Baker's New Deal, Tua's Starting Job, Patriots-Seahawks, and 49ers-Rams!

20:36I don't think he's missed a start, if I'm not mistaken, in Tampa. he's one of the most durable quarterbacks in the NFL. I think those are all things that people respect about the guy. Now they've got to go and have playoff success, which is since Tom Brady was there where they've come up short. All right, next piece of news here. I think this was the one Tom's talking about on the plane there. Tua Tungabailoa, but Billy, he predicted, Tom predicted this last week when we're like, oh, it looks like Tua's not going to start. And Tom said, everybody settle down here. Let's just wait and see where we're at.

21:08week one. He's just bringing it in his first couple of weeks with the ringer. And Tom, you were right. This Tua Tungavailoa is going to start for the Atlanta Falcons. What's going on with that quarterback situation? This probably would have been a final decision a week and a half ago, but then Michael Penix Jr. all of a sudden got cleared for 11 on 11 and it was like, okay, well, he's now reintegrating. This is probably not the right time to announce that he's not starting. It's just, it's hard to sit out all those reps in training camp coming off a major injury and then go, sure, just go out there and function week one.

21:42I mean, Michael Penix Jr., I know that we saw him run in the college football playoff a couple of years ago. Like, he's not a super mobile guy. Like, he is a pocket passer. And now when you just have any questions about like, all right, just how is he feeling the game and the rhythm and timing? It's just difficult to ramp that up. And so let's see what Tua can do. He's there on a minimum contract as well, because Miami's paying the other 50 plus million dollars to Tua this season. For the Falcons, it made sense. They're building an offense, at least for now, around a left-handed quarterback, whether that's Tua or Michael Penix Jr.

22:14He was the logical guy to come in, and he's played pretty good football. I understand that people have a lot of feelings about Tua, and the scenes that have played out that everyone has seen on the field, including in Cincinnati, plays into that. I understand that there is a certain column of people who don't think Tua should be playing football, but guess what? It's his decision to make. If the doctors sign off, if they say it's safe for you to play football, if they say, as they have to him, that you're at no more risk than anybody else is suffering another concussion, he's going to make that choice for him and his family.

22:48He's out there on the field. And I would go back just in terms of two of the football player. Look at his numbers. The first couple of years under Mike McDaniel. Go back to 2022, 2023, or 23, 24, whatever it was. He's one of the most efficient quarterbacks in the entire NFL. He is capable of playing at that level. It didn't look that way last year. It was bad. I understand the preseason wasn't great this year. It sounds like practice went a lot better than what people saw if they flipped in for a series or two in the preseason. And he's got a better skill group around him than he's had probably since when Tyreek was at his absolute peak a few years ago.

23:29You're talking about plugging him in now and saying you're just going to be the distributor with B. John Robinson and Pitts and Drake London and all the other parts that they've got there. If Tua can't have success in this environment, I think that the entire league is going to see that as a sign that just there's something that's missing for Tua going forward. But if he performs well, I think everyone's going to quickly realize, oh, yeah, like this guy, the way that he gets the football out of his hands, the way that he can just play with tempo, that guy has been there in the past. I'm really interested to see.

24:03First game's not an easy one. It's at Pittsburgh in week one against a pretty good defense. There's a lot of unknowns, obviously, in week one. And Patrick Graham does as good a job as anybody of mixing things up and throwing stuff at you that you're not expecting. But let's give Tua a second here. Starting out, he's on the road, he's on grass, but it's not cold weather. Let's see if we get September Tua performing at a decently high level there. Billy, you're a Dolphins fan. You've watched a lot of Tua. Are you buying this? What Tom is telling you? Listen, there is a statistical case that what we think of Tua is not as bad as numbers would indicate if you take his Dolphins career as a whole.

24:44yet I feel that this is not going to go very well for him in Atlanta. Where are you with Tua?

24:51Sheil Kapadia:Well, I mean, look, I'm a Tua guy. I'm not going to mince words. I had a lot of hope in Tua. I wanted him to be the savior of the Dolphins. Sheil, as you may or may not know, I used to have behind me a Tua autographed jersey that was framed. I then had to take that down both because of space reasons and out of embarrassment. So now it just sits in the corner of the office with a Chris Simms jersey over it so that it doesn't scratch up the wall. What a collection you have there, Billy. It's quite a collection of winning quarterbacks that I have jerseys of. But yeah, I want this to work for Tua.

25:22Sheil Kapadia:You know, as you kind of pointed out, he was statistically a top three quarterback the first couple of years with Tyree Kill, depending on the metrics. And no one believed it because you would see that he couldn't really get the long ball there, even though there are metrics that would say, no, he's actually really good at the deep pass. But on tape, you would watch him like, well, he underthrew it. Tyreek would make up for it. So there were always the critics and there was always the people that wanted to give the credit to either McDaniel or Tyreek Hill for why it is that Tua was successful.

25:50Sheil Kapadia:And he wasn't successful without any of those. But also Mike McDaniel was not successful without Tua. He couldn't win a game without Tua as quarterback. So they were kind of connected to each other. Now they've both gone their separate ways. Tua, to what you said, has looked good in practice, hasn't looked good on the tape or in the games. That's something that people were saying last year about Tua as well, where it was kind of like, well, on the practice field, he looks great. He looks like he's hitting people in stride. Everything was there. And then once the game started and the pads are on and it's game speed, he was just a little bit slower.

26:20Sheil Kapadia:He's a little bit off what he was. You know, when things were really clicking with the Dolphins, he was the guy that had the fastest release rate where it would come to him and he'd immediately make a decision. It would be out. Then last year, it would just slow down. He wouldn't make the throw. The windows closed. So he didn't have the same success. And you wonder, is it because he's getting older? Is it because he's getting slower? Are the injuries catching up to him? Is it PTSD of sorts where it's just all of these injuries are catching up to him with the concussion and he's just avoiding to get hits or he's not really deciding quick enough?

26:48Sheil Kapadia:So, I mean, it'll be interesting. The Dolphins cut bait on Tua. They said he's gone. He signs with the Falcons and you say, okay, well, they have a quarterback. So is he going there and he's going to kind of hope to get a start here or there? Maybe he wins a job back. And because of the circumstances, he's their starting quarterback this first week of the season. and this is the opportunity that he was waiting for and he was asking for. So it's really up to Tua whether or not he's going to be a starting quarterback in this league moving forward. And it's his job to lose at this point because if he goes on a string here, okay, it's a tough one at Pittsburgh, but the scheduling-wise in terms of what day it is, it's good because it's not going to be cold there.

27:25Sheil Kapadia:He's struggled in the cold. He's 0-7 under 45 degrees. He's not going to have to deal with that because it's a September game. So he goes to Pittsburgh. If he could win that one, then they're at home versus Carolina. That should be a win. Then to go to Green Bay, that one's tricky. But if he can get on a little roll early in the season, even if Michael Penix is healthy, if the Falcons are winning, can they take Tua out if the offense is clicking with him? He has Bijan Robinson. He has Kyle Pitts. We're headed into this year with the Falcons again. Is this going to be Kyle Pitts' season? And, you know, we ask it almost every year.

