10 Summer NFL Stories That Have Our Attention!

19:05Sheil Kapadia:Because Sam Darnold, I think what ended up obviously doing the GM in is like, well, he won the Super Bowl so you were totally wrong about that and J.J. McCarthy was a disaster so I feel like I hope that they do find the quarterback I don't think that it's Kyler Murray long term right but Kyler Murray seems to kind of be this blueprint right which is bringing a proven guy that's good enough in the league he's not going to be very expensive the reason he's not expensive is because the Cardinals basically told him like get out of here so the Vikings are only going to pay him like one point something million dollars for the year but Again, he's a free agent after this season.

19:44Sheil Kapadia:And I believe that he has something in his contract where he can't get tagged. So he's going to be a free agent no matter what. And if he does do what he's hoping to do and rebuild his career, and the Vikings again are unwilling to give him the money, now there's different leadership in place. So maybe they will give him the money if it works out. But this could be a situation where now we're running into the J.J. McCarthy question again next year, right? Is do we give him another chance? And the crazy thing about J.J. McCarthy, I was looking this up. J.G. McCarthy's been in the league. He was drafted in 2024.

20:15Sheil Kapadia:He had a season-ending injury. He hasn't really played all the many games, right? Like they brought him in and he hasn't really shown himself all that much. But J.G. McCarthy is still younger than three quarterbacks who were drafted in this year's draft alone. He's younger than Ty Simpson. He's younger than Carson Beck. He's younger than your guy, Cole Payton, who was drafted by the Eagles, like a fifth rounder or whatever. So like that one, we won't pay that much attention to. I was very curious about who my guy was going to be there. Yeah, Cole Payton. You're not a big Cole Payton guy in North Dakota State?

20:44Sheil Kapadia:It's fine. Go ahead. Yeah, nice lefty. I like a lefty. Well, I just, it's a weird situation because of NIL and the way that college sports are going now, right? Where JJ wins a national championship. He was brought in. I think there was questions by everyone as to whether or not he would actually be like an NFL caliber starting quarterback. And now after basically one year, because he missed his first year, he's been totally written off. Well, there's people entering the league who are still older than him. but we've kind of just decided like J.J. doesn't have it. And maybe that's fair and maybe it's not.

21:15Yeah, we'll see if he remains with the Vikings or gets traded. But I think to your point about KOC maybe being done with J.J. McCarthy, this was in that athletic article. It said, it is well known around the league, J.J. McCarthy's play in 2025, war on Kevin O 'Connell and the offensive staff. That, as much as anything else, contributed to months-long projections of Kyler Murray as the starter. So I do think there's some politicking going on with KOC, some messaging going on, because you even mentioned it. I think KOC, maybe his greatest strength is he's able to work with Brian Flores. That's really been, their defense has been good every year.

21:56That's really carried them. Even last year, they go nine and eight because their defense is really good. If you look at it statistically, their offense has never been top 10 with any of these quarterbacks, even when they were winning a lot of games with Kirk Cousins. And Sam Darnold. And then KOC had that quote. I don't know if you remember this a few years ago where he's like, quarterbacks don't fail organizations. Organizations fail quarterbacks. And everyone's like, oh, baby, this guy knows ball. It's all about, do you put him in a good situation? And now it's like, well, okay, go prove it.

22:27So I'm putting KOC on fraud watch where I'm not saying he's a fraud. Coach of the year, former coach of the year. I think it's potentially, he potentially could be a fraud. I want to see how this year plays out because I actually think Kyler Murray, he sets a floor, you know? I'm not like, oh, I love Kyler Murray. He's great. You guys don't understand. He's underrated. But I'm kind of like, he gives you the floor of like the 20th best quarterback in the NFL, which actually could be enough given Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and the offensive line and Brian Flores. Like if KOC is a good coach, I actually think this should work and they should at least be a playoff team this year.

23:07Can I give you a way too early juicy prediction or juicy thing to look out for?

23:15Sheil Kapadia:Let me get ready. First big prediction on the Ringer NFL show, 2026. All right, what do you got? Hit me. Okay, this is unfortunate. Kyler Murray isn't going to be the long-term solution. He's either going to flop or he's going to sign elsewhere. Someone's going to be dumb. Someone's going to say, you know what? We're going to give him the thing. That's not the prediction. the prediction involves Kyler no longer being in the picture whether it's good or bad I'm not entirely certain I'm leaning more towards bad than good but he's not going to be in the picture but you know who might enter that picture strolling in next year someone who's a quarterback that's proven but last week news came out that he was maybe not too happy with the situation I think KOC might find his guy in Baker Mayfield next year next offseason I could see it.

24:03I like that. That's a good one. Baker Mayfield goes to KOC. I'm trying to remember if they crossed over at all with the Rams. They always cross past these football people. I mean, come on. It's a small, small circles. They're all going to the same resorts in Cabo, golfing at the same places in Florida. Yeah, they know what they're doing. Okay, I like that. Billy calling a shot. Baker Mayfield, Minnesota Viking 2027. Now, last thing on this story, Billy.

24:30Sheil Kapadia:Yes. This is a game called, should we get him or should we leave him alone? Oh, I like this game. How does it work? So I'm going to read you. There's a media insider who tweeted about JJ McCarthy who apparently upset a lot of people. So I need you to tell me it's warranted. You can go get him or you can say, everybody settle down. It's not that big of a deal. So this is Michigan alum, Adam Schefter. When he tweeted the news, he said, and this made it to awful announcing. That's how I saw it. Awful announcing was like, oh, he's serious. They're like, he's carrying water for JJ McCarthy. So here's what he tweeted.

25:08JJ McCarthy missed his entire rookie season due to injury and started just 10 games last year with Minnesota winning six of them. Now the still only 23 year old will be forced to be a backup. Do you have issue with that tweet, Billy? Or are you saying everybody just get offline, go touch grass and let's not make a big deal out of this.

25:32Sheil Kapadia:I think that it was important when you said at the beginning, Michigan alum, because then we kind of got maybe your thoughts as to why he was tweeting that situation out there. I mean, I think, I think in the grand scheme of things, it's not really a big deal. Like who cares? Well, we can't say that because in the grand scheme of things, nothing we talk about really matters. Well, that's true too, but we can't say that part out loud. That part we need to kind of keep to ourselves. I feel like Adam Schefter has his tweets scrutinized in the sports world more than like necessarily so. You know what I mean?

26:06Sheil Kapadia:And like very like infrequently, is it actually an opinion, which this clearly was. For the most part, it's like, here's news. And this guy steps out and like, here's an opinion. And everyone's like, get out of here. Shut up, man. You're just making excuses for J.J. McCarthy. Sheila, you want to know a fun fact before we move on? Please. One time I was on a cruise with Adam Schefter's mom. it was like two years ago. I didn't know what was going on. I was in an elevator. I was wearing an ESPN LA hat. That was like one of those things that they just kind of like give out like a swag type thing. And, uh, and I, I was going up, we forgot something in our room.

26:45Sheil Kapadia:We were at a, you know, at a pier, a dock, whatever. I had to run back in to go get my daughter's floaties. We had forgotten it. So I get in the elevator, I'm staying on like the fifth floor or something. So it's a very short ride, five floors up. And, uh, and I'm wearing this ESPN hat and this lovely woman says to me, Oh, do you, like, do you, uh, you work at ESPN? Which is like a weird thing to ask because ESPN is a big brand. And I was like, well, I used to, you know, I got this hat, whatever. It's like, Oh, my son works at ESPN. Maybe you know him. And I was like, Oh, like, you know, I was, I wasn't in Bristol that much, you know, like I crossed paths, like what she's like.

27:17You thought some production assistant or something.

27:20Sheil Kapadia:Yes, because she said something like she's, he's in the football department. And I was like, oh, like, okay. Like who's like, whatever. It's like, his name's Adam. I'm like, oh, which Adam? I don't know if I crush it. Adam Schefter. I'm like, you're Adam Schefter's mom? Like, why did you set this up this way? And then as she says, Adam Schefter's mom, the door opens, she's like, okay, I got to go. Like to bingo or whatever. She's like, okay, I got to go. And I was like, wait, what just happened in my life right now? So sure enough, Adam Schefter's mom confirmed with him. She was on a cruise that weekend.

27:49She seems lovely. She was great. And so everyone leave him alone. I think is our conclusion there. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got through two of these. Now, do we have to pick up the pace a little bit? Maybe. But you know what? We're having such a good time that we'll see. So let's take a break. We'll come back on the Ringer NFL Show. The Ringer NFL Show is brought to you by FanDuel. Before the football season begins, every team is undefeated. Every fan believes this could be the year. The year their team wins the division, makes the playoffs, lifts the trophy. And with FanDuel, you can bet on any of it.

28:23From who will win it all and division winners to season win totals and playoff futures, FanDuel has all the ways to bet on the season before it even begins. Get your football futures bets in today on FanDuel. Visit fanduel.com slash ringer NFL to get started. 21 plus select states or 18 plus DC or Wyoming. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut. All right, we are back here with Billy Gill. I think we've gotten through two of these, Billy, at the first break here. So we might have to pick up the pace. Hyper focus here. We haven't talked in a while.

