Secrets Revealed! What We’ve Learned Since the Draft Ended

21:18I think it's clunky for obvious reasons. I find a handful of this interesting. I think some of it being like, this is going to be a clear distraction for the Patriots. It's already a distraction for Mike Vrabel. And Bill has already hit this on his pod a ton. But they're going from last place schedule to first place schedule. I think there are still question marks with the receiving core, the offensive line, defense has to maintain pace. And then now it's Vrabel with this thing hanging overhead. The thing, by the way, his family, his kids, his wife, all those things, something you didn't bring up though, in terms of secrets revealed.

21:51I don't know if you've seen on Twitter, and Pablo Torre is getting into this as well, one of the best investigative reporters that we have, especially on the Patriots stuff, but is that someone identified that Deanna Russini on, I think it was December 19th, 2022, sent a user on Spotify a playlist called Turning the Page with a lot of, from multiple reports, music that Mike Rabel loves. She sent it to a user named Mike. Now, this blew up on Twitter. Everyone's like, oh my gosh. And what that date, what's specific about that date is it's coming off of a Tennessee Titans, when Mike Rabel was the head coach of the Tennessee Titans, four game losing streak.

22:24Four-game losing streak. The next day, Rossini sends a user named Mike this playlist of a lot of songs that now people are saying Frabel likes. What has happened since that has been viral is one, Deanna Rossini has completely wiped her Spotify. Makes sense. Two, the user named Mike changed their username to Tycar. Tyler and Carter are the names of Mike Frabel's sons. Now, what is going on here? Oh my gosh. They cannot clean up their tracks to save their lives. This, to me, is like, it's such a hot gossipy story. It's involving an affair. It's involving an NFL coach. It's involving a reporter. But the hits just keep coming.

22:58This is the most I've heard page six mentioned in any offseason that I can honestly remember. The fact that this whole thing comes out, that Vrabel is going to be spending time away from the team, and they got photographers in Utah taking pictures of him, buying gifts. They are staying press coverage on this stuff. I just think that this is going to continue to be followed because it's such an interesting story. It doesn't feel like we have closure yet necessarily. I think Vrabel's trying to create closure. Rossini's still in denial. The other piece of this is the NFL is not investigating. Greenberg on ESPN, like really pressured, not pressured, but kind of like, kind of like hit Goodell with questions like, why isn't the NFL investigating this?

23:32And Goodell's word is, this is a personal matter. And if discipline is going to come, it has to come from the team. What I don't understand is how is this just a personal matter? Like, Vrabel having what looks like a close relationship with Deanna Russini, who is getting information from a ton of other coaches, right? She got a voicemail from Sean Payton randomly about how much he likes Bo Nix. Like she's getting information from the other teams all the time. And then she has this close relationship with Mike Vrabel. Whereas is Vrabel getting some of that information, right?

23:59Austin Gayle:Or is he pushing that just how insiderdom works, Austin? I mean, if they were to invest, I actually don't, I actually don't have an issue with the league not investigating it. I mean, aren't there, isn't every insider talking to, and I, this is different. I'm not saying like, this is obviously crosses the line. You can't be doing this. If you're a reporter, you can't have a romantic relationship, theoretically with a source. I totally get that. But the aspect you're talking about where I have information and I am close with Coach X, GMX, whatever, and I'm giving them some kind of information. That's the whole way how NFL insiderdom works.

24:34Is she then, if she gets information from Sean Payton, she's just able to give that information to Mike Rabel? It's all information trading.

24:43Austin Gayle:That's how the whole thing works. You have to build trust, obviously. And if you burn those bridges. She finds out that there's some stuff about Morgan Moses and her tweeting out that Morgan Moses is signing with the Patriots before he signed with the Patriots. She tweeted out and then deleted a tweet about how the Carolina Panthers were going to sign Milton Williams and delete it, and then the Patriots end up getting Milton Williams. If she is giving information to Vrabel about how other players are signed, and she is advantageously giving Vrabel information that would help him make decisions on players or even cross whatever the tampering period is now, I'm not saying he has to be disciplined.

25:18Why are we not investigating it? Can we understand how much information was Rossini giving Vrabel? And you're like, that's how Insiderdom works. Her close relationship with Vrabel, if she's picking up this other information from teams, that could be ammettations and tights. And this is just with player signings. What if she's hearing about schematic insider stuff and all this? What's normally happening with every other journalist is their relationship with one coach is the same intensity with every other coach. This one feels like it was a little bit different.

25:44Austin Gayle:I don't know about that. I don't think that's true. I think absolutely there are insiders who have favorites because what happens is let's say what you just said played out. And then, you know, let's say whatever the Sean Payton gets burned. He told her something and now she's telling him. Then you burn that bridge with Sean Payton. I see. You know, so I feel like. I don't know. I think people have to do that delicate dance. Like, for instance, Howie Roseman had some information that he needed to trade ahead of the Pittsburgh Steelers to get Makai Lemon in this last draft. I don't think that was happenstance.

26:19Austin Gayle:I don't think like that type of stuff, this is what happens. You're talking to whether it's Adam Schefter or Ian Rappaport or whoever else. And it's like, all right, I kind of understand the terms of engagement here. Now, you might tell them, hey, this is really between us. This can't go anywhere else. And either you stand by that or you don't. That information trading is the whole business as far as I'm concerned. Now, it is different. I'm not saying, I don't want to say it's exactly the same. It's not exactly the same. When you have a potentially romantic relationship with one of the parties involved, of course that's different.

26:53Austin Gayle:But I don't know. I mean, I guess they could investigate. I would be shocked if Mike Rabel did not have or gain even a, I'll put it, a small competitive advantage because of his relationship with Deanna Rossini. I'd be shocked if that's not true in terms of just the information he was able to get from other teams and how he was able to use it to his advantage in the tampering period, signing players, even looking at other teams and what they're doing. To me, the depth and closeness of the relationship in terms of what we're gathering, what we're seeing, to the point where Mike Vrabel is taking day three off to hang with his family and buy gifts for his wife, that's how deep this relationship was.

27:27To me, I think it's at least worth investigating what information was Vrabel getting from Rossini at all. And I think these teams played each other in the AFC Championship. And there's a Peyton relationship, there's a Rossini relationship. To me, I don't know. I think that it's kind of crazy. just to, and I'm not, I'm not even necessarily saying that he should be disciplined X, Y, Z. I'm more like, I think this is kind of interesting enough for the NFL at least to investigate, at least to understand like, okay, what, what information was being traded? Was there, is there a situation here where it felt like the Patriots were getting an unfair competitive advantage because their head coach had a close relationship with one of the reporters that was talking to other teams?

