The Ringer NFL Show - Who Is Really Tanking? Plus, a Midseason Confidence Draft | Dual Threat

Episode Date: November 9, 2023

Nora Princiotti opens by speaking with Danny Kelly about Caleb Williams, who will end up with the first overall pick, and C.J. Stroud. Then, she is joined by Lindsay Jones to create their draft for who will win the regular-season awards, Super Bowl, and more. 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: Nora Princiotti Guests: Danny Kelly and Lindsay Jones Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Social: Kiera Givens and Eduardo Ocampo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, everyone. This is Craig Horlebeck from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. Join me, Danny Hifetz, and Danny Kelly, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday to help you win your draft, win your league, and most importantly, avoid that last place punishment. Follow the Ringer Fantasy Football Show on on Spotify. And welcome to Duel Crette on the Ringer NFL show feed. I'm Nora Pritiati. Steve Ruees is out this week, but we've got a great lineup. Lindsay Jones is going to hop on in the later half of the show. We're going to play a little mid-season awards, predictions, games. But right now for our headline segment, we have a very special guest who is the fabulous Danny Kelly, my ringer colleague.

You know him from the Ringer Fantasy Football Show, the Ringer draft show, the Ringer NFL draft guide, draft guru extravaganza. Danny, welcome to Duel Threat. How are you doing? I'm doing excellent. Thank you for that lovely introduction. Appreciate it. You're welcome.

You're really welcome. You always put me in a good mood. You're always, Danny Kelly has like a positive outlook on life. It really is infectious. It just makes me feel some joie de vivre here. I love it. I love it.

As we record. So you are with us because we have decided to look ahead a little bit. To look ahead a little bit to the draft, which I think is an interesting thing to consider at this point is we've just passed the halfway mark of the season. Because I don't know about you, Danny. but when this season began, I felt like I had a very clear handle

on who was tanking, who was collapsing for Caleb. Right. And if I'd had to give you one team, I would have given you the Arizona Cardinals. Yeah. And now all of a sudden, the Cardinals do currently have the worst record in the league.

They would hold the number one pick if the season ended today. However, Kyler Murray is going to start against the Falcons on Sunday. Right. Right. My viewpoint is that that's not going to be lasting for too long. Yeah.

So let's get predictive for a second. When you start thinking about the draft in April, and we're getting way ahead of ourselves here. But just for fun, what do you think the top of this draft is going to end up looking like once we get there? I think right now, if I had to guess, it comes down to either Chicago or the Giants, which is crazy to say.

Obviously, the Giants just lost anything. Daniel Jones for the season to an ACL injury. And our colleague, Danny Hyfitts, thinks that they could move on from, from Daniel Jones going forward if they do end up with, like, a top two pick. So they immediately become very, very interesting to me because I did not really have them

on my list of teams that might be in the market for a quarterback. Obviously, with Chicago having Carolina's first round pick this next year, that gives them double a chance because both Carolina and Chicago are very bad this year. And so I think those, you know, Chicago, the Giants, and I also would say New England, like maybe one of the worst teams in the NFL. Right. So, yeah, I mean, those are the teams at the top of my list. It is kind of interesting that the Cardinals are going to trot Kyler Murray out there.

I think it probably behooves them to see what they got and see if, you know, they want Kyler Murray to be the long-term guy for them. But it is a huge opportunity for them to, like, just continue to be terrible and get that first overall pick. So it's kind of a conundrum for them, I do think. But I don't see them losing all the rest of their games, even though they are bad. I just think Kyler kind of elevates them enough. I think Kyler elevates them. And I also think that if they're going to play him, given the fact that, you know, if he stays healthy, we're really not that far removed. We're basically two years removed from that guy being, at least for a good chunk of the season, an MVP candidate.

There's almost no way that he doesn't make them a little bit better. and then you put that in combination with the fact that if they they have moved past the point of of really when I think they would have traded him if they were going to do that and then you start to factor in okay if they did get another quarterback they would be paying so much money for Kyler anyway

Stephen Ruiz wrote about this recently like it kind of negates the value of the rookie contract quarterback so I'm almost I'm almost at the point point where I don't think that they have a big decision to make. I kind of think that the Cardinals are just going to try to win games, which is, of course, easier said than done. But if your quote-unquote competition to end up at the bottom of the barrel here is the Jacob Eason or Tommy DeVito Giants?

Yeah. Jacob Eason? I didn't even hear about Jacob Eason. This changes everything. Oh, yeah. Jacob Eason is back in your, you're, I think, forgiven. for not being on top of the Jacobes and Giants news. I just have a lot of Giants fans in my life.

That's hilarious. You know, and then Carolina and Chicago is a little bit complicated, as you mentioned. Let's talk about Kayla Williams for a moment, because that's the other thing that makes, I think, the kind of dueling axes of who ends up where and what the sort of top five draft order ends up being. because again, at the beginning of the season, Caleb Williams coming off of a Heisman year,

and everything is shaping up for the draft cycle media storm to just get out of control. A total extravaganza. I remember, you know, I read some Patrick Mahomes comps, which doesn't feel like a comp we should really be making. It's probably better not to, yeah. It's, I mean, Patrick Mahomes, when Patrick Mahomes was drafted, would not have gotten Patrick Mahomes' comps.

So maybe it doesn't make sense to be doing this. But that's, you know, it's all water under the bridge. And then if you fast forward to now, the last I saw of Caleb Williams was a very emotional press conference after a 52 to 42 loss to watch. Washington in which I've got to say, I think he gave one of the realest quotes of the year, which was, I want to go home and cuddle with my dog and watch some shows. Yeah, yeah. Which like, amen.

Relatable, relatable. Relatable. Relatable content. But it's not a, you know, I mean, look, 50 to 42 is not exactly a loss that falls on the quarterback. And I think that's been the story of the season for USC. Exactly. But he has not had a year where everything has been going great and the hype continues to build and build and build. So where is Caleb Williams at this point? It's super fascinating because Nora, literally like three, probably about a month ago, people were still talking about him as like this generational prospect. It's crazy how much can change in a month because now I wouldn't say people are off him as a prospect, but I think there's more.

doubt and concern about his play style. You know, obviously for better or for worse, the fact that he was crying on the sidelines after that game is going to be a talking point. We're going to have to do it because NFL teams are going to do it. It's super annoying. And actually, the ironic part is I rewatch this game last night. The actual game broadcast goes from a Husky player

just sobbing, hugging one of his coaches. They had won. He's just sobbing, just the emotional release of that grueling win. Yeah. And then it goes to Caleb Williams sobbing after losing. And it's like to me, obviously it's different because he's a quarterback. He's like the face of the team. They're supposed to, you're supposed to be like the calm and the storm.

You're supposed to be the leader, blah, blah, blah. Like all this stuff I'm sure that like, you know, coaches in the NFL, some coaches in the NFL subscribe to. But I did think it was funny that like literally it cut from one Washington Husky crying to Caleb Williams crying. And everyone the last week has been like, oh my God, he was crying, blah, blah, like what does this mean for his draft, you know, stock or whatever. And so I think at the end of the day, though, he had one bad game, in my opinion, against Notre Dame,

where he was really forcing it. And he had three interceptions that game, I believe. But other than that, like, he's been him for the most part. I think the big question, which we can dive into is like stylistically, some coaches are not going to like him because he doesn't play on time. He is a sandlot player who is best, you know, kind of out of structurally. sure, letting, like, basically, like, getting outside the pocket and making these crazy plays, which I believe is why he gets the Mahomes comps. Not to mention, he kind of just, like, moves like Mahomes a little bit, just the way he,

he throws the football off platform and sidearm and, you know, things like that. Yeah, and he's kind of like the same. I mean, I see it. It's just, yeah. I mean, I think it's, it's probably not a good idea to compare him to Mahomes, the greatest quarterback maybe of all time, or certainly second, potentially second behind Brady at one, it all ends, you know, it all. comes to a close, but, you know, I think

I can see stylistically why people come up with that because he kind of looks like him the way he plays. And it's all out of structure. It's all, you know, Sanlott style. And there's some teams that are going to love that. And there's some coaches that will probably not love that. And I think there's already talk, and I know I've seen a couple of NFL draft analysts

already have like Drake May as their quarterback won. So he might not even be the top quarterback in this class. It's funny that this generational tag, got attached to him. But, you know, some people might not view them as the top quarterback in this class because of those reasons. So it's starting to feel like it might genuinely be sort of like a 1A, 1B class. And that is with the caveat that things felt incredibly different a month ago. And let's see, we have December, January, February, March, close to five months. Oh, my God. Can't even imagine. Yeah. We can go topsy, see, tourbie like this five more times over.

