The Ringer NFL Show - Why Did the Falcons Take Penix at 8? How Costly Will the Aiyuk Extension Be? Who Will Win the Offensive Rookie of the Year? | Extra Point Taken

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

Sheil and Ben are back to discuss the major moves that occurred during the NFL draft. Perhaps the most shocking move of all was the Falcons taking Michael Penix Jr. at 8. Was this the right move for a team that just gave Kirk Cousins $100 million in guaranteed money? Receivers have been getting a lot of money this offseason: However, Brandon Aiyuk and the 49ers have not reached a new deal yet. How much has the price tag gone up on Aiyuk? Plus, did the Steelers and Jets put themselves in title contention? The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please visit www.rg-help.com to learn more about the resources and helplines available. Hosts: Sheil Kapadia and Ben Solak Producer: Cliff Augustin Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal and Conor Nevins Social: Eduardo Ocampo and Kiera Givens Video: Ronak Nair Musical Elements: Devon Renaldo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on with Kate Middleton? Which cult is popping off right now? What the hell is a trad wife? And why are we so obsessed with them? I'm Jody Walker. And I'm Chelsea Stark Jones. And we're obsessed. Obsessed with all the pop culture happenings,

filling our group chats and 4U pages. And we want to talk about them with you. Our new show, We're Obsessed, is for all the things we're loving, buying, watching, listening to, and spiraling over right now. Follow the ringer dish feed on Spotify to listen to We're Obsessed every Friday. Welcome to Extra Point Taken. Chiokopati here joined by Ben Solac, who is really getting it.

You know, he danced this every time. I was about to do a full turnaround dance and I remember this is the Monday pot. It's going off on YouTube. So only a half turn. That's why you should have done the full turn. Of course, that's a great way to remind everybody, Ringer NFL on YouTube. You can watch this full episode. So definitely go subscribe.

Check that out every Monday. We have been doing that. All right. The draft is over. I mean, you fired off takes on the Ringer NFL draft show. I fired off takes on the Ringer NFL show. This is our first time as you take a sip of what is that there? Little iced coffee.

A little ice latte. I'm in my ice latte season. We're good. We're good. Little ice latte for Solace. This is our first time discussing stuff. So I got a little draft. mixed in to my takes. I've got a little overall offseason stuff mixed into my takes. I've got a

little look ahead mix in because I didn't want to repeat myself too much. But I'm curious to see what's on your mind. As everyone knows, we don't tell each other the takes before this show. We just come on and we fire away. So let's do it. So you lead us off here. You'll have the extra point today. We'll go back and forth three points before that one. What are you leading us off with for the show? So you said you didn't want to repeat yourself. I'm repeating. myself because I think that it's important that did you and I have this conversation? All right. I think the Michael Pennix pick is completely indefensible.

Now that now that we have had three or four days to consume it, now that I've seen the PR spin from the Falcons front office and I've seen, you know, various people get on television or get online and say, oh, now that I think it would the Pennix pick this way I like and I think of the Pennicks pick that way I like it, I am, I have kept an open mind. And I find it wholly indefensible. Now, it's probably a little bit defensible. The colonel, okay? Again, this is what I said on the ringer NFL draft show.

So I'll repeat myself, but then I'm going to expand a little bit. The kernel, the core of the issue is sound. We are going to invest in quarterback two. I think a big thing of the last five, six years of NFL team building that we are going to invest in QB2. We are going to take Jordan Love when we have Aaron Rogers. We are going to take Jalen Hertz when we have Carson Wentz. We are going to spend $8 million, $9 million, $10 million on backup quarterbacks when we have uncertainty at quarterback one.

You have seen in each of the last two seasons dramatic leaps in the amount of games that are played by quarterbacks, the amount of quarterbacks would get at least a start as we deal with more nagging injuries, as concussion protocols, make quarterbacks spend more time on the bench. We are just seeing more and more quarterbacks play, and accordingly, we are seeing more teams invest in quarterback two. That logic, that connection is completely sound to me. And so I think some people defend the Michael Pennock's pick by saying, well, the Falcons really wanted to invest in quarterback two. They want to, as Terry Fontos, invest in the future, four or five years down the road. We want to make sure we have a good QB1 and want to make sure we have a QB2 that we like.

And if you want to just let it be that simple, right? Like that's like the 240 pixel view of this where like everything is just like square cut dry lines. Sure. The Michael Panics pick is defensible because it's good to invest in quarterback two. the moment we add any clarity to this, I think you lose veracity. I think you lose the high ground. You lose the seat of truth.

Because there are too many ways that the pedics pick doesn't make sense. There's the one way in which this is just not a good prospect. This is an old injured player who was only successful when he was playing with. Now we've seen the draft. Five other top 100 picks on the offense. three receivers, two offensive linemen.

Five players from this offense went in the top 100, and the quarterback who's playing in it went before all of them at eight overall. I think that's very silly. I think we know enough about football to know that that's a problem. So one, this was a bad prospect. I have people like, oh, Pennix, I saw somebody say after, on Friday, he throws the most catchable football in the class, or he throws the cleanest throw in the class.

I don't know what that means. I have no idea what that sentence is. Caleb Williams throws the most catchable on this class. I know because he went one overall. all like what are we talking about anyway so one panics is not a good enough prospect to be taking at eight overall period two you you just spent a hundred million dollars on kirk cousins it's not that you did it 13 months ago and you're trying to get off of a bad move like the giants did with the daniel jones extension remember daniel jones was extended spring of 23 and in spring up 24 the giant's

like frick dude we need to get another quarterback they they got a year of evaluation to say okay we're going to acknowledge our mistake quickly and move. You just did this. When you signed Kirk Cousins to $100 million guarantee, that's how much he's going to make if they cut him at the earliest possible moment is $100 million. He can make more, but $100 million for sure. When you signed him to that,

you already had guys in your building who were doing the job of liking Michael Penningson and evaluating him and figuring out where he was going to go, and if you should dress him, you already had the overall pick. You had all of the information, not all, like 90%. 90% of the information necessary to know, hey, we might take Michael Peddick's aid overall. And you spent $100 million in Kirk Cousins. That's the second thing that I think poisons the well a little bit.

And oh, we're investing in quarterback too. And the third and final piece is that you did not have clarity in the organization. I think they're arguing they had clarity in the organization. Oh, you know, Rahim Morris and Terry Fonton. I think Rahim and Terry were on the same page. But I do not think Kirk was on the same page. And I do not think the locker room was on the same page. And while I disagree with the notion that they had to call Kirk Cousins on Thursday afternoon at 4 and say, hey, guess what, we're taking Michael Pennings at 4 hours.

I don't think that they needed to call Michael McCartney and say, hey, let your guy know we're taking Michael Pennix. I do think that your investment in quarterback 2 becomes remarkably more challenging when everybody thinks that quarterback 1 probably hates quarterback 2. Right? And you say, oh, Aaron Rogers, Jordan, love it worked, don't worry about it. Oh, we're going to use Michael Pennix to motivate Kirk Cousin and he's going to be good. Yeah, I don't, I understand that love work, but there are so many easy ways to split a locker room. There's so many ways to create frustration in a locker room. Ask any team that's had a trade request over the last three months, which is like nine of them about losing games and I didn't get enough targets, I didn't get enough reps.

The moment we have two bad Kirk Cousins games back to back, someone in the locker room is going to ask by the number eight overall pick isn't playing. Rightfully or unrightfully, they're going to ask that question. There is such a huge emotional component to introducing a high, drafted, highly valued QB2 behind an incumbent QB1 that always gets dramatically overlooked. So, okay, investing in QB2 is good. I think that even if you disagree with one of those three points, there is enough veracity in the other two points, there is enough a strength in the other two points, that

I just don't see how you can sit here and be like, this is a good, defensible decision. There's too much against it. So even if you take out one or two jangle pieces, there's still just such a, a myriad of obstacles in front of Michael Panic succeeding for the Falcons. I think it is indefensible. Wow. I do need to go. I'm trying to take him off.

Take the flannel off. It's getting warm in the Midwest, in the Northeast, wherever you are. So get comfortable. Another reason to watch the YouTube show, by the way. Solac just took the flannel off and now he's showing the guns off.

