The Ringer NFL Show - Two Truths and a Lie! Josh Allen or Lamar Jackson MVP? Who Will Win the NFC East? | The Scramble

Episode Date: September 29, 2022

This week, Sheil is joined by The Ringer’s Lindsay Jones to play two truths and a lie with early NFL storylines. They discuss who will be the most likely MVP (6:00), whether the Cowboys will make the playoffs (11:00), and what Zach Wilson will look like (16:00). Finally, they close the show by answering your mailbag questions (31:00). Do you have a question for Sheil? Email [e-mail] for a chance to have your question answered on the show. Host: Sheil Kapadia Guest: Lindsay Jones Associate Producer: Mike Wargon Additional Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal 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 wild card.

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 the Scramble. I'm Shield Capati. I'm coming to you every Thursday on the Ringer NFL feed with a guest.

And today I'm thrilled to have my friend Lindsay Jones on. We're going to play a little two truths and a lie. Crystal Ball Edition. Lindsay, do you think there's any chance anyone is going to understand the format that I've chosen for us today? I think so. I mean, everybody's had these icebreakers at work, right? Or at like Girl Scout camp or Boy Scout camp. This is like a pretty common game.

So I'm really excited. This will be fun. It'll be really simple. So here's the deal. I'm going to lay out three statements. We're going to go through like five sets of these. I'm going to say three things. And Lindsay's going to say, well, I think these two are going to be truths by the end of the

season. And I think this one's going to be a lie by the end of the season. So basically it's a way for us to talk about a bunch of teams, talk about a bunch of topics that we think are relevant as we go into week four of the NFL season. All right. Are you ready for that? And then, of course, we'll finish with the mailbag. I forgot about the mailbag we do every week.

So we'll finish with the mailbag. All right, the first set here. The San Francisco 49ers will win the NFC West. The Los Angeles Chargers will make the playoffs. And the Indianapolis Colts will make the playoffs. So those are the three 49ers win NFC West. Chargers make playoffs. Colts make playoffs.

Lindsay, what are the two truths? What is the lie among that group? All right. My two truths here are the 49ers. Niners winning the NFC West in spite of what we saw on Sunday night. I have not been all that inspired by the Rams, but we're going to learn a lot. It's as a fun little category that you made because these two teams are going to play on Monday night.

So I think we'll learn a little bit more about the hierarchy of the NFC West or Monday Night Football, excuse me, that game's going to be on Monday Night Football. Yeah. But I just don't think that there's a dominant team in that division. And I do think the Rams have the Niners, excuse me, have the best defense in that division. Yeah, I would agree with you. Have you checked out the Jimmy Garaplo-Liprolet. reading video. I think you had to because I put it in my column yesterday and you edited that.

I did. Yeah. So everybody, make sure you go check out Shields Picks Against the Spread. Those are live on the ringer.com right now. Mostly so you can see Jimmy Garoppolo. We think telling Fow-Shannahan that all of his plays suck. Yeah. I don't know. I don't know if that was it. He could have been saying any of like 400 different things, but I do like that we're at the stage of the Garoppolo Shanahan relationship where we're getting these video lip reading analysis video. out there. So I thought that was fun. And then you've got the Trent Williams injury for the Niners. But I'm with you because I think this is a top five defense. I love this defense.

It just feels like they're good pretty much every week. And also there's probably some recency bias with Garoppolo. Like he's had these games where he sucks and you're just like, oh my gosh, they have no chance. But we have like a large sample of Garapolo in Kyle Shanahan's offense. And for the most part, they've been an above average offense. It hasn't always looked like They've had these big dips. They've had these very low valleys where everyone's just crushing Heropolo and you're like, this team has no chance. They have to move on.

But they also overall, if you look at the larger sample, like there are a lot of weeks in there where their offense is pretty good. So I'm definitely with you there as that as one of the truths. So the other two I thought were a little bit trickier. I felt a little bit, I felt the best, I guess about the Niners one. The Chargers injuries right now are just devastating. Losing Ray Sean Slater, their left tackles. He was a second team all pro as a rookie.

You kind of just, he was that guy that you were just like, you can pencil him in to be their left tackle and the guy who's going to be linked with Justin Herbert for a decade. And you're not going to have to worry about those two positions. Losing him is massive. And then you have all the other stuff. I mean, Justin Herbert is clearly not feeling right. And then they're going to be without Joey Bosa for a pretty extended period of time. So all of this stuff is really just like kind of compounding right now. I just don't.

I'm not ready to jump off of the Chargers bandwagon yet. So I'm holding on, I'm holding out a little longer. Okay. We have the same ones. I was with you. I thought that was tough as well. I've been so disappointed by the Chargers, not just the injuries, but the stuff with keeping her.

