The Ringer NFL Show - Which Head Coaches Have the Most at Stake in 2023? | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: August 4, 2023

Sheil and Ben are back at it again this week! This episode, they look at the coaches with the most at stake this season. Is Bill Belichick’s tenure in New England at risk of coming to an end? With the addition of Kellen Moore and Justin Herbert’s recent contract extension, will Brandon Staley finally have some postseason success? Is Mike McCarthy’s takeover on offense really the best decision for Dallas? Plus, does Kevin Stefanski need a career year to remain in Cleveland? 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: Ben Solak and Sheil Kapadia Producer: Eduardo Ocampo Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Music Composed by: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, I'm Danny Hyfitz, host of the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Me, Danny Kelly and Craig Worldbeck are coming to you every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday before this NFL season so you can crush your draft and win your league. Or at least make sure you don't come in last place and have to do your league's punishment. Follow the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on Spotify. Welcome to Extra Point Taking Shield Kapadia here, joined by Ben Solac. A second episode this week. That's right. It's our version of podcast two days, I would say.

Benny Solz, you look like you're in the best shape of your life, may I say. Listen, it's preseason for all of us. I love to say that anytime I make a mistake for the entire month of August. Football or non-football, right? Just, you know, pulling the car into the garage, a little bit tilted, you know, didn't pulling straight into the parking spot. Listen, it's preseason for all of us, all right? Sleep past the alarm, get up a little bit later than I expected.

You know what? It's preseason for all of us. It's the, for one month of the year, you can make any small error you'd like and just wave it away with. It's preseason for all of us. That's right. Get those interceptions out of the way, try new things, figure out what works, what doesn't work. And then by the time September rolls around, you'll be in good shape. All right. The topic today is very simple. Which head coaches have the most at stake in 2023? Ben, I didn't make it any more specific than that. I didn't want to say, well, we're not saying just hot seat. We're not saying job security. It's just that question.

You can take it any direction you want. Which head coaches have the most at stake in 2023. So we're going to go back and forth. We didn't tell each other who we chose. We each have three. And then I'll do an extra point ticket. But I just have like, you know, other than the guys I chose, I have like 10 other guys. So I'm like, oh, I could have chosen this guy. So I'll just run through those quickly and see if you have any of those. All right. I think my number one isn't going to surprise you, but I don't know that you would have chosen this guy. I'm going with Bill Belichick as my No, I, Sheel, I legitimately

spent part of the... You knew I was going to take him. I spent part of the, yeah, the prep for this episode, preparing my counter argument for why your Bill Belichick point is a bad point, all right? You think I don't know this was coming down the mountain? Here we go. All right, here we go. So here's the reason. I mean, I don't find the Patriots, honestly,

that the 2023 Patriots as a standalone team. I don't find them that interesting, quite honestly. I think they're going to be a mediocre team. I have have them, I think, for seven wins. If they get to nine wins and sneak in and make the playoffs, I won't be shocked. But I'm not predicting that. I think they have a low ceiling.

And I think they have a relatively high floor. They're coached by Bill Belichick. They're not going to be a complete disaster that only wins for a game. So they're just kind of stuck in that middle ground of the NFL. That to me is not that interesting. I could name easily 15 other teams that I find more interesting just for this season. However, you got to zoom out and look at what's potentially at stake. for Bill Belichick, for Robert Kraft, for the New England Patriots this season.

Bill Belichick is 25 and 25 without a playoff win in three seasons post Tom Brady. I suspect Robert Kraft knows those numbers by heart and is willing to tell those numbers to anyone and everyone who will listen. I suspect he's thinking, man, I chose Belichick over Brady. Brady went and won the Super Bowl, and I'm stuck with the guy who has not won a Super Bowl. This was a poorly coached team last year. It wasn't just that Matt Patricia was the offensive coordinator. If you watched the Patriots week in and week out and didn't know who was on the sidelines,

you would go, what is going on here? This is an undisciplined team. They make bad decisions, untimely penalties, in game management, all those things. They were not a well-coached team last year at all. So the question for 2023 becomes, what is this team and what happens if they do not make the playoffs? Bill Belichick, 30 wins behind Don Shula for the all. all-time record. He's 71 years old. If they don't make the postseason, that would be three or four seasons with no playoff, no playoff wins for five straight seasons and no playoffs, three or four

seasons. I mean, that's not great to go five seasons without a playoff win like that. You're, you know, that's not good company you're keeping. So the question becomes, am I making much of too much ado about nothing? Is Robert Kraft just going to stick with Bill Belichick until Bill Belichick wants to stop coaching, or does there come a point whether it's after this season, whether it's after next season, where Robert Kraft says, you've done an amazing job, you've changed by life, we've won a lot together, but then when it's time, it's time, and it's time to move in a different direction. And then it's just dominoes across the NFL. And I mean, it's where does Bill Belichick want to keep coaching? Does he want to move to a front office role? Is he willing to go to

another franchise? What other franchises are interested? I mean, all those things are at play. And I think those things are going to be at play at the end of this season. Because if you look at it right now on Fandul, the Patriots are minus 325 to miss the playoffs. I mean, the odds are very much against this team. Is it possible they overachieve? And I'm looking like an idiot for this take three months from now. Absolutely. But that is not the most likely outcome. So that's why I have Bill Belichick as the guy with the most at stake for 2020. And we chose our top three. So if you want to say, no, this other guys, I understand that. But he's definitely in my top Okay, so here's here's my framework for why I don't think Bill Belichick has a lot at stake this year. Okay.

Okay. So it's what year is it? 2023. Okay. It's 2040. All right. You're enjoying retirement. You're sipping a nice drink with an umbrella on it somewhere on a beach, right?

A little young grandkid or I don't know, some, some, you know, youth. Okay. Settle down. I'll still be potting here with you. in 2040. So some, some youth comes up to you and it's like,

she also, she'll show, Mr. Capadia, grandpa, whatever. What was it like to be covering football and watching football

when the Patriot's dynasty? Right? When Bill Belichick won seven Super Bowls when Tom Brady won seven super eight Super Bowls, excuse me, in New England. What,

how, what, tell me what that was like. And so you're sitting there, you're reflecting on that question. And in this reality, Bill Belichick's 23 Patriots

with Mack Jones and Bailey Zapi at the helm win four games they go four and 13 and he gets fired to this season are you even remotely going to bring that up

when you talk to this young person about what it was like to be watching and covering football during the Bill Belichick era okay a fundamental misunderstanding of the exercise we're going to run

as usual because you started you started this podcast did I ever use the word legacy I never used the word legacy obviously I'm not in here idiot. I know Bill Belichick could go

0 and 17 for the next five years and it probably, I mean, all right, that would affect his legacy. He could never win a playoff game again. That's not going to affect his legacy. We know what he's done over the years. I'm saying this season starting from September. You don't think that's a huge story that Bill Belichick could, his run with

the New England Patriots could potentially be over if this season goes south. I mean, that, how is that not a lot at stake? What are you talking about? Only you, only you could start the pod with. the framework is coached with the most at stake at 2023

you can take it any direction you want and then the next thing you say to be fundamental misunderstanding of the exercise Well that's true I stand by everything I said

So I agree I understand what you're saying The legacy is not at play but this year standalone in terms of what it could mean for the franchise and the ripple effects around the league

That's why I chose Belize So that's why it's difficult It's because I absolutely, I totally hear what you're saying. In the framework of 2023, the 2024 NFL season, it feels like Bill Belichick is a ton at stake. But the only reason it does, like you yourself said the Patriots aren't an interesting team to you. You yourself say, like, this team does not register as like a high-quality team

that can make a playoff run. The only reason we really deeply care about what Bill Belichick might do in 2023 is because we've seen him coach for the last two decades with the Patriots and we know what he's capable of and we know his legacy. and accordingly, because that's why we have such visibility on him in 2023, it's now difficult for me to say, oh, I really actually care about the results of the season. It's not going to change my opinion of Bill Belichick very much, if at all.

