sort of emotional reaction

to NFL preseason games, but we also have Ben Solac, so I want to hear how Ben is doing first. What just happened? Did you just take over

the introduction? That was amazing. Oh my God. I'm really sorry. Are we running RPO's with this now? I heard myself doing it while I was doing it. Yeah, you know, I know what happened there

because I've done it too, is you started talking and you had a riff, you were going to riff there. And then you realized. three minutes. We hadn't said Ben's name. Wow. We're platooning.

Wow. This is a platoon system. I like it. I got, so I ordered. Can I tell you one thing? Okay. No,

you extremely want to talk about this. This is a different thing. This is a different thing. I'm sorry. I got Chinese food this weekend. And my fortune cookie said something like, you should be less assertive. It was like you should choose,

like, choose tender, choose tenderness. more than you do an assertiveness less. And I was like, I think that's rude, honestly, and I'm going to not do that. Wow.

Okay. We are off to a great start. What was the riff? Okay. So the riff is that, like, I think watching preseason games is like watching drunk people, like interact,

where you're kind of like, okay, all of this stuff is really happening. I went to a Saints preseason game the other day, so they turned the ball over six times. Yeah. Well, my point of a point of a moment. Exactly. Yeah.

Because it's like it's real stuff that's happening. Like real people are doing it and it has the possibility to have like ramifications in their lives. But there is this kind of added element of, okay, does this really matter? Like everyone's pretty, you know, not in their right mind. And that's how I feel about preseason games is it's like watching drunk people. It's real, but it's a distorted version of reality. That didn't take that long. Can we talk to Ben about how he's doing and just do a sort of general introduction?

I was trying to get there. And so you had your tight. there. Ben, how are you doing? Hi, everyone. I'm here. Thrilled to be back on the show. This is particularly good, because I've been on the last three, this is my fourth time on. And so the need to introduce me is not as important as it was, but Nora really felt like she still had to go there.

Okay, but it is like, sorry, I'm talking too much. Oh my gosh. Nora, it's Monday morning, Nora. It's too early for this. Somebody needs to write a book. book, not a real book, but like the proverbial book on what you do in the portion of a podcast where it's the start of the podcast and everyone's like, hey, Kevin, how you doing? Because you're always just doing sort of fine. And what you're up to is that you're on a podcast and you're trying to do something sort of light and affable to introduce the real content section of it. And it's,

it can be really daunting because, you know, how do you distill human existence? I think you're doing great. As it as it clearly is into a sentence or two. I will say this. Whoever does that book, Gladwell, Eric Larson, Michael Lewis, they probably won't specifically tell you to do whatever you're doing right now, Noor. Hey, Nathan Peterman, 29 of 39 for 249. All right, let's get to the podcast here.

All right. How about them, Apple? We're going to do two different things here. We're going to do our big preseason takeaway, and then we're going to get to some new players, in different places, new faces and new places. If you want to put a buzzy headline on it, they're going to make a difference.

But we want to start with having seen football, having seen preseason football for the first time in two years, I was strangely emotional going to Baltimore on Saturday night and seeing it all. And then that wore off pretty quickly because you realize, okay, Lamar Jackson's not playing, you know, Marcus Peters in street clothes, the tight ends are in street clothes. Excuse you.

I own a Trace McSorley jersey, and I was thrilled to watch him play again. For what team? You own a Trace McSorley jersey? I said very foolishly on a podcast that if Trace McSorley, because he was like a TikTok star, we were getting questions about him and I was upset about that, I said if he ever scores an NFL touchdown, I'll buy his jersey. And then lo and behold, against the Steelers in a COVID week in garbage time, Marquise Brown, scores like an 80-yard touchdown thrown by Trace McSorley.

And subsequently, I own, I own two NFL jerseys. It's Jake Elliott, the Eagles kicker and Trace McSorley, the Ravens quarterback, third string. And both of them are because of things I said on podcast. So I'm still learning the lesson slowly. Who knows what mistakes? Who knows what mistakes you'll make in the next 45 minutes? We will start then with you, Ben, Sollack. Give us your number one preseason takeaway.

All the rookies can play. And it's very exciting. This class is super fun. Yes. The quarterback specifically, this class has always been super fun for several reasons. But one of the number one things was that we didn't have anybody really coming in with significant arm strength concerns.

Mac Jones a little bit. But it was more so like, he's not elite. He's just like, you know, league average and he's not have to deal with that, right? Like, I was very interested to watch Zach Wilson because of all the training camp reports that we've heard of him particularly struggling. And he was just gripping and ripping it. I mean, he had no concerns throwing middle of the field. He had no concerns throwing tight window, ton of velocity on the move. Good job attacking windows. Jet's offense looked fully functional. Off his line is horrible. But in terms of passing game, designs, running game, you know, a variety as you expect from a little floor brother. bang.

Like it was very, very nice to see Zach Wilson come out that confident. Justin Fields took a couple series and then all of a sudden, we're lacing the ball downfield and we're thrown into tight windows against the sideline. And especially contrasted with a guy like Tua from two classes ago who very clearly still has some NFL velocity concerns, his ability to drive the football was awesome. And so Lance, Lawrence, Lawrence, Fields, Wilson all had their rookie moments. Lawrence's first step was amazing because it was, it was so,

quintessentially rookie. Pressure swallowed him up twice as fast as he was used to, and the ball got knocked for it. It's like, holy smokes, these guys can win at 1.5 seconds and find the football through your body. Like, this is not ACC football anymore. So it was so quintessentially rookie,

but they all had the really nice moments. And it reaffirmed, once again, as many things have over the summer, reaffirmed that this class is, it was legitimately very good class. And I think we're going to see legit starts for Trey Lance this year, legit starts for Justin Fields this year, and legit play for,

definitely those top four guys. Is there any quarterback of that crop that you do not feel comfortable with starting with one if it came to that? I mean, no. The one that came to mind is Mac just because of how much the offense needs to help him. But it's clear that the Patriots are running the offense that way.

And also, Mac is a good decision maker. He's a good thinker on his feet. Max always been very impressive with the little stuff, right? Like, he's got smart footwork. He carries the ball correctly. He manages the pocket right. So he's not even going to make like crippling mistakes, even if the game is a little bit fast for him.

And then, like, sure, is Lance as experienced as you want? Absolutely not. But the 80-yard touchdown is a perfect example of like why you bring that guy into the building. Because you can draw up that play. And it always works on the chalkboard. But having a guy who's a legitimate threat to run makes it more effective. And having to do with a 60-yard hose across the field is what's necessary to run, right, that big fake flood and then throw the post the other side of the field.

So, like, yeah, even if he's raw, if you can draw that up and Shanhan can has proved that he can since Robert Griffin III in 2012, then it's okay to live with the rawness because you're going to get unbelievable explosives. So, yeah, in terms of like the bar for rookies, they're all going to take their lumps. They're going to have their bad early games. But there isn't one there that I believe strongly needs to sit in order to develop. A very funny headline this morning on Pro football talk, which is that Matt Nagy says they're going to get Andy Dalton more snaps. and saw Justin Fields

and they said, we got to get more Dalton. He said, we only saw six snaps with Andy. We have to see more. Matthew, why were there only

six snaps of Andy? Well, it's because he had two drives and didn't pick up one first down. Yep. Ergo. Wow.