29:04We have a lot of catching up to do. So it's not our fault if we go a little longer, we go a little longer. All right, what do you got? What's the next number?

29:10Sheil Kapadia:All right, number... We've done three and six. Let's do five. Five. Okay, we're scrolling down. No more true stories, Sheel. Listen, if you got a good one, I want to hear it. Okay. Now, this is an interesting one. I actually, I'm really curious to hear your take on this because the headline is, Bills respond to criticism over poor sight lines at New Highmark Stadium. This is from The Athletic. The Bills unveiled their$2.2 billion stadium, which as the article points out, $850 million of taxpayer money, Billy, for this stadium. They have an open practice for the bills and all of a sudden people are posting on social media.

29:55My sight lines are blocked by railings or cable wires or stair landings. They're saying, I was promised these views when I signed up for season tickets and got my personal seat license. They showed me a picture of what my view was going to be like. Then I get to the stadium. It looks like something different. Then people are complaining about the scoreboards. They're saying this is poor audio that's being piped in here. They're saying I paid for seats that are under a canopy. And guess what? It's pouring during this practice and they're getting drenched. And so there's all these complaints about what's happening at the stadium.

30:32Bills respond to it in the media and they're like, oh, you know, Well, that was less than 1 % of the people who had complaints. And actually, everything went great and will address any issues that are not great. So what do you think here? This is a social media story where the word was spreading and good job by the reporters trying to follow up on it. What do you think?

30:53Sheil Kapadia:I feel like this happens every time they open new stadiums. But I totally get the outrage if you have to buy a PSL for your seat. And then all of a sudden, this is not what I was told. And I'm assuming that what they did, because obviously all that stuff is sold before the stadium. And I doubt that they're, you know, struggling to sell those seats in this new stadium. So they probably had like one of those online, like virtual, this is what your seat view would look like. And I would imagine that whoever was coming up with that program didn't have any obstructed view seating. Everything was like perfect.

31:27Sheil Kapadia:Like, wow, this seat's supposed to be in an end zone, but here it looks like I'm on the 50 yard line. I'm like, yeah, it's crazy. Every, every seat looks like you're on the 50 yard line. That's just how things are at the new high Mark stadium. Um, it was one like practice, right? Like I guess these things are figured out. You can't move railings though. So that situation probably won't be resolved. I don't know how you fix the railing situation or if there's like an overhang or a column, like those things are pretty, those things are pretty solid and are not going to be moving. So I don't know if you like, what do you do?

31:57Sheil Kapadia:You move their seat? Like, do you credit them in some way? I don't think that the Bills Mafia also would be like, okay, you know what? I'm just going to choose not to go. In fact, as we're talking this out, I got to tell you something. I don't like this one bit from Bills Mafia. Bills Mafia is supposed to be this rough and rugged group. They jump through tables. They pour ketchup and mustard all over themselves. They light things on fire. What are these complaints about it was raining on me under a canopy? I thought that this is a bunch that took pride in being out in blizzards without shirts on and they were so rugged and tough.

32:37Sheil Kapadia:And now rain is bothering them. Like, I don't like this shield. The scoreboard like, OK, fine. The column, I feel like, you know what? Let's make this part of our character. Did you see that in that stadium they built like fake broken tables as part of like the aesthetic? So I do not. They have mock tables that are broken because they jump through broken tables built into parts of the stadium so it looks like it, but it's just like art installations. That's the Bills mafia that we need to be hearing from. Not the ones that are complaining about the fact that I wasn't under a canopy. Tough luck.

33:11Sheil Kapadia:Tough luck that you're not under a canopy. This is not the Bills way. What are they complaining about, Sheil? I've turned on this. I was on their side. Also, I would say$850 million of public money seems like a lot. But in modern sports public stadium financing deals, it sounds like that's only like a third of it, which seems like that's a big contribution from the team, right? All right. So Billy just sticking up for the man, billionaires. That's not fair. You should pay for their stadiums. Who cares if you can't see? they're building a stadium for you you should suck it up while they're sitting on their thrones people are feeding them grapes and you know what?

33:54That's your problem because we live in a capitalistic society and you're not working hard enough to make enough money to be those owners and you know what? That's on you. That's not on them. Listen I didn't think that was going to be his take I feel like I know him relatively well it's an interesting zag I don't agree with that. I personally think that if you pay thousands of dollars and you funded the stadium and you show up and you can't see that you have a valid reason to, you know, speak up about it. But some people want people like you silenced and think, you know what? It's not their problem.

34:30So we can, we don't, we don't have to agree on everything. Billy, you're right.

34:34Sheil Kapadia:I guess we're just not going to see eye to eye on this one, but I will say this. Don't come around in the playoffs and start talking about this great home field advantage and how tough and rowdy this crowd is when we're complaining about rain. Please get out of here. What I actually think here is I agree with what you said initially, which is like, they just opened the stadium. There's probably going to be some unforeseen issues when you build a thing that big. Oh, she'll siding with the man now. As long as they don't. Now, I don't like that they said the thing about, oh, this was less than 1 % of the people.

35:03It's like, who cares if there's, you know, even if it was like three people, that's still three people who paid that much money. I will give them some patience. Let's If it's week one of the regular season and these are still issues, then I'm going to come on here and really crush them. But I will give them a short amount of time to remedy the situation.

35:21Sheil Kapadia:I did see this scrolling through Twitter this week because I had seen that there had been complaints. And I saw that, I guess, the head of whatever, whoever the spokesperson was that they were asking about this, was basically like, there's 1.6 million square feet. Like, what are we going to do? He's like, listen, there's over 27 ,000 actionable items here. We're going to handle them one at a time. It's like 27 ,000 after one game. Like, how is that the case? That's way too many. Yeah. He's basically like, it's a big building. What do you want me to do about it? It's not like we're building a little tent on the front lawn.

35:58It's like, all right, but I think you probably need to respond a little better. I read the same quote and was like, all right, that seems like a weird way to address it. All right, so we're going to keep our eye on this. We're not going to let them get away with this, Bills fans. If there's still issues when you go preseason games. Tweet at Shield. He's going to handle this for you. Tweet at me, and then me and Billy will have a nice debate about it. I'll read it.

36:20Sheil Kapadia:I'll laugh about it. I'll say, ha, ha, ha. Buy better seats next time. Yeah. All right. What do you have? What's next here? Ooh, let's do number... All right, we've done three, five, and six. Man, we're flying now. Let's do number nine. Number nine. All right, we're scrolling down here to number nine. Oh, baby, this is right down your alley, Billy. I hope you check this one out before the pot. This is a story in ESPN with the headline, Inside Dan Quinn's Master Plan to Revive the Commander. So this is a summer storyline, Washington Commanders, Dan Quinn's on the hot seat. I feel like they're not a team that's getting a lot of buzz this summer.

37:01No one's like, they're going to suck. No one's like, they're going to be good. They're just kind of in that middle tier of NFL team where they're not getting a lot of NFL attention. So you know what Dan Quinn did, Billy? He looked at last year and he said, we got to be sharper, we need to be hungrier, and we need to focus more on the detail. So he's doing all these. Did you see all the things he's doing? This was a long article. What stood out to you?

37:27Sheil Kapadia:And then I can give you my cliff notes. I saw that he has decided to focus on team building and fun and like, let's not make things boring. So he's started implementing spelling bees and basketball shooting contests between players and coaches and table tennis and friendship quizzes, whatever that is. And he's doing trivia and he's having contests where they finish the songs. And to me, it's kind of like, Dan, I feel like you might be off your rocker, bud. I feel like we may be losing it here. And I feel like this is the approach we're taking. The writing might be on the wall. you got rid of your OC and your DC last year and you're like, I can't be stagnant.

38:05Sheil Kapadia:We need to make changes. So we're bringing an OC and a new DC and it's kind of like, that's, that's great. But you also kind of got to get back to the NFC championship game situation and focus a little less on the spelling bees and the trivia of friendship quizzes and all of that stuff. You know, it's fun. I'm glad that he's reached this point in his life where like, you know, he's probably wearing Hawaiian shirts outside of work and stuff like that. But, uh, it'd be a little more focused on the X's and O's, you know, and less on the friendship. You know what? I think that like everything the commanders have done this offseason distracts from the fact that the roster isn't very good.

38:40You know, it's like the GM, I feel like it's just Adam Peters is skating along. Then it's like Dan Quinn's just like, he's basically like, I have to try everything I can to save my job. I'm firing coordinators left and right. I'm hiring you guys who have never done the job before. We're playing ping pong. We're doing spelling bees. They have this video leaderboard, Billy, in the facility, which it's like, all right, other teams have that. You know, you track stuff that happens on field, but it's not just stuff that happens on field. It tracks, you get points for stuff like preparation and engagement in the meeting rooms.

39:12Like what is this, seventh grade where it's like, oh, all right, this guy gets an E for participation because he raised his hand in the meeting. So there's, you weren't joking. People might think you're joking about the friendship quizzes. The friendship quizzes is an actual thing where it was described in the article as two sets of two players must answer questions about how well they know each other, which I'll be honest, this type of story, if it's like a team that's really good and you think has its stuff together, you're like, oh, that's cool. You know, they're building a connection when it's a team that kind of stunk last year and no one has high expectations for you're sort of like, what in the world are they doing?

