Aaron Donald's Return, Josh Jacobs's Status, and Making Sense of the Trade Market

21:20Sheil Kapadia:At first, I thought that the McVay plan was a ridiculous plan, but Tom has talked me into it as he was kind of explaining it. I was like, this is absurd. This seems like a really bad strategy. I feel like we're starting the Rams Super Bowl run here, 0-1 with getting there the day before. because I mean, I guess that, you know, they're flying private, they have their own plane. They're not going to deal with like the regular, you know, inconveniences the modern man faces, but you still have a 15 hour plus flight. So you're going to have to get used to that in that one day that you have, but never changing time zones in like internally, like in your head seems like a great strategy to me.

21:57Sheil Kapadia:I think that they've said that when you cross time zones, it takes you like that many days for your body to get re-acclimated to the difference in time. That could just be an old wives' tale where if you're crossing three time zones, East Coast to West Coast, it'll take you three days to get acclimated. But if you never change your internal clock, then I guess there's no reason for them to be there that much earlier. So maybe McVay, look, McVay is known as a genius, right? So is Kyle Shanahan, I guess. But McVay is like the one that we're like, wow, this guy thinks out of the box. Maybe he actually is a genius in this set.

22:29Sheil Kapadia:We're not going to know until the game happens, right? Tom, how long does it take you when you've traveled to get used to that time difference? Yeah. I've never done anything like this. Really? You guys will find out firsthand when I am on this show. I believe it's Wednesday morning, Australia time, Tuesday night, US time. We'll see. We'll see what kind of shape I'm being because it's something like 22 hours of total travel time and then going across whatever it is, 13 time zones. It's going to be fascinating for everyone. And all I know is there's going to be about 105 ,000 fired up and perhaps inebriated Aussies cheering that thing on.

23:07It's going to be an electric environment. And by the way, a division game. Like, we could be at the end of the year and going, man, they're separate just by a tiebreaker. Where'd that tell you? Melbourne in week one when we were talking about the travel plans. That could literally turn the division. I mean, it's a high stakes type of a game. I know Kyle's made clear he wasn't a big fan of it. He still is not a big fan of it, but they're going to try to take advantage of getting over there and maybe even get a few people on their side by being the team that shows up early, even though on paper on game day, they're the road team.

23:41Sheil Kapadia:Do you have a strategy for this 22-hour flight that you're going to be on? None. None. I'm thinking through it, put it that way. I think that it's going to be, I'm going to try to time. I guess there's an app you can get that tells you now is the time to go to sleep on these really long flights. So probably download the app. I'm just going to try to reset and sleep at the time that I would want to be sleeping in Australia, even if it's 5 p.m. my time. But no. Do I have a plan? No. It's going to be total seat of the pants, and I'll probably figure it out at the airport on Sunday. Wait, so does Netflix treat you right?

24:13Sheil Kapadia:You're going to have a nice laying down type seating situation? I better. Oh. If I do it. No, I don't mean that as a shot. I'm pretty sure I will. I'm just saying if I show up on that plane, and I've got like the upright 10 degree decline seats, it's not going to be, it is not going to go well for me on that plane. I mean, for show content purposes, that might be best case scenario for us, right? Where you come on the next day and you're like in a really crabby mood because you're like, what did I do? This Netflix and this ringer, they didn't give me anything that I wanted. We're going to be on live on Netflix at 8.30 a.m.

24:49local time on game day. So as long as my Friday over there, Thursday here, I'm up and running. And that's what's important. I can't wait to hear about Tom. We're going to do a Tom's travel segment next week. Cause yes, I'm very intrigued. Is he going McVay? Is he not changing his clock from central time? Is he going Shanahan? No, I'm there early. Let me live like the locals live here. That's going to be very interesting. And I'll just say a FanDuel put up odds for whether we will be all, you know, able to sign on at the same time for that podcast next week and get our time zones correct. I mean, plus 800 or something I'm expecting when one of us is going to sign on to weren't going to be there, something like that.

25:27But you know what? Now that I put that out there, maybe we'll work on it. We'll make sure we figure it out. Very interested in this travel situation for the Rams and the Niners. Do you do movies?

25:37Sheil Kapadia:Do you do shows? Would you watch, what, like three or four back-to-back, like three-hour movies? It's so much time. Not a big show, guys. Really? I think I'm going to try to work, get things done, and then tire myself out and knock myself out. That's my baseline. And then all of a sudden, and I'll find out that, you know, Snakes on a Plane is showing or something and then I'll probably... You got a wreck for him, Billy? You sounded like you wanted to, you know, give him a little, hey, why don't you watch Knockout Season 3 of Tires or something like that? I don't know. Well, that's... I've actually found that.

26:07Sheil Kapadia:Like, so we had, you know, a couple instances where they sent us internationally. We had a Spotify thing that half the company, you know, went to Sweden and that was like a long travel journey with connecting flights. And I've found that like the streaming of like one hour episodes makes it easier than the back-to-back multiple movies. Because I don't know why it is mentally, I guess. It's the same thing when you're at home, right? On a weekend where you're trying to get through it, where you can say like, oh, you know, The Irishman or whatever that movie is called is four hours long. I'm not going to sit down to watch a four-hour movie.

26:37Sheil Kapadia:But you could binge six or seven episodes back-to-back-to-back without even blinking an eye. I'm convinced that's a parent thing. When you're a parent and it's just easier to, I can't commit to this whole movie, but hey, I can watch this one-hour episode And then you know what? If I still have time after that, I can watch another one hour episode. So yes, that has happened to me. I think that's happened to a lot of parents. I was going to recommend the show I knocked out a lot of this summer was Industry. But Tom, I would say that would not be appropriate for plain viewing. You're probably going to get looks.

27:07You're a new Netflix employee. I would just say, let's not do that one. I'll try to come up with another one for you. People who have watched Industry know what I'm talking about there. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got more to get to around the NFL. This episode is brought to you by Orgain. Go harder and push farther with Orgain Creatine. It helps improve muscle size, strength, and power when combined with a regular exercise and weight training routine. Orgain Creatine is certified with informed choice, which means it's tested for prohibited substances in sports. Upgrade your performance with Orgain Creatine, available at Amazon, Costco, Walmart, and Whole Foods.

27:48These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This episode is brought to you by Whole Foods, who has your back-to-school eats sorted. Wow, we're going back to school already. They've got your fast and easy breakfast covered with frozen waffles and pancakes. Lunchboxes are looking tasty with organic seedless grapes and baby carrots and essentials like cheese sticks. Then for dinner, you can build your own meal. Choose from a variety of entrees like chicken scallopini in two sides, and it's all good too.

28:21Whole Foods has banned more than 300 food ingredients store-wide. Shop back-to-school must-haves at Whole Foods Market in-store or online. This episode is brought to you by Boar's Head. It may have been years ago, but I still remember the feeling of unpacking my kids' lunch boxes after school and to find nothing left. As a parent, that's a total win. Boar's Head, maple honey ham, American cheese, maple honey turkey, all-time greats in the school lunch game. It's real quality protein and tastes great. So you can feel that winning feeling all term long. Whether you're doing wraps, sandwiches, or a quick snack box, Boar's Head makes packing school lunches easier.