And, you know, Bo Nix will end up Cuban. or something. So we'll see what happens. Just the experience. Just how many starts he has. He has like 50 something starts in college. He's like my age. Someone's going to talk to themselves into it for sure. What about the rest of the quarterback class? You know, I'm obviously kidding. But there's a handful of other guys outside of the Caleb Williams, Drake May group. And one thing that I'm curious to see how it shapes up because there are all of

these teams suddenly, you know, the Giants, New England, certainly, who might end up not necessarily with the number one overall pick, but looking for a quarterback

in the top five, eight, whatever. And I'm really curious to see if this turns out to be sort of like a 2021 draft. And you can take that in terms of just the number of quarterbacks that went in the first round or the ensuing regret of some of those decisions.

Right, right. Or if like, do some of these guys end up Will Levis's where they fall a little bit, but then once they're actually playing, the teams are kind of like, yeah, oh, yeah, looking pretty good. Man, not that guy in the second round. Do you have, like, it's so early, but do you have a growing sense of what this might feel like? Yeah, and I think the big, for just to put a huge caveat out there, still need to like scout all these guys really closely and like, you know, I'm just in the preliminary sort of part of the process right now. But I will say this is one of the most fascinating

quarterback classes ever, maybe, because it, a sort of series of events have happened. COVID and the NIL, the ability to transfer, all these different variables have come together and have created this superclass of like 25 year old quarterbacks that are like 60 or seniors, you know, Like, I'm generalizing, but there are like guys that I've been playing in college football for, for like five, four or five years, six years in some cases that are coming out now. And so, you know, there's literally probably like going to be 10 to 15 guys that we're going to be talking about in this class. I'm not saying all these guys are going to be first, second rounders, but I think they're going to be in the conversation. And so, you know, of course, we don't know who's going to come out yet. Some of these guys are going to have to come out because they've been in college for close to a decade.

but I think it's just it's a very interesting like rounding up you know but I think it's a very interesting class from that perspective because there's going to just be so many guys and a lot of these guys have a great amount of

experience and number of starts and number of throws I think that is a variable that people are going to focus on a lot more because you look at like Brock Purdy like even Tyson Baygent who was a D2 quarterback out of Shepard he had, I don't know off the top of my head to forget. It's like several thousand pass attempts in college.

You know what I mean? Like he has so much experience. Did you watch a lot of Tyson-Bajun tape last year? Yeah, I mean, I was watching Shepard every weekend, you know. I tried it. Yeah, I get the whatever, you know, D2, like TV channel that out in my neighborhood out here in the Pacific Northwest for sure. Danny, I couldn't possibly know what that is. Yeah, I'm searching for the right words.

I think maybe it's just a streaming thing. like you get a legal stream on Reddit or something. But it's on Peacock. Yeah. So they got Notre Dame and Shepherd. Shepherd. But like I, to me like honestly,

there's something here where just having a lot of experience, throwing a lot of passes, being in the huddle, being behind center and having that experience, elevates your floor a little bit, I think in the eyes of some teams. And that's why like Tyson Bejant, you know,

obviously I don't think he's a star caliber or even maybe not even a starter caliber quarterback. But I do think the reason he's been able to come in and play, coming out of D2 is because he literally had like several thousand pass attempts in college. It's just the reps. And then you contrast that with Trey Lance, who had like 300 attempts in college. And it's like that matters, like just those repetitions, those repetitions getting used to that. Like, I think it is something that is like teams will take into account here.

And so some of these guys have been kind of moving around playing for multiple different colleges, multiple different coaches, teams, maybe that's a variable where they're willing to take these guys in the second or third round and develop them because the quarterback situation in the NFL is pretty dire right now, I'd say.

We're certainly at a point in time where there's a passing of the torch and all these guys, Philip Rivers, Matt Ryan, Drew Breeze, you know, Brady, go down the line. I know Brady has like the fourth person that list is stupid to say,

but like, you know, there's so many guys that have sort of aged out and retired from the NFL. and we still need some people to kind of step up, and it hasn't really happy yet. So long story short. Especially this year, there's so many quarterback injuries. Right.

Like the number of Randos starting games last week was just like off the charts. Yeah. And off the top of my head, and maybe I'm conflating it from two years ago, but like the last, I believe last year we saw more quarterbacks play and start in the NFL than we ever have before.

And I think this year we're on pace to probably break that again. It's because there's several reasons. I think like the changing of the guard, the fact that concussions are so much bigger factor now, and like you see guys miss games. Right. And policed more.

It's just like, you know, in the old days, these guys would not even come out of a game. And now you're seeing guys get concussion and they have to miss a game. And, you know,

and you have an independent spotter who's taking players out of games. And so, you know, there's just a confluence of variables here that like we're just seeing more and more quarterbacks play. It's crazy. And also the emergency quarterback rule, too, right?

Like just in terms of the number of guys who might get three snaps. If you have another guy who's able to dress and able to be active, I think that juices it a little bit. Yeah. So it's, you know, we're seeing some truly like wild names starting quarterbacks, starting quarterbacks in the league right now. And it's like, because I cover football from a fantasy point of view a lot. Like it's just like, my God.

Like, who are these quarterbacks? Like the dresser win was signed by the Rams. day. He was a CFL practice squad guy. What are we doing here? He was literally on a practice squad in the CFL and the Rams signed him when Matt Saffer got hurt. So I don't know. I think there's, you know, Bureau lose gets a start. It's just so, it's a wild time in the NFL for quarterbacks. And it is, it coincides with a just truly a massive class of quarterbacks coming out of college football. There's like legitimately 10 to 15 guys. I think that could get drafted in the first two days. And so it's very interesting.

So you have the honor or the achievement of having been a C.J. Stroud over Bryce Young guy last year. Is that, is that correct? Yes. Yeah. I mean, I like both of them, but I did have C.J. Strauss in my quarterback won last year. I really liked it. So since we're talking about the top of the draft, a question that I have for you is now with a little bit of space from that and having Stroud having looked. like one of the best rookies

that's come into the league ever. And Young, probably deserving a little bit more time to see what he can do and hopefully to see what he can do with a better supporting cast. But having struggled, as everyone has pretty much struggled

within that Carolina system, what do you think we should learn from what happened in Carolina to end up making the decision that they made, which probably, you know, our fabulous producer Connor and Evans made the point that in some ways, one of the best things to happen to the Panthers, you hate to put it this way. But one of the best things to happen to them this year might be the Anthony Richardson injury because if there were two of those guys looking really good and Young was the odd guy out,

I wonder if there would be even more heat on them. But what's the takeaway, if anything, from Bryce Young going number one? Right. there's so many. Number one, like the first thing that honestly just comes to my mind is the main reason I got scared off a little bit with Bryce Young is size actually does, like, matter at the quarterback position. And it's not to say that I'm writing off Bryce Young,

but I think, you know, physical attributes are important at the quarterback position. And like we've seen, you know, I think there's a lot of questions about C.J. Stroud coming out in terms of his ability to like play out of structure and get outside of the pocket. And he flashed that in the Storgette game last year, and that was like something to kind of like hold on to and like his projection. And what we've seen this year is like he's been awesome, like both in the pocket and out of structure, his accuracy is really showing up.

And I think one of the concerns for me is like Bryce Young on the, on the other side of the spectrum, physically is like leaves you wanting more. Like he's not, he's not physically elite at anything, really. He's more just like a process or a quick process. or, you know, distribute the football. And that's, like, where he wins.

