The Ringer NFL Show - Wild-Card Monday Recap: Rams Stun the Vikings, Mike McCarthy Out as Cowboys HC, and More

Episode Date: January 14, 2025

Sheil, Steven, and Diante get together to share their instant reactions to the Rams' upset win over the Vikings to close out the wild-card round of the playoffs. They speculate on Sam Darnold’s future, debate L.A.’s chances in the next round (21:28), and end the pod by discussing the beginning of the Mike Vrabel era in New England (27:34) and the end of Mike McCarthy’s in Dallas (36:32). 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, Steven Ruiz, and Diante Lee Producers: Chris Sutton, Tucker Tashjian, and Mark Panik Production Supervision: Conor Nevins, Arjuna Ramgopal, and Daniel Comer Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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welcome to the ringer NFL show shield Capadia here with Deontay Lee and Stephen Ruiz guys we got a blowout Monday night I was disappointed I thought this had a chance to be the best game of wildcard weekend it was not that Rams jump all over the Vikings right away take them down 279

will now travel to Philadelphia in the divisional round to take on the Eagles and the Vikings suddenly become one of the most interesting off-season teams, in my opinion. So we'll talk about it all. Deontay, how we feel on after Wild Card weekend? I'm shocked. I just did not see, of all the potential outcomes, I could have come from Monday nice game between the Rams and Vikings. This was not what I had in mind at all. But you know what? I continue to hammer home the point that we have seen game after game in the wildcard

round of teams that have limited quarterbacks or have serious issues or potential fatal flaws. have defense face off against defenses that test them, and we have just seen these offenses crumble under these circumstances. And I would say Monday night might be the most extreme example of that that we've had so far this week. Where are the good quarterbacks, Ruiz? Where have they gone? I don't know. We might have a conference title Sunday of just four great, like, gunsling quarterback. Matthew Stapert can continue this. I feel like he did look like a great quarterback in that first half. And I thought that was how they were able to get out ahead and really, they put it away from there, and it seemed like the Vikings,

even in the second half when they were in comeback mode, Kevin O'Connell was still kind of sticking to the script and running the football and trying to maintain this environment that he's kind of created for not only his offense, but his quarterback, especially in Sam Darnel. And he was trying to maintain that in the second half, but he just couldn't do it and they ran out of time. It's a disappointing end, but like, think about where the expectations were back in August

and September, and the expectations for Sam Darnold. I saw, like, some people kind of criticizing Kevin O'Connell for this performance, and the play calling. And I mean, guys, he's earned the right to have a bad game. And that's what happened here. I think they got out coaching this game. And honestly, if a couple bounces go their way in the first half, maybe that Stafford push pass, whatever you want to call it,

it gets rule to fumble. I think that changes the second half of this game and the game script, and it looks a lot different. But that's playoff football. The margins are just so slim. Yeah, I said after the week 18 loss, we talked about Vikings Lions. And I said, if you're a Vikings fan, the fear is that you just saw a preview of what's to come in the playoffs.

It did turn out that way. Now, I thought they were going to bounce back because after reviewing that game, it was like Donald wasn't at his best, but he's played better than this all season long. But it really did look a lot like week 18, where they just look outclassed by their opponent. I mean, they're 14 and 2. I was going to start with the Rams, but we should just start with where our hearts are and what the biggest topic is. And that's the Vikings and Sam Donald. So let's just go with it because they're 14 and 2 after week 17 with the chance to be the one seed in the NFC. And then the last two weeks they get out scored 58 to 18 and are not competitive in either of those games.

So you're right. The expectations always change before the season. If you would have said Sam Darnold would have played like this, the whole season, you would have said, hey, we're happy with that. If you were said, hey, the Vikings are going to go 14 and 3 and losing the wild card round. All right. That seems like an unbelievable year for the Vikings. But expectations do change along the way. And this had been one of the better teams in the NFL for most of the season.

And then they come up short here down the stretch. I mean, Sam Donald takes six sacks in the first half. He takes nine sacks overall. He had two turnovers in the first half. His accuracy was all over the place. I mean, he looked nowhere near like the quarterback we saw for most of the season. So I hate to just be the guy who goes right to the offseason question. But how can you not do that, Deontay,

with this football team because Sam Darnold is a free agent. And what do you do now? Do you want to bring him back at a certain price? Do you want to franchise tag him? Is this just evidence that, hey, it's time to move on to J.J. McCarthy? I mean, these are going to be the questions that the Vikings have to answer here pretty soon before we get to the tag deadline and free agency and all those things. They do.

But I do think in a way, and this is kind of sad for Sam Donald, this is financially maybe the best outcome that you could have had for Minnesota because you might be able to set a little bit of harder lines than negotiations. Oh, for Minnesota. Okay. I was like, not for Darnold. Not for Darno, no, certainly not for Darno. I mean, with every sack, you had to be feeling just millions of dollars falling out of

his pocket like Sonic rings, right? But I do think if you're Minnesota now, you can maybe have a more sober look at what your quarterback situation is. You performed way over your head, which is confirmation that you have a good system. And when your offensive line is healthy and you have a run game like they did a the first two months of the year, they can do whatever they want offensively, no matter who's playing quarterback. But that needs to be what's at the front of mind, right? It's the no matter who is playing quarterback, not when Sam Donald is playing quarterback. So I think if you're able

to set a hard line in negotiations, you maybe don't have to introduce the tag into this conversation now, which makes things hard for Sam Donald and how he wants to negotiate this offseason. But I do think specific to the Vikings, you probably come out of this with a net positive feel wise, at least if you're a Vikings fan because you're not going to be trapped with this two quarterback situation. But if you're Darnold, I mean, now this instantly becomes a finding a landing spot hopefully before free agency opens and trying to get there as quickly as possible. Because the longer this process plays out, I can see the market drying up because people have a bad taste in their mouth based off of how he performed over the last two weeks.