Well, this shows we've been podcasting too long together, Soak, because while I said I wasn't going to repeat myself, I came into the pod with the same thought that you had where I'm like, no, we need to talk about the Michael. Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I know everybody's talked about it,

but I'm like, we need to have our own back and forth. And as much, you know how much I like to, you know, we'll jab at you and take the other side. My take was, I still can't figure out the Michael Pennix pick. Days later, I've tried. A little peek behind the curtain. I was on with all the producers, director of video, Eduardo Ocampo, director of production, Cliff Augustine.

And before you got on, I was like, guys, I'm thinking about doing Michael Penix is totally indefensible, but I feel like I'm going to lose that battle to shield. I feel like he's going to poke a hole and find a way to make it seem to listen, defensible enough that my take is wrong. So I'm very glad to hear you're on my side of the line. Man, I show up a few minutes late one time. And look at the conversart. I got to be more punctual.

I'm getting strategies to you guys. I deserve to be criticized there. Okay, so I really, I did. I wanted to come on. I wanted to find an argument I liked. I wanted to think about it. I wanted to talk to people. I wanted to read people.

I wanted to listen to people, and I wanted someone to make sense of it to me, where I could have came on here because it's more fun. It's more fun when you zag. I'm team content. I wanted to zag and say, here's why the Michael Pennix pick was actually brilliant or something. I knew how you felt about it. I read your column on the ringer.com. Your last point was that what? The Pennix pick was the worst pick in the draft, I think, right, in the hot read. Was that your last point in the hot read? Yes. So you had that. I said, all right, I'm going to come on and do something different. I can't do it. Really the only, and I want to talk about some of the points you made just now. Really, the only defense, and if you want to make this defense fine, is that you always take the quarterback if you think he has a chance to be special. All right. If that's your defense, I can't say anything against that. Yes, that's true.

But I think the second point I think it was that you made is the one that I really have been thinking about more and more in the last 24 hours. And that's the process here, Soak. I googled. When did Falcon sign Kirk Cousin? It was March 13th. This was about six weeks before the NFL draft. This is a long process.

You mentioned it. Scouts are scouting. GMs are GMing. By March 13th, the coaches have watched the quarterbacks. They have opinions on him. Anyone who's relevant in your organization by March 13th should have an evaluation and opinion. on the top players in the draft when you have the number eight pick,

specifically when it's at quarterback. So by March 13th, you've had the combine, you've had all these different things. You've grinded the film. You've talked to him if you've needed to talk to him, all those things. And so at that time, hopefully you're having meetings and discussions, and someone's raising their hand and saying, hey, all right, I know this might sound weird, but I love Michael Pennix Jr. and someone else raises their hand. Hey, I really love Michael Pennix Jr.

And say, oh my gosh, wait, do we all love Michael Pennix Jr? And if you have an idea at that time, again, let's say March 10th, March 11th, then you can chart a different course. You could say, you know what? We want Michael Pennix Jr. There's a chance we don't get him. So let's sign a Jacoby Brissette. One year, $8 million. Let's sign a Gardner Minschew.

You know, there's that little chance we might not get Michael Pennix Jr. at 8. let's just make sure we have a safety net in that event where we have a quarterback, we can play in week one. They did not do this. If they thought that in the first week of March, that is the way you go. You don't go and be aggressive and essentially make Kurt Cousins an offer. He can't refuse. Remember, they were bidding against the Vikings. The Vikings had, like, wanted to bring Kurt Cousins back, but there was a number they weren't willing to go to.

And the Falcons really didn't have a number they weren't willing to go to. They were willing to do anything. So they didn't do that. They go ahead. They signed Kurt Cousins, like you said, 90 million, 100 million guaranteed, whatever the actual number is. If they would have not signed Cousinsh, and if they would have just signed Minshaw or Berset and taken Penix at 8, I would have had this argument with you. You would have come on and said, Pennix isn't a good prospect. He's old.

He's injured. And I would have said, all right, that's your evaluation. But you know what? Quarterback evaluation is hard. They have the 8th pick. They've had the 8th pick four years in a row. They never take a quarterback. They're taking a swing.

You know what? It's defensible. If they hit, if he's the 20th best quarterback on a rookie contract, that's a fine use of the number eight pick. And we could have had that argument now. We can't have that argument now because the guy's not going to get on the field until year three because you give this guaranteed money to Kirk. The whole point of taking the swing on the quarterback is because you have him on the rookie contract.

And even if he's just okay, you have an edge because you're not paying him that much when other teams are paying crappy quarterbacks, $40 million. You don't get that edge because now by the time he gets on the field, it's year three. You've cut that in half. Now you have him in year three and year four. So now if you're making the Jordan Love like comparison, all right, that was one time.

And he was in the 20s and Aaron Rogers was going year to year. And you had no idea what you were getting. You didn't just sign Aaron Rogers six weeks earlier. There was a monstrably bad relationship between Aaron Rogers and they hated each other. Everybody hated each other. And any time, you could have been like, bye, I'm leaving forever. Like this, it was such a unique situation relative to, you just got Kirk in the building.

They tampered for Kirk Cousins. They're going to lose picks. They're going to think they were they, Kirk was buying Georgia real estate before the tampering period began. They're going to get penalized for how hard they went after Kirk Cousins. And they drafted a quarterback at eight overall. And the Jacoby percent point you make this perfect. Because if they had signed Jacoby percent,

firstly we all would have been saying, oh, I wonder if the Falcons take a quarterback at eight overall. And absolutely, I would have come on here and I would have said, man, I don't like panics. Man, panics of the eight overall pick like that is way too much for me. But you have to swing. You have to do this at this stage. And you can argue.

I think this is a fair argument, too, to say, oh, well, Kirk Cousins is mid-30s coming off of an Achilles injury. So you should be investing in QB2 behind him. Absolutely. Love it. Great point. Oh, Joe Flacco when they drafted Lamar Jackson, right? Coming off of injury, and he wasn't off injury,

but he was already been banged up, whatever. That's fine. That's fine. That's fine. You just gave the guy. You can't wave away the fact that you just paid the... That's the key point. Yeah, that's the biggest point

that you need to protect yourself from, apparently. You just gave him a four-year deal $100 million guaranteed. I, my theory, honestly, my little pet theory, which I have no idea of this is true or not, is that hurt. If he was going to leave Minnesota, just wanted to go to Atlanta.

Like that, like, there was earlier reports like in, like, I remember late February, it was like, oh, like his wife wants to move to Georgia. And like, he wants to be in the south of his family, like Georgia or whatever. And like, obviously, the Zach Robertson, Sean McVeynexon, he was on the Washington staff.

McVey was his first coach. And so, okay, like, I think my thought is that if he wanted to leave Atlanta, or if he wanted to leave Minnesota, excuse me, he really wanted to go to Atlanta nowhere else. No Pittsburgh, no Denver, nothing. And so the Falcons were kind of like, all right, well, if we can do it. Like, I mean, like, let's do it.

Like, we have the inside track on Kirk Cousas. We're not going to waste the inside track. And then by the time they had signed the extension, they were proclamation, they were realizing, oh, we really like Michael Bennett said overall. and then they just justified it with QB2 conversation, which again, like the core of the issue, investing QB2 sound.

This is not the way to do it. This is a great example of how to the wrong way to invest in QB2. You're not going to get the benefits of good quarterback on a rookie deal heading on a late round pick. No, the lost opportunity from spending $100 million, the lost opportunity from using the eighth overall pick. Now you're not getting the rookie contract money, like you said. Michael Pennix, the eighth overall pick is a decent contract.

You're thinking $5.5 million a year. He is, he is, he is, that's legit backup quarterback money. He's, he's, he's just under a top 30 quarterback contract. Yeah. I don't know. It's wild. All right. So that's your theory.

Here's my theory. My theory is that, and I've said this before, Arthur Blank, after the last few seasons, basically told the decision makers, I am not sitting in my box. I am not walking down on the field and watching quarterback drek again this year. Get me somewhere. And then by the way, there is a quote, there is, Blank gave a line about QB2 at the Super Bowl. So before Kirk anything, Blank was doing unavailability. And he talked to the fact that they wanted to hear more about QB2.

