The Ringer NFL Show - The Ravens Are on a Run, Upheaval in Indianapolis, Justin Fields Is At the Head of His Class, and More Big Takeaways from Week 9 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: November 8, 2022

Ben and Sheil start the podcast by sharing their reactions to the Ravens' decisive victory over the Saints on 'Monday Night Football.' They then dive into the Colts' firing head coach Frank Reich, detail Indianapolis' recent history of organizational miscues, and comment on owner Jim Irsay's peculiar press conference.(5:22) Next, Ben explains why Justin Fields's star is on the rise in Chicago while Sheil is less optimistic about Aaron Rodgers's future in Green Bay.(28:51) They end the pod by giving flowers to the Jets' impressive defensive performance this year and debating their early AFC playoff seeding predictions.(46:46) Hosts: Ben Solak and Sheil Kapadia Associate Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mac Jones is ripped. Matt Patricia's calling plays. The Celtics are title favorites. And The Ringer has a new Boston show. I'm Brian Barrett, host of Off the Pike, the show covering all things Boston sports. I'll have shows multiple times a week covering your favorite teams and with your favorite ringer and local guests. Plus, maybe Bill will stop by to rant about the socks. Follow off the pike with me, Brian Barrett, now on Spotify.

Welcome to Extra Point. Taken, I'm Shield Kapit, joined by Ben Solac. We don't know how to make the soft. We don't know what's in sausage, but we know how to create a podcast, and that's what we do. You can Google sausage making. Takes three minutes, Jim. I'm already mad. I'm not going to do that.

Jim, Jim can do that. Hopefully you know the drill by now this Monday night show. The format's simple. We each offer three takes from the week that was, and then one of us ends it with an extra point. We always start with the game we just watch. And don't worry, we're going to get to that cold situation. So hang tight.

we will have a spirited conversation about what's going on in Indianapolis. But the Baltimore Ravens come out and just take it to the New Orleans Saints. I mean, this game was not close. It allowed me to watch clips of the Jim Mersey press conference. They're in commercials in the second half. So thank you, Lamar Jackson. Thank you, Justin Houston. Thank you, Kenyon and Drake, everyone else who was involved there.

Ravens win their third straight game. Ben, in my take here, they're now six and three. I think this team is about to go on a run and get really high. hot. And in like a month from now, maybe sooner, we're going to be saying, can the Ravens challenge the chiefs, the bills? Should they be taken seriously as a Super Bowl contender? I know you've kind of already been there here even before this game. But let me read you this schedule for them. Carolina Panthers at Jacksonville. Jacksonville is a tough team, home against the Broncos at the Steelers, the next four. I mean, they could very easily be nine and four

if they get really hot. They could be 10 and three. And what stood out in this game tonight was, was, you know, they make splashy moves, the Ravens. They made the Roquan Smith trade, and he looked really good in the snaps he played today. But what stood out in this game, to me at least, was kind of the under the radar stuff that they do that make them a really good organization. I mean, you look at some of the guys out there. Justin Houston is a player anybody could have had two and a half sacks and interception. Kenyon Drake's a player anyone could have had. He had 93 yards, a couple touchdowns.

They had, you know, running back injuries. You look at the offensive line. Oh, there's Kevin Zaki. Zitler. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Anybody could have had Kevin Zaitler. Oh, Morgan Moses signed for what, like $5 million? I remember when I did the grades last offseason. I was doing grades. It was like my favorite signing of the off season. But these under the radar moves really matter. You know, the big moves matter for sure. But I think they do a great job on the margins, as they say. And I think that really showed in tonight's game as they beat the Saints 2713 to touchdown victory.

You know who else everybody could have had? Roquan Smith. pretty much everybody's got a second round pick man roquan looks good in his first and he had like a little bit more of a of a onboarding ramp a little bit more time than a lot of the other trade deadline acquisitions had to get acclimated but yeah I mean you you see immediately the effect that it has on the way this defense gets to play when they have a linebacker who they trust to both rush the quarterback and drop into coverage which is not something they had in patrick queen previously

uh big big big deal for this defense so I agree it's the players they bring in and yeah like you said I there's a lot that I've gotten wrong on the extra point takens. I was on PJ Walker Island like last week. I was on Raiders are going to be fine island like two weeks into the season. That's the beauty of this. We let it rip and we see what happens. Yeah.

But if there were two I was all right on early in the season, it was Ravens are really good and Saints are really bad. Man, this, this, we got to remember, James Winston was healthy. James is back. They were electing to play Dalton. This is what it looks like. this is a team without a first round pick and without a quarterback,

which is the worst possible place you can be. And they very wittingly put themselves in this position. Two teams pointing in completely different directions, I think, for the rest of the season. The Saints have had some plucky games. They've been around like the Cardinals game, the scoring points and everything. But I just don't see how they continue to hold this together with duct tape.

You know, Michael Tom is going to be out for the rest of the season. Dalton, James, quarterback, carousel. It's just so ugly on that offensive side of the ball. As opposed to the Ravens, like they keep on having the same old Ravens injury luck they've always had, right? No J.K. Dobbins in this game. No Gus Edwards in this game. And no Marcus Williams on the other side of the ball. No Rashad Bateman for the rest of the year. And still, I mean, what? Their leading receiver today was Isaiah likely with 24 yards, I want to say.

They pulled old like Titans on Sunday Night football passing game distribution and still to get it to work. It's impressive the way they make chicken salad, man. They're such a well-coached team. Yeah, you're right. Two organizations really going in different directions. I mean, I never understood why they gave James Winston a two. year $28 million deal when he was a free agent for like the third year in a row. And there was no market for him. You mentioned it. They don't have a first round pick. I mean, the only reason we can't say definitively that they're cooked is just because the NFC South is so bad. And the bucks are four and five. And they're at three and six. So there's still a reason to watch if you're a

Saints fan, but not much reason to be encouraged. All right. Let's move on. We don't need to spend too much time on that Monday night game. Hit us with your first take on this episode. Yeah. All right. So I think that we usually come off with Monday Night Football is the biggest, like kind of news of the last 24 hours the NFL cycle. It clearly isn't, right? Earlier today, we learned that Jim Mersey is firing Frank Wright, the head coach of the Indianapolis Colts. That is a predictable, but still an eyebrow-raising decision to make it this time,

especially given that Jim Mersey said on October 30th, last Sunday, he feels great about Frank and Chris Ballard. He's certainly not going to get rid of either one of them. So you're a little bit like, whoa. I don't know if that's the move right now. And I don't know if Frank's really the problem there, but okay, whatever. And then everybody is, I wonder, like Gus Bradley's, the DC, promote him to interim. John Fox is on this coaching staff.

Didn't know that. Good old senior defensive assistant John Fox. I did not know that. I'll be praying quite. I had no idea he was on this coaching staff. What do we do instead? But we go and we hire Jeff Saturday. And when you hear Jeff Saturday, you go, Jeff Saturday?