27:56Sheil Kapadia:Is this going to be the Kyle Pitts' season? What I did was I went to Google and I said, Google, is this going to be Kyle Pitts' season? Just to see what Google told me. And Google said, in case you guys were wondering, Yes, the 2026 season could finally be the year Kyle Pitts puts it all together after signing a lucrative deal. So even Google wasn't really one way or another, yes, this will be his season. This could be his season. Could be. I mean, there's things to look up to here if you're Tua, but it's up to him really to get it done here. And he can only blame himself if he loses his job. Yeah, listen, it could play out a couple different ways.

28:29One is the way you guys are kind of saying that maybe he proves, hey, it didn't end well in Miami, but there's still a good quarterback here somewhere. And Kevin Stefanski and the supporting cast can get him out of there. I mean, there's another scenario where we're saying, wow, Mike McDaniel really put him in great positions for most of that Miami tenure with the wide receivers, with his scheming, with building a system that fit his skillset really well. And that's just going to be hard for other coaches to do. Now the defense is now, okay, that's what it looked like when Tua was playing pretty well.

29:01So, I mean, Kevin Stefanski had a terrible quarterback situation in Cleveland. And it's just like the last two years, you know, the offense dunk, they were 8-26. I do fear that there is potential for that here in Atlanta. That it's just like, all right, you got a coach you feel like you think you like, but you just don't have much of a shot here if the quarterback's not playing well. I mean, Tom, what's your sort of read on Penix, Tua, how long Tua? is it as simple as Billy said? Like, Tua gets in there. If he plays well, obviously he's keeping the job. But if he doesn't, Penix, meanwhile, maybe gets a little healthier there with the knee.

29:38It feels like, to me, the most likely scenario would be we see multiple guys for the Falcons at some point this year. Well, at some point, you want to also get the evaluation on Michael Penix Jr. and just think, all right, new coaching staff, what does he look like in this offense? Does he still have a chance to be the quarterback? I mean, we all saw, you know, Penix at Washington. He had a pretty magical final season there. But he's a guy who's had a lot of injury history going back to Indiana and now coming off of another major knee injury. They're going to want to get to see it. Now, if they're 11-0, I don't foresee that.

30:10But if you're on an absolute tear, of course, you don't pull Tua out of the lineup. But I would think that there would be value in them making sure that they get the full evaluation. Stefanski's been through this before. Last year, you saw it. We're going to see Dylan Gabriel and we're going to see Shadour Sanders. Kevin Stefanski, remember, was also a top potential pick for the Tennessee Titans job. They wanted to get him in. The Falcons did the deal before Stefanski could get on the plane and go to Tennessee. With the Titans, he would have had the quarterback. He would have inherited Cam Ward.

30:41Whatever you think of Cam Ward, that would have been the guy. His job would have been to go in there and go, all right, here's your quarterback. Now do all the other stuff. In Atlanta, it's the opposite. They got a really good defense, albeit one that's gutted right now in terms of pass rushers, and that's the biggest question about that team going into the season. But he's got all these weapons on offense. The offensive line is kind of having some turnover because of guys walking away, guys getting hurt. But there's pieces in place. What they don't know is about the quarterback. And as much as Stefanski might have, on some instinctual level, been like, God, do I really want to get in another spot where we don't have the guy and we're going to draft one or we're going to have these guys compete?

31:19To me, it made sense to take the Falcons' job because you've got a quicker path to winning there. and you're not tied to a player in Cam Ward, who again, whatever you think of Cam Ward, if you're a huge Cam Ward fan, we still haven't seen it in the NFL. But you're tied to that guy if you walk in the door. With Atlanta, they very well could just get to the end of this year and go, it's neither of these guys. We still have Penix for the fourth year of his rookie contract. We'll see what we have in Jack Strand, who I know they like a lot, the rookie from some small school in Minnesota. You discovered him.

31:49But you're also in a draft where there's a lot of good quarterbacks, depending on exactly how this college season plays out and who decides to take a fifth, sixth, seventh year of eligibility and go back and take a few million dollars. They could be in that position to go get one. Baker Mayfield being off the table, again, that probably wasn't going to be an option for Atlanta, given the history with Baker and Stefanski. But there's some other guys who might be available via trade. There's some other players who potentially could be out there. You wouldn't think they'd go down the Kirk Cousins road again, assuming he gets cut loose.

32:17But there's a lot of different things here. they have optionality at the quarterback position and for where the Falcons are, that was probably a good thing. They got a guy in Tua who at least has had productivity in the NFL, even if it's been a bit since we've seen it. Billy, I want to plant a little seed that Tom touched on there. Okay. What? This is just, you know, Shield just looking ahead and trying to think about how this season could play out, how the offseason could play out. If you pulled the Manning family right now and said, hey, you know, If Arch has a nice season here at Texas, just where is there a destination in the NFL that might look kind of good?

32:58Maybe one that has a veteran coach in Kevin Stefanski as a good running back, a good wide receiver, a good tight end, competent offensive line. Matt Ryan in the front office. I got to imagine there's a relationship there with some of the Mannings. I do wonder if the Manning family would be like, oh, Atlanta maybe. You know, now are they going to be that bad? I don't know. But that was just little light bulb went off in my head as I was going through this.

33:25Sheil Kapadia:Arthur Blank, as we know, famously makes a good ribeye. That's how he landed Stephans. He cooked a meal. He didn't let them leave. So maybe. I mean, maybe. Good memory. It's not of the Mannings to kind of interfere though, right? Like he'll just be happy wherever it is that he ends up. We're thinking for Arch, right? Yeah, of course. Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Can I propose a game that we can play with Tom moving forward? Because it's a game that popped up to me as he was talking about Tua situation. But do you want to play the game now? Because if you want to play the game now, then I'll take a break first.

33:57But if you don't, if you're just introducing the game. I'm just going to introduce it and throw it out there.

34:01Sheil Kapadia:For future reference, we could play it moving forward. Okay. The name of the game is, Did Tom Think or Did Tom Know? I like that. I like that. Yeah, that's good. So for the Tua situation, you would want to play that. Did Tom think a week ago this was happening? Or did Tom know a week ago this was happening? I guess, but Tom doesn't get to play in this game, Billy. It's kind of just me. Well, we can guess. And then Tom maybe will tell us maybe he won't. Maybe he just makes facial expressions. Just try to point you in the right direction, boys. Yeah. You know, audience can watch on Netflix. Vote online right now.

34:37Sheil Kapadia:Send us a DM. Can we put up a poll? Did Tom think or did Tom know? Okay. There you go. All right. Let's take a break. We come back. Let's get to some football previews. We got Seahawks Patriots Wednesday night. Let's talk about that game. And then we will get to Rams and 49ers. The Ringer NFL show is brought to you by FanDuel. The NFL is back and FanDuel is making this your most rewarding season ever by kicking off football with a super boost. Patriots Seahawks one game and all you need is one point. Here's how it works. opt in and use your token on Patriots versus Seahawks with the kickoff super boost.

