The Ringer NFL Show - What’s Up With the Teams We Aren’t Talking About? | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: March 22, 2024

Sheil and Ben get together to discuss some of the teams around the NFL that have been relatively quiet or under the media’s radar since the season ended. They break down the offseason improvements made by championship contenders like the Packers (3:41), Cowboys (16:07), and 49ers (29:51) before analyzing squads that still have glaring question marks like the Commanders (41:48), Jets (51:05), and Colts (1:00:20). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more, or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Chris Sutton Production Supervision: Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal Social: Eduardo Ocampo and Kiera Givens Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up everybody? It's Austin Rivers from Offguard, and I've got some exciting news. Offguard hosted by me and my guide Pasha Giggi is officially moving to our own podcast feed. We are now dropping two shows every week. Me and Pasha go way back and talk so much hoops already that we figured it was time to fire up the mics and let you in on these conversations. Every week, Pasha and myself will hit on the biggest stories happening around the league. Tap into the show twice a week on our new Offguard feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Extra Point Taking Shield Capati here, joined by Ben Soak. It is the Friday show, as we told you earlier in the week.

We said, what are the teams we haven't talked about that you want us to talk about? And we picked six of them. Listen, some of you got in a little late. Don't worry. We'll get to those teams eventually. But we said we're not going to get to every team we haven't talked about. So we'll go with the six that we got first, that there was most demand to talk about. And we will go through what they have done so far this.

off-season. So, like, how did you find this exercise, digging into some of these teams? This is good. This is the sort of thing that I like to, like, do. You know what I like to kind of know what the Cults' Devens of Tackle situation is. That's how I do the job.

And so this made sense to me. I will say some of you, expats, spoiled Ryan, you guys. Got some messages like, oh, you guys haven't talked enough about the Chiefs. Oh, yeah, no, we have. And the Chiefs did like two things with three. What are we talking about?

Chiefs won the Super Bowl. Chiefs had their time in the sun. I got a, oh, you guys haven't talked enough about the bills? Yep. We 100% have unequivocally. They made a lot of like, like, you know, tier four, tier five moves. But still, if you were a prominent team in season, you don't get to be like you haven't talked about us enough. I don't buy that. First of all, it's my job to berate our listeners. And you cannot take that for me. So I'll let you have this one. But in the future, I'm going to claim that that's going to be what I do. Second of all, I don't think those,

I don't think those are necessarily inappropriate complaints. The bills, we talked about a ton in season, but their offseason's been pretty interesting. I think that's something we definitely need to get to in a future show. If you're going to be a contending team, you have to acknowledge that in the off season, it's not your time, right? Now we're talking about the Cardinals.

We're going to be talking about the Patriots and be talking about commanders. If you are a team that regularly plays January of football, March is not your time for the podcast. All right? You're on the bench this week. Listen, Bill's fans, you know I personally will be giving you a lot of time throughout the course of a year. So don't worry, we'll get there.

And Chiefs, yeah, of course, Chiefs, I mean December, January, February. That's your time. Come on. This isn't when you. Chiefs fans, I protected the Chiefs fans of course this year. She'll cast you aside. She'll buried you, put you in the grave six feet of dirt on top. I was with you.

You know what? Chiefs fans are so nice that after I went on the thing, like I said something when they were going to the Super Bowl. I'm like, I apologize. I screwed this up. You know, you can yell at me. you haven't yelled at me enough. Chiefs fans actually emailed me and we're like, well, here's the reasons why we didn't yell at you.

You know, we kind of had some doubts and don't worry about it. I'm like, man, you got your nice group there in Chiefs fans. I guess when you have Patrick Mahomes, that's what happens. When you win consecutive Super Bowms and you have Patrick Mahomes, you don't need to hold any grudges. Life is great. Yeah. Absolutely. Keep it sweet.

There you go. All right. So I'm not going to tell you, we're just going to go one by one. I'm not going to tell you all the teams at the top because I want you to keep listening. Listen, that's what we got to do. We got to pay the bills around here. It's definitely not in the episode description or anything like that. Oh, is it going to be?

I don't know. 100%. All right. Well, we are starting with the team of extra point taken from 2023, the Green Bay Packers. We told you before the season, this team is making the playoffs. They've got plus odds, but we believe in them. Then we kind of didn't believe in them, but we're like, well, we got to stick with them because we chose them anyway.

And then by the end of the season, I'm like, I love this team. I love this quarterback. Let's go. Packers, great call by us. So here's what they've done so far this offseason. They had the little weird running back swap where they try to get Aaron Jones to agree to a pay cut. He does not. They move on from Aaron Jones and they signed Josh Jacobs to replace him. So that was one big move. Other big move, Xavier McKinney, $17 million per year. A big time contract for Xavier McKinney, the Young Safety from the New York Giants, who I said in pre-free agency that I like this guy a lot.

And he got a bigger deal than even I anticipated. So those were their two big additions. And the subtractions were Aaron Jones, which I mentioned. They move on from linebacker Devondre Campbell, David Bakhtiari, the long time in and out left tackle, has been injured. He's out of there. John Runyon Jr., the guard, he's out of there. Josh Nyman, the swing tackle.

He's gone. And Darnell Savage, the safety, he's gone. So they lost a good amount of players and had two big pickups. And then the big addition. So like, which I actually don't think we've talked about this. Jeff Halfley is the new defensive coordinator. Jeff Halfley replaces Joe Barry, who we did talk about quite a bit throughout each of the last, for instance, the inception of the show.

We talked about Joe Barry quite a bit. I think we both agreed it would be a good move by the Packers to move on from Joe Barry. And so they did that this offseason and replaced him with Halfley. All right. Those are all the moves. How are you feeling? What do you think?

You lead us off here about what? what the Packers have done this offseason, kind of the state of the roster as we look ahead to the draft in 2024. I generally think the Packers had a good offseason. I think that Xavier McKinney, we talked about him a lot in the free agency preamble. I think that he was the best safety available in the free agent market when you look at like the totality of his entire profile, Justin Simmons,

who's still available, right? Kind of crazy for Justin Simmons. Simmons plays great. But McKinney is younger and then they signed up for a longer term deal. He's more of like a franchise cornerstone sort of a piece. I think that safety was clearly the weak spot on that. roster defensively down the stretch last year. And so they get the big guy there.

They did generally like the smart free agency thing where they tried to get a little bit younger and a little bit cheaper, try to be a little bit early on moving off some guys in the Aaron Jones move. Right, Devondra Campbell has gone. David Boktiari, it was probably, they were a year late on that one, not a year early, but they make that move. It's funny because they didn't need to. There's other teams like, all right, you guys have to get, like the chargers.

You had to get younger. You had to get cheaper. The Packers was like, you were already one of the youngest teams and football. necessarily need to do this, but it's still probably just like healthy team building overall. It's like net, it's a good move. I do think that like while the vibes of moving on from Aaron Jones has been there for so long, it's been such a good back

for them, well, the vibes aren't amazing. I do think that like Aaron Jones to Josh Jacobs is a lateral enough move that I understand why they did it. They got a couple years younger and Jacobs is to me a really good back. At offensive line, like you have the David Bakiaria question. They lose John Runyon Jr. and free agency. They have multiple starting spots open right now. I think that if you have a concern with what the Packers did,

it's that they really banked on development in Rashid Walker, who's their left tackle from last year was a seventh round pick, or two years ago he was a pick, but he played last year in relief of David Bacdiari. They're hoping he needs to take a step forward. With Runyon gone, they have Sean Ryan, is another day three pick out of UCLA to play guard. They need him to kind of be ready to take on that role.

I don't even think, like, center to me, Josh Myers has been a weak point for that team. And so if you have a concern, it's that they've thinned on offensive line. I think they, A, desperately need some depth, right? They also lost, they lost Yash and Iman to the Panthers. They desperately need some depth, but then they also could go for a couple guys so they could win a job in

camp. And so I do think this is an offensive line team early. They tend to draft and develop really well. So I understand why this is the position where they're kind of rolling their dice a little bit. But I do think like overall, like wise approach, good approach. And then keeping the corners was good. That was correct and everything. It's the fitting of offensive line that scares you, if anything. But if there's a team to believe in that, it's kind of this Packers team. So you can't get too upset about it. Yeah, I kind of give a, them the benefit of the doubt on the offensive line. They've just done such a good job year in and you're out with finding guys, finding competent players up front. So we'll see what they do there.

Obviously, they could still address it in the draft. But I'm just like, yeah, they'll figure it out. I mean, you mentioned how young they are on offense. They had 14 offensive players play at least 400 snaps last year, and 12 of them are back. The only two that are gone are Aaron Jones, which you mentioned, I'm with you. I would put Aaron Jones and Josh Jacobs and Josh Jacobs like in the same tier if I'm thinking about, all right, how are these guys going to play in 2024? I don't have a strong preference one over the other. They opted for the younger guy. I think that's fine. So that's one. And then the other is John Runyon, Jr., a guard who got paid by the New York Giants. And you feel like, all right, you can probably figure out someone

to play guard there. So I think they're going to be really good on offense. I mean, you look at the differences in where they ranked last year. It's pretty obvious where they needed to get better. there were sixth in offensive DVOA in Jordan Love's first freaking year as a full-time starter. Like that is a very good and all these young players. That's a great place to be. There were 27th in defensive DVOA. Okay, some of that's on the coordinator. Some of that's on the talent.

