The Ringer NFL Show - Rivalry Week With Playoff Implications | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: December 19, 2019

To lead off the show, we talk about Tom Coughlin’s recent firing from the Jaguars front office, and the pointlessness of Pro Bowl selections (0:40). Then, a Take Shop about players publicly voting for the Pro Bowl and prohibiting the franchise tag for players over 30 years old (12:45) before we get to the three biggest games of the week, headlined by Packers vs. Vikings (25:30). Finally, resident Philadelphian Chris Ryan joins the show to review the disappointing Eagles season and talk Carson Wentz (47:40). Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Rodger Sherman, Danny Kelly, and Chris Ryan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the NFL show is brought to you by State Farm. When you need a game plan for protection, state farm agents are here to help. With personalized service, agents are available to talk in person, over text, or through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on. Find an agent in your neighborhood today. State Farm, talk to an agent today. You know the risks of driving drunk. There could be a crash.

People get hurt or killed. You could get arrested, incur huge legal expenses, and possibly even lose your job. You know the consequences of driving drunk. and you're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Drive sober or get pulled over. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark today. We have Roger Sherman with Take Shop, Danny Kelly,

the three biggest games of the week, and Chris Ryan on a classic but crappy Cowboys Eagles clash that will determine the winner of the NFCEs. But first of all, we have some breaking news. Tom Coughlin has been fired as executive vice president of the Jacksonville Jaguars. And I think what we can all agree is one of the most well-deserved. firings of the young firing season.

There's going to be a lot of these. Tom Coughlin ran the Jaguars into the ground. This is how you do it. I think that Jaguars fans will spend the next, I don't know, five years thinking about how close that team was at the Super Bowl. I was at that game where Blake Bordles went into England and almost won. And I cannot imagine going from that to where the Jaguars are that quickly. Now, when Blake Bortles is a quarterback, things can go south.

pretty quick. I understand that. But they commit a ton of money in Nick Foles. 22 million next year is the cap hit, 10% of the cap. And then it comes out, well, why do they give Nick Foll so much money? Well, it's because the locker room needed to respect him. That was the take because he didn't, there weren't bidding against anybody, but the locker room needed to respect him. So we got to give him starting quarterback money.

It was, this is not how you run an NFL franchise in 2019. So you compound that. with all of the different NFLPA rulings or the neutral arbitrator rulings that went against the Jaguars because Tom Kaufman was fining players from missing voluntary things and making voluntary things mandatory that he wasn't allowed to do. This just seems like a no-brainer. What the Jaguars do, I'm not sure. Dave Caldwell is a holdover, obviously, from when he was the GM.

He's still there. He's reporting to Shad Khan on an interim basis. And I don't know. I mean, they have a lot of work to do. They have a lot of work to do. This is for as much as we talk about the cat being fake and all this stuff and the fact that it rises $10 million a year, I understand that, this is what happens when you build your team the way the Jaguars did.

They built through not only fra agency, which I think can be a viable path to contention, but they built through toughness, okay? And there's something to that, but you cannot take a running back forth overall in a draft with two future superstar quarterbacks and think that's a good way to build a team. At least the Bears took a quarterback when they knew they needed a quarterback.

The Jaguars just said, eh, it's fine. We'll let Patrick Mahomes and Nashawasen slip. We need Leonard Forenack because we need toughness. I just think Tom Coughlin, the teams he engineered, the 07 and 2011 Giants to beat the Patriots, two of the, some of the best team building that we saw in the previous decade. So congratulations

Tom Kaufman on that. But he did not know how to run a modern team in these last couple of years. And that showed. Okay, whether that's a Nick Foll signing, whether that's one and four not not getting drafted, whether that's getting them into salary cap problems. There was just, there were not a whole lot of rational decisions. Compound that with, again, the fact that he just was giving the franchise bad looks with these grievances. And, you know, it's This is it. Fresh Start in Jacksonville. That's how this works.

All right. One more rant really quickly. It's about the Pro Bowl. I don't want to rant about the particular snubs. I'm not going to get upset over Kirk Cousins not getting in and Aaron Rogers getting in or the fact that Julian Edelman not only did not make the Pro Bowl. He has never made the Pro Bowl or the Dak Prescott didn't make it. There's a lot of things you could jump off. And that's not the show.

It's not the show I want to do. I want to get angry at the existence of the Pro Bowl and why we need to cancel the Pro Bowl. The reason the Pro Bowl should be canceled is not because of these particular snubs, because there's actually no good way to pick these teams. And then there's a false representation of what this season looked like when you look at the Pro Bowls. Like the fact that Dak Prescott didn't get in this year, even though he statistically is probably the third best quarterback. And we're going to look back on the 2019 season and we're going to see he just didn't make the Pro Bowl.

And that's just because that's just in our nature. The same reason that I look at passerating when they're quarterbacks, because it's the first thing you look at. Oh, how many Pro Bowls do you go to? You judge left tackles. That's all we have to judge left tackles. Every time someone's like Bruce Matthews, it's like, oh, he went to 25 consecutive Pro Bowls because he played for three decades. Like, that's the only thing anybody ever talks about with some of these players. And it's in no way representative of the season.

It's unbelievable. It is amazing to me that Julian Edelman might play his entire career and never make a Pro Bowl. I mean, I have similar problems with the MVP in the Senate. that, you know, Drew Brees will never win an MVP, but that's fine. There were legitimate arguments for most of the years that Drew Brees didn't win the MVP. With Pro Bowls, Matt Stafford is a fifth alternate. What does that mean? What exactly has to happen for Matt Stafford, who's on IR, who's on IR because he's too injured to play?

And I've interviewed Matt Stafford. He's one of the toughest guys in football, which means if he's too injured to play, he's really injured, he's the fifth alternate. What has to happen for that to be cashed in? Jordan Poyer from the Bills, fifth alternate. John Brown, fourth alternate from the Bills. This is great stuff. I'm just glad we got everybody.

Listen, we can still have a Pro Bowl. We can still go to Orlando and we can have a little barbecue or something. I've been to a Pro Bowl. It's a booze fest. It's a booze fest. You want to some interesting stuff? Go to a bar near the Pro Bowl or the night before the game. There's your interesting stuff.