And that's why it's a, like, to me, they're inexorably tied together. You can't have one without the other. You can't say, like, he's got super high stakes in 2023, but also, like, we don't, you know, like, this isn't a legacy thing. The only reason we care about him in 2022 is because of his legacy. That's the only reason why the Patriots team is, of any interest, right? Otherwise, it's a very milk toast around 500 team, at least in my opinion.

And so like, I think if anybody were to make a sweeping claim about the quality of Belichick as a coach, period, like just Belichick as a coach off of this 2022 and 2022 season, I think that would be egregious. I think the body of work is so big and he's been so successful that we know Belichick's one of the greatest coaches of all time. If we want to make a comment on the quality of his coaching just in 2022 and 2022 and 23 and ask why it has fallen off, why it has changed, that's a separate conversation. And that's like, that's certainly interesting to me. But in terms of like at stake, I can't, I can't get up for Bill Belichick.

Like he's, he's going to go down as one of the greats and he could spend the entirety of this season wearing a clown costume on the sideline, call in baseball plays. You know what I'm saying? Like, he's unimpeachable up on that Matt Rushmore to me. Yeah, I think that the, the, I don't think we disagree. really based on what you're saying. I agree that this season has nothing to do with his legacy. I disagree that there's nothing at stake. I think there's a lot at stake for him in terms of just how does he want to close out this

Hall of Fame career. I think there's so much at stake for the Patriots in terms of when are they willing to move on, how long are they willing to stick with him? And then I think there's potentially a lot of stake for teams around the NFL that might look at it. And there might be teams out there that say, hey, if this season doesn't go well and we have a talented team and we want to win right now, can we get a lot? can we get Bill Belichick to be head coach for a general manager and just hand him the keys and see if he's got one more run left again as he as he trying to chases these 30 wins to beat Don Chula for the all time winning his coach. So that's why I think like around Thanksgiving or whatever like the morning shows on Sunday, this is going to be a huge topic that's going to be discussed Bill Belichick's future. And again, maybe he surprises and has one more special season that he pulls out of nowhere and I look like a moron and the Patriots.

are actually really good. I don't think that's going to happen, but I'm not arrogant enough to think there's no chance of that happening. All right, what do you have, Benny? So I think I know who your number one is going to be, let's see. Yeah, I think the coach

with the most at stake this season is bringing the Staley, the coach of the Chargers. Yes. On my list, for sure. Yeah, and when you go and you just simply look at quarterback contracts, right? I mean, it's just either the coach is extremely proven,

or the coach is Brandon Staley, right? Like, it's just like Mahomes and Andy Reid. It's Lamar Jackson and John Harbaugh. It's Jalen Hertz and Nick Suriani, which like Surianni has had the job as long as Staley as he's still very young. But like, Suriani's been to a Super Bowl. So he's got some like, you know,

established to him. Yeah, you have Russ and Denver. Well, Sean Payne is very proven. Kyler, we're going to throw off to the side for right now. And then the Deshaun Watson contract with Kevin Stefanski. Trust me, we're going to get you to that one. You end with, you also have John. Allen and the bills, which I really thought about putting Sean McDermott on here a little bit.

McDermott is an interesting one. I want to talk about McDermott. Maybe we'll do it for your extra point. But in general, like, you just see like, I have, there's a massive quarterback contract. This team has been really successful. And the coach accordingly has, has some faith to him. And then you have this new Justin Herbert contract. And what's what's being communicated, both internally and externally by the charges there is like, we are positive. We've got the guy at quarterback. So, okay, what's your playoff success been like with him? good question. The Chargers have yet to win a playoff game with Herbert.

It's weird. Under Staley, they have had two seasons with winning records. They were 10 and 7 last season, second in the AFC West, which listen, like, you're probably going to be second

to AFC West most of the years, right? It's going to be tough to win that AFC West. But 10 and 7, then, you know, go play a wildcard game in Jacksonville, at which point they had a 27 to nothing late. It felt like it was going to be good there for a little bit. and lo and behold, the Jaguars come back from that 27 point deficit,

they win 31 to 30. That's very frustrating. That's very, that's, there's no way that happens without some poor coaching. You then, okay, you say, all right, well, what do they do the season previous? They had a winning record. Nine and seven going into the final week of the season, playing the Raiders. Get to end the season of the running record no matter what. We've got to either win or tie this game and we're going to playoffs, baby.

We lost that one. And we lost it with, again, like some coaching decisions. decisions that were questioned, right? I think, like, the Chargers Raiders game, like, they're a whole podcast dedicated to, like, Brandt's daily calling the time out, whether or not he should have called the time out, if they should have played for the tie and so on and so forth.

But in general, you've had winning seasons. You have a bologillion dollar quarterback, and you have yet to have late season success. And a lot of that falls on coaching both rightfully, and then also just by virtue of where the buck stops, which is just the reality of being the head coach, right? like you're getting the money you have the job to win games you to win playoff games specifically right you need the team to have post season success to justify your role as the head coach and even if like a

lot of what staley does well leads to the chargers winning games and a lot of unlucky stuff and bad variance has led to the chargers losing some of these key playoffs and losing some of these key moments the buck stops with the head coach it falls on your shoulders again whether rightfully or not rightfully and i think that's a really important thing to understand with staley the reason why it feels like there's a lot at stake here is because Staley was considered like a huge watershed moment, a flashpoint in some of the defensive innovations that we've seen over the last few years. And he's also a huge watershed moment and flashpoint in terms of some analytics debates, right, in terms of going for it on fourth down and when you go for two

and when you don't go for two. And so there's a lot at stake for Staley in terms of, you know, if the chart's not a postseason success this year, I think it's pretty realistic that Staley could lose his job. I'm not saying he has to. I'm not saying that I would necessarily make that firing, but I think that's definitely on the table. But there's also a lot at stake in terms of some of our big battles in terms of our larger conversations in the league right now about how does a super analytic driven head coach, manage your team, change the perceptions on how you make decisions from that position. Is this like Staley's success as a coach is going to be a huge boon to those who argue for it?

Staley's failures as a coach will be a huge boon to those who argue against it. It'll also be big in terms of defense. Like how much can you sell out to stop the past and stop the run? Like is there, did Staley go too far? Does he have to swing back and find a better balance where they play a little bit stronger against the run? And they give up a little bit more explosive pass. There's just a ton at stake here with Staley's career. And it's his quick rise to the head coach of the Chargers.

I feel like, think he sees the flashpoint for a few big arguments, not least among which is like, you know, Chargers fans need a win. Chargers fans just need like a nice, good, actual happy season for once in their lives. Yeah, you were just bringing, I'm not even a Chargers fan, and I was just feeling like pain at these games you've brought up over the last two years. Now, I want to get clarification on one thing, and I agree Staley. I feel like Staley has to be on anybody's list of top three with this exercise. But you made a point that even if,

you know, maybe the success is due to a little bit of variance and randomness and bad luck, the buck stops with Staley. I didn't know if that meant you believe that, that, you know, the various variance in randomness and luck. It has been kind of the big factor with why they haven't won a playoff game or whether you were making that as a general argument. I think, I think variance in luck is a much larger part of why teams win or lose any individual game than we wanted to be as analysts and we wanted to be as fans. And I think that's an important thing to acknowledge in the, in the charges where like, even for the Chargers many, many mistakes in the second half of that Jaguar's game,

it's really hard to give up a 27 point lead. You just need a lot of stuff to not go your way in terms of. bounces of the ball and trips and falls and penalties and so on and so forth. But still while acknowledging that, you got a final win with football games. This is what is to be a head coach, right? Like it's an unfair job. It sucks that like your like, you know, we say wins aren't a quarterback stat. Wins are a head coach stat.