39:50Sheil Kapadia:Can I tell you what this has written all over it? This has first year Mike McDaniel head coach rooted all over it, where it's like, oh, it's this kooky guy, and he's coming in, and he's the fun coach with the pants and the sunglasses and the sneakers with the tags on it. And they're like, wow, he's so inventive. He sees things differently, which Dan Quinn and Mike McDaniel look on the opposite spectrum of cool and how they would handle things. Dan Quinn is closer to biker gang, I think, than Mike McDaniel is. I agree with that. I got to see him like, you know, in the off season, he goes on his hog, his son.

40:27But like a nice guy in a biker gang. Yeah. He's not dangerous.

40:32Sheil Kapadia:No, no, he's welcoming, but he has the leather vest. It has the name of the biker gang on it. His head is a little bit red because he doesn't put the sunscreen on. He has the sunglasses sunburn around his eyes, but he's like a fun biker gang. But like, he's part of it. He likes to go out on the weekend, ride his motorcycle. This is that where you're like, it was the same with McDaniels. Like, wow, this guy's like, he's so fun, man. He's young. He has all these offensive, inventive ideas and all this stuff. And then by year four, it's like, oh, he had absolutely no control of the team at the end whatsoever.

41:03Sheil Kapadia:Players and captains were just picking and choosing when they wanted to participate and show up at meetings. And this is not exactly how you succeed. And I wonder now, Dan Quinn, because in the article, it's kind of like, yeah, in Atlanta, he didn't really focus on these things. almost felt like this is like dance thinking like, ah, this is towards the end of like my, you know, run here as like a head coach, like let's go out having fun. And it's like, but also you can go out by not getting fired because you're just doing these things that are not necessarily going to impact how your team is playing.

41:37Yeah. It just seems like a strange area to now listen, it might not, it's, I'm not saying he's spending his all day on this. It just feels like I look at their roster and I'm like, they were injured last year. Jaden Daniels was injured last year and there should be a better roster around him, you know, at this point in his career, after what he did as a rookie and there's not. And so I would look more at the GM and be like, all right, you can play your games. And I like, I don't think their issue last year was that they weren't hungry enough and they weren't sharp enough. I was, it was like they injured, they were injured and the players weren't good enough was really the issue.

42:10And we don't know if that's going to be fixed this year or not.

42:12Sheil Kapadia:The GM, I would imagine is like on his way in, And he's like going to Target. He's like, oh, guess what? Guess what, Dan? I got you Parcheesi and I got you Yahtzee, whatever. And it's like, let me just have this guy do all these weird games. So no one's paying attention to my faulty roster construction. 100%. Here, take out, look, oh, we got you. We got cooties or whatever the game is called. Like, look at all these. The guys are going to have so much fun. He probably got him some leadership book that was like, oh, you know, you got to lighten up the mood. Now, I did want to ask you this. I'm putting you on the spot here because in the article, they did mention some of the words in the spelling competition.

42:49Sheil Kapadia:Yeah. And I'm going to give you one of them. You ready for this? Are you a good speller? I was a better speller when I was a child than I am now where I don't have to actually spell things correctly because it just fixes it itself. All right. This was one of the words in the commander spelling competition. Don't do it. Miscellaneous, Billy. Oh, okay, good. I thought you were going to go with et cetera. No, that one seemed weird. Yeah, I don't like that. You just do ETC period. Miscellaneous. Miscellaneous. Can you use it in a sentence? We are doing a podcast with a bunch of miscellaneous topics on the NFL.

43:26Sheil Kapadia:Can you, country of origin? Latin. Don't fact check that. I don't know if it's right or not. All right. I wrote down how I think it's spelled, but I'm probably going to be wrong. So miscellaneous. Ready? Yeah. M-I-S-C-E-L-L-A-N-E-O-U-S, miscellaneous. Is that right? Let's go. All right. Wow. That's what I'm talking about. It's the three or four, it's the three vowels in a row that I'm like, do I get that order correct? Double L, single L. I take back everything I said about Dan Quinn. That was exhilarating. The juices are flowing. Look at us. I might pick the commanders to win the NFC. That was fantastic.

44:15All right, Billy. What's the next number? What do you got? Nice job out of you. Coming off the high of the spelling bee win right there.

44:21Sheil Kapadia:I feel like I can't be stopped now. Yeah. Ooh, let's go with number nine. Let's go with number eight. Number eight. Okay. Here's the headline. Here's the topic. Kirk Cousins, Max Crosby held out of practice following fight. This was in the Athletic. So it's Kirk Cousins there at practice. Max Crosby's getting a little too close to Kirk Cousins on a couple of his dropbacks. We all know quarterbacks can't get hit during these practices. And he deflects a couple passes. But according to the Athletic, he might have kind of hit Cousins' hand on one of them. And we've seen those injuries before. you know, defender hits quarterback's hand and all of a sudden it's a broken hand.

45:03It's a broken finger. So Kirk Cousins gets fired up about this and it's kind of like, you know, jawing with him. They go at it and Clint Kubiak comes in and says, there's a new sheriff in town, you know? This is my team. I have rules. You guys violated them. And so guess what? You're both out of the next practice. and really lays down the law right there. Your thoughts on Clint Kubiak asserting his sort of alphaness here in his first year.

45:40Sheil Kapadia:I'm sure those two vets having to miss a practice really showed them and they were really probably upset that they couldn't participate in practice in the preseason. Is Max Crosby trying to get himself traded again? Like, is he just like, you know what? I wasn't happy with how that played out. And then I was ready to go. I left. Then I, you know, they sent me back and I'm here again. Like, I don't really want to be here. Like, let me just act out until they move me again. It really, you know, as I was reading this, I'm like, it really is so stupid that he's still on their team. Like they literally tried to trade him.

46:16He wanted to be traded. The trade fell through. And then everyone's like, okay, he's not going to be traded now. What? There are other teams. Detroit, Chicago, Dallas. Can we make a call and get Max Crosby on a team that's going to win some games and is relevant here? So yeah, I'm with you there. And my favorite story about this, Billy, when I was covering the Chip Kelly Eagles back in the day, they had a cornerback by the name of Kerry Williams. Okay, he had played with the Ravens. He signs with the Eagles, gets a nice deal, cashed in. He doesn't show up to some, I think it was, you know, spring practices.

46:51and reporters asked him, like, why weren't you there? And he said he was picking out sconces with his wife, which I didn't know what a sconce was for a long time. Yeah, I'm going to have to do that. It's like a light fixture thing. So he says that. So then they have these joint practices with the Patriots, right? And Bill Belichick's in town. It's really exciting. Chip Kelly, Bill Belichick. And both coaches are like, we have a rule. You know, they're being asked, all right, well, if there's fights, because there's often fights in these joint practices, what are you going to do? And they're like, anyone who fights gets thrown out of practice.

47:21I swear, five minutes in, Kerry Williams just goes after a wide receiver, gets in a scuffle, gets kicked out of practice, doesn't have to practice. And I'm like, that was the most obvious thing I've ever seen. Of course he didn't want to practice. He's been in the league for how many years? You think he wants to be out here? It's like so hot. He's actually got to try because it's the other team. And so, you know, Max Crosby seems like the kind of guy who just probably always might want to practice, but I'm sure he could still get a workout in. But yeah, I do think that happens with veteran players.

47:51there. So can I, can I introduce a new segment here? Yeah, of course. This is called, I'm just a guy asking questions. Okay. How does this work? It's exactly what it sounds like. I'm just a guy asking questions. Is there any chance, Billy, that Clint Kubiak just wanted to see a little Fernando Mendoza with the first team. And so he's like, I can't actually just give him first team reps or all of a sudden it's a big story. It's on the front page of ESPN.com. Everyone's talking about, oh, they said they're going to not start throw Mendoza in right away. But now he's getting first team reps. So he's like, oh, this is kind of an easy way.

48:28And by the way, I don't have to worry about Max Crosby obliterating him. So I can throw both those guys out of practice. Mendoza takes the first team reps. Your thoughts?

48:37Sheil Kapadia:Do you think it's deeper than that where he talked to Max Crosby like, hey, why don't you go bump into Kirk a couple times? And look, I know you don't want to be here. If it were up to me, I'd send you wherever you wanted to go, but I don't call the shots here, so I can't do that. I'll give you the day off. Just kind of irritate Kirk a little bit. Two of you will be out, and then we'll see what this Fernando kid's all about. Is that possible? You think that's going on? Of course it's possible. Yeah, I like that. You're right. I think that that very well could be a part of it. We'll see how it goes.

49:11I think Mendoza's going to play in the preseason this weekend. We'll see how that goes. But Clint Kubiak putting his foot down. All right, let's take one more break here on the Ringer NFL show. We'll come back. We will get to the rest of the questions. I even might have one more game for Billy with one of these questions. We'll do all that when we come back. All right. Back here on the Ringer NFL show. Billy, you're keeping track, right? I am. What numbers you picked? Okay, thank you.