But I just think that from a, the problem is that Pro Bowl has become shorthand for who had a season. And we know now, having seen Trevor Simeon decline an invite and Matt Stafford, who can't move as a fifth alternate, I think that we need to sort of retire it as an entity because it's just confusing and muddying the waters for who's good and who's not in 2019. So listen, if we want to do a skills competition, this is my proposal. We'll just do a skills competition. We'll invite whoever wants to come. We won't say who got it. We have the all pro teams. We have the all pro teams to actually sit down and determine who had a good season in 2019. But the shorthand seems to be pro bowlers. I'm okay with that. That's what I did for like 25 years. I was a pro bowl.

All right. Heinz Ward, excellent. Pro Bowl. Pencil them in. But I think that we need to figure this out because it's not helping anything as far as figuring out who the best and worst players are from a fans perspective. We got to make it a reality TV show or something like that. Maybe a skills competition. Maybe they compete in like wipeout. That'd be fun. Producer Craig, this is a great idea. So why don't we have, so I think the skills competition is important. I think that people, remember that,

that, that, uh, payper view last year that was kind of a scam. Remember that one? They didn't get the checks on time. Of the guys who were, uh,

it was pay per view where the fastest players raced. Oh yeah. Remember this? And then I don't, they didn't get their checks on time. I don't, haven't checked enough they ever got their checks. Not looking good when,

when, when you don't get the checks on time in the first place. But, uh, we could have that. We could have a fastest, man competition instead of the Pro Bowl. We can have quarterback skills competition.

We can have all sorts of stuff. We can't do the flag football thing because of the Robert Edwards thing. It's beach beach football a couple years ago. But there are so many different things we could do that week, that Saturday or that Sunday, whatever. And it would not ruin the way we evaluate who's good and who's not in football. Because it seems to me that this is just, look, we've known this for a long time. like the gold gloves in baseball. Like some people get penciled in as pro bowlers

and they never stop being penciled in his pro bowlers. And then you further confuse that by the fact nobody wants to go and all of a sudden you have fifth alternates. Do we need like a designated survivor situation for the pro bowl? We have to have it all mapped out to where if four quarterbacks can't go,

the designated survivors, the fifth one. We can't even go. Who's the sixth alternate? Do you know who has the most pro bowl selections? There's four people tied for the most? I'm going to guess it's, So selections. Mm-hmm.

I'm going to guess one is Tom Brady. Correct. I'm going to guess one is... Sorry, there's five. Oh, there's five. Okay. Is Daryl Green one of them? No. I feel like that would maybe somebody who just got in on, you know,

10 straight times just because he wanted to. All right. Tom Brady. Peyton Manning. Yep. Is it Bruce Matthews? Yep. Jerry Rice?

No. It's not Jerry Rice. No. Jerry Rice played for 100 seasons. He was really good and he doesn't hold any sort of record. He does not. Sorry, tough beat for Jerry. Reggie White?

Nope. Jerry Rice, 13 Pro Bowls. It's Tony Gonzalez and Merlin Olson. Okay, you know what? Gonzalez is okay. I'm okay with that. Is it bad? I don't know who Merlin Olson is.

Oh, my goodness. It's not bad because. you're a millennial, but are you a millennial? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Okay. Well, Merwin Olson was actually also a TV star. Your parents might know.

We can get them on the pod next week. He was a huge Ram star, but then he was on all sorts of weird NBC shows. So there you go. So this is kind of the point. Why did Jerry Rice not make more Pro Bowls? He had 13. He was one short. We were so ill-equipped to judge...

Jerry Rice's career when he played. He never won an MVP. He was constantly complaining about how much attention his quarterbacks got. And I think in most cases, he's probably right. He had like a kind of a rant a little bit

one year. I remember reading about that where he essentially was like, I don't get enough attention. And he was right. Jerry Rice is one of the best football players of all the time. Might be the best. So, I don't know, but now I'm in a Jerry Rice hole. This started out with me,

trying to cancel the Pro Bowl and now all of a sudden I'm complaining about Jerry Rice. Not having enough Pro Bowl selections, yeah. Not having enough Pro Bowl selections. I've become what I hate. All right, let's get to this week. State Farm Safe Bed of the Week. And now it's time for the State Farm Safe Bed of the Week,

the team you can count on. We need a game plan for protection. State Farm agents are here to help with personalized service. Agents are available to talk in person over text or through the State Farm app. So go with the one with coverage and agents you can count on.

Find an agent in your neighborhood today. I want to talk about a very intriguing matchup between two teams the Bucks against the Texans this weekend. The Bucks have won four straight games. We're all starting to believe that James Winston can be some sort of competent quarterback.

They look like a team that maybe at 7 and 7 can make some noise these last two weeks and dethrone a contender like the Houston Texans. I don't actually believe any of this. The Houston Texans are a much better team that Tampa Buccaneers. Deshaun Watson's a much better quarterback than

Jamice Winston, we're going to see that this week. DeAndre Hopkins said two massive weeks the last two weeks ago, 119 last week against the Tennessee Titans. He took over the fourth quarter. There's a reason that Watson and Hopkins are known as probably the most dynamic quarterback and receiver duo in the NFL at this point. And they are much better than a depleted Tampa Bay Buccaneers receiving corps with Godwin out with Mike Evans with a hamstring issue and James Winston still being James Winston. So this is a Texan's team finishing out a pretty nice season against a still bad team. This is a quarterback in Deshawn Watson proving his superiority over a bad quarterback in Jamis Winston. This is a Bucks team coming back down to Earth. And this is a safe bet. State Farm.

Talk to an agent today. Okay. It's time for this week's Take Shop. It's Roger Sherman. Roger, take it away. Pun intended. Thanks. tough one. I think we should just let players vote for the Pro Bowl and all of their votes should be public. So I ranted on here earlier about how we should just get rid of the Pro Bowl.

Yeah, that'd be fine too. It's an either or situation. We're conflating the Pro Bowl with something that tells us the story of the season and really it's just kind of made up. It's fine. I agree with that. This is the cousin of the

hottest take I did a couple weeks ago with you about how NBA players should call their own fouls because it's funnier if we get to identify the player who keeps, you know, whether that's someone calling a foul on themselves or someone calling a foul on if James Hardin leads a league and fouls called on himself, that's funnier than if Zach Zarba does it, right? Absolutely. So if Adrian Peterson, we find out not only did he vote for himself, but he voted for the entire Redskins offensive line, that's very funny.

