The Ringer NFL Show - What Does the Joe Flacco Trade Tell Us About the Bengals and Browns?

Episode Date: October 8, 2025

Sheil and The Ringer’s own Steven Ruiz get together to share their instant reactions and analysis on a big trade that saw the Cleveland Browns send QB Joe Flacco to the Cincinnati Bengals. (00:00) The Joe Flacco trade(2:02) What does this trade mean in the short term for the Browns?(7:39) What does this trade mean in the short term for the Bengals?(10:31) What does this trade mean long term for the Browns?(14:11) What does this trade mean long term for the Bengals?(19:18) How does this all play out?(26:25) The Hurry Up: Ravens trade Odafe Oweh for the Chargers’ Alohi Gilman 15% 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. I'm Shield Capadia. We had a quarterback trade in the NFL on Tuesday. The Bengals acquired Joe Flacco and a sixth round pick from the Browns in exchange for a fifth rounder. So essentially a day three pick swap for Flacco. Now, the Bengals have looked like maybe the worst team in the NFL since Joe Burrow went down getting blown out in their last three games. They thought they had a backup quarterback and Jake Browning, but he's been terrible.

So now they're throwing a Hail Mary, hoping, that Flacco can provide an upgrade. Meanwhile, in Cleveland, the Browns handed the keys to Dylan Gabriel and have fellow rookie Shador Sanders backing him up. So what does this trade mean for each franchise, both in the short term and the long

term, and how will the rest of the season play out in the AFC North? To answer those questions and more, I will be joined by the ringers Stephen Ruiz. We'll break it all down right after the break. This is the Ringer NFL show presented by Fandul. And if you're

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Call 1-888-787-9-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. Let's start here, Ruiz. What does this trade mean for each team in the short term? You know, it almost feels like the best. Here's my take on the Bengals side of it. Let me know if you agree because I told you before we came on. You've been grinding the Jake Browning film closer than I have. But it almost felt to me like the Bengals might have been facing like a mutiny or something.

You know, it just felt untenable with the way Jamar Chase and his body language, the way this Jake Browning experience was going. It almost felt like they were saying, we can't do that for 13 more weeks. Like it's just, it's not going to happen with this group of players. We have to do something here. So I think to me in the short term, they were like, all right, you know, let's try another quarterback. We don't know if he'll be better, but we just can't continue with the Jake Browning experiment. What was your take from the Bengals perspective, what this means just in the short term?

I honestly, I think it's more the coaches than the players like Jamar Chase and T. Higgins, who certainly weren't getting good service from Jake Brown by any means. I don't think he's, it's hard to like pinpoint a strength with him. It's like he's even fine as generous. it's like he's okay at everything across the board. Like his accuracy isn't that big of an issue, but it's not a strength at all. It's not good accuracy.

But I think it's the turnover worthy plays, really. Like just putting the ball in danger. I think they wanted Jake Browning to come in, run the system. We've talked about this a bunch about how their system kind of change, becomes more quarterback friendly. But even in that more quarterback friendly environment, Browning was just turning the ball over way too much. And like, you excuse them for the Jaguars game,

because he kind of came in, you know, the chips were down. He has to come back in the game. If he throws a couple of picks, I mean, you didn't game plan for him. It's understandable. But this last game, I mean, I think Pro Football Focus had him for five turnover-worthy plays. Oh, my God.

It looked like more than that. You just can't be that style of quarterback, the game manager style of quarterback, and turn over the football. And I think that's really what did it. I think the coaches were like, at first, they were like, oh, maybe we can coach around this like we did two years ago. But when he's turning the football over,

that just makes their job so much harder. than it is already without Joe Burrow. Yeah, it's so weird because he, you know, we talked about how we came in in 2023 and it wasn't like the greatest quarterback we've ever seen, but he kept them afloat. He had seven interceptions in nine games in 2023. He has eight interceptions in four games this season.

And to your point, they're not fluky. It's not like, oh, the ball's bouncing off a receiver's hand. He leads the NFL in percentage of turnover-worthy play. So it just looks like a different guy than we saw two years ago here. So they're two and three. The AFC North is a mess. I guess they're thinking, hey, can Flacco just give us a little bit better chance to sneak into the playoffs?