Yeah. I want to go on record saying I am comfortable with six snaps of Andy. That feels sufficient to me. We're all set. We're going to be all set with six snaps of Andy.

We're good. We've had our He could have generated many more snaps. It was his job and he did not. So a couple things. Number one is obviously Fields did struggle early. And I thought that, so after the game,

Field said that the game seemed very slow to him. And I talked about this over the weekend, but Tony Romo was in a podcast last year. And he said that that's actually what he looks for in young quarterbacks is all he wants to hear. And if he's looking out for somebody who's special, it usually starts with a guy who sees the game very slowly and processes things in their brain very quickly.

And Field said that. And I, I too look out for that. And since I stole it from Roma, I stole that talking point from Romo, and so now I too look out for that. But none of these guys had really any issues. You know,

it was funny because I was in Baltimore and I was watching New Orleans, and they played a very, very sloppy game. They turned the ball over six times. And Taysam Hill after the game was talking about Ian Book, who was obviously their fourth round pick, and talking about why, you know, he did not look all that good.

And he basically pointed out, listen, it's a preseason you're playing with threes and fours. There are guys you just don't know. The guys are just not where they're supposed to be. It's just a sloppy brand of football when you get to the threes and the fours in a preseason game, especially in the first week of the preseason, especially now post-21 CBA where there's almost no practice time. And so a rookie playing well at all with whether that's the ones, the twos, the threes, and the fours, it shows me that there's at least a floor. If a guy looked good in the first week of the preseason, there's a reason for that.

Nora, what's your first takeaway? Well, so I want to, my, my first takeaway is Justin Fields looking like someone who should start relatively early on. And I want to unpack a little bit more, Ben's point about why someone like Mack Jones, who also looked pretty crisp and polished, might be more likely to be the player who you're like, okay, yeah, he looks really good, probably moving towards, um, feeling more confident that he could start early on. but why there might be some more trepidation about a player like Jones versus someone like Justin Fields who just looked so much more dynamic than Andy Dalton. Now, obviously, it didn't take much given the six snaps of Dalton that we got. And Justin Fields was not perfect. He seems like he has a, and this is consistent with college, held the ball too long a couple

times he invited pressure. He had a fumble that was basically the result of, okay, yeah, not nine times out of ten, but there are going to be some times when someone as good of an athlete as he is is going to be able to get out of situations like that. Doesn't mean he should. And he's going to have to learn that. But overall, he looked, first of all, just calm and confident. Like you said, he said the game felt slow. But he gives them so much more dimension than Andy Dalton is. And I think this is one thing that I think is sort of hard for, you know, people like us, the football punditry, also for fans to recognize is that that's a positive in terms of getting a rookie ready to start early. Because he has sort of optionality on the different ways that he can win in complete plays. I think there's a tendency to look at athletic quarterbacks and go, you have to take them along slowly because they're,

kind of learning to do two things at the NFL level, whereas, you know, your, your pocket passer types, they just have to play the game as it's always been played and it has to be simple. There really needs to be a shift on that because what it really is, is that someone like Mack Jones, who I also thought looked really good and particularly good within the context, like what Justin Fields is dealing with, where, you know, the veteran starter is not doing all that much to hold them off, Mac Jones still is going to live within a universe where he's reliant on timing, crispness, precision, and he doesn't have the safety valve of, okay, stuff starts going wrong.

I have something else to rely on. I can impact the run game because I'm such a good athlete. I have something else to turn to. And again, I think that tends to be a really hard thing to kind of internalize because it just seems simpler to go out there and, you know, take your, drops just play a type of football that we've seen quarterbacks be really successful playing for for decades. But I think that Justin Fields's preseason debut was incredibly promising, even though it was certainly not perfect and rough around the edges in some places. I actually think

it seems like there's this weird thing developing where you're either like obsessed with Fields and think he's the second coming and he's perfect and he's ready to start week one and it's all going to be amazing or it's like the opposite of that. That I don't. totally get like there were some rough moments go ahead i know no i just i also say the expectations are different if you just compare mac jones and justin field the patriots spent all this money for agency they went out and they got to two tight end set like the bellichick they get belichick back right because they didn't have them last year when they couldn't even practice and the advantage of belichick and i i think that with justin fields all bears fans want to see is hope that's all they want i don't

I think that the Bears win seven games this year and Justin Fields looks cool and looks good and looks competent. That's all they want. Like I was getting texts from Bears fans' friends after like the third drive he had where they were like, this is the most talented quarterback I've seen in my lifetime. Right.

And that's all they want. They just want to feel something. Bears fans want to feel something. Patriots fans are a totally different bucket. And so I think with all of these guys, I think Trey Lance is a different bucket because that's Super Bowl caliber roster in San Francisco. And he has,

there's expectations that are higher. on him as far as winning goes. I think Justin Fields is graded on a curve this year because it's the damn bears. Ben, are you in agreement with that? Yeah, especially because of the offensive line, right? Right. Right. No matter who you put back there, you know, Dalton, Drew Brees, Danny Etling,

like there's going to be a ton of pressure if you're a pocket passer. And they had Kevin Jenkins out with injury. I believe they had another starter who was absent with injury. I can't recall on their first team. offensive line. And then they would then subsequently play like the second teamers with field. And so the offensive line was really, really rough and will be rough for the bears this season. Field is going to be able to give you the plays, the mobility to get you out of that. It's to Nora's point, which I think, I think, Nora said this before I was ever on the show,

but it's the absolutely appropriate way. Those were the days. Those were the days. The best times. We don't like to think about it. The before times. It just hurts too much. Sure. Right. Quarterback mobility. Pee. Pee. Preband. Go ahead. Quarterback mobility provides a high floor, not a high ceiling, because it's more so the bad plays it gets you out of, i.e. sacks, hits on throws instead of the good plays it gets you into. Fields, one of his first throws in the second half was they ran a lot of stretch action, right? A lot of under center, wide zone boot action, right? It's San Francisco stuff, but it's also Ohio State stuff.

He was running that at the end of last year with Trace Sermon in that backfield, the Ryan Day offense. And so they're running a lot of that for Justin Fields and appropriately so. He's run in parallel to line of scrimmage, and there's a zone defender that I don't has to step up and address the threat of Fields running or he's got to sink back and try to get underneath a route. He steps up and Fields puts it right over him, first down to throw 13 yards. That is the play that is not afforded by Andy Dalton. That is not afforded by Mack Jones because nobody is as afraid as those guys when they get outside of the pocket. You watch Justin Field score a rushing touchdown and it starts to get into your head as a defender. And so when

Field says the game is slow, like he's always been a bit confident, a bit at times. lethargic in the pocket in his process, in his mechanics, because he knows he can drive balls lane into windows because he's got great velocity. He knows he can survive hits because he's got a great build. And so he tends to go slow even when he doesn't need to. When he says the game is slow, that's the sort of thing that in my head he's referring to because that decision was the same in college and it's the same in the NFL. And he can just hold that ball and just run along that line of scrimmage and just force that defender to make a choice. Once makes a choice, make him wrong. And that's an easy decision. It's time. It allows fields to hold on the ball and be successful. And so

that style of play is what fields gives you that just makes offense so much easier. One decision, 13-yard gain, new set of downs. You're just not going to get as easy of offense with a player like Andy Dolm back there. And that's why the floor is so high for a player like field. So yeah, the ceiling, the excitement, it's all there. It's great. But it's also the fact he's going to keep you out of your bad plays. He's going to help erase the issues of your bad offensive line. that's why you want to get him out there so badly. Whereas by the way, if you, if someone is as effect, you know, and I'm about to establish a really, really high bar to clear here.