I would also say, having seen the NFL 100 list around many locker rooms in the NFL, that this sort of thing is very common where people just kind of vote for their buddies. And that's funny too. I wish those votes were public as well. Yeah, I would probably put in some rules like you can't vote for your teammates or something like that. But basically, I was looking at how this gets done. And it's one third media, one third fans, and one third players. And I think we're just, we're making.

this too complicated and more boring in the process. Like, it doesn't really tell us anything. It's sort of like a mix of we're voted, like the best and most popular players, but not enough of either for it to really tell us which is which. So let's eliminate that aspect of it. And let's see who players think is good. Maybe, like, either you can't vote for yourself or, like, you can only vote for your players at your position or something like that.

just to mean so that it means something. Because sometimes I'll be writing and I'll try and say this player has been to a Pro Bowl as like a meaning of merit, but it isn't really, is it? Yeah, that's sort of what I was getting at earlier. Julian Edelman has never been to a Pro Bowl.

Does that mean Julian Edelman is not better than all the crappy receivers who have been to a Pro Bowl? Also, if the fifth alternate to a pro bowl are listed and they are. Are they a pro bowl or they're proble alternate? Probo and Mitch Trubisky. Do we have to say they're the fifth alternate?

No, we just say alternate. I think we should get to say fifth Pro Bowl alternate Mitch Trubisky. I thought that they should cancel the Pro Bowl after Trevor Simeon got invited and then declined because he needed voluntary non-throwing shoulder surgery. He didn't need it. He thought it would be good. I wish, I'm going to ask this question and you might get offended. Fine.

Do you watch the Pro Bowl? And the reason I ask is because my guess is you've written something, some amazing column about the Pro Bowl in which you're really into it. And I missed it. So do you watch it or not? When my job was like you have to work from this hour to this hour to this hour. on a certain day in the past and that day was the Pro Bowl, I would watch it. In the past few years, it's been the day that I fly to the Super Bowl. Yeah, me too.

So I haven't, I've like maybe looked at it if I'm on JetBlue, but most likely not. I don't think I would voluntarily watch it. It's also like a thing where I work for 19 straight Sundays. And even if I wasn't working, that would be like a prime brunch day. So, I mean, unless the NFL can find another day for me to have brunch without football. What just happened? Did you hear me? Yeah, no, I heard you.

I'm just, I'm trying to unpack this brunch take. Well, I mean, I like brunch. Sometimes you can get a lot of alcohol at brunch. And typically it's only like, it's a weekend thing. And I watch football Saturday and Sunday for, from September to, The Pro Bowl falls on one of the like four days I can have brunch with my girlfriend in between September and February. So that's like kind of a problem for me personally. I don't know how that affects the rest of the NFL.

I don't know which. This conversation is one of the best things you've ever done at the rigger. Roger explained that he hates a Pro Bowl because it's time for brunch. Well, listen. I don't hate the Pro Bowl. It's just that Trevor Simeon doesn't want to go because he's having brudge

And I It's a brunch day for me too Me and Trevor Simeon Are going to meet up somewhere in Brooklyn And have brunch on the day of the pro ball this year Okay, we desperately Have to get out of this All right

My take at the beginning was okay And then it went Jacoby Brissette was a pro ball alternate. This year he is? Yeah, right now. Yeah. Okay.

I'm just letting you know. I'm just letting you know. I'm looking at the proble alternates and I'm not, I'm, I'm discouraged. All right. Let's get to mine.

This is a, this is not a brunch take. More like Jacoby brunch. No, that's no work. Oh, Lord. That's not even a thing.

It is definitely not a thing. It's definitely not a thing. not a thing. So let's move on. Okay. AJ Green, his contract running out. He is in the last year of his four year, $60 million deal. He is a lifelong bangle. He got hurt at the beginning of the season while playing on a high school field. And he, it is unclear to me if he's gotten healthy enough to play and he's just not playing or he doesn't want to rush the injury. I don't, I'm actually completely unclear on that. I think everybody else is too.

But the point is he announced he is not playing the final two games in the season, not a surprise since he's missed the whole season. And obviously had that serious injury in August. Now, he comes out today and he says the franchise tag, it would be a problem because it shows that he's not committed, they're not committed to the Bengals in that circumstance that he has to protect himself. Completely understandable from AJ Green.

Here's my take. A.J. Green is 31 years old. he has played a lot of Bengals football. He's had to watch a lot of Bengals football. My take is that you should not be able to use the franchise tag on a player over 30 years old. Yeah, that makes sense. The NBA has protections like that where if you've been in the league long enough and if you've been on the same team long enough,

you have different contracts available to you. That's the opposite, which is that you can, that's bird rights. And that benefits the player getting more money. and they, so then they essentially are, they don't count against the cap in the same way, whatever. But I think AJ Green would just probably want the option to leave. Yes. Yes.

Because he's, so that's what I'm saying is the opposite of bird rights, right? Where it's just like he actually would like to be able to test the open market. Problem is you can essentially tag him three times if you wanted to. So the receiver tag next year is $18 million. That's quite nice. But what if AJ Green, I'm, listen, AJ Green has been a loyal soldier for the Cincinnati Bengals. and if he wants to stay, I'm fine with that.

But if he wants to just go, like, play for the dolphins and hang out in Miami, and that's fine. I hope those are there's only two options. Would you either put for the dolphins or the bank? They're playing. Okay, yes. The dolphins are Bengals. They, they, he should be on the line on Sunday.

Oh, the winner of that game gets AJ Green. And the loser gets Joe Burrow. Uh, I, well, that's. The dolphins cannot get Joe Burrow, unfortunately. Oh, true, true. No, but, yeah. Yeah, if the NFLPA should figure out something where, I mean, the franchise tag is sort of this move from the owners to restrict player movement. And that it would be nice if once players were veteran enough, they didn't have to worry about that.

Yeah, because the point of the franchise tag, obviously, is depressed salaries and these sort of market setting deals and guys like Aaron Rogers, when they know they have two years left on their contract, well, that might actually be five. years and you're more likely because you never test the open market to take a deal for maybe a little bit less than you order in some cases a lot less. Okay. Kirk Cousins got to the open market and got a fully guaranteed $84 million deal because he played for the franchise tag game and he wanted to weigh that out. But I think if you're just kind of staring down at a franchise tag and you're 31 years old, I mean, listen, the Bengals could just tag him three times and essentially his career is over, right?

