The Ringer NFL Show - The Top Five Most Important NFL Moves in the Past Week

Episode Date: March 23, 2021

Kevin and Nora discuss the five most important offseason moves that have happened in the past week (4:41). Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The NBA season is heating up, and Kevin O'Connor and Chris Vernon have got you covered on the mismatch. They discuss all the news, the trends, and transactions happening around the league. They also offer their on court analysis and occasionally get into heated debates. Check out the mismatch on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Rimmer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Gar, drawn by Nora Princiotti. Nora, what's going on? Kevin, not much.

Just hanging out. Happy to be potting with you. Yeah, that's all I got to report. You just accused me of not having mental toughness, actually. I was deciding when you said that if I was going to bring that up. Let's bring this up because both you and producer Isaiah were totally thrown for a loop that the Zoom intro now, when you start recording, the wording is different. You guys were obsessing over it. And I said, wow, this is a big deal for you guys.

That's all. Yeah. Well, it used to be what is. It used to be this meeting is being recorded. But now it's something else. Well, listen. This is all about innovation. It's all about adaptation.

I'll ask you a question. I was seeing with this before we hopped on. Do you like the off season more than the season? Only because Shil Kapaita came on this podcast a couple weeks ago and said it's flipped for him now. He likes the team building aspect of it more than the actual season. I'm not anywhere close on this. I like the season so much more than the off season.

I love the office season. I love team building all that stuff. But the games are the thing. And I was curious where other people are on this now at being a week and afraid and seeing all that stuff and all the storylines. For me, it's not close. Where is offseason versus season for you?

I love our guy, Sheal, and that's why we have him on the show sometimes, so he can offer that perspective. I think that's bananas. I like the season so much better. I mean, the off season is interesting, but we kind of have to make it interesting by getting on here and chatting and breaking it all down. In the season, like, the season would be interesting if we didn't do this,

because the games are great, and you just watch games. Right. Also, we're just a lot of guessing this time of year. Even the best, even the smartest GMs are just guessing. Right, but also like very few pancake blocks. I like receipts. I'm a receipts guy. And you get those in September and October and November. Right. That's all. I mean, that's the thing, right? That's the thing that's fun about sports is that like you have a winner and a loser and you kind of know what happened. Now it's just like, I also desperately yelling about dollar figures. I want to go to game so badly. I'm going to go to some like,

honest you got them go to some baseball games I think this summer I was thinking about like what's going to be the first sporting event and if I would go to a baseball game this summer just to just to go just to go what do you what is this specific thing you're most looking forward to at a sporting event I'm looking forward to uh booing correct calls to go against my team and I also like being hugely wrong on things like I like being I like being kind of like a dumb ass sports fan like I like sports right just don't know anything about it and uh Juliet and I talked about about that on Formula One pod that's up today on Bachelor Party feed where it's just like part of the allure of Formula One is I don't understand it. So I just sit there and just I'm just like, man,

these these guys are clutch. I don't know. Yeah. I'm really excited to just kind of say obvious things a little bit quietly. Like a great catch. That's a great catch. That's a great catch. But it's a great call. Like just sort of do that narration thing that doesn't add anything to the conversation, but it's just sort of soothing. I'm really excited for that. The other thing I'm so excited for, I love stadiums. Like, not even necessarily, I mean, I love this part too. The history of them can be really cool. But especially football stadiums, just like the bigness of them, I find really thrilling when you like walk in and you're like, whoa, this place is huge and awesome. I'm really excited for that. All right. Let's get to the actual podcast. So we're doing the biggest things that happened

in the last week from a team-building perspective. There's a lot because I think that this is one of the most fascinating off-season that we've ever had. We know about that for the Ringer.com today. Just because of the end of the salary-cap era, a salary-cap growth era, the impending spending boom that's going to happen four years from now, or three years from now, four years from now, whatever it is,

we'll get to spend a second. There's just a lot here, and there's a lot of storylines here. But we each have five. We will start with yours, Nora. All right. So my fifth one, and mine are not in any sort of ranked order, but we're all start is that one of the things that I think a lot of people thought was going to define this offseason was unprecedented quarterback movement. And there's been some, right? We've had the early.

Yeah. Right. Goff and Stafford and Wentz. Now we've had some of the lower tier guys like Trubisky and Fitz Washington, Andy Dalton goes to Chicago. But they're not falling at the rate. I think some predicted. Like the 49ers seem to be staying put. They weren't able to get Stafford.

The Bears weren't able to get Wilson. They get Dalton instead, but that's not exactly hugely splashy. Patriots end up keeping Cam Newton. But the headline of this is that Russell Wilson, Aaron Rogers, and Deshaun Watson, obviously that one is incredibly complicated right now,

given the sexual assault allegations against him and the fact that there's just, clearly not enough information there for anybody to figure out what to do. And I do want to say, you know, Andrew Brandt made the point on Tuesday morning that obviously number one thing is wait and see there reports this week. And the trade is the furthest thing from anyone's mind at this point. Gidell has, according to Andrew Brandt, has suspended players both six games when no criminal charges are filed. That was the precedent in Ben Rothsberger and Ezekiel Elliott's case. And so there's just, there's a lot here.

And for, I think there's just a lot of information needs to be gathered. And again, as, as Brand says, everyone's kind of in a wait and C mode throughout the league, throughout the league office, and throughout the media, quite frankly. Right. And it's the last thing that we're going to speculate on. But what's important here, and that's not just with Watson, that's very much with Wilson and Rogers as well, is that if there is at minimum just a holding pattern there, we're getting close to the draft.

It's getting closer every day. And so you've got the Jets at two, the Falcons at four, the Eagles at six, and the Panthers at eight. They're all quarterback needy teams. There are some others that could trade up into the top ten. And that lack of the crazy unprecedented quarterback movement is going to influence how the top quarterbacks in the draft fall. Because right now it's looking really, really, really competitive to get those guys at the top of the draft. whereas if some of the veteran quarterback dominoes that could have fallen and so far have not had, it might have created a context where there was a little bit more room for teams outside the top 10 to get up in there.

Or for somebody who's, you know, maybe the Panthers without coming up from eight would get lucky. That's looking harder and harder by the day if you want one of the top four guys. Yes. The quarterback thing to me, and this is something I was actually going to touch on, in my list too, but the quarterback thing for me is interesting because it looks like, so the ESPN and athletic mock drafts that came out on Tuesday morning, both of them have the first four quarterbacks going in the first four slots. That changes a lot of things here because if you're a team, everyone's been saying, okay, well, does Philadelphia take a quarterback at six?

