Kyler Murray's Future, Maxx Crosby Trade Buzz, and Stories That Have Our Attention!

14:51Billy Gil:What do you think? Does that feel unreasonable for you? Does it change your mind on whether he's going to be traded or not? Do you have destinations where you feel like he should land? Where are you with this Max Crosby story? Because this could end up being, I would say, the biggest trade of the offseason just when you look at a player and what they got in return.

15:09Sheil Kapadia:So the thing that's kind of sad, I guess, that's probably not the right word, right? But the thing about this story that isn't ideal or is disappointing is how much time he spent with the Raiders and how the Raiders seem to be set up to be, if they hit on Fernando Mendoza, if they drop Fernando Mendoza, and they hit on Fernando Mendoza with our friend, friend of the show, Ashton Gentry there, with Brock Bowers or some of the weapons that they have there. It seems as though they're not that far away. And the Max Crosby trade may be, how do we trade Max to get the final pieces to get us over the next hump?

15:51Sheil Kapadia:So it's almost like he was there, he did his time. Now when they are in the process of turning it around, they get a new coach, they have, you know, franchises is turning the corner. Now let's get rid of the guy that suffered through all of that bad time with us to get those final pieces and his final contribution to us will be like, here's two first rounders that we flipped and those guys got us to the next level. And then you can go off to whatever team is desperate enough and hopefully you can get a ring with that team.

16:18Billy Gil:Yeah, it does kind of suck for him. You're right. He put in all this time. He's played great. He never comes off the field. He's been their only bright spot. And now he's probably going to be out of there. But from the Raiders perspective, I get it. Because when you say final pieces, like there are a lot of, there's still a lot of pieces, you know, their defense kind of things. They're getting close though.

16:35Sheil Kapadia:They've got, they're interesting.

16:37Billy Gil:They're interesting. I'm with you. Like offensively, they could be interesting if they get some pieces on the offensive line. Defensively, especially without Max Crosby, they've got almost nothing. I would say it's the worst, maybe the worst depth chart in the NFL. So from their perspective, if you're like, Ooh, I get a defensive player who's maybe a solid starter, not Max Crosby. And now I get two first round picks. Now I can actually have some cornerstones on this defense. So I get it from their perspective. And I understand the asking price because remember, it was just months ago, Sauce Gardner got two first round picks.

17:13Billy Gil:And I think if we were like, you know, if we were having a conversation in October and we were like, who would get more in a trade, Sauce Gardner or Max Crosby? I think we probably would have said Max Crosby. So I understand why they're asking for that. Now Quinn and Williams got a first and a second. So I don't know that a team's definitely going to give up two firsts for him, but I feel like something like a first and a third, maybe it's a first this year and a third next year, but it turns into a second if he has 12 sacks or is an all pro. One of those types of deals I think is on the table.

17:45Billy Gil:And I wrote down so many teams here.

17:47Sheil Kapadia:Oh, okay.

17:47Billy Gil:That could be interesting.

17:48Sheil Kapadia:Wait, hold on. Did you do this the same way as you do where you close your eyes and you see where he goes? Because I just did that now with Max. and the problem is when you close your eyes, he's a Raider, you know? Like it's the perfect team for him. If I close my eyes, I start looking around like, I'm doing like, you know, almost like, you know, like in the video game where you're like switching uniforms, whatever. I'm trying to do like a quick thing where I'm seeing all of the team's uniforms flash before my eyes for him. I see Buccaneers maybe, like that's a team that like, that seems like that uniform might fit on him, right?

18:18Sheil Kapadia:I just don't know. I don't know if there's a better fit uniform wise for him than the Raiders.

18:23Billy Gil:By the way, is there anything funnier than when there's a trade and an insider tweets out like the bad Photoshop version of the player in the new uniform. I would, you know, I would read a story on like the process of that. Is that an intern? Are they calling? So I know they're not doing the Photoshop.

18:42Sheil Kapadia:No, for sure. Same thing. I've always wondered that with Schefter too. So like now if you've noticed when Adam Schefter breaks like a big story, it'll say like breaking. And he has like a graphic that goes along with the thing, what the process is. And if he's there like on his phone and he's like, I have the news, but I need to remember there was a mandate. I need to get this graphic in. Where is it on my, you know, where is it on my photo roll? I need to find he's like scrolling through and then he gets beat by someone because they don't throw in the graphic. The world's changing, Sheil. The world of this game is changing.

19:13Billy Gil:Because you're right. Yeah. Is he actually. It slows it down. Is he clicking, you know, add photo on the social media and add the photo to the tweet? Because that could get a little dangerous. Really? I mean, yeah, we all have lots of photos, you know, on our phone. Who knows? Maybe you have some type of medical thing like that happens to me sometimes. I'll send it to my sister. Hey, you know, like, I don't know. This is kind of a, yeah, yeah. I'm fine now. Nothing, not as of this moment, but that has happened before. And then I'm like, man, I just like sent them something of my foot. Like if I were to tweet that out, that would be pretty weird for me.

19:45Billy Gil:Or use like a picture of my dog or something.

19:47Sheil Kapadia:Right. Or a child. Yeah. That's another example.

19:49Billy Gil:Maybe a better. Yeah. Okay. All right. So I did. Here's what I did. I wrote down a bunch of names. Okay. And then I did close my eyes. Oh. And there was one uniform here that I just pictured him in. So here, I'm going to give you the list of names. And maybe as I do this, maybe you close your eyes. I'll close my eyes. Yeah. And you picture and you tell me if there's one of these that you feel like, oh yeah, I could see that. So New England Patriots, Buffalo Bills, Baltimore Ravens. By the way, play along at home. Not if you're driving, but if you're somewhere else, play along and close your eyes and do this.