I went over this on the Monday pod, so I don't need to go through it at length. But leaving Herbert in that game, like, what are you doing? The change in decision making with Brandon Staley, the game management, that stuff is annoying me. And then the injuries, like you mentioned, I mean, those are two premium positions. Two of their best three players are now out for an extended period of time. But I'm still like, all right, I'm still all lit on Herbert. I know the man is just like dealing with his rib cartilage injury,

which feels look so painful when you watch him. But he's still out there. He's still capable of those 1% throws. So I went with the Chargers also. This Colts team, I mean, this Colts team might just stink. They have the worst offense in the NFL in EPA per drive. I thought that win last week was just so flue. Luky. Like, I don't see how you can watch that game and be like, all right, you know,

they gained some confidence. They found their footing a little bit. The chiefs gave that game away to them. I pick the Titans to beat them this week. We'll see. Maybe I'll be proven wrong. But like other than Shaquille Leonard coming back at some point, which is a big deal, like the fixes on offense, there are no fixes. It's not like all of a sudden a great wide receiver or a great left tackle is going to be walking through that door in Indianapolis. So I just don't like what I've seen from that offensive line. Yeah, and those are, they're not new questions, right? I mean, they went into, we went into the season saying the receiver group is not very good. They have major questions along their offensive line, and it's bearing out here now through three weeks.

And the other part of that for me with the Colts making the playoffs is one of these props, I guess, is that I think the Jags are really good. And it's hard for me to see a wildcard coming out of the AFC South, just given what some of the other divisions look like and how strong, you know, the second or third teams and some of these other divisions might be, it's just hard for me to see them right now as the division favorite. Yeah, I'm with you. It is funny in the AFC, like before the season, it was like, oh, my gosh, there's too many good teams and not enough slots. And now we're three weeks in. And I'm kind of like, wait, which of these teams are going to make the wild car that I've got

questions about a lot of them? All right. So we're both on the same page for that one. Let's see if we disagree on the next set. Number one, the Eagles will be the number one seed in the NFC. Number two, Josh Allen wins the MVP. And number three, Kenny Pickett starts 10 or more games for the Steelers. What do you have? What are the two truths? What's the lie? Yeah, this one was, I think maybe of all the sets, spoiling what's to come. This was like the hardest because I think all three of these might be true. But I'm going to say that the Eagles winning are the number one seed. That is true. Josh Allen wins the MVP. That is true. And Kenny Pickett is not going to start 10 or more games. I was really close on the Kenny Pickett one, though, because their buy week

sets up where if they made a change at the buy week, he would start 10 games after the, they have 10 games after the buy. So I was like, Shield's being really tricky here. And like, if you would set that at 11 games or 12 games, I probably would have said no. Ten games made me a little curious. But I do think Mike Tomlin is pretty stubborn. He did not seem. Yeah. Yeah, he wasn't even remotely interested in considering it this week when they had a mini buy. So I think we would have to kind of get to that next buy, which I believe is week. Is it week nine? Is that where we're at? I think the buy after week nine. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, it is, it is weird. I mean, picket was going to be a 24 year old rookie. You spend a first round pick on him. He looked pretty

good in the preseason. And your offense has stunk through the first three weeks. And you had the mini buy. Like you mentioned, now you have the jet. So it was this sort of felt like the natural time. And he just shut it down immediately. Like, I mean, I mean, unless he's got a trick up his sleeve where all of a sudden they're going to come out on Sunday and Kenny Pickett's going to be starting, he was steadfast. Like, no, we're not even considering that. So I was looking at their schedule after the Jets. They've got Buffalo, Home versus Tampa, at Miami, at the Eagles. Those are four teams with a combined record of 10 and 2.

So maybe he wants to just say, all right, let's give it some more time. Let's not throw them out there right now. But at the same time, the Steelers are just like, they're usually singularly focused, like, how are we going to win right now? How are we going to win this Sunday? So I don't know, maybe he thinks there's other factors at work beyond Mitchell Trebisky, maybe the stuff they're seeing in practice. They're like, Kenny Pickett's not ready.

But I hate to be boring here, but I've got the same truth and a lie as you do for this one. I mean, the Eagles Over Under for Winsnow is 12 and a half games, 12 and a half games. That's going to win the east. You're going to win the east at 12 and a half games. Yeah, they've just got such a cupcake schedule. the rest of the way here that they, you know, unless something happens, they should be able to pile up a pile up a lot of wins. And then Josh Allen, I was thinking about Josh Allen.

He is the favorite for MVP right now. And they've got all those injuries on defense. That's not good for the team. But in terms of Josh Allen's MVP candidacy, like he might have to put up even bigger numbers than we're used to. And I still think they have a chance for the top seed in the AFC. Yeah, absolutely. Because, like, you guys have talked about it.

We've talked about it a lot, right? The MVP is a statistical award. It's about counting stats, and it's also about narrative. And I don't think anybody, any voters are going to look back on this loss to the dolphins from last week and pin that on Josh Allen and say like, oh, you know, they didn't. Maybe they weren't their number one seed because something happened weird with some tiebreakers or, you know, that one AFCE's loss or whatever. He was lights out. I mean, just completely bonkers the way that he played in that game. I think he said 71 dropbacks more than anybody.

since PFF has been tracking it since 2000, dating back to 22 years or something, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I think and the other part of this and Solek brought this up on the Monday pod. Bill Simmons brought this up on his pod a couple days ago is that

we're now entering the section of the Bill's schedule where he's going to get to be playing head to head against other MVP candidates. And if they beat the Ravens this week and if he outplays Lamar Jackson, that's kind of a check in the Josh Allen kind of category.

right there. He's going to get to play Patrick Mahomes head to head. I believe he's going to get to play the Bucks and the Packers. He's going to get to play the other top quarterbacks. So I think he's still the MVP. He's still my MVP pick. So I think that one was kind of easy. All right. Here's the next set. Let's go to Dallas. Number one, the Cowboys make the playoffs. Number two, the Falcons finish with a top 10 offense. And number three, the Bears complete the fewest passes for any team in the last 10 years. Now, let me give you some context for these before you, before you answer. So right now, the Chicago Bears have completed 23 passes, 23 passes in three games in the year 2022. That's the fewest by any team through the first three

weeks in the last 10 years in the NFL. They are on pace for 130 completion. So I look this up. Over the last 10 years, the fewest completions in the season is 24. They're on pace for 130. So at this pace, who was that lowest team? You know what? This is funny because I was thinking, all right, it's probably going to be a team that sucked. It wasn't. It was a 2013-niners with Jim Harbaugh, Colin Kaepernick.

