The Ringer NFL Show - Three NFL Headlines You’ll See From Now Until Week 1 | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: May 15, 2023

With the draft completely in the rearview, Sheil and Ben now look forward to the offseason and which headlines we’ll likely hear the most from now until the start of the season. When will Tom Brady appear in the booth? Which players will be in “the best shape of their life”? Which San Fran QB will be flourishing in Kyle Shanahan’s system? Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Music Composed By: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, my name is Kevin Clark. I'm the host of a new football podcast called Slow Newsday. I want to tell you about it. On Mondays, Lindsay Jones and I will recap the weekend in football that was, as well as look ahead to what's next. On Wednesday, the normal Slow Newsday, the thing you've been watching for years, current players, current coaches, current analysts talking about the football world. And on Friday, it's a wildcard. Could be some college football. Could be more pro stuff.

It's a video podcast so you can watch it on Spotify or listen to it wherever you get your podcasts. Follow on Spotify. It's slow newsday. Welcome to Extra Point Taking, Chil Kapati here with Ben Solac on the ringer NFL feed. We are betts quiet time in the NFL calendar. Obviously, I'll admit, I got a little scared last week when Solac started already making his division predictions. I thought, all right, we need to have some type of gimmick or this man's going to run out of takes by mid-July. You would never. So here's what we're going to do.

It's very simple. It's going to be a fun light show, I think. we're going to each come up with three headlines you will see between now and week one of the NFL season. So this is sort of a way to look ahead. You'll have OTAs. You'll have mini-camp. You'll have training camp in the months ahead

before we actually see any football. What are some of the storylines that we kind of have our eye on that we feel like we can predict, that we might think are nonsense, that we might think are legit. I don't know. I have no idea what direction.

Ben Solac took it better. Are these coming off the top of your head? Or did you do a little prep? I mean, it's May 15th. You know, you don't need to be, I know you were grinding the Desmond Ritter film last week, but you don't need to be doing that this week. I was looking at, I was looking at headlines from last summer

and trying to spark some inspiration, trying to think of some stuff. Oh, I like that. I don't know. Like, I don't have one that's mostly for fun. The other two are like things that are happening, I feel like. Okay, all right. Well, I will start us off because I have the extra points today. So let me start off with the first headline you will say,

see between now and week one of the NFL season. Honestly, you might have already seen this by now. I don't know. I haven't seen it yet, but it's coming soon. Sam Darnold feels at home in the Kyle Shanahan often. I mean, this is like a guarantee to happen. We don't know when Brock Purdy's going to be throwing out there at practice. We know Kyle Shanahan, obviously liked Sam Darnold a lot. I signed him here to, I think, split reps with Trey Lance until Brock Purdy. is back here. And so there is still a little bit of a Darnold hive, I feel like.

I don't know if it's the largest hive. Is there a big hive? Is there a big Darnold hive? You're more tapped into this than I am, so tell me. My overall size, no. By proportion of hive size to actual success of NFL player, the Darned hive is the most bloated hive that exists. I cannot with, with, and here's the thing.

Darnold will look at, will play some of his best ball if he plays in this offense because he's going to have unbelievable weapons and he's going to have Kyle Shanahan and everyone's going to feel justified for continuing to hang their hat on this guy

for like five, six years of NFL football at this point, which is just ludicrous. Yeah, no, there's absolutely 100% still Sam Donald Hive. In a future episode, I would love to get your like top three or top five of that list, like size of hive compared to actual level of success in the NFL.

So I'm not going to ask you, it, but you know, off the top of your head here. If you come up with any others. Oh, geez. Devin White's like, I'm just here trying to enjoy my May afternoon. And this guy's just coming on and killing me for no reason. I'll never forget that Bucs Super Bowl run. When there was like there was the Devin White hype, like Peter Schrager, shout up Peter,

was on, and Good Morning Fool, I mean like best young linebacker in the league. And like, he could not figure out which direction to go if Levanti David wasn't pointing him. It was driving me insane. All right. Well, let me, you think, you think about that. Let me finish on the, on the Darnold point here. So, Donald had a six-game sample last year. They got some people pretty, here's how it's going to go.

They're going to say, hey, look at last year, those six games, look at the numbers. Look at the EPA per play. Donald was showing signs last year. And that's step one. Then there will be, you know, then there's the, hey, four head coaches and five NFL seasons, five different offensive coordinators. You're going to hear that one as well. How about this one?

I love these, actually, generally, but they'll say, he's only 20. 26 years old. He's only six months older than Hendon Hooker. Poor Hendon Hooker's going to get thrown into that for all of these age conversations. And then the last thing is, you obviously would point to previous quarterbacks in Kyle Shanahan's system and how they overachieve. So listen, some of those things might actually be relevant, but I will be over there in the corner sitting and I will say, I will believe it when I see it with Sam Darnold over an extended period of time, because he has had, what, 1,800 pass attempts or something like that, and we have not seen it. And the other thing, Ben, I wanted to mention is, like, we can all agree.

Kyle Shanahan, fantastic, offensive coach, schemer, play caller, like, one of the best offensive coaches of this generation, no doubt about it. But I do think we have to acknowledge that, like, he's not a miracle worker. Like, players always matter. There is no coach that can just take a player who is not good enough and make him good enough. and I think we've seen that with Shanahan. He's coached the 49ers for six years. How many of those years do you think he's had a below average offense?

Let's just go based on DVOA. Six seasons as an NFL head coach. So below average, we would say 17 to 32 in DVOA. What do you think? I have no idea. Most because I was Googling Tony Pollard. I was doing Tony Pollard stats because I think Tony Pollard is another one whose hive is bigger than his production.

Oh, how dare you? Tony Pollard is a fantastic player. I may, I'll get into Tony Pollard. Always. Oh, my gosh. If only Tony Pollard got as many carries, like a fourth round running back out of Memphis, has been a career backup.

He's got juice. He's unquestionably good. Yeah, that's because it's true. He absolutely should have got more carries. What are you talking about? That is distra-to-mentioned. To mention Tony Pollard in the same breath as this same Darnold conversation is absolutely ludicrous.