But if someone is as effective, a dropback pocket passer as say Tom Brady, that's the sky high ceiling because the passing game is still the most important element of an offense. Like absolutely by far. And obviously these things are connected. But if someone like Mack Jones, the same. ceiling for Mac Jones has to do with if he turns out to be better at that set of skills, which are still the most important ones, it's good to be able to do both and it raises the floor. But if he is a better pocket passer by any sort of significant margin, that over the course of a

career will be insanely valuable to a team. It's just that, again, we're talking about, we're talking about a ceiling thing and the bottom can drop out if you don't have escape valves. It's going to be funny, by the way, this happens a lot in the NFL. If seeing the game slowly becomes an attribute that coaches like or that Tony Romo likes, or that I like, a lot of times that then just everybody just starts saying it, like you hear these stories from, Nora, I'm sure you've heard this, about like GMs and scouts where something will become really in vogue as a trait.

And then when the, like, every single prospect of the senior bowl and the combine will just say that they have it. And so like now every quarterback is going to sit there in Mobile and be like, you know, I see the game very, very slowly. And coaches are going to be like, whoa. You love it. I can't wait for that. Well, I mean, the current one is they all talk about like off platform releases. Yes.

And attempting all different kinds of throws because of Mahomes. And is it 60% bullshit? Yeah. Yep. Well, I mean, it's like 90% bullshit. Can I talk about one other quarterback that's kind of a rookie that we haven't talked about yet who was fun? I know who you're going to say you have the floor. If Jordan Love is good, it's going to be the funniest thing in the world.

That's going to kill me. Okay, so firstly, this is the first time Jordan Love has ever worn an actual Packers jersey, right? So congratulations to Jordan Love, who has only ever worn photo op jerseys and the red jersey in practice because he was never active during game day and there was no preseason last year. And so you looked great, looks sharp, helmet looks good. Shout out Jordan Love. There are like Vikings and Bears fans. It's Lions fans whose entire living memory

is the Packers having Brett Farrv and Aaron Rogers. That's it. That's their whole living memory. And if love is good, they'll just live their entire life with the Packers having three quarterbacks, all of whom are good, which will be amazing. Now, love at Utah State, right? You know, running gun.

I mean, it's air raid style, it's pistol, it's gun sets, it's quick throws, it's easy looks, it's open sets, whatever. This is the first look at the mat on the floor offense. It's condensed sets. It's play action from under center. You've got to turn your back to the defense. You've got to be able to throw on RPO's three step, five steps, seven step drop.

Like it is polar opposite different from what he did. And with, you know, two training camps, kind of asterisk for the first one COVID year. And now his first preseason opportunity, he looked very comfortable, more comfortable than I anticipated. He had a couple of very, very nice throws off of under center play action, which is a difficult thing to execute when you have no background in it. He was very aggressive pushing the ball down field, which is nice to see. he started out a little bit checked down heavy and then he was like, you know what? Like, I've been a gunslinger my entire life.

I'm going to go be a gunslinger in the preseason. Who cares by Aaron Rogers? Cares about narratives. I'm going to go play my game. And he was rewarded with a couple of really, really nice explosive throws. The Texans played their ones, which we can discuss how good the Texans

first string defense is relative to some other second string defenses. That's a legitimate conversation, unfortunately. But the Texans were playing their ones. And out there running the whole love you spent defense. Let's put, let's put ones in huge. quotation marks. I said, I put the disclaimer. The Texas of playing their ones,

which is the best defense they could have fielded possible against Jordan Love with the people on the roster. He had the Tampa Two Hole shot to Jay Sternberger. He had the Devin Funch's deep dig off of play action. Very, very nice. The one thing that remains for Love that was there in Utah State and is still around is that his pocket management is

horse with blinders a little bit. I mean, he had a strip sack. He had multiple times where he hitched into a hit when he didn't necessarily need to. He just goes through his process. If the pockets clean, nice. If it's muddy, sucks. And so he has to learn a little bit how to work that pocket more, which is going to come with experience.

You're going to have to play to develop that. But hey, he's going to play all preseason. That's nice. He was better than I would have anticipated. And especially given, like, the mental constraints on his very unfortunate role, I could have seen him, like, really lacking confidence. And he did it. And I thought that was admirable.

And so if you are Brian Gutenkins, and this is your first time ever putting Jordan Love out there on the national stage, you do kind of like, whew, wipe the sweat from your brow a little bit. Like he looked like a guy who legitimately has something at the NFL level, which is important for Green Bay for obvious reasons. Hey, Nora, I want to ask you, so Sean McVeigh has made it clear none of his stars are playing in the preseason. Brandon Staley has basically taken that and is running with it.

We're going to see less and less stars. Big question, but do you think preseason matters? for these guys or is or do you just want to see the young guys could trot it out there against the Texans ones? All right. Well, you brought the Texans ones back into it at the end of it. Big picture. Yes,

I think preseason matters. I think it's really, really, really important to keep a close eye on how teams are handling this and understand like, for instance, I later on this podcast am going to have a relatively positive take about the Minnesota Vikings. The Minnesota Vikings sat 31 significant players and looked like absolutely.

crap in their preseason game. I think you really, really, really have to know those things, pay attention to them, understand that they matter. Teams that start their entire backup offensive line,

it's really going to make a difference for whoever's playing quarterback there. So with all that said, because I think it's important to recognize and keep track of, because not all preseason games are created equal, I think this stuff does matter because it is the only opportunity these coaches have to evaluate people. The preseason exists for a reason.

Training camp exists for a reason. It's an imperfect environment in which to make calls about players, but it's also the exact environment in which every team is making decisions. And it happens every year. And yes, there are things that get blown way out of proportion. And I think that's in part because, look, the training camp is, camp in the preseason is largely about who's going to make the 53 man roster. And because it has the same tone, there's no other way of communicating these things that

people see during preseason than the same way in which we communicate, you know, takeaways and developments over the course of the regular season, a breakout receiver in training camp getting lots of hype ends up feeling like, oh my God, this guy's going to go to Canton someday. And in reality, it's just, hey, this guy who was undrafted or a six round pick or whatever, he's probably going to make the roster. Like I remember trying so hard to communicate that to people about Jacoby Myers. It was like, yeah, no, Jacobi Myers is not like the greatest thing since sliced bread here, but he's going to make this team and contribute.

And I think that distinction is really, really tough. But, you know, I'm using Patriots as examples because that's my fluency. But Malcolm Butler was great during training camp. Like these things are not invisible to people. So yes, I do think that you have to understand that not every preseason game is created equal. But like, for instance, I thought Mack Jones's preseason debut, it reminded me a lot of Jimmy Garoppelos. Is Jimmy Garapolo the greatest quarterback who ever lived? Absolutely not.