Yeah, the longer this goes, the more likely it is that he's like the opening week starter for the Raiders. Like that's not where you want to be if you're saying of Darn. You want to land a spot similar to this one, if it's not this one. But I do think in a weird way, the last two weeks just made this decision actually less complicated. Now I don't think you really have to ask yourself if you need to stick with Sam Darnold or hand the keys to the first round rookie and JJ McCarthy. I think you just give the keys to J.J. McCarthy now because you saw probably the best

we're ever going to see out of Sam Darnold. This is probably the best season he's ever going to have realistically. And even, like, we can ignore the last two games. You just go back to that first half of the season. And you look at his stats from it, and you look at the underlying numbers, and you look at the tape, and there are plenty of mistakes on there. He was only around league average and like EPA and success rate and all those stats. The offense wasn't performing at that high of a level. We just saw the record, which was mostly driven by the defense, of anything, over the first couple of months.

And we thought, oh, this is a great story. Sam Donald's doing well. And then he did have that little breakout stretch from like week 10 to week 17. And then he matched the numbers that he was producing with the success that we were seeing in the standings. And we kind of conflated it over the course of the whole season. We were like, oh, this is what it's always been. And no, it wasn't like that. It was a little more dicey over the first couple of months of the season.

What we saw over the last two weeks was the bottom fallout. And that was always within the range of outcomes. It always is when you have Sam Darnold, that quarterback. And that's why you always have to be hesitant to buy into these guys. I know it was very easy to buy into him two weeks ago when he was bombing the ball down the field. But even during those games, you saw him itching to throw the ball to the other team. They just didn't catch the ball. I think it's a great point.

It's a reason why it's always good to kind of look at the, at least I feel like, look at the numbers compared to the narrative compared to the film. Because you're right, this was a feel-good story for most of the season. I mean, I've said it a million times. I was ripping the Vikings, ripping before the season. I'm like, this is not going to work out. This guy has been one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL every time he's gotten a chance to play for an entire season.

And just for him to be mediocre, in my opinion, I know you guys felt differently coming into the year. I felt that was an upset just for him to be like the whatever you want to call him, the 15th best quarterback. I didn't think it was going to happen. But you're right, Ruiz. It was never the offense driving the success of the Vikings. Now, they had very good games in there.

They were fun to watch. They're bombing it downfield. Overall, this season, they were 15th in offensive DVOA. That was the worst ranking of any NFC playoff team. They were 12th in passing. It was really, you know, I'm not saying their offense wasn't winning them some games, but they were a mediocre offense. If you add everything up,

then that's why we like a bigger sample in a 17-game season. They were a mediocre offense statistically. So I tend to agree with you about just move on, but I do feel like that's one of those. It's easier for us to say than maybe if you're with the Vikings and you haven't seen JJ McCarthy play a game

and you don't know about his injury and you feel like you have good wide receivers and might be able to upgrade the interior offensive line. And you just won 14 games. You might say, I wonder what price we can get him for, maybe to buy ourselves some time until we get to the JJ McCarthy era.

But I feel like that's only hard if you're getting pressure from the fans. And I feel like after this game and after last week's game and the fact that JJ McCarthy not only was the first round picks, like every fan loves the first round pick and his rooting to see the first round pick.

But he had a good preseason too. He had a preseason that had a lot of people hyped up about what his season was going to look like. So I think typically when we have these conversations in a vacuum and we're talking about a team moving on from a quarterback that. We all tend to know that it's limited but they're producing and you're winning.

So it's hard to move on from, for instance, I'll just throw out the name to Tua to Agabailoa. I don't, like, that would have been hard to move on from him, even though I think some people thought that was the right move. Tua watching this going, come on, I'm not even in the playoffs this year. It would have been much worse if he was in the playoffs. No worry, I would add a lot more to work with if he was in the playoffs. But yeah, I don't think there's going to be any of that.

There's not going to be like some pushing pool. There's not going to be some debate. Like, should we build around darnal when we have this first round pick who's already looked good? I think that's right. You know, maybe they look for the next sort of version of Darnold. If they feel like we just want two options here, you know, maybe you sign someone for one year, $8 million, whatever it is.

Do you bring Daniel Jones? I know it sounds kind of crazy to say, but it doesn't sound any crazier than signing Sam Darnold last off season, in my opinion. That to me is a good process. Yeah, I agree. I would say that that's a great process. You haven't been building already. I mean, it will be a low, it's a very low risk, high reward thing if JJ McCarthy's recovery

from his knee surgery is complicated in any way, or if he has a slow start to training camp in the preseason or whatever the case may be, or if he just turns out to be a guy that's kind of banged up early in his career, you always want to have someone in your back pocket that can go out and execute an offense. So if that ends up being the ultimate outcome, is that as Daniel Jones or someone of that ilk,

I would say that Minnesota should walk away from this feeling like we got way better return on investment than we ever could have asked for for backup quality quarterbacks. I do think it matters, like, how these reclamation projects, like, how they stunk and why they stunk. Like, the reason Sam Darnal stunk before he got to Minnesota was, like, he wasn't calm in the pocket. He was a little jittery in the pocket. He made bad decisions under pressure. But if you gave him a pocket, we all knew he was a talented thrower.

You can't, like, do the same thing and, like, plug Nick Mullins, for instance. I know he's on the roster right now into KOC's offense and expect results like this over the course of a season. And I think Daniel Jones is one of those guys that might, like, be in between. I mean, like, there's obviously some clear physical talent, especially as a runner, but he doesn't have the arm talent that Sam Darnold does. So I don't know if it's like an apples-to-apples comparison. And I don't know if that guy is out there. I don't know who that guy with a first-round pedigree and obviously first-round arm talent

and a little bit of first-round athleticism if we're giving Darnold credit for his entire skill set. Those guys aren't hard to find. I know, like, Sam Darnold's journeyman quarterbacks who were busting the first round are hard to find, are easy-to-fine. But talented ones are hard fun. Yeah, it's true, and you shouldn't take the wrong lessons. I think some teams will take the wrong lessons from this season and be like, hey, let's go find our Sam Darnold. And if the infrastructure isn't there, if the coaching isn't there, if the receivers aren't there, it's going to end up being a disaster. So I'm a little surprised.