Because it's whose hives are disproportionate to their on-field production. Tony Pollard is about to be an actual starter for the first. first time in his career. And yet how many football and fantasy people are like, wow, he was probably a top 10 back, Tony Pollard. It's like, well, no, we have no evidence of that in terms of like actual starting play yet. He's another disproportionate hive. He fits for that qualification. He does. That's outrageous. Go back to the drawing board there. So three seasons out of six, Kyle Shanahan has had below average offenses. And it's just the point that quarterback matters, 2017. He had C.J. Betherd, Brian Hoyer, and Jimmy G. For only a portion of the season.

2018. Nick Mullins. C.J. Bethard and Jimmy G. 2020. 2020. The same three guys. They were 19th, 27th, and 20th in DVOA those three years. So I think Kyle Shanahan sets the floor for your offense. Like, you know, 19th and 20th is not terrible. Like some teams would kill for 19th or 20th. So I think he's able to set the floor, especially with the supporting cast there. But the quarterback, ultimately is going to determine how high of a ceiling you have. And Jimmy G in some of those seasons for all his flaws, they had a very high ceiling there. So I just think at some point this summer,

we're going to hear how good Donald looks about how this is his opportunity. If he gets to play, he's going to be able to get in there and fit in how the situation is so much better than anything he's had before. And again, I think some of that to a degree will be legit, but I'm not getting sucked in. If you want to get sucked in, enjoy it, I will not be joining you unless we get to December

and there's actually evidence to go by. That's all. That's the low-hanging. I took the low-hanging fruit with the first one. Yeah. The thing with is like to the offensive success point, Darnold was drafted third overall and has never reached the caliber of play you'd hope for the third overall pick and yada, whatever.

He's definitely better than C.J. Bethard or Nick Mullins. Like if you're asking me, is he above that rub? is he above that that line, right? That prime marion of like good enough that Calaisianian can get a good offense out of him? I think unequivocally, yes. Like Nick Mullins was out there, like, playing for the Niners, and then like three years later was being traded for conditional

seventh round picks. I'm saying, C.J. Bethard got the Jags job because Urban Meyer knew he was tall and from the Big Ten. Like, I think that... I would not say unequivocally. If Darnold gets a chance to play in this offense and does not play well, where is his NFL career? Like, our team's going to look at it and say he couldn't succeed.

Yeah. So, I mean, I don't know. I would say he would still need to prove that he's unequivocally. I mean, I think he's more talented than those guys. But is he unequivocally a better player than those guys? Like, Nick Mullins, the one year. I don't want to fall down this rabbit hole, but his numbers were probably better than Sam Darnold has ever put up in like an over

eight game stretch. I don't think Mullins is better than Darnold, but that's just kind of to the point, How much will the situation matter? How much can he get out of it? If he does indeed play, I mean, there's a chance he doesn't play at all this season, although I think you and I both think he's going to see the field at some point. Yeah.

I'll stay on theme of washed early round draft, early first round draft picks up quarterbacks and their potential futures. A headline, July 24th, whatever you want, I don't know, 2023. Carson Wenz agrees to a one-year deal with Los Angeles Rams. So Carson wants to still a free agent right now. He's, I would say, the most notable free agent quarterback available. Matt Ryan, who recently agreed with CBS Sports to be an analyst, also said it wasn't a retirement post, which if it's like, Matt, are you going to, you're going to do a pregame show and suit up?

Yeah. When he tweeted, he was like, there's not a retirement post with a winky emoji. And it's like, Matt, it kind of feels like a retirement post. You're in a suit. Like, this is kind of his ballgame. at this point. Obviously, Tom and Brady, 45 years old, still a free agent, theoretically retired. I know you and I very much disagree on how likely it is he plays again. But I think that ownership thing spooked me a little bit with Brady. Like if that's in play, then I think it

probably... Oh yeah, don't worry. No, I have a Brady headline coming up. I'm a, I, that's my window to get a Brady headline in here, and I will. So I think Wentz is the most notable free agent quarterback left. There was a report from Jeremy Fowler of ESPN. that Wentz has received interest from teams, that he's open to taking starter or backup roles, which just say you're open to taking a backup role. Everyone's open to taking a starting role, brother. I'm open to a backup role.

I'm also open to a starter role. Like, imagine something like, just backup roles. Just Brian Hoyer, Case Keenham, and Chase Daniels being like, do not bring me in there as QB1, only QB2. Anyway, so you've seen a couple of teams with their names, a couple different team names bounced around. I think the one that absolutely makes the most sense is Los Angeles Rams. The Rams are probably not going to be very good this year.

And doing a quasi-quarterback reclamation project is not the worst idea. They traded for Baker-Mayfield, or not traded for, excuse me. They got Baker-Mayfield as a free agent last year. With some of that theory in mind, they clearly feel sketchy about Matthew Stafford's arm injury and the likelihood that he's able to continue to the caliber of play he had during the Super Bowl. season. Their previous backups were John Walford and Brett Perkins, Bryce Perkins, excuse me, both of whom have now left. They drafted Stets and Bennett in the fourth round of this past draft, something that they were like really stoked about. And we

were all kind of like, all right, are you sure? Sounds good. Okay. But to backup, Matthew Stafford, this is a team that's future is multiple years down the road, right? I mean, they are rebuilding and retooling a roster that kind of fell to pieces after the Super Bowl run. So why not bring in one second overall pick Carson Wentz with a ton of starting experience Another big bodied guy who could hang around in the pocket strong arm make a lot of throws He plays similarly to Stafford does and if you're gonna worry about Stafford's health long term I don't think that Wentz we've seen enough from Wentz to know that he's not a very Good starting quarterback in the NFL I don't think that you watch him as Sean McVey and go

Oh, I can't make something out of that you know what I'm saying? It's kind of the same thing with the Kyle Shanean thing we look at Sam Donald you go I can kind of make something out of that. Like, you will not catch me in a full-throverted defense of Carson-Wenz at all. I'm an Eagles fan. I live through it. I know what the player is like. But there are enough plus tier physical tools there that an offensive designer like Sean McVeigh is going to believe, oh, I can bring this guy in and I can cover up his weaknesses, right? I can hide his warts, and I can get functional offense out of this guy. If the Rams end up in a spot where Stafford can't play for any part of the 2023 season, I don't think they want to be living out there

with Stets and Bennett as the starter. I think it's a lot of it. I think it's it's going to be important to them to have some modicum of offensive success at the quarterback position. I think that Sean McVeigh is not do well with losing. I think Sean McVeat is not do well with young players. I think you'd much rather prefer to have a veteran like Carson Wenz to just kind of bridge this thing over

as they get to the new era of Rams offensive football. Garso Wenz, I think, one-year deal with the Rams. Starter or backup roll, thinking like a little 7.5 million with some escalators, right, with some incentives per game bonus. That high, no, he's not getting 7.5 million at this. Oh, no, excuse me.