Is Jimmy Garoppelow a competent, you know, starting caliber middle tier player who was a decent pick for where he was drafted, particularly at the most. important position in the game. Absolutely. So like you just have to temper it appropriately. But yes, like it wouldn't exist if it didn't matter. All right. Let's get to our new faces segment. Ben Still-Stock starts out. Okay. So I went for I didn't want to take any of the big draft of quarterbacks and I didn't want to take any of the big free agent quarterbacks. The only quarterback I took with whom I will open is Ryan Fitzpatrick. A long time NFL journeyman. I keep wanting to call it like a late career. resurgence, but it's really just a surgence.

There was no first surge that has been followed by the second. There were some, there were some mini surges, I would say. There were some blips. Buffalo. Yeah, no, I feel like he surged before. Yeah, I think that right. You don't remember this because you were born in 2013, but it's, I just, real heads, old heads, old heads, old had. Yeah, Ben, do you remember the 2015 jets?

Old head, yeah, old heads remember the, uh, the brief Buffalo blip. Where were you? I just, I think, right. Like, most of the time it's like, oh, he had flashes in his first season. And then in his second season, he really manifested. And Ryan Fitzpatrick was like, he had flashes in his first 13 seasons, you know. And I like that. His career arc has kind of been that way.

But Fitzpatrick enters Washington football team camp and preseason and season as the undisputed starter, which is awesome. Because he's often had to kind of jerry-rigue his play style into offenses, built for other players coming in as a backup or rookies or whatever as he's talked about. So this is a little bit more built towards him. I am in the camp of guys who believe that, you know, the Washington skill position are set for some good offense. I think you have a big step forward for Antonio Gibson. They're running back in year two.

I think they have an extremely fast wide receiver court like Logan Thomas. Like Scott Turner, the offensive coordinator. I think their offensive line is going to get the job done. We have all the pieces in place. And then instead of being able to be big on the veteran quarterback market or trade up for a quarterback, they elect to bring in Ryan Fitzpatrick. And so it's a safer bet, doesn't preclude them from going to get a young guy, going to get a big trade guy next year, whatever.

But I do think it is a good bet because we have seen these streaks of really successful Ryan Fitzpatrick play. He fits the modern NFL and he gets rid of the ball quickly, but he also doesn't deprioritize explosives because he gets rid of the ball so fast because he's willing to throw a 50-50 ball down the field. He's willing to throw a vertical ball against one-on-one coverage, boom, the second he sees it. And that decisiveness prevents sacks. Yes, it invites interceptions at times.

I was going to say, decisiveness towards 50-50 balls is not always a good thing. Right. And he's a high interception player, and we know that about him. But if you're going to throw the ball quick, usually you're getting six yards. Ryan Fitzpatrick can get you 15. And that explosiveness is the tradeoff, is the exchange with which we take that higher interception number. So, yes, maybe more volatility you want for a quarterback with a playoff run.

But to me, Washington's defense was clearly ready last year. They carried that team to the playoffs. a young offensive core that assuming they take a step forward and then they get Fitzpatrick much more stable quarterback playing they had last year even for his volatility. To me, Fitzpatrick is the straw that stirs the drink

for like a Washington football team, NFCE's division title, which I think would be super fun. Might put them in a weird spot long-term team building-wise, but I do think it's possible if Fitz continues to be what he's been, which is like at times a quarterback who can go toe to toe and beat some really good offenses and shootouts. So youth got to step forward, but Fitz, I think, is the first.

right guy to get them there. He's such a good locker room guy. I'm excited to see him in Washington. Are you making the call in the NFC East? I think Washington wins that division. Dallas's offense is great. When DAC was healthy, I still thought it was Washington. With DAC, you know, it's not a setback and it's not a reason to worry, but he's getting another MRI. Dak is practicing on a, quote, limited basis today. I don't know what that means in training that. Aren't we all? If, right, if DAC is 100% healthy or 75 or whatever it is, I think Dallas's defense is prohibitive to winning a blood division. I just think we need a sound effect for a for like Ben sneaking in division predictions.

Well, he wasn't here. He hasn't done all of the rubrics we did over the summer. We have no idea how many teams Ben thinks can win the Super Bowl. We have no, it's just, it's a mess. We haven't done over unders with Ben. We're going to have to work that stuff in through the next couple of weeks. Everything in the pre-Ben era is thrown out. Ben, Ben, Ben.

I have six teams down to the Super Bowl. would you like to give them very quickly Kansas City, Buffalo, Baltimore, Tampa Bay, Los Angeles, Rams, Green Bay Packers. That sounds right. I had like nine. Cleveland's too young. San Francisco is too young.

I have the memory of a goldfish and so I don't remember all my teams but I think I had nine. Norah had like 20. No, Danny Kelly had like No, no, no, no, no. Danny had the falcons. Danny was like, I am a person of refinement.

Yeah. Sorry. I remember that. Danny was like, if everything breaks right, The Jaguards can win the Super Bowl. Speaking of, hey, any Trevor Lawrence takes? Backdoor Jaguars take. Oh, yeah.

Yeah, no, no. We know our Jags correspondent. Is your number one new, new face in a new place, Tim Tebow's blocking? I actually don't have any Jags on my list. I'm sorry. No, but life finds a way is what I'll say about that. You will think you're talking about something else and somehow you'll end up talking about Trevor Lawrence.

Did anyone, does anyone care to talk about Trevor Lawrence? He looks good. Yeah, I think that what I'm, The main thing you noticed from that offense was that it brought in a lot of collegey things, which was nice. Urban said he wanted the tempo up. Yeah. Which I'm not surprised that the tempo was a little bit slow for Lawrence, like getting him play calls and whatever. You know what I mean?

Kind of getting himself set, looking at defenses. It's all a lot faster. The first like three targets went to Leviska, which Nora, he's going to eat. We're excited. We love to see it. I'm snapping. I don't know if people can hear that. He absolutely looked good.

It's just, yeah, his process was slow relative to NFL speeds, which 100% standard for first. preseason start absolutely no reason to panic even if like Zach Wilson I think looked a little bit quicker on the update uh perfectly fine for ones anyway yeah fits my first guy that I think is a big deal going to a new team I'm excited for him Nora number one uh so we already talked about mac Jones a little bit but uh he was my first one I just want to add one thing to that discussion which is beyond what Mac actually looks like executing the plays the thing that I think is significant is that the Patriots are so clearly just trying to throw the kitchen sink at him and put him in as many situations as possible. So there was a, um, there was an incompletion that Bill could have challenged at one point.

And it just seemed like his preference was to put Mack in the situation where he had to try to get, um, complete on third down. He also said quote, I didn't feel like challenging it, which is an amazing preseason, which is incredible. And it's also towards the end of the game, Bill seemed like really pissed at Ron Rivera for like taking 30 seconds and something. Bill just wanted to get. at home. Bill had a fair and Nantuck at the catch. That's not true. It might be true. But it just, who's to say? It really seemed like they were making a concerted effort to, you know, go up tempo with him,

do some stuff in the red zone, put as much as possible on his plate. They kept the starting offensive line in for him. So they were giving him, you know, stable platform. let's see what this actually looks like. I really, really, really think that that is an open competition. Actually, like, stepping back from saying who I think is going to start or when, because I think they don't know. Because I don't think Cam is doing all that much to hold Mac off.

