The Ringer NFL Show - QB Rumor Mill and What We Learned From the 2020 Season

Episode Date: February 12, 2021

Kevin and Nora are joined by The Ringer’s Danny Kelly to discuss trade rumors swirling around quarterbacks like Russell Wilson and Carson Wentz (5:35). Then Ryan Shazier joins the show, and he and Kevin and Nora share three things they learned during the 2020 NFL season (36:16). Lastly Las Vegas Raiders receiver Henry Ruggs talks with Kevin and The Ringer's Kaelen Jones about his rookie season and how the Raiders can improve (1:35:45). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guests: Danny Kelly, Ryan Shazier, Kaelen Jones, Henry Ruggs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Okay, just so the listener knows, we're recording this part separate from the rest of the show. I wanted to keep these two things separate. But I want to talk to you about our friend, Teres. Listeners of the show, know Teres from at the very least, his two appearances on the show over the past couple of months. You've heard his insight. I mean, when Lamar and Patrick Mahomes played during the season, there was no one I wanted to talk to you more than Teres because not only does he know those two guys. but no one tells a story and thinks better about football than Terez Paler. You know him because he wrote some of the best Collins about football on this planet

and told stories about football as good as anyone. Terez died this week at age 37. And I just want to talk about him here for a second. In order to tell you how special Terez was, I need to take a step back and tell you about our industry. It can be deeply cynical. And you meet people throughout the industry. who can make it far and they don't love the sport

or in some cases they hate the sport. I remember hearing about a big deal columnist early on in my career who used to say earnestly, the sports would be great if it wasn't for the games. And what he meant was he liked the money and he liked the travel and he liked, I don't know, people coming up to him in airports,

but he didn't actually like the sports. Therese was the exact opposite of that. He loved football. I thought I loved football until I saw how much Therese loved football. I'm comfortable saying Teres loved football more than me because Torres loved football more than anybody.

So the way training camp works for national writers is you do, most people do 15 or 20 cities and you end up seeing the same people over and over again on the road. And you'll see the same person four or five times. You'll spend six and seven hours with them. They become your best friend for the day. And there was a joy in seeing Teres

and knowing that you were going to get six or seven hours with Torres and you were going to watch a practice and you were going to stand there as both of you took turns talking to the coach and then we'd come back and we talked to the coaches about we talk about what we talked about with the coach and you could just see how much he enjoyed it all and it energized and I don't think there was anybody like that at events I was just reminded talking to Brian Curtis about a beer we had with him at the Super Bowl last year and how much fun that was. the through line of all of these tributes, whether that's Steve Weish's yesterday.

I saw that our buddy Robert Mays said on Twitter about him breaking down when he heard the news is that we keep really struggling to get through talking about this. And that's because this is heartbreaking. Everyone loves Therese. Charles Robinson, his podcast co-host, has a great tribute that he wrote for Therese on Wednesday. Um, the thing you need to know whether or not you read more tributes or not is that, um, he was loved and, and he loved everyone in his life back. And he was one of the truly special people in this industry. Um, I loved him. I loved reading him. I loved having him on the pod.

He was an encouraging voice in the industry to everybody who needed it. You saw those tributes on Twitter the last couple of days. Um, I enjoyed talking about careers with him. Um, he was so smart about that stuff. Uh, he loved football. He loved his job. He loved his job. He loved his fiance, Ebony. I'm so, so glad that we got to talk football, and it breaks my heart that we won't get to do it again. So we're going to talk about football now because Teres wanted to talk about football.

So the rest of this was recorded at a different time. So the tone hopefully comes through a little different. Terez, we love you. And now on to the rest of the show. It is the Ringgo-N-FEL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by Danny Kelly and Nora Brinciotti. We talk Russell Wilson and the quarterback rumor mill that now, as of this week, involves Russell Wilson.

We also talk about other quarterback movement, really fun conversation. Ryan Shazir joins Nora and I. Ryan is in Cabo. He is winning the Post Super Bowl week. We had a great discussion about the things we learned in the 2020 season, the weirdest season any of us have ever seen. Really in-depth discussion, I learned a lot, and it's a really good conversation. So let's get to it.

All right, Danny Kelly, Nora Brinciotti, joining me to talk about quarter. This is going to be, I feel like every year we say it's the year of the quarterback. Now it's the offseason of the quarterback and it might be very real because we had the Deshawn Watson trade request a couple of weeks ago. And now we have the Russell Wilson trade. It's not a request. It's a discussion. I don't know what it is. I just saw Mike Florio said that Russell Wilson's going on Ellen on Friday.

So that's where we're at. Okay. That's the stage of trade negotiation. So Brandon Marshall said that Russell is quote, beyond frustrated with the Seahawks. out a class and is looking for a classy way to do it. Russell Wilson's camp, according to Jason Lockenforce, is increasingly frustrated with the Seahawks organization. Then there was a report on Thursday morning

that the Seahawks are now getting frustrated with Russell Wilson. This is all very, very strange, and it's gotten really dramatic really quickly. And Jeremy Fowler from ESPN reported that Russell Wilson's not going into full Deshaun Watson trade request mode. Oh, man. But he's not. The Seahawks believe that the telling teams, they believe that the Rams system with Shane Wildren will be good for them, for good for him, and are making it clear who won't be dealt.

Tom Pellasarraf, the NFL Network reports that more teams are calling maybe because of these reports. I don't know where to start. That's a lot. And it's all happened in the last 40. No one was talking about this four days ago, okay? And now we're here. Danny Kelly, you're a Seahawks lifer. You make of it what?

Have there been any social media unfollows or anything like that? like that, you know, like, did Pete Carroll unfollow Russell Wilson yet? Have we gotten to that point? I doubt it. Pete Carroll is, you know what Pete Carroll's really good at? We have not. We have not. Thank you, Norr for that clarification. Pete Carroll's really good at killing people with kindness sometimes.

Like Earl Thomas is just like, I hate Pete Carroll so much. And then the last Pete Carroll would be like, we love Earl Thomas. We love him. Yeah, he literally flipped him off, like, on national TV. Yeah, and because he's our guy. He will always be our guy. So I don't think that we've reached that step yet. But where are you right now and how do you see this playing out,

being sort of our Seahawks expert? I give this two big tops out of five big tops in terms of the circus level of drama that we expect from the Seahawks every off season. This is something that they've been doing almost every off season for as long as I've been covering the Seahawks. So it's not, this doesn't feel weird to me. It's almost like regular.

You expect something weird to happen. A circus. A circus. Not this circus, right? Not the Russell Wilson might want out circus. No. The Seahawks are just perpetually a circus, whether it's going back to Earl Thomas. Like you said, like Richard Sherman, the breakup there. You know, you go all the way back.

Doug Baldwin, sort of undermining Russell Wilson on Twitter for years. Like Golden Tate. There's that whole drama, which we don't have to get into. Two-star players punching each other in the face and they're winning the Civil War four days later. Golden Tate, yeah, apparently punched Percy Harvey. I'm pretty sure Percy Harvin confirmed that story. Oh, that's like that is not, that's not a mystery. That is confirmed.

Yeah, yeah. So this is, this is their natural, natural state is tension. I don't think it's gotten like to the point yet where I really believe that Russell Wilson's trying to get out. What I think this is is like public pressure. You know, he's tired of being in this offense that he thinks, Oh, this is me. This is my read of the situation. I'm not saying what he's said or anything like that.

My read is that he's kind of sick of the offense being how it is. He sees, you know, Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes playing in the Super Bowl. He was at the game sitting there next to Roger Goodell, watching a team in the chiefs who have designed their entire, you know, identity, structure, scheme, philosophy around Patrick Mahomes, making it as easy as possible for him. Then you see Tom Brady on the other side who goes to this team. He's got elite receivers, Gronkowski at tight end.

He's got an elite offensive line, good running backs, like Bruce Ariens, who's aggressive and wants to like pass the ball down the field, all this stuff. I think he's just seeing all this stuff. He's like,

I had two bad games in the middle of the season and then they shut it down. You know what I mean? Like he had a couple, he had some bad games. I'm not saying Russell Wilson like played awesome down the stretch, but he was going off MVP levels,

halfway through the season, had a couple games where he threw a lot of picks. And then Pete Carroll's like, nope, like we're done with that. That shit is over. We're going back, turtling, you know, doing what we've been doing for the last, like, however long it is pretty much the entire time that Pete Carroll has been in Seattle. So I think I do think that Wilson is sick of it. I think he wants to be on a team that looked more close to what they were doing in the early

part of the season. And I don't think I can blame him, really. I mean, we could argue. And Seahawks fans have been doing this, like, since it happened, like, whether it's actually the best way of doing it. But Russell Wilson absolutely wants to let Russ cook. Put it that way. Russell Wilson is in favor of Russell Wilson here.

He has the trademark outstanding for let Russ cook. He wants to monetize that. So going back to the non letting Russ cook thing, it's just bad for business. Okay. So you have to cancel the trademark on that if he wasn't allowed to cook. So let me ask you a question. Is it scheme?

is it investment? Our buddy Warren Sharp had this number earlier today. He said that since the Super Bowl trip in 2014, no team has spent less an offensive line than Seattle. No team has re-signed fewer drafted O-Linman than Seattle. They haven't signed a single one

drafted to a second deal. That's unbelievable. Listen, they've made some trades. It is not, I think it's better than it was and has been in the last six years, this year. But there's still problems there. If you could point to one thing you think Russell Wilson wants to change about the

Seahawks, is it scheme or is it the talent around him or is it, is it what? What is it? That's a really good question. I mean, it is those two things. I think those are the two things. Scheme and talent. So he just wants to change players and the coaches. If I had to lean any direction, I think it's talent. I think it's he wants the stars. He wants guys around him. He wants, you know, D.K. Metcalf is awesome, but Tyler Lockett really faded as the season went on. I think he just wants them to be more focused on having explosive playmaking guys on offense and getting those guys into the system. So that would be where I lean. I don't think he necessarily is against having balance on offense. He does want to throw deep and be explosive and all that stuff, but I don't think that

necessarily is, I don't think they're going to stop being that way necessarily next year. I think they are going to have more balance, but he just wants, you know, he wants to be more aggressive and all that and all that stuff. So it all fits together with like the talent they have on offense. So Nora, I want to go back to something Danny said

because he said he felt like this was just Russell Wilson trying to absorb more power in the organization. And I think he has the right to do it. I think quarterbacks are so important. There used to be the old adage, right, don't really think that's true anymore. If you have an elite quarterback,

you should do everything you can to make him happy because he's that important to the franchise. Like, when you see the difference, every Sunday between a team with an elite quarterback and not having an elite quarterback, just keep them. That's all. Just keep them. It sounds like Danny's making a comparison

between what Wilson said with what Aaron Rogers said a couple weeks ago, which is what he was saying, well, I don't know, you know, maybe they'll move on for me, whatever. That whole thing. that he's been talking about for a couple of months, and it sounded like Rogers wanted some changes in the organization. How do you view, I guess we call it a trend

because it's a handful of guys now, quarterbacks who want a say in their organization, because I think they should have that say, and where do you think this is going? A lot to unpack there. There's three things. So number one, how do I view the trend overall? I think it's pretty simple.