They have to be a somebody stat. And that's who they, that's who they belong to. The win-loss record is a head coach stat. And so even if I believe that Brandon Staley's chargers have been unlucky, in like the Raiders game and in the Jaguars game win one yeah you just gave the quarterback a basically market setting contract you're saying that you have the guy when you you have to win the game and that's why like if they have a third year of like you know falling out of the playoffs in week 18 losing in the wild card round even if like like

like Brandon Staley is a good coach I believe he is I think he's a good football coach who coaches the right way if you have three seasons where you you you don't get the job done with this level of talent then you could be very justifiably fired because the buck stops with you. I generally agree with your luck point. I think you have more confidence in Staley as a head coach than I do. I mean, I look at it. I think if you look at that Chargers team and it was a different market and I'm not here to make full with Chargers have no fans. Like I don't really, I know the Chargers have some fans of them. Listen to our show. It's I don't care that much about that. But I'm just saying like a more sort of intense market, you look at the way last season ended where

Brandon Staley plays his starters deep into that week 18. team game for zero reason. And Mike Williams gets injured in that game. And then you come back in the playoffs. You don't have Mike Williams in that game. And you blow a 27-0-0 lead. I mean, that is like among the worst two-game stretches to end this season of any coach probably in the last decade.

That is a disaster that falls on the feet of the decisions that the head coach made. And so I think he absolutely has to be responsible for that. So that's number one. Number two, you mentioned him. He was known as like a bright. defensive mind, an innovator, a pioneer, I mean, in single game stretches over the last two seasons, you see that. You say, wow, they really did a good job against Team X that no one else had done. But you zoom out. They were 26th in defensive DVOA two years ago, and they were 16th last year.

I know J.C. Jackson was injured, but they've put a lot of money and his imprint on that defense and the personnel moves that they've made. And I have a hard time looking at the personnel there saying that, wow, he's doing more with less. I mean, ultimately, I know it's an impossible. exercise. What I'm evaluating coaches, I'm saying, are they doing more with less? Are they doing less with more? Or are they doing exactly what, you know, what should be there? Like, Mike Tomlin is always my example. Like, you just look at every season. Wait, how did he, how did this team have that record this season with the talent that he has some of those years? And I haven't seen that edge from Staley. So like, I feel like after three seasons, you need to know where does

this head coach give us an edge? So far, it hasn't been on the defensive side of the ball. It hasn't been with some of the big, big decisions he's made in terms of playing those starters in week 18. And I would even push back on the analytics thing. I think he was a different coach last year than he was in 2021. If you made this argument after 2021, I would agree with you. I thought he was really aggressive. He was doing things that the nerd said, yeah, do this. And he was explaining it with those videos every week.

And I was sticking up for him saying, hey, he didn't always get the outcome that he wanted. But these are right decisions. He's got Justin Herbert as his quarterback. You want to be aggressive on offense. not change a thing. Well, in 2022, I thought he did, I thought he did change. I mean, specific early in the season, I'm looking at it going, what kind of methodology is he using for some of these decisions?

Now, maybe he has information that I'm not privy to and those were analytically sound decisions. But if you just look at it overall compared to other coaches, I don't think he gave his team a great edge with his in-game coaching. So yeah, I think there's a lot of heat on him. I mean, for head coaches, specifically once with great quarterbacks, the first move is changed the coordinator. And he did that this year.

offensively. And that could be, that's a high ceiling offense with Kellan Moore. I mean, they could have a great season and that could be a fantastic offense. But if they don't, it's like there's no other move here. You've got the quarterback. You hired your own coordinator. You're in charge of the defense. The organization has made personnel moves that, you know, you have wanted to make on defense. Why is this team not better? So that would be the case I would have for him definitely being on here. Right. I do wonder the degree to which some of the change in decision making in terms of fourth down aggressiveness, when to punt, when to go for field goals, when to go for it, so on and so forth, is a result of my favorite maxim.

The number one job is not to win games. Number one job is to keep the job, right? Yeah, which, which, like, again, like, I paused it when I first said about it, like, you know, is there a degree to which Staley's gone too far and he has to swing back? I think that, like, one of the reasons why I love Staley. And I talked about this a little bit with Stephen on the NFL feed a couple of weeks ago when we were talking about, uh, defensive coaches and, you know, what Staley specifically does with the Chargers.

I think one of the reasons I really like him and Steve really likes him is because he's an innovator, right? He's pushing the way football is played both from a schematic perspective and then from a decision-making perspective. But then I asked Stephen, like, okay, who would you rather have as a head coach an innovator or a winner? And he was like, well, that's a false dichotomy. And sure, it is, but there's also a degree to which that's true, right? Like, when you're on the cutting edge, guess what? Like, you're going to try some stuff that doesn't work. You're going to try some stuff that they come. And when it doesn't work, it's going to come under very heavy criticism because you went and stepped outside of the norm, right? You stepped outside of what

what is traditional. So there's a lot of visibility on that decision. And sometimes it works. Sometimes it blows up in your face. People are really going to care when it blows up in your face. And so that's why like I think it's so important to understand with with Staley, like I said, wins are a coaching stat. I think Staley's as a good coach because I like the way that he thinks about football. I think he thinks about it the right way. I think he makes decisions based off of that good paradigm of football. It's better than a common archaic way of thinking about the game, especially on the defensive side of the ball that we see in a lot of teams right now. But having those good philosophies and making moves based off those good philosophies doesn't necessarily

translate to wins as neatly as we'd like for it to. Part of it being the luck thing, the other part of it being that cutting edge aspect of things, right? Like when you're innovating, you're going to try to have an experiment and sometimes you might be too far off the edge. And that's why, like, again, I don't know what Staley's 2023 is going to look like, but I certainly know off of his 22, there were people who were like, why does this guy have a job? He should be on the hot seat. You should lose the job. And I was like, I don't think so.

I disagree with that. I think he's a good coach. But I do get it because you're really out there on an island when you're running the team kind of way that Brandon Staley is. And this is such a hugely important year for him. He needs some proof of the pudding, right? Win some games. Win a lot of them, win some big ones,

win a playoff game. And everybody shut up real quick. Yeah, I just feel there's been a little bit of an inconsistency to his approach. I'm with you. I had all those thoughts you had his first year going, all right, he's trying new things. He's pushing the envelope. I like this. He's an outside the box thinker he was communicating what he was doing. I think he does that really well to the media, which earns him some goodwill. Like he will explain kind of what he's doing. At the same time, I felt like what you said, whether he felt the heat, whether there was a different reason. I felt some of those decisions were not as sound last year. The stuff at the end of the season, again, I don't mean. to keep bringing it up. But like that, that's a big deal to me when you're making a big decision like that for your team and one of your best players gets injured and can't play in a playoff game. And then, you know, losing the lead that you did, coaching is obviously going to play a role in that. And then the bottom line, which I don't even know if we, I think we've mentioned his name, but I haven't talked about him. We both think Justin Herbert is really good. A lot of people think Justin Herbert is really good. If Justin Herbert is 25 and 24 as a quarterback, I know the one

season was not with Staley, but if he's, you know, what, a few games over 500, in two years with Staley with one playoff appearance and no playoff wins, I think people like us are going to go, but we don't think that that's Justin Herbert's fault. So whose fault is it? Exactly. And it's like, well, there's only one person left whose fault it could be. So I think, I think right.