He hasn't been signed. It's May. excuse me, excuse me, max 7.5 with escalators with the artists. Yeah,

yeah, yeah. That's what I meant by yeah, yeah. He's gonna get maybe up to 7.5 he's like starting the whole second half of the year. Yeah, yeah.

But Carson Wentz, I think if there's a good landing spot for him, and again, for all of his issues, I think there should be. I think he is good enough to be on a roster

and be a backup. I think the Rams took a lot of sense. Yeah, I mean, just comparing Wentz to Darnold, like Wentz has had multiple seasons of better performance

than Damn Darnold Darnold has had. You know, there's no doubt about it. I mean, I find Wentz to be a very annoying player to watch because he's never worked or corrected on any of his flaws. And it's like the same, you know, he's going to miss the layups. He's going to, you know, think that he's Michael Vic in his prime trying to spin out of some of these sacks and then take a monstrous hit. He's going to make boneheaded decisions, stuff about relating with teammates, all of that. So there's a lot there on the negative side.

But you're right. If we're talking about a backup, and I think it's worth saying like, last year seemed to really take a lot out of Sean McFa. I mean, Jordan Rodriguez, good, the athletic has done great reporting on this. But like that, you know, he was really considering whether he wanted to continue to coach because of what a disaster that was. And in the past, McVeigh has been a coach who's been able to get, do more with less on offense. Like his, you know, those offenses with Jared Goff were very good. I mean, he was top eight, top ten offenses without having kind of a star caliber quarterback, really any of those seasons. Now, last year, it all fell apart. Their injuries.

on the offensive line, their lack of depth, all those things. But I would agree, I don't, it feels like they're playing for 2024 at the same time. Like, you know, they'll kind of drop hints. Like, yeah, we think we have a shot to make the playoffs. Like, I don't think they go into this season thinking, like, our offense is going to stink again. Like, their defense is like, there's nobody on the defense. If you look at their depth chart, it's kind of wild to look at. But offensively, could you kind of talk yourself into, well, if Stafford plays, you know,

11 games. And like you said, if Wence goes in there for five. Cooper Cup stays healthy and you still have McVeigh and the offensive line is a little bit healthier. Like, you could talk to that, talk to yourselves into them being kind of competitive on the offensive side of the ball. So yeah, I'm with you. Unless they think, hey, that's invented.

We've already seen enough here in the spring. We're going to be comfortable with him as the backup. If that's not the case, then I think that signing would make a lot of sense. Yeah. I very much think that the Rams are going to be more competitive this year than we think. I'm not like taking the over on the wind total. I've looked at the roster. I don't love it.

It's only like six and a half or something though. I mean... Right. I just think, yeah, I think that... Like you brought up Jordan Rodriguez reporting, I think that losing took the absolute spirit out of Sean McVeigh. I think it took the life out of him. I think that he was not accustomed to having that experience,

that it was embarrassing for him, that it was devastating for him. And I think that they're going to take primary steps to get a younger roster and rebuild the roster and develop young players. They already started this last season. The roster is generally very young, you know what I'm saying? To kind of, like, orient towards the future. But for every step they take in that direction,

they're going to allow Sean to take a smaller, but still, you know, not equivalent, just, you know, another step to, like, making sure it's not a terrible, terrible team this year. And, like, Carson Wentz to me is, like, a perfect example of that. Where it's going to be like, all right, like, we're going to be young, we're not going to be great on offense, whatever, whatever. But, like, if Stafford gets hurt, like, I'm not playing Stets and Bennett in year one.

I can't. I don't want to do that as Sean McPie. I can't do that. I need to like have like an actual functional offense out there. They're kind of an interesting team to keep an eye on how like the first seven, eight weeks of the season goes. Because if they just stink and are out of it, are they just saying, all right, you know, Aaron Donald Cooper Cup. Let's just go full moving into the future. Or if they're competitive enough, then I think they'll definitely talk themselves into the value of making a playoff run. All right, let's take a quick break. I'll come back with my second headline. All right, we are back on extra point taken on the ringer NFL feed shield Capadia with Ben Solac. My second headline that you're going to see in the months ahead before week one. I like how you put the date on it. I like that little gimmick. I'll say August 6th, Zach Wilson, Colin, just trying to be a sponge out here. I don't think JetSpan is going to be a sponge out here.

It's critical to be a sponge out here. You gotta always make sure you're being a sponge out here. I don't think Jets fans are going to fall for this one. I think they've watched Wilson and they've seen. He's been the worst quarterback in the NFL, not hyperbole, like EPA per play, last two seasons, 35th out of 35 quarterbacks. So they've watched that week in and week out. But I do think, I don't know where it'll come from, but somewhere you'll see the narrative that,

hey, Aaron Rogers, in addition to helping the Jets win this year and maybe next year, this guy's going to help resurrect Zach Wilson's career. They already have a relationship. Wilson's going to be able to take a step back. He won't be in the spotlight. He'll learn behind the scenes what it takes to be a pro, study habits, mechanics, game planning, all these things. And, you know, Robert Salo come out. Hey, we haven't given up on Zach Wilson. Far from it. I mean, we think this is going to be the best thing for his career. I'm here to tell you all of that is absolutely Garbonzo Beans. This is a mistake we see in the NFL year in and year out. Teams do it with coaches a lot. They're just like, oh, Matt Patricia hung out with Bill Belichick. See, Bill Belichick just grabbed that greatness on his sleeve. He rubbed it on Matt Patricia's shoulder. And now Matt Patricia's going to come out and he's going to have some of that and be good.