And, you know, maybe we get Joe Burrow back in December here. I was wondering, why would they go this route rather than someone like Kirk Cousins? Would he be a better option than Joe Flacco here? I mean, I think the worry there is the investment. I remember during the offseason, the Falcons wanted teams to pay 20, million of the guarantees left on Kirk Coussend's deal. And that's just like a non-starter, especially for this Steve. Mike Brown, you come with a $20 million guaranteed bill.

Mike Brown is not even answering the phone at that point. But I agree with you. Like, James Winston, do they give up the Giants a call and ask about James Winston or Russell Wilson? Like Russell Wilson, I feel like, if you're going to go big, Russell Wilson was the option there because he can throw the moon ball still. I don't know if you can direct it as well as you used to, but you don't really need to when it's T. Higgins and Jemar Chase

tracking the ball down field. but it feels like to me training for Flacco is almost giving up and it's almost like okay now we have a quarterback who won't turn the ball over as much as Brownie did. He might not be able to do anything else.

He's not going to move the ball. He's not going to move the needle at all. He's not going to raise the ceiling for the offense, but he will be able to do that. It feels like giving up to me. It feels like we just want to get out of this season without embarrassing ourselves and without losing our jobs really,

the coaching staff I'm talking about. And that's the type of move it feels because like this to be a bit of, is wide open right now. Like I still feel very good about the Ravens being able to win this division, even though they're sitting at one and four because of the competition within it.

And the Bengals, I think, are two and three. Despite having the NFL's worst point differential, I think they're like 28th in UPA in offense, like 29th in defense. It doesn't look good here, but I feel like if you get anything out of that quarterback position, and by anything, I don't mean anything that Joe Flackle can offer you at this point based on his first couple games this season.

I mean, I think you could make a run at the division and maybe make the playoffs, at least like Fain being a contender this year, not a contender, but like a wild card contender. And if you're Zach Taylor, that's like, you know, that's pretty good. There are people questioning your job every season, it seems like. Especially because you have Joe Burrow, and we talk about how it's the Joe Burrow offense

and how he controls everything. This was your chance to kind of put together your own offense for a full season and show that you can bring something to the table Browning obviously wasn't capable of that. But I thought there were other quarterbacks out there who could be capable of that. Even like Drew Locke, for instance, I'd rather, you know, see Drew Locke play in this offense

than Joe Flacco. We've seen enough of Flacco. He's been washed up for 10 years. Yeah. It's a low-risk move because they didn't, you know, it's a day three pick swap, but I'm with you. I think it's a move that's unlikely to really be meaningful

for the Bengals here. I mean, he might turn the football over a lot in this, like maybe not as much as Jake Browning, but I don't know that that's going away here. All right, what about the Browns in the short term? So they're going with Dylan Gabriel. They made that decision before last week. He didn't look completely overwhelmed.

Maybe you, I don't know if you agree or disagree, but on Sunday morning, he plays in that game. And it's like, all right, looks okay. That's the first part to clear. And I guess there's no real point to having Flacco on the roster. He started four games and then was bench. So how does this play out sort of for the Browns? Just kind of what does this mean for them in the short term?

Because I guess it means where one, Dylan, Gabriel injury away, maybe from the Shador Sanders content machine kicking off here. Yes, it's coming. It's coming. Trust me. I think with the way Dylan Gabriel plays, I think Shador is going to get a chance because I think there is a chance at injury. Dylan, I just want to ask you something. I'm just curious. Did you get up at 930 to watch the Dylan Gayle with Carson Wentz Showdown? I did. I did. Yeah, I watched a lot. I did. I think I missed the first couple of tries, but I caught up on it. I don't think he looked overwhelmed. I just don't think he looked like an NFL starter to me.

Like, he reminds me of, like, a value brand Brock Purdy. Like, I don't think Dylan Gabriel gets drafted in the third round if Brock Bertie doesn't do what he does the last couple of years. You know what I mean? Like, the selling point, like the elevator pitch is the same with Gabriel. Like, they played a ton of college football. They're undersized, but they're scrappy. They can run around and make plays.

They're going to run the offense because they have so much experience. They have a good feel for football, and they have a good football IQ. but the difference between him and Purdy is, I think Purdy just has a little more finesse with his arm. Gabriel has that thing where he's trying to throw every pitch 95 miles per hour. You know what I mean? I might need to update my baseball references

because I haven't watched baseball. Yeah, that's slow now. That's like 10 years and now. That's like the scrubble comes in. Yeah, yeah. He's trying to throw everything 105 miles per. That doesn't even sound right. Okay.

