The Ringer NFL Show - The Cardinals Are Tanking, Joe Burrow Has a "Healthy Body," and Big-Name Players Are Still Holding Out

Episode Date: August 30, 2023

Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz discuss the Arizona Cardinals' obvious tank strategy heading into the 2023 season and where that will leave Kyler Murray when the dust has settled. Will Joe Burrow be ready for the start of the season? Bengals coach Zac Taylor thinks so. Plus, Katie Baker joins to discuss her piece on the emergence of football documentaries on Netflix. The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Nora Princiotti and Steven Ruiz Guest: Katie Baker Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now on the Ringer game on fee and all throughout the entire month of August, the East Coast Bias boys are getting you ready to bet the NFL this season. We're going through each and every single division and revealing our favorite futures, predicting division winners, and even giving you some award winners. Do we think the Kansas City Chiefs will repeat or will they be the throne? Tune in now to find out on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Hello and welcome to the Ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Pintziotti.

I am here, as always, with the fabulous Stephen Ries. Stephen, say hello to everyone. Hi, everyone. Two more weeks. Are you excited? Can you feel it? Are you dreading it? No, I'm kind of excited.

I'm really, I mean, we're going to talk about the last episode of Hard Knocks today. It's 53-man roster week. We're going to talk about some of the news from that. Like, getting real. When you're starting to think about Clayton Thune, you know football season's right around the corner. That's how you know, baby. Yeah. All right. So as, as Stephen mentioned, big Clayton Tune Newsweek, big news week, big news week in general.

So we're going to spend the show today just talking about all of the big stories that came out of roster trimming day, just sort of what we're noticing as teams start to take shape. We're going to talk a little bit about the Cardinals, talk a little bit about the Bengals. Then we will finish up our Hard Knocks Recap series. and we're going to talk to our ringer colleague Katie Baker about a story she did last week, which we both thought was really interesting about all of these like Netflix football docs. There's the new Florida Gators one. Obviously, this was the summer of quarterback. And that whole genre of content and what it's been like to create, which ones have been successful,

which ones haven't. Katie wrote a whole story about how that happened, how it fits into Netflix's sports strategy, a bunch of other stuff. I thought it was really interesting, so she's going to hop on and talk to us about it. However, before we get to that, we will start nowhere else. Other than at the bottom of the NFL power rankings with the Arizona Cardinals, who made, I think, one of the splashier decisions of the start of this roster week by cutting Colt McCoy. I would argue that Colt McCoy News is probably a step up from Clayton Toon News. However, this is only really all that meaningful because Kyler Marie is still on PUP is going to miss at least four games at the start of the season. Colt has been QB1 in Arizona since the spring because Kyler is recovering from injury.

And so Clayton Toon probably starting week one in Arizona. Maybe Josh Dobbs getting a second consecutive important. regular season start after starting the most important game for the Tennessee Titans last year out of nowhere. Why does Josh Dobbs just keep showing up out of nowhere? I didn't even know he was like in the competition. Josh Dobbs is like sort of the Grim Reaper meme. Like he just appears to cut you down. The Cardinals are tanking. I know this is not something that we're supposed to say because tanking is bad and not allowed, but the Cardinals are quite obviously taking. They have cut DeAndre Hopkins. They have let veterans like Zach Allen and Byron Murphy.

who are now starters for other teams go elsewhere. They traded Isaiah Simmons was the first rounder in 2020 to the Giants for a seventh round pick, not saying you could have gotten something akin to what they spent on him in return for Isaiah Simmons at this point. But a seventh round pick is NFL pocket change. So I think we can say pretty clearly the Cardinals are tanking. I think it's better than the alternative. The question to me then is just what does this mean for Kyler?

because if they are tanking so obviously, it means that they want to be in position for the number one overall pick to potentially draft Caleb Williams. So you have this once franchise quarterback who's signed to a big deal, who's recovering from this massive injury, who's not going to play at the start of the year.

Clearly the team is not interested in playing games, even though Jonathan Gannon had the moment of the week where he said that he will not name a week one starter to maintain a, quote, competitive advantage. But if you're Kyler, Stephen, what's the deal? I mean, you're next, buddy. It's only a matter of time. And if you're Kyler, you're waiting for that moment.

I think it's easy to forget how good Kyler was a couple years ago when the Cardinals were 9 and 0. Everyone was talking about them as maybe the best team in the NFC. Kyler Murray was an MVP candidate. We were talking about it. And then it went to hell in like a couple of weeks. But you go back to two years ago. you even go back to last year and watch some of his film, he's still a very good quarterback.

He's still like a fringe top 10 quarterback, maybe a top 10 quarterback if he can stay healthy. So the Cardinals have something here. But like you said, if they're not tanking, they're at least not trying to win. These aren't the moves of a team that's trying to win. Like the free agent signings, they had cap space, they didn't really spend it. It was, this offseason was used as a purge of the roster, which really was needed. Like, this is what they needed to do. They needed to get rid of all these players.

they took a chance on, like, Isaiah Simmons figured to be a big part of the future, but it didn't work out. He, like, wasn't working out as a player. They tried him at safety. They tried him at linebacker. Didn't work out. Time to move on. So I think this is, like, a necessary year. And it comes on the heels of a season where I think they were a little bit naive, maybe the last two seasons where they were trying to sign these veteran stars, kind of like, let's go for it, let's go all in, only the wrong way to do it. You don't go all in by signing AJ Green. to like a one-year flyer deal. So I think it was like a sense of awareness that they didn't have before.

And this is the perfect year to do. When you look at the quarterbacks, you look at Caleb Williams, look at Drake May, these are quarterbacks that can uplift a franchise, that can turn around a franchise. A franchise that we consider inept could be turned around with the right traffic. Like we had those same conversations about the Bengals. We talked about how cheap they were, about how they wouldn't pay guys. and then Joe Burrow comes along and everything seemingly changes. I think the Cardinals have, at the very least, put themselves in a position to get one of those guys this year,

which is a lot better than having question marks about your quarterback, whether he can even play a full season, whether he's dedicated enough, whether he even wants to play football, whether, like, baseball is always an option for him. I think it's a good reset for the Cardinals. It's going to be terrible this year. This is the worst team in the NFL. You look at their roster, and it's not even like a youth movement. It's not like the Rams where you look at their roster, and it's like a bunch of, UDFAs and a bunch of rookies playing.

This is like solid vets, like in their six year. It's just a bad roster and they're going to lose a lot of game. The tank is good. Again, I know we're not supposed to say out loud that they're taking. They're so obviously tanking. And that's what they should be doing. That's the smartest way. I mean, the way that they navigated the draft was, I think, the smartest thing they did all offseason.

this is absolutely, as you said, a team in need of a reset. That's what happens when you go out and sign the 2014 All-Stars and try to make it work that way and then have some bad luck on top of that with your quarterback getting hurt. I just, which to your point I think does mean that Kyler will ultimately be next, but that's a tricky situation to navigate just because they will want something meaningful in return. they should have interested teams. I agree with you.

I think the needle has gone too far down on Kyler. Yeah. When we're really just responding to a situation, which the team as a whole and the offense as a whole was just a total mess. And he was throwing to a lot of guys who had their best years behind them. Offensive line hasn't been good. Coaching hasn't been great. All of the above, I think, is much more meaningful than Kyler Murray's just bad.

Now, for a quarterback who does rely a lot of mobility, obviously, him coming off the injury, he could have lost something in that. And I think that'll be something that teams are really, really curious about. But they should be able to find trading partners for Kyler. It's still just a hard needle to thread because he's expensive. You have the injury concern. He doesn't have the best reputation as a nose to the grindstone. player. Some of that is probably unfair. They certainly did him no favors with the homework clause or deal.