It feels like all three of us feel like Sam Darnold has played his last game with the Vikings. Is that fair to say? I just think that just makes the most sense with their timeline. They got a peek at their ceiling. this year. And it wasn't like nearly good enough. I know like they almost won the division, but how confident were you in this team making the Super Bowl with what they had at quarterback and what they had? There was injuries to some key players on the offensive line, obviously. So I don't know. It was difficult. I'm trying to figure out what is a good landing spot for him because I don't know if it's Pittsburgh.

Yeah. I don't know. I don't think that's the type of quarterback that Mike Tomlin's looking for necessarily. I mean, honestly, that's not the right. That's not the right offensive infrastructure for someone like Darnell. That means a lot of high leverage passing situations where you're going to have to problem solve, you know, against, you know, the best defenses in the NFL. If I were Donald or if I were Donald's agent, I would tell them to avoid a place like that, which probably takes like Tennessee off the table as well. Like that, that makes it, it makes it tough. You don't want to land in a rebuilding situation if you're darnled because the chances of you landing with your stock just as low as it was prior to Minnesota is going to be looming at all times. Honestly, his best bet might to just take a back

backup job, not even look for a starting job. Like, look for, maybe just go back to San Francisco and make that situation a little bit weir than it's going to be this offseason with Brock Purdy up for an extension. If he's in that quarterback room, it gets a little spooky in there for Brock Purdy. And I think it's a viable backup plan for San Francisco. It also makes sense for Darnold. He's been in that offense, obviously. He was there last year.

And also, like, why not go back up Matthew Stafford in Los Angeles? He could be on his last legs. He's only one hit away from going out for a month or two, and you get another opportunity need to kind of showcase your talents in the same offense with an equal amount of talent around you, with an equally good play caller around you. I think that's your best bet at maybe reclaiming the money you were in line for after 17 weeks of this season. Going to the Raiders or the Steelers are one of these super flawed offenses that haven't been able to prop up any type of quarterback whatsoever, I think is the worst solution.

Listen, if Kirk Cousins gets traded and Atlanta's in the market for a backup quarterback, that might be a really good landing spot for someone like Donald because there's going to be such an infrastructure that's similar to what exists in Minnesota, even if they don't have an obvious like future Hall of Fame talent at receiver the way the Minnesota does with Justin Jefferson, you're going to be protected with the run game. You're playing behind. You're playing for a team that invest in its offensive line and will pay good

offensive linemen and you have a future running back that's going to give you explosive run game, even when the situation is not the most ideal to run the ball into. Those are the type of places. is I think that Stephen might be on to something in terms of maybe take a backup gig for another competing team. If you get any reps there, great, but you probably just want to maintain the thought in everybody's mind that the last time you were starting

was for a 14-1 team, even if we all knew that it wasn't as legitimate as some of the other, you know, 12, 13, 14-1 teams in the league. He just needs one cameo appearance. He needs, like, go to L.A., Matthew Stafford misses a game in November. You have one cameo appearance against, like, some cupcake defense and you throw for 300 yards, And you're like right back to week 17 and 2024 again. Well, listen, as a card carrying member of Team CTC, if somebody's offering me that's starting

money, that's going to be hard. Of course. Yeah, of course. I mean, top end backup money, you know, it's like what he got. It's like one year, $10 million. $15, yeah. Versus, you know, Gino signed like the lowest end starting contract. You know, he got $25 million or whatever it was.

Baker Mayfield last year got three years, $100 million. I mean, that's what if we're. Now that you guys, as you guys were talking about, I'm like, man, Sam Darnold really did cost himself a lot. Now, Sam Darnold's going to be fine. Like, I'm not, listen, we, there are other people to worry about over Sam Darnold. But in the football conversation of this, if he's looking at a backup job at 10 million per year versus a Baker Mayfieldish, three year, $100 million, $40 million guaranteed type deal. And who knows, there was a higher ceiling if they would have won in the playoffs and gone a little further. So I hear what San Francisco made sense to me.

You know, Purdy ended the season with an injury. He's already been in their system. Like you said, I could see them thinking from a sort of leverage management standpoint that, hey, let's see how. Sam Darnold is here. We don't have to go crazy with this contract. I don't know. But a team like that, I think you're right. If he wants sort of the best remainder of his career from a football aspect, that makes sense.

It's just a matter of, are the financials going to be a lot different? Are we giving the NFL a little bit too much credit? How so? You think someone will just pay him? In terms of him losing money this year? Like, Case Keenum had a similar ending to his little magical fake ride in Minnesota, and he was the Bronco starter. And I think you got like a $17 million contract,

which in today's money is basically like a $25 to $30 million contract. And honestly, if you're looking at it from the other way, I feel like it's kind of stupid that like a week ago you were willing to give Sam Darnel whatever million dollars you can name the price for $40 million a year. And after one game, that was enough for you to be like, actually, never mind. Like, what? Yes, but you've talked to people in the NFL, and that is precisely how that goes. That's exactly how that goes.

Yeah, it's exactly how that goes. Well, you know what's hard? I am going, you know, as you guys were talking, I was just going through the standing. So here, I'm just going to name a team that may have a quarterback opening. And you tell me if it makes sense, New York Jets. I don't think he's going back. All right, he's not going back. Pittsburgh Steelers.

I guess that's one to kind of, they're going to have to make. a decision on somebody so that's one we can say I'm with you guys I don't think he's doing it I don't think he's doing it but at least that's a team with an opening are the Colts definitely rolling with Anthony Richardson next year that's the type of team that I could see talking themselves into a move like this by the way and if you're if you're darned and let's say the starting the starting quarterback money dries up quickly but you're looking for a place where the head coach might throw you a bone if the starter is struggling at some point in the year the Colts will probably be a good landing spot for that.

Okay. Colts are interesting. Titans, you assume they're going to draft somebody. That would be, I mean, they should not be paying Sam Donald anybody. That doesn't make sense on either. The Raiders, I mean, the Raiders have to do something, right? Wait, hold up. Let's go back to Tennessee. I totally disagree with just writing them off.