So that's a good take. And then the other thing is that, well, no, no, I actually am not going that far. I'm saying that for Kirk Cousins. I think Arthur Blank said, we are signing Kirk. We like, get me Kirk Cus. And by the way, don't forget the ESPN.com article about the Belich-Belk, Falcons, flirtation, and really it was the Fontenos, the rich McKin, the people in Blanks here were like, no, no, no on Bill Belichick. And so it wasn't a power strip, but like if those people wanted Belichick, Belichick probably would have been there.

So then if you're blank, you're saying, all right, you're telling me not to go get Bill Belichick. Well, you better get me a quarterback because I'm tired of watching what I've watched here in previous seasons. So they signed Kurt Cousins. And then the Falcons have this workout in Seattle. Like I said, this is after they signed Kurt Cousins. And apparently that is the spot where they fell in love with Michael Pennix Jr. And the number one Capati rule of the office season, do not fall in love. Do not fall in love with free agents, with draft prospects, with trade.

You got to just, all right, and don't be emotional about it. And then they fall in love with him there. And they convince him, hey, you know what? I know we signed Kurt Cousins, but man, we can't pass on this guy. And so now you end up in this situation with Pennix and Cousin. Not for nothing. But like so they go, they had that, that work. out with him, right? And they met him at the combine. They did not have him in for a top 30 visit.

Right, which is weird. Which, and I, please somebody correct me if I have this wrong. If they didn't bring him into a top 30 visit, they did not get a one-on-one medical meeting with it. I'm fairly certain. I'm pleased not if I'm wrong. That at the combine, he gets like a general medical checkout. That information gets disseminated to teams. But in terms of like just Michael Panics with the Falcons doctors being like, all right, let's check out this knee, son. Like, none of it, which is a big decision to make given his injury history. I know top 30 visit for a top 10 picket quarterback is astonishing on top of everything else. Yeah.

So it does feel like it was something that happened and maybe the month leading up to the draft. And they decided, you know what? Let's go get him quarterback of the future, all those things. Gosh, I hope this works out for them. There's going to be so many clips from us on this podcast. Well, here's the thing. I've tried to think about that. Like, all right, I was like, all right,

Sheila, how does this make you look stupid, you know, three years from now where your take is absolutely wrong? And really, it's just that if Michael Penix is really good for them. Like, if he's a fan, still process-wise, I don't think it's the right move. Again, I would defend it if they had not just given Kurt Cousins the 90 million guarantee. That to me is the big thing, that they just did that six weeks prior. And also, let's look at the organization.

If this was an organization that we looked at and said this organization's been buttoned up and they're ahead of the curve and they're making smart moves, then, and it probably shouldn't be that way. I'd be more inclined to be like, all right, maybe they got something I don't know. You know, they operate in a way that I don't know and maybe it makes sense. The Falcons have not been that organization. The Falcons have mostly been a dumpster fire of an organization, you know, the past several years here. So I'm not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt. Last thing I wanted to say, enough crying, Kurt Cousins. Okay, like I like to be an empathetic person.

I like to put myself in other people's shoes and try to think, oh, they're going. You got $281 million. You're living in a place you want to live. There's not going to be a spotlight on you. The bar is going to be low. If you go 9 and 8 to make the playoffs, everyone's going to be happy. And you still get to be the starter for two years. And if you're playing well, you get to go somewhere else.

I mean, my gosh, the whining. And, no, I'm like, I am not going to be made to feel bad for Kirk Cousins. Like, I agree with what you're saying about. the dynamics of the locker room and if Cousins doesn't play. That part is true, but give me a break. I can give you 400,000 more people I feel empathetic for than Kirk Brick and Cousins. So that was a little over the top for me. Okay. Everybody settled down. So I half agree. I half agree. And the half me that doesn't agree, again, goes back to you just signed me to a deal, right? Which like, there's no fine print in the deal that says, and also I have to like all of your moves for the next six months.

But it is reasonable for Kirk and his agent Mike McCartney to say, given the historical data of quarterback signing four-year, $180 million extensions, we kind of thought you weren't going to draft a QB2 at eight overall because this is unprecedented. And that, I think that putting the Falcons under the microscope for that by being critical and making sure that certain people in the media are critical and like leaking stuff and whatever, I understand why they feel like that's the necessary result.

That's the necessary response because this is, a quarterback has never been treated like this one. That's not to say that he needs to be reacting the way that he is, but I understand why he is. Again, in terms of the empathy of it all, I get why he's like, all right, we're going to be foote, and we're going to be footech for a bit. Like that's fair to me.

The checks will still deposit in the account. You'll be taking the first team reps. Also, oh, I mean, how about being, good person. Welcome in it, welcome him in. I wasn't expecting this, but it's all good. You're 36 years old at this stage in your life. I mean, take the guy under your wing. If he beats you out, he beats you out. I think we can all agree that's how you and I would do it because of our unbelievable moral

constitution. But I can empathize with a regular person, not, not react to. If I log into this pod at any time and there's just some five-year younger version of me, I will be, I will be completely hostile. All right, write that down, write it. If I just signed for whatever our version of 90 million guaranteed is, I'll say bring them on. Go ahead. Go ahead, little guy. How can I help you? You need any tips here?

Is that mic working for you? All right, they probably need to give me tips on the technological stuff. All right, that was good. So we were both on the same page. That was my second take, but you're right. We needed to just hit that off the bat because we hadn't talked about. All right, let's take a break. We'll come back and we will get to Stolak's second tip.

All right. We are back on. Extra point taking. So, like, what do you got? What's your second take? Good, Pennix discussion. You know, I was wondering, are we going to be a little fatigued? Are we still going to have the juice?

But I think, you know, we had a little absence between us, you know? So now I feel like it was like, hey, we got to bring the juice now. All right, go ahead. Okay. I am a low word about the San Francisco 49ers. I am a bit. Here's the thing. I don't think that you get to do a full two days, not two days.

a full two rounds of we're trying to trade Brandon Ayyuk. We're trying to trade Debo Samuel. Oh, now it turns out we're more likely to trade Devo Samuel than we ought to trade Brandon Ayuk. Oh, we can't find a deal for Brin and Iuk. Trying to find a deal for Debo Samuel. I could have found a deal for Debo Samuel. And then show up in August and be like, let's run it back, Super Bowl.

Like, that's the part of this that that's concerning to me. I think the 49ers did the right thing draft-wise in terms of at their pick, 31 overall. They took Richard Pearsall, Whiteer out of Florida, who I liked quite a bit. I would not have pegged Pearsall as the 49ers target because I think that he's not a Debo Samuel and he's not a Brandon Iuk in terms of like his pro comparison and how he'll succeed. And so if they were drafting one to one, I would have thought they would go a different direction. But Pearsall is like, you know, really rock steady over the middle of the field, excellent time. He's a great routes.

He separates off press coverage. Like this is this is more so a Cooper Cup sort of a guy if you wanted to find an analogy in this offense in this system. more so than he has like a brand in iuk or a debo samuel but i think they did the right thing and taking a wide receiver early now when you have to take that wide receiver early to protect yourself from a debo trade or an iuk trade and protect the future you don't get to spend the early picks on corner defensive tackle and offensive tackle where we we potentially thought you would and so they come in the second round they get the corner ronardo green out of florida state and it's a good scheme fit for them they get dominic puny who's a uh an interior office alignment probably in a league

for kansas who i think is a nice pick for them big brawler guy i think that protecting their guard spot, their right guard spot is a good idea, and they extended Coltman McKibbitts, they can give another year right tackle. Like, they kind of colored in the lines where they could in, in day two, because you know, okay, potentially we, we had to spend this early think of wide receiver because of the movement, so now we got to address our needs a little bit later. And then in day three, they did what, again, is smart for the 49ers to do, which is kind of protect themselves from injury from some of their key guys. They draft Isaac Garando, who's a running back out of Louisville in the fourth round. Okay, let's have some running back depth behind Christian McCaffrey.