But it's just going to be, I think, easier said than done of, oh, you know, Tyler's been a top 10 quarterback. I'm sure they'll be able to find someone. But the tank only makes sense if you're replacing, if you're, if you're going for a replacement at that position. So if I'm any other team, right, I'm starting to think about, all right, Cowboys just took this flyer on Trey Lance, which we're reading as they want insurance if things don't work out with Doc Prescott. If you're in that personnel office, do you start to make a little note of, okay, well, if that doesn't work either, maybe we think about this guy. Or if you're the Patriots who currently don't have a backup and maybe you're not sure if Mack Jones is your guy. you start to think could Kyler be someone that we might take a chance on in a year or so? I'm just throwing stuff out there, but it's just a tricky.

I don't see any teams where I go, you know, this is the most obvious fit. I guess maybe the Vikings, since they're not totally committed to Kirk. But it's, again, he's just such a specific player. There's a lot of places you could go. He's a talented guy, obviously. Is there anyone who you would be flagging right now of if I'm in this front office, I start thinking about what we might be willing to spend on a Kyler Murray trade? I think the answers are going to be more obvious in a couple months. But I think, like, looking ahead to potential situations where we're wondering if the quarterback is the right guy.

Like Detroit, for instance, is a team that doesn't jump out as a team that needs a quarterback right now, but might need one a year or two. Miami's another one. We don't know what's going to happen with Tua. he's falling a lot better. I don't know if you saw the clip, but he's officially learned how to fall. He's a great faller. Teams like that, I think, could emerge.

But I do think we're going to, we're going to be having a discussion about how good Tyler Murray is going to be. Whenever he comes back, whenever that trade happens, I think the conversation is going to be a little warped. And I think people around the league kind of are buying into this narrative,

the Cardinals kind of started by leaking the information about the contract, or I don't know if it came from his agent or whatever, but I do think whatever team trades for him is going to be getting a value deal. Like, they're not going to have to give up as many picks because he's not the prototype quarterback, like you've said. He's like a very unique guy that you have to kind of fit the offense around. And then we haven't seen him play, and he hasn't been able to stay healthy. So if I'm one of those organizations and I'm not in a position to get Caleb Williams or Drake made, like the Patriots, for instance, who might be a little, too good to fall in that range. I'm absolutely looking into Kyla. And I'm looking into trading for him as soon as possible because I think,

one, if we don't see him come back and kind of get the reminders that he's a better player than we remember, I think the price might go up a little bit. But I think if you trade for him right now, this might be the time when his price at its flow. Because we haven't seen him play. All we're thinking about is the contract stuff. We haven't seen him play well since the contract. So I wouldn't be surprised if a team makes a play for him in a lot.

month or two if he's able to get healthy enough to pass physical that is. Yeah, I really wouldn't either, especially because if you're Kyler, he's not stupid, right? He can see the writing on the wall. His only incentive to play for them this season other than avoiding fines is to show what he has. And therefore, hopefully have a little bit more leverage, you know, obviously in a trade, it's more complicated than that. But to incentivize having a good market out there and maybe he gets some sort of say. in how that ends up panning out. Other than that, maybe I'm going overboard here,

but other than avoiding fines, what is Kyler's incentive to be bought into the Arizona Cardinals? They are very clearly not bought into him. They're also, by the way, if I'm Jonathan Gannon, I am seriously worried about being a one-and-done coach there, because if you do all of this

to draft a quarterback number one overall. I'm not sure that your defensive head coach, especially if the results in this year are tough, which they definitionally have to be in order to be able to draft a Williams, draft to Drake May, whoever it ends up being. He's going to have a bad reputation as a non-winning coach, even though they're not trying to win,

and probably isn't the guy that you would say, oh, I'm bringing in this super-toucher talented number one overall pick quarterback, I want, you know, a fresh guy to, to shepherd him into being our franchise starter. So I support the tank. I'm on board for the tank. The tank is the right idea. The tank's probably going to be painful for a number of people involved. Not only did they do the tank, but they also have their eggs in another basket because they made the trade with Houston. So if Houston ends up being bad, they don't even have to fully commit to the tank. So I feel like they're going to have a good idea of how they need to operate over the second half of the season based on how Houston does based on how they do.

And I think that might dictate Kyler Murray's future. If he ever plays again for this team, I think that's going to dictate it. But you have to think Jonathan Gannon had a conversation about what this year was going to look like and what the expectations were. Like you look at the roster, I see maybe one player. that I guarantee no for a fact is going to be on their roster in 2025. And that's Paris Johnson, the right tackle, the offensive tackle, they just drafted. Everyone else is on the chopping block. I don't see, like, their day two picks are a couple of backup wide receivers and a backup

outside linebacker. There's not like a foundation to even build around. It's not even like a young, a core of young players you need to get out on the field that you need to see play. Like the quarterback position explains it all. Clayton Toom is not going to be your answer. Josh Dobbs, we know is not the answer. This is a year zero.

The Houston pick to me is icing on the cake. I don't think their plan is let's watch it and see how it goes. And we can sort of dictate how we perform the last, how we address the last part of the season based on that. This team is tanking. This team is trying to lose game. Sorry. Like, it's a good idea. You're not supposed to do it.

But really what the rules say is that you're just not allowed to say it out loud. I'm allowed to say it out loud, though. The Cardinals are very obviously taking. Okay. Does Jonathan Gannon know? Has anyone let him know? Is he going to say it out loud? Yes.

Jonathan Gannon knows. He knew. He knew when he said competitive advantage. He knew when those words left his lips that he was absolutely full. He knew when they tampered for him. That's the surest sign of tanking. You tampered for Jonathan. Oh, what a time.

What a team. All right. In non-tanking team news, Joe Burrow still not practicing. August 30th as we're recording this, Zach Taylor yesterday said, we'll see if he's going to be back later this week. Taylor also said that it is not contract related. Burrow obviously still hasn't come to an agreement with the team on an extension,

but Taylor also said that he has a quote, very healthy body. So trying to make sense of this all. Coach says it's not about the contract, but also a four-week calf strain keeping Joe Burrow out of practice wouldn't be ideal either, but also he has a very healthy body. What do you think is going on here, Steve? It was a very strange line. He was very vague about what parts of Burroughs' body are most healthiest.

He didn't really speak about the calf specifically, but I think from the outside looking in, it's easy to write it off as a non-issue just because Joe Burrow is Joe Burrow. You know he's going to be a productive quarterback. But we've seen the last two years his training camp kind of get disrupted, and he got off to a slow start. So I think that would be the worry is that he's a quarterback that kind of like takes some time to kind of settle in, get a sense of the speed. get a sense of the timing of the offense and all that. That's the one concern. But I really don't think this is a contract issue. I don't think this would be the way to go about resolving a contract issue or getting an offer that you want faster, just milking a calf injury.

And it doesn't just, it just doesn't seem like something that Burrow would do anyway. Like he seems to be a guy that's putting the team first. Like he's saying all the right things in public. When he talks about the contract, he's talking about being mindful of keeping the team together, keeping the roster strong. So it wouldn't make a lot of sense if all of a sudden now he injured his calf and was like, okay, now let's ride this and let's use it as leverage for the contract. But I would be a little tiny bit concerned if I was a Bengals fan just because of the tough

division, it's a tough conference they're in. They don't really have a margin for error. You know how important it is to win games and get home field advantage against like the bills and the chiefs. You don't want to be going to Buffalo. You don't want to be going to Kansas City, even though you guys have had success there. But that would be my one concern is how it's going to affect the start of the season. Because we have seen Burrow last year.

I think it was his appendix the year before. I'm forgetting what the injury was, but there was a slight injury. And I know there was like some discomfort with our chase kind of hit the ground slowly. Yeah, it was his finger. I think that's what it was. So I think that's the main concern. I'm not concerned about the injury overall. I don't think.

Although cab injuries do tend to linger a little bit. To play devil's advocate, I think the, the, if, if you want a concern troll here, it's that it's been a month. And I do. And, and you know we do. It's been a month since he, since he heard it. And because that is an injury that can linger, I don't think that's great that he's still not able to practice at this point, but you hope that they're just being very cautious.

