The Ringer NFL Show - Who Got Help, Who Didn't, and Who Will Pay Off Come September | The Ringer NFL Show (Ep. 246)

Episode Date: March 15, 2018

The Ringer's Kevin Clark and Danny Kelly hook up to look at which teams made the most impressive moves during free agency (02:15), which teams seem to be lost and without a plan (25:15), and which signings will be the most impactful once the season starts (41:45). Read our NFL free-agency coverage here: https://www.theringer.com/nfl Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of The Ringer NFL show, we discuss which teams have helped themselves the most so far in for agency, which didn't, and some under-the-radar signings that are going to really matter come the fall. As always, we are part of the Ringer podcast network where you can listen to One Shining Podcast. That's Tate and Titus bringing you everything you need to know about March Madness in this, the most exciting month in the sport. And be sure to check out, The Ringer.com. There's a great article by Jordan Khan on John Calapari. It's Kentucky Week over there at the ringer.com. Megan Schuster has some new info on Tiger Woods and his betting odds of the masters, which is all Danny Kelly cares about.

Now let's get to the show. We're going to a fellow show on the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark. With me today is the Dark Night Danny Kelly. Danny, I want to talk to you. The Seahawks have had a lot of losses. But they made up for it by signing Barquevius Mingo to a two-year $7 million deal. The tide is turned, Danny.

Lose some of the greatest players in history of the franchise. But here comes Mingo. The Seahawks seem to really love former first-round picks that never worked out. They're really going hard on that. I don't think it's a coincidence because former first-round picks, particularly top-10 picks, will have the athleticism required to get drafted that high. And then the Seahawks are just enamored with a certain type of athleticism. So it's not crazy.

It's not a crazy coincidence, but it is an interesting strategy. Yeah. Well, I think Mingo played pretty well last year. I mean, not like, you know, he's not a star, but he was like a solid, you know, starter caliber player for the Colts later in the season. Sure. And the Seuxtra are actually going to be really defending on Dion Jordan this year, I think. Yeah.

You know, that's kind of, you know, I don't know what to expect really from him, but it sounds like he's kind of going to slot in there for what Michael Bennett was doing last year. So that's interesting. That's a good plan. Could be a weird year for the Seahawks defense. Then again, I mean, they've always kind of thrived on playing young guys. We officially talked too much about Mango and Dionne Jordan on the Ringar NFL show. Yeah, we already lost some people.

Let's move on. Okay, Danny, we're going to start out with probably the most important thing because obviously all the teams are trying to do is get better. We've had a slew of trades. We've now had about a full week of free agency, which felt like, I mean, it really has felt like, What, six months? The Alex Smith trade feels like it happened three years ago. I know, do we get to include all that and stuff in our winners and losers?

Yes, three down. Yes, of course we do. We get to do the whole deal. So we're going to start with the three teams you think have helped themselves the most. Now, to be clear about this, Danny, we talked about this offline, but just so the listener knows, this is not who are the best teams coming out of free agency. It's just who impressed you with their moves. It doesn't even have to be instant contenders or anything.

Who are you going to start with, Dan? any. Well, I mean, I think the obvious one for me is the Bears. Yeah. In terms of what they've done, you know, obviously they tagged Fuller, which I think was a smart move. Hopefully, I mean, assuming they hold on to him because they, uh, was a transition tagging him. So who knows exactly what we'll have in there. But it sounds like they're going to keep him. Uh, I think it was kind of an underrated thing that they, they resigned to Mukamara.

So they've kind of shored up that secondary, brought those guys back. Um, and, you know, that's a duo that played pretty well last year. So I think that was big. And then obviously going out and getting the top receiver in the market, Alan Robinson, they grabbed a dynamic guy like Taylor Gabriel who can, you know, he's a speed thread. He's kind of, maybe he can bring that the lateral quickness, you know, pre-snap shift and stuff like that that we saw in Kansas City last year.

He could be that kind of dynamic guy. And then Trey Burton, you know, I'm not going to compare him to Travis Kelsey, but he's really athletic guy and kind of be the Kelsey role in that offense under Matt Nagy. So, yeah, I just really like what that. they did. I think they got better. I don't know if, like, again, I don't know if they're going to be good next year, but I think they got better. I think they gave Mitchell Trubisky some, some options in the offense, and, and overall, I'm going to be really looking forward to watching this team. Yeah, I think it's an intriguing team, and I think they did a nice job of sort of molding themselves to the current

trend, which is go all in when you have a cheap quarterback. Totally. And I think that is so important now because teams sort of waited to see with their rookie quarterback. okay, is he going to be good, then we're going to go out and spend. You only have essentially a four-year window because the fifth year, you start getting into the fifth-year option, which can be, you know, $20 million in Plague Portals case. And so essentially what you have to do is you have to go all in before you know if the quarterback is good.

Even with the chiefs, you have that a little bit where you have to go out and get a Sammy Watkins because you know the clock is taking on Patrick Mahomes. The difference between having a quarterback who makes four or five, of $6 million or if he's a later round pick, $800,000. The difference between having a guy like that versus having to pay a guy. I mean, look at the modern quarterback market. I mean, Kirk Cousins is making three years 86 million fully guaranteed. Who the hell knows what's going to happen with these guys on the rookie deals get to free agency by that time?