I think that makes sense to me. With the type of offense, they want to run, Sam Arnold and Will Levis, like, if you believe in Will Levis six months ago, you could talk yourself into Sam to Arnold 100%. But did they believe in Willis? Will Levis or was Will Levis just there? I think 100% they did. I think the problem was that they might have believed in Will Levis,

and then they got six months of tape on Will Levis. But this is better Will Levis. This is a better version. All right. So Titans are maybe, okay. Raiders have to be a maybe, right? I mean, somebody's going to whiff on quarterback. Yeah.

Somebody's going to whiff on quarterback. The Raiders are probably in the worst position of the teams that are for certain, desperately in need of a rookie quarterback in this class. I mean, they're already six. and whatever the draft capital is going to be to move up, you will be leaping so many other teams that want to get a quarterback. It will probably cost you.

The cost might be prohibitive in general. And if it does, if it is able to be consummated in terms of a trade, you're going to be set back probably for a couple of seasons before you're really ready to compete. If I'm Darnold again or advising Darnold, that's the kind of situation you want to avoid. Giants?

No. If I was him, I would avoid that 100%. That's just like the Jets all over again. Okay. No, no to the Jets. Giants. And then I think we're pretty much the side. I don't know what the Saints are doing.

It's, you know. I think they're stuck with Derek Carr at this point. It's because of the restructures. Like, I honestly think it's a backup deal. I think it should. That's it. Those are all the teams. It should be San Francisco.

It should be a team like Dallas wouldn't be a bad option for him. I don't think they're going to be able to afford him. He's going to be on the higher end for a backup. I'm looking at San Francisco and Miami, Miami. Miami is the one. Miami is the one. Miami and Atlanta would be my two ideal backup spots for him. it will be weirdly, it will be a story that gets a lot of ink and creates a lot of TV segments and

podcast segments. I can't, you know, we're, we just talked about it for like 20 minutes. So yeah, I can't look down on the people who are going to be doing TV segments about Sam Donald in February. So we all feel he's not going back to Minnesota and it could get a little weird on what his options are. You are right, Ruiz, though. Let's not discount the idea that there's a desperate team out there, a GM feeling the pressure who's just like, those are only, Only two games. Look at what he did. And they just, all right, yeah, we'll give you that Baker Mayfield deal.

And it's going to end up being a disaster. So we'll see what happens there with Sam Darnold. And most likely scenario, Vikings move on with J.J. McCarthy. Maybe they add a lower level veteran there. And they see what this thing looks like going forward. All right. The Rams. Sorry, Rams fans.

That was probably mean, but listen, the Donald thing has juice. You know, I got to go with where the juice is. We had to go with where the juice is. Rams had a phenomenal win in this game. They were underdogs. I thought they were going to lose. I like the Vikings quite a bit. I thought the Vikings were a better team in this game.

And the Rams just come out. And they stomp them, 27 to 9. Their offense looks phenomenal in the beginning of this game. It felt like they were thinking, hey, throw the ball on early downs, play action on early downs. And they were able to do that successfully hitting explosive after explosive in the first quarter of this football game. And then defensively, they tie an NFL record with nine sacks.

You know, this was a defense that. came into the playoffs with the lowest DVOA ranking of any defense. But if you watched them all year, there have been stretches where they've kind of carried that team, where if they don't show up and aren't opportunistic, the Rams aren't in the playoffs. So they showed up in a big way. It seemed like Chris Shula had a good game plan.

Sam Darnold was flummoxed early in this game, made a lot of bad decisions. And so credit to the Rams, I came into the playoffs saying, I think Stafford can have a game like this. I don't think he can have three games like this in a row to get to the Super Bowl. But now the question,

Deante becomes, can he have two games like this? Can he go to Philadelphia next week and can the Rams extend this playoff run? Can he have two halves like this? Wow. I mean, obviously the game script in this one kind of,

you know, it didn't necessitate him having to really throw as often as he did in the opening script of this one. And I think that this was something that I remarked, I'm sure Stephen maybe saw when I was talking with some of our buddies in football media.

I think that he was kind of helped out by how Brian Flores approached this game with all the blitzing, trying to play so much tight coverage. Like, that was how the Sean McVeigh offense was guarded when nobody knew what to expect from him in 2016, 2017, and 2018. And he was able to get into the bag of tight-end screens and pop passes in the seam and getting the ball out quickly to running backs. Those are the things that used to make the Sean McVeigh offense unstoppable

because you had to account for that just as much as the outside zone and the overrouts and the bootlegs. And I think that when he's able to get into that bag where, the structure of the offense is doing more of the heavy lifting than Stafford is, things look great. I think that as the game maybe went on, Brian Flores started to back off a little bit from some of the all-out blitzing and the more aggressive coverage calls.

You started to see some of the same things that have been bothering this offense all of December with him holding the ball, him not managing pressure as well, him being, him struggling, I think, to work the kind of arm angles that made him a special quarterback over the last few years in Los Angeles. So to your point,

I don't know if that means that I'm out on the seamer that he can't have a hot half and maybe their pass rush carries away for a game. I just think that they maybe got some ideal circumstances in the first half of this one that might not be replicated for the rest of the postseason. Yeah, because they really cooled out on the second half of the half. I don't think Flores blitz the dropback in the second half at all. And this was like a throwback game to the early McVeigh offense. They were under center or 49% of the time, almost half the time.

Those are like 1990s numbers. We don't really see that in the NFL anymore. But when you look at the overall numbers from the game, it was like a 60th percentile game for the Rams this year. It wasn't even honestly that bad of a game for Minnesota's defense after they figured things out. And I thought Flores made those adjustments, Deonté alluded to. But that's the concern going forward is not only did we see them kind of struggle once they made those changes in the second half, now they're going up against a defense in Philadelphia that is on the other end of the spectrum from the Flores defense. And that traditionally gives that old early McVeigh style of an offense problems.

