The Ringer NFL Show - Reactions to the Tyreek Hill Trade and Teams That Helped Themselves the Most

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

Kevin, Nora, and Steven react to the news of Tyreek Hill being traded from the Chiefs to the Dolphins and what that means for both teams. Then they discuss the teams that did and did not help themselves during the free agency period. Host: Kevin Clark, Nora Princiotti, and Steven Ruiz Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For as long as I've known the NBA, it's been a Stars League. But even among the Stars, there's an exclusive club. Russell and Dr. Jay, Jordan, Kobe. They're all part of a select group that paved the way for the NBA superstar of today. And some even shared secrets with each other along the way. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Jackie McMullen. And this is the Icons Club. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network.

I'm Kevin Clark. You know, yesterday talked to our producer, Arjuna, and I called him, I said, man, we're going to just do a normal episode, no breaking news, we're going to have structure. We had an idea for this episode. We're just going to roll the ball out. We're going to have lists. We're talking about improvement. And then we got an emergency.

Nora Princiotti is here. Hello, Nora. Hi, Kevin. The emergency you're referring to as the announcement of Harry Stiles' third album, correct? and me thinking you were on a benefit call, like a stock options benefit call. Kevin and I had an incredible back and forth before starting this time. Literally, it's not anything other than that.

I said that I was on an ESA call, which to me stands for every single album. It does not stand for every single album to Kevin. And we had a little who's on first situation as a result. But we're here now. Wall Street Journal Boy. Listen, I'm all about. Dollar signs, okay?

And I won't apologize for that. Stephen Ruiz is here. Hello. I actually made a list for this episode, and now we're not, no use for it. First time I ever made a list. We're going to get there.

We're going to get there. There's going to be, there's going to be lists that are read. We've all made lists of the teams that have helped themselves the most, the team that we're not talking about that's helped themselves the most. There's going to be lists read, but we're going to start with Tyree Kill. Getting traded.

So this broke pretty quickly in the morning. So what happened on Wednesday morning is there was a report that the contract talks had stalled. And Tyree Kill was just siding between dolphins and the Jets. So about an hour later, it comes out the Tyree Kill has been traded for five picks to the Miami Dolphins, a 22 first rounder, number 29 in this draft, the 50th pick in this draft in the second round, a fourth round pick as well as fourth and sixth round picks in 2023.

On top of that, the Dolphins gave Tyree Kill four years, $120 million. $53 of that is guaranteed right now. 72% of that is guaranteed at the start of the next league year. This is probably a blockbuster trade in normal times, but it just seems kind of run of the mill over the past two weeks in the age of the emergency podcast. Stephen, when you first thought this, who won the trade? I would say the Dolphins by default,

because I think the chiefs lost the trade. I understand why they did it. I understand that there's a. certain point that you get to. Like I think we like to say, oh, you can't overpay for a guy like this. But that's not true. We're in a salary cap. You can literally overpay for anybody.

You can overpay for Patrick Mahomes. If you give them your whole cap, you have no other players. And the wide receiver market seems to have hit a bubble point. And I think it burst a little bit with the Devante Adams trade with this Tyree kill trade after the Christian Kirk deal. Yeah, Christian Kirk deal. That was the first domino to fall. Christian Kirk was the first domino to fall as predicted. that as predicted.

But I understand it from a salary cap perspective, but from an offense perspective, from an on-field perspective, it's hard to envision this chief's offense being as good as I think it will need to be if the defense isn't where, isn't like top 15. Okay. So I understand that point of view. At some point, there's, Tari Kill is irreplacement. Okay.

And they're not going to go out and find a Tari Kill type. And it was funny because we were having a planning call earlier today. And we were all joking around. And I asked Ben, I was like, is there a, in the same universe as Tyree Kill type speed guy in the draft that the chiefs could go in target now? And his answer off the bat was Jameson Williams, who tore his ACL in the national championship game. So obviously, that's not a 2022 situation. And listen, there are no more year-ending injuries anymore. So maybe James and Williams is going to be ready to go by freaking training game.

because that's how science works now. But that's still a risk. There's not a lot of guys with Tyro Kill's body type with his adaptability, with his speed, it's hard. But at some point, the receiver market is such that we've seen the Packers and the Chiefs over the past week say, you know what?

This is the deepest position probably in football. And there's no reason for us to pay a guy $30 million. The Packers, by the way, tried. Everybody's coming out here and saying, oh, by the way, the salary cap is real. What a moment for the salary cap. cap because the Packers and the Chiefs are capped out. The Packers tried to give Devante Adams that money.