49:37Sheil Kapadia:We've done 3, 5, 6, 8, and 9. Let's go with number 1. All right. Number 1 on this list, Billy. Oh, I mean, this one's got some juice. CBS. colon no timetable on Tony Romo's future after arrest. This is via ESPN.com. I would argue of all the topics we're talking about, this is the one that actually impacts the viewing experience for the majority of our audience, right? Because they're going to be sitting down on a Sunday afternoon. Who's calling the game for CBS? So the Cliff Notes version here, I think most people know, but just in case, Tony Romo arrested for operating while intoxicated in Milwaukee has been suspended indefinitely by CBS.

50:22J.J. Watt's going to be the number one guy with Jim Nance. Ross Tucker, congratulations to Ross Tucker, is going to be on the number two team with Ian Eagle. And now you have CBS sports president, David Burson, saying it's an evolving situation and we are still assessing. There is no timetable or final decision at this time. So he's saying that on the record. Meanwhile, you have Andrew Marchand of The Athletic reporting that CBS would actually love to get out of the Tony Romo business. And they've been wanting to get out of that contract. They've had no way to get out of that contract. He's still got four years,$72 million left.

51:06And so now the question becomes, Does Tony Romo ever get his top job back with CBS? Does he ever work for CBS again? Maybe he's doing it on another team or in the studio, or is his career with CBS over? Does he ever broadcast for somebody else again, Billy? So Tony Romo, a guy who's been in our lives as this broadcaster for several years now, all of a sudden, we don't know what's going to happen. What do you make of this Romo situation and how it's going to play out in the weeks and months ahead?

51:35Sheil Kapadia:But it's been kind of a crazy story since the beginning, right? Because the way that it started, it was just a headline came kind of like across the wire. It's like Tony Romo got arrested for, you know, OWI operating while intoxicated, you know, in the DUI family of things where you're like, this obviously is, you know, not great. But also, as bad as this sounds in society, this happens with celebrities more often than it should. Because you think about like all the means that they have. It's like, why would this ever happen? But it happens with celebrities. And, you know, you almost have become desensitized to the seriousness of the situation just because of how often it happens.

52:12Sheil Kapadia:Like, OK, well, this happens and, you know, he'll get a slap on the wrist and whatever. And then the mugshot comes out and you're like, oh, he looks OK. I can kind of see how they arrived at that, you know, without doing the blood and alcohol test. I can kind of see I can kind of see how they arrived at this opinion that he may have been operating while intoxicated. And then the video comes out and then things get really weird. and again, let's preface this by saying this is a serious thing and we're lucky that no one else got hurt and we're lucky that Tony didn't get hurt and he didn't hurt himself and no one else involved got hurt and they pulled him over and he was arrested and whatever.

52:48Sheil Kapadia:But, and this was a weird one. When that video came out, somehow some people liked him more. They saw the video and they're like, this guy is so likable And it's like, I don't think this is supposed to be the takeaway from this video that came out. And then they showed him and he was very polite the entire time. And he's telling us how he's going to visit his grandparents. And he came from a golf course. And we later find out none of his grandparents are with us any longer. So that was kind of like a weird thing that happened. It could have been his kids' grandparents. Yeah, you don't know. I'm just saying.

53:23Who knows? Yeah, grandma and grandpa.

53:24Sheil Kapadia:Who knows where he was at? Maybe he calls people grandma. I don't know. Then they take him in. And there's like a cut from like the side of the expressway. They cuff him and then they take him into like a garage or something where they're going to administer the test. And then he becomes like weirdly obsessed with stretching. And you're like, this is kind of, this is very odd behavior, but okay. And then, you know, they do the test and he doesn't do well. And he asked the officer, hey, how'd I do? And they're like, can you turn around and put your hands behind your back? He's like, oh, not well, I guess.

53:54Sheil Kapadia:And it's like, okay, like people like chuckle at this and multiple people reach out. they're like, I kind of like Tony Romo. And I'm like, oh, I don't know, Jim, like this is a bad situation here. Like, let's not make too much light of the situation. But like people liked him more. And and then you're kind of like, I don't whatever. He's still not going to lose his job. And then a couple of days later, it was like, well, that, you know, the police report comes out and it's like, oh, he was driving with an open container. It's like, OK, like now this is while it was always a serious situation. I think the more facts and information that came out, the more the picture was being painted.

54:30Sheil Kapadia:It's like this is serious and we shouldn't really be laughing at it and making light of it. And also, while it is serious, this could be CBS just looking for a way out of this deal because they have had conversations with him leading back a couple of seasons where when he started, he was like the new broadcasting darling. and it's like, wow, this guy knows the plays before they're going to happen. This is crazy. Then like the last two years, the general public has been very critical of his game calls, which is like fair or unfair. Like if you're watching the game, I mean, I'll watch games. I don't know how you feel about it.

55:04Sheil Kapadia:Like it doesn't really matter to me who the broadcaster is. And like, is Tony Romo grunting over and over again going to drive me crazy? Like, no, I kind of just look at him like, ah, that's just Tony being Tony. Like whatever. It's not ruining the experience for me. I'm going to watch the AFC championship game, whether Tony's on it or not, you know, so it wasn't a big deal. But CBS wasn't happy with him. There's reports about his work ethic and he's not prepared. And they had to sit him down and basically tell him, like, take this more seriously. And then this happens. And at the beginning, the reporting was like, yeah, this isn't good.

55:36Sheil Kapadia:But obviously, he's not going to lose his job over it. And then as it's gone on, it's like, well, guess what? J.J. Watt's going to be calling the opening game. And then it's like, OK, well, then reports came out. It's like, well, maybe, you know, Tony's going to get the number two thing and he'll do it with Ian Eagle. And Ian Eagle has, you know, a rep of like uplifting the people that call the games with him. So maybe this will be a good spot for him as he kind of like rehabs his image. And they're like, well, Ross Tucker is going to be doing the games with Ian Eagle. So as this is playing out, there was even conversation like, you know what?

56:05Sheil Kapadia:Maybe this is a way that CBS can reach out and get Greg Olson who lost his number one gig to Tom Brady. This could be an opportunity here. And the longer this drags out, Outro Music It seems like he may not be back with CBS, where I don't think a week ago that was like my feeling. Two weeks ago, it definitely wasn't my feeling. But the longer this strikes out, even while the president is not saying anything, I think like he's not saying anything because they're trying to find an out and whether their morality clause in his contract can get them off the hook of the 72 million that they owe him.

56:38Sheil Kapadia:but it does seem and again i didn't even think this a week ago that he would lose his job as a result of this and tony also and i'm sure that this is the advice of his lawyers or whatever like we haven't heard from him at all so like he hasn't even been able to come out and be like you know what i'm sorry about this because i guess then he's you know like admitting fault admitting guilt exactly this is still an ongoing situation but like you know there's not been really any acknowledgement of it and as a result it's kind of gotten away from him to the point that he may be out at cbs and then you start looking around and it's like well what do you do do you take a year off like do you you're not gonna end up at fox they have tom brady to then go to like a you know like a netflix or like an amazon or maybe do like some of these special like youtube games or something like the fll network and espn merge like they don't really have those games anymore So you start wondering, like, where are the opportunities for Tony Romo, which is crazy.

57:34And does he still want to do it? I mean, he's made a lot of money. Is it just like, all right, that was a fun thing I did kind of in my post-playing career. But it was, you know, I made a lot of money and now we've reached some kind of buyout with CBS for these last four years. And I can just go play golf. And if I have a few beers now, I can, you know, I can call.

57:53Sheil Kapadia:That's what got us in this trouble here. this time. Yeah, well, he can call. Now it's like, all right, let's just call the black car service that celebrities or famous people can call that we don't have access to. And let's just go live that life. I don't know. It didn't seem like when you're at a spot where in your third year, it's like he doesn't work hard and the president of the broadcasting company has to talk to him about preparation. It's like, is this really worth it for you? I'm sure there are other ways you can make money um without doing a whole lot of work there's 18 million dollars a year not that much but by the way pocketed it if i was him like that's the dream right you're getting paid this crazy amount of money like you're saying like does he really want to go through it's like what is he actually doing you know like he's calling the game which he might otherwise be watching anyways he gets to be there in person like travel's probably not great and he has to work holidays and stuff like that like travel's pretty nice though when you're at that Well, his travel is probably a lot different than your travel or my travel in this situation.

58:49Sheil Kapadia:You know, I'm surprised that we talked about how he hasn't had a press conference. But like we saw just this offseason, we had a coach that was embattled in controversy. And he went out and, you know, is he going to face the music? Is he going to go? We're talking about Mike Rabel. What is he going to do? How is he going to handle the situation around him with the, you know, obviously the scandal that was going on with the infidelities in his marriage. And, you know, what did he do? He came on and he did what anyone would do in that situation. He came out and he faced the media holding a puppy.

59:18Sheil Kapadia:And he was like, you know what? I'm here to answer your questions while I'm holding this wonderful puppy. And we're going to get to the bottom of that. And then by day two, he said, you know, I don't know, Mike, if the puppy situation, he said, you know what? Let's get the reporters to bring their kids. And I'm going to field questions from some of the children here. And then he field questions from children. And they were like, hey, what did you think about the Taylor Swift wedding? And he's like, oh, you know, whatever he said. And like, sure enough, football's going to start and no one's going to care about the Mike Vavre situation anymore.