The reason I would say, I think this is no big deal is they cut Trevor Simeon and read Sinette, um, which means. that they are either very, very comfortable with Jake Browning and are Will Greer, who Adam Schaefters reported, they're going to add to the practice squad. Or they think bro is going to be absolutely fine. Although I would say like moving on from Reed Sinette isn't like the sure sign of confidence. I think that would have been a move. All right, fine. I didn't need to include Reed Sinette in that.

But for the record, for our listeners at vacation, Reed Sinat is no longer a bangle. They cut Trevor Simeon. They cut the guy who's been the main backup. You think Simeon and Sennett are going to show up in Arizona anytime soon, get them involved in the mix? Although Simeon might be too good. Like, I'm a Trevor Simeon, truth.

That guy can play. The NFL doesn't realize it, but I realize it. Trevor Simeon versus Josh Dobbs, Angel of Death off. The number of, by the way, do the backup quarterback transactions feel like a little out of control to you? Yeah, I see what you're saying. They're kind of just like playing musical chair. Do you see what I'm saying?

Because I barely explained it. No, no. Nathan Peterman gets cut. There's all of these. So the Patriots do not currently have a backup behind Mac Jones. They cut Bailey Zappy. In Buffalo and Miami, it's a little bit different because I think Mike White is still dealing with a concussion.

It's more injury related. but there are a lot of these teams where it's just sort of like, excuse me, if your starter gets hurt, like Justin Fields, if Justin Fields gets hurt, the Bears current backup

because they cut Peterman and they cut PJ Walker is Tyson Badgant, who's an undrafted free agent out of Division II, Shepard University. I've got some connections with Shepard University.

So I know his lore, and I wasn't surprised that he kind of won out. Like, I'm in a, I'm in a mad, in league with the guy that does like play by play for Shepard University. So I know.

I not only do not know Tyson Badgent lore. I didn't know Tyson Badgent had lore. Oh yeah. His dad is like, he's not quite LaVar ball, but he's in that genre. Like he's very confident in his son's ability to play football at the NFL. This is incredible. Look it up. Yeah.

So he's not surprised at all. He's not surprised at all that Tyson Badgant beat out Nathan Peterman and PJ Walker. Tyson is cashing checks that his dad, mouth wrote. He's backing it up too. So, yeah. I stand corrected that. And I think, you know what I think it is? I think when the league announced that teams were going to be able to have three quarterbacks on the roster, like teams were preparing for that. And backup quarterbacks are like, oh, an extra job for us. Like, that's good for everyone. But only 13 teams have taken advantage of that rule.

Compared to last year, there was 12 teams that had three quarterbacks on the roster. So I feel we spent a lot of time talking about this in the offseason after the 49ers game, but NFL teams don't seem to care. And they, I don't think it's going to make any difference. Like, the Eagles and the 49ers have three quarterbacks, but the Eagles that have already done that in the past. The 49ers are like the one team that it's like when someone brings up something that happened to them in life, or like a hypothetical situation. And it's very specific. And it's like, okay, this actually happened to you. The 49ers are that one team. They're like, what if you're in the NFC championship and like your quarterbacks get hurt and you don't have a guy.

Like we should have a rule in place. And then everyone's like, that's never going to happen. Like that it was just to placate the 49ers and that's it. But it doesn't seem like a rule that's really affecting anybody. And like the quarterbacks, the back of quarterbacks are actually have fewer jobs, it seems. Well, right. That's the part that doesn't make sense is like we went through this whole thing for them to be

allowed to have three. And now there are several teams who are currently carrying one. single one, count them one quarterback. Now that obviously won't last, but maybe because they had, maybe because these teams were going out and like adding to their quarterback rooms being like, oh, we might be able to, you know,

we might want to carry three, we might want to think about it. Is it possible? They just signed a lot of guys who aren't very good. Yes. And now. Especially in the case of the Bengals

with those names you listed off. And the page. Also, RIP to two hype trains, the Bailey Zappy hype train, which lasted about a year. And the Malik Cunningham hype train, which lasted about a week. He got a couple of reps in practice, and he had a couple good throws in that first preseason game. Apparently, it's been all downhill from there. I was into it. I was on the Malik Cunningham hype train.

I think I still am. Whatever. Get him in Arizona. Give him a couple of starts. Just like this graveyard. What happens? Why? First of all, how dare you, how dare you suggest, how dare you advocate for Malik Cunningham to start having to pay for his team facility dinner every night? I wouldn't wish that on you, Malik. You gave me excitement in the preseason. And that's, that's all that I can ask for. I hope you go to the Ravens or the Vikings or one of the teams that, you know, has free massages and a day spa in the team facility. I wish the best to Malik Cunningham. Same.

Okay. Well, we'll see what happens with Bengals. I'm not terribly worried because of the Jake Browning of it all. But it is getting a little weird. It's just been too long. A month is too long to have a lingering calf strain. All right, we're going to talk about the dolphins next. But first, let's take a quick break.

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And you know who else is back? Christian Wilkin. And it is holded in Miami. The thing that was interesting to me about this was that it came out when he came back that the dolphins received trade offers for Wilkins, but said that he wasn't available. They didn't want to trade him. and also Christian Wilkins said that he didn't want to be traded.

So this was the friendliest holdout of all time, it seemed like. Yeah, I wonder if that's going to be a new thing where you don't put a player on the trading block, but you kind of voice your receptiveness to trading him. Because we saw this with Lamar, who kind of had like a soft trade request. And what that really was what, like was Baltimore and Lamar kind of figuring out where his value was. And I think whenever you're like stuck in these situations where with Lamar it's different. Like a quarterback, you usually just pay him. But with Lamar, obviously there's concerns about him staying healthy.

There's concerns about his playing style, although I think those are overblown. So it was kind of a tricky situation where you're asking a question about value and how much he's worth to the team. I think with Christian Wilkins, like a defensive tackle, that's a more natural conversation to have. Sure. We had it with like even Aaron Donald when he was up for a new contract. but defensive tackles are getting paid like $23 million a year now. Christian Wilkins wants that type of money. He wants to reset the market as any top player does whenever they sign a new deal.

And I think it's smart for Miami to kind of, I don't know, drag their feet with it. I don't know if that's the best way to do businesses, to just pay a defensive tackle, a position that is very important on the field, but not one that you typically pay, you know, $20 million a year to. So I think they could see how the rest of the league views him, how he might get paid when he hits the market. And it gives them, I guess, a better sense of how to proceed with these contract negotiations. And I think it also provides like a realistic view of his value for Christian Wilkins himself. So like you said, it was a harmless holdout.

And I think it's a very important player that they need to have for this season specifically with how they have built their team, how they're ready to win right now with their players. and just Vic Vanjow's defense in general has needed that type of presence on the interior. They've already lost Jalen Ramsey. I don't think they can afford to lose any more star power on that side of the ball. They tried to come to an agreement on an extension too, and the beatwriters in Miami. There was a lot of reporting that the issue is just coming to a landing spot on the total amount of guarantees. Take that, I mean, what that means is sort of is hard to figure out,

you can read that as, oh, they're really far apart. They couldn't come to an agreement. Or they couldn't quite make it work on the guarantee structure, but maybe they did make some headway in terms of where a deal for him would fit in the greater landscape at that position because, as you said, a question for him is resetting the market. But it seems, I don't know, that the way that this ended makes it seem like, at least there aren't a lot of hurt feelings.

going around and he is such an important piece for them. So that seems like good news in South Florida. Worst news, Coltson Jonathan Taylor, still not in a good place. He has not been traded, but he will start the year on the PUP list, which means that he would miss the first four games. Been a new round of Kareem Hunt sort of scuttlebutt about whether or not Indy might look to add him. I don't know which way it cuts that the Colts will get a look one way or another

at their offense without Jonathan Taylor with Anthony Richardson. It's not ideal for those of us who would like to see Anthony Richardson start his NFL career in a great place that that is going to be at least for a month, if not more, if they do end up training him without Jonathan Taylor. I still think that the Colts should be the most motivated team. in the league to figure this out but the fact that the value he can potentially provide them

is now down four games of work is not a step in the right direction as far as that goes. And it doesn't seem like they're planning to be without Jonathan Taylor this season just based on their running back room as it stands right now. They only have three running backs. One of them is a rookie in Evan Hall. Zach Moss isn't the type of guy Like when you're a team that's built around the run