I think they still need to address that in the draft. And then they were 31st in special team CVOA. So it's like there is a path where we're doing an August podcast and I'm saying, Solek, my sleeper team for the Super Bowl, maybe not even my sleeper team. My official pick for the Super Bowl is the. Green Bay Packers. That is within reason of something that can happen. So we'll see what they do here in the draft. I continue to believe that Matt LaFleur is one of the most underrated coaches in the NFL. You look at it now, 56 and 27. He has won almost 68% of his NFL games. And I know, again,

if you're saying, well, yeah, Aaron Rogers, yeah, let's take a step back and try to figure out how easy that might have been or how difficult that might have been now that we know what we know now those years to be coaching Aaron Rogers. So I think they're in a great spot. You know, I don't think they need to rush out and make some splashy move on offense. I like growing with these young group of wide receivers and tight ends. I think that's fine. And defensively, I don't know, do you have like a strong feeling on Jeff Halfley? It's like, well, this is it. Like, it's not Mike Zimmer. It's not, you know, Vic Fangio. It's a guy they bring in from Boston College at BC. He played a lot of single high. He played a lot of cover three, a lot of

number one. Now, how much do we really read into that? Or do we say, well, that was one thing, but we don't know what he's going to do at the NFL level here. And also, what do you think, like, a good defensive coordinator with the group of talent they have right now? Like, what are realistic expectations? Like, I don't think they should be, you know, like a top five defense with this group. I sort of see him as like, all right, if you can get them to kind of mediocre, I think there's enough talent there to get to mediocre. Do you agree with that? No, this is what we always talk about in terms of elite offense. middle of the road defense, right?

That's kind of what you want to be hitting if you're going to be a Yeah, that's their formula. You got to make sure you're top 10 on offense. If you're top 16 on defense, that's okay, you can get away with that nowadays. I do think they're more so going to be in that range. I do think that there are multiple elite to near elite players at their positions on this team. And Kenny Clark, who's the nose tackle and Jerry Alexander is the corner. Now, Kenny has been doing this for a while and is great.

And Kenny's still like, it's unbelievable. Everybody talks to all the Packers, you know, they're so young. Kenny Clark's been there for like 15 years in his 20. It's unbelievable. Yeah, he entered the league really young, right? So Kenny's been cooking for a long time. Jair, banged up a lot last season. It's been a second since we've seen it.

And so, you know, you kind of put an asterisk on that one. And then they do have impact players in Roshan Gary. I think now in Xavier McKinney, who I wouldn't put in the elite tier in his position, but I would put it in like the good to great tier in his position. They have some of those guys. Now, what the issue for this team was, I think, under, under Barry, besides some of the schematic, you know,

obvious problems, is that they weren't good enough on the X's and O's on the chalkboard or good enough on like the other five positions, the worst five positions on defense to account for like having stars, right? It's just too easy to take advantage of the other players. That's where I look at linebacker, right? We're like Devondra Campbell left and now it's Quay Walker with Isaiah McDuffie, who's just been a teamer for them. And it's like, oh, man, like we might be in a world world. Oh, they're playing all this man coverage. You know, Jay Alexander's traveling with the star receiver. Yay, that's great.

They're actually playing slot corners over slot receivers now. Wow, how exciting. but it doesn't matter because you don't have a backroom and cover anybody, right? So there's still gaps. You know, the second safety spot opposite Xavier McKinney.

They have a bunch of young and interesting guys along the defensive line. They have Carl Brooks. They have Lucas Van Ness, but there's a lot of unproven stuff there still. There's worlds in which the gaps on this defense still hurt the team and the halfway bump isn't as big as anticipated.

One thing that does have to be said, as lame as it is. I'm putting on my shield, storm cloud, sad hat right now. everything is gloomy and gray. Take offense to that, but go ahead. Development is not linear. The Packers are doing a lot of banking on,

hey, all of our young guys were so great last year. We'll just run it all back, and they'll all be good again, and they'll get better. And it's like, man, it'd be sick if that's how it worked, isn't it? It would be so cool of all of your young players just got better year over year, or at least even achieved the same level play year over year.

And I'm like, I am big on Don Tavian Wicks. I am big on Jane Reed, been there for a while, been on Jordan Love, big on Carl Brooks. I liked Carburg Sporty. Ballantine, I thought played great. Like, there are a lot of guys in this group who I like, who I would, you got to bet on somebody when you're running a team, and I would bet on these guys. But as much as we're going to spend a lot of time in the summer show, you and I talking about the Packers are young, the Packers were hungry,

and the Packers are good, whatever, they're cheap. You got to remember development's not linear. Sometimes Jada Reed just comes out as a bad sophomore season, and there's not too much an explanation for it. You don't really know why, and this nagging injury, and it's frustrating. All of a sudden, all those best laid plans, which were built on the scaffold of, like, our young guys are going to keep getting better.

Those fall away. So Green Bay's young, which is good, but there's also a degree of uncertainty that comes with that. It's a good point. And it is true. And there's a statistical case with that with Jordan Love, too. I mean, his, you know, there's EPA per play, which is one metric. And he was fourth in that in the regular season, which is unbelievable. But he was 15th in success rate. So that generally kind of tells you, well, all right, he didn't turn the ball over a lot. And he hit on some explosive plays. But from a down to down basis in terms of success rate, he wasn't at that. level. Now, I'm not going to, you know, I'll mention that stat. And then I'll tell you, I'm all in on Jordan Love because I watched the guy play and I think he's fantastic and I think he's going to be even better. But that is, you know, when we're talking about range of outcomes, that certainly is a good thing to mention. Yeah, especially when you're that young, you know, last year was like, all right, this is great. These guys are a revelation. But now that next step, what does it look like?

It could look amazing and it could lead them to the Super Bowl. But yes, some of those guys could take a step back where we were talking about them next off. season saying, all right, they actually have some holes at these spots, which we didn't kind of predict a year ago. So there you go. Listen, Packers fans feel good. Shiel, I'm the one who made the point. And I don't even want you to agree with me. In the future, if I ever make such a lame, boring, annoying, stupid point. I feel attacked. It's sunny outside March, I love this time of year. We got March Madness. We got some masters coming up. Opening days next week. We have the NFL draft NBA. I'm a, uh, I'm a, uh,

ball of sunshine, Ray of sunshine? See, I don't even know the term. You don't even know it's called, dude. I don't use it to describe myself often. In the future, if I ever make such a lame point again, I want you to just go and then toss us

to the next team. I never want to be a great upon, and I have to say something that boring again. I like that. I'll say, stop being so negative. Stop being a Debbie Downer. Be more like me. Okay, your podcast partner,

your podcast uncle, whatever you want to call me. All right, that's the great, listen, Packers fans, you're feeling good. You know you're feeling good. We know you're feeling good. annoyed Bears fans and Vikings fans and Lions fans, they know you're feeling good because it's not fair. It shouldn't happen this way, but guess what? It happened this way. And I love going to a Lambo field. So good for you. Packers, listen, we're going to be positive on the Packers,

probably all offseason and go and get to next off season. Next season. All right, next team here we got. And I thought this was interesting that someone asked about this team because they haven't done much. The Dallas Cowboys, Additions, Linebacker, Eric Kendricks. Dead air. Nothing else. Linebacker, Eric Kendricks. That's it. Subtractions. Left tackle, Tyrant Smith. Center, Tyler Beiotish, running back, Tony Pollard, Edge, Dorrance Armstrong, defensive tackle, Jonathan Hankins, and then cornerback Stefan Gilmore is out there right now. Jerry Jones had the comment. He said, we're all in. And then Cowboys fans are sitting there twiddling their thumbs in free agency going, wait a minute, I thought we were all in.

what is happening here? What do you think? Were there moves on the table where you say they should have been more aggressive there? Why didn't they do this? They need to address this. Or are you like, hey, you know what?

Smart teams? They don't go crazy in a free agency. They've got a good roster. They have one Solek. And I feel like I bring this up all the time. They're 36 and 15 in the last three seasons. Second best record in the NFL to only the Kansas City Chiefs.

Yet they have nothing to show for it and all the other fan bases point at them and laugh for, wasting these good teams and not doing anything in the playoffs for now, 28 years, 28 years without getting out of the divisional round, the Dallas Cowboys. So how do you view it? How do you view what they've done or not done this offseason? One of my rules of thumb has always been like, all right, if your team spends a lot of money

in the first 24 hours of free agency, your team probably won that good last year, right? That's not to say like it's bad to do it. Sometimes it's something that can be. Sometimes you get good deals. But in general, if you're spending a lot of money, it means your team's not that great. And Stephen Jones said much of this when he was asked by reporters kind of after they had such a quiet cycle. Like, why didn't you guys do anything? Stephen Jones was like, I've always been of the opinion that if you're paying guys in the first day of free agency,

you're playing good players like they're great and average players like they're good and so on. And so he's just like, that's just kind of not the way we want to go about things. Now, they lost a lot of guys in terms of numbers, right? Tyler Beata has gone to the commanders. Tyron Smith, obviously longtime life tackle to the Jets. Tony Pollard leaves, goes to Tennessee. They think he said, Stefan Gilmore is still up. Doran's armstrongs now to Washington.

