The Ringer NFL Show - The NFL Can’t Have Nice Things This Season (Ep. 174)

Episode Date: November 3, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark get you set for Week 9 in the NFL, discussing how the football gods took away the only fun thing we had when Deshaun Watson was lost for the season (04:25), why the Texans should sign Colin Kaepernick (29:15), and how the best matchup within the Cowboys-Chiefs game is between two guys you may have never heard of (32:33). Then, Danny Kelly joins the show to redeem himself after his recent “Dark Knight” slump (36:46) and offers a backup tight end who could lead your fantasy team to victory this week (45:00). Plus, Joel Solomon joins to discuss why Brock Osweiler is destined for success (53:15), and the guys predict next week’s biggest headlines (59:09). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by Robert Mays. Robert, week nine's underway. Yeah, man. I was at a concert last night, so I could not watch Bill's Jets live. I watched it again this morning. And yeah, just confirming every suspicion we have about the NFL, no one knows anything. The Jets' offense looked really good in stretches. The Bills can't hold on to the ball.

I really don't know who wants to make the playoffs. Who is going to be the second wildcard team in the AFC? Who's going to be the first? The first wild card team in the AFC. When the bills got out to five and two, I had some semblance of relief because I was like, well, someone at least is going to win 11 games in the AFC and grab a wildcard spot by the horns and we'll be comfortable there. Then they go out and they lose to the Jets in a very bizarre performance. Tony Romo gave up on that game almost immediately.

He was great. He was great. but he like minute 20 of that game he's like I don't really want to talk about the game see I was I watched the condensed version this morning so I didn't get the full brunt of the commentary which I'm really sad about now he just decided to freelance which is what they should do by the way that's fine yeah broadcasters when they're bored should just do whatever they want last night was a weird game I mean the Jets the bills dropped that interception they fumble twice while driving I mean you can see little tiny bounces the ball changing that but also

I'm just really impressed by how the Jets offensive has looked at times this year. I mean, they were supposed to be an absolute disaster. And even though they haven't been this brownbreaking unit, they haven't blown people away by any stretch, they've looked really solid in stretches. And I think that is a testament to Johnny Morton, who's their offensive coordinator,

who's their offensive coordinator, who's doing this for the first time. I mean, he's done a great job with not a lot of talent on that offense. Josh McCown has the best numbers at this point in the season of any NFL, excuse me, of any Jets quarterback since Boomer. He looked really good last night. I mean, they're just moving the ball. And Matt Forte, he looked like he had a little bit of juice.

It just, I don't know. The Jets were not supposed to look like this. And I assume our jet fan friends are kind of torn about that because they're winning too many games. But, I mean, credit goes to that coaching staff, man. They have done a great job with not a lot to work with. Muhammad Wilkerson was good. Leonard Williams was good. I mean, they got after it.

I loved it. I loved it. Yeah. They're a competitive team. I mean, they're not terrible to watch. They're actually kind of exciting at times. The stat I love the other day, ESPN put this out, is that they have the same chance of making the playoffs as they do getting the first

overall pick. That's so brutal. It's like literally the worst case scenario for anybody that wanted them to tank. Very jets. Oh, gosh. Okay. We're getting ready for week nine of the NFL season. Danny Kelly's fantasy segment is coming up later.

He'll try to redeem his recent Dark Night. slump. I guess you called that. Tough times. It started out so hot with Siberian Jenkins. I know. He's like the Broncos

of the Dark Night segment. Yep. Yeah. He's like the Josh McDaniels. Started out impossibly hot. Then I went real, real south real quick.

And then he just needs a little bit of redemption. He'll get there. The ringer's Joel Solomon will be here with some more Am I crazy propositions. But first off, let's get to our favorite four.

And I don't know if we can call it our favorite four. No, not this week. The obligatory four. These are our, top four matchups, I suppose, of the weekend. Robert, we're going to start out with a game that is definitely not our favorite. It's the Andrew Luckless Colts, and we sort of have known that

for weeks that he wouldn't be playing. We didn't know the severity of the injury until maybe a little more recently, although I've been talking about it for eight months now. Yeah. The writing's on the wall. Against Deshaun Watsonless Houston, Houston, Texas. So let's take people through this just behind the curtain for two seconds here. So yesterday we have our second half NFL meeting at the ringer. You guys are all in LA. A few of us are on the phone. And we go through an hour and a half, a good 90 minutes of ideas and chatting back and forth. And there's a lot of tonal issues with some of the stuff we were talking about all year. Like the game is not that exciting at times. And the league has all these issues. But there are some really guys you can just grab onto and

that have been super fun. And they're just the personalities that have driven football so far. And Deshawn Watson was number one. There was no shortage of like the NFL is having problems. Yes. And then we would balance that out. And the meeting was like, well, let's also celebrate X, Y, and Z. Yes. Almost all of the celebrations of football center around Deshawn Watson.

Yes. And so at the end of the meeting, it was you. It was me. You were the one. So I, one of our bosses, Maui Rubin, who everyone knows, who everyone knows, who's a friend of the show, um, said, that the way I delivered the news and the way I commanded the room when delivering the news, they didn't know what I was about to say.

Maui thought we were being nuked. I thought you were joking. I mean, because I couldn't see you, apparently there's a seriousness in the room that did not communicate over the phone. But I thought you were kidding. And then when I saw that you weren't, I just didn't respond. I did not say anything. I, it was very, it was like Cronkite in Dallas, just glasses off, crying, that whole thing.

And it was at the end of the very at the end of the call. Like we got off two minutes later because everyone was like, what do we do now? We have to leave. It was so brutal. I mean,

that just the fact that that's how we broke the news is kind of weird and makes it especially awful. But this is just so shitty. I mean, everything about this is terrible. He was probably the most entertaining player in the league at this point. Yeah. He seems like a pretty just decent dude.

I mean, like he's done a lot of good stuff already. And every, Everything about the way he's gone about this has been impressive. He's proven everyone wrong that thought he was the third best quarterback in this draft. I mean, the entire season he's put together has been remarkable. And to see him go down and lose that and just, you know, the football watching world gets deprived of him every week. Just sucks. I mean, it's just as simple as that. No one had thrown more touchdowns in their first seven appearances than Deshaal Watson.

Kurt Warner was tied with him. That puts everything in perspective because we remember. remember the run that Kurt Warner went on when he became the most famous person in America in the late 90s, 1999. So you have that. Richard Sherman said he's on the cusp of being a top five quarterback. I would argue at the moment, I mean, he was fourth and passer rating among healthy quarterbacks. When you start looking at healthy starting quarterbacks, I mean, he was getting up there, man. I'm not going to put in, I mean, he's not among them anymore. So it's a fool's errand to sort of rank them.

but I mean he was up there he was really freaking good and not only that we needed him so badly because Rogers was out 100% O'Dell was out watt was out David Johnson was out edelman's out I mean it's just every single visually arresting player in the NFL has had something happened to them and I don't know you know the Falcons were as exciting as hell last year we haven't seen that this year I don't know what we're supposed to latch on to I love Carson Wentz That will be exciting. I love Kareem Hunt. That will be exciting.