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36:04So you can get in on the sports action no matter where you are, including these places. Bend to Georgia, Houston, Cleveland, Minnesota, Buffalo, Lincoln, Chi-Town, Arizona. Make this your most rewarding season ever with FanDuel. Age and location restrictions apply. Product availability varies by market. See FanDuel.com for eligibility. Gambling problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER. All right, we're back on the Ringer NFL show. All right, Wednesday night. It's happening in Seattle. Super Bowl rematch, Patriots-Seahawks. Tom, we got some news here with this one, though. Christian Gonzalez gets the new deal.

36:39I know Bill Simmons was very worried that the Patriots might even trade Christian Gonzalez before the season. Patriots fans were not happy that it took Robert Kraft this long to get it done. But Christian Gonzalez gets the big deal from New England. And the Patriots had been trying to get this done for months. You know, I know Robert Kraft had said it publicly. I think various other members of the organization had repeated it, that they had offered him to make him the highest paid corner. Now, there's different ways you can slice that and there's different metrics to look at and structure plays in.

37:10They had a big offer out there and it always made sense that Christian Gonzalez would ultimately, I mean, you're talking about like$100 million guaranteed. Like you just, it's hard to pass up that type of money. And so it got down all the way to Monday, you know, and ahead of their flight to Seattle before that contract, you know, those contract talks really ramped up. So, you know, the corner market, you can look at, I mean, the Rams have kind of been the nexus of the universe in the NFL the whole offseason. That extension they did with Trent McDuffie, a player that some teams consider more of a slot corner than an outside corner.

37:44But when they did that deal for, I think it was$30 million a year on the extension, that made people's heads explode within the league because it was such a jump. It was such a big deal that then all of a sudden you went, all these other corner contracts are going to also now have to clear that bar. And there was a line of guys from Denzel Ward to Devin Witherspoon to Christian Gonzalez who all fit in that category. So as usual, what happened was everybody started leapfrogging each other. Gonzalez went last, which means that he got the most. In the end, he's a core player for what they want to be in New England.

38:17You'd seen his body language in his press conferences didn't look great. It looked like he had said he was getting frustrated here. Now you can wash all that part away. He was practicing. He was out there. He looked really good in practice, from what I'm told, regardless of how he looked when he was talking with the media. And now he's going to be ready to roll with a pretty big assignment coming up against that Seattle offense in the nationally televised opener. Only 24 years old, Christian Gonzalez in the top five corner, I think, by any measure in the NFL. So they get that done. I wanted to get into what I find most interesting about this matchup, Seahawks-Patriots, because I was thinking about this.

38:54You can take it in any number of different directions. I love that we get the rematch here of the Super Bowl as the first game. And I think what's most interesting to me is the narrative around the Patriots offense from that Super Bowl. If you believe that that was just a matter of, hey, Drake May was playing injured, left tackle Will Campbell was playing injured, and that's why the Seahawks made them look so bad. Well, in this matchup, then, we should see a different Patriots offense. They're healthy. They got A.J. Brown. They got Romeo Dobbs. I'm not saying they have to score 40 points. This is obviously still a very good Seahawks defense here.

39:32Billy, I feel like Patriots fans, the expectation should be our offense is going to look good. we're going to be competitive and we're going to show people that. Maybe it sounded like we were making some excuses and this is, you know, maybe not the organization, but just the general discourse. It sounded like we were making some excuses, but those were actually valid reasons for why we looked the way we did. What do you think?

39:52Sheil Kapadia:That was the exact thing that I was looking for, Shield. Like, what are the chances of that? So I was going through and I was like, what are the storylines here? And I mean, there's a couple, right? Is Drake May really as good as he looked the first, you know, throughout the regular season? He didn't look great in the playoffs. but there was a shoulder injury. Then there's Will Campbell. He was a rookie. He looked horrible in the Super Bowl, but he was dealing with an injury. Drake May only threw 60 yards through the first three quarters. Was it because of the injury? Was it because of the scheming?

40:20Sheil Kapadia:Was it because of the cover six that we talked about a couple weeks ago? Who knows what it was, and we're going to find out. But are we going to find out? Because the Seahawks' secondary is injured, and they lost some guys, so they lose Kobe Bryant. They lose Rick Woolen. They have injuries to Ty Okada. They have an injury to Nick Imanwari. So they added pieces the Patriots did. They're finally healthy. But now the Seahawks secondary is not healthy. So are we going to actually get an accurate picture of where these teams stack up against each other after this game? I think that it's one of the undersold things was neither quarterback was healthy in that Super Bowl.

40:59We talked a lot about Drake May because he got banged up in the championship game. He said that he got a shot prior to the Super Bowl. But Sam Darnold was banged up too. And I wrote about this. I think this will come out after the debut. Do we already plug my newsletter, The Sweep with Tom Pellicero? It's now on Substack. You can go to tompellicero.substack.com. Partnership with The Ringer and Spotify. Read lots more stuff. But I assume the first newsletter will be out before I'm saying this, so I can repeat what's in there. So Darnold had a grade one external oblique strain, which grade one is the lowest level.

41:33But if you know anything about oblique strains and how they impact any thrower, like if a baseball pitcher has an oblique injury, like they're straight to the disabled list. So Sam Darnold, the entire time in the playoffs, this injury happened, I think it was 48 hours before the 49ers game. And he didn't throw in warmups. They thought Drew Locke was going to have to start that game. Darnold said, no, let me give it a go. And he went out and he played well. He played well the next week. The Super Bowl was not his best effort, but he was in a rehab progression the entire playoffs all the way through while also preparing for the biggest games of his life.

42:12I'm not saying that's why some of the accuracy things popped up in the Super Bowl. There were definitely throws and opportunities that he missed, but he was hurt too. And so both these quarterbacks, they're full participants. Those injuries are in the past. It'll be a cool opportunity to see what both those guys can do. And back to the point on the Patriots offense, I think one of the storylines of this season, yes, A.J. Brown is going to be a big deal. And if you think about all the attention on A.J. Brown for the past couple of years, what's his relationship with his quarterback and Jalen Hurts, there is an element where A.J.

42:45Brown's going to have to contain the emotions and not try to force the chemistry because that very quickly would become, oh, now he's upset with Drake May type of thing, even if it's just A.J. Brown being a competitor. but I'm fascinated to see how Josh McDaniels moves these guys around because they've got a lot of versatility. A.J. Brown's going to play, I'm sure, mostly outside. If you leave him one-on-one on the backside, he's still as dangerous as anybody in the NFL, but he's capable of going and being big in the slot. Romeo Dobbs, you can move around the formation. They have some other wide receivers on that roster to the point that, as they said after the Keyshawn Booty trade, Booty wouldn't have been active on game day because they like Pop Douglas and some of the other guys that they have.

43:26I'm just really interested to see how they put this passing game together and how quickly it can ramp up to speed because it was not a great representation of either passing offense in that Super Bowl. You know, on my Google Doc, Billy, I had Tom's newsletter, Baker Mayfield extension, and I got too excited about the Baker Mayfield extension. But you know what? Disrespectful. I mentioned the newsletter, the sweep in the intro to the pot. So we got you covered. I did want to, you know, I was going to give Tom. Tom, give the people a little sound. on the news that are, where are they going to find here?