And the internet goes, yeah, yeah, Jeff Saturday. And then you check the Adam Schaefter username. Because Twitter's in like a weird place right now. You're like, is this actually Adam Schaeftor? I don't know how verification works nowadays. And it's Adam Schaefter. And it says breaking news. And it is ESPN NFL analyst, 10-year NFL vet,

long-time center for Peyton Manning, Jeff Saturday, who's the interim head coach now for the Indianapolis Colts. Here's the take. This is the most embarrassing thing that the Colts have done in the last two years. It's very important to frame the Colts last eight months

through the framework of embarrassment because that's where this began. It began with Jaguars fans wearing clown masks. It began with Jaguars fans during like timeout, fun trivia game, chanting fire bulky, despite the protestations of their home stadium and the entire Jaguar staff, with a fired Urban Meyer 2 and 14 Jaguars team. It began with embarrassment. 97% chance to make the playoffs the Colts had at the end of last season. They walked into Jacksonville, lost their seventh

consecutive game to Jacksonville to fall out of the playoff race in Indianapolis. Jackson's wearing clown masks. Like, Ursa got egg on his face. And I, I, I, know this is the day that matters because he won't stop talking about it. He talked about it like 10 weeks afterward when they traded Carson Wents away because Wence wasn't, as Erse would say, a warrior and a guy that

really wants to win, he's in us to win. He would bring it up in the preamble for the game they would play against the Jack Wars early this season, which guess what? They lost, no, actually they won. Yeah, they won the one in Jacksonville, yeah, it was the game when he won. But anyway, this was the game. It was embarrassment. It was Ursay felt

embarrassed by what this team had become. And so once they started to spiral, we brought him Matt Ryan. Matt Ryan's a leader. He's a locker room guy. He's all Carson once was and this is the sort of dude. Once it started a spiral, an owner,

a billionaire who, you know, spoke out about Dan Snyder. It was like riding on Cloud 9 with like, oh, everybody loves the fact that I'm anti-Dans Snyder and I'm putting pressure on Washington. This is great.

The moment things started to look bad for him, he just went ballistic. Like, I, I feel internally, what I feel when I watch a child, I would have a temper tantrum in a grocery store. I understand why it's happening. I feel poorly for everybody around it, but the secondhand embarrassment still makes me want to, like,

avert my eyes and go away. Like, I know, like, it's a natural thing, but it's still just, I, I is a, in that social environment, I'm not comfortable, and I'm not comfortable now. Because the billionaire is just firing everybody he can find. Matt Ryan, to the corner, with a six-week on-ramp to potentially figure this out. the team is still like three, three and one.

Nope. Sam Ellinger. Oh, Elinger didn't fix it. Fire Marcus Brady. Marcus Brady, who's on like lists for future NFL head coaching jobs. Offensive coordinator handpicked by Frank Reich to replace Nick Seriani. Nope. Fire him.

But don't worry, I still like Frank next week. Fire Frank Reich. Hire my buddy. Jeff Saturday. Jeff Saturday won't make me feel bad. Jeff Saturday won't make me feel stupid. Right? Like, like Reich convinced Ursay to go for Wednesday.

And then that ended up being bad. Ersay took the podshot to analytics. because Wright goes for him fourth down. And I'm sure for Ursa, it's like, I run the football, I punch it. Like, I don't freaking know. There's stuff that's outside of his world. So now it's just, I'm going to hire as a head coach,

a guy who I know likes me. It's just, the word is embarrassing. And then to sit up there at that press conference, like I delayed two hours and it's happening in the middle of Monday night football, and to say, uh, NFL reporters aren't held accountable when they get things wrong. And that's why the Rooney rule doesn't matter.

to have Chris Ballard say, you all were, what was, what was it? Giving me shit, I think it was, for not drafting a wide receiver, look our offensive line is bad when the entire offensive line is Ballard acquisitions. Like, I don't think Ursa and I don't think

they know we have the internet. I don't think they know we can Google these things. We have the evidence. We know what you did. There's a report. There's rosters and cab space and everything. So this is, I, the NFL does so much.

much knucklehead stuff, embarrassing stuff, off-field, disciplinary, suspensions, and business, that honestly, it's a little bit refreshing, just have like a good old-fashioned on-field embarrassment. And that's what this is. The cults on the field are embarrassing. The way the ownership is handling this is embarrassing. I hate watching it. It makes me feel uncomfortable, makes me sad for everybody involved. I'll get to my second take because it's also Colts-related. It's got to be. This is pure soil for good taste. It's the most ridiculous thing that ever happened. I mean, mine is similar, and it's that Jim Mersey is delusional, and this franchise has gone from one of the more stable ones two years ago to one that looks

like it's headed for a complete train wreck. I mean, I don't know how any other way you can slice it. I'm glad you made the different, differentiated, because this isn't the Washington commanders, Daniel Snyder type this is serious train wreck. This is what are you doing with your football team type train wreck. But anybody who watched that press conference, or saw the clips on Twitter. I mean, a couple things stood out to me. Number one, Jim Mersey mentioned about three times

that they're the fourth winningest franchise since 2000. And he said specifically, we earned that. I mean, you had Peyton Manning for 13 years. That's the definition of being, you know, the old saying being born on third base and thinking you hit a triple. Dude, you had Peyton Manning. I mean, yeah, you earned it by sucking and getting Peyton Manning.

And, I mean, I could make a very easy argument that you didn't maximize the years with Peyton Manning. By the way, then Andrew Luck fell into your lap. And why did Andrew Luck retire? I mean, what was going on with those early Andrew Luck years where the guy gets injured and then gets in this bad mental headspace and then doesn't want to go through the rehab again? All because your offensive line sucked in those early years. And the guy was getting crushed. I mean, you got gifted these two quarterbacks. You didn't earn anything.

You had two crappy years with the right timing and quarterbacks fell in. to your lap. So that is a complete joke for me to think you have credibility because of your fourth winning? What is that stat? Why? Why did you think that was a good idea? It's so amazing to say we're the fourth winningest

team since 2000. And then he said incessantly, as you brought up, like, I know how to build a football roster. You made the reference earlier. Like, I don't know how to make a sausage. What goes into a sausage? But I know how to build a winning football roster. So to have had so many winning seasons under two quarterbacks that you selected early in the draft and to say I know how to build a

winning team. And then for the last five years, since you lost luck, refuse to invest in a young quarterback. You just told me you know how to build a team. You just told me you're the fourth winning his franchise. You know how you did it? You got first round quarterbacks into the building and developed them. That was it. That was the secret sauce. Like, if you're so proud of this, you should know that's how you win games. And yet, what did you do? You built everything else except for quarterback. Frank Reich dragged veterans to nine and eight records.

And then you fired him and sat up on the podium and said, I've never hired a losing head coach because Frank Reich has a winning record. Do you understand how backwards that is? That's the other big thing. The Colts, to me, consistently overrate their own roster and their own players. And there was this like, woe is me tone to this press conference. Like, you mentioned the Ballard thing. dude, it's not out.

It's not the media's job or the fan's job to draft players. And your job is to put a team together. We all saw your wide receiver sucked and you were throwing Matt Pryor out there at left tackle. And guess what? You have the worst offense in the NFL's for the public, the fans, the media. We had this with these were conversations in August. So I don't understand how that's getting fired back at anybody. And you said it.

And you wrote this. By the way, you didn't plug your own piece. So I'll plug it for you. Ben wrote a great piece on this at the ringer.com that you should definitely read. and you made a point that I was going to make on here, which is that Frank Reich like maximized the offensive talent on this roster, not this year. Don't get me wrong.