These guys have their own social media, They have examples from other players, both in football and in different sports, they can look at them and say, I don't have to work through the media. I can present my side however I want it. I can have my people, you know, whether that's on social media on their own accounts or if they're talking to people who are sort of representing their side of things, they have endless ways to get that stuff out there. Right. And those guys are smart. They recognize that power. They use it more power to them. go get your money, go play on a team that you want to play for. In terms of Wilson and Rogers, kind of operating in a little bit of the same mold here, which I would agree with you, I think they are. And it was funny because I was thinking, you know, I felt like when Rogers said all that stuff about,

well, maybe I'll be here, maybe I won't be, we'll see, whatever. And of course, he has Jordan Love as an added factor there, give or take. I took the Rogers comments as just Rogers being Rogers. And I'm thinking about if the timelines here had been flipped, if I would have taken it somehow more seriously if it were part of this big wave or at least medium wave. The more I think about it, though, I don't think that's the case, really, because I would, one, bet that both of those guys are on the Packers and the Seahawks next year. I agree.

I think you put it in one, a different category from Deshaun Watson, who has every reason in the world. And every day there is a new mountain of evidence that he should try to get out of Houston, just do anything that you can, Deshaun. So that one's in its own category. The other one that's in its own category to me is the Brady thing. Because Brady negotiated a specific contract that was going to let him. reach free agency and pick a team that he wanted to go to. This thing that we just saw with Tom Brady, it was weird as heck.

And I don't think that it belongs. I don't know why I'm ranting about this, but I don't think that it belongs in the same hat as a lot of these other guys. Because if you're talking about forcing a trade, you're talking about something where basically you have to make it so uncomfortable that the people who run your team can't bear. it anymore so they give in to your demands. Tom Brady didn't have to do that because he set it up years in advance and waited his turn

until he was a free agent and then he went and picked his team and then he won the Super Bowl, which again, totally bonkers. I just don't want to leave that unsaid. But I would say that while there is, I think the bigger trend is tied together just in terms of these guys recognizing the power that they do have, I would separate all of those guys because I just think that they have different degrees of leverage. So I think that I just, there's a lot of quarterbacks realizing that situation matters so much now.

And I think that the idea that you should, you were drafted by a team, you should say that for 20 years as long as they're offering you extensions, is a little bit outdated. And I think that when you look at a Patrick Mahomes who gets Andy Reed or you look at, you know, Tom Brady who had Bill Bellochick for 20 years, and obviously that that relationship ended, but I'm saying that, you know,

In football, geography is destiny, right? It's the thing I've been saying for a number of years now is that if you have, if you're Drew Brees and you meet Sean Payton, everything changes from that moment on. And Deshaun Watson needs that. What he doesn't need is a character coach who is forcing everybody out, including the equipment manager. And apparently the team president who resigned yesterday because, according to reports, he wasn't listened to at all in the GM search.

That's now what Deshawn Watson needs. I think Deshaun Watson is the most urgent of any of these, like you said, Nora, because Wilson and Rogers are kind of varying degrees of, oh, I don't know about the situation. Deshaun Watson, we know about this situation. Okay, it's Jack Easterby of the hostile takeover of the organization and he needs to get out and needs to not go to training camp, and need to sit out, do whatever he can do to get out of Houston.

Because I think that they understand because of the contract that the team has leverage and Deshaun needs to find a way to eliminate that leverage. And that's what that whole thing's going to come down to. All right. Let's move on. Oh, sorry. Hold on before we do. I just want to offer a correction.

On Twitter, just on Twitter, Russ does not follow Pete Carroll, but that's, I don't, we don't have any evidence that that's an unfollowing. That's just a choice. Pete Carroll does follow Russ. And Russ does follow Brian Johnheimer. Russell only follows 91 people on Twitter. Yeah, I think it's just a choice. I don't think it was an unfollowing.

I had heard nothing of an unfollowing. following. He doesn't follow a lot of people. That's fine. This is fascinating. Some people like to keep a really clean feed. He follows Bill Gates. He's going to Microsoft.

That's actually a really good segue. I will say, I think Russell Wilson has a little bit of tech bro brain. And he might just want to disrupt. Tech bro brain? It sounds like I'm getting, but I'm not kidding. I do think that he's kind of like, let's shake this out. The longest interviewer. ever had with Russell Wilson, he told me he wanted to own a team. And then I said, that means

you're going to have a billions of dollars. And he was like, absolutely. Yeah. So that's wrong. I love that energy for 2021. I love the guy. Okay. I understand it. I understand why he'd want to do this. I don't, I think with Seattle in particular, there's a real, um, the grass is not always green. The, this is the thing like, I remember, Danny and I have talked about this. Meena and I have talked about this just people in Seattle and I have talked about this. Beek Carol, is flaws, but he's still a really good coach. And that system is generally still favorable to and conducive to winning games. And so I don't know how many teams or offensive systems would be an upgrade from that

necessarily. I had a very strong reaction when I saw Danny's tweet with the Big Tops earlier today. And it sunk into me that I don't feel bad for Seahawks fans. I'm sorry, you have a great quarterback, a good coach, a franchise that's been very successful. and also they're fun as heck. Like, they're always fun. I don't feel bad for you for a second. I don't know.

Fun is the correct term. I think that I agree with you. I think no one should feel bad for Seahawk fans at all. And I don't want anyone's pity. However, fun is that stretching to me what the Seahawks experiences. They're messy. But messy is fun. If you're, if you're, I would say this.

If you are, agnostic in terms of like what they're doing, then yes, it's fun. Like if you are a Seahawks fan, I don't know if fun is really the right word. I think it's, this is like the,

you know, Kevin Clark, the tweet, uh, the Seahawks have never played a normal game. What, is that it like verbatim? Yeah,

uh, literally. The word literally is in there because every once in a while, I get like a teacher to email me and be like, well, they literally have played a normal game. I'm like, thank you for this email.

Yeah. So I don't know. I'm, I'm most, like a lot of it is tongue and cheek and it's just, it's it's become like a joke at this point because the Seahawks are just always such a circus it's always so weird every game comes down to like the final play um but yes no i bottom line is i agree like no one needs to feel bad for Seahawk fans um speaking of the tweet i asked

dkamp macap about it did you see that on slow news day and he said first of all dekette mack his day just so we know just so the pot of listener knows he works out for three hours a day from 9 a.m. until noon. And then he plays Call of Duty until bedtime. Bedtime. Having you host a show called Slow News Day?

Unreal. Unreal schedule. I do host a show called Slow Newsday. And D.K. Metcalfe. D.K. Metcalf was on. We had one of our biggest ever cancellations today. An absolute superstar canceled on Slow News Day,

which is, you know. It's, you know, it is what it is. You canceled on your own show? Hey. Definitely the second most famous person who's ever canceled on a show. Number one being Danny Kelly. All right.

So Danny, let's play this out. And I don't want to torture you or anything. But if we just play the hypothetical game, if Russell Wilson was like, I'm never playing for the Seahawks again, and Pete Carroll was like, you know what? You've been a good Seahawk. We will grant that wish. What teams that need quarterbacks or would make the move

would actually be a significant upgrade and what would be the best outcome for Russell Wilson? Oh my gosh. That's a really good question. So, I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is the Saints because, you know, they've got Sean Payton. They've got some decent talent. I mean, especially like Michael Thomas, but like a good offensive line.

Obviously, the play caller is one of the better ones in the NFL. Very good defense. A lot of balance. I don't know if necessarily they're going to, if you would go in there and they'd be like a really pass heavy team or not because like Peyton kind of changed his style over the years. I guess they could go back to being really pass-heavy and that would make Russell happy, but I'm not 100% sure about that.

The Broncos, I keep harping on this. I just love the Broncos young skill position. Would that be a better situation? Probably not. If any, the best case scenario is to be lateral, right? Yes, yeah, probably. I think the answer to your question is like, there's not a lot, there's not many.

You know, there's not a lot of situations where I think he's like going to a clearly better situation where you have a really forward-thinking offensive mind. I mean, maybe the Cowboys. What if they just like don't sign DAC and he goes to Dallas? Maybe that. He's still going to have offensive line problems if he goes to the Cowboys.

Yeah. So there's, I don't know if there's a ton of options, to be honest. Carolina. I think that is what it comes down to is like the grass is not always greener. Yeah. I had one sort of rumor that he wanted.

wanted to play in a in a bigger market and then I googled it. And I saw that Tron Matthew had tweeted two years ago, I completely missed this, that Russ wants New York, but you ain't heard that from T. And so the story was that he wants to play in New York eventually. Obviously, he signed multiple extensions.

And we've had this posturing before, posturing is wrong word. But Danny, you remember those before those negotiations every time. Yeah. Remember Russell hired a baseball agent. and it was going to be like, oh, this is going to be a different type of contract. He might reach for agency or whatever.

And then he strikes a deal. So it hasn't always been pretty between player and team. But I think that they can work this out. And I think Russell Wilson remains a Seahawk. Danny, do you agree? Yeah, and I do. I think he's going to be a Seahawk. I think this is just posturing and this is something that happens in the offseason.