They only threw the ball 244 times, and they were fantastic. That team got to the NFC championship game. Yeah, interesting. Isn't that wild? I would have never guessed them. I was like, was it like the 2011 Tim Tebow Broncos? I was picturing something like that. No, that's really interesting.

So, okay, so if Cowboys make the playoffs, Falcons finish with a top 10 offense, and the Bears, the fewest passes for any team. Just because I think I want a couple of these things to happen, I'm going to say the Cowboys are not going to make the playoffs. That's going to be my lie there. And part of that is because I really want the other two things to be true. And I'm trying to manifest that.

into reality. The Falcons is really interesting because they're not a good team, right? I don't think they're going to be a good team. We're not going to be talking about them making the playoffs. But offensively, they're really interesting. Right now, we just looked it up this morning. They're ninth in offensive DBOA. They are ninth in offensive EPA. There's kind of a gap between, I think, the Jags are number eight in offensive EPA right now, and then the Falcons are at number nine. And there's a pretty substantial gap between them. So I think there's a lot. kind of we're kind of at this point now through three weeks. There's maybe seven to eight good offenses and then he kind of have with the Falcons on that next level.

But they're really interesting and they're fun and they're weird and like the Marcus Mariotta career rejuvenation is kind of fun. Arthur Smith losing his mind during press conferences is really fun. So I just think it would be a fun development if this group with Kyle Pitts, Drake London, Cordell Patterson, all guys that are playing like weird positions if that ended up. being a top 10 offense. Yeah, our friend Nate Tice tweeted that there were the most fun and well-coached units in the NFL of the Falcons offense.

He said their film is like appointment viewing for him. And I was surprised I did the same thing as you looked up. I'm like, oh, they're top 10 right now in DVOA. So they've been moving the ball really well. It feels like Marcus Mariotta has fumbled like seven times in the fourth quarter through three games. Like every time they flash to the Red Zone channel in like the last hour of the early games, it's like, oh, you know, the Falcons.

can't put it away, Marcus Mariotta with a fumble. But when he's not doing that, he's actually been pretty good. And I really thought that offense was going to stink this year. I mean, it stunk last year, and they got Matt Ryan for, you know, the entire season. I was like, I don't think Mario is going to be an upgrade. But they've been pretty good. So I'm going to go with the Cowboys, I think, are going to make the playoffs. Their odds have now shifted after Cooper Rush has won two games.

They're minus 122 to make the playoffs. So they're kind of in this weirdly good spot all of a sudden where it's like, wow, they've kind of survived here. Their favorites this weekend. They're going to get Michael Gallup back. They're going to get Dak back probably in a couple weeks here. Their defense is still really good. And so they're in a much better spot that I thought like once Dak went down, I was like, they're cooked, forget about them. This is a disaster.

And I was wrong about that. They've survived. So I've got that. I'm with you. I want to root for the Bears one. That's fun. Just seeing them complete. like eight passes, eight passes a week.

That's fun. And so I'm going to call the Falcons one the lie just because let's see it a little longer. Let's see if they can sustain it or something. Yeah. I will say when we talk about the Bears one being fun, we can say that because neither of us are Bears fans. That's right. Well, they're two and one. Some of the Bears fans are tweeting back on me, hey, they're saying they're two and one, Skippy.

How do you like that with your fancy stats? All right? It's a winning team. I think two people, two people. two people that I know picked Bears to win this weekend, or at least to cover this weekend. That's right. Sheel and my 6-year-old aligned on that bet this week. Aligned on the Bears.

Let's go. Chicago. All right. We've got two more sets here. Let's go to this one. Lamar Jackson wins MVP. He's second in odds behind Josh Allen. The Jaguars win the AFC South.

And Zach Wilson performs like a top 20 starter. the rest of the way. So Wilson, of course, is making his debut or expected to make his debut this weekend, his first start of the season. You've got that. You've got Lamar Jackson's second in MVP odds behind only Josh Allen.

So which of those are the truths, which is the lie? I think I might have made this one too easy. Yeah, right. Well, because I already said that the Jags are going to win the AFC South so with the cults not making the playoffs. And I already said that Josh Allen is going to win MVP.

I definitely don't think that Zach Wilson is going to perform like a top 20 starter the rest of the way. I mean, there's nothing that we saw out of him in his rookie year that made me believe that he was going to be capable of being a top 20 starter. And then he had much of his, that crucial second year training camp preseason wiped away from that injury in the first preseason game. I also just don't think the Jets are a very good team and really ready to kind of have that, like, that they're all of a sudden going to take off just. because Zach Wilson is back coming off of the knee injury. So I have two lies in here, I guess, right? I would love Lamar Jackson to be in that MVP conversation. So I'll have to because for the nature of this exercise, I'll say yes on Lamar, but that also means yes on Josh Allen. Maybe they can split. It's okay. I did the questions. I put you in that spot. Yeah.