This year they suck. For four years, they maximize the talent on that roster and got to like above average levels offensively without a lot of talent. And then you talk yourself into this roster this year and it hasn't been good. I mean, Frank Reich was 37 and 28, nine games over 500 with four different quarterbacks. He was doing more with less. And you mentioned it. I mean, the luck thing, is it going to be like the year 2057 and they're going to go, Andrew Luck retired. And so we still get like, yeah, that's, that was a very difficult, challenging situation. Everyone's given you a grace period. By the way, no one treats the cold sun fairly in the media. Like, look at the different organizations in the NFL. Don't even, I think, yeah, I mean, I think Chris Ballard seems to genuinely be like a nice, likable guy. And so like, you know, I think when media or whoever interact with him, they're not.

going to crush him and he seems to be genuine and authentic, but like you're not getting a raw deal. You're not getting a tough deal. And so you've had, as you mentioned, several off seasons to come up with a long-term plan at quarterback. And think about this, Ben, they are no better, they are in no better shape at quarterback now than they were that night when Andrew Luck surprisingly announced his retirement. I mean, think about that. Years later, they are in no better shape at quarterback. And I understand you have to have the right guy. And, you know, Ballard has made the comment. Well, if we picked the wrong guy, you guys would be running me out of town.

Well, yeah, that's kind of the job. Like, you have to take some risks. You have to take some chances. He said that. I knew. Like, that's the job. I mean, I don't want to do that, hey, they could have had game. But, like, you know, the 2020, Jalen Hertz went 53rd that year.

And they had two, Michael Pittman and Jonathan Taylor, both very good players. They took those guys ahead of the quarterback. Like, there are opportunities to take them other than Jacob Easton and the fourth and Sam Ellinger in the sixth. And so I don't know if Jeff Saturday is going to work out or not. He seems like a nice guy. People seem to like Jeff Saturday. We'll see what happens there. But to think that, you know, that this owner is operating rationally, he's operating like an irrational fan. And he's been impulsive for a while now from the Wednesday, which that was a good decision, but still that was coming down from ownership. Read the coverage of that move to

Ellinger from trusted Coltswriters. That was an ownership on down decision. That was an owner saying, hey, this six-round pick looked kind of fun in the preseason. We're making a move right now. Or if you're not making a move, probably, you're out of here. And so you mentioned the Marcus Brady thing, now the right thing. Then the Jeff Saturday said he was shocked. He was asking Ursa, why am I a good candidate for this job? And so I don't, I'm just rambling here. But I think The take was delusional. You know, you can't be excited if you're a Colts fan about the direction of this franchise.

Ursay referenced Bruce Ariens. He was like, when I hired Bruce Ariens as the interim head coach, like this is how it felt, as I am now with Jeff Saturday. He hired Bruce Ariens as the interim in 2012, okay? Bruce Arion started coaching in 1975. He was a graduate assistant at Virginia Tech. In 1975, which is the year Jeff Saturday was born. Saturday was born in April of 75.

And then he would go on to be like, the head coach at Temple, an offensive coordinator for Alabama for Mississippi State. He coached running backs in Kansas City, tight ends in New Orleans, officer coordinator with the Browns, wide receiver's coach with the Steelers, office coordinator of the Steelers.

He had been everywhere. This guy had more coaching experience than anybody in the world. Jeff Saturday is nowhere near this. And that's why it's like, don't you realize we have Google. Like, you have to know. Like, people can test the veracity of this, and you can't act as if it's a shock that we can. That's where the Ballard thing gets my goat, man.

It does. Like, I think that, like, Ballard hype in terms of, like, he's one of the best drafters in the league. Look at the team he's built. It was kind of, like, peaked, like, 2020 into 2021. Like, right before they made the move for Wednesday, like, this is the final piece. But to have him say,

just like explicitly. Like if I draft a quarterback and he's bad, you guys can be the first one to run me out of town. It just, it indicates that Ballard understands and correctly estimates his number one job.

Job security. I say it all the time. What's the number one job for a general manager? Keeping the job. It's a tough business. If you can cast that paycheck for five years that is for you, do it, brother.

Absolutely. But let's not act. Job security is a one-to-one to building a good team. It isn't. Ballard said explicitly, yeah, I'm not going to go for it if I can avoid it. And then he just avoided it. And for multiple years, he avoided it. And Ursa is firing everybody else but him because it was the head coach's guy,

Philip Rivers. It was the head coach's guy, Carson Wentz. Ballard defrayed the primary responsibility, the number one onus of a general manager on a rebuilding team, find the quarterback. he passed the buck to Frank Reich, who is now fired. And then Erz says, yeah, Bowdo's going to be here in 2023. Under what evidence that he can run a rebuild?

Because he's not invested in quarterback. If you can't get me a quarterback in the building, I don't want you here when I need a rebuild. I don't give a hoop. And a bow, there's no proof that he can. And the fact that he was able to pull that off is, again, extremely impressive in the number one arena, keeping the job in the arena of Sheila and Ben

talking about building good football teams, not where you want to be. Right. It's a true statement. It was an honest statement. It's a statement other GMs probably have in their head all the time. But it's like at some point you can't keep pushing it forward and coming up with Band-Aids.

And like you said, that's the job. I mean, the job is, imagine like, yep, the bills and Brandon Bean. If they're not in love with Josh out, like, let's just like at some point, you have to take a swing. Now, I will say owners, like I have this theory that owners, you should not fire a GM because he misses on a quarterback. If you're going to fire him, it should be for all the other stuff

because quarterback's really hard and you have to take swings. And if you have this specific mindset of I'm not going to take a swing because it's too scary and I'll get fired, then this is where you end up. So I think that's true.

But yeah, that's the thing is I'd so much rather as ownership spurred on a guy to hitch his wagon to a horse just so I can see where this trail's headed as opposed to just leave my wagon horseless and we're just sitting.

in here hoping that 39-year-old Matt Ryan's got the juice. And while doing so, this is the other critical point, spending year after year of healthy, young, cheap talent. Because the whole point was, well, he got Quinn Nelson in the building. Great pick. Quinell Leonard's second round. Awesome. Oh, Kari Willis, great pick. Yeah, we love it. It's great. It is the NFL, not for long. Quentin Nelson and Shack Leonard were great picks. But after like, okay, they're all pros on the rookie contracts. Guess what? The night man cometh.

And the hammer's going to drop. Somebody's going to get hurt. And it was both of them. Watch any Quinn Nelson game, 2021, they weren't telling you. I was telling you. You weren't they weren't telling you. Watch any Quinn Nelson in 2021 game after the foot injury. And you're not going to be surprised what you're seeing in 2022, which is bad play.

He hasn't played well since the injury. Shaq Leonard's got three separate injuries, broken nose, concussion, back issues. You can't, you can't just draft young talent. All right, we got our core. Now when the quarterback comes, he comes. No, if they're good now, clock's ticking. Sam's running. Go, go, go, go.

Get a guy. This is the window. And they did they dilly doubted. They drove their thumbs. And now it expired. You make a good point about Ursa. I mean, part of good leadership, good ownership should be sort of, I don't know if empowering is the right word, but to tell the GM, like, we got to take.

That's the word Ursa used for getting Reich to Benchmat Ryan. That's the Chris Morrison tweet. by the way, yes. Frank, Jim Ursae, quote, empowered Frank Reich to bench Matt Ryan. Yeah, he empowered him. Yeah, beautiful. Love it. Great collaboration.