20:24Sheil Kapadia:Should I grunt? Like make it like, cause I realize now closing my eyes while you're just doing this isn't really helping you in any way. Cause there's like silence. I could go like,

20:33Billy Gil:if there's a natural grunt that you would like to incorporate, by all means, but I don't want you to force it. We have to be authentic. Okay, got it. On this show. Okay. Eyes closed. Cincinnati Bengals, Los Angeles Chargers, Philadelphia Eagles, Washington Commanders, Chicago Bears Detroit Lions Carolina Panthers Seattle Seahawks sorry so I just I mean I gave you what's that a third of the league something like that I gave you a lot but when I closed my eyes and pictured Max Crosby in another uniform there was one team there that I said oh yeah I mean come on I could absolutely see that tomorrow if you had to choose one Billy what was the one in your head that you felt like you could see?

21:23Sheil Kapadia:I don't think that we're going to be on the same page here. That's okay. We can disagree. Based solely on uniforms, I think I could see them in a Bears uniform. Okay. I was thinking earlier maybe Commanders, but I think like an alternate Commanders uniform. You know? I don't know. Which was the team that you settled on?

21:45Billy Gil:I settled on the Detroit Lions, Billy. And I saw your face during it and I felt like you were feeling it but did you reject it for some reason did you feel like you were being it was like well I'm just saying that because they've got a white guy at defensive end in Aiden Hutchinson and now I know that no that's not why okay it was I

22:03Sheil Kapadia:feel like he fits the mold of a Dan Campbell player but the blue threw me off for some reason I don't know what it was about Lions blue that I was looking at it yeah and I was like I don't know if this is the right fit just based on the uniform. In terms of personnel, seems perfect.

22:23Billy Gil:Uniform, I'm not sure. Yeah, I landed on the Lions and I've changed my mind on this over the past few weeks. I've been thinking about it because some teams I feel like will be like, well, I'm just going to go sign Trey Hendrickson or I'm going to go sign Jalen Phillips. I don't need to give up draft. They're not as good as Max Crosby, but I don't have to give up draft picks and I've got a lot of needs on my roster where I don't want to be giving up a couple draft picks. But I thought what about the lions? And you've brought this up multiple times. And it's a great reminder is that the whole Dan Campbell, they lose in the NFC championship game.

22:55Billy Gil:He says that could have been our best chance last year. They don't even make the playoffs. Now they've got a new year. They're what third offensive coordinator in three years. They're trying to expand that window. And I feel like offensively they're in really good shape and defensively they've drafted a lot of defensive backs where it's like their corners, They're not making a lot of money. I'm not saying they're set there, but I feel like if they were to add a pass rusher on the other side of Aiden Hutchinson, I would be pretty excited about that Lions defense and that Lions team maybe expanding that window and giving them another chance at a Super Bowl.

23:32Sheil Kapadia:Okay, so they have the 17th pick in the draft this year. Let's say you do two first. You do a first this year and a first next year. is Max Crosby worth the 17th pick in the NFL draft? Like, could you get someone in the 17th pick of the NFL draft that would be more valuable than Max Crosby? Because then if he works out the way that you want him to work out, you're looking at the 32nd pick in the draft next year. So is he worth a 17 and a 32?

24:05Billy Gil:Well, it's, you know, the draft is a crapshoot. As you know, the hit rate's what, 40 % or something in the first round. 17th is a pretty high pick, you know, and there might be other teams trying to trade for him who are in the late 20s. I would try to do 17 and then let's do a conditional 20-27 pick that maybe is like third that turns into a second or maybe even a second that turns into a first if Max Crosby has like 15 sacks or if the Lions at least get to the NFC Championship game, that type of thing where you're protecting yourself off a little bit from the downside where all of a sudden you have a nightmare season and now you just gave up wild compensation for Max Crosby.

24:47Billy Gil:So there you go. Alliance.

24:50Sheil Kapadia:Going through to see who the Shamar Stewart was the 17th pick of this year's draft.

24:55Billy Gil:Okay. So that you would absolutely do. You'd be like, yeah, please. Yes. Take that and take my next year's pick. So we'll see what happens. It feels like he's going to get traded. I mean, you don't get to this point where you're talking, here's exactly what we want when you're not going to trade the player. So I understand they're trying to exercise some leverage here, just like the Eagles are trying to do with AJ Brown. But I do believe still that Max Crosby is going to be traded.

25:17Sheil Kapadia:That's a crazy story, by the way, the AJ Brown one, right? Where they're talking about what a Patriots fan he is. I mean, you're there and you are kind of like, was that like, did I get tricked into that? I was reading that where they were saying he's such a huge Patriots fan. And then there's rooms like, well, maybe he'll just go to the Patriots. That seemed like a crazy thing to read.

25:35Billy Gil:He said that like for years to see, like he didn't just say that. So this has been known that he, when he was like younger, was a big Patriots fan, Tom Brady fan. And then he obviously has the Mike Rabel connection. So Mike Rabel is being asked about him at the combine. And it's like, I'm proud of the man he's become. And so I don't know if there's already a deal in place. And they're like, we don't really need to worry about, you know, anything else. And now a radio host this morning is asking me, Hey, Shield, you know the rules on tampering? This seems kind of crazy. Exactly. I'm like, don't be a tattletale.