These weren't like, you know, cornerstone pieces, right? It's not like they were losing like high impact players. These are, these are starters. Tyrant Smith, right? Clearly a high impact player. But like, been dealing with injury and you have the succession plan in place there at left tackle,

Tyler Smith, who's been playing left guard for them now bumping to that spot that he played in college left tackle where he was always supposed to play. So it's not like you were losing like huge cornerstone places. These are useful, useful pieces, though. And that's the thing is just, I think this really challenges, Dallas's depth, right?

Because you're looking at the offensive line now, and it's like, okay, are we just going to, like, have a training camp battle between a Seam Richards and, and another guy who's name, I definitely remember? Like, they just don't have dudes in the hopper, right?

You look at at wide receiver or Michael Gallup, who like, when they signed the Gallup deal, I thought it was a solid contract, and then he got hurt, he never came back, so they have to cut him. Okay, you got Brandon Cooks, but what is it, is it,

is it Jalen Tolbert now? Is it, is it Cavante Turpin? Like, it's just, this really, like, okay, Jonathan Hengis is gone? Doren's Armstrong is gone. Is Mazzis Smith ready? Because there's nothing from last year

to believe he was ready. Just like depth-wise, this is really what challenges you. The problem is that it is hard to use money to account for depth right now because the money is, the future money is in some way, theory, practice somewhere in the middle

tied up into Michael Parsons' contract, who's got one year left on his deal and then the fifth year option incoming. It's tied up into CD-LAMS contract, he's got one year left on his deal, and it's tied up into Dak Prescott's contract, who's got one active year left on his deal, before void years and guaranteed money hit.

I understand why they didn't feel like they wanted to sign any huge deals in free agency with those three dudes looming over the top of them. I get it. With that, like, I get it. I understand it. You have to be better at drafting if you're going to do this, though. You can't spend a third on Jalen Tolbert and get nothing for it. You can't spend a first of Mazie Smith and get nothing for it, right?

Like if you know you're going to have an exodus, if you're like B, C, tier level talent, you need to actually have the hopper full of dudes ready to go. And they just haven't drafted well enough. And so I'm worried about the depth of this team. I think that it, I think that losing Tyler Beaudish to sign CD Lamb is the appropriate decision. But man, like it is a scary, like the stars are still the stars. The guys who won them all his regular season games, those guys are still going to be there. But it is a scary proposition looking at the depth of this team moving forward.

There is a fragility to this team, it feels like. And then that's really what I think you were saying with a lot of that there. I mean, yeah, sure. You can talk me into that. Prescott's going to be really good. Next regular season, C.D. Lamb's going to be really good. Next regular season, you still have

Micah Parsons. Your corners are fine. You have pieces where, again, you've won 12 games three years in a row. It's not like this team all of a sudden stinks. But Rico Dowdell right now, if they had to play a game this weekend, who has 96 career carries, would be their

starting running back. You mentioned it. It's fine to say, we're not paying Tyler Beaudish that. He got a nice deal from the commanders. I think that's a fine move to make. But now who's playing center? Like, what was your, what was your plan now to replace this guy? Tyrant Smith, I think it's fine to say, you know what? He's been injured a lot.

Tyrant Smith was frigging awesome last year. Like, he looked like the tire, you know, Tyrant Smith in his prime. And the Jets, now maybe he wouldn't have signed the same deal he signed with the Jets. But like the Jets got him on. And we'll talk, we're actually going to talk about the Jets. There you go. There's a little tease. But Jets got him on a very incentive-laden deal where his base is $6.5 million.

That's like nothing for that tackle. And then if he plays, yeah. Yeah, he can make a lot of money. So I don't know if that would have been available to the Cowboys or not. But yeah, you have a couple spots on the offensive line that you're worried about. Is Tyler Smith going to play left guard or left tackle? He was great at left guard. Do you just keep him there or do you move him to left tackle?

Got to play him to tackle. Got to. Probably. And then that opens a spot at guard. Now you have an opening at guard and at center. And Zach Martin's entering his age 34 season. And Terran Steel at right tackle is kind of, you know, okay, but not great. So now all of a sudden, your offensive line isn't as good.

But if C.D. Lamb goes down, then I mean, this is, like Jake Ferguson is a fine tight end. But to your point, it's not like they've got, you know, three or four great players or, you know, very good players who you say, all right, you can, if one guy goes down, you're okay. So they're not very deep there with the past catchers and the skill group on offense. And then defensively, you lose Dan Quinn. You bring in Mike Zimmer. I think Mike Zimmer's going to be very good. But to your point, defensive tackle is an issue. You let Jonathan Hankins go and Mazzie Smith was a big disappointment for you last season.

What does this run defense look like? You're not great at linebacker. And so there's just, it just feels to me like the type of team where, man, last year sort of felt like a year where really everything was in place for them to make a deep run in the NFC and it didn't happen. Is it going to happen this season? And the point I feel like, listen, I make on every ringer thing that I'm on. So if you've heard, I'm sure you, Solex heard it in an NFL meeting we had. you know, last week with off-season storylines. But at some point here, in the next year,

Dak Prescott is going to become the highest paid player in NFL history. I'm sorry, that's what's going to happen. Dak Prescott has more leverage than almost any player I can remember in the NFL. He is going into the final year of his contract. He's entering his age 32 season, I believe, and his contract has a no tag clause. So right now, when he's talking to the Cowboys about his contract, They can make an offer of $50 million, and he can very comfortably say,

up, up, up, Joe Burroughs got 55. I want more than that. And they can say, no, we're not doing that. He could say, cool, next offseason, I'm going to test the market. Someone's paying me that money. Either it's going to be you or somebody else. So the Cowboys now have this decision where they can say, we're going to make him the highest paid quarterback in the NFL,

or we're not going to do that. And we're going to go into the season with Dak, Prescott, and Mike McCarthy on the final years of their deals. And we're going to see what happened. And by the way, if Dak Prescott plays really well next year and doesn't feel like being in Dallas anymore and wants to play somewhere else, he's going to have the option to do that. So it's a tricky spot. I think if you're the Cowboys, you pretty much have to pay him and you're going to pay him, then you're in the other scenario where you pay Dak Prescott $56 million. And now you have a disappointing season or you don't get out. And now you're like, oh, my God.

So they are in a very tricky spot here where they have to make a decision. To me, I would just say you pay him. He is not the problem. You build around him for the next three seasons. But Dak Prescott really has the organization in a tough spot. And that to me is like one of the biggest storylines the rest of the offseason. There is no reason for Dak Prescott to agree to any deal. He has absolutely no until the moment he starts taking active snaps because then you have like injury risk.

But other than that, at no point is there any like there's no reason for Dak to sign a deal tomorrow. they'll come with a great deal tomorrow. I'm like, all right, we're going to hold on to this like three months, right? And just so long as you don't like have a boating accident. You're fine, right? So that's why like there's just this big loom. There's this big cloud.

You say, oh, well, like, you know, like, you know, Ben and Shield, you know, you always get things down with your star players. And it's always money in the banana sand. Caps going up. Don't worry about it. Like, okay, I love like, yeah, sure, that's like mostly true, cool, whatever. Go find me the last team that had maybe like the biggest quarterback

contract to sign, right? Because that's not the best quarterback, but he's the biggest quarterback contract to sign. In the same off, not the same offseason, but almost in the same off season where they had the biggest defensive player contract to sign because that's Michael Parsons, right?

In the same off season, having what's probably going to be the biggest if maybe not the second biggest wide receiver contract to sign in CD Lamb, right? This, this aligning of celestial bodies. Like, this is an eclipse here, right? Like, yeah, it's true. Other teams have gotten big quarterback deals done

and they've been up against the cap and they've restructured. It's very rare to have all. All of these arriving right now. And remember, it's not like this is like, the chiefs who are like, all right, we're keeping Andy Reid. Yeah. Coach might go, dude. Like, it, there's no team that knows less about 2025 than the Dallas Cowboys do in the league.

And so that's why it's hard to be like, just, oh, like, I'll go sign Robert Hunt to play left guard in this huge contract. It's just tough. You just don't really know how much money you have. You don't know if you're going to be competing. You don't know if that's going to be back. Like, it's really, really challenging. So, yeah, like, could they have done Derek Henry one year, six million?

Yes. Should they have? Like, maybe. But it's tough for me to get too up in a tizzy about that and everything else, man. I understand why they're hesitant. The root of the issue, though, is that they haven't drafted well. And this is what drafting poorly does to a team, right? You just are burning second and third round picks. Luke Schoonmaker's doing nothing for you, right? And you're just sitting here without enough young talent in the hopper that you're kind of paralyzed like this right now. I mean, I could go either way. It depends how far we're going back. I mean, they got a top eight, top 10 quarterback in what the fourth round. They got Michael Parsons.