Which we presume that the Colts are going to be As Anthony Richardson kind of comes along in his development Obviously the one thing that he can do well At a high level at this point is run the football So I'm expecting a lot of runs And if you're building your offense around the run game Zach Moss isn't the type of player you want to build it around I think we talked about it last week

The need for explosive plays in this offense I don't think Alex Pierce One of the players that we said was the X factor in the AFC South hasn't made the leap this preseason that maybe Indianapolis was hoping for, like to be that downfield big play explosive reception threat. So they're going to need Jonathan Taylor. I don't know where the big plays are going to come from if he's not here. The answer is not on the roster as it stands right now, eight, seven days from the regular

season starting. So I think that the Colts feel confident. they're going to be able to rain Jonathan Taylor in a little bit and at least get him on board for this season. Beyond that, I don't know if they're committed to his future, but just reading the T leaves and how they're operating with their roster moves, I think they're confident he's going to be back. Yeah, I mean, I think especially if things work,

if things work out with Richardson, there's a way in which the fact that, you know, they'll, they should have an effective RPO game. He provides so much in general. as an athletic talent with his legs, their run game should be fine. I think in some ways you don't feel the impact of losing a Jonathan Taylor

in the basic first and second down ways as much as you might think you. But it is the explosive playability where if they don't, you know, absent some other move or getting him back and having him be effective, just don't know where that's coming from,

which is the bulk of what we talked about when we talked about this last time. It's not like, do you have a stable and productive round game? They're going to be able to do that if Anthony Richardson is, you know, even 75% of the guy that we think he is. It's more where do you get plays of 20 plus from? And that's the point I made last week. I feel like we kind of learned these big lessons from like the analytics community about like how you should build your roster. One of the big lessons is that the running game doesn't matter, and running backs don't really move the needle in the run game. But like I said last week, I think that's different for each and every team in each individual case.

Like if you're the chiefs, for instance, just having that productive, reliable down-to-down run game that gets you three to four yards on first down. Like, that works for you because you have Patrick Mahomes and everything's going to be fine on third down anyway. But for the – like we've been saying the Colts, it's just not the model. It's just not the way the team is set up. They need that big play threat. And the only person on the roster that can provide it is Jonathan Taylor right now. In other holdout slash player team conflict news that I think is pretty real. Chris Jones has been placed on Reserve Do Not Report in Kansas City,

looking pretty likely that he's going to miss the start of the season there. He tweeted last week that he's prepared to hold out until week eight. Still no indication of exactly why it's week eight. He's already swallowed $2 million in fines for holding out during training camp. And I think you can tell that the chiefs are pretty nervous about this one because they made a trade with the Raiders. Division rival, you don't see those teams trade with each other as often as outside the division. It does happen. It happens more than it used to.

But it's still something that I think is a, is a consistent. iteration. They made a trade for Neil Farrell, second year defensive lineman. Obviously Neil Farrell is not Chris Jones, but I do think it underscores the fact that they just don't have a lot of depth there and they don't

have a lot of high caliber talent at that position without Jones, who was, I mean, first in snaps among defensive linemen last year, first in pressures, first in pass rush win rate, first in wins against double teams, first in sacks created against double teams. There's no one who's going to be

able to fill in for that. But I think they are trying to prepare in some way, shape, or form to be without him for a substantial part of the season, which I'm not here to tell you that, you know,

this spells the downfall of the chiefs. If they can live life without Tyreek Hill without missing a beat, they can probably live life without Chris Jones for a while without losing too much. But for their defense, it's hard to come up with something that would be a bigger deal than this. So I think this is maybe one of the most impactful stories of training camp, the fact that this seems like it's going to linger into the regular season. Yeah, definitely,

because he's been the heart of the defense for the last couple of years now. There was that one season when he kind of moved over to end, like he was a perimeter edge rusher for a season and he kind of experimented with that. And it just didn't work. And the defense was so bad. They move them back inside. and like everything's fixed instantly. And I think that's kind of what Jones might be going for here is I'm not going to be here. You're going to see what a future with this defense without me looks like. And I think like he knows. No offense to Tershon Wharton or Derek Nani.

Coming off of ACL surgery. I don't think they're moving the needle in the middle. But I think like if you've watched the Chiefs over the last couple of years since Spagnolo took over as defensive coordinator, they've kind of gotten off to slow start. So this is a smart move by Jones, because I think that combined with the fact that he's not in there, we could really see this defense struggle. And if this defense is struggling, like, as we head into October, maybe they drop a game that they weren't expected to drop. Like, they go to Jacksonville, they go to the New York Jets. Those are two games that you can lose on the road if your defense isn't playing well.

Maybe the chiefs hit the panic button. And maybe they're willing to up their offer by a couple of million and Jones gets what he wants. I think the chiefs are smarter than that. I think they know that he has to come back for the second half because I think the reason why he wants to sit out to week nine is because it affects the franchise tag and how that kind of escalates from year to year. So I think he's going to come back. He's not going to just give up on a year of his career in his prime a year where he can

earn a bunch of money. I think they just kind of kind of have to like write. out the storm, get him back, hope the offense kind of carries them along for the first half of the season and everything fine. I think that's how it ends up working out. But in the short term, it is a concern because you are playing against very good offenses to start the season. You're playing against Detroit. You're playing against Jacksonville. You're playing against the Jets. Even the Bears have a run game. And if you don't have Chris Jones in the middle of that defense, this run defense doesn't look great. So I think we're going to see this defense put to the test

without Jones early on, and I wonder how that kind of affects negotiations going forward. All right. Next item. The Eagles traded for Alberto. Swapped late brown picks with the Broncos, who I think were, it seemed like the writing was on the wall that he was going to get cut. Trader Howie swoops in, takes a flyer on a guy. They also, they pulled a similar move.

They traded for Isaiah Rogers, or they added Isaiah Rogers, who, is suspended for 2023 because of gambling. But it's always interesting when we see the guys that the Eagles take late August flyers on. What did you think of the Albert O move? They're like the new Patriots where if they sign a guy that you've heard of who didn't necessarily work out with the first team, you're like, oh, he's going to be the best player that he's ever lived. They're going to turn him into Rob Gunkowski.

I like Alberto O. I think he's an athletic piece. I think there's going to be at least one or two plays that he makes this year, provided he actually gets playing time, where you're like, oh, Albert O, like he's going to go for like 40 yards because he's very athletic. He's very big. Big. I think that really benefits this team who dominates in the trenches and then kind of plays off

that strength in the trenches with guys that could stretch the field vertically on the outside. And I think Albride, like, fits into that paradigm perfectly. If they can get them up to speed, the problem is this is now the second coaching staff. that has given up on him. Actually, the third that really hasn't given him a chance. Nathaniel Hackett, I think we can kind of overlook. That's kind of a disaster. And it doesn't really, maybe it doesn't speak to who he is as a player.

But Sean Payton giving up on him, Sean Payton loves his tight ends. And Denver added a lot of tight ends, a lot of competition to the tight end room this year. Maybe Sean Peyton is very particular about his tight ends. Well, right. When you say Sean Peyton loves his tight ends, yes, he loves tight ends,

but he also really loves his tight ends. Like to Adam Troutman for some reason. But so maybe you could take it with a grain of salt the fact that he hasn't kind of caught on with a team. But if any team's going to get the most out of them, it's this team. And I mean, if they get back to doing like two tight end stuff, you could definitely see his athleticism being a factor, being a thing that like changes a key game later on. Right. So Philly was a great two tight end team last year. They were 62 of 95, 862 net yards.