You're allowed to do that. I'll do the Peter King and split my vote. Can I split my vote? Yeah, absolutely. I also had this one. Yeah, I think I made this one a little too easy. I couldn't get there with Zach Wilson. I do think this is like really interesting though with Wilson the rest of the way. I mean, what do they do? What if he just, if he's good, Jets fans will lose their minds. Then it's great. You know, oh my gosh, he's made the second year leap. We weren't expecting it. Our offense dunk with Joe Flacco through the first three weeks. And then Wilson came in. And, you know, maybe you maybe go five and 12 or, you know, whatever your final record is. But he looks kind of good or shows some flashes. But man, there's the other more likely scenario, I guess,

where this is somebody coming off of an injury. The supporting cast maybe isn't quite as good as we thought it was going to be coming into the year. If he's not very good and if they get a top five pick, I mean, what do they do? What do they do next off season? Like how soon is too soon to start considering those other options? Like the Josh Rosen, Kyler Murray thing felt like a one-off. I'm not saying this the exact same thing, but there are some really intriguing quarterbacks in this year's class. So the Jets are an interesting team to me, the next four to five months,

depending on how Wilson plays, depending on what kind of draft capital they have, depending on what they wanted, what ownership wants to do with the GM and the coach, whether that's anything or nothing. There's sort of a lot of balls in the air there where that thing could go in one direction or the other. So we're on the same page with that one. Well, we both just kind of like glance past the Jags one. And I'm sure you guys previewed a lot of this game with Doug Peterson's return to Philly on Philly special. But is there anything in particular that you're looking forward to with Doug's

return to Philly? How do you think that's going to go? Yeah, I think he, well, first of all, I think that, you know, I don't know if this is locally, I think there's been some, oh, is he going to get, what's the reception going to be? Like, he's going to get a rousing standing ovation. I mean, there's a statue of him outside the stadium. He won a Super Bowl. I don't think anyone looked at that and was like, oh, my gosh, Doug Peterson screwed them towards the end. So I'm not worried about the reaction. I do have a prediction that he's going to be a prediction that he's going to be a superbole of going to break out some type of Philly special type play in a key spot. I don't know if it'll be the Philly Special. It could be. Maybe it'll be the exact Philly Special. And it'll be something

off the Philly Special. Maybe it'll be another trick play. But he's going to try something. He's going to empty out the bag. As I said, you mentioned, I mentioned this on the Philly Special pod. I'm sure he's looking across the sideline being like, if I had AJ Brown and Devante Smith and like this offensive, like, I wouldn't have been fired. You know, you guys could have given me some of these toys to play with what I was calling the offense there. It wasn't just my play calling the reason why that offense dunk. And, you know, it's, it sort of aged well for him because it fell apart with Carson Wentz and Carson Wentz has been a disaster since then. It's not like Carson Wentz went to another coach and started playing really well. And it's like, oh,

you know, Peterson couldn't get anything out of him. So I'm definitely looking forward. I mean, we've touched on the two, I think, best matchups of the week here in Bill's Ravens. And who would thought Eagle Shaguars, week four, would be one of the best matchups, but that also is going to be a fun one for sure. All right, we've got one more. We're going to your hometown. Number one, the Broncos make the playoffs. Number two, the commanders finish in last place in the NFC East. And number three, the Patriots finish with their worst record since Bill Belichick's first year in New England. All right. I know that one's kind of confusing. So, let me explain. Belichick went five and 11 in his first year with the Patriots. His worst

record since then has been seven and nine two years ago. So essentially you're saying the Patriots will win six games or fewer this season with some combination of Brian Hoyer and Mack Jones. What do you got? This one was tough. This was one of the more difficult sets of three. So I was trying to pull up. I wanted to look at the Patriots upcoming schedule to try to figure out, okay, where are the wins here? Because I think there are, they're already a one win. They're going to get to play the Bears. They're going to get to play the Jets.

They're going to get to play the Colts all between their before they're by. They're also going to play the Lions. I almost was kind of just like writing off that the Lions were going to beat them. The Lions versus Matt Patricia, like the revenge factor for all those lines. players. So that's in two weeks. That's week five. You know, they got the Jets twice. Like, I could see them getting there. You know, they're going to play the Raiders in a primetime game. You know, Belichick tends to play really well in those games against his protégés. So just unlike Belichick's presence alone, I think I can see them getting to six wins. But it's going to be

really, really close. So that would make my lie the Broncos making the playoffs, which, you know, they're two and one, which works in their, you're their favor right now. They, you know, they could be the Raiders sitting here at O.N3. I just, that offense is just infuriating and so difficult to watch. And I just don't know, you know, the longer this goes with them scoring 11 points or 11 points, 16 points, the longer this goes and the longer it takes

for them to figure it out, the harder it's going to be for them to make the playoffs. So I think their defense is going to keep the minute. I do think their offense is going to get better. You had a really, really good stat in the PICS column, which I keep referencing. You do such good research on that

about how just historically bad the Broncos red zone rate has been through the start of the season. I mean, so much worse than like average NFL offenses over the course of you know, decades in a recent history. So at some point, those things have to start turning around. I think we're going to get more into the Broncos in the mailbag. So I'm not going to, I'm not going to spoil the discussion there. But I will say for this one,

I also think it's very clear to me that the commanders are going to finish last place in the east. Yeah, I've got, I've got the Patriots as the lie, you know, that they won't finish with their worst record. I'm kind of with you. I like how all those other teams were just catching strays, you know, during the, you're going through the Patriot schedule. Oh, wait, wait, wait. Okay, so I did this wrong. Right. No, so I, so no, we're together on this because I think they will get to six wins,

so it won't be their worst record. They have to get to win seven or more games. I made this one very confusing. You know, listen, it's the first time for truth, two truths in a lie. As I told Lindsay, yes, I'm stealing podcast segment ideas from my fifth grader. Listen, it's a new podcast. We'll figure it out as we go here. Yeah, that Bronco stat that you mentioned.