26:05Billy Gil:Everybody settle down. He's asked about AJ Brown. He's allowed to talk about AJ Brown. But you want to be a tattletale, it sounds like.

26:13Sheil Kapadia:No, I don't want to be a tattletale. But I'm like, if we're pretending that there's tampering rules, this seems like a very clear violation of those rules. Also, to your point with Max, it's kind of hard to walk back and repair things with him when you're saying, this is exactly what it's going to cost to get him from us. You know, like, how do you then like, you know we were just we were just playing around Max

26:32Billy Gil:we were BSing you know I'm gonna be here with the G. John Schneider and he asked a question hypotheticals yeah hypotheticals it was like yeah it was one of those we were there

26:41Sheil Kapadia:Jordan Schultz was punching people it was crazy you know how these things go

26:44Billy Gil:we haven't had any drama like that yet this year everyone's been on their best behavior okay because I feel like those stories are made for you so if anyone there is listening even if you you know have to make it happen we would like to talk about you know that type of insider or on inside a little fight or something going on. That would be fun.

27:02Sheil Kapadia:Take a swing if you have to.

27:03Billy Gil:Take a swing if you have to. Yeah, that's okay. All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got some other stories that have our - This episode is brought to you by Hotels.com. Save Your Way is a new feature on Hotels.com and it's as simple as it sounds. When you book a trip as a Hotels.com member, you decide how to use your savings. Take the instant savings now or bank the savings as rewards for later. It's your call, only at Hotels.com. Save Your Way is available to loyalty members in the US and UK and hotels with member prices. Other terms apply. See site for details. Retention. All right, we're back here on the Ringer NFL show.

27:39Billy Gil:So here's one that got my attention, Billy. This is from ESPN's Kaylin Kaler, great reporter. She has a headline, replay errors in early games worry NFL coaches. So this is one that kind of came out of nowhere where Troy Vinson works for the league. He says, you know what? There were 171 replay review or replay assist decisions last year. And we reviewed them all. There's only five that we would actually want back. But then he sneaks in this little nugget. Four of those happened in 1 p.m. games because of the volume of games at 1 p.m., he says, Billy. So now the coaches are being asked about this.

28:23Billy Gil:Sean Payton, Mike Rabel. They're like, we should never have a staffing shortage. It shouldn't be about that. Do we not have enough people working? What's going on here? I didn't even know how this worked. Let me tell you how this works, Billy, and I need your take on it. This is also from the article. Each game in the 1 p.m. hour has a replay assistant dedicated to monitoring the action from the League Replay Center in New York. The replay assistants have an individual station and use an Xbox controller to view the different camera angles from the game. But the replay assistant is not the final decision maker on a review.

29:02Billy Gil:There are replay supervisors, vice presidents, and the officiating department. They can make the final decision on reviews. and with the expansion of replay assist, those who work in game management for teams have wondered who that final decision maker is and how many people within the officiating department have the power to make replay decisions because this has been vague from the NFL. There's a lot of juice there.

29:29Sheil Kapadia:There's a lot going on with this story. Honestly, at first I was like, hey, Troy, zip it up. Like, what are we doing giving away all this information? now they have a collective bargaining agreement situation with the officials that's upcoming which could be just like this is posturing this is kind of saying like look there's problems here we got to resolve these problems and maybe they're trying to get some leverage here i don't think they can talk to the officials uh association the nfl officials association whatever it's called

29:57Billy Gil:until nfl ra which is a very confusing acronym that kind of combines various you know but anyway NFL RA.

30:05Sheil Kapadia:There's a lot going on there. I think that they can't really have talks until May after the season ends. I read somewhere. Here's the thing. There was a lot in this story. Number one, five do-overs in the grand scheme of things doesn't sound that crazy. Okay, but who's judging that?

30:21Billy Gil:That was my question. That wasn't like, was that an independent person who reviewed them all or is that the NFL's officiating? They're like, yeah, that one looked right. I mean, we have no insight on who's actually saying five out of 171.

30:32Sheil Kapadia:It's like the two minute report in the NBA where the next day they come out and like, you know what? We actually messed this up. So like our bad, it's like, why are you coming out and saying that? Like, I don't understand what they have to gain by saying that. And then the specifics of, oh, you know, one o 'clock games, four of the five were in the one o 'clock. So you got to look at that. And then just the nugget that's sort of in there, they use Xbox controllers to be doing this in the game. Were you a video gamer, like growing up in your youthful years?

31:02Billy Gil:I would say I was a casual, you know, I had the N64. I mean, this is before your time. Yeah. So, but beyond I was, you know, playing NFL Blitz and NBA Jam back in the day and then Madden and those types of things. But yeah, once it got more serious, no, I didn't play a lot of video games.

31:18Sheil Kapadia:So I too had an N64. You mentioned NFL Blitz. Did you ever play? They made a hockey one very briefly called NHL Hits, which was like NFL Blitz. It was a short, I think it was three on three hockey. You could hit them hard enough where they'd go through the glass. That game, incredible game, if you can somehow track that down. But I lived in the generation where you were either an Xbox person or a PlayStation person. I was always an Xbox person. My cousin was a PlayStation person. So it worked out great because between the two of us, we had kind of like both consoles. We had almost all the games covered.