28:06One of like, if you had to rank insiders before all of this in terms of NFL insiders, probably Rappaport who works for the league, Schefter who works for ESPN, who now kind of works for the league. And then Deanna Rossini, who worked for The Athletic, which is owned by the New York Times. That's kind of where I would set them. Now, she has all this information and the Titans, I think, if I had to guess which coach was getting the best of it, I'd guess Mike Vrabel.

28:25Austin Gayle:Yeah, I think that's... You sort of talked me into it. I do think it opens up a can of worms. I don't think the other insiders would be in favor of that being investigated if it leads to, you know, all right, let's see what other text messages are being traded and what favors are being done. Investigate them all. Some of this feels like, I don't really like how current NFL insiderdom is doing. This isn't like that. I don't like, all right, if you're another team and you think they got a competitive, but the league is like, they understand between agents, GMs, coaches, owners, other sources, like it's mostly transactional stuff that's being, you know, and it leads to popular conversations and discourse and the popularity of the league.

29:06Austin Gayle:Like this isn't an issue for the NFL, I don't think. Now, if another team, I think to your point, If another team, coach, GM, whatever, were to say, hey, you need to investigate this because I feel like then maybe, but I don't think that's going to happen. But we'll see. Also, to your point about Vrabel and how clunky this has been, it almost feels like he's tried to make the pivot, obviously, to admitting some wrongdoing and apologizing. But it's almost like he's dipping his toe in the water where it feels like if there was one grand press conference, once he decided to make that pivot where he said, and I don't know the details of what exactly happened.

29:47Austin Gayle:Obviously, we're going by photos. But let's say I was unfaithful to my wife. I was unfair to my family. I made huge mistakes. And I will work nonstop to have them forgive me because they're too important to me. And I embarrassed myself, the family, the organization. I feel like if he had one sort of five minute statement where he did that, then maybe he's not being, you know, paparazzi at the Utah airport. Now, maybe he still is, but I feel like it would cut, you know, the legs of this story now are just so huge. And there's so much interest in him in it for a variety of reasons that to your point, I mean, you message when we're talking about you're like, how long is the Vrabel diaries?

30:26Austin Gayle:Are we just like on July 4th? Are there just gonna be photos of, oh, here he is trying to do this with his family. I don't really know where it ends here. As long as the numbers are hitting, right? Page six is looking at the numbers, right? They knew like, okay, if we send a photographer to where we know Vrabel is gonna be and we get a picture of him doing anything, we're gonna do numbers on the.com. And I think that's gonna continue to follow him. And I know I'm focusing a lot on the Vrabel side and the NFL side. It's obviously like a very sad story. There's marriages involved. There's children involved.

30:54Absolutely, yeah. and like there's people like when before Deanna Rossini deleted her Twitter and all this like people were questioning like if Mike Vrabel was the son of her child it's bad like it's bad like a lot of like gossipy rumory stuff what I feel like not most interested in but like what is kind of surprising me about this is the football of it all I think that I'm I think and I'm kind of confident that Mike Vrabel gained at least a slight competitive advantage because of the relationship we had with this insider I feel that way kind of in my bones because at the end of the day I think a lot, like you said, a lot of this stuff is being traded, but it's being traded for transactionally on like, what are you giving me?

31:30What are you giving this? This relationship doesn't feel like it was that way, right? This could have been this coach or this player or this whatever is telling me this and they don't want you to know that. I'm telling you anyway. That to me feels like what could have happened. And honestly, I'm kind of surprised that the NFL isn't investigating it because it does feel like, and this is a team that is often involved in this kind of a cheating scandal in a different way, where if I think that there is a chance, at least, that the Patriots were gaining some kind of competitive advantage from this relationship and the fact that we're just like, yeah, we're not investigating it.

31:58Who knows? Personal matter, who cares? Like, kind of feels like a hands-off situation that would, like you said, why would the league do this? The league won't because they know it'll look really bad if they look into Roussini or even these other insiders and how this information is being traded at all.

32:11Austin Gayle:Yeah, it's gone from a media story to a gossipy story to now a football, it is a football story when he is, you know, wait, he's very bad at the facility. Is he taking time off? How's it? And it's like you said, that's not the most important thing. Like kind of who cares, you know? But like there are, if you zoom out or if you tell this to somebody who's not in the football world, they'd be like, who cares? Like he's got kids. The Daily Mail, the Daily Mail is speculating that he could step down, right? Prediction markets have like a 25 % chance that he's not the coach of the Patriots week one.

32:39And that I think is more like with this speculation that he'll really prioritize his family bigger than day three of the NFL draft and say, you know what? Like this needs my full attention. I might need to take a year off, et cetera. And I don't think that would be a football decision as much as it is a family decision. But still, it has now fully become, I think, a football story. And I think the story that no one wants to create is that, wait a second, were the Patriots kind of getting an unfair advantage from this and everyone kind of shushes it immediately because they don't even want to step into that water?

33:08Austin Gayle:All right, let's balance that conversation out with the next secret reveal that is very football-y. Okay, if you're like, enough with the gossip, enough with that conversation, let's get to the hardcore X's and O's. Austin's got one for us, which is the NFL is going all in on tight ends. So this was an observation you had. You were looking at the draft. You had some numbers. So give us your take, your observation on what you saw from draft weekend, how it relates to last season, and how it might relate to a trend here going forward. I was talking with our editors here, Lindsay Jones and Riley McAtee, who do great stuff for us on the NFL and the dot-com side.

33:44And we're kind of talking through this and Riley threw this headline out. The NFL, the draft showed us that the NFL is copying Sean McVay again. And I think you really feel that specifically, and everyone's bringing this up. You brought it up on your show a thousand times about like this nerd stat about how much the Rams are using 13 personnel. I want to take it to league wide, how much the league on average was using multiple tight end sets. That's anything, that's 12 personnel, that's 22, that's 13. Anytime there are at least two tight ends on the field. It was 33 % last year. That's 3 % higher than any year since 2006.

34:14That's when PFF began tracking it. Then you look at this draft. eight tight ends were taken on day two, tied for the highest since 1970. 21 tight ends were taken between round two and round seven. That's tied for the most, again, since 1970 with tight ends. And when you look at the tight ends that were taken, it was a lot of blocking tight ends, right? The first pick for the Jacksonville Jaguars was this guy out of Texas A &M, Nate Berkertcher, who, no, he has like 38 career receptions. He's like a pure blocking tight end. And when Gladstone, the GM of the, James Gladstone, the GM of the Jags was asked about it, he's like, we know where the league is going.

