The Ringer NFL Show - Week 3 Backup QB Rankings With Steven Ruiz

Episode Date: September 19, 2025

The Ringer’s own Steven Ruiz joins Sheil on the pod to offer his expert analysis on some of the second-string quarterbacks who will be stepping out from behind the clipboards and strapping on their helmets for their respective teams this Sunday. (00:00) Intro/cold open (2:26) Mac Jones (6:49) Jake Browning (11:59) Carson Wentz (17:55) Marcus Mariota (20:51) Tyrod Taylor (25:18) Sheil’s Ringer 107 picks 5% off $15+ on NFL Gamedays with CODE: GAMEDAY at https://littlecaesars.onelink.me/vc9i/n15m71zn The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠www.rg-help.com⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Host: Sheil KapadiaGuest: Steven RuizProducer: Chris SuttonSocial: Kiera Givens and Brian WatersProduction Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopowell Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to the Ringer NFL show. Shield Capadia here with Stephen Ruiz. We have a theme in week three. I think we have a theme in week three. And that theme is backup quarterbacks. I think we've already got five of them. Jake Browning for the Bengals, Carson Wentz for the Vikings,

Tyrod Taylor for the Jets. We thank Marcus Mariotto for the commanders and we think Mack Jones for the 49ers. So who better to have on to talk about some of these backup quarterbacks than Stephen Ruiz. Ruiz, who is the most entertaining? Like, the guy you're just like, I'm going to tune in to see what that guy does on Sunday if you had to choose one. I was going to say that's a tricky answer because it's, you have to weigh between like performance,

like how good they are and how entertaining they are for maybe like bad reasons. So I got to go with Carson Wentz. Like who doesn't love with Carson Wentz meltdown? It's always good. Carson Wentz is the correct answer. Yeah, that's who I would go with, whether for better or worse and we can get it, get into that. but I think it's going to be an adventure either way. So we're going to talk about these guys who can keep their offenses afloat,

who's the most interesting, what we're looking for. We'll do all that when we come back. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by Fandall, and the NFL is officially backed. So if you're going to be in it, be in it with Fandul. They've got the goods, futures, live betting, SGPs, Your Way bets, all of it. The app's clean, it's fast.

And yeah, when you win, you get paid instantly. which is nice because Sunday patience doesn't exist. So get your bets in, build something bold, and make every game feel bigger. Download the Fandul app or head to fandul.com slash ringer NFL to get started. The ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit RG-Help.com to learn more about the resources and help lines available. And listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Must be 21 plus and present in select states.

We're 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem. Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-88-78-9-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Paid endorsement. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So let's start by doing this, Ruiz. Ranking 1 to 5 just based on, because the backup quarterback's job is like,

try to keep the offense afloat and give your team a chance to win. We're not expecting these guys to be, you know, throw for 400 yards or anything like that. So if you had to rank them based on kind of what they're being asked to do, taking their situation into account, Browning, Mack Jones, Tyrod Taylor, Mariotta, and Wenz, how would you rank them one to five based on how confident you are? And I did the same thing. So let's see where we disagree. Yeah, I think I would do with Mac Jones first just because I think he's the one,

the most obvious system fit. I would go with Jake Browning second. We're probably going to get into my reasoning for this. That's why I'm not really explained it. We're going to go with Jake Browning second just because we've seen it. We've seen the Bengals offense exist with Jake Browning and work. And then I'd go Marcus Marriota based on the small sample size we have seen him last year coming for Jaden Daniels. And then the last two, like either way, I don't think it makes much of a difference with those two.

So that would be my order. And I feel very confident in saying Mac Jones, I would say. I think it's a gap between him and the rest of the guys. Okay. I had Mac Jones first as well. And I was going back and forth going, wait, do I actually believe this? So we'll talk about him in a second. I had Browning to.