But look at the primetime schedule, man. Look at the primetime schedule. This week is brutal. You need, we had a lot of people, and I found this really odd, and it happens some of the time. Whenever we say football, we've needed blank, or football needs blank, we have all of these people who come at me, either on Twitter or whatever, and they say, well, no, why do you hate football? I don't hate football. We don't hate football. When any of us at the ring or write a, you know, football is in trouble story, whether it's CTE or whatever, it's just ratings are down 20% over two years.

What business has that where they lose 20% of their fan base? One out of every five people was watching football two years ago is not watching this year. That is a massive, massive problem. and if you were going to remove a guy that people were going to watch a primetime game for, that's a massive problem for the league. He's one of the only guys. You can't even list that many now.

No, but they're all hurt. But they're also, they're all hurt. Yes. With the exception of Tom Brady. The guys that were worth the press of admission every single time. I mean, just like, I want to watch this dude play football for an hour, or for three hours. Who's the list now?

It's really small. I mean, think about how you bill the dolphins. Raiders game on Sunday night. Who is the dolphin you put in that side of it? Is it Indomacan Sioux? I guess. Did you see that Indomacan Sioux was actually on the depth chart the dolphin's backup kicker and he practices?

I know he kicked the extra point. No, I know, but I thought that was like a breaking case of emergency thing. He's ready to rock. They practice it once a week. Hey, that's what they're spending their time on. That's why they can't play actual football. Anyway, the point is

Indomacan Sue is and his contributions is special teams or how you sell that primetime game. So just getting back to Colts Texans for one second before we actually move on. The football elements of this outside of the watchability elements of this are also stark. The line changed by a touchdown after he went down. Their Super Bowl odds went from 40 to 1 to 100 to 1. I mean, he was that offense in a lot of ways.

And he definitely unlocked DeAndre Hopkins, who's a fantastic player, but they needed him to make that offense even slightly viable. We saw that for the first half of those scenes. first half of the first game of the season against Jacksonville. Sure. So now you have a Texan team that definitely was in the hunt for a wildcard spot. We were talking about at the beginning of the show. I mean, why the hell couldn't that Houston team have finished 9 and 7 and gotten into the playoffs

and given us one more game of Deshawn Watson on the biggest stage? But now, no dice. I could have won the 28th hardest schedule in the NFL going forward. I'm going to tell you the two things that I, and they're connected, that I find most disheartening about this. Number one is that a lot of times when, and we saw this with Rogers a little bit, where we'd never seen Brett Hunley. And so it's like, hey, maybe Brett Huntley's pretty good. We don't know. And that, but you can't play that game with Tom Savage. We already saw Tom Savage. It's not possible. And then this is going to, I don't know if you sell this, they sign Matt McGloin and

they're going to sign TJ Yates. I mean, TJ Yates has been there before. Those guys get jobs now. T.J. Yates wasn't even there when Bill Bryan was there. T.J. Yates was there when, well, maybe at the end, but T.J. Yates' start came when Kupiac was there. It's great. I don't, I don't. Good stuff. I don't have any. One time, one time I remember asking Mark Trussman a question. He didn't want to answer it. And he said, I'm not sure if I have any content for you. And that's, that's the line. Right now, I have no content. It's almost adding insult to injury by having T.J. Yates be the guy who they signed just because we're getting right back on the Texans quarterback. wagon that we've always ridden. It's been so terrible for them for a decade here. And also, an extension of that is that Matt McLean is the guy they beat in the playoffs last year because he couldn't play quarterback. I just, I don't know, I don't know how you look at this when we're

saying that we're sad about it. Was that Connor Cook? Did I screw that up? It was fine. You're fine. Who cares? They're all the same person. I knew what was going on here, but I also knew that nobody cared. Yeah, that's fair. It's the same thing. Let's talk about the Colts for two seconds, though. It might as well have been also TJ Yates. Yeah, that's fair. They're all the same guy. That's what I'm saying. Let's talk about the luck decision just for two seconds before we move on. Do you think this is the right choice? Do you think that the Colts should be lampooned for this? Where do we stand with the shutting luck down for the year? They should be lampooned. So I think that the biggest problem, when I remember

in Indianapolis, people were talking about this then in the preseason when Scott Tolzeon was unable to take a snap, which will, I mean, I don't mean he was unable to take a snap, like, health-wise. I mean, he was screwing up receiving the snap despite being a mid-career NFL player. They refused to acknowledge that luck was hurt until the very last second. That's when they went out and got Jacoby Brissette, but they were doing this charade that luck was going to be healthy, and maybe that was in an effort to rush him back. Maybe they wanted to put pressure on him. I don't know.

Is there a chance that they just didn't? know how hurt he was, though? I just, with injury stuff like this is tough. People were talking about it in the preseason. People who were in the know were like, he was really hurt. He wasn't throwing. Yeah. I mean, he had a setback apparently.

I don't know. It's just tough. It's hard for me to gauge injuries from a distance. I mean, who knows? I mean, he's the franchise. He makes an infinite amount of money. Nothing else matters if he's not the right guy going forward. I just think that him missing the season isn't a good thing.

Isn't a bad thing in the long run? I just feel like the way it was handled could have been done about 10 times better. Can we get him back on the pod? Sure. I'm sure he's available. Can we do what, it would be his fourth time? Can we do what no laying up does with Roy McElroy and just have him on for like two hours?

Always hurt. Talk about what he's watching. We also should just get like a five-timers club jacket for him. Just like on SNL. Did him, Tom Hanks, Alex Baldwin? John Goodman, right? Yeah, yeah.

I mean, do you think Alex Baldwin come on? the podcast? Absolutely not. No, I don't think you guys make football thoughts. Let's move on to some other games that just

are not that exciting this week. All right. Chiefs at Cowboys, Robert, I need to ask you, it's more of a philosophical question. How do you know

when Ezekiela's going to play in a game? You made this joke, but I was not going to, I'm not going to steal it because you made it before we came on. No, it wasn't a joke.

It was that I'm no longer going to look into Ezekiel Elliott until, I just turn on the game. And if he's there, that's how I know he's playing. That's probably the best way to go about it. I'm ignoring.

I think you can probably find out slightly before. Like, we know now that he's playing on Sunday. But yours is the safer move. I wouldn't bet on it. We got 48 hours. So just to catch everybody up, Ezekieliot won a stay and will play on Sunday after having been ruled out earlier in the week and been suspended for six games.