43:59When can they find this? All that. You want more? Yeah. So listen, the way that I'm looking at this is it's going to be a community of football fans. I want it very much to be a two way street. I want to know what the people who subscribe want, the questions, the type of content, whatever that might be. And I'm going to try to deliver on it. So it's news, but it's also, you know, going deeper behind the headlines. It's trying to turn you on to like what the big stories are going to be coming up in the coming days, weeks, months, years. We're going to have a bunch of different stuff. We're going to have live chats.

44:32We're going to have comments functions. You can get in at the free tier. There's also paid tiers. It's not a ton of money where you can get in and get some of those advanced things. Talk directly to me. Ask me your questions directly. I think it's going to be a lot of fun. It's something different here. So Spotify, The Ringer, and me, Tom Pellicero. Can't beat it. Billy, I missed what you said, but I assume it was funny because you got that little grin on your face.

44:53Sheil Kapadia:Nah, I just said the paid tier, get pictures of Tom's feet if you want. So that's in there too. Yeah, Billy can help you. That's not quite the realm that I was thinking in. I mean, a super paid tier next year, we'll work up to that. For now, but maybe table it. I really wanted people to pay. I'd say you got to pay to not get pics of my feet. Oh, okay. All right. Billy can help you. If you need some creative ideas on kind of the different tiers there, how to reel people in as we get this thing started. But of course, everyone should check out Tom's newsletter there. Yes, Billy, you got your finger up.

45:23Do you have another idea for Tom?

45:24Sheil Kapadia:Well, no, I want to ask you. I had Tom's on my list of other things that we need to discuss. It's Tom's newsletter and then also Roger Goodell's extension if we get to that, which probably won't because why would we get to that? But, Sheila, I have a question for you as a recent Super Bowl champion. Oh, I won the Super Bowl? I wasn't aware. Well, your city won the Super Bowl, the Eagles. Oh, okay, okay. I got you, all right. Recent Super Bowl champion. You won the Super Bowl. You then hosted opening night. You had the banner raising ceremony, all of that stuff. Yeah. Does that do anything? Are we going to feel any momentum with the Seahawks having the banner raised before the game?

45:57Sheil Kapadia:Especially this one. It's a Super Bowl rematch, which is not rare. The last one, I think, was in 2016. So do you think that that plays in any factor there? Does that get them more hyped? Does that get the Patriots more pissed off? How do we think that that will play out? Or if it's just we're going to use our brains, it doesn't really do anything. I think history tells us it gives them a bump, right? If you just look at the record of the defending Super Bowl champs hosting opening night, I think the record is very good just regularly and the record is very good against the spread. So, yeah, I think there's a lot of, you know, a lot of emotion.

46:29I think it depends on, you know, the fan base and how everyone's feeling. And was this like the first Super Bowl of their lifetime or was it not? But yeah, I think there's some meaning there, Tom. I don't know. I don't know if this is something, you know, you've done any reporting on or had feelings about. I mean, you just had, you know, the numbers there. I would just say, you know, that place never needs an extra excuse to be really loud. You know, the building's going to be totally juiced. It's the ever-rare Wednesday night kickoff game in the NFL. Rare for now, Tom. But maybe not rare for a long time.

47:02For the moment, because we've got Friday morning football here in Melbourne on Netflix, which is Thursday night back there. I mean, listen, I like the entire atmosphere of it. It's pretty rare. It's not unprecedented, but it's rare to have a rematch of the Super Bowl. Coming out in week one, there's a ton of storylines on both sides of this. I don't know that it, honestly, I didn't play in the NFL. It's hard for me to say what the emotions are. I think that any time, though, from all the people I've ever talked to, that you have the extended pregames and extra stuff, it's always going to be an emphasis.

47:36Hey, you've got to stay in the moment, time out your warm-up, your activations, everything else. Because otherwise, just like the long Super Bowl halftime, you may end up kind of freezing up and getting distracted not being where you are. And so I'm sure both these coaches will be hammering it home with the guys. I think that, you know, just to circle back, Billy, you were mentioning some of the injuries there. Ty Okada, the safety is out. Nick Emanwari is questionable. So just to kind of tie a knot on that conversation, it's like the Patriots, that's more reason. The Patriots offense should look good here.

48:09You got a banged up Seahawks defense. You're a full strength. Guys are healthy. You added these pieces. If you don't look good, that's almost more concerning. If you do look good, maybe we don't go crazy and say, all right, that's all it was for the Super Bowl. But on the other side of the ball, Billy, I wanted to play for the first time today. What's Tom hearing? We haven't prepped him for this. But I think there's a coach on the Seahawks, their offensive coordinator, who it feels like this guy's one of the most important guys in the NFL this year. I mean, defending Super Bowl champs, Clint Kubiak goes to Vegas, and now this guy, Brian Fleury, is taking over the Seahawks offense.

48:46Tom, what are we hearing about this guy, Brian Fleury? I'm sure, you know, he's going to be mentioned during the broadcast, but what are you hearing about him and the likelihood that he's able to kind of keep that thing on track there with the Seahawks offense? Well, I know Brian. He's a very low-key, laid-back type of personality. If you sat and had a beer with him for 20 minutes, you would not think for a second, this guy is an NFL football coach, but he is really, really smart. His mentality, just like the way that his mindset and his philosophy works is a perfect fit. And it's why he won them over in the interview process.

49:23Remember, they interviewed a bunch of internal candidates. And the easy thing for a coach in Mike McDonald's shoes would have been like, okay, we're going to be running the same style of offense. Let's just promote one of these guys. And certainly they had some qualified people on staff, but they really were in love with just kind of how Flory was going to fit into the system. You also avoid an awkward scenario where you promote one person and don't promote the others and kind of how that impacts some of your staff dynamics. But he's really good with the run game. And that was the difference maker down the stretch last year for Seattle.

49:55It was the problem in Mike McDonald's first season. They won 10 games, but they didn't really have any type of a run game philosophy when Ryan Grubb was there. And so that's part of why they brought in Clint Kubiak. They wanted to run that style of offense. And if you look at what happened in December and January all the way to the Super Bowl, it was really the emergence of Kenneth Walker in that run game that got him there. Well, Fleury has been a tight ends coach. He's held a bunch of different roles, but he's been a tight ends coach most recently. He's intimately involved in the running game.

50:25And so some of those Kyle Shanahan-style concepts, I think you'll start to see integrated more into the offense, the way that they really run wide zone, for instance. I think that you're going to see Seattle leaning into the expertise of that. So I thought at the time that the hire, even though this was not a name that people knew, you know, Fleury had been, he'd been a candidate in the past. He interviewed for the Patriots offensive coordinator job at one point, but it's about just his mindset, his philosophy, and also what he can bring from San Francisco to be additive in a very similar style of offense.

50:57All that fit together. Mike McDonald is never afraid to make the tough decision. It's one of his superpowers as a head coach. He made a change of sorts at the running backs coach in December last year because the run game wasn't where he wanted it to be. Kenny Palomalu's been a really good running backs coach for a long time. He's had a ton of success, Hall of Fame players, but it just wasn't clicking with that particular room. And so they moved things around and they put Justin Outen in the running backs room. And that helped just a different voice. He knows when to push those different buttons.