34:44We see that we're adopting 12 and 13 personnel trying to put more tight ends on, trying to put blocking tight ends on the field. That's where we're going. The last time, I mean, the Jets took another tight end. They took one in the first round after taking Mason Taylor in the second round last year. The Rams have already five tight ends on the roster. They took Max Clare in the second round. You felt that teams were really prioritizing tight end, not just one, but having multiple on their roster. I think that the last time we've had real personnel shift in the NFL was the last time the NFL copied Sean McVay when everyone said, you know what, we need to run 11 personnel like 90 % of the time.

35:14We need three receivers on the football field all the time. We need to create explosives. We need to throw the ball downfield. And it really, it changed the league, right? It changed the league. We started drafting lighter and faster. D tackles got smaller. Linebackers got smaller. You know, we were talking about linebackers saying, we want you to play at like 215, 220. I remember talking to Drew Tranquil when he was coming out in the draft. He's like, they don't want me to play above 220. They want me to play light because they know this is a passing league and this was in like the Mahomes boom and all that stuff.

35:38Now with this shift back, we're feeling it in the draft, all these tight ends picked, specifically the teams that are taking them. and this move to 12, 13 personnel, what I'm interested in your take is this has a handful of range of outcomes. We've seen flashy things happen in the league before. Wildcat lasted like a year. The cheap motion was this cool thing until everyone was doing it. The tush push. People think they can do it. They all want to adopt it. This is the first time, like I said, a personnel shift could be happening where you're going from everyone running a lot of multiple personnel to 11 and now this 11 personnel sinking to where we need to run 12, we need to run 13, we need to fall back, all this stuff.

36:11I want to know, is this going to work? Are teams beyond the Rams, and I think the Seahawks had a lot of success with this too, are they going to be successful running multiple tight ends out? Because my take is, anytime this happens, half the teams that copy do an okay job, and then the other half don't. And yes, it's a copycat league. It's more, and I think Steve Palazzolo of Check the Mic said this on Twitter, it's not a copycat league. It's an innovators league. And Sean McVay has been one of the, if not the biggest innovator in the NFL over the last 10 years, and he's innovating again. Everyone's copying him again.

36:43I just don't know if it's going to work, right? Is everyone grabbing all these blocking tight ends going to work? I think in the short term, maybe, because defenses have kind of reshaped how they draft to get lighter and defend the pass. But I don't know. I think it's kind of a fascinating shift that we're going to kind of experience this season and probably for the next two or three.

36:59Austin Gayle:See, one advantage of being an old head, Austin, is that you remember when you first heard about stuff like this. And it was 2013 and I'm covering Chip Kelly and he's talking all about tight ends. You know, he's saying it's very simple. You know, if they're playing nickel, if they're in sub packages and we're playing two tight ends, we're running the football. If they're in base and we're playing two tight ends, we're passing the football. And I thought, wow, that's pretty interesting. You know, he simplified that very easily. Now, did it work? No, it didn't work. I'm old enough to remember, you know, Bill Belichick's big spending spree, John O'Smith and Hunter Henry.

37:36Austin Gayle:Austin, go Google it. The next Gronk and Aaron Hernandez, Jonu Smith and Hunter Henry, Belichick's doing again. It did not work. And you look at some stuff here, if you just look at some numbers, there's not real evidence that I saw. I did some quick, true media research before the pod. It's not like teams were more successful with two tight end sets than 11 personnel on the whole last year. If you take all the teams, it's very similar. If anything, 11 personnel was a little bit better in terms of efficiency. 11 personnel was a little bit better in terms of explosive play rate. 11 personnel, even just running the football, 11 personnel was better.

38:18Austin Gayle:Because I think the big thing here is that you have to have tight ends that actually give you an edge against the defensive backs in the run game that you can take advantage of. Or you have to have tight ends that actually give you an edge against the linebackers in the past game that you can take advantage of. And I don't think there are enough tight ends that do that. So these teams that say, oh, well, we, because if you notice it, the tight ends that were taken, there was a huge like variance in terms of where this, this team had this tight end ranked here. This team had this tight end ranked here.

38:49Austin Gayle:Like he was very unpredictable, those tight ends that got taken. And so I think it's going to be one of the things you alluded to that. Yeah. Sean McVay, is he going to be able to do it? Sure. Are some of the best offensive coordinators in the NFL that really know how to set this up, what they're looking for in their personnel, how defenses are trying to attack them. They're going to have a lot of success. I think there's going to be a lot of other teams that it's going to be a disaster. The imitators are going to look stupid because if you're not, you know, if you're not a great offensive coach and you just feel like you can do what Sean McVay did, you're probably going to fail.

39:21Austin Gayle:So I actually think that this will swing back in the other direction. I don't know if it'll be, it might be this season. It might be your, where we're on here in October, November saying there's been a big swing. now back to 11 personnel and three wide receivers. So I don't think this is here to stay. I have a handful of ways I want to kind of push back, right? I think that one push back when you bring up kind of the John Smith, Hunter Henry and like what they were trying to do before. Like that was like, we want tight ends that can catch the football and we're going to run 12 personnel. We're going to try and throw it.

39:49The way the league is drafting now and like what the Rams had last year, I think what the Bills have with Jackson Hawes is like we need blocking tight ends. We need guys that can get on the field and that like are big and actually plus blockers against, wow, now everyone has drafted these smaller linebackers that need to go out, cover, and prevent explosives. And I think when you look at the success rates and you're looking like, well, technically last year, 11 personnel people were more successful. It's clear that these teams have not prepared their rosters to be competitive in 12 and 13 personnel.

40:14And that's why so many tight ends were drafted, a lot of them way above consensus, because the consensus board doesn't do, I think, a really good job of ranking blocking tight ends, especially with such a hard personnel shift that multiple GMs now are talking about, this is a change, this is happening. I think this is also happening in conjunction with, and a return to maybe more under center. And like last year, the Rams were under center 60 % of the time. It was the most in the NFL by a wide margin. League-wide, the under center percentage has dropped massively. Over the last few years, people wanted to get out of the gun.

40:45People wanted to throw downfield, explosives, all that stuff. Do you know, league-wide, what percentage in 2008, I'm going like 20-ish years ago, 18 years ago, league-wide, what was the average for teams going under center? Hmm.

40:59Austin Gayle:2008. 2008. Okay, 2000. What was it this last? Did you tell me what it was this last year? This last year, it was 35%, which is the highest it's been since 2017. Okay. I would say 73%. 73 % is exactly right. What? You're a legend. Seriously? You really are a legend. You go back to 2008, it was 73%. You go back to the year 2000, it was 87%. People under the age of 30 have no idea what the league looked like in early 2000s. Yeah, everyone was under center. Everyone was running play action from this. And I think this multiple tight end stuff, this under center stuff, teams... The Rams had the most successful running game in the league last year, and they were running under center 60 % of the time.