So spend the money now. I don't know if all of those deals are going to work out. I mean, I think Trey Burton at $8 million is fine. It's on the upper end of the bargain. but I do know that getting a guy like Alan Robinson is important and I just, they're not one of my three teams that help themselves the most just because first of all we don't want to overlap too much but second of all, just because I think that there are other teams

that are doing a better version of this and we'll start with the San Francisco 49ers. Yeah, I almost pick them too, so that makes a lot of sense. What do you like? So first of all, I was on Bill's pod years today. He does not like the Richard Sherman signing. I like it because of the contract structure. There's almost no risk.

And the upside is you have Richard Sherman. I understand it's an Achilles injury. I understand that he's not, he was never a speed demon, first of all, to begin with. He was always a more physical player. There's a reason at 6'3-3 he dropped in the draft, and it's because he never had that speed to begin with. So what happens when he comes back? Well, he's a smart cornerback.

He's going to fit well into that defense. And beyond that, they realize that there's a smaller window for them. They went out and they got Richburg. They traded Daniel Kilgore on Thursday to sort of make room in that offensive line. And then they got Jerich McKinnon. And I think Jerich McKinnon is a really good player. I'm going to get to him actually a little bit later for my signings that I like. But McKinnon is, first of all, he's an Uber athlete.

And he was, okay. Spark God. Spark, exactly. Spark God. When he had, when Sequan Barkley was doing the bench press and everybody was all freaking out about it, He was just basically matching McKinnon's numbers. Now, he had under four yards for attempt last year, which is obviously not ideal, but 51 receptions, 8.3 yards per reception, 420 yards. I mean, I think they can find four yards per attempt or over four yards per attempt with another of their backs.

I don't know if you can get that sort of athletic amounts out of the back field necessarily. And it was a fine deal. The cap is $170 million now. You can afford what? What were they four years 30 for him? I don't even remember, but that sounds right. Yeah, and that's fine. Who cares?

I mean, it's a new economic reality in the NFL. I'm okay with these sort of deals. The Niners, I think, are kind of doing this thing where they overpay while they're, you know, because I think a lot of times when you're a team like the 49ers and you're, you know, they finished, you know, in the bottom of the rankings or whatever. and, you know, they still have to attract guys with money. And over the last couple of years, they've overpaid from Scott for some guys. Obviously, I think the general consensus was they overpaid for use check as a fullback.

But at the same time, Shanahan's willing to kind of just. I mean, they overpaid for Garoppolo. But, I mean, at some point, overpayments are, no one care. As long as you win. They just want to get their guys. They want to get the guys that fit. As long as you have $100 million to spend, spend it. I really like the Richburg signing.

I'm obviously a fan of the Sherman signing. I mean, apart from being, you know, a Seahawks fan and it's a kind of a knife twist or whatever. But I mean, it does make total sense. It's a team-friendly deal.

You know, he's a guy that, at least for the Seahawks, he kind of played the mentor role for them. And so that could, you know, be a hidden benefit there. And I think just,

yeah, I mean, he can teach them the, you know, the Seahawks style press. It's the step kick. which is kind of, I guess, technically difficult to do. So there's a lot of outside there.

The Richburg thing I think is important because the zone blocking scheme, you need a guy who can, you know, be the pivot, get, that really difficult reach block where you reach a defensive tackle that's like on your right shoulder. If you're running to the right, they're on your right shoulder, you have to reach and get around them and seal them. And that's a really difficult block. I think it's a common thing that, you know,

that zone blocking scheme asks the center to do. And so I think it's an important position in the Shanahan offense. And so, yeah, all these moves make sense. I think you can quibble about how much they're paying everybody. But like you said, I mean, they've got a ton of space, and they're getting their guys, and they're getting guys that they think will fit in their scheme. And so I'm overall a fan of what they've done.

I think the one thing everyone needs to understand about the salary cap is because of the roll over cap money, because of the rising cap kind of married to the fact there are some teams like the Niners who hadn't been spending the last couple years, teams are just playing by completely different rules in completely different universes. The Philadelphia Eagles last year

were in a situation where I think no one on the team made more than 6% of the salary cap, okay? That's crazy. There's a couple reasons for that. Number one is obviously because they had a number of cheap quarterbacks, apparently both of whom were really good. And also because they just know how to manage the cap and they never got in a situation like the Ninersford

where they ever had $100 million to spend. I'm looking at Spot Track right now. Cleveland's still 80 million. The Jets, 74 million. The Colt, 67. The Niners still have 48 to spend. Okay? And so you're going to end up in some weird

wonky cap situations. You're going to have to overpay guys, but that's just the reality when you have all this roll over cap money and you have cap flexibility and now with your quarterback, you have cost certainty. There are some teams that, you know,

are negotiating right now with their quarterback and they can't spend that much money because they don't know how much they're going to have to spend. Atlanta has nine, million, but they can't go out and spend 9 million, first of all, because they've draft picks, but