What if that's the fifth best quarterback? What if a team like Philadelphia, which normally in a slot at six, would have their pick of the third best quarterback? quarterback. What if that's not available now? What if they're hunting for Mac Jones? That changes things. I would put the Denver Broncos in the same bucket. The Denver Broncos go out and they get a handful of really good, I think, free agents who can bolster the roster. Kyle Fuller, one year, 9.5 million. They have a deep roster already. Justin Simmons returning to the fold. But now it looks like you're either going to have to go with Mac Jones or go in the mid-round's or whatever

or roll with Drew Locke. And I think that changes the entire structure of what this draft looks like. And so the quarterback thing to me, as he said, it's fascinating. The Watson thing is just completely separate. Wilson does not like he's going to move even though Adam Schaeffer says he's not going to close the door in that completely as far as the reporting goes. But yeah, Stafford moves

early, golf moves early. Some of the other Matt Ryan probably a year away. from entertaining that kind of stuff just because of the cap implications. Andy Dalton was not, you know, someone we were talking about when we were talking about kind of unprecedented quarterback movement. I think that there is, there are a lot of implications here. And I think that there are teams that thought there are going to be more quarterbacks available or more high-level quarterbacks available that now have to change their plans,

especially as it relates to the teams in the top 10 of the draft. Right. For what it's worth, the Mel Kuiper mock that came out this morning. Trevor Lawrence to Jacksonville, Zach Wilson to the Jets, Panthers trade up and take Justin Fields, and then the Falcons take Traylands. So just to your point,

no one was mocking that a month ago. No. It's not that those weren't the first four guys, but it was just a little bit spread out. And if the board does fall that way, and by the way, I am all spend resources on quarterbacks. Just do it until you get your guy.

So I think there's actually a lot of logic in that. if the board falls that way, it changes a lot of things. So that's my first one. What's yours? Okay, so I'm obsessed with how the TV contracts are going to impact everything. And then you dovetel that with the fact that the COVID revenue shortfall happened and the lack of money this year. It's one of the most fascinating team building dilemmas in SauerCap era. So essentially, the fact that the cap kept rising for a decade was the biggest team building story of that era.

right everybody who was in a front office said that that everything was defined by the fact that you had 10 to 12 million dollars more to spend every single year so at the beginning of the rookie wage scale the league got is that 2011 the league got really really young and every team said let's get let's get a bunch of rookies and we'll do stars and scrubs and we'll take advantage of the fact that i know cam newton made half of what sam bradford made in guarantees and then bradford made much more on that unguaranteed that cam newton's first contract for twenty two million dollars is fully guaranteed, right? But Cam Newton made a lot less money than the first overall pick before him in 2010. So from 2010 to 2011, the entire league changes and then the entire salary cap changes because of that. And so you have cheaper rookies. You have a cap that's rising every single year. And you just have more money to spend, more flexibility. Every team had flexibility and more less need, 2017, well, 2018, something like that told me, I don't remember the last time we cut a guy because we were up against it with the books. Now it's it's football decisions. Um, that ended. Okay. And you got to a point in 2019 where there was a robust NFL middle class and

guys were making 10 to 12 million dollars, um, 14 million dollars, whatever it was. And they were, they were, they were the NFL's kind of the B plus players, right? There's not a lot of money right now in the NFL for B plus players. And that's what's happening now. The cap goes from 198 to 182. It would have been a normal year of 2010. It would have been two years from now, 220, something like that. So you're looking at tens of millions of dollars that would have gone to sort of these

B plus players. That's just not happening now. But you dovetail that with the fact that there are now $110 billion of new TV money, new TV contracts. I went on Pressbox with Brian Curtis last week to talk about this from sort of the media side. If you want a deeper dive on that, check that out. I won't get into it all here. I'll just get it into it from the football side.

I love that pod too. I'll get it from the football side. So you're going to have. And so next year there will not be a huge rise in the cap. 2023, kind of a maybe and kind of depends on your definition of what a huge rise is. Smart people like Jason Fitzgerald from over the cap say 2024 is the number to circle. Okay. And that's when you start getting into the mid-toes and you start that just an incredible rise. And then you're looking at perhaps, perhaps, according to Jason Fitzgerald, 300 million by 2027. So the young stars of the league now will eventually be... That's not a real year.

will eventually, so 2024, Fitzgerald says, in the range of 260 million. By 2027, it's $100 million. So the young stars of the league now will be playing under a cap that could reach $300 million. Okay.

I don't know how that's not the biggest story in every free agency, in every front office right now as it relates to free agency because they have to start planning for that. They think about that. There are going to be three years of pain and painful decisions.

But I just, there is a, that is going to change everything. There's going to change absolutely everything. It's can change quarterback contracts and something I'm going to get to on my list a little bit later. It's going to change everything about the league. And the next three years are really interesting because you look at the New England Patriots. So Robert Kraft comes out and he tells Peter King yesterday that their moves this offseason was like investing in the stock market.

And the phrase he says, said, he said there's usually 10 to 12 teams going after the top players. This time, there were two or three teams. And that's why they felt comfortable going out and overpaying for Matthew Judon or whomever, right? And Nelson Aguor, who we've talked about on this podcast a bunch. And you wonder now how many kind of weird quirks of the salary cap of cap space and all that stuff are going to happen in the next three years, how teams are preparing for 2024, 2025, 2026. Normally, just so everybody knows, normally teams plan three years of spending. So I guess the tail end of the three year plan right now, if you're drawing it up, would merge with the cap spike.

But I just think that if, if, and they did, NFL people told me the rising cap was the story of the last decade. Well, the rising cap is going to be the story of the next decade two. It's just going to be even more complicated because it's three years of strange spending. tons of veterans B plus players getting thrown by the wayside. Juju Smith-Srewster having to go back to his team because he only had three offers or a handful of offers that were all in the same neighborhood. And then you're going to get absolute stars making ungodly sums of money in 2024. This is fascinating to me. Me too.

The thing that is interesting to me that I feel like is the biggest unanswered question here is that we know that eventually once we hit 2024, there will be a lot of money in the pot to go around. But the question to me is, does it, how gradual is it? And how much is there a spike? And that doesn't just pertain to specifically what the cap number is, right? Because so Peter King suggested in his column that maybe the cap goes up 8 million-ish, like these are, we're ballparking here next year and 12 million the year after. And then maybe you start to get bigger infusions. He also suggested a great idea, which was to,

create a bank where you can basically borrow from future years. Well, right. And that's, so that's what I want to talk about is that the way that teams plan around this is going to impact what type of deals end up getting done. Because, okay, right now we've seen, we've seen in this period, in this free agency period, the first part of it that we've gone through, that it wasn't as though right when it started, no teams were willing to spend money.

people still shelled out in certain situations. But there have been a lot of guys where it seems like they preferred to take a one-year deal if they weren't getting the number that they wanted and they'll go back at it next year or whatever it is. And it will be curious to me to see how much teams this year, next year, when we're still dealing with some of the losses from this year. I mean, if they had an imposed a salary cap floor, the cap would have been like $155 million this year. So there's still some of that that needs to be accounted for.