I had to Rod Taylor and Mariotta flipped. I want to talk about Mara. We've talked about the Marioata thing before. So I want to get into that. Now we maybe get a bigger sample of him in that offense. And then I had Carson Wentz last. But let's, why don't we start with Mac Jones? Good.

Because you said you feel like he's first. and then there's kind of a gap after him. Obviously, Mac Jones played last week. I thought he played pretty well, especially for a backup. They beat the New Orleans Saints, and now they get the Cardinals at home, and the Cardinals secondary is pretty banged up. What did you kind of see from Mac Jones

and his first start in that Shanahan system? I think we saw what we wanted to see out of Mac Jones, what we thought we would see back in 2021, when Mac Jones was, you know, floated as Kyle Shanahan's favorite quarterback prospect of all time or whatever, the best fit for Chanahan scheme ever. What a time that was, by the way. Oh, what a draft.

2021, the quarterback debates. And none of them mattered. That's the best part is that. None of them mattered. They were all bad. But I do think we saw sort of a similar situation that we see with when Jake Browning has gotten into the lineup for the Bengals.

Like, obviously, Brock Birdie's a better quarterback than Mack Jones. And I think Joe Burroughs a better quarterback than Jake Browning. But the offense just functions in a way that I think is more closely aligned to what the coaches want. And I think you could have said that about Brock Bertie two years ago when he was really operating the offense at a high level. But we saw last year, you know,

he kind of took things into his own hands more often. The scramble rate went up, time to throw it went up. And it wasn't really the Brock Bertie we had seen in 2023. But I think Mack Jones kind of gave you something closer to that style of quarterback play. And it really allowed the 49ers to flourish in the way that you would expect it to flourish with Kyle Shannon calling the plays.

Yeah, he was 26 for 39, 279 yards, three touchdowns, no interceptions, three sacks. You know, there are little moments in there where you're like, all right,

I could see like a three turnover game coming if he has to play for a month type thing, at least I thought with Mack Jones and some accuracy stuff. But overall, you're right, he had the slow start, and then he kind of settled in.

And I think Shanahan, if he had to, you know, he hooked him up to the lie detector. He wants a robot. I think we all know he, he, like, well, do I want a robot or some of these other guys in the system have some creativity.

Those Aaron Rogers years with the Packers and Purdy was doing some of that last year. But I think certainly for a backup, Shanahan's like just do, you know, do what I tell you to do. Get the ball where it's supposed to go. And I thought Purdy did a nice job there. It was a 69th percentile game based on EPA per pass play, 51st percentile game based on success rate against the Saints. So it's really keep the offensive float. You have Shanahan.

you still have McCaffrey and do the things you're supposed to do. So, yeah, if he indeed does play Purdy, I think they haven't ruled out completely yet, but I think the expectation is that Mack Jones is going to play against that Cardinals defense. I'm with you. I would expect him to play pretty well, given the setup there. And then Browning was the other guy, you mentioned. I remember we've had these conversations before, and it's certainly true that Sack-Taylor, it feels like, he's like, all right, burrows out of there.

I could do, you know, let me cook a little bit. I can do the things I want to do. You've certainly brought that up before with Jake Browning. Yeah, yeah. And I certainly don't think that Jake Browning is a better quarterback than Joe Burrow. And I don't think the Bengals are in better shape over long term. Because there's always an expiration date when you're doing things that are dependent on scheme more so than talent. And that's going to be the case with Jake Browning.

But in the short term, I do think it's going to give the offense a little bit of a boost. We're going to see them go under center more. That's what we saw when Jake Browning played in 2023. We're going to see more screen passes that get the – it gets the ball in Jamar Chase's hands immediately. You're going to see, I think, more play action shots. You're going to see less of the spread stuff that puts a lot of strain on the offensive line, which I think is like the under-discussed thing with Joe Burrow. PFF Mooh, Timo Risky, the PFF analyst, I mean, had a good threat on this where he was basically pointing out that like what makes Burroughs so special