And the arrow is clearly pointing up. And, you know, that's a team that cares about situational football more than the vast majority. And it just seems like they want to see him keep that quick release, keep processing in a way that's encouraging in as many situations as possible. So I think the sort of the returns on Mack Jones are not just from how he's playing himself. It's also, I think you can read something into more than you can read into, you know, the little things that Bill says at the podium, you can read into the situations that they're putting him in.

Yes. I think Bill with a rookie quarterback to me is one of the most fascinating things that we've seen in a long time and what he says and whether or not, as you said, like, is there, is there anything he's going to, so many coaches are so worried about what they're going to say about a rookie quarterback at the podium and Bill Belichick is just going to say, we'll see and then just move on. Ben, number two. I have, in terms of, I have only one rookie and I just, everything coming out of Dolphins training camp is that Jalen Waddle is just going to be it. terms of offense. Now, I was very excited to talk about Waddle. And then in the preseason game against the Bears, Waddle really wasn't featured too much on offense, which I don't know if we're like trying to hide that we're going to use our top 10 pick at Wider C CER run offense or something. Whatever. Yeah, exactly. Like they're like throwing it to like Jakeem Grant and the slant.

It's like, all right, we did this last year and we decided this wasn't enough. So we got that guy, put that guy out there. Anyway, so I'm not sure why Waddle wasn't as featured in the first preseason game for the Dolphins, which was a bit of a surprise for me. from what you're hearing and from what you're reading outside of camp, Wattle is going to be pretty much the guy in that Dolphins receiving room. With some Devante Parker and Will Fuller injuries, he's had the opportunity to take on more outside receiver reps and get more volume, and he has apparently responded to it.

The thing here is that watching Tua again, a second season, first preseason game was a stark reminder, as I spoke about earlier. Yeah, mobility's definitely back a little bit. He's moving a little better off the hip surgery. expected, you know, ankles weren't fully healthy as well. This is awesome. Decisiveness is good. Aggressiveness is good. You know what I mean? Like, he's comfortable hanging in the pocket for the extra beat. There's Mike is sticky on the overroute throwing him covered on cover of linebacker. That's what we want to see. That's pro stuff. He's always been a good decision maker.

But the arm strength is just not going to carry him. Like he tried to throw late over the middle of the field in the red zone, which is the Cardinal sin. It's what quarterback, like the first thing you tell your quarterback, you don't do this. A lot of quarterbacks in the league can get away with it nowadays because they got hammers to it is not. So he tried to zip that thing in there and it was picked off, could be picked off by three different guys. He just does not have that mustard. So you're going to need to live with short targets and yards after the catch to get your

explosives. And I think that Chris Greer knew that. I think that, you know, why do they have co-offensive coordinators? I can never remember either of their names. God, George, something, and Eric Studsville. This is unbelievable. It is unbelievable because you're not the first person to do this. Warren Sharp did it too.

the erasure of Georgia Tech football to not know who George Godsey is. Okay, can we just establish that it is George Godsey is the other. I always want to say George Godfrey. And it can't be George Godfrey. Okay. I'm begging you people to respect ACC football.

Okay. I'm begging you people. It's going to be a no for me, Dodd. Yeah, exactly. Keep that going. Go Key Keynes, baby. I think there was an acknowledgement in the brass for the money.

I'm a decision makers that if two a hits, it's still not going to be, you know, vertical shots to Devante Barker. That cannot be the bread and butter, the third down go to our ball offense. We have to have a guy who creates. And Jalen Waddle is the creator. The one thing we did see from him in that game against the Bears was the pot return,

which like, you know, Adam and me and shout out Adam and me was hyper. He's like, you know, Jaylon is about to return upon. Like, all right, Tom, chill out. And then it was awesome. And you're like, all right, cool. Like this guy really has the juice. And so he's going to be. so critical in terms of getting the ball creative ways,

but also slant third and seven. You got to be able to catch that, survive contact, and go pick up nine yards on. So Waddle, a very exciting addition to the Miami offense, which I've got a little bit of faith in this year. Nora next. All right. So I mentioned that I was going to have a,

there was an incoming Vikings take. I think the Vikings secondary. I cheated on this because I chose both Patrick Peterson and Bashad Breeland. My overall take is that I think the Viking secondary might be like kind of fine. The reason that I wanted to talk about this so much is because Mike Zimmer is so funny. Like I just, I wanted a venue to say that I think Mike Zimmer is hilarious.

He's been a delight this preseason. He is so grumpy. He is so fabulously grumpy. Maybe the new face in a new place is just completely unhinged Mike Zimmer. ProVax Mike Zimmer. Unhinged Zimmer takes. Yeah, the poor half-time reporter. He's coming out of the locker room.

Third quarter is about to start. Mike, would you tell your team? that we were bad, that we did bad things, bad at football, and I hate all of them. Whoa. He sat the vast majority of his players and then was just like, you're all trash. You're all terrible at this. You did terribly out there. I love Mike Zimmer so much.

I just wanted, I really honestly, like, this is not a backdoor Jags take. This is the backdoor Mike Zimmer is awesome take. But that harkens back a little bit to the end of last season where Mike Zimmer was also basically just like, this is the worst defense I've ever been a part of. I hate you all. Again, the man is just a, just a treasure. However, I do think that the, the upgrades that they made to their secondary are, are meaningful. They're not that high profile, right? Because Patrick Peterson has had some rough moments lately, but I think in, in a scheme where he's going to, he's not going to have to win man to man, anywhere near as much as he was asked to and is going to get to live in zone a lot more.

Breland is a very competent starting caliber, you know, second cornerback. I think that's a good player to add to a secondary. And when you have a good coach like Mike Zimmer, who also happens to be a delight, I just really do not think that that can be overstated. Have you ever interviewed Mike Zimmer? Yes, I have. This is deeply terrifying. It's not a good experience for people like me who want to get really philosophical and

broad with coaches. 90% of coaches are all in and just we'll talk about concepts and stuff. And Mike said, I'll be like, hey, Mike, you know, with the advent of the spread, does anything change with defense? So just go, yeah, maybe. I love it. Just like blank stare at you. No, but I love it.

I'm like, I deeply respect what he's doing, which is just not going anywhere philosophically with me except like, are these guys, is Harrison Smith going to make this tackle? That's all he cares about. Literally the only, that is the single thing. that Mike Zimmer cares about in the entire world. I love him. Me too. Anyway, my basic take is that having competent players on defense is enough for Mike Zimmer.