28:57You'll be proud of what you pack. They'll be happy to finish it. Fuel their school day with the premium choice Boar's Head. For lunchtime inspiration, visit boarshead.com slash back to school or head to your local deli counter. All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. All right, not a fun story, but a big story in the NFL. Josh Jacobs, Tom, placed on the commissioner exempt list, running back for the Green Bay Packers. Fill us in. What are you hearing? What does this mean? And what does kind of the 2026 season potentially hold for Josh Jacobs? Well, this was always a possibility, Sheil, with Josh Jacobs, because the way that the personal conduct policy reads, It's if you are charged with a felony, charged with a crime of violence, or if the league, based on what it knows, has come to the conclusion that you may have committed one of those acts, that you may have something that takes place down the line.

29:57And that's where Josh Jacobs was, even though initially he was booked on five charges, including felony strangulation. In the end, the local district attorney in Brown County, Wisconsin, came back and only charged him with two misdemeanors, misdemeanor battery and misdemeanor destruction of property. The fact that it involved alleged acts that were in the vicinity of something that the NFL eventually could charge him for under the personal conduct policy. The league erred on the side of taking him off the field. The Packers did not know which way this was going to go. Certainly, they had an inclination.

30:32This was possible. Brian Gutekunst referenced it recently. They made a trade yesterday for Caleb Johnson to get another running back in the room, along with Marshawn Lloyd and Chris Brooks, which is not the way I'm sure that the Packers would have wanted their running back room to line up going into the season. The thing with the commissioner exempt list, And of course, the first time, this list has existed for a long time, but it only was applied to players who were facing personal conduct investigations in 2014-2015 with the likes of Adrian Peterson and Greg Hardy, where it became a mechanism to take the player off the field.

31:07And once you go on that list, you've now really lost control of the timeline. Any suspension that eventually ends up coming is likely offset by the time that you spend on the exemplist. But for Josh Jacobs, whose hearing is not until the middle of November, the league could choose not to act until then. We could see whether or not there's something that takes place on the legal front, perhaps a plea deal that allows the NFL to act sooner. We'll see if perhaps they could negotiate a suspension. But if it's a significant enough concern for the league that they're taking Jacobs off the field on the commissioner exemplus, just the same as Jonathan Cooper in Denver, who also landed on that list.

31:43Terryon Arnold, the new Seahawks cornerback, is the third player. No other players are ending up on the exemplus. But in all those cases, there's a lot of different moving parts. The league historically has waited until criminal proceedings are complete, in part because there's information that they don't have access to from the police, from the local authorities until after the legal proceedings are complete. The exempt list is the placeholder that you can place a player on. Again, they could end up negotiating a settlement and a specific number of games for a suspension. It's possible that if there's a plea deal or something else that moves things up, you agree to pretrial diversion, the charges are dropped, whatever it might be, that this could accelerate.

32:24But the Packers have to be ready now to not have Josh Jacobs for the foreseeable future. And we'll see when or perhaps even if Josh Jacobs is in a Packers uniform again. Paid suspension, like Tom said, court date set for November 17th. Although, as you said, things could change between now and then. According to the police report, Jacob's girlfriend, for those who don't know kind of the details here, Jacob's girlfriend said that he grabbed her and threw her to the ground during an argument. And then the police report said video surveillance corroborated the altercation that the woman described that is per The Athletic.

33:03So yeah, it's kind of wait and see with Josh Jacobs. I think one important note just to reinforce there from Tom is that if he's missing games while on this list and then it's suspended, Tom, that's just most of the time it's offset, right? Like let's say he misses six games while he's on this list and then they give him a six game suspension. They would consider that those six games have already been served. But is that like definite all the time or that's just kind of how usually this has played out? These things are usually subject. Now, a lot of the suspensions that have happened recently for personal conduct matters, not the standard DUIs, three games, for instance, but a lot of these negotiated types of suspensions, they are the product of a settlement.

33:43That was the case with Deshaun Watson. There were a lot of different things that took place in there. Justin Tucker was negotiated 11-game suspension where he signed on board to that to try to get himself back into the league. That has not yet happened. You just don't know exactly how things are going to play out. It is paid leave in the interim. If, in fact, let's say Josh Jacobs were to miss eight games and the NFL says, well, the suspension would have been eight, you can come back. You would still have to give up the money for those eight games in all likelihood. But again, there is between the NFL, the NFL Players Association, and then, of course, Josh Jacobs and his representatives, there's a lot of different things that can be discussed and figured out.

34:21Again, the bottom line here is commissioner's exempt is indefinite. indefinite. And you remember this came out of the Ray Rice case and not just the corollary here of the potential existence of video that would show an altercation between Josh Jacobs and this woman, but also that the NFL initially gave a short suspension to Ray Rice. I can't remember if it was two games. I think it was two games, if I remember correctly. And then when the video came out, all of a sudden they suspended him indefinitely. Well, a federal court judge eventually ruled or a former federal court judge ruled that you can't suspend a player twice.

34:57So the NFL's answer to that was, we will now just use commissioner's exempt to put the player on the sideline. That part of it is indefinite because it's not a suspension. It is paid leave. Depending on how long that lasts, again, there's probably a negotiation that takes place. But let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Josh Jacobs is facing serious allegations, though reduced charges from what he was initially booked with. This is not a felony case. These are two misdemeanors. It's always possible, again, that a plea deal could be reached or something could be worked out well in advance of that hearing in mid-November, at least in part, because that may be Josh Jacobs' best path to serving a suspension and getting himself back onto the field.

35:39But there's still a lot that we don't know about this case. What we do know is, barring a major change, the Packers are going to be walking into U.S. Bank Stadium in Minnesota in week one without one of their most important players on the field.

35:51Sheil Kapadia:Yesterday when the news of the Exemplist came out, I think part of the story was also who wasn't on that list. So Rashad Bateman of the Ravens didn't end up on that list. He had a domestic dispute back in June and is facing criminal charges. Pukun Okua, that's more of a civil case, right? Is that possibly why it is that he wasn't on that list? And then also, just because they weren't placed on it yesterday doesn't mean they still can't be placed on it down the road, correct? It's unlikely that the exempt list would be used, barring new information, Billy, because the NFL usually does those things at the cutdown because of the implications for the roster.

36:27The player doesn't count against the roster. It allows you to do it. They don't usually use commissioner's exempt, for instance, in the spring, though they would have used it with Terry on Arnold had he not, you know, had the Seahawks not waited until they did eventually actually sign him formally on Saturday. But in terms of the exempt list, usually that's not something that's used later unless there's a material change in circumstances. There's new evidence. There's video players hit with additional charges. They have another incident. Usually it is something that would take place at the cut down.

