The Ringer NFL Show - The Browns Bounce Back Under Deshaun Watson. Is That Good or Bad? Plus, Week 4 Headliners

Episode Date: September 30, 2026

Tom, Sheil, and Billy get together to preview the ‘Thursday Night Football’ game between the Steelers and Browns, which features a showdown between suddenly ascending QBs in Deshaun Watson and Aaron Rodgers. They then shift their focus to the big Bengals-Jaguars matchup on Sunday before tackling Billy’s new Correct Me If I’m Wrong segment. They end the pod with injury updates on Jayden Daniels, Caleb Williams, and more. (00:00) Intro(1:39) Steelers-Browns on ‘TNF’(19:21) Bengals-Jaguars preview(24:08) Correct Me If I’m Wrong segment(53:39) Injury updates Check out Tom Pelissero's newsletter 'The Sweep' on Substack! The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit https://fanduel.com/playwithaplan to learn more about the resources and helplines. Host: Tom PelisseroGuests: Sheil Kapadia and Billy GilProducer: Chris SuttonVideo Editor: Curtis SchultzEngineer: Oscar De La Cruz Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It is the Ringer NFL show. Wednesday, September 30th. Tom Pellisero here, Shio Cappati and Billy Gill, with me as always. Week 4 kicks off on Thursday night. Maybe not the sexiest game when the schedule came out,

but Steelers Browns in a four-way tie atop the AFC North. Are these playoff teams we're going to be watching? Do we feel any different about that division that we did going into the season? We'll break that time. down. We'll look ahead to a lot of the storylines for Week 4,

injuries, quarterback situations. Billy also has, as usual, Wednesday grab bag of conspiracy theories and other nonsense. We will break all that down a lot more right after this. The Ringer NFL show is presented by Fandul. The NFL is here, and it's your most rewarding season ever on Fandul. With the all-new Fandul rewards club, every eligible bet can earn you points win or lose. The more points, the bigger the rewards you can unlock. Head to fandual.com slash ringer NFL to start earning with Fandual rewards club. 21 plus select states, 18 plus DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-Gandler. Call 1-888-8-8-9-77-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. If we took the old time machine back two weeks ago,

And I told you, Sheel, that Thursday night football, the winner of Steelers Browns, would be, at least for a few days, alone atop the AFC North Division. Coming off, the Browns getting absolutely blasted by the Jaguars, everyone's talking about Deshaun Watson's going to be in his last start. The Steelers looked okay defensively, but the offense were with the first two weeks the season. It wasn't great. Are we entering a phase right now in the AFC North Shield where you feel any differently about, that division in these teams than he did coming into the season. Yeah, we can talk about them all. I don't know that I feel like drastically different.

I feel like we've gotten some answers here. We've gotten some answers with the Bengals defense. We've gotten some answers with, hey, what are the Ravens going to look like under Jesse Minter? The Steelers are probably the hardest one to figure out, Tom. I was complaining to you last week that this offense looks cooked. There's no hope for them. And then Aaron Rogers, I mean, that was a throwback game last week against the Bengals. He looked incredible.

in that game. So you've got that. And then the Browns, I would say, frisgier than anticipated. You know, I think after week one, there was certainly a chance that they were just going to be a dumpster fire and picking in the top five and no one had to take them seriously. So of all the teams, I would say they're probably the one. I had them as like a five and 12 team. They're two and one so far. And they look a little bit more competitive than I was anticipating. I think it's going to be a fun game. I think it's just a nice surprise, fun Thursday night football. We were talking last week about how this was kind of felt like the week that things were going to start slowing down for Thursday night football.

Each team, to Shield's point and to your point, Tom, they have their unique kind of struggles, their unique things that they need to work on. We were talking a couple weeks ago about Mike McCarthy and how 12 out of the 18 years that he's been head coach, he's had top offenses in the league, top 10 offenses of 18 years. The defense is really what's holding this team up right now. like seventh and yards per game, eighth and passing yards.

Like they're in the top 10 defense and pretty much everything. It's offense where they're slowing down and they're kind of lagging. But if things turn around the way you think that a Mike McCarthy team will, they should be in good position. The Browns, on the other hand, they're a surprising team. And they have a Deshawn Watson problem, which we knew was going to exist.

But they've been presented with a new Deshawn Watson problem as the season's gone on, which is he's not as bad as he needs to be for them. Like, you needed to show. to be terrible to move on from him. And he's middle of the pack in a lot of stats. He's right around 13, 15, 17. In a lot of stats, he's got a good touchdown to turnover ratio, 5 to 1, and the 1 was on the first drive of the season.

So you were kind of hoping with Deshaun wanting to finally get out of this contract, get away from him. They've added those void years, which you can explain to us, the complexities of that if you want, because that's way above my head. But DeShon is like a middle of, of the pack quarterback right now. And if they have a decent season,

they're going to, they're not going to re-sign him. They're not going to give him an extension. So they're going to be getting away from a guy that's maybe the 14th, 15th best. I don't know. How do you resign him? He needed to be terrible,

and he hasn't been for them. And he's keeping them in it. And I don't know what you do with him now. It's early. You know, we're three weeks in. You cite all those stats. If you take out week one, which was just kind of a disaster on both sides,

the ball for the Browns. He's even higher than that. I mean, he's looked like, if not the Deshawn Watson of 2020, 2019, when he was at his peak, he at least looks like a functional real NFL quarterback. I was struck last week watching him use his legs because there have been a lot of questions with all the injuries and the Achilles. Can he still run? Does he want to run? They took advantage of it. They called some things for him. He scrambled. He made things happen. And, you know, we'll see. This is, what is the biggest game that the Browns have had in recent years? I know they went to the playoffs a couple of times with Stefansky, but like a singular game this point in the season.

Is this, is this the biggest national TV moment for the Browns since the game that Tyrod Taylor got hurt and Baker Mayfield took over? Which I believe was Baker's rookie season, which was 2018. Has there been a bigger Browns game in front of the whole country shield than that? Well, you mentioned the playoff one, right? during COVID, but there was no crowd for that one. That was the biggest one, but certainly since the Deshaun Watson trade. Now, I'm pumping the brakes on you guys here a little bit with Deshaun Watson. Okay, what is the ringer term, drink some settle down juice?

Is that what? Billy, is that what we say around here? I don't know. No, you don't know. Sure. All right, let's use it. Some settled down juice. Okay, so I, you know, the beauty of the modern media landscape is you can catch up on games

that you missed during the week. And I was listening and reading. hearing what everyone said about the Browns in that game against the Panthers. And then I watched the game just this morning. And Deshawn Watson going into the fourth quarter was like nine for 20 for 60 yards. And I know he had two good drives at the end. I will give him credit, two good drives at the end. Tom, you're right.

I thought the way he used his legs and scrambled was impressive. He also had three balls that, you know, 50-50 interceptions in that game where we're singing an entirely new narrative. He threw for a hundred and forty-four yards. So he averaged 4.8 yards per attempt. I mean, I think his season stats are a little juice because he was getting some garbage time, you know, in week one against the Jaguars, he's throwing bombs to Denzel boss.

I will say, if you said, is he performed better than I thought going into the season? That I will allow for, yes. I actually think Monkin has done a nice job of like, it's kind of dink and dunk if you really watch them. You know, last week especially, it was like they weren't really pushing the ball downfield. It was like, don't screw it up. and he didn't screw it up at the same time, again, if Panthers, defenders, catch a couple of those,

we're having an entirely different conversation. So I need to see a lot more. I don't love their run game. I don't love their offensive line. Watson has the fourth highest turnover-worthy play rate in the entire NFL. So if you look at those, he's getting a little lucky there, I think, as well. I actually think their defense is what I'm more bullish on, and that's the group that's going to keep them more competitive.

So I need to see more from Watson. this game, I mean, this could be a game where if that Steelers front is as good as I thought they were going to be going into the season, that they could really give him a hard time. And this could actually flip everything people are saying about Watson on Thursday night. And he could have some issues in that game. But we're not praising him. We're not saying he's, you know, a top 30. And I don't think so. I think he's still operated. What was the percent chance, you would have given Deshawn Watson to after week one? What percent chance would you have said to Sean Watson does not get benched after week two?