He's 34 years old and he's a receiver. And at some point, you just don't get to go do whatever you want to do. And so this is, for me, I think that it's just, it's, it's discouraging if you're a player and you've signed one, two contracts with the team, obviously your rookie contract as well and your AJ Green. He's made a lot of money from the Bengals. I understand that. But I just think that there's got to be a way for a player like AJ Green to switch teams if he so chooses because being a 31 year old, getting tag, facing the tag multiple times, it's not good. With the exception of quarterbacks, I feel like the end of NFL. career's are exceedingly unglomerous and generally involve someone like bouncing around from

team to team in like sad situations and well they also like it's like the reggie wayne thing they all just go play for the patriots for like a week and they get unceremoniously cut yeah yeah and it's part of that is just the market but it it's really not set up well to to to help out players a j green should be allowed to do whatever the hell he wants i i i do not believe that the week 16 Bengals Dolphinscape should determine his future because at this point of his career, he should, he, he is, he has paid his time. He's been loyal to Cincinnati. He might just want to stay in Cincinnati. For sure. I just want to give, I want to usher in the era of player empowerment for the NFL specifically for AJ Green. Yeah. And I like how you said like he was

playing on a high school field. That wasn't his choice. That was a Bengals decision. Am I correct? That he, yes. The Bengals made them. The Bengals, the Bengals, The Bengals, to celebrate the NFL's 100th anniversary practice on a field in, like, Dayton or something, I believe it was Dayton. They were like, yeah, let's, to celebrate the 100th anniversary, let's ruin our best player's season. To celebrate the NFL's history of, like, ruining players' lives. The 100 years of. I thought your brunch take was bad. Do you want to quickly get, you want to get big mad about the NFL top players?

list all time. Wow, I'm so big mad about it. Thanks for bringing it up voluntarily. You said, no, but you've been saying in Slack for weeks that you just decided to get big mad about it. I just didn't want to know if you want to do 30 seconds on it. Yeah, it's like hilarious how few players from the last 30 years of the NFL 100 years. It's like there are basically no players that have been drafted since 2000s, very few drafted in between 1990 and 2000. And that seems wrong. Like, it's one thing, if I was making the list, it would be stacked with players from the recent eras

because I think they're obviously better in every way. And it seems like they've gone the opposite road and they're like, you know what was much better than JJ Watt? 1927. Yeah. Well, were you there? I didn't. No, I wasn't.

And I didn't see it because they didn't film the games because they didn't have cameras. They had a guy on the radio saying, and the Dayton pros have moved the ball to the 27-yard live. That's the biggest skate of the day, three yards. A hundred years later, AJ Green heard himself in that field. Exactly. I think the Dayton team was the triangles, actually. They were.

They were. Canton Bulldogs. A lot of greats back then. Roger Sherman, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. Sorry about the brunch. Okay, Danny Kelly, the ringer's dark night. Danny, I kind of like when we have multiple guests.

It makes me feel like a talk radio guide. The one thing I can't do, the one thing I can't do is when you call into a talk radio thing as a guest, I'm sure you've had this. They just are just in the middle of a take until you get on. They've just come up with a take to fill exactly the time needed until you can come on the phone. And then they just seamlessly transition into it and you get to listen to it. I wish I would just have a fiery take right now for exactly 16 seconds. And they go, okay, Danny Kelly's in the line. But I can't.

Daniel, how are you, buddy? I'm doing really well. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Action-packed episode. Yeah. You're one of three guests. Nice. But you're the only one doing the games.

I'm the only one. Wow, that is an honor. Thank you. Packers, Vikings. I love this game. So obviously three huge division games this weekend. Packers, Vikings, Eagles, Cowboys. And then I would put Rams 49ers in there, although that's not the same because that's not going to determine anything,

but it is a big game within the NFL. We're going to start with Packers Vikings. I like this game. Tell me what's going to happen. So just big picture, when you gave me the list of teams and games that we're going to be running through, my first impression was that like all six of these teams, it's just hard to figure out who any of them are, really. I think the Packers might be the biggest.

I actually have a pretty, I have a pretty good handle on who the Eagles and Cowboys are, but we're going to get to that in a second. Bad? Okay. No, but yeah. So the Packers win, they clinch this division. If the Vikings win, they clinch a playoff spot. I wanted to focus a little bit more on the Vikings,

just because I think they're one of the more fun teams to watch this season, especially since week five when they kind of turned their season around. They were two and two kind of trudging along, and then they decided to essentially just change their offense to everything that Kirk Cousins does really well. And that meant just an incredible amount of play action. almost exactly like what the Titans are doing. You ready for this one? Field Yates had this.

Kirk Cousins and Stefan Diggs have linked up for 13 catches for 575 yards on throws traveling over 20 plus yards in the air, the most of any quarterback wide receiver a duo this season. When I was going through

the all 22 of their play action game, I used this analogy when I was writing my article back in like week eight or something like that. It looks like a murmuration of like swallows where you know how they all fly together, but it's all crazy. Like, that's what their offense looks like to me.

It's like you got the line going one way. You've got a couple receivers going the other direction. Kirk Cousin swings around on a bootleg, throws it deep down the field. It's like it's beautiful football. I've got some stats for you on their play action because it's absolutely absurd what they've been doing this season. Kirk Cousins has a 34.7% play action rate per PFF. That's second only to Lamar Jackson this season.

Going back to week five, I should say, when that's. kind of change their whole structure. Cousins on play action, league high, 1,171 yards, 13 touchdowns, and 149 pass rating. Those are all league highs, zero picks, 75% completion rate, 10.7 yards per attempt. So their play action deep passing game

is absolutely explosive. It's just a lot of fun to watch. So that's basically what I'm looking forward to watching this week. And the other thing that I was just going to kind of throw out there is it's Mike Boone season potentially. my guy, Mike Boone, their third string running back, who is just a preseason superstar, might end up being their starter this week

with Dalvin Cook and Madison out. So those are some fun things to kind of look forward to for Monday. There's been a shocking amount over the past few years of Mike Boone hype. For the amount that he's actually played in the regular season, I'd say it's probably way too much. But he's just been absolutely awesome in the preseason, just like a world leader. We're not at Christine Michael levels.

That's true. true. The hype to actual cares. It'd be hard to reach that. I actually remember, I still feel like embarrassed about this on the podcast, probably like three years ago. Mays asked me who the best running backs in the NFL were. And I think I put Kristen Michael on there and he told me to shut the fuck up.

Oh, God. So, and I deserved that 100%. So anyways, yeah, it's not reaching Christian Michael quite yet. But we're getting there. Yeah, you did deserve that. So the weird hubbub this week is Kurt Cousins versus Aaron Rogers for the Pro Bowl. And I think the Pro Bowl should be abolished. I don't want to do a third straight segment in which we talk about the Pro Bowl.