They date Jacob Cowing, the wide receiver in Arizona in the fourth round as well. let's have more wide receivers in the hopper, let's get ready for these top guys to leave, protect ourselves from injury. Like, that's all fine, well and good. So, like, philosophically, the way they approached the draft, I think was good. Their likelihood of getting an impact player out of Green and Poonie is lower because they had to draft them later. And Piersall is pretty low because right now, like the depth turn in front of them is pretty loaded,

right? Right. Like, on every single snap that the 49ers play, Debo, Iyuk, Hiddle, and McCaffrey should be expected to be out there, right? And the guy, the fifth guy they like to have out there is Kyle Eushche, because he's what kind of makes their system work and unique and whatever. Now, you can take some snaps away from IU, take some snaps away from Debo to get some snaps there for Ricky Pierrasol. But if both Debo and Ike around the field, it's likely that Pearsall is not a high-impact player in year one, because he doesn't have the opportunity. And then you're drafting a corner

later and off the line later. They didn't get a defensive tackler and edge rusher at all, which I think less and a little bit more thin on the defensive line than they usually are. So in the world of which, like Debo and I you stay on the roster. This is just like, it's not a super high impact draft. It's a forward looking, future looking draft. I appreciate that. But I don't think they like got better as a roster over free agency in the draft from last year's Super Bowl team to this year's team.

Now, if Brandon, Iyuk or Debo Samuel does have an issue and we get, well, training camp hold out. We got a little, all frustration, a little I'm not paying trade me. We get a little drama. There's, you know, there are worlds in which the Niners vibes are really just, tough and challenging entering the season, right? Where you have star talent who is frustrated. You're coming off of an extremely disappointing Super Bowl loss.

And you have now, the last six years of Shaneahan had been defined by frustrating Super Bowl losses, frustrating NFC playoff losses, and inability to get the ball across the line. We're getting a little bit old in San Francisco now, too. George Kittles is 30. Debo Samuel is 28. Christian McCaffrey is 27. We still got time, but we had less time than we did. All right, we are starting to bump up into the, into the, we're past our prime era,

for some of these offensive weapons. And so, Trent Williams is also another one, right? Where just how many more years can you expect to go to sleep knowing that your left tackle situation is just the best in the league no matter what? Trent Williams is a 35 years old, shield. So the 49ers, like, I remember last year, there was a like, hey, like, it's going to start, you know, the Brock Purdy and everything, but like, it's going to start falling apart. And I was like, no, I don't, I don't know if I buy it yet. I'm starting to get there with the 49ers. I'm like, man, this public of a trade process, I can tend to start to get some water inside the fractures, water inside the cracks of the foundation. I think this is going to take a steady

John Lynch hand kind of maneuvering this ship through the water, so you're getting them to the season right and ready to go. Yeah, it's, you know, you look at it with Ayuk and Dbo. I think Ayuk is probably the key one because he's going into the final year of his deal here. It is kind of hard to imagine a scenario where he is just there and happy if he's just playing out his contract. So I mean, maybe an extension just does get done between now and week one of next season. It always felt like to me that, like, I don't know if you get rid of Ayuk, it's a little fragile there, you know, like Debo Samuel, you mentioned he's 28, but we all watch Debo Samuel play.

And he plays a very fun style of football, but a very violent style of football where he is, you know, looking for contact all the time and his physical, one of the most physical wide receivers in the NFL. And so you wonder how he's going to age there. And so now you have both those guys. The other thing is, it's like you're mentioning, like, if you're a 49ers fan listening to this, you're probably saying like, all right, those are like little things. We're bringing back the entire offense.

We'll sign Iyuk before the season. And we just added a wide receiver, calm down. So like, like, we're going to be fine. And there's an argument for that. There's also a reason why since 2000, only one time has a team that's lost the Super Bowl, gotten back to the Super Bowl the next year. Because all these little things seem to creep up and one guy's not happy and another guy's not happy.

And you have an injury here that you weren't expecting. and by the way, the pressure from the head coach, who that really applies in this situation, the head coach feeling the pressure to finally deliver all those things add up and all of a sudden it doesn't look the way you were expecting it to look. It's something we talk about all the time on here. Run it back works for a year, maybe two, right?

But what, like the way we talk about the Dallas Cowboys, the way we talked about the San Francisco 49ers, right? Like, you have to feel just psychologically as a player. You have to feel like there's some sort of vector, right? there's some sort of of change that now is going to be the straw that breaks the Campbell's back. That's what Brock Purdy was for the 49ers, last playoffs in this playoffs, right? It was okay. Like, you know, Brock, like, Brock's the guy.

Like, we got the guy. And obviously they had McCaffrey then as well. Then they have the injuries that was the Eagles championship game. Okay, we'll bring it back. They get through the NFC playoffs. They get to Kansas City. And they object, like, for the majority of the game clock of that game, they outplayed Kansas City. They did.

And they make a mistake. It doesn't matter. Here, Patrick Mahomes, Inevitable, Andy Reid, repeat, we're going to three feet. So it's so hard. It is so challenging to, in usual context, walk back into camp next year and say, guys, like last year was supposed to be it, but it wasn't. This year is it. We got it.

Don't worry about it. That's a hard message to sell. These are adults. They will feel that, like, all right, we're just kind of like trying to do the same stuff and insanity, you know, doing the same thing twice. It doesn't work. That's a hard sell under typical condition under, and we were very obviously trying to trade one of our two-star receivers in the NFL draft.

Everybody knows about this. that's a big question that you have to be able to answer internally. You bring up the, you know, does Iyuk get extended this summer? It's a good question. I don't think that's off the table at all. What was an IUC extension going to be three weeks ago? All right? They had the ability to sign them to one.

It's gotten more expensive. All these guys, they think, I don't know what they think is the, they think the price is going to get, the price doesn't go down. Like the Cowboys with Citi Lamb, the Niners with Ayuk. It's wild. So, yeah, since, like, in the week of the draft, the Monrae St. Brown signs a four-year deal with a hundred $120 million.

He's just over $30 million average per year. The new highest wide receiver average per year figure of retiree kill. AJ Brown gets extended a little bit later, kind of just more years tagged on to his already existing contract, whatever. But his new APY's new average per year is $32 million, which those numbers aren't real for like, can you cut him?

Like what is like, you know, salary cap, restructure. But for agents and then subsequently for players, that's the average for years the number. I want the tweet. I'm the highest paid wide receiver for year in NFL. In order to get that, you have to beat now $32 million. I think the price tag of a brand IUC per year went up like $4 million last week.

And you got to sign it for your five-year extension. That's an extra $20 million. I think that if you were having problems getting to IUC's number previously, it didn't just get easier with we weren't able to trade Ux. We think you're very valuable. And also Amon-Ros St. Brown, A.J. Brown signed extensions. And so it's tough, man. And the Debo point is a critical one because I'm always alone on Debo Island.

and I think he's such an elite player. The thing is, like, without question to me, the more integral player to making the offense work is Debo, for sure. Like, in terms of, like, the Django pieces that, like, make the scheme work, you need a player like Debo, like, live at the back field and, like, the top catch over the middle of the field and the yards after the catch and the tackle break, like, it's Debo, absolutely.

But that's also the role that you want to be more active in replacing because of the hits that accumulate. Debo is the more, like, valuable role, but it's also the role where you need to have a guy in the hopper. And if Pearsall, if they view Pearsall as a replacement one to one of the two, he's absolutely an IUC replacement in terms of how he operates. So they are keeping their eggs in the Debo basket and saying like, this is the guy that is integral to us,

we'll replace the other wide receiver spot, which I understand academically, it just scares me with the hits. It just scares me with the accumulated physicality of that role. And so they're in a tenuous spot. There's a way to get through it. And this is what John Lynch is what the money's for, right? Kyle Shanahan Peace, Seth Bukasham wrote about ESS,

at ESPN before the Super Bowl where he's like, Kyle's crazy and Kyle's this and Kyle's that. There was a big section in that piece where it was like, but John Lynch is the perfect duo for Kyle Shanean because he's a nice, happy man who makes people feel better after Kyle makes him feel like the worst person in the world. All right, John Lynch, like if that's the gag, right, it's like, all right, we have Kyle's system and Kyle's understanding of personnel, but you're here for the interpersonal nature of everything. Buddy, big summer for John Lynch, because you got to make it sweet on offense here in order to really and truly run it back for a Super Bowl run next year.