I don't understand why the NFL wants a disciplinary system where the default is to go to the courts and have some protracted legal debate that swallows an entire season. Exactly. It just keeps going and going and going. It's a constant topic of conversation. It's awful. But at this point, I feel like this is one of the reasons that I want to talk about this game without knowing whether he's going to be on the field or not, this Dallas offense has looked really good. I mean, as long as he's playing, they're very formidable. and this is a Dallas offense going against the Chiefs offense that is the same kind of deal. So this could be an absolute shootout and the best game of the weekend because he's playing in part.

So as long as he's on the field, this Dallas team is starting to roll. And I don't see that changing. The Chiefs have not been able to slow anybody down. Their run defense is probably the worst thing about their team. And Dallas looks like a machine again. So we might be in for a really good one. Yeah, I mean, that's one of the interesting angles here is that, I mean, this might be the last time we see Elliot for six weeks. I don't know.

It's so hard for us. And this sort of gets to some of the awkwardness we had in the preseason where we're trying to figure out if the Cowboys are going to be good. And we don't know if or when Elliot's going to serve six games. And now we have that as clear as possible, which is, I mean, we don't know. We now know 48 hours in advance that he's going to play against the chiefs. But if we see this team and they steamroll over the Kansas City Chiefs, what lessons do we extrapolate from that? That's the interesting thing.

I don't know. How much does it matter? How much do the last three weeks of what they've done offensively matter if he's gone for the entire second half of the season? I mean, we'll be nine weeks in after this week. So if he serves a suspension, he'll be back for the playoffs. but they'll be five and three if they win this week. Is that enough of a lead?

Is that enough of a gap between them and the other wildcar teams to get there without him? I don't know if that is or not. So it just seems like all of this that we've seen from them, the last two weeks and probably on Sunday, might be for naught, which is just kind of bizarre. What's going on with the Chiefs right now? I think that their defense is in trouble. And we've seen that that without Barry and... Yeah, without Barry, there's a ceiling.

We knew that. With the seams elsewhere, it's just going to be an issue. I still think their offense is right where it needs to be. I mean, that unit is moving the ball extremely well. They're going to get Laurent Duver and I Tar d'Eef back this week, which I think is an underrated thing. He's missed a huge part of the season. I think he's been out since week four.

So you get him back and against the Dallas defensive line that's playing a lot better, which I'm actually going to hit on in my what you're missing of the week segment. But that just slight upgrade is going to be big, because I think that they were able to sustain on the interior, but getting him back is huge. I think that offense is still going to roll all year. I don't think that they're going to take a step back. They still have a ton of momentum,

but the defense is an issue. And I think that it was always going to be in certain areas. The run defense is problematic the last couple of years. So they're in a lot of ways, you know, we thought they were going to be, but their offense is good enough that, you know, they're still right there. I mean, we have no truly dominant teams.

They have enough to be problematic for the rest of the year. I don't mean to be flippant about duverne-Tardee's injury, but you know that he's a doctor, right? I do. I do know that, yes. So when he had a concussion, he was like researching his own concussion. And I asked him like, do you like treat yourself? And he was like, no, no, no, I don't. I think that's a bad idea.

But he's a doctor. So like with the, I know he goes to a doctor. I know he goes to a doctor. But with the knee, like it always is kind of. the concussion stuff is obviously extremely serious, but with the knee injury, like, I think it's, could you imagine being the team doctor and having to help along the knee of the guy who's also a doctor? Yeah, you always be wondering, like, how good job you're doing. A lot of Monday morning quarterbacking from LTV.

A lot of Monday morning doctoring, yeah. Yeah. I just find that an interesting wrinkle. Okay. Yeah, it is. Ravens at Titans. This is, you know, when we talked about how they. games were sparse. The fact that this is coming up third is pretty good indication. Having said that,

just from a record standpoint, these teams are in the hunt. These teams are in the hunt. The Ravens are four and four coming off a 40 point win over the Miami Dolphins and the Tennessee Titans are four and three and tied for division lead. Robert, give me some analysis. I thought that the Ravens would be this team coming into the year. I mean, their defense is excellent. The third in DVOA, I mean, the personnel has been what we thought. Jimmy Smith has been absolutely locked down, which is an element they needed to kind of hit their ceiling.

I think that their secondary play was always the question. And when you combine that with their dudes in the front seven, I mean, this defense is one of the best in the league. And their offense has been pretty much that bad. So I thought that that would be enough to kind of torpedo their chances in the AFC, but with all the mediocrity kind of mired in the middle of that conference, it's not. They are somehow still alive with that recipe. And considering what the Titans have looked like offensively for the last couple weeks,

is there a way that the Ravens win this ugly? There might be. And if they're sitting at five and four halfway through the year, why the hell not, man? And I don't think anybody wants to play that team in the playoffs, no matter if they can score or not. So I was just thinking about any team Whether they've contended I'm not saying that they're going to fire Mighty Morning wig I'm not going to get into that

But Marty Morningwig is under fire Let's say even though they just put up 40 points That that wasn't an offensive performance if you watched it And I was thinking oh well maybe What are the teams that have fired or Offits to Quirited midseason and still been good And I remember that the Ravens did it and won the Super Bowl Jimmy Caldwell baby

Cam Cameron out we're going to win the Super Bowl now. As bad as Marty Morning Wing is, he's not as bad as Cam Cameron. So I'm not sure the upgrade there would be worth it. Cam Cameron is the worst coach who ever been around. They got Greg Roman there. It's still. I think that that's not going to be enough of a

a jolt to make a huge difference the way it did last time. How did quantify? As anybody quantifies a joltz. A shake-up. Accountability. We're going to bring accountability to lock. room. I was like that one. I'm starting to get concerned about Tennessee

a little bit. And I don't know whether it's the fact that they're being outscored. Well, Martyo is a little banged up. And I think that just him being less mobile and not being able to do as much, not running, but just overall being himself is going to hamper them. I think that that's a huge thing. And they

I just expected more from that offense. That's all I said. I thought they could be like one of the more dynamic groups in the league and they just haven't been that. And watching them kind of struggle against Cleveland last week was two weeks ago. Whatever it was. Two weeks ago was just just heartening. And I don't

think that's necessarily going to change against this Ravens team. I mean, it's not set up to. That's what I'll say. This Baltimore defense is really good. And I think if we have one more kind of egg-lang performance by the Titans and the Jags going to beat Cincinnati, it starts to get a little bit further apart in that division.