563 air yards, nine touchdowns, no interceptions, led the league in pass a rating out of two tight endsets, second only to Kansas City and EPA. They just didn't do it that much. It was only 113 dropbacks for them all the way, you know, from week one all the way through the Super Bowl. So bottom half of the league and the amount of time that they were spending doing that, even though they were super effective when they did it. And I think you can basically chalk that up to the fact that they're depth behind Dallas Goddard as, you know, Grant Calcutera and Jack Stoll. So I really like it. You know, I'm totally traitor how he added again.

But I think I like it a little bit more for what it says about what they are paying attention to in terms of their offense. I too have bought into Alberto hype in moments past. I would definitely take the fact that it was Nathaniel Hackett who gave up on him and that Sean Payton is particular about sort of having his guys. I think both of those things are meaningful context. But I do think we have to say that three separate coaching staffs have basically given up on this guy. He was a healthy scratch at times last year. It was a mess, but I don't think it's realistic to go, oh, yeah, Albrano, I've heard of that guy. So he's definitely, this is definitely going to work out.

but I do think that they are, you know, they're taking a flyer on a guy who not only has a lot of athletic talent, but who if he does fill that role, if it does work, it has been proven to be something that works really well within the context of this Eagles offense. So it'll be, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it works out. The other thing, though, is that they swapped late round picks. And this is part of their strategy. This is part of Roseman's strategy is if it doesn't work, you just move on and you try again. Yeah, there's no risk to them. I wonder what's like the worst move Roseman can make where we might like try to hype it up a little bit. Like he could sign Tim Tebow and we would be like, oh, tight end quarterback hybrids are the future.

No, absolutely wrong. They don't have a punter on their roster right now. Maybe that's some new cutting edge approach to roster building. You don't, you skimp at punter. You just don't punt. They have Alberto. now. They're never going to have to punt. They're never going to punt. All right. Let's take another break. We're going to come back and go off the field a little bit. Go into the world

of streaming. Talk a little hard knocks. Talk a little Netflix. Katie Baker is going to join us for that. It's going to be great. Katie Baker is here. She wrote the Netflixification of football is only beginning. Great story on the ringer.com. Fabulous website. The story is about Katie. You can put it into your own words much better than I can, I'm sure. But about this rise in football, football-adjacent sort of sports doc programming, primarily on Netflix, which has really been leaning into it with the Untold series, new one about the Florida Gators. Quarterback, obviously, this has been the summer when every quarterback around the league

has been asked if they're going to participate in season two of quarterback. What made you interested in writing about this, Katie? Yeah, like you said, it's the new best shape of their life is the, are you going to be on quarterback question? It's at every training camp. But, you know, kind of like what you said, it just started to feel almost like inescapable when you have the combination of sort of the, you know, the biggest sport in the country with Netflix, which as we've seen recently with all the, you know, the talk about the show suits that

it's kind of brought back into the culture. Like, it has the ability to just turn a fire hose on and inject, you know, a lot of programming into people's homes. And, you know, in some ways, turning on Netflix and seeing what's on is like the new, you know, flipping channels in a hotel room and seeing what's on. So, yeah, so that's, that was why we wanted to just kind of look, you know, I wanted to kind of see what the process is behind how they make these, who's making them, why those people are making them.

So yeah, that was the genesis of the story. What have you watched? Maybe, you know, if you want to be polite and professional and discreet about this question, you're more than welcome to. But which of these have you watched because you want to watch them and because they're great shows? And which of you may be watched because you're going to write a story about it and are sort of interested in how the whole thing is working?

Which are the best ones? Well, it's, it's funny you say that because in a very early version of the story, I was kind of reckoning with my own, like, you know, I'm writing the story. I've interviewed the director of the story of Swamp Kings, for example. So it's like I don't want to savage Swamp Kings. But, you know, so, you know, I'm almost like having the same dilemma that, you know, if you're the director of the Johnny, you know, Johnny Football documentary, you're working so closely with Johnny Football.

You're not necessarily going to turn like a total critical eye onto a lot of things. So like I sort of felt that myself while writing it. But, you know, I actually, I'm kind of a good audience for these things because I know who all these people are. I'm familiar with the stories. Like I don't get confused. But a lot of it's also new to me because I'm not totally immersed in football all the time or, you know, those sorts of things.

I really liked quarterback like just, you know, even apart from writing about it. I love just seeing the different ways that men can be strange. And how that strangest makes them good at the same job in like very different ways. And, you know, thinking about like, who would you want to be on quarterback in the future? Like, I would have never have really picked out her cousins. But I just felt like that was really, I really felt like I was getting to know a person. You know, there's obviously a few things that they left out, you know, from the full story. But yeah, so like that's one that I actually enjoyed.

You know, in general, right now there's, it's not a Netflix documentary, but like BS high is kind of incredible. And I think is a really good example of like what an amazing one can look like. You know, I think some of the other ones, like I loved what Brian Curtis said on the press box podcast, which is like not all of these are necessarily documentaries. Like some of them are memoirs in a sense. And so when you look at it that way, yeah, you know, they view a little bit differently. Stephen, I don't know that we've talked about quarterback. What has been your, again, I'm struggling for the word because as documentary does not always feel right, but football adjacent content consumption via streaming platform. Where are you?

I thought quarterback was really good. And I wasn't a fan of Swamp Kings just because of the concerns that everyone had about the stakeholders kind of, you. narrating it, Urban Meyer specifically. And I was trying to figure out like what's the difference between the two because there's certainly an element of that. We didn't see all of Kirk Cousins. We didn't see like the COVID stuff. He did manage to get in his favorite Margaret Thatcher quote.

And you don't really know a person until you figure out their favorite quote from Thatcher. Still the single funniest moment of any of any of these series all summer is that to me, is that quarterback began with Kirk Cousins quoting Margaret Thatcher. First episode. First like five minutes. I know I brought it up like six times on various podcasts, but I just will never, ever, ever get over that one choice. It's such a peak-kirk moment. But I do wonder, Katie, like in your, what sense you got talking

to these people, how much of this, I think we've seen an explosion of sports content, especially in the documentary space. How much do you think of it is based on the success of the last dance? And I'm wondering if like these. executives, especially at Netflix who are getting into this, kind of understand why the last dance worked the way that it did, to the level that it did, and how that differs from some of these other topics. Like, for instance, the Florida football thing, we all knew about Florida football. We didn't know the details. We knew about like Aaron Hernandez. We knew about Percy Harvin, but we didn't really see it in the documentary. But like some of those stories that the Bulls were

willing to tell in the 90s, we didn't really know. I wonder if there's like a different and how the executives look at these stories and when they happen and how familiar we are with them. Well, one thing that's going to be so interesting to see is Netflix just won the bidding war for like a 10-part Jerry Jones, one which to me seems like a Michael Jordan analog in a way. That could be good. Like, Jerry Jones is someone that's not afraid to say things. And a lot of the people from that era, or it could suffer from some of the same problems. to go back to your other question about sort of this wave of sports content. I mean, it's interesting

because when I think back over my illustrious career, you know, 10 years ago, even more, we were in the midst of a wave of sports, you know, content with. I think Hard Knocks first came out in 2001, but then it was on hiatus until 2007. And then 30 for 30, I think came out in like 2009. I remember when I first started covering the NHL, they were doing like a, a hockey hard-knock knockoff called 24-7. And that was like in 2010. I think what's different now is that you have like, you know, to build on the idea of like some of these are more like memoirs.

A lot of them are also more like Players Tribune articles. You know what I mean? Right. And surprise, Players Tribune's involved in, I think, in Swamp Kings. And, you know, they have their own production arm. And I think athletes and teams now know that that route is like available to them in a way, Like, you know, if you compare the 30 for 30 called the U, which was about the Miami Hurricanes in the 90s, kind of a similar story with the Florida documentary, like that was a very differently done piece. And, you know, it reckoned with sort of the social aspect of the times and all these things.