Yeah, I'll allow for that. Could not be high. You're right. I would have said he'd be done by now. He wouldn't be playing in this game. I will allow for that. So I think it's in the middle of what you guys were saying in the beginning. The rant that I just went on,

that's probably what the truth is with how Watson's actually playing right now. I mean, look, I don't want to come out as like the Deshaun Watson defender by any means. Oh, he's assessing his play on the field this year. Yeah. Would you put him above Brock Purdy at this point, Billy? Would he be, he's in the same bucket? Same tier, I will say this.

Per the rules that you established last week, we could not move people from tier to tier within the season because I said Brock Purdy would be in the now, I think they can. I know they can bracket, but because not, Dylan, I need to see more.

Deshawn's a tier below I need to see more. All right, one tier below. Billy's on record. Yeah, I mean, because that tier, if you remember,

was like 13 to 17. So he'd be in like the 18 to 26 range, I'd say right now, which I think is fair and surprising. I don't think any of us thought we'd be in this position. The fact that you can probably say confidently after three weeks, he is a much better option than Shador Sanders, which is who they were trying to have compete for the starting job with him. And we can't go to Shador because he's done enough, I think is a surprise to all of us.

Well, and then let's see what happens Thursday night football because if it's bad and if the crowd turns, although Todd Munkin has made abundantly clear, he doesn't care what the crowd is saying. the mini-buy is the natural time. Look what the Packers have done since they played that Thursday night game. They signed like every able-bodied or even some not-so-able-bodied guards on the street because they're like, our guards are awful. Let's just sign a bunch of yet. You have that little opportunity to kind of go, okay, what do we need to fix to get this thing turned?

Maybe in Cleveland that's what it is. But we'll see with Watson real quick. So on the void of your thing, they restructured him in December of 2024. He had a five-year $230 million, fully guaranteed contract. he's gotten almost every dime of that other than the remaining pro-rated base salary for this season. But by this restructure, they did it. So basically they're setting it up for him to be released after the start of the league year in March, keeping some of his cap.

It's not just in 2027, but in 28. In the world, okay, in the world where the Browns re-s signed to Sean Watson, they actually push it potentially even further out than that. I don't think anything is impossible at this point. Here's the cool thing if you're a Browns fan right now. And whether you're excited about Deshawn Watson, you're like, oh my God, let him fail because I just want to be done with it. Wherever you fall on that,

last year's draft class might have been the best in the NFL. It was a really, really good class. This year's draft class looks pretty good too. And Denzel Washington and, or Denzel Boston, wrong city, Denzel Boston, and Casey Concepcion looked like dudes. So you're putting some pieces in place. This is like year two of a five-year plan. Who's the quarterback?

I'd still say it's probably somebody who's playing college football right now. But I don't know that. Every week is an evaluation, new system with Todd Monkin. Defensively, Mike Rutenberg in his first outing. Week one was bad. They played really passively in this game. The last two weeks, it looked like they're playing more like we've seen the Browns play in the past. And on the Steelers side, like I'll admit, Sheal, I was higher on the Steelers, I think, than almost everybody.

Even though you had them, didn't you have them as like an 11 and 6 team, just not? not in the playoffs? I think Billy did. I think Billy had him up there. I had him eight and nine. So I think it was over whatever the fan duel over under was. I think it was seven and a half. So I was more bullish on them than that, but I thought they were going to be on the outside looking in for the playoffs. Billy, you had him a little better, right? I had him at 11 and 6. And to be honest with you, a clerical error is what kept them out of the playoffs. Because I was going back and looking at it, the 10 and 7 chargers made it in with the last seed over the Steelers. but it was kind of a moot point because I had both of them losing

to the building first round anyways. So now I can come clean now that I put my whole chart out there. People were like reading it. They're like, wait a minute. How is this team with more wins out of the playoffs? Does that happen before, Tom? I'm not, you're more up on NFL history than I'm the team.

I feel like in the COVID year where like a game would get canceled and then there would be all these. Well, we'll only replay it if. And then if the ties go like this, that means the seating is different. there was that huge controversy where the bills thought they were getting screwed

they might have gotten screwed. I don't even remember. I've tried to erase that year from my memory, but there was a lot of weird seating things that were happening at that time. So not impossible. But my point on the Steelers is this. The offense last week,

that's what it's supposed to look like. Aaron Rogers is not the Aaron Rogers of five, ten years ago. He's just not. And he won't be. But don't underestimate the power of him wanting to go out on a better note. If you go all the way back to his last year in Green Bay, which was 2021, I believe,

even that year wasn't very good for Aaron Rogers and the Packers. Two years with the Jets, obviously blows the Achilles. Second year with the Jets, not great. Okay, so 22 would have been his last year in Green Bay. Sorry, I'm doing the math on the fly. Point is he hasn't been like peak MVP Aaron Rogers in five years. And he's not going to be that guy again. But he wants to have that beautiful ending.

He's very in touch with everything, the world, the, environment, his place in the universe, reunited with Mike McCarthy. He's always been a believer. Like, guys, when they come back for something that's not money, they come back because they want to be part of something that they can push themselves. I got a little nervous when Dexter Lawrence meet him in the ribs there on the last play because, like, he's 42. Remember he freaked out last year at one of his teammates for knocking him down into celebration. You remember that? He's a pretty, he's like me. Like, you're like, dude, just don't, like my kids, like, don't jump on me. This could be it. This could be the end of my back.

Barring that, I think they've got a chance to be pretty good shield on offense. I might have overstated with that they could be top 10 because it takes a while. But listen, I think that they've got more talent on that team. D.K. had a play last week. Roman Wilson made some plays. Also had a bad drop that landed in an interception. And that defense is real. And they might get joined Porter Jr. back who's been a full participant the last two days.

I just can't count out the Steelers knowing how good their coaches are with Mike McCarthy and Pat Graham. And the fact that Aaron Rogers is just in the last. his corner of the universe, he really believes like this has the opportunity to be special and he's putting everything he has into it. I think he looked better last week. Now, I'm just saying this without having reviewed all of his 2025 performances. It felt to me like that was better than he looked at any point in 2025. Like, he was legitimately good last week, throwing the ball downfield, eluding pressure.

He even had a scramble in there. I was quite impressed. They made some changes with the offensive line. They played their first round pick. Iana Chor at right tackle and I thought their old line. You know, there was some ups and downs, but I think it's an encouraging performance there. Here's my

question with Rogers. You mentioned, you know, with your kids jumping on you like, don't get injured. I would say, like, I know he can do it for one game, like he showed that. It's kind of like me. All right, you asked me to go out if I need to play one set, Billy, tennis. If someone challenges me, similar competition

level, like we're playing one set, I feel like I can be competitive. If they're like, let's do best of I'm like, I don't think that's going to be a good idea for me. They're like, let's do best of five. I'm like, okay, have the ambulance ready, you know, by the court because I'm not going to last. That's my question with Rogers. It's just, I don't want to say unprecedented because Brady did it, but that's it.

You look since 2000, guys who just have started an entire season at quarterback at this age and just played at like a semi-competent level. The list is Tom Brady in the last 25 years. And so that's my question with Rogers. If you told me, he's going to be able to play at the level we saw. last week the rest of the season, I am taking them seriously as a playoff team. There's no doubt about it. I just wonder throughout the course of his season taking those hits, can he get to that level

at a relatively consistent basis? Well, that was like the criticism last year, right? He just didn't want to take hits. So it's just little dink and dunk passes so that he wouldn't actually get hits. Can I just, you know, I know we probably shouldn't say this as media members and have like personal feelings involved in this. I hope, especially after seeing the documentary of Aaron Rogers that was on Netflix, like, well, two thirds a bit.