What you said, though, I think is a really good point is there have been a few situations in the past where we're and it's always right before they signed a new contract extension like there's you know it's it's it's posturing it's trying to gain leverage it's all that stuff but what i think is interesting is russell wilson throughout his career has actually been criticized for this he's just like the company man like he doesn't say anything except go hawks he says go hawks a lot right like go hawks for four solid years of his career that was like the only thing he said um you know in in fact early on in his career there was sort of of like rumblings, whispers that like some of his teammates saw him too much as a company

man. You know what I mean? He's like buddy, buddy with Pete Carroll, all this stuff. So the fact that now he's going public, exerting pressure, which he absolutely can do is, you know, it's his right to do that because he's a top five quarterback or whatever. It's, you know, I just think it's interesting because like for the longest time people criticized him for being like, he never says anything. And now, like, as soon as he starts to have the, even the sliverest, even like a sliver of being like a diva, like, people are like, oh, blah, blah, blah. Like, this is this big deal. So I just think that's an interesting thing to remember. Like, he's, for the longest time, he just hasn't said anything. You say he's buddy, buddy with big girl, but he doesn't follow him

on Twitter. I know. There's drama. Still waters run deep there. He follows a lot of brands. He follows a lot of brands on Twitter and billionaires. He does follow Shoddy. There's also these whispers. that he's not he's not happy with the fact that the seahawks fired schottenheimer because he and shonheimer were close oh that's beautiful that that is the beautiful part of this is that skybox shoddy was the glue that was holding the entire organization together yeah um let's do let's do one second on this point move on to other quarterbacks uh the rams waldron offense it's coming to seattle will change the seahawks how dany uh i'm actually pretty optimistic about it i think

I don't know if it's going to change it dramatically, but I do like, if you're going to have a balanced offense, and that's exactly what Pete Carroll wants, then I think the Rams are a very good model. They use a lot of pre-snap motion, a lot of misdirection, play action. You know, I think they're creative

and they pay attention to analytics. So there's a lot of good thing. Like, he checks a lot of boxes in my mind as a guy that I'm excited to see kind of like how this offense looks going back a couple of years, like the last few years with the Rams, like everybody wants the Sean McBay offense. So I don't think that's necessarily any different.

And the idea of running the Sean McVeigh offense with Russell Wilson is exciting. So I'm actually pretty optimistic about it. Everybody wants a Sean McVey offense, including Sean McVeigh, who swung a big trade in order to actually run an offense. There's an old line about how Kerry Grant used to say everybody was to be Carrie Grant, including me, because he wasn't the person that people thought they were. So now McVeigh gets to run his actual offense because he doesn't have Jared golf anymore. Nora, let's move off of Carrie Grant here for a second and talk about the rest of the quarterbacks.

Is there someone right now who is being talked about and we'll put Wilson and Rogers aside because I don't think we think that they're going to move? And we'll put Watson inside because we've talked so much about that. Is there another quarterback that intrigues you the most where you are following the story more than maybe most people because you think that they're an intriguing candidate for a team or there's a match or anything like that? What's your quarterback story of this off season? This only fits some of the things that you just said. I'm just fascinated to see what happens with Carson Wentz, which feels like one, it'll be the next one. But I don't know how to evaluate Carson Wentz anymore.

So I'm following the story so closely because I would like to see someone else give it a whirl, essentially. And that's going to be different things to different people, right? Like Indy, obviously, going to have some different feelings than the average team because of Frank Reich's connection. but that is one, man, where just you think about from draft year to here and now we're here, the perception of who Carson Wentz is as an NFL quarterback has changed so many times and so dramatically that I think that is the most fascinating one because the range of outcomes feels very wide.

Yes. The more we think about the Carson Wentz trade, and I'm with you on that, it's just so weird to me that I don't know. how it's all going to break and what the return is going to be. And I'm ready, I'm ready to believe anything on the return, okay? Anything. And I'm saying it could be a first round pick. It could be a third round pick, okay? I just don't know just so much money.

It's just, the tape is just so ugly over the past year. I've become more and more fascinated with the 2017 season when Carson, when we all agreed Carson Wentz was good. When you look at MVP, like what happened there? It was so, you know, Stephen Ruiz, who does a great job over at USA Today, basically wrote a column saying that he was never as good as he looked. And I probably obviously that that has come to fruition. He's right. Looking back and writing that column this year. But I also think that like, man, I saw him play in multiple times. And I was like, this guy, this guy's got it. And Brett Veach

thought that Wenz was like the next great one. And Andy Reid thought that. And Brad Childers, who was on, who was a spread specialist on Andy Reed staff in Kansas City, who basically figuring out the future of the game, they were all. like Wence is it, man. Like, Wence is the guy. And in 2017, they were all in on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, on, and so it's not like it was just, you know, they caught fire and the eagles were like, look at this.

It was like the entire league loved him. Um, Danny Kelly, Carson Wentz, what can he become and who's the best fit? Uh, that's, yeah, that's, that is the big question. I think going back and remembering that season, I think a lot of it was, you know, obviously wrapped up with like the tools. he's big, he's tall, he's athletic, he's got a good arm. The roster. And then, yeah, and the other thing is that, yeah, like, it was like,

you always see these career seasons with these quarterbacks where the roster elevates the play of everyone. It's like, you know, it's like you just have this outlier season. The other thing I think that's interesting is, like, he was so good at escaping. And that was, you know, he had, like, these Houdini escapes, and that would, like, kind of created, like, this legend around. him, I guess. So, you know, I don't know if he can ever get back there. Obviously, his confidence is an issue. It felt like looking at watching and play this year, like he just wasn't seeing things. He wasn't reading the defense while his accuracy was like way off. All these different things. I think it's good that they're going to trade him. I almost like wouldn't believe that they trade him because they're like the contract situation is so rough for them. But I mean, the obvious, the obvious best landing place for them is Indianapolis. And it's like, it just makes too much sense. But I think Indy almost has like some leverage here because I don't know if anyone else is going to like give up big draft picks or anything to get Wence at this point.

Right. Besides Wence, any quarterback who's been rumored on the block intrigued you. I mean, we've heard some things about Derrick Carr. I don't, I don't know. I know for a fact that there were teams that called about Derrick Carr last year and the Raiders wouldn't give them up cheaply. I thought that I think that NFL teams thought that the book on Gruden was such that he hates every quarterback who's ever his who's ever a starter. Like that's always the joke and like, oh, maybe we can get Derek Car for cheap. And so teams tried last year.

That didn't work. I think, Danny, you and I have talked about that in the past because I think we have the same source on that. But let's move on from that. One thing I'm interested in is what the Panthers do because I've been interested to see how all in that they've been on these guys like Stafford. they were really going after hard. And it seems like, I mean, they need a quarterback if, you know, Teddy Bridgewater is not going to be their guy. But they seem to feel like the time is now. And I would be very curious to see sort of what the limit is on that in terms of resources.

And, you know, age of some of these guys, just how they position themselves within whatever window that may be opening for, them soon if things go the way that they want them to. That's one that's interesting to me, not from the quarterback perspective, but as a team. I have a question. And I think you're absolutely right, Nora, I was actually reading the ESPN roundtable with some of their insiders and more people picked the Panthers. It was like seven or eight riders. A bunch of people were picking the panthers for landing Deshaun Watson. I was a little bit surprised to see that because I always just kind of assumes the jets or the dolphins, but you're absolutely right. They're going to be aggressive, which makes me think, is there a universe where the

Panthers go get Dak Prescott? Is it weird that we're not talking about Dak Prescott like he's actually a free agent? I think that we don't know if he's going to be. They can just franchise tag him again. They can franchise him, sure. But like it just, it seems like it's one of those situations where it's a little weird because we're talking about Russell Wilson getting traded, which is to be a way more. remote chance that he's going to get traded,

then like, Dak somehow holds out and just decides go somewhere else. You know what I mean? Instead of getting franchised. Danny, we have to go. The segment is over, but I just want to get you out on this question. Yeah.

What will it look like when Teddy Bridgewater is running the Seahawks offense next year? I was, I started just going back to the 2010 season where Tavares Jackson was running the offense. And that's not to say that Teddy Bridgewater is that level. I think he's a higher level than Tavares checks. But I think it would be a lot of the early Seahawks where it's just run, run, run, pass, run, pass.

That'd probably be what it looks like. Pete Carroll will sign up for that, buddy. Danny, we love you. Talk to you later. Thanks, guys. All right, join now by Brian Jazeer of the Ringer NFL show Tuesday show with Cole. And Nora Prince Yati is back for this segment. we're going to do lessons from the 2020 season.

This was the weirdest season I can ever remember. And I think that pretty much everybody in football agrees with that. And so we're just going to figure out what we learned this year and what we're going to take in as a league into 2021, 2021, 22. Noah Prince, Idi, what's your first one? All right. So my first one is that pass rush is just not dead. And I think it had been becoming very, very trendy to, and I'm guilty of this as well, to talk at length about the importance of coverage players.

potentially coverage being more important than pass rush. And I'm not here to offer a final answer to that debate. But I do think, and there's a little bit of recency bias here, because we're talking about what we saw in the Super Bowl, but we're also talking about the kind of difference that someone like DeForest Buckner can come in and make for a team like the Colts in one season. I think we saw that because of schematic changes, because of more mobile quarterbacks, because of rules changes,

it is getting easier or it has gotten easier for smart coaches to scheme ways to get the ball out really quickly. But it is still true. And I think this season really cemented that if you can pressure a quarterback that you are playing on a regular basis that is incredibly valuable. And obviously, Mahomes would not have been under the amount of pressure that he was under in the Super Bowl if he hadn't been playing with two backup tackles. but the ability to do that is still hugely significant in building a defense.

And I don't think that we can, you know, raise those guys' hands up in the air and say, coverage wins. We know it's done. Game over. And 2020 for me solidified that. That's an amazing point. Because I think, as you said, it has gotten a little trendy to go with the coverage over Pass Rush debate, which started in the analytics community.

And it's kind of spread. And every time I've run that past a football person, and I'm sure you've done the same thing. They're like, well, it all works together, right? And I think that that's, I think with the Super Bowl in particular, one of the reasons that the pass rush ended up being so effective was because of how well the back end of the bucks worked together. But there were also times where the play was over half the second end of the play.

Like it was unbelievable. And the pass rush was just, I mean, there was nothing Mahomes could do, 29 pressures. And, you know, Travis Kelsey is normally a cover two games. aimwrecker. Like he loves cover two, all the underneath space, and they couldn't even get him into his routes because there was somebody in his face. Ryan, as someone who played defense in the NFL, what stood out about what the front seven of the bucks were doing, whether that schematically or just physically to the chiefs offensive line? Yeah, I'm not going to lie. I think Nora's point kind of like contradicts my point.