So they're converting 14% of their red zone trips into touchdown. That is unsustainably bad. Like, you cannot be that bad in the red zone league average over the past 10 years is 56%. The worst team has been at 27%. So like if they get to league average, their numbers are going to start to look a lot better. Again, like you mentioned, we'll talk about the commanders. I mean, the Broncos a little more here in a minute. but their odds now are up to minus 132 to make the playoffs.

So the betting market still say that they're more likely to make the playoffs than not. That kind of surprised me. I think it might speak more to the rest of the AFC maybe than just the Broncos. And then, yeah, the commanders over under for wins now is six and a half. And that's too fewer than any other team in the NFC East. The giants are at eight and a half right now. And the Cowboys and Eagles are above that. I have a commander's question I was thinking about.

everybody loves Ron Rivera is like a well-liked guy, right? Yeah. People who... Universally. Universally. But I was wondering, like, is Ron Rivera there to, like, win games for the commanders or to just be like a respectable, likable face for a despicable owner and organization? Because I was just looking at this would be his fifth straight losing season as a head coach.

Like, don't get me wrong. He had some great years in Carolina early, but this would be five straight years where he would finish under 500. And I'm not saying it's his fault. I would not want to work for that organization. It's not an easy spot, what they're asking him to do. But doesn't it feel like it's more like, all right, you know, we just need somebody who we can throw out there and answer some questions who everyone likes because we know

everyone hates our owner. Yes, it does. It feels a lot like that. It feels a lot like that to me. And like, I think he's got pretty good job security because like what would it look like for that organization to fire like the one guy who everybody respects and likes. But it is hard. I mean, they haven't been competitive.

I'm sure one of the reasons that they hired him a couple years ago was, you know, culture. And I think he within like the football part, I think the culture stuff is kind of is okay, right? Like you're not hearing as much. There was some stuff last year with some fights among the defensive line and stuff. But like, you know, he's made them a respectable football operation from a lot of standpoints. But he's also like should be a really good defensive coach. and their defensive have underperformed over the last couple years. And so you're not really seeing that bear out.

He's put a lot of trust into Jack Del Rio to run that defense. Hasn't really worked out. You know, at some point maybe there could be some, you know, coaching staff changes that he could make to try to appease ownership. Although, anybody needs to be bending over backwards to make Daniel Snyder happy. At this point when he's not actually technically allowed to be running any of the football operations of that. team. Yeah, the commanders are a mess, though.

Yeah, it's just, I would love for Ron to get out of there. Like, go out, go into broadcasting, run a dog rescue, coach anywhere else. Right. I wonder how much he's enjoying it. Yeah, it does not see. I seem like a great place to work by any account. And it's sort of like there's no roadmap to really getting, I mean, I guess if they really stink this year, then maybe they're going to get a top pick and maybe get a quarterback.

and that always has the potential to change everything. But if they're in like that 6-7 win range is just kind of like, where are you going with Carson Wentz again next year? I mean, getting a number one pick and being really bad, being way under that. What do you say? It was 6.5 right now. You've got to be way under that 6.5 because no big time free agent quarterback

is going to go to Washington. It's just not going to happen. And anybody who has a no trade clause, they're not going to Washington. It's not going to happen. So really that is their path forward at quarterback is being really bad in getting one of the best guys in next year's draft. There you go.

All right. There you have it. Two truths in a lie. Our first time, if you have feedback, let us know, I thought it was fun. It was really fun.

Next time, let's get even weirder. Yeah. Yeah. I'll throw some wild stuff in there, you know, like, yeah,

I don't need, this team will have, yeah, two players getting a fight in the sideline in week three, or this guy will throw his tablet on the sideline. we can get into all of those. This one, I played it straight a little bit for the first time. All right, when we come back, we will get to the mailback.

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1-800-522-4-7-0 in Wyoming or visit www.1-800 gambler.net in West Virginia. We are back. We will go to the mailbag. Of course, if you have a question, Our producer, Mike Wargon, set up an email address. The Scramble Mailbag at gmail.com. That's The Scramble Mailbag at gmail.mail.com. Many of you used that this week.