And I think the difference is like that's what documentaries were then. And now there's kind of these different ways you can go and you can have a softer focus or you can be in. involved and you know you have your pick of the litter with who you might want to work with. And so that to me stands out as like the difference in this like new wave that's currently going on. It makes me wonder who they're who these shows and I know it differs program to program, but like who they're for. I know I slacked Katie this, but my, um, I was at dinner with my boyfriend's sister-in-law who does not watch football like at all. Um, who loved quarterback and loved Kirk Cousins and loved Kirk Cousins's wife.

Tell her to call me. And I was just like talking with this person who I love and who I think is like eminently reasonable. And she was just like, man, that Kirk Cousin seems really cool. Okay. It's like what is going on here? Now I have to push back. I'm going to have to start like a moral panic. These documentaries are making people like Kirk Cousins.

Well, that's what I'm saying. But like, if you don't. Insidious. If you don't have any context for Kirk Cousins, I do think you watch that. And you're kind of like dorky, funny, like, whatever guy. And you're not really getting like COVID. Yeah. No, that is a place where like there could have been a little bit of just a little tiny, you know,

just because I feel like everyone has this people, or not everyone, but people that don't know them have this reaction. and then someone says, well, take a look at this link or something like that. And you're like, oh, okay, there's just a, you know, there's the rub or whatever it is. Yeah. I mean, even like this could not matter less. But when I was watching quarterback, I was like, we need to be more honest about the relationship between Marcus Marriota and Arthur Smith, please, because it is not as positive as this is like, at least setting it up to have been.

Yeah. But also, I'm just not sure they care. Like, I'm not, I don't think that I am the person that, I don't think that any of us are really the people that they make this, make these series and go like, this is who we want to win over. Because they probably know that like, we're all going to watch it. We're all going to at least give it a shot. And it seems like, especially with Netflix, as we've seen, like, there's just an ability to get stuff in front of tons and tons of people where I think more people are. just consuming this stuff as their first real look at who these people are. So I'm curious, Katie, if you've gotten any sense of like what the strategy is as far as who

they're looking at their core audience as. Yeah, I mean, well, a quarterback kind of stands apart from some of these other, like kind of the Johnny Football and the Florida. Those are all part of like the untold series, which is kind of its own thing. And then quarterback was, I mean, I think did really well ratings wise. I mean, it's always hard to parse the numbers when you have streaming involved and like what they tell you and how to compare it with things. But like, you know, I was kind of trying to compare it with like regular television. And, you know, they had viewership that was on par with like a 60 minutes episode like for each episode.

And that's, you know, that's like a chunk of society, you know. So I think for. Falling in love with Kirk Cousin. all being duped about, yeah. So, you know, but what's interesting is I feel like when it comes to these, for example, Swamp Kings, like, it's a lot easier to have someone just sit down and watch this quarterback show, which is done in a more, you know, just like audience-friendly way than to convince someone that knows nothing about football to watch a four-part series about a team from, you know,

what was it, eight years ago, kind of like just a strange realm. And like, so I think the, you know, the level of like what the viewers for something like Swamp Kings expect is a lot more inside football, so to speak. And, you know, you're, so they're disappointed when they aren't getting something new. Quarterback's interesting because, like, you have these sort of human interest stories, but then you have like, I mean, I thought the episode where they did all the play calling, like, that was really illuminating to me. And I was like, wow, how did they get all this? And, you know, the answer is that unlike Hard Knocks, they're not airing it, you know, at the same time. So yeah, so they're not like giving away State Secrets. It's all

probably new plays and names anyway the following season. And, um, but that stuff I thought was probably cool. I mean, I don't know. Maybe it's like, you know, football minds like you. It's just another day in the office. But I was like, I'd never really seen it like that. It's stuff like that. Even Hard Knocks sometimes. Yeah. There's a moment or two. you just don't have, I mean, even, even when they can be at a practice that's like a training camp practice or something that we can be at, half these facilities, I mean, I was out of the at Raiders camp a few weeks ago, you are literally a football field away from where they are practicing. So even if you've got like binoculars.

So no, I think it's all of that stuff to me is always a question of editing. the strength, I think, of a lot of this programming is just the, the, if it's archival or archival, but from two weeks ago, the amount of content that they have to work with tends to, at least by my estimation, be very, very high and very, very compelling. How do you think they view the actual filmmakers in this context? I feel like Catherine English was from the UK and she got to helm this documentary about college football, which I think is like a uniquely American thing and not something that people even understand really the fascination with it outside of America, but they gave her the reins of this documentary. And I think some people wondered if like it might have been better with some.

someone who has a firmer grasp on the culture of college football and understands what that Florida team meant back then, I'm wondering if Netflix feels the same or any of these companies that are making these documentaries, or if they just see them as kind of like a production line thing, like you just get people in place that know how to spit out a documentary instead of someone that's going to spit out something that they actually care about. Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, there's, it's interesting because that, Storm Kings in particular, is under the untold mantle, but I think is the first one in the untold series

that is sort of a third-party production, like whereas a lot of the other ones are all kind of done either by these directors, the way brothers, or kind of like their inner circle. So it's a sign that they're kind of starting to like work with, you know, third-party things. And, you know, like you said,

there's a little bit of a production line feeling to it sometimes. That one, you know, one thing that's interesting is like that project in particular, when you think about what the wrangling that must have gone on to get, because they really do have a lot of people. You know, there's a lot of people that that weren't involved, too, but they have significant Tebow. You know, Urban Meyer for better or worse. But like just to think about like the process of getting Urban Meyer was probably interesting. And it makes me wonder if having someone with such a different perspective was like, helped. them convinced people to do it, you know, that it wasn't this a hard hitting college football investigative reporter, you know, trying to pitch the case. Like, I think that would have been a

different conversation. So, you know, and that I think led to some of the notable omissions, such as a lot of talk about Aaron Hernandez. You know, he's mentioned, but like briefly and, you know, so you can kind of see those like, you know, machinations taking place behind the scenes and I'm, you know, I understand how that goes. Like, that's part of the thing is like you get the access. And sometimes getting the access doesn't necessarily help you. And not to switch sports, but I was thinking about like the show winning time, you know, about the Lakers of the 80s. And a lot of people, you know, say, well, they didn't, they don't have their blessing.

The Lakers don't like it. And then John C. Riley was asked about it once. And he was like, you know, people always say, how could you do this show without these guys? my feeling is how could we do this show with these guys? And I actually think there's like something to be said for that. Because I mean, the same time there was like a Lakers like regular documentary that was authorized. No one watched that or talked about that. Like no one cared. It was kind of, you know, no offense. I'm sure some people did. But you know what I mean. Well, I mean, look like I remember I remember when the Players Tribune became a thing, right? And there was, I think, this moment of

panic is too strong, but there was a moment of like, oh my gosh, all of these paradigms within sports media are really shifting where all of the subjects have realized that they can get their messages across any way they want without the, you know, they don't have the need for media, for outside media, for independent media. What's going to happen? And does this mean that like beat writing is just totally screwed and all of these things? And it never, I mean, it just didn't really work that way because sometimes it's just frankly not that good. Like people are not always the best at analyzing themselves. It has been interesting to see where like I think just because of the production value and the access when you're not just talking about somebody's written words, but literal real time footage. I do think that's like a little bit more of a legitimate question. in this space, just because the three-dimensional audio video, like stuff that people who are

involved have access to is going to be of a higher quality than someone writing an essay about themselves generally. But it's still a, it's still a factor, right? It's like people just aren't generally that great at self-analysis. Yeah. I do wonder if like the dramas based on real events, like, like when, time, for instance, is the next wave of content. You kind of see it on the true crime side with Netflix, where they started out making

all these documentaries and they were popular, and now you're seeing them come up with actual series. Like the Dahmer series, for instance, was really popular. I remember. And I wonder if, like, winning time, and then kind of the blowback, the pushback against Swamp Kings kind of leads to that being a more valuable piece of content than, oh, here's Urban Meyer talking about how great the four years he spent at Flamburg. to work. Yeah, no, that's such a good point. Like, you know, even with like when OJ

Made in America came out, and then I think, I can't remember if it was before or after, but it was like right around the same time when the, you know, the live action one with David Schwimmer. But, you know, both of those together, you know, and, you know, that OJ documentary was incredible, but, but yeah, I mean, I could see that being sort of the next, like, you know, especially because right now there's been a trend in like these movies about companies or you know the air and right the Flavin Hot Cheetos and it's like not that far of a leap to you know the company to be a franchise or you know a sports agent or whatever it is like um I could see that that land grab taking place for sure so who do we get to play Tim Tebow oh man that and who plays urban

really hard. Yeah, Urban Mario, you could probably. Just get Jim Cavizal to reprise his role from Passion of the Christ. Like, don't change a thing. And he just stands in for Tim Teva. What did you guys? I do have a question. What did you think of Tebow and Swamp Kings?