I don't know because I was going to say like you need a good old line for the Super Bowl. like we've seen. So I don't know if it was just the pass rush was dominant or the O-line was terrible, you know. But I do agree that great pass rush makes everything a lot easier for teams. So when watching the Super Bowl, you can see that getting that type of pressure on my homes

just tore up their offense. And it doesn't matter what type of offense you have. If your quarterback is literally running for his life every single play, then you don't have a chance to win a game. You know, and I think that's where we really seen this Super Bowl that a pass rush really affects the game. It doesn't matter who it is because I remember when Green Bay played Tampa at the beginning of the season,

and when Tampa was getting after Aaron Rogers, Aaron Rogers, everybody was like, man, this is the best guy. This is the best I've seen Aaron Rogers in a long time. And then Green, I mean, the Tampa got after him, and then Aaron Rogers looked like a regular guy. You know, and we haven't seen anybody make, make Patrick Mahomes look like a regular guy.

He stood in a little like a regular guy. He was falling sideways and still throwing it and hitting people in the face with the wall. But at the end of the day, it made Mahomes really show that, hey, they're beatable. If you can get pressure on Mahomes, he's just like any other quarterback. And I think that's what really shows about the pass rush.

If you have a dominant pass rush, like Pittsburgh, at the beginning of the season, our pass rush was top tier. you know, then Bud Dupree got hurt. And we still had a good pass rush. TJ was still the best, you know, defensive player in the league to me, you know, but at the day, when they weren't able to get pressure

from every single person, then it, you know, it hurt the defense. And I think that's what it is for a lot of teams. When you don't have that consistent pressure, then your defense isn't the same. Hey, Ryan, how did you view the debate between what's more important coverage or pass or pass rush?

When you're in it and you're playing it, and you do a little bit of both when it's called for, what was more, would you rather build a defense with a great pass rush or build a defense with a great coverage unit, Ryan? So I'm going to be honest. My teammates are going to hate me for the Charmingbaum out of me. So I never had played,

I never played a defense with a defense with a dominant coverage. But I always play with defenses that had great pass rush. That checks out. You know, and the reason I would say a great pass rush is more important to me. It's because it helps the guys that aren't great in coverage be able to understand, hey, I don't have to be Jalen Ramsey to be successful in this play.

All I have to do is be myself, and my pass rush is going to get there for me. And I think to me, a pass rush is more important because obviously everybody loves Jalen Ramsey, but he's the only DB that constantly gets talked about on a regular basis. Mm-hmm. You know, but he still has a dominant pass rush in front of him.

But think about the other cornerbacks. Xavier Howard had 10 picks this year, but he didn't win defensive player the year. Because his defense wasn't that dominant, you know. And I feel when you have a dominant defense, your pass rush is like the face of that defense. Yeah, no, I think that that's a good point. Nora, if you're the Bucks now and you're looking at having to sign Shaq Barrett, Levanti, David, all those guys, I think that the big lesson we've realized now is that you have to invest in pass rush at every opportunity, right? And I'm going to get to that in my roster building thing.

Do you think that someone like Shaq Barrett's probably going to get overpaid in this offseason? Do you think that? I mean, I know with the cap, the cap kind of stagnant is to be a little bit different. But, you know, I think so often teams look at the Super Bowl and they're just like, okay, this is the lessons I learned. Like five years ago, it was tall cornerbacks with the Seahawks. And all of a sudden, these guys are getting drafted in the second round because they're six foot three. Do you think that front offices are going to overreact to the pressure thing a little bit? Maybe a little.

I don't know that that's as stark of a thing as you got to get tall corners or go after all these sparky guys or whatever. Those things are they're a little bit more specific than just like pass rush good. I think that's something, you know, it's funny because I think there's a lot of built-in value conversation that gets built into that argument about past rush. and coverage just because dominant pass rushers have been valued really highly for a long time. And I think that'll continue to be the case. I mean, for Tampa, I don't know if, I mean, I don't know that Jack Barrett's going to get overpaid. He's certainly going to get paid.

And that's going to be hard for them to do. They do have some cap space. They do. I mean, if they could find a way to just ride those good vibes after, winning a Super Bowl and get him to do something friendly and keep him in the mix, I think it would be enormous. I think it would be huge. Here's the thing is that, and I don't think that this contradicts the point that I'm making.

Tampa Bay has put a ton of resources, especially through the draft, into coverage players on their defense. So they are in a position where they have a great pass rush, but they also have the back end guys that can let those guys thrive. And that's the thing, right? It's defense, offense, whatever. It's really hard to do both at the same time. But right now, because they have those young guys on the back end that are pretty solid,

I think they should do what they can and they do have some of the resources for it. They can attack it. Free agency, draft, whatever. Keep that a dominant unit because it just helps them beat a team that I, that a lot of people are calling unbeatable and unstoppable. And I don't think that there's, I don't think that that's the worst lesson to learn. That's a good point.

I know we're talking about Shack Barrett. So I was saying, do you feel that Shack Barrett, to me, I think it's Bud Dupree, but I'm always a little biased. But do you feel that Shack Barrett would be the highest value D.N or outside linebacker this season? I mean, it's this free agency, because I'm thinking it's Bud DePrie.

Yeah. I mean, it honestly depends on whether or not an owner fell in love with them and just saying, just give me that guy. I think that when you, obviously, there's a lot of good defenders available this year, and that's not just the ends. That's everybody. I'm actually looking at the. Jack Barrett is the highest rated guy by PFF for free agency right now. Carl Lawson is also an edge rusher who'd be available. So I think that there's guys, Jadevian Clowney, who I know can be moved around.

He's listed as an edge here. He had kind of a bust of a season, but he is available and he's highly rated by football focus. So I think that there's guys who there's definite depth if you want to spend money on an edge this year, I guess you could say. The reason I said that is because if Shaq is, you know, the highest rated guy, then he's going to want the highest rated guy type of money. And does Tampa have the money to give that to him?

because once you do that, that, you know, once you start giving people $100 million on defense and you have really specific players on offense, that's when, you know, your teams don't tend to be as successful. Obviously, the Rams are okay, but their defense is really good. If their defense isn't good and you have $100 million guys on your team, it's kind of harder to be, you know, be successful for a long period of time. And that's why I was asking about it. Yeah, so I think Shaq Barrett can probably get more money just a little bit than budget pre, just because I think we do underestimate the added value of just being in a really high profile spot. Like, I think that trickles down into the contracts. Yeah.

Yeah. Like I think he'll probably get rewarded for that unless they kind of have an understanding, which is a tough thing to arrive at for a 28 or. old guy who can, you know, who just had an incredible season and can go get a bag. Like, yeah. When it's, when it comes to the bag. Because we want a Super Bowl is a tough thing to swallow in that situation. And I wouldn't bet on it happening. But if they could, that would probably be the situation in which maybe somebody else gets the biggest contract.

Nora, when it comes to the bag, it's not much understanding. You know, I'm just, I'm just being honest. I'm just being honest. You know, a lot of guys, their goal is to go to the NFL, you know, because they love football, but it was to get paid, you know, and unless Tampa can kind of compete, like, for instance, if the Jets were like, hey, I'm going to give you 100 in Tampa's like, I can give you 90 or 70, then he's might be like, all right. Yeah, and then maybe Tom Brady gives him a little wink, wink, like.

Yeah, you know, but if it's like, I'm going to give you 60 and the Jets like, I'm going to give you 100, it's like, I can't leave $40 million out there, you know? It's like, so, no one's doing that. So like, that's the type of, it has to be within like, I think, five to 10 million to be an understanding. But other than that, most guys are going to get the back, you know. Yeah.

We saw that, Nora famously with Devin McCordy, where he had a huge offer from the Jaguars and took us to stay with the Patriots because he wanted to win Super Bowls and stay as relevant as he could be in football terms and be coached by Bill Belichack. That's not a huge mystery. I will say there's a second level, guys,

going back to what we're talking about, of the edge rushers, like Melvin Ingram is available. Obviously, Bud Dupree is there. And so if you don't want to spend for a shack Barrett, there's other options out there. You know, Bianic Gacquay is going to be a free agent. We'll see what his market is after having played for, you know, being on three different rosters in 2020. Leonard Floyd, Trey Hendrickson, all of whom are on this list. So I think that there's going to be some really intriguing names. I'm interested to see how this shakes out. All right. Here's my first lesson. It's not the big, biggest lesson, but I want to keep this conversation going about how this Bucks defense was built

and kind of what it means. Because I think that what 2020 showed is there a lot more ways to build a football team than maybe the conversation suggests. And it kind of goes to your point, Nora, about, you know, or maybe coverage is more important than pass rush or whatever. There are so many things that the Bucks had that went against what we would consider like ultra-modern football, right? Like Vita Vaya being drafted and being known as a run stuffer, right? That's why I hated the pick instead of a Derwin James type who could do everything and cover anybody, right? And so I was, I was pro-Durwin James in that spot. And I think that a lot of football, we've, oh, hey, we're going to, everyone's going to be a safety eventually. It's going to be 11

safeties. They're going to play basketball on grass, all this stuff. And a lot of the Bucks defense was about kicking your ass. And I thought that was great. And I also think that someone like Devin White, who's a linebacker, um, where that's not necessarily. the most sexy position right now and drafting him high. I think that they just took some chances. And I'm curious, Ryan, when you watched that game on Sunday and you saw the speed of that Bucks team and how they all came together and how they played well and just, you know, it wasn't every snap, but Levanti David's ability to just stick with Travis

Kelsey on some place or Devin White being everywhere. And the reason I asked this, Ryan, is because I've talked to Kevin Colbert about how he drafted you because you were the ultra-fast line-back. who was exactly what was needed for the way that this game was going and that you were able to cover every blade of grass in the field. Watching this buck's defense and their fast linebackers, you thought what?

It really made me hard for my three, you know, my three lessons because one of my lessons, I really wanted to lean to it, but I didn't pick it, was that you have to have really good linebackers in the middle of a defense. And the reason I say that is obviously, Like I always say I'm biased.

But to me, when it comes to linebackers, I really feel like they're the glue that keeps everything together. You know, everybody talks about pass rush. Everybody talks about, you know, D-Line and, you know, everybody talks about coverage. But when it comes to linebackers, I feel like Levante David and Devin White stood out this whole playoff. You know, and when it came to a tough matchup,

those are the guys that were always there. When it came to trying to stop the run, those are guys who always showed up and was always making plays. And Devin White just really showed everybody, hey, this is why I'm a top five pick. This is why I'm a top 10 pick because I can literally do whatever you need me to do. And he showed it up, he showed it in this game. And it really made me feel well. Obviously, it kind of hurt me a lot because I bet against them.