But yeah, that's the thing with him. It's kind of like the J.J. McCarthy discussion with like, can he layer the football over his own? and I just don't see that with him. And he's not super accurate either. So, like, your ceiling is, like, game manager system quarterback type. But I just think he doesn't have that down-to-down precision that you need. So, like, I can see why the Browns feel comfortable having them run the offense right now.

And I can totally see why they picked him over Shador to be the starter after benching Flacco. I just don't think either of these guys is the quarterback of the future. I don't think the quarterback of the future is on the roster right now. And I think, like, the front office realizes that. and that's why they went about, you know, training camp and the quarterback competition in the way that they did. I think Andrew Barry's just happy

because he gets to be like, hey, look, I flipped this 40-year-old quarterback for a fifth-ground pick. And like, that's his thing now. That's his main selling point is accruing draft capital. And they got another pick here. Yeah, I wanted to talk more about that

just kind of what this trade means for each team in the long term here. Because you touched on it there. I guess you want some information gathering the rest of the way with Dylan Gabriel. Like I probably lean towards what you're, saying here, but maybe they're like, all right, well, let's at least give it a shot and make sure we know what we have in him before we have to make these offseason decisions here.

And then I think, you know, their off season is pretty interesting because they've taken this approach where it's like, let's take a bunch of dart throws. We're trying to get out of the worst contract and the worst trade in NFL history with Deshaun Watson. We'll take Gabriel. We'll take Shador. We'll get flacko. We'll get picket.

Let's just see where we are. And this is where they are. I mean, now only two of those guys are on the roster. You have a good defense. You have two first round picks next season. And so now they are in the spot where it's like after the season, can you build up the roster around Dylan Gabriel? Maybe not.

Do you want to take a big swing in the draft and draft a quarterback with one of those picks or move up in the draft? You could potentially do that. Can you trade for a quarterback? I mean, right now we don't know, but I don't know. Just Kyler Murray or Tua or Bryson? I don't know. I'm just throwing names out there.

Is there someone available who it's like, we have draft capital, we can make a trade for a quarterback? And then I think the last option here, Ruiz, is the reclamation project quarterback. I think this is about to become a major storyline in the NFL. It's almost defined the first five weeks here. When you look at Darnold and Daniel Jones and Baker Mayfield, our team's going to talk themselves into this and say, oh, Matt Jones didn't look too bad there last week or Carson Wentz. Is there something? I'm just saying, I think there are some of these guys that teams will look at and say, well, we don't have to spend a ton of resources yet.

Let's build up the rest of the roster, put them in position to succeed. So how do you see all those different options with the Browns and what they're looking at kind of in the long term here? It would be pretty bold of the Browns to try to do the quarterback reclamation thing when they're the franchise breaking all of these quarterbacks. You know what I mean? I don't think they should have any confidence in their ability to build up a quarterback when they can't even find one. You just look at this regime's the cracks they've taken. And I think before the Deshaun Watson, like the off-the-field stuff came along,

everybody was like, oh, Deshaun Watson's like a top five quarterback. And like, this is a, it's going to make their quarterback room better if you ignore all this crap that you shouldn't ignore. And they struck out on that one. But like beyond that, like drafting Gabriel. Brayne in Chador, Kenny Picky, Joe Flack, all these guys they brought in. Like, I don't really have a lot of confidence in this regime

being able to identify a good quarterback. If I'm them, if I'm Kevin Stefansky to, like, assuming that he has the job next year, I'm like, for the love of God, can I develop a quarterback? Can you give me a quarterback to actually develop instead of trying to take these shortcuts

and finding one or throwing dartboards on day two and day three? Like, I think there's some promise there. Like, what we saw him get out of big, I know we talk about the Brown's breaking Baker Mayfield, and I just made a joke. about it. But Sapancy was getting good football out of him. So if I'm intent on keeping him around, which I feel pretty good about, I think he's a decent coach. Like, I feel like they haven't sunk

to the bottom of the league and they've had every reason to sink to the bottom of the league. Then if I'm him, I'm going to the front office and I'm like, can we just do this the right way? Can we bottom out this year, draft a quarterback? If we have to throw in a couple extra round picks to leapfrog a couple people, then so be it. I know this isn't the best quarterback class, but there's enough there where you could probably take. talk yourself into finding a franchise quarterback. But that has to be the play here. No more shortcuts for them.