59:48All right, Romo. Get us and figure out the contract thing. Get some puppies, Romo. Find a puppy. Yeah. You know, contact some kids of reporters and it'll be fine. So we'll see. I don't think he's going to be back with CBS. It feels like they were just kind of, you know, they can just be like, it's over and no one's going to be like, how could you do that to Tony Romo? They're going to be like, oh, okay. We kind of understand it. So that's where I think it'll go, but we'll see.

1:00:11Sheil Kapadia:I think the Ross Tucker announcement, which by the way, Ross is great and like, I like this. Like he's awesome. So this isn't like a thing, any, you know, criticism of Ross whatsoever, but like the Ross Tucker announcement, I think was the indication, like this is done for Tony Romo at CBS, because there's not even a number two role. And why would they go and announce JJ Watt? Like the JJ Watt is like, okay, we have to figure out a plan for the beginning of the season. When they announced Ross is the number two team. I doubt they're going to undo that week two, week three, week five. And then even at that point, you're going to bring in Tony week six.

1:00:45Sheil Kapadia:Like what's the point of that? What did that accomplish really? I'm with you. All right. We'll see how it plays out with Tony Romo. All right, Billy, what do you got? What's the next number? Let's do number. We have two, four, seven, and 10. Let's do seven. Seven. Okay. We are scrolling down to number seven on my list. Oh, another good one. I enjoyed in the athletic today. Behind the scenes for a day with Bears coach Ben Johnson, which was Dan Pompey from The Athletic. Spent the day with Ben Johnson. And there's a lot in here, Billy. I don't know if this was a peruse for you. There's a lot of one.

1:01:22All right. So I'm going to give you some of the details here. Okay. Number one, he generally sleep, gets five hours of sleep every night. He can function on four hours of sleep. He sets his alarm at 430. Okay. So that's one. If you're just wondering about like, you know, his NFL coach bona fides, he's got that. I thought that was interesting. You know, when we'd had a conversation about John Harbaugh in the off season, how he would get to the facility and like the strength coach would have to work him out. We got a similar thing happening here where the strength coach of the bears is in the weight room with Ben Johnson at 545 AM.

1:01:59So before this guy's doing anything with the players, whatever. I'm sure he's got a long day. He's there with the head coach, spotting him, bench presses, squats, all of that. And then the third nugget I found interesting, by December, Billy, he will be up to six cups of coffee and a cold brew daily. That will be his daily caffeine intake by December. Now there's other stuff that got headlines elsewhere that we can get to, but those were the personal nuggets that I found most interesting. What do you think?

1:02:32Sheil Kapadia:Do you want to know something funny, Sheil? And I guess that this is a result of us, you know, working together more last season and building this relationship. I read the entire article. It was a lengthy article. There was a lot of stuff in it. Things that I wrote down from this article. Ben Johnson wants to have the highest scoring offense ever is one of his goals for this season in terms of points per game. The highest ever is the 2013 Denver Broncos with 37.9 points per game. He wants to surpass that. That's the goal of his. He knew that by heart, it said, too, what that average was. So a very lofty goal.

1:03:08Sheil Kapadia:But, you know, why not reach for the stars? That was the first thing that I wrote down. Next thing that I wrote down, coach's workout routine, 5.30 a.m., 15-minute intervals, 30-minute weight training. And maybe it's because we could have talked about this with Harbaugh in the past, but, man, isn't that the dream? like just showing up to your job when you're on the clock and having someone who it's not really their job to train you, but you're going to abuse your power and say like, I know you're here for the team. They're not going to say no. They can't say no to you. They literally can't say no to you.

1:03:41Sheil Kapadia:So like you have a free personal trainer. I don't know about you and your gym experience. Do you frequent the gym at all? I don't know if you go off. Yeah, I'd like go to the gym. You know, you got to, you got to wait. What happens? Now you don't know this because you're still eligible for 40 under 40. Yeah. Once that passes, your whole algorithm will be 40 plus year olds telling you to lift weights and get your steps in and walk basically. And you'll live to be 110 with no health issues. This might be a morbid, I don't want to live to be 110. That seems so old. 110 is so old. But yeah, the possibility, you know, the no health issues is more quality of life.

1:04:19Sheil Kapadia:You know what has come up for me? It's not just the walking, but walking at an incline. Oh yeah, that's all the range. 30 minutes on 10 incline, 3.0 speed. I mean, you're unstoppable. The challenge that I've found with working out in the gym is not finding a good gym partner, which is really what, if you find a good gym partner, man, you're like invincible because you go there and you like, you know, you shoot the breeze, you talk while you're working out, but you focus, you have someone pushing, you're like, oh, one more, one more. And you're like, oh, one more, one more. If you go by yourself, I've found that's really where it's hard to like find the consistent motivation if you're just there on your own.

1:04:57Sheil Kapadia:Cause like, that's when you start cutting corners. That's when you're like, I don't think I can really do this one on my own. Let me go a little bit lighter here. I'll do more reps, less weight. And then you start slowly falling off. And then, you know, everything unravels. You don't live to be 110. So I wrote that down. And then the last thing that I wrote down in my notes, again, from this very lengthy article about Ben Johnson, who was out there and he says, this is the best job I've ever had. I'm treating this like this is gonna be my last job. I thought I was in the top of the world. And then in 2019, they got rid of all the coaching staff in Miami and I found myself without work for the first time.

1:05:35Sheil Kapadia:This is before he ended up going and he started coaching in Detroit. And by the way, here's a fun little fact that I can tell you. In that gap year that he had because he got laid off, didn't find work, you know what he was doing? And they've removed this from his Wikipedia because of all the success that he's now had in Detroit and the success that he has now had in Chicago. So I guess someone went through the Wikipedia and they were like, this is irrelevant. Let's remove this situation. In that year when he was looking for work, he didn't spend it doing nothing. He was down here in Miami because he had been on the Dolphins staff and he reached out to an old mentor, friend, colleague, whatever you want to call him, Butch Davis.

1:06:15Sheil Kapadia:And he was at none other than Florida International University as a volunteer offensive coach where he was breaking down film, which now looking back, it's like, how did my school have like the hottest coaching prospect out there like five years in advance as a volunteer breaking down film for Butch Davis? Kind of crazy. You just gave a Bears beat reporter a great story idea. You know, Ben Johnson's lost year at Florida International. international. Those are the kinds of stories. When you're a beat writer, you're always looking for that little, all right, what's something I could write about that no one else has?

1:06:55So listen, I hope there are some Chicago beat writers who listen to this pod and now you're going to have a little scoop on your hands there.

1:07:01Sheil Kapadia:Mike, if you're listening, Pompey, if you heard that, go out there. Dan, yeah, Dan, Dan Pompey. You know where I was getting caught up? I wasn't sure if it was on Pompey or Pompeo. So I wanted to make sure to get the last name right. And then I botched the first name. But if you're out there, Dan, and you want to talk about something, I would say, you know, that could have been the formative year where he found himself and then started his trajectory. Next is his next story. Yeah, that can be his next story. Okay, so my third note that I wrote down, preseason, three coffees and a cold brew. During season, six coffees and a cold brew.

1:07:33Sheil Kapadia:So we had the same exact takeaways, which was, this is, three coffees and a cold brew is already a lot for a day. It's crazy. Six and a cold brew, we're bordering on how are you not shaking from how much caffeine you're taking? And what is this actually doing to your body? Because this can't be good for you. It can't be good. I do. I like one cup of coffee in the morning. And then in the afternoon, I'll either do a little espresso. I'll maybe do a little iced coffee. Or if I'm feeling good, maybe do a little iced oat milk latte. You know, something like that. If I want to treat myself. That's when you were a good boy that day?

1:08:12Yeah, I was a good boy. I'll treat myself. If you only live once, I might make 50 under 50.

1:08:17Sheil Kapadia:So what do you do? Do you have like a coffee machine at home and you hit the coffee machine when you wake up? So I have one at home, but here's a little tip for you. Yeah. One of life's great joys is taking a walk to go get a cup of coffee. You know, you take a nice walk, hopefully 20 minutes there, 20 minutes back. You get some steps in, you pop in the AirPods, you listen to a podcast, you get the coffee, you come back, and now you're just ready to go. So I do like to do that when the weather, weather permitting and life permitting. Yeah. When I am able to do that. Any hills, any inclines, your natural nature's inclines that you're taking?

1:08:56There's a couple nature inclines, but none of them are, you know, matching that kind of 10.0 you would get on a treadmill. Yeah. How about you? You like an espresso, I think you told me before.

1:09:04Sheil Kapadia:I have an espresso machine. it's very easy to do, but I, you know, I have been known to at times, my wife likes Starbucks to go, I'll go get a mocha frappuccino with no whipped cream from time to time. And I had a friend recommend to me a Dunkin' Donuts, a new peanut butter Dunkachino. I tried that the other day. It was good. Not my favorite, but you know, it was good enough. I like a cold, a cold, I mix it up. You know, I was going to say I like a cold coffee, but I'm like you, I'll mix it up depending on what kind of boy I've been that day. You know? Now those are dessert items, Billy, the things you just subscribe.