The Titans defense is better than I thought it was going to be. Good secondary play. but I expected so... I thought that... And this is a weird thing to say because Andy Reid is Andy Reid. But I thought that what we're seeing in Kansas City

is what we might have seen in Tennessee. Just as far as the gadget plays, the creativity, melding the spread with the pro style, you know, the better deep passing game. Like those

those teams sort of switched places. offensively in my mind. Obviously, there's huge differences between the personnel and all that, but I just, I thought the creativity that I saw in Kansas City would be in Tennessee. See, I never thought that about malarkey. I was never going to put it on him to make this go. I thought that just by virtue of personnel, they would be able to be a really scary group. Just because you would load up on all those past catch. I know Corey Davis doesn't really play it everything else and, you know, they've been dinged up and whatever. But I just felt like even with

Decker Matthews, like guys like Tewan Taylor. Just throwing all those resources at the past catchers with Marioada would be enough to just elevate them instantly. And it hasn't. And I think that it's several factors. I mean, Davis not playing as much. Marioita being dinged up.

It's just there are reasons that this hasn't gone as well as it should have. But even still, I mean, right now, this is when it's got to get going. And I don't know if it's going to against Baltimore. Such is the NFL season. We loved a lot of their moves. We love them stacking the receiver position. We love two years ago them going out and fixing their offensive line.

We love some of the defensive pieces. And obviously, we love Marcus Marieto. That's that. Having said that, most of those things have not been as good as we thought they were going to be. And this is a team tied for the division lead. I know. And they're four and three. I know.

And beyond that, if they don't win the division, they're somehow in position to get the second wildcard. Or maybe even the first. Who the hell knows? It's so funny when you're not. you look at just the plans in an offseason and what we expect them to just reap in the season. And you look at Jacksonville and you look at Tennessee. You could kind of see what they wanted to be this year by virtue of the moves they made. One team has been exactly that. One team has not. It's just funny how that works. It doesn't matter what you do in the spring or the summer

or anything else. It has to come together and some teams just can't put it together. Hey, did you said that Jim Leonard is a defensive coordinator for the Wisconsin Badgers? I actually, did know that. Yes. How did you know that? One of my friends is working on a story about the University of Wisconsin football team. We were just talking about it recently. Jamie Leonard. Yeah.

There you go. Falcons at Panthers. Classic NFC. South. Is there such things a classic NFC South matchups? Not exactly like the, you know, Steelers, Ravens or whatever. Yeah, I don't think there is a classic empty South matchup. They have it. Vikings. Yeah. I mean, they're all decent.

Like all the teams are usually not terrible, which that's all you can really say about the NFC South. If the Falcons lose this game, I think they're in trouble. Yeah. This is the type of game the Falcons need to win. Yeah. I just think that even with all the Zika uncertainty, I mean, if they, if Dallas wins again this week, they're five and three. If the Falcons lose and you have the Rams probably beating the Giants this week that should at least. It just feels like the Falcons need to start putting this together.

going to be an actual player in the wild card. And I still believe, just based on the amount of talent in that room, that they can actually do that, but it needs to start. And against Carolina, that Carolina team has been extremely volatile. Their defense has been, you know, what we expected it to be. It's a top 10 unit. They're very solid all around. The offense has been super up and down.

So I don't know if this is the down week for Carolina, maybe Atlanta can steal one and somehow get back on track here. But if this is one of those weeks where Cam has a clicking a little bit, everything else, I don't know. I mean, it just feels like this Falcons team is so incredibly meh. And I just didn't expect that. And I don't know if it's going to change, but it has to really soon here. Football outsiders does the strength schedule thing by DVOA. The Falcons have the second hardest schedule the rest of the way.

They got to win this game. The Panthers have the 24th hardest schedule. and both of these teams are competing for the same spot. After this week, the Atlanta Falcons have the Dallas Cowboys, and again, who knows what state they'll be in by then. They go at Seattle, and then they have the Vikings two weeks after that. And it's basically just division opponents aside from that. That's not good, man.

Carolina wins this week. They're six and three. The Falcons are four and four. I mean, that is tough. Yeah, this isn't good. Now, here's my question. Do you think, all of the criticism of Sark, when we talked about this last week, where do you fall on that at this point?

What would you hang the regression on? Is it just that they had the most efficient offense in history? And there's no way they could repeat it without Kyle Shanahan. I don't think so. I wrote about this a couple weeks ago. I think there are a lot of different factors that play into it. They're 15th in passing DVOA. That is not regression.

They went from being one of the most efficient passing offense. is ever to a middle of the road passing offense. And I think that there's a lot of things that played into it. They've had some unlucky breaks. I mean, their turnover rate is just astronomical based on some questionable decisions by Ryan, but also a ton of tips passes and just issues about like the wide receiver depth chart. I mean, Muhammad Sunu and Julio Jones getting hurt in that Buffalo game showed up in a huge

way, just little stuff like that. And also, I feel like they have not been nearly as just vital, like just lethal on first down. They were so good throwing the ball on first down last season. That has gone away. And I also just think that overall, the way they used motion and personnel last season, formations, everything else was as good as it can be. It has not been that way this year. They have not done nearly as much pre-snap as they did a season ago. I think it's kind of muddied Matt Ryan's decision-making a little bit. The throws have not been as easy. I mean, Kyle Shanhan is the best at this. And it was always going to be a little bit worse.

but I still felt like they would just try to be a carbon copy, and they haven't done that. Yeah, I totally agree with you. Okay, time to move on. We're going to move on to the take. I actually kind of believe, and it's something I really believe this week. Normally, the title was I kind of believe it,

but I really believe it this time. The Texans should sign Colin Kaepernick. Yeah. I mean, I don't know what other analysis needs to be. I mean, we've seen Tom Savage. We've seen Matt McGillone. We've seen T.J. Yates. there's no ceiling there.

There's no there there. And if I was one of the people who believed, I don't, and I certainly can be proven otherwise, but I don't believe there's collusion in the sense that there was an email sent that was like, don't sign Calar-Capturne. I think it was 32 teams who in many cases, you know, depending on your quarterback situation,

you didn't need them. but some of them made shameful decisions to overlook Kaepernick. And that is the real tragedy of all of this, is that the NFL believed its own excuses. Oh, we needed this guy who knows the system. We needed, you know, this guy who I coached in Atlanta. Whatever it is, right? That's a totally hypothetical scenario.

But, you know, it's just a situation where we found out a lot about the NFL and how they operate, not because of any strict collusion, but because they actually believe that the most effective way to win in most cases is cronyism. Like, we've learned over the past couple of months that the NFL is not a meritocracy. And that's what's most surprising to me is because I did think in a world without guaranteed contracts, the next man up environment, whatever, you know, 16 games, everything is so high pressure that I thought it was a meritocracy. And it's you do everything in pursuit of winning. That was the most important thing even among the bullshit.

That's not true. And this whole thing about distractions. Buddy, you and I have both been in locker rooms. There's a lot of fucking distractions. Yeah, it's loud. And Colin Kaepernick would not be one. Yeah, you know what's a distraction? The owner is saying something ridiculously awful about his players.