second of all, because they don't know what Matt Ryan's going to cost. Are you a fan of the rollover rule? Do you think that's a good rule? I've talked to a lot of cat people in the league who say that I think that the NFLPA I know why they did it and I can understand, and this is what people

in the league told me, they understand why the NFLPA did it, but I think that it really gives teams more of an incentive to be way patient and just figure out exactly. I mean, if the Browns hadn't hired John Dorsey, they could just keep rolling over cap. And also the downside, so you have to spend a certain amount of cash over a four-year rolling period. Okay. And I think the cash spend around the league is about 97, 98 percent, according to the NFLPA. But the downside, and the Raiders, by the way, had not met those

standards even when they were really competitive because of the just the way they had spent it for agency and the fact that some of the rookies had hit and they hadn't paid them at that point. And I think that when you look at the downside, just you write a check

to the players you have essentially there is no downside and not spending. And so I think at some point we might see a team who abuses the system but we haven't seen it yet. Teams like the Niners, teams like the Browns, eventually start handing out those bigger deals. And that's what we're seeing now.

So am I a fan of the rollover money? I think it should maybe be a little more limited than it is now. I think that they shouldn't be able to, you should not be able to roll over this much where you have $100 million to spend in one off season. That's ridiculous. Yeah, and that's a good segue to the next team that I wanted to look at, which is the Jaguars.

And they built, you know, they've built elite defense using all that rollover money, right? Like they went and signed Caleb Campbell, Clay Campbell, you know, Blake Jacks and all these big names, AJ Bouillet. And so they've done that through their, through their rollover.

And I think it's really worked out well for them. And, you know, their offseason has been weird because on one hand, I didn't really like the decision to stick with Blake Bortles. But they kind of back themselves into a corner with that already. So, you know, that's a whole different discussion. But what they've done since they started free agency,

I've actually liked. I think number one, the biggest one was getting Andrew Norwell. I think he's a huge piece of that offensive line. And if we're talking about something, you know, teams that got better, I think getting Norwell on that offensive line

makes them a lot better at exactly who they want to be. Totally agree. They want to be a run team. They want to be a really, really physical, you know, run the ball. Leonard Fernett is the foundation.

You know, there's tons of discussions right now whether that makes any sense, but it did work for them. last year and that's who they clearly want to be. And, you know, there's a lot of disagreement as to why, like, whether they should have let Alan Robertson go. And I get that.

I definitely do because I think Robinson is better than Marquisley. But yeah, I think bringing him back, bringing Lee back instead and kind of spending the money elsewhere is not like a terrible, you know, consolation prize. I think he did pretty well in their offense. He kind of emerged as a playmaker. He's nowhere near an elite guy in my mind, but I think he's a good receiver. and with sort of the mix of different guys that they have now, they got Moncrief,

they have D.D. Westbrook, they've got some interesting players in that offense already. And I don't know, with Bortles, it's just like, you know, I don't know if you need a number one necessarily with the way that they want to run their offense. I think if you spread the ball around, just run the ball,

do a lot of play action stuff. I guess that's, I don't know. I just kind of, I liked what they did regardless. I think obviously losing Robinson could end up being, looking bad, but overall, they got a lot better. The only reason I could say that there's an argument who made for keeping Robinson is, obviously he's a great player, but you're already spent four years 34,

up to $38 million for Marquis Lee. I understand, I mean, at some point, just go the extra mile and just bring Robinson back. Yeah, and I get that. I do. But I guess, you know, the other thing that you have to think about is, like, they've had him in, you know, their system them for years and maybe

they just weren't confident about his knee. Maybe there was other factors. It comes down to those guys know the players better than we do and better than the general public does. But sometimes teams are just wrong. The Bears should not have let Alshan Jeffrey out the door.

Teams make wrong decisions all the time. So the balance we have to make is okay, well maybe they know somebody about Alan Robinson's knee. Also, on the other hand, we have a track record of teams letting guys out the door, especially at receiver and ended up making no sense. So I want to keep talking about the Jaguars because I want to talk about a team that both of us have on our list in the same division. And then we'll get to what the AFC South looks like

after that. We both have the Tennessee Titans. Yeah. I think there's a couple of reasons for that. Number one, I think we both presumably like the Malcolm Butler signing. Yeah, I like it. I mean, obviously the Super Bowl thing was weird, but I still think he's a good player. He's definitely a starter caliber corner. And, you know, there's, I think that there's, a lot of value in, I think right now, John Robinson and Vrable probably both want to basically create the Patriots culture, right?

I mean, that's obviously. I think they probably have even said that. So bringing guys in that, you know, played in that whole like do your job type of thing. I think it's important. Kind of spread that, indoctrinate the players around them.

You know, teach guys how to work and how to prepare and how it kind of works out, like how they want to run their program and basically just conduct themselves or whatever. So I think there's value in that. But obviously in the scheme, it just makes sense to bring him on. You know, he's a versatile guy.

You can play on the outside. I think he's a playmaker. I wouldn't call him, you know, again, I probably wouldn't call him an elite cornerback, but he's a good starter, and that's valuable. So this gets to something. I want to talk a little bit more about this later when we get to the players we like.