Like we've been on Staley for a bit, but I think like the clear one liner is that like if you gave this roster, especially with Justin Herbert, just like a clear establishment solid coach. Like I'm not talking about Andy. Sean Payton. Right. But like not even one of those.

Yeah, right. Like he just gave him to like Doug. Right? Like Doug's obviously won a Super Bowl. But he just came to like a good offensive coach. They'd be better. They'd be better. They would be.

They would have won more games. Right. And so Staley is extremely young coach, not a ton of experience in the NFL. I'm okay. I'm okay with some of the inconsistency. Because again, like I think like there's a degree of like trying stuff and figuring things out and like what's our balance going to be. I'm all right with a little bit of like we're, you know, we're still figuring

some stuff out here on this like new and, modern approach to making decisions in game. But the mistakes have been really blown up in his face, right? Some of the luck component, but they've really blown up in his face. And at some point, if you're the Spanos family, you go, okay, let's just get a good West Coast O.C in here, win 12 games and try to make an AFC run. And you can't fault them for that decision. And that should be a spot where you can really attract a great head coaching candidate

too. Like that, I mean, a lot of Sean Payton might be looking at that next year going, shoot, why did I take that Bronco job? All right. Let's take a break. We'll come back. We'll get to our next. coaches with the most at stake in

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We feel the hamstrings are a little sore, but we feel relatively healthy. All right. My number two guy, this brought you some low-hanging fruit, is Mike McCarthy. Oh, yeah, for sure. I have some questions for you, Ben.

And I think that, well, I'm not going to say anything more because then it'll lead to your answers. How many teams have more wins than the Cowboys over the past two seasons in the entire NFL?

Chiefs? One. Correct. One. Come on. Now one team. I'm pretty sure I asked. I might have asked you this before.

Wow. Okay. I get it right. I'm not going to ask you before. The Cowboys have the most wins in the NFC over the past two seasons. It's more than the Eagles, more than the 49ers, more than anybody else. They've got two back-to-back 12 win seasons. However, you knew there was a however coming.

They've not gotten past the divisional round. Their playoffs seasons have ended in just like. kind of comical disaster, I guess, would be one way to phrase it. They have now gone, Ben, 27 straight seasons without advancing past the divisional round, which means you in your lifetime. I don't know your exact age. I don't think you've ever seen the Cowboys get past the divisional round. No wonder you're an Eagles fan.

No, and it's electric. You're all welcome, by the way, for me being born and just immediately, not immediately, I was born in 97. But, yeah, no, as an Eagles fan, I trust me, if you didn't bring it up, I was going to ask you like, Shill, you know, the last year the Cowboys made it pass a division round. What a difference. You were watching Cowboys teams that were just, you know, mocked and made fun of.

I was watching Aikman and Irvin and Evan and, wow, this team's like incredible. They're just the best team in the NFL. That's the thing I was raised by a Steelers fan and a Jets fan, but like our unifying thing in our house was we all hated the Cowboys, right? We sit down Sunday night, be like, all right, Eagles lost today. Steelers lost, Jets lost, but don't worry. Cowboys lost too. I remember you mentioned that before.

I'm sure there are other households like that across the country and across the world. This is Mike McCarthy's fourth season. He made a big move this offseason, parting ways with Kell and Moore, who we just talked about. The numbers with Kellynne Moore and Dak Prescott together are pretty eye-popping. If you look at just when Kellynne Moore had Dak Prescott on the field over the last four years, the Cowboys ranked second in the NFL over that four-year stretch in EPA per play behind only the Kansas City Chiefs. Listen, I know there were times in the play last year in the playoffs.

What, one touchdown on 10 possessions. I'm not telling you there weren't times when the offense sputtered and they turned the ball over. That's true. But we'd like big samples here on extra point taken. And the big sample was this offense was pretty freaking good as long as Doc Prescott was healthy. So now they make the move. Mike McCarthy takes over play calling. He hires Brian Schottenheimer to be kind of his right-hand man.

I think Schottenheimer said 70% of the offense is the same. Mike McCarthy is talking about we're going to run the ball more. This wasn't a pass-heavy team last year. I think they ranked 22nd or something in kind of pass rate on early down. So I just wonder about McCarthy's decision-making process. I wonder about how is Mike McCarthy going to manage the game when he's calling plays in terms of calling timeouts and no one went to hurry off and knowing when to challenge. I mean, that's a big deal.

Like, you're seeing fewer and fewer coaches do that because it's really hard. So those are the reasons why Mike McCarthy is an interesting name going into this season. However, I will say this. And the reason I was wondering, you know, maybe Mike McCarthy doesn't belong on here, Ben, is that Jerry Jones is more loyal with his head coaches than he's given credit for. Jason Garrett lasted nine plus years in that position. He made the playoffs three times and won a playoff game twice. and yet he just held on to that job for longer than anyone would expect. So I don't think Jerry Jones necessarily is saying I want the best coach.

I think Jerry Jones, and by the way, he's not alone in this. I think other owners act this way too want someone he's comfortable with. And he's comfortable, obviously, with Mike McCarthy. Mike McCarthy's not going to tell him, hey, don't give that press conference in the hallway right after the game. He's not going to say, hey, can you not go on the radio or can you not give this interview about Zach Martin? and I'm trying to kind of coach a team here and let our players know we're behind them and care about him. Mike McCarthy is not going to do any of those things. And so Jerry Jones might be more loyal to him, even if the Cowboys don't have a great season.

So just zooming out, I think this team is absolutely good enough from a talent perspective to win the Super Bowl. I was thinking about how many teams can realistically say they have the talent to build a top five offense and a top five defense this year. I think the Cowboys have that potential if everything goes right to fall. in both those categories. But I do think there's pressure on Mike McCarthy, given the decisions he made, how he's taking over the offense, and all those things. And by the way, Ben, Dak Prescott, remember there was that whole contract and signs an extension? That Prescott's only signed through 2024. You have him under contract one more season after this year with that press. I mean, it would be a disaster to go through this entire Dak

Prescott era and get to the end of 2024 and to have not gotten past the divisional round. that's like organizational malpractice in my opinion. Not that Prescott doesn't hold any responsibility, but he's been a really good quarterback for most of his tenure there when healthy. So that's the case for Mike McCarthy. What did I miss? No, I very much agree. The reason why McCarthy deserves a poll position,

he's my second name on my list in this conversation is because the message that was sent emphatically this offseason by the Cowboys was, don't worry, Mike McCarthy is taking more control. Like that's what it was. It was like, you know, they didn't have like any major team departures, right? And in terms of like key free agents,

like obviously there's no more Zique, right? But Zeek's a free agent and go with Zieg back if they wanted to. And like, I think that the loss there is not negligible. Zique was an important player to them for a long time. But like they're excited about Pollard and rightfully so. Defensively they've kept all the major stars. The only, the one big change was just, hey, like we're moving on from our offense. as a coordinator, but don't worry, we have Mike McCarthy, so we're fine.

And like, so like it, the pressure on DAC stays to me like roughly the same, maybe a little bit more. Like pressure on Pollard goes up, sure, I guess. Zach Martin's like a weird thing. Who knows that's going to go? We talked about that earlier this week. But like, I'll do like pressure on Parsons, Trevon Diggs, C.D. Lam. It's all like the same.