I was looking in there. I'm like, wow, we have a very attentive audience. They're listening. They got the email address down and they sent some questions in there. So let's get to some of those. You can, of course, also just tweet at me during the week when I asked for those submissions. Ryan asks, why is it so thoroughly assumed that if Dallas Fireman? Mike McCarthy, Sean Peyton would be the guy for that job. Everything we know about Jerry Jones

suggests he is the alpha leader of that team and does what he needs to do to keep it that way. Would someone of Peyton's stature accept that? Would Jerry give that up? I understand the intrigue, but don't see the fit. Where are you? I feel like you got to at least touch base on the Sean Peyton to Dallas thing like once every couple of weeks here. So what do you think about what Ryan asked there? Yeah, because we know that Sean Peyton is like touching base on the Sean Peyton to Dallas stuff periodically every chance that he gets on whatever media outlet he is on. So I would say that the reading on Jerry Jones being kind of an alpha guy is very true. And I think it's one of the reasons that Jason Garrett lasted there as long as he did because

personality-wise, he was able to navigate the Jerry stuff because it is so different than any other, the way that any other organization in the NFL runs. So to be a successful head coach in Dallas, you have to understand. that your owner is the face of your franchise. And the owner is going to be speaking about your quarterback's injuries before you get a chance to. And that is really, really challenging. I would say the flip side on that is that Sean Payton very much already understands that. And he is somebody who Jerry Jones has coveted for a very long time. They have a relationship going back years and years and years all the way to when Sean Payton was an assistant back in Dallas. He's lived in

Dallas when he was suspended from the Saints 10 years or so ago. He was back in Dallas coaching peebee football. So he very much understands those dynamics. And I think probably could navigate it. Yeah, I think you nailed it. It's something we underrate with some of these hires. Like I remember someone at one point told me about an owner. They're like, the owner wants someone who he can like go to lunch with. Like it's, you know, it's not always just who is who is the person who gives me the best chance to win. Sometimes it's, like if you're an owner who's hands-on or relatively hands-on or, you know, just somebody who's around, like, you want to have that input. You want to be able to have those conversations

with the coach where it's not like a contentious relationship where, hey, you know, you guys called this play on third and seven, like, what was up with that? And the coach is willing to hear that. And it's not just like, what are you talking about? Like, get out of here. You're not a part of this discussion. Like, that matters for a lot of owners in the NFL. They want to be a part of it. And so that's, I totally agree with you with Jason Garrett. I mean, how he, he lasted what, nine, 10 years or something, something like that? Yeah. Yeah, I think he was two, he was hired in 2009. Okay. So yeah, about 10 or 11 years. We think of Jerry Jones as like an impulsive. Oh my guy. He's just like he's not George Steinbrenner. Like he wants somebody who we can

have some control over where someone who's okay with him doing all these things. And so I'm not necessarily, you know, convinced that he would just pull the plug on Mike McCarthy after this year. I mean, we'll see how it goes. But, uh, I think you nailed it with Peyton. Like they'll both know what the deal is when they get into that relationship. There won't be any surprises. Peyton will be able to lay down his ground rules if he's a candidate for that job. And listen, Jerry Jones has to decide how badly does he want to win? Because Sean Payton with Dak Prescott on offense and then Micah Parsons and Trayvon

Diggs on defense, like that's a team with Sean Payton that all of a sudden gets very, very interesting. Like there are pieces in place where you make a couple more moves where all of a sudden they could be a contender. So I think the question is relevant. There's no doubt about it, but I think we both see that one the same way. All right. I like when you're on to get the pulse of the Bronco fan, the pulse of Denver, because they've been so interesting here through three weeks. So Joe asks, I'm a Broncos fan. I'm very worried that we got fleeced by the Seahawks. Is Russ just over the hill, or is he still getting his feet under him? What's the feeling in Denver

about those questions right now? And what do you think? think about it. Yeah, I think it's a little column A, a little column B. I think he is not 2014-2015, Russell Wilson. I think that's pretty clear. I think the Seahawks were right about that and knowing that he was not, you know, at age 30, what is he, 33, 34, something like that. 44, yeah. That at that age, he's not that type of player and they moved on from him before having to financially commit to him for his next contract. I do think they still just have not figured out who they are on offense yet and what their best version of their offense is going to be. And it's like there's a lot of like pushing and pulling going on on how much they should

be running the ball, how much they should be taking deep shots, what the protection is going to look like, who the running back, what the running back rotation is going to look like. And kind of trying to fit Russell Wilson into this idea of, and it's hard because like we don't even really know what Nathaniel Hackett's offensive vision is. But we haven't seen as much of that like kind of Russ magic and like, you know, Russell getting out of the pocket. designed bootlegs and scramble plays and just some of the stuff where he's always been really, really good. I think the thing that a lot of Broncos fans that I've talked to, and I think we heard it

in the stadium on Sunday night for as bad as that game was, when he kind of had a drive where you kind of let Russell Wilson take over the drive, that place went nuts. Like, there has been a sense of hopelessness in that stadium since when it comes to their offense, honestly, since the middle of 2015, early 2015, when Peyton was. still playing. There's been the sense of hopelessness on offense that they're not going to be able to figure it out and that when they are in close games, they are going to lose those close games. There was some crazy stat, which of course now I don't happen in front of me, but like that they came back from trailing at halftime last week for the first time in years.