But, I mean, I think the Dionne Lewis signing, it's running back. are now just bargains. Productive running backs are always going to be bargains. With the exception of levy on Bell, actually Jared McKinnon makes more than $10 million. But no running back in the NFL is going to make over a $10 million cap hit except Bell and McKinnon this year.

And Bell is obviously a different situation because he's essentially at this point playing on the tag. We don't know obviously what's going to happen with negotiations. But I think, you know, with $177 million cap, it's easy. I mean, the Vikings had the sixth highest paid cap hit last year running back, Latavius Murray.

And they carried it. Latavis Murray didn't do anything and nobody cared because it's just not that much money. So I think that in the same way wide receiver is now becoming a little overvalued

with some of the money we've seen Ryan Grant especially. Running back's going the other way to where you can find a bargain basically anywhere on a second contract. I really like Dionne Lewis as a player too. I mean, I think,

I did an article on him late in the season and got to watch all of his snaps over the season and he's really, really dynamic player. I mean, I think he was first or second in DVOA and DYAR for football outsiders. I think he was like fourth and success rate, you know, one of the top players and elusive rate for pro football ball focus. I mean, like, he's a stat king.

He was he was one of the most efficient players in the NFL. And, you know, he can run inside. He was very elusive, you know, getting to the outside. He can catch the ball. I mean, he started out kind of in their offense as like a satellite back type of guy. So I think he can do both. you know, and I don't know what kind of offense exactly Matt Luffer is going to try and run there,

but if you can see it being anything similar to, you know, what the Rams were running last year, where the running back gets highly involved in the passing game, I think it makes a ton of sense. And so getting a guy like that, and again, it goes back to where you're surrounding your quarterback

with as much talent as possible while you have that window, you know, and so I think it just makes a lot of sense to get Mariotta as much talent around him as possible to make it as easy on them as possible. And I like that move a lot. You know, obviously you can argue about the value of running backs in the long term, but in the short term, I think it does make sense to get a guy like that because,

you know, you can just hit the ground running. You don't want to sign a running back to a six-year deal or anything. Right. But on a two-year deal, that's fine. A actual two-year deal. You can get out after two years. That's fine. I'm fine with it.

AFC South, after all of this, you think what? That's a good question. I think Deshawn Watson is a huge wild card. And if he plays, I don't think anyone should or could expect him to play the way he played in the whatever, how many seven or eight games that he played last year. Is that just because it seemed like an unsustainable pace that and would make him the greatest quarterback in the history of the planet? Yeah, the latter. It's just an unsustainable. I think it was, I don't know what it was, but he was like 10% touchdown rate or something ridiculous.

Like, it's just not going to happen. I saw a stat. I think it was Scott Katzmar tweeted this out Wednesday night. With Deshawn Watson, the Texans scored 34 points a game. Without him, they scored 13 points a game.

If you talk about like points at it or whatever, that's probably the greatest player of all time. I mean, yes. Yeah. I don't think that's sustainable, but I do think he's... I mean, I don't think adding 21 points per game sustainable, but I think that they're obviously

a completely different team. team. The AFC South is awesome because then you have the whole Andrew Luck factor too. Like if he comes back, how different does that make the Colts? I'm done projecting luck if he's healthy. I love Andrew Luck. I think at some point he'll come back and be great because he's smart and talented, but I'm just not going to do the what happens if Andrew Luck is.

I mean, the NFC South might have the highest ceiling of any division in football. Yeah. Because of what everybody looks like when they're at their finished product. But I don't know. I'm going to take about, so every team in there has so much variance. I mean, obviously, you got the Texans with the Sean Watson and what he can bring. You got the Colts with, you know, Andrew Luck. And then the Titans, I think Marriota is still a pretty big question mark.

I mean, he regress last year. Health and just like the fact that he regressed last year. Obviously, he was playing hurt. But, you know, in a different system, he could be, I think the range is like he could be like a top 10 guy or he can kind of continue to regress and he just didn't look that good last year and so I don't know if we still really know who he can be

so I think the AFC South is just going to be a fascinating division to watch because there's so many just wild cards there make a pick right now I'd probably still stick with the Jags I don't know because their defense is just so good I think that's the main thing and I do like the addition that they made in

Norwell I think he could he could really you know make them pretty hard to be just based on the fact they can play defense and grind it out on the ground and you know obviously I'm not a huge fan of Bortals but I think that they're trying to surround him with you know the type of scenario where he can you know

you can limit his downside or whatever so sure I don't know I like the Jags just because they're defense mostly yeah you ever heard of like JJ Watt went merciless God speaking of wild cards yeah yeah I think they're pretty good if everybody's healthy the Texans are going to win the division

all right all right I love the Jaguars Love the Jaguar's defense, all that, but just getting it out there. I actually think that could be a really fun race. But let's very quickly, my third team, I just want to touch on it very briefly. This is not a team that's going to compete this year. This is not a team that's even maybe going to compete next year. I don't know.