It's just Mike McCarthy saying, I'm going to take a bigger piece of this pie. So like, inherently, like, he put his chips in the middle of the table. There are so much at stake here. the like and then to have said that and be like don't worry like I'm going to solve this problem when like you brought up the DAC Kell and Moore numbers have been so good is like all right

you really got to hit a window here in terms of how successful you are and there's because it's the Cowboys it's so easy to defray attention to something else right like you just like Jerry Jones because like constantly up to something you have like the Azique Elliott

you know their feet him because of the contract and Pollard's better. You have the Zach Martin thing now. You have all the DAC discourse, right, the constant visibility on how good is DAC? Does DAC deserve the contract, whatever? Remember, like, after the Cowboys lost in the Niners, it was like, our DAC can't win in the playoffs,

because obviously the Cowboys haven't made it past the divisional round. If you go back since 2016, and you just look at expected points out of per dropback for quarterbacks in the playoffs, Dak Prescott is 8th in terms of, like, that's his career right there, right? He's behind Nick Foles, Patrick Mahomes, or Matt Ryan, right?

You kind of have these two guys. guys who just had this one season of like an incredibly elite run. But then after that, it's Mahomes, Roger Stafford, Russ, Brady, Prescott. Next is like Rivers, Allen, Breeze, Rothesburg, or Hertz, Burrow. Like, Dag is just there among like the best quarterbacks of the last six, seven years, squarely playing well in the playoffs. Like, like, there's, again, like, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you're, when you remember the Dallas Cowboys, it's so easy to be like, look at our quarterback,

criticize him. And then you just don't get necessarily the visibility that you would warn somewhere else, right? And so, like, I think DAC receives a lot of unfair visibility and unfair attention for, like, why the Cowboys have struggled over the last few years when really, like, I think more that belongs to regularly on McCarthy's shoulders. And certainly this year, as you remove Kellynne Moore from the equation, it's going to be, I think, even harder for McCarthy to kind of hide from some of that visibility.

And so it is, McCarthy was brought in to save the Cowboys from their postseason struggles. He has yet to do so. He pulled the staley, right? He got rid of his OC. You kind of, you, you, you, uh, you knocked down that, that one last dime. That one big red emergency eject button that kind of saved your job for a year. But it's put up a shot of time for the McCarthy era in Dallas because I struggle to look at Dax's career over their shared time together, and even before McCarthy got there and find Dack to be the problem when it comes to postseason success.

There's certainly stuff Dack does overall as a quarterback that deserves visibility. But he's not the reason they're losing in the postseason. I think that over the last few years, McCarthy deserves a little bit more on that. Yeah, I think you and I disagreed a little bit on that Niners game last. I feel like when the offense scores one touchdown on 10 possessions, I'm going to put some. It wasn't, it was far from Dak's best game. But after that game, there was a bunch of, like, and he was awesome the week before. He was incredible.

There was so much like, and this is why the Cowboys came with with Dak in the playoffs. And it's like, I'm sorry. Do we want to talk about last year's Niners Cowboys game? Because, yeah, back ain't the reason they lost that one. Yeah, no, I generally agree. I think we both think Dak Prescott is a very good quarterback. If you're a Cowboys Fed and you look at like, think of the last, what, eight years, decade here where you luck, I don't want to say luck into it because they drafted the guy. You get a top 10 quarterback in the middle rounds of the draft, which is just like the golden ticket in the, in the NFL. You get that. You get who I think is like a Hall of Fame defensive player in the middle of the, like could go down as an all time great in the middle of the first round. You get a coordinator who has coordinated this defense. to top five finishes in back-to-back years.

And you have zero to show you haven't even gotten past. Like, that's tough. That is a tough pill to swallow if you're a Cowboys fan. When you look at the things, because they have gotten a lot of things right, the things you've gotten right, and then to still look at the end of the day, your pro football reference page and say, man, it's been 27 years since we've gotten past the divisional round.

That is a tough bill to swallow. Are you said McCarthy was your number two? Do you want to go to your next guy? and then I can finish out with my third guy. Okay, go ahead. Yeah, I do, before I do that, I want to ask you, you brought up the fact that Dax only signed through 2024, right? Percent chance that Dac Scott is a Dallas Cowboy in the year 2025.

Go. I would say still pretty high. I would say 72.9%. What do you think? That's about in three out of every eight years. universes, Dak Prescott's playing somewhere else in 2025. That's a lot. So you think I should have gone higher? I would have said like 8590. That would have been mine. I was just curious what you say. I think he's going to be, I mean, he, listen, he played it smart and took a short term deal

and said, I'm going to hit the market again when he'll be like in his early 30s at that point. So he's going to have a lot of leverage at that point. I just, the Cowboys don't really have a contingency plan. Now, if they go a couple more years and doesn't play well or they don't win, then maybe that changes. But I would say definitely the most likely outcome is that he's still there. Yeah. All right. I was just curious where you were out on that. Yeah. Okay. My number three, I thought about a few guys for this, and I ended up just going with the first thought that I had, and what I think would be chalk.

I don't know if there's a way you can have chalk in a rank like this. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of state for Kevin Stefanski, the head coach of the head coach. That's who I've got. Yeah, that's what I've got. And we'll definitely, like I said, there's a few more people that I definitely want to talk about. But with Stefansky, Savansky spends his entire career in Minnesota, right? assistant to the head coach, doesn't quarterback coach,

running back's coach, tight ends coach. He's just, this homegrown guy in Minnesota. He's going to come up. He's going to be the OC. He's going to go through the franchise. And then he gets that Brown's offer

to be a head coach and he takes it. All right. Leave the Minnesota, the Vikings world where like you kind of know how everything goes. And you walk into Cleveland and now, like, unfortunately,

now that we look back on it, a little bit unfortunately, you have this immediate success, right? Okay, so say Baker Mayfield, he comes in 2020, and Baker has his best career best year of his career.

They're running the, you know, the boot play action, Sean McVeigh, popular offense, 2020. Everybody's doing this. And they got Nick Chubb moving and grooving. They got a great offensive line. Bill Callahan's there. Everything's hunky d'ore. Like, we're just going to plug and chug this thing

the same way that it's worked for all these other offenses for the last few years. But in 2020, defense, we're starting to catch up. They started to solve some of Staphansky stuff because Stapansky, really in that Baker year was just running like the same six things, right? And they were running it extremely well, but it was a simple offense. And then you start to deal with the reality of Baker, not necessarily having the top tier talent of the first overall picket quarterback. And it's kind of like McVeigh with golf or like, okay, we can't win with this guy,

but can we go get somebody else? And like, what's this going to look like? And Stefansky pretty quickly has to like grow up. You got to do some big boy stuff. You got to diversify the offense. And you have to deal with this quarterback contract situation, right? Like you, this is being a head coach is making these really tough decisions with these guys who invested a lot of resources in.

Then we know the end of the story. Kevin Sopansky, to whatever degree he was an agent in the Dishon Watson decision, he was actively like, I want to go get this guy, or if he was a passenger on a boat being driven by the Haslam family and by ownership, to me, like we're splitting hairs at that point. Siffansky was a key player in a decision to bring Dishon Watson to the Browns. He was a key player in a decision to pay Dishon Watson a massively, substantially record-setting contract.

He was a key player in a decision to justify and excuse Deshawn Watson's horrible history and many misgivings and many transgressions with the Texans based off the pure fact that he has a lot of football talent. Kevin Stefanski wants to win some football games. So you made what is just like a bad human decision. There's like not a good choice to win a lot of games as the head coach of the Browns. Deshawn suspended for 11 games. You got Jacoby Brissette out there.