is that you could put that strain on the offensive line in the past game where the defense knows. Like, we got to be in pass rush mode. We got to play coverages that are, you know, you're selling out, not to stop the run, but to stop the pass. And Burrow could still operate play after play after play, which is very rare in this league, and it helps the Bengals tremendously. But it does make the offensive line's job a lot harder. It's harder to be an offensive line

when you're not running play action, and there's no threat of the run. It's not that there's not a threat of the run. It's that you're more worried about the pass. So I think the offensive line will perform better. I think he'll get cleaner pockets than you would have seen with Joe Burrow. I think where it's going to hurt

is when they go up against the good defenses that could scheme that stuff away. And then you don't have Joe Burrow, you know, in the dropback game to kind of fall back on. But I do expect to see a different style of offense. And maybe Zach Taylor will be able to cook a little bit. Yeah, we definitely saw that in 2023. Their play action rate went up. And you're right.

I mean, offensive line play. If you can go under center, run play action, not pass at such a high rate. I mean, even last year, their pass rate was crazy on early downs. And to your point, they made it work. They had a very good offense. If you have Joe Burrow, you can. can make it work, but I think without him, you got to change some stuff up. You're probably going to have to try to get that run game going a little bit more on early downs using play action on early downs. But

I mean, Browning of all these guys as a backup has had like the most extended run where he had that seven game run in 2023. And it wasn't bad, you know, if just statistically he was kind of middle of the pack. Their offense finished 11th in DVOA. And so I think if you're a Bengals fan, like I don't think they're going to stay afloat just because their schedule's really hard the rest of the way. But you can talk yourself into, hey, maybe we can hover around 500 by the time Joe Burrow comes back. But man, going to Minnesota against Brian Flores in this spot is not going to, it could get ugly for Jake Browning right away. Yeah, and that's going to be rough because it's going to be the first time we see him. So I just think Bengals fans are going to be like, oh, God, we're done.

We're cooked it. We're cooked. And like, no, I don't think you can base anything based on what it looks like. against a Brian for his defense. I think Zach Taylor is kind of preemptively, you know, he's got out ahead of this by being like, nobody else does what the Vikings defense does. This is like a very unique situation in game plan for them.

And he was also asked about like the schematic changes. He kind of downplayed it and was like, well, we really asked the quarterback what they want. And when, like, when Browning's the backup, they still kind of ask him what he would like, even when Burrow is healthy because there's a chance that he's going to play. And he was saying, like, it's usually not that different. But like, Zach, we could see the difference in the play calling.

We have the numbers. Yeah. Yeah. No doubt about it. All right. Let's take a break. We come back. I want to talk about the other quarterback in that game because it's Bengals Vikings.

And you mentioned Carson Wentz at the top. And to me, this might, yeah, I think this is the most intriguing of all these guys. So let's take a break and talk about Carson Wentz. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by Fandul. And Fandul is turning up the heat every Sunday with Power Hour, the ultimate live betting, window where the action is wild and the rewards are even better. Here's how it works every Sunday from 3 to 5 p.m. Eastern. Van Duel is giving you a profit boost to use on live bets during the most intense stretch

of the NFL slate. This is when games flip. Underdogs rally, parley's hit, it's your power hour on Fandul. Open the Fandual app between 3 and 5 p.m. Eastern. Claim your profit boost and make your move while the action unfolds every Sunday only on Fandul. Head to Fandul.com slash ringer NFL to get started. Must be 21 plus and present in select states or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming.

Opt-in required bonus issued as non-mithdrawable profit boost tokens. Restrictions apply, including any token expiration and max-wager amount. See terms at sportsbook.fandul.com. Gambling problem? Call 1-800 gambler or visit RG-Help.com. Call 1-888-8-977-7-7 or visit ccpg.org. chat in Connecticut. All right, we're back on the ringer NFL.