I mean, I mean of the last couple of years. I mean, the last couple of years. Last last two of years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, overall, you're right, though. I didn't think of that.

I mean, Michael Parsons will be the highest paid defensive player in NFL history. I feel pretty confident saying that, given the cap spike. He'll beat Aaron Donald and Chris Jones, who are around 31 million. Oh, no, Nick Bosa, sorry, 34. Nick Bosa got $34 million per year. So the bidding for Michael Parsons starts at $35 million dollars per year, which no defense player has ever made. Dak Prescott, again, I just explained that situation.

C.D. Lamb, I mean, C.D. Lamb easily could be the highest paid wide receiver. Like, that is not a crazy thought you. So you're right. And this is a team that cannot get out of the second round. If you're asking me, I would say, oh, yeah, pay all those guys. Those are core guys in their primes at premium positions. It's a no-brainer to me. And then someone could be shield. They have not gotten out of the divisional round.

And you're paying all these guys. So it is a very shy. didn't think about that. You're right. So last couple of years, last year, looking at picks on day one and day two. Last year, Mazi Smith in round one, tied in Luke Schoonmaker in round two, DeMarvie and Overshone, who they want to be a backer to replace late in Van derrash for them, is injured missed the entire season. But so like pretty much O for three there in terms of impact.

The year before that, Tiva Smith in round one, excellent pick. Starting guard, we started tackle. Sam Williams in round two. It's a rotational edge for them. Has it been a full-time player. Jalen Tolbert, round three. Been a wide receiver four for them over the course of his time there. Even going to 2021, where you have Michael Parsons,

who's, again, first round pick, excellent. Behind him, Calvin Joseph is a corner that missed them completely. O'Sa Diggazua, it's been a good defense attack with them, good rotation player. Then the other third round picks for Chauncey Golson, who's off the team, and Nashon Wright, he's off the team, right? It's just when you, it's not about the top guys. They've been hitting the top guys.

It's when you're struggling to fill in the depth behind that you end up in a position like this where you have these stars, you need to pay them. So you're losing B and C-tier free agents, and you're like, all right, who's ready to go take up the mantle? And there's just nobody on the roster. It's funny. I mean, again, they have star players that, you know, I don't know, maybe Dak Prescott, I would say very good. He's not like top three, top five court. Micah Parsons, top C.D. Lambs,

and they're still in this spot where they got to figure all this out the rest of the offseason. So I don't feel great about it. Again, it feels to me like last year was really the year for them where the stars were aligned where you thought, all right, they can make a run. And Jordan loves it, I don't think so. And the Green Bay Packers went in there and took them down. So we'll see what with the Cowboys here, the rest of the offseason. All right, let's take a break. Come back. We're talking some San Francisco 49ers.

I feel like we really haven't talked about them much since the Super Bowl. All right, we're back on extra point. Take it. I lied. We did talk about them because I had the fake trade where I thought Brian Burns to the San Francisco 49ers. And instead, the San Francisco 49ers said instead of that one big swing, let's take a bunch, try to hit a bunch of singles and doubles here.

And so they really added a lot of. players specifically on defense, but they did not take that one big swing, which they've taken in the past, Javon Hargrave, Chavarvier, Chavarius Ward. They've had, you know, years where they've said, let's go out and we're going to get a big time player at a big time spot, pay them a lot of money, and we'll go from there. That was not their approach to this offseason. They signed defensive end Leonard Floyd. They trade for defensive tackle Malik Collins. They sign defensive end, Yitour, Gross, Matos. They sign veteran linebacker, Devondre Campbell, quarterback, Josh Dobbs, which I didn't realize until prepping for this pod, that Josh Dobbs is their backup

quarterback here. And then some other guys, defensive tackle Jordan Elliott, offensive guard, John Feliciano, offensive lineman Brandon Parker, and another quarterback, Brandon Allen. So they signed a lot of players. None of them, again, would be worthy of like, you know, leading a podcast or leading a show, a national football show, because none of them were that big, but they did add a lot of players. Now, they lost Eric Armstead. defensive tackle, they end up just releasing him. He signs with the Jaguars. Sam Darnold goes to the Vikings and then defensive tackle, Javon Kinlaw signs with the New York Jets. How are you feeling? How are you feeling about this Niners team that has just been knocking on the door over and over and

over again and has not been able to get over the hump? And I'm just picturing all those, you know, Niners coaches and players post-Super Bowl, lock being in the locker room watching the press conferences and they're talking about, oh, my gosh, like, it's just so hard to get here. We didn't do it. This was supposed to be the year. The moves they made, how do you feel? Does this put them over the top? Is this, hey, this sustains it?

Are you saying, hey, they should have done something to add a little bit more juice? What do you think about what they did? Firstly, on offense, it could not possibly be more neutral, right? I mean, they bring back Joanne Jennings. They extend Colton McKivitz. They bring back John Feliciano for a year. Like, it is very clear that they were like, all right, yeah, everybody who was in the building, back in the building.

we lose Sam Donald, we play with Josh Jobs, and that's it, we're done, right? It's like, offensive, very clearly going to be more neutral. Defense, it's pretty neutral, right? I mean, in terms of your back seven, you're going to start Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw, right, at linebacker. At corner, you're going to be playing Traverius Ward, Diomador, Lenore again. I think that corner three is a spot where they could have, you know, a battle, Chase Lucas, Isaacia, you know, whatever, but it's probably just going to be Ambray Thomas again. Like, same guy, and then at safety, it's going to be Talonoh, Fonga, and,

to Sean Gibson, if they wanted to bring Gibson back. I don't think Gibson's under deal. I think he's a free agent right now, but no one has signed him yet. I think he's just going to be a street free agent. And then they have Jare Brown, who got starting time because Hufanga went down and if they want to play Hufanga next to Jaya Brown, they can try that out. So like, functionally, it's six of the seven back,

maybe seven of the seven, depending on what they do with Gibson. Defensive line is really the only spot where there was a carousel, right? And you go, all right, we're going to move on from Armstead and move on from from Javon Kinlaw. We're going to bring in you know, Billy Collins, Jordan Elliott. they're a little bit, I think, cheaper at the spot, just kind of feeling like Hargrave is going to be our star

and we can have a rotation besides him. And then you add, the Utergros-Mottos contract was very surprising to me. I have not watched Gross-Mottos film and been like, whoof, get that dude on my team. He gets a two-year deal worth $13 million, $14 million with void-ears on it. I don't know, we don't got to be void-earing,

Yitter-gros-Mogg's, but they void-eared to Jordan Elliott, too. I think they're just trying to buy some- It's actually even higher. didn't realize this. So, like, I, I'm looking at over the cap. Two years, $18 million. It's, it's, it's, like, structure-wise, it's, like, I think, like, the last three million are, like, incentives or what have you. Like, it's, I think it's, like, 15 over two is what it's supposed to be, like, actually. And then there's this more, uh, incentive on top. Regardless, they gave Leonard Floyd money. And I was like, yeah, sure, like, Floyd is a, is a

respectable edge, too. That's fine with me. The gross modest money I don't really get. I'm not really, like, it's always tough to, to question. the 49ers when they bring in a pass rusher because you're like, Chris Koserk's just such a good guy terms of elevating these dudes and getting a lot of juice out of them and using different body types and what have you. But we should remember, like last year, they did that, they did Randy Gregory and Chase Young and really didn't get return on investment

for either one of those. So, like, you know, they're doing the cycle again and just trying to hope and to get a little bit luck here this time. And so the defense line was really the only spot where I thought there was significant change. Everything else was just kind of keeping everything as expected, doing a little bit of change in the background. I'm not sure the defensive line got better. I don't think if it, I think it probably got worse, but like a little bit.

Like, I wouldn't say so much so that I'm like, oh, no, you know, the defense line is falling apart. What I will say is that last year, we documented this pretty, pretty strong, going to the postseason, this Niners defense was not worthy of trust, right? I mean, like, it was, it would have good stretches. It would have good quarters, good halves, but overall, like, catch all metrics over the course of months, over the course of weeks in the season. Like, this was not a top unit the way we'd expect it to be under Robert Sala and under Damico Ryans. They obviously played, I think, well.

They overachieved in the Super Bowl relative to what we expected. It's just the chief's got so many drives there at the end. And so the big change to them defensively is now the defensive coordinator change and the structure. Right? You bring in Brandon Staley, who was the charge's head coach, is now going to be a senior defensive assistant working with Nick Sorensen. It was an internal promotion. I was working with the linebackers, I want to say Sorensen was. I think passing game specialist or something was his title.

Yeah. Right. And so now you have a new build where you have like, like an internal promotion plus Brandon Staley. Maybe we do a little bit more creative ideas. Maybe we, you know, doing the same stuff. And Brandon Staley helps like, you know, with the coaching aspect, like the play calling, like, who knows,

what that build's going to look like. But the main move for them is that coaching move, right? Because that the offensive side of the ball is going to handle their business. And the defensive side of the ball has enough talent that they should be a top unit, the Javon Hargrave money, the Fred Warner money, the Nick Bosa money, the Traveris Ward money. Like, that's enough talent that should be a great group. And so coaching-wise, if they're able to take a step forward, then they're back to where they were last year

coming off the NFC championship and playing in a Super Bowl. If I were Steve Wilkes' agent, I could easily make a strong case that he scapegoated my guy and they were fourth in defensive DVOA during the season. I'm with you.