Those conversations after Luckwood, I mean, that should have been at top of mind after luck retired. All right, you know, you've got to find a good, young, sustainable quarterback, whether it's draft trade, whatever, and that never happened. Let me see. I'm looking at my notes here to see if there was anything. I mean, yeah, Ursa, you touched on the analytics thing. That was weird.

They asked him like what Jeff Saturday doesn't have any experience? And Ursay said that's good because he won't, he will be fearless and he won't coach scared and be one of those coaches who listens to the analytics. He won't have an stench of fear on him. Who listens to the analytics for decisions, which is like, dude, you're paying people on an analytics team there. I wonder how they feel after that. That was kind of weird. Like you have an analytics team.

And Reich recently sort of got a little scared with the in-game decision-making. But for the most part, I thought that was a strength of his as a coach. So I think those were the main things. I mean, he started telling Jeff Saturday Super Bowl stories. He got defensive with the, well, no, this is the other thing, the Rooney Rule thing. So this kind of annoys me. Yeah, I don't know why you got to be defensive there. All you have to say is we're going to follow the Rooney Rule.

He got very defensive and starts talking about Tony Dungey and Jim Caldwell, which is like the equivalent of, you know, hey, I have black friends. Like, yeah, I, you know, it's like, just say you're going to follow the Rooney rule. And like, that was the end of the question. But by the way, if you are a minority coach in the NFL who has put in the time and tried to do everything you can and gone to these symposiums and whatever they throw out there and try to do everything right to give yourself a head coaching opportunity. And then this morning or this afternoon, you wake up to a text on your phone that a guy, again, could be a great guy. I don't know anything about Jeff Saturday.

He seems like a nice guy. Gets hired off of it. literally an ESPN set because the owner, by the way, you know how owners hire people, higher coaches? Who do they want to have lunch with? That's like the number one criteria for NFL owners. So he calls Jeff Saturday and you say, oh, Jeff Saturday got a head coaching job. Man, I was grinding my way from quality control to assistant special teams to defensive backs to this, to that. Then the coach got fired and I had to move my family to this city. And then that coach got fired and I had to move to it. And I think I'm a pretty good coach. and I've got binders and I've got plans and I've got preparation and I can't even get an interview.

So you know why this becomes a topic every January and people might get sick of it or they might not get sick of it? It's because it's stuff like this. It's not a level playing field and it's not fair. And that's what minority coaches has to be at top of mind today as they see Jeff Saturday come in and say, this is an audition for 31 other teams. There are a lot of guys who would love to have that audition for 31 other teams and don't get that opportunity. two dudes on the Colts coaching staff. One, no longer there, Marcus Brady. If Marcus Brady were on this staff

when Frank Wright got fired and anyone were made the interim over Marcus Brady, the question would have just been asked, why not make Marcus Brady the head coach? He's been on like lists of rising head coaches, he's been considered a rising star. Why not making the interim? See what he's got for eight days.

So number one, you just fire Marcus Brady a week ago and used to avoid the question entirely. So there's that. At the very least, too, would have gotten to call plays too, by the way, which, you know, Exactly. It would be good. Yeah.

Number two, and also, by the way, like, Jim Mersey is like, I want to see Sam Ellinger develop. Okay, well, he's only ever been coached by Marcus Brady and Frank Reich, and you just fired both of them. Yeah. So, yeah, that's great for development. Just get rid of everybody he knows. Number two, though, is Reggie Wayne. Reggie Wayne is the wide receivers coach for the Indianapolis Colts. Talk about black coaches versus white coaches.

The amount of minority coaches who see Jeff Saturday, who, like, as you say, it's not Jeff Saturday's fault, but just no coaching background, just gets the job because he's, Jim Ursay's buddy. Guess who also is presumably Jim Ursay's buddy. Reggie Wayne from the same team from the same championship team that was brought on to the roster to coach wide receiver, Colts Legend.

If you wanted to do like the feel good ring of honor thing, Reggie is already in the building. He at least knows where the bathroom is. He knows how to get to your office. He knows the players names. He knows the practice schedule. Yeah.

But nope, Reggie can keep coach wide receivers. We'll get Jeff Saturday in here and we'll just introduce him to everybody on Monday evening. Get out of town. All right. Last thing I want to say because I keep thinking of things as we talk about this. One is I actually have no issue generally of thinking outside the box with coaching hires.

It's really hard to just nab an assistant off a Super Bowl team and say that guy's going to be the best head coach. That to me is not the best practice. But this process is so messed up. Like if he wanted to interview Jeff Saturday at the end of the season and do full interviews and just say, yeah, I'm interviewing. Josh McCown. Yeah. Every coach I can interview just to get their idea. is, that's actually a smart thing to do, but that's not what this is. So the process, leave something to be desired. And then the last thing, and you had this in your piece, and I was thinking the same thing, this could actually work out for the Colts, not the Saturday piece, but this team could just suck the rest of the way. They're one of the worst teams in the

NFL. And if you're terrible the rest of the way, and you get a top three pick, and you earn it, as Jim Mersey says, in a draft where there's some good quarterback prospects, and you get a guy, now all of a sudden you're on your way to a little bit of a rebuild next year. So yes, luck, randomness, all that plays a role in this. All right. Good Colts discussion. Benjamin Solek, I think you're on number two. All right.

You knew it was coming. Anybody who follows us on Twitter knew it was coming because I told you you weren't allowed to have a take on this team so I wanted them so bad. The 2021 leader in the clubhouse for quarterback play from that draft class. It's Justin Fields, baby. It's Fields from Chicago. The Zach Wilson conversation I'm putting off to the side because I don't feel like having Jets fans of my mentions tomorrow, and I'm going to talk about the Jets in a positive light later, so whatever.

Wilson's not been playing well. I don't really care at the one games. Mack Jones, great, great rookie season, looked really concerning over the last few weeks. Trey Lance, giant-sized question mark, push it off to the side. Davis Mills, great, great-looking neck. Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields were the two kind of preeminent talents

for most of the life of this class. Zach Wilson made the push that he made to get to the number two overall pick across the course of his final season at BYU, which was a consensus opinion in the NFL outside of it. Most people, I think, were more so on the Justin Field sides of the thing.

And then obviously the Tray Lance Picket 3, just like a massive wildguard move. But Lawrence and Fields were kind of your two big names. And Lawrence has looked awesome through these nine weeks of the season. You brought up last week. You want more from the experience. When you watch the film, like the film, yeah, exactly, you got more. When you watch the film, like, the film looks good.

They're like, you know, there's wide receiver play concerns. There's risk management concerns that are frustrating. There's a maturation process that's going on there. But if I drafted Lawrence, I watch him run. I watch him operate the pocket. I watch him play the football. And I go, yeah, I mean, the building blocks are here. If this guy doesn't end up a good NFL quarterback, it's on the coaching staff.

It's on the general manager. It's on the environment that he was put in and developed around. Lawrence has always looked at least buoyant. Lawrence has always looked at least salvageable. There was that period for Justin Fields, man, where early in this season, middle of last season, where you were just like, man, I said it many times, he's getting David Card.