I was just thinking, Ruiz, I didn't think that this season I was going to be saying, let's take a break and come back and talk about Carson Wentz. If you would have asked me July or August, I didn't think that was going to be part of the conversation this year. But JJ McCarthy out for two to four weeks with an ankle injury. Vikings host the Bengals, Vikings traded, Sam Hal in the summer, signed Carson Wentz, and Wentz has been everywhere. I mean, I was just thinking earlier today.

What a bizarre career from with the Eagles. Goes 11 and 2 in their first Super Bowl season in franchise history. Then a couple more injury riddled seasons. Disaster in 2020 gets traded to the Colts. Then goes to Washington. Then starts a game for the Rams in 2023. Then starts a game for the Chiefs last year when it didn't matter. In week 18, week 18.

Now in his age 33 season and per the athletic, first quarterback in NFL history, to start at least one game for six different teams in six seasons. And I think what's most interesting is that this is the team where we talked a lot about Sam Darnold last year and kind of the coaching and the setup. So what do you think? How does this go? I mean, he's the hardest guy to predict on here. I feel like the other guys are a little bit easier with the range of outcomes.

Carson Wentz, I'm not exactly sure what we're going to get from him. Yeah, this is why it was tough for me to separate him and Ty Rob just because, like, I think those guys are most like the players they're replacing. And that's probably, I don't know if that's more insulting to Carson Wentz or JJ McCarthy based on how Jason McCarthy started the season. But I think there is a clear difference. And I think you can make the case that St. Arnold and Carson Wentz kind of have a similar thing going on. I agree with that. The physical talent is there.

But like you don't really trust them to make the decisions, especially in the pocket, the deeper you get into a play. But I think the key difference, especially like as it pertains to how it's going to affect the dog. the Vikings offense is that Sam Darno will like hold on to the ball a little extra. He's not necessarily going to move. He's doing it to like make a throw down field and he's going to take a hit. I think Carson Wentz is going to try to move by himself time, find a clean platform and then make that throw. And that's when disaster usually ensues with him. So I think that it's not going to look anything.

I'm not going to make the same argument I made for Sam Darnold before the season last year compared to J.J. McCarthy. but I think there could be some improvement because it's a better version of what we've seen from McCarthy early on where McCarthy is kind of holding onto the ball a little bit too long. His accuracy isn't, you know, what you want to see out of a quarterback. I think there's questions about like the types of throws he can make downfield,

like whether he has that dynamic ability to like layer the football and stuff like that. So I think Kevin O'Connell is going to be dealing with the same issues that he was kind of dealing with scheming around J.J. McCarthy. I just, my question is, like how much does the veteran factor kind of help him out there? And I don't know because it's Carson Wentz. And we really haven't seen him play a lot of football since he was in Washington.

But the last time we saw him play football, that man can lose a football game in an instant. I hadn't thought about that Donald Wentz comp. I actually liked that a lot. It's like, you know, to steal your term, they got a little bozo in them for sure. And you don't trust them. And there could be, you know, if you're watching Red Zone or something, all right, let's go to Minnesota.

And they're just like, Carson Wentz tries to buy time or scramble. And oh my gosh, throws into, like you could just picture that. You know, that was always sort of in his game. And I wonder, like, I feel like when he was early in his career, he was so confident in just his physical abilities. And that ended up being a negative because he had injuries and he's still trying to scramble. And then he's taken on more hits. It's like, no, you don't have that anymore. Like, you shouldn't be doing that.

I wonder what this version of him looks like at age 33. You know, what does he look like physically? because he could run, he could scramble when he was younger before all those injuries. The arm is strong. The physical tools have been there. He's played a lot of football, to your point, the difference with J.J. McCarthy. Like, he's seen a lot of coverages and blitzes and nose protections and all those things. So it's a weird mix of all these things.