That is a distraction. Colin Kaepernick coming in and playing quarterback is not a distraction. Do you know what's a distraction? All of the Texans players looking up Matt McGloin and Tom Savage's career stats and throwing their phone to a lake. Yeah. I mean, how are they going to get to practice or to the game? That's a problem.

That's a real issue. That's what the owner should be worrying about is lakes and phones. You're damn right. Anyway, just I saw a report that maybe McNaira signed off on a workout. I don't know. Here's what I know. There's a ceiling on McLean and Savage and Yates who are now the quarterbacks. And you don't.

don't have that ceiling with Kaepernick. I don't know if it's a ceiling. It's like the ceiling in the being John Malkovich hole. The ceiling is the roof. That's where it is. The ceiling is the roof. That was that the Michael Jordan line applies right now. God.

Yeah. I'm with you here. There's absolutely no way you can spin it any other way. I mean, we know what Tom Savage is. And honestly, now that Dwayne Brown's gone, we've seen that game.

We've seen exactly what the Texans look like with that offensive line and Tom Savage. So good luck, guys. Have fun. All right. We've covered so much, Robert. We're missing something. Tell us what it is. I'm going back to that Dallas Chiefs game just very briefly. And I think that one of the matchups individually I'm most excited about watching this week is Mitchell Schwartz, the right tackle for the Chiefs going against DeMarcus Lawrence, who I picked as my

defensive player of the year in our midseason awards this week. It's got 10 and a half sacks. He leads the league. He's the most pressures in the league. These aren't cheap. I think sometimes sack totals get elevated. Guys pick up quick ones. at the end, they're covered sacks, whatever. This dude has been an absolute force the entire season. And Mitchell Schwartz is the type of guy that can actually do something about that. I mean, you look at Schwartz, Schwartz did against Von Miller last week. He blanked him, even though Miller was around, but no sacks.

And it also, I think, speaks to a larger point about the league. And it's something that I wrote about this week and the piece I did about how offensive line play has just kind of fallen off a little bit and why. I want to read off to you. Everybody read that piece. It's good to explainer. Thanks, buddy. So one of the points I made in that story was that as athletes have gotten faster and just overall better, defensive linemen are able to take advantage of that, where offensive linemen are not. Athleticism has a cap as to how much it can help you as an offensive lineman.

It's such a learned skill that the best athlete in the world doesn't translate. So on defense, that's not necessarily true. If you're very strong and very fast, you're going to get something done. And I think that that has created just, an abundance of dominant pass rushers in the league as offensive line play has fallen off. So here is the schedule for the Chiefs from week two on. The Eagles, the Chargers, the Redskins, the Texans, the Steelers, the Raiders, the Broncos, and now the Cowboys. For Mitchell Schwartz, that means Brandon Graham, Joey Bosa-Move and Ingram, Ryan Carrigan, J.J. Watt, DeVine Clownie, Whitney Mercilis, T.J. Watt, Stefan Tuitt, Bud Dupree,

Kalee, Mac, Von Miller, DeMarcus Lawrence. every single week you have a guy that can ruin the game on the other side of the ball. And I think that that speaks to one of the biggest problems with offensive line talent in the league and offensive play in the league right now, is that there is such a golden age of pass rushing going on just by virtue of the athletes coming into the sport that every week it is an absolute slog for offensive linemen. I remember talking to Mike Shula a couple years ago. and the point that he made

that I think about a lot was I think we're talking this may have been 2014 and saying what you've seen and what you will continue to see is the pipeline we are so good now at figuring out

when guys are in middle school or high school what sport they should play like the era of specialization and one of the things is these guys who would be tweeners in basketball or any other sport

Like everyone knows just to stick in the defense event. Like we've had enough football, we've had enough basketball, we've had enough baseball. 6.3.250, man. We just know if you're 6 foot, yeah, exactly. If you're 6 foot 4, man, unless you're fast as hell, you're not making of the NBA. So you might as well strap some pads on, brother. I mean, there are so many. And it's also just how deep it is.

And one of the other things, Ben Muth, who writes about offensive line play for football outsiders mentioned this yesterday. I don't know if it was in reaction to what I wrote, but it was about the same topic. And he said that there are no specialists on the offensive line. You can't be a two-down offensive alignment. That doesn't exist. If you're a pass-rushing specialist, you can make it in the league. You can make $8 million a year.

Those don't exist on the offensive line. You can't just be a pass-blocking offensive lineman. And I think just how varied that position can be on defense and how talented it is right now, it has really put offensive line behind the eight ball without even considering the spread. practice time, every other thing that goes into hindering their development. I mean, it's coming at them from 10 different directions, and we're seeing their results. Moving backwards is hard. Yes, it very much is, and it does not feel natural.

That's the same thing as cornerback play. But you can make up with, you can make up cornerback deficiencies more with athleticism than you can on the offensive line. That's the problem. I also just rush the passer. Yeah, that's also true. All right, let's move on. Time to welcome in Danny Kelly.

Our fantasy football, it says here in the notes, genius. And I've been selling that. I've been selling that for a couple weeks, Danny. Yeah. But. Well, yeah, I guess we have to acknowledge and I have to apologize a little bit for the, for the last two weeks of DK's Dark Nights have failed you guys.

And I apologize for that. However, I would like to say that I'm going to stand by my analysis. Hunter Henry should have been more targeted last week. I don't know what they were doing because they've ramped up his production the last few weeks. and then all of a sudden they pulled it back they kind of made him a secondary part of that that offense against the Patriots I don't know what to tell you guys

fantasy football it's it's tough out here yeah you can't rely on NFL coaches to do the right thing unfortunately so your your justification for the 100 or a new pick is that it should have been better bad coaching is what's happening I like it I'm taking I'm taking I'm apologizing for

for recommending a player that would fall under that purview of a bad coach but see if we can get it back on track today. Danny, Robert wants to go to his high school football game tonight. I think you absolutely should. What age do you stop doing that? When does it become not okay?

Well, I think for Mays, he was a big part of that football program. They were very successful. I think you can go for a long time. Like, if you don't have any connection to the program, it might be a little bit different, but I don't know. I think my entire high school football coaching staff is still in place. And like, I have very good relationships with them. That's why.

I wouldn't just go to go. I support the men who helped me when I was young. Do you wear your old jersey? I do not wear my own jersey. Do you have your old jersey? No. Oh, actually, I do actually. There we go.

No, I forgot that I do have a jacket? Do you have a jacket? No, I do not have a jacket. Oh, damn. That was not a thing. I do have my jersey, though. Okay. I just kept it.

Like, why the hell not? No, I'm with you. No, no, no. I support the jersey stuff. Okay. Danny. Yeah. We get it that choosing one sleeper fantasy pick is hard.