And so I think there is some worry in my mind about, like, him holding up long term and, and, you know, being physically able to kind of, like, play in the NFL long term. And I think that was like, he's the outlier of outliers size wise. At the same time, I mean, you look at Anthony Richardson. He's already been injured, like, three out of, like, five games he played in. So there's, of course, you know, that context matters too. But the other thing that I would mention here, and this is something. that we talked about a lot going into the draft is that supporting cast, coaching, and all that stuff

really, really, really matters. And it's almost like, it makes it almost like impossible to evaluate a quarterback when he comes into the NFL if he's in that situation. Like Bryce Young is in a bad situation. He has really bad weapons. His offensive line has been really bad. I think there's been some question marks about the coaching and the scheme. And so you put that all together and it's like he's set up to fail. Whereas with CJ Stroud, like we've seen Nico Collins has made in a massive, massive jump this year. Tank Dell has been

awesome for them. You know, they have Bobby Sloick who's come in and like, I think the scheme is really fun and like really fits the quarterback really well. So there's like all these variables that are working in CJ Stroud's favor too, where you're not seeing that with Bryce Young whatsoever. And so it's like, you know, not to like

fence it or just like deflect any blame in terms of like evaluations, but like I think it's almost like impossible to evaluate quarterbacks when they come into the NFL and they're on different teams. Like if they all went to the same team and then let the best guy win, they'd be different. But these situations are so different and there's so many variables that go into playing quarterback. It's very, very hard for any rookie quarterback to come in and elevate an entire roster, a bad roster. So I think that's also, you know, that's not like anything new or novel, but that's what we're seeing with Bryce Young.

So I'm definitely like, you know, not judging him yet because I think situation is just so bad. The thing that I would add to that that I think we probably can go ahead and judge is when we get to April and people are bringing up the S2 test. Yeah. I know. That was the other thing is like a lot of people were really scared off with C.J. Straub because he reportedly bombed this test. And it's like, well, it's just one piece of the evaluation puzzle. And I like it's a black box in my mind. Like I don't really know enough about it to judge whether.

it's like a huge thing to put stock into anyway, you know. And so it seems like a lot of people put stock into that. At the end of the day, he did get drafted second overall, which is an important thing to note. So it didn't obviously scare teams off enough to make a huge difference, but it was a massive talking point. And it seems pretty moot at this point. I would love to know how many teams had Stroud number one on their boards.

Yeah, yeah. Because history is always going to show, right, like Bryce Young went number one, CJ Stroud went number two. And it gives the impression that Bryce Young was, you know, the league's number one player. And I'm actually not sure that that's true.

Bryce Young was the Carolina Panthers number one player. And that actually might have been an outlier. And the Panthers in particular, I do think they care a lot. You know, David Tepper is a hedge fund guy. He cares about these, like, And like kind of opaque models and tests that are supposed to quantify like people's intelligence and performance. And there are a lot of stories. Like I was just reading this excerpt from this book about Ray Dalio,

who's another like famous hedge fund guy. And it was all about how he tried to like create. this proprietary algorithm to quantify people's efficiency, he called it like his principles, and got all these crazy data scientists who built Watson for IBM

to come in and try to build it and just paid them exorbitant amounts of money to convince these guys to do it. And there just was no there there. It just was not, it's not possible to build human performance into an algorithm that way. And I would,

always wonder if there was a pinch of that going on in there. But you can take that as a Bryce Young thing or a C.J. Stroud thing, right? Because this is an area in which Bryce Young supposedly shined. And I would not see that, you know, I'm sure he's a smart human being. But when you see him on a football field with the caveat that the context is really crappy, right. He doesn't look like he has a clear picture of what's going on. C.J. Stroud apparently bombed this test.

Yeah. And he looks like he's seeing a lot of stuff out there. that man has thrown one interception and looks like easy. It's wild how good he's been. It's really wild how good he's been. I think, yeah, it's so hard. It's so, this is why, I mean, NFL teams spend millions of dollars

and all year round, like, scouting these quarterbacks and doing CIA-level, like, you know, espionage for the background information and trying to figure out what these guys are made of, if they have grit, if they're confident, if they're unflappable and all these different emotional and psychological things that go into playing quarterback. It's just, but at the end of the day, it's like,

I think it's almost impossible to decide, like, who's going to be good in the NFL. It's like impossible to, you know, forecast what a human being is going to do when certain, you know, variables come upon them. It's just like so hard to, it's so hard to predict. That's why teams get wrong almost all the time. Like, you know, it's like,

More often than not, teams are getting it wrong. Right. And so I think it's just one of those things where there's so many inputs. There's so many variables. And like, I don't know. To me, it's just like almost like an impossible thing to try and quantify it. And I think the only the best thing you can do, you know, it's just like a total cliche. It's just like watch how they play football.

Like, I don't know. Watch how they played football last year. Like, CJ Stroud was amazing last year. playing football. And he's big and has really accurate arm. Whereas Bryce Young also very awesome playing football, but he's very clearly small. And I think that was like,

that was like, to me, totally honestly, that was the difference. I was like they're both awesome at football. They both, I think, processed really well. They're both accurate. C.J. Stroud is a regular size human being. Bryce Young is a outlier in a massive historical outlier in size. But even that, though.

That, though, if you watched Bryce Young in college, you would see, obviously, a very small player and go, okay, you know, I have concerns about how you would hold up physically and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Bryce Young's tape in college, at least to me, didn't show the stuff that he's showing now where it doesn't look like he can see the middle of the field, clearly. Yeah. and where the sort of eyesight, passing lanes, angles, where those types of concerns you can see on tape now. And part of that, you know, he leveled up. The players in the NFL are, they're not only better. They're bigger.

They're faster. Yeah. Like, everything is increased. But there's even an element of that that's predictive, right? Because if you just watched him in college, at least my takeaway was, the size concern is a size concern in terms of is he going to get hurt and is his body going to just hold up

over time? Much more so than is he not going to be able to see the field? And now it kind of looks like both are issues. And yeah, and I also kind of worry like just physically does you have the

arm strength to like drive a football on a deep out when you have this fast of defenders. And you know, like things like that I think are starting to like crop up where I'm a little concerned about that. The other thing I will add that I think is a interesting connection between like Bryce Young type player and

Caleb Williams coming in this next year is I would say Bryce Young to me when I was watching him in college, it was like a lot of his game was that Sandlot thing where he you know, evades the pass rush, you know, holds on to the football a little bit longer, let's something happen. He has, I compared him to

Jason Kidd because he has just incredible court vision or field vision. He just always knows where everybody is at all times. He can, like, throw these no-look passes. He knows where everybody's going to be. He knows where all the defense is. And he's just, like, innately really good at that. And I think Caleb Williams has that exact same trait.

But, again, like C.J. Stroud, the knock on him was that he couldn't do that. And now we're going to see, I think, a lot more knocks on these next, like this next crop of quarterbacks who don't play in structure. We don't just get the ball out when they hit their back foot. Like the knock on C.J. Stroud was that he was robotic. And I think now there's going to be this swing where it's like you want someone to be robotic. I think, you know, Drake May is not robotic necessarily. He's, I think he's like a Justin Herbert style quarterback. He's big, big, strong, fast.

Like, he can do things out of structure too. But like at least he plays on time much more than Caleb Williams, who is, you know, at his core just sort of like a sandlot player. He's just like holding on to the ball. He's got one of the longest times of throws of any quarterback. in the country. It's almost frustrating sometimes to watch him just because it's like, man, just throw the football. Like, stop running around.

But he always makes it work. You know what I mean? And that's like, that's my memory of like watching Bryce Young. And, you know, his tape a lot of the time, it was like spinning around, evading the pass rush, you know, skating past a guy, and then somehow finding someone open downfield. It's like, for whatever reason, he's just a magician at that.

And I think there's going to be questions about Caleb Williams and how that translates to the NFL. I was like, Caleb Williams, I think, has way better tools. He's like an elite arm. He's a really good athlete. I think he's underrated for his ability to, like, as a runner. Like, he makes dudes miss in the open field. He's very, like, agile and fast.