32:00Sheil Kapadia:So we didn't really miss out on all that much. But looking back in retrospect, I feel like I was on the losing end of that one. I feel like PlayStation over the years has surpassed Xbox. And people think more highly of the PlayStation, the PS5s, than they do the Xbox Ones or the Xbox 360, whatever the Xboxes are now, right? So I'm wondering how they settled on an Xbox controller versus a PlayStation controller.

32:28Billy Gil:I mean, that's one of many things that's very confusing about this. Because you're right, that caught my attention, the Xbox thing. The other thing that caught my attention is that would this be the worst way to experience an NFL game? Like, you know, we work in, you know, in content now. And so even sometimes like, well, you know, we're not having, you know, for at least I can't speak for you. It's not like, oh, you know, invite the friends over, get a nice spread. And, oh yeah, it's like a whole day party event. No, it's like, and I enjoy it. I'm not complaining. I like watching this way where I'm just sitting there, but you know, sometimes I think, huh, you know, when I'm not working in NFL content anymore and there's an NFL Sunday, I wonder how I will experience it, but I will not be experiencing it like this where you hate, it sounds like they have like a little cubby in this New York office and they're watching one game and there's a lot of pressure.

33:15Billy Gil:And by the way, it's like the principals looking over their shoulder who can make the final decision on all this. And you know what? I'm calling nonsense on the volume thing, Billy, because this doesn't make any sense to me. Like I was thinking about this. They're basically making the case that there's not enough people working. You mentioned, why would Troy Vincent mention this? There's obviously some message he wanted to get out there. What are the odds? This doesn't pass the sniff test. What are the odds? that even if you have, let's say, eight one o 'clock games, what are the odds that like two plays need to be reviewed at the exact same time?

33:51Billy Gil:It might happen once in a while. It seems highly unlikely that the exact same time something happened in this Bears-Lions game and something happened in this Bucks-Falcons game. And uh-oh, now the vice president was walking around, didn't see it. And that's the reason for a mistake. So I don't know what's going on here. I don't know if this is part of the negotiating thing, like you said, with the labor agreement, but something about this seems, it doesn't pass the smell test for me.

34:16Sheil Kapadia:They also, in these stories, were sneaking in a lot of information and quotes by different coaches and broadcasters and all this stuff. They're like, well, you know, it's because the one o 'clock games have less cameras than the four o 'clock games.

34:29Billy Gil:Yeah, John Lynch was giving that information out.

34:31Sheil Kapadia:Yeah, less cameras than the Sunday night games. It's like, why do we not have the same number of cameras at every game. This seems like a very odd like decision to make like, well, you know, this is, you know, this is the game with Spiro Ditas. We're going to only give Spiro like three cameras to work with here, as opposed to like a Joe Buck game where he'll have 87 cameras. Like these are, these are things that I feel like we should be uniform. And John kind of pointed that out and he's a hundred percent right. But lots of excuses, lots of excuses going on there. there's that upcoming CBA there's also thrown in there in the CBA they're like you know what maybe maybe we want to come up with these performance-based reviews of officials at the end of the season where we can give them bonuses based on their performance or maybe if they're bad officials they shouldn't be getting some of these prime time games just because of seniority and it's like well they probably shouldn't have been doing that anyways like you should probably have like the best officials calling these games not based on well this official's been here longer so like ah, let's give it to Ed.

35:30Sheil Kapadia:You know?

35:30Billy Gil:Yeah, it didn't seem that, like, you know, you read it, what they're negotiating about, and I'm with you. It's like, they think the officials who have terrible performances should have to get more training. I'm like, yeah, that doesn't seem that unreasonable to me. But yeah, they had the bonus pool at the end of a certain season. This was in the athletic, that, you know, the best officials should get more of that. I'm like, all right, so we're kind of working on commission now. I don't know, is that weird? Or is that not weird? what's going on with the officials. So listen, their agreement is over, I believe May 31st.

36:05Billy Gil:And so now there's kind of this spin from the NFL that like we might have to just, you know, everything be centralized in New York if we have to do replacement officials next year. So they're trying to win the public opinion here. Yeah, so this is a story that will continue in the months ahead.

36:22Sheil Kapadia:You know what I think the funny part about this story too is like when you take it to the count, like when they want them to go to additional training, I was viewing it like traffic school, essentially, right? Like, oh, well, you didn't follow that rule. So you got to go to traffic school for four hours and kind of learn the lesson. A lot of these officials, not a lot of them, all of them, essentially, this is just kind of like a side job for them. Like they have their full-time jobs. A lot of them are like lawyers. They have like actual respectable jobs. And then on weekends, they just decide, you know what?

36:52Sheil Kapadia:I'm going to fly to Cincinnati and I'm going to be the referee or I'm going to be the line judge. in the Bengals game and I'm going to put on my zebra costume and then I'm going to have to go back to the office on Monday, Tuesday, whatever it is. And like, I'm going to be sitting in a courtroom and someone's going to be taking me very seriously. But, you know, on Sunday, whatever the day is, AJ Brown's going to be screaming at me and showing me absolutely no respect whatsoever. And now the NFL is going to tell me that I have to be signed into Zoom to be going over webinars because they don't like the way that I was calling something my second job.

37:23Sheil Kapadia:Like at a certain point, they're going to be like, enough's enough. Like you're not paying us for this to be our full-time job. We're not going to continue to jump through hoops. Like you want to go and you want to play with your Xbox controllers in New York. And the, what was the name? Cause they have a very official name for the control centers, like the Ed Ashcroft control center. It's named after somebody.

37:43Billy Gil:I kind of skipped that. All due respect, if that's an important person that I should know, but I kind of just skipped.