51:28He felt like this was the right move to go to Brian Fleury. and I would say Mike McDonald, you know, in two short years as the Seahawks head coach with whatever it is, 25 wins and a Super Bowl win. I think that he's earned the benefit of the doubt. Yeah, I'm looking, I do like that, that he seems to not be afraid to make pretty, you know, even after year one, making the OC move change and then even here, like you said, we talked about it on the last show. How many coaches is just like familiarity. It just kind of takes over a lot of times when they're making decisions. I like that he kind of went outside and said, all right, who's the best actual candidate for this position.

52:03And that's what I'm going to have my eyes on from the Seahawks perspective in this game. How does that offense look with a different coordinator? All right, let's take one more break. We come back, we get to the game that Tom will be on these sidelines for in Melbourne 49ers Rams when we come back.

52:21Sheil Kapadia:Somewhere out there is a Chevy truck and the person who drives it, well, that's a Chevy person. You probably know one, your buddy, your sister, Ones who always show up. They're the first to rise, the last to leave. They always have that little extra something. And maybe you've got it too. Chevrolet. Together let's drive. Visit chevy.com slash trucks to explore the lineup.

52:49This episode is brought to you by Google Chrome. You think you know a browser, but Gemini and Chrome? That's new. It can help you with practically anything on the web. like restoring a vintage motorcycle from a 50-page restoration block, or finally break down that long article you've had open for weeks. Gemini and Chrome is here for it. Ready to make anything online make sense? There's no place like Chrome. Check responses set up required. Compatibility and availability varies 18+. All right, we're back here on the Ringer NFL Show. Billy, I feel like you've got like 20 questions for Tom just on like his travel, Melbourne, the Rams, the way they're doing it.

53:24So where do you want to start with this before we get to the actual maybe football aspect of it?

53:31Sheil Kapadia:That's a good read by you because here's kind of what happened. When the Aaron Donald news came out today that he's not traveling to Australia, I was like, oh, that's kind of a bummer. I wanted to see what that defensive line was going to look like. And, you know, it's already going to be a fun game. Tom's going to be there. We have travel questions, just general Australia questions, just Tom questions. What's Tom doing for the game? So I was just kind of curious and I was like, oh, this is like the interesting thing of the game. But then once that news came out, I lost a little bit of interest.

53:57Sheil Kapadia:And I just like, I like a spectacle, Tom. I don't know if you know that about me. I like a spectacle. I like an opening night. I like an opening weekend. I love the international games, even though it's usually the Jaguars playing them. I like it all. So I like the idea of going to Australia. I don't understand why we're going there. I don't know that makes a ton of sense. There's never going to be an NFL team. You don't understand why they're in Australia? I mean, it's to make money is why they're going to Australia. But like, there's never going to be an NFL team in Australia. Let's take a step back.

54:21I'll explain to you exactly why the NFL is playing a game. in Australia. For one thing, it has one of the larger, of any country, one of the larger fan bases of the NFL that is here. Also, the NFL's huge initiative to grow the game is flag football. They know in LA in 2028, it's in the US. You're going to have buy-in. You're going to have, it sounds like the plan is still to have some NFL players involved in that. Where are the 2032 games? They're in Brisbane. So you're trying to invest in the Australian market, gain some momentum here. I wouldn't be surprised if they're back multiple times in the coming years to Australia.

54:59Also, Melbourne, just from the little time that I've spent here so far as I look out across the skyline again, I'm on the South Wharf, they call it. I don't know if this is technically downtown, but I think I'm looking at downtown. It's a really cool city. Everybody here has been super nice. There's NFL signage. You already see people walking around with jerseys because they It might be fans. It might be people who grew up here in the U.S., or they may be people who just like the game. So you've got however many millions of NFL fans that are here. They're playing in the Melbourne Cricket Ground, which is like 170 years old and holds over 100 ,000 people and has a field service that they really haven't had to do a whole lot to because they have the Australian Football League.

55:44The footy here is played on that same field. So there's a lot of different things that lined up for them to have this game here. But don't overlook a flag football piece, the growing of the game, and knowing the next Summer Olympics are right here.

55:59Sheil Kapadia:Yeah, a preseason game would have been fine, I think. You know, these poor guys, they have to go all the way over there. And this psychopath, Sean McVay, sent his team over there a day before. Like, what are they doing to these guys? I feel bad for them. Do you think it's going to sell out? Do you think it's going to be$100 ,000? Hold on, hold on. I'm going to take these one at a time, Billy. You say these asides. You ask me an unrelated question. I'm like, I want to weigh in on all of this. Don't worry about that. The more that I've dug into it, the sports science supports either approach. You either come in really early and adjust your body clock, your circadian rhythms, or you come in last minute and just essentially don't adjust.

56:38So there's nothing wrong with either example. It is interesting that they chose opposite paths here. But one thing I know with Sean McVay is he's a big believer in spend as much time in your bed as possible. So many teams, you know, the Seahawks for 15 years or 20 years have flown in. If they got an East Coast game, they fly in on Friday and then they spend a full day. Then they play the game on Sunday, even in Indianapolis. I know that, you know, that's in the middle of the country, but they're Eastern time zone. I know that they fly in early because one time I was there and went to the gym on Saturday morning and Russell Wilson is in the hotel gym because that's Russell Wilson.

57:13and that's the type of stuff that he would do through the course of his career. But the Rams fly in on Saturday. They come in as late as possible for every single game, and that goes back to McVay's philosophy of just, it's good to be in your rhythm and your routine. And also, you don't want to make too big of a deal of the fact that we're going and playing somewhere else. This entire week has been different for the 49ers. For the Rams, it's all the same other than when they're traveling in. You also, and no one will ever say this is a reason, but you also lose the whole every family member of every staff member wanting to come on the trip.

57:45If you're like, yeah, we're just going to be there for 24 hours and then we're leaving. I mean, the Rams are going to be here less than 48 hours in Australia. A lot of that probably gets curved by not making the early trip. But as much as anything, honestly, like I did more or less what the Rams are going to tell their players to do on the flight here to try to adjust very quickly. And I felt pretty good waking up yesterday at, you know, whatever that was like 6 a.m. local time on the plane and got myself going. Now, how I felt at like 6 p.m. was a little bit different. But guess what? The Rams will already be on the plane home.

58:21The game's at 1030 a.m. here. They'll be on a plane back to L.A. by like 330. I get it. I'm not taking sides in what they do. We'll see in the first quarter and the fourth quarter who has the better plan. But there is science behind doing either one of these things. The Rams took the unorthodox way where if they win this game, everyone will say, well, it's because they're the Super Bowl favorites. And if they lose, it'll be, well, McVay's an idiot. He came in late. Billy, there were two things there that really caught my attention. The first was when Tom said, Sean McVay believes in spending as much time in your own bed as possible.

58:57And I don't know if you know, the Kapadia men now for generations, when we travel, we bring our own pillows. We don't like to end up at a relative's house. or somewhere, and they got the pancake pillows. You know what I'm saying? We call them pancake pillows. So you always check a bag. You're a perpetual bag checker. No, these are more road trucks. These are more road trucks, I should say. But I had visions of my dad. We're driving anywhere to whatever uncle's house. And you know what? You got your bags in the trunk, but you also got two pillows there. And guess who's doing that now? In the car, 100%.