You see this year in and year out. It is kind of baffling to me some of the decisions NFL teams make based on this. Greatness doesn't just rub off from one person to the next year. and Aaron Rogers has started 244 games in his career. Like the stuff he's going to be working on and the nuances he's going to be working on are very different. And then Zach Wilson, who needs to sort of learn just the basics of not being the worst quarterback in the league and what that's going to take. And so, you know, if it happens, I'll admit I'm wrong if three years from now, Zach Wilson is a good quarterback. And he's saying, you know what, those two years with Aaron Rogers were great for me.

I don't think that that's going to happen. Now, Rogers turns 40 in December. We have a history of quarterbacks, really not starting a lot of games at this age. There's a real chance Zach Wilson's going to have to play this year. I know that's like your worst nightmare if you're a Jets fan and you're listening to this. I don't think that's going to go well unless they signed Tim Boyle, unless Tim Boyle jumps him for the backup spot. But I think if we see Zach Wilson this year, even if it's late in the season,

you're not going to see a different player that has been helped by, Aaron Rogers. But we will see that headline. If greatness doesn't rub off, man, that's a, what am I doing on this pod? So I'm trying to steal some of the Chukapagia magic. I was trying to get it just by adjacency. You tell me that's not how it goes? Well, this is virtual. I mean, maybe if we did live shows at like Spotify and I could do the thing where I take this off my shoulder and just rub it on your shoulder then maybe, but maybe that's an experiment for this summer some of the preseason pods. Yeah.

In the same way that we, the first two people that we talked about were Sam Donald and Carson Went to it's appropriate to the third person is Zach Wilson. When you're a top five pick of quarterback, it doesn't matter how bad you are in what circumstances you were bad for how many years. They're still going to write the headlines about you, right? There's still going to be that visibility on you, right? I can't remember if I brought up on this pod or a different pod,

but the first thing my mom texted me, big Jetsman, once the Rogers trade came through was, what does this mean they're doing with Zach? what does it mean for Zach? I was like, what do you mean what it means for Zach? He's terrible. And she was like, were they going to trade him? They're going to cut him? I was like, no, I'd probably keep him.

But like, how is this what you're thinking about right now? Just that reminder that like whenever a fan base, a franchise gets that top, I figure quarterback, there's so much visibility on that player. So independent of how he behaves, independent of how Rogers behaves, independent of what Zach Wilson looks like during camp, at some point, some reporter's going to go up to Zach Wilson and be like, what's it like? And Zach's going to be like, I'm just trying to be a sponge out here. because you just have to do it.

Once you're the second overall pick, you have to have these conversations, especially once you're not good as the second overall pick, you have to play these roles and you have to have these conversations. But I agree. I think if there is a circumstance that is not built

to foster, you know, mentorship from QB1 to QB2, it is the mercenary 40-year-old Aaron Rogers arriving to the playoff desperate New York Jets to Shepard, noted locker room, not the biggest fan,

QB2, Zach Wilson. That just does not ring to me as like, and so much wisdom will be imparted from one down to the other. It does not seem to be the circumstance to me. Yeah, I would agree. I think that's right there. All right. What do you have for your second headline?

Okay, this is out. I'm changing my whole order here because I want to go off of the one that you did with the sponge thing. Month of August. Okay. The following players, will be in the best shape of their life. Okay.

Jaylon Ramsey. Jaylon Ramsey, obviously. Mackay's a good one. We're gonna get Mikey down there from the bottom. We're already seeing Macai Beckett's the shape of his life. Got the Instagram photos looking slim? Here's a good one for that. I'm rooting for him actually after that injury last year.

Hopefully he does do help. All right, go ahead. Orlando Brown's going to be in the best shape of his life. You can just see it out of Cincinnati, right? Just a little Orlando Brown is, no, you can see it like he's lighter than he's ever been. He looks slim. You have a little Trey Hendrickson quote in there.

his hands are so powerful. It's crazy when you get hit by him versus somebody else. I think about Hederson's played against him like eight times in the last three years. But you get a little bit of that. You get the offensive line coach to bring up something about his dad. Best shape of his life.

Derek Carr is going to be in the best shape of his life. Little Pete Carmichael quotes. Sometimes when he spins it, it reminds him of how Breeze spins it. Sounds like a little bit like, oh, the command over the offense. He figured it out in days. He's calling shots.

He's managing the huddle. He's adjusting on the fly. You know you're going to get a Derek Carr. All he reminds us of Breeze, a little teaser in August. Get one of those. I had Sam Donald down. We already talked about Sam. Tuotung of Iloa is going to be in the best shape of his life.

It looks bigger. He's added on some muscle. This is going to be something about judo. He's going to say he's done more in this off season to be sure he doesn't get injured than in any off season before. That's what we're going to get on that from Tua for sure. Best shape of his life, Tua, no question. And last but not least, this will be the big one, in my opinion.

You know, who's in the best shape of his life shield? Lamar Jackson. Oh, remember when he came into camp last year with some muscle added? Remember he came in a little bit thicker last year? Oh, Lamar, he's put on a little bit more weight. You can tell he loves it here in Baltimore. He's so happy. He's joking around with his teammates.

Todd Monkin. Oh, he loves Tom Monkin to throw in the football more. Odell Beckham Jr., Zay Flowers. Oh, they look so great. On the fly, Rashad Bateman's back. and Lamar just, he just seems like a different quarterback, seems like a different player. You got to put all the mess behind you.

You got to put all the like, didn't get an extension, didn't sign the tag, did he really have that bad of a knee injury? Like this was a nasty situation. So you got to tie it up with a bow and send it back. So how do you do that? Oh, Lamar just like he looks like the best version of himself. He's ever looked like, oh, oh, oh,

Lamar Jackson is so happy to be in Baltimore. Those are going to be your best shape of their life, All-Stars when we get to the summer. I was trying to scroll down just, I'm looking at like a standings page seeing if there was anyone to add because I feel like usually, I'm trying to think what, usually running back is a big, like best shape of my life, right? Type, you know, type category. Like when you said the quarterback, so like Derek Carr, I don't know about that one. You moved to New Orleans? I mean, you don't go to New Orleans and get in better shit.