At the third, I kind of, I was fine. I didn't need to finish it. But after seeing that... Great promo. I hope that Aaron Rogers finds what he's looking for in life. You know what I mean? I hope that he finds happiness. Because I was made sad watching how his whole life he built up thinking,

I just want to win the Super Bowl, then wins the Super Bowl early in his career and was kind of like, I'm still not happy. Like, this doesn't feel any differently. So, you know, he does these things and everybody judges him, and he's quite the character in lightning rodent interviews, I hope that this season ends well for him, and he gets out of this season what he wants

with Mike McCarthy in the reunion. And then in his marriage, whether it's real or fake or whatever's going on there, I hope that that lasts a long time, and he lives on the rest of his years in happiness. And if he wants to disappear as he's saying he's going to do and go away, we never hear from him again. I hope he goes somewhere that makes him happy,

and this ends positively for him, and not in some sort of broken rib situation with someone neighing him. Football-wise, here's the one last thing I would say on Aaron Rogers is he is a doctorate in this offense. He knows it. And part of the issue, part of the bumps in those first couple of games might have been partly like he's on a different level where he's got a bunch of young offensive linemen around him.

He's calling checks and stuff. He's playing so fast pre-snap that sometimes it can be difficult for other guys to keep up. I don't know to what extent that led to him getting smoked like he did in that game. Those are the hits that can end badly. And you remember last year he played out the end of the season with a, broken wrist. I mean, he went through a lot. If he can stay healthy, like, that's part of being able to not take those hits is getting the ball out quickly to the right spot because he knows. He knows that whole offense. For last year, him and Arthur Smith were trying to find that

common ground with a system that he had not truly been in before, even though there's some derivative stuff that Arthur did as well. If everybody can come along with Aaron, they've really got a chance. Jalen Warren looked great in that game. I still don't know. I mean, the Ravens offensively look really good. Defensively, there's clearly shield a lot of groin that they need to do. And you saw that again last week. You saw it against the Saints in big moments. I mean, that's kind of been what the Ravens have been in recent years too, which is the team that's right there and then can't get the one final stop to let the

game get away from them. We'll see what direction they go. Maybe the most compelling game on Sunday this week is the other team, the Bengals, coming off the Lost of Steelers playing the Jaguars. To me, that's another one of those. We've had a bunch of especially in the AFC of those, this is maybe a playoff preview, but also who's ready to hang with the big dogs early in the year. That has the feel shield of a big game. Yeah, the Jaguars flat out looked like one of the best teams in the NFL.

And that's one where if you kind of look back at all, what take can I redo from August, you know, getting the Chargers out of that wildcard spot and getting the Jaguars as a division winner in the AFC South? That's one I would probably like to have back, Billy. You didn't have the Jags in there. You had them as wildcard. at all, missing the playoffs?

I had them at 8 and 9. I thought they were a team that might... It's easy to say now. All right. No Patriots either, which looks less crazy in this very early portion of the season. I just thought, you know, Trevor Lawrence has had such an up and down career

where the highs have been very high, but the lows have been very low. And Liam Cohen, I just felt like was a very volatile personality. I was like, let me just see them do it again before I'm sure they're going to be in there, but they look incredible. So you're right, Tom. game against the Bengals is going to be awesome. Bengals special teams, I thought, let them down last week. They had a muffed punt. They had a big penalty without that. Are they three and no? Maybe.

They had a chance offensively to put together drives at the end of that game and they didn't do that. But for the whole course of that game, I thought Joe Burrow was terrific. I thought T. Higgins and Jamar Chase, I mean, they are carrying that offense. And then the big question was defensively with the Bengals. And this is a big test because last week, we just mentioned the Steelers got the better of them. I'm still encouraged, I think, because I think if you look at their front, Boye-Mathé has been a good signing. He's been very productive. Cash is Hal who they drafted. It looks like they might have something there with the rookie. And then Dexter Lawrence is making plays on the interior. So we knew all along. The Bengals defense doesn't have to be top five or

top 10. It's like, get to a level of competence and you're really going to have a chance to win a lot of games. I still feel the same way about Cincinnati as I did. before the season. Did we ever get to the bottom of why it is that Trevor Lawrence was stopping at the one-yard line with eight minutes left in the game? Because Liam Cohen, like flatouts is like, I did not instruct him to do that whatsoever. I don't know why he did that.

Did anyone ask him? Why did he just decide to do that? I assume he'll talk, as Trevor will talk today and get a question about it. He may have thought there was less time remaining than there actually was. That's my best guess was he was thinking, go down, you know, and run clock. And it's like, oh, there's still whatever there was, seven minutes left in the game. Maybe not yet. Maybe too soon.

Yeah, I think he was, even after the game, he was asked about it. Basically said, but it was just like an error in judgment. He just got to had a brain freeze and thought it was the time to do that. And then you look at the clock and everybody is just so confused. Like, what is happening? Eight and a half minutes left. I think he might have joked that he wanted to get to some fantasy points for his fantasy owners as well. You really have to be careful in today's world of, you know, there's the gambling ads,

It's like stuff like that. Everyone's just kind of like, look, wait a minute. Why did that happen? And, you know, rather than it being just a funny question of this guy made an error in judgment, you know, ears are perking up. Like, all right, let's just make sure that's all it was. What are we accusing him of here, Sheel? No, I mean, I'm just saying this is very reckless. It's something I would do here.

Listen, I'm just saying, no, not him. When weird stuff happens now, you ask different questions that you would have asked 20 years ago. I'm not wrong about that. Am I? It's much more often in our world, just in general, even outside of sports, incompetence is more likely than skullduggery. Correct. However, we've seen some skullduggery, and that does, to your point, raise the antenna a little bit on unusual things that happen in the game.

Let's take a break on the other side of this. Billy, I don't even really know what Billy's going to do. He doesn't entirely tell us. He'll tell us the title of a segment, but doesn't give us any more information. I can't wait to see what he's. he's about to bring out right after this. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul. Welcome to your most rewarding season ever, only on Fandul.

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to get started. FanDul, play your game. 21 plus select states or 18 plus D.C. or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800-Gampler. Call 1-888-7-7-7 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Mr. President, not accompanied for me of the explosion on our rig on October 2nd. causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. They all heap to blame all me. Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess. And Digger's going to dig us up.

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See the trailer online. Only in here's October 2nd. So it is a Giermo Miracle-Lase, a William Wednesday. He remembered. It's Billy's bag of stuff. Billy, what do you got for us? What are you cooking up this week? Well, I thought you guys liked to be surprised on these,

so I didn't think that you wanted the questions necessarily that we'd be going over. No, I like the blind. I'm just saying the premise of the segment never seems to match like what we actually end up doing. So I'm just, I'm interested in this. That's all. Listen. I'm as invested in this as everyone listening. I'm the host of this segment.

I'm the Ryan Seacrest, if you will. All I can do is present. the prompts. The way you guys choose to take them is entirely up to you. I'm just here saying, you know, on the next person coming to the stage, an American Idol is Adam Lambert, if he was even from that show, I don't remember. Anyways, so this week, I cooked up a little segment called Correct Me If I'm Wrong. So this is, and I think you guys will like this because I think you guys often think I'm wrong. So this is how it's going to work. I will just give you a statement. I'll give you kind of like the news story that it came from. And then you will correct that statement.

if you think that that statement is wrong. Simple enough, right? I think we can handle this. I think I get it, Tom. I think I, now I don't want to say I definitely get it. I want to let it, let's start it before I'm sure I get it. But I think I get the basic premise here. You go first on these, Sheel.

Okay, okay. You set the tone. I'll play off you. How about that? Okay. All right. So I have four of them this week. So I'll give you four statements.

We'll do one at a time. I'm just going to give you four. That'd be wild. So you'll give you four statements, and then you correct me if I'm wrong. All right. So the first one. These are based on the news or talkings of different teams, fans on the internet's and etc.

Correct me if I'm wrong. But I think it's time for the Giants to retire number 13. Why do I think that they just released on Tuesday, Odell Beckham Jr. His comeback was more disappointing than we thought. He only had one target and 20 snap zero receptions. He's a Super Bowl champion, three-time pro bowler, two-time all-pro, offensive rookie of the year. I think it might be time for the Giants to retire number 13. He doesn't have the numbers to get into the Hall of Fame.