How much teams push off this year is going to impact how much they have to spend in those future years when the cap is higher. So if there's a ton of that, if there's really aggressive planning this year for, you know, with 2024 in mind, well then it's going to be a little bit more of a ramp, right? because yes, there will be way more money available, but some of it's already going to have been spent. And that's fine. That's a smart way of doing the books that smart teams use. But if there's less of that, then there's a spike. And then there is like, you know, NBA style.

Oh, my gosh. Everyone games it to get to Freight and see that year. So that's the open question. We know there will be more money to go around. But the, you know, how. how big is the hose, right? And when does it start going off? That's what we'll have to see.

And it is really fascinating because it's going to, the quarterback market's going to be super influenced by this. Every other position to like quarterbacks will get the headline as always. But it's a fascinating situation. Absolutely. It's the story in front offices. You know, Ben Gosling of the Minneapolis Star Tribune had a piece basically saying that right now the Vikings can only offer minimum deals.

And that a lot of their deals, obviously in order to free up any space, you kick the can down the road. We had Nick Underhill to talk about the Saints last week to talk about just the quote unquote mafia accounting that happens there. But every team is banking on a significant rise. And I guess you just keep, you try to do as many deals as possible to spread the money into that era and just hope that you can get there. There are teams like the Packers who in 2022 are facing a bit of a cap nightmare. This is not a one-year thing. And this is something I've been saying for a couple of weeks now. Everybody said, oh, it's going to be tough.

Well, no, they're spreading this out. You know, J.C. Treter on Twitter the other day was talking about how they took a smoothing of the losses over three years because the alternative was 35% across the board pay cut, which nobody wanted to do. So they're taking the losses over a three-year period, and that's why the cap is not going to rise as much as it could. And also, you know, you lose a few billion dollars, and the cap goes down. I think that there were people in, I saw a couple of the cap. the cap sort of people cover the salary cap talking about how

a lot of agents who were really upset that the NFL would release the TV deals the same week that a bunch of players are taking a bloodbath and not getting the deals they wanted. But the cap is collectively bargained and based on the next year, I mean, maybe, maybe you could try to infuse a little bit more cash in the next two years just to make everything a little more comfortable for everybody. But, you know, this stuff is extremely complicated. and this stuff, again, is collectively bargained. And I think NFL teams will be able to figure this out.

I just worry for the players who are hitting free agency now. We're not getting into the deals. Listen, the NFL is a very, very, very short league for as far as shelf life goes. There are a lot of guys. It's going to be the only deal they ever get for a second contract. They're not going to get a third contract. Or if they do, it's on a league minimum and it's, you know, training camprod or whatever. I feel for that.

This is a human story as much as a football story with this offseason. And it's a real shame, but I don't know what the alternative is. All right. What's your next one? All right. So it's time to play a little game of what the heck is going on here, which I feel like we've played a little bit over the last couple of months. The Las Vegas Raiders have no discernible plan in what they are doing. So, and we've talked about this a little bit,

but they had a decent offensive line, three fifths of which. is now gone. That's center Rodney Hudson, Gabe Jackson, who's a guard, and then Trent Brown, who's playing tackle for them. What they got for those players is a third round pick and two fifths. Those are good players. So a good part, a good and important part of the roster is just basically sort of non-existent anymore. But congratulations. You have three draft picks from the third round on. Then this is, I think this is the most quizzical one to me. They have really good running back in Josh Jacobs. And then they gave

Kenyon Drake $14.5 million over two years. $11 million guaranteed, which we love to see. I mean, great for Kenyon Drake, like genuinely very happy for him. I was being sarcastic. I know. I mean, good for him. Yeah. No, it's great. He changed his life. That shouldn't be the Raiders standard operating procedures to change Kenyon Drake's life.

That's not their goal. No. It's Kenyon Drake's goal. And he very much accomplished it. But right, unless we're, we're, we're miss framing this and the purpose of the Las Vegas Raiders is to like really help Kenyon Drake out here unclear what that accomplishes. And then you just, you look a little bit bigger picture and you've got guys like Brown. They had Lamarcus Joyner, Tyrell Williams, Antonio Brown. Obviously that's, that's has an asterisk with it. But their 2019 offseason, they spent so much money on those players and they're all gone.

And I, I'm just what it like, what is. going on here? What is the point? What are we trying to do? I thought that we were going to spend this Raiders offseason just sort of like doing another vague round of does John Gruden like Derek Carr or not. We're not doing that. We're just looking at them going, what the heck are you doing? I am a little bit done trying to figure out what John Gruden is doing, even though that's the game we're playing. So let me try. That's very healthy. Yes, explain the Raiders to me. John Gruden is doing worse than the coaches and the GM he replaced over a three-year period. Only has seven more years left on his contract.

So that's right around the corner there. It seems to me that John Gruden is not the kind of guy you want running a modern NFL franchise. And he's had a little bit of success and he's hit on some draft picks. I think Mike Mayock is awesome in his job. But I just don't think they have a coherent plan. that if you look at the if you look at the sort of pattern there, you know, the reports

a few years ago were okay, well, he looked at Colomack and he said, we were bad with Colomack, we can be bad with that and let's get some first round picks, right? And he had the same sort of feeling about the offensive line. The offense wasn't where it needed to be with a good

interior, so let's just try something else. And I kind of think, you know, Bill Barnwell talks about this lie. I think it originally with Bill James, where a lot of times media or GMs or whomever tend to blame the best players when things go badly. And one of the only bright spots of last year was the interior of the offensive line. Rodney Hudson was one of the best offensive linemen of football. Gabe Jackson is not at that level, but will certainly help Seattle a little bit. And again, to spend that money on Drake is just really, really, really strange.

The Angokwe deal, I think is fine that two years is. It's good. Okay. 13 million a year on a guy who, I mean, I like Yonnik Gawke, like a good bit. I was really excited when the Vikings got him that obviously didn't turn out well. And like sometimes when these guys are just on different team after different team after different team, I start to raise a little bit of an eyebrow, which is fine if the players a bargain.

Yeah. I don't know that 13 million a year in this climate and this free agency period qualifies. is that. I think it's weird that John Gruden has seven years left on his deal and I just don't see any sort of path towards them being a relevant franchise. That's, that's, if I'm a Raiders fan, I'm very worried about this.

Cool. Cool. I love 10 year contracts where nothing seems to be getting better. All right. Well, I guess that explains the Raiders to me. All right. Next one. All right. So I want to stay on before I get into the actual specifics

except for agency and all that stuff. I want to get into an extension of the conversation we're having earlier about about salaries. Now they're going to spike. Patrick Mahomes and that Dak Prescott's in different categories. Dak Prescott's going to get to free agency in the middle of this decade and is going to make unguiled these sums of money. Patrick Mahomes is under contract through the entire decade. Patrick Mahomes in fact is signed, obviously signed to deal up to $500 million through 2031. And it might be, and I'm just throwing this out there. And football is so unpredictable and I'm not, I'm not nailing this on the wall or anything like that.