Yeah, your point about the price going up is a great. good one. I mean, I think Devante Smith got $25 million a year. And so when he signed that, it was like, all right, this might be a good comp for Ayuk. But then Amman Ross, St. Brown gets $30 million a year. Now, if you're Ayuk, you're like, well, I don't know, like, am I that far off from Amman Ross, St. Brown? So now the price is going to go out there. So he would probably come in somewhere in between those two, and you're paying McCaffrey, and you're paying Debo, and you're paying George Kittle, and you're paying Trent Williams. So it's not that you can't do it. It's a matter of what do you want to do? Do you want to do it? Who's replaceable?

And how much do you want to just run it back and feel like let's bring everyone back and try to win the Super Bowl? I don't think you can rule anything out. I mean, you know, teams now with their draft capital, they might say, all right, we don't want to trade our first this year, but our first next year for Brandon Ayu. Maybe. And if you're the 49ers, you might say, well, we can't go into the season with Ayuk on the last year of his deal. Let's just get something done here and you get something done. So really everything's on the table. But yeah, that continues to be a storyline to watch in San Francisco.

my next one. So I think the New York Jets did everything they could this offseason to make the Aaron Rogers thing work. Now, let me be clear. Hold on, everybody, slow down. I'm not saying it's going to work. This isn't me saying it's going to work. But I think they at least did what they could to give this thing a chance. And by the way, they didn't risk their future to give it a chance. You and I always talk about GMs, you know, find the GM who's on the hot seat and go take advantage of them. And it looks like it is, I think, reality that Joe Douglas is that guy. But to Joe Douglas' credit, he acted responsibly. I mean, he's like the 13-year-old. The parents gave him the credit card, and he came back. And he's like, yeah, I didn't really need anything. It's like, wait, what? Yeah, okay, all right.

So that's how Joe Douglas operated for money. Like, he didn't put them in a hole for the future with the decisions he made. So you look at this overall. They added three veterans on the offensive line, Tyrant Smith, John Simpson, and Morgan Moses. Smith is a one-year commitment with incentives. He's been very injured throughout his career, especially in recent years. But man, the Tyrant Smith film from last year is nice. If that guy's on the field and healthy, he is still, in my opinion, a great, great left tackle.

So you have Tyrant Smith, you have a chance there. And then you have Simpson and Moses, who came over from the Ravens, who you hope can be just competent players, competent starters for you. At 11, I was worried. Are they going to do something wild here? and I think they made a fine pick. Olu Faschinoo, the offensive tackle from Penn State. I thought that was absolutely a sensible pick, a reasonable pick.

Short term, it gives them insurance. If Tyrant Smith goes down, well, guess what? At least you have someone who will see, you know, how good he is. It's always hard with rookies, but you have someone who can play for him. And long term, even if this thing doesn't work out and everyone gets fired, guess what? Jets, you have a potential left tackle for the future. So they do that on the offensive line. They signed Mike Williams in the...

the offseason. Again, it was a low-risk move. And then they draft Malachi Corley, the wide receiver in the third round. So they are a fragile team. They were always, but the point is they were always going to be a fragile team. When you have a quarterback who's 40 coming off in Achilles injury, and you have two tackles who are in their 30s, you're going to be a fragile team. When you have, I hate to even bring this up, Nathaniel Hackett's, like, if they had an OC, So Laak, who I believed in, I might be, I'd be going further with this take, but I keep coming about, oh, God, I forgot Nathaniel Hackett is still calling this offense. So again, there's a lot of fragility to it. I'm not telling you it's going to work, but I think the moves they made in the offseason culminating there with the

draft over the weekend, at least give them a chance. Right, wrong, agree, disagree? What do you think? Yeah, I'm with you. First five picks for the Jets all on offense. I think that's the absolutely correct way to go about it. Not behaving as if the Tyrant Smith, Morgan Moses, and Mike Williams picks are anything more than dart throws is the right way to go. about it. We're still going to invest in offensive tackle. We're still going to invest in a wide receiver. I did find back-to-back, a running back, including a trade-up. A little weird, right? Behind Brie's Hall, I guess, like, you know, you're preparing for injury there. Braylon Allen, Isaiah Davis. Braylon Allen's a fun player. He's cool. Jordan

Travis is like, George Travis is probably the worst quarterback I've watched this year. He goes in the fifth round. I don't like, I don't like the pick there, but okay, like, I, okay, you know, making sure you have one young quarterback on your roster because it was just Rogers and Tyrod. Like, that is the correct way to go about it. I think that all of that is down. I agree with you with a Nathaniel Hackey point where it's like, listen, like, you should be able to get a functional offense out of it. And if you don't, I should say like with an asterisk on there,

like assuming Rogers can move coming off the Achilles. There's some worlds we have to remember. Rogers rushed back so quickly from the initial Achilles injury that there's a chance that his long-term athleticism is dramatically hampered because he just went, he kind of tried to cut some corners there on the recovery. So as long as Rogers can like move, and be functional. There should be like a league average offense out of it. And then obviously like the expectations for this defense are pretty much perennial top five, top seven, top eight defense. That's enough to

like make playoff noise. That's enough to like, you know, okay, like let's push for the division. And maybe if, yeah, the dolphins are are thin and the, uh, the bills don't bounce back and whatever, like, yeah, like the jets make the playoffs. Then you can hold on to the job for another year and you can continue to build or whatever. But I don't know. I don't have faith in anything to break for the Jets, let alone the fact that Nathaniel Hackett is the O.C. there. And so they did everything they could. I still wouldn't describe myself as like feeling good about it. I agree. Would you, have you looked at the odds for the Jets playoffs? Do you want to guess? To make the playoffs, what do you think the Jets are? Plus 3.30.

Oh my gosh. Minus 114. Get out of town, dude. To make the playoffs. Minus 106 to not make the playoffs. That's crazy, Solek. For all I just said, they're over under on wins is nine and a half, Solek. Listen, for Jets fans, I just said some nice things, but my goodness, if you are somebody who likes to dabble in this type of thing, I don't know. I might jump on my fan tool app and say, all right, let's fade them a little bit. I mean, it really would not take much for that thing to completely fall apart. So I actually think for everything I just said, their value is inflated, in my opinion, on at least the betting markets when you look at those numbers. But I would say, listen, Joe Douglas acted responsibly. They got some players. We'll see what it

looks like. If you're a Jets fan, you know, it's just year after year of nonsense and you're hoping you get something out of it. So you can talk yourself into maybe, maybe this being a year that is a little bit different. All right, take one more break. Come back with our final takes and the extra point. All right. We're back on extra point taken. It's all that. What do you got? Joe, my third take. I really like the way the Steelers went about this. I know everybody's talking about it.

I know that the Steelers, like, everybody's, oh, Steelers' draft is so well-graded. Steelers this, Steelers, that. So I understand a lot of people we're talking about the Steelers. But I look at this and I go, yeah, this is sick. You watch, pre-draft, do you watch any Troy Fottonoo, the tackle out of Washington? Yeah.

Yeah. Excellent player. Unbelievable movement skills. Great. Like, they left him on an aisle inch to every single game. He's dominated whoever's opposite of him. Got positional versatility. he's got unique movement traits which really feature him in the running game. Great pick.

You watch any Zach Frazier at Western Virginia? He's like an offensive lineman's offensive lineman, right? He reminds me so much of Creed Humphrey at Oklahoma, where just like, he's got, oh, the wrestling background, oh, the frame and the build. Zach Frazier, like, is a, as a hateful man. He is just an angry son of a guy. Dude, he's so freaking fun to watch. He's just violent and aggressive, but not, not like, reckless, not like high, a little bit of penalties. not too high penalties. Like he is, he is very Pittsburgh, very tone-centeredy, very like, you know, this is the way that this line is going to go. You actually Mason McCormick out of South Dakota State.

And Mason McCormick is, and Frazier like Fottonauton, good athlete, good mover. Mason McCormick is a nasty player and a good mover. Like they, on the offensive line, they didn't just like, you know, say, okay, we are going to invest heavily in this line, but they said we're going to do it with a philosophy. We're going to do it with a theory.