We didn't trust it the second half of the season. First two playoff games, terrible. I mean, they're, you know, I don't want to say lucky, but they're fortunate. They got to the Super Bowl with the way they played those first two playoff games.

But then in the Super Bowl against Patrick Mahomes, defense showed up. in a big way. I mean, you know, like if the offense has a, what you expect from the 49ers offense, they are winning that football game. And then, you know, the chiefs get more and more drives and eventually, uh, they, they score some points and they win the football game. But I think, you know, like I'm not convinced basically is what I'm saying that Nick Swarinson and Brandon Staley are going to take, you know, pretty much the same group of players with some changes like you mentioned,

but not, you know, dramatic changes at any one position group. Take that same group of players and now all of a sudden we're going to see a better, more trustworthy defense in 2024. I could be wrong. I would expect maybe it's status quo and I wouldn't be surprised if it's a step back there with their defense. So we'll see what happens on that side of the ball. And then offensively, a couple things to keep an eye on here. Do we even, is it even what I'm talking about the off? No, no, it's not. No, it's not going to happen. If it happens, I will be stunned. Wait, which one, I have two things. So I think you might be talking about the second thing I was going to bring up.

I was talking about Brandon I, you getting trade. Okay, that was the second thing. No, listen, I'm just saying, I did read, you know, my go-to 49ers writers, Nick Wagner of ESPN and Matt Barrows of the Athletic. And Matt Barrows just wrote in the athletic in a mailbag. He was asked about it. And he said, like, probably not. It would take a big offer for them to trade Brandon Ayuk.

I don't think it's going to happen, but it wasn't like a, you know, zero chance. There's no way this is happening type thing. So just the key on my, I wouldn't trade Brandon Ayyuk. If I were the 49ers, they keep the defense together. You have the same group as last year where you were awesome on offense and you move from there. But he is his entering the final year of his contract. And then my first question was going to be so like, isn't even worth talking about their offensive liners. It's just like, who cares?

They'll be fine there. Because I mean, on paper, it is not a good group. Trent Williams is awesome, but he's entering his age 36 season. And the rest of the group is pretty men. Like if you put this group with the offensive. coordinator who didn't know what he was doing, we'd be talking about it as a below average offensive line, in my opinion. So is it something that, all right, let's just keep an eye on it. Will it be okay? Uh, is it just, who cares? We say this every year with Shanahan and the offense

is awesome anyway, because the scheme helps them. I mean, like, it's not a great line. It's also, last year felt pretty meaningless. And I think this year it also feel pretty, like, it's meaningful when it's meaningful, right? When they play Cleveland and Cole McKevitts is getting wax for four quarters, you're like, oh, shoot, that's right. The right tackle's not good. I forgot about that. The problem is that they are able to make it not matter so successfully for so long. And so like, there's enough proof of the pudding and the eaten for me

where I'm like, okay, like, I'm never going to get too worked out about the state of Kyle Shanehan's offensive line in the summer. I mean, I'm just not going to look at that and be like he can't get around this. I will say though, like, oh, it's not as good as it was. You know, sure, you know, they lost some talent, whatever. Aaron Banks took a step forward last year. Like, I thought

that, like, I think that Banks played better at guard than people realized. But he said, he was actually like, solid last season, stayed healthy, and I thought played well. This is, I think, a little bit better of a line that looks on paper overall, but also, yeah. Like, I just, I'm not moved by caring about the 49ers offensive line. I will do so in season if it actually becomes a problem. Wait, they had the weird thing with Feliciano, right?

Where he tweeted about though, what was that again? Remind me. So, in the red zone, when they had that third in goal, and there was an immediate Chris Jones pressure and priority had to throw it away, it would have been an open catch, so we were going to touch down, they had to kick a field goal. the backup right guard was in.

And his name is a name that I remember. Spencer Burford, no. It was Burford. It was Burford. Burford was in. And so Feliciano, I was playing right guard, had to leave the game. Burford was back when it was in. Feliciano was tweeting a defense of right tackle Colton McKibbitts who was being incorrectly blamed online for blowing the protection,

when in reality, it was right guard Spencer Burford. And so Felciano was just like, man, if the backup was doing he was supposed to do, it wouldn't have been a problem. And Spencer Burford respondent was like, hey, I'm right here. I could see this. Yeah. And then Flesiano says something else where he was like, oh, sorry. I'm hungover, right?

Yeah. Yeah. And he made some sort of response. Then the next day, he was like, oh, I'm sorry, I was hammered or something like that. Yeah. But anyway, I mean, like, Feliziano wasn't wrong in terms of, like, you know, whose fault it was. And, like, you know, the analysis of who is at fault was incorrect. And it's unfair to blame off the, off of the linemen are so wrongly blamed all the time that they get very, you know,

if I touched about it. But it was really funny that he was like, man, it's just a bag of the backup was better. It's like, dude, the backup's also on Twitter. And you kind of know these things. If you ever do me like that, it's over. I'm just letting you know, okay? I will not forgive and forget and be in the same O-line slash podcast room with you the next season. All right.

So listen, it's on paper. The 49ers should be fine. No big issues with how they approach the offseason. They have 35 wins the last three seasons, third most in the NFL. At the same time, there's a reason why the only team since 2000. to get back to the Super Bowl after losing it the previous year is the 2018 Patriots is because it is really, really hard when you get that close,

don't get it done to then get back the next season. So trust Shanahan, trust the group they have on offense, but we'll see what it looks like next season. All right, we have three more left here. Let's get to the Washington commanders. I think this was the first one. I think this spurred the idea to do this show because you're like someone was telling me.

Because they just made so many moves that you have to go through. Like, all right, this is a whole new team that it was. Are they actually good? Yes or no? You can go take a nap. I'm going to read off all the players that they added. Linebacker, Frankie Louvoo, running back, Austin Eckler, linebacker, Bobby Wagner, Center, Tyler Beattish, Guard, Nick Allegretti, safety, Jeremy Chin,

Edge, Doran Armstrong, quarterback, Marcus Mariotta, tight end Zachertz, Edge Dante Fowler Jr., defensive end, Cleland, Farrell, cornerback, Michael Davis. And they definitely signed, and that wasn't everybody, but that's most of the people. And they definitely signed the most number of players that, like, a casual football fan would have heard of. You know, like, all the, like, if you play fantasy or if you just, oh, yeah, Bobby Wagner, like, you know.

Cleland Farrell, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cleveland Farrell, first round pick. So overall, you look at this, they lost offensive tackle Charles Leno. They lost quarterback Kendall Fuller. They lost safety, Cam Carle. My opinion on what they did. and let's see if you agree with this or discer. I feel like they were just trying to set a floor of kind of competency at a bunch of different

positions and not get locked into any bad contracts and take big swings and just say, let's get some, well, there's one contract I didn't like. You're making a face. I wonder if it's the same one. But for the most part, they weren't like, you know, out there signing the top. They're just like, let's get people in here. It's a lot of one-year deals. Most of those names I mentioned are mostly one-year deals or at least one-year commitments.

And they said, let's get some professional. in here. We're going to draft a rookie quarterback, and then we'll kind of figure it out, take some bigger swings next offseason. So on one hand, I'm like, kind of boring for the team that had the most cap space in the NFL going into the offseason. On the other hand, I understand what they're doing. There's nothing egregious about it. It's fine. It's just like you make all those signings, and then I look at the depth chart, and I still see a lot of issues in a lot of key areas. So that's kind of how I view what they did this offseason art. Who were you making the face about. Tyler Beaudish?

The Doran's Armstrong deal is pretty healthy for Doran's Armstrong. Oh, okay. All right. It's three years 33, technically on the listing. It was $45 million when it was announced with guarantees or whatever. It's dead cap while. This is a two-year commitment. And Armstrong was, again,

like it was another rotation on the Dan Quinn defense line. Dan Quinn knows how to use him. He's the tweeter player. He's not a Twitter. They use them on the edge. He's an edge rusher. He's just not an extremely high-impact edge rusher. And I know that they needed to get guys at the position because they lost chase down and they lost Montez-Wight last year.

But in general, like, I don't know. He's going to hit the cap for 16.8 this year. And he's going to be, I think, another like 11.8. And like 12 next season. The Armstrong deal, I was just like, Dan Quinn, like, please, just Google any other names. Like, he brought in Doran's Armstrong and Dante Fowler. He just brought like, all right, who from Dallas

could I get to be on this team? Here's my thing. Like, okay, you say a floor of competency. Sure. How competent is Zachary's nowadays? How competent is Austin Echler? Are we like, really, how do we really fully believe with our chest here that, you know, like, Nick Allegretti is ready for a starting job?