I'm just saying that we need to start talking about this. The Mahomes deal might end up aging better than any single contract, any single long-term contract of a quarterback in football history. Here's what I mean. So $45 million in average annual value. Sign through 20, 31, as I said. Reaches over $50 million in the mid, as far as cap number in the middle of this decade. But as that cap rises, you're looking at 16% of the contract.

And then that just keeps going down, by the way, because the cap keeps rising. His number gets manageable. You can move money around. And what I'm saying is there's not a lot of folks who, if you're making $50 million, year as a bargain, Mahomes might end up being that because you might end up seeing and we're already seeing it. So DAC is already at 40 in the current climate. Once you get to $300 million in 2027, which by the way is the year that Mohams has his biggest cap hit, which again, money can be moved around and all that stuff, you're going to see other $50 million salaries and they're

not going to be good as Patrick Mahomes. They're not going to be as good as Patrick Mahomes. And I, you know, normally from what I've studied, you want to keep the cap number for a quarterback under 13%. I understand that. That's going to happen with Mahomes at some point. I'm saying that getting Mahomes to agree to a deal, and listen, it took a lot of creativity and took the willingness from Mahomes in general. Mahomes could have just kept taking two-year deals and then just making tons of money. But he wanted to be locked in. He wanted to stay with the chiefs. He wanted this, Andy Reid said he would stay there. I'm saying that when we see what spending looks like in

2027, in 2028, in 2009. The end of this Mahomes deal is going to have aged really, really well. I feel like you're putting me in the matrix when you say things like 2027 and 29. Like,

it's very hard for me to conceptualize that, so I'm very impressed that you can. It reminds me of what I used to play a lot of NCAA football when I was a kid back when they made that game and like a lot of NCAA football. like a lot like a lot however much you thought i played i played i played more than that and i remember you would just like schedule you know nader dame or whatever for i'd obviously be miami scheduled

notherdome for like 2013 and he'd be like man that's a long way off that's a long way off what what kind of flying cars are we going to have in 2013 i think we actually played nardame in 2013 anyway um yeah no it's went 2012 um but no it's just it's uh it's it's The Mahomes contract is taking us there as far as just planning for the future. We are, the Mahomes contract runs through 2031. That's a long way off, buddy. That's bananas. He and Dak are going to be really fascinating sort of two roads diverged test cases for how you do this.

Dak is going to have a higher average annual value on his next contract than Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. I think we're almost certainly moving towards that. And what about Josh? Allen. I'm not joking. It's not a joke. Does Josh Allen sign a contract?

Does Josh Allen sign a contract? Josh Allen. Yeah, no. But the way that Simpson's worst poochie thing, we just have to mention Josh Allen in every conversation. If Josh Allen is signing a contract now, does he put, does he go the shorter route? Does he put provisions in for the spike? Do they try to get the cap numbers lower? That's what a lot of teams are doing right now.

Do you not even sign a deal? Do you try to play the franchise tag game if you're, if you're Josh Allen and just try to get as close to free agency as possible in those years. I don't know. Listen, Josh Allen loves Buffalo. I don't think he wants to force his way out or anything. I'm just saying if you're a really good top five, top 10 quarterback right now, there's a lot of ways you can navigate this.

And the DAC way is the way that you're going to make more money unless something goes wrong. Right. So as usual, it's a conversation about security, versus maximizing the return. But I just think that in that 10 years from now, we are going to look at the careers of Dak Prescott and Patrick Mahomes is these really interesting test cases in how you do deals. And what does what?

Yeah, but the goodness is the Cowboys have a Zika Elliott sign for like five more years. So no problems there. Yes, next one. Oh, boy. All right. Well, speaking of teams with. good quarterbacks under contract, although in a slightly different vein.

I think the Packers are a really interesting team this free agency period, even though they haven't really done anything. It's actually because they haven't really done anything. The only significant move they've made is to extend Aaron Jones. And they haven't had that many losses either. Cori Lindley is the main one. But on the surface of it,

they're just sort of keeping the band together, which when you go 13 and 3 is not a bad. call. But I was fascinated to learn yesterday when Michael Silver reported it that there have been discussions with Rogers about a potential contract restructure, which is interesting because what happens there is really telling, right? Because if they extend Rogers, not only does that free up cap space, because one of the reasons they haven't done much is because they're just super crunched, they could free up cap space by doing that, which allows them to, and stop me if you've heard, you know, a variation on this theme before.

Put a better team around Aaron Rogers in the here and now. Amazing thought. Amazing thought. I don't know. I don't know who else ever could have come up with that. Maybe Aaron Rogers. But it also commits them to him longer term,

which, I mean, look, he was the MVP. Like, doesn't seem so bad, but he's getting older and they have Jordan Love. So whatever happens there is going to, be one of these like big ripple effect things. So that's one of those like we always focus on the teams in free agency that just spend a bunch of money inside a bunch of guys. Sometimes the teams that do nothing are just as fascinating.

And I think what Green Bay is doing is really worth monitoring. I agree. As I talked about there are some really hard cap conversations that are, they're going to happen next year. They are, I'm looking at just SPO track right now and just top. 51 guys. The Packers are 31st in cap space next year. They are $20 million over the cap.

Cowboys are $25 million over the cap next year. That's exciting. Texans, Rams, 49ers. For five years, though, so you can't argue with that. It's probably smoothed out. Bill's Niners, Rams, Texans, Packers, Cowboys are the teams that are over the cap for 2022. I thought it was interesting that they kept Aaron Jones.

I like that. I think that, again, I'm not a huge pay, pay a bunch of money to a running back guy, but I think that, you know, maximizing Aaron Rogers in the short term and this is something Aaron Rogers wanted. I'm fine with it as long as it makes the cap work. Do you think that the Packers are a legitimate threat to the bucks next season? Yeah. I think as long as Rogers is playing at the level that he was playing this year, then they're a

legitimate threat. I think that there's part of me, where I had this, I now, obviously, I think the Packers have been the second best team in the NFC for two years running now. And it's funny to me because I thought the Packers were going to make the Super Bowl based on the fact that I thought they were so much better than everybody else, but the Niners last year.

And then the Niners got hurt. And then I said, okay, well, the path has been cleared. And so I do think with the healthy Niners, they reenter that conversation. Kyle Shanahan, I think, is one of the best coaches in football. I still think they have a lot of talent on that roster. I think that's, I think that there's a, the NFC has a very interesting top. But I would say that the Packers are probably still the second best team in the NFC,

behind all the box who are running it back if you didn't know. They're running it back, but look, it's hard to repeat, right? Like ego gets in the way. Maybe they're not as healthy. You know, maybe Tom Brady accidentally eats a strawberry and the entire world comes to an end. You don't know. So it makes sense to, that's why you maximize the window, right? because that's why, I mean, look, there was a point a year ago when you could kind of make the argument,

look over there at the Kansas City Chiefs. Is this even worth doing for anybody else? But the answer is always going to be yes, because this is the sport defined by how many variables it has. And you never know what's going to happen. And then all of a sudden, there's a window that the bucks can can hop into and win a Super Bowl. And then Tom Brady gets to get boat drunk. And that is the lesson that I hope the pack of- Get boat drunk?