41:41I think there's a couple of components of this that feel different to the cheap motion, or the tush push, or the wild cat. A real personnel shift with a real change going to under center, and this being now a... We are zigging to the zag of defenses getting lighter in their front seven to where we're We're going to find ways to run the football more effectively with big blocking tight ends, run 12, run 13 personnel, less receivers on the field. And we're also going to get under center and establish a running game that doesn't rely on shotgun runs where we've seen a lot of offenses crater. The Bengals really struggled.

42:11The Chiefs have struggled. I really think that this is actually here to stay. And I wouldn't be surprised if this is another like five to six year swing where you start to see teams being like, wait, we kind of want 250 pound linebackers again, right? We kind of want big beef in the front seven because now offenses are adding beef and they're They're not coming out with Trent Shurfields and Xavier Worthy's all the time. They're actually coming out with Nate Berkertscher and these guys that come in and can kind of kick our ass running the football and then all of a sudden get open on a drag. So I really am excited by this personnel shift because honestly, the league was getting kind of boring running shotgun all the time and running 11 personnel like 90 % of the way.

42:47Like getting back to we're going to run a little 22, we're going to run 12, we're going to run 13, we're going to try and run the football from under center. It just makes the league more multiple and just adds flavor and change to where I feel like defenses are getting this edge, being able to run seven men boxes and keep two safeties high. I think this shift is exactly what offense needs to figure out where things are going to go.

43:06Austin Gayle:And then defensively, everyone just will imitate Mike McDonald and say, look, he found a way. Now he can, he can stay in those. Now do you have hybrid defenders? Is there a big nickel? Is there a third safety? Those types of, yeah, those types of players on defense end up being pretty interesting as well. Well, all right, we'll track it here. Listen, hipsters, we're here for you. You want to talk 12 personnel to me next year? We could do it for a little bit. I will get cranky like Sean McVay at some point and get annoyed by it and be like, everybody settled down. But for now, it's an interesting trend.

43:35Austin Gayle:One thing I ask is, can we not focus on 13 personnel? And can we just talk about it? It's like teams using multiple tight ends. Because like 13 personnel is very specific to like what the Rams were able to do because they legit have five tight ends that they really like and they've invested capital in. Not every team is going to be able to run 13 personnel. I think teams do though, want to be able to run 12 and 22 and have a fullback a lot more now than they did, let's say, two, three years ago. All right, that's a request to all the hipsters from Austin Gale. Let's see if you listen to it or not.

44:01Austin Gayle:All right, let's take a break. We come back. We got some more fun. This episode is brought to you by the Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. That's a mouthful, but that's because it packs a lot in. Earn unlimited 2 % cash rewards on purchases with it, big or small. So whether it's buying tickets to the game and grabbing a coffee, it earns unlimited 2 % cash rewards on purchases. Say it with me. The Active Cash credit card from Wells Fargo. Be a two percenter. Learn more at wellsfargo.com forward slash Active Cash. Terms apply. Want to support your gut health? Take Activia's Gut Health Challenge by enjoying two Activia yogurts a day for two weeks and see if you feel a difference.

44:40Austin Gayle:With billions of probiotics and 20 years of scientific expertise, Activia is one of the easiest and tastiest ways to start your gut a health ritual. Try Activia today. Enjoying Activia twice a day for two weeks as part of a balanced diet and healthy lifestyle may help reduce the frequency of minor digestive discomfort, which includes gas, bloating, rumbling, and abdominal discomfort. I know secrets that have been revealed. All right, back on the Ringer NFL show. All right, next secret that has been revealed since the end of the draft, Austin. Mike McDaniel has a big voice in LA. Okay. So the Chargers released this video.

45:16Austin Gayle:I don't know if you saw this or not of him telling Joe Ortiz, the GM and others in the draft room that he will take his shirt off if they can find a way to get Mississippi State wide receiver, Brennan Thompson in the fourth round. They did get Brennan Thompson in the fourth round. I don't think video has circulated yet of Mike McDaniel took his shirt off. So you have that. Then they take Florida center, Jake Slaughter with the 63rd pick. And the Athletics' Daniel Papa wrote, Slaughter, quote, was a McDaniel target. Reason why that's interesting? He's going to play guard for the Los Angeles Chargers, and he was a center exclusively in college.

45:55Austin Gayle:Other interesting part of this, Austin, is that both of these prospects were taken over 20 spots higher than where the consensus boards had them. So everybody was excited when the Chargers hired Mike McDaniel. He said, this is going to be the best offensive coordinator that Justin Herbert has ever had. And then we're saying Justin Herbert's the most talented quarterback Mike McDaniel has ever coached. But now, you know, in this organization that has a very strong-minded head coach in Jim Harbaugh, we're seeing that they're not just like, all right, McDaniel, here are the players, go coach. They're like, we're kind of going all in.

46:31Austin Gayle:Who do you need? Who do you want? We want you to build the best offense possible with the players who you feel like fit your offense. I'm a little surprised the degree to which this is the case. Are you and how do you think this is going to go for the Chargers? I don't know if I'm necessarily surprised. I do think it's interesting league-wide how much a GM wants alignment with their coaching staff. I think that I lean toward from the outside looking in that you kind of always want alignment, especially with your offensive play caller as big as Mike McDaniel is on what kinds of players they want, especially if these are players that the GM has scouted and his team has scouted that feel like they could come off the board in this range.

47:10So I don't know how surprised I am. I guess one of the takeaways from this, and this is something I think is going to build over the summer, is that the Mike McDaniel pairing with Justin Herbert and Harbaugh in Los Angeles is getting to the point where everyone likes it so much that I almost need to play devil's advocate. It is very much of the... I think everyone... If you polled every analyst, do they like this fit? Everyone's going to say yes. I think even when it happened, I'm like, this is a slam dunk, exactly where McDaniel should go. We got to stop with the excuses for Herbert. This is how we get there.

47:42I wanted to raise to you some devil's advocate arguments on how this Mike McDaniel, Jim Harbaugh, Justin Herbert combination doesn't work in Los Angeles. One, you mentioned the slaughter pick, right? Career center at Florida. He's probably going to play guard. Let's say he gets the start at guard. The snaps he plays at guard in the NFL will be the first snaps he's ever played at guard. He's got 32 and a half inch arms, a little bit on the shorter side. He's a big dog, six foot four, but we'll see. His snaps at guard will be the first he's played. And at center, they brought in Tyler Biotish. He's like five years in a row, played over 900 snaps.