I don't think any of us think that. But maybe Ring of Honor or maybe they retire the number 13. Correct me if I'm wrong. Retire the number. Okay, so I'm looking at it one, two, three, four, five seasons with the New York Giants. Now, we've discussed this before for the young listeners out there, go back and look at what O'Dell Beckham Jr. did in his first three seasons in the NFL. It's as good as any wide receiver during my lifetime.

His first, he was incredible. It was absolutely incredible those first three seasons. Then, of course, he has some injuries and maybe the rest of his career doesn't go that way. Now, I'm not sure, Billy. Is it a long enough tenure? I would imagine if you looked at the averages of retired numbers in the NFL, players most often would have a longer tenure than just five seasons with a team. And the other thing that NFL teams run into,

you can't just be retiring everyone's numbers. Because if you go to a training camp, they're searching for numbers, guys are wearing the same number. You can't have too many retired numbers. So I'm going to correct you and say you're wrong on the retired number. I don't think you retire the number. You want to do a ring of honor?

Go ahead. I mean, you could throw as many people as you want into the ring of honor. So I thought he had a great tenure with the Giants, Tom. But I'm going to say, no. I don't know if that. Is that what I'm supposed to do, Billy false. Wrong?

You could just say wrong. Wrong. You're wrong. Billy. Okay. Okay. There you go. The Giants are in their 100 second year of football.

And they, as much as any team, have a retired numbers problem. Even when they traded for J.J. McCarthy on Monday, astute observers noticed there were no single digits or numbers in the, from 11 or 10 through 19 available on the roster. Until they released Jake Hainer and he vacated. number 18, or as James would say, nine times two, there was not even a number for J.J. McCarthy to wear. Giants retired numbers, okay? Ray Flaherty, number one, which they already unretired to give to Malik neighbors with the blessing of the Flaherty family. Tuffy Leam, number four, Lehman's, excuse me, Mel Hine, number seven, old indestructible, number 10, Eli Manning, number 11, Phil Sims. Number 14 is retired twice. Y.A. Tittle,

Ann Ward Cuff, and number 16 for Frank Gifford. So that is seven numbers that are retired. And now in the era where you can have wide receivers, I mean, running backs, like obviously quarterbacks, you've got the specialists. You don't have enough volume. Having said that, Odell, in those first three years, if he had continued that trajectory,

he would be a surefire Pro Football Hall of Fame. He would be sure to be in the Giants Ring of Honor. He may well be in the Giants Ring of Honor. don't know if he's a Hall of Famer just because that position is so much based on longevity and volume because there are so many really good receivers that are not in the Hall of Fame. There's kind of a logjam in it. I don't know that he gets into Canton. I do think the Giants find some way to honor him, but you really do have a problem here.

Unless the NFL goes back to the old days where he had quarterbacks more in like number 22, I just don't know how you solve for this, Billy. Well, I'm glad that you mentioned a lot of those things. in terms of the Hall of Fame, on Pro Football Reference, they have a Hall of Fame monitor of it, which gives you kind of like an idea of where they stand all time and they give you like, this is the target number in the Pro Football Reference Hall of Fame monitor

where average receivers or whatever the position get in. The number for an average Hall of Fame wide receiver is 101.71.73. Odo Beckham's number right now is 35.83. So they have him as nowhere near getting into Canton, which is why this question when I was cooking it up, I changed it from, is he going to get into the Hall of Fame? Because it seemed like it's not going to be close it on.

I was like, these guys are going to think I'm a dummy. So let me shift from that. What do we do? Is there a Giants Hall of Fame? No, there's a ring of honor. Now, to your point, Tom, there's a lot of retired numbers. The Giants have 11 retired numbers. And Shield very quickly said, no, they should not retire the number 13.

But Sheal did not take into account that the Giants have in their ring of honor four-time Pro Bowl punter Dave Jennings, who also wore the number 13. So now that you have two guys that could potentially go in your ring of honor with the exact same number, do you pull a ward cuff and a Y-A tittle and say, you know what,

too many greats have worn this number, it's time for it to go. Dave Jennings, Sheal. We have a Dave Jennings reference on the ringer NFL show. DJ, yeah, no, remember him. And Skull Dugger earlier. That's a good episode.

In the offseason, I'll give you my top 10. Dave Jennings moments, but I don't think we need to do that in season here. Now, my interest was piqued, and I thought about changing my mind when Tom brought up the idea of a family having to give permission for a deceased player, for a current player to wear a deceased player's number. That is interesting to me. I mean, I don't know if they always say yes, if you have to pass some kind of test. if they're like, I don't like this guy, no one's wearing, you know, great grandpa's number or something.

So just in terms of like the narratives in the NFL, the discussion, the content, now I'm kind of like, maybe they should retire his number and then five years from now someone's like, you know, or maybe it maybe it's 40 years from now. Who knows? They're like, hey, we want our son to wear number 13 and they got to go to some member of the Beckham family and ask them. That is pretty interesting to me, Billy. Hopefully O'Dell is still with us.

He can be able to. Of course. Yes or no. That's how I was changing my ears. I didn't want to get dark there. Yeah. Bears and the Giants both have 14 numbers retired. The 49ers have 12.

To me, I've always thought, rather than retiring numbers, the way you do it is what the Cowboys do. They don't retire any numbers. They honor people. But then also, you just have special numbers. It's kind of like college programs, right? Like your top or crew, you only give out number one to like the dude. The Cowboys give out number 88 if they think you can be the guy to carry that number

forward that's meant so much to the organization. To me, that's, that's more special than having it retired. You can never do it again. And then somebody's got to come hat and hand going, you know, I really want to wear number 88. Hey, hey, Jane Daniels kid, I really want to wear number five. Like, how is it going to go? I just don't know that that's, to me, allowing certain numbers to mean something to the organization where when you put that on, you're carrying the legacy. I mean, the 88 thing has worked out pretty well for the Dallas Cowboys over the course of time. They haven't won a Super Bowl in 30 years, but it's worked out pretty well to give it to a bunch of players

who have been at various times at the very top of their craft. Michael Irving also had... Anti-triple digit, right? Anti-triple-digit? We're never-go, or are we going to eventually... About fractions. Have to go in that direction. Yeah.

Would we like fractions? Somebody out there were in number one and a half, one point five. Michael Irvin had an interesting point about that that you were saying, Tom, about the number 88 and the Cowboys, where he's like, I don't want my number retired, because every time you see someone out there wearing number 88 and they're doing good things, they start saying Michael Irvin used to wear that number and they keep talking

about me every time they see that 88. So as long as it's in circulation, they're going to keep talking about me. If someone can wear it anymore, they're going to forget about the number 88. All right. Ready for the next one? Yeah, good start. Yeah. Okay. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I think we might be six years away

from Cam Ward being the best quarterback in the NFL. Now, you're probably thinking, what have you seen so far that would lead you to believe that that's the case? So this is courtesy of at Sleeper Titans on Twitter. And we're comparing the first 20 games of Cam Ward and Josh Allen. Josh Allen notoriously got off to a rush start, lots of turnovers. So after 20 games, Cam Ward's rating is 80.3. Josh Allen's was 74.4. Cam Ward has 3,673 yards.

Josh Allen had 3,700. 17 touchdowns and 8 interceptions for Cam, 20 TDs and 19 interceptions for Josh, 60.2% completed percentage for Cam, 56 for Josh. If we were to look at these numbers, are we potentially six years away from Cam Ward figuring it out and becoming the best quarterback in the NFL?

You want me to go first again here? Tom, or you want to? I need to think on this one. Yeah, that's going to be a wrong again, Billy. Oh, for two. You know, I'm enjoying the game. I don't want it to sound like I'm not enjoying the game. But oh for two.

All right, so rule number one, this is for all the, you know, I feel like we have a big population of young football analysts listening to this pot. Okay. Rule number one of football analysts analysis in the year 2026. Do not compare anybody to Josh Allen. That is rule number one. his career is not one that you're going to look back and be like, oh, this was the next Josh Allen.