They certainly won't be a Super Bowl connector next year. But I just want to commend the Buffalo Bills for a handful of savvy moves because they're rebuilding in a way that I find appealing in this sense. they're just getting value for guys they don't want. If you read some of the reports, they didn't want Cordy Glenn. Well, they moved up 10 spots in the draft. And now they're going to be able to trade into the top 10 because of it.

Yeah, that's what I was saying. They're loading up. They clearly didn't want Tyrod Taylor. And I just want to leave aside that, the evaluation, Tyrod Taylor. I think that they mishandled that in a lot of ways. And I'm just going to leave that on the side here for a second. But they didn't want them,

and they got the 65th pick for them, which I think is pretty valuable. And then they go out and they get AJ McCarran, who obviously is not, he is definitely on the B list of available quarterbacks, but they got him for five a year. And that's a pretty good deal when you consider some of the other guys that were around.

And so, I mean, Josh McKeown was $10 million. He's got a higher floor. He's not even going to play. Got 20. He's got 20, 15 guaranteed. I think McCarron, he's probably got a higher floor than some other options. I mean, he's not that great,

But all I'm saying is that I talk all the time about how to rebuild the NFL, and you can't really take that long of an approach. I thought Sashi Brown was doing a really nice job in Cleveland. The problem is it was taking slightly too long to develop. The NFL, you only have four and a half of your windows. And the contracts are too short. The health is too much of a question mark.

Guys are only in their prime for so long that you cannot take this sort of, Sam Hinky-esque long game. I mean, it has to be a shorter game than that. Really, you got to take like two and a half years to rebuild at most. And so what I like about the bills is they're clearly rebuilding, but they're getting value and they're stocking up very quickly. So that's my general viewpoint.

I'm not saying the bills are going to win the AFC South. They'll probably be better, excuse me, the AFC East this year. But I just think that they've gotten some value for their guys in this offseason. All right, quickly. Let's get to the teams you didn't think did very well. All right, well, we both had this, I think, and that was the dolphins. I just thought the way that the sum total kind of of all the moves that they've done, it just, I don't see how they got any better.

Obviously, you know, getting rid of Jarvis Landry, you know, there's differing opinions on that. But then bringing in Albert Wilson and Danny Amandola instead, kind of, I don't know exactly if that matches up how much they were planning on paying Landry, but, you know, they both paid those guys a decent amount of money. And so is that really an upgrade there? I don't really see it as an upgrade. And then obviously, bringing in Robert Quinn and then getting rid of Sue, I don't think makes sense from a monetary or like, uh,

what is the best argument you've heard on why they got rid of Sue? Well, isn't his cap hit like 26 million? Sure. So that's a lot But they're also at the same time I'd rather have sue than the guys they have Exactly but that's what I'm saying is like they did that I would understand in a vacuum dropping sue

Because it's a 26 million dollar cap and that's a lot That's way too much But then they brought in a bunch of other guys who are not nearly as good And they're eating up a lot of that Just overpay the guy Right Why are we so concerned about overpaying a guy I mean you're not going to get

anybody better and you're going to end up spending the $26 million on Albert Wilson. I just don't. There's no there's no apparent plan. What is the dolphins plan? What is their identity? Are they rebuilding? I don't know. I don't think so. Are they? I have no idea. The dolphins to me are one of the most confusing teams in the sense that I don't know what their identity is. I don't really know what their plan is. I don't know who they want to be. yeah all that

it's just hard to see kind of what like any sort of pattern in what they're doing you know what I mean and so I just I don't know are they going like you said are they going for the long game

are they like rebuilding or Pouncy which is not a huge surprise today right so I don't know the dolphins to me didn't get better and it's hard to kind of figure out exactly what their plan is totally agree with you

who's next for you I got the redskins I think, you know, on the whole, like, first of all, the cousins, like, the mismanagement of the cousins thing kind of factors into this because I don't think they got better at quarterback by getting Alex Smith. And then if you look at some of the other moves that they've made, I think Paul Richardson, I do think his arrow is up, but I don't think he's, you know, he's, I think his ceiling is kind of like a good number two. And so giving him kind of like that big running or that big receiver contract, you know, it doesn't. really, I don't think that makes them significantly better. I think obviously getting rid of Kendall Fuller was questionable in that trade with the chiefs.

And then they just really haven't done anything else to get better. So I don't necessarily think they got a, I don't know, I just don't think anything that they've done really this so far is really impressed me. And so they kind of, to me, look like a team that's on the, like potentially on the down swing. Yeah. So I've talked for a couple of years about the team. that's going to draw a line in the sand and say,

you know what, quarterbacks are too expensive. We're going to go the other way. We're going to get a decent veteran option, but then we're going to spend the money, you know, the $25 million elsewhere, right? That's always been,

I've always talked to people around the league. I've been wondering when they were going to do it. You know, I remember a couple years ago, someone was like, oh, the bears are going to do it with Cutler, and then the bears kind of went the exact opposite way and signed Cutler to a huge extension, right? And I saw,

sort of wondered when you saw what the Redskins were doing with cousins whether or not that was going to be their approach. If they were going to say, you know, we're going to pay $7 million to our quarterback. We're going to sign a McCown or a McCarran or somebody like that. And we're going to go from there. And instead,

they just decided to give Alex Smith a four-year $94 million contract with 71 in practical guarantees. Yeah. that's not a very good plan. I just, yeah. I like Smith fine. I think Cousins is better and younger and more dynamic. And so that to me looks like a little bit of a downgrade.