Just the level of pressure that this guy was getting with the lack of wide receiver talent that he had to endure, it was not a tenable environment to develop any quarterback, let alone a quarterback like Justin Fields, who was already going to enter the league, predisposed to taking a lot of sex, predisposed to inviting pressure. He's so confident in his athletic ability.

He's so confident in his ability to throw a deep down field from the pocket. He was always going to play this way where he brought in sacks. And then this line isn't helping him this playstiles and helping him. And it feels, man, like there's just like a beam of sunlight. It just feels so much better in Chicago watching this offense through the last five weeks. So this is since week five against Minnesota, a game they were in late. They lost on a fumble where they were trying to put together a game time drive. includes the evening game against Washington, the primetime game, only seven points in that game.

So five-week sample. Justin Fields, seventh and EPA per play among quarterbacks, eighth in success rate. Critically and importantly, 14th in completion percentage over expectation, this has been the number that has been horrible for Justin Fields over the course of his career, right? Completion percentage over expectation relative to your depth of target, relative to the separation your receivers have, how often would you complete passes as opposed to the average NFL quarterback? Fields numbers crater for most of his career to this point. Other quarterbacks are more accurate. When they're throwing down field, they're finding catchable footballs. Fields just can't get a consistent, accurate ball.

Average is huge for Justin Fields relative to how he's used because he still has such a deep depth of target, right? So if you're getting average CPOE, average completion percentage, average quarterback, but you're throwing it 10 plus yards, 11 plus yards down the field on average, huge, huge number, very, very important. During that same time span, the Bears' offense overall, ninth in EPPer play, because remember, the rushing attack here was always working. If we narrow it to just the last three weeks, which is excluding that Washington game, just the weeks that they've had against the Cowboys, which, by the way, third in EPPer play on defense,

the Patriots, fifth in EPP play on defense, and then the Dolphins who are 22nd EPPer play, but focus on the Cowboys, focus on the Patriots. No, that's a good point. Those are good defenses. Yeah. If we narrow it to just those three defenses, the Bears have scored this from Rich Free Bar of Sharp football, the Bears have scored on 53% of their drives in the last three weeks. It's the highest rate in the league.

This offense, run, run, run, run, run to play action pass, run to play action boot, run the sprint out stuff, run some of the design quarterback run stuff. Like I say, it's a beam of sunlight. It just feels like it's working. It feels like the fog lifted. It feels like the coaching staff figured it out for Fields. Critically, it feels like Fields figured out what the coaching staff wanted.

When you watch the film, the number one difference is the process is it's right where it's supposed to be. The issue for fields was always he was thinking on his feet. It was slow. It was methodical. He's staring at the read. You've got to get out of it, Justin. It's fast. It's the NFL. Go, go, go, go, go. He's getting David Carr. His process is broken. Over the last five weeks, you saw in Minnesota, you saw in Washington, even the points weren't there, even when they were down late. Like, you just saw this ball's coming out faster. He's finding the space in the field. Even when it's a Dante pedestre drop and it's an equanimious St. Brown drop and it's a third and 13. He's got to scramble around there. The process is

faster. And that's how you get a performance that you get against the Dolphins. Single game rushing quarterback record. 11 rushing first downs for a quarterback. Never been done before. It's because the decisiveness, right? I have pressure. I'm out of the pocket. I'm going. Balls tucked. I'm out. And then all of a sudden it's a 4.440 yard dash 200 to 30 pound player running at you. He's one of the best runners in the league. You really how hard it is to tackle somebody that big going that fast? Ask any Dolphins player. None of them did it. The decisiveness just unlocks everything. People are talking a lot about the design runs. Like, oh, they're running like QB power. 35% of his rushing guys against the dolphins came on design runs.

65% was scramble. It's just the decisiveness in the pocket. It's understanding what the offense gives you, what it doesn't, when it's time to choose, when it's time to go. So the process is faster. It's allowing the arm to do what the arm is always done. It's allowing the leg and the size to do what it's always done. It's making this offense work. Is it going to be perfect the rest of the season? No. They're next two opponents to the Detroit Lions and the Atlanta Falcons. there's a chance this bear's office just goes like thermonuclear after a consecutive now 30 plus point performances against, or not consecutive, but 30 plus against the Patriots, they had high 20s against the Cowboys and 30 plus against the dolphins. Justin Fields right now went from like, I think in a lot of people's eyes like worst to first in this 2021 quarterback class.

It's a delight to see. Yeah, I'll be honest. I didn't have a strong opinion one way or the other on Justin Fields. I know there were a lot of people, I presume you were one of them, people who I respect, who were like, we are in. Back in 2021? Justin Field as a prospect, yes. Yeah, liked him. Loved him, right?

Yeah. So I felt like there were times earlier this season, maybe last season where he would make a couple plays and people would go kind of overboard because I do it too with guys who I stick my name on. You know, you kind of, oh, we endorsed them and look, hey, it's still there. I thought they were going overboard. But, man, this recent stretch has been. really fun. I have my theory on sports viewing is that you want to enjoy the time you spend with the team or the players you root for, whatever. And so Bears fans, I'm sure there were sure there's been a lot of stretches for Bears fans over the years where you're just, you know, nine o'clock on a Sunday night,

maybe you went to the game, maybe you met with friends, met with family, and you're like, why did I waste my time three hours with that team? Well, that is changing. And then we didn't even mention and they didn't win the game on Sunday, it doesn't matter because Field was so exciting. You mentioned it. Bears' offense outscored the Dolphins' offense in that game. Lest we forget. You're right.

Blocked punt decided that game in terms of points scored. Good point. When you go toe to toe with the Dolphins offense, you are a real football team period. He is a special runner. He is an exciting runner. He is an efficient runner. He's a smart runner.

It's not exactly the same, but it reminds me a little bit about the conversation with Jalen Hertz last year, where it's the middle of the season, and you're asking questions, why aren't they leaning in to his running ability? We know he's not quite there as a passer, and then they did lead into his running ability. Now, it's not exactly the same like you mentioned. It's more with scrambles than with designed runs here.

But still, the guy does something really, really well, lean into that and then let him figure out the other aspect of it. I mean, he had the highest EPA on scrambles for a quarterback in a single game over the last 10 years. There have been some really good scrambling quarterbacks in the NFL, and no one did. what he did on Sunday. He had 22 runs of 10 plus yards at second in the NFL to only the guy we saw play tonight. Lamar Jackson, he has 602 rushing yards on pace for 1,137 rushing yards. I just looked at the last four games, their offense. If you just look at it, EPA per drive, equates to a top

seven offense over the course of an entire season. So now if your fairs been, Yeah, they played two great defenses, two of the best defense. Two of the best defense. in the NFL, which EPA doesn't account for strength of opponents. So if you're a Bears fan, now you're getting excited. Listen, it's all about building an efficient offense that works with the quarterback you have. And they have nothing close to a great supporting cast around him. They've adjusted. I don't know what took so long, but that's okay. It's hard. I don't want to make it sound like coaching in the NFL is easy. So it took some time. But now, like you mentioned, you're seeing it. You're seeing the pinpole schemes, the power reed schemes. And then the throwing

the slot fade to Darnell Mooney, then the scramble, the 61 year. It's like a lot of little pieces. Like, last we forget, we're doing the whole, like, they outscored the Dolphins offense, fourth and ten ball in equine to Miss St. Brown's hands.