He just didn't want to take it. Okay. But I think I understand where both these teams are coming from. The Chiefs get value. They know their plan. They get to attack. They're going to take a step back from an offensive standpoint. But I don't think from a franchise, this is the point that this is all that crippling.

Nora, what did you think? Cripling is a strong word. But we've spent the entire first part of the offseason talking about how everybody is adding in the AFC West. And the chiefs are the team where it feels like the road has gotten harder, right? Everybody else has at least moved the needle in a positive direction.

And maybe because of the strength of the division, you can question if just doing that is enough. And as long as they have Patrick Mahomes, playing like Patrick Mahomes, they're going to be able to cover up for a lot. And they had full, clear, perfect understanding of the fact that they were going to need to do that and he was going to need to be able to cover up for more holes than he had,

than he needed to when he was on a rookie contract and making no money now that he is on a massive deal. I still think that's scary because we've seen them be a different offense when they don't have the combination of Hill and Kelsey. I think particularly losing Hill is just a little worrisome. Part of it is because of Kelsey's age. part part of it is just because the ability to move defenders open up space on the field was so, so, so critical. And they haven't had the same results when they haven't had both of those guys.

Whether they can find a suitable replacement, I mean, I think they're one of the best teams in the NFL in terms of being set up to do that. But you're still trying to replace kind of a one of one player. And I just, there's a strong argument that this would be worse of another team. had done it. I don't think there's a very good argument that like, oh, yeah, you got draft picks. What a great move. Like, if you're a chief fan, I don't think you like this. The nature of football has changed in the past two years to where I think the chiefs could only be the team that's getting caught up to. Does that make sense? Unless in a salary cap league, the only way for them to keep their edge on the chargers or the Broncos or whomever is going

out and getting like Devante Adams, that level of guy, right? Otherwise, everything, teams understand how to improve now. They understand the value of draft picks. I just think that things have just changed dramatically with some of the risks the teams are taking, specifically in the AFC. I don't think there's some great kind of thing. It's at the AFC where everybody decided to go all in. I think it's kind of a coincidence. But if you're at the top of the AFC, you're going to get caught up to right now because of the risks. And by the way, half these risks won't work out, but enough will over the aggregate that the Chiefs are going to have a real competitor.

I mean, damn, look at the, look at the Bengals last year. Stephen, how does the Chief's offense change now? Bucky Brooks made the point that, this is me saying this, but I think we forget it sometimes because they've had Kelsey and Hill, that the homegrown offense that Andy Reid comes from has always had replaceable wide receivers and it's always been in the belief. Andy Reid has loved and benefited from the weapons Mahomes has, but he feels like you can create them.

How does the offense now change? Yeah, and honestly, I want to walk back. my take that I had earlier. This is a mid-pod take change. Oh, my gosh. I understand it now. I was just thinking about, like, we talked about how too high

and putting a roof on that offense, on that offense last year, change them fundamentally in the second half. And now I get it because that's what the future of defense is going to look like. Teams, that's not going to wait. Teams are going to play like that from now on. So maybe having a Tyree kill,

a deep threat that you can't really use because of how defenses are. playing, maybe he's not as valuable as he was when the NFL was more single high. And I think... Did you just put Patrick Mahomes on point guard watch? No, what just happened? Is Patrick Mahomes just an underneath ball distributor now? Did Brandon Staley just turn Patrick Mahomes into a guy who hands the ball off in every play

in your book? No, no. He turned Tyree Kill into an expendable player. And it makes sense. And I think we're starting to see that. They signed you to do Smith-Schuster, who's a great plot. are they're talking to Marquez Valde Scantling, who's a great blocker and a deep threat. I do think we're going to see a return to that old Andy Reid offense where maybe things are more condensed.

Maybe things are under center. And we're seeing runs and play action passes to set up those deep shots. Oh, yeah. Jumping off to Clyde Edwards-Hillard. It's March 23rd. And Stephen Ruiz has Patrick Mahomes as a rich man's Kevin Cobb. That's right. That's no, a rich man's Adoneman McNabb is what I'm calling him.

All right, let's talk with the dolphins here. This is pretty good. I mean, I don't know. It's funny because I checked around this morning with some people in the league when it was between the jets and the dolphins. And I had said to a couple people, I was like, well, they have to try to get into the Jets because the dolphins might be good.

And first of all, it's come out now that the Jets did not offer a first round pick. They offered a package of picks but did not include the four or the 10. that most people thought that they were going to offer. Having said that, I thought the Jets are the preferable destination because if I'm the cheats, I don't want the capability to see Tyree Kill in the first weekend of Wildcary weekend

of a divisional round. I don't want that. And a lot of people around the league, I was surprised, were more, thought it was closer, that the Jets had just as much chance to be a playoff team in 2022 with Tyree Kill as the Dolphins.