That's why McVeigh had to evolve because of the Fangio defense and how that spread to out the league. And now he's going up against the Fangio defense that's very, very talented. Like one of the deeper defensive rosters in the NFL, I know they're dealing with injuries now. So maybe it's not the same as it was two weeks ago. But we saw these teams match up earlier in the year. And my concern is on the other side of the ball and stopping Seekwon Barclay and stopping that run game and putting them behind the chains. Because like that's the weakness with Philadelphia. You saw it against Green Bay.

You go back and watch that all 22. That's some concerning tape for that passing game. And those issues aren't going away. But like I said on the preview show, I don't think there's an NFC defense capable of forcing them into that game. It certainly wasn't the Packers. And I think the Rams aren't really suited to do that either. Yeah. Like I said, statistically, this Rams defense was the worst defense that made the playoffs this season.

Those two teams, teams faced each other in week 12. And the Eagles ran for, do you remember the number? 314 yards in that game. Saquan Barkley ran for 255 yards. Based on EPA per drive, that was the Eagles best offensive game of the entire season. So Rams defense did a great job on Monday night. You're right. They face a very different test on the road against what I have called the Jimies and Joe's

offense. It's just their guys. You just check who's got the edge. A.J. Brown, offensive line. Sequin Barclay. It has very little to do with scheme or anything like that play calling. It's just, hey, Dallas Goddard can shove your cornerback for 20 yards downfield and get in the end zone. So that's what the Rams have to deal with. I think their pass rush obviously has to be a factor in that game going up against a very good Eagles offensive line. So we'll see what happens. But Rams stay alive.

Ken Stafford keep it going next week against Philadelphia. That game will be Sunday at 3 o'clock. I completely botched that on our Sunday night show. You know, three nights of shows in a row. I was having some weird playoff scenarios with the Eagles. We sign off and I'm going, that was completely wrong. Oh, well, all right, moving on. Next show. Flush it.

It's like flush that Eagles all 22 passing game film and move on to the next week. You have a contract. You get to move on. Sam Darnold, poor Sam Darnel. He doesn't get to move on. That's true. Listen, that's how it goes. All right, let's take a break.

We'll come back. We'll talk about some of the latest coaching news around the NFL. All right. A couple of other things we wanted to hit on here. Some coaching news. Mike Vrable gets hired by the New England Patriots over the weekend. Let's start there. Deontay, start with you. They get rid of Gerard Mayo. They bring in Mike Frable. It seemed like the worst kept seeing. You know, it seemed like he was hired before Mayo was even fired. Are you bullish on this hire? Mike Vrable, Drake May. Did they get it right now as we look to the next kind of three to five years of the post Belichick and now the post Gerard Mayo era.

I think that the hire is fine. I don't know if I have strong feelings about Rabel at all. I think he's good at the things he's good at, which is if the culture stuff really matters to you, he is going to show up and demand the guys are on time. He is going to show up and make sure the guys are detailed and are working to be developed as players. And we saw that in Tennessee. I thought that he did a great job of maximizing what was on that roster and getting

the most out of what was available. I think, though, for the amount of bluster, I think that is like all the public messaging about who Rabel is as a coach and how much focus there is about how he checks all the boxes that Jarab Mayo supposedly didn't. To me, that sounds like you guys believe that you have an 11, 12-win team in the building and that all you're missing is a voice like Rable to get you over that hump. And I don't want to be unfair to them, but that's the kind of lens that you're creating for your for your franchise, and I watched enough games of the Patriots to know that that is a four-win

team. They won the exact amount of games that they were supposed to win this season, even with Drake May looking like a potential future of the franchise, potential MVP type of candidate at quarterback. I need to see something very serious in 2025 to change my opinion on them just being a middling team at best under Brable. But at the end of the day, I think that if that's what you land at, you're probably fine because this team has just been around the bottom of the league for the last two, three seasons,

and they definitely needed a new voice based on what they're saying was an issue within the team culture in the locker room. I like it. You're saying maybe Mike Vrabel hired Mike McCarthy's PR firm, and they did a good job, and maybe it's being built up a little bit more than what it actually was. Instead of PFF, it's a bunch of motivational speeches, you know? You didn't even have to go to PFF. Ruiz, what do you think? Are you a Vrable guy? Are you bullish about this partnership, or do you kind of agree with Deontay that it's fine, but let's wait and see. I'm not going crazy over it.

Yeah, I'm just in a wait and see approach. Like I thought he did some good things, especially on the defensive side in Tennessee. And the thing I would push back against is this idea that he built some type of culture in Tennessee. They went to the playoffs and won a playoff game the year before he got there. Like they fired Mike Malarkey after beating Andy Reid. I know it wasn't the Mahomes Chiefs, but he beat the Chiefs in Kansas City. And then he gets fired. And then Vrable comes in.

They go nine and seven. They go nine and seven again. his best season, it wasn't his best regular season record, but his best season overall was that year they beat Baltimore. They go nine and seven that season. And the year they go 12 and 5 and earn the one scene, one of the weirdest seasons in AFC standings history, they go one and done.

They don't even win a game. So I don't know. I think he's kind of earned this reputation for building this culture that I don't necessarily think he built on his own in Tennessee. And then what about maintaining this culture? Because they lost 18 out of the last 24 games when he was there. All good points. Yeah, you pull up the pro football.

reference page, six seasons as the Tennessee Titans head coach. They go 54 and 45. They won a playoff game once out of those five seasons. They made the playoffs three times. Sorry, out of those six seasons. So there were definitely some ups and down. It looked good when you had AJ Brown and Derek Henry. And the big thing is when he got Arthur Smith in there with those pieces, those were overachieving offenses and very good offenses with Derek Henry, A.J. Brown and Ryan Tannehill. They were finishing in the top five those seasons without that elite quarterback. That's what I'm looking at. Who is he bringing in?