He's been in these different systems, too, where it's just like, I don't think it's going to go great, but I also want to see just what it looks like. Yeah, I think this is a better measure of, like, the Kevin. O'Connell quarterback whisperer thing. It obviously hasn't really, hasn't worked on JJ McCarthy through two games, but I think the rookie factor is the thing we're kind of ignoring with like the reclamation project thing. Because Sam Darnold had obviously played a lot of football and seen a lot of things, like even the backups he was dealing with the year before that, Josh Dobbs, we elevated,

Nick Mullins, he kind of got more out of. Those guys had played football and you could do different things. I think with Carson Wentz back there, even if he is like as unreliable, as J.J. McCarthy has been, which is probably harsh for Carson Wentz, I think they're just going to be able to do more stuff with him. So I do think it's going to improve. I just don't know if it's going to improve in a meaningful way. And I think the other part of this is that like the environment isn't as good as we thought it would be due to injury for the most part. The offensive line, Darrys is not in there. Obviously, Ryan Kelly went out of the Sunday night game. So I think that's another factor. And it's hard to have high expectations. But it's also hard to just have any expectations because we haven't seen Wentz, as we said. Yeah. Those O line injuries. could be a big deal. I mean, we'll see if their left tackle, Christian Darrasaw comes back. But if he doesn't come back, their backup was also injured. So now is it, are they going to have a third string left tackle in this game? And then Ryan Kelly, that's just kind of a scary situation. This is the center. This is his fourth documented concussion. I believe. So you got to obviously treat that very carefully and see what the future holds for him. But to your point, the offseason narrative was, hey, they fixed their interior. This could be a really good offensive line. And here we are in week three. And it doesn't look like that's what, you know, Carson Wentz is going to be playing behind. So we'll see what that looks like.

Let's talk about Marcus Marriota because you and I last year, you know, I'm saying, Jayden Daniels is making everyone else look at it. And you're saying, no, he's not. There's schemes helping him out.

And then I look bad because Marcus Mariotta comes in against the Panthers and puts up like a 40-Burker. And I'm like, damn it. It's Carolina. Yeah, it was against Carolina. So I'm like,

it was against Carolina. Settled down. But now we might get to see him again, uh, against the Las Vegas Raiders. if Jaden Daniels cannot go in this game, what are your expectations for Mark? Because it's kind of like the Vikings.

It's not the same offense for the commanders as it was last year. For the commanders, you could argue, it's upgraded at some of these spots. What's your confidence level that he can make it look like some version like you made it look last year? Not nearly as high as it was last year when he came in. He also came in the Week 18 game against Dallas

and kind of led them back. after Daniels had kind of struggled in the first half. But we have seen early on that I think like the schematic advantages that Cliff had kind of sprung on the league just because they hadn't seen him really, you know, after the Thailand trip, who knows what happened in Thailand. But the guy, like, I don't know. Maybe he learned some more ball or something. But he came back and obviously had something that defensive coordinators couldn't handle.

But so far early in the season, we haven't seen it provide those same benefits. And I think Jaden Daniels made it work in week one because of the scramble thing. And I just think he has like outside of Lamar Jackson, he has like the best ejector button. Like when he wants to get outside the pocket, he just teleports outside of the pocket. And Mario, like he's a decent runner, but he doesn't have that.

He doesn't have generational speed. So I'm a little concerned that he doesn't have that superpower to kind of supplement the scheme. If it is figured out, and it's only a two-week sample size. I don't know. They went up against Green Bay, which could be the best defense in the NFL.

But watching the film back, there wasn't really a lot open on field on the film and I thought there were some schemes that Green Bay used that halfly used that could be replicable for other teams like I thought we saw a lot of cover two we saw a lot of like Tampa 2 invert

where like the safety starts in the middle of the field and ends up as like the middle linebacker type guy so I do wonder how Cliff is going to adjust we never really saw him have to adjust last year and I think he's going to have to do that he's going to have to do it without his starting quarterback and it kind of sucks for Marriota that he's like the guinea pig that has to figure that stuff out. It's kind of like a running theme and I'm like I don't trust him.

I don't trust him to play well here. He fumbles a lot. He's got accuracy issues. He takes a lot of sacks. But we'll see. Their offensive line is, you know, theoretically better than last year. We'll see what they get from Debo Samuel as well.