37:48Sheil Kapadia:I didn't know who it was either. I was like, I hope I'm not out on the loop. I hope we're paying this person the proper respect. but also I feel like this is like, we don't need to know who this person is. How did they get this honor bestowed upon them?

38:00Billy Gil:It really was. That was all over the stories. I was thinking the same thing. I'm like, well, I didn't, this thing has a name? It was very official. Again, all due respect, if that's an important historical figure, Billy and I are being very respectful to that person and honor what they've done in their life or had done in their life. More or less. We just don't remember who that is and we're not going to go through the trouble right now of trying to figure it out. All right, next headline. Billy, this is the next one. I've got Falcons tell QB Kirk Cousins he will be released, GM says. So this is via The Athletic.

38:37Billy Gil:This happened at the Combine. And I was just looking at this going, is Kirk, like Kirk Cousins is back in our lives, it feels like. Like he's going to be a starter in the NFL next season because I was thinking about it. And if you're a team that needs a quarterback, Here's what you have to decide. And you tell me how you feel about these options once I finish them. Do you want Kirk Cousins for cheap? Or do you want to trade a pick and pay Kyler Murray? Or do you want to trade a pick and get Mac Jones? Do you want to just pay Malik Willis based on three starts? Do you want to sign Geno Smith if he's released?

39:11Billy Gil:Do you want to sign Aaron Rodgers as a free agent? Do you want to sign Daniel Jones if that's an option? And like, I was looking at all those and I'm like, I guess maybe Kirk Cousins wouldn't be the worst possible option there. What do you think? Am I jumping the gun? Is this much ado about nothing? And no, he's actually not going to be a starter in week one. Or is the team going to talk themselves into, hey, let's try to get maybe one year, like a Rich Gannon type year out of Kirk Cousins next year.

39:38Sheil Kapadia:So I was closing my eyes to kind of try to follow on the story and see if I could see Kirk Cousins starting. and we just saw Philip Rivers play like three or four games after not being in the NFL for five seasons or whatever it was and being on the Hall of Fame ballot. So is the idea of Kirk Cousins being traded for the craziest thing in the world? Like, no, he played last year. You don't even have to trade for him.

40:08Billy Gil:You just have to sign him.

40:09Sheil Kapadia:I mean, there's other quarterbacks. Derek Carr is talking about coming back. Like, what are we doing here? Where you would have to trade for Derek Carr because the Saints still own the rights to Derek Carr, so you'd actually have to give something up for him. Are we crazy? And I know that this is like a popular thing out there. Minnesota can't be where Kirk ends up, right? Like, that can't be. Of course it can.

40:32Billy Gil:What are you talking about?

40:32Sheil Kapadia:That can't be the fix that they come up with, which is let's give Kirk Cousins a go.

40:38Billy Gil:Okay, so the benefit of that would be he's just not going to cost any, you know. He's going to be very cheap. And they've got a lot of good players at other positions. So they can say, we can't, we just can't afford to pay Kyler Murray what it's going to cost. And we're not saying Kirk Cousins is the long-term answer, but Kevin O 'Connell's feeling himself right now. He won the power struggle. He's coached, you know, they went what, nine and eight last year with like nobody at quarterback. So he's probably looking at this going, absolutely. We can go win and win big with Kirk Cousins next year.

41:08Billy Gil:And that's actually the next headline I had. Cause I think these two are connected. This is from the Athletic. J.J. McCarthy, the Vikings quarterback pursuit and what we've learned at the NFL combine. So this is obviously a big story. We've talked about it on this show. Kevin O 'Connell, let me know if you can make sense of this quote, because I'm not sure I understand anything about what he's saying, but maybe you do. Kevin O 'Connell said about J.J. McCarthy, the timeline is in a different place for all of us than it was at that point, presumably when they drafted him. I have a responsibility and we have a responsibility collectively as we put together this team to make sure we use the data we have at this time to make the best decisions.

41:53Billy Gil:Do you know what he's talking about?

41:55Sheil Kapadia:No, that's like classic college essay. We had a word count and we're just going to throw in a bunch of like extra words. Yeah, it seems like a lot of nothing. We just kind of said, we're figuring it out with JJ, right? Like that's what that was. You know what I wonder about the Vikings and you kind of talked about it earlier about who might be available as quarterbacking. So the report was, if they don't go with Kirk Cousins, which maybe they will, maybe they won't, right? But the report was kind of like, Aaron was waiting around last year to maybe sign with the Vikings. And he then comes, that doesn't work out.

42:30Sheil Kapadia:There's a power struggle. Who it is that's going to be the quarterback of the Vikings? There's a power struggle. Aaron Rodgers then goes to the Steelers, gets the Steelers to the playoffs. They probably were not a playoff team, but gets the Steelers to the playoffs. I wonder if Kevin O 'Connell in his head thinks, I could have been right about that one. Like I could have made that work with Aaron because Aaron now is a year older. So even if that might have worked out last season, that doesn't mean it'll work out next season. But I do wonder if they're looking to just kind of, they feel like they're in a window here with Justin Jefferson, which I don't know why they would feel like they have to rush this, but they feel like we got to do this next year.

43:08Sheil Kapadia:The defense is really good. Yeah, like I don't think that they would feel that pressure, but I wonder if they re-engage at least in the process of maybe we do bring Aaron Rodgers here.

43:19Billy Gil:Would you rather have Rodgers than Cousins? I don't think I would. I would rather have Cousins. It's not a slam dunk either way.