1:09:35Is that so? Yeah, you gotta be. You don't consider those coffees. You can do that when you're under 40, but you only have kind of a year left of being able to do those. Then I gotta get rid of them? Yeah, we'll talk next year at this time. But for now, enjoy them. So there you go. Where are we on? Just give me a general. I found that I've been a big Ben Johnson supporter. I like him. I feel like he's a modern, you know, the new era, Sean Payton is how I describe him. where kind of if you're going against him, you're like, I can't stand this guy. He's so arrogant. But if he's your guy, you're like, man, we're in good hands.

1:10:10And I do think he's a good coach. This was the first time I looked at him. I said, huh? Really?

1:10:15Sheil Kapadia:What was it? He's one of these guys where he thinks, you know, oh, you can't, God forbid you get six hours of sleep as an NFL head coach. There's just so much to do, you know? I prescribe to the Bruce Arians thing, like if you're only getting four hours of sleep, because, you know, it's diminishing returns. You're probably not making the most of that time. And then the coffee intake made me a little nervous that he can be in this thing for the long haul. Six cups and a cold brew. I mean, that's crazy. We kind of knew that he was a little bit of a crazy person with this whole Matt LaFleur interactions, right?

1:10:48Sheil Kapadia:That I loved. Yeah, but that you're kind of like, all right, guy, calm down a little bit. What are we doing here? This is a little intense here. Yeah, okay. We'll see. We'll keep it on. We'll do a little Ben Johnson tracker all season long. Did you like that he's a man of the people just attending concerts with his friends on bachelor parties? No one even recognized him. Can I tell you, I didn't know who Borgen Wallen was until like three weeks ago. He's quite popular. Yeah. Then I saw him, you know, he did a concert in Philly and it's just like, oh, there's a lot of people who like this guy. I've literally never heard of him before in my life.

1:11:23But you know what? That probably says more, maybe more about me than anyone else.

1:11:27Sheil Kapadia:I'm about to join your club of 40 over 40. And I couldn't name a song. I'd probably get killed for this. I'm sure you might get killed for two. I couldn't name a song of his. I'm sure I've heard them. I just know he has these concerts at football stadiums. They're very largely attended, sold out things. And he always has like a celebrity that walks him out. Correct. And it's like a big thing. Like, who's a celebrity that he got to do this with him? Ryan Howard and Cooper DeGene in Philadelphia. Oh, okay, nice. So there you go. All right, Billy, that's Ben Johnson. Watch. All right, what do we have?

1:11:58What's next here? All right. We have two, four, and 10.

1:12:01Sheil Kapadia:Do you have any preferences here? No, you tell me. Let's go with four. Four, okay. This is courtesy of ESPN. Exotic pets, family houses, and Legos, colon. What rookies have spent their first paychecks on? Now, first of all, give that editor a raise. I mean, you're looking at that headline. Of course, you're gonna click in. So, you know, ESPN, I used to have to do these when I was in Seattle. I thought it was a great idea. You have a reporter in every city if you're ESPN. And so it's like everybody asks a question or finds an answer to the same topic. And now all of a sudden you have this article with 32 different takes on the same topic.

1:12:41So that's kind of what happened here. All the reporters asked the rookies that they cover what they spent their first big paycheck on or what they're going to spend their first big paycheck on. Now, how do you feel about that kind of question, that inquiry in general, Billy? Is this, you know, are we like, oh, that's a good idea. Are we like, come on, that's a little weird. Don't be asking people how they're spending their money type thing. Do you like this article topic or not?

1:13:10Sheil Kapadia:It's somewhat invasive, but you do get kind of, you know, some fun answers, particularly like in the first round, right? Where it's guys that are getting like insane money. It's like, okay. Where if it's like a fifth or sixth round guy, it's like, ah, he's just probably trying to pay off debt at this point. You know what I mean? Like he's just trying to kind of make sure everything's good. He can take care of whoever he can take care of. Maybe he had some college debt that he had to pay off. I mean, realistically, it was not like college loans that the guy's getting drafted or paying off. Maybe, you know, if it was like a division two school.

1:13:38Sheil Kapadia:So like, I'm more okay with it with like the higher round guys, especially if they have like some crazy answers, you know? Okay, so this was the funniest part to me is that it was broken down into categories. You know, they tried to group them together. And so first category, savings and investing. Okay, I could understand that. There were guys who were like, I'm not spending anything. I'm going to save my money. You know, it's a good idea. Okay. Sounds good. Boring, but okay. A little boring, but okay. Fiscally responsible. Smart. You're doing the right thing. Yeah. Right. But come on. Not good for content.

1:14:07Exactly. Maybe good for your life. Yeah. Okay. I get that. Then there was homes and household goods, which I get that. You're like, I'm going to buy a new house. I'm going to get my parents a house.

1:14:17Sheil Kapadia:Sconces. Stuff like that. Sconces. Those were family support. Again, same kind of thing there. Apparel, which I can't really remember what was in it. That's a weird one. That's a weird one. But then there was travel and vehicles, which I don't know. Do those go together? Like travel is you're taking a trip, vehicle, you're buying a car. And then it got to this, which I thought, hilarious. There was a whole category, Billy, okay, for how do you spend your first paycheck as a rookie? And the category was sports equipment. Oh. And I thought, what? That's supplied for you. What are we talking about here?

1:14:55It was one guy, Caleb Lomu of the New England Patriots offensive tackle, golf clubs he was getting. He said, I'm not really a guy who spends too much money, but one of the first things I got was a new golf set, Lomu said. I'm big into golf. I love playing some golf. I had to get some longer ones. I kind of outgrew my old set. does that pass the sniff test here, Billy? Like this guy, I mean, he was playing with like shorty golf clubs and he couldn't afford them and he grew a lot. He's like 22 years old. And all of a sudden he was like David Robinson. He had a big growth spurt in his early twenties.

1:15:39I found that one too. I'm a little, I'm questioning that pick more so than I did at the time with that answer.

1:15:45Sheil Kapadia:It's a little odd to think that you've hit a growth spurt at like 22, 23, that you now need new golf clubs. Honestly, when you said sporting equipment, I'm like, I hope that this guy doesn't think he needs to buy his own helmets and shoulder pads and stuff like that. Cause like we're just wasting money. But luckily I guess it's golf clubs. And I, I think he just wanted golf clubs. It's just perfectly fine. Just say, I wanted a news. I wanted to treat myself. New golf clubs, you know? There you go. Okay. So you had that Carnell Tate said Star Wars Lego Ultimate Collector Series set, which I don't know anything about.

1:16:15I'm not a Star Wars guy. Billy, are you?

1:16:17Sheil Kapadia:I'm not, but I know that Star Wars Legos are very collectible. They have like the, whatever the big circle thing is. Wow, I'm going to get fried. Is it Death Star? Is that what it's called? Lightsaber? I don't know. Well, here's the thing. I don't know about you. I would think that it's similar to my experience. As a child, I feel like Legos were like a very big part of like your childhood. And it was like, look at all the things that you can make with Legos. It really like enhances your imagination. You can do this now, whatever. Right now it's all like Lego sets that are ridiculously priced.

1:16:54Sheil Kapadia:Oh my God, the price. They're no longer, they're no longer a toy, an affordable toy for children. These are now become like specialty things for collectors like this. We're like, I have the star Wars one. I have the Harry Potter one. I have a special Pokemon, whatever it is. Right. And then even if you want to get, cause like we have, you know, a little nephew, we have two daughters now, but before that we had like a little nephew that came before them. And it's like, I remember like having Legos and connects and tinker toys and all these things that I could build with. Right. Let's get them like some Legos.

1:17:26Sheil Kapadia:Let's not get them a set. Let's just get them like a tub of Legos and he could make whatever his heart desires, whatever he can imagine. Right. And it was like$60 or something just for like 80 cubes of like varying like sizes and colors. It's like, who, who can afford these? This is ridiculous. And then it's just going to be on the floor, you step on it. And that's like a death sentence. Like, no, it was ridiculous. So, you know, although counterpoint, I have envied the people who have a lot of time on their hands and say, you know what I'm going to do? Like, it's a relaxing. I'm going to make this Lego set.

1:18:00Sheil Kapadia:And then they just have all this room in their houses. Because once you make the set, you can't really take it apart. So you need to display it somewhere. So I guess Cardinal Tate is just going to have displays of Legos around his house after he builds these if he has the time to build them? Yeah, I guess so. I don't know. But you know what? There are worse things he could be spending his money on. Like you said, he's a top 10 pick. So he's getting a nice... That'd be bad if it was crack. That definitely would be bad. Yeah, that wouldn't be good. I've always said, Billy, two things. If I had...

1:18:30If I were a rookie in the NFL and someone asked me this, remember we had our fun time with Ashton Jensie at the Super Bowl?