48:12I think that's going to be a sound fit, especially an upgrade over Bradley Bozeman. Then at right guard, they brought in Cole Strange, who was a former first-round pick for the New England Patriots out of Chattanooga, a big reach versus consensus boards, right when consensus boards were starting to get a little exciting. He has not lived up to his first-round caliber. I don't know if he's lived up to like day two caliber, but he's coming in. They've essentially replaced their entire interior, right? Bradley Bozeman's gone, Zion Johnson's gone, and Mekhi Becton's gone. They're going three new guys.

48:38I think there's still a chance that Slaughter playing his first ever snaps at guard. I think Biotis will be fine. But then you have Cole Strange, who's not really panned out anywhere he's played. He played with Mike McDaniel in Miami. We'll see how it goes. This interior offensive line still could be, in my opinion, a weakness for the team. Then you see in the offseason, they brought in Charlie Kolar, paid him a monster deal. I think it was three years,$24 million. Big money for a blocking tight end. And they brought in Alec Engle, the fullback who played about 300 snaps for Miami last year. Does that hint that they want to run more 12, more 22 personnel and take receivers off the football field?

49:07If that's the case, it's not what Mike McDaniel was doing last year. Everyone mentioned 13 personnel like I did, like all this tight end stuff was going up. Mike McDaniel was at the bottom of the league in terms of how much he was under center and how much he was running multiple tight ends. And some of that I think is a personnel issue with Miami and maybe something that's shifting in Los Angeles. So Mike McDaniel might be running a brand new offense that will be opposite to what Tua was because he had to cater that offense to the timing and the anticipation and the accuracy, how he could win with Tua.

49:31So McDaniel's running a new offense with a brand new interior. And I still think even adding Brennan Thompson, real concerns with speed, like top flight speed, downfield weaponry with the Chargers receiving core. Throw an injury into the mix, which the Chargers always somehow find a way to do, and all of a sudden, can't you just see how the train kind of falls off the tracks here and it's not what everyone expected? Obviously, you ask the consensus, Mike McDaniel, Herbert, this is going to work. He's one of the biggest, best offensive minds in the league. But I don't know. I think there is a too-good-to-be-true element to this.

50:00And I think real concerns, like palpable concerns, where you're looking at the interior offensive line and maybe some of the changes they're going to have to make to the offense, that'll still be, I always say this every offseason, bet against teams that have a ton of newness. How much newness is happening? They have three new starters on the offensive line on the interior. You're hoping for injuries, again, not a tackle. You have a brand new offensive play caller. You got a blocking tight end that needs to see snaps because you paid him a ton of money. You got a fullback in that you weren't running last year.

50:24There's a lot of newness here. Could it be clunky out of the gate and we're maybe making excuses for Justin Herbert again in January 2027?

50:32Austin Gayle:I think there's a boomer bust factor to this for sure. I mean, like you said, it's easy to see how this works. Talented quarterback. Great. You know, what we think is a great play caller, offensive coordinator. Get the offensive tackles healthy. Good. Very good head coach. There's a chance this is the team in, you know, in 2026 where we say, all right, they finally did it. You can take, you can, you know, take your Justin Herbert jokes and shove them. He's playing in the Super Bowl here. That is within the realm of realistic outcomes. But I think you nailed it with some of the ways in which this doesn't work out.

51:06Austin Gayle:And by the way, just the personalities, Mike McDaniel, Jim Harbaugh, let's see. It's fun for us. It's fun for content. If they're one and two, if they're one and three, if the offense isn't working in September or four or five weeks in, is Jim Harbaugh grabbing the keys a little bit or grabbing the steering wheel and saying, all right, this was an interesting idea that this isn't working for me. So that's possible as well. And I'm with you on kind of the secondary tertiary pass catchers there. It's, it's still not the most talented pass catching group. I've ever seen Allen led the team in receptions, right?

51:42And he's not on the team anymore,

51:43Austin Gayle:but yeah, you know, beyond that, it's kind of like, all right, you got some players who could work out, but it's not guaranteed to work out. So you're right. It is a big, big change there for the chargers. The indications from the draft are that they're again, going all in here with Mike McDaniel and, handing him the keys, but it is going to be, they're going to be must-see, I think for sure, early in the season, how is this experiment kind of working out for the Chargers. All right, next secret revealed, Austin, the Baltimore Ravens were deciding between three different players with the 14th pick.

52:18Austin Gayle:I love these kinds of stories because then you can track them three years, five years down the road and we can go, what if, what if, what if they went with this player instead. So they've had a very eventful offseason. They fired John Harbaugh, hired Jesse Minter, backed out of the Max Crosby trade in very controversial fashion. And now Michael Silver of the Athletics spent draft day Thursday with Eric DaCosta, the Ravens GM. And he reported that at pick 14, the Ravens were deciding between your guy, Penn State guard, Fenga Yawane, not your guy, Oregon tight end Kenyon Sadiq, and then Miami edge rusher, Ruben Bain Jr.

52:59Austin Gayle:Those were the three players they were deciding between. And then this had me cackling, Austin, because DaCosta told Silver that they had a deal worked out with a team picking in the teens to move back, but the trade fell through. And ready for this quote? We had something on the table, but inexplicably, they told us they changed their mind. Oh my gosh, Eric DaCosta, you don't say inexplicably. inexplicably the, the, the goal of this guy to use that word with the trade back there. But I think the most interesting thing here is those three options, Yohane, Bain, and Sadiq. Do you think that three years, five years down the line, we'll say the Ravens ended up with the right player with that pick?

53:45I think Sadiq in this spot would have been, and this is just my opinion on just what I think Sadiq is going to be on his rookie contract. I just don't think that that would have been a worthwhile investment. I think that Sadiq is one of the youngest players in this draft. I think he's one of the most talented, maybe, players in this draft and what he could be. But I just don't think right now with where the Ravens are, that taking him over Venga Iwane or Ruben Bain would have been good process. I think Bain over Iwane is something I'm willing to entertain because honestly, everything I hear about the guy, I've watched all the tape, but then you see how he took the hat off of the Buccaneers.

54:18He is just, to me, he feels like a Hall of Famer already and he feels like a perfect Raven. I think Bain, it's very hard for me to see where Bain isn't like Melvin Ingram or Brandon Graham. Just someone that plays in the league for 10 plus years and is just very good. I think he has this ceiling chance. Obviously, anytime you say he's a Hall of Famer, this ceiling chance to be a Hall of Famer. So that's where I entertain it. But to be honest, Bangu Iwane kind of slid in this draft because of positional value and what that is. But there's an argument that he might be the best offensive lineman in this draft.