43:28Sheil Kapadia:Either way, it's a roll of the dice, I think, right? And also, I don't even think that those would be the best two options. If you're kind of deciding between Aaron Rodgers and Kirk Cousins, you might be in trouble. For that, why not just continue with J.J. McCarthy? Because neither one of them are the long-term plan either, right?

43:45Billy Gil:I have to say, after reading the quotes and the coverage, it would be borderline shocking to me if J.J. McCarthy were the Vikings starting quarterback in week one. It just doesn't feel like it's trending in that direction with O 'Connell. And you're right about, you know, a couple off-seasons ago, he probably wanted to keep Kirk Cousins. and they let Kirk Cousins walk. Last offseason, he probably wanted to keep Sam Darnold. They let Sam Darnold walk. Maybe he wanted to bring in Aaron Rodgers. By all the reporting, it sounds like Rodgers, he was waiting on the Vikings. He was like, I want to go play for the Vikings.

44:17Billy Gil:And that didn't work out. So I just feel like he's going to do something here. I was looking at the Vikings Reddit a little bit here, Billy.

44:25Sheil Kapadia:Oh, okay.

44:27Billy Gil:Here's one post. What would the Saints want in return for Derek Carr? So they're on the same page as you.

44:34Sheil Kapadia:Derek Carr's arm almost fell off. Like he retired from the NFL because his arm stopped working seemingly, right? Like, how is this a solution?

44:45Billy Gil:Well, I will tell you that did not get any upvotes. So I think most people are on the same page as you. And then the second one I saw, why not Wentz again next year? But again, no upvotes for that one, Bill.

44:59Sheil Kapadia:I don't feel good about the Vikings fans right now. Yeah. Like if this is where we're at, like we're not even, I guess in the Reddit, we're not even talking ourselves into Mac Jones as a solution. If we can get him.

45:09Billy Gil:I didn't see that. Yeah. Really? Yeah. But I think I can hear if I'm a Vikings fan, I can talk myself into cousins because it's low risk. If it doesn't work out, it's okay. We figure it out next year. It's not costing us draft picks. I can talk myself into Mac Jones because it's like, you know what? He seems like he'd be a good fit in our scheme and he's not going to cost a lot of money. And who knows what we have to give up in draft capital, but it's not like a first round pick. So let's go ahead, roll the dice. I could talk myself into Kyler Murray because I could say, hey, chaos, we believe in KOC.

45:40Billy Gil:Look at what he did with Sam Darnold. He, Kyler Murray is the next Sam Darnold. Like we're going to put a great cast of, uh, you know, supporting cast around him and he's going to play really well. So I think those are the ones that if I'm a Vikings fan, I look at it and say, all right, none of them might be a perfect solution, but you know, if they make one of these moves, I could talk myself into it pretty quickly.

46:01Sheil Kapadia:So not Vikings specific, but it feels like with this quarterback market, teams and fans are talking themselves into absolutely anyone out there who has played quarterback ever with some of the names that have been thrown around as potential quarterbacks for teams.

46:21Billy Gil:Yeah, Malik Willis, it's like the prizes of free agency, Daniel Jones. I mean, it is a little wild, but this is what happens in the offseason.

46:30Sheil Kapadia:Tyson Bajan is being discussed as a potential piece for a team. Great tease.

46:36Billy Gil:I'm going to take a break. We're going to come back. There's a couple of trade reports out there that I'm just like, this is crazy. What is actually happening? One of them might be Tyson Bajan. So let's take a break. We'll come back, get to that. All right, we're back. Billy, you alluded to this. This is from The Athletic. Would the Chicago Bears trade QB Tyson Bajan backup quarterback getting some attention. Like, Ryan Poles and Ben Johnson, they were asked multiple questions this week about the possibility of trading Tyson Bajan, who has started four games in his career, all in 2023. He's thrown three touchdowns and six interceptions.

47:16Billy Gil:He's averaged 6.2 yards per attempt for his career. But then you read the quotes, and what is happening? He seems like the most likable guy in the NFL. Where Ben Johnson, Ryan Poulos, they're like, oh man, that would just hurt our heart if we had to part with Tyson Bajon. What is going on here, Billy, with Tyson Bajon?

47:37Sheil Kapadia:It seems like, I mean, we blame Sam Darnold for this, right? Like Sam Darnold and Daniel Jones to an extent, it's kind of like people just seem like, well, they're in the NFL. They have the talent. We just need to put them in the right place, right? So how do we find that diamond in the rough? of like, how do we find our guy? Let's start, look, no, it can't be someone last season. That's too recent. No, two, three seasons ago. Who was starting in 2020? Oh, Tyson Bajan. Hold on now. Maybe that's like, maybe that's like a good look. Maybe that's a path we should explore. And then I do wonder, is Ben Johnson actually gonna be like devastated about this?

48:11Sheil Kapadia:Or is he saying like, if I could find someone to give me anything for Tyson Bajan, like, let's do that. So he's just kind of talking him up because it seems like the entire argument for why they would be devastated is kind of like what you're saying. He's like, he's just kind of like a good hang. Like, I like him being around. Like, yeah, backup, second string, third string quarterback. Who cares who it actually is? Let me pick someone that I actually like and it's fun to talk to and whatever. And that's the whole argument for why they wouldn't want to give up Tyson Bajan.