And I think that he can work with that. And I think it's going to be good. And I think he's probably going to say, you're all terrible, a little bit less, which is great. Ben, liking his expectations. Do you have any? I think that the first year offensive coordinator, Clinton Kubiak, and perpetually milk toast, Kirk Cousins, are going to deliver truly a

and this would be the greatest test of Bik Zimmer's patients with the Vikings Brass and the Vikings organization. Like I know they did the whole Kell and Mond in round three thing and it's like, whoa, Monde is, I don't have a ton of faith in Monde developing. It's a four-year starter in the SEC. So, you know, you've kind of, you've had your reps at this point. And so I don't know, I don't understand what the future is supposed to be in Minnesota.

and Angry Zimmer, I think, could, you know, make a bit of a ruckus about that in terms of internal discussions with Minnesota. I don't think Minnesota, even if they win games this year, again, it'll be Zimmer's defense kind of lugging them to some ugly wins. And I just think that at some point he's got to get frustrated with how that offense has just been mired for so long. Right. If you don't want to respect Trent Dill first, Kellyn Mond, his great take. I want to let you be on your own there. Then that's on you. There are a disturbing number of Kellandandah's great takes that I find really.

relatively unfounded. Chris Sims is on that bandwagon, I believe, if I'm mistaken. He was the name one. First one, I was thinking of. Trent Dilfer also has some interesting takes over the past few years and quarterbacks. So we're just going to put that one aside there for a second.

Ben Solock. What's next? All right. So my last one is my, you know, indulgent football nerd one. But I'm with everybody. Browns are going to be good. Love it.

It's going to be great. I'm with everybody. Add everybody to the defense. Jeremiah Wissu Cormoa, second round pick. back in your name looked unbelievable. You just said that incredibly fast. Jeremiah Wu Suu Koroamoa again.

So when you're like a draft guy, like you're the first guy who has to learn how to pronounce their names that you can say it right so that everybody else picks up on it. So like in August, I just rep Jeremiah Wu Su Koremoa, Jeremiah Wu Su Koremoa for a long time. That way you could say. That was electric. Yeah, I love it.

Either way, he was a fun player in college. He looks like a fun player in the pros. It's great. We had John Johnson. We had Greg Newsom first round pick a corner. It's awesome. This entire back seven is extremely young. And they're going to try to do some new things this year with Joe Woods,

the defensive coordinator. And there's a lot of moving parts and changing pieces. And the overinvestment at corner is great, right? Troy Hill, Greg Newsome, Grudy Williams. Bang. That's awesome. The overinvestment at safety, Grant Delph at John Johnson, Ronnie Harrison. It's great.

Like, it's the right way to do it. But you need a steadying presence who can get all of those young, new bodies, most of whom I've not really interacted with one another, on the field, lined up. successful early. You need the veteran. You need the bedrock. To me, that's Anthony Walker. He's a linebacker from Indianapolis. A lot of people don't really... They love him. They love him in Cleveland. They love him. And they loved him in Indy. And Colts fans, I watched Darius Leonard after the extension, try to get a vibe on him. And I walked away so impressed with Anthony Walker, which is a very

regular thing for me. Like, I go to watch one guy and I don't watch somebody else. Walker was just so rock steady. And Colts fans told me immediately, yeah, but he's terrible in coverage. On third down when they blitzed one linebacker and left another one in coverage, they didn't leave Leonard in coverage. They were blitz and Leonard, and they were leaving Walker in coverage. They had enough faith in him to do that. And is he the quickest and the spriest and the longest? Absolutely not. And so, yeah, he is not an ideal coverage back from. That's why you have, Jeremiah was Sukoramo and Sioux and Taki-taki. So that Walker doesn't always have to do that. But in terms of block deconstruction, in terms of play recognition, in terms of reaction to motion, reaction to

changing sets, pre-snap recognition, Walker's the exact sort of guy that you want in this building. And so it's very much a straw that stirs the drink idea. The big pieces are going to be written about Andrew Barry and they're going to be written about Jeremiah with Sukorum-Kor-Muller. They're going to written about Greg Newsom and Denzo Ward and John Johnson. But Walker is integral. If that all ends up successful, a large part, especially in the linebacking court, is going to be the presence of that veteran.

He's a very cerebral player. Chris Ballard has said, I think, going before back is two years ago, this guy's going to be a coach. This guy could be a general manager. like he is that football mind and we loved him in this building. They weren't able to extend him slash chose not to, whatever.

All the better for the Browns. I think he's an extremely important guy, skeleton key, you know, kind of keystone for them here as they try to turn over this defense so quickly in just one year. Unbelievable stray at my Andrew Barry piece I'm writing.

Oh, are you? Listen, it's a good signing. It's well done Andrew Walker. He's doing everything right. Wow. I'm going to read it. It's going to be good. I need to,

you got to hit the RT now for that. You just got yourself an RT. All right. Mark Long, who covers the Jaguars has this update. Chase on is being held out of practice because he doesn't have full pads. He's now changing.

Follow up tweet. Pads issues have carried over to the O line where it looks like Cam Robinson has refused to change his pants after four other offensive linemen did. Is this your king, Nora? Is this your king? I'm not going to lie to guys,

this is an incredibly bad look. I wasn't ready for change his pants. That one just caught me. I was thinking a lot of different things. He won't change his pants. It's like that little kid who like is a favorite pair of red shorts that you've worn these four days in a row, like covered an ice cream in dirt.

No! Hopefully there's more context by the time this podcast comes out. But that's all we got now. Mark Long is not tweeted an update in 10 minutes, so Lord knows where this is taking a turn. I'm going to tweet at Mark Log and say, like, please keep us posted. Please give us the play-by-play here.

Wow. I need this not to be an issue. I need the job. Well, it sounds like it just literally one leg at a time. Projection going to right now. One leg at a time, boys. You can do it. They cannot even get there.

Nora, what's your last one? Oh, that's, oh, God. You're going to make me pivot from that? Oh, boy. Okay, well, someone who can put his pants on one leg at a time. Greg Russo of the Buffalo Bills. Really impressive preseason game against Lions. Backdoor Canstake.

He pressed it out. Poor Kevin. You go backdoor Keynes egg and he fist bumped and Norer and I just fell silent. No, then I said he opted out. Stop trying to make fetch happen. It's not going to happen. My backdoor Jags takes are going to happen. though they can't put their pants on before the backdoor canes takes are going to happen.

But anyway, so people probably even, I bet fans who were not even watching full preseason games, but were on the interwebs, saw clips making the rounds, particularly he had a, he had a sack that came against Peney Sewell, which that's a great thing to see, right, in your first preseason game against a highly drafted lineman. But I do think that, you know, and we had the conversation earlier about how much you take out of these preseason games. But he looked great. And I think the more significant thing is that, you know, the Bill's defensive line looked really good. And they've invested in that for the last couple of years.

Obviously, they spent the first rounder on Rousseau, used the second arm Carlos Basham, also looked good. They've also got AJ Epinasa in there. And this, I just think, in general, is what good teams need to do, right? is you thrive off of your consistency and the ability to keep things mostly in place from year to year, but then identify where, you know, even if it's not a weakness per se, where there's room for marginal gains,

and then really try to make them. Because I think one of the biggest questions for the bills last season was beyond Jerry Hughes, sometimes it was unclear where the pressure was going to come from and who was going to be winning at the line. And I think they've made real investments. in trying to do that. And it's just the type of thing that because we've seen this defense in recent history

be really, really, really good. But defense is not particularly stable. And on a year-to-year basis, it's just, it's hard to say whether a group that has a good roster is going to be decent, middle of the pack, not get all the bounces, or be truly elite if some things go their way and everybody comes together. I think they have done everything that they can or most things that they can to put themselves in a position where if they do get some of the bounces, they could be an elite defense again. And I thought that was about as impressive of a preseason debut for someone playing that position as you can have, how significant that is. You know, reasonable minds can disagree.

but I found that really encouraging both because of how good he was, but also because of what it would mean for their defense. Benzillac thoughts. Right. My favorite part of the Greg Rousseau draft discussion was always, like, always super raw, right? Like he got a ton of his sacks with effort sacks, and, you know, a lot of it was stunts, games, and twist.