So this week we're going to give you a shot at redemption with five dark nights. A starting five of dark nights. There's six teams on on on buys. This part of the year is brutal. So yeah, we're going to give you guys five. Are these in any particular order, Danny?

What's that? Are these in any particular order? There's no order to be there. No order. This is no. This isn't like a top five. This is five guys. I'm going to need you to give me your number one though.

When you get there. After you're done, just say, Here's what I'm feeling most confident about. Okay, so let's get into this. I faded this guy earlier in the year. You guys, we talked about Devin Funchis. Can we play the Batman song under this or are we going to get sued? Can we play the scene where Bain kicks the Dark Nights ass?

Because that was basically what's happened the last two weeks. Yeah, and now you're rehabbing in a wind tunnel or whatever hell. Ken Wisenhunt is your Bain. So I talked about Funches earlier in the year about how he was going to be a really fresh trading fantasy guy because he's still, you know, on a team with Kelvin Benjamin and there was a lot of targets to go around. Now that Benjamin's been traded, I think he kind of is elevated to, you know, he's that outside X guy in that offense. And I think he's going to inherit a lot of targets. He's going to be a red zone threat for them. And so I think he could have a big half of the, big second half of the

year. I mean, he could look more like the guy that caught, I think he caught 14 passes and three touchdowns in weeks four and five. And that's how kind of, I'm looking at that as kind of like his upside. So he's a guy, I think that could really benefit from the, from the Benjamin trade. Do you think that Olson coming back is going to cut into that at all? Do you feel like there's still going to be enough, there's still going to be more targets to go around even with Olson back in the game? I think it'll cut into it a little bit, but I think, you know, they don't play the same role. They're both big, you know, targets downfield, but I think, you know,

Olson's kind of like his area is like that seam route. Like, that's where he's so dangerous. And I think Funcice is more of like, you know, up the side. line and on slants and that kind of thing. So they can work together. I think it'll actually benefit them both once they both come, once Olson comes back. I think he's a couple weeks away. But yeah, he's actually another guy to pick up right now just in case he kind of gets back

into the offense big time. What's your next guy? We're talking about Adrian Peterson. Again, I know that he was terrible in the last game. He's one of those guys. I think it's a boom or bust type of situation because obviously in his first game with the Cardinals, amazing. Last game, he looked bad. They got a buy week. They had a buy week. Then, obviously, they lost Carson Palmer. I think they're going to feed him. I think this is a volume pick for me.

They're going to feed him the Rock. You know, I don't think they want Stanton to be the guy that's going to carry their offense. And the 49ers has, the 49ers have been bad against the run. I mean, they've been bad on defense in general. But I think, you know, they're just going to try and have Peterson be the foundation of their offense. And, you know, this is a good week. I think it's a good matchup for him. Yeah, it just feels like he's going to get 25 carries the rest of the year. Like, per game. Why wouldn't you do that with standing in the game? Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, he's, that's, I think that's where he's best, too, and he can, he can have that type of volume. He gets better as a game goes on. Yeah, 100%. And even if the efficiency is not going to be

there, you don't expect it to be, there are so few running backs in the league that get that kind of work that having him right now is just, it's a boon. I mean, it is an advantage when you consider just the pool of running backs available. Absolutely. My third guy is Marvin Jones of the Lions. He's not so, you know, he's not a sleeper pick, obviously, because he's seen 25 targets in last two games. But he's been a feast or famine guy last couple years. I think, you know, obviously he started out really, really strong last year and then faded. It seems like he's picking up again. He's got 12 catches for 224 yards on a touchdown in the last two games. And now he's going up against pretty middling Packers past defense. You know, we saw, we saw Stafford throw for 400 yards last. week against a pretty good Steelers past defense. Obviously, they didn't get into the end zone. But I think... That was amazing.

We didn't talk enough about that, because it was the opposite of that World Series game. That was my World Series. Jim Bob Cooter never scoring a touchdown. It was great. It was like the three-yard line for the entire game. It was about as entertaining as anything that happened during the World Series, right? Just as good. High-level stuff.

Mace, I can sense your sarcasm, buddy. So, yeah, I think, you know, they even have a chance to get a chance to get a into the end zone this week. So I think Marvin Jones is a good option. Again, it's a, it's a tough week in terms of so many teams on buys and a lot of fantasy guys on buys. So he's a guy to look for. And kind of in the same vein, my fourth guy, Mohamed Sunu, with the Falcons, he's got a tougher matchup against the Panthers defense. But he is, I mean, pretty much entrenched as the team's like secondary option behind Julio Jones. He's gotten 17 targets last two weeks, 12 catches for 139 yards.

You know, we could see Julio Jones shadowed by James Bradbury. Bradbury's shadowed guys sort of sporadically throughout the year. And so it'll be interesting to see you what happens.

But he's a good player. And so we could see Sunu kind of moving around and getting some of the worst options on that past defense. And so I think he's, you know, he's due for a solid game.

At least five catches or a touchdown in every game he's started and finished this year. Yeah, he's like, he's one of those low. you know, high floor guys or whatever, low ceiling high floor guys. But yeah, I mean, I like it. He's such a physical player. I think it's going to, in this matchup with a really, you know,

tough physical Panthers defense, I like him in this one. I mean, it's an excellently built Falcon's wide receiving core. You have a centaur. You have a very good, solid physical secondary option and a very fast man in Taylor Gabriel. The Falcons should be good. I know. And there's, you know, I still think they could be good. We were talking about that earlier.

I just, I need to see it soon or I'm going to start giving up hope. You're going to go crazy. It's frustrating, man. It was so wonderful. And this is not anymore. So my final guy, this one's a little bit more of a long shot, but this is sort of an injury situation that could, you know, pay dividends for this guy. And it's Vernon Davis of the Redskins. He's going against the Seahawks defense that I don't, I mean, they came into last week.

I was very confident in them. And I still think they're a good defense, but they did just get totally shredded by the Texans. So I don't know. We'll see. And also Earl Thomas is out, which we've seen how hugely impactful that can be for that Seahawks defense. I mean, it was like night and day last year when he was gone. The Seahawks, I think, were one of the worst deep past defenses in the NFL when he rolls out. So that could be huge.

He hasn't practiced this week. His hamstrings bugging him. I'm guessing the Seahawks are probably going to hold him back. It would probably be the smart play to do that. Also for the Redskins, Jordan reads out. Niles Paul might be out. And I think Jameson Crowder was kind of a late week thing where he might not play either. So Davis might be like one of the top guys in that offense.