And again, it's just kind of one of those things where I don't really know who they're trying to be or what they're trying to do here. Yeah, it's just kind of the lack of a clear plan. Yeah, you're exactly right to compare them with the dolphins because I have no idea what they're... I don't know. The dolphins and the Redskins have occupied the same space in my mind.

Which is, I don't know what internally their expectations for 2018 are. I have no idea. Do they think they're going to make the divisional round of the playoffs? I don't know. You could... If you gave Mike Tannenbaum and Bruce Allen truth surround, and they were right in front of me, I have no idea what they would say their expectations are.

because they make moves that are in opposition to each each expectation, whether or not they're going to go 5 and 11 this year or 11 and 5. Yeah. I think those are the two of those, maybe that's just my sort of impression of these two teams is they're two of the like less interesting teams to me in the NFL just right now just because of like I said, not a clear plan, not a clear identity, not really any true direction.

it just kind of feels like they're trying to put like band-aids on everywhere and like keep the engine running rather than like you know what I mean like going for a particular goal. It just is yeah, it's just hard to kind of figure out what they're doing. I would like to talk about it

another chicken that doesn't have a plan. All right, let's do that. Who do you think I'm going to talk about? I don't know. First, a quick break. Danny, it's time to talk to you about the boatload of money you can make this week. betting at MyBooky. If you haven't checked them out, it's the perfect time to get into the action.

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Visit mybooky.agy today. Play, win, and get paid. Okay, another team without a plan, the New York Jets. Yeah, that's probably didn't get that one. Yeah. Teddy Bridgewater's deal is worth up to $15 million. Mm-hmm. Josh McCown, 10 million.

And then the rumor is there's going to be a third quarterback via the draft. Right. One of the most interesting conversations I had this season, and in years, quite frankly, was with John DiFilippo during Super Bowl week. He's the Eagles quarterback's coach. Mm-hmm. And he was talking, he's now the Vikings offensive coordinator, and he was talking about just the fact that no one really understands how few reps there are

to go around. And one of the problems with getting Nick Foles up to speed when once went down is there just, you can't, it's not possible to get Foles ready

to be a backup. It's just not. Right, right. They don't get any reps with the first team. They barely get any reps with the second team. I mean,

I think 13 padded practices during the NFL season, you get. No two a days. First team starters barely get enough reps, right? Right.

Yeah. So, you're going to have Josh McCown. you're going to have Teddy Bridgewater and you're going to have a guy you're trying to develop. I understand the desire to stack quarterbacks because you never know what guys are going to look like.

You don't even know what's going on with Teddy Bridgewater's health. But at some point, there just aren't enough reps to go around. And are you going to try to get Teddy ready because you just spent $15 million on them? Are you going to try to win now, which would probably mean starting Josh McAll in week one? Or are you going to try to give all the reps to your

your draft quarterback, whoever it may be, Baker Mayfield, Josh Allen, any of the Josh Rosen, whatever, and then take the $25 million you spent on two veteran quarterbacks and just put them on the bench, not even dress one of them. I just, I'm not, you know, look, they're in the NFL. They're smarter than me, but at some point, there's just not a logic to having three quarterbacks you've invested in in the same room.

All these teams kind of fit into this like purgatory category in the NFL where you know, they're not necessarily trying to get younger and and like develop with a specific timeline in mind. It's like treading water almost. It's like let's try and just tread water until we figure out what we're doing. And part of that I think has to do with the Jets leadership is on thin ice, right? like if they don't show some sort of significant improvement or progress they could you know you could see a regime change there pretty soon and so I guess on one hand I can kind of see the like the mccounting like mccounting gives them a floor that they can establish the bridgewater thing is like okay we're going to take a flyer on him if he wows us he could be the starter and then you know blah blah blah and then we can go with the draft guy but again it's just it there's no clear i guess there's just no clear i guess there's just no clear plan in place in in terms of what they expect to happen.

And so I guess that's just kind of where I was looking at it too. It's like, yeah, it's just kind of hard to figure out who they're trying to be or what they think they can be or what. It's just like fly by the seat of your pants type thing. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we could end up looking back on this and being like, wow, they had a great plan in place.

Because I think that we kind of had this conversation about the Eagles a few years ago when they signed like Bradford and I think was it a chance. Face Daniels or someone, they had like a couple different guys under contract and you're like, wow, they're spending a lot of money on quarterbacks and it ended up working out for them. I'd be fine with the money.