You're kind of hanging around a little bit. the offense is working. You've got a Marty Cooper. You've kind of juiced things up. You've developed the offense. You've evolved a little bit. And you get those games of Deshawn. And Deshawn did not look good. The offense got worse. The defense was horrible the entire season. You did not win a lot of football games. All right. Well, here we go. Sifanski's had three seasons as the head coach the Browns. They finished fourth, third and third in the AFC. Now that for that 2020 year, when they finished third, they still made the playoffs. They were 11 and five, right? They had that game against the Chiefs. But in general, you have not had divisional success.

And you're coming into your fourth year as the head coach. And this is your second quarterback as the head coach. He is the highest paid quarterback in the league. And also the decision to acquire him dramatically negatively impacted your franchise in terms of just their role as good people in the world. You could win 100 games in an 18 game season and not justify the Deshaun Watson decision. But in the scope of football, in the scope of the competitive game played on the field on Sunday afternoons, you have to win a lot of games.

You absolutely unequivocally need Deshawn Watson to be good at football and win a lot of football games to say, all right, we went through all this and it was worth it. It wasn't. But that's the argument that you're going to make from a football perspective. If not, man, the Browns have got their wagon hitched to Deshaun Watson. They ain't getting out of that contract. So they're going to bring in somebody else to fix Deshaun Watson's football game

and win a lot of games with this $230 million quarterback. That's what the Browns are going to do. When you give any quarterback, let alone Deshaun, that much money, if they don't win, the head coach getting fired, because they can't fire that guy. You can't move off from the quarterback, right? And so for Stavansky, I very much think this season is win double-digit games or lose your job. I think that's the reality for him, because you cannot as ownership have made the Deshaun Watson decision, have even moderate football success, and say, okay, this is good enough.

This was worth it for us. It won't be. I don't think it's ever really actually worth it from like a universal tipping of the scales perspective. But from ownership's decision, that moderate success is not going to be enough. You have to legitimately like win the AFC North. You have to win double digit games. You have to win a playoff game. And then ownership is going to say, okay, this guy can make Ardashon Watson decision worth it.

And so, Stephansky, career year for him. This is it for me as I'd go to the rounds. I'd wager. Yeah, the key point you made there is that when you give Deshaun Watson that contract, by the way, a contract that no other team was willing to give him, again, a reminder that Browns were out. How did the Browns get back in? They made a fully guaranteed offer that no other team was willing to match. He signs with the Browns since then. I was going to say, and then a contract that nobody has beaten, which doesn't happen.

Nobody will not even close. I mean, no one's going close to that guaranteed number. Jalen Hertz, Justin Herbert, Lamar Jackson. I mean, yeah, there has been, that did not set a precedent that did not change the NFL. that was a one-off that one team was willing to do for one player because it was desperate. So when you make that move, that quarterback's the most important person in the franchise other than the owner. And if things don't go well, like you said, nothing's happening to the quarterback. You're with the quarterback now for many years to come. And I don't think people realize, like, the numbers are eye-popping with the Browns offense

with Jacoby Brissette last year. Like, from an efficiency standpoint, a top-eight offense. Like, I agree. If you're going, I watch the Browns' that can't be true. I'm with you. I watch the Browns and I'm like, you watch the end of those games going. They don't have a chance to score here. They're not good enough. But the numbers are the numbers and the numbers fell off a cliff when Deshawn Watson got back there. Now, it was a six game sample. Deshawn Watson has a history of being a very good quarterback in the NFL. It's possible that

he comes back and is fantastic this season and that they have one of the best offenses in the NFL. However, it's also possible that, you know, maybe the scheme fit. There's more to that than we would like to think in terms of what Kevin Stepansky wants to do, what Deshawn Watson is comfortable doing. There's also the fact that Deshaun Watson hasn't shown on the field that he's a good quarterback for three years now. Like, we could look at those years with the Texans, but it's been a while since he's been on the field as a good quarterback. And then the last thing I'll say better, it has like nothing to do with EPA or X's and O's

or anything. And this is really how I feel about the Browns this year. I just feel like there's a weight on that organization from that decision and precisely to what we're talking about, a pressure on that organization and the key decision makers and the head coach and the GM and the owner and the quarterback and the teammates. And I think they feel it. I mean, look at what they did this summer. They went and did training camp in West Virginia. They got away from their home base in Berea, Ohio. They're going to Philadelphia for joint practices. Now I'm not saying those are the only decisions. But I do like you just look at it and you're like there's probably a sense that they kind of want to get away. they feel like they need to isolate themselves, put themselves in a bubble, whether it's an

us against, you know, a foe, us against the world type mentality that they're embracing. And I just don't know that they have, they're like a stable enough organization to handle that. Like I look at it on paper and I go, this team could absolutely win the AFC North and make the playoffs. I mean, if Deshaun Watson is just like the 12th best quarterback, Stefanski, to me, is a very good head coach. I mean, I know you gave the win-loss numbers and that's true. their offense, the three years with him, eighth, 14th, and ninth in DVOA. That's with Baker Mayfield, Jacoby Brissette, and Deshaun Watson for six games. Like, I think Kevin Stefanski, with that offensive line, can put together a good offense.

And I think their defense is going to be one of the most improved units in the NFL. They had a very good offseason in terms of defensive personnel, and they bring in Jim Schwartz, who I think sets a high floor for your defense. So the formula is there. The blueprint is there. It's possible that they get it together. and win, but you're absolutely right. And I just don't know that I trust sort of the infrastructure there. And I don't know that I trust that they're going to be able to kind of take on that pressure,

especially if things don't go on early in the season. And if they don't, yeah, they're absolutely looked like a team that would make a change after the season. No, there's a lot of spreadsheet warriors who are like the Browns, man, like they're like, you know, in terms of like season long betting, like take the overs and there's a best ball and best in the team. And I'm like, it just might be bad. Like it and like it might be bad because it's horrible and that's why it's bad. Like that's not an English sentence, but you know what I mean, right? Yeah.

And when we, again, when we zero it on Stefanski, like I said, like, I don't pretend to know nearly enough about Kevin or like be sourced up or whatever to be able to say if he was like an agent of the Deshaun Watson decision or an unwilling passenger in the Deshaun Watson decision that now has to justify it put on a face of the organization or whatever. but in the reality in which like Stafansky was not like super in on getting Deshawn to Cleveland he's just not going to coach well in that environment like you independent of the context in which a bad coach quarterback pairing is created

it just never goes well they never figure it out it's like zero for a billion in terms of like success in the history of the NFL and and when you again when you go from a finance perspective if that pairing is not working Stifansky is the part of the pairing that's fungible. He's move onable from and Deshaun isn't. If Siffansky was an agent of it, then okay, maybe he's going to be more motivated to get it done. But again, like, he's the part of the pairing that can be cast aside.