All right, all right. You think they're just going to be some type of art. Right. But Derek Carr, like, like, looks like he, like, loves football more than he ever has sort of a situation. Yes. I had some more, like, like, athletes. They had, like, a Stefan Gilmore. Looks like he's, like, five years younger with the Cowboys, right? I have, like, a Darren Waller. That's a good one. I like that one. Yeah. Darren looks like he's in the best shape of his life.

You get some of those. The running back one is tricky because, like, the most significant running back movement this year was like Miles Sanders. If a Carolina Beatwriter writes Miles Sanders in the best shape of his life, is the needle moving? I don't think the needle's moving. It's Miles Sanders. I mean? Yeah, no, I think that's a good one. Orlando Brown, I don't really want him in the best shape of his life. Like, just, you know, you are a big man. Don't be, you know, start losing weight and then getting overpower. We're excited for Mackay, just not for Orlando Brown. Well, Mackay Beckton had those pre-draft, like, what was he doing? Like, jumping over cars or something? There were some clip they showed during the draft where I was like, holy cow, that guy's going to be the best

left tackle in the NFL. How did he do that? Lamar is, I think, your best one. Because I think Lamar, after they signed him, now they totally shift into like a different PR mode of like, all right, that's settled. Let's completely change the narrative. Let's make everyone forget about what happened from whatever November until April there. And so I think that is a good one. I am very excited to read all the Raven stories coming out of camp. Like, how does it look in the Todd Munkin offense? How's he looking with Odell Beckham Jr. and Rashad Bateman and Zay Flowers again?

you know, like one-on-ones against Marlon Humphrey. Like, that's actually, I think, might be the most exciting camp because they do, you know, they'll be competitive there. And you have some fun things that are actually different to keep an eye on. So I think those are good ones. I'm trying to think if there's any, like, who is? Is there anyone else over 30?

Like, sometimes that's the thing, like a really great player who's 30 or over. Like, that's why I think Gilmore was a good one for you. You know, it might be like, wow, this guy looks as good as he's ever looked before. I mean, like, Calais Campbell in Atlanta, but even then, like, I don't know if you can sell me on Callas Campbell looking like he's in the best shape of his life. You can't get that ball over the line. You are not going to be in the best shape of your life. Once you hit it, once you get past, like, I would say, let's say like 32, 33, you can no longer

say that. And you can no longer suspend my disbelief. You are not in the best shape of your life. No, absolutely not. Is Darius Smith? Those are the Browns now? Not a bad one. Not a bad one.

Zedarius Smith could be. What about like a David Montgomery signed a big contract. Lions are like, screw you. We love running backs and he's in the best shape of his life. Now what do you have to say to us? Can you write David Montgomery's in the best shape of his life when the team took Jamir Gibbs with the 12th overall pick? It's tough.

He's still me? I was trying to think about if I was trying to think about Zeke land somewhere, right? Zeke, you know, gets, gets chargers pick up Zeke. He's taking some reps and training camp. I'm like, oh, Zieg looks slim, Zique looks quick. I can see that one, I think, but you had to get Zik on a team first

before he can look like he's in the best shape of his life. Producer Cliff says, Seekwan, if he signs a long-term deal. I think that could be a good one. Although he always kind of looks like he's in great shape. Like shape has not been the issue. But, yeah, if he gets a big deal, maybe, he's thrown out Jamal Williams.

Yeah, Jamal Williams certainly is, you know, he's already not happy about the offer Detroit gave him now with the stain, so that could be a good one too. All right, let's take one more break. We'll come back with our final headlines that you're going to see this summer. All right, we are back on extra point taken. I feel like I went kind of negative with my first two, so I'm going to go with a positive for my third one.

DJ Moore turning heads at Bears camp. I'm actually going to buy this one. I think DJ Moore has been underrated. Last four years, six wide receivers. with more receiving yards than DJ Moore. Devante Adams, Defon Diggs, Ireek Hill, Cooper Cup, Justin Jefferson, AJ Brown.

All considered like elite wide receivers. I think let's see. Adams, Diggs, Hill, Brown, all four guys traded for a first round pick and something else. And then you have Jefferson and Cup, who everyone can acknowledge that they are great players. DJ Moore did that with the following quarterbacks,

Darnold. Bridgewater, Kyle Allen, PJ Walker, what do we, Cam Newton version 3.0, Baker Mayfield, and Will Greer. I mean, like, that's impressive. Yeah, if you can still put up those numbers with that group of quarterbacks, you're impressive. DJ Moore's only 26 years old. Man, I wanted to throw in another Hendon Hooker there. I'm not even going to look up. DJ Moore's younger than Hendon Hooker. I don't fact check me on that. I don't know if it's true, but listen, that's going to be a running theme on the show. I'll just tell you now.

I don't know how good Justin Fields is going to be, but I absolutely see the upside. I know you're more convinced than I am that he's going to be able to fix some of the flaws and be a monster. But I was kind of just like casually looking at, you know, that standings page and being like, who's this year sort of jail and hurts?

You know, like who's the guy, or even you could say Trevor Lawrence. Like, who's the guy who you feel like is going to make a big leap this year. And there are some things working in field favor, The supporting cast is absolutely better. DJ Moore is going to help him a lot. They have the fifth easiest schedule in the NFL if you go by projected win totals in Vegas.

And so I think it feels as a good season. And he doesn't necessarily need to make that monster relief. But if he just has a solid season, I think DJ Moore is in store to just kind of be a monster and like a real fan favorite for Chicago, which that fan base, they're just kind of starving for something. and I feel like to look at that trade and be like, did we get enough? Did we make the right decision? And they kind of are going to need that hype in August. And I actually think he's going to live up to it. So I think DJ Moore, the hype's going to build up and I think he's going to have a great season. DJ Moore was born April 14, 1997, okay, a month after May, just celebrated as 26th.