Is this just, I mean, Josh McDaniels to me would be a pretty uninspired choice. I know some people, I don't know how you guys feel about Josh McDaniels. I feel like, you know, he's gotten a lot of credit for what he's done when he's with Belichick, when he's with Brady. I know he hasn't had great quarterbacks and other stops, but if you kind of look at the results when he's been asked to do more with less, it's been a disaster in almost every stop. And it's also like, do you really not have any new ideas here? Have you searched far and wide for the best offensive mind? Or is it like, let's just go in back. Charlie Weiss? Yeah, we're with

Josh McDaniels. So I am keeping an eye on who he's going to hire as the offensive coordinator. I wouldn't hate Josh McDaniels. I mean, Josh McDaniels did get Mac Jones to a playoff game. We have to remember that. He had Josh, he had like the league raving about Mac Jones. So I feel like Josh McDaniels had some. With Belichick by his son. I was going to say, I think New England's defense got Mac Jones to a playoff game that year. I mean, Mac Jones was playing well. He made the Pro Bowl. Things like a top 100 player or whatever, according to the player poll. What a reference. How do you remember that?

I love the likes that Luis will go to to justify the take. It took me a while. I'm like, wait, what? A top 100 player and a player pool? That's something that you will put on like the coach bio page as a credit. No, you see, it's the opposite of that. This is just super hating on Mac Jones at all of those moments. There's positive moments for him.

Him doing the gritty in the Pro Bowl burnt into my mind. I hate it. Him being named a top 100 player, hated it at the time. He got the cover of Sports Illustrated, and they're asking, what is Mack Jones for the league? He means absolutely nothing. Josh McDaniels merchant. There are two things that are really happening here with the Patriots.

Outside of just all the Giraud Mayo stuff, which bothers me to know. And we don't have enough time to dig into all the reasons why that bothers me. A, I feel like this strikes a Perksdonal chord with me because as a USC fan, I have watched programs and institutions chase the shadow of the greatest thing they ever had for a decade and find themselves mired in mediocrity year over year. And like Stephen was saying, we haven't seen anything from Rabel that says that he can step into a situation as bad as New England is right now. And if the people in New England don't believe that it's as bad as it is, now we're talking about delusion and incompetence that goes as high as ownership, which would be concerning to me. And the number two and more importantly, the only thing that matters here, and the same thing is true of Chicago, the only thing that matters here is what you are going to do for this quarterback. I don't have any idea of what it's going to look like for a brable with a young quarterback that's promising, but definitely needs to be built around and needs to have some heavy investments over the next two off seasons in order to get him where he can be, which like I said, would be like a fringe MVP, an all pro level type of quarterback just based on his skill set.

and the qualities we see on a weekly basis, I need to see something. Like I said earlier, I need to see something serious for me to be convinced. And I think that life in the NFL, even for New England, who's had all the success over the last two decades, is that you probably land on fine,

and you've kind of just got to cross your fingers that your quarterback is a ceiling razor to get you out of the trouble that your organization is going to create for them. But like I said, I mean, New England just continues to present themselves as a team that is above just being fine. and this hire of Rable has been positioned to us as a public as though this is going to be the thing that brings them back to being in a double-digit win franchise. I'm just not sold on that.

I do think the one, like, I guess good point from Rable's time in Tennessee besides all the winning that he did was his offensive coordinator, hires worked pretty good in hindsight. Like, he hires Matt LaFlor. Obviously, he turns out to be a pretty good head coach. Hires Arthur Smith, not so much a great head coach, but a decent offensive coordinator, even in Pittsburgh with the quarterbacks he was dealing with this year. But then he also hired Todd Downing, which is going to say after that, you've got to wear a downing forever. This is hard when you're the defensive head coach or the CEO type head coach. You have to nail that higher. We just talked about it yesterday.

Yeah. I mean, it's the most important decision he's going to make is who is going to be the offensive coordinator. So their path to being that team, you're mentioning Deontay, where you fulfill the Drake May potential. And I think we all believe in the Drake May potential. One is you're nailing it with the personnel decisions and you just wide receiver, offensive line. It's all built up around him and he's awesome. We don't know who's even making the personnel decisions. Rable has some politicking and drama in Tennessee and, you know, and he got out of there. Are the crafts making decisions? Are the craft personnel people making decisions?

Brable's bringing some people with him. Are they making, is everyone working together? That working together generally in these situations don't work. So that's what I'm curious about. And then too, like you guys mentioned, is the offensive coordinator hire. That's their other path. If he nails that, and it's someone who can do more with less. And it's like, give me. me Drake May and like a mediocre offensive line and I'll figure out the rest. That's within the realm of possibilities. But one of those two things needs to happen for the Patriots to be on the right path here. So still some decisions to sort out there in New England. And then we go to Dallas. Jarrah Jones lets Mike McCarthy's contract expired. No firing. No quitting. Just a nice old,

you know, mutual parting of ways. We all love a mutual parting of ways here. It was for the fast, you know, I think. But at the same time, I don't have a lot of confidence in where the Cowboys are going to go from here. Ruiz, I feel like you're usually very anti- Mike McCarthy, but then you threw out some ideas about Mike McCarthy going to places where you like the quarterback, so you left me a little bit confused. So now you have to explain, how do you feel about this move? How do you feel about the Cowboys? How do you feel about Mike McCarthy? Well, first of all, like the quarterbacks I like, only bad things happen to them in regards to coach me. I've had to watch Lamar Jackson

play under Greg Roman, and then all of a sudden, in two years later, he's coaching Justin Herbert. So, it's just part for the course for my quarterbacks that I like. But no, I do think Mike McCarthy deserves some credit for being like a quarterback guy, a developer of quarterbacks, and like he had a

large hand in developing Aaron Rogers. His background is in that West Coast offense. He comes from the Bill Walshry. He's like not a couple, he's like only a couple branches away from Bill Walsh. I think he knows how to teach a quarterback how to play NFL football, which is something that a lot of these quarterbacks need to do. I don't think he's a coach that's going to deliver you a Super Bowl or anything like that.