And so, I don't know. I think Caleb Williams is an incredible prospect, and I would love to have him on my team. But I think this process is going to be a little painful. for a lot of reasons because people are going to pick apart his game. People are going to pick apart his personality. And so I'm just like kind of gearing myself up for that

because I think it's going to be a whole process. Can I just say I really hope that, I mean, I'm sure that anytime there's something that has to do with athletes and men in general showing emotion, there's just always going to be silliness. If I were an NFL coach or an NFL GM watching that, I would see someone who cares about what he's doing.

I would be like, great, cool. I want that guy. Like, he's clearly invested. This is a guy who, no matter what, you know, no matter what happens to USC this year, his future is very bright. He's going to get opportunities. And it hurts him to lose a game. It hurts him to go through that. He's, he's emotionally invested. I would, I would look at that and go, I want that guy on my team. But I'm not an NFL general manager. So I suppose we'll have to see. 100%. It's going to be a Rocheck test, I think, for a lot of people, like what they

what they take away from seeing that because, I mean, I can guarantee you, boomer GMs and boomer head coaches are going to see something different. I mean, just let's be totally honest here. Like, there's going to be teams that see that and they're like, there's no crying in baseball. You know, like, this is going to be something that they talk about.

For better or for worse, it's going to be a tackling point. Even though I agree with you, it's not a concern to me, but it will be to NFL teams. I can almost guarantee you that. Do you have a number one? I mean, right now I'm still on the Caleb Williams train. I just think his tools and his ability to, and this is, I think, something Stephen tweeted the other day

about Patrick Mahomes, like his ability to, like, buy an extra beat in almost any situation so he can get a throw off in the face of pressure is like one of the superpowers that he has. Like, for whatever reason, he can always just find an extra second to throw the football. And I think there's an element of that. And again, I'm not comparing.

I don't think he's as good as Mahomes. That's like, I'm going to have to give this caveat. There's a valid Mahomes comp that is purely stylistic, if not reflective of outcome. I think so. You know, I'm going to have to give this caveat probably like 10 billion times during the next six months. You know, I stylistically, I see the comparison. I see why people see that. You know, I'm not saying he's going to be the next great quarterback in the NFL.

I'm just saying, like, there's some elements to how he plays that I can kind of see that. So like, I think Kail Williams has that. Like, it's not that I don't see it. I just every time I hear that, I go, don't put that on this man. I know. It's totally unfair. It's, I mean, you know, I think he probably welcomes it. I think he's a very confident guy. Yeah. You know, and like being compared to the best quarterback in the NFL is what he ultimately

would want. But at the same time, like, it is unfair to him because that's setting the bar so freaking high. And I think it's, I was going to say this. I almost think it's good that people are kind of tearing him down a little bit right now. I think there is an element of doubt that's happening for better or for worse that I think is probably going to be good for him because, you know, if you go, if he was just like undefeated, like top of the world, you know, like face no adversity going into the NFL. You get a little bit of like, what's he like in adversity? You don't, it's a big question mark for him. And so this, I think this is an opportunity for him. It's also probably good to just like lower the bar a little bit and expectations wise, you know.

And there's already some people, again, that have Drake May as their QB1. And so I think at the end of the day, this might actually be like a blessing, a silver lining to like some of the struggles that USC has had. By the way, you mentioned it. Like their defense is atrocious. It's hard to watch. They've given up like 40 plus points, like almost every game this year. So I don't know. Like obviously not, it's not all on him.

I think he's still playing really well for the most part. But, you know, there's going to be question marks about how he plays. of course, like personality and psychologically, there's always question marks about every quarterback. So I think, you know, I'm looking forward to the process, but at the same time, it's also just going to be, you know, we're going to go back and forth about this for the next however many months, five months, six months. So it's going to be, it's going to be grueling. It will be really interesting. All right, Danny, thank you so much. This is, this, this helps sort of set, set the table as we go through the second half of the season.

I'm wondering if we're going to see something where, you know, those data visualizations where it's like lifetime earnings for athletes or pop stars or what are like some category and you see the different bars like go up and up and up and then all of a sudden it's like Michael Jackson out of nowhere and then it's like the most very suddenly I'm doing a horrible job describing this. I know what you're talking about. Like the moving bar graphs, whatever. So, like changes, like positions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And somebody's winning for a long time. And then all of a sudden it changes. That's how I'm looking at the giants.

I'm just wondering if all of a sudden it's going to be like, oh, the New York football giants are, they're back. They're picking number one overall. I mean, they've got two games against the Eagles, a game against the Cowboys, a game against the Saints. I sort of don't know why I'm even doing this because they also have a game against like the Patriots. and the Brett Rippin' Rams,

and I don't think they can win those either. I know. They are hard to watch. They're a tough watch right now. Very tough watch right now, but it would probably be rejuvenating if they got a chance to draft. Caleb Williams or maybe Drake May or we'll see.

A couple of other guys that could make their way into the first round. So yeah. He's Danny Kelly. Thank you so much for enlightening us. Appreciate it. Have a good one. Go, you know.

Go cuddle with your dog and watch some shows. I'm going to do that. He's sitting right next to me, actually. As the weather gets colder, the NFL offers stay hot on Fanduel, and right now all customers get a no-swet same-game parlay for every Thursday night football game. Just place a three-leg same-game parlay, and you'll get bonus bets back if you don't win. I would take Adam Feelein over 40 yards. The Panthers to cover plus three.

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expire seven days after receipt, max refund $5 in less otherwise specified, restricted, supply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. All right. We are back. And Lindsay Jones is here. Lindsay, how are you doing? I'm great. I'm so excited to be back on the ringer NFL feed and chatting with you. And yeah, I'm just excited to be here. I know. It's been a minute, but it's a good occasion for it because we are roughly at the midseason point, though not actually. And we figured that it would be fun to play a little game with some end of season awards predictions, but we're going to do it in a way that might be really unnecessarily complicated, but also will hopefully be fun. We're going to do it as a confidence draft. So we have 10 categories.

They are Super Bowl winner, offensive player of the year, defensive player of the year, MVP, offensive rookie of the year, defensive rookie of the year. coach of the year, the next coach fired the first overall pick. So the team to get the first overall pick. And then the last team to make the playoffs, the last team into the playoff picture. So of those 10 categories, Lindsay and I are going to go back and forth. And we're going to draft the categories where we feel most confident in our predictions. So by the end, we're each going to have a quote unquote team of,

five awards will tell you who we're predicting for those awards. And the better team is the team with the awards where we feel more sure that our prediction is going to come true. Whereas some of these, you know, it's a total coin flip or even a coin flip between three or four or five contenders at this point and who knows what's going to happen. So those are the bad picks, even if they're for big awards. producer Stefan has told me that he has come up with a good way to decide who goes first with this draft. I, of course, have the option of just being a gracious host

and letting you go first, but I'm not going to do that. Stefan, are we flipping a coin? What's going on here? All right, so we're going to have a quick coin flip. What do you call it? As the visiting team, Lindsay, what do you have? What do you want? I'll call tails.

Call tails. Drum roll. All right. it is heads, Nor, you have the first pick. I thought tails never fails. This is bullshit. This is so rude. Picking first on my own podcast.

All right. Well, here's the thing. Picking first in this draft, I think, is pretty valuable. Because there is, to me, there is one slam dunk pick in this, which is C.J. Stroud for Offensive Rookie of the Year. He started the year on a, historical record-setting clip of passes thrown without an interception.

More recently, he set the record for passing yards in a single rookie game. He looks like one of the most polished passers we've seen enter the league in, you know, maybe a decade. And the Texans are really surprising and exciting. And I think there's almost no chance that he doesn't win this award.

So I'm taking Texans quarterback, C.J. Stroud as offensive rookie of the year for my first pick. I think that's a great choice. If I had won the number one overall pick, I also would have taken C.J. Stroud.