36:58The only one besides the three that happened that I thought was possible was Rashad Bateman because he is facing, I believe, one felony charge and additional charges. Alaric Jackson, I believe that case is resolved. That's a suspension that still could come down. in the not too distant future. He's already served one personal conduct suspension. Certainly that's a possibility. With Puka, that's a more layered thing. The NFL has in the past suspended players without criminal allegations. It's one thing that I think a lot of people miss with the NFL in that, you know, I constantly see people and even the comments like the commissioner's exempt list of like, how can the NFL let this happen while they throw these guys out of the league?

37:38The NFL in case after case after case have taken more action against players under the personal conduct policy than the criminal justice system. Ray Rice entered pretrial diversion and ended up with a two-game suspension that became an indefinite suspension and ended his career. Adrian Peterson was something where his banishment was far more significant than the actual discipline that he would have faced through the criminal justice system. Time after time, Josh Brown was another case. Justin Tucker never had any criminal cases brought against him and served an 11-game suspension. that pending if he gets another opportunity this year could be the end of his career.

38:15And that's not to, you know, absolve the league. They've certainly made mistakes in the past. They've, you know, obviously admitted that in the case of like a Ray Rice. But time and again, they have taken greater action against players. And the fact that they're pulling Josh Jacobs and Terryon Arnold and Jonathan Cooper off the field at a time that they have not been convicted of anything, at the time they are still facing charges, is one more or three more examples of really how the NFL has approached this, which is we're not going, A, we're not going to wait necessarily for final jurisprudence here.

38:49And two, we are willing, even if a player gets no jail time or does not end up being charged or charges are dropped, they'll still take action if their own investigation that they do internally reveals conduct that they feel like violated the personal conduct policy. Just from a football perspective, if the Josh Jacobs thing Tom mentioned probably not going to be there week one. It is interesting to look at this Packers offense, and obviously this is a big pivot. These are serious allocations. Tom outlined it there very well. But from an on-field perspective, this is a team that ran the football at the third highest rate last year.

39:27I mean, they were really run first team and they weren't a great rushing team. If you look at really any of the advanced stats, they were quite mediocre. And so that's just one thing to keep an eye on with the Packers now with a very uncertain running back situation, is this the time where Matt LaFleur says, we're going to pivot and we're going to allow Jordan Love to do more and we're going to throw the football more on early downs? And does that benefit the team or does kind of, you know, more of that hurt a little bit? Because obviously he was playing last year the way he was for a reason. So that's something that's just an interesting little side effect here from a football perspective to keep an eye on.

40:04And Josh being banged up at the end of the year, too, with injuries was one of the complications that they had to keep the thing rolling. The biggest factor, in my mind, of why the Packers were not quite as efficient down the stretch offensively and they went through a pretty significant dip for a couple games midseason was they lost Tucker Craft. After Jordan Love, he might be the most important player on that team. To me, he is young Travis Kelsey. He is that good. He is that physical. He's that athletic. He's that fast. He's a mismatched weapon all over the field. It certainly sounds like he's going to be able to go in week one.

40:38We'll see how much he's able to go in the early going. But the fact that he is back, Christian Watson, who they paid in the offseason, who's a really good player. He's everything the Packers are about. He's just had a lot of injuries in his career. He's back. They made some other changes. If you think about what they did at the receiver position, Robio Dobbs moving on to New England. They traded Don Tadey on Wicks. I know that the kind of running joke or at times complaint from certain people is, why does no Packer receiver, especially fantasy players, why does no Packer receiver ever have 1 ,000-plus yards?

41:09Why is it always? It's because that's how the offense runs. It's designed to get the ball into the open player's hands. All of a sudden now, if we had Tucker Craft, Watson, Jaden Reed, and probably Matthew Golden, Those are the guys that would see in the offense, the passing game is going to revolve around. Matt's always going to want to run the football. But if you look in the backfield right now, you have Caleb Johnson, who was a third-round pick a couple of years ago, who was available for a late-rounder because he was probably going to get cut by the Steelers if they didn't trade him. You have Marshawn Lloyd, who has been hurt literally his entire career so far in the NFL.

41:42He's looked good in camp, but you don't really have evidence that he's going to be able to do it in the regular season. And then Chris Brooks, who was like a, I mean, I can't remember if the Dolphins, they cut him or they traded him for a late round pick, but he was another guy who was like a bottom of the roster player. That's your backfield going into the season. And again, we'll see if Josh Jacobs comes back at some point. There's a lot of other factors, nothing to do with football. Then we'll play into that. But that is absolutely something that LaFleur and company are going to have to take into account as they set the tone for this team going into 2026 with certainly also the hopes that the defense is going to be able to step up to the season.

42:17challenge early in the season when their best player, Micah Parsons, is also not available for at least four games. Yeah. I like the craft. I thought Kraft, before he got injured, I thought he was the best tight end in the NFL last year. I'm like, this is incredible. This guy. So yeah, that is a reason for some optimism. With the passing game, to your point, those two backs, Lloyd and Johnson, a combined 34 career carries. I mean, that is, you rarely see an NFL backfield go into a season. Obviously, these are extenuating circumstances with so little experience at the running back position. So we'll see what happens there.

42:51Just closing the book there, Jonathan Cooper was the other guy you mentioned also placed on that list in court for arraignment on domestic violence charges, arrested twice in a seven day span in June, faces felony charge of second degree assault by strangulation and three misdemeanors, including violation of a protection order. So we'll see what happens there as well. And again, just from an on-field perspective, in my opinion, that's as big of a deal as Josh Jacobs is. I mean, the Broncos team is built on that pass rush. They lose John Franklin Myers in free agency. Jonathan Cooper, eight sacks, 50 pressures last year.

43:29If you're losing both those guys for a big chunk of this season, I do think there's a domino effect with that Broncos defense. So that's another situation to keep an eye on. All right, let's take one more break. We'll come back. We'll pivot to some more stuff around the NFL. JJ McCarthy, Odell Beckham Jr., and some of the trades we saw over the weekend.

44:14All right, we are back here on the Ringer NFL show. I feel like, Billy, we probably this offseason talked about J.J. McCarthy, maybe more so than any other player. Does that feel accurate to you?

44:25Sheil Kapadia:He's definitely, I think, in the top five of players that we've talked about a lot. Yeah, high usage rate for the Ringer NFL show, J.J. McCarthy. But Tom, he stays on the Vikings roster over the weekend. What's your understanding of the situation here? Were there calls? Was he close to being moved? Is it just a situation where they're not really motivated to just release him or give him up for nothing? Do they actually believe he might still have a future in Minnesota? How do you square this J.J. McCarthy still with the Vikings here? First of all, the Vikings were never going to cut J.J. McCarthy.

45:00No matter what rumors or what you read on social media, that was never in play. They were never going to release the player. He's still a young quarterback who has shown flashes. I know all the memes. I know all the jokes, but he has shown flashes of at least being able to function, but he's not been able to sustain it in large part because of all the injuries that he's had and a variety of circumstances that he's been through over the past two and a half years. As much as anything, the money is an issue with a J.J. McCarthy trade. He's due close to$5 million, all of it fully guaranteed over the next couple of years.