I'm with you there. For the Bengals, I'm curious because you did bring up Zach Taylor's job security. And you're right, it does come up. But you mentioned the Bengals financials also. And I don't know that they're in the business of let's pay a coach to not coach for us. And I do feel like he has a pretty easy out here with, come on, Joe, you know, Joe, my quarterback, franchise quarterback got injured.

Look at what's happening. with other teams when that happens. And so I think Zach Taylor is going to be okay. I don't think this is like a job preservation thing for him with Flacco. I mean, that would be the saddest job preservation thing of all time to save my job. Go get me Joe Flacco. I don't think that's what's happening here. But I think they're just getting like a real look at the roster and their weaknesses.

And it's like you chose to build it this way. And I think you can win games this way with the quarterback and the wide receivers taking up so much money. But like there's got to be something. whether it's the defense or the offensive line or whatever, there's got to be, like, you have a lot of holes on the roster here now. So how do you kind of look at them long term and what we're learning about them and how they build this thing to get back to being a contender?

Well, the thing about like the coach job security and then the front office job, front office is that the front office is kind of like a family style front office, just like the ownership group. So you can't just like fire like Katie Blackburn, Duke, those guys, they've been around forever. And I don't think they're going to be the first. one's out the door. I think Zach Taylor's going to get the blame. And for him, because Burrow has been hurt, one, I think expectations have been lowered a little bit because it's like, oh, they didn't

make the playoffs, but Burrow, you know, started the season bad. Burrow was hurt for the first month. Burrow got hurt for the second half. Of course, you're not making the playoffs. And for him, it's always been about, like, just not crashing the plane. Like, just keeping it afloat. And right now, it's on the verge of crashing. I know they've won two games. They were lucky to win that Jaguar's game. They were kind of lucky to win that Browns game, actually. It could be 0 and 5 right now, and I think the sky would be falling in Cincinnati. I think we would be talking about Zach Taylor

and his job security, but I don't think we're that far away, which is why I think this is a desperation move. It's like we just can't embarrass ourselves this year. But if I'm the bangles, I'm thinking about that extension they gave him right after the Super Bowl loss, where before the Super Bowl run,

there was already talk about it. There was already talk about, like, what is he bringing to the table? Like, do we need another quarterback for Joe Burrow? Lou Anirumo goes on a heater in the playoffs. Patrick Mahomes loses his mind in the second half of the AFC championship game. They're within one touchdown play of winning the Super Bowl. Aaron Donald doesn't get his pressure.

And I feel like that kind of revised everything that we had seen up to that point. They give him the extension. And after that, it felt like he was kind of untouchable for a couple of years. And this feels like the first time where he's not untouchable anymore. And there are questions about his job. But to your point, like you can never know with Mike Brown, because it could just come down to, hey, we're already paying the guy. We might as well let him coach.

And then if it doesn't work out, we've seen it work out with them before. Maybe it will work out this time. We can move on then when it doesn't cost us money. Yeah, the Browning thing two years ago was almost like Zach Taylor's greatest coaching moment. You know, it's like, oh, wow, you know, this offensive there four and three with Jake Browning. Like you do learn about coaches and coaching staffs when backup quarterbacks have to play.

And just from a roster building standpoint, in addition to adding talent on defense, in addition to adding talent on the offensive line. now they do have to think about backup quarterback in the years ahead with Joe Burrow because they thought they had a guy with Jake Browning. Now they're telling you they don't have a guy. Joe Burrow has been injured in three of his six NFL seasons. And so now that's something else that they have to address after the year. So I still think that you are right though. There is a point where it gets so bad where it's going to be like, well, you know, we might have to do something despite the Joe Burrow injury.

I still think the most likely scenario is that they play poor. but Zach Taylor comes back and they chalk it up to the borough injury. But we'll see how that goes. All right, let's take a break. We come back. Let's talk about, let's finish with how we think this is going to play out for both of these teams. 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.

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Delivery available from participating locations with online orders only. Copyright 2025 LCE Incorporated. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. So how does this play out with the Bengals the rest of the way? Like what does this look like? Do you think they're going to, They've looked like the worst team in the NFL the last three weeks. Do you think that continues with Flacco?

Or do you think it gets a little bit better where, like you said, they don't embarrass themselves, even if they're not in that mix when Joe Burrow comes back and gets healthy? At least it's sort of a respectable performance the rest of the way. If I'm Joe Flacco and I'm coming into the facility, I'm like, please, for the love of God, don't play me on Sunday. Whatever. Like, I'll play after that. But don't play.