I didn't see. see that wisdom coming from NFL people. Anyway, Nora, this does what to the dogs? Well, it puts more pressure on Tua, who already had a lot of pressure going to this season, right? Because if you are going to create a context in which he either has to play well or there are no excuses left, I mean, this is it, right?

I hate this. I hate this. We did this with Jubiski. But it's true. I hate going all in to create a no excuses environment for a quarterback. Right. Here's why this is good. Here's why this is good for the dolphins, in my opinion, because now they can't delude themselves into thinking two is good. Now there's no more excuses. You only invest the three first-round-st-round receivers to find out if your quarterback was bad. No, but you're leaving open the possibility that it's going to work out, and I'm saying, no, it's not.

It's going to hit them over the head. Is that why they signed Teddy Bridgewater? Hold on. That was not my intention to do so. I think the Miami Dolphins are leaving open the possibility that's going to work out. Okay, okay. It's good that that's on record. So game this out for us, nor what happens? I don't think he'll be very good. And they will have spent a year upgrading at tackle and pairing him with two of the best after the catch receivers in football just to find out that it's another waste of year.

But at the very least, I suppose, at the end of it, neither one of those things will be available as a reason why we don't really know yet. Now, I think we already know. I think I've seen enough. I don't, I felt that I'd seen enough kind of a long time ago, frankly. But they are not going to have any sort of credible excuse after seeing to apply with the rest of this roster.

First of all, some dolphins fans might try to have a credible excuse. Having said that, Stephen, could Teddy Bridgewater give them anything if it doesn't work out mid-year? Like, is there a scenario in which the 22 dolphins have a Tua flop and a good season? I think you're going to,

I think Tua is going to play the whole year. I don't think Teddy's going to overtake his position because I just think they're too similar and you always go with the younger guy. And I do envision a scenario where Tua stats look good, but using your eyes, you realize that that's not real, but some fans might trick themselves into thinking it. We saw it last year when they were running a bunch of RPO's

in play action in the middle of the year, and there was a lot of, oh, you guys were wrong about too. Maybe the dolphins weren't wrong for passing over Justin Herbert. So we've already seen it happen. And now he's getting put in the Shanahan offense, which has historically propped up mediocre quarterbacks. He has a lot of talent around him. He has a new left tackle.

He has a new left guard. I could see this working out, but not in a way where you're optimistic about them going forward. Like, it ends with them making a wild card. A wild card. round. I, so I agree with what you're saying. I see a path to success here as well, which is Mike McDaniel is in his bag all year. The run game is incredible. Two is not asked to do a lot and, and they win. I don't, but I think that there's a scenario here in which they win

11 games, what you're talking about here. They win 11 games or 10 games, McAWodicard weekend, and Tua is still not a franchise quarterback. Um, that doesn't, it doesn't, he doesn't have to take that step for them to be good. That could be Mike McDaniel, Tyrakell, Jalen Wadle, Mike's a sinking situation. And then the defense. I'm intrigued to see the different scenarios there. Does this change the AFC East for you guys or is it still the bills? Still the bills.

Like by a comfortable margin, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. AFC West, let's flip that. Anybody feeling differently? Before I came on and talked myself out of my original take, I was willing to say that the Chargers were the clear number one,

and I don't know if the Chiefs are going to make the playoffs. But now that I thought about it more, I'm back on board with the Chiefs. I've, like, done a total 180 in like 10 minutes. You would have just released Tyree Phil, just to get out of the two, the too high looks. The Dolphins got robbed. Nora, what's going to happen in the USW?

I want to reserve judgment on this. I need to think about this a little bit more. I got to say I don't love, I don't love the feel of, of the Chiefs right now. I just said, just getting a lot of like, I remember it being a couple years ago

and people predicting large numbers of Super Bowls and it's kind of been a minute and feels like it's only going to get harder. But I don't, I need to think about that because they also have Patrick Mahomes. So I think I need to spend some time.

I think the vert. No, I think you're on the right track too. Like I think the chiefs, the version of the chiefs we've gotten used to is done. It's never going to be a different team. All right. I agree with that. But here's my twist on that take. Mahomes and Reed are this generation's Brady Belichick.

And what I mean by that is that I think that they're going to get to the divisional round just on the presence of those two guys. And then you only need a couple breaks from there. The Broncos need a million things to go right. the Chargers need a million things to go right. Relative to other teams, relative to other teams. The Chargers need a bunch of things to go right.