48:38Billy Gil:I think you're right. Maybe you're right. Maybe Ben Johnson's playing chess. They asked him about the possibility of trading Bajan. And he did one of those things where he coughed and said no at the same time. You know, like in the movies, sitcoms, they do that kind of thing. And he's like, I love Tyson. And he said, that's one that kind of pulls at your heartstrings a little bit because he's someone that you care about so deeply. And then he goes on to talk about him. And then Ryan Pohl's, their GM, is like, the tough thing is what Ben thinks about Tyson, what I think about Tyson, what our locker room thinks about Tyson.

49:11Billy Gil:I don't know what's going on. I didn't expect that at any point this offseason on the Ringer NFL show, we were going to be having this conversation. So you've got Tyson Bajan. Then you've got Adam Schefter. He's tweeting out another available quarterback. Carolina has been getting calls about Andy Dalton for a potential trade per sources. And here's my question to you, Billy, because I don't know. Listen, it's not that interesting to talk about the individual, these quarterbacks being traded. It's not going to have an impact on teams or on the NFL. I'm more interested in how you feel about off-season coverage in the NFL because I generally really like the off-season.

49:49Billy Gil:I like free agency. I like trades. But you know what? There's so much like transactional nonsense where it's like player X got released. And then I scroll through my timeline. It's like 17 people have strong opinions on this guy. It's like this guy played four games last year for a team that lost 12 games. And they're telling me strong opinion. I'm just like, if I weren't in the NFL content game, I would just be yelling, who cares? Yeah. About probably 75, maybe that's low, 80 % of the NFL offseason report. So you as a more, you know, you're doing baseball stuff. Man of media. With Simmons, man of media.

50:27Billy Gil:You're doing Ringer tailgate. You help out Zach Lowe. Like you got your hand in a lot of these different areas. How do you feel about kind of a lot of this NFL coverage?

50:36Sheil Kapadia:I mean, I'm happy, I guess. Because like, look, Tyson Bajan, we just talked about Tyson Bajan for five minutes and whether or not, you know, that seemed to make sense. That's Andy Dalton. I guess people are thinking about maybe Andy Dalton. We could just then call him the Red Rifle and then move on from that situation because I don't know what else we have to add about Andy Dalton. You got to fill time, I guess. But the problem is the difference between, this is a fun thing that we should talk about to fill time. And this is something teams are actually going through their head thinking about.

51:09Sheil Kapadia:Actually important, yeah. While the combine is going on where they're seemingly looking towards future plans. It's like, what if we looked at what was good in 2019 and maybe that'll be good in 2026? Like, no, I don't think that that's how we should be doing this right now.

51:27Billy Gil:Yeah. I need someone to filter it. Yeah. Now, I feel like we do that on this podcast. We did a nice job. There's a lot of stuff out there that we could have talked about, but we chose the things that we found to be most interesting or entertaining. But yeah, if you just scroll throughout the course of a February day, the NFL coverage right now. It's kind of like, do I, should I, do I actually need to care about this? I think is a big theme. All right. Last one I'm giving to you. This one I actually think is interesting and that could have an impact on next season, Billy. And that's the last one.

51:59Billy Gil:Sean Payton turns over play calling to new Broncos OC Davis Webb. And the way this story was broken was fantastic where Bill's GM, Brandon Bean, he does his press conference with reporters. he's asked about Davis Webb, who had been a backup with the Bills, and he reveals that Webb is going to, he's like, I think he's going to get a chance to call plays. And then I was like, wait, what? Really? Sean Payton hasn't said that. So then Payton has his press conference and he confirms it, that yes, Davis Webb, 31 years old, has been a quarterback's coach for three years, is going to call plays for the Broncos over Sean Payton, who has never give up play calling for an entire season, who, in my opinion, even though he loves himself, he's one of the best play callers of probably the last 25 years, one of the best offensive coaches of the last 25 years.

52:53Billy Gil:This is a Broncos team that made the AFC championship. I feel like not enough is being made about this. Billy, this is kind of wild to me, this story that he's giving up play calling duties.

53:03Sheil Kapadia:I think that I feel bad for Davis Webb because I feel had he held on a little bit longer, we would have been talking about him with the last question. You know, could Davis Webb be the solution for some of these quarterbacking needs that teams have out there? It's kind of wild, 31, right, that he was in the NFL. I didn't realize that he had stopped playing. I figured he was just bouncing around somewhere. No, like he's been the quarterback's coach for the Broncos for the past three seasons. The Bills wanted him at some point in time, which seemingly it seems like David Webb and Bean might still be communicating, which I'm pretty sure is not what's supposed to be going on there.

53:39Billy Gil:I think another tampering you're saying.

53:41Sheil Kapadia:I don't know about tampering, but maybe just keep an eye on that situation. I guess maybe they're an indie. Hey, friend, what are you doing? Let's go out for a drink. And then Davis says, you know, I'm going to be calling the plays this year. He's like, Brandon B's like, wait, what now? And then he's a chatty cat. He goes and he tells the media. Now this becomes a story. You think Sean Payton, he says to himself, I've done it all. I've been in the league. I won the Super Bowl. I'm now with a new team. this has worked out number one seed you know injury situation or we would have been in the super bowl then you could kind of start talking yourself into like we would have won that super if we made it we would have won that super would have looked vastly different had we been there instead of the patriots right so he says you know what i can't accomplish any more than i have let's just i want these last couple years that i have i want them to be good years not stressful years Let's let the kid get a shot.

54:35Sheil Kapadia:I'm just going to kick my feet up. I'll stroll in now. And I'll get to a little bit later, arrive a little bit later, head home a little bit earlier and just kind of enjoy life and coast out a little bit. You know?