45:38And if you're a team bringing in McCarthy, again, based on that history, you're probably talking about bringing him in as the three. Even as the two, you're taking a risk because, number one, he's got to learn everything. He's got to learn his teammates and the scheme and get the rhythm and timing and tempo. Like, that's a lot. You are thinking, all right, if we're going to bring him in, this is a stash him as the number three quarterback and develop him. You know, Sean Payton did that a couple of years ago with Zach Wilson, and it didn't end up working out there. He was the number three for the year.

46:06He went to New Orleans, and now, depending on how they end up shaking that thing out, he might be the number two quarterback in New Orleans. He just made their 53-man roster. It could very well, you know, J.J. could be the latest player in the list of them that comes back. And not everybody's going to have a Sam Darnold-type resurgence and go and win a Super Bowl. But, you know, Trey Lance is like, what, seven, eight years in the league at this point, and he's developed into a pretty solid backup. I mean, no, he wasn't great in the preseason this year. He's the number two with the Chargers. There's no reason that J.J.

46:34McCarthy can't be that and potentially more. But taking on close to$5 million guaranteed for a number three quarterback is just not something the teams generally have an appetite for doing. And so the Vikings are committed to that money. Releasing them would have relieved them of at most the minimum salary, maybe even less if he was a practice squad guy. So they're just going to hang on to him. They also hung on to Max Brosmer. That was one of the themes coming out of the weekend, and we'll see how things evolve before we get to week one. But we had, depending on how you look at it, four different teams that kept in the initial 53, four quarterbacks.

47:09The Browns put Dylan Gabriel on IR, so it's really three on the 53 with Taylon Green joining Shadour and Deshaun Watson. But the Eagles kept four. If I had to guess, I would say that's a temporary situation. They like the rookie, Cole Payton. He can do a lot of different stuff. Andy Dalton's there. Tanner McKee might be the two behind Jalen Hurts. We'll see exactly how that evolves. You have the Steelers, who their plan, if they didn't find a trade for Mason Rudolph, was to keep them. Because Drew Aller and Will Howard are guys who very well could be in the mix next year to start in Pittsburgh, depending on how the development goes.

47:46And Mike McCarthy wants both those guys there. So they kept four. And then the Vikings, you know, with Kyler Murray, Carson Wentz, who, if I'm guessing right now, I'd say he's probably the two and JJ's the emergency three going into week one. And then Max Rosmer is essentially a redshirt player, which is what he was supposed to be last year until he got forced into action in a couple of games and beat the Lions with like 50 yards passing on Christmas in one of the weirder games that we saw the entire year. I think that it speaks to the value that those guys have. I mean, look at two of the teams that traded their quarterbacks.

48:17Did anybody have Quinn Ewers and Kyle McCord both getting traded to be number twos and fetching a sixth-round pick? That was not on my bingo card going into the weekend. But it's just, if you don't have those guys, you're always looking not just for who's going to be the two, but who can we develop? And so teams like the Packers for decades have developed those guys and then traded away and gotten something. Miami, John Eric Sullivan, Jeff Halfley came from Green Bay. Same thing with Quinn Ewers. If you can get something for him, trade him away. As you hear a deep sigh from Billy, who might have been on the Quinn Ewers train there in Miami.

48:52Sheil Kapadia:They blew up their entire quarterback room this weekend. Like, what? The Dolphins frustrate me. I'm sorry. I don't mean to cut you off. But like, you were saying like, this is the theme of the weekend. You know, a lot of teams kept all their quarterbacks. Like, not in Miami. They got rid of everyone. They just said, you know what? This room, not for us. We're going to trade away our number two. We're going to bring in Kyle McCourt. And I don't know how you feel about this, Tom, and I'm wondering. I don't like this situation with the Dolphins and the Packers, where the Dolphins hire their GM from the Packers.

49:19Sheil Kapadia:They hire their head coach from the Packers. Now their backup quarterback is from the Packers. One of these things... Starting quarterback from the Packers. Yeah, starting quarterback from the Packers. This is one of those situations where I feel like maybe the Dolphins have gotten bamboozled by the Packers, where it's like, why are all of these capable pieces from the Packers just being made available to the Dolphins? Or is it the Dolphins have just been foisted all of these pieces that the Packers said, we could do without those. And they're like, you know what? Like, this guy's available. I worked with him.

49:49Sheil Kapadia:Let's bring this guy down here. Let's bring that guy down here. And all of a sudden you have all of the Packers the Packers didn't want. With the GM and the head coach, you can hire whoever you want. Nobody can block you in those roles. I think that every head coach and GM out there, if you look on their rosters in their first year, they probably got one or two or three guys who they had before. Another one of the trades we saw over the weekend, Gervin Dexter from the Bears going to Atlanta, reunited with Ian Cunningham, who's a first-year GM over there. It's something that's pretty common. You have people who, you know, fit your scheme, fit your culture.

50:20Sometimes it's about just getting the right guys in the locker room to kind of be that voice who can carry forward. Hey, you remember how we did things in Green Bay. Let's continue to do it. I mean, if I'm guessing, and I haven't talked to Sully about this, but I would imagine Kyle McCord might've kind of been his guy in the draft process. He might've liked him a lot. And so you trade Quinn Ewers away for a 2028 sixth, which I didn't think they were going to be able to get that for Quinn Ewers. Then you take that pick and you flip it for Kyle McCord to come in. It's a weird time just in quarterback development in general, in part because so many of the guys over the past several years have gone back to college, and now you're getting guys who have been at two or three or four schools, and they're there forever, and there's not the depth that you normally have in the drafts.

51:01I mean, Kyle McCord won some games at Ohio State and then broke records at Syracuse. I mean, he does have talent. He looked really good in the preseason finale. I got that trade. The Ewers one was a little bit more surprising, but Jacksonville also just was not happy with their room. They called on everybody. And I mean, every person you can think of as a backup quarterback, essentially, they called. They ended up bringing in a guy in Ewers who also had a ton of success at the college level and now gets an opportunity to be the backup to Trevor Lawrence.

51:31Sheil Kapadia:Where does someone like Will Levis or Sam Hartman, where would they end up? Wow, you're going deep, Billy. Sam Hartman, the only person in the NFL with better hair than me. I anticipate a clear waivers and go back on the commander's practice squad. Will Levis is interesting because there were teams that had interest in him. The Titans could have traded him. They couldn't have gotten much, but they could have traded him back in the spring. They wanted to play it out because you never know. Injuries can happen. Maybe you need Will Levis. they get to the end and didn't have that opportunity. I wouldn't be shocked if somebody claimed.