54:48And he fills what has been a clear, clear, clear need for the Baltimore Ravens on the interior. and even more so now that Tyler Linderbaum's gone, right? Tyler Linderbaum is now with the Las Vegas Raiders. They don't even know who's going to play at center. It's a handful of guys that are going to compete for center. But at guard, now you have Banga Ioane, and they brought in John Simpson, a former Baltimore Raven who's bounced around the league, who I think immediately is an upgrade over Daniel Faolale that they had last year. And then Andrew Voorhees was going to start at guard, going into the draft, and now you have Ioane.

55:14Now, center is still going to be a question mark, but I think they made upgrades at both guard spots with Simpson and now Ioane. And I think that was one of the clear weaknesses of the team last year. Center is still going to be a problem, but you're going to now protect him, right, with Ioane and Simpson. I like the pick for the Ravens. It's kind of interesting to hear that they were considering those spots. I think Sadiq would have been bad. Bain, I would have got on board with right away. But Ioane, I think, is a slam dunk at 14.

55:36Austin Gayle:Sadiq would have been fun, but I'm with you. That's taking on some more risk than maybe you want to take with the 14th pick. Bain, if I just had a personal big board, which I didn't, I would have had Bain probably over Ioane. And it's a premium position. And I'm with you, especially with the Ravens. You could just kind of picture him sliding in there and playing really well for them. So that's one to kind of keep an eye on. But I have no issue with them taking Yohane at that spot. There was also another Ravens secret revealed here, Austin. And that's that Eric DaCosta gave the owner, Steve Bishotti, a pick.

56:08Austin Gayle:This was in that same article. That sounds like they were all maybe a little buzzed, having a few cocktails at Bishotti's Florida mansion, a little off-season gathering. On day three? No, this wasn't his counseling. Yeah, no, this was earlier in the offseason. Bishotti tells DaCosta, I should be allowed to make a fifth round pick. And DaCosta says, all right, I'll give you pick 174. So Bishotti's watching the tape. He's looking at the board. And he says, give me Clemson running back Adam Randall. Now, part of this is apparently he was friends with Dabo Sweeney. And this, you know, he is so excited.

56:49Austin Gayle:I'm going to just call Dabo. What's new? Yeah, this running back. What do you think? And so I just thought here, Austin, that this goes back to rule number one, to being a GM in the NFL. So, Alec and I used to always talk about this. Keep the job, you know? If the owner wants a pick in the fifth round, give the owner a pick in the fifth round. But that was interesting that that became public and they kind of explained the backstory there. I mean, wasn't there like in the Matt Rule era with the Panthers, like his wife made a pick and that was like Chuba Hubbard or something. That sounds familiar.

57:21Austin Gayle:Yeah, I don't remember the details. I remember his wife really wanted Hubbard and maybe that influenced it. I think that among the things owners can say like, give me the wheel on, right? I think a fifth round pick is I'll take that every day of the week. If the owner comes in, he's like, I kind of want to make the 174th pick. Can you let me do that? Absolutely. How many times have we heard owners step in and say, I want to make the first overall pick. I want to make this pick. I want to make every pick. What's the point of owning a team if you can't make a draft pick? Honestly. I also think this is a nice reminder for the owners of these teams that this is, in a lot of ways, just a fun game for them.

57:53The teams in the league, you do not... I can't stress this enough. You do not need to win games to make money hand over fist as an NFL owner. When you look at the last five years, how much the floor of how much they're making from these TV deals has risen, it's like 84%. In just the last four years, how much more money every team is making their floor just from the TV rights deals. They can just do whatever they want. At the end of the day, win or lose, obviously owners want to win Super Bowls. They want to do these things, but they know at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter where we're ending up.

58:21I'm making so much money anyway. I just want to have fun with it. I want to have a few cocktails. I want to make a fifth round pick. I want to call my buddy Dabo Sweeney. Like I said, I think on the scale of owner hijacks, this is like a one out of five, but I don't think it's that surprising. I wouldn't be surprised if there are owners that are making every pick for the team.

58:36Austin Gayle:Bishotti sort of seems like he's having maybe the most fun of any owner, I will say. where he's just like, this is sweet. I got his football team. We're just kind of picking some players, like you said, calling my friends. Declining trades, doing something the league has never seen. He was in the, I think it said he was in the Bahamas when the Crosby trade fell through his golfing when he got the call there, which, come on, if you're golfing, you can't pick up the phone. We got to keep pace of play up. Now, I don't know what place, and he might've been playing at a place where maybe it's a little more secluded than the ones I potentially will be playing at in the months ahead.

59:09Austin Gayle:All right, I have one more secret for you And then I just want your leftover Austin Gale draft takes. If you've got anything, you got to get off your chest. But the last secret revealed here, Austin, you mentioned the consensus board earlier. This feels like the year of the consensus board. You know, we talked about this before where it's a wisdom of crowds thing. You take a bunch of different people's opinions. You put them together in a spreadsheet. I think Arif Hassan was one of the first people to do this, I believe, many years ago. And now you see it all over. 10 years ago. There you go. Now you see it all over the place.

59:40Austin Gayle:in draft coverage, and then you can compare your team's pick to the consensus board. And it's not to say you shouldn't pick the players you like more than the consensus. It's to say, well, maybe you could have maneuvered a little bit, and maybe you could have moved down a little bit if that was the player you were going to pick right there. So the secret revealed here, Austin, is that the 49ers do not care about your freaking consensus board, okay? They took Ole Miss wide receiver Deshaun Stribling at 33. He was 71 on the consensus board, one of the biggest reaches of day two. Overall, you look at their draft, just overall very low if you believe in the consensus board analysis.

1:00:22Austin Gayle:And this isn't the first time that that's happened with the San Francisco 49ers. John Lynch was asked about it and he said, that's where we had them on our draft board and we had a lot of conviction. Austin, so what do you think? Has the consensus board analysis gone too far? Are you with John Lynch? Are you against John Lynch? Where do you stand here? I don't think this would surprise you as a data guy, but I have a lot of takes on the consensus board. I want to hear all of them. I actually don't know any of your takes. I'm a huge fan of the consensus board, one. I think it's, you know, the fact that every offseason, you know, we go through this four-month process to the NFL draft, right?

1:01:00Like, I think the NBA draft is like right after the season ends. Like, the MLB draft doesn't matter because none of these guys play right away. The NFL draft, there's like four months where no one plays football. People go out in shorts and throw the ball around and it changes things and run 40-yard dashes. Four months. So what has happened in that four months, because the NFL is the NFL and they try to make it a 12-month around-the-clock product, is that a lot of people in the media make draft boards. Dane Brugler of The Athletic is fantastic. He ranked 2 ,000 players in this draft class. Daniel Jeremiah, former scout, does it for the NFL.