I bet on the Chiefs. But it made me feel good because to see that the, the, bucks actually were able to use defense was the reason to stop the chiefs, you know, and that their linebacker stepped up and was shutting down Kelsey and shutting down the rank game and it just was causing so much disruption throughout the whole game. I think that that really kind of was like a gratification for me when it came to the linebacker position because I feel like obviously the linebacker is really important. It's like the quarterback of the defense.

but to me it gets overlooked a lot by people. You know, like, for instance, the first thing we said about in this, in this convoy was like, the pass rush or the coverage. You know, it's like, people don't ever talk about the linebackers

and it's like they're a combination of the two. And obviously, we know they're going to get underlooked, but I think when you have a dominant linebacker that can actually shut down the middle of the field, it really allows your defense to thrive. Ryan, Devin White today said that he's the best linebacker in football. Do you agree?

Oh, that's a tough one. Let me say he's, I'm going to say this. He's the most improved and he's progressing the best in the NFL right now. I wouldn't say he's the best right now. Who's in that conversation? So to me, the conversation of the best, these are the three best linebackers to me. There is Leonard, Bobby Wagner. He's the old guy now, which is crazy.

And Fred Warner. Fred Warner, he's just always, like, to me, I don't know why I just really love his game. He's just all over the place. He's always making plays. He's just there when you need him. Devin White reminds me of the year I made the Pro Bowl. He, like, at the beginning of the year,

we're really consistent, having a good year. But once the playoffs in, the playoffs started, and, you know, that back end of the year, he just started taking off in just every single, week he's just making something happen. Every single week he's making a play. You know, and obviously, he's streaking right now.

So I can't just say he's the best linebacker in the football right now because people like to go off of, you know, a body of work. But if you're just going off of the postseason, he was the best linebacker in the postseason by far. Yeah, I think

that at this point, it is beyond a doubt that he is just an elite elite talent and definitely worth the pick, regardless of how analytics feel about positional value. All right, Noropinciotti. Number two, lesson. All right. So, I wish I had a different, I wish I'd written

down a different, like, little name for this one, because I just wrote down Players Play, which is such a cliche, and I hate stuff like that. But I think I spent a lot of... Find the lie. Players play. Like, really, truly, find the lie. And find the lie in the 2020 season, because I think we've spent a lot of time

in recent years, for good reason, talking about all these genius play callers and coaching searches are getting more attention, they're getting more money. And none of these things is bad. But we focus a lot on who's running the ship. And to me this year, and a lot of this is about Brady and doing that and going to Tampa and winning. But it's also about it's about watching Aaron Rodgers.

in a system that we've sort of been taught exists to elevate quarterbacks who can't do everything. And then watching a quarterback who kind of can operate within that, you know, the Cubiak-Shannahan kind of offense was really magical and incredible. And in some ways should have been expected and was expected, but to actually watch him elevate that was, was, I think, another lesson that it's kind of, of like what you were saying earlier, Kevin. If you've got to pick between an elite quarterback and a coach, maybe when you used to pick the coach, maybe that there is a shift there. And it's not just about quarterbacks, but that's where it stands out the most. But I kind of thought of this season as a season when against some odds, because stability and organizational just consistency and being not, a dumpster fire were so important in the COVID season. And then when you actually look at how it turned out, having good players was really, really important. That's my lesson. Hey, Ryan, we were talking earlier, and I'd like to get your opinion as someone who's played the game and knows it so well about the debate about whether or not you pick a elite quarterback or a coach right now. And

this is a hypothetical. It's not going to happen. But if Russell Wilson goes to management and says him or me with Pete Carroll. The way the value of the quarterback position is, and I'll extend that, it wouldn't happen, but, you know, Rogers to Lafleur, right? Same situation. And again, these are hypotheticals, okay? And this is just about the value of the positions.

Would you take the elite quarterback or the good coach, Ryan? So, like, it depends. To me, and I know a lot of coaches are going to hate this. I feel it's some coaches that can do this. Like some coaches can do this. I feel players win games, but coaches can lose them. Mm. You know, I really do.

You know, and for instance, Andy Reed can have the best play call in the world, you know. But at the end of day, Mahomes are going to have to go out there and perform it. Right. You know, the players are going to have to go out of performing. But I feel like it's a lot of times players will be in positions when they already, like, they look at a plane like, oh, this shit is not going to work.

You know, and it's just, you know, but the coach is like, no, we're following through. And I feel it depends what quarterback it is. Like, for instance, being a coach Talman, I'm taking Coach Tomlin. I'm not trying to be an asshole, but I'm just being honest. You know, Ann Rogers, Ann Rogers are, the floor, I'm taking Ann Rogers. Mahomes are Andy Reid. That's when I'm like, ah, you know, you know, Russell Wilson are. Are you, too?

I'm taking Mahomes. The reason I say that is because Andy Reid's been successful everywhere he's been. He just never had a quarterback as dominant as a mom. I think he's a really good coach. I would take Mahomes, but I would try to avoid that situation. No, that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, me too. It's not a fun choice. No, no, no. I'm saying like, if out of all the coaches in the league, that's the one that you'll probably be like, you know, like obviously Bill Bettacheck and Tom Brady. It's like, you know,

but like we see Tom Brady just win with Bruce Arias. You know, so it's like, Is it Bill or is it about, is it time? You know, he's like, you know, so, but to me, like, I love Ben, but, you know, I'm, I just, I love Coach Tomlin, you know, but, for instance, like, Joe Burrow or his coach he has now. I'm taking Joe Burrow, you know, it's just, I don't think Joe Burrow's not elite yet, but. Poor Zach Taylor. Not a huge Zach Taylor guy. No, no, I'm not saying.

I'm not saying. I'm just kidding. I'm totally kidding. If we go, like, team to team, I feel it's just like every, every situation. is a little bit different. But when you start thinking about quarterbacks that's constantly on commercials and things like that,

you've got to take those guys because at the end of the day, they're going to last longer than the coach majority of the time. And it's not a lot of NFL coaches that last longer than their quarterback. That's a great point. All right, Ryan, what's your number two lesson?

My number two lesson was that in the NFL is all about who gets hot at the right time. And I kind of learned this through my time of playing, but I really seen it this year. And the reason I said is because the bugs start off seven and five.

And then went seven games in a row, went through, you know, they won it like the Steelers won in. I think when Jerome Bendis was playing, I think when they went in Detroit or when they won, I forgot which year when they won it, but they were the 60s and they beat all the teams

and they ended up winning the Super Bowl. You know, and now we have seven Cs, but, you know, they were the lowest seat and won all the soups. And I think it's just about getting it right at the right time. If you're beating all the right people at the right time. And Tampa Bay, they would have lost a critical game. They could have been out of the playoffs.

You know, so to me, I think it's all about getting hot at the right time because when we used to play, Coach Tallinn used to always say, all right, the team was going to win a Super Bowl. This week is their last week they're going to lose. Like, from now, they're not losing any more games from this point on. You know, and it'll be like week 13 of the season or week, like, 12 of the season. He's like, whoever's winning a Super Bowl

from this point on, they're not losing any more games. You know, and then, like, we slid up a game or here and there, you know, but you have to get hot before the season to still be prepared for the playoffs. I don't feel like teams can lose that last game, then come back, and then they might beat the first team, but they're still, they're trying to get back

in the groove of things. Like, when the Steelers were 7 and 0, they felt like they couldn't be beat. You know, and then they got to 11 and 0, but then now they're like, now that they still didn't think they can be beat. But once they got beat, everybody was like,

ah, the Steelers, they have some flaws, you know, you know, and they started hot at the right time of the season at the beginning, but at the end of the season, that's the only time that matters. Like, the Steelers' winning streak is longer than Tampa Bay's winter street, but Tampa Bay won a Super Bowl.

And so it's just about getting hot at the right time to me. So this is a big question, and you can take wherever you want to go with it. How does a team get hot? And do they know, do you know when you're on a practice field and it's week 13, you're like, oh, oh, wow, like we're about to go in a three-game winning streak or, oh, wow, we're going to win a playoff game.

How do you cultivate it? Can you put your finger on it? What is a hot team and how does it happen? So basically, the thing that's crazy is the year that we went 13 and 3, the weeks we didn't have a technically a good practice where the games we blew people out. And the weeks we had like really good practice was like it was a lot closer games. But to me, I feel you'll be in practice in when the defense is communicating or the offense is communicating, everybody's just flowing. You'd be like, hey, check this, check this. And it's like the other guys like, oh, yeah, I knew you was about to check this.

All right, cool, let's go. It's like everybody knows like it's almost like a symphony. It's like once one person plays like the next guy is just like rolling. It's like everybody understands like, all right, we're all on the same page. If everybody's on the same page, you're not having really a lot of messups and practice. And when you're in a game, if something happens, you get on the sidelines like, man, this happened. Da-da-da-da-da. And it's like, hey, we're going to check the this.

It's like, and the other guys like, man, I was thinking that we're going to do that. Like, you know, it was like once guys start getting the groove, like, oh, man, we're all on the same page. If you're on the same page, you're not going to mess up. If you're not messing up on the game, you're going to beat everybody. Because whenever you see a big play happening in the NFL, that means one guy made a great play, but that means somebody else messed up. You know, so when you don't really, like,

you didn't really see Tampa Bay messing up a lot throughout the season. I mean, throughout the back half of the season, especially after that bow week, they start figuring out, all right, let's make it, they might have been like, let's make it more simple for our defense to figure out, hey, let's get guys comfortable with what's important and how they can play well. But we're just going to stick to that.

And I think that's what helped them. You know, when we're a hot, we'll check to something. Or I'll talk to vans or I'll talk to, you know, one of the safeties or the D-LIM. And I'm like, hey, we got to do this, do this, do this. And it's not, guys aren't feeling like you're attacking them or guys aren't feeling that you're after them. Guys are actually like, oh, man, all right,

That's a smart move. That's a great decision. And when you got guys starting to think like that and guys always on the same page, and you don't see guys on the sideline arguing it and it seems like they're having fun. When you see guys having fun, that's when you know like, all right,

they're working with guys. Something special is happening right now. That's really fascinating. Norie, do you feel like that as a podcaster that we just know exactly when we're about to just run off five straight amazing podcasts? No. I also, I don't have that sixth sense.