Hendon Hooker, born January 13th, 1998. There's a nine months difference between DJ Moore, who's already on his second contract. and Hennon Hooker, who has not taken a snap of NFL football. Wait, so I can't say Ben Solac is younger than Hennon Hooker? That's disappointing. No, I'm 10 months older than Hennon Hooker is. We might have to do some, I'm going to call Mama Solac. We might have to doctor a birth certificate just so I can get this joke off during the season.

Fake license. I don't have it before. I'd like it. This was the first draft where there wasn't a significant player who was older than me. There was still the punters and specialists, but they don't count. hunters are always like 30 that's not real um this is the first draft there wasn't like some random like small school you know juco transfer fifth year whatever guy who is older than me was very disappointing made me feel so old shield uh yeah more is a more is not just an excellent

candidate for looking like he's going to be all that and like getting all the training camp hype because he's just flat good it's also because they traded all that volume for him they traded all that capital for him, he's going to get that hype no matter what, you know what I'm saying? Even if DJ Moore doesn't look good, you're going to be as the Bears PR-wise trying to be like, oh, we're so excited about DJ Moore, you know what I'm saying? Like you invested that much in him. He's going to get a positive press run no matter what. And then on top of that, Chicago hasn't seen good wide receiver play in a hot second, right?

I mean, like Alan Robinson of a few years ago, maybe. Like, Mooney is fine, but I'm not going to say Mooney's out here like being like a needle mover monster sort of a player. And so DJ Moore is just like a talent at wide receiver that they haven't had there in the last few years in a league that's rife with wide receiver talent, right? In the division where they're playing Justin Jefferson, recently Devante Adams, like, they just have not seen it in a bear's uniform in a bit. And so if Moore is just what he's billed as, he's going to, I think, be a guy that gets like, right, a ton of the summer run. But if he's better, if he's, if Justin Fields helps elevate him, if the running aspect of the offenseups elevate him, if they improve quarterback play elevates him, then yeah, he's a rocket chip. more is a tricky player for me because I think he's a good wide receiver one and that doesn't sound like a bad thing at all but we're in this era where like every playoff team has like one of the top 10 best receivers in the league and I'm not sure more is that but for the August into September and October train DJ Moore to the moon we'll kind of see what it looks like once we start to get push comes to shove and we start to get like really really elite players but for that that early stretch yeah more is in a quiet free agent season more is about as exciting as a transplant as you'll find to this.

year in terms of non-quarterbacks or on new teams. He's an exciting one. Where are you with the Bears offense overall? Because you and I, I think, did a podcast after they made the trade. And I was a little like, man, I don't know, I might have tried to move fields and just taken like Bryce Young or something. You have been more in on fields. And we talked about how, well, now you have the assets to build around field. And so they had Nate Davis, offensive lineman. They draft, what's his name? The Tennessee, Darnell Wright, to play tackle. DJ Moore

they had, they made the Chase Claypool move last year for whatever's that worth. Do you look at it and say, all right, there's enough around fields

where you should at least you know, like a baseline of competency around fields where if he is the guy I think he is, he is going to make that leap or are you kind of

or are you more like, man, I'm a little underwhelmed that they had all these assets and this is kind of all they did around him. Where do you land on that conversation? Three things are true.

One, the offense is better than it was, supporting cast-wise, and even like design-wise, if we go back to the Matt Nagy era when they were just one of like curls, being like, why isn't our rookie quarterback reading this out the way we need him to? And it's like, well, because he's a rookie quarterback and this is curls. Like, what are we talking about? So, one, the offense is absolutely better than it was. There's still, like, degrees of uncertainty, right? Like, you're putting a lot of eggs in baskets of guys like Darnell Wright and guys like Chase Claypool, who you haven't seen do productive things in an NFL uniform slash a bear's

uniform. You know what I'm saying? So it's, it's, There's still degrees of uncertainty, but I think the offense is better for sure. So one, that's true. Two, it is hugely, massively important. It cannot go overstated the value of bringing a offense from like bottom of the barrel to like average, right? It's easy to say, okay, like the bear's receiving core is better, but it's not like top 10. And the bear's offensive line is better, but it's not like top 10. There's still a ceiling on this offense.

That's absolutely true. but it is a enormous difference for the development of Justin Fields and for the front office's ability to evaluate Justin Fields to just take the supporting cast from an active detriment that limits our ability to play football up to fun. Like that leap is a hugely important leap for the Bears even if it doesn't mean like, okay, they end up eight and nine and they miss the playoffs.

It doesn't look like anything when you go look at the team encyclopedia page on Pro Football Reference 20 years from now. Okay, but it's, still really matters in terms of like figuring out what Justin Fields is, figuring out who your cornerstone players are on offense, figuring out what sort of system you want to run. Like being functional everywhere is a big deal. So one, they got a lot better. Two, being functional everywhere is really, really, really, really important. Three, it's still not that good. And that, that's step two. You know what I'm saying? Step two is going to be saying, okay, we have future picks and we have Justin

Fields, and I think that they're going to be a team that wants to commit to their quarterback long term, what's going to be kind of the um the improvements there like what's going to be that second stage where you go from being okay functional to now like well how are we really really really going to build this thing out like i would not be surprised at all if even after the dj more trade we're talking about the bears 2024 off season going this team is a candidate to draft the receiver top five top 10 this team is a candidate to go trade for a huge receiver trade for a big playmaker right

like i would not be surprised if this step into functionality then exposes to them okay if we want to get actually good, we have to take a second big swing. Like, more is not enough. We have to continue gearing up for this offense in this league. And so good that it's better, good that it's functional. I don't want to get over our skis and be like, you know, like, after the DJ Moore trade, you saw like the tweets of like, who's stopping this offense? And it's like, you know, can I say I hate every one of those tweets?

And they're awful. Exactly. It's like a lot of people are stopping that offense, man. Yeah, they're always wrong. Yeah. Unless it's just Patrick Mahomes and five random people, then like that tweet's probably going to be incorrected. Like that one, it really doesn't matter who else is.