1:18:37Sheil Kapadia:Yeah. And you remember what he said he's got? a personal chef, Billy. You got the pen there. I saw my Ashen Genty pen here. So I've always said I would definitely get a personal chef if I had that kind of money. And then I always said I would get someone to stretch me out. Now, they don't necessarily need that because they're going to the facility. But if it was just me, I would want the chef. And then I want someone to kind of just stretch me out, loosen up the hammies, loosen up the back. And long-time listeners of mine will know we call this fruits and glutes. is what we would want if we had a big amount of money.

1:19:13Have you thought about it? How you would have answered this question or you're not sure?

1:19:16Sheil Kapadia:I haven't really thought about it. I was looking at some of the answers. I saw one answer that was in the home and the home goods section where Jacob Rodriguez said that he bought a Tempur-Pedic mattress. And I was like, okay, sure. Mattresses can be expensive. And his whole thing was like, I used to room with my brother. At one point I was sleeping on the floor and the mattresses in the dorms were very good. I wanted to get a nice match. It's like, okay, that's sensible. Short of winning the lottery, I don't think I'm going to just come across a large sum of money out of the blue at this stage in my life, you know?

1:19:48Sheil Kapadia:So I don't think that I need to figure it out. Another thing that I will say based on this article that was somewhat disappointing and it was more disappointing in like the first section, which was investments. This used to be fun because it was like, oh my God, he bought a tiger with his signing bonus. Like, of course he bought a tiger with his signing bonus. They're like, oh, bought three Lamborghinis because he wanted one in each color for different days a week. Like, sure, why not? That's of course what you would do, right? With like the fiscally responsible guys, this is a trend that I don't think that we thought about.

1:20:24Sheil Kapadia:But a lot of the guys are like, yeah, like I have a$50 million signing bonus, but I'm just going to live off my endorsement money because I made$600 ,000 last year in college. So like, I'm already rich. Yes, that stood out to me too. And it's like, I didn't even think about the fact that like guys are now coming into the league and they already know not to waste the money because they already probably wasted the first year of like NIL money. And then it kept coming and like, I need to be a lot more responsible. And they have money already because they made millions of dollars in college. It's a crazy kind of shift in this new like rookie wage situation.

1:21:00It could be a great side effect. Yeah, you're right. It's like, it's not all of a sudden they're overwhelmed by all this stuff because I'm making a lot of money for the first time. It's kind of gradual. Like they're not making, you know,$15 million. But like you said, the guy's like, I made$600 ,000. It's like, all right, well, you know, you have to decide how are you going to use that$600 ,000? Now, when you get to the NFL, you have a better idea. So yeah, that definitely stood out to me there. A lot of the guys in that article said the same thing about, well, this isn't like totally new for me.

1:21:28I did. And I had money from NIL before. All right.

1:21:32Sheil Kapadia:I think we're headed to the point where extinct are going to be the podcast interviews where you have former athletes saying$200 million isn't really what you think it is. And it's like, oh, okay, former athlete, I think$200 million taxes and all still a lot of money. Like let's not, you know, Carmelo or whoever it was, like, let's not make excuses of how we burn through like this crop of quarterbacks and this crop of like, you know, drafted, you know, players is saying like, I could live basically like, I could live off the interest. And it's like, yeah, yeah, you can. Good for you. Good job.

1:22:05Sheil Kapadia:Five generations taken care of by this contract. Like, it's awesome. Good for them. That was financial minute with Billy Gill and Sheil Kapadia. There will be more of that in future episodes. All right, Billy, what do we got? What's up? Wait, Sheil, we didn't talk about Caleb Banks who bought snakes. Well, when you said Tiger, I thought you were going to go there. Yeah, Caleb Banks of the Vikings likes to, you know, What was that show on that? The thing about the tiger and the, you know, the one on Netflix. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Tiger King. Yeah. Tiger King. Yeah. Okay. But he bought a tarantula and three snakes.

1:22:41He already had snakes and a chameleon.

1:22:43Sheil Kapadia:So there you go. This started because of his obsession with koalas. And when I was reading, I was like, how did he get a koala? Where did he get a koala? That's what I thought it was going to be too. How are we going to get to this koala? Yeah. Still hasn't, unfortunately. One day. Maybe his second contract. Yeah. Keep dreaming, Caleb. All right. All right. What do we got, Billy? Two and 10? Two and 10. Okay. Let's do two. Okay, two. All right. Here, this from ESPN. Can Cowboys achieve goatee status, Billy? Have you ever heard goatee? Not the facial hair. This is G-O-T-I. This is Dak Prescott's new saying, and it stands for greatest offense there is.

1:23:26So Dak Prescott's going around saying, we want to be Goaty and now Brian Schottenheimer is being asked about it saying this is part of Goaty and they're saying we want to be the greatest offense there is so the Bears Ben Johnson says we want to be the highest scoring offense of all time and now the Cowboys are coming in saying we want to be the Goaty greatest offense it doesn't really roll off the tongue no

1:23:49Sheil Kapadia:it doesn't and it's G-O-T-I is Goaty Gotti there's a missing A for Goat there there is yeah, this is a this is a I don't like it. It's weird. I don't like it. It's one of the worst team mantras I've ever heard. And this is I'm someone who thinks the Cowboys offense is going to be really good. But Goaty is I think unequivocally dumb. Well, okay. You think they're going to be very good. Do you think they're going to be the greatest offense there is? Because last year I think they were second in yards per game seventh in points per game. So they weren't even the best last year, much less all time.

1:24:30Sheil Kapadia:I think in Cowboys team history, last year's was the fourth best in yards and 10th. But I mean, they're not even close to the best Cowboys offense ever. Is it realistic to believe that they're going to be the greatest offense there is? I don't think so. I mean, they could be the best offense in the NFL this year. I'm not predicting that, but like, I don't, I think I have them top five. So I don't think it's crazy. You know, they returned pretty much everyone from last year. Whenever Dak Prescott's healthy, the offense is pretty good. They've got CeeDee Lamb. They've got George Pickens. O-line's a bit of a question, but it's not bad.

1:25:01The scheme, the play calling is all good. But yeah, that was a weird one. I think they need to go back and workshop that one a little bit.

1:25:09Sheil Kapadia:They've had a weird training camp, right? Between Goaty and then like beekeepers, helmets that they were playing with to kind of increase the vision. Like, ah, what's going on with these Cowboys here? It's always something. And Jerry's just like, we might trade for someone big, like he says every summer. but you know I was going to say typically Jerry's the one doing and saying things you're like what's what's going on there but it's not good when the team is not giving Jerry the room to be the crazy one yeah Jerry can't get into the headlines because they're doing goatee and sort of if you haven't seen it the sort of beekeeper mask to try to practice for seeing the sun you know at their home stadium because they don't want to fix that issue it's a whole thing I actually don't want to get into that these coaches is honestly just sit down like in the off season board and like, what, what can we do?

1:25:58How do we

1:25:59Sheil Kapadia:fix this? And then like, they're like looking on Amazon or whatever, like, Oh, that like, that could really help. Right. Or they're like, what do you think that it's that, that they're really have bad ideas? Or do you think that it's like, man, trying to get up is so boring. Like, let's see what ridiculous things we can kind of put in there, like friendship quizzes and spelling bees just to get people talking about us, you know, and kind of essentially pass the time, because what are we going to do? Just watch film every day? Like, let's figure something out. It's almost like their algorithms are catered to them and they see these bad ideas.

1:26:30And they're, you know, like we do, like we are, I'm going to buy this thing unnecessarily. And then it just kind of sits in the corner for months. It's kind of like that, except they have to implement them and then they're being asked about them by reporters. And then they're like, oh, okay, maybe that was a bad idea. That's what it feels like.

1:26:46Sheil Kapadia:Do you remember the magazine East Bay? Of course. Oh my God, loved it. One, I miss catalogs. Let's just get right out in front and say, I miss catalogs. Catalogs were the best, far superior to online shopping. In terms of ease of ordering and receiving products, online shopping is so much better. You know what my mom would let me do, Billy? What? Before the school year? What? I could buy a little sweatsuit from the JCPenney cattle. Pick any sports team, you know? And I would just pick random ones. It wasn't like at all Philly ones. Pick random ones. And you get the sweatshirt and the sweatpants.

1:27:20and your boy's ready for picture day. Wow. Did you have the,

1:27:23Sheil Kapadia:I feel like you had the Hornets. Did you have the Hornets ever? Oh my God. I had an amazing Hornets sweatshirt that I probably wore every other day. Teal and purple? Yeah. Starter. Oh. Fantastic. You know, I saw starter jackets the other day at Target. I couldn't believe that they made some sort. Target's got a weird thing going on where they have like brands come in and have like little pop-ups in their store. Okay. They did it not too long ago with the store Hollister where there was like Hollister branded clothes in Target. And then like, I'll go in on like Sunday and like Sunday mornings, I'll go out to try to do, I like to do my grocery shopping and my purchases in the morning because usually there's less people involved.

1:28:01Sheil Kapadia:I can go in and out, get out of the house, get my steps in and the air conditioning, avoid the oppressive heat. But like, that's when they have like these brand launch drops. And there's like all these people that know about this brand or whatever it is. I have no clue. And it's like, they're buying binders with like special prints on them and they're hoarding them to go sell online. And it's kind of like insanity. And it's like, we don't need to get into it. It's just ridiculous. Why did you, this feels like a, for the listeners, this isn't a branded segment. If you're wondering, we're not seeing anything.