Everything shenan and getting boat drunk? Everything comes full circle to get boat drunk. Conventional wisdom on, oh, we shouldn't do this this year. It's almost always wrong in football because injuries happen because there's just a lot of variables, as you said. And so I think sitting here and saying, oh, they should try to compete next year or whatever, unless you're capped out or you just don't have a plan of quarterback or whatever, you should always actually just kind of try to compete for this year, unless you're doing a long-term tank or whatever. Unless you're capped out or you just don't have a plan of quarterback or whatever, you should always actually just kind of try to compete for this year, unless you're doing a long-term tank or. whatever. And even that has its limits. I mean, tanking, I think tanking can work, but only, only in short spurts. All right, let's move on to my next one. That is the NFC East, which has

changed dramatically. I think, and I'm not ready to call the NFC East a good division. I would never do that. I would never disrespect other divisions by calling the NFC East a good division, but it's getting better. I look at the talent the NFC East has brought in, especially with the football team and the Giants. I think this division got better. The quarterback position is still the question mark in both of these scenarios. But I, you know, I talked about the football team last week and that that only continues. So the kind of the line on this, the final line, obviously franchise tag Brandon Shurf, cut Alex Smith and Thomas Davis, signed Ryan Fitzpatrick, William Jackson, who by some metrics is one of the best cornerbacks in football. Lamar Miller,

they signed, which is, I can give or take. And then Curtis Samuel, three years, $34 million, $11.5 a year. I love the speed they have. I love the fact that they went out and spent. I thought that the front seven was so nasty last year that I think that there's, there's a lot to build on, especially with that defense, it's a young defense. They had money to spend because a lot of those stars are not due for second contracts yet.

So I like, I like the plan. I like the plan. And I think that they obviously, I don't want to discount the fact. It's funny because I can think, man, Washington's a real contender in this division. Oh, wait, they won the division last year. Like, it was such a non-event division that I'm now like, oh, wow, the team that won the team that won the division now a contender in the division that they won. That's where we're at, okay? The Giants, meanwhile, the Giants had some very interesting flashes last year, okay?

And I don't know, the jury is still very much out on Joe Judge. I was, I did never dismiss Joe Judge out of hand, but I was just playing wait and see. I think sometimes outside the box coach and hires can work. And I also think that, you know, Peter Schrager was on this podcast a couple months ago. we talked about this, about how often the media narrative and the locker room narrative are sometimes extremely divorced. And I think there were some people, especially ex-player, players, maybe some media members who were laughing at Joe Judge with some of his rah-rah stuff, and players were actually

buying it. And I thought that was, and I heard that, he heard that, I thought that was fascinating. I think Joe Judge might be maybe a better rah-rah coach than we gave him credit for a year ago at this time. So franchise tag honored Williams signed John Ross, one year, $2.5 million. signed Mike Glennon, which I guess is quarterback depth. I don't know. Kyle Rudolph, Kenny Gallaudet, four years, $72, $40 million guaranteed, and

Adori Jackson, three years 39. So the Gallaudet and Jackson signings are interesting to me. So both Washington and the Giants added a really good wide receiver and a really good cornerback. And in some cases, you know, in some metrics, one of the best in the open market. There's a lot of talent here. I think in both of these cases, they're kind of surrounding. rounding a huge question market quarterback with a lot of talent.

That hasn't necessarily worked a lot. A lot of people were comparing Daniel Jones to sort of the Mitchell-Turbiskey thing a couple of years ago where it's okay, let's go all in and this guy and see. And then the quarterback is the problem and you just don't get that far. But in a division that I think is totally up for grabs, I'm just completely dismissing the Eagles for now until they show me a coherent team. I really think that the Cowboys have a chance to improve, but they got a long way to go. They obviously have the best quarterback in the division.

They have the best quarterback in the division. I don't think they have the best coach in the division. And they have some real blue chip talent. But I need to see more from basically everybody in the division. What I'll say is that when I see the talent that they have in the fold over the past three weeks, the NFC East will at least not be a tire fire. And that's the best you could have hoped for. Everybody here, well, the Eagles are kind of the exception, right?

Because it's, like you said, they need to put together a coherent team. And then we can start to figure out where they need to go and what's good and what's bad. but with the other three teams, basically two with good to improving to interesting rosters with quarterbacks who

either leave a little bit to be desired or we're not sure or wait and see. And then the Cowboys have a great quarterback and not as good of a roster.

So it's a little bit of a frustrating division because overall there's a lot of talent in it but it's hard to really believe in any of these teams until you feel like the pieces are are all in place to go together.

That said, we were just talking about the randomness of some of this stuff. And when you do what I think Washington is doing and just make smart moves and collect good pieces and be a little bit patient, now that can be a blessing and a curse, right? You don't want to be too patient. You don't want to, there's a world in which Ryan Fitzpatrick makes them a little bit too good. and then there may be out of a quarterback conversation in the draft next year that they wouldn't have otherwise been precluded from. Like, we'll see.

But these teams are setting themselves up to take advantage of a break if they get one. And I think for any of these teams to be really good, somebody's going to need to catch a break, whether that's like somebody makes a stupid trade or somebody falls to them becomes available when they didn't think so. some of the just smart planning ends up paying off in a way that can make a substantial impact. And we'll see. The giants, the question for me is why they are basically the only team to be spending, like,

large giant sums of money during kind of the second wave of free agency. Like, I don't mind the players, but I'm a little unclear on why, like, who they were competing for. Gallaudet a little bit less, but why they needed to shell out for Adroy Jackson in that way and why they're acting this way. There were a couple of people reported over the weekend, and I thought this is interesting,

that there were a bunch of players, I think Gallaudet was among them, I think Joe Tuny was among them, who were basically saying, if we don't get a certain number on, I think Peter King may have had this as well, if we don't get a certain number on a long-term contract, we're just going to sign a one-year deal somewhere.

And I think that there's some places where, and I think that that was kind of what the whole super team narrative was that both Warren Shrap and I have talked about where maybe that happens. And, you know, if Juju would sign with the chiefs or had picked the Ravens or whomever, you would, you would have seen that a little bit more. So I think, from what I understand, sort of the agent leverage was the only way to get Kenny Goliday for four years is to sign him for a big, big contract. otherwise he's going to sign a one-year deal with, you know, with some team where he's going to catch a ton of balls from a great quarterback. That is my kind of abstract understanding. I don't know if there was a case specifically with him, but I know for some players that that was the deal.

I think that that's absolutely right, but a lot of players ended up having to do that, right? They went and signed one-year deals. Goladay is better than a lot of those guys, to be fair. Yes, he's a really good receiver. Joe Tuni is better than a lot of those guys, to be fair. Yeah, but Joe Tuni didn't have to wait that long. No, no, I know.