Oh, Josh Allen did it out where I can do it. No, I don't think that's going to be the case. Now, could it be? Could Cam Ward improve and get better to a degree? Sure. I think the more likely scenario it feels like to me for Cam Ward would be a Sam Darnoldish pat, where it's real rocky for a while, maybe eventually he's got the talent. We know he has the talent.

He gets to a different place. He gets in a different system. situation and he has a moment. But here's the uncomfortable topic that Titans fans don't want to think about here. Okay. That's a bad football team. If the Tennessee Titans get a top three pick, number one pick, top five pick, they very well could have a quarterback decision to make in the draft.

I know it's only three weeks. We're getting ahead of ourselves. I understand that. I think it's a bad team. And that's something to keep an eye on. maybe we revisit week nine, week 11, week 14, because that is kind of looming a little bit over this great 2028 draft class. But yeah, I'm wrong on Cam Ward is going to turn into Josh Allen because who was it?

Sleeper Titans? At Sleeper Titans on Twitter, yeah. Now, I think, Tom, correct me if I'm wrong. We want people to engage on Instagram, Ringer NFL, right? Those are the people. I don't know that random Sleeper Titan, we want to give this kind of pop. But maybe that's a note for, you know, next week. No, but it comes across the desk, you know,

and you want to give the proper credit to where it's due, you know. Okay, I can, I'm in favor of that. There's, you said of the passing stats, Billy, for Josh Allen and Cam Ward. I think it's important to understand the rushing stats are a huge part of it for Josh Allen. Josh Allen's rookie season alone, 12 starts. He ran for 631 yards and eight touchdowns. The following year ran for another nine touchdowns and 16 starts. Cam Ward through his first 20 starts has run for a grand total of 189 yards and four touchdowns.

And that's not to criticize Cam Ward. It's just to say that's not really his game. He's a move around by time in the pocket, outside the pocket and throw guy, not a Josh Allen, who one of the things that he did that covered up a lot of the things that weren't going well was when in doubt he could run over you. The early, the very first flashbow moment of Josh Allen's career, the breakthrough moment was, I think it was week three in 2018, and he hurdles Anthony Barr in Minnesota in a upset victory over the Vikings. It was like a shocking result at the time. But he had the, you know, and they turned into like a meme. It was like the Michael Jordan, you know, spread leg thing.

Like that became the early Josh Young. Yeah, he had to develop a lot as a pastor and everybody knew coming out that he had low accuracy numbers. He was under 60% completion percentage. If I remember right at Wyoming, you were going to have to work with that. But he was this big fiscal athlete who could do freaky things with his legs and survive there while he was learning to do everything else. With Cam Ward, it's just not a tool that he really has in his tool belt. He's not the biggest guy. He's going through a growth process. I don't think 20 starts is enough to pass judgment on exactly what Cam Ward is going to be. He's got the same coordinator, Brian Daibald, that had Josh Allen at a young age. There's just, there's a lot of, there's a lot of other things

that Josh Allen was doing, even when he was turning the ball over a lot and not being the best passer that played into exactly what we see of Josh Allen now, which is a guy who scored more, had more games with two passing and two rushing touchdowns by far than anybody in NFL history. All right. So wrong on both accounts. Okay, we'll move on to the next one here quickly because we're going long. Correct me if I'm wrong.

It feels too early to be flexing games. The NFL announced on Tuesday that the week five matchup between the Bears and Packers has been moved out of the second window, the 325 Central window. to the earlier window. This now clears up more visibility for Seahawks 49ers, and Fox's only other game in that window is Lions v. Cardinals. The earlier Fox matchups are Bengals, Dolphins, Vikings Saints, and Giants commanders. So correct me if I'm wrong, but week five feels too early to be telling teams,

we don't want you in that second window. And then I'm also wondering, what is the message there? Is it we want all eyes on Seahawks 49ers, or these teams, a little banged up? we're not sure we want, you know, America to be watching Bears Packers today. Okay, so this wasn't a prime time game. You said this was a late afternoon window. Moved up. I think I'm kind of torn on this.

On one hand, I'm like, we should just start flexing week one. If it looks like it, you know, or week two, it's like if it looks like it's a terrible matchup, let's get it out of there. That one's a little confusing because those are two marquee franchises. I think the bears have shown it kind of doesn't matter if, you know, obviously with Caleb Williams, They're a very entertaining team, but they just showed on Monday night. Without Caleb Williams, they're not going to fall apart.

They're going to be a pretty entertaining team because Ben Johnson is a terrific coach. And I don't know what the reasoning would be to get the Packers out of that spot. The Packers have a big following and they've got the quarterbacks healthy and they're a team that's won a lot of games. So I think you might be right on this because you're saying, correct me if I'm wrong, it's too early to flex games. I think you're right. But I don't know. Tom might have some more information on this. I think you're wrong that it's too early to Flex games.

I think that we all want the best possible viewing experience. The NFL certainly does. The network certainly do. To me, my reaction on this was not that it was get that game out of the mid-afternoon window. It was get a compelling game into the early afternoon window. Because you just mentioned the other Fox games. Bengals at Dolphins, I mean, the dolphins are competitive every week, but they're competing right now to be the number one pick.

You had Vikings at Saints, not a bad game. I mean, the Vikings are 3 in 0 right now, but they don't exactly play at this stage. the most exciting brand of football, if you like to see offense and points. They're very much a defense-driven team. And then he got Giantsick commanders with no Jackson Dart and depending how Jaden Daniels comes along.

He might be back for that game, but you have no guarantee that he is. Put Bears Packers the most played rivalry in NFL history into that early window. A good chunk of the country will get it. To me, that actually makes a lot of sense. So it's almost a flex-in, Billy, to the early window. Tom, that was a good explanation there.

They're trying to own the day. Get us at 1 o'clock. and 4 o'clock, just don't switch off the Fox all day long. And you want a lot of the country to see 49ers at Seahawks, right? So normally you would have the whole middle of the country would have gotten, other than in Detroit, would have gotten Packers' Bears. Well, now they get that in the early window, which is the appetizer for the Seahawks 49ers game. I think it makes sense.

Okay, I'm changing. You changed my mind wrong. Not too early, Billy. Sorry. Not too early. Let's get Bears Packers in that early window. It's not saying it's a bad game. get it out of a late window.

It's saying it's a good game, and our other games might not be very good. So let's let more people see Bears Packers and then Seahawks 49ers. That sounds like a nice, a better afternoon in the Capadia household than the original. The only part I don't personally like about it then is because I live in Minneapolis, which means I will have the Viking Saints game and I will not have any way on the projector to have the Bears Packers game. It does change my strategy, but my strategy is also usually

driven by two minutes before the early kickoffs. I turn on the guide like, all right, so what games are on locally? Let's figure out and go from there. Well, it will also be our second week of international. I guess our third week, because you include, well, fourth, if you, geez, if you include the Brazil game.

But it will be the beginning of our Europe games as well, or the second week of our Europe games. You'll have a 9 a.m. game that week as well. So a lot of football decade. Okay, fine. Last one. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I were him,

I might be insulted while still making, eight figures a year. It was announced today by Andrew Marsh and of The Athletic that Kirk Herbstry has signed a multi-year extension with Prime Video to continue to be the in-game analyst on Thursday Night Football Along Al Michael. So Al Michaels initially signed a three-year deal and he goes year to year and he has said,

I'll know when I'm done. So every year is kind of like, is this going to be Al's last. Kirk, I believe, signed a five-year deal to start and that one is coming up. They've now signed him to an extension. However, in that extension, Amazon has given themselves outs in case one of their targets, namely Sean McVeigh, becomes available.

And if you remember when we started with Thursday Night Football on Prime, they were hotly after Sean McVeigh recently winning the Super Bowl, and they were offering him up to $20 million a year. So they signed Kirk to a multi-year extension. The details are undisclosed, so we don't know exactly how much. We know that it's eight figures a year. Also, if Sean McVeigh decides he wants to come into broadcasting, we can get out of this, Kirk, and we're going to go after him. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I'd be insulted if I were him.