That's why I'm not an athlete. I thought you were going to say, because we never, we never roll off five straight amazing podcasts. Just peaks in valleys. Just peaks and valleys. Kevin, we crush all the time, but we, you guys like you and me, like we got to effort our way into it, you know? Like, I'm, I'm sitting here.

I'm waving to you being like, okay, go to me. We're going to go. We're slacking back and forth. Like, we're in the zone. And maybe that's our version of that. But I, I don't know. I, I'm, I always. I always feel the nerves.

Like, got to go nail this podcast. I think y'all pop off five at a time to me. You know, when I listen, I think y'all guys, you know. Thank you, Ryan. We're just getting hot at the right time, Ryan. We're just getting hot at the right time. We know. February 11.

When we're practicing pods. When we're practicing. 11 after the season, huh? Yeah, yeah, exactly. Kevin and I are peaking the week after the Super Bowl. It's like when the Jets just suddenly almost won two games in a row, like week 16 and 17. And lose the best player.

Yeah, exactly. Speaking of losing their best player, my next lesson, my number two lesson is that you have to take big swings now. And we're going to put Tom Brady in a separate category, although obviously that was a big swing. The Bucks had Operation Truelous show if they build it, he will come. It was the big moniker throughout Tampa Bay this year. And they kind of, remember, there were a lot of teams that didn't want Tom Brady

this time last year. The market wasn't as robust as we thought. That turned out to be a mistake. But the Bucks went out and got it. them. I don't mean that necessarily. I mean Stefan Diggs. I mean, even though it wasn't as successful, Jamal Adams. I mean what the Rams is to do with Matthew Stafford. I mean what the Rams did with Jaylon Ramsey two years ago. And I think that there's now an expectation that if you're a elite team, you're making one or two huge moves every single year, not standing pat. That's not

how the cap works. That's not how modern general managing works. That's not anything. And I've said this on five different podcasts over five different networks over the past two weeks. But as there are a lot of, a lot of GMs now who think you have to be all in every single year. And that four years ago, five years ago, when the Rams started that whole all in thing, everyone thought it was revolutionary.

And now it's just the, it's the barrier for entry into football. And so you look at the chiefs who had, I think they went three straight years out of first round pick because they got Mahomes and then they got Frank Clark. You look at how they spend their money and that they're, they're okay with going out and trying to get veterans or whatever, signing big money deals. Every team was competing is doing that right now.

The kind of Ted Thompson, excuse me, going back to Ron Wolf thing, where you go and you pick your spots in free agency, you're going to pick your spots with trades, that is going to become less and less popular. And you're going to see a year-to-year league. And the same way we joke about it being a week-to-week league, it's a year-to-year league as far as roster building, Bill Simmons and I talked about this with Belichick a couple days ago, about Belichick a couple days ago where maybe the window proofing thing is a thing of the past. I think you just, you have to build your team as if the apocalypse is coming on February 20th.

Nora, thoughts? First of all, Kevin, thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule of appearances to be with us today. That's very special. To repeat the same thing I've said five times. It's very special. I'm happy to have done it. No, I mean, it's just like that what the reason I said that, it's not to brag.

I mean, like, I got to tell you, a lot of podcasts. No, I want to be doing less podcasts. I want to be doing just this and Simmons. But what I mean is that like that is the story of the season for me. And that's why I keep saying it. And that's why every time I go on a podcast of which I do many times, Nora, I can't stop going on podcasts. I will keep saying it. I'll probably say on next week's podcast, too.

Just on this. All right. So I'm making fun of you because I'm stalling because your third lesson was actually also my third lesson. But I will offer an addendum to it, which actually would have been my runner up. But I'll make it my last lesson. And I think it goes nicely off of your point about needing to take advantage of the window when it's open and to take big swings and move quickly because you might get defenestrated when you're least expecting it. it's really hard to evaluate quarterbacks. It's just really hard.

That is my lesson. I don't know what to tell you, but it's just really hard. We just watched a season where Josh Allen was incredible. Tua really struggled in his first NFL action. We have close to no idea what to think about Carson Wentz. Opinion on Jared Gough has changed dramatically. And these are not players.

who have had even track records, right? Like they've all had very high highs and some pretty low lows. So it is just plain old hard to do this. And I think the action item built off that lesson is take swings until you have the guy. And when you think you have the guy, don't get too comfortable and don't stop thinking about the possibility that things could change. And so that's why I think. it goes hand in hand nicely with your point about the window.

But I also think that it's important to recognize our collective inability to know the future when it comes to who's going to be a great NFL quarterback. I thought, Jamal Adams was going to crush. And he was just, there were some weeks where he did not look like he was worth any first round picks, though alone too. And so I think that there's, there's a, for me, a element where, the big swing, it's okay if you miss. I heard Daniel Jeremiah talked about this earlier this week, guys,

where he was saying, listen, the bucks missed on a lot of dbs before they found them, a lot of dbs. Jason Light and those guys made some mistakes, and they just kept going back to the well. Ryan, I want to ask you. How many quarterbacks did the Seahawks miss on before they found Russell Wilson? Like to go back to our first conversation, just throw at the friggin' dartboard. To me, I feel like that's dangerous.

Yeah. And the reason I feel like it's dangerous because, for instance, if you're trying to win a Super Bowl now, and I understand every team is trying to win a Super Bowl now, but if you don't, you're screwed. Like, I'm trying to figure out where is the Rams going to be at in six years. Because Matt Stafford is not playing six more years. I don't see him playing six more years.

Like, he's a good quarterback. You think he's going to play six more years, though? No, I guess it comes down to, A, the ability to hit on mid-round picks, which by the way is that comes that's every franchise ever right if you hit on second and third round picks you're doing well kind of thing um but i also think that they're banking a bet that the cap can be massaged that the cat nothing as bret beach ones told me nothing as ever as it seems uh with the cap or life i guess and they're making a bet that first round picks and dead cap and all that stuff doesn't matter and and i think that there there's a case he made it doesn't i think with you know

what we'll see what happens with the cap when the new television contracts come in but i kind of think there's just you know, Steve Kahn said this to me a couple years ago. You should never lay up in football. That's a golf term, even though Steve Kahn doesn't golf. That was made clear to me. But you just always hit it as hard as you can and just hope for the best, I guess, in two or three years. Ryan, I wanted to ask you because you were on a franchise where it was a lot of draft

and developed. And it was, you know, when you're on that defense and you're looking at Bud Dupree, and, you know, T.J. Watt getting drafted. And just so many of those guys who fit the system and then, you know, a lot of times Coach Tomlin did not even like to play rookies because they wanted to sort of get them in the system and all that stuff. What advantages does that have, Ryan? And then do you think that that is a better system than kind of the, let's sign as many guys

as we can? To me, I feel like that's a better system. And the reason I say this is, I honestly, I know you're talking about the Chiefs and those guys. I feel the first team to ever start this was Denver. And Denver started this with Peyton Mani. Keep to leave. Yeah.

And Peyton Manning Keep to leave. And they won a Super Bowl. And that year, obviously, it kind of hurt because we were beating them. And then Peyton fell on the ground, got up and then threw a touchdown or whatever. And this is whatever. We lost that game. All right. So that kind of, that game hurts.

But the reason I say that is because, like, look at Denver now. like Denver is struggling and it's like isn't that because I mean yeah I agree with that but that's also because they I know Peyton Manning was terrible

in 2015 but they don't have the quarterback like I think that if they figured out the quarterback problem they'd be okay but if I think if anybody figure out a quarterback problem they'll be okay you know but like for instance like I feel like teams like that if you don't have a good quarterback you're going to fail

while with teams like Green Bay you know, Ravens, even though Ravens starting to change up a little bit, Ravens, Pittsburgh, the teams that kind of build teams, they, you see that they always stay in the mix. Like, they're always in the mix. Pittsburgh Steelers, obviously, we started off the year this year, and everybody's like, ah, they're good, but I don't know, I don't know, you know.

And they, like, you knew we were going to the playoffs. You knew Green Bay was going to playoffs. Obviously, we have two of the best quarterbacks for all time. But I feel even last year when we didn't have them, we almost made it to the playoffs and we had duck at our quarterback. Our quarterback was duck

and Mason Rudolph. And Mason's good. You know, he played a great game at the end of the season this year, but Mason's not a, he's not a, you know, starting quarterback, in my opinion,

you know, but at the end of the day, we're still in the mix. To me, if you swinging it for the fences and you miss, now you have no first round, and you're hoping that your guys developed that you graph in the second and third round, which, you know, teams that have, like, your first rounders are the guys, first and second rounders, they're projected to play eight to ten years. Everybody else is projecting to play three, three and a half years.

So when you're trapped, when you're trading away all those guys, now you're hoping that other guys succeed and you're hoping that your quarterback can take you to the next level. And that's why I feel like it's extremely dangerous when you're, when you're, when you're when you're messing around like that, because if your quarterback isn't successful, your team is still hurting. It's still a possibility y'all can be hurting. And obviously, the Rams were still good

and they're figuring things out. Like, they're getting all the best players that you can possibly get in trades. But a lot of teams aren't getting the best players you can possibly get. Like, to me, the only player that they could have technically got better at this age, like, is Deshaun Watson, the Rams. Other than that, I feel like,

like everybody else, like, Aaron Rogers, yeah, but in the days, like, Aaron Rogers is old. You know, it's like, you still get to somebody that's kind of, kind of young. He's not young, but he's still going to have about a few years in them, and you can still win at this time. But I feel like a lot of other teams, now you're falling for seconds.

Like, people are going to be training for Jimmy Garoppolo, giving up first rounders for Jimmy Garoppolo. Like, to me, that's dangerous. You know, like, that's very dangerous. Because Jimmy Garoppolo, if he can't win with I was Shanahan. He's damn show not about to win with Doug Peterson or somebody else. You know, in my opinion.

Yeah. I will say this. Ryan, I love working with you. I've loved every podcast you've done together. We're going to agree to disagree on your evaluation of Mason Rudolph. Oh, you think he's a starter? You think he's a starter?

No. Other, other direction. Other direction on that one. I said he was good. He left that door wide open. You said he was good. And we'll just put that aside. We'll just put that aside.

I played Baker in the last game of the year, even though we lost. Yeah. I think the Baker made it probably much better. But it's okay. It'll be better than Mason. I'm not saying. No, I'm kidding. No, all right.