The bills need a little. We saw all last year the bad luck they had that could have gone either way. I think the bills are just as good at the Chiefs. I'm just saying that when you have one of the best coaches and probably the best quarterback, you always are starting at a better spot than everybody else. And so I don't think you can say we're never going to see this Chief's team again because you only need to do a couple of things to be back where you were.

they could hit on a wide receiver in the draft. I do not think we are never going to see this Chief's team. I mean stylistically. I don't mean success-wise. Stylistically, I think they have to change. Because like you said at the top, Tyrant Hill is a unique player. He changes the dimensions of a football team.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that that one receiver changed the way defenses play over the last two years. There's like no other player in football where if you, you talk to a coordinator and ask sort of like who scares you the most. Tyree Kill had a pretty solid run as the answer a defensive coordinator would give to that question. Well, and also he's the GM's blanket statement for when someone's like, you're going to add speed and they'll be like, well, there's not a lot of Tyree kills out there. There's like, I've heard that from 10 different GMs.

And then the Dolphins just went out and got the guy. there was a tire refill available and he was available for a first round pick in the second one. And $120 million. Anything else in this trade, guys? Before we get to our improvement lists. Justin Herbert has been solidified

as QB1 for 2022, in my opinion. Yes. Yes. Why don't you pick the Charter to win the AFC West then? I want to see how the offseason plays out. Like you said, like Reed and Mahomes, that's enough. for me not to pick against them. Okay. I'm just saying I feel like you're on that way to that particular take.

And whenever you're ready for, just let me know. I'll tee up. I am. We could, we could get like a mid-May, nor we could the group check, get like a mid-May Ruiz. I'm ready. The way I'm going on this pod, I could do it like in 10 minutes. I know.

Well, you are, you've changed your mind on this five times. So we're just going to let you let it simmer. And we'll just, if you want, you know, we probably have about 20 more minutes, stuff in this pod. If you change your mind again, holler, we'll be here. All right. Let's do the, let's do the teams that help themselves the most. So we're going to do a couple teams that we think help themselves just generally. And then one team we're just not talking enough about as a team that helped themselves. Nora starts off. All right. I almost

didn't want to start here because it's too obvious. But my number one team is the Denver Broncos, a team that for a very long time now, we have described as a quarterback away. Yeah. They got a quarterback. His name is Russell. I never heard of him. And part of this is like, okay, Randy Gregory is kind of high risk, high reward. I think DJ Jones is a nice ad.

All of that is really secondary. Like this is a team that just has not had any sort of, I mean, talk about changing the dimensions of the field in terms of what your opponent has to defend, right? Like anything in terms of deep passing has not been a concern for teams playing the Broncos in quite a bit of time. And I think the hope is that Wilson, not only just a special player in himself, but going into a situation where there's a bunch of offensive playmakers who can be nicely paired with him, it's just kind of a slam dunk. Like, you add Russell Wilson, replaced Drew Locke with Russell Wilson. Pretty happy about that.

Steven, if you were to kind of have to rank the third and fourth teams right now in the AFC West, now I'm just going down the tech order in the AFC West, making you rank everybody. Would you be more surprised by the Broncos or the Raiders winning this division? I would say that I would be more surprised by the Raiders, but I wouldn't be surprised by either finishing last. Right. That's just the nature of the division. Let me rephrase it then.

I wouldn't be surprised by either team finishing 7 and 10 or 6 and 11. Like not just finishing last in a tough division, but disappointing might only. Like I think there's a chance that either team could do that. And I agree the Broncos are a team that clearly upgrade it. But the big reason why we were saying they have, we were saying they had a quarterback problem, But that kind of covered up the fact that they also had a head coach problem for a long time. And if they actually, let's let's pull back the camera here.

They had a franchise problem. They had a franchise problem, which included head coach. And they just hired Michael Scott as head coach. So I'm not really enthused about the season. Oh, boy. So Nora, they're top on your list here. What do the Broncos do in 2020? What does this look like?

Does this mean they're going to be in the playoff hunt now? I mean, they were last year. Or are they like a conference championship contender? Yeah, I think they're, again, the hard thing is the division, right? But if you if you kind of don't try to Galaxy brain, okay, what would they need to do if they finish? Can three teams get it? Like if you don't start playing that specific game, I think it's a 10 plus win team, which is not like, you know, that's not, okay, Super Bowl shoe in.

But it's at a certain point, there's a lot of good players in this roster. And coaching can really, really hold a team back, particularly one that's trying to get everybody together in gel. Maybe I should be discounting that a little bit or adding that in as a negative a little bit more, but we haven't seen it yet. And I kind of think that adding a high level quarterback is going to cover up a lot of that. Particularly, like, Russ just tends to have, there's a honeymoon. there's a honeymoon phase, I think.