1:01:28Bucky Brooks. There's a lot of guys. Mel Kuyper, who started it. Todd McShay here at The Ringer. A lot of guys, former scouts, not former scouts, watch all the tape, talk to a ton of teams in the league, and they create these boards. What Arifasan has done, starting 10 years ago, is taken all those boards and put them into an aggregate to say like, hey, this is kind of the aggregate of how media and front-facing boards, how they feel about this draft. And what has borne out in the data is right around like the first 100, first 150 picks, you actually see that the consensus board is close to, if not better than, drafting players according to like NFL war than where teams are.

1:02:00I think where the consensus board falls off is like after 100, 150, because media oftentimes doesn't have like the resources and the ability to scout that deep into the draft. And that doesn't even get in the full information. They don't have injury stuff. They don't know like how this player interviewed. They don't know the off the field stuff, like Ruben Bain, all that stuff. They don't have that. So like you have to kind of take it with a grain of salt. Why I feel like the consent, I'm calling it the consensus big board war one. There could be a future war, but maybe a World War II, World War III.

1:02:26Why I think this happened this year. One, and this is something from Lance Zierlein, who he's talked to a bunch of teams. He does stuff for the NFL. He's been writing on the draft forever. He saw that teams did not have a lot of first and second round grades on players in this class, right? The NIL is affecting this. A lot of good players are returning to school. We saw that with Dante Moore for Oregon, a lot of other players, non-quarterbacks doing the same thing. So teams did not have high grades on a lot of the players in this class. So the variance on who they were going to take was going to vary with need, vary with this new thing with people wanting to draft tight ends.

1:02:55I think blocking tight ends broke the consensus board almost by themselves. and then obviously you have this variance because this draft ultimately was not that good. I think in future years, the consensus board could get better, but this year it kind of broke it. Where I feel like I stand on all of this is that like for the 49ers specifically, this is something they have done on trend, right? Warren Sharp had that tweet where like versus the consensus board in terms of reaches, they ranked inside like the bottom three or four each of the last four years. And when you look at specifically the skill players they've taken on day two and day three, not a lot of those guys have panned out.

1:03:24People bring up Debo Samuel. Debo Samuel was a steal compared to the consensus board, right? Now, I don't think we should use consensus boards to evaluate, did they draft well or not? Is that player going to be good, right? That's not how you use a consensus board. The consensus board, how it informs you is like, you probably took this player too high. And if you liked him, you probably could have waited. And when you compare it to, I'm going to shout out the Carolina Panthers, one of my best friends was at my bachelor party as their assistant analytics, like the number two to their head of analytics, Eric Eager.

1:03:51They have one of the best boards, according to the consensus board, or the best drafts, according to the consensus board, because they kind of sat there and took guys where they were supposed to go or kind of took guys when they were falling versus consensus, right? And I think you're going to end up doing that. If you do that 10 drafts in a row, you're going to have better process and ultimately bear out, I think, you know, better hit, a better hit rate than if you're going purely off your board. Eagles, Ravens, yeah.

1:04:12Austin Gayle:You kind of look at the teams where they, you know, that rank highly. It's kind of the teams you would say these teams generally do a pretty good job. And last thing I'll say about it too, because I'm going on here, but like the 49ers when he, Grant Cohn, excellent, excellent question. Asked him like, Versus the consensus board, you're reaching a lot and it kind of made Shanahan and Lynch upset in that presser. They're like, we have consensus in the building. And that's exactly what the consensus board is supposed to tell you. What other people are thinking about this draft class. So you don't just go in and you just draft guys and you overdraft versus what you could have got them for.

1:04:43You look at James Gladstone. He had this quote that he put out voluntarily. He's like, we put a player in every spot where we're going to draft and this is where we're going to take him. He literally honed in on players with all this information on how other teams are going to look at him and said, we're going to overdraft kind of highly concerning that quote austin it's terrible it's terrible like this is it's bad process to only make decisions on the draft with people in your building right because this is a game you're playing against other people you're playing against how other teams view this class and the consensus board oftentimes over the last 10 years informs you where these guys are going to go right and if you miss out on one player because oh we thought he was going to go later we use we were duped by the consensus board do not be i always say this one you mentioned draft rules, don't be overconfident in your own evaluation, right?

1:05:27And if like you are so overconfident that this one player that everyone has already passed on like two times is going to be your guy, you're ultimately going to end up in a bad spot more often than not because no one really knows how these guys are going to pan out. That's the one thing we know about the draft is that really there's so many variables in how this guy's going to see the field, how he's going to develop, what his off-field habits are, all this stuff. No one really knows who's going to be hit and who's not. So when you're making picks just with the consensus inside your building and not taking outside opinions, you're ultimately going to end up where the Jags are, I think, with how they've drafted, where the Niners are with how they've drafted on days two and three.

1:06:00Austin Gayle:And to your point, this is not a media versus the NFL thing. There are teams in the NFL. I don't want to just say smart teams because what is a smart team? But yes, there are teams in the NFL with smart people saying, hey, there's a way to incorporate this into our model. You heard more GMs this year saying, We ran simulations to figure out, was this guy going to be available or not at our spot? Like you said, it is a game. There are projections. Hey, we won. But we have these five players ranked in the same tier. Can we move back? What would it take for us to move back? All those things. These are all the things you're trying to figure out.

1:06:39Austin Gayle:James Gladstone said, we did a thing where, to your point, where we mocked the 10 players we were going to get or the 11 players we're going to get at these spots. And we ended up with 10 of them. I don't think that's a good thing. No. Yeah, that means that you were taking them ahead of the rest of the NFL. And what players were you passing up? Could you have maneuvered more in those spots to get those players? So yeah, teams are attacking it in a different way. Everything you said about the use of consensus boards, I, of course, agree with because we like a little data. We like a little analytically minded thinking.

1:07:16Austin Gayle:But again, this isn't us versus, hey, this isn't how it works in the NFL. There are teams in the NFL incorporating these things into their modeling, into their process. All right, Austin, let's finish. Any draft leftovers, you are a person who just, the wheels never stop spinning. You're thinking about what's happening in the NFL at all times. And so I figured I would open the floor if you have something to get off your chest, one or two things to get off your chest, whatever, open the floor to you. Because you know what? I think I've mostly said what I need to say about the draft so far. You know, I wanted to open this up.

1:07:47and this, I don't know how close this is to like a draft leftover as much as this now that the rosters are set and I'm kind of able to kind of, for the first time, really get a feel for who I think the starting 11 on both sides of the ball are going to be for these teams when we start in September. I'm reminded by the idea or the fact that we have 17 new offensive play callers in 2026. There are going to be 17 teams are going to have a play caller that is brand new. Five of them are going to be first year play callers, right? That's Declan Doyle for the Ravens. It's Davis Webb for the Broncos, which is hilarious because Sean Payton is giving Davis Webb the opportunity to call plays so he doesn't lose Davis Webb to another team, right?