59:26In the car. I'm doing that now because I want my own pillows. But that actually makes sense to me. That's a point for McVeigh. But I think Tom just, this is a, does Tom think or does Tom know Billy? Because his point about the family members, that makes a lot of sense to me. Okay. If you're working in the NFL and you don't see your family that much, and you're about to embark on this four month season, where you're going to see them even less. And now you say, oh yeah, we're going to Australia for like 10 days. Everybody's like, oh sweet. I've always wanted to go to Australia. I'm going to come to, how do we get passes?

1:00:00Who What do we call McVay now has cut that out where everybody, you can say, sorry, you know, we would love to, maybe we'll vacation there on the off season, but guess what? We're only there for 48 hours. And so you can't just say it's a business trip. You want to go, you want to go to Australia. Great. Go yourself, but I'm not going to be there until the day before the game. Like they're going to get in the morning before they play the game and they're going to go through the entire day. So I would just say that there's a long history of teams doing different things, even when they go to Europe.

1:00:34There's some teams that have gone in right after their game the previous week. Other teams go in at the last minute. One thing that's a common thread I've always heard is the earlier you go, the more of the other stuff you're dealing with. And all the family members and friends who want to be a part of the trip, it's just one more thing that you have to manage that feels out of the ordinary. Again, we'll see how this works out for the 49ers. They might come out and look like a team that's fully adjusted, and the Rams don't. But for the Rams, they just wanted this week to feel as normal as possible.

1:01:03And other than the 15, 16 hours they're on that plane, it probably is going to.

1:01:11Sheil Kapadia:I'm not expecting a breaking news for this one. Like breaking news, Sean McVay hates family. But maybe on the sweep, we get a more in-depth thing where Tom breaks down. like why it is what happened in his past that you know all of a sudden i'm not saying i'm just saying as an ancillary factor the shorter the trip the less you're dealing with other people i mean can you imagine if a guy's getting ready to play a divisional game in week one and like he's dealing with hey my wife's passport expired what do i do like it's all these other things that just you don't really want to be dealing with it.

1:01:50Like, I think that that's, that's, that's all of us, you know, like, I think that everybody, like you're going to do your best work when you're not being pulled 20 different directions. Um, and this fits into it. I mean, NFL players, they got real families and real lives. We sometimes forget that, but just taking some of that out of the equation, um, then all you're really worrying about is whether or not you can sleep during the period of time you're supposed to on the plane. Cause if you don't, then I would imagine it's going to be a really long 48 hours here. All right, Billy, you're 0 for 2 on the sweep ideas, the feet and the McVay idea.

1:02:24I'm just throwing it. Shoot or shoot. I'm helping. No bad idea in a brainstorm. I feel like I've been swayed by this segment that I like this. I like the Rams idea. And here's the other thing I read. Christian McCaffrey was talking to reporters. Tom, I don't know if you've had a chance to talk to Christian McCaffrey yet, but he was saying the coffee is great. And I didn't know this, that Australia had like amazing coffee place, big coffee place. And now I'm thinking, all right, so if you get on the plane, it's a nice plane. You're laying down, you're sleeping. All you really need is like eight hours of sleep at some point the day before the game.

1:02:58And then if you're a little tired before game time, you're having some of that good coffee, you get through the game and then you come home and then you're in a good situation. So Tom, you are a coffee guy, I believe, right? I feel like I've seen you holding cups of coffee in our past interactions. I don't, well, no, this is water here. I'm not sure who sponsors the show. So I'm going to, I'm still getting up to speed on some of those things. So I don't want to state my affinity one way or the other, but I will say Australia is known as a place. Like you can do coffee tastings around here. Even in, you know, you go to New York City, there's a bunch of Australian coffee shops.

1:03:32Yeah, that is one of the things that they are absolutely known for. All right. So we'll get the coffee review on the next show. All right, Billy, should we move to football or you have more travel stuff for time?

1:03:42Sheil Kapadia:Well, no, there's lots of questions. So have you seen a lot of 49ers fans out there? Because they travel well. Did they travel all the way to Australia? So on my flight from SFO, there were a lot of 49ers fans. In the city, listen, I'm going over to 49ers practice after we finish taping this. So I'll see some of those people and get a chance to talk with folks with the team. Like within the city, one of the things that's every international game, if you're just walking around the city, you see every jersey. Like I was behind two guys who I think were locals yesterday and they were wearing a Lamar Jackson and a Drew Brees jersey, respectively.

1:04:19Not anywhere near anything to do with the game. Just walking along the little boardwalk here at the wharf and wearing random jerseys three days before the game. Like that's part of the fun with these things is just that fans of football, like it's football that they're coming out here. But I would say, you know, listen, the Rams always have their silent cadence available, whether they're at home or on the road. I don't know that it's going to be quite like SoFi, where Kyle Shanahan said he wished they were playing at SoFi because 49ers fans take over. Yeah, it's funny. It's still a 15, 16-hour flight.

1:04:52Again, I was with a bunch of them. I'm pretty sure I was with the 49ers cheerleaders as well. So they're going to be represented. The field, too, it's not – they made this change, I think, last year. It's not going to be, even though it's a home game for the Rams, they're going to paint it half and half like it's a Super Bowl. So NFL shield at midfield, 49ers in one end zone, Rams in the other. They'll still do some in-game things within the stadium. But from that perspective, the environment's going to be shaped at least in part by what fans decide to show up and be loud. I talked to MJ Acosta Ruiz, who's going to be on the 49ers sideline.

1:05:28She said walk around, she saw a ton of Rams fans. So who knows? We'll know a little bit more when we get into the stadium on Friday. Keep. I have no idea. You'll get it right. Yeah. Thursday night in the U.S. 8.30 Eastern, 5.30 Pacific on Thursday. Thursday. 10.30 a.m. kickoff here in Melbourne. 8.30 a.m. pregame here, which is 6.30 and 3.30 in the U.S. on Thursday. He's got all that.

1:05:55Sheil Kapadia:It could be worse. You could be Raheem Morris. He missed his birthday with all these dates being changed. his 50. I saw that. He didn't get to celebrate. He was on the plane, right? And the day that was his birthday, it was the day that was skipped. Yeah, got in on the third, got out on the fifth. What if you're turning 50? Like when I turn 50, all I'm going to want to do is just lay down and take a nap in the middle of the day. Being on a transcontinental flight sounds perfect. How are you going to beat that? The older I get, the less I want to do for my birthday. Oh, 100%. Yeah, no. Don't even want anyone to mention.

1:06:27Make friends with McVay

1:06:27Sheil Kapadia:so he can tell my family they can't come to my party, you know? Yeah, Tom, you're new here. Sean's got a beautiful young family. He loves the kids. He loves the family. Who wants to go to Australia? It's like, me, me, me, me, me, me. It is not a McVeigh thing. I'm just telling you how the world works. Tom, just so you know that we have a Slack channel at The Ringer where there's a lot of happy birthday wishes. I made it clear year one, I don't need to be announced in there. So just, you know, if you need to do that, alert somebody, make sure they don't say that in there because you don't want anyone acknowledging your birthday.