Which, whenever there's like, you know, a clear cognitive thread to picks. We tend to like overrated, be like, oh, I see the vision. I see what they're planning to do. The name of the game is just get good players. But for Pittsburgh, this is, this super investment in the offensive line just makes so much sense. They move on from Mason Cole, cutting him outright. He was their starting center last year.

Duke's a quarter of four, who was their starting right tackle, got benched halfway to the season. They moved on from him outright in favor of Broderick Jones, who was their first round pick last year. And then they go and they take three players, all of whom can play on the interior, one of whom, and Troy Fontonu, can potentially just take the left tackle job from Dan Moore flat out. The philosophy here has such good short-term benefits and long-term benefits. That I think is a sign of really good drafting. When you have Justin Fields and Russell Wilson on the roster, you have two extremely

long dart throws at quarterback, right? You don't expect either one of these players to be long-term. However, in the event that one of them succeeds, it is very likely that you have high-calibre offensive line play because both these guys are very liable to invite pressure and invite sacks. They're going to do it no matter what, right? There's no offense line in the world that's going to save them from just being high-sacred players when they're pressured. But if we have a really high-caliber line, then we can a little bit protect these guys

from their worst selves and just introduce far fewer pressures on a snap-to-snap basis on a game-to-game basis so that they're greater demons, their issues with handling pressure, just show up less often. So short-term, like, if we are going to succeed on offense with one of these two dudes, it's likely our offensive line played really well this season. So you know what? We're going to make sure we have the bodies necessary to get that caliber of play from the offensive line. Three of their first four picks, all round four earlier, go offensive line. Long term,

it's great having a good offensive line. There's no world to have a good offensive. It's like, you're like, oh, like, we're drafting for these receivers to fit the Arthur Smith system, Arthur's supposed to be here in two years. Oh, we're drafting, you know, this style of corner to match with Joey Porter, Jr., this, everything. Oh, it's conditional on that player, conditional on this coach. No, like, there is not going to be a, Mike Tomlin gets fired next year. Mike Tomlin gets a 10-year extension next year. There's not going to be a world in which Troy Fotton, who, Zach Frazier, Mason McCormick aren't good, handy building block players. It's a nice thing about the offensive line.

It is a unifying thing. Everybody wants a good one of these. So long term, like, this is going to help us out. Think about the way that the Steelers want to run the football and have run the football and what they have in Najee Harris and Jalen Warren. Again, like no matter who your starting quarterback is 2024 and 2025, Russell Wilson, Justin Fields, or X, X is some young rookie quarterback, some second round pick, whatever.

A good running game is going to be able to just normalize the smooth the experience for onboarding that rookie or working with that 17th, 8th, team's best quarterback that you have where you're trying to be like a run the ball, ground, a pound defensive team. Like, philosophically, this draft, it kind of has universal appeal. Like, it's going to work for whatever the Steelers look like in two or three years. And it has specific appeal. It works for the Steelers right now.

And so I think it's such a good example of the right way to draft, right? Where you want to get a short-term benefit, but still retain a long-term view in the room. This is really, really good stuff on that offensive line investment. Throwing the fact that, like, I like Roman Wilson. Like, I think you can break into the roster. There's a good route runner. They needed that with Deonton Johnson gone. Peyton Wilson, people talk about him like he's this great linebacker prospect.

I personally didn't like him very much. But once we're in the third round, I'm like, all right, let's take the guy who has no ACL and 31-inch arms. And like, if we found an outlier, sick. If we did it, eh, like, who cares? Like, that, this was, this is the right way to go about drafting. I'm very impressed by the Steelers, especially because, like, this offseason coming in, they could have, I think, been like a freak out team, like, be super aggressive. Like, we've got to justify this right now.

Like, this is kind of not good. We need Mike Tomlin to be okay. No, like this is a very steady. We believe in ourselves. We believe in our process approach. I thought best draft in the class, in my opinion. The Washington Pittsburgh Steelers. Yeah, I said during the last show we did with Ruiz and Austin Gale,

I gave them my MTSA award, moves that make sense. I mean, you look at their entire office, this draft specifically, but really, look at the whole offseason. You and I don't think Russell Wilson's going to be very good. It's a fine dart to throw. Justin Fields. You like him more than I do. It's a fine dart to, like, it is smart.

They're moves. When you're stuck, some teams are just like, oh, we're stuck, and then they're feeding, you know, they're giving to the talk to their favorite national reporter. And then that national reporter makes an excuse for them on social media. And then they're stuck again and they don't do anything. The Steelers are making smart moves. It might work out. It might not work out.

You like all these offensive linemen. You know what? Two of them might stink. They might be backups, but it doesn't matter. We're talking about evaluating their decisions at the time. They make those decisions. And they're making smart decisions. This was a two-year rebuild on the offensive line.

They used the first round pick last year. They signed Isaac Sayamalu, and now they're investing two top 51 picks this year. That's smart. Give yourself a chance. Their run game was good last year, the Pittsburgh Steelers, with terrible offensive coordinators. Their run game was still good. And how you get Arthur Smith? That run game should be really good this year with Jalen Warren and Najee Harrison.

So it's like, can you put the quarterbacks in position to succeed? Now, it might not work, but I like the OC higher. I like the offensive line moves. and I like the dart throws the quarterback. Defensively, there's still talent on that side of the ball. T.J. Watt, Cam Hayward. Hi, Smith. They signed Patrick Queen.

You got Joey Porter Jr. in his second season. Minka Fitzpatrick, like, there are talented players on that side of the ball. And you have a lot of motivated people there. I think Mike Tomlin talked about this. But like, Arthur Smith is trying to get his, I'm sure he wants another shot at a head coaching job. He's, you know, he didn't look very good there in Atlanta. So now he gets a shot here. Justin Field, trying to resurrect his career.

Russell Wilson trying to make something with the end of his career. Like it is an interesting mix. And then you have Mike Tomlin, the like master motivator mixing it all together. And yeah, I'm with you. I don't know where I'm going to be picking the Steelers once we get to August and make our official picks.

But I'm usually the one gassing them up here a little bit. So I'm glad you did it here because, yeah, I think they had, I think if you're a Steelers fan, like this is basically as good as you could have hoped your off season would have gone. Yeah. This is, I was looking through the Steelers.

I was like, this is such shield catnip team. This is just, this is just, I already did it. Yeah, I know. Otherwise, I would have done it today. Yeah. I can't wait for an August pod where you're trying to tell me about the 10 and seven Steelers and the, you know, and they're still going to be drafted a quarterback early. Like, this is the exact way to build for the future everything, which like I just did as well. But like it's, it's again, like MTS. Right. It's the logic of everything. It's the coherence of everything. That just, yeah, this, the Steelers team in terms of the weird transition stage that they're out. And again, talk about being willing to move off of mistakes. to Kenny Pickett and train him away and all that. Like, this is, this is a team that understands where they're at and what they need to go in the direction they'd like to go.

And so Pittsburgh, man, it's a well, it's a well-run team. I know they're not getting the postseason success that their fans want, but it's a well-run team. I'm going to have a little Steelers nugget in my third point. But before we get to that, so I need to tell you that, today's extra point taken is presented by State Farm. Life is full of personal wins from finishing a DIY project to scoring tickets to a big game or buying a new car.

And with the State Farm Personal Price Plan, you can keep winning when you create an affordable price just for you by bundling home and auto. Talk to a State Farm agent today to learn how you can bundle and save with the personal price plan. Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. You know, I needed to tell you about a little personal win I had. So, like, I think I've told you about this coffee shop.

I think I went over some of the details before. Yes, no reward system. Very upset. Yeah. So they have a reward system. So everyone listening, if you didn't hear this before, you go and they say, hey, can we get your phone number? So you give them your phone number and they say, okay, you're eligible for rewards. But it's a blind system.

There's no card. They don't say spend this much. You get this much. They don't say buy six coffees. You get your. So you go in there, not knowing when do I get my rewards with Sol. The other day, I go in there. You know, my daughter likes the croissants.

I get her a croissant. I get myself a coffee. You say, can I have your phone number? of my phone number, they say, you get $2 off. We got it, maybe we found it. I said, let's go. I'm coming back here. So, you know, those little things in life, they make you happy.