1:28:31We're, I don't know, you know, we're naming too many names. But you did ask me about East Bay. So I don't know if that was going somewhere.

1:28:37Sheil Kapadia:That's a good point. Thank you for getting me back on track. Cause that led to the JC Penney that I was seeing the Sears catalog. Obviously Toys R Us catalogs are great too. But East Bay, because we were talking about like weird things that show up in your algorithm, I'm sure you saw these and I'm sure you did not fall for because I'm one of the few people I think on earth that actually purchased them. I bought those shoes that were like the platform on the front. Oh, yeah. I know what you're talking about. That is hovering in the back that are supposed to, they're supposed to be for basketball, increase your vertical jump.

1:29:08Sheil Kapadia:You can dunk. Yeah. Yeah. That's what they tell you. You could dunk. So I bought a pair of those shoes and I would wear the shoes. And when you buy the shoes, it would give you like drills and exercises that you would do. So I would get them. I would go to a park near my house. And I did this because my thought process was I'm not a basketball player, but I'm a pole vaulter and I still need like a nice vertical leap. So if it's good enough for a basketball player, it's good enough for me. and I would be running on the grass through the park like a crazy person on these platform shoes with just the front of it where your soul is lifting.

1:29:47Sheil Kapadia:And I have to tell you, I did a fairly like regular regimen of this. I didn't dunk as a result of it. There was a time in my younger years where I could dunk like holding the small ball because my palm wasn't big enough for like the, you know, the full ball. Well, you're a deceivingly taller guy too. Yeah. That's what people tell me sometimes. So I was able to do that. Like, you know, first year out of high school, whatever, like peak, like physical form. I could do that. But as a result of these shoes, I have no idea if they actually made me jump taller or not. I tried to stop dunking at a certain point.

1:30:21Sheil Kapadia:Cause I was like, I'm afraid of the, it's not the going up, it's the coming down that I'm worried about with my ankles and my knees and all kinds of stuff. So like I stopped trying after a certain point. Right. But yeah, I was the guy, I was the sucker that bought these shoes on East Bay. And you could have driven around Tropical Park down here in Florida and seen me running around up and down doing calisthenics with these shoes on. Well, listen, it led to a college career as an athlete with Ben Johnson. It led to this right here. And it led to this moment right here, which brings us to number 10, Billy.

1:30:54Had I not worn those shoes, who knows if I ever would have met Adam Schefter's mom on a cruise, you know? I'm pretty sure you wouldn't have. No way to know. Everything happens for a reason. All right. All right. Number 10, we finish with this, the state of the Browns. Here's what I'm going to do, Bill. Oh, no. We're finishing with a game, okay? I'm going to read you three headlines. Two of these are real. You have to pick the one that is not real. You have a fake headline. Yeah, this is just giving the audience a sense of the state of the Cleveland Browns in mid-August as they prepare for the season.

1:31:27Sheil Kapadia:This is very Dan Quinn of you, Cheel. Okay, well, yeah. Number one, owner Jimmy Haslam says Browns aren't punting on 2026, colon, take the over. So there you go. Take the over, says owner Jimmy Haslam. It's early August. That's a weird one, but okay. Number two, squirrel issue delays start of Browns training camp practice. Okay, squirrel issue delays start of Browns training camp practice. That's number two. And number three, Jerry Judy clarifies viral video, says he talked to Browns QBs. Jerry Judy clarifies viral video, says he talked to Browns QBs. Those are three headlines, Billy. Two of them are actual headlines about the Cleveland Browns.

1:32:22One of them is fake. Which one do you think is fake?

1:32:25Sheil Kapadia:I want to believe the squirrels. I want to I want to believe that Jerry Judy somehow found himself in some sort of video issue that the internet ran with and he has some explaining to do and probably is going up to quarterbacks that don't even know what he's talking about so I'm gonna say that the Jimmy Hasem thing seems given that it's only August saying don't put on the season seems very that's like a October headline, not an August headline. So I'm going to say Jimmy Haslund. Incorrect, Billy. Really? That was a real headline. The squirrel issue was not a real headline. I had to work the creative part of my brain there to come up with that.

1:33:12So this is via The Athletic. Jimmy Haslund, the Browns owner, said he's trying to convince reporters that, hey, don't count us out. I know we traded Miles Garrett and are stockpiling picks and are going with Shador Sanders and Deshaun Watson at quarterback, but we're not planning on the season. And he says, quote, I think the odds on the season win total are for us to win five and a half games. I'd take the over.

1:33:42Sheil Kapadia:I mean, here's the thing. It's August, Billy. And he thinks he's puffing his chest out by saying they're going to win six games. He like he's given this like I'm down to have a take here that I need to get off my chest. And it's like you're, you know, you had a strong one with the Baker Mayfield Minnesota Vikings in 2027. This is his version of that. And it's that the football team that I own is not going to be one of like the worst four teams in the NFL. And you can put that in the newspaper and he's feeling good about it. You want to know the funny thing about that is if he's right and he takes a victory lap on this.

1:34:19Sheil Kapadia:the other headlines that have come out of the Browns so far this offseason is basically we don't know who our quarterback is might be Deshaun Watson again it's like wait how are we in this position again with Deshaun Watson because I'm pretty sure Jimmy himself last year said like that was a swing and a miss we that one that one that one didn't pan out but now he might be the starter again and then coming into this I think they've already said like well Deshaun's gonna to start one preseason game and Shadour is going to start one preseason game, which if I'm Dylan Gabriel, I'm like, what's going on?

1:34:51Sheil Kapadia:Like, what do I have to do here if I can't beat either one of these two guys? Right. But if Jimmy's right and they win six games, they're probably not going to win much more than six games. No, they're probably still not going to know where their quarterback is. But as a result of winning six games, they're also not going to get another quarterback that's going to turn around their franchise. So winning six games might be the worst thing that could happen to them. Six might be okay if there are enough good quarterbacks. But you're right. It could not fall your way and all of a sudden the teams in front of you in the draft all need quarterbacks.

1:35:26So yeah, that might not be great. But I was looking at Jimmy Haslam's pro football reference page. He's owned the team for 14 seasons and in seven of those seasons, they've gone under five and a half wins, which is like, how is that? I mean, in a league where you're trying to bring everyone, you know, parity and salary cap and the draft. It's like, that is actually almost impressive that in half your seasons, you won five or fewer games. So that was a real headline. And then this Jerry Judy story, I honestly don't understand. This was like, I'm too old for this moment for me because I read this on ESPN.com and it was like, there was a TikTok live stream where, you know, Jerry Judy was asked who he thinks the quarterback should be.

1:36:11And he held up the number four, which is Deshaun Watson's number. So everyone's like, oh, Jerry Judy wants Deshaun Watson. And he's like, no, my daughter's four years old, which I don't know what that, like, I don't know what the live stream was about. It's just all very confusing to me. But to your point, they don't have a quarterback. They haven't named a quarterback. And if you read the Browns coverage, it is just so sad when you're reading these daily quarterback updates. It's like, neither guy really looked good. Todd Munkin was noncommittal, but Jimmy Haslam gave us this quote today.

1:36:41Sheil Kapadia:Didn't Todd Munkin, if I'm remembering correctly, didn't Todd Munkin also try to get Shadour to the Ravens? Like they spoke beforehand and he was like, we should go after him. And then something happened where they decided not to. So when he came back over or when he came over, it was like, I told you we were going to work together. And it's like, oh, okay, Todd, like calm down. He wasn't very good. He was a pro bowl last year, but it wasn't actually really a pro bowler last year. You know? Oh my gosh. Todd comes in and is like, guess what I got? a pro bowl quarterback. It's like, well, sort of.

1:37:12Sheil Kapadia:Technically, yes, you do. Tough situation for the Cleveland Browns. You know, a sad one to end on, but at least we got to make fun of Jimmy Haslam a little bit there. All right, Billy, did you like the exercise? I did like the exercise. You know what I was thinking? Just going back to the hot take and the prediction from last year. Yeah. You know, it would never happen because of the way things ended. But man, the Browns could get Baker after this season. He just would never go back there because of how poorly that all fell apart and how they kind of just threw him aside. That's what they said about Geno Smith at one time.

1:37:46Billy, he's back with the New York Jets. So if you pay enough money and you don't have other options, maybe you would do that. So there you go. Billy's calling it that Baker Mayfield is either a Cleveland Brown or a Minnesota Viking in 2027. There you go.

1:38:01Sheil Kapadia:Or a buck. There you go. Or a buck also. Maybe their season goes well and they just pay him. All right, that was fun. We went over a bunch of miscellaneous topics around the NFL. I think we hit on all of them with my friend, Billy Gill from The Ringer. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Thank you to Stefano Sanchez for video production and additional production supervision from Connor Nevins and Arjuna. Ram Gopal, I'm Shiel Kapadia. Enjoy all the preseason action this weekend. We'll be back next week on The Ringer NFL Show.

1:39:05Thank you. here. Visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPENY or text HOPENY in New York. For Louisiana, call 1-877-770-7867.