It's interesting. I was trying to think of, like, who else would even be in the mix, and it's probably Puka Nakua, right? Is, like, he'll probably get some votes on that ballot. Like, I could see maybe, like, Will Levis, like, getting a couple, like, third place votes by January, just because he might put up enough, like,

counting stats and highlights. But like it's CJ Stroud. Like we could vote tomorrow. And if CJ Stroud, I don't want to even like talk about this. But like if you were not to, if you didn't play another game this year, I think he would still be first on my ballot, even if the season ended today. Yeah. He's just been that impressive. Yeah. That's true. All right. So with my pick, I think this is the other one that is like a one very, very clear leader. And that is Tyree Kill for offensive player of the year. And, And this is a super weird award. I am an AP voter and I never know what to do with this award.

I was talking about this with somebody the other day where I was trying to remember all the people that I voted for for this over the years. And it has basically become, or at least I consider it the best non-quarterback because the MDP award has become the best quarterback award. Tyree Kill is putting up ridiculous numbers right now. I mean, he is on pace to set the single season receiving record. He was on that pace at one point last season and fell back a little bit. The Dolphins offense took a big hit at times last year when Tua Tugabai Loa was not playing. So there's a little bit of like Hills production that is out of his control, right? That's like tied to other factors within this offense.

But as long as he is healthy and on the field and as long as Tua is playing, he's going to keep getting a lot of looks. And he's going to have some down days. Like he had a little bit of a down day in Germany last week against the Chiefs. The Chiefs did a really good job of limiting some of his explosive opportunities and just did a really good job on that, on that Dolphins offense as a whole. I think he's going to have more 130-yard games coming up than 60-yard games. So for me, that was a pretty easy choice. I was going through and looking at some of the other options. I mean, A.J. Brown maybe.

And I love A.J. Brown. If they were to, like, release the slacks that Ben Solac and I said, send each other about AJ Brown. Like, it would be very uncomfortable. I think it would be very uncomfortable. I was, like, making some confessions the other day about how much I love him. Not Ben Solic. I do love Ben Solic, but how much I love AJ Brown.

But I just think it's very clear that, like, Tyreek Hill is the, is just having a superlative season. And he's a pretty easy pick for me here with my first selection. Yeah, I think, honestly, the biggest threat to Tyreek winning this award is less a another offensive skill position player overtaking his his production and more the outside chance that he could win MVP. If there's not a quarterback who, you know, it feels like this, there's at least a sliver of a possibility that this would be the rare non-quarterback year.

I don't think that's going to happen. I think there are too many good quarterbacks who are making decent cases and the instinct is just always that that award is going to go to a passer. But if it didn't, if, you know, say Lamar falls off a little bit, say Joe Burrow continues to come on strong, but doesn't quite get there. And people remember the first part of the season. The chiefs don't put up a ton of points consistently through the end of the year. Like all that stuff comes together.

And Tyree Kill hits the, the, the, 2000. receiving yards mark in the regular season, I think there's an outside chance that he could end up the MVP. I don't think it's going to happen. I would have picked this. If I'd had the second pick and Stroud was off the board, I think this is the clear right choice here. But it's just funny to think about how if there's a threat to him winning this,

to me it's more that he would like, he would become too big for it rather than somebody, you know, like an AJ Brown would kind of. I think I was also remiss without, by not mentioning Christian McAfrey in this conversation. I feel like the the Niners were just on a buy

and they lost a few games heading into that buy and so maybe there's been a little backing off on the Christian McCaffrey hype, but he's probably in that mix as well. And maybe it could be the other non-QB who could play himself into some MVP-vote

MVP votes. But I'm still going. which I make, to be clear. All right. This is where it starts to get, you know, a little, like, you've got to go off some vibes here. And I would have to, if I were smarter about gambling, I would be curious to really deep dive what the implied odds and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah say about who is,

which ones of these feel more likely to come true. But my gut tells me that I should pick Dan Campbell for Coach of the Year. here because the hard part of the lion's schedule is really over. And he's already, he's the favorite to win this. But Detroit, they've got the chargers, the Bears, the Packers on Thanksgiving, the Saints, the Bears again, the Broncos, the Vikings. Then on December 30th, which by the way, is a Saturday. Like, why? The other calendar is terrible. Why? Terrible. But Saturday night, December 30th, we're all going to be watching Cowboys Lions, which I guess will be fun,

so I shouldn't complain about it. But I think that the Lions have a chance to really roll through the second half of the year, and then it sets him up for a big opportunity to make a statement in that

game against the Cowboys, that primetime game that Saturday night football. And that to me gives Dan Campbell a really good opportunity to, you know, make the campaign. We're going to see the lions, I think, beat up on a bunch of lesser teams. But then also he's going to have an opportunity. Tons of cameras.

Everybody watches the Cowboys. A little bit with that Packers game, too, being on Thanksgiving, there are going to be some island games where the Dan Campbell narrative is really going to get to marinate. competition, I think primarily Mike McDaniel but I wonder if the Dolphins

big games not coming until the very end of the season are going to make it a little bit tough because there's going to be this open question of well, can they beat a playoff team? Can they beat a good team? Can they look like the juggernaut that they look like against the Broncos

when they're playing a real contender, that I think is just going to linger. And I wonder if it's going to hurt Mike McDaniel's ability to really overcome the Dan Campbell train. So that's my pick for Coach of the Year. And I was sort of surprised that that award ended up feeling like

one that seemed the easiest to predict at this point. But when you really think about it, I do think that the line The Lions history of being the Lions is probably going to make us, like, want to award Dan Campbell for what he's done with this team. So I like him. I mean, the personality certainly helps, too. Here's my other thinking with the Coach of the Year award. And Dan Campbell was my pick there, too. I had him slightly lower on my board, but not much lower on my board. I'm wondering if there is going to be some, like, recur. like course correction from voters after a very bad track record of Coach of the Year winners, kind of the Brian Dayball clause last year, who Brian Dayball won this award. We'll probably be talking about the Giants here fairly soon about what a mess they are so quickly

after he won the Coach of the Year award. The history is not great, right? It was like, you know, the Matt Nagy bear, you know, Matt Nagy with the Bears. it was Kevin Stefansky with the Browns. Like, Stamansky still has his job, and that might be a playoff team this year. But, like, this award so often goes to kind of the, like, first year, big surprise,

took a terrible team to a seven seed. And it really kind of goes against what I think, like, the spirit of the award should be. And Dan Campbell has done this kind of the right way. He's built this slowly. He also is very likable. His team is very likable. I'm super impressed with the way that he is,

built and managed his staff. Kind of keeping Ben Johnson last year was like one of the most underrated moves of last offseason. You know, he had a really difficult situation last year with firing Aubrey Pleasant. And like it was just really complicated. But it ended up being kind of like the right moves. He's just, he knows how to hit the right buttons. So he would have been my pick there.

And I would like to, I definitely texted Steve at this at one point. I just want to be on the record on the ring or NFL feed that I voted for Kyle Shanahan last year. I'm just saying, I went back and looked at my ballot. And I did not vote for right. He was on my ballot, but my first place vote was for Kyle Shanahan. So just to have that there on the record. It is so noted. The Campbell thing, too, I think is, I think he's got it working for him from a number of directions because I agree with you. I bet people are going to start thinking twice a little bit more about awarding the, the sudden turnaround. The you won three games the year before and now you've won nine.

So, oh my gosh, what a great coaching job, which might be true, right? Like, I think the, I think the Giants were a well-coached team last year. That's fine, but it just doesn't look great right now. still, I think that impulse, if someone does still have it, I kind of think Campbell still satisfies it anyway. Yeah. A little bit. Yeah.

It's the lions. It's the lions being like competitive and actually getting the defense together. So I think he's like, he's in a great position because he can kind of fit both buckets there. Yeah. All right. So should we move to my next pick here? Yeah. Let's do it.

All right. Actually, I'm going to take the number three pick on my board. So this has fallen kind of nice for me. Oh, wow. I'm going Jalen Carter for a defensive rookie of the year. I think right now this is largely kind of a two horse race, right? There's two players, I think, that are very squarely in the mix for this. It's Jalen Carter, the super standout awesome defensive tackle from the Eagles.

And Devin Witherspoon, the first round pick corner in Seattle. And Witherspoon is awesome. He is so fun to watch. He is like the epitome of the Pete Carroll defensive back. Like he plays his ass off. He hits really hard. You know, he had that, like, ridiculous game where he had, like, I'm trying to even remember what it was.