Because I actually felt like I got little bits of insight into him that I hadn't had. The one that stuck out was just him talking about being a kid and the coach saying, you know, everyone just wants to have fun. And in my mind, Tim Tebow would agree. with that sentiment. And instead, like, we saw him get almost as heated as I've ever seen him in recalling that memory of a coach saying have fun. But I'm curious what you guys think. I would like Stephen to take this one first because I just am excited to hear what he has to say. I haven't watched it yet. Oh. I didn't prepare. I read the article. I haven't watched it because

I've heard all the negative reviews and like, I was just like, oh, it's not for me. I'm not. You're like, I didn't watch it because I lived it. I don't need to see it. I was there. Okay, maybe if you ever, if you ever find yourself just desperate for some more Tebow time, you'll have to fill us in what you think. Okay. I don't think, so I don't have like a super reflexively negative reaction to Tim Tebow in general. I just don't care. I have a super reflexively negative reaction to Urban Meyer and Tim Tebow's relationship. Which is, which was, yeah.

Yeah. I'm making prayer hands here if you can't see. I don't get it. And that scene in particular that you're describing did like does feel like genuine insight into to why he is the way he is and how he is the way he is. I could not possibly like my experience as a human being is so diametrically opposed to that. Or like I had a very formative experience in high school once where I overheard two of my friends talking in a lobby during like, class registration week where you could like switch around your schedule and everything, talking about their strategies for trying to get in like easier classes with easier t-shirts and

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Where like I had this massive epiphany of, oh my God, people aren't just trying to have fun and learn things that like really shook me to my core. So I was the opposite of Tim Tebow and probably still am in a lot of ways. And I'm sure that's why he has much more money and success than I do. and I'm happy for him. You've probably got a better arm. Thank you.

Thank you, Katie. I just sometimes, like, I really experience a lot of these things as further evidence that, like, on some level, even though I cover a lot of these people and spend a lot of time thinking about them, I am not like them and I will never understand them. So that's how I felt. I mean, I think that sometimes when I'm playing tennis and I'm like, you know, if I just lose here, I can go home sooner. And then I'm like, you know, I clearly do not have that dog in me, which is fine. Yeah. We can't all. We cannot all have that dog in us.

There is not enough dog to go around. All right, Katie, it's been so fun to talk to you. And I really encourage everybody to go read that story because it's really interesting. I will ask that you leave us with either a prediction or a hope for season two of quarterback. Who should they feature? Well, it's funny. I was just reading the story about Matthew Stafford's wife talking about how he's having trouble relating to the youth in the locker room.

And I was like, man, I wish this were all getting captured by the good, the fine folks at NFL films slash Netflix. That just cracked me up. You know, I'd love to see, like, we've heard that Joe Burrow might be involved. That would be fun to watch. I would love to see, like, a good, you know, Gino Smith. Like, I already consider him to be like the forest gump of the NFL. So it would just be like one more thing.

Yeah, exactly. And I'm not just saying that to like to make Stephen happy. But that was another one I had that I, you know, I could only dream. See, all my answers All my answers would be Would be like negative Like I want to see like Russell Wilson and Sean Payton On the daily baby

I want to see Tua learning how to fall That actually would be good Too would be a really good training or whatever it was Yeah Aaron Rogers can we get Aaron Rogers Hard Knox is already there just keep the cameras around Like I don't see why that's a big deal We don't want that

That's my dream those three Give me Aaron Rogers Russ and Tua Russell Wilson with yeah with four kids too, right? Like that's... Sierra is involved? And aren't there like there like 16 bathrooms in his house? I just want to look at that. That's all I want. Just a whole episode dedicated to each bathroom.

There's a story behind everyone. That one would crush the 60 Minutes ratings. That's for sure. Absolutely. All right. Katie Baker, thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. All right. We're going to say goodbye to Hard Knocks. Did you enjoy the season finale? I did. I did. You know, like, in a series when they have like the episode recap before the episode starts. And they bring up something that happened a few episodes ago. And you're like, oh, they're going to bring up that storyline again. For me, this, this week, it was them showing Hackett talk about the movie Gold member. And I was like, uh-oh. We're in for some good Hackett nonsense. And I feel like this, this episode, they made him look like he was incompetent. Like usually. you get the hard knocks like PR spin and they make you look they make you look good but I thought in this episode they kind of made Aaron Rogers look like the adult in the room this is kind of something we've been talking about but you they made Aaron Rogers look like the adult in the room and the offensive coordinator yes yes because like you saw the offense kind of struggling in practice and then it was just like hacking on the sideline being like oh that was fucked up oh god what did we we did something wrong there we got to fix it and then they show like this montage of Rodgers being like you break it

12 yards, you do this, you do this, you do this, blah, blah, blah. And then the offense goes back out and they score a touchdown. And then they come back to Hackett. It was just sitting on the sidelines being like, woo, good job. That's all they showed. Nothing else. There was no Hackett being involved. And I'm like, this is, like, this is the picture they're trying to paint for us, that Aaron Rogers is running this offense. And like, I kind of thought about it. Last year was the first year Nathaniel Hackett spent on a staff, an NFL coaching staff where he was the senior most

offensive-minded coach. This is the second year we're getting it. Because in the past, when he was an offense coordinator, he was under Doug Marone, he was under, I'm forgetting the other coach now, Matt Flora, obviously, in Green Bay. He wasn't calling plays. He wasn't running the offense.

He wasn't like the final say. Now he's on this coaching staff with Robert Sala, who's obviously a defensive-minded coach. And you would think it's Nathaniel Hackett and Aaron Rogers kind of figuring this offense out. And I mean, Aaron Rogers is a smart quarterback, but he's not a coach. He's never been an offensive coordinator.

He's never called plays. We've never seen Nathaniel Hackett thrive in this situation where he's calling plays or where he's the head of the offense. So that episode and that little montage and how they portrayed Nathaniel Hackett kind of worried me about the season in a way that I didn't expect it to. I did see good things out of the offense in that, that preseason game, like outside of hard knocks, like on film. Yeah. But that's a concern for me now.

Like, I'm kind of concerned that Aaron Rodgers is the offensive coordinator and how that will work out. Well, I think it gives you some insight into why that's been a tense, why he historically sometimes gets into sort of tense situations because clearly he wants a ton of input. He is not afraid to point out when there are mistakes or things that he's, doesn't like. And I'm sure that there's a honeymoon period where that's really effective. And then it becomes grading. And then when it becomes grading, you don't have as clear of a hierarchy between coaches and players when it's the star quarterback who obviously has power and leverage and significance within an organization that outpaces a rookie wide receiver or even a star player on offense who's not the quarterback, but it's not as as clean and clear cut. So I agree with you that there's

there's some foreshadowing of potential. Maybe this isn't so easy there. I do think it was mostly my takeaway from that was just Hardnox gave Nathaniel Hackett a rough ride. I mean, we started with the story about Sean Payton insulting him. And there was absolutely no attempt to like give this guy a redemption narrative. It was just this episode was by far. the most overt about it because, as you said, he was a clear cheerleader to Rogers' like effective coach. And then he did the thing about how he cuts his own hair. Yeah.