But I do think he has that skill set. And with the Bears, that's the most important thing right now. So just use Mike McCarthy to kind of fill in some gaps in Caleb Williams game for the next three years. And then when you're ready to contend and Caleb Williams is a better quarterback, then you move on for a coach that can actually when use some playoff games. Deonti, I would not be excited if I were a Bears fan and I woke up tomorrow and found out that my team hired Mike McCarthy.

They just came off of Edward, Iber fluson and John Fox and Matt and Maggie. It's like, aim higher. Aim higher. You might strike out, but come on. I don't want to watch it. I would not want to be watching Mike McCarthy with my quarterback next season. I think there's some smoke with the Saints, it sounds like, potentially. Mike McCarthy going to New Orleans.

I mean, you read the coverage out there and there just might be a 31 team bidding war. Everyone other than Dallas might consider trading or getting rid of their own head coach to acquire Mike McCarthy. But from Dallas's perspective, Deontay, where do they go from here? Via of the veteran quarterback, you're parting ways with Mike McCarthy. Are there names that intrigue you out there? Kellan Moore's been out there. Dionne Sanders is all over my timeline as a potential possibility there. I even read a, I forget where the list was the athletic maybe.

There was a Jason Witten's name popped up on that list. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know what Jerry is going to do. It seems a little unpredictable. Look, I mean, anytime you can set yourself a week behind in your search for the next head coach, you just have to do it. The one opportunity you would have had to interview maybe the top two coordinators in Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson, you would have had that opportunity last week. You decide to just keep Michael McCarthy around, even though you weren't sure you were going to re-sign them,

and now you part ways. And now if it's true that they're another one of the teams that's on the Ben Johnson and Aaron Glynner bus program, you are now blast in the pecking order, unless you've got some sort of assurances. from either of those guys that that's their number one. And as long as it's open, that's where they'll go. And we have not seen Ben Johnson behave that way. Otherwise, I don't think he would still be the offensive coordinator of the Lions. And I think that Aaron Glenn will probably be, they'll probably be a draw for more,

for enough teams to where the Cowboys can't feel like, oh, if we strike out on the best offensive coordinator, we can just go and get Glenn and everything will be fine. I think if you're Dallas now, this is where things get, if you're a Cowboys fan, And this is where things I think get really concerning when you start seeing names like Dion. You start seeing names like Jason Garrett. You start thinking of some of the people that they're going to be bringing in in the coming week are going to be a lot of the retread names that we would probably say on this show are closer to being unhireable than being viable candidates because they haven't been successful, you know.

And this is also a team that's, I think, at a very important nexus point, they've continued to pay their stars year over year. They need to nail the draft if they want to have a viable roster. We've seen all the holes that exist on this roster as is because they have had struggles with augmenting their superstar talent with young guys who can play and contribute at a playoff contending level. You've got a quarterback that's going to be coming off the latest injury and is a-and-is starting to get.

He's going to be on the wrong side of 30 for the rest of the time that he's a cowboy. I'm really concerned now that whoever needs to be. whoever's going to be the next coach needs to be near perfect, and it does not look like they are going to be running a near perfect process in procuring the next head coach. They were only, like, we're only two years removed from them winning 12 games,

three years in a row. And getting run off the field by the 49ers like they always do. Well, yeah, but Mike McCarthy was the coach. So I could cope through that. I think you're right. Like, I think there's no chance to get Ben Johnson at this point.

I don't know, maybe Jerry writes a blank check for him and Ben Johnson. That hasn't been what Jerry's been doing, though. He has not been running blank checks to anybody. So that's another. factor. I don't think it's going to happen, but I do think there's a chance that Aaron Glenn jumps at this job. He's from Texas, played at Texas A&M, played for the Cowboys during the Parcells era. Like, I think there is a connection there that it's going to be hard for him to pass up. And that's

still a job. Like, coaching the Cowboys is a destination job. It's a huge deal. Yeah, that's a huge deal. I'd rather coach the Cowboys than the Jaguars, even though the Jaguars probably have a brighter future at quarterback. But I'll give Jerry some credit because I've bashed him for not moving on quickly enough. At least he moved on from Mike McCarthy and didn't prolong this and carry this out for another two or three years, which was very possible. To Deontes, but he did prolong it. By a week.

By a week. I mean, like, why? Why did it take that long where now you're getting, they've known they've been out of the playoffs for a long time? And now you're waiting to the last second. Was there some negotiation where you were bringing him back at your price, but not as his price. I mean, I don't know how else to explain it. If you thought our best course forward is to not bring Mike McCarthy back, then do that. Get a head start. Get your ducks in a row. Be doing it all

these teams are doing interviews. It might not matter. You're right. There is a randomness and a luck to this. And we all say who we think the best hires are. So it might not matter. But the process does matter. And it aligns with everything else they've done, you know, throughout the last however many years it is, there's a reason they've gone 28 years or whatever it is without getting out of the divisional round. their personnel guy, Will McLeigh, is getting them Dak Prescott and Micah Parsons and C.D. Lamb and like they can't fill in the gaps. I mean, they drafted like one of the best defensive players in football.

They drafted a very good quarterback. They got a top five wide receiver. And they can't fill in the gaps. They can't figure out how to build the rest of the roster. They whine about how poor they are. Oh, everybody, oh, the salary cap. Well, how is every other team doing it, Jerry? Why don't you figure it out?

They're not about winning. They're about being, you know, Jerry, Jerry wants to be the entertainment product. He wants to be stealing the headlines. That's why if you're a coach that is going to go there, like, you kind of know that by now. It is Jerry's show. He's going to be in the hallway talking about what is it, circumcising mosquitoes or whatever after your guys just lost on like a last second field goal. He's going to be going on the radio talking about who you're going to play this week and all those things.

So I don't know from my like, I'm with you. It's still the Dallas Cowboys. you do have a quarterback, you do have talent. It's a place where you can win, but there are other things that come with that. I think Troy Aikman had a clip on the pregame show tonight where he basically said as much. This is such a hard place to win.