Like they have not been able to get over the hump in those close games. You have not had that quarterback that you could just believe in is going to make the one crucial play that you need. Right. And I think there is still. little bit of that like, okay, Russell can bring that. So let him do that, like that they need to unleash him a little bit more, but they're trying to kind of create the structure. And maybe they, maybe he wants more of like, I can be a traditional quarterback. And I want to prove legacy wise that like I'm not, I don't have to exist in the guard, you know, within these guardrails that Seattle placed on me forever. So I think there's just a lot of like just trying to figure out who

they are and what they're best at. Yeah, it was kind of like a throwback Russell. Like Russell Wilson had games like that in Seattle where the defense is playing really well. The offense sucks for like, you know, three and a half quarters. And then all of a sudden they string together a couple drives late and they win the game and Pete Carroll's going nuts and everyone's excited. I don't think he thought that's what he was signing up for in Denver. Like none of us thought that was going to be the formula for this Broncos team. It was like Russell Wilson was supposed to be the reason that they were winning. And it's really been, you mentioned it, their defense has been great so far. I mean, they've had a top five defense in the NFL so far. So I understand Broncos fans being kind of like,

this isn't exactly what we signed up for, not only because of what they gave up. And the contract, I mean, you're looking at that $49 million a year and he just hasn't looked like a guy who's elevating everybody so far this season. So I'm with you. I want to give it some more time. I want to see what it looks like. Some of those numbers with the red zone, like that's going to progress. What does it look like in weeks eight, nine, or ten? Can they survive and just be in the mix and maybe figure themselves out by November? But I definitely do understand the hesitation, the anxiousness, the nervousness. Broncos fans are like deserve some type of award for the first three games of the season. I love, I've said it like 10 times already, but I love the counting

down on the play clock. Not only that, I love, they just had the awareness of what Hackett was screwing up in, you know, the first couple of weeks where it wasn't like, wait, what's going on? Like, they were immediately all over him. And so, uh, I thought it was so funny on, um, last week when they got the field goal unit out. And Mike Tarrico's like, look, they got the field goal unit out quickly. Yeah. I'm like, this is the bar to clear. They got the field goal unit out on time. But it's, it did sort of feel like that, that after the way the first two weeks went. Well, we've got, um, the Broncos are playing in prime time two times in the next three weeks. They're going to have the Thursday night game week five against the Colts.

And then I believe that they're Monday night against the Chargers in a couple weeks. So the Brandon Staley versus Nathaniel Hackett decision-making bowl will be electric. Cannot wait. Cannot wait for that. And I think I'm actually going to go to the Colts Broncos game that Thursday night game in Denver. I want to hear the crowd. I just want to like experience the just see and feel it. So that'll be fun.

I haven't been to a game in a few months. Maybe it'll be different by that. Maybe their offense will start clicking and they'll light it up. Who knows? We will see. All right. A couple more here. Anthony asks, the question I have is, why does Baltimore get a pass on their team building strategy on both offense and defense?

They don't have a number one receiver, a good offensive line, good edge rushers, a dominant running back, or a game changing defensive lineman. They basically are wasting a rookie contract QB. Your thoughts would be appreciated. I can start on this one. Can I go ahead, go ahead. Do we know where Anthony's from? Is Anthony, like, writing in from Cleveland or something? Yeah, maybe.

Yeah, I thought it was why. Yeah, I wasn't expecting this question, although Stephen Ruizzo, which is reading his piece for the Ringer today, where, you know, he was kind of intimating that they're putting too much, like, yeah, Lamar Jackson has been great, but this isn't sustainable what they're putting on his plate and they don't have the answers to kind of win in the long term. So I know it's not exactly the same thing, but, you know, I guess on sort of the same. on the same plane there. I mean, I don't see a big issue with their strategy. Like, they've been

aggressive, but, you know, they signed Marcus Williams as a free agent. They traded for Marcus Peters. You know, he identified, oh, Mike tells us Anthony's from Nevada. So no, it doesn't not, or at least that's what he wrote. Anthony, we'll take you at your word that you're not lying about has he been betting the Ravens and they haven't been coming through. Like, I need to know. I need to know more from Anthony. Yeah. They're good at other, I mean, they're, they've got great corners. They've got great safeties. They've got a great tight end. So I do think their organizational philosophy, they haven't typically paid a lot for edge rushers. They've kind of drafted guys, developed them, let them walk, get the next guy. They drafted Odafei Oway. You know, it's not like they're

ignoring that position. They drafted Hollywood Brown. They drafted Rashad Bateman. The offensive line injuries have kind of crushed them. I mean, if Ronnie Stanley comes back at left tackle, if they get Patrick McCarie in there, then the O line could be pretty good. So I actually think and I know this is sort of probably a media consensus thing. I think they do a good job with the way they've built their roster. What do you think? Yeah, I mean, I think there's, I don't think I agree with Anthony in all of his assessments of kind of the quality of players that they have a lot of those positions.

You know, you talk about running back. J.K. Dobbins is just starting to come back after a major injury last year. So let's give him a couple more weeks and then see. I think he should be an elite, you know, kind of really top tier running back once he's kind of fully acclimated him back from his injury. The Ronnie Stanley injury, like you said, but they used a first-round pick on Tyler Lindelbaum and looks like a guy who's going to be a 10-year kind of center there. So injuries have played a bit of a role.

I think Rashad Bateman's going to end up being a stud. I think he is going to be a real true number one receiver that they need. I think that's been the one place that we could really criticize their roster building has been how they've not really addressed that receiver position over the years. I think Bateman will hit, but I'd like to see them continue to add a little bit more. The one way, the reason that they've been able to get away with it is that they have a top two, top three tight end in Mark Andrews. He was awesome last week. So it's kind of like overlooking the Mark Andrews effect where he doesn't have a WR next to his name, but in effect he is a number one receiver.