You could also look at Josh Doxon too. But Davis could, he could see kind of a lot of volume this week just based on the fact that they got so many guys that are injured. Davis is a weird play for tight downs right now just because the position is so terrible. I mean, there's nobody you can really rely on. And he's a guy in four of his games, he's had a catch for at least 26 yards. I mean, he can get a big play for you and kind of make that the bulk of your tight end production in a fantasy game, which is so odd. And when you can get skin to the landscape, that's all you need. One 30-yard catch is pretty decent.

I actually, I saw yesterday a stat. He's leading the NFL in yards per catch. Which is crazy. He's a 33-year-old tight end. I saw how the Giants kind of attacked the Seahawks defense a couple weeks ago with Evan Ingram. I think I could see the Redskins try to do something similar in terms of, basically they ran him on a bunch of drag routes across Seattle's like zone and you know just get him in space and use his speed to sort of you know pick up yards and they weren't running a lot of seam stuff because Earl Thomas is so good but we could also see that kind of this week too because you know I don't know how the Seax are going to I don't know how they're going to replace Earl they might go with Bradley McDougal they might do two more too high stuff it'll that's that's to me is actually a really interesting matchup so I think Davis could be the beneficiary of some of those injuries We talk about, like, Julius Peppers and other people as, like, all-time, like, freaky dudes in the NFL, just, like, ridiculous otherworldly athletes.

We do not talk about Vernon Davis enough. Nope. Vernon Davis absolutely involves, it should be involved in that conversation for all times. I mean, it makes no sense that he's able to rip these off right now. He's been in the league for, like, 20 years. How old? Yeah, how old is he, like 33 years old? He's 33. Wow.

Yes. And he's still like. Yeah, I mean, he's not, like, he hasn't, he's not like as fast as he was clearly. but he's still pretty damn. Like, he's got some movement skills. I mean, he had some speed to burn. He's going to be okay if he gets down a notch or two. This isn't Anquan Bolden.

He was in the same draft as Jay Cutler, who's already retired once. I guess Helodianna is still in the league, right? Yes. Yeah. He's playing for the Lions. All right, Danny, is that five? That's five. I'm hoping some of these guys hit this week for you guys.

Who's your number one? I think my number one is it's something between Funches and Peterson. I think just because, you know, volume is came. in fantasy football. I think those guys could I think those guys could be the I think Funches could be the number one target in that offense

and then obviously Peterson I think is just going to get a ton of carry So hey do you guys think Drew Stanton Happy about starting? No, absolutely not 100% no. He's only happy when he's on the sidelines Celebrating.

I don't know if Stanton is this yet He's 33 years old He started one game since a 2014 season Oh man And I remember talking to an unnamed backup quarterback years ago, and he was talking about, and by years ago, I mean like literally two years ago. And he was talking about this certain type of quarterback. And I'm not saying Stanton is any of these things, but they're not in great shape. They haven't played in like three years.

They're not very good. Like their best trait is being friends with like everybody on the team. It's kind of like an extension of the Kaeperning session. we had earlier, where it's just like, I don't really want to get in the game. And then, like, the fears that you get in the game and everyone realizes there's a reason you're kind of very happy to be the backup quarterback. I mean, it's like how Brian Hoyer is just like, no, I'm good. I will go to New England.

I will sit. This, that sounds great. I mean, there are guys that just know. Look at Rex Grossman for like five years. Rex lived a life, man. Good for Rex. You think. Charlie Whitehurst?

Yeah, Charlie Whitehurst is a good example. latter days Matt Hasselbeck is a good example. Oh yeah. This guys don't want to... I mean, I don't know. I mean, if they wanted to play, they would only go places where they were in a quarterback competition.

Yeah. I mean, Hasselbeck actually did end up starting a bunch because... I remember. Well, that's just Colts. That's just the Colts. Right, right. All right, Danny.

Thank you for joining us. Thanks, buddy. All right. Good to talk to you guys. Coming up, Joel Solomon is here to find out if he's crazy and if the Broncos start Brock Osweiler. Plus, we'll get you next week's headlines, but first, let's take a quick break.

Robert, there are no guarantees in life, my friend, including the bills beating the Jets last night. Nothing is predictable. That's almost true. There is one exception, though. Husky tools, they've been making things for people who make things since 1924. They're all about function,

and they have stood the test of time. 93 years is like, forever, and Husky is still making quality-crafted, durable tools. These guys stand by their tools forever with a lifetime warranty. Kevin, would you give a lifetime warranty on anything? Probably not, but check this out. They had this Husky ratchet with 100-position ratcheting design and 10% longer-handled than standard ratchets to do what other ratchets can't.

Yep, or the virtually unbreakable Husky flashlight with the ability to withstand a 30-foot drop and work in up to one meter of water submersion. And unlike anything, Robert and I can offer you both are guaranteed. for a lifetime and built so you won't need it. Learn more at huskytools.com. Husky, common sense tools since 1924, with hand tools guaranteed for a lifetime,

found only at the Home Depot. We're also brought to you by MyBooky. Robert, the holidays are right around the corner, which means parties, gift-giving, and spending a lot of money. And you can score some extra cash by throwing down some on games at mybooky.orgie. Like if you bet the jets last night, boom. Christmas list covered.

Fast payouts, Robert. They have fast payouts. Yeah, they do. It's the only site. we'd recommend. They have odds on every matchup and a mobile site so you can lay down bets from literally anywhere. Join now on MyBooky will match your deposit with up to a 50% bonus. Use the promo code Ringer NFL to activate the offer. Visit MyBooky.agy today. You play, you win, you get paid.

Okay, we had DK's Dark Nights now. We have Joel's Jokers. I'm trying to do that like DJ Hot 97 sound effect. You didn't finish it. Go. Do it. That's it. That is now replaced the air horn in the lexicon. I will continue to work on that for next week. People are going to clip that, and that's going to be the new air horn.

Drake's next album, we'll start with that noise. Okay, Joel Solomon is here for his latest edition of Am I? Crazy Joel hit us. Guys, let's just not hand out the awards this year. Like MVP and stuff. Yeah. It's time to take a break.

But more importantly, Brock Osweiler, he's back. Yeah. In Denver. That's the most important thing. This is why you don't burn jerseys people. He's back. Who would have burned

Brock Osperer's jersey? People were pissed when he left. John Elway. Well, certainly not a... Texans fans were the first people to burn his jersey just mid-game. For other reasons, right. So back, had the massive contract in Houston,

got, you know, traded to Cleveland then released. In a year where Cleveland is once again getting crushed for passing on quarterbacks, Wentz, Watson, who are some of the best in the league. Am I crazy, or is Brock Osweiler going to be next on that list? I think it's destiny here.

That Brock will be one of these guys that Cleveland fans are. I can't believe we let him go. I almost feel like because now he has the Cleveland Brown stink of, oh, God, we passed on this guy. Now he will miracate. It only seems fitting that Brock will go on. to have a better career now. So here's my theory on this.