I'm just saying that was the approach. Yes. Like that's why Jackson is the more illustrative example of this than Galladay, although I do think that they both kind of fall into it because it's just, it is an awful lot of money. And I am not convinced that they had really all that much competition. Now, the competition may have been, okay, need to pay so that he doesn't take a one-year deal elsewhere. but that's a little bit different from, you know, a handful of other teams like sparking a bidding war.

So I just have, I'm curious why they spend so much money, but I agree with you. Listen, and this is, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier in this podcast. We're about to go through three off seasons where spending is very weird and inconsistent and incoherent, right? It's just going to be kind of a mess. So we're going to see more teams where it's like, okay, they're not bidding against anybody that they spend a bunch of money just because I think that agents are going to have to sort of exert their leverage. it's going to be fascinating to see how this all plays out, what the waves of free agency

kind of look like and how to define a why certain guys. Did you see Urban Meyer's comments about free agency the last week? Yes. Okay. So if people don't know, so Urban Meyer comes out and he says, he calls the process awful, he says, I don't agree with it, but no one asked my opinion. I guess in the old days you could bring them in and meet them, have dinner with them, find out their football intellect, find out their character.

that the thing you don't do I found out is call someone who has skin in the game because they're going to not quite I don't see honest as a very appropriate word so we did a deep dive so he's basically saying that you don't get to meet these guys anymore and the process is a little bit broken and the legal tampering period and all that stuff and I actually do think there's probably there's probably something to that um just in the sense that you're welcome to the NFL urban yeah exactly um and the recruiting part of it is fascinating and this is something we talked about on this podcast of punch, which is just like, when you get to the third or fourth wave of free agency, these guys who can take visits and we're seeing that now, it's going to be a recruiting thing. It's going to be why, you know, if Juju Smith-Jew didn't sign with Steelers a couple of days ago, we would have seen an all-out recruitment war this week. And I still think you might see that for the third or fourth wave of free agents and get those sort of depth super teams. You're not going to get an actual super team out of free agency, but you might get, hey, a guy that normally would sign a three-year deal. He's just signing a one-year-man.

minimum deal and going to play with Patrick Mahomes, whatever. Sammy Watkins is available right now. Some team is going to get Sammy Watkins for cheap. That sort of thing is going to develop. All right. Arjuna is pointing out Adori got recruited by the Giants, which is a good point. But I just also think, but they also paid him. Right.

Money and dinner with Logan Ryan seems to have Benoit did the trick. I've never met Logan Ryan. I think I've met Logan Ryan. He's a good dude, right? Logan Ryan is delightful and loves dogs. So that's, I'm actually serious. Like, that would make me want to go to the Giants too. Uh, okay.

The dog part or the money part? Well, both. But also Logan Ryan is just really nice. Like, he's who you would want. Logan Ryan, like, if Logan Ryan played on a college team, he would be like the guy who's just constantly sort of exhausted because he always gets asked to like take the recruits around because he's just cool. Wow.

Who would that be at the ringer? it's you Kevin it's Brian Curtis I think just an all-time vibes guy Ryan is an all-time vibes guy Brian Curtis just texted me a screenshot of an email he got about someone saying that they really enjoyed the press box he did with Ryan Clark and I have some questions about that particular listener but whether or not they thought I was Ryan Clark and we're just going with that the whole time but whatever or let's just move on yeah okay yeah or they just they just mixed up it's just you know there's a lot of opening of questions. All right, Ryan, can I, can I hit you with another one? Yeah, exactly.

I really like what the Chargers have done. I think the Chargers have had a lovely free agency. Yes. And I think, and I kind of think because they took care of their business early, we've stopped talking about them. Like, I'm about to, I'm about to praise the Browns and just go over the top about it because they've done things in the last few days, whereas the Chargers just took care of their business for 24 hours. Yeah. So the Charger, it's just simple, but they made, you know, a significant signing in Corey Lindley. I love the idea of giving a good young quarterback, a good, reliable center.

I think that's huge. And then they added a couple less flashy, but particularly versatile other linemen. So Matt, feeler, and Odeiabushi can both play multiple positions. And then the other thing that happened was, okay, so they lost Hunter Henry, but they got a pretty cheap replacement in Jared Cook. They're paying him $4.5 million guaranteed.

So you just look at that and they've got work to do and there's still a draft and that'll be a different team. But I don't know that there are a ton of AFC teams in particular that I'm looking at and being like, oh, no, you made a leap here. Like this could be really different. And the Chargers obviously started to do that last year. But and it's also the Chargers. So like there's so much danger in saying this. But I think what I'm saying is like I'm ready to get hurt again. because I like what they're doing and I believe in them.

Yep. And this has been my line on the Chargers the past couple of weeks. Just because a guy like Justin Herbert is good at facing pressure doesn't mean you should make him face pressure. And I think that there's a plan there. And it seems like they know that. They know that. Tom Tolusco is a good GM. I think Brandon Staley is a good coach. I like what they're doing here. I want to marry that point with my Brown's point because they're a little bit similar in as much.

obviously the Browns were a much, much, much better team than the Chargers last year. But I looked at their both teams and their offseason plan as extremely surgical and they sort of knew exactly what to do and they did it. And they took care of business. And there aren't, I think there are some teams, maybe they overspent or they flail or they were saying, hey, let's just see how the market develops or whatever. And I kind of feel like in the first week of free agency, the Browns have answered the questions and the charges answered the questions. And, you know, Danny Hypert's last week on the Big Board podcast. It asked me, said, how do you view a success in for agency? I said, just answer your questions. So the Browns go

out. And I think Andrew Barry is one of the best GMs in football, not just one of the best young GMs in football. I keep hearing that qualifier. I think he's one of the best GMs in football. And obviously he didn't, you know, kind of the victory has many fathers, defeat as an orphan kind of thing. Obviously, there's a handful of regimes that they contributed to this roster because the Browns kept firing people. But I've been huge. impressed with what Andrew Barry's been able to do. So I took Malik Jackson from the bargain bin, signed Anthony Walker, one year $3.5 million, signed Troy Hill. I just love that signing. I'm expanding this in a second. Rashard Higgins comes back for one year, 2.3. Tack McKinley,

one year, $4 million, and then probably the best signing, John Johnson, the third three years, $33 million, $24 million, guaranteed. So PFF had an interesting point about Hill, which is, so, So he's not one of the top, is according to PFF, not one of the top 40 highest paid cornerbacks in the league. Yet, over the last two years with the Rams, Hill was ranked 14th in coverage.

Okay. And the reason that there's an inefficiency here is because Hill played slot corner. And that is one of these positions. And I hear it all the time. I've been hearing it really for seven or eight years and the market just hasn't kept up with it. that is one of these positions where even though you're on the field all the time,

because everybody uses a slot receiver, I mean, that's just been the dominant, one of the dominant scheme developments of the past 15 years is everyone uses a slot receiver and the middle of the field is wide open. You need a slot corner, even though you need a slot corner to patrol the middle of the field, just where a lot of things are done now in modern passing offenses, the market hasn't kept up with that.