Okay. I'm just not going to do it. But the big weird flap this week has been Rogers versus Cousins for the Pro Bowl. And they put Dak Prescott in that category too because Prescott like Cousins has not made the Pro Bowl this year. So here's my question. Is Aaron Rogers a great quarter? Is he a good quarterback? Where are we right now on Aaron Rogers, pro bowler, getting in over Kirk Couss and Doc Prescott?

I think my positioning on Aaron Rogers is that he still has an elite tool set, but it's just been hard to watch him play lately because of the way that he holds the football and dances around behind the pocket. I actually pulled these stats up from ESPN. He averaged 2.8, 2.8 seconds to throw and was sacked just once in that win last. week against the Bears. However, he only completed six of 21 passes on those plays where it was more than two and a half seconds, which was his single worst completion rate over the last four seasons. So he's dropping back, looking around, trying to make things happen, lots of throwaways. This is kind of been the story over the last couple of years. Obviously, he can still make the throws that, you know, very few quarterbacks can make. He's still very talented, but just the

way that he operates in the offense is just very un... Just doesn't have a lot of a rhythm, you know, and he's actually averaged 189 yards passing over the last five games per game. And so, I mean, that's just not an explosive offense right now, especially in the passing game. Obviously, they run essentially their whole offense through Tomante Adams and Aaron Jones and everyone else in that offense,

at least to my eye, is just kind of slow. It looks like they're like running in mud. So it's just it's not an entertaining offense to watch for the most part, other than Aaron Jones when he's ripping off big runs. Yeah, I just don't like it. Rogers just to me just doesn't fill in sync at all. Talk me out of thinking that the Vikings are a bigger NFC contender than we think. And a weird NFC, I listen, you can't take one game and extrapolate it, but Niners beat the Saints. The Saints lose a weird game to Falcons.

Just starting to think a little bit about the NFC and whether or not there's a weird team that can go on sort of a run here. It does not like the AFC to me, where the AFC has. as Lamar Jackson, that Baltimore defense in one corner, New England, who does their thing in the other corner. And then I guess this is a triple threat match I'm describing here. And then Kansas City Chiefs who are, who have still the best passer in the game. So where are we in the NFC and are the Vikings, talk me out of the Vikings being a bigger contender than I thought three weeks ago? I think my argument would be like Kirk Cousins big game, I guess.

reputation or whatever, but I actually agree with you that I think the Vikings are being overlooked right now. And that was kind of one of my impressions is looking over these games. It's like, Vikings are a lot better than I think anyone is sort of talking about. They don't, they seem to be flying under the radar a lot right now. They have a good defense. I think it's sixth and DVOA this season. A lot of playmakers, they're getting Adam Thielen back essentially, or in theory, pretty soon here. You know, obviously Dalvin Cook's status is up in the air, but it's a good offense, lots of play action, good defense, very balanced. They can hit explosive plays to score points. I don't know. I don't think I can talk you out of it other than kind of like the cliche

Kirk Cousin shrinks under the spotlight, but I don't know if that will necessarily be true going forward this year. Yeah, if that's the worst part of the Viking experience right now, which is that there's a narrative out there on Kirk Cousins, I'm actually more excited about the Vikings than I was before I asked that question. All right, who wins? that's a good question I think I'm going with the Vikings in this one they're playing at home you know they're playing to clinch a playoff spot

and I just think they're a little bit more balanced than the backers at this point yeah I'm gonna agree with that I'm gonna agree with that in Minnesota I'm in I like the Vikings all right next game Eagles Cowboys we have Chris Ryan on

in a little bit to talk about this Carson Wentz more I asked him about this but I'm also gonna ask you about this Can we, can Carson Wentz just stop fumbling? He has 23 fumbles the last two years. Daniel Jones does have more. Congratulations.

Yeah. Giants on drafting Daniel Jones. But at this point, I just don't know why Carson Wentz keeps turning the ball over. It's so frustrating because it's just like, you can see a lot of the fumbles coming from like a mile away. He's just sitting there in the pocket, waiting a little bit too long,

trying to make something happen. Obviously, he made a reputation in his career for these Houdini type plays, but a lot of the time it just ends up being a disaster because he loses it at the last second. So I was going to actually ask you, who do you want to win this game? Because it's a de facto NFC title game, right? So do you have a favorite? The MNFC title game.

It's certainly not the Defecto Enfrey title game. Sorry. Yeah. So that's a great question. That's a great question. So from a fan of football perspective is what you're asking. And I actually think it's the Eagles and here's why. Okay.

I don't, I would like to see. Jack Prescott thrive in a way that I think Dak Prescott's going to thrive one day, whether that's 2020, 2020, 2021, 2022, whatever. I think that Jack Prescott is going to be a very, very, very good quarterback, even better than he is right now. I think he's probably the third best quarterback in the NFL this year, according to a lot of the PFF guys,

a lot of that kind of stuff. And I want Jason Garrett to get fired. And I don't say that, I don't say that lightly. I mean, like, this is somebody's job. I just don't, but Jason Garrett's made a whole lot of money. Right. He's the, he's had that job since 2011. He'll be fine.

He'll go coach the Giants or something. I don't, when I say I want someone to get fired, like I don't, I, it's, it's usually with hesitation. I actually, Jason Garrett's just going to be fine. We're good. We're good on that. And so I think that if the Cowboys win the division, and then win the playoff game,

all of a sudden, old loyal Jerry decides, oh, let's just keep them. Let's just keep them. And I think that they need, Jerry Jones is to let the Cowboys be great. They got to exercise the demons. They have to have this come to Jesus moment. Yeah.

Well, I also don't even know, like from a football perspective, watching this game, I don't know what to think. These teams have laid so many eggs. the Eagles lost to the dolphins, dude. The Eagles lost to the dolphins and the Cowboys lost to the Jets.

What in the world? I have no answers for you on that. Those two teams are playing for the Division Championship at Fox on Fox at 425 p.m. And like 40 million people are going to watch it, including us and we're going to love it. So the other thing that I was going to ask you about this, and this is kind of not,

this is not the playoff discussion or whatever, but it's just like a philosophical thing. When I watch this offense, the first thing I think of is I wish they would give Tony Pollard to Ballmore, because that guy is so fun to watch. But they seem to be very, very dialed in to the Zeke is the foundation of our offense. They were talking about getting back to their DNA this year. this week and which I assume just means like balance football runs you know down people's

throats and then play balance football um I guess the question is like are they better off being this team that they want to be or are they better off being like kind of what we saw early in the season where DAC was the one that was running the shows. Dak was the guy the offense was going like running through um you know and obviously we've seen him in garbage time over the last month he has an he hasn't been playing that well, but I kind of feel like they just are going in the wrong direction.