No. And actually, I think, like, I think the offensive line, I'm looking at this, my biggest issue is what this offensive line looks for a rookie quarterback to come in and play with this group. So like left to right right now, Braden Daniels is their left tackle. Okay. Nick Allegretti, who has been a backup, they're now asking him to be a starter. Tyler Biotish, I don't know what you think. I think he's an average center. He's now being paid like a top eight center.

He's being paid almost $10 million per year. Sam Cosmy at right guard and Andrew Wiley at right tackle. That is a bad offensive line. And now you're bringing in a rookie quarterback with your boy, Cliff Kingsbury, coordinating the offense. I don't think, like, I think we had a show in November or December where I don't know, one of our takes. I can't remember for it was mine or yours, but it was like, hey, commanders, should be

good spot for a rookie quarterback. Like, they've got all these resources. They're going to make a coaching change. Like, it's a good place to be. It's an attractive place for a head coach. And now I'm looking at it and I'm like, this is the offensive line you're putting together. And it's like, I like Terry McLaren, but it's not a deep group of past catchers. And so that was one of my big takeaways when I looked at it. I look at the coordinator who, again, maybe he'll be good. Cliff Kingsbury, I did not think that was an inspired hire. I look at the offensive line. They're bad at corner. Like, they're bad at these positions where if you're bad, it shows up in a very big way. So on one hand, I

understand their approach. On the other hand, this looks like a team that's going to still be really bad in 2024. Yeah, it's very funny to me that the team that signed Nick Gates last off season on like a multi-year deal after he had like one season of starting with the Giants. And they were like, oh, like this guy,

like he'll put it together. He'll figure it out. And then they benched him by week eight and straight cut him. He was on the team for one year. Went and got Nick Allegheny and Tyler Beaudish. And they were like, these guys, these ones would be thing. Even the Andrew Wiley deal, which like technically worked. Didn't even work that great.

It's Andrew Wiley, right? Like, it's just, you don't want to be living in the world where you're giving out, like, third tier offensive line contracts to get functional starters. Like, you're just going to have the most mid-offensive line if everyone stays healthy, which they won't.

Slash, if everybody, like, is as they were at their peak with their previous team, which they won't be either. This was not good enough for the money that they spent. I'm looking at SpotRack. They signed 20 free agents, which is the most of any team in this cycle. They spent $160 million. Who's the best player that they signed this past couple weeks? Frankie Louvo, probably.

Yes. They spent $160 million. And the best player they got into the building was Frankie Louvo. Right? The Falcon spent more. They got Kirk Cousins in the building. The Panthers spent more. The Panthers are not a team to be modeling yourself after in terms of free agency behavior.

I was wondering where you were going to go with this. Yeah, and the Titans spent more in the Titan sits there because they got Calvin Ridley into the building, right? Like, there are like impact players that the Falcons and the Titans brought on. Again, like, you don't want to be that top spending team that, you know, Lloyd Cushabar and Calvin Relay for the Titans, like, that's not great. Robert Hunt for the for the Panthers, like that's not great. This is just, it's not good enough for the money spent. I know it's supposed to look like a floor of competency because it's veterans and the names are recognizable.

There's a ton of starting experience, right? Like Louvue, Beaudish, Armstrong, Ertz, Echler, Cleland and Furrell, Jeremy Chin. He guys have played a lot of games, but in terms of impact, Bobby Wagner, Bobby Wagner, it's 2024, Bobby Wagner. Dan Quinn's got out there to the Rolodex, dude. He knows exclusively players he's coached and also Jeremy Chin. Players he's coached and guys who are on the Panthers.

That's his whole roll-a-dex of defensive players right now, and it's just not good enough. I think you're right. I think I went too easy on him. Yeah, no, I agree. I'm looking at this list and I'm looking at the state of the roster, and what did you really, like, what was your goal and what did you accomplish? You know, like, I would have just rather had seen them be like, let's just build up the offense so that when Jaden Daniels or Drake May gets in here, you know, we don't have to worry about, do they have enough people to throw to? Do they have a good enough offensive line? And like, that's still going to be an issue. And then defensively, you want the coach to be able to do more with less. You know, that's supposed to be what Dan Quinn's able to do. And you sign people who he's worked with before, for the most part, you mentioned in Dorrance Armstrong, Dante Fowler. I thought Frankie Louvo, I think that's a signing. I don't think they overpaid for him. You know, that is a player and is what,

mid to late 20s, who has had some production, who's a fun player. So I thought that one was fine. But yeah, the other ones, it's like, yeah, between Austin Echler, Bobby Wagner and Zach Ertz, it's like if this was, you know, five years ago, I'd be really excited about, yeah. Was Echler even in the league? Those guys. Is Echler not that all sorry? You know how, you know how it goes with running backs there. So 2017, he started in the league. And so he started to pop off in like, yeah, like, 2019-ish was when he had, like, the big receiving season. Now, who do you think they're taking at number two,

if you had to say today? I feel like I ask you this on every podcast, but... The vibe in the, in the rumor mill, is Jaden Daniels, the quarterback at LSU. They'll take him over, Drake, Med, the UNC quarterback. I, if you made me pick right now, that's who I would pick, but right now I'm, like, a 60-40 lean, and I'm not strong either way.

I think a lot of, like, 10,000 people have had the, like, rumors are that Jaden Daniels is the quarterback for the command. which makes you think that like one person has given that rumor and it's just like then everyone repeats it yeah exactly yeah um and so i'm i'm very unconvinced they they if they take jaden over drake i'm gonna be so i'm gonna be selling commanders so hard by the time we get to make just this these these free agents aren't good enough i think it would be the wrong quarterback pick and i think that they're going to be stuck being the exact same thing before after getting their like third choice at head coach too just misses across the board for

the new ownership group i really hope they don't they don't take jaden over drake that would be bad Underwell, little, little, little, little overwhelming. I understand some of the most little underwhelming there for the commanders. All right, take a break. We'll come back and we'll get to our final two teams. All right, we are back on extra point taking. The team that Solek has avoided talking about because of the familial ties. You know, his family says, shield.

You're nice about the teams we've root for. Our family member, Ben, is not nice about them. So thank you for evening it out. So the team I'm talking about. conversation that's never happened, David Wants. That has happened. Your sister was on a pod and literally said those words. You were visiting her and we were talking and she came on to say hello,

wonderful to meet her, had a little baby there. And she said pretty much those exact words. I'm listening. You were probably checking Twitter while I was talking to your family. She said that about the Steelers. We're about to talk about the Jets. I know, but no, the general. She said, you're nice about the teams we root for.

Ben is mean to us about these teams we root for. Yeah. Oh, yeah. See, I'm the first first. of the world has ever done this and make fun of my family members for the teams they report. It's a big new thing I'm trying. Yeah. Listen, I don't want to get in the middle of it. I'm just, I'm reporting here what I saw and what I heard. All right, the New York Jets. Mama Solex team, the New York Jets.

All right, they painted themselves into a corner here, okay, with Aaron Rogers. Let me, let me first make the, let me make the good case. And then I'll let you chime in after that. So am I setting you up? Yes, I'm setting you on. All right, here's the good case. There were seven and ten last year with Zach Freakin Wilson and the most incompetent offense in the NFL. Seven and ten. They weren't three and fourteen. They were seven and ten. That's okay. So they were seven and ten. Now you're getting Aaron Rogers back. I know. We don't know what it's going to look like, but you're getting Aaron Rogers back. You're taking some dice rolls at offensive tackle with Tyrant Smith and Morgan Moses. They've played a lot of football.

Again, we'll get to the concerns in a second. Elijah Vera Tucker returns from injury. nice player when he's on the field and healthy. And then Mike Williams, Garrett Wilson and Bree Sall, I can work with that. That's not nothing to work with if you're talking about an offense. So I think there is a reason to believe that the offense will be significantly better

than it was last year. Now, we can talk about what significantly better means when you're going from 32 to what. So that's on offense. And then defensively, you're bringing back a group that played really well last year and played really well the year before, for the most part. All you lost was what, Bryce Huff, you lost Jordan Whitehead, you lost Quentin Jefferson, you signed defensive tackle,

Javan Kinlo. So there you go. By the way, they also signed Guard John Simpson, who started for the Ravens last year and quarterback Tyrod Taylor, so that if Aaron Rogers goes down, you at least have somebody back there. So there you go. That's the case. Seven and ten last year, offense, get me to like the 16th ranked offense, defense, play really well again. Maybe you get to nine or ten wins. You have Aaron Rogers in a playoff game. Everyone's happy. Anything can happen.

That's the case. All right. So, like, the floor is yours. I'm surprised that you are like toss me with the thought that I'm going to kill them for this. Okay. Yeah. This is absolutely the right way to go about where you're at right now as a team, which is. They have to.

Yeah, exactly. No other choice. Listen, the mistake was, well, and I'm not. I'm not even sure the Rogers trade was a mistake. I didn't love it and I was worried about it and whatever. But like, he gets the injury. Like, that's terrible. It's extremely unlucky.

Once you're in the world where it's, okay, the only way I, Joe Douglas and I, Robert Sala, get to stay here long term is if the over 40-year-old quarterback comes back from an Achilles injury. That's the world you're living in right now. It's like, you made some missteps along the way to bring you there, but a lot of it was bad luck. Once you're in that universe, but you got to roll the dice on Mike Williams. You got, like Tyrant Smith played great last year. You played 13 games.