And I don't know how long it'll last so perfectly, but I just think they have a chance to really have a more exciting offense than they've had in years there. I think Russ has set the floor for the team, and I think Hackett decides the ceiling. The ceiling? Yeah. Like if he's Freddie Kitchens, it might be six and 11, seven and 10. If he's replacement level, it's probably 10 to 11 wins.

I would agree. 10 or 11, yeah. Yeah. All right. I think that the chiefs are going to win the division, by the way. They're probably going to win Super Bowl again, but I'm not ready to make that call. Stephen, who's your first team? I'm going to go with the Buccaneers. I think it's less them improving things and them not overreacting to losing in the playoffs last year, the way they did,

and seeing where the NFC was going. Tom Brady literally retired for a month. And they came back. Yeah. If anyone overreacted to the loss, it was probably Tom Brady, and that's okay. He came home. I think a lot of teams get into trouble

when they start chasing ghosts of last season because they assume everything else is going to be the same. Like their one weakness is going to be the same. And I think the Bucks recognized they had a lot of injuries last year, especially at the end of the year, that really changed how they could play offense. So I like what they did. They brought the,

band back together. Like they did last year. I think it's going to work out better this year. Their luck is going to be better in terms of injury. Of, I assume you think Chris Godwin is the most important piece they brought back, not counting Tom Brady? Yes. Or even at it. I mean, you got Russell Gage, three years 30, Ryan Jensen, three years 40, basically. Same deal for Carlton Davis. Playoff lending three years of 24

is rough. It's rough. It's rough, but I get it. Do you? I get it from like a one year, let's try to win the Super Bowl perspective. And in two years, it's going to look horrible. But for this one year,

one last mission, I think it makes sense. Nora, box thoughts? Um, I think they clearly looked out. I think they got a little bit of fortuitous, a fortuitous role in the ice with,

with the unretirement. Um, I do think, I do think Davis coming back is like, I actually kind of think that's, bigger than Godwin. I really didn't think that was... You just don't want to hold a cornerback.

Yeah. I actually, initially, when it seemed like they were never going to be able to get him back, um, after using the tag on Godwin, I, I was a little confused why they did that just because it seemed kind of like,

maybe you could work out, you could try to work out a deal, but you're probably going to lose Davis if you don't tag him. And clearly all of that did not turn out to be correct. Um, again, I think the Brady on retirement. played a big role in that. But I was just shocked that they were able to keep him and had initially

been sort of surprised that they didn't make more of an effort to create a context in which it wouldn't be so shocking for them to keep him. And then they managed to do it anyway. So I make sense. I didn't put them on my list because most of it happened because an old guy was like, yeah, I'll give it another whirl. But definitely doing well over. in Bucksland. Although, did they really improve that, like, they improved relative to the, for a month. Yeah.

They improved their standing in the NFC by standing pat. And I think there was a two-month, there was a two-month stretch where they could have overreacted to Tom Brady retiring. They didn't do that. And I think they deserve credit for that. They could have torn everything down, but they kept signing players are opening up money so they could do that.

And then they brought Brady back. Okay. So then we're, but we're just saying. saying that they improved themselves relative to a month ago, more so than we're saying. Remember when Matthew McConaughey said that his role model is him five years from now? Remember that? I don't. Yeah.

That's a great line. He said the Oscars. He said his role model is him five years from now. And he's only comparing himself to himself. He doesn't cover himself to everybody else. Tampa Bucks are looking in the mirror and they're comparing themselves to two months ago and they're saying, we look great. You're doing great, sweetie. That's what they're saying to themselves.

Yeah. And everybody else in the NFC is apparently tanking, so things are going well. I want to talk about the Bengals. Because I had some skepticism that the Bengals were going to be able to go out and address their offensive line. And an interesting market for offensive linemen. It wasn't like what the Chiefs did last year where they gave Joe Cheney one of the biggest contracts in history where they went out and traded the first round pick immediately. It wasn't that. but it was solid moves. Alex Kappa, Ted Karras,

Lail Collins. This is what they had to do. Franchise tagging Jesse Bates. We'll see where that goes. I just think that for what I expected, this has exceeded my expectations. I think the barrier for entry in the AFC has gotten really high to the point that

I don't know if the Bengals are going to be conference championship contenders, but I do think that they did everything we hope they could do. Yeah, I mean, sometimes we talk about this. Like, the only thing you can do in the offseason is answer the questions that people might have about where the roster is. And if you, the most specific question with the Bengals, I think, was particularly the right side of the offensive line. And they didn't do it in like super, super splashy, holy crap fashion. But by the way, like, what the Chiefs did worked out in the sense that their offensive line was,

better than it was before when they had all those injuries and it got deeper, particularly in past blocking, that did not turn into like the world's greatest offensive line by kind of a long shot. So even doing it that way doesn't guarantee success. But it's pretty hard to look at what was such a train wreck on the right side of that line last season and not think that they will have considerably improved themselves. And it didn't take anything super, super, super. super, super aggressive. I had the Bengals as my sort of like under the radar, underrated but improved team here. Back when we made lists.