And so that was a personal win for me. So you probably have some personal wins as well. Listen, today's extra point taken. You got one? The personal coffee win for me is on the ringer NFL draft show, there was a listener who heard me and Daniel Hypatts talking about a mutual love for coffee. And I can't recall this person's connection to counterculture coffee. which is a Chicago company.

But they have the ability to send free coffee beans. I know that. I got two bags of free coffee. This is my first ever, like, listeners sent me thing. And let me tell you, I will sell out for anything. What a feeling, electric. I just had the bags up on my, on my little coffee garage. I just look at them when I walk by.

I'm like, that's right. I got those for talking about the Broncos. Elite. Listen, the sellout part applies to both of us, whatever, you know, has t-shirts, coffee. All right, I should probably. This is a branded segment. So State Farm, of course, we will absolutely sell out for State Farm. Today's extra, how you snuck in like another ad within an ad.

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prices are based on rating plans that vary by state coverage options are selected by the customer availability amount of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by date all right my last point here stalact i'm really jumping the gun i'm getting ahead of ourselves because people that will take a little peek behind the curtain like solex got a little paternity leave coming up soon so like if i want to get this stuff i've got to i got to get into it here soon so slack for you i have three candidates for the extra point take a team of 2024. We're not picking one today. No, but this is just to get the ball rolling.

So if you're a new listener and you don't know, last year before the season, we said, all right, we got to pick one team. They got to have plus odds to make the playoffs. We'll both root for them. Solex putting his cheesehead on. He sent me one as well. We picked an additional round team, baby. We went with the Packers.

We hit on the Packers. and it was an amazing pick. I mean, we loved watching the factors. Like, yeah, it wasn't like one of those teams that just snuck in and you're like, all right, we picked them, but no big deal. So we got to pick another one for 2024. And I was just opening up that Fandul page and I was looking, all right, who could it be? Do you want to guess?

Do you want me to read you all the teams with plus odds and you guess which three? Because I narrowed it down to three. I feel like I could guess. So why don't we do it, yeah. Okay. So here are the teams that have plus odds to make the playoffs. Arizona Cardinals. Carolina Panthers, Cleveland Brown, Denver Broncos,

Indianapolis Colt, Jacksonville Jaguars, Las Vegas Raiders, Los Angeles Rams, Minnesota Vikings, New England Patriots, New Orleans Saints, New Orleans Saints, New York Giants, Pittsburgh Steelers, Seattle Seahawks, Tampa Bay Bucks, Tennessee Titans, and Washington commander. So by the betting markets, those teams, you know, you are getting plus odds. They are not expected to make the playoffs according to the betting markets on Fandu. I picked out three teams from there. Honestly, it wasn't that hard.

So like I went through and I go, these are the three teams we're going to be picking from. I don't even have, I had like one maybe. I had one or two that I thought, all right, they could sneak in there. But I felt good about my three picks. Which three teams do you think I chose as the candidates for? the extra point taken team. Colts for sure.

No, they were just, they were just left out. I thought about them. The Indianapolis Colts, they are plus 156 that may make the playoffs. I did think about them. They were one of the two that just got left out. I was going to strongly petition for the, I will be strongly petitioning for the Colts

when we get later in the summer. Anthony Richardson, all right, rolling back a lot of that team, adding Laotu, this is, and Adonai Mitchell. This is, I like the way the Colts are pulling through. second act Ballard. I'm back. This is when Ballard's good. All right. Rookie quarterback, a lot of expectations. The new hair got you in. His hair's looking good. What, the lettuce.

Okay. Good? We like good? That's good. What, the lettuce? Yeah. Listen, I'm anytime I see somebody with the hair just being like, I'm going to go for it as a bald man, you got to appreciate it. I was astonished to see that. I had no idea Ballard was up to that. I don't know he was cooking that. I found it very disorienting. I would like to know his workout plan, honestly. He could have like a YouTube channel. the guy, I mean, he's not missing a workout. It looks like that.

We need a jacked plus hair theorem for GMs. Either jacked or good hair, one of the two. If you have both, not good. All right. So if not them, Steelers up there, you said you have a Steelers not getting this one. So Steelers have got to be won. I gave the shield.

Bad job by you. Why'd you give that away? Yeah, Steelers got to be in there. They're plus 172 to make the playoffs. Their over under wins is seven and a half. Come on. Give them to Tomlin, 17 straight seasons. the guy has not been under 500.

And now with this team, you're telling me he's going to finish under 500. So yes, the Pittsburgh Steelers are in the mix. I famously threw them in the mix last year. You rejected them, even though your father is a Steelers fan. So maybe this will be the year that Papa Stoleack. I don't know if he'll get his wish or not, because you make fun of the Steelers, usually. But Steelers are one of the three teams. All right, two more.

What do you got? I'm going to say the Rams. I do not have the Rams in there. Oh, wow. Okay, so the Rams are plus 112, and I sort of felt like that's weird that they have plus odds to make the playoffs. Given that really, they could have gotten to the Super Bowl last season. I didn't necessarily love the offseason for the Los Angeles Rams. I talked about this on the last show.

You got the weird Matthew Stafford contract thing going on. You lost Aaron Donald. I thought they made a wild trade moving up there in the second round. So maybe I'll get there by the time August rolls around, but no, the Rams were not one of my pick. Okay, so I gave my three guesses. I went one to three. Okay, those are your three. Yeah, yeah.

So who are you actually endorsing? What do we think about going back to the Seattle Seahawks this summer? Are they a year away? They might be a year away. Okay, but here's the case. Here's the case for the Seattle Seahawks. You know, I thought their draft was fine, especially the first two picks, Byron Murphy, defensive tackle from Texas like him,

Christian Haynes, Guard, liked him. This offense last year, I think people don't realize. they were 12th in offensive DVOA last year. And now they're adding Ryan Grubb offensive coordinator who is kind of like a universally, like people are like, oh, no, this guy is interesting. Like wait till this guy brings his stuff to the NFL. So I like the offensive coordinator.

The defense has been a mess for years, but now you add a Mike McDonald who, come on. I mean, Mike McDonald, everybody was loving that Ravens defense. Last year, I know it's about talent, but it's not like they don't have any talent on that defense. And really, they've been mediocre to below average. for like six straight season. So I think he can get a little something out of that defense.

So the case against the Seahawks is that you don't move on from Pete Carroll and just the next year become like a better team that's disrespectful to a Pete Carroll. This isn't going to be a one-year fix. There's going to be some growing pains. Don't overrate what you think of Mike McDonald just because you like a Mike McDonald.

So that's the case against them. I also think so like McDonald will be good with the game management stuff better than Pete Carroll just kind of giving. in his background. So that's the case for the Seahawks. You look like you're not, because the wildcard picture in the NFC

is pretty interesting. You can go in a lot of different directions. I was wondering, could they just sneak in there? You're not feeling it. Plus 194. I, in terms of teams that I am bad at

calibrating to, the Seahawks are up there where it's just like, like, I thought they should have been better than they were last year, and I thought so much with the injury stuff, and then they end up blowing it up

and like the Carol leaves. Like, I still believe in Gino. And like, Metcalf is a good play. but he's got some bad proclivities and Tyler Lockett is a good player but he's old and he's got some bad proclivities and this offensive line has been all over the place

and the defensive line talent I love but like they're not getting enough sacks is enough getting enough pressures out of it like they are a tough tough team for me to calibrate too so I don't trust myself when it comes to York so they were not on my list I want to know more about like how much faith do we have in Gino

slash what is this line you'll look like that's the big thing for me before I put my eggs in that basket that's fair that was just a candidate and then my next one I said I don't want to go to like a plus 112 team let's go a little deeper I'll be feeling about the Minnesota Vikings plus 235. Could they sneak in?

I'm intrigued. Okay, you got plus 235. J.J. McCarthy. Listen, I'm not going to tell you, I'm like the biggest J.J. McCarthy fan, but the guy's position to succeed. Two good tackles. Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hawkinson, Aaron Jones. He got an offensive head coach and Kevin O'Connell. What does he like to do?

Attack the middle of the field. What stood out from J.J. McCarthy's film? The guy was ripping throws on the middle of the field at Michigan. So can he get you to a level? where that offense looks, you know, decent in year one as a rookie. Defensively, you still got Brian Flores there. I mean, he was doing more with last year for most of the season. You added Jonathan Grenard at one edge spot.