He had like 15 tackles. And was it the game against the Giants? What game? Now I'm totally blanking out which game. He had like a huge game on a primetime game. Yeah. I think that's right. Game.

but I think he will suffer a bit from a little bit of a lack of visibility that Jalen Carter is going to benefit from, from playing for the Eagles. They're going to be in a lot more high profile prime time type situations. And the thing about Jalen Carter is when he is on your television screen, you cannot help but watch him. Because he is just, like he just pops off your screen because he does things that are. that like humans should not be able to do. He has just like this physical strength and the snaps that he is on. He's playing with this like rabbit intensity that I wasn't sure how it would translate from Georgia to the NFL because there were a lot of questions about his football character. There were questions about his off-field character as well, which I think are a lot of the reasons when you combine those two things,

why he fell a little bit lower in the draft. but his football talent has translated immediately. And it is completely noticeable. And the one thing that I think could hurt him is that he has had a little bit of a trouble staying on the field health-wise. He's missed a little bit of time on and off. But I think from just like a pure best rookie guy who looks the part who is freaking awesome.

And then I wrote in all caps, how does Howie Roseman keep getting away with this? Because a lot of teams, I think, are going to regret at taking Jalen Carter off their board or letting him fall to where he did because he seems to be in the right spot and he's been awesome. And I'm thrilled to take him here at number four.

Yeah, by the way, against the Giants, Witherspoon had seven tackles, two sacks, three hits on Daniel Jones, two TFLs, one pass breakup, and a 97-yard interception return for a touchdown.

Pretty good. But pretty good. I'm with you. He'd need a couple more games like that. And I don't know how many more times the Giants are going to be on the schedule. Yeah, as I say, who also hasn't hit Daniel Jones? Yeah. Like seven times in a game.

Jalen Carter would be my pick for this as well. The Eagles are probably going to be in slightly more primetime visible spots. He's just by the nature of the position. He's literally on the television screen more often than when he's more often than a quarterback when he's playing. and he's a household name. He's playing absolutely devastating football. And I would pick him here too.

I think it's a good pick because even if we do consider it a two-man race, a lot of the stuff that's left, you're talking about, you know, there's at least three solid candidates, four solid candidates. I will make my next pick in sort of the same vein. which is that I'll choose Miles Garrett as defensive player of the year. This is another one where I think it's a two-person contest, mostly between Garrett and Michael Parsons. The reason I would take Garrett here is because I think he's part of a defense that we're just going to talk a little bit more about by the end of the season as having been really, really dominant.

In part that's unfair because I think it's just that the Cowboys are a more balanced team than the Browns. But the story of the Browns, other than just the weirdness around their quarterback position, is how good this defense has been. And Miles Garrett is really the linchpin of that. He's at 9.5 sacks. I think he could easily get to 20 by the end of the year. So I think that he will win it over Parsons, mostly by being part of, a more dominant, a more overwhelming unit. And I say that in part because, you know, I'm not going to sit here and make an argument against Michael Parsons being really,

really an elite player. But I think there it's going to have a little bit more narrative weight to him. But I also just, I feel good about this pick at this point because it feels at least like a toss-up rather than, well, it could go here, could go here, could go here. See, I am looking at the defensive player of the year race completely differently. This was way low on my board in terms of my confidence meter. Miles Garrett was my preseason pick here, and I felt awesome about it when we initially submitted those. I can't remember who you submitted in the preseason for your defensive player of the year pick.

I know Sheal had Miles Garrett because I remember texting him and saying, like, you and me were like aligned. And it was kind of like it gives me, I'm excited. Nick Bosa. The Brown's defense, which is, although we had, I know I had him last year and he was, he won last year and he was great. Kind of surprise. I was trying to remember who won it last year because Micah Parsons was like the favorite most of the year. And then Bosa just closed out the season so strongly. But so I had Miles Garrett as my preseason pick.

But maybe I'm a little like Steelers pill and we spend a lot of time talking about the Steelers. defense and how the Steelers are managing to be like a relevant team this year. So I feel like there's a lot of T.J. Watt discussions here. And then I went back and I was I was kind of trying to do a deep dive into true media and all these pass rusher stats and the counting stats and also the advanced metrics and the PFF pressures and all of this kind of stuff. And it's like Miles Garrett, T.J. Watt, Micah Parsons, Max Crosby. Max Crosby will not win this award because he is like the only good player on the Raiders defense. But his stats are bonkers.

He's playing basically 100% of the Raiders' defensive snaps. He's played 567 defensive snaps right now. Miles Garrett has played 340. Like he's played one more game, but still, just the actual number of like times that he is on the field. But so Garrett Watt and Crosby all have nine and a half sacks.

Danielle Hunter with the Vikings, like he's actually leading the league in sacks right now 10. And I was like, he's not going to win. But then I went looked and I was like, but actually like his pressure is really high and his pressure rate and all this stuff. And I'm just like, there's a lot of guys that are just like mudding this whole thing up where this is one where last year was the first year where we got to do ranked voting for these awards where it wasn't like you just got to vote for one guy. And I was like, this one is going to get weird. This is the one where the first second and third place votes are actually going to match.

because I think it's really hard to separate Garrett from Watt from Parsons, and then you throw Max Crosby in the mix, and you throw, you know, it's not a lot of voters. So this is where it gets a little complicated, I guess. But I'm sticking with Miles Garrett. He would have been my pick here. I just probably would have taken him like at eight or nine if I would have waited a lot longer because I don't have that much confidence in it. Interesting.

Yeah, see, I think. funny thing is, again, I just think that I see the range voting thing differently, or I think because of how people see the Brown's defense, no one will leave him off. Yeah. Whereas I think there's an idea with the Steelers that they are winning these games because of these crazy fourth quarter comebacks, which on a surface level view, is about the offense in a weird way, even though it is only possible

because their defense is keeping them in position to win games like 17, 14. But I just think that there's no other player with this type of production who's more affiliated narratively with why the team is succeed. eating when it's succeeding. And I think that's fair.

And one of my preseason reasonings for picking Miles Garrett was that he's also never won this award before. And mostly just because of health stuff. Yeah. Yeah, he hasn't been able to stay healthy. Also, this is not an award that's tied to team success, like number one seed,

number two seed, as much as the MVP award is. But it is an award that like, this is why it's really hard for Max Crosby. Like, generally he has. to come from like a good or like a very good team, right? That you're good enough to elevate your team to success greater than they could otherwise accomplish.

So I think Garrett is in that place now where some of his previous Brown teams were not. I think he suffered from some like, does he play hard every snap kind of stuff? Or he was the only good player on the defensive line. So he was getting a lot of, you know, a lot of attention where some of, of the other guys might not. So I still really like Garrett here. But I think it's far from a slam dunk. And I think we could probably debate this every week from now until January. Yeah, for sure. Okay. Well, you took one of my picks way from deep on my board. So I've got a couple to choose from here. All right. Let's continue our giant slander. At my next pick,

the most likely team to have the number one overall pick is the New York. York Giants. And they're not in that spot right now. Right now, I think if they were drafting this week, they'd be fourth. But this is the team that is trending in all of the wrong directions is going to officially be starting Tommy DeVito this week. If that doesn't work, they'll be starting Matt Barclay, who, yes, Matt Barclay who played for USC like 15 years ago. Like, did he succeed Matt Biner? Like, it's been, it's been a while. They're in a bad way. Like a bad, bad way. know you and I both did some deep dives this week about like the futility of the New York football team's offenses and a lot of that was focused on the Jets. I have a Jets piece that's

going to run sometime in the next day or two on the ringer.com. But the giants, my God, like they're just going to eliminate the forward pass from their playbook, I think. I just don't see how this team is going to score points over the next 10 weeks of this season. And then you have to throw into the mix. There's some complicating factors, right? That the Panthers are, you know, one win. They're a one win right now. Yeah. Is that right? They don't own their number one pick. So that could go to the Bears, which gives the Bears some better, you know, a little bit better odds here, although they play each other on Thursdays football, which is also a weird. We own your number one pick. So there's some weirdness that play there. But this is just a team. A lot of weirdness at play there. We have like no idea who's starting for the

there's like basically any position, right? Yeah. They've already ruled a bunch of players out. But yeah, I just think that the Giants are trending in the position where they look like the worst team in football right now and I don't see a path forward for them out of it where the Cardinals, they're going to start playing Kylo Murray. They're going to win a couple games that they probably shouldn't because now they're going to have like a higher level of quarterback play.