54:46Billy Gil:I think that's interesting. You opened up now. I wasn't thinking down these lines before, but now that you mentioned it, maybe he's like, you know what? Podcasters like Shiel Kapadia called me the most arrogant coach in the NFL over the last couple of decades. Well, you know what? I'm doing, I'm unselfish. I'm going to prove to people. I'm going to have a coaching tree. Maybe that's the one thing. He's like, I don't have a great coaching tree. I want to have a coaching tree. I'm going to give Davis Webb play calling duties. And here's the thing. If you're Sean Payton and you go through eight weeks and the offense is struggling a little bit, Billy, you can come in with the cape and say, all right, we love Davis Webb, but you know what?

55:27Billy Gil:I got to do what's best for the football team. I'm taking over play calling duties. now all of a sudden you go on a run and now people like me are like, man, he is a great offensive coach. Look, it's the same talent and look how much better of a job he's doing than Davis Webb. So yeah, there could be kind of a behind the scenes, make it look like I'm being unselfish, but actually this is where my own legacy type thing going on I think is possible.

55:50Sheil Kapadia:Coaching trees are interesting because I'm looking up the Sean Payton coaching tree and you always kind of wonder how this person was assigned to this coach and how this branch belongs to this person. So the coaching tree that I see for Sean Payton, we have Dan Campbell because he was a tight ends coach in New Orleans when he was there. We have Aaron Glenn, head coach of the New York Jets. Joe Brady, Bill's coach, is attributed to Sean Payton because they're timed together in New Orleans. It was one season, so I don't know if we can attribute them to that branch. Dennis Allen and Doug Marone. Those are just the head coaches that are listed here under the coaching tree of Sean Payton.

56:31Billy Gil:So Brady and Campbell are two good ones. Yeah, I don't know how you get, like if you coached under two different people, how does that work? How do you get assigned?

56:38Sheil Kapadia:Like the Hall of Fame, you know, in baseball, where you get to choose what logo's on your hat. Like, do we leave it up to Dan Campbell? Because he was like a coordinator for a couple of different coaches. Do we get him to choose? You know, everybody gets assigned to the Nick Saban coaching tree in college. and Nick Saban does a great job of finding the fired head coach who is probably going to be a head coach somewhere else who needs like a one-year rehab. And then he brings in like a Steve Sarkeesian who then goes and takes over at the University of Texas or, you know, like a Lane Kiffin. Yeah, exactly.

57:12Sheil Kapadia:Like he goes in and he'll scoop. He had, I mean, some of the championship years that he won, he had these all-star coaching staff. It's like, wow, look at that roster that he had. They all went on to be head coaches. Like, no, they were all head coaches before. And then he came on and he's like, hey, come here for a year instead of taking the year off. We'll pay you whatever it is. Then next year after we win the national championship, you'll be on your way again. And like, that's kind of just the arrangement that we have here, right? But a lot of those coaches in retrospect then get like credit to the Nick Saban coaching tree when really they were developed under other coaches.

57:45Billy Gil:He does a nice job with the buy low candidate and then he can take credit for them on the rise up. Yeah, that's a nice move by Nick Saban. Maybe Sean, no, that's not, you know, Davis Webb. It sounds like Davis Webb had a lot of options this off season. And so maybe, and so Sean Payton could have been like, well, if I want to keep him, then I got to make it worthwhile for him. But still, knowing what we know about Sean Payton, I feel like he'll be like, go ahead, take one of those other jobs. We're going to be fine here without you. But maybe, I don't know. Maybe he's different than I know of him.

58:17Sheil Kapadia:Or what if Sean Payton saw last year as like a peak. And he's like, we kind of maxed out what we could do. We got bailed out a little bit by the injury there. Cause you know, if I'm, if I'm looking honestly here, Superbowl wouldn't have gone that different if we were in there versus the Patriots. So we, we have that situation with the quarterback where that, okay, now that'll be the blame. But I don't, I don't know if Bo Nix is our guy. I don't know if he's going to take us to the next level. You know, we can do here. Let's give Davis the reins and the next season when things kind of fall back down to earth, and we have a subpar record, especially underperforming for what the expectations are for us, what's the difference?

58:59Sheil Kapadia:Oh, Sean Payton's not in charge anymore. We got to bring Sean Payton back. And poor old Davis is like, thanks for the three years as a quarterback's coach. Now hit the road, Jack. Go see if Brandon Bean still wants to hire you since you guys were such good friends gossiping at the combine last year.

59:15Billy Gil:The ulterior motive seems more likely to me than the generosity, unselfishness angle. with Sean Payton. So I'm with you. He was actually asked about that this week. You know, they're like, you went nine and two in one score games last year. You know, like, do you have to kind of take a step back? And he was kind of like, yeah, you know, like we do have to take a step back, look at where we are with the roster. They've got a lot of cap space now. They don't have the Russell Wilson contract. And so I think they're going to be an aggressive team, but I am very curious about why Sean Payton made this decision and what it's going to look like.

59:48Billy Gil:So something to keep an eye on. Broncos are an interesting off-season team, for sure, as they try to figure out how they can make the leap, get over the hump, whatever you want to say, next year. All right, those are the stories, the headlines that caught our attention this week around the NFL. His name is Billy Gill. Thank you to Christopher Sutton for producing. Stefano Sanchez on video editing and additional production supervision by Conor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. I'm Shil Kapadia. We will talk to you next time on The Ringer NFL Show.

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