52:06Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if the Packers claimed him. They've got Tyrod Taylor backing up Jordan Love. I could see Will Levis being a fit in Green Bay. We'll know that maybe even before this podcast posts. But that would make a lot of sense. Will Levis, listen, he's got a big arm. His kind of tight, super muscle body is not going to be for everyone. He's obviously a high, strong type of individual. But you go back and you watch his tape. Yes, he had some of the wildest turnovers you'll ever see when he was starting for Tennessee. But he also had moments where you're like, oh, this guy's got ability.

52:36I mean, go back to his Kentucky tape, not the last year, but the year before. He was really, really good. He played for Liam Cohen at Kentucky. Could he also be added to the Jacksonville room? There's a lot of different possibilities. I do think Will Levis will quite possibly get claimed, if not, that we sign pretty quickly. Last QB, I had a question about Anthony Richardson. Tom, this is sort of similar category to J.J. McCarthy. I keep trying to get Anthony Richardson to another team. And what you just said about Will Levis, I'm like, if you throw on Anthony Richardson's 25 best plays, you're like, there's absolutely a player here.

53:08I like the rushing ability. It might never happen, but he's in the last year of his contract. I can't imagine the price would be that much to acquire him, but he right now stays with Indianapolis. Do you expect that to be the case all season? I anticipated being the case, you know, until told otherwise. It really seemed to turn. Like, yes, Anthony Richardson was hoping to get a fresh start back in the spring. There just wasn't a lot of trade interest in him. I mean, think about it. He was coming off of an eye injury. Freak thing where a resistance band snapped and smacked him in the eye. It's like my worst fear every time I work out that something like that's going to happen.

53:43It happened to him, and it was a bad injury. It basically took him out for the entire year. So for Richardson, he came back and he played pretty well. And, you know, we'll see how they end up structuring the two and the three with him and Riley Leonard. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Anthony Richardson was the two, because that also would at least give you the optionality where you're also trying to preserve Daniel Jones, especially in the early going coming off the Achilles. If there's opportunities, Daniel's a really good athlete. But like if you want to run something quarterback run style down by the goal line, you probably want Anthony Richardson doing it, not Daniel Jones.

54:12You can only do that if he's the two. But he really kind of brought himself along. He had a really good camp there. And so by the time it got down to cut down, that wasn't even really on my radar. I did not believe that he was going to get traded. We'll see where it all leads. Again, he's, what is he, 24 years old. He's 6 '5", 240-something. He's a rare, rare physical specimen, and he just hasn't played that much football. Going all the way back to, we started grand total at 13 games at Florida. There's still something there. If we've learned one thing from all the quarterback movement in recent years, including Darnold, including Baker Mayfield, you don't want to give up too soon on somebody who has the physical ability to do it.

54:55Maybe Anthony Richardson's time comes because Daniel Jones has been banged up essentially every year of his career. He might, may well get a start. And we've also seen where if you come in and it's a spot start for one or two or three weeks, all of a sudden you're Mack Jones and everyone's going, why in the world is this guy not a starter? What a curveball. That would be, you're right. Yeah, Daniel Jones coming off that Achilles and Richardson comes back in and resurrects his career. That would be a fun 2026 storyline. Maybe if we're making some bold predictions here. All right, a couple more topics.

55:21Billy, your level of interest in Odell Beckham Jr. being a part of the New York Giants. Are you like, oh, this is incredible. It comes full circle. Are you like, why did you even put this on the rundown? Like who could possibly care about this? Where on that range of interest do you come down here?

55:39Sheil Kapadia:I'd say out of 10, like five and a half, six. I think it's a nice story, but beyond a nice story and a good like full circle moment I think that's probably it you know maybe he goes he makes like one or two spectacular plays throughout the season so he can put it next to his all time catch it's like wow this is great imagine if he did that again but aside from that I don't know it's okay okay Tom he's not really what about you I'm amazed by how Odell is moving like if you just watch him I mean yeah if you had a side by side of him in 2014 and now I'm sure you could see the differences but like For a guy who has barely played football over the last five years, it's pretty impressive.

56:192021, you remember Odell with the Rams in that Super Bowl. He's the best player on the field until the knee, which he had had a partially torn ACL for half the year, fully tears. Doesn't play for a whole year. Comes back. The Ravens give him a one-year contract up to$18 million. Comes back. Isn't much of a factor there. Then goes to Miami. That doesn't go very well. Ends up getting himself released. doesn't play again. I mean, there's no corollary here with the guy who's had a player who his first three years in the NFL might be the greatest three years we've ever seen from a wide receiver. Look at the statistics, 2014 through 2016.

56:56Even if you take out the one-handed catch in certain highlights, just the production he had was off the charts. And then obviously he goes to Cleveland, and that goes sideways, and he goes to the Rams where he's great and then hurts the knee. There were so many different things that took place with Odell. The fact that he's here and he seems to be in a good place right now, like I'm just, I'm impressed, honestly. Odell seems like he's grown up some. You know, over the course of time, there's a lot of emotional stuff with him as a young player. With the Giants, he seems to be getting past that.

57:25He's going to have his old number, it sounds like, back because they cut Jalen Hylett. So he'll be back in number 13. Giants fans can bring their jersey out. I mean, Giants only kept five receivers. They also kept Darius Slate, and there were rumors about that. Leak neighbors coming off of his injury. We'll see what he can do. But it's not just that Odell is on the initial 53-man roster. It's that he's doing it at this stage in his career after all the time he's missed. And by the way, he might be playing significant snaps right out of the gate. If he starts making plays, even if it's a couple, I mean, I think it's one of the great comeback stories that we've seen, just knowing everything that he's been through physically and otherwise over the past five or six years.

58:01I clicked on the athletic story on Odell Beckham Jr. and it does show a little video clip of him being interviewed in the locker room. I didn't recognize him at first. He looks so different than he did in his early years. I think his face routine, man. He's got some lotions or something going on there. I need to know what the skincare is, Billy, on Odell Beckham Jr. I was like, is it the facial hair? Is it his hair is a different color? But he was looking great there. So maybe we can get to the bottom of that. But Tom's right. I was going to say this, because I think we're really growing our young audience.

58:33I don't see any of the metrics, but it just feels that way. I'm sure you guys feel the same way. We'll see. It sounds good. They're like, they're like TikTok reels or the Ringer NFL show. I, you know, those are usually what the content comes down to. Go watch YouTube clips of Odell Beckham Jr. 2014 to 2016. I would put up those three years against any three year start for a wide receiver I've seen in my football viewing life. Like he was incredible. I'm just like, this is a surefire hall of famer. This might be the best wide receiver I've ever seen in my life. And then obviously Tom outlined it didn't all go according to plan after that, but he was truly incredible to watch when he first broke.

59:14Let's say like our conscious football watching time, which I think for all of us is like over under 30 to 35 years, right? Somewhere in there, they're like, yeah, I actually remember football. Yeah. Greatest starts by a wide receiver to an NFL career. Randy Moss is absolutely up there. I think Justin Jefferson is up there. I mean, he's broken every record in terms of what he did through year one, through year two, through year three, and all those things. And Odell's in that category, too. I mean, he was that good. And again, there were a lot of those things, fighting the kicking net and then proposing to the kicking net, various meltdowns that he had, getting in little tussles on the field, getting into players, gets himself straight to Cleveland, tears his knee there, comes back.