You need 13 good games out of Tyrant Smith. You have to roll good, right? Like, you are already in that world. You could say, oh, well, like, if all of your injury risk, like, you're already so conditional on Aaron Rogers coming back from health, why don't you, like, you know, get more established players and kind of, you know, like, a longer term guys and younger guys and healthier guys. Because you got to win right now, right? You need, you need, you know Mike Williams is good at what he does when he's on the field. You need, you need Mike Williams in the building and go. Tyrant Smith, you know, he's been an excellent left tackle for a decade.

You know, you can get him out there. can be good for you, right? You need known commodities and then you just take the injury risk for what it is. You close your eyes, you shake the Yatzy jar, and you roll the dice and you see what you land on, right? Like, that's, that is inherently the sort of season that the Jets are going to be living under. So it makes sense to be like, all right, we're the Mike Williams team, right? If Mike Williams is good, it's so much more meaningful for the Jets than if, like, Mike Williams went to like the Panthers and was good. Like that, like, Mike's only got, how many, how many more healthy seasons does Mike have? He might as well play it here in New York where if you're healthy and, and, and,

Aaron Rogers healthy, we're actually playing some playoff games, rather. And so to me, like this is, this is the right high risk, high variance, ride the wave approach that Joe Douglas and Robert saw a need. Because if you went quiet and tried to build for the future, guess what? Another general manager, another head coach is going to reaping the seeds that you sowed, brother. They're benefiting from the free agent contract you signed a couple years ago when you're out the job and they're in. So to me, I understand why the Jeff's built up this way.

I think it's appropriate. I think it can work, too. I don't think, you know, they're as good as the chiefs, as good as the bills, as the Ravens. I don't think they're going to fall in the top of the AFC. But that was my take on the team last year before Rogers got hurt and stole my take now. Yeah, like you said, I mean, what choice did they have? Once you're tied into Rogers, who's 41 years old and coming off in Achilles, this is what you have to do.

You kind of just have to go for it. I continue to think that if they, like, make the playoffs, win a playoff game, Jets fans are going to be over the moon with the way the last decade plus has gone here for them. And then the other thing is they didn't sign these guys to like unreasonable contracts. Like I mentioned, the Tyrant Smith contract, it's a great setup. He gets paid a lot of money if he stays on the field. If he doesn't, then it's $6.5 million. That's perfectly fine. Mike Williams, I don't think the details are all out on that.

It's when you hear up to, you know, it's not going to be really close to that. And I think it was one year up to $15 million. So again, incentive. Stay healthy. Play well. You get paid more. If not, you know, we're not on the hook here for like two, three years down the line. So I thought what they did was perfectly reasonable.

Now, if you're a Jets hater, or if you're whatever, Bill's fan, you're like, come on, how is this actually going to play out? Here are the things working against them. Did I mention Aaron Rogers is 41 and coming off an Achilles entry? Because that is a thing that is happening. Okay, I mentioned that. Did I mention that they're keeping Nathaniel Hackett as their offensive coordinator this season? Heck yeah, go birds.

Okay. Tyrant Smith, again, I loved watching Tyrant Smith last year. He's averaged seven and a half games per season over the last four years, and he is turning 34 years old this season. Morgan Moses, right tackle is a player that the Ravens decided to move off from. We're in the smarter organizations in the NFL, and he's 33 years old. Elijah Vera Tucker has played 12 games the past two seasons. Mike Williams has played 16 games the past two seasons.

So they are relying a lot on a lot of sort of unreliable players, factors, things. Like you said, maybe it'll work out. You don't need all those things to hit. What? Maybe like half those things I mentioned. If those work out, like three of the six, then I think you have a chance to be in the mix, be above 500 and make the playoffs. There is a scenario where just everyone's injured or underachieving by like week six and it's a complete disaster. So no issue with how they approach the, I mean, my big issue with how they approach the off season is Nathaniel Hackett thing. I mean, could you just say, hey, Aaron,

we're going to get good players. But like, dude, but I don't know, maybe that's dumb because now you're talking about Aaron Rogers having to work with a guy. Maybe he doesn't know. that's going to lead to fireworks and be a disaster. So they were just in a very unique spot, and they did what they had to do. We'll see how it works out. What else? Did I miss anything on the Jets?

The Hackett thing is, right, that was a good punchline to the joke last year, and then you kind of forget about it. And you're like, oh, shoot, that's right. Like, it's still Nate Hackett. Like, that's still the plan. When I look at the Jets depth chart, where I look at the expectations of the team,

like he said, 7 and 10 last year, this defense, man, they hard carry. Like, they play at a highly competitive level, and they've been thirsting for a good, a quarterback and a good offense for a while. If you make me list in June, you go, Ben, like list of teams that you think have a chance

at the end of the season to end with a top 10 offense and a top 10 defense, I'm probably going to end up listing the Jets, right? They're not going to be the first team I list, right? I'm probably going to list like, oh, you know, list Baltimore before them, you know, list San Francisco before them, whatever, but, you know, Buffalo before them.

But, man, like, I think the Jets are probably on that list for me. And that's, I think, why, like, you pursue a hyper-fragile build because it does give you that ceiling and you need that ceiling right now if you're running the team. I think with the Packers, Aaron Rogers, every year but one that he was healthy, had a top 10 offense and the year they weren't. I think they were 11th, I believe. I might be missing one season in there. But yeah, it was basically like, doesn't matter, coordinator, coach, supporting cast, doesn't matter, this is going to be the floor. Now again, he's 41 and coming off in Achilles. I'll say it for the 14th time.

So this is sort of, you know, uncharted territory here where it could look a lot different. but if you're a Jets fan, you can hang your hat on that. All right. Last team to get to here. You know, I was looking at this team. Oh, my gosh. Here we go. It's the Indianapolis Colts and I started going through the exercise.

What are we going to talk about? And you know what my conclusion was? The reason we don't talk about them is because they're so freaking boring. Nothing they do is egregious. I'm not going to come on here and kill them for four. And I'm not going to praise them for what they do. They're just resigning some boring players, probably a little bit too aggressively.

They probably overrate their own players and they do this every year. And I don't know if it's an ownership thing. And he's like, I'm not willing to pay. And they don't add anybody. And they always sell, here's what annoys me about the goals. They always sell this myth that like you can't keep your own good players and also add out.

They've been doing this for like a decade. How are we supposed to? How could we ever do anything ever? That's actually what you need to do. Yeah. It's not one or the other. The good organization. And again, this could be an ownership thing.

because your owner has to be willing to pay and willing to structure contracts in a certain way that allows you that flexibility. And it's possible, I don't know this for sure, but it's possible. Chris Ballard is operating in an environment where he is not able to do that. Whereas a GM like Howie Roseman, I mean, they will spend more cash than any organization in the NFL. So Lex, give him me the eyes. We'll get his take on it. But, I mean, their additions are Joe Flacko and Rayquan Davis.

Those are the two biggest names they've added to the roster. Their subtractions are Gardner Minchu and running back Zach Moth and maybe safety in safety Julian Blackman, who as of this recording has gone unsigned. And then, I mean, they're just paying their own. I mean, it's good. If you're drafted by the Colts and you're like decent, you're going to get paid by the Colts. We talked about Michael Pittman before, so I don't want to harp on it. Three years, 70 million.

I would not have done that deal. I would have let him play on the franchise tag. Grover Stewart, nose tackle. listen, don't get at me, football hipsters. I know he's very good against the run. I'm with you on Grover Stewart. I'm with that I'm with him. I don't know that I need to aggressively sign him for three years, $39 million.

And when he's entering his age 31 season, and he was suspended for six games last season for violating what was the PED stuff, right, last season. And he had half a sack and 11 games. Again, I know he's very good against the run. I'm just looking at resources state of the roster. I don't think I want to do that deal. Kenny Moore. Awesome player. Who doesn't like Kenny Moore? Hipsers, normies, everybody. We all gather. We say Kenny Moore is awesome. We all like Kenny Moore. They reset the market for a slot corner. He's the only

slot corner in the NFL now making $10 million or more. They signed him for three years, $30 million. So I guess that's fine. But again, you're still paying a premium linebackers. I hear Franklin, fine, solid. Three years, $31 million. So all these moves, again, I'm not like, oh my gosh, they suck. What are they? But I'm just like, where does this really leave you? I don't really like this roster. This is not a great roster. This is, this is not a terrible roster. This is a mediocre roster. And now everything is just Anthony Richardson, are you the truth? And you're just going to put everyone on your back and be amazing next year. And if you are, the franchise will succeed. And if you're not, the franchise will not be good. So that's how I view it

with the Indianapolis cults. I don't know. I feel like I was just yelling for 10 minutes. Usually I feel like you yelled more about the Colts than I do. But as I was doing, the other teams, I'm like, there's excitement. I can form a take. I'm like, what do you want me to say about the Colts? And there's a reason we haven't talked about him. I vacillate between his team like furious with and disgusted by Chris Ballard.