And, like, he's got great tools, but, like, he's just going to need so much development. Well, six, seven with wings, like, translates. You know what I mean? Like, big, long, strong is big, long strong, no matter which way he slice it. And, yeah, NFL is a different caliber, but that's going to show up because that, I mean, he's got measurable, you know,

stuff you can't teach, as a coach would say. That's number one. Number two, there's still a lot of calls, like, slants in the league. It's not just like a college thing. You're not allowed to do it anymore. It's like Rousseau's the sort of player. You can get stuff out of in year once.

He does things and succeeds on things. And effort is also great. Like Joseph Osai, at a sack against Tristan and Worf's, Bengals, Twitter went nuts. It was mostly the right guards' fault, but like Osai got that sack because he was just,

hair on fire for the entire snap. That's a great part about rookies is that they tend to play out of their minds a little bit. I had a funny moment watching that Bill's defense where I've been watching the Packers defense. I was like, oh, they're doing some Brandon Staley stuff, you know, Joe Barry coming out of that's great. And then

I went to watch the McDermott defense and after a few staffs was like, oh, they're doing the same old same old. Then I was like, wait, the same old, same old works really, really well. Yeah. And they've just really started to pour a lot of resources now into edge rush for that last spot that they need. So I agree. It's not unlike the Brown's secondary. We're going to throw AJ up in Vanessa, Gregory Rousseau, and Carlos Basham with the problem.

Somebody, God, please somebody, rush opposite Jerry Hughes for us, and we're going to have this thing handled. So there's a couple things here. Number one is that I actually talked to Brandon Bean about this particular issue a couple of weeks ago. And I'm always intrigued. I've actually asked a few GMs who have kind of almost gotten to the Super Bowl the last couple of years, this same question. when you're evaluating, ask Mahomes the same question as well, but when you're evaluating the season,

do you look at your last loss or do you look at the entire season? And for Mahomes, the answer was just the Super Bowl, right? And for Bean, the answer was pretty much just how do you beat the Chiefs in the ATSC championship game?

And the answer for them was pass rush. They did not want to draft two pass rushes early, but then the board fell to them, and that's all they want to do. And you get the feeling in talking to people in Buffalo whether that's Bean or whomever else,

that pretty much their team building is based around beating the chiefs. And I think that that's really interesting to me because I don't think that there's really any right answer on that. Maybe while chasing beating one team, you might open up holes somewhere else. But I also see with that roster and the way things have shaken out in the fact that, as you said, Ben, they're one of the very few teams who we know can absolutely win the Super Bowl.

I think trying to team build to beat the chiefs is important. And Greg Russo, to them, is a big part of them. Colts did the same thing, right? They also didn't plan on two edges, but they lost that bill's divisional round game because Josh Allen had a time to throw up like nine. Couldn't get anybody on him, right? And Alan obviously can make the first guy miss.

So, Quitty paying round one, and then, oh, shoot, D.O.D. Angbo just felt it wasn't round two. We're going to make that pick. Even if you can't play that much in your one because the injury, we need to improve this position because we can't beat our top AFC contender. without improving the pass rush, right? So yeah, it's you always, you build to beat your division. And then once you beat your division, you start looking at the conference

and you start trying to answer that question. I would also say, if you're the bills right now, that is the right answer. I would say if you're a worst team, that's not the right answer. So the Texans famously, the Texans famously took Mario Williams. Again, that was a better pick than Reggie Bush. But famously, their whole thing in the front office, and I talked to them, yours is when it's the Wall Street Journal.

But they were like, we chose Mario Williams because we wanted to be Peyton Manning, right? Okay, well, you got to do about 50 other things before you can beat Peyton Manning. It's not the one guy. If you're looking for that one guy to be able to beat Peyton Manning when you have nothing else, you're screwed.

But if it's little edges and you think that you can get to Patrick Mahomes if you take two edge rushers early. And by the way, they really liked the guy from Iowa, AJ Esponeza. Epineza. Epineza, yeah. Epineza, yeah. But they like to,

him coming on later in the season being told me. And so that that's kind of why they didn't want to take two edge rushers. But if you think the difference between winning and losing against the chiefs and the agency-chaped game as past rushers, I have no problem selling out to do that. Yeah. Two things. One, the other part of this is that one of the benefits of having an infrastructure like the bills do, and particularly with, in this case, a defensive-minded head coach,

who's also just a really good teacher, you probably have a slightly higher hit rate with guys who are a little bit raw. who need to be coached up. Like, I really trust that coaching staff to do that. So that's another way in which sort of winning compounds itself a lot of the time in the NFL. Second thing, we have another tweet from Mark Long. Somebody quote tweeted his tweet about Cam Robinson refusing to change his pants and said, he refused to.

Why is he still on the field who exactly is in charge? Mark quote tweeted that response and said, it was a hard know from Cam who can afford the fine. People are now getting fined over this. I don't understand. So John Reed, who also covers the team,

says that it's a new rule by Urban Meyer. All players should be dressed in full pads. Chase on was pulled to change into practice pants with pads. Three others had a switch to. Urban, urban body. I think Cam Robinson is just rebelling against this rule that you have to be in full pads. This is what I understand from reading the two leaves.

It does nothing. I have more clarity on the issue at hand, but I have less clarity on what's going on in Jacksonville. There's no way they're hitting tonight, because it's between pieces of the games. Right, right. Yeah. So I think what he's saying is we're going to go out there in pads

and do a non-pad workout. Huh. This is incredibly upsetting. Huh. Nora, why don't you take us out on a positive note? All right. Well, we were going to go to our highlight reel again and talk about some things that were good this week. We're going from the low light reel to the highlight reel very quicklinger.

I'm a little bit upset. But Ben, you want to lead us off? Give me a chance to collect myself. This is the nice things that happened. Give me a nice thing that happened. Something you're happy about, something you're excited about, a recommendation. I just want some positive vibes to put me out of the trench of Jaguars not wearing their I went to a fish boil this Saturday.

That was fun. Ooh, blueberry festival. Oh, you didn't miss any preseason football, did you? Yeah, I missed whatever the 4 o'clock game on Saturday was.

I watched it back that night. No, I thought you were committed. Oh, I thought the grind never stopped. Yeah, we thought you were committed. That's why we brought you in.

It's a fish bowl. It's a fish boil. All right, tell us with the fish boil. Ben. And a blueberry festival. Oh, now that's,

now we're in a different bucket here. Blueberry Festival. Absolutely. So we bought a blueberry pie, and then it was a good fish boil. We were the only people there under the age of like 70 who weren't there with their parents, but that was a good vibe. I learned the difference between a pie and a cobbler as well, which I didn't even, I thought they were just the same thing. Tell us.