As I keep saying, the money can be made irrelevant with just savvy cap management. You can figure any of that stuff out. It's just more about the time management and just the signal about where you're going with your franchise. Are they going to,

does this mean they're going to just decide to skip out on getting a quarterback in the draft, I think is the big question. I don't think that's, if you listen to any the Jets reporters, I think they're still planning on trying to get a quarterback. I mean, they have to. And the difference here is that

the Bradford, Chase Daniel, Carson Wentz scenario, they traded Bradford for a first round pick. Wasn't that what they got out of them? I don't think they're going to get either of those, neither of those guys are going to. So, I don't know. Yes, that's correct.

They're not. So we'll see. They're going to pay $25 million to two guys and then they're just going to be somewhere else next year. McCown will be quarterbacks coach for, I couldn't even tell you, and Bridgewater will be somewhere much happier away from New York. My third is the Cardinals.

It's kind of the same deal. It's like, you know, you're paying, now you're paying Bradford and Glennon to be bridge quarterbacks for a team who doesn't look particularly ready to contend. And at the same time, they made their defense worse

by getting rid of Honey Badger. And so I don't really see, there was a couple of people tweeting about these yesterday, but it's like, it's almost hurts to see them decide to pay Bradford and Glennon on the same day.

They release like an all-pro caliber player like Honey Badger. Obviously, he's kind of been up and down because he's been injured or whatever. But, I mean, he's such an exciting, good player for the one part of your team that actually has potential to be really good next year, which is your defense,

and you kind of, I don't know, that was an interesting decision to me. I think they're closer to rebuilding than we think. And so bringing in like a Bradford at this point, I don't know how that really helps them in the long term. It's, I guess. Teams are just so rational about quarterbacks. If you're going to rebuild,

and I think they probably are, don't bring Sam Bradford in $15 million. Yeah. Just drop the guy. Like you've said it. Or just getting him, McCann, who cares? Or McCown.

Yeah. Give McCown $11 million. We go to Arizona. Yeah. Yeah. All right, real quick, my third, and this is not an indictment of anything. I've talked about this on multiple podcasts now.

I just don't know if the Viking has got any better with the Kirk Cousin's deal. I think that if you franchise Case Keenum, kick that down the road for one year, see how it goes, keep the cap flexibility, don't sign a fully guaranteed $86 million deal, that that's a little bit better of a plan just because even if Case Keenham,

I said this yesterday on Bill's Pod, even if Case Keenom wins the Super Bowl, he's not going to get a fully guaranteed $86 million deal over three years. And so I just feel like the, you know, they're not going to get any farther than they did this year. They're not going to get to the Super Bowl. They got to the NFC championship game last year

And as Bill pointed out on the pot yesterday That was a defensive failure And a weird mental failure as well in that game That wasn't a case kingdom failure necessarily I don't think Kirk Cousins Wins that game I've thought a lot about this We talked about it last week

We've entertained the idea of whether or not He would win that game I thought about it a lot I don't think he does Okay I mean it was just It was a weird game And the one thing I do want to say I want to separate two things

I'm a mass advocate for NFL players getting paid more, getting more guaranteed money, getting rid of a lot of these roster bonuses, split contracts. I mean, you can read some of my work on the ringer where I talk about that a lot. But you have to divorce that from the fact that

from a savvy business move, from a savvy roster personnel move, giving Kirk Cousins that much money, that much guaranteed, was just not a very good football decision. And I think you, those... They're going to lose some guys because of it. They're going to lose some guys because of it.

And I'm all for guaranteed money. Everybody should get it. But if he's the only guy in the NFL that has it and he's the only contract, you can't get out of for three years, from a personnel standpoint, that's less than ideal. I'm torn on it because I do think he's better than Keenham. But how much better? Right. And that's the question is, like,

does he add one win? Or, you know, like you said, does he, win that that game, that NFC championship game, you know, and it's a good point because it was almost like that game just snowballed on the Vikings, like they took an early lead and then, you know, just a couple of weird things happened, like the interceptions and stuff, and then it kind of snowballed on them and all of a sudden it was just like they ran into like into a buzzsaw essentially. And so I don't know. I mean, yeah, it's a good, it's a good question. Like, does it make them good, like enough, better enough? Or is it a big enough boost?

to cancel out all the other stuff that they're potentially going to lose? That's the question. Yeah, I don't know the answer to that. I think it does give them a slightly better chance, though, in this next season. I do think they have a chance to potentially be, what were they? They were a very efficient offense last year. I don't know where they finished. I think it was like fifth or something on DVA.

But they could be top two, top three now. And I don't know if that's enough to put them over the top or not. Okay, D.K. Moment we're all been waiting for you. We've been talking about cousins. We've spent too much time on the Sam Bradford deal. So let's get to the guys you think are going to make very quickly make a difference come September, October, November. Because last year, we had Patrick Robinson who no one was talking about that.