But yeah, this will be kind of another data point in the scheme versus Jaden versus cliff versus what's actually making stuff work there in Washington. And who knows? We might be having that conversation a lot. this season if they have more offensive performances like they had last week. Let's finish on Tyrod Taylor. It's not the, I'm with you.

It's not that interesting, really. I don't know that a lot changes. He can run a little. He's going to take shots downfield and he's less mistake prone than Justin Field. So I actually don't know, like, their offense obviously didn't look very good. Last year, Fields was very good in week one. How do you see this working out for the Jets with Tyrod Taylor? I think if you would have asked me this question a week ago,

I would have been more pessimistic about this move just because of how Justin Fields played in that first game. And we saw meaningful improvement in areas where we needed to see it in terms of pocket presence and getting the ball out on time and throwing accurately to the intermediate parts of the field. But we kind of saw some regression last week against the bills where he took a bad sack in the pocket when guys were open. He missed a couple throws downfield.

He did have a couple of impressive throws in there too. But overall, I thought it wasn't encouraging. performance for Justin Fields. And I think we're going to see, you know, some of the same with Tyrod Taylor. He's another guy that, like, we've only seen sparingly over the years. It's been a long time since he's been a full-time starter. But, like, that was the book on him for the most part was going to hold onto the ball a little bit longer.

I think he's more accurate than Justin Fields, but that's not saying much. I don't think he's like accuracy. He's like a strength or anything like that. But I do think he gives you a little bit of, like, the Jalen Hurts package where, like, he does throw a good deep ball, catchable deep ball, more so than even Justin Fields, who has a bigger arm but doesn't have like the touch and like the timing that Tyrod Taylor or a guy like Jalen Hertz has on it. He still adds some value in the run game again, not to the extent that Justin Fields does, but you get something like defenses have to account for him pulling the ball

in the zone. So I can see him keeping the offense afloat. And I think I said this when we were doing predictions on the preseason thing. Like if he gets in there and I thought he would get in there because Justin Fields tends to get hurt, like I could see the coaches being like, this is a steadier hand that we can rely on week to week to be more consistent. Maybe we would just stick with this and kind of hope that our defense can kind of carry us the rest of the way. I don't know if that's the case with the defense based on what we've seen so far, but I wouldn't be surprised if like the performance kind of,

you get an uptick in performance or at least consistency. Yeah, because consistency for sure. Because Fields, yeah, last year looked a little bit more like the old Fields. Week one, he had a career game. There's six and a half point underdogs at Tampa. I'm glad you mentioned the defense because it's like that whole formula they want to play with. If your defense stinks, which it has been terrible, you know, the first two weeks, it's, I know they played the bills last week. But like, if that's what it is, it's, you can't really

play the whole let's run the ball and, you know, win ugly type thing. If your defense is getting done. They had us doing Aaron Rogers's back content last week. I resent them for it. How dare that. Yeah, that is seriously. What are you doing, Jets? Messing it up for the rest of us. So we'll see what that looks like for the Jets, Jets offense there in Tampa. Tampa banged up with their offensive line. All right, backup quarterbacks, five of them we think in week three. That will be the story.

There will be some comedy. Maybe there will be some surprises. Maybe there will be some takes of some of these guys play well. So it will be fun. I use the term loosely. It will be fun to watch in week three. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz for joining us.

I'll be back in a minute with the hurry-up making my ringer 107 picks. This episode is brought to by Little Caesars. the official pizza sponsor of the NFL. At Little Caesars, the pizzas are always large, so you'll always get more bite for less buck on game day. You know, I'm not high maintenance. I'm a simple guy.

Just give me a plain cheese, like they said, large, eat it all day, eat it for lunch, come back, have a little slice later in the afternoon for dinner. I mean, what's better than that? And right now you can get 15% off orders over $15 on NFL game days with code game day. Order now at Little Cesar. or in the Little Caesar's app. Offer ends February 8th, 2026.