They just want to be, it's like the Seahawks kind of, they want to be this team that's not as good as they could be. I don't know, it's just super frustrating. So, yeah. I do love,

I do love every week, some reporter just tweets out that the Cowboys always win when Zeke Elliott gets like 25 touches or whatever. Like every single week, we do that. And it's like updated every single week. Like whether they have won or lost.

Mr. Zique touched it, touched that 24 times we did. It's just like someone with a million followers tweets that out, and then everybody gets angry about it and knew. And it's like we didn't do this last week. It's so, so freaking true, man. It's like this will happen to the end of time. So, I mean, I guess the Cowboys shouldn't have given Ezeko Elliott all that money.

Right. And that's probably the most important thing is not signing them to a $50 million guarantee contract. It's over six years worth $90 million total. So that would be my first piece of advice. But having said that, I think that there is a little bit of that just as far as justifying what they've done from a personnel standpoint. I also think that I guess in a vacuum, Elliot can provide some value. I mean, we can still see him.

He still has these sort of powerful runs that we can see. I don't think that I don't, I mean, listen, he has looked really average for a large. stretch of this season, but, you know, it's, if Zeke Elliott is your problem, I think it's a nice problem to have. But the problem is they've just been so inconsistent and poorly coached and black creativity and their play calling is just so strange that I actually don't think they're running game. Zeke Elliott is not the problem. Giving Zeke Elliott $50 million might be the problem one day, but it's not the problem right now. That is not the problem right now. I mean, it is a Jason Garrett problem.

And, I don't know, man. It's a, it's a tough, tough season for them. I think, I guess the Eagles are going to win this game because it's at home. I think that's actually a really good point, though, that what you're saying about Zika, you know, obviously long term, maybe that's not like the highest value thing that they could have done. He's not the issue now. The one stat that kind of stood out to me about the Cowboys and one of the big reasons,

maybe that they're underachieving so much, they're not getting any turnovers. They're fifth worst in turnovers this year with 15 takeaways. So they're just not getting it done in that area. And the other thing that I instantly kind of like attached this to the Cowboys when I heard it. But Belichick, did you see that Belichick-Savon kind of dock or whatever? There was one quote that came out of that, I think it was from Belichick, that said, Good players cannot overcome bad coaching. And I immediately thought of the Cowboys.

And I was just like, man, because they're like the most talented bad team in the NFL right now. I thought of like, I saw that too, and I thought of like 20 different teams. That's, yeah, that's kind of grim. But yeah, that's true. It sure is grim. All right, let's get to the last one, 49ers Rams. I was in San Francisco last week. Hit me with this.

Hit me with this. What are we thinking? After a extremely disappointing result for the Falcons, excuse me against the Falcons. Listen, this is going to be a Niners Seahawks next week matchup that determines everything, but they probably shouldn't lose this game. Right.

I think, so to me, this is kind of the Jimmy Garoppolo's big audition, and not audition, I guess is not the right word, but it's the Jimmy Garoppolo show now. And he kind of has to prove, I think, that he can put the team on his back, and he's played really, really well over basically going back to week eight

when they blew out the Panthers. He's been really good. 19 touchdowns, five interceptions in that stretch, 110 pass rating. He's cut down on his turnovers, which was a huge, huge problem in the early part of the season. They had just an incredible amount of turnovers,

and they were just really sloppy on offense. But just based on kind of how their team is built right now, they're really banged up on defense. Richard Sherman's been out. Sounds like he's going to be back this week. D. Ford has been out. Jekwisky Tart, I think, is out, probably going to be out this week.

They're just really banged up on. defense and I think that puts the onus on the offense to really, you know, pick up the slack. And the book on the 49ers, you know, stopping the 49ers, you have to stop the run game because they have like the most explosive efficient offense, a run game, I should say, in the NFL. And early in the season, I mean, we saw it, like, they could just run over anybody. And it was like kind of throwing a wrench in the whole like, you know, passing as much more efficient than running kind of argument because they were running so efficiently that they really didn't need to pass early on in the season. And now, I think teams are definitely

loading up to stop the run. They're putting, you know, an extra guy in the box. They're just, like, putting all their, you know, chips down on stopping the run and basically asking Garoppolo to beat you. And the problem with that is, like, they don't have a great receiving core. Like, DiBos Samuel is exciting rookie. He's done a really good stuff. He's still a rookie. Emmanuel Sanders has been really hot and cold. And basically they just been forced to force feed Kittle. And Kittal's awesome. But their receiving core isn't necessarily where it could be.

And so that puts a lot of pressure on Garapolo to be perfect and be really good. And so I think that's the story of this game. That's the story of next week. I think teams are going to try and stop their run game and ask Jimmy Garoppolo to beat them. And I guess the story will be, can Garapolo do that? I think based on how he's played over the last few weeks, there's definitely some promise there, but they definitely did have a letdown game this last week.

If Garoppolo and Goff switched roles, who would have the better numbers? My God. I think Garoppolo. I have very little faith. I have very little faith in Goff right now. I just think the way he deals with pressure. I think I'm with you.

Yeah. The way that those two players deal with pressure is very different. Like Garapolo, you know, for the lack of a better word, has a little bit of moxie under pressure. Like he can make things happen to the point where you're comfortable with him with a blitzer in his face. Gough, not the case.

Like, I don't trust him with a blitzer in his face if that makes any sense. And so... I don't trust him doing anything. I trust him hitting a wide open guy with 20 yards of separation. And even not... Even if Jason McCordy is nearby,

I don't even trust that. If Jason McCordy is within that state. Your tweet... other day about Goff's, his... Contract. Contract. Well, that's the other thing. Going up to 36 million.

He's making $36 million against the cap next year. What in the world? Oh, my God. It's going to be... Oh, my God. How are they going to get themselves out of this? I wasn't actually that, like, outraged when I saw the initial contract when it was first signed.

I was kind of lukewarm on the takes on this podcast. And as he gets worse and worse, it's just like, man, this is. This is abysmal. They don't have any first round picks. They have a quarterback making $36 million. Like Vic Fangio and freaking Matt Patricia showed everyone how to dunk on you. It's shocking.

The fall from grace. We thought maybe like the Seahawks win was going to be kind of a get-right game for them and they just got completely annihilated by the before-mentioned Cowboys who have not been great. Yeah, that was, I guess they're not back, is the point. All right, Niners win this one?