And also being like so incredibly impressed by Chris Ballard and have the world of respect for him. Because, man, does he know how to keep the job? So Zach Hicks, who does really good work on covering the Colts. He had a big kind of free agency recap piece talking about what does Ballard tend to like to do whatever. He brought up the point that Chris Ballard's free agent signings from other teams, so one out of every four,

25% of them have not made the final roster in the same season they were signed, right? Valley, one or four, that feels really high for me. Like guys from outside of the building, they're not as good of bringing those guys in. Well, they're probably all low-level guys with no-scale. Yeah, that's the point. But he also included a clip in this article

about Ballard. This is in, in, in, in 2023, okay? The Year of Our Lord, 2023. So before they draft Anthony Richardson, Ballard's talking about how they approach the offseason and free agency. And he goes, man, like, you know, just with the Carson Went Steel, like we thought we were getting a quarterback for the future

and just like that didn't work. And like, really set us back. And it just, you know, it affects the way we build our team. So years later, dude, years later. This was the Andrew Luck thing. They did the Andrew Luck thing for like four seasons after he retired. They're like, man, the Andrew Luck thing,

It just really caught us by surprise. Ballard's ability. That needs to be retired, the Andrew Luck thing. I understand, but come on, that has to be retired. The way Ballard can be like, listen, like, man, we trade it for DeForest Buckner and just we're still recovering from that right now. Just like things that happened ages ago. It's the NFL, baby.

Not for long. We're moving. But Ballard is such a good drafter. Ballard is so good at finding players and getting them. and in second Olympics, Grover Stewart was a fourth rounder. Kenny Moore was, UDFA or whatever he was,

maybe they brought him in from somewhere else. Say your Franklin, who they extended it linebacker. Like, he is such a good drafter that he understands, man. Number one thing I need to be able to point to in my job, look at all this homegrown cults talent. It's been here for so long.

Look at all these excellent cults that I found and I brought into the building. I drive these guys. I developed these guys. And that's how he survives head coaching changes, right? Because usually general manager is all, you don't survive too many coaching changes.

He survived the Frank Reich change. The Saturday change is not really a real thing. Now he's here with Stuyken. Long-standing general manager, gonna be there for a long time because he knows, hey, extend your Grover Stewart, extend your Kenny Moore, extend your Taekwon Lewis. Extender is that your Franklin?

Make it very clear who's built these Colts. Are these Colts destined to go 10 and 7? Absolutely, but who cares? Keep the job, all right? General Manager of the Indianapolis Colts. So if Richardson's really high ceiling, if Richardson's very good, then like I could see this being a high impact team.

But that's if Richardson like absolutely hits is a total smash. I'm not sure that that you want to be betting on that high tail of an outcome. I still think they have wide receiver problems. Obviously like the Michael Pittman contract, we've talked about like that was a little bit pricey and these pitmen really like what you want is a wide receiver one. So I still think they have wide receiver issues. They definitely have questions at outside corner.

I'm not sure they're actually going to address those with like the first round pick or not. But I think they're in a good spot to do that. So there's still outstanding roster questions and you're still banking a ton on a second year quarterback who is coming off of injury and you haven't seen him actually play that much because of the time that he lost. There's ways to get excited about the Colts and the roster looks fine.

And again, it's all draft and developed. It's fine. Yeah. It looks so pure. It's all draft to develop. Oh, you know he's known commodity. You know he works in the system. You know the role. It all looks so good on the surface.

You get underneath it. And you're like, hey, do something. What is this? Yeah. Are these the, yeah, you're like, Are these the best player? If you had all the options available to you, would this be the best players at every position? Like, is this the best collection?

And I know it's more than just collection of talent. I understand there's more to it. But yeah, I still, I know you were rolling. I do still wonder the, I think the ownership thing. And again, I don't know this for a fact, but I do wonder about that. The constraints that some GMs have to work under versus the constraints that, like if Chris Ballard had a job, again, like, let's say with the Eagles or another team that spends a lot of money, would he do his job differently? You seem to be a hard no.

He would do his job exactly the same. I'm not sure about that. I'm suspicious of it. The one time I've seen Chris Ballard do something aggressive is when he was on the hot seats to hand and got out of the quarterback. He was like, okay. Then he drafted Anthony Richardson at 4,

which was an elite pick. I would have made that pick. Anthony Richardson, he was playing. Maybe a huge franchise-saving pick. And then immediately off it, he's like, oh, cool, I got Anthony Richardson. I got the guy. Time to extend Grover Stewart.

And it's just like, I've got, like, he's the sort of poker player who once he gets up, he either tries to leave the table or he starts playing super tight. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no. Just because you're up doesn't mean you just sit on a stack now. You still got to bet.

You got to play the game here. It'll be an active member of the table. I mean, some would say that would be good that you win a lot and then you get up from the table. No, that's very, that's very, that's a faux pa. See, I don't know when to get up with blackjack. Not that I play like all the time, but it's like, when do I do I have a mark

where if I'm winning this much, I get up and then I lose it. And then that's how they get you. So there's a poker trope of the guy who's playing at the table. He gets up for the first time that night and he tries to pick up a stack and go cash out. No, no, no, no, no. Sit back down. If you're playing, you're playing. The moment you get up, you don't get to leave.

And that's Chris Ballard. So the second Ballard's about, oh, wins a nice hand, you know, flops a set. All of a sudden he's up. He tries to leave the table. No, this is the NFL. You got to take some risks. That's bad etiquette. Yeah, you can't do it.

I don't understand Rayquan Davis. He's their biggest free agent from a different team. after they signed the extended Grover Stewart and DeForest Buckner is their best player I don't know

I thought the same thing I go wait a minute oh okay Rayquan Davis Philanade wait a minute why are they loading up on all these

defense like why are they signing all these defensive tackles I don't know we'll say it's fine it's not great

Anthony Richardson let's hope out let's come on Anthony Richardson let's get him healthy for this year because it was

such a small sample yeah but 84 pass attempts but I was legitimately excited by the guy

on one hand And then on the other hand, he played in four games and I think he finished one of them. So it's like, oh, gosh, all right. I hope that's not a sign of things to come. I hope we can talk about this in the future when he's playing great. And we can say that was a weird rookie season. But he's been healthy and he's been a fun quarterback. So that's something to that.

If you're a Colts fan being like, stop making fun of us. There you go. We both like watching Anthony Richards. Love Anthony Richardson. Let me make something very clear. Okay. It's early November. But Colts are seven and three.

All right. Been playing great. Richardson's been healthy, been elite. They've won a last second win over the bills. They've beaten the Texans in Houston. They're the lead for the division. They're two games ahead of the Jaguars and the Texans. Richardson's lighting the world on fire.

I'm going to see some tweet, some headline from some national writer. That's like, you really got to love and respect the way that Chris Ballard has put this team together. And I will come on this show and I will pop off. I will go through the roof. All right. Richardson just like kicking down doors like spinning out of tackle thrown in 90 or something people like

you really got to love the way that they just made sure they retained their talent. I'm going to go thermonuclear. Let me ask you this. Let's finish with this. You have your choice of Anthony Richardson or Caleb Williams right now. You're an expansion team.

You get to pick one. Who do you want? Caleb. I'll take Caleb. I haven't seen enough Richardson in the NFL to be like, okay, for sure like I know, okay, for sure like I know what he's going to be in the league.

him coming off injury is not what impacts me too much. Like, I think he's going to come back and be healthy. Obviously, I think that he might be a little bit of an injury-pone player because he loves playing through contact so much. But if I had seen like eight games of him being good, I'll probably take Richardson known commodity. I didn't see enough of Richardson play to be like, okay, I'm positive. Now, week one, the piece that I wrote on the Wednesday of the week one,

the first piece of NFL season for us was, Anthony Richard's going to be good. Like, off of the first film, I was like, okay, I've seen, you know, like, enough here to, okay, this guy's making. NFL throws, they understand what to do system-wise. Like, this is the right environment. Like, he's doing the right stuff. So I believe in his development there.

But I would, it's not, he's not enough of a known commodity yet for me to pass over him for Caleb. Caleb got a very high grade for me. That's a good ball player. Anthony Richardson or Drake May. Oh, uh, uh, Drake, but that's closer now. I'm Richardson on, uh, on that one. I'm going to, I still got some more when I, I'm on vacation next week.

When I come back, we're going to get into all the quarterback conversations, which I will come out. tell you, I will be wrong about a lot of these, but here's what I think. I have a feeling I'm lower on Drake May than you are. I think I'm with you on Caleb Williams, and I still have to watch the other guy. So there we go. All right. So like I mentioned, I'm out next week. Solek will be here with Ruiz, right? Solek, you and Ruiz on Monday on the feed. So stay tuned for that one and our wonderful Rinker colleagues will have you also next week. So I will be back the following week with Solek on extra point taken. I think it'll be nearing April and might be April.

And we'll be getting ready for the draft in a big way. So stay tuned for that. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thanks to Eduardo Ocampo for the video production, additional production supervision by Connor and Evans, then Arjuna Ramgapal. Talk to everyone in a week. Thank you for listening.

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