Like, they against the Vikings now, against Washington, getting down late in the red zone, and then against the dolphins. Like, they have been in these games late and they can't finish. And they're a young team, and they don't really have that,

like, star receiver to go after. You flip a coin, land it a couple different ways. It's not just like, oh, Bear's offense is good. It's like, hey, bear's offense is getting better. and their record is like enough that this matters.

That's not really the case. And defensively, they got a ton of warts. So it's good to kind of keep expectations reasonable. But Fields is yank in this offense, man. He's every week, it's just, it's getting like a notch better and a notch better. And he's dragging, you know, Nikiel Harry along with him. And I respected immensely. Now, was your take that, and let's mention otherwise Bears fans will be able to say the Chase Claypool,

that yes, that absolutely should have been passing it to my eyes, at least. Now, was your take. that like if you could choose any of these guys right now, like you're like Jim Mersey calls you you're going to be my consultant. You know how sausage gets made. And guess what? There's this rule that I had something on Roger Goodell. And now he's making this rule where I can trade for any quarterback from that draft class for minimum draft capital. Who should we go after? You would say feels over Lawrence at this moment in time. Was that the take? It's the take in my heart. I'm not sure if you made me actually do it.

I would full commit to it. Here's the thing. I am like scramble-pilled right now. Like I wrote the piece about Ellinger when he kind of, they took them over just in the sense that like when you go and you look at a per drop-back basis, how valuable a scramble is. A scramble

is more than twice as valuable by EPAP per play than an attempted pass. Not like a dropback where you could take a sack or have a throw away, an attempted pass in the field of play. I'm at the point now where like I watch the Justin Herberts of the world and I watch the Trevor Lawrence's of the world

and I go, why are you so good? And yet it's just not as easy of offense as it is for these other guys. And then I look at how both of those players just aren't high scramble rate players. They don't want to tuck the ball and run. That's not how they want to play from the pocket. And I go, that's just, that's a lot of meat on the bone.

And then I watch Fields tuck that ball. And again, like the comp for Fields high end coming out of Ohio State was Baby Cam, because you don't see this straight line explosiveness. This is not how Lamar runs. Like, Lamar is this like herky jerky, accessory, decelerary, I stop, I start you, I'm smoke. You cannot grab me.

He's constantly in and out and weave and bob, and it's just like a C-C slippery. When Fields goes, there are few players that NFL defenders have seen move that fast at that size. Like, I'm begging you, like watch the 60-yard touchdown against the Dolphins. Nobody in the league, besides like Sequin Barclay, Chub scores with those leverages, with those angles starting from zero.

For that size to move that fast is just peculiar. And if I'm building around a team, like I have a lot of data of Justin Fields taking a lot of bad sacks. He threw like 25% of his passes behind a line of scrimmage. He is far from a completed product. But if I'm investing in cardinal traits, If I'm looking for a high-end guy that's going to be like, all right, he is a difference maker for me every single week.

It's hard for me to argue Lawrence over Fields right now. Okay. All right. They're fun to watch. They're relevant. If you're a Bears fan, you have reason to be excited. All right. My third take.

We don't have to spend too much time on this. I think Aaron Rogers is going to be playing for another team in 2023. Me too, brother. I think it's, I don't think he's going to retire. And I don't think he's going to stay there. I chewed on this take a couple of weeks ago on the scramble, and now I'm just ready to go all in. I mean, they had a brutal loss Sunday. Rogers was terrible, missed throws, three interceptions, left plays on the field.

They scored a total of nine points against a lion's defense that was just historically bad coming in. And I didn't realize until I dug into some of the numbers, how dire it is. I mean, it's very unlikely that they stage any kind of comeback here. They're three and six. It's a crowded NFC. if you just do the seeding right now in the NFC, they're the 12th seed in the NFC out of 16 teams. So Panthers behind them, lions behind them.

Cardinals, bears, lions, and Panthers. Cardinals, small. Those are the teams behind them. And so you look at those things, and they've lost five in a row where Sean Gary's now out for the entire season, one of their best players, one of their best defensive players. I did a little exercise where I looked at the football. All Outsiders playoff odds, and then I looked at the Fandu playoff odds, and I averaged them to say,

all right, take those two kind of analysis markets and see what it comes out to. They have a 12.7% chance to make the playoffs. So not impossible, but highly unlikely that they turn it around. So Rogers is going to be 39 next year. I don't really see a scenario where the Packers will be able to retool this roster, put the pieces around him and say, hey, come back. We'll run it back in 2023. It feels like everybody's probably sick of each other at this time.

And so a trade is tricky, but not impossible. Everyone should read Jason Fitzgerald on Over the Cap, wrote a good analysis for this. The timing matters. Other things matter. But they can trade Aaron Rodgers. And so I think that this is going to be the storyline that takes over our lives on the Ringer NFL feed. This offseason, will they trade Rogers? Won't they trade Rogers?

Where should they trade Rogers? What should the compensation be once the trade's made? hey, can it work? Hey, Jordan Love on the Packers. Can that work? And they be a surprise team. All this stuff will drive the NFL news cycle from, I don't know, February until probably the start of the next season. I think the Packers are going to move on. They can get some draft compensation for him. They can see what Love looks like in the final year of his rookie deal. And Rogers can see if he can find that spot, that one spot. Now, he doesn't have a no trade clause, but he can always just threaten retirement. And so I think he does have a say on where he goes.

goes because he can say, no, thanks. I'm not going to play anymore, even though that would cost him a lot of money. So I'm at the point where I think that's going to happen. Yeah, I, first day, I hope it does. I hope we do a whole other offseason of the Rogers Chairs. Just for the content. For the content. Also, because it's full circle for me, my first time ever, like, live on televised air was that draft night when Schepler dropped the Rogers News. And I had, like, I prepare, like, crazy. I was like, first time got to know all my. my stuff. And then within two minutes, everything was out the window. And it was like, what do you currently remember about the 2019 Green Bay Packers? And I was like, it was such a

complete like Baptist by Fire experience that I'll always fondly remember Rogers offseason trade dramas. That's number one. Number two is because there are so many teams that are ripe, just absolutely ripe. Like the Indianapolis Colts, the New Orleans Saints, there are so many teams. Should I whisper the New York Jets or should I not whisper the New York Jets? We're going to talk about the New York Jets in a second. I always think in the New York Giants, right? There are so many teams that are very well positioned to talk themselves into this and have it be just such a bad idea that I cannot, the possibilities are endless for my personal mirth and enjoyment of the NFL off-season cycle. But yeah, like Rogers to me feels like a burned bridge sort of a dude,

and this feels like a bridge burning. No Romeo Dobbs for four to six weeks. I know Dobbs has been pissing him off, but Dobbs is by far been the most talented receiver they've had. This is going to get even uglier. If you can imagine that in the passing game. We're going to hit a new low in terms of like the way Rogers behaves on field in quiet protestation for how the offense is built.