I would agree with you, I think. And even if you look at it last year, I was looking this up for my piece on the ringer last week. Their offense when Justin Fields was on the field was 20th in EPA per play last year, which is like, you know, like probably better than most people would think. You know, he had flashes, he had down moments, but like, and it didn't always look like, man, it was like, can you do this every week where he's just making these ridiculous, you know, 70-yard plays,

whether with his legs or buying time and finding a guy open for a touchdown. But 20th in EPA per play is not bad. And now if you're saying, all right, the supporting cast, like you mentioned, it has leveled up, even if it's not a great supporting cast, then you should be able to get to an above average offense. So I'm sure they'd probably like to have that Chase Claypool trade back. I think everyone, a lot of people thought that at the time, like, what are you doing here? And then it turns into the 30-second overall pick. And I'm someone who, who like, you know, in the right spot, likes Claypool probably more than most. But even I was like, ooh, I don't think I would have done that.

So they need to find a way to make sure he's a part of it this year as well. We'll see what happens with Chicago. All right. What do you have for your third headline for the summer? All right. Headline June 23rd, 2023. Tom Brady will not be appearing on Fox broadcasts in the year 2020. So there was all the reporting earlier this week that Tom Brady is trying to get a minority ownership stake in the Raiders, which, yeah, that's cool.

I get it. Like, you tried to get a minority ownership stake in the Dolphins in a manner that was not acceptable by League standards and led to the Dolphins losing their first round pick. And also, you didn't even end up Miami Dolphin. The Raiders just moved to Las Vegas. The league is investing a lot in their Las Vegas environment and new state. and fan experience and sports books and gambling. The Super Bowl is coming up in Vegas in 2024. But the Davis family is one of the more cash poor ownership groups,

owners in the entire league. And so getting Tom Brady and getting his money in and adding minority owners is a good move for them. And so this news comes out. This lease comes out. And then immediately there's a big push of tweets that's like, and Fox has ordained this deal as acceptable. Fox has said they are totally okay.

with Tom Brady being the minority owner of the Raiders and also potentially calling Raiders games. Okay. One. No way, right? You can't, that's not, you can say you're okay with it as much as you want. There's no way that works, right?

But you can't just do that. That's insane. Yeah, it would, yeah, I mean, it sounded like, yeah, like whatever their rules are, that they were like allowed within the rules, but I'm with you. I don't know how you could put him on a Raiders game if he is a minority owner of the Raiders. But you said 2023.

They've already announced that he's not going to call games. Right. Okay. All right. So, okay. Yeah. So you have Brady. Right.

So they say like, oh, like the broadcast rules are only, only limit somebody if they have a clear, like, ability to affect broadcast right negotiations. And if Brady was a commentary, who wouldn't, yeah, yeah, whatever. I don't think you can let him play Raiders games. as you brought up, right, there's already been the announcement that they've pushed back to do. Like, actually, when we reported this deal and we were like, you know, we could Brady is going to retire and are going to be on Fox, you report is 2023. Actually, it was never 2023. It was always going to be 2024.

We were always going to let Tom Brady have a year off. And it's like, are you sure? Because the last time Tom Brady had a week and a half off, he rejoined the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Okay? And so I don't know if I'm signing that deal as Fox. my thing is like, no, you're starting immediately because when you have time to think, you start trying to buy the Raiders.

So we can't just be letting you, but we want you to broadcast for us. We can't actually let you have time to think about other things to do. So this fact that Brady is interested in buying the Raiders, after previously being interested in somehow being part owner of the Dolphins, retiring from the Buccaneers and then leaving the Buccaneers, going back to the Buccaneers,

it makes it extremely evident to me that broadcasting does not wet this man's whistle enough for his involvement in football. It just doesn't. Like, I think it's a great fallback for him, but he already has pushed the fallback back back a year, which implies to me that he doesn't want to do it at all, right? I think that there is, like, I would put the percent chance that Brady calls a game for Fox at, like, 30 percent. You know what I'm saying?

Like, I don't think that, I'm just off like tea leave reading here. I don't see how this interests him. him enough relative to the big swings that he'd like to take in terms of like owning teams and being involved with football from the actual like team perspective. The other thing that I think matters here is that if Brady calls games for Fox, what's you going to do? You're going to hop in the booth with Kevin Burckhardt and be like, that was a good run. Like, no, because Payton gets his own show named after him with his brother where they do

goofball shenanigans and have on celebrity guests. You can't tell me Brady watches Manning and Eli, Payton and Eli on ESPN, and then goes, yeah, I'll do a traditional broadcast. No, he's going to want to do a broadcast that is as centered around him as the Manning cast is centered around the Mannings. I don't think he can do that as well as Payton does because Payton is cool and funny and Tom is not as much. Hey, hey, don't undersell Eli. Eli is fantastic on those. I mean, Eli is, is a funny dude and entertaining. Every single person always is like, man, Eli is so good

on this show. No, he isn't. Okay? He's just like... Oh my God, he 100% is. No, no, okay. He's good. He's good. Right. He's good in the sense that he's just like awkward and being himself. Right? He's not like good from like a like a TV effort perspective, which is fine, which is fine.

I just people are like, oh like, Eli does such a great job. Eli has no idea what he's doing. He's just hanging out with his brother and doesn't care what anybody thinks about him because he's made a bajillion dollars of won two Super Bowls. That's the point of their setup. All right. Anyway, sorry. I don't think Brady's ever going to broadcast for Fox TVH. I definitely don't think he's going to be on Fox in 2023 at all. I don't think he's going to be on the desk. I don't think he's going to be in the booth. I don't think he's going to make special Super Bowl appearances. I think Fox is going to continue to talk about this deal as much as possible

and reference it and get it in the public eye and just put the words Brady next to the word Fox as much as conceivably possible. And I think Brady ends up you know, owning the XFL in 2024 or something. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't, I don't see this ever come to fruition. And even like the plugged-in media people, like our own, uh, very own Brian Curtis and then Andrew Marchand of the New York Post. Like, I think they've like, strongly hinted that it's kind of under 50% that he would ever broadcast a game for Fox. So, you know, I don't even think you're probably going out on a limb there. Once it was like, he's not going to do it in 2023, you know, do it in 2024. It was like, wait, what? What's he doing in 2023? In terms of the,