1:06:59Like, Billy, I don't know. Have you done that?

1:07:00Sheil Kapadia:Yeah, believe it or not, Tom, I manage people. So I like make it a point to like make sure to wish them a happy birthday on their birthdays because I don't want them to feel left out. Even though for me, it's like, I'm fine. I don't mind if you tell me it's my birthday or not. I don't want anyone else to feel left out. So I have to go in there and do it. Yeah, the whole like online wishing of the birthdays, it's always careful, Tom. If you go through and you look, like, you know, like I don't have Facebook set up to send me anything, but I'll get a happy birthday. And they're from people that I swear I only hear from once a year to say happy birthday.

1:07:34None of your actual friends are doing the happy birthday on Facebook. The only thing worse than the Facebook happy birthday is the LinkedIn congrats on your work anniversary. That's not even a thing, but it's got to be like an auto setup thing. And I'll get a flood of congrats on your work anniversary, which by the way, gets really weird when you got fired from your job and you haven't changed your LinkedIn bio. Everyone's wishing you a happy birthday or happy work anniversary. And you're like, yeah, I don't work there anymore. And that's probably, it's pretty well documented that I don't have that job anymore.

1:08:08But thank you for congratulating me on a non-holiday. I need two follow-ups here. Okay. One, if LinkedIn is sponsoring this episode, we of course love you. And we wish everybody to engage. And birthdays.

1:08:18Sheil Kapadia:Big birthdays are sponsored. It's the work anniversary thing. That's not a thing. Why is that? Unless you're getting the 10-year pizza cutter or something, which is an actual gift I got one time for being at a job for a couple of years. Unless you get that, like an actual gift for it, it's not a holiday. It does not need to be celebrated. Billy, the toughest part of the happy birthday text, to what Tom was saying, is when you say happy birthday and then you scroll up and the only time you've interacted with the person, they said happy birthday to you, you said happy birthday to them. That's the only interaction you have all year.

1:08:51I feel like we need to name that something or if you see that happens, it's like, we don't need to keep doing this.

1:08:57Sheil Kapadia:Yeah. Well, sometimes I'll do that and I'll be like, is that really the last time I talked to this person? It's like, well, I guess we were like in a group chat or whatever, but yeah, I feel bad. Also, by the way, thank you guys for reminding me because today's the birthday friend of the show, Sheil, Mina Kimes. Happy birthday, Mina. So we can tell her and then you don't have to reach out. Send it on Facebook. Yeah. There you go. Happy birthday. Here's one more real quick follow-up question before we get to the actual football game. The more the merrier. What is the etiquette to the happy birthday?

1:09:24In other words, do you guys do like the thumbs up? Do you say thanks? Do you ignore? And then if you do reply, thumbs up, thanks, whatever, and they send you another text like enjoy your day. Yeah. Is there any proper response other than just ignore it because they're going to keep texting you? Well, yeah, I don't think ignoring is the right move. No. Right, Billy? You don't want to ignore it. You don't want to ignore it. No, not the first one. The first one. Oh, the second one. Okay, okay. Right? But then if they respond with like, what are you doing? It's like, I'm trying to enjoy my day and I'm answering your texts.

1:10:03Yeah, no, that's not a real friend. I think you just want to say thank you, exclamation point, and that ends it, Billy. Is that your move or no?

1:10:13Sheil Kapadia:I'm with you. I mean, I'm a bad friend, so I'm not the one that is like probably the one to answer this Cause like, I, I think my closest friends, I can go like months without talking to my closest friends and then we'll just text each other out of the blue. And it's like, yeah, this is fine. We don't need like the pleasantries. We don't need to see each other constantly, whatever. Like you and your friends that go and meet in the forest for the draft, like, like that. Like we just go and we talk to each other every couple of times and then we'll go to the log cabin and that's that. Right. So like the people that will reach out to you that it's more like what she'll say, where it's like, this is now I look back.

1:10:41Sheil Kapadia:It's like, oh, the last time I talked to you is also my birthday. So I'm just like, oh, thanks. You know, hope you're doing well. How's it going? whatever but like it usually will end after like one or two i'm not a big like thumbing like the comment like thumbs up kind of guy because i feel like i don't know if i'm in a group of people do that then i'll do it but if it's like one-on-one i feel like the just thumbs up is maybe somewhat dismissive so i try to avoid it i'm a big i'm a big if it's it's either it's either a thumbs up or a heart that's 90 of my text replies you've been using those appropriately tom you know we've We've only been texting for a couple groups.

1:11:17Yeah, you've been using those appropriately. Sheil says, here's the top of the show. And I go, yeah, that's it. So this is one of the reasons to read me going, yes, I agree with Sheil. You don't need all that, just like. Totally. That's it.

1:11:29Sheil Kapadia:We're good. This is one of the groups where I feel like the thumbs up and the hearts are appreciated. And it's fine. We don't need to do any more than that. It's an acknowledgement. Yeah, exactly. That's all we need. I'm with you there. This is what I do, Tom and Sheil. I don't know about you. So sometimes like on social media, it gets tricky, right? where people reach out to you. Facebook was one all the time where it was like, happy birthday, happy birthday, happy birthday. And it's like, there was a time where there wasn't just a like. So you had to either respond or not respond, right? So I had a rotation of three responses.

1:11:57Sheil Kapadia:And I just kind of like, hey, thanks so much. Oh, thanks. Hope you're doing well. Thanks, bro. Stuff like that. And I just kind of alternate depending on the person. These are my three go-tos and I'll just hit you with one of these. You know what I mean? Because then it's not too personal. Yeah. But the problem is, is then if it's public, the person can see like, oh, there's just a pattern. It's like ABC response. And he's just going ABC, ABC, ABC. If someone's going to get mad over that, Billy, you need to cut that. You know, as my kids would say, cut out the toxic people. Wow. You know, kids tell you that shit.

1:12:30What's going on? You being bullied? What's happening here? They do say that a bunks, you know, someone's having an issue that that's a good move. All right. I'm finally getting us to this football game. All right. No more. Listen, here's. what I'm interested in. Now, you said, Billy, Aaron Thomas. I love that I gave away all my texting shortcuts and then forgot we all text. Somehow that did work in the old noggin. Listen, now you're on six hours of sleep. You haven't had the Australian coffee yet.

1:12:56Sheil Kapadia:You got to go to bed in three hours if you're staying on that time. No, I got a 9.30 p.m. medical meeting. That's in like 12 hours. Medical meeting? We got a lot of... Everything okay? HIPAA? Listen, this broadcast on Netflix is going to be huge, man. We're putting a ton into it. uh it's gonna be awesome and yeah looking forward to seeing the 49ers this afternoon too are there any surprises that you've gone through with run-throughs like you don't have to tell us what they are but like is ice cube gonna be there singing or something you know i mean don't tell us but cannot cannot reveal there's definitely some surprises nice cannot reveal them um but there's listen every netflix one of the one of the reasons i'm so excited to be a part of it is like every netflix um broadcast of a game certainly not broadcast whatever stream of a game they're all like a Super Bowl.