And so the fact that the Browns can go out and get Troy Hill for two years and nine It's just the sign of a team that understood the market understood what they needed. Grant Delpa comes back at safety. He was injured last year. So you pair him in the defensive backfield with some of these guys. I just, I like what they're doing. I don't know. Listen, and I'm going to talk about the tippy top of the AFC here in a second.

I don't think that they can crack that. Obviously, they made the Final Four in the AFC last year. I think that there's a gap between the Ravens Chiefs. and bills and then and then the Browns, but I do think they've closed that gap between three and four. I think in, in LA last year, there was a lot if you read comments from coaches,

but also from like Jalen Ramsey. When Troy Hill ended up playing that like star slot corner role, it helped the guys on the outside immensely there because he's good. He was good in it. And schematically, it just made things so much. easier and everybody else. So for a team like the Browns that has a shutdown corner in Denzel Ward,

that's a big deal adding a piece like that. And the middle of the field was tough for them last year and part. And they went out and they addressed it at slot corner. They addressed it at safety. That's huge. Because when you have those guys who can thrive on the outside, it only goes so far if the murky middle is just a disaster for you, which like, let's be honest, it was for Cleveland a lot of the time last year. So I think that's a great signing too. Can I move you to your point about the top of the AFC in general just to see where you feel like these guys all fall? Okay. So the top of the AFC to me is fascinating because we saw in the Super Bowl what the flaws of the chiefs were.

And I wonder how much that carries over or how much teams think that there's, you know, I think that one of the things that that always carries over is there is there are some team building lessons that team. think they learn from the playoffs and then they overreact to that. I think that's a little bit different this year because there's just not a lot of money to spend. And so maybe there would have been a team that said, hey, we can beat the chiefs. We have outside pass rush or whatever. They're struggling with their tackles. I think that it's just hard right now, sort of overhaul when there's not a lot of money to spend. So the Ravens go out, have a dignified, but not especially splashy offseason.

They resign Ty Spouser, Kevin Ziegler, which I think was, Ziler was one of the more under the radar, but, important signings of the off season kind of retool that offensive line. But they don't get juju. They have not yet gotten a big fish wide receiver from Lamar. And obviously they wanted one. And, you know, with with the chiefs, the, the offensive line and how that shakes out and where they go positionally, they need a left tackle. They need a left tackle in the draft. And a lot of times you don't want to be drafting for need in the first round. But I do think, you know, listen, top four will be quarterbacks. I think they're,

there might be some some interesting tackle options there for the chiefs later in this draft. A name that the athletic throughout Nate Taylor throughout Liam Eichenberg, the tackle from Notre Dame, that's where they solve their problems. And so I'm not totally worried about the chiefs in that regard as long as they can do that. And then the bills who go out and they get Emmanuel Sanders, who I think is a solid signing. They don't have a ton of money to spend.

They're obviously, you know, to resign Matt Milano, to resign Darrell Williams, to re-sign John Feliciano, to get those guys. That was more important, I think. Trubisky, I think, is a fine value signing. I joked on Twitter about how they were going to rehabilitate Trubisky to the point that he was going to be the starter for the Bears next year on a big money contract. I just think that there's, when I look at the AFC right now, I don't see the pecking order changing all that much.

I think that with the exception of the Ravens not getting a wide receiver, I think that these teams have done generally what they had to do in the offseason. the left tackle question is still the big one for Kansas City. But I think that even though Cleveland closed that gap, I think the quarterback thing, I do think Baker-Mayfield is just not enough yet to close that gap between three and four. So I like the roster in Cleveland, but I still think the AFC generally looks like it did last year.

Yeah, I'm with you. The one that I'd add to that that I think is interesting is Indianapolis. And obviously the biggest thing there is what happens with Carson Wentz and how does he do. but it seems like their whole strategy this offseason, which is pretty part for the course for them and for Chris Ballard, is to plan for the future so that they can keep their guys in house as much as possible. Because they had cap space and they're not really spending it so far, but they're going to be cutting not,

not Eagles level, but they're going to be cutting some big checks to Carson Wentz to Forrest Buckner. and then they have to figure out what they'll do with Quentin Nelson, Braden Smith, Darius Leonard. And it seems as though they are setting themselves up to be able to keep those guys around and to not have the salary stress from those, not all homegrown, but those players that they already know and love. Yeah. And it contributes to that. kind of status quo thing with the asterisk of, okay, how does the quarterback play? But you have some of these smart teams who prioritize, okay, let's just keep our guys. And some of that's

this year, some of that's planning for the future so that you can do that when the salaries actually do get bigger. You need to extend. You need to do a second contract, whatever it is. But I agree with you that there's a lot of that in the AFC. And I think Indies been interesting as far as that goes. I think that with the draft and And the way, so first of all, because for agency in the draft, there aren't a lot of opportunities for teams to get into the elite of the elite this year.

And what I mean by that is you look at a team like Denver who are making some good moves this year. And I really like their new GM. And I really like their roster in some parts of it. But there's no plan for them. There's no plan for them. They were rumored to be a Deshaun Watson destination, but they're picking up.

9th in a in a four quarterback draft and unless they go with mac jones by the way mac jones might be off the board by nine we don't know they're running out drew lock and so that's why i think that this this whole offseason was always going to favor the the top teams because there are not no good team is going to get an elite young rookie quarterback um there weren't there wasn't a free agent out there could could change a franchise so and there never is because they're franchise tag um but this whole thing is set up for the good team to stay good. Sure. Well,

another piece of evidence to that is my last point, which is that a little bit similar to the quarterbacks thing that we talked about, the wide receiver market just did not pan out in the way that people anticipated it too. So Kenny Holliday got a lot of money. But then you have guys like Will Fuller, J. Green, Magnol Sanders, Keel and Cole, Tyrell Williams, all taking

one-year deals. And in some cases, pretty team-friendly one-year deals. And I wonder if that is in, I mean, I think it's a combination of factors, right? Part of it is you have who could have been the top domino, Alan Robinson, getting tagged and staying put in Chicago.

But then you may also have a lot of these guys preferring to, you know, like think about juju, comfortable where he is, probably hoping to have a good year and then be able to go back at it when there's more money to go around. It also might say something about the position and about the proverbial. It's less about who your top guy is, but you want to build a basketball team. Yep. And altogether, because this wasn't a free agency period where there were no positions that

seemed to do pretty well. Like offensive linemen in a lot of cases were coveted guys and had decent markets. And I think it's really fascinating that in this year that we thought was going to be such a big receiver year, it just didn't move like that. Yeah. I thought that there's, I was not surprised by some of this. I was surprised by the juju thing just because I feel like so many people had written that off, written off for return.