It's going to get like even 10 times worse than this right now, and it's pretty bad already. I think you're right. All right. What do you got for number three? Okay. The New York football Jets beat the Buffalo Bills this weekend. Critical of note. I think your final take is on, I want to say like aFC playoff picture, but Josh Allen, potential UCL injury. I'm not going to pretend, I understand what a UCL is, but all I know is his elbow might be messed up in a throwing arm. Bills are going to find more information. Might be limited in practice this week. puts you in a spot where

the AFC starts to feel a little bit more open the Dolphin started to feel a little bit more interesting and here you are with these six and three jets who just don't make any sense we all watch Zach Wilson we've talked about him a ton of times their quarterback is a detriment to the team Brace Hall out for the season

AVT out for the season how can we take them seriously difficult team to get a thumb on the pulse of especially if the AFC East is about to get like won't with Josh Allen inavailability and how long and kind of so on and so forth I'm so excited I don't know what you're going to say here.

So after they beat the bills, my mom texted me and said, are you going to say something nice about the Jets now? Because she listens all the time. She loves you, she loves to imitate you, She'll.

I won't do her imitation of you. Everybody knows what you sound like. But anyway, she said, you're going to say something nice for the Jets. So here it is. She's a Jets fan. You should, yeah.

Yeah, she's a jet's fan, yes. Yeah. The Jets defensive line is good enough to get them into a playoff game. This is a six and three team in an AFC that absolutely, certainly 100% is going to have a lot of contending teams.

You're going to have multiple teams is coming out of the AFC North, multiple teams coming out of the AFC West. Like, even with the Broncos and the Chargers not being, or Broncos in the Raiders not being good. Chargers chiefs like this, this is a legit conference. The Jets' events are good enough to keep them in that race. And when you look through the schedule, might be enough to get them there. The reason is because the Jets did two important things against the bills that gives you faith. The first thing they didn't blitz.

ESPN stats and info counted in there charting two total blitzes in the game against Josh Allen and the bills. second lowest amount in Josh Allen's career. The book on the elite quarterbacks is you don't blitz them. It feels like a great book. It sounds awesome until they're just dicing you up or until they're scrambling against man coverage. And just like Josh Allen and Patrick Moore is too good, we have to pressure them.

We have to tackle them. But if you're one of the few teams that can pressure without blitzing, then you never, never, never send pressure. And they didn't send any pressure. Last year, Robert Sala and Jeff Ulrich were constantly pressuring because they didn't have enough horses up front. This season, man. Have you watched any Quinn and Williams film lately?

Yeah, he's a beast. Holy moose. Holy, yes. Holy smokes, dude. Like, I'm worried that Donald's going to get an all pro because he's Aaron Donald. And like, that's fine. But there are a few defensive tackles this year

who have played better than Aaron Donald. Jeffrey Simmons being one of them. Yes, that's what I was going to say. Quinn and Williams being another one. Sheldon Rankins, who unfortunately sprained elbow out for four to six weeks, had a wonderful, damaging start to this game, had a strip on a Josh Allen, like, shore fire,

touchdowns upfield. And then, okay, he goes out. Nathan Shepard, 30% of the snaps. Just we've been developing him on the back burner for four years at this point. Penetration, good against the run. Oh, Sully Thomas can kick inside. John Franklin Myers can kick inside. Oh, no, we don't have any more edges because we're kicking all these guys inside.

Germaine Johnson, first round pick, hop on in. Bryce Huff. How about that Jermaine Johnson play? Where Alan was scrambling to the, I mean, that was a monstrous play. Yes. Johnson was an interesting first round prospect. The Jets really loved him and all the other teams like, yeah, you can draft him that early if you want.

Like he was kind of a little bit polarizing. But the effort, man, the effort on Johnson is never, dude is a motor. And the Jets, Robert Sully cared about this a lot. When this defense worked, go back to those San Francisco years. Yeah. We rushed four and we were too deep. When we did the hockey line shift, it didn't make you feel good.

It made you feel bad because your offensive line was tired and our guys were fresh. The way they get production out of guys like Bryce Huff, out of guys like John Franklin Myers, Vinnie Curry is just around there. Michael Clemens is this huge five tech that they use, just randomly and also successfully, obnoxious, that they've gotten this level of depth.

Like you didn't even bring up like Carl Lawson, the big free agent signing. Like they just have so many guys in this front. And the reason why I bring them up specifically is because the corners have gotten so much attention. Sauce Garner, to me, is defensive rookie of the year. No question. DJ Reed, people have brought up playing like an all pro.

DJ recent playing great. The safety edition. I always get his name wrong. Jordan Whitehead had been playing well for them, and brought him in. They've done the right things in the second year. There's a lot of attention to that. But when you look at how teams have beaten the bills

over the last few years and critically beat the dolphins, who the Jets have the dolphins in week 18 this year, in a game in which both those teams might be like a couple games over 500, both of those teams might be fine for a wildcar shot. Like that could be a hugely charged game, how teams have beaten the bills and how it looks like teams have to beat the dolphins, You just can't cover them for long enough.

It really doesn't matter how good your corners are. It just, there's just not, you can't cover Tyree Kill and Jaymondo for that long. You can't cover Gabe Davis and Devon Desfondakes for that long. You can do your best. And the, and the Jets did a great job. They played a ton of quarters. They had guys on top in coverage, but other teams have tried to play quarters against the bills. And you just can't endure for three seconds, three and a quarter seconds, three and a half seconds.

Josh John holds the ball, holds the ball, holds the while, somebody gets open. The only way to do it is if you can dial them up before. Like you watch any two a game this year, if you can, hit that guy up. He makes his mistakes. That Steelers game. He tried to lose it. Why? Because the Steelers to heat him up. So if you can win with a four-down rush, you can beat these offensive juggernauts in the AFC East.

So the Jets are not trustworthy a quarterback. Love the receivers. Running game looks great. Just don't have three picks like you did against the Patriots and give them a ton of points. Because when you don't give the other offense points, 17 against the bills, 22 against Patriots, nine against the Broncos, 10 against the Broncos, 10 against the Packers, 17 against the Dolphins, 20 against the Steelers,

this defense can sit on them. They really can. So I believe in this Jets front. I believe in this Jets defense. I think it's good enough. I would love a little Josh Allen unavailability to help me here. But it's good enough to I think get the Jets to a January game. All right.

This leads right into my extra point taken, and I'm going to pin you down and make you go on the record because I was doing my research today, a little reset, mid-season reset. And the AFC wildcard race is going to be incredible. I mean, the next eight weeks are going to be fantastic. And it's really different in the two conferences. Now, anything can happen.

Caviot, yes, absolutely. Surprises will happen that we're not expecting. But the NFC, if you look at just statistically right now, is relatively settled. The seven teams that are getting in have like a roughly 70% chance or better. if you just look at the things I talked about earlier, football outsiders and just the betting markets, they have about a 70% chance to get in. So it's really going to take a surprise team to bump them.

Now, maybe there's a big quarterback injury. Again, those things happen. The AFC? Oh, baby. Nope, nothing like that. There are nine teams battling for seven spots. Each of them have over a 40% chance to get in. Here are the teams, Benjamin Solac.

We're going to go on the record as of the end of week nine with who we think are going to make it. So are you on board with just penciling in the Ravens for the AFC North for this exercise or not? I started writing names down. It was the first team I wrote down. So yes, I feel good about that. All right.

So let's say that the Ravens are in. We know that the let's pencil on the Bills, chiefs, ravens, and Titans for the division. If you have a huge issue with any of those, we can talk through it. But for our purposes, let's pencil those in. So now you have three wild card spots between the Bengals, the dolphins, the chargers, the Jets, and the Patriots. I just named five teams.