When lists were a thing before. Back when lists were a thing like three hours ago. The only thing that I don't, I kind of don't love that they lost CJ Azelma. That's a big loss for a team that could have. It's kind of a sneaky big loss. For a team that couldn't throw over the middle of the field last year, even when their offense was going good, that's a huge loss. And I'm leaving them off my list because of the first move they made this off season.

Extending the coach. I can't put you on a winner's list if you did that. You know they just made the Super Bowl. They also went 10 and 7 and almost lost to the Raiders in the Wildcar round. Who was the Raiders head coached, by the way? They got outcoached by a guy whose name I don't know. Basatia, isn't it? Sure.

Sounds right. I knew what the name was. I just wanted to make sure I nailed the pronunciation. A, Dion Bush safety, long time bearer's safety, signed with the Chiefs this morning. And at 1230, he tweeted, What's Up, Chiefs Kingdom? And then Tarikil's trade went through

about a minute and a half later. And he tweeted an hour later. My bad, I'll hit you all back later. That's funny. That's a good bounce back. It's a good bounce back. bounce back. For sure. For sure. For sure. All right.

So anybody else have the next team? Next team up, Ruiz. I mean, someone's got to bring up the Chargers. That's literally what I was going to say. I'll do it if Stephen doesn't want to. I wanted Kevin to do it. But I should have known that he wasn't going to do it. But yeah, the Chargers.

They trade it for a lot of... You're going to have to fill me in. The Charge what? The Charge what? I don't know this team. I don't know this franchise. Kevin, I believe you saw them play in a soccer stadium a couple of years ago. I did. I brought my wife as a bit for a column and my wife correctly assessing the situation at a Browns Chargers soccer stadium game, looked at me in the third quarter and said, does this game count? That's great answer. You got to love it.

Well, I didn't, I had to explain to her the contours of football. Yeah. Dude, Emily's locked in. She's got the keen eye. She has no idea whether or not this game counts, and she's right to ask that question. Anyway, the Chargers. I mean, just based on what they did on defense,

Sebastian Joseph Day, J.C. Jackson, Khalil Mack, those guys fill holes that were glaring last year and that prevented them from playing defense the way they wanted to play defense. At the combine, Brandon Staley said, he was talking about how there are ways teams want to play, but based on personnel, there are ways you can play. And that was a limiting factor for the charges last year. And now they have a

cornerback that they can trust in man coverage. They can trust to go guard a Tyree kill if they want one-on-one without worrying about putting a safety over the top. Now they have a run defender in Joseph Day. They can put in the middle of that defensive line and stop the run. They have Khalil Mack who kind of takes attention away from Bosa. I mean, we talked about no excuses for Tua. Brandon Staley has no more excuses. If this defense is in top of it, top 10. This defense is top 10. This is,

I'm glad, now I'm glad you brought him up. If the defense isn't top 10, he should be podcasting with us a year from now. Tell me about the cat. I was going to say, tell me about the cat over your left shoulder. Fired up,

but the Brandon's daily takes. Rhonda. That's her name. That was the cat, that I lost when I yelped after Justin Herbert Herbert made that, that throw against the Giants. This is her.

She survived. Hi, Rhonda. I'm glad you made it. Justin Herbert killed the Giants defense, but not Rhonda. So do you have a good sense of what you, do you think there's something specific that Staley meant by thorough ways we wanted to play but weren't able to because of personnel? Like, I'm curious if you feel like that is,

okay, didn't have necessarily like the outside corners that could match up. I'm sure they're excited with Jackson that they can play asante Samuel Jr. more on the inside. my best guess would be that that statement has something to do with that configuration. But I'm wondering if you think the same or have another theory or if you think it has to do with run defense and who's playing the nose and would be related more to that. I think it's like a chicken and egg situation.