Well, no, no, it was worse than that. He wanted to cut his own hair, but his parents wouldn't buy him. What was it called the flovy? The flovee. Yeah, the ending of that story was his mom never got it for him. That he just, he asked for it. Oh, I thought he eventually bought one for himself,

but maybe that's wrong. Well, he wanted to cut his own hair with a... His parents didn't trust him. As with an as seen on TV, like weird contraption told by Billy Mays. It connects to the vacuum cleaner somehow and it cuts your hair. Like, his parents wouldn't trust them with that. I'm supposed to trust him with the Jets offense. I don't think Aaron Rogers trust him.

He said Tuggolicious again. He said he learned nothing from his time in Denver and why that failed. And it's because he uses terms like Tuggalicious. Not only did he use it, he put it up on a power. Play, our PowerPoint display. He had a whole PowerPoint for the offense. Yeah, this isn't making Hackett look good. And I have to know, like, how online are the editors of the show?

Like, do they know the Nathaniel Hackett storyline about how he was kind of like, incompetent in Denver, kind of let Russell Wilson run things and how he was kind of brought in as Aaron Rogers Lackey, for lack of a better term? I wonder if the editors know that storyline and kind of are leaning into it, or is that something they're kind of seen as they're looking at the footage from this training camp? I think that's a big question. Because if it was me editing the show, I would have edited the same way they just did this last episode.

Like, no, no, it's perfect. That is my perception of Nathaniel Hacking, and that's the perception I would want to put out there. But if these are guys that had like no opinion of Nathaniel Hackett coming into the show, and by the end of it, they're giving us these like these cuts. of the episode, like that would be my concern. Well, but so here's why I think that that they are essentially showing us what's going on. What they're showing of Rogers seems right, right?

I mean, do we believe that he's not actually that detail-oriented, that he's not actually that vocal, that he's not actually that sort of dogged about getting on other members of the offense when there are mistakes, that he's not taking such an active, rule. I don't. I think that to me, my assessment based on how it's coming across on the show and also what we know of Rogers more broadly is that that is totally authentic. And if that's totally authentic, then I think it sort of only fits with Hackett fitting in the way that it seems like he fits in, which I also think is totally reasonable for a guy who, as you pointed out, has mostly worked under offensive head coaches and also had the years that got him to a position where he could become a head coach as badly as that went and became someone who is more broadly known as an NFL household name with Aaron Rogers. Right. So I think this is all Nathaniel Hackett knows.

Like, if anything, we're sort of getting some insight into the 2022 Broncos and why that was so destined for failure as soon as their move to get him didn't end up landing them Rogers. I guess it's not like really a question of is Rogers that type of guy? Like is he that detail focused? I think it's more how effective is that approach to playing quarterback? And that's the answer. You're not going to get that answer from Hardin. Because they're going to cut it in a way that makes it like that was always going to be the case.

We knew that from episode one, just how they were portraying Rogers. and his impact on the locker room. So I do think it's a fair question. I don't know. But I feel like this is the episode where you kind of got the most insight. I don't know about the best insight or the most accurate insight, but the best insight into that relationship and kind of who has the power there? And if things go bad, who's going to be the one that gets the final say on how to adjust going forward?

Right. I mean, the only thing there is that if things go bad, we have seen it. So, and look, this would not be the first time that Aaron Rogers tries to have things both ways. But it does seem like he's coming across in a way that should indicate he's got ownership of this thing. And if it works, he deserves the credit. And if it doesn't, that should fall on his shoulders too. Now, obviously, we'll see on that. I do think, I think this has been a very good season of Hard Knocks because this was the

team that everybody would have wanted to see on hard knocks. It was, you know, you often don't get that, right? Just because there's restrictions of which teams are eligible. But we got a look at the number one training camp that you would want to look at. And the characters are good and it was fun to watch. You could definitely see that they capitulated on a lot of stuff to the Jets because the Jets really, really, really didn't want to participate. I mean, you saw the rough edges of.

how they dealt with cuts on this episode, where you get, you know, they sort of try to recreate that storyline, which we always see where we get to know Tanzel Smart a little bit, Jerome Cap a little bit, Xavier Gibson and Jason Brownlee, the sort of four Cusby roster guys. But then you don't,

we learn by the end of it that Jerome Cap, the receiver who did the M&M rap got cut. But the other three and Smart didn't make the team, whereas the two receivers, Gibson and Brownlee, did make it. You don't even get that information? No. I don't think it matters that they can't go in the room,

but it was like they just couldn't even come full circle on those stories. And so I thought it stuck. out both in that way and also just how we have come to the end of this hard knocks road and know for certain that this was just the Aaron Rogers show and they were happy to do the whole thing in a way that highlighted him as savior of the Jets and coordinator of the offense and mocker of Zach Wilson and just all of these things and it was so centered around him and I think that had to do with getting participation where I just felt like you could see a lot of

you could see a lot of those those creases or whatever you want to call it but I still ultimately think it was a very successful season just because they were showing us what we wanted to see. Yeah. Aaron Rogers looked like the only person that wanted to be participating in the show. Like he's the only one that seemed to embrace the show.

Him and Nathaniel Hackett. Like when you're Nathaniel Hackett, when you're the type of guy that likes to pull up YouTube clips, which I assumed Nathaniel Hackett was that type of guy, but this Hard Knocks game was the group that he is. He probably was having a ball because he got to show the clips to an HBO audience. Like he's been itching to show everyone the Flovy for years, and he finally got his platform to do it.

Those are the only two people that I thought wanted to be there. Do you think he's getting a cut? Do you think Nathaniel Hackett's getting a cut of Flovy sales? Are they selling? He's the only member. He's like the only guy that buys the, the problem. But I wish we would have seen more, like if we were going to be so focused on Aaron Rogers, and that was always going to be the case.

I wish we would have seen more about him developing his relationship with Garrett Wilson. Right. I think that's like the key to this offense, is him kind of rekindling what he had with Devante Adams, like a guy, an easy outlet, you could just throw the ball and you know he's going to do work after the catch or he's going to make a great catch downfield. And you kind of saw that relationship formed. remain in the Giants game, but you didn't see anything in the show about it. Like, even the touchdown. Yeah, they never really did, they did a fair bit of, oh, Aaron, what do you think of Garrett?

But not a lot of. Hey, Garrett, what do you think of Aaron? Yeah, and not how, like, how are they getting on the same page? How does this work? Maybe that's just, like, the football guy in me wanted to see that behind the scenes and the general audience doesn't. But, like, even the touchdown, uh, William scores against the Giants was a called run play where they kind of gave each other look before the snap and kind of improvised that the fade that he threw to him. I wanted to see like the behind the scenes, like how that worked out, like how they worked to getting to the point where they can kind of just give each other a look on the sideline. And there were a couple plays from the Giants game that kind of fit that that type of play. And we didn't see any of it.

We didn't see any of the behind the scenes work that went into it. I was kind of disappointed about that. I did enjoy like his back and forth with Jihad Ward. Yeah. Great move on it on Ward's part playing the I don't know you either card with Aaron Rodgers. That would be my, just, you know, just dig yourself in. Who are you? All right. Well, fun season of Hard Knocks. It's been fun to recap it.

Steven, covered a lot. Anything else? I think we've touched it all. Oh, new best defense of the week is the Buffalo Bills. I'm back on the trade. The defensive line is deeper than I gave it credit for, uh, The secondary looks better. I like that Micah hides back.

Sean McDermott, the changes he's made on the staff, he's handing off play calling duties after two preseason games, which might be a red flag, but I like his adaptability is the way I'll spin it. Buffalo Bill's best defense in the NFL. Even with Von Miller on PUP? He'll be fine. Probably more important to have him at his best late in the year.

All right, good stuff. Excited for that Bill's defense. This has been the Ringer NFL show. I'm Nora Pricciotti. As always, he is Stephen Ruiz. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Cliff Augustine for filling in on production for this episode. And to Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgapal for additional production supervision.

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