I think so, yeah. I think it's going to, I think they'll win. They're at home, and I think it's going to set up an awesome week 17, like, showdown with the Seahawks. So, yeah, it's going to be fun. Yep, I'm with you. Who didn't see you win that Seahawks, Niners Showdown? Oh, God. Dude, I don't know.

How should I know? It's going to be one of those games. I mean, I'm going to say the Seahawks, but I have absolutely zero. confidence in that, to be honest. We got a Roger Sherman brunch take on the last segment, and now we've got Danny saying, how should I

know to a predicted question on a football? Is that the most honest take you'll get in this pod, I think? No, I think that Roger Sherman's brunch take was pretty honest. What was it? He doesn't necessarily like the Pro Bowl because he

wants to brunch on that particular day. Oh, my God. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Time to get to Chris Ryan. Danny Kelly, thank you for joining us.

Thank you, man. We bring in ahead of the classic division deciding Philadelphia Eagles, Dallas Cowboys game, Philadelphia zone, the ringer zone, Chris Ryan. Chris, what's the weather like in Philly right now? It's cold, but, you know, the rivalry is still high. This is such a rivalry game, man, because this is so. It's going to determine so much. It could be determining Jason Garrett's job.

It could determine how people feel about Carson Wentz. It's going to determine how people feel about this entire season and two of the biggest football cities. It's going to be incredible. Are you hosting the Fox Pro Game Show? That was an amazing sell. But you know what the thing that's weird is? This is the thing I really wanted to talk to you about.

Okay. You know how there are some teams that are lovable underperformers? And then there are teams that are underperformers and you're just like, you're just underperforming and this is actually not entertainment. I think the Eagles kind of fall into the ladder this year. I agree with that. But I also think that's because of the success they've had.

I would also put another team in there would be the Dallas Cowboys, but I also think, and this is a very different category, but like the Steelers, if you just took the name Steelers off of what's happening there where they're going to make the playoffs with Duck Hodges, people would be like, if they did this in Tennessee, they'd be like, this is the most amazing thing in the world.

We love this team. And instead it's like, yeah, whatever. I just think when you're an established brand that's had success, no one cares, right? And so, like, there's going to be no lovable underdogness in any NFCE's team, particularly a team like the Eagles or the Cowboys who have yearly success. Well, and it's also the problem is that the feel good stories on the Eagles, guys like Greg Ward, I mean, this is literally one week of feeling good. But guys like Greg Ward or Boston Scott or even Miles Sanders probably being better than

Saquan Barkley, that's a feel-good story. The feel-good is dampened by the fact that should it have come to this, should we really be in a position where we're relying on ex-Huston quarterbacks and guys named Boston to redeem this season. Well, the Cowboys are in the same boat here. Like, they are also in the wireway here category. So you guys are just sort of two characters looking for an exit here. I'm excited.

I like that it's in Philly because it's going to get dark. It'll probably be dark pregame. It's a 430 game. It will be dark and cold. It will be cold. I feel like it's the kind of game where someone makes a massive mistake at like 630 Eastern Time. And it's just cold and desolate. And it's funny because Brian Curtis exactly predicted this like two months ago.

he was like, aren't these two teams just going to circle around until some dark game in late December? And I was like, yeah, that sounds about right. So are people excited about this, this Eagles team in Philadelphia? I know you said they're not lovable underdogs or anything, but are people up for this game considering the circumstances, Chris? Yeah, because I think it also means even if nobody really could possibly expect the Eagles to progress much in the playoffs, taking it from Dallas matter. still. And exacting that price and frustrating that franchise

would be worth it. I feel like that's still such a relevant thing in Philadelphia fandom and in the psychology of Eagles fans. I don't know if Curtis sits around being like, as long as we can stop the Eagles from succeeding,

I don't know how much of a one-way road this is, but I definitely am so invested in this. Like, if our season was coming down to playing against the Redskins, I don't know that I would have, I don't know that I would care as much. But isn't that just because the Redskins have been bad? Like, if you were born in 1960 and the Redskins were the team of the 80s and the early 90s, you probably hate the Redskins so much.

The rivalry is just because all the big games they've played. Yes. And also just like the weird, like across the country psychological battle, like two X-Men shooting beams at each other through their brains. Like, I don't even, I don't even, I've never even been to Dallas. It's not like Dallas is on Amtrak. it's just like this weird figment of my imagination where they're the big bad wolf you've never been to Dallas no I haven't why would I go why I for work I mean like we I don't know there might have been

some event there there's a lot of teams there saw a sports in Dallas Michael Finley no I've never been to Dallas yeah there's not a Dallas film festival we don't I don't really there's not like a lot of action in Dallas for me all right Carson once has yeah let's talk about him yeah so he has he has more fumbles than basically anybody in the last two years he is number one he has 23 fumbles the last two years where are we on cars and wents now because i feel like we have discussion every week and it changes and the eagles are the type of fan base that is so big and vibrant and has such a community that i feel like they can just change direction on how they feel about everything from one week to the next that is kind of what sports talk radio and the internet has brought and so i you know i i i i you know i

think that if Carson Wentz wins this game on Sunday, he will be considered a hero forever. And all the money they paid him is worth it in the draft capital. Having said that right now, before the game, where's Philadelphia on Carson once? So it's an incredibly short memory because if you just take that touchdown pass to Miles Sanders against the Redskins, that's everything you need to know about why Eagles fans are into this guy, are obsessed with this guy, are fine with this guy of betting on this guy over somebody. like Nick Foles who won the Super Bowl for the Eagles. Like that kind of playmaking,

that kind of ingenuity and that canon that he's got is why Eagles fans are into him. But I think that we are at sort of a crossroads where his lack of attacking talent, you know, his lack of playmaking talent that he's got at his disposal has gotten us to the point where it's like every time he rolls out

and it's like Carson's just going to make something happen here, it's like, no, he's not. No, he's not. Like, this is actually not the team where you can do that. And he is not Brett Fav. And so that's why I think you're seeing him, like, lose the ball so much is because he's rolling out, like, somehow, like, Deshaun Jackson's going to squirm free. There's no Deshaun Jackson is not coming through that door.

Like, this is it. It's J.J. Arthago Whiteside. It's these, like, also rands and pick-me-ups. And I don't know if we're really seeing the real Carson wins. But the problem is, I don't know if we've ever seen the real Carson wins. Ooh, that's a nice little take. It's funny to me. No, I know what you're saying.