And you guys just spent the last segment shooting on Mike McCarthy. The guy won 36 games there in three years. Yeah. It can't be that hard to win if some buffoon can do it. Well, it's hard to win big, I guess. Oh, yeah. Guess what other team hasn't won the Super Bowl in 20 years? Like every all of them.

Well, they haven't gotten out of the Divvoon. round in 28 years. I think you could say the same about 20 teams in NFL and none of them won 36 games of it. This seems like such a very like reactionary. Oh, they lost in the soup playoffs everything they did. The same old sorry-ass cowboys like no, they were a good team. They lost the Aaron Rogers in 2016 because Aaron Rogers made a miraculous throw and Mason Crosby kicks a field goal that like curves in. It's like a 55-yard field goal like this the margins are slim. I think judging the margins aren't always that slim. I can't decide.

They all run off the build over the last few post season. I mean, they lose to the 49ers because they spike the ball. Like, they're in a position to win these games some of the time. I can't decide. Are you,

I can't decide if you're defending McCarthy, Jerry, or the Cowboys as a destination for a job. Not McCarthy. Definitely not McCarthy. Oh, see, I thought you were. There's also the desk caught it play.

Like, they're, one catch away from, or one inch away from a NFC championship game there. Like, I feel like we are over exact. So Jerry's just been unlucky. To a certain degree, yes. I think there's an argument for that.

And I would say on the balance of everything, you look at the Cowboys, this is still a team that has drafted well along its offensive line. You know that as long as that's intact, you can do something with this offense. You do have a quarterback that's a proven veteran at his best, can play at an all-pro level when he's healthy and available. I would say if I'm ranking, if I'm ranking the openings, I don't know if Dallas is at the top because the quarterback's not as young. as some of the others in the cap situation is not as friendly.

I think to me the biggest thing is, and this is where I side with Shield is, you know that you're not walking into a situation where the Jones are going to say, our checkbooks are totally open. For the next two to three years, if you identify a guy that's a free agent, that's a veteran that can help us get closer to the Super Bowl,

we will pay upfront whatever is necessary to make sure that guy gets in the building and we will restructure deals if we have to to make the space in order to do so. they've not demonstrated that. I mean, maybe you have a come-to-Jesus moment after this firing, when you're looking at your cap tables and you're looking at what you have to do, how perfect you'd have to be in the draft.

But again, if we're going off a pattern of behavior, chances on, that's not what it's going to be because they've had plenty of incentive to do that over the last couple of years with McCarthy. And if you continue to do the same things that you're doing, I'm looking at an NFCE that is getting more competitive each year and projects to be one of the more competitive divisions in the NFL if Jaden Daniels is able to replicate anything like what we saw this year. The NFC has already been shown to be one of the toughest to get over the hump in,

and they're going to be starting from a deficit if we're just judging their roster. I don't hate the job. I just don't believe that their approach to this is conducive to making up the ground that they need to make up if they truly have any aspirations of being a Super Bowl contender. I got bad news for the other jobs that are open this cycle. Like one of them you have to work with Trent Ball. potentially. The other one, it's, I, like, I just, like the Saints, you're just stuck in Capel for I don't even know how long, maybe like the next 15 years. And apparently Mickey Loomis is sticking

around. I think like all the other openings aren't attractive either. Yeah, that's why they are openings. That's true. There's a reason why there are openings. Yeah, it depends what you prioritize. I mean, they've done a good job in the draft. They've added talent to the roster in a smart way. That's why it's just sort of frustrating that they don't make the move, you know, And then they have the all-in comments and then they don't make the other moves to actually give yourself a shot. I think if you're a Cowboys fan, that's why you're frustrated. You're wondering about the priorities sometimes whether it is we got a win or just like, this is cool. We're making a lot of money.

We don't have to do everything we need to win here. And of course, there is some drama to deal with with Jerry. But there's also patience with Jerry. I mean, he hasn't fire coaches willy-nilly. So you get in there. You get a leash. You get a leash. You're going to have a shot for a while.

As long as you get along with him, basically, you're going to be in there for a while. You have to be comfortable working with Jerry. Jerry wants to hire someone who he's comfortable with, not necessarily someone who's definitely going to get the team over the hump there. If I'm Kevin Stefansky and I'm looking for a get-out-of-jail-free card and I want to go someplace that's going to let me just be a football guy and I've got a quarterback that I don't have to be as concerned with,

I might go to Cleveland Brass. And I know I've come here every other week and try to find a new landing spot for Kevin Schiafansky. But man, I mean, I would just be making my little bullet-ed list and saying, hey, I'm not telling you what to do with my contract. But if you guys are looking for a fresh start, I'm not going to cause a stink if you want to send me someplace for a little added draft capital. Are you Kevin Stapansky's hatred?

Diate and I have been trying to get Kevin Stafansky out of Cleveland for now three months now, at least. It doesn't look like... Diante talks about Stafansky. Like, I talk about Justin Herbert. There you go. What about Cliff Kingsbury? Clif.

Clif returning to Texas? Maybe. I don't know if I want to see Dak in the Cliff offense. I still look at Chicago or Cliff. I'm wondering if that's where he's going to end up. We shall see only one job has been filled that is New England. Mike Rable, they did a very extensive search and decided he was the best candidate for the job. No stone unturned.

No stone unturned. So Mike Ravell lands in New England. The rest of the jobs are open. we will continue to talk about them as they get filled. Maybe, who knows? Maybe some surprise opening still to come. Dallas just hit us what in the last 24 hours. So who knows?

Maybe there will be some surprises down the road. All right, that'll do it for this episode. Thank you to Deonté Lee. Thank you to Stephen Ruiz. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Appreciate Tucker to Sheejin for all the video help and the video production this weekend. Additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. If there's breaking news, we'll be back on the Ringer NFL show.

in the next day or so. If not, we back later in the week to preview the divisional round matchups, including Bills, Ravens. Talk to you then. Everyone, have a good week. Talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL show. Must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in D.C. Gambling problem. Call 1-800-G-Help.com. Call 1-88-78-9-777-7.7. Or visit, visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit MD gambling help.org

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