All five of those teams have greater than 40% chance to get in. Only three of them can get in. Now, if you're listening and you say, hey, that wasn't fair with the AFC North. I think the Bengals are going to win it, and you're doing this exercise on your own, go ahead. You can pencil the Bengals in for the AFC North and swap the Ravens down. in their place. But let me mention those five teams that I think, once again, the Bengals, the dolphins, the chargers, the jets, and the Patriots. Only three of those teams can make it. All right, you want me to tell you my three? Go for it. I'm going with, I actually changed this

multiple times today. I'm looking at it going, wait, what did I say on here? Oh, we're both going on the record. Meanwhile, you had like hours of prep, and I'm just here scribbling on a notebook. Well, here we can cross-promote now. There will be a piece on the ringer.com. We have to send in our picks to our editor. Oh, shoot. Good reminder. I forgot about that.

So do that after this podcast, Ben. See, I'm here for you. So I sent those in. Okay, here's what I, here's what I had. I had the dolphins. I had the Bengals. Two for two so far. And I have the New England Patriots getting in as the third wild card spot over.

Here's what I was weighing. And I, It's probably wrong of me. I was like, I don't think the Jets just because I don't trust the passing game and the offense. All the points you made are absolutely true. I love watching their defense. They're fun, but I just can't get there with their offense. Now, the Patriots, you can say, Shil, you trust the Patriots passing game?

And the answer is, no, I don't. Yeah. But if it's a tight game and I'm looking at it, I was just like, who do I trust the coaching staff? I couldn't get there with the Chargers. Justin Herbert looked fantastic at the end of that game yesterday. on Sunday, but look at what they needed a defensive lineman to recover a fumble and then fumble the fumble. They needed a missed field goal.

It's absurdity, man. Yeah, they needed some weird stuff to happen to beat the Falcons on the road. So push comes to chef. I don't like it. This wasn't a ringer mandate where, you know, someone made me pick the Patriots. Generally, I like fading the Patriots when I do my football analysis. But just as I was sending those in and I was saying Patriots are chargers, Patriots or Chargers. I said, I don't trust this Chargers team to not Charger. I'm just going to put

the Patriots in there. Sneaky good defense. We'll be well coached, can run the ball, and maybe they can find some version of the Mac Jones we saw last year in the seventh spot. All right, so those are mine. Now you've had time to think about it. I've been rambling. Finish the podcast and let us know, who do you have as of this moment as your three wildcard teams? I definitely have Dolphins Bengals. I'll tell you today, this morning, before we had any official Josh Allen reports, I took Dolphins plus 575 to win the division. We talked about this little bit when we were on Bill Simmons pod on whatever, Trade Deadline Day, whatever it was. But I watched this Dolphins team just continue to score 30 points whenever they want and go, yeah, to me, this feels like a very

real team. I swear, if anyone was watching Red Zone on Sunday, anytime flash to that game, the dolphins had the ball at the at the bears 30 yard line like every drive they were just I was watching it going shoot did I go too strong anti dolphins on the podcast we just did so I'm with you there but sorry go ahead I cannot trust the Patriots offense more in the Jets offense I that really I disagree with that since week five Patriots are 26th in EPA per play on offense jets are 19th success rate Jets 43.5 percent Patriots 43 by 6%. So the roughly equal by,

or that's drop back EPA, actually, it's not even success rate. No, success rate at the other. Yeah, I've got it here just for the season, and they're very close. I mean, the Jets have been better. The Jets are 22nd in EPA per drive. Yeah, I'm trying to knock out the Joe Flacco weeks

by shortening it, not give the Jets the boost of Joe Flacco as it was. Yeah. And the Patriots were 25th. The Patriots do not call the same offense for Bailey's, for Mac Joneses as they did for Bailey Zappy. They call a 401 level A grade, You got to be perfect to make this work offense.

For a quarterback that is in that mold, but isn't good enough to do it. Like, Mac is fine, but you should be helping them more than they are. They refuse to. And running game-wise, I know the Jets lost Brees, but with Michael Carter and James Robinson, I mean, they established it on a game winning drive against the bills, which, like, you know, bills are a soft run defense. There's more to interrogate there for sure. But this Jets running game to me is very trustworthy.

And even if you give the Patriots that boost, I think the Jets are right there with them. and then like yeah Zach's gonna make more back breaking plays than Mac but overall they have way more receiver talent so just like the screens and the reverses and like the get the ball out of his hands

gonna work I trust the Jets offense more than I trust the Patriots offense with that said Chargers I think is my seven but it's definitely between the charges and the Jets for me it's just you cannot give me Herbert against Wilson

and Mac and expect me to go like it's not even like oh a good quarterback versus the other two guys no no it's it's freaking it's Justin Herbert It's unbelievable. But this Chargers team is, it's so beat up, they're so injured, they're so unoptimized, it's so bad on offense. There's 90,000 reasons to doubt them.

I just have to think that coaching staff knows if they miss the wild card in consecutive seasons, I don't know how to keep their jobs. And so I think you're in a coach for your job situation and the Chargers get in by the hair on Brandon Staley's chin-ish chin, which is about as long and as prolific as the hair on my chain, it's chin, so I would notice how tight that is. I know. And I've been among Herbert's biggest fans. And again, he looked as healthy as he has since that rib injury in the fourth quarter of that game against the falcon.

So that gives me pause. But my gosh, you just watch them and go, all right, what are they going to screw up next? You look at who he's throwing to. Josh Palmer and D'Andre Carter and Gerald. Yeah. I mean, they're NFL players, nothing against them. But, yeah, everything, you always talk about the easy buttons when we do our Ringers-Filly special pod. and that offense is just the opposite.

Every thing just seems so, so hard, and you're waiting for something bad to happen. All right, there you go. If you're listening, let us know. Hit us up. Who do you have? You got to go on the record. What a pod, shield.

The beauty of this pod. I got an Able Watch, and I kept on looking to see what my heart rate was. It was elevated the whole time. That Thursday section, I was popping 90. I feel like your heart rate is just constantly elevated. I've never seen you in like a sort of a calm meditative state. I'm sure you get there, but.

Well, I used to. be a pretty substantial distance runner, and I've been dealing with injury, but I still got the heart rate of a distance runner. So I sit in like the 60s, 70s, and then for that Thursday section, I was sweating. I was getting up a high 80s, man,

and I was bumping. I'm glad I'm not the only one who sweats during these, but I don't know why. All the time. I was shivering when I came into this episode. Right now, like, why I'm wearing a hoodie? It's too much. Listen, you think podcasting's easy?

You got to put on the deodorant before your podcast. All right. That'll do it. Remember, read Ben's piece on the Colts, very well done on the ringer.com. A reminder, I'm hosting the Thursday show, The Scramble on the Ringer NFL feed every week. Stephen Ruiz is joining me this week because we canceled last week

because there was trade news. And so we're going to do a little mid-season awards. And you know Stephen will be coming with the takes there. If you have a question, email us, the Scramble Mailbag at gmail.com. And we will get to those Tuesday on this feed. You'll get the power rankers. And on Wednesday, join Nora Princiati on the island.

All right. Thank you to Ben Solak. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna, Ramgapal. We will talk to you next week on Extra Point Taked.