Cobblers don't have like pie crust at the bottom. It's just filling right into the dish and then crust on top. And so then when you cut into it, it just like, it's splooges, forgive me. It's just like, right? But then a pie actually has filling at the bottom. And so it's got more structural integrity. So a cobbler. doesn't even have anything on the bottom layer.

I was aware that a cobbler does not have crust on the sides, but it doesn't even traditionally does not have anything below. That's what I was told by the 85-year-old woman who sold me the blueberry pie. I mean, I trust that sourcing. Yeah, so she seemed like she knew everything in the entire world. Pie versus cobbler, though. I need you to pick a side. Pie because the crust is the best.

Structurally sound. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. I started watching Titans on Hulu and it's good. So if you're a comic book nerd like me, I was pleased with it. This has been my time. Wait, I'm sorry.

I have one more follow up. Fish boil. Is this like a crawfish boil? Like, are we talking shellfish or is this? No, so this is a big Midwestern thing. So it's steelhead. You just take the steaks, the actual steaks of fish. You throw them in, and it's like a crawfish bowl.

You throw them in a pot, right? Throw them with a bunch of stuff. And then you get like onions and potatoes and like, you know, there's just like a giant bat of fish steaks doused in butter. And you just take as much as you want. It's a good time. Okay. that sounds pretty solid.

Not going to lie to you. Plus, please. The grind can be paused temporarily for those purposes. Yeah, it's a good pause. All right, for me, I came home after three weeks in the road. Letter of recommendation going home and being in your abode. Welcome, mom. I actually on the camp tour read Monty Burke's biography of Nick Saban,

and I thought it was very, very, very good. And I gave you, I just did. don't think that there's a lot of good college football books. And I was actually looking for some couple weeks ago. And I couldn't really find any. But this is a good college football book, a very good one. Just a lot of nuggets. And especially when you consider how many different eras of football, Nick Saban has

been involved in. Like there was an anecdote in there that Bobby Bowden knew his dad and his dad passed away. And Bobby Bowden just gave him a job offer, sight unseen. I didn't even really know Nick Sabin, but it was like, yeah, his dad's cool. Like, seems like we should hire him. I need enough taking up. But even things like in the middle of the book, they talked about how when he was at either, it was kind of early on that in the Alabama tenure,

but he basically begged out of a Houston game, a non-conference game because he didn't understand the spread offense. He was just like these splits are crazy. I don't want anything to do with this. Get these guys off our schedule because it's not even going to help us with other teams. Then, of course, a handful of years later, he's running that and he's hiring guys based on that and all that stuff. And obviously how much that stuff has changed.

So I really liked it. that was an interesting book. I think that coach biographies can be tricky. There are obviously been some very good ones that I'll probably talk about in other segments that we do here. But I thought there was a very good book. All of Kevin's book recommendations are going to reveal just how few books I read. Every week I'll be like, I started a new TV show.

And Kevin be like, here's the third biography I've read this month. Your boy reads quite a few books. It's one of my things. I respect it. I wish I had that level of attention. And I just simply do not. Well, you should try audiobooks. I do.

I listen audiobooks when I fish, and I like that a great deal. But I always wish I read more so I could like go back and take notes and kind of be more attentive, whereas the audiobook is kind of just like a bit more background noise than actually. I'm going to, I'm going to Zachary. So on the flip side of that, I read these books, but then I feel left out. Like I don't even know Joe House the other day, who I'm seeing tonight. He's talking about the White Lotus. I didn't know what he was talking about.

Like I do watch like big television events, but like I'd never see Game of Thrones, White Lotus I'm out on Haven't even caught up on Ted Lasso. Like you gotta, there's a push and pull. And so I actually probably left out. I haven't even caught up on Ted Lasso. I haven't seen any Ted Lasso. There's probably a lot that I'm missing out on because I'm...

Are you allowed to say you haven't seen Game of Thrones and then remain employed by the ringer? So I also have not seen Game of Thrones. I'm going to, I'm going to peel back the curtain here. The, I don't know anything about Game of Thrones. And so I've talked to, Aaron Rogers about it a handful of times. And so every year I do it, I send a panic text to Maui Rubin.

And I'm just like, give me talking points so that I will sound smart about Game of Thrones. I've done it four times. I did it last week. And every single time, Maui comes through and I feel like an absolute genius. And does Aaron know this or no? I have told Aaron that that's not my. I was about to say, if he finds out you're a poser. you're a fake that's not necessarily we don't really talk about that much anymore we talked about it a little bit

because of the spinoffs the other day um but it's not really it's not really my thing i know so my wife is obsessed with it and so i've seen i don't to say i haven't seen it as wrong because i've it's sort of been on in the background sometimes while i'm sitting on the couch and probably reading a book um but uh the the the the the actual like nitty gritty of it. Like, I know what the red wedding is. I know what happened to John Snow. I know who won, that sort of stuff. I have, like, a Wikipedia level. Except knowledge of the show. Don't people, don't, like a lot of people who actively watch Game of Thrones also kind of not know what's going on? I think so. Nora, what's your thing? All right. So my, by the way,

I am in between you guys. I read some books and I watch some TV shows. I just wanted to say that. my recommendation dads like so okay I've been kind of under the weather for dads just dads I heard what you said I heard what you said but I'm intrigued so I am I've been under the weather

for a little over a week basically because I don't have even though I don't have COVID it's understandably difficult to get into a doctor's office if you have flu like symptoms right now um yeah everything's fine But been sick for a little bit. I'm also in the process of moving.

And my wonderful father has just been in like full on dad mode. Like he drove a bunch of my stuff from Boston to New York and was just like just dadding it up a lot. And there, you know, I'm 27. I'm an adult. So we were having dinner and I was like, thank you for driving all my stuff. Like let me get dinner. And he's like, you are my child.

I'm getting dinner. I'm like, you're just really in dad mode right now. And it's really great. when your dad is in dad mode. So I highly recommend. And also, thank you, Dad.

My dad sent me a panic text over the weekend because he just found out that a guy he covered and a guy he knew really well who was a, I think Hubert Humphrey's lawyer is Alex Breggman's grandfather. And he was, Alex Breggman is the baseball star of the Astros. And I have no idea how he found this information or why. Like dad's love finding stuff out that happened 40 years ago, connect to now.

And so he was extremely happy to show this information. So that's my, That's my dad update. I met one of my dad's students. My dad has about 12 total students in a class. And I was like, hey, I met. Is he a high school? No, my dad's a priest.

He teaches at a seminary. Oh, oh, oh. When you say students, you know, that's cool. And so I was like, hey, I met him. Like, do you remember this guy? And dad was like, nope, 12 total students. He teaches a class a semester. Dude, that's sick.

Your dad's over it. Your dad likes connections 40 years ago. My dad doesn't remember people he met last year. My dad is a professor at UCF, a history professor. And he can, he oftentimes gets college football stars who are in the draft in his class. And my dad's favorite student of all time was Jack Griffin. That doesn't surprise me. The Griffin brothers are awesome.

Yeah. He had the strip on Justin Fields. That was him. Chase down. All right. This has been the Ringar NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network. Thank you to our Juno Rampe Kippal and Isaiah Boyfleet for production help. Next up on this feed is probably us on Thursday.