They're playing at Green Bay. They're playing the Packers, Michael Parsons. I can't imagine Joe Flack. Lacko running away from Michael Pars. I kind of want to see it now because out of like morbid curiosity. But I think you can get really ugly there. And after that they get the Steelers,

they get the Jets, they get the Bears. I feel like that's a pretty good litmus test, that little three game run. Because those are like mediocre teams. And if you can't compete with them and it looks like more of the same with them, then I'm willing to just be like, this season's lost.

Because after that it gets really, it gets really tough. They go to Pittsburgh. They play New England, which is a tough matchup, all of a sudden. Then they go to Baltimore, which you assume that Baltimore

will have shit together by then. But then at Buffalo, I mean, we could be looking at like a, what, a 10-game losing streak? And I don't know how you come back from a 10-game losing streak, but like the season seems lost to me.

I know they have the 2-and-3 record, only, what, a game and a half back in the division. Yeah. But like I said, worst point differential in the NFL. That usually, you know, leads to poor results going forward.

31st and offensive EPA, 27th in defensive EPA. the defense doesn't seem to be getting better. The offense is regressing. It's hard for me to make a case for this season. It was much easier when Joe Burrow first went down and you had 20, 23 to lean back on. Look, the offense was pretty good.

But now that you don't even have that and we're back to where we were on defense a year ago, you have to have something. You have to have something to win football games and they don't have anything right now. And the other thing is, you know, I know we're like, all right, Flacco should turn it over,

be a little bit better than Brown. Statistically, if you're just looking at it, 33 qualifying quarterbacks this year. Flacco ranked last in both EPA per pass play and success rate. Now, Browning was 32nd and 30th. Now, Flacko does get chased and he gets Higgins now. So if you just chuck it up to those guys, that might be a good offense.

And I imagine that's kind of what they'll do. But there is a chance it doesn't get better at all. I mean, with this offensive line with Joe Flacco, like he might not have 1.8 seconds to get rid of the football. And he can't move. And so that could get really ugly. checkdown. He loves to.

There's no quarterback that loves to throw the checkdown. It doesn't even seem like he's playing quarterback. It seems like he's trying to survive playing quarterback. You know what I mean? Like that's a win for him is I didn't take a big hit in the pocket. So if you're expecting him to hold on the ball for long enough for Jamar Chase and T. Higgins to get downfield, I don't think it's going to happen. They better be running like 15-yard go routes if that's going to happen. Listen, that's like me, Ruiz.

You get to a certain age and athletic endeavors, they're not about performing at your highest level. about getting out of there and being able to walk out of bed the next morning. So I can relate to Joe Flacco on that level for sure. The Bengals do have the sixth, the easiest schedule the rest of the way. If you want to be an optimist, I don't think either of us are optimists. I was looking at Fan Dules' odds. They're plus 680 to make the playoffs. That's a 13% chance.

So there's no evidence here from Ruiz's film grinding, from my numbers, from the gambling odds to suggest that this is actually going to work out in the Bengals favor. And they're going to be in the mix here when Joe. when and if Joe Burrow comes back from that injury. It feels like a Hail Mary that's destined to be incomplete. And let's finish with the Browns. So how does this finish? They got a good defense.

We saw Gabriel for one week. Are they like one of the worst teams in the NFL the rest of the way? Can they get to five or six wins? What do you think we see from them? Is there a chance that Gabriel plays so poorly that we see Shador? Or do you think it's only if Dylan Gabriel goes down with an injury that we see Shador Sanders? So look into your crystal ball for the next whatever 13 weeks here. I think he only, if Shador only gets in, if Gabriel gets hurt.

Because I do think, I kind of crapped on Gabriel's skill set, but he is going to run the offense. He's not going to put the ball in harm's way too much. And you can move them around. You can do stuff with them that you can't do with Shador even. Like, Shador is not a guy that you want to move outside of the pocket at all. That's not his skill set. The coaches are unlikely to get to a level of annoyance with Dylan Gabriel.

that to the point where they feel like making the move. I think that's the key. Yeah, and then if Shador gets out there and takes a six second sack, they're going to go right back to Gabriel, you know? But I do think he gives Stepansky something that Flacco didn't even give him, even though he had this experience where you could probably run more concepts than a more dropback passing concepts. You can get this guy on the move.