The Panthers are not a good team, but they just have a, level of competency, like baseline competency, I think, that the Panthers, I mean, that the, that the, that the giants do not right now. So. Well, and they also have no incentive to lose. Yeah. Because they don't have their pick. So like the giants, I mean, you know, it's a little bit of an adjustment, obviously, in terms of them having entered the season with genuine hopes it being a good team. But at this point, and I do think that the brain trust there is probably sent enough to recognize this. They are probably really regretting the decision they made with Daniel Jones,

regretting it extra in terms of, okay, now you add it an injury. And they know that they're not competitive. I don't know that they could win games if they were trying. But on some level, they have to recognize that the best thing that could come from this season at this point is that first overall pick. Whereas, you know, the bear is, I think this is. is going to come down to the Giants or the Bears, because I agree with you. The Cardinals are going to win some games

that none of these other teams would win once they start getting Kyler into the games. The Bears are interesting because they have two shots at this. But I do think that the Panthers, like you said, slightly more competent football team, and again, just no incentive to lose. And then same thing with Chicago's own pick. Also, I think they have a... I guess they lose a tiebreaker, is how you would say it.

Right now, they have the same record as the Giants but would pick before them if the season ended today. But who knows how that stuff works out by the end of the year. So to me, this comes down to New York or the Bears. I think I'm with you. I would pick the Giants here too. It's a little hard just because the Bears have two shots at it. Yeah.

But I think the Giants can do it. I think that the Giants can do it. I think they absolutely can do it. And we talk a lot about like, what is tanking and organizational tanking and teams can't tank? you're playing? Are we sure that Tommy DeVito is like a real football player? Like he's actually, I looked him up. Like apparently he did play college football at Syracuse.

I did not confirm that I watched any Syracuse college football when Tommy DeVito was a quarterback. But like, when he got inserted into that game a couple weeks ago, it was like, wait, who? Like, are we sure this wasn't just like some guy that like some dude in Jersey was just like creating like throwing names into. like a chat G-PT, QB creator. I also say he's like, he's just like a jersey dude. Like he doesn't wear his sleeves. Like he just is like, he's Tommy DeVito.

Dude. And God, like, I hope it works out for him. Like, I don't want him to be like a Nathan Peterman type that we're always kind of just like, ah, the joke of, you know, the Tommy DeVito days. But like, this is how you tank in the middle of a season. Your franchise quarterback gets hurt again. your defense has been underperforming. You start trading some of your expensive guys,

and then you play a quarterback that nobody's ever heard of. This is exactly how you do it. And the bears, while they have more chances, do we think they have the level of, like, organizational competency to actually pull off getting the number one pick two years in a row? Probably not. So not on purpose.

like again, they have two shots at it. I certainly would rule it out happening. But I think, I mean, look, they're playing, they have a game tonight as we're recording this on Thursday afternoon. The last I saw from Matt Eber Fluse was like the most convoluted press conference I've ever seen about how Justin Fields was maybe doubtful, but also maybe out. but hadn't, there was still a chance he could be medically cleared,

but also he wasn't going to play, but also he could be doubtful, even if there was no chance he was going to, like made absolutely no sense. And, you know, whatever. Like, I'm not going to add a ton of significance to this, this, uh, Panthers Bears game.

I keep wanting to call them the Browns. I don't know why my brain wants to do that. Um, this Panthers Bears game. other than as it pertains to the first overall pick discussion. So I guess it is relevant here. But they just do not seem like a team that has direction or knows what's going on on a day-to-day basis. So could they orchestrate this?

Probably not. Could it happen just because bad teams are bad teams? Yes. All right. Who's your next pick? So I'm going next coach fired. And I think this is probably Ron Rivera's slot to lose. I think the trade deadline told us that the Josh Harris group wants a total organizational reset there.

And I think that that offense is shaky enough that things could blow up before the end of the year here. It's funny, like there don't seem to be, I don't know that there are that many. firings that to me feel like they're going to come in season. Although, who knows? You know, there's always time. Things have to really be spiraling to happen in season. Yeah. And I also think that like Josh McDaniels set such a high bar for how disastrous a coach can be

that everyone's kind of like, well, it's not that bad. He entered the Hackett zone is what happened. Yeah, no one is, no one else is quite in the hackett zone. But I just think Ron Rivera is the one where the writing is completely on the wall. Yeah, and I wonder with him if there's. I was just going to say they have, they have Bianami in the wings if they want him, which is a big deal just in terms of if something were to happen in season, one of the major factors that an ownership group would consider is who's going to be the interim,

who's going to take over. And I think that's, that's a situation where you'd like your answer to that which probably also adds to his chances. Yeah, and I was wondering too where like obviously the new ownership group is like a huge, huge part of this. And then there's a bit where like Ron Rivera is just like this kind of like beloved figure, right? He's just like Uncle Ron. Everybody really likes him. And I wonder if there's like a once there's the sense from the Harris group that like they are going to do this complete reset, that you just say, like, we're not going to make you, like, play out this string. It's time for us to, like, let Eric the enemy be the interim coach for a month and

see what, see what sort of juice he has. We're not going to, like, string Ron Rivera along for a while. And have you be like a lame duck? Like, yeah, where if it kind of becomes, like, the message isn't getting through and it's really time, like, let's just start this now, as opposed to, like, dragging it out for another month. Um, the one. The one. The one, guy, right, like we want to, we always want to say, okay, well, where could something just like really spiral out of control and it like go open flames and, is that the Chargers, right? Like if something like really, look, they just won a game last five days ago by 21 points or whatever. So they're feeling good for a week. But that's the one place where a guy's seat has

been hot the entire year. And if all of a sudden things start getting away from him or from that team defensively, they turn into an even more of a mess or something, that maybe there could be like a mid-December type of deal if things really get out of hand. I think Staley is a guy who, Staley could lose his job in one game. There's enough just like angst there where if one thing went so spectacularly wrong, that could be just like a spur of the moment. You know what? Last straw, you're gone.

Rivera could get fired without a disaster because it's just like it's time and we can see that it's time and we can see that the ownership group thinks it's time. But you're right to point that out because I think that it can cut both ways in some ways. Like Rivera doesn't need a catalyzing event, but also a catalyzing event might be the thing to make something like this happen the fastest. Okay. Yeah. Someone's going to have to pick like MVP in the Super Bowl. I know. So those are the hard. Those are the really hard ones. So, all right. I, okay, I'm going to pick MVP here. And I'm going to take Lamar Jackson, who is like the very trendy midseason pick. You picked him in your midseason superlatives that you can read now on the ringer.com. Ben Sulek picked him as a mid-season MVP in the Hot Read coming out of last week's games.

I just think he checks every single MVP box right now. And my hesitancy is that this is an award that is very often decided based on what happens after Thanksgiving. And there's a lot of football left to be played. And he has a scary injury history, right? And especially late season games where stuff happens. but I just feel so good every single time I watch him. I just get this like warm feeling of like he's got it. Like our guy is back, right?

And he's having a statistically great season. He's doing something new that we haven't seen him do before. And this is something that is always hard for guys to win their second MVP award. Because a lot of times they win a guy, Lamar won his first time because he just had this like out of no way. where incredible emerging season, where he just was so good, such a revelation, 2019 that like, you just couldn't help but just be like, wowed by this guy. But now he's always going to be compared to kind of that standard. And he is better in every single way now than he was when he won his first MVP award.