Offer good at participating Little Caesar stores on-app and online orders, excluding third-party online sites with an online purchase of $15 or more, only available on NFL game days. Enter promo code at checkout to get 15% off your online order, max discount $5, limit one person per day, cannot be combined with any other offers plus tax for applicable. Prices may vary.

Delivery available from participants. locations with online orders only. Copyright 2025 LCE Incorporated. All right, we're back with the hurry up, and it's Friday. That means the Ringer 107. Today's Ringer 107 is brought to you by Fandul. Hopefully you know by now every Friday at the end of the show. I give my five picks for this contest competing against other podcasts here at the Ringer.

Two and three last week, not great. Four and six on the season, not great, but no one's running away with this thing. everyone's either four and six or five and five. So let's get a couple of winning weeks here with these picks. So let's start off. I'm taking the 49ers minus two and a half against the Arizona Cardinals. Arizona's secondary is really banged up. They put Garrett Williams, their best cornerback on IR.

It doesn't look like they'll have rookie corner Will Johnson. 49ers, probably going with Mack Jones, as we talked about earlier in the show, although Brock Birdie hasn't completely been ruled out. but Jones was fine last week against New Orleans. Now, is there a chance? He has like three turnovers in this game, and I question why did I pick Mack Jones in this contest? Of course, but I think 49ers will be able to move the ball,

and I think they can cover that two and a half. So that's the pick. First pick of the week. All right. Second pick of the week, Browns plus seven and a half against the Green Bay Packers. Yes, I might regret this one. But everyone loves the Packers right now,

hot team. Everyone's saying they're the team to beat in the NFC. And I think this Browns team is well coached. I think they got some good pieces on defense that can be disruptive. Miles Garrett's probably playing better than any defensive player in football through two weeks. Maybe they force a turnover or two. Maybe they make life a little bit harder on Jordan Love and that Packers offense. So Love has played really well, but he's not going to make those second reaction plays like Lamar Jackson did last week. I just think it's a big number. I don't think the Browns are winning this football game, but I just think it's a big number. Joe Flacco, what could go wrong? I've got Browns plus seven and a half as my second pick. All right, third pick. Give me the Chiefs minus five and a

half at the Giants. Now, this might be a square pick. I understand, but come on. Are the Chiefs really going to go 0 and 3 to start the season? I don't think so. I don't think they even played that poorly last week. They were just off on some big plays offensively against the Eagles. I know Russell Wilson put up big numbers last week. I think it's going to be up and down with him and defensively they are 30th in EPA per drive through two weeks. So I'm not asking the Chiefs to score 40. I just need them to win by six points. All right, two more to get to. Give me the Ravens minus five and a half against the Lions on Monday night. I know the Lions looked great last week. I just don't know that their defense is up to the challenge of stopping

Lamar Jackson and the Ravens, a Ravens offense that has scored 81 points through the first two weeks of the season. So they've picked up right where they left off last year. There's also a chance that the lion's offense looks good once again. But I like the Ravens here at home, Monday night football minus five and a half. And finally, give me the Cowboys plus one and a half at the Chicago Bears. I took the Cowboys last week. It did not work out for me. But their offense has looked really good through two weeks. Chicago, they're down multiple starters on defense. They're down multiple cornerbacks on defense. And so I think the Cowboys can move the football here. So Cowboys plus one and a half, Ravens minus five and a half, Chiefs minus five and a half,

Browns plus seven and a half and 49ers minus two and a half. Today's Ringer 107 was brought to by Fandul, odds subject to change. All right, thanks to everyone for listening. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Kira Givens on social, additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgopal. I'll be back Monday morning, breaking down the biggest week three storylines on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C., Kentucky or Wyoming. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit RG dash help.com.

Call 1-888-787-7-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gambling helplinema.org or call 800-32750-50 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-8778 Hope NY or text Hope NY in New York.