You can run the ball. He's left-handed too, which I think it's a little bit tougher for defenses that are used the right-handed quarterback's, especially if you're running like that boot action, you play action fake getting outside the pocket. and the defense is good. They can win a game. It's about matchups in this league. And we saw in week three when they beat the Packers,

like if you have a suspect offensive line, you're going to be in a dog fight with Cleveland because they're going to get pressure on the on the passer with Miles Gare. Malik Collins has just been unblockable this year from what I've seen. The schedule isn't that difficult. It's a favorable schedule. Yeah. Yeah, they play many of the same teams that the Bengals do.

I think they match up a lot better. And like I said earlier, you have to have a thing you can lean on to win football games. the Browns definitely have a thing in that defensive line and that defense can look like a top five unit in any given week depending on matchup. So I think they have a chance to be in this race in the last month just because the division is so bad and I don't trust Pittsburgh right now.

You watch Pittsburgh and you look at their numbers and it seems like that 3-1 starts very fake. Baltimore, I'm assuming they get their stuff together, but the defense might be unfixable at this point and the offensive line isn't protecting Lamar Jackson in a meaningful way. So I think they're a very flawed team and they're obviously behind the eight ball. The problem is that you are one in four.

The Ravens are one in four. So you don't even have a head start on them and they're clearly the better team. So I don't think they're going to make the playoffs by any mean, but like I'd say like December 21st, maybe until they're eliminated from the playoff race. Yeah. It's the second easiest schedule according to the betting market. So they got that going for them. Like you said, they've got the defense that can keep them in games. I still think maybe six-ish wins.

maybe seven-ish wins. But, like you said, you know, that might have them in the mix in December with the way this division is going. So who knows? Let me put it this way.

Let me sum up in the trade this way. When it's 2025 and there's a trade involving Joe Flacco and you're the team getting Joe Flacco, you lost the trade. You know, you're in the worst spot. There you go. Well said.

Good one to end on. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. You can check out his quarterback rankings. Wednesday, Ruiz? Is that when they? Wednesday, right? All right, Wednesday on the ringer.com. All right, I'll be right back with the hurry up.

All right, the hurry up is our closing segment where I give you a take on something happening in the NFL. We actually had another pretty interesting trade on Tuesday with the Ravens trading edge rusher, Odafe O'A, to the Chargers for Safety, Alohi Gilman. This one surprised me because you rarely see contending teams do player-for-player trades with guys who are actually contributing. So let's start with the Ravens.

Their defense has been decimated with injuries, and it's one of the worst in the NFL. Now, they're clearly looking for a fix, and they think that fix starts with getting better in the secondary. They signed safety Chauncey Gardner Johnson to the practice squad, and now they have Gilman and are hoping that this will help stable things defensively. But the thing is, the pass rush has also been an issue for the Ravens. And while Oway doesn't have a sack this season, he does lead the team with 15 pressures. So I was thinking about this, and I think a key here is that the Ravens created $8 million

in cap space with this move. That's according to the athletics. So it feels like there's another shooter drop. I don't think they're just saying, hey, we're good with our edge group. I think they probably make another trade for a different edge rusher in the weeks ahead. So O.A is set to be a free agent at the end of the season. That's also another factor. He wasn't going to be with the team.

So keep an eye on it. See if the Ravens maybe make another trade here in the weeks ahead. Now, as for the Chargers, it's surprising on their end too, because Gilman has played the fourth most snaps of any Chargers defensive player this season. He was a key player for them. It's not like this was some backup who they can just trade and hasn't played a role. They must be looking at this saying, hey, Khalil Mack is sidelined with an injury. We like our safety depth.

We need more pass rush. And so they make the move to bring in some pass rush with O.A. Again, it's an unusual move for a team that's three and two. and has played pretty well defensively, you don't usually see those teams making a shakeup with a starter like this, but they got about just be banking on more pass rush and the safeties they have on the roster.

So I think overall a lot of teams are looking at the AFC landscape and seeing an opening. Usually teams are unwilling to make deals like this because it's hard to just plug in new players in the middle of a season. But to me, they overthink that aspect at times. If you have a good feel for the player,

their role, how they're going to fit in, and you trust your coaching staff. You can make it work. So I understand the move from both sides. It's fun. We could have a pretty active trade season here. And maybe this was just the start of it. All right. Appreciate everyone listening.

Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing Kiera Givens on social, additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgapal. I'll talk to you tomorrow 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-Helpshelp.com. Call 1-888-7-9-77 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MDGamblinghelp.org in Maryland.

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