The Dallas Turner trade, I thought was a little aggressive. I don't know if Questia dofamensa has to turn in his nerd card after making that one. He kind of talked about that after the fact. But you know what? I still think Dallas Turner can be a good player for them and they needed some talent. So I like the player. I wouldn't have made the move. but I like the player.

So they still have a talent deficit on the defensive side of the ball, but it's not worse than it was last year. So that's the case for the Vikings. Now, as I was going through this, So lack, I was like, all right, but I kind of like the other three NFC North teams better than the Vikings. So would this be, you would all, like, do I think they're going to be better than any of those teams? And right now, I would say no.

I like the other teams better than them. It's a very good division. But that was the other team that intrigued me. You were intrigued when I said Minnesota Vikings. Yes, I was very intrigued when he said Minnesota Viking. My extra point taken is J.G. McCarthy is going to win offensive rookie of the year. Whoa, okay. Look, we're on fire today with this synergy. All right. We got to take a week off more often.

Basically, we come back together. We're on the same wavelength. Offen's a rookie of the year. I think that one thing that I think people underrate how easy it is for a quarterback to win this award, which is not to say that it is easy for a quarterback to win this award. However, like losing last year as an example, Hukkah-Kua set the record for rookie receiving yards and C.J. Shroud won the award, right? It's not that it's, again, and C.J. Shroud was excellent.

Like when Justin Herbert won in 2020, and Kyla Murray in 2019, these guys had great seasons. But what it is is simply for a skill position player to win the award, really, like, the quarterback class has to be disappointing in your one. Like, if a quarterback has a good rookie season but they emphatically look like a franchise quarterback, like Herbert didn't make the playoffs that year. It's not like Herbert walked out like, you know,

11 and 5, 11 and 6, I can't remember what year was. And it was like dominating. Like it was just, hey, like Herbert has good stats and you could look like the guy. And like, I think, you know, if you had a Jamar Chase who won it in 21, if you had him in the Herbert year, maybe there would have been a conversation. But like Josh Jacobs in the 2019 year with Kyla Murray was like a legit candidate. Pukkah, legit candidate in the CJ Stroud year. It's a quarterback's award to lose.

And in this year's class, we have six quarterbacks taken in the top 12 shield. And so I really like when I go and I look at the exposure I'm going to have in this market, it's going to be very quarterback heavy. I'm so tempted by a Roma doomsay and tempted by a, by a Keon Coleman. But like I have to be honest about how this award typically gets handed out. If I'm going to take a quarterback for this award, I want to take one who's going to start, who's going to get enough games to justify the award. Drake May, who's 15 to 1 right now, like stands out.

I would love to take Drake May. I think such a good prospect. And I think the Patriots are a little bit better offensively than people realize, but I'm not, you know, Gerard Mayo speaking after the draft saying, you know, like we're rookies oftentimes aren't ready to go and we want drake to come in here and be a sponge like they seem like they're pretty dedicated to drake if he wins that job in camp it's going to be a legit win like he has to show them that he's got it as opposed to them just handing him the keys like they are willing to play jacobe rissette there uh versus j j j mccarthy McCarthy McCarthy started

all right and sam don't and i take in week one reps McCarthy's going to go out there and he's going to play i be very surprised if they if they have sam i know they've said like oh we'll see but like they very much feel like the sort of team is going to hand the keys over to their their starting quarterback. And then you laid out the case for offensive success for JJ McCarthy. I mean,

Justin Jefferson, Jordan Addison, T.J. Hawkinson, Brian O'Neill, and Christian Daryzod, Kevin O'Connell, it doesn't get a lot better than the Dandre Swift. Or, wait, who has Swift? No, they don't have Swift.

They have Jones. Aaron Jones. Dude, the NFC North running backs are going to kill me this summer. This is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. They're all on different teams than they were.

It is terrible. They got Aaron Jones. Like, this is a good, this is a good incubator for young quarterback. So Markarthy can walk out there, he can be productive, he can not hurt the team, I have good counting stats. You bring up okay, like Vikings plus 230 to make the playoffs.

If the Vikings make the playoffs, which is plus 230, Georgia McCarthy's 10 to 1 right now, I went off the rookie of the year. If Vikings playoff, I'm telling you, JJ McCarthy is more likely than rookie the year than 10 to 1, right? It's just, it's the logical train of it. And so, you know, you put a water gun in my head. I'm probably picking Caleb. Caleb's incredible.

I think, you know, he's the huge favorite to win the award, and reasonably so. but I will look at this market. I want to find other quarterbacks to bet on, and JJ McCarthy is going to stand out to me right now. That's a guy who can walk in, produce, look like a franchise quarterback, Vikings playing the wild card round,

JJ McCarthy is your office of the year. Yeah, I like your point about if you're, if you're betting on the Vikings to make the playoffs, you really might as well. I mean, what are the odds? Like the defense isn't going to be so dominant that he's doing nothing and that like, if he makes the playoffs,

he's going to have a really good shot at it. Caleb Williams is plus 2-10. Jay J. McCarthy is plus, 1,000. So yeah, even though you might think Caleb Williams is going to win it, I mean, that is a big, big difference there. Jaden Daniels is plus 900. Marvin Harrison Jr. is plus 600. Malik Neighbors is plus 1, where's our guy? Where's the guy you mentioned, Keon Coleman? Coleman is 25 to 1. 25 to 1. I mean, might be my favorite player just after his opening press conference. Yeah. If you miss that, make sure you look at the clip where he's talking about.

I bought a fleece on clearance this week for 20 bucks. I saw the $20, Solek, was it actually $20? I mean, that's a deal. It was one of the big, it was one of the big, foofy ones, right? With the pockets, you know what I'm talking about? All right. Like the Patagonia style was, just not actually Patagonia. I'm not playing for the label.

I'm getting Bobo Patagonia. Come on now. 20 bucks, here on clearance. It was sale in clearance at Coles, electric. Listen, I say every Indianante who saw that clip of Keon Coleman would be proud. I mean, we're ready to just adopt him as an honorary sports Indian. Two things he had.

One, you're shopping for the close out of season to get a deal. I mean, come on. Talk to your favorite Indian and tell me they're not doing that. And then two, I mean, he's dropping a department store. We won't give another place free. But, I mean, who loves a department store more than an Indian auntie? There's nobody in America. So listen, Keon Coleman, we will adopt you.

You know, Indians in Buffalo, go ahead and find him, see if he needs any help. getting around. That was awesome. I mean, it's so funny how a little clip like that can just make you be like, I love this guy. Like, what an authentic fun do. It's always a reminder that like, while these players, like Keon Coleman was Michigan State to Florida State. All right, he went in front of press. He went in front of media for a long time. I went through the draft process. He has done it. But it's also reminded like, they're still kids and they just got drafted by the league. And they've got some PR work, but not that much. And so they show up there and they're just like, let's do it. I'm here, baby. Football, NFL. Let's go. It's so pure. It's so wholesome. I love it.

And Keon Coleman's a good player, and he's a good fit. I liked it. Let's go. We're team Keon Coleman on this spot. Bill's fans are like, oh, he doesn't fit with Josh Allen. No, he does. It'll be all right. Keon Coleman, why does he were one in Buffalo sooner than you think? We can one hand to grab 30 yards down field in the middle of field.

You'll like him there. So, all right, there you go. Good talk on offensive rookie of the year. All right, programming note for extra point taken. We are not doing a Friday show this week. Take a little breather. And then next week, we'll be on Tuesday instead of Monday. So you will hear from us next Tuesday.

Then we'll have one more Friday show. And then Solek's got to get in dad mode. So if there's any dad stuff, you want me to pass along to Solac on the shows, off the shows. You know how to reach me, get in contact with me there. All right. Thank you to Solek. Thank you to Cliff Augustine for producing Ron Aknear on video.

Remember, now watch this on the Ringer NFL YouTube page, Eduardo Ocampo on social. Additional Production Supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgapal. to everyone for listening. We'll talk to you next time on ExtraPoint. Must be 21 plus, 18 plus in D.C. 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.com slash RG in Colorado, D.C., Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee,

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