you know, the Manning setup and his setup, I don't know, 10 years, $375 million. You can, you know, you can probably accept having to go to, you know, how hard it is to fly on a private jet to a game, call a game, and then fly on a private jet back. He can figure it out. But I'm sort of with you, like, what we know about Brady is that, like, football is kind of all he's known. for a long time and he's just like his whole that's been his whole life he's sacrificed stuff in his personal life maybe you know bad decisions if you're you know some some people would look at man how why did you do that uh to come back and play more one more year with the bucks like none of the other stuff has really been that successful it seems like and we know him has like a maniacal competitor

so i wonder what would scratch that is like would it be maybe it's not ownership maybe like would he want to be, would he want to be a GM? What do you think? Hey, I can run a team. I've been around locker rooms. I know what players work. I know Belichick, well, like, I can build the team. You know, I'm not putting the physical toll on my body, but I'm still kind of putting some hours in and being part, because he obviously wants to still be part of the game. You would assume with the broadcasting stuff. I don't know. Maybe that would scratch his itch a little bit more. I can't see like coaching really being in his future. I don't know. It's too like normal for him. Like a bunch of players become.

You know what I'm saying? Which like, okay, like he, a bunch of players become broadcasters. Yeah, that's why I think he's actively trying not to be a broadcaster. This guy tried to be the first owner of a team while playing for the team guy. I don't know what you call that technically. But like, Brady is one of one in the NFL halls in terms of of postseason success, in terms of Super Bowl victories, in terms of championships.

He is the winner of all winners. I don't think he wants, I don't think he can, compute leaving football, but I also don't think he wants to just go and do what all the other ex-players do because all the other ex-players didn't win eight Lombardis, seven Lombardy's. However many Lombardies he won,

I don't care to know the exact number. So to me, like, I would be surprised if he does something like, let's go coach. You know what I'm saying? I think he's more likely to, like, become the athletic director of Michigan. You know what I'm saying?

It's like, something that's like, out of your mind weird. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. to him, that will represent, like, because I'm Tom Brady and I do something different than everybody else does, and I do it better than everybody else does. Maybe. We shall see.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what would make him happy and bring him fulfillment. I mean, you hear it from athletes all the time when they retire. What do you do to kind of scratch that itch? And he's like that to the nth degree, like the most extreme example of that storyline. So we'll see what he does this offseason. Keep an eye on that sort of. transaction with the Raiders, what it means for future, all those things.

All right. My extra point taken, I'm taking a layup here, Benjamin, and a feel-good story. I'm just saying congratulations to Todd Bowles. I read this story this morning. I don't know if you saw this story. I read it from Jenna Lane of ESPN. Todd Bowles got his college degree from Mount St. Mary's Saturday at the age of 59. 37 years after he left Temple University for the NFL.

as an undrafted free agent. He got, I think, an eight-year playing career. Then he got right into coaching afterwards. I think he started at Moorehouse and then worked his way up. And obviously, is right now on his second head coaching job. His mom, according to this story, again, on ESPN.com by Jenna Lane, was battling cancer in 2009. And he said, like, when he left Temple, she didn't say anything.

She wasn't like stay in school, get your degree. And again, he was a UDFA. He wasn't like, I can't miss prospects. He was just like, you know, do what you think is right here. But actually was battling cancer in 2009 told him, make sure you get your degree. And he did it. He finally did it here in 2023, gave a nice speech, was reading the quotes. You're never too old to stop learning.

You stop learning and you get old, which I think is like, you know, that seems like good advice. So I don't know, Todd Bowles. He's had a wonderful career as a defensive court. as a head coach, I'm not sure. We'll see. It hasn't been great so far. But, uh, you know, even an old curmudgeon like me can once in a while read a heartwarming story, feel good about it, and say, good job, Todd Bull. So there you go. That's the extra point. You weren't covering the Eagles when he was there? Uh, I was there. I think one year he took over as defensive coordinator when they fired. So it was 2012. That when they, yeah. That was my first year writing full

time. Yeah. So I did a little bit, but yeah, I definitely did not know him well. Yeah. It's, it's always so cool. I always feel really bad for like Billy Bowman, who's the guy behind Todd Bowles, who just Todd Bowles goes up and just like cameras and videos and like super excitement or whatever, right? Jalen Hertz's graduation was the same thing. Right. Hertz goes up, graduates at Oklahoma, right? The crowd's going wild. Masters. Yeah. Yeah. And there's just somebody behind Jalen Hertz in the line, the unfortunate last name that begins with like H-U-W or something, that's just like, they walk up and just hear their mom screaming from like the far back and like, that's it.

I don't know. I think that would be cool. I think that would be cool. You're like, I graduated after Jalen Hertz. Like, it's a fun thing to say for the rest of your life. I don't know. So long as you get in the video that Oklahoma posts on Twitter, then I think it's good, right? If you're just there in the background.

What's up? It's me. I also have a master's from Oklahoma. Nobody seems to care about that. No, the Bulls graduate, I think is awesome. Whenever, like, it's always cool whenever the players go back. It's really cool whenever coaches do it, right? And it's just like whole on adults.

They just wanted to make sure they actually got the thing done. It's always sick. Nicely contrasted by the news today, or this week, I should say, that Georgia quarterback Stetson Bennett, he in the class of 2016, who is at Georgia for six years. Stetson Bennett was just an unreal college career Just a legend Multiple time national champion

At Georgia That is amazing Why did I go heart-waring That Stets and Bennett should have been my extra point taken That would have been a lot Honestly I respect it Well done Stetson Just imagine being the one of the teachers

Who is trying to get Stets and Bennett To come to class And Stets and Bennett was like I don't know if you heard I'm 5-11 and won a national championship. I'm good, as my kids say all the time. I'm good. Yeah, that would probably be his response.

Yeah, there you come. All right. Thank you to producer Cliff Augustine, additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgopal. Thank you to Ben Solak. I think we're going to take a little break in the future, but we'll still have one more show.

So we're going to have another show next week on Monday. and then we'll have some vacation there coming up as we lead up to training camp. But thanks to everyone for listening. We'll be back next week with another episode of Extra Point Taking.