1:13:40They're all an event and there's like unique creative stuff that goes into it. You can only imagine that this game's in Australia. Some of those unique things are going to be incorporated into it. But gangs all, if they're not already here, they're going to be here very soon. We are fully staffed. We are at full strength here in Melbourne.

1:13:59Sheil Kapadia:Can I give you a prediction, Sheil, of what one of the surprises will be? Maybe it's already been announced, but I just, there's no way that this game doesn't happen without Robert Irwin, son of Steve Irwin, doing something at this game. You know he's going to be there. Guys everywhere. So that's your official prediction, not Ice Cube. Yeah, Robert Irwin's going to be doing something at one of these games. All right, well, if it's Ice Cube, I'll make Ice Cube my official prediction. We'll see who's right there. So there's no Aaron Donald, but I do think the number one thing I'm watching here is this 49ers defense.

1:14:28Miles Garrett. Trent McDuffie feels like it was five years ago, the offseason that the Rams had, because I'm just looking at this. If you're McBey, you're like, man, our offense was good enough to win the Super Bowl last year. And in that NFC championship game, we could not get it done against that Seahawks offense. And now you're going up against Shanahan and it looks like Kittle might be on track there to play and you still got Purdy. So Tom, that's, I mean, that 49ers offense, we forget kind of how great it was for much of last season going up against this new, new look Rams defense. That's going to be amazing.

1:15:03Yeah, we just got to see, you know, for the 49ers, kind of how the playmakers emerged. Debo's back after a one-year absence. You know, they cut ties with him a year ago, and I think it was a trade to the commanders. But it's probably because he didn't look like Debo anymore. So after a year in Washington, how does he come back? I mean, he looks good from everything I've seen. He looks good physically. You know, how do they integrate him into the offense? How quickly can they get to Zahn Stribling going? They've drafted a lot of receivers over the years, and a lot of them have struggled to make an immediate impact.

1:15:33Well, they need him to be a big piece of this offense, especially with Ricky Pearsall out for the season. You know, what does Mike Evans look like? He's had a bunch of, you know, he's always had hamstring issues. He's had a couple of them pop up through the course training camp. How much are they playing him? What does he look like in his first, the first time out, not in a Tampa Bay Buccaneers uniform? I think all those things are interesting. And then, yeah, you know, the, the way that the Rams operate here, I mean, Miles Garrett, Sean McVay has said He's full go, even though he didn't practice today.

1:16:03How exactly do they put all those pieces together, knowing this guy is going to get so much attention up front? He's going to get doubled or tripled on so many different snaps. All right, how do the 49ers play that, number one? And number two, what do the Rams try to do, if anything, just to freeze some things up? Are they running a ton of games up front? Are they just going, our guys are better than your guys and just run right at them and let guys like Kobe Turner and Byron Young go eat? Braden Fisk, like it'll be really interesting just to see these first games. This is everybody in the NFL.

1:16:35Like there's always some level of unknown. And that's why every year you get some weird week one games that happen at the end of the season. You're like, what in the world was that? And it's because no matter how much you have on tape of what a coach did in his last stop or what they showed in the preseason, like you're going to know within five, 10 snaps, you know, all right, these new pieces that they got in, how exactly are they playing? And schematically, what is their philosophy here? You're going to learn a lot about that. And then it's about what team can adjust better to what they're seeing in the early stages of the game.

1:17:07And you're right, there's enough new, even though these are two coaches who know each other really well with McVay and Shanahan. Obviously McVay and Raheem Morris are very close, won a Super Bowl together in LA. There's still going to be some of that feeling out process. And let's see exactly what it looks like as these teams are figuring out what the other one's doing. All right, Billy. Anything have your attention here you want to get to before we close it out from this game?

1:17:32Sheil Kapadia:I was interested in seeing what Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald look like together. The video was going around on Miles Garrett learning how to tackle people rugby style at UCLA for whatever reason because he's not hitting people hard enough. So they had to teach him a more efficient way to, quote unquote, hit people harder. So I was wanting to see. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it is kind of crazy that, you know, that guy comes in and obviously, you know, that caught the internet by storm. and it's like, wow, he's hitting people harder. All they had to do was find this rugby coach. It's like, well, yeah, but every team has guys that are teaching their players how to hit people safely and harder.

1:18:06Sheil Kapadia:So it's probably not actually going to make a difference. It just looks kind of cool that you have this giant guy getting thrown around by Myles Garrett. So I don't know. There you go. That was a big Seahawks thing back in the day. The rugby style, take your head out of tackling. So there you go. We'll see. Yeah. All right. This is going to be a fun game. This is going to be a fun week. We got Wednesday. We got Thursday. We got Sunday. We got Monday. We got a lot of shows in between. Tom, give everyone, you know, this is another, I should have done this at the time. Give people the schedule for the Ringer NFL show, the in-season schedule starting next week.

1:18:42There's one piece of this that I don't know that we're allowed to say yet. So I'm going to steer clear of that because I was specifically ordered not to. But Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all season, starting next week, I will be back in the country. We'll see how I'm feeling, how adjusted I am after immediately going from the plane to the couch to watch a full day of Sunday football. But Monday, Wednesday, Friday, all season long, Ringer NFL show. It'll be on Spotify. It'll be on Netflix. It'll be wherever you get your podcasts. We're going to have an absolute blast. You guys still owe me some ideas of your segments that you're going to do starting next week.

1:19:18So we got to work through all that stuff. and I'm just going to do what I always do, which is, you know, needle you guys and hopefully bring some information to the table and be entertaining. All right, Billy, we should go like that message that Tom had whenever he asked us. Yeah, I did. We should go ahead. We had a whole call. It's going to be a lot of fun.

1:19:37Sheil Kapadia:I thought it was like a tell me before we do it type thing, but I'll send it. You got time. We got a little time, so we're going to come back. There's one thing I know about you, Billy, it's that you're not going to follow the directions anyway. So just come up with something that you understand. Falsehoods. and then we'll do it. Yeah. There you go. I don't want to get off on the wrong foot. You know what I mean, Tom? Well, yeah, no, no, everything's going great. We're going to have shows Wednesday night, Thursday night after the games this week and then like Tom said, we'll be back Monday, Wednesday, Friday next week and that'll be the schedule for the season.

1:20:11All right, everyone check out Tom on Netflix on Thursday night. Be like, oh, that's the Ringer NFL. Two-hour pregame show. Wow. at 8.30 p.m. Eastern Time, 5.30 Pacific.

1:20:23Sheil Kapadia:Wait, what are you going to be doing officially? During the game, you'll be on the sidelines, right? But before in the pregame, you're going to be kind of in and out with reports? I'll be doing some news, potentially some interviews as well in the pregame show. And then I will be on the Rams sideline. Can't break that news. I'm on the Rams sideline for the game, chronicling the beginning of the journey for the prohibitive Super Bowl favorites. Should be a blast. Billy, I expect you to be analyzing every one of Tom's moves and come back with a review for us next week on the job you thought he did.

1:20:53Are you up for that? Sure. Okay. All right. Billy's up for that. All right. Thank you to Tom Felicero. Thank you to Billy Gill. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ram Gopal. I'm Shiel Kapati. We'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL Show.

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