So what's your third lesson? Unless it's about Mason Rudolph, in which case we'll end the pod now. No, what's your third lesson, Ryan? My third lesson, Ryan. was OTA and Mane Camp preseason isn't as important as it was made up to be. I'm saying the one thing that you do see when you don't have those

is that you might see a little bit more injuries. But having no preseason didn't affect the season, having no OTA didn't affect the season. Obviously, you have camp and things like that. You need that. But OTAs, guys didn't really need that. You know, the RU. Rookies might have developed a little slower this year than they might have been the last few years.

But when you have Rikki's playing in the preseason, the game is in full speed anyway. It's not the same pace as if you're playing in a regular season game. So to me, I really just seen that, hey, obviously the owners want to make money. But those games don't matter that much, you know, compared, like, because I feel if it was a pre-send or it was a preseason, Tampa Bay still would have probably been where they are now. You know, the top teams still would have been the top teams. I don't feel like preseason would have stopped those teams for being the top teams unless somebody, like, critical, got hurt,

like a quarterback, running back or something like that. But other than that, but I don't think, you know, obviously, Sequin got hurt early in this season. Devin Bush got hurt early in the season. But I don't think a preseason would have made the Giants win their division. You know, like, I don't think, obviously it would have been great to have Devin Bush back for us,

but I don't think that it would have changed our season. You know, so I think the season, it didn't really, preseason in OTAs, I think, wasn't as important as they made them to be. Like, you know, at first they were saying that we need these so the guys can be ready and the guys were ready, you know, and we had a wonderful season. Obviously, I would love to see fans, but we had a wonderful season.

The Super Bowl, it depends who you were rooting for, it was still a good Super Bowl. It was just Patrick Mahomes, was running away from a snake-all game. It was like he didn't know what he was doing. He was just like, man, I'm all over the place. But other than that, you know, Tampa was the best team in this year. Like, they figured out at the right time be the best team,

had the best quarterback, had the best coaches, at the right time. And that's all football is about. It's timing. If you have the right timing, I think that's all that matters. A lot of teams, you know, have preseason and get hot at the beginning of the season. But it doesn't matter until you win a Super Bowl. And I think that's what it showed this season. the season is going to be the season

no matter if you have a preseason OTA's training camp is going to be the season is going to still be what we expect this year in football. If there was something because you talked about OTAs not mattering that much or whatever and I agree with you and that's

getting my third lesson too but it's a big philosophical question Ryan where do where do players get better that we don't talk about enough? I mean like is it is it offseason workouts? Is it them taking their iPads home? Is it just them internalizing practice differently?

Like when something clicks, because if it's not OTAs, and if not two a days, and I think we overrate two a days so much back when they did it before 2011 CBA, and there's so many things we overrated about what a player needed to do to go through practice, and a lot of it was just draining their bodies instead of making them better.

How does a player get better in the NFL, just time-wise and preparation-wise? I feel every player gets better different. You know, for me, like a lot of guys, got like for me in the offseason, I used to like, hey, I feel like I'm pretty good at everything else. I want to focus on coverage.

So like my cousin, he played receiver at Duquesne. He wasn't A, B, or anything like that, but he was a receiver. So I was like, hey, I'm going to do one-on-one drills versus him every single day or twice a week to help me cover receivers. You know, I'm not covering Devante Adams,

but they help me cover receiver. You know, while other guys, they need coaching, they need other guys to be around them to get better and watch film through the season. So everybody's a little bit different, but I feel guys are different when it comes to who wants to get better throughout the season.

Because getting better throughout the season, that is really hard work. You actually have to dedicate yourself to actually getting better throughout the season. Because a lot of guys go to work, do it as a do, go home. But there's a lot of guys that go to work, actually do extra.

It's like, hey, all right, Like right now I'm struggling in this area. Hey, coach, what can I do more to fix this area? You know, so everybody's a little bit different. But the great ones like Aaron Donald, he might see, oh, man, I'm getting hurt in this area. Or TJ, I might get hurt in this area. Or bud, I might get hurt in this area. Let me focus on this to get better at this.

And I think that's, it's not a lot of guys that get better throughout the season, but the ones who do get better through the season, you can actually see that difference. And see, hey, last season I was this. then this season I'm this and then you just constantly see them get better each year. Nora, you've done a bunch of reporting on the way the season was shaped and how the off-field stuff

impacted the on-field stuff. When you were talking to players, coaches, executives, what stood out as far as the most interesting stuff you learned about how teams tailored their approach to this season? I think they tried to keep things as normal feeling as possible, right? And that takes very different shapes depending on what team it is,

for instance, the Saints with a very veteran team chose to give those guys a lot of freedom. A lot of teams did not do that. And just canceled everything. They just, well, they canceled everything with the hopes that guys were going to go work out on their own. In the case of Buffalo, which is a fairly young team.

I know New England, which just likes to be in control. And I'm blanking on the third. I think it was indie, but don't take that to the bank. some of those teams were kind of took the opposite approach where they just as soon as they possibly could they were getting guys equipment they were prescribing different workout regimens they were just like you here is what you're going to do here's the day that you're going to do it now we now know that in places like tampa gronk was gaming the system by sending in videotapes of him running on the same day just wearing a different shirt but other than that uh i think smart guy smart guy Right, yeah. Teams that were smart about it knew who their players were, right? Like the teams that it seemed to work for, it wasn't just that there's one prescribed way to do it and way to go about it. It was just that those coaches and those organizations understood, here's what this group needs and here's what would work best for these guys. More big picture, I would say that on the field, not a lot changed.

through conversations with players, the thing that they would point to most often was just kind of needing to create your own juice and having that be weird. Like I know I had a lot of conversations with guys where they would talk about when they made a big play or their team made a big play, it still felt pretty normal

because they'd be on the sidelines cheering, you know, especially if they're at home, they play music or whatever. And there's some semblance of celebration. When the other team would make, a big play and normally you use that energy to get riled up for the next thing to go back and try to score whatever it is. The silence was the weirdest part to a lot of people, even if it was not about their team.

It was just you can't really hear their sideline. If it's at home, if there are any fans whatsoever, they're not going to do anything. So I think that and then just the wear and tear of the season, like the mention grind of not being able to hang out with people. I think that was really important to a lot of guys. But as far as on-field product, I don't think, like, for instance, fumble rates,

there was some differences in penalties, but actually there were fewer for a while and they seemed to just have to do with how the officials were choosing to call the game. Offensive line play, like a lot of the things that I think you circle and go, okay, if there's a quality of play issue, here's where to look

it. They didn't turn out to be the case. I would wonder if down the line we end up seeing some effects. I know one thing that people said about just an implication of the COVID year that it could have was just fewer small school guys getting drafted. That one did come true. And that we're not going to know if there's any, I mean, we're probably never going to know if there's any real impact from that in terms of who gets opportunities and that's through the draft, but then that does extend through OTA's camp, whatever, when those guys who do have a lot to prove would get jobs. We're never going to know who didn't have that opportunity to prove themselves. If this were extended and obviously no one wants that over several years, I think

there would be some kind of pipeline change. But overall, we were basically looking at what we're used to looking at. And I think everyone's pretty grateful for that. My third lesson ties into all of this, which is that the teams that embrace the chaos of the season ended up being okay. And there were so many times that I'm not saying that a plan is a bad thing. But there were so many times where teams, where teams just didn't overreact to things, right? Like, I remember talking to Andrew Barry, the Browns GM a couple of months ago. when I was like, what's your plan for the, for the draft in April? Like, what tape are you watching?

How are you going to tell you your scouts differently? And he's like, well, we're going to just, I don't think this is a big deal. And like, every other team was like, oh, we're going to do this, this and this. And Interprey was just kind of like, you know what? And we'll see what what happens in the draft in April. But he's just like, you know what? We're not going to overreact to anything until we need to overreact. And I felt like a lot of teams took that approach and succeeded this year.

And I was talking to some of the chiefs guys, couple weeks ago. And they were saying that they changed the way that they were doing draft interviews. And they were all in the same Zoom as opposed to doing five different meetings. And so Ryan went through that with a lot of teams where in the draft process, where it was, okay, we're going to meet with these scouts and then we're going to meet with the coaches three weeks later. And then we're going to meet. If it's a, you know, of your first round prospect, maybe the owner, a couple weeks later, whatever it is. Everybody was in the same Zoom and they loved it. And they're like, we're never having separate meetings again. We're just going to have

one big Zoom or one big meeting. It's so much more collaborative. Then we know what Spagnolo is thinking and then we know what these isn't GMs thinking. And then they talk about it all at once. And so the teams that adjusted to this and embraced this and learned some stuff, there are so many things that are going to have to over Zoom now, even when we don't need it to. So it's going to be fascinating to see how that goes. Ryan, when you talk to people who are in the league, is there anything that that were guys

were like, hey, I actually kind of liked this part of it, whether that's, doing stuff over Zoom, doing more virtual stuff, not being there with OTAs. Are there things that you think guys will carry from this year going forward? I think the things that guys liked it that I talked to personally were more like the things that they were able to get away with. Like, hey, I'm on Zoom. So like, I'm on Zoom, but you can't see me. You know, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You know, so I'm in. Right here for hijinks. Just put a backdrop up of you just listening. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right. So, like, hey, we have. conditioning. I'm going to do my conditioning, but I'm going to do it when I want to do it. You know, it's more freedom. I think it was just the fact that it's more freedom.