This is interesting. I had not seen that report, Billy. Okay, so Herbstree gets the extension. Now, did it just say Sean McVeigh, or did it say if one of their targets, like there could be other people we don't know about? It said one of their prime targets becomes available, but then mentioned Sean McVeigh being one guy they really liked

the first time around. Okay, so I'm insulted. No, I wrong. I would not be insulted when you're getting paid that kind of money to do one game a week on Thursday night football with Al. I would be like, okay, that's cool.

Yeah, if you get one of those guys, I'm fine. I got my college games. I'm on game day. I'll be fine. But you know what? It's probably not likely I think me. I'm curious to hear what Tom's hearing. on this or what he's heard in the past.

But it feels to me like McVeigh is not likely to leave for the broadcast booth soon. I mean, they draft Ty Simpson. Unless he wasn't on board with that pick, it felt like they're trying to have this contingency plan. They trade for Miles Garrett. They've still got Stafford, you know, maybe for next year. We'll see. I don't know if he's tied to Stafford or not.

But I wouldn't be insulted if I'm Herb Street. I think that's fine. I am curious about sort of the buzz around McVeigh, how long he wants to coach, whether this TV thing is real, or if this is a leverage play for McFay. There have been plenty of people in the league who think, you know, Sean wants to be there as long as Stafford is in L.A.

And obviously, people connect the dots when you go all in the way that the Rams have in this offseason. You know, they were the lowest cash spend team for like five years. They do that strategically. So when they think they've got their window, all right, let's go for it now. That creates the question of, all right, if they go for it and it doesn't work out, now do they go back to let's reset, we move on from the older players,

do we re-sign all these guys who are in contract years, including Puka? Do we let some of those guys walk? Like, there's a lot of different things. I mean, Sean, honestly, Sean's been kind of, you know, year to year for quite some time. I have no reason to believe that he's walking after this season. But again, it's week three. It hasn't gone great so far. You know, he has to make a decision.

They're two vastly different lifestyles. He's got a young family now. I don't think that that's a thought in Sean's head right now. To the broader point of who else can be available, we know, because of recent reporting, Troy Aikman is in the last year of his deal. It would be a good for a different network. Tony Romo, we don't know what the future holds. He'll be a yes.

I'm missing him. Greg Olson, I don't know where he is in his contract, but was very good as the number one analyst before they brought in, before Tom Brady's deal began. Could he potentially be? in play and what other former, you know, recent former coaches or players who retires after this season? Does Travis Kelsey slide into the booth? I mean, there's all kinds of different permutations of this. I mean, McVeigh, listen, I've, you know, I've known Sean for 10 years. I've been on

production calls with them. I've heard him do press conferences. Like, there is nobody who could just slide into the booth and be great from day one more so than Sean McVey with no training, with no practice, just step in and be able to go. Sean could do it. So the moment of decides he wants to be done, as long as there's a job open, he'll be the number one candidate for everybody. I don't know that that's right now. And I think that a lot of things of the next four or five months will kind of dictate what his plans are in the future. And I never thought we live in a world where you could have Tony Brom on El Michaels in a booth together. I look, I think Kirk Herfrey does as great a job as anyone else. I think he's really good on the

broadcast. But Tony Romo just letting it rip without Michaels, they could get in trouble. Do you think Do you think the dog's in the contract? I was wondering, honestly, if the dog played into a factor for the outs, where it's like, all right, this is our guy now. We had someone else we wanted. We have to deal with this dumb dog every single week running around here, making a mess of things, never on a leash. I'm telling you, Sheila, we saw Peter at Super Bowl Radio Road.

That's true. Completely wearing a credential, which how do you credential a dog, but wearing a credential, completely running around with no leash the entire time. Everyone's just peed, petting poor Peter. a whole thing. But very well behaved, I feel like, right? Yeah, very, yeah. Pretty well behaved.

Yeah. Well, you know, I'm trying to look and see, all right, who else could potentially go into the booth here? And it's hard to really find another guy who it seems like would be just as interesting. It does feel like Sean McVeigh would be very good at that. It also feels like, if a coach tries that, they're just like, why didn't I do this a while ago? This is a great lifestyle.

I just have to be, wait, we're just doing Thursday nights and I'm getting. getting paid what and I don't have to sleep in my office. Wow, this is incredible, but we know how coaches operate. They're wired a little differently. Gruden did it for a long time. I thought John, by the end of his tenure at ESPN on Monday Night Football was as good as anybody in the game. But he had that itch man. He wanted another shot at it. He wanted another crack at it. Obviously, some things happened that short-circuited his return with the Raiders, but he was ready for that moment. It's just, it's, it's a different type of, you know, competitive thing. There's some guys you go there and never come back. Everybody kept, you know, Bill Cowher, I think we talked about

this before. We're still getting calls a couple of years ago when he come back to the sideline. Mike Tomlittle will still be getting calls. It really depends on what you want out of life. At that point, you want one more shot to go win a Super Bowl someplace or you're like, I can make as much money here. Coaching contracts are big. I mean, there's coaches in the NFL making $20 million now. So I can make as much, if not more money, going to the broadcast booth where if my team goes on a three-game losing street, people aren't talking about firing me. All I got to do is go talk about the game.

Sounds pretty good. Well, and Sean McVeigh would be the most sought after coach every single hiring cycle. So if he decides I'm so tied to Stafford, I'm not sure about Ty Simpson or whatever it is, right? He can walk away, not have to deal with the growing pains and embarrassing record because they don't have the right players around him. And then as soon as the job opens up that he likes, he can swoop right back in and just take over a team. Yeah, he's in a good situation. I guess, you know, it might just come down to what does he actually think of, like,

does he think he can win big with Ty Simpson in a short amount of time? Now, we're getting ahead of ours else. Maybe if they win the Super Bowl of the series, like, all right, I'm good now. I did it with Stafford. Now is a normal time to walk away if they don't. And he's looking, because that's a long road, like to coach a guy like Stafford, who just is a problem solver on the field and then to develop. that's why I was so surprised with that pick.

I was like I felt like McVeigh was just going to want to coach veterans his entire career. He wasn't going to want to go through that process of developing a young quarterback and the ups and the downs, even when they're good, is very challenging. So that's why that pick surprised me so much. But yeah, Rams continue to be a very intriguing team. Well, and his decision could now cost Kirk Herbstreet his broadcasting job. And what if he says, you know what? I'm not too fond of Al Michaels.

And they say, Al, you're year to year. like you're out of here buddy we need Sean McVeigh he then becomes a broadcast killer right he comes in he's cost the entire broadcast team their job and not to be too dark here but you know you go down that path where it's kind of like all right well Al's not calling games anymore how does he kind of what does he do now that he's not doing that and he starts saying like oh you know and then boom we lose Al Michaels and then is he responsible for us not having Al Michaels around anymore you know I don't know if you want that on your conscience I just I keep I just I just keep coming back to the dog. What do you think the dog's rooting for?

Listen, I think dogs like to just hang out at home. That's what I'm saying. I think the dog would be like, are we just, we just get to chill here? I don't have to walk around. I don't see all this green grass. You're telling me I'm not allowed to do my business anywhere out here. Whereas at home, I can just walk into the backyard anytime I want. Yeah, I have two dogs. You know what they do all day? They just lay on the couch. They don't like going in cars and places. They get super anxious. They always think we're going to go to to the vet or to get a haircut. Anytime they're in the car,

they're like, where are they taking me? I don't want to go there. And this poor dog, because I remember, he had a dog before that, right? And the dog passed away. And he had like four golden retrievers or something. He just picked,

here's a new dog. We're going to go with this one. And this dog's probably talking to the dog family over there. Like, what do you guys do all day? It's like, ah, you know, we just walk around, sniff each other's butts. We kind of have some snacks run around, go to the bathroom.

That's it. The TV's on. We watch TV. We listen to music. Whatever. It's not that stressful. and he's like, man, I'm on private jets on Thursdays. Then I have to go to, like, Biloxi, Mississippi on Saturday.