I do think it starts up front with the front and the run and stopping the run. But the things they had to do to make up for that took away from their resources to stop the pass. and they just didn't have the guys to hold up in coverage. They didn't have Jalen Rans. And there were some coverage concepts that they really spammed in Los Angeles or with the Rams in 2020 that you didn't really see a lot of in 2021. And I think that's because they didn't have that shutdown corner on the, on one side of the field. And like, to be clear, they still don't have Jailen Ramsey.

No, but. But. But. But. J.C. Jackson is good. like Jalen Ramsey he is not but he is good he's got great ball skills you feel a lot better about your sort of number one outside guy even though i guess Michael Davis would be the other side of that um but and maybe that's not exactly thrilling but i just don't think that there's any way

you don't look at that by adding jackson go okay yeah like and i yeah and i think with jackson he's the type who can match up with different styles of receivers, different body types. Michael Davis couldn't do that. He was like a speed guy. Like when they tried to cover him one-on-one or cover Jamar Chase with him one-on-one, Chase just bullied him, just boxed him out and bullied him. I think they want a guy that can hold up. Right.

And Jackson is not a huge guy. Like he doesn't have a huge frame, but he's feisty and he's physical. And I don't think that that's like a big deal for him. And then so then for Davis, you can kind of say like, okay, you're not getting the top guy unless for some reason it's like, oh, you match up perfectly with this person. So that's your assignment. I just, I imagine the comfort there is just so much higher. It kind of gives them that Belichick thing where Belichick always had like a cornerback group that was almost like a basketball roster where you match up different body types. And they have that now.

And the one thing about signing J.C. Jackson is he's coming from a system where they gave him no help. It was like, you're going to play one-on-one man coverage with no safety help over the top all the time. So there's like no worry about him coming to a more demanding system. If anything, this is an easier system for him. Easier system. Yeah. Also, for the record, the corner contracts just didn't get that crazy out of control, right? Like, it's a lot of money because he was a high ticket free agent this cycle.

But it's not a contract that you look at and go like, oh, man, what a bear. If you put it in the context not just of what happened this free agency with corners, but in the context of the last three, four years of cornerback deals, you're pretty happy about what you're paying J.C. Jackson. Right. Hey, Nora, can you give me just as concise an explanation as possible on what the Patriots are doing? I don't know. The answer to that is like kind of no.

Because I'm looking at J.C. Jackson's like career and it's like, No one who's good plays four years for the team that drafted them and then just leads. Like no one that good. I can give you an answer specific to Jason Jackson. I think, and I think frankly this is a little unfair. But I think there was some trepidation over him being the person they were going to hand over a very large check to. Sure. But they got it.

Like there was no Stefan Gilmore. Like when they let Mark and Butler walk, it was like, here's Stefan Gilmore. Like I just don't see that plan. into place. Just franchise them, right? I'm really surprised by what they did. Again, I think there's, I think there's an idea there

that he's not these sort of like prototypical Patriots, shut up and do your job kind of dude. He would get in trouble once a month for speaking out of turn, essentially. It was never, ever, ever, ever, ever anything that I would call

like morally bad or It was just he kind of irked Bill Belichick, it seemed like. Like Ruiz. Like Ruiz. Like Ruiz on the spot. Once a month. Just gets us in hot water. So I think.

We both went to Maryland. It's a Maryland. Yeah, I was going to ask that. So you think the Patriots were totally comfortable just being like, you know what? Good luck in your future endeavors. I can't imagine being completely comfortable with that based on who else they have on the roster. Clearly they were comfortable enough with it to do it. I do wonder if like, and this goes back to the Tyree Hill thing,

if the changing nature of NFL defense plays into that and kind of limits his value as a guy that's a man coverage corner because we're seeing more zone coverage now. And we saw more zone coverage out of the Patriots themselves. So maybe they're like, yes, three years ago, four years ago, this is someone who was really valuable to us. But now the way we're playing defense, maybe he's not as valuable. Maybe, but you still want, like, this is the reason that I just don't really get it. I also don't get trading Shaq Mason for a fifth. Like, those are two of your best players.

Right. I don't really know who's filling those roles. But the likelihood that they are equally good players is so slim. So to answer the question of if I have any idea what might have played a role in them being comfortable, letting Jackson walk. I think some of it has to do with just some internal concern over what he's going to be like

on a second contract and how he's going to deal with that sort of situation. The logic from the roster standpoint, I really don't know. I really, I can't see it. I have tried to see it. I do not see it. Who has the most confusing

plans right now of a team? like the Cowboys are in the mix there. The Patriots are in the mix. Who else is making you scratch your head right now, guys? The Falcons. The Seahawks. The Seahawks. The Seahawks are just probably tanked, right?