I think that guys like, but a lot of guys just told me that even playing, it kind of just felt weird. Like, the atmosphere just felt weird. It just felt uncomfortable. You know, when you grew up, you, like, it felt like you were playing in Little League. Like, when you grew up, it's almost like, I mean, I can't wait to play in front of 100,000 people. When you're little, you played in front of your family. And that's like seven people, you know, 50 people at most. You know, and it's like now, that's what the stadium is now. And it's like, guys like,

yo, this is not, this is not where it's at. I want to have 50,000 people in here because you feed off their energy. Some guys perform a lot better under that type of pressure than some other guys. Like, I remember I was listening to this interview, and this was talking about basketball a little bit, but it was like when the basketball guys were in the bubble,

Jay Zeta was like, man, it's crazy because this guy doesn't, normally play like this. Like, you know, like some guys were playing a lot better in the bubble because they didn't have any type of other, other influences from fans and crowds. And it just, like, it felt comfortable. Like, you might have seen some guys perform a lot better

because they didn't feel any type of pressure. While some guys, they're like, man, I need that type of stuff. Like, Josh Allen had a wonderful year, but there was no fans, you know? So he probably was like, man, I can go out here and dice it up. But next year,

if we have 100,000 fans back in the stadium, would Josh Allen do the same thing? You know, so that's the thing that I'm really looking forward to seeing next year is the guys that really perform extremely well that didn't in the last few years, if they do it again when everybody comes back. Yeah, you know, you heard that in almost every sport, whether that was NBA, whether that was soccer,

whether that was, you know, golf, even golf. I remember some of the folks saying that some of those young guys who won majors last year. Part of it was that they didn't have to walk on Sunday and see 150,000 people who were yelling at them because they want Tiger to win or whomever to win, right? So I just think it's a little bit different. It's a different game when you don't have the intimidation factor from the crowd. Ryan, when I get you out here on this, it's the one thing I didn't ask, and I want to ask it because you're so much smarter than I am. Oh, no, about that. Oh, no, on this, you will be. Trust me. Only on Mason Rudolph. Am I smarter? everybody was talking about the stat, the 92% five-man protection. So Andy Reid was in five-man protection or called five-man protection 92% of the time. And there were some chips in there that aren't accounted for or whatever. Was there anything schematically that the chiefs could have done to help Patrick Mahomes

and still be a functioning offense? Obviously, they don't want to go max protect because they like the guys into the routes. But was there anything that could have been done is the criticism of Andy Reid fair in that regard? So I'm going to say this. I said this in my podcast. The one thing that the chiefs love to do is to go for the shot. They love the big play. And if they set up more plays for them to get checkdowns

and shorter concepts and just draw the ball down field, I think it would have changed the game. And then it would have made temper understand, like, hey, like they understand, like, they're not going for the shot. We have to change stuff up. Because they were giving them all the underneath stuff all game. but the chiefs didn't want to take it. So I feel that, and I feel every play they should have had a chip

because they knew that they were hurting. Every play they should have had the tight-in chip and go out, the running-back chip and go out. Obviously, it's going to change the timing of your concepts, but I feel like that's something that they should have done every single play because they knew that the D-Line was significantly better than their O-line. Like, they have a bunch of, I'm not going to even say they have a bunch of A players on their D line.

Shaq Barrett, I'm going to say he's an A, B minus player. You know, JPP, B minus player. V. DeVeyer, he's probably one of the best D tackles in the league. So I'm going to give him an A, you know, and Damocasu, B, A. But, like, they were going to get Cs and, like, C minuses and Ds. You know, so if a B versus a D is going to win every single time, you know, so it's just, I think that's what was happening. and I feel like they would have had Kelsey chipping a little bit,

you know, Pitt Libion in or pit women and the runnerbacks in the chip and then get out in coverage and just take the five-yard route, you know, because that's what Tom would do, you know, and just take it and then drive the ball down field, and then if they do that two times, and then Temple was like, all right, well, they have a whole different game plan. Temper's going to change up their game plan, and then the moment they change it up, and it really gets schematic, boom, down the field. I feel like they were too worried about trying to get,

30, 15, 20, 30 yards right now. And the fact that they were trying to do that, Tampa took advantage of it and they didn't change. Beautiful. Nora, what podcasting lessons you're going to take into the future? Just from this chaotic year. Just say yes to everything and then brag about it on the ring around and Phil show. Stack talent.

Just stack talent. Don't worry about positions. Yeah, just get on as many podcasts as I can. Yeah, exactly. Guys, this has been a blast. Ryan Shazzer, Nora Prince, Yaddi. we learned a lot from this year. Yes, sir.

All right, thanks, guys. And we'll end with Kailen Jones joining me for a conversation with Henry Ruggs, the young Raiders receiver first round pick. We talked about the Raiders season. We talked about his first year in the league, how we've used the chiefs in the division, and much more. All right, we're here with Raiders receiver, Henry Ruggs, first round pick last year.

This interview is on behalf of Panini. Henry, what's going on, man? What's going on? So take me through what it was like, you know, because we heard so much about sort of the rookie learning curve this year and all that stuff with no training camp, with no OTAs. What was being a rookie in 2020 like? Because I don't think there's been a more complicated season. If you were to pinpoint whether the hurdles or whatever it was, the adjustments to become an NFL player this year, where would you start, Henry?

I would start with having a virtual offseason. I mean, having to be home and get yourself in shape for, you know, for, you know, for, for the season and not only just get yourself in shape, you don't know what's it. And you have to learn an entire playbook without getting any reps. So that was, I'm able to say that was one of the biggest challenges besides coming in and jumping straight into training camp, straight into football. And the coaches are expecting you to know everything that has to do with the playbook and has to do with, you know, your assignments.

So we talked to Devonita Smith the other day on this podcast. and we talked a little of the SEC and how that prepares guys for everything. What's the difference? I know there's a massive difference between college and pro, but what do you think the SEC

and playing in the SEC, what kind of edge does that give guys when they get to the next level? And what were your biggest adjustments that you did have to account for once you got to the pro level, aside from the speed of the game and the technique and all that?

I mean, you play with the best guys in the SEC. The competition is still, and it's one thing to always play against good teams and always play against good competition because, you know, you have to bring your A game each and every day and that's not just in game, that's in practice, and even for circling back to the meeting rooms. And, I mean, that's one thing that prepares you for the NFL

because you're coming with the professionals, you know, the top guys from around the world. So, you know, that's one thing. But you definitely have to have to understand that, you know, once you're a professional, you have to be a professional about about everything on the field and off the field. Somebody recorded Nick Saban's pitch to a recruit over Zoom a couple days ago. I don't know if you saw that but went kind of viral. And I think that everybody in the internet agree that if Nick Saban pitched us to come to Alabama,

we all probably go. What was his pitch to you? Pretty much the same thing. I mean, of course, he probably had a couple more accolades. now because they didn't want to get this year. But, I mean, it's pretty much the same thing. I mean, you know, just with me coming in as a freshman, I mean, we signed, you know, four receivers that year and you're coming into a room where you still have a, you know,

a bullet in a call finalist and things like that. So, you know, that you're coming into the competition that you're always going to have to, like I said, bring your egg game each and every day because, you know, the guy next to you can take your spot at any time. You can take this wherever you want to take it. Compare Nick Sabin to John Gruden. I mean, two totally different coaching styles. I mean, because Gruden, he's one of those friendly guys,

love to, you know, joke and play around. And, I mean, saving is straight to the point. You, I mean, you might get a smile out of them from me. But, I mean, he's always, he's always here to work. And, you know, you never want to question it. How do the Raiders view Patrick Mahomes being in the division? I mean, I think everybody has almost the same view of him. I mean, he's a great guy.

He's a great competitor, a great athlete. And, I mean, you can never have to estimate him at any time. Not if you're, you know, about 21 or down by 21. He's still going to be the same player all the time. I mean, you mentioned playing with Sabin, but what is it like, you know, playing alongside, you know, all those receivers that you mentioned, Jerry Judy, Jalen Waddle, Devante Smith, what is it like being in the mix of all those guys at the same time? I mean, it's great because we can all learn from one another.

We compete with each other that makes each other better. And, I mean, and we always hold each other accountable. So you have to be on top of everything at all the time because not even, not even the coaches. You don't want to be called out by one of your peers that's sitting right next to you in the meet room. So, I mean, you had a year where you went to the draft process. Have you given, you know, Waddle and Devante, any tips or advice on how to approach the process going into this off season? I mean, just just focus on what you need to do first. Everything else is going to happen. And, I mean, once, I mean, once it comes up to the draft, the only thing

you can control is, you know, what you put on film and, you know, what you show the scouts. When you look at just the Raiders in general, obviously you guys beat the Chiefs, but it wasn't the season that you guys wanted. What kind of was to talk at the end of the season about getting better by next September? I mean, we have to be ready to compete at all times. And that starts within the business.

We can't get complacent with each other. And we always have to have to compete. And that starts at practice every day. Did you, I know, obviously, I saw the tweets and all that stuff, But when Mike Mack talked about the rookie class, did that, how did you react to that? Do you think that you guys talked about it to that? Montevilla, you did that angry. What was the feeling there when you saw those close, Henry?

I mean, I'm not angry. I was disappointed in myself. So, I mean, it just adds on to what I was already feeling. So it's just, I mean, it's something that we have to prove next year. You're coming from Alabama and being the total overall pick. Obviously, you had those standards and said you were disappointed. yourself. What were your goals and what are they for next year now?

I mean, one, to help the team win and we didn't win. So that was the biggest thing. And I mean, just the production and the play on my side, I feel like it wasn't

what it needed to be. And, you know, it's definitely going to improve. All right. Let's do a lightning round. Tuffest cornerback you face this year? Uh, uh, uh, Xavier Howard. Oh, what about him? He was, I mean, you can tell that he watched the film. He kind of, he kind of was beating me, beating me to the punch on, on all the plays, you know.

Just, just his techniques was, was being switched up. And it just, it's almost like he knew what play was coming. Oh, is there a player that you encountered this year that you were surprised by how good they were? or surprise in any way where you came across and that could be offense or defense, just sitting on the siren there and said, this guy blew me away. I mean, it's a lot of guys. I mean, it's the separate of the talent everywhere. But Justin Herbert was definitely one that I could say that, you know,

I got to witness with my own eyes that he was actually, you know, a great player in his first year. If there's a play, I like to ask everybody this because I just like to see them If there's a play you could have had back this year, what would you choose? I mean, if you ask me, it's a couple. But I'll probably say just game. It was a third down. I caught a little basic ride over the middle and lost it. And that kept the game close because I think they went down and scored and took the lead

after that. So probably the one play that I would take back. Did that Greg Williams defense blow your mind, Henry? I mean, I want to say it blew my mind. I mean, I felt like, I mean, as a defense, as a defense of court, that defense of code, you make your calls and you stick with it. Tell us what you're doing with Panini. Is that something when did you collect cards when you were a kid, that kind of thing?

Yeah, I kind of, I won't say I collected it because I wasn't, I wasn't the best at keeping up with stuff when I was little. but that's just between me and you. But, I mean, we do a lot of cool things. Yeah. You know, starting from leading up to the draft, just me being on a car, it was cool in itself. But, you know, to be able to, you know, to have these cars

and see the different, you know, different type of things that they have and interact with the fans through them, it's definitely cool. All right, Henry Ruggs, he's here on behalf of Panini. Anything else we should know about you and Panini, Henry? Um, that, I mean, we have a lot of more, more creative and excited things to come. Awesome. Thank you so much. Thanks for coming to the NFL show.

Thanks, man. Thank you.