Then I have to get on another plane to go to Washington State to call that game. Constantly. Everyone's blowing horns and waving at me. No one appreciates me. You know, NIL now in college is a big thing. Everybody's making money. These humans have this store where they're selling merchandise with my face on it. I'm not getting any that money.

I'm not getting any biscuits, any extra treats. That's all Kirk's money. When does Kirk get enough money? I'm with you. I don't know where we're going with this, but I'm with you. Should we go to a break maybe? Yeah, we'll take a break. We'll stop dunking on Herb Street's dog right after this.

Of all the quarterback injury storylines over the past several weeks, I would say the most favorable outcome, I guess, would be Jaden Daniels, going down in a lot of pain, elbow dislocated again. What has been, 10 days later, he is back on the practice field already. the teams in London ahead of their game against the Colts. He's out there. He's wearing, as I reported, it's a bigger brace than what he wore last year. He's getting some practice time in.

I don't know Shield that he plays this week. I think there's a decent shot. If it's not this week, that it's next week. And for the commanders who won a game last week with Marcus Mariotta, and that might be the best game Marcus Mariotta's played in like five years. It gives them a little bit of light of, all right, if we can get through maybe one more week here, we got a guy coming back that for about the four quarters before he got injured looked a lot like rookie of the year, Jane Daniels. Yeah, we were talking with the AFC North teams about some questions we had coming into the season and we're getting little morsels of answers.

And the commanders maybe had more uncertainty or more change in the offseason than any other NFL team. When you look at changing coordinators on both sides of the ball, changing personnel, I actually thought last week, like the overall offensive numbers aren't going to blow you away with the commanders against the Seahawks. but I thought David Blow had some really nice calls in high leverage moments late in that game. They had a great screen that led to a scoring drive in the fourth quarter. They had two third and longs where one of them really nice run play picks up a first down. And the other one, to your point, Mario daughter keeps it on an option play. He gets the first down to clinch the game. Like that wasn't a given.

You know, if they pun in that last situation, Darnold was really moving the football well. So it was kind of a lost thing, I think, from week three. I was like, oh, David Blow, those are kind of some encouraging signs here, where now if you get Daniels back, maybe there is more of a foundation with this offense than we thought a few weeks ago. So I just like watching Jaden Daniels play. It was such a strange injury, you know,

his offensive line steps on his, line steps on his foot, and then he lands and, you know, Tom Brady loses it and curses on the broadcast. I am happy that we get to see him play football again, and I just hope it's not one of these where we're like, why did they bring him back? He looks really compromised.

I hope he's able to at least function at a somewhat high level. I was worried when it happened that this is going to be like a more lengthy injury and that we'd be headed down the path of, oh, well, he's just never going to be able to stay healthy. Like this is going to be a guy. We saw how great he could be his rookie year. And now it's just injury after injury. One thing after another, we're never going to relive, like,

that rookie season that he had. He's never going to fulfill his potential. I mean, not the same, but like similar to like, similar to like an RG3, right, where RG3 kind of came out with Washington and you're like, this guy's really good. And then he just kept getting hurt. And it's like, I hope that's not the case for Jalen. And then we were, you know, maybe headed that direction, but we're not thankfully. I have a question for you guys about the other quarterback injury that was going around in Caleb Williams, where we saw him obviously get carted off. And it was like, wow, he's going to be out an extended period of time. And then the initial reports came back.

It's like, this is a grade one strain. It's, he's going to be fine. He'll come back. Like, it should be only a couple weeks. And then this week it came out like, oh no, it's like a grade two strain. It's more severe than we thought. But he also heals quicker than other people do. So we may not be on the same timeline as other people with grade two strains. He may actually be coming back. Am I reading too much into the idea of, okay, he left kind of like in an embarrassing fashion considering what it was that the injury was.

And now he's still not back from something that maybe he could have come back from already. So let's now say that it's more severe than it actually is. So when he comes back, he's actually this tough warrior that's persevered and his body just heals quicker than everyone else. Is that possible? Hamstrings are kind of a weird injury because there's some guys who have just chronic hamstring issues and they know how to deal with it. There's other guys like Caleb who, as he told the broadcast the other night, it was actually his other hamstring that he injured in college. So this was not like a re-injury. This is not scar tissue breaking up.

It was just it was a new injury. it's a freaky thing because you're going to feel something tearing and popping. Like that's, there is pain. Now, his reaction to it obviously gave the impression that it might have been a major injury. It's not a major injury. Regardless, we can get into grades. We can get into timelines. It's going to come down to how does his rehab process go?

Does he need to be 100% to come back for the Bears? Or is it, all right, he gets pretty close and we're going to kind of protect him with the game plan for a little bit here. Obviously, winning a game with Case Keenham helps, whether it's Keenham or Tyson-Bajun, this week. If you get another win, if it's not Caleb, which it could be, then that would also help. But, you know, this is a medical decision with your franchise quarterback shield. I know what Billy's going. Is this all? Like, are we just making up things to like make it look like the injury was more? Bottom line, it's not a major injury. It's not a hamstring tendon of Volsia where it's ripped off. It wasn't his Achilles. It's a hamstring strain. Is it a mild one? Is it a

moderate one? Is it between a mild and moderate? Like, just we're way down the rabbit hole with this whole thing. And I think a lot of people want the narrative to be a certain thing with Caleb Williams. It's a real injury. And he's got to rehab it. He hasn't rehabbed one of these in like four years. Let's see when he's back. Could be this

week. I'd probably lean against it based on what he has said, but you never know because he can get to the end of the week, be like, I'm feeling great. And Ben Johnson comes up with a game plan that allows him to play more from the pocket and maybe he plays a little bit more on time than he has in the past. Yeah, I feel like, you know what, it probably hurt a lot.

He probably was wondering, is his season going to be over or is he out for a few months? And he's upset. And maybe, you know, whether you want to call him a little dramatic or whatever, it's okay. It's not, you know, Billy, you never would. I'm saying people. People out there. But you know what? Minor injuries feel really bad.

Like when you stub your toe, maybe it just heard a lot. Maybe you just heard a lot. It's terrible. Yeah, it's terrible. So I think when he feels like he can come back, he's going to come back, he's going to play well. but Billy, to your PR point, actually Pete Carroll used to do this when I was covering the Seahawks

where I swear, now I've never gotten this confirmed that this was their strategy, but I feel like they would give you a longer timeline for a player. This guy's going to be out, whatever, and the guy would come back early and Pete Carroll would get up there. And I remember him saying specifically,

Luke Wilson, the tight end. I don't know if that name rings the bell in. Yeah, good actor. Long hair. He'd be like, I don't know. Like, he looks like he's ready to practice this week. He's got Wolverine blood or something. I don't know how he's

doing this. He would literally say this. But then it would be like a few weeks later and he'd be like, Earl Thomas. I don't know how he's and it's actually, I felt like it was a very smart strategy. You're building up your players because you don't want to do the opposite. Tom, you've

probably seen this too. Like the opposite actually agent's get very annoyed by this. Players get very annoyed by this. You say all right, yeah, he should be back in a couple weeks. And then it's week three and he's not back. And fans are like, what? Why isn't he back? He said it was two weeks.

Is he milking this injury? He's unhappy about something? So the Pete Carroll School is a much better way to go for NFL head coaches. Maybe after this, maybe Ben Johnson will adopt that. He seems like a guy who's got his finger on the pulse of these types of things. He might adopt that in future years. Wolverine blood. He said it like every other week about somebody.