And so let's say like, all right, he does run a great offense. He's a good football mind. And he does, I think he has a way to like take Deshaun Watson, the quarterback, the player, the individual with talent on a football field and make an offense around him and lower his sack numbers, take advantage of his aggressiveness. But if just Deshawn's not right, like if Deshawn's just not going to play good football against, because he hasn't in ages,

and with everything that he did, is just not going to be a good competitive player anymore, and there's nothing Kevin can do to solve that, and yet he's still going to be the one that gets fired. And that's why there's just so much at stake for him. It's just like, there's so many corners of this reality that the Browns have created, in which Kevin Stefansky is danged if you do,

danged if you don't. Sucks for Kevin, but also to whatever degree, he authored this reality, it's just a little bit hard to feel bad for him. Yeah, I don't know that he was a driving force, but I haven't heard or seen any evidence that he was against the move. And we both know how NFL coaches work. When you have an opportunity, top grade season, the evidence that he was against this move

is going to come out real quick. Well, that's the last thing I wanted to get to. Yeah, that's why I think, like, the first six weeks of these season are very interesting for the Browns, because who has the most powerful, like, media, you know, influencing the media arm in the NFL potentially. I mean, we all saw how the Deshaun Watson, some of the coverage played out over the last two years. Can you see a little leak that Deshaun Watson isn't thrilled about this under center play action offense? Like, this isn't a great fit. You know, Stefansky's not listening to Watson's ideas for the offense. And then if, like you said,

if you're Stefansky and you're looking out for the rest of your career, hey, Stefanski wasn't on board. Watson was forced onto Stavansky. So there's a situation where it gets a little ugly and they go back and forth. Last thing I wanted to say, you kind of threw it in there, but I think it's a big point. The sack rate with Deshaun Watson was always high in Houston, and we always said, well, Houston's offensive line stinks. Last year, with the Browns, Deshawn Watson, like his sack rate was higher than every quarterback in the NFL, not named Justin Fields.

And if you look at it, Jacoby Brissette was way lower than Deshawn Watson's was. So I look at that Stefansky offense, and I don't think, like, explosive, I think, like, methodical, efficient. When you have a quarterback who takes a lot of sacks, I think it's harder, it's obviously harder to play that way because sacks kill drive. So that's something they have to get figured out how to not take those negative plays. And like, again, like, it's so, it's, it's very challenging to talk about the Browns and the Deshaun Watson situation in the terms of like typical quarterback situations because there's just so much additional context. But like in general, when a free agent signs an enormous and he was he a free agent, he was traded. Now, he's

free agent. Yeah. Trade it. Was he traded? Yeah. He was traded. But he was also, right, meeting with multiple different teams. It was like a free agent trade where he got to pick where he went.

Yeah. And typically though, when a player arrives to a new team and signs for market setting money, insane money, that player doesn't develop much anymore because you can't tell him anything. What is, what does Sean Watson get better at your sack rate? No. I'm making. unbelievable money and I'm already here.

Right? Like it's just like that's just the truth of it. Right? Unless like this is why like the JJ Watts of the world are so like remarkable. Right. These guys who just like love working

and get better and like you know technique in the grind like jail. Right. Jalen hurts a great example. Those guys are just so obsessed with improvement that they're going to do it independent of the context.

But for a lot of like players who sign massive extensions especially when they go to a new team right and they enter that team as a player who has all this power. They're just not going to change the way they play. Why would they? You got the job done.

You got what you wanted out of this in terms of the massive amount of money. And so even before you start to introduce the context of how Deshaun Watson got to the Browns and how their culture was affected by that, Kevin Sophan says to Deshaun take fewer stacks, Desaun says, no. What's Kevin going to do? Yeah. I mean, I think Watson's history as a football player suggests he's been a pretty self-motivated guy to improve, but you're right, it is kind of human nature where you've gotten kind of everything

you've wanted from a financial perspective and you've kind of, you know, uh, listen, there's it, yeah, you feel bulletproof. And for the coach, that's hard to, that's hard to be a coach in that spot, for sure. Yeah, that's me at the ringer. They brought me in here. They were like, doing the podcast. They're like, Ben, you got to shut up. You talk too much. And I was like, nope. And I said, Ben, you know, make too many wrong predictions. You got to get actually good at this. I was like, nah, I already got the bag. We're chilling. All right, on that note, let's take a quick break. We'll come back and I want to throw out some other coaches your way. All right. We're back on the extra point taken. So to be clear here in case you were keeping

scored at home, I had Belichick, McCarthy, Staley, and then I thought you were going to take one of them. So I had Stifansky fourth. So you had, give me your three again. Staley, McCarthy, and Savansky, in that order. Okay. All right. So here are the other ones on my list. I actually did write down a fifth that I was willing to go to. And that was Josh McDaniels. I think he was pretty much a firm five on my list and sit. I mean, I don't know what that franchise is doing. I mean, last off season, they're saying, let's go win now. Devante Adams, Chandler Jones, that doesn't work out. They think moving from Derek Carr to Jimmy G is going to be an upgrade. Jimmy G has played 10 plus games twice in his career. It's a bottom 10, maybe worse than that. Offensive line.

Kyle Shanahan isn't walking through that door. You got a nice supporting cast, but the throws aren't going to be as easy with Josh McDaniels as they were with Kyle Shanahan. And I don't know if you've looked at their secondary, Ben, but that defense is probably going to stink again. It was 31st in DVOA last year. And I don't see much reason for improvement this year. I was reading a story on the athletic where Josh McDaniels says he wants to communicate better with players this season. Oh, when is this going to happen, Josh? I mean, we have kind of a long. How long has Josh been a coach in the NFL now? Yeah. He's 17 and 28 as a head coach. He's had six seasons without Brady or Belichick.

In those six seasons, the offense has never finished in the top half of the league in DVOA. So I know people like Josh McDaniels from an X as an O's perspective. I just don't see it. I thought that was going to be a train wreck the second they hired him. I think that's going to be a bad team this year. I don't know if Mark Davis just sticks with him after the year. I think that's possible. But I just, that is a directionless franchise to me that's just kind of stuck in the middle,

making decisions on a whim every month, month to month. Yeah, I think McDaniels does have good X as and O's, but I also thought that would be a dumpster fire when they hired him, and then I'm not, I'm not in on McDaniels as head coach. For a guy, McDaniels joined the Patriots as a personnel assistant in 2001. He started on the coaching side in 2002 as a defensive assistant. So he's been a coach for 21 years. If you, after coaching the NFL, never a year off, never like a year in college, whatever,

after 21 years ago, I really, I got to learn how to communicate with these players. Buddy, man. It's not happening. That's not great. You were in the league when you were 26. as a coach, you should have maybe at that time started thinking about how to communicate with players. I didn't have McDaniels down on my list

because I just feel like the Raiders are low stakes overall because like I guess like maybe they have expectations but I feel like nobody has expectations for them. Yeah. So it sort of irrelevant. Yeah, dial up the stakes. For me, fourth for me was Shaw McDermott. I think McDermott has a lot at stake.

I don't think McDermott is losing his job if the bills win the division but don't make the conference championship this year. But I'm going up to Buffalo for camp next week. And the whole point of my trip is to just like, check the temperature of the water, right? Like, okay, been a little bit of a shaky summer. We fired Leslie Frazier. Stefan Diggs was missing for like 12 hours.

And Sean McDermott was like, this is terrible. Like, is everybody okay? Are we fine? Like, it's an extremely frustrating environment or frustrating reality. When you know you're so good at football and you just have not. played in a conference championship game. Like, that's just so hard. And so there's a lot of McDermin.

Like, I don't want to say he needs to get a conference championship game, needs to get an AFC championship under his belt. But it's like the Staley Herbert conversation, wrapped up even a couple more notches. We're like, okay, you've won some playoff games. Like, we know you're good,

but like, we don't get put in the record books here. We don't get trophies. We don't get hardware. We don't get all this stuff unless we actually like, get the hay in the barn here a little bit. So I think there's pressure on McDermott. I have Robert Sala on my list as well.

Let me respond to McDermick's. I think that's that you, you frame that perfectly because I am doing my preseason prep and I'm looking at the bills going, wait, why are people down on the bills? Like the bills are going to be really good this year. But then I have that feeling in the stomach. Wait a minute.