59:59that he gets himself cut, gives up money, goes to the Rams, tears his knee again. There's so many parts of the Odell story. Here he is in, what, 12 years after he got drafted, and he's back with the Giants. I just think it's an unbelievably cool story. It might end up being a footnote to what is going to be a challenging season for a young Giants core. And maybe Odell, as wild as it is to say, might be coming back as the guy who's kind of seen it all and he knows how this story goes and maybe can be a little bit of a grounding force to some of those young, impressionable teammates like a Malik neighbors who I'm sure at times when he's not getting the football has felt the same way that Odell once did.

1:00:40Yeah, I thought it was just a little cute little, you know, training camp story, but here he is. He made the team. He's on the team there with the Giants, Billy.

1:00:48Sheil Kapadia:I feel like there's a chance we get an Odell Beckham Jr. game this year though, right? Like he has one more bullet left of the chamber. That would be fun. Yeah, we look back at the season and we're like, oh, the Giants, they brought in Harbaugh. It didn't live up to what we thought it would be. But man, we had that Odell Beckham Jr. game and that was fun, right? I'll sell him for one Odell catch. I'll sell him for one crazy Odell catch. And that alone would impress me. He has some one-handed touchdown or something. That would be a pretty cool deal. All right, the only trade I think we haven't touched on here.

1:01:19Broderick Jones, offensive tackle. Former first-round pick. Steelers send Jones and a fourth to the Cowboys for a third and a sixth. Jones started 38 games in three seasons for Pittsburgh. Obviously did not work out. Had a neck injury. Tom, what do you make of that move? Cowboys acquiring Broderick Jones. Well, first of all, that was part of the theme of the weekend, which was there were 15 trades. Okay, they were on the wire for cut down day. Eight of them were offensive linemen. Everybody was trying to find an offensive lineman. So if you had an able-bodied, whether it was a tackle, a guard, there were a bunch of centers.

1:01:57If you had somebody that you were going to cut, you were able to move them to another team. Broderick Jones was the biggest one, not just because he was a first-round pick, but because of the compensation. I get it for Dallas. Terrence Steele, I know that just based on the public comments from Shadi and others, has not had the best camp. You've got some other moving parts. and Jones is a talented player who does upgrade your depth at that position, whether he's the swing tackle, whether he eventually ends up starting some games for you. On talent, it does make sense for Dallas. For Pittsburgh, remember, he had a pretty serious injury last year.

1:02:32It was a neck injury. And you just don't know when guys come back from those, whether it's physically, whether it's mentally, is he going to be all the way that same player again? And so for the Steelers, they essentially get another top 100 pick out of it, plus a sixth round. I guess they give up the fourth, but you get a third and you get a sixth out of the deal. I thought that it was really good value. They also got a pick for Caleb Johnson, who, again, he was going to get cut. So for the Steelers, a team that I think everybody looks at is like this transition year and how good are they actually going to be?

1:03:03I think Cutdown Day showed they've got some depth on that roster and also the new coach, Mike McCarthy, coming in. He's going to turn this thing, get it looking a little bit more like what Mike wants it to look like. It's really not a bad roster if you look at it. Pittsburgh, where I'm obviously not sure about the quarterback situation, but I look at other areas of the roster. I like the O-line. I like the pass rush quite a bit. I think the wide receivers... I caught so much hell for saying on Bill's podcast in my Ringer debut a couple of weeks ago that I thought the Steelers could be a top 10 offense.

1:03:35I was getting messages for a week about that. I don't think it's crazy. Mike McCarthy, and you can cross-check me, fact-check me on this shield, but I believe 18 seasons as a head coach, he's had a top 10 offense either 12 or 13 times. So perpetually, he has a really good offense. Now, year one at times is bumpier before they get that thing rolling here, but he's got a guy in Aaron Rodgers who doesn't need to learn the scheme. He's got back one of his favorite running backs in Rico Dowdle to combine now with Jalen Warren. The receiver group is better with DK, Michael Pittman Jr. coming in. They're hoping Roman Wilson takes a step forward.

1:04:13I don't think that it's outlandish to say this could be. And, you know, Darnell Washington, the unique threat that he is, Mike McCarthy's, like, been one of the ones. He was, like, trying to bring back, you know, the tight ends and fullbacks. In Green Bay, they used to keep, like, five or six or seven tight ends and fullbacks on the roster because he'd use all these different personnel groups. I think they're going to be better than everyone thinks. It's not going to be the Aaron Rodgers throwing off-balance 50 yards down the field anymore. Like, that part of it is not going to be as significant of a factor, if at all.

1:04:40but in terms of the ability just to get the ball out to these playmakers' hands they're faster they're more athletic they got guys who are a better scheme fit I think the Steelers offense will be better than everyone thinks even if they're not top 10 in McCarthy's first year Billy when I heard that I'm like wow Tom's just coming in he's going to be firing off takes left and right here now I didn't message you Tom and say you're a dummy why are you doing that I thought that was your burner shield no that wasn't me but I was like the thing with Mike McCarthy's offense is I feel like his quarterback situation has been very good most of those seasons, whether it was Brett Favre or Aaron Rodgers in his prime or Dak Prescott.

1:05:17And I just look at this quarterback situation. I can't get there with the offense. I like you going out on a limb. Maybe you'll be rubbing in our face when we get to December. I told you guys, top 10 offense. Everyone made fun of me. I actually like the other side of the ball quite a bit where I've got them as a top five defense. I think they're going to really exceed expectations there. Now that's not as hot of a take, Billy. You know, so I am coming in a little cool here. Like I think people think the Steelers defense is going to be pretty good. Get a hot take in there, But that's why I think they have a chance to be a little competitive.

1:05:42Go out on a limb like Tom did. Come on.

1:05:44Sheil Kapadia:What are you scared of? Well, no, I'm not picking them to make the playoffs. Why? All my preseason prognostications are... My hottest preseason take is that I don't think the Patriots are going to make the playoffs. But we got time to get to that. Ooh, do you know how you work, sir? That's just going to be a little tease. Are you guys doing... I'm not, but are you guys doing postseason picks on the preview episode later this week? I was thinking that maybe we could do that when the cat was away. You know what I mean? Like maybe the day that you're flying out or something, we sneak in some like post-season predictions or something, you know?

1:06:13Or maybe we can make them and Tom can make fun of us. Let's see. We've got some planning to do here. I like that. Let's finish this episode. Billy, did you see this? Tom tweeted out his fantasy draft. And this guy is old school. I mean, they got the board. They got the stickers. You walk up. I don't know if you've ever done a draft like this. I have. You pick off the sticker from the sheet of paper. You put it up to your team. and he must have been feeling kind of good about it because he put out all the results. So we see him, we see all the other teams and he said, who you got? So I thought, we're his podcast co-hosts.