My initial tweet on Caleb about the diagnosis was it's not a major injury and they're not even ruling him out for Monday night, which is true. Ben Johnson went through the whole week saying he's week to week, not going to rule him out. He's not going to practice, but we'll see. That's how they felt about it was, hey, it's a, we got an extra day. It's a Monday night game. Maybe, probably not. He's probably going to miss some time. But like if he decides he feels good, you know, we'll talk about it. Maybe he'll play. It's going to be like that every week. I don't anticipate the ruling Caleb out for any game. They're going to, you know, kind of let the practice report be the only thing that they say on the topic. And then, you know, move

along from there. We do know Baker Mayfield's going to be out for Corny to Todd Bowles at least three weeks which again if we're following Sheel on this, maybe you set it at three weeks then Baker's like looking at it. It's like in Mighty Ducks where the kids wrist heels. He's like look, it's healed. I can turn the stick

and then all of a sudden they put him out there. He's got to regain the grip strength. The good news on Baker was no fracture no tendon or ligament damage. But we've now got shield, Jalen Daniels, the undraft rookie who's starting. They signed Brett Rippin to the practice squad to give him another arm. I do wonder in the back of my head, as much as they've been very effusive about Jalen Daniels,

they didn't try and go get a veteran. Is this kind of like the Giants where it's all right, let's get through this week, we don't have time, and then let's keep our eyes open for what else might be out there. There's not a lot. There's not a lot of starting caliber quarterbacks, but depending how Jalen Daniels is able to function in this game, you have to think that they at least have a contingency plan, especially when if O and 3 becomes O and 4, you have almost zero margin for air. I mean, they're

already in a tough spot now because of the division they're in, it buys you a little bit of time if they were in. One game back. Yeah, you know, if they're in the AFC North or something it's probably different or the NFC West, but they're hosting the Packers this week. I still think there's talent on that team. Their defense

was excellent last week against the Vikings. I mean, they put Kyler Murray in a blender. And I feel like that is actually a situation where if you were able to get a veteran quarterback or some type of competent quarterback, maybe you can steal a game or two while Baker Mayfield is sideline. Because just organizationally, they've been an organization where they're like, we're not punning on any years. We don't care that Tom Brady is out. Nope, we're still going to compete this year once he retire. So I feel like they want to be in the mix. They're not going to

be in a situation where they say, all right, let's just pack it in here. Now, maybe sometimes weird stuff happens. And Jalen Daniels, maybe we get behind the mic on Monday and we're like, whoa, he was a revelation. That was a lot of fun. Is this one of the new fun characters in the NFL this season? It's not the most likely scenario, but weirder things have happened. So I think your process there makes sense. You give him this week.

You just found out about the timeline for Mayfield. But if it's a disaster and if it's like everything else looks good, but the quarterback's holding us back, then maybe you think about making a move pretty quickly there. Well, and Todd Bowles is incentivized as much as anyone else, right? Because he's like the guy that everyone thinks is most on the hot seat right now. So he does not want to be wasting any weeks and potentially lose his job because of a Baker injury. One other injury situation to monitor, and I reported on this, I think on Monday, not only is J.C. Horn now officially on injured reserve,

and that's going to be minimum six weeks. It's a quad injury. It's going to be a while. He's still getting second opinions. There are other starting corner for the Carolina Panthers. Mike Jackson also now on injured reserve. So you are suddenly down two starting corners on a Panthers team that as played outside of week one, obviously when they go 59, they've played pretty good defense this season.

Adro Overeaux, who's had to pull a rabbit out of a hat a number of different times because of different situations in Carolina is going to have to do some magic here, Shield, because I don't know how many teams could withstand losing their two starting corners. And then, oh, by the way, playing a nationally televised game Sunday night football. against the Lions team that for their own issues in the secondary and their own issues on defense is still scoring every single week. That's a bummer because those guys, remember that playoff game against the Rams last year? It's like, wow, they really have something with these two corners.

They can play man-covers. They can just match up against wide receivers. And the Panthers invested so much money in that defense in the offseason with Jalen Phillips and Devin Lloyd. And then even what was the first day of training camp, they lose Squarton, you know, who had been one of their more productive edge guys. and now you lose both corners. So they're in a tough spot.

There's no doubt about it. You really feel like they're going to need to get more from that offense and they're going to have to be a more offensive-minded team that maybe just tries to feast and create some turnovers on defense. But they're just going to be undermanned here at the same time. Like you said, they played well defensively week too. They really had a chance to win that game last week against the Browns. But, man, that Detroit offense has been legit.

That's going to be a very tough spot for Carolina on Sunday now. Well, then they have the Eagles after that, and then you have the Bucks, and maybe Baker's coming back then, and then you could be staring at a one in four, one and five. And it's like, wow, this season felt special early on through two weeks, and it fell apart real quick quick, for them. If I may, before we go, the whole injury timeline, milk and injuries thing did bring this up. And I, if I may, serious, quick personal story with you guys. Because I think we all, you know, playing sports growing up, like you have various injuries and you remember kind of, you know, how it goes and how coaches would, you know, respond when you got hurt and what they'd say. I don't know like how this generation is now, but I've got a nine-year-old who's in the state fall softball tournament last week, right?

Ten U here in Minnesota. She has been hit by pitch more than I think anyone I've ever seen this season. She's now figured out like my job is to get on base. So like pitch will be inside and she'll just stand there and let it hit her in the leg. Well, this is now the state tournament. The other pitcher is throwing gas in one of the games. She gets. smoked in the right elbow really hard. Fastball, like, you know right in that, like, funny bone area. So she's crying, you know, the coaches are out there. Her teammates are all volunteering, all run for her. Coach's like, hang on, hang on. So I get out there. And I'm just like, you know, she's crying. I just go, Finley, where to get you in the, in the elbow? She's like,

yeah. I felt it for a second. I go, guess what? It's not broken. Go run the base. Dr. Tom. She stops crying immediately, gets on first base. And so. up coming around on like your classic 10-U game where it's like they pick her off third, but then the ball gets thrown into the outfield and she scores. Like she came around. They won the state title, but like I was proud in that moment of just like we could, you know, coddle and say, oh, do you need an ice pack, which somebody else might have said. And I'm like, no, go run the basis.

You took a fastball in the elbow. You got this. I just was happy like ingrate a little bit of toughness in the early. I have a follow-up question. So did she bat again? in the game. And if so, what was her demeanor during that at bat? Because I find that's the toughest thing with softball and baseball little kids. When you get hit once and it actually really hurts, then it's hard to get back in the batters box and face the pitcher the next time. She came over

after the Indian said, I'm not going to bat if I come up like a guy said, oh, yes, you are. You're getting in there. This is the state tournament. This is your last day in the season. You're going to bat. She didn't come up again in that game, but the next game got up there, took four pitches, walk got on base again. So, yeah. High ODP. I like it. Look at that.

You got to do it. Now, if it actually were broken, I'd probably have a variety of issues on my hand, including it in my own house. But I was confident based on my initial, the physical test on the field. I would say Dr. Dad can be tricky.

I remember when my daughter was younger and we were about to get on a flight and we're walking through the airport. She's like, my knee hurts. I'm like, give me a break. You need a knee doesn't hurt. But I'm trying to be like, all right. Yeah.

And then we land in Philly and we get home and we roll up her pant leg and there's this like big bruce on her name. And I'm like, oh, God, I told her to tough it out. And she actually had this big bruce. So it's tough. I agree with the, you know, tough it out. Now, sometimes you're at a point of no return where it's just like, all right, they're trying to tough it out. It's not happening. But I think you did the right thing.

But, you know, I am evidence there, Billy, that it can backfire. Yeah. In addition to Tebow, my daughter also plays soccer, and she's five, and they're already flopping. Like the soccer flopping is already happening, even in the practices. At five? At five. Some of the girls on the team, not to put anyone's business out of it,

the coach's daughter, who I think they watch a lot of soccer, has learned from watching soccer that, hey, if there's a slight bump, just lay on the ground, roll around screaming. And then, like, her dad will just kind of give her like a side eye, and she knows, like, that's like, okay, just get up and keep going. Like, I'm not actually hurt. But I don't know what kind of,

they don't call penalties at this age. So I don't know why she's even doing this, but she'll just roll around on the ground pretending to be hurt. Does the coach watch the Rigger NFL show by any chance? I hope not. Right in review, please, coach. I hope not because I think he's a lawyer too.

So this could be a lot of trouble for us. All right, we got to go. We're back on Friday previewing the entire weekend. We'll look back at that Thursday night game between the Steelers and the Browns. Thanks to all you for watching and listening today. Thanks to Chris, Sarjuna, the whole team behind the scenes for Billy and Shield. I'm Tom. See you.

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