He's got a lot of the narrative stuff going for him with, you know, the new offense. He's answered all of the questions that we had about what he could. could do to take his game to the next level. He's elevating players around him. And he's also benefiting, I think, from the fact that there isn't anybody else in the quarterback sphere that's having this, like, ridiculous season. I think there could be some Mahomes MVP type of fatigue. So I'm going to take, I'm going to take Jackson. It is like a total toss up because so much can happen between now and January. Mahomes always plays awesome in December. Like, he is a historically great late season quarterback.

Burrow, I think, is just starting to turn it on and is going to be back in that mix and it's going to get some of the narrative stuff of like, look what he was dealing with in the preseason. He couldn't move in September and look at how great he is after Thanksgiving. But I'm going to take, I'm going to take Lamar and not feel bad about it at all. As you should absolutely not. In the same vein, I'm going to make, I'm going to go for the Super Bowl with my next pick. And I'm picking the reinvents.

It's just we're being brave here. But they are the best team in the league. We're the best team to Mallory and Rubin right now is what we're doing in the NFL. And everyone is just scared because the chiefs are the chiefs. But you know what? The chiefs are not playing as good football as the Ravens are right now. Defensively, even though the Chief's defense has been very, very good or offensively. And I know it feels like.

Like, you know, oh, they're going to figure it out. And all of a sudden, how embarrassing to have picked against Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid? They're among the cream of the crop of the league. But I don't see an answer on their roster as currently constructed to be as explosive as this Ravens team can be. And then you add in the fact that the defense is playing not just the best football of a defense in the NFL right now, but historically good defense. And I think they can do it. So I'm just choosing to take a leap of faith

and pick the team that I think is fairly clearly the one that looks the best of all 32 right now. And if there's anything that makes me scared, again, it is that Lamar injury history. But I'm just, you got to believe. And that's, that's what I'm doing here. So I'm taking the raves. So I, in our midseason, predict our changes.

So preseason I had the chiefs because I was like, I'm done picking against Patrick Mahomes. And then we got a chance to do it. And I was like, I'm going to pick against Patrick Mahomes because I am an idiot. No, you are brave. I don't know if I'm brave or not. So I switched to the Bengals, which I don't feel great about. And I think I had them last on my board because I do not feel great about it. it at all. I think that the

AFC North is going to be insane over the next especially over the next month. There are a couple of really, really big AFC North games coming up, starting this week with Browns Ravens this week. We're going to have a Ravens

Bengals Thursday night football game next week. Really looking forward to you and Stephen talking about that on the pod next week because that game is just massive, massive, massive of stakes. And I still think the Ravens are going to win this division. I think that the Bengals put themselves in a bit of a hole the way that they struggled early in the year while Burrow wasn't healthy. But I can just see the Bengals getting into the playoffs as the five, the first wild card and going on one of those runs again, where there are a few teams offensively, defensively that I

trust more in January right now than the Bengals. And I was tempted to pick an NFC team. I'm really tempted to take the Eagles here and several of our colleagues did. Just thinking that by the time, you know, they're really setting themselves up for that number one seed. They can win a lot of different ways. You like the way that they're coached. You like the poise of their quarterback. All of those sorts of things. But we are not cowards here on the Thursday ringer NFL show.

We're going with the AFC North teams, even though none of us know exactly how the division is going to play out. So. All right. So now I've stuck you with the last team in. Okay. And so I have two teams here. Interesting. I'm going to pick between, so I'll tell you, I'm picking between two teams here. I'm picking between the Minnesota Vikings and the Pittsburgh Steelers.

And I'm going to go with the Minnesota Vikings because one of those teams I really like to watch and one of those teams I hate to watch. So the Vikings would be a tremendous story if they're able to get to the playoffs given the way, that their season started, given that they've lost Kurt Cousins, given that they've had to play a stretch of the season without Justin Jefferson, who's now practice window is back open. So he might be back not this week, but maybe within the next

couple of weeks, we're all just completely taken by the Joshua Dobbs story. Right? I mean, he hasn't won a lot of games in his career as a starting quarterback, but the way that he led that comeback last week against the Falcons was not...

Or was it the Bucks? Why can't I remember which NFC North tapes. It was the Falcons. It was the Texans who came back against the Bucks. The way that he led that comment, like, it was not fluky. It was not just like weird plays. It was a dude just like going out and making shit happen. And it was awesome.

And I don't know how sustainable it is, but the Brian DeFleuarez's defense has been playing great. My dark horse defense of the player of the year candidate, Danielle Hunter, has been playing great. I love it. I love it. But like, it's just a funny thing to me that like last year we were like, God, the Vikings, they're not good. They shouldn't be in the playoffs, all this stuff.

And they did. They got in and they lost and it was really disappointing, I think, for Vikings fans. And now it's just like low expectations, no expectations and it would be really, really fun. So I'm going to take them as my last team in. I could still see somehow the Mike Tomlin doing his Mike Tomlin stuff and the Steelers somehow get in that 7C. somehow. I just don't really want to watch them

in the process of doing it. So I would have taken the Vikings here too, actually, although I would have I thought about it slightly differently. I think the NFC team is going to have a worse

the NFC 7 seed is going to have a worse record than the AFC 7 seed. So I was thinking of it in terms of it's either going to be the Vikings or whoever

between the Falcons and the Saints doesn't win the NFC's. What about the Packers? Could you put the Packers in that mix? I think you could. I would rather put the Vikings in it than the Packers, but I think you could. One, they're just a game further behind. And I can't believe I'm saying this, but I think the Vikings are a little bit better, even with Josh Dawes. they probably Minnesota probably needs

four more wins if that team is going to be nine and eight and they've got the Broncos the Bears the Raiders the Packers and then a Saints game in terms of the ones

that seem winnable so I think they can do it Broncos Bears Raiders right like that feels like three and then they got to steal one between Green Bay and New Orleans. The Falcons and the Saints still have two games left against each other. So that division winner and who is in contention for the seven seed is probably going to come down to basically those two games.

both teams do not have very difficult schedules left beyond just having to play each other twice. So that felt really convoluted and NFC Southie and I was just like, I don't want to touch it. So I think the Vikings is probably the safest bet here. So that's it. We've made our picks. I know.

How are you feeling about your squad? You know, I like it. So I ended up with CJ Stroud for Offensive Rookie of the Year. the Ravens as the Super Bowl winner, Dan Campbell as coach of the year, Ron Rivera as next coach fired, and Miles Garrett as defensive player of the year. You wound up with Tyree Kill as offensive player of the year.

Jalen Carter as defensive rookie of the year. The New York Giants to get the first overall pick, Lamar to win MVP, and the Vikings as the final team squeak into the playoffs. It's pretty good. Yeah. Solid choices.

Solid choices. I don't know if I want that group like playing other groups, but you know, it's fine. Well, we added a lot of variables. I like my chances. I like my chances. I like it.

We'll have to revisit this at some point. I guess we'd have to wait until the end of the season to figure it all out. But we'll come back and take a look at this at some point. Lindsay, thank you so much for doing this. this was super fun. Everybody go read Nora's full midseason superlatives piece that's online at the ringer.com right now because it was really funny. And there might be a Taylor Swift mention, maybe. And hopefully by the time this is up, Lindsay on the Jets is going to be up on the website.

Good stuff. Theringer.com. Next time we'll come back and do a Taylor Swift's confidence draft. I don't know how. I've done that with Haven on every single album, sort of. And it was far more contentious than this. So credit to you. All right. Well, uh, it was thrilled to, it was thrilling to be here. All right. This has been dual threat on the ringer NFL show feed. I'm Nora Pinciotti. She's Lindsay Jones. Thank you also to Danny Kelly for joining us for the first half of this show. Thank you to Stefan Anderson for producing this episode to Kiara Givens and Eduardo Ocampo for their work on socials and to Arjuna RamuPaul and Connor Evans for their additional production supervision. Extra point taken, we'll be up next on the feed.

Sheal and Ben will have you covered ahead of week 10. Thanks for listening. Must be 21 plus and present in select states. Fanduel is offering online sports wagering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino LLC. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or visit fanduel.org slash RG in Colorado, Iowa, Kentucky, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Tennessee, and Virginia. Call 1-800-next-step or text next step to 533442 in Arizona, 1-888-78-9-7.

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