No one gave a crap about Patrick Robinson. People thought it was a bad signing. Yeah, who care? I didn't know he was on the team until September. and he ended up being the steel of the year. He's not going to be the steal of the year this year only because he signed a $20 million contract with the Saints and thus cannot make under a million dollars

like he did last year. All right, who's your first guy? So the first guy that came to mind was Nicol Robie Coleman. Yeah. He's kind of saying... Forgotten man in the Rams. Yeah, I mean, they've done a lot of big stuff, obviously, you know, bringing in Marcus Peters,

Talib Kuali, or Talib Kali. Akeeb Talib and you know they franchise Lamarca's joiners so they got some big names in their secondary now

and then kind of under the radar he just came in at the end like they resigned their nickel but I think he's a guy who is you know he's a very efficient

for them he doesn't give up a lot of yards doesn't give up touchdowns I think he's kind of an underrated part of their defense

he's not going to play every snap but you know he kind of completes that secondary and I think you're looking at one of the top secondaries

as long as you know, there's not too much craziness, you know, kind of with all those mercurial guys that on that defense now, but I think he could be kind of the last missing piece to that defensive secondary. Okay, so I just want to talk very quickly. I already talked about it earlier about the running back position. I just think that there are values to be had. You can go out and get Kareem Hunt in the third round as the chief did last year and pay

them almost nothing and have them under control and then never assigned him to a second contract, which is what most teams would want to do. But barring that, getting an established running back, I mean, it's a value at this point. I mean, even, I would say, Levy on Bell, if he signs a, you know, a three-year deal worth $15 million, then he starts getting into the non-value part of it. But I think you cannot, at this point, sign an established a good running back to a bad deal. Sean McCoy is on 8.9 this year. Latavius Murray, I mean, obviously he shouldn't be making 6.3.

That's a bad deal, but again, it doesn't matter. It barely matters. Devante Freeman, $5 million cap hit this year. Great example. And so, Dionne Lewis, and this is what I'm getting to, Dionne Lewis making, I think, 4.5 is one of the highest paid veteran running backs in the league. Even if you only get one year of production from him, that's fine.

Yeah. That's fine. And so I think that Dionne Lewis and Jared McKinnon are both guys who you can end up saying in October, November, I can't believe other teams let him get away. McKinnon a little different really just because he doesn't have the running game that Lewis has. McKinnon's an athlete out of the backfield. He can do things in the passing game. But he doesn't have the explosive runs that Lewis has had in New England. I like both of the fits for those guys, too.

I know you're talking about Lewis but if McKinnon had signed somewhere else for that same amount, I might have thought it was even weirder, but I kind of like it. I mean, I think right now you kind of just trust Shanahan to

to use them well and get the most out of them. And I think in Tennessee, I think Lewis is going to be a really good fit there. So yeah, I like both those players and I like the fits too. I think it's just going to be, they make both their teams better. All right.

Who's your second guy? My second guy is Bradley McDougal with the Seahawks. I think with the situation they have in their secondary with Sherman's gone now, Cam Chancellor, I think is probably going to retire. I mean, obviously we don't really know for sure yet, but if he doesn't come back, I think they were going to have a big hole there. And so getting a guy like him for, you know, really low-key sort of, I don't even know what it was like 3 million or 3 years 13 or 14 million or something like that.

On the relative cheap, I think he played well with. When Chancellor missed time last year, and I think getting him back is a big deal for the Seahawks who need a little stability because they're just going through such a kind of upheaval right now. So I think that could be an underrated sign. And you could hear his name a little bit this year. All right, quickly,

Tomorrow Davis signs with the Saints, one of PFF's top-graded linebackers and players overall in free agency. I think he was the seventh ranked inside linebacker for PFF. Eight million dollars a year is not bad. I think the Saints end up with the value signing there. I like that one a lot too. My final guy is Bruce Ellington with the Texans. He kind of came on later in the year and showed some stuff.

Obviously, you know, very, very good athlete. I think he's a kind of dynamic guy that they can use in the slot and just kind of goes along with the whole X-Factor thing with what happens with Deshaun Watson. But I think he could be a guy who develops as a, you know, just kind of a playmaker over the middle of field for them. Totally agree. Last guy for me, Bo Allen,

former eagle, run stuffer, does a little more than that. 18 stops, according to PFF, and 422 stamps, which is a pretty nice rate. Bargain, I think, five a year coming from, coming off of a Super Bowl, a part of a nasty, nasty Eagles defensive line. So, you know, I think that's,

those are the kind of signings, where if the bucks go up to, you know, nine and three, we're going to say, okay, those are the bargain signings. he's to make a difference. So I'm watching the Bo Allen signing is a potential, you know, top three, top five value signing of 2018.

Did you know that he's a spark guy too? I did. Yeah, he was one of the most athletic defensive alignment in that draft when he came in. Chipper loved him. Oh, yeah. I love Chipper. All right, Danny.

Thanks for coming. Yeah, man, it was fun. I love it. What else are you looking forward to and the rest of free agency? I like it. I'm with you. were, I'm really interested in kind of the middle range, the quote, middle class of the NFL

in terms of just the mid-range veteran contracts. I'm really looking forward to kind of how those fall now because we got through most of the big money guys. Obviously, there's a few that still have to fall like Sue and Sheldon Richardson and a few other guys. But I'm really looking forward to kind of seeing, like we talked about, some of these Patrick Robinson level contracts that really pay off next year. So that's, that's exciting. Yep. All right. We'll be back Next week, thank you for listening to The Ringer NFL show on The Ringer Podcast Network.