And I was also surprised. Listen, we don't know the exact contract structure and all that stuff. I was surprised he didn't go to Kansas City because I think if you're a wide receiver right now, going to play in huge games with Patrick Mahomes, a quarterback and catching the passes and working between Tyree Kill Speed, Kelsey just, you know, destroying cover two and all that stuff, there's openings for you there. You can play the Sammy Watkins role or whatever if you're a cheap wide receiver and you can just catch a ton of balls and have a lot of success. members. Sam Wodkins had a huge catch in the Super Bowl. You can go, you can go be more famous than you actually are if you're kind of a mid-tier receiver. I'm surprised no one did that. And maybe they still will. And also, by the way, I would say because of the spending situation,

this is this free agency period might be a little longer than we think. Andy Dalton is a good example of a guy who became available last May after the draft. We might see that a little bit more. We might see guys become available or guys who were traded. I agree with you on the basketball thing. I remember Brian Billick was one who explained to me the basketball. the basketball team thing a couple of maybe a decade ago where he was basically just saying, you know, you, you, you, you, you, you, you, you want the, the basketball team is more important than, than the top guy, you know, who is your power forward, who is your small forward, who's your point guard, that kind of thing, right? And I think that that's, that's the way a lot of

offenses view it and they're not going to go out and, and spend a ton of money on, on their top guy. But I also think that there's still a lot of room for, for how much an elite receiver changes things, you know, pro football focus is done a lot of money. a research on who the most valuable positions are in sports. They have a wins above replacement metric. And quarterback is always number one, but then wide receiver is almost always number two. Like, you know, Michael Thomas was hugely valuable a few years ago,

that kind of thing. I actually don't know the numbers from last year, but remember we're talking to the horns, but you found a purple focus about this, where most of the time, wide receivers are the second most valuable players in football after the quarterback. And the problem is, is that changes.

It's all situational. But I still think you can afford to spend your money. You know, I talked about this with someone inside the league a couple of weeks ago. And the most interesting insight I got was that there might be a chance. There might be a chance that because of all of the wide receivers coming into the league, the fact that the SEC produces four or five guys who were just ready to get a thousand yards every single year at this point. Because of that, the wide receiver position has the chance to become a higher grade version of what happened to the running back position,

which is if you're the best receiver in football, you might not get that mega contract anymore. And I'm talking three, four, five years down the road. Because you can go out, you know, you look at, and listen, I'm not saying it's really easy to do this. But the fact that the Vikings traded Stefan Diggs and then got Justin Jefferson with the pick that they got, like that's an example of how many great wide receivers there are floating around.

There are not a lot of great quarterbacks. There are not a lot of great elite edge rushers. There are not a lot of great left tackles in this sport. But right now, because of the way the game is developed, there are a lot of great wide receivers. And so I think that that's the thing to watch next couple of years as far as the market goes. What happens to spending at the quarterback position

and do teams say we don't really need to get this guy at top of the market because we can get two guys just like him for less or in the draft. If you read between the lines, Bill Belichick just sneakly caught some strays. I was not trying to hit him with some strays,

but I will say, no, but I will say, I do think that the Patriots, and listen, I don't think anyone has, I only rephrase that because many people have,

but there are a lot of people who talk up the genius to Bill Belichick, and I'm one of them. I think that Bill Belichick just does everything correctly. He misjudged the receiver market. I don't know how you could look

at the Aguilar contract and not think that when you look at the other guys available. And Elson Agilore was not one of the elite receivers available this year. And they paid him a lot more than some of the other guys. So they misjudge that market. That doesn't mean that they're going to be bad this year. I think the Patriots got better. I just don't think they're good. And the two things can be true at once.

The conversation around the Patriots has been very bizarre to me because it seems to me that people, people are either saying that they didn't get any better or they are going to get good. there's a bunch of people who said that won for agency, which I don't understand. I think that they got better as a team, but they're still not a top four AFC team and not even close. Well, I thought we were going to get through this whole thing without any Patriot's stock, but there we go. Anything else? I think that's it. And you wouldn't do an hour on the page.

Just keep it going. We can attribute any accidental subtle strays caught by Bill Belichick in this last portion of this pod. We can attribute those to Ryan Clark. That's correct. That is correct. All right. So, NFL big board coming on a Friday with our buddies, Danny Hypertin, Danny Kelly. They're going to talk about outliers in the draft this week. I love that show. Nora and I have both been on the last couple weeks. Nora and I, barring any big news, will be back next week, next Tuesday.

And Nora has every single album, the Taylor Swift podcast, coming up. What's coming up on that this week? On Thursday, we're dropping our episode on Reputation, which is complicated and dark and embattled and really interesting. Is it bad? Is it bad? Is reputation a bad album? No. Reputation is an album where the lead singles for it did perhaps the greatest disservice to what is an incredible back half of the album that Taylor's ever done in her entire career. It was just a huge misstep to put that stuff out first. But it does, in hindsight,

create this really fascinating journey through this record that's, starts in this kind of petty, very strange, very campy, very putting on a character place. And then by the end of it is somewhere completely different that I happen to like a lot better. But it's a really fascinating one. It's one of my favorite episode so far. Who screwed up reputation? Was it the record label? There's a little bit of both.

But you know what? I think we, this is one thing that we've talked about. we both my co-host Nathan Hubbard and I, we give Taylor a lot of credit for, and it's one of the things that we think is so fascinating about her, really managing her own career and being one of the great brand managers as an artist of this generation or any other. And we got to say it when she steps in it and screws up. And when she put out that lead single, look what you made me do, which interpolates I'm too sexy by right said Fred. It was really strange. And people didn't get it. And even if you can kind of get it a little bit more once you hear the record top to bottom. You don't get it when that's all that you're hearing. And it was her least commercially successful album by far, which is a bummer because I think it's really special in a lot of ways. So I think that's one where she's got to go hand up. I tried something. It's admirable that an artist of that stature and that level of success would take such a big risk, a big thematic risk, a big sonic risk. I mean,

this album does not sound like other Taylor Swift songs. It is in the fray with contemporary music in a way that she often isn't. But it didn't work the way that they wanted it to. And that's what made it a really fascinating episode just to unpack all of that. Anything that made them bring in the Nationals was a good path. Okay, we didn't quite get there. I know. That's one album later.

But yes, we get to the National very soon. I looked it up. I forgot an album. I went to go see The National with Kevin O'Connor one time. And then right before the National came on, he told me he didn't really know the National and he was only there for the opening act. It was Phoebe Bridgers. I love Phoebe Bridgers.

And I love the National. You know, the National has really, Taylor has grown the place in my heart for the National. And so has Nathan, because Nathan is very much in the bag for those guys. We strangely talked about that on the golf podcast a couple weeks ago. I don't think that's knowing Nathan, I don't think that's. strange at all. Fairway Rowland. We'll give a shout out to Fairway Rowland, too. All right, Nora Pinciotti, every single album out later this week. Big Board coming out also later this week. It's been great. It's been the Renfell Show on the Ringer podcast network.