I think. The Falcons. That's just some tough stuff, man. But I don't feel like... I also put the Panthers in that bucket, by the way. I don't want to... I'm not sure I think the Falcons' plans are that. Like the recent narrative of the Falcons is that they should have done the tear down start fresh offseason last off season.

Last year. I did not end. Ended up with a very, very good tight end. And now they kind of have to figure out where to go from here. And it's not obviously a great situation to be in. But I don't feel like I don't understand it in the same way that I really truly look at the Patriots right now and go, okay, for the majority of last season, it seemed like you'd lucked into a pretty good quarterback, not a great one,

but one that would do. And this is just not how you proceed to set him up for success in a second year. Like it just, it just is not. Okay, but they went from, here's why I think they're playing something. They went from,

we haven't met Ryan to, we're trying to get to Sean Watson this year to, we're going to win one game next year. Like the whiplash there. It's like, what, out trying to do with your pal. Like that,

that, that to me is, is why I'm just, I agree with Stephen. That's just, it's all such a head scratch. I think that's more just like bad than confusing.

And I think, but I think, I'm confused by it. I don't think, I don't think, I don't think, I think, I think part of it was bad. But I also just think I'm just,

I think they've just changed course a couple times. And this off season makes last off season even weird. I feel like they're, you have to conflate them. Because this is a new GM. This is year two. Last year was year one. Like,

what are they going to be going into year three? Do we have any idea? I have no clue what this team's going to look like a year from now. Or six months from now. I'm looking at the pro football focus improvement index and it's got this graph showing who's added the most value and who's taken away the most value. Pretty much everybody who's lost value is in the NFC.

It's really something else. and the Falcons are the second the second worst team as far as the Seahawks are obviously worst Falcons after that bears Patriots after that Packers Chiefs Saints, Cowboys Cardinals, Ramps

those are the worst teams as far as improvement goes. All right guys any other teams winning to throw out real quick? I have the Ravens Me too. Good off season. Good stuff. I kind of feel it. This is this is, we're always early rather than late on teams.

I know Lamar had his MVP season a couple of years ago. I just think we forget about teams very easily in the NFL. And you even saw it, to be honest, the year that the Chiefs won the Super Bowl, nobody remembers this now. Like Greg Bishop went to, went to do a Sports Illustrated story about how, like, Patrick Mahomes is still here because Lamar Jackson had overshadowed him.

Like, the narrative changes so quickly with his quarterbacks. And it had been a year since he'd won the Super Bowl, or he'd won the MVP. everybody got Lamar fever. Obviously, they lost in the playoffs. The Chiefs won the Super Bowl. And it's almost like we forgot about how solid the building blocks are in Baltimore. They don't have to do a whole lot.

Marcus Williams is a good signing. Morgan Moses is good signing. Michael Pierce is good signing. I think we started giving them props on a different pod. And it was mostly for the Marcus Williams signing, which is great. And it was before, the reason I wanted to bring it up was just because that was before. I believe it was before they got Morgan Moses for $5 million a season. just pretty banana grams.

Yes. It's really easy to forget those injuries. Like, it was comical how injured. Yeah. It was ridiculous. And they lost a bunch of close games and still almost made the playoffs. So, yeah, I agree. I think they're another team that, I mean,

those are good moves, but I don't think they've, like, made moves you put up on a billboard. Like, they're not, like, headline-grabbing moves. but this team, I think, is going to be a lot better than people realize. I think they're like a top three team in the AFC. Ruiz, your last team. You can a shout-out? Or we got in everybody.

I was going to go with the Packers. I don't think they've been prude, but I am a fan of them trying something different. I think them bringing back Devante Adams would have locked them into just basically trying to come up with a close approximation of last year's team. And last year's team lost the Jimmy Garapolo at home and the 49ers didn't score a touchdown on offense.

Like, I feel like them being willing, and I know Devante Adams kind of forced their hand, but they acted quickly with the trade and them being willing to trade Devante Adams and just kind of try to regroup, I think is commendable and I think it's smart on their part. Running it back, again, would have been, I think it would have been dumb. Okay. Well, guys, we have to leave on. it was good to get rid of Devante Adams. That's right.

I switched my take on the, I switched my take on the Chiefs. They should have traded Patrick Mahomes. I kept her out Tyre Kill. Yeah. Yeah. All right. We'll be back next week, Thursday, I think.

But of course, we'll have a bunch of emergency pods between then. I'll be in Florida. Beginning of next week for the NFL owners meetings. It's going to get there a little early. Watch the, watch the Keynes beat Iowa State. and subsequently Kansas. Yeah. So thank you to Stefan Anderson

for a production out with your productions provisioned by Arjuna Ramqafal. He's been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.