1:06:47We should be able to critique this. How do we think Tom actually did with his team? Do you want me to read the team off real quickly here? Read every team. Hold on, let me set this. Let me set it, all right? I have been posting that every year because I always have that. We go to, it's a bunch of my high school buddies go to our friend Ryan's cabin. and he has us for the weekend. And you make it, and then over dinner, I'll post the board, and then we just read the tweets out loud of the people making their picks. This team sucks. This team is good. And it's fun. So this is a keeper league where you can keep two keepers in their prior round draft slot, but anybody you took for round four later counts as a round four pick.

1:07:27And it is a non-PPR league. So when you're looking at the picks, It's not like I passed over certain people. No, they might have been a fourth-round keeper and I didn't have access to that player. But you can read my team. Okay. And then you can read whatever team you like. You can read that team and say what you got.

1:07:46Sheil Kapadia:How many times can you keep a player? You can keep a player twice. The first time, it's the prior year round. The second time, they have to be your first-round keeper if you're going to keep them. Oh. All right, Billy. So here's the team for the audience. I don't know why I'm getting specifics and taking notes on this, but I'm really involved. It's important context. You have to know how this works. All right, so Tom kept Christian McCaffrey. That was in the first round. That was a keeper. Did you get him second round last year or this was your second year of him? This was my... I traded for him at the tail end of the season two years ago.

1:08:19I was out of it and I made... I think he was... Yeah, he was hurt that year. So I acquired him when he was on injured reserve in exchange for, I think it was Derrick Henry. Literally as a I'm playing for next year thing as a keeper.

1:08:29Sheil Kapadia:So last year he was your fourth rounder and then this year he becomes your first round. No, he was the first because he'd been a first the previous year. So, Conor is my first round pick two years ago. All right, so McCaffrey. Then he goes Brock Bowers, Devontae Smith. Then he keeps Rasheed Rice in the fourth round and then the remainder of the picks, Jadarian Price, Christian Watson, Carnell Tate, Michael Wilson, Chuba Hubbard, Matthew Stafford, Aaron Jones, Makai Lemon, Zach Charbonnet. We're still doing kickers here. Wow, Jason Myers. We're still doing defenses too. Old school Pittsburgh Steelers, who I just talked up.

1:09:05Or Tom's defense. All right, we're aligned there. So let me quickly take you through the strategy, and then I want to hear the grades of the team. So the strategy here, I wanted Safford to be the quarterback. He was the number one point scorer based on our point scoring system last year. And I knew he wasn't going to go ahead of the Lamars of the world. So I could probably get him what I get him in, like the 11th round or something. I got him very late. 10th round. 10th round. So I got him very late in the draft. So that was, I thought, good strategy. My less good strategy was, all right, so I had the McCaffrey.

1:09:35It's a snake draft. So I had a late first pick because I was keeping McCaffrey. So I ended up with an early second. I took Bowers there because it was either Bowers or Drake London. My theory was this. I thought if I took Bowers in the second, it would trigger a run on tight ends that then you would have the Trey McBride's, Colston Loveland's, the world come off a bunch of tight ends before it came back around to me, pushing down the running backs receivers I wanted. No tight ends were taken again until the fourth. So that part of the strategy, Phil, I still almost had Drake London come back to me in the third, by the way.

1:10:13He went one pick ahead. I take Devante Smith, still had Rasheed, who if you look at his career, just based on a pure, like when he's actually on the field basis is still one of the highest per capita scores out there. So I felt good about that as a fourth round keeper. All right, give me a grade. And then I want to hear what team you think or how you would rank these teams. What do you think, Billy?

1:10:34Sheil Kapadia:Well, my big note was the Brock Bowers thing, but you just explained that situation. I was going to say you could have waited a little bit on him. You still almost got Drake London. So it still almost worked out for you. It was one pick away. You also were talking up Tucker Kraft a little while ago, and I looked to see where he went and he went like seventh round. So you could have settled for him later on. I'm not just... I think the Matthew Stafford getting him in the 10th round after Jackson Dart, after some of these other quarterbacks were taken, he's the defending MVP is a steal. I don't know how it is that they allowed him to fall to you in the 10th round.

1:11:08Sheil Kapadia:So that's great. I'm kind of looking around. Is this John, the second pick in the draft here? G-I-A-N? John. He has John Marco. Yeah, John taking Drake May. as the second quarterback off the board in the fifth round here before Lamar, before Joe Burrow. That seems questionable to me. Does John have any ties to New England? What was he thinking there? He does not, but I remember standing up to go back and look at the board. By the way, this happened on Saturday. It's been that Saturday for years. This is the first time cut down was on Sunday. So half the draft, I'm on the phone trying to break actual NFL news.

1:11:45What is your life like this weekend, by the way?

1:11:48Sheil Kapadia:Because this is very inconsiderate of your friends, first of all. Yeah, me too. Yeah. It was nonstop. I almost didn't go to the draft, but our friend Pat didn't show up last year, and then he caught 365 days of hell for not showing up. You got to show up. Plus, participating remotely is not ideal, so I left at 5 a.m. on Saturday to get there, worked the entire day, was bouncing back and forth to the draft, and then left at 5 a.m. to go back on Sunday morning to make sure that was the least likely time that I was going to miss news. So I did. I was strategic about it, but yes, I was also surprised that Drake May went ahead of Lamar Jackson because I was, I had half of mine when Lamar was still sitting there in the fourth to take him.

1:12:24But again, I stuck to my guns on letting Stafford fall to me like I thought he would.

1:12:28Sheil Kapadia:Can I ask you one more question about this weekend and how things play out for you? Because I was wondering this, and I've always wondered this about insiders and newsbreakers. So you broke a number of stories yesterday. You put out a number of trades, number of releases, Aaron Donald coming back, et cetera, right? But for some of them, you put it out with the graphic. So you have, here's the thing, and it says breaking news, Tom Palacero. It says The Ringer, Netflix is on there, right? I've always thought as a casual who's not in the industry, it seems like we're adding a step here that's slowing down and could let you get scooped here.

1:13:01Sheil Kapadia:If we're throwing in a picture here, I mean, presumably, you know that this is going to happen. You're waiting for it to happen. So you have all of these pictures just lined up waiting to put it out. But still just adding it, I feel like we're adding a millisecond there where you could get scooped by someone. I have all of the tweets of the things that I know or think are coming in my drafts. Okay. The photo's already there. The tweet is typed out. Sometimes you got to fill in the team, but post it and it goes. So there's not a lot of delay there. There are times like the Broderick Jones trade where that one I was not prepared.