And, you know, he's right up there with Kelsey and George Kittle when he's healthy. and I would put him ahead of Darren Waller. But, I mean, he is like elite, elite when it comes to a past caching option. So you have to include him in that mix as well. So, you know, I think you could argue about some positions on the team, right? But I think it's a little bit, you know, we're quibbling here and there. And there are a lot of franchises that would love to have the team building success year after year after year that the Ravens have. You're right about wide receiver.

I think that's fair. You know, Bateman's looked very good so far with the opportunities he's had. But, yeah, they absolutely could have done more to address that position. They also face some challenges because they, like, run an offense that is unlike almost any other team. You know, when you're using the quarterback that much in the run game, when you expect the run game to be the foundation, even though this year that hasn't necessarily been the case. I mean, Lamar's been great in the pocket and they're passing the football quite a lot. But I think they kind of go through these different iterations of what they want to be.

And if you're a run heavy team, are you going to be able to sign a free agent wide receiver? Do they want to go there? So, and where do you want to put your resources? Right. Yeah. So you got to block, all that kind of stuff. Exactly. So I think they face some challenges there.

But overall, I think they're a pretty well-run franchise. All right, let's get to the last one. Greg asks, I'm wondering if you can shed some light on how teams typically handle film study between games, how much time is spent evaluating their own game film and how much. much is spent studying their upcoming opponent. Then on the practice field, is it more time spent ironing out existing weaknesses or on installing new concepts aimed at the next opponent? I think we were both on beat, so I think we have some insight here, right?

I'm curious to hear what you thought about this one. Although the technology has evolved a lot since the last year. I was like officially a beat writer day to day because, yeah, I mean, now they can get all that stuff on their tablets. So those days of like the entire position group or the entire offense have to sit in one room where the coach is the only one who has, like, access to all of the film and they have to kind of do it as a, as a group. Those days are kind of over. I think in most teams, and everybody does it a little bit differently, a lot of the film study happens in their

individual position groups, because a lot of that stuff is really specific. Typically, they use the beginning of the week, whether that's, if the team is in the building on a Monday, the beginning of the week is looking back at the last week's game, and then you start moving forward. And then they load on the new week's film and the next opponent. I do want to hear about your experience in Seattle and the way that Pete Carroll does this. Because what was it? Is it tell the truth Tuesday? I can't remember what day it was.

It might have been Monday. Monday. The alliteration doesn't work. But yeah, I think you're right. Yeah, I think most of the time it's what you said. It's Monday. Like whether the whole team is, you know, it depends how you do it. But that's when it's, let's just knock this out.

Let's look at the film. Let's point out what we. need to correct for the next week, what we liked, what we didn't like, and like people would probably be surprised how quickly they move on to the next game. I mean, yeah, I'm with you. I think it's usually just Monday. I mean, Monday, whether it's individually or as a team, whatever, that's when you're reviewing the last week's film. And then Tuesday, which is typically an off day, there might be players individually saying, all right, let's look at our next opponent. Let's get a leg up on what they're doing. And then Wednesday, it's like that last game is not even, I mean, you try to

ask like, because this would be hard as this is sort of, you know, inside beat writing, but that would sometimes be the first time you're in the locker room, uh, is a Wednesday afternoon. And so like, I would want to be like, hey, what, you know, that play on third and seven, like what, what happened there? And sometimes, you know, the nice players would help me out and the other ones would be like, that's, if it was a bad play, especially that's in the past. We've moved on. We've got this team on Sunday. And, and that really is how they kind of look at it. So the practices are all based on the next opponent. I mean, maybe there's a team out there that does it differently.

But as far as I know, once they're on the field, it's reps about the next opponent. It has nothing. I mean, there could be individual things like, hey, you know, coach could point out you had this technique that screwed us on the last game. Make sure you're doing this, that kind of thing. But in terms of game planning, it's all about the next opponent. Yeah. And most teams have a, it's very structured their practice week where there's like a lot of install goes on on Wednesday. And I know Greg asked in his question about installing new concepts.

There's not much new concepts. Almost none. If you're installing new concepts in the middle of week five, that means something has probably already gone wrong. But it's picking through everything that you have already installed that they think will work best in this specific matchup. So once you get to Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, it's almost all versus scout team. It's going through very specific game planning situations. A lot of teams will have.

like third down day, you know, where you really, really focus. Third down, yeah. Where you do a lot more of the situational stuff. Some teams do that earlier in the week. Some teams tend to do that later in the week. Also, the contact rules, I mean, you don't get a lot of days where you can actually hit. So coaches are very strategic about figuring out, okay, are we going to do pads on a Wednesday?

Are we going to do pads on a Thursday trying to space out when you're going to do those actually fully prided practices? And then it tends to be Fridays. They do a lot of situational stuff. special teams stuff. You know, you could see some teams that probably practiced it a lot more than others.

You notice those on Sundays, the ones that are good at it or not. But it is all, I mean, I think when his question there was about like, how do you spend your time? It is almost all focused on the next opponent.

Yeah, they turn the page very quickly there. All right, thank you for all those questions. Again, the scramble mailbag at gmail.com. Keep coming. We'll get to more next week. That's going to do it

for this week's episode. of The Scramble. Thank you to Lindsay Jones for joining me. Thank you to Mike Wargon for producing additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgapal. Stay tuned tomorrow for the Ringer NFL preview show on this feed and I will talk to everybody next week.