Kind of like everyone. Now is a good one. Because here's my thought here. Wilson and Wentz never actually played for the Browns. So it feels like as soon as you put the jersey on, the stink comes. But Brock did. He never played in a game, but he played. So I'm not sure.

He might have been too close to it for this to come back around. You're right. This is a weird zone of he was on the Browns, but he never really was on the Browns. So I just think there's a chance here. He goes on to have a good rest of the season to the chagrin of Cleveland fans knowing, hey, here's another guy we could have had.

Once you play for the Browns, you can take the quarterback out of the Browns, but you can't take the Browns out of the quarterback. There it is. Words to live by. All right. Next up, Deshawn A.C.L. done for the year. Devastating. One of the best stories of the NFL season. And on top of that, the Texans, you know, they already lost JJ Watt for this season. Am I crazy?

Or do you think people will still vote Deshawn Watson rookie of the year? If it weren't for Kareem Hunt, he's going to get some votes. I still think he gets votes. I definitely think he's going to get some votes. He 100% will. God. I don't know. I don't have a vote. You're going to see how bad. the Texans are now and you're going to be like, you know what, Cremont hell of a year, Deshaun Watson's still rookie of the year. Joey Boso won it last year in 12 games.

Yeah, I would say if you played 10 games like that, I would have said he should win rookie the year. Well, he should have. But also, wait, I have a question. Yeah. What is even rookie of the year? Is it you played the best as a rookie or you are clearly going to have the best career? Because it's, you played the best as a rookie.

I guess. Anthony Thomas won rookie of the year. It's pretty clear, Kevin, when they say rookie. of the year. You were the best rookie that year. And Deshawn Watson is the best rookie this year. We need to start this campaign. He should be the rookie of the year.

Unless Juju Smith-Schuster goes on a complete tear. Actually, I should not even say tear unless he just has an amazing rest of the season. I think Deshawn Watson is your rookie of the year. Who did Anthony Thomas win over? I don't know. It was the year 2000. It was the year 2000. Yep.

2001? Yeah. First pick in the draft was Michael Vick. He did not win. Is this serious? Anthony Thomas won that year. Danny and Tomlinson was in this draft. Richard Seymour.

Dan Morgan was good. Santana Moss, Steve Hutchinson. Nate Clements, who was just one of these guys who like was a 96 on Madden for a while. Kevin, do you have a vote? I don't. Well, that's more important. We need to get to the bottom of that. Todd Heap Drew Brees.

That's what I'm saying. It's not who's going to have the best career. Chad Johnson. Yeah, well, I'm saying we should disrupt it. Rookie of the year is ripe for disruption. Considering Robert Griffin won over Andrew Luck and Russell Wilson. The Panther Steve Smith. Cadillac Williams won it.

Yeah, well, he was good. He was good. Yeah, it's a weird award. It's one year. One year when you've never seen guys before, a lot of wonky stuff happened. All right, let's get to it. We'll debate rookie of the year another day. Jimmy Garapolo is on his way to San Francisco.

Shanahan says he might not play this year. I mean, that's ridiculous. but this is a team that also sent out a game day experience survey to fans this week with the question, how important is it that your team wins? That was a real survey, the 49ers sent out this week. We're just trying to take the temperature before they start spending money on it. Should we play the new franchise quarterback we just traded for it, guys? So anyway, am I crazy or can you believe Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber back together?

Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Are they officially back together? They were back. She was wearing his hockey jersey. I saw a headline that just said they're hanging out. No. They are back.

You're not just hanging out with the Bebs. They're back. And this is important. The Brock Oswald is back. And Selena Gomez and Bieber are back. Everything we love is Americans. Mays, I was hoping we would just let Joel talk for like a minute and just see where he was going to go with that. I should have held back.

I'm sorry. Hang himself with his own awkwardness after the phrase, you don't just hang out with the bebs. The Bieber and Salina Gomez is to me the bigger story here 49ers your season's a wash It doesn't matter who's a quarterback This is exceptionally more important

And I know you're a closet Bieber fan Kevin For real though Is anyone surprised that they said Garapo might not play Who cares if Garoppolo plays I think you gotta play him Just he needs game action I guess so

It's absurd You made your move I think we know the second half of games. What's going to happen? He's going to go out there and be bad and you're not going to re-sign him? They're going to let him go. Yeah, I'm sure that'll go over super well.

Okay. Joel, thank you. Thanks, Joel. Enjoy Thorragonok. Thanks, buddy. What's the rotten tomato score? Oh, that's through the roof. It's high.

It's high? It's a new or it's supposed to be very good. It's a New Orleans game high. Thor Raganuck was the sponsor of the Canella Triple G fight and Michael Buffy had to say it a bunch. you're a ragged on. Yeah. All right, buddy.

It's good. All right. Thanks, Joel. Thanks, buddy. You got it. All right. Very quickly, Robert,

it's time for next week's biggest headlines. Hit me. I think that this is the week where Wence might take a really big step forward in the MVP discussion. Just because no Brady this week, Watson's gone. So it just feels like all of the energy we're trying to concentrate in who is good and fun is going to go in Carson Wentz's direction.

And we know this, Kevin. The MVP chat is as much. about narrative as it is about anything. So if Brady goes away for a week, the Eagles go to eight and one, I mean, who the heck knows? It just feels like this is the time where Wence can take a pretty commanding lead if he goes out and just has a huge game. Yeah, I mean, I think the one argument against it is that the Patriots are playing the same team that Wents to play in this weekend next week on Sunday night. So I think that's going to ratchet it up. There you go. That's fair. So I think that there will be a little bit of that. My biggest headline is in a similar

vein. I think that something is going to take a step forward. Maybe it's Wentz. I mean, actually, probably is maybe the Titans finally have their breakout. Maybe the Raiders find their offensive footing. I know that they had that breakout against Kansas City, but something is going to fill the fun void this weekend, and we're

going to have, on Monday, I am betting we've had so many crappy weeks. I think we're going to have an awesome week. And I think that on Monday we're going to be talking about a Wence, a Marriota, somebody like that. I mean, let's say that

The Titans lose and Fernette rushes for 200 yards and the Jags win. Something like that feels this week is right for that. I totally agree with you. Let's have some fun. Yeah, works for me, buddy. All right. Thank you for joining us. We will be back on Tuesday with the recap of this week.

We'll be talking about all the fun things that happened. Can't stop talking fun. As always, thanks for listening to the Ringer podcast network. Thanks, guys. In 1924, Husky started making things for people who make things. and they did it with common sense. That meant adding function never froze. And making tools that stand the test of time.

93 years later, Husky's still making quality-crafted durable tools, including hand tools that are guaranteed for life. Learn more at www.huskytools.com. Husky Tools found only at the Home Depot.