1:13:39Thank you. I was not prepared for that going into the weekend, so I hadn't requested a graphic. I knew that a couple teams had called. I didn't think that it was going to happen. And then I asked for a graphic. They're like, yeah, no one's working at 6 o 'clock on Saturday in late August. So I was like, okay. I just had no graphic on this one. But no, it's actually, it's a pretty clean process. You know, the only thing that's a problem is the previous week when I broke the Keyshawn booty trade, which was on the flight to the Netflix boot camp to get ready for this season. And so I get the text that the trade is done and here's the terms.

1:14:17I try to open my drafts and they won't open on the crappy plane Wi-Fi. So now I have to retype the whole tweet and find the graphic again and put it in. That's like the whatever, 60 to 90 seconds that either A, I could have gotten beat or B, I could have put the wrong team in, which has happened on a couple of occasions. The most notorious one was the linebacker, Kiko Alonso, who was traded like three times. I'm pretty sure this was the time - Not graphics-worthy, if we're going to be honest. He was traded from, there was no graphic on. This was pre-graphics. Graphics was a relatively recent development.

1:14:53Yeah, that's new. But it was, Kiko was being traded from the Dolphins to the Saints. the day after the Dolphins had traded Laramie Tunsil to the Texans. So I get the text, Kiko's been traded to the Saints. And somewhere like in the deep recesses of my subconscious, I'm thinking about the Laramie Tunsil trade, and I type, trade Kiko Alonso to the Texans. The moment I hit send and I see it pop up on TweetDeck, I'm like, oh, no, no, no, no, no. So I copy it real quick, copy the text, you know, control C, I delete it, paste, control V, send it again, but I cut off the first letter. So now it just says, raid, Kiko Alonso to the Saints.

1:15:40So I copy it again, delete it again, get it right, put it out, trade, I get it correct. And like everyone is screenshotting the previous two attempts. What team is it? It's like, those are once in a while, that was probably, I don't know, seven years ago or something. But like, you just don't forget the absolute epic failures. I have nightmares about not like my fingers not working, trying to type it or I mess something up and I can't delete. I will literally wake up at 3 a.m. having a nightmare about putting news on social media.

1:16:11Sheil Kapadia:In your nightmares where your fingers stop working, are the other insiders like pointing and laughing at you or are you like getting bullied? Like what's going on? No, very realistic. I'm like in my basement and just like fat thumbs and I'm just typing absolute gibberish. Like in your dreams, you're not supposed to be able to read either. But somehow I know in my head that what I'm looking at doesn't make sense. That's usually what it is. And occasionally I'll have one where I'll wake up and I'm like, did I actually get a text last night that that happened? I'll like check my text and be like, no, that was just a very, very vivid dream.

1:16:41So yeah, it's a totally normal life. Good, good question, Billy. I feel like there's a segment here inside your corner or something, you know? Yeah. Something like that. Who is your winner in the fantasy league? Let's not lose the plot here, Billy. Who's your winner? I like your team, Tom. And listen, if I thought your team sucked, I would tell you that would make for better content here. But my daughter just had her fantasy draft yesterday and we targeted some of the same. We took Bowers early. I have no issue with you taking Bowers there. He could set the record for most receiving yards by a tight end.

1:17:10He's got Clint Kubiak. Look at what he did with JSN last year. Bowers is so clearly the number one target there and they could get mediocre quarterback play. I like that one. I like Devontae Smith. I think he's going to have a big year. And then if I had one piece of fantasy advice for the audience that you can take it or leave it, I'm not a fantasy guy. You can listen to the Ringer fantasy show. Jadarian Price. I mean, I want this guy on all my teams. I don't understand why he's not going higher. So you got Jadarian Price. So I like your team quite a bit, but I will say this. I don't think it's the best team.

1:17:41I think it's the second best team. Who's the best? My guy, Holland. Holland. Wow. I thought Holland had a good team. Josh Allen, Kenneth Walker, DeAndre Swift, Bucky Irving. It's like those NFL teams that are keeping the four quarterbacks. It's like if you don't have the great running back, just take a bunch. Two of them are probably going to pan out. He got JSN. He got Devontae Adams. He got Jaden Reed. Billy, you pointed out. He waited until the seventh and got Tucker Kraft. He got the Rams defense, which we just talked about. He's taking flyers on guys who could explode. Matthew Golden, a nice flyer there.

1:18:16I would never take a kicker before the last round, but he got Brandon Aubrey. So now I'm looking at the roster like, all right, that guy's going to make 60 yard kicks. So yeah, you might have to maybe get some people in your league to try to trade with Holland, weaken his team, maybe get personal, do whatever you need to do. I think that's your number one competition. Holland is also the guy who brings the draft, orders the draft kit with the name stickers every year and is also almost always the last person to arrive. So essentially the draft is held up until Holland walks in the front door and then we're like, okay, hey, now we can do this.

1:18:49All right, there you go. I guess I'm Team Holland, Billy. That's where we are.

1:18:52Sheil Kapadia:I think JL had a nice little draft for being the last pick also, you know. Jamar Chase, Ashton Dent, T-Camp, Jalen Waddell, Tett McMillan, Joe Burrell. Scadabo is a stay away from me. My daughter's like, are you sure we shouldn't take him? He's the best available. I'm like, no, I don't think he's going to play. I don't know how much football Scadabo is going to be able to play, but you know what? I lose all the time. Anyway, so there you go. Check out Tom's draft. You can check it out. It's on his Twitter account, but he's got a lot of news on there as he just sort of outlined. So you might have to scroll down a little bit.

1:19:19That's okay. Look at the draft board. I've never won that league, by the way. Really? Just to be clear. We're in year 22, I believe, of the league. I've been the runner-up several times. And they don't expect you to win it because you are the NFL insider, right? There's 10 people in the league. Only two people have never won it. I'm one of them. Wow. Part of my weakness, and you see it in that draft, is I'm always thinking because I'll hear stuff about the rookies. I'm always drafting guys one year ahead. So I'm hoping this is the year. Carnell Tate, Kai Lemon, Jadarian Price. Somebody make me look smart.

1:19:53I'm trying to get that fourth year keeper value when somebody's a rocket in year one. That's the plan anyway.

1:19:59Sheil Kapadia:You know too much is probably the problem and you overthink some picks. Yeah. I don't think I've won a fantasy league since I had Sean Alexander running over everybody in like 2003. Sean Alexander of Priestholm is one of the two. Yeah. Those were good years. Is there a big trophy that you guys carry around, pass along from person to person or anything or no? There's not a trophy in that league. There's a trophy in my other league, the Dynasty Leaguer, real keeper league, salary cap league that's like a whole, it's like the Heisman Trophy. It's huge. Also never won that one. I'm not good at fantasy.

1:20:32No. This might be a year. It's a different skill set. This might be a year, Tom. I can feel it. It's a year of change. It could be a year of change for Tom's fantasy team. Sorry. Everyone, good luck with your fantasy drafts. In the next week here, I know a lot of them are happening this weekend. Thank you to Tom Pellicero. Thank you to Billy Gill, Christopher Sutton for producing, Stefano Sanchez on video, and additional production supervision by Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. We will be back later this week on the Ringer NFL Show.

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