Sean McDermott is a freaking intense guy. I mean, he is a serious guy. He's an intense guy. I think he's a very good coach. And when you go into a season and you're trying to get guys motivated for an August practice knowing that, like the meaningful games for this team are coming in January in the divisional round. Like that's ultimately going to determine whether it was a successful season or not.

That's a tough spot to be. Now, McDermott and Brandon Bean both got extensions in the offseason. So I don't think they're going anywhere. Right. But it is fair to wonder, like, are we going to be saying after this season, like, are the arrows pointing down a little bit on the bills? Or is it going to be, hey, that was an overreaction by people. This is still one of the best teams in the NFL.

So I think the temperature check is a right way to kind of frame that. All right, who was next for you? Yeah, the thing on McDermott, yeah, is like, I think there are tailspins you can get yourself out of and tailspins that you can't. I've never flown a helicopter, but I feel like that's a reality of tail spins. The bills are currently like a little bit of a tailspin,

out of which they absolutely can get themselves. There's a world in which you start to get into a tailspin that you can't pull yourself out of and something inherently crashes and burns. Robert Sala was on my short list. Jets fans have a tweet of mine that they absolutely love. I was asked before the 2022 draft who's a GM who could lose his job as a result of the decisions he makes today. And I said, Joe Douglas, because of the time Joe Douglas needed to make Zach Wilson work.

And then obviously Joe Douglas drafted the defensive player of the year and the offensive rookie of the year. So Joe did a great job, but they love to hit that tweet. And they're like, you know, Ben hates the Jets. Sala and Joe Douglas have been there for a long time on the scale of NFL coaches and general managers. they both, Sal has been there for three years. Those are going into four. Doug's been there for four years going into five if memory serves. You made a trade for Aaron Rogers.

Great defense. Got to do it, right? Like most of the time, if you look at the history of coaches and general managers, when you spend a top half of the first round pick on a quarterback and he busts, over half of the time, you get fired. Salon and Douglas didn't. So they're on their second life and usually only get one second chance at this. So there's pressure on Sala, right?

Like it's an extremely competitive division and extremely competitive conference. I don't think they need to win it in order for it to be like, you know, great. But Rogers is their last swing at the bat at quarterback. And like obviously Rogers and and Hackett and the jets are all projecting like, Rogers wants to be here for forever.

He wants to be here for five more years. He wants to play and give us money. And it's incredible. That's all well and good in August. When you lose back-to-back games in October, which, you know, can happen like for any given number of reasons, right? But then stuff starts to hit the fan of it.

little bit. What, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what, what's the result there. So there's pressure on Sala. I don't think he's, he's losing his job tomorrow, but there's, there's, there's, there's high stakes for him. Yeah, I think the, I think, I think if Roger stays another year, then I think, like, they'll just keep everyone together and say, let's make it a year. But, but, but, but, but I'm finished. Then it's almost like, natural breaking point where, all right, let's restart here. So I think that's a good one. All right. Yeah. Who else? Last one for me that I would mention is just Ron Rivera. not like a deeply like sexy or interesting team

but Ron's been the head coach of Washington since 2020 there's new ownership in place they have no presumed future at quarterback right now besides like the Sam Howell Heads if Washington is not good this season I mean just like a complete wash and redo makes so much sense for this team like they're just teetering on the edge of that I think already

and so you know I think Ron can save his job by having a great season I think if Ron is anything less than a great season I would not be surprised if there's just a changing of the guard in Washington because there's new ownership and it's the time to do so. So a lot of stake for Rivera, a lot of sake for everybody in Washington,

and the horse to which they've hitched that wagon is Sam Howell. So we'll see how I go. Yeah, I would say it's minus odds that Ron Rivera is the head coach of the Commander's Week 1 of 2024. I mean, that feels like a situation. He would have, he kind of had,

it almost has a minus odds means it's more likely than 50%. Well, So if you were betting on, okay, you're right, that he's not the head coach, that he's, I meant that he's not the head coach. Yes. Yeah. All these, all these, all these, all these, all these, all these, all these, all these, all these, trying to talk betting. Come on now.

All right. The other names, let me see, who else did I have, run down? I mean, these are kind of boring ones too, but like Dennis Allen. I mean, yeah. Right. I mean, Dennis Allen has a lot at stake in terms of like, at some point, Dennis Allen is just his job is at stake. Right.

Yeah. I would say, like, Dennis Allen is a lot of stake just in terms of like, at some point, Dennis Allen is going to believe that there has no chance of ever being a good head coach. He's just destined to be a defensive coordinator for the rest of his life. Yeah. And I guess Todd Bowles probably fits in that also. I thought, yeah, Bowles the same way. He's been dealt a little bit of a tough hand here with Tom Brady retiring.

He kind of had one year to make a go of it. It didn't go well. And so that was another one. Honestly, we could go like eight more, but we've got many shows between now and week one. So we will hit on those other teams, those other coaches for sure. But I think we hit on all of. I want to put two names in the world just to make sure that you agree with me

in terms of no because I think the fan bases some percentage of the fan bases for John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin would want them mentioned on this list but you and I both would say no really yeah 100% I would say they're among the five best coaches

probably exactly okay Mike Tomlin I mean Harbaugh I like Harbaugh a lot but you could talk you could talk me into the Raven have a bad season. It's become stale. I guess you could talk me into that. I think it's stupid.

But Tom, what? Tomlin? Okay, Shil, Steelers fans, one of whom is my father, another one of whom is my sister, are the most spoiled fan base in the history of the world, right? They've had like two coaches

since 1830, all right? Like, they just think that, like, yeah, all you do is you just hire a guy and he's the coach for 20 years and you win through Super Bowls. That's how all the other franchises do it, right? The last five years of Tomlin have been no playoffs,

lost wild card round, lost wild card round, no playoffs, no playoffs. For the, in Steelers world, that's like, oh, what a bad run we've got here. We're in a rut.

We need a new coach. Like, there's a decent percentage of Steelers fans that are like, Tomlin will never be more than a 500 coach. That's unacceptable here in Pittsburgh.

We need to find a better guy. That's a very real sensation among Pittsburgh fans. I don't think it's a majority. I think it's a minority, but it's there. I think it's bananas, but it's there.

Again, as I said, my exercise for evaluating head coaches are, is are they doing more with less, less with more, or pretty much exactly what they should do with the talent? And you mentioned seasons with the corpse of Ben Rafflesberger and Kenny Pickett as a rookie having two concussions with men. I will say, if you want to rip tie, I just did some work on the Steelers to sport. I'm going, how is Matt? How are you sticking with Matt Canada?

Mike? Just please get, if they would have just made a change at OC, I might be on this podcast going, and the Steelers are my sleeper team for 2023. That one hurts me a little bit. But, yeah, no, I can't. I mean, again, never had a losing season gets winning. Mike Tomlin understands coaching. The interview Mike Tomlin did last summer or last offseason with the pivot podcast,

I thought was one of the best explanations of what an NFL coach's job should be and how many of them don't understand what their job is of anybody I've heard in the last 20 years. So I'll plug it another podcast here. Go ahead and listen to that if you haven't because I thought he was that good on that podcast. All right. This was fun. We're back in the swing of things. We hit on a bunch of teams.

We hit on a bunch of coaches. Thanks to Eduardo Ocampo for pitching in and producing. Appreciate that, Eduardo. Additional production supervision by Connor and Evans and Arjuna Ramgopal. Thanks to everyone for listening. Have a great weekend. Ben and I will be back next week on Extra Point Taken on the Ringer NFL. Must be 21 plus and present.

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