The question there is, is first three months of 2017 when he was like an MVP candidate, was that the real Carson Wentz or was that the outlier? I don't actually know the answer to that. When Joe Burrow was being scouted by Todd McShay this week, I thought this was kind of funny. There was this, did you see the tweet where he said a lot of people were comparing him to Andy Dalton, but I compare him to Carson Wentz? And I feel like everybody took that actually to mean a negative on both ends. And I think people forget how good of a prospect. I mean, he was the number two overall pick, obviously. But Carson Wentz on his best day is still really good and very toolsy.

Like this is not, Carson Wentz is not a bust. There's just a lot of circumstances that have gotten him here to where maybe things are heading south. Yeah. And he's also just playing Blackjack without a net. And I think that probably Seahawks fans might relate to this experience where Russell Wilson's gambling has now become the norm. I think so we just accept that as part of like his on field persona. It's like Russell's just going to go out there and make something happen, danger us.

Carson doesn't have that reputation yet. So we're like, does he know what he's doing? Is this part of the package? Or is this some sort of aberration slash he's not playing within this system that Doug has? So I think the jury's still out on that, but maybe it's just time spent. Like maybe in two seasons, if he's still doing this kind of miracle working slash throwing the game away, we'll just accept that as part of the package. Hey, Chris, I will want to point out a minor difference here.

When Russell Wilson gambles, he typically throws a touchdown and Carson Wentz fumbles. Yes. I will say that's a slight difference. But other than that, your- Seahawks hands have that going for them. You're dead on. Okay. All right.

Last thing. We'll get you out of it. We'll get you out of it on here on this one, Chris. If things... So you don't think that that makes any sense. Who would you forget Joe Burrow and who you're comparing Joe Burrow to? Who would you compare Carson Wentz to at this point in his career? Oh, I mean, it's such been such a weird career.

Yeah. It's been such a weird career. And so, I don't know. I mean, listen, we don't have a whole lot of sample size with some of these quarterbacks who've come up in this new. So it's hard to statistically say anything. That was kind of the funny thing about James Winston this week is everyone's running these, these statistical comparisons.

And all of these guys are either like they played in the early 2000s or like 1980s because nobody throws interceptions like James Winston, right? So it's hard for me to sort of make those quarterback comparisons. So I don't know, man. I mean, I do know that when he came out, I remember talking to Brad Childress about this, he was seen as like the perfect blend of the college spread. and sort of the NFL style pro principles that everybody still talked about in 2016.

There were enough, or 2017, that there were enough, uh, there were, there were enough elements in that Eagles offense that we're going to just bring the best out of him. I just remember all the hype around to them and believing in that. And then we saw him in 2017 cash in on that hype.

And I just feel like that, that, that's been burning everybody's brains to the point that I don't, I think he's going to get a longer leash, even if he continues to not be that great, even if the Eagles have another downseason next year. Obviously, the contract is by far the best.

biggest part of this whole thing. But then the second thing is that we, we as a football watching nation have seen how good Carson Wentz is. And so I just think that, I don't know, it's a very, very peculiar thing. But let's get you out on this one. If things don't, can I ask you one more question? Yeah. Because I, I think that Wentz is always going to be associated with golf because of the draft class. Yes. But if you had to poll a thousand neutral NFL fans and say, who would you rather be your quarterback, golf or Wentz, who wins? the election. I think it's Wentz. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's Wentz because also I think that everyone sort of understands, listen, it's unfair because Carson Wentz never had to get coached by Jeff Fisher.

Like that is such a bad experience for a quarterback that I don't even, I don't know, like I would love to see, I wouldn't wish this upon anybody. I'd love to see like Patrick Mahomes under Jeff Fisher. Like I'd love to see that hypothetical. Yeah. What does that look like? And so because we've seen that, I think everybody assumes that golf is actually, especially kind of analytics, Twitter, kind of assumes golf is quite a bad quarterback and that he's a McVeigh play action, open space kind of guy. I think the answer is somewhere in the middle. But I think that because we've never seen Wentz like that, and obviously like Goff has

played since the Super Bowl and a little bit, you know, against obviously Fangio and Patricia, he hasn't had that sort of lull in his play that Wentz. And so I think that because Wentz has another sort of lull, I'm giving the nod to Wentz, right? Okay. Yeah, thank you. I appreciate it. Yeah. If they lose the Eagles on Sunday and it's just a lost season for them and next year is a lost season and things just never... Why would next year be a lost season? No, no, no, no, no. This is my hypothetical. This is my hypothetical. Listen, I picked them like the Super Bowl. I think they'll be back next year. I'm running this hypothetical out, okay? If this era of Eagles football never recovers and just cycles out, this is entirely hypothetical.

I'm probably going to pick them to make the Super Bowl next year. What I'm getting at here, this is all hypothetical to get to one actual question. If the accomplishment that the only accomplishment that Doug Peterson ever has in Philadelphia is winning the Super Bowl and he stays, I don't know, two, three more years, if Wence is out after this contract, never wins Super Bowl. how do you feel about this Eagles football, this Eagles era? Elated. Yeah. Yeah.

That's what I was getting at. I just wanted to make sure. I actually think that, because, you know, recently this has been coming up a lot, specifically because of this Eagle season, but also just because we work with Bill, the idea of, like, give it, you know, you have like the five years of no complaining after a championship. And I think Bill specifically, like, ruined that because he kept the teams he cheers for, kept winning championships. So the concept of being grateful for that kind of gets perverted.

But if the Eagles were never to win another Super Bowl, I would still remember these guys so fondly for what they did. You know what I mean? I'm with you. That's what I was got. I just wanted to make sure, because that's the sort of conversation that the five-year rule is always kind of interesting to me because I don't know how different fan base is.

Because the guy who invented the five-year rule, Bill Simmons likes to complain like a couple of weeks after the page, it's win a Super Bowl. So I just wanted to check in on where we were with the Eagles, but it sounds like it's all good. Still living in, living in paradise. Yeah. Living in paradise.

In a wintry mix, from what I hear. That's right. Chris Ryan, enjoy the game. We'll be watching a cold, dark Philadelphia game, like the football gods intended. Thanks for coming on. Thanks, man. All right, thanks to Roger Sherman, Danny Kelly, and Chris Ryan.

Thanks for listening to the Ringar NFL show on the Ringar Podcast Network. We'll be back Sunday night. You know the risks of driving drunk. There could be a crash, people could get hurt or killed. You could get arrested, incur huge legal expenses, and possibly even lose your job. You know the consequences of driving drunk, and you're wrong if you think it's no big deal. Drive sober or get pulled over.