1:08:24It's still crazy. Where the league is kind of going. I have some thoughts. Davis Webb, Sean Mannion, who's coached in the league for like less than five years, never called plays, was a former backup like 10 years ago. David Blau for the Commanders, who was another former quarterback, has never called plays before, has only been coaching for a little bit of time. And then Brian Flurry, who's replacing Clint Kubiak for the Seattle Seahawks, he's never called plays before. really young guy. Then you have a lot of, you know, the 17 or a lot of guys who've called plays before, but in new places. What I think could be happening with offensive play callers here soon, and I look at the Eagles draft where they brought in Makai Lemon.

1:08:57And one of the first things that Danny Kelly said, I sit right next to him. He's like, Makai Lemon, Jalen Hurst doesn't really throw over the middle of the field. And I think this really helps them over the middle of the field. And then they got Eli Stowers. I'm like, oh man, that's another guy that's probably going to try and play in the slot. He's going to be over the middle of the field. That's another over the middle of the field thing. that I took away from that ESPN hit piece on Jalen Hurts is I think the Eagles are more committed long-term to Sean Mannion than they are Jalen Hurts. Because I think what is now in vogue is you need to be early on an offensive play call.

1:09:32And that's why Sean Mannion is calling plays next year. That's why David Blau is calling plays next year. And for me, with these offensive play callers becoming, you're betting earlier and early on them and you're trying to fit to what they want, what they're doing, I do think that we are in this spot now where offensive play caller might be as important as like quarterback at this point where like you're developing a quarterback right you're developing a quarterback trying to figure out who it's going to be you almost need to develop an offensive play caller that you can figure out how to keep in house if not name him the head coach or figure out what it's going to be or else you're not going to have longevity in this league right Josh McDaniels is locked into an offensive play caller position with the New England Patriots as long as he wants to be because he's failed as a head coach twice three times if you count whatever happened with the Colts Then you look at the Buccaneers situation.

1:10:18Todd Bowles, let Dave Canales walk, right? He's now head coach of the Panthers. He's lifting, I think, the floor of that offense. Then Liam Cohen, he goes, he's now, I think, one of the top five offensive play callers in the league, the only reason the Jaguars are relevant. Ben Johnson, he leaves Detroit, right? Detroit has a terrible offensive season last year. They couldn't run the ball successfully. Some people blame the offensive line, whatever. When you look at the first year Dan Campbell took over as the head coach, his offensive play caller was Anthony Lynn. Jared Goff was terrible. The offense was trash.

1:10:45Then Ben Johnson gets promoted. It changes the entire trajectory of the team for the first time in like 100 plus years. Then he leaves. And now there's already hot seat. They're bringing in Drew Petsing. They had to fire an offensive play caller. Here we are. Having an offensive play caller that you're early on, that you're developing, that you can kind of stay committed in the thing. I mean, we brought up Sean Payton. Sean Payton is giving up offensive play calling duties for the first time I think in his career because he wants to keep this Davis Webb guy who we feel like could be a future offensive play call in the NFL.

1:11:09I honestly think so much attention and resources are being given to these play callers. And in some situations, even more so than the quarterbacks because I think it's arguably as important as quarterback and not one of the most important positions you have on your team.

1:11:20Austin Gayle:Okay, but here's the issue in terms of longevity and whether this is sustainable. I don't disagree about their importance. However, you just mentioned it. 17 new play callers in the NFL this season. If Sean Mannion leads the Eagles to a top five offense this season, probably a head coach. You fire Nick Sirianni and you make him the head coach. I don't think we have almost... That almost never happens. It'd be insane to let Sean Mannion walk, though. Okay, but that never happens. That's not our team. So let's say they have a good season. Let's say they get to the NFC Championship game. Now you're firing the coach who's gotten you to the NFC Championship game three times.

1:11:58Austin Gayle:And the owners don't operate that way. So now he leaves, and he's going to go somewhere else. Davis Webb, if he actually keeps this job, which talk to me in November about whether Sean Payton's still not. Over under seven and a half weeks before Payton starts calling plays. Yeah, I mean, we've discussed this before. Peyton's doing this to make himself look good. He'll take the play calling back. But let's say that doesn't happen. And Davis Webb does a great job under Sean Peyton. And the Broncos offense takes this major leap. Now he's gone the next year. So this is the issue when it's not your head coach who's that guy.

1:12:28Austin Gayle:When it's the head coach who's that guy, McVay, Shanahan, LaFleur, whoever else you want to point to, great spot to be in. They're calling plays. They're there for the long haul. You can bring in different personnel. and you can hope you get lucky one year with defensive turnover, a great defensive coordinator. But when it's the young offensive coordinator who you hire, you do run into an issue where that guy's probably not going to be there for that long. Yeah, and I think that has to change. I honestly think that what the Bucs have done with Dave Canales and Liam Cohen has hurt their football team.

1:13:00It's hurt them. And I think that there are going to be other teams in similar situations where, I mean, I'm not saying the Lions should have fired Dan Campbell to keep Ben Johnson, but at a certain point, if you're a Lions fan and you had truth serum, would you say you'd rather have Ben Johnson or Dan Campbell?

1:13:13Austin Gayle:Wow, that's a great question. I wonder what they would say, what a Lions fan would say right now. I'd be shocked. I would bet eight or nine out of, nine out of 10 Lions fans are saying I'd rather have Ben Johnson because it ultimately, I mean, the Diners have drafted poorly over the last three or four years. Everyone's on that. Why are the Diners still like a perennial playoff team? Why have they been able to figure out, even with the seventh round, the last pick in the NFL draft, figure out quarterbacks? Because they have an offensive play caller that raises the floor in the ceiling of the team.

1:13:36Sean McVay with the Los Angeles Rams. Like these are the most valuable people in the league. And that's part because what you pay them is not tracked on the salary cap. Like you can pay them whatever you want. You can give them whatever contract you want. John Gruden got a 10-year contract to call plays as the head coach for the Raiders when he came back. Like these guys are more important to the success of your football team than arguably anybody else. Because the second you don't have one is the second this thing starts to slip. And when you need to start making flips and start making changes.

1:14:04I honestly feel that the Sean Mannion bet, the David Blau bet. Have we seen this before? Have you seen a first-year offensive play caller come in and only have two or three years of coaching experience? I can't remember it. Can you? No, I mean... And you said, this is why the league is changing. You're like, well, the leagues don't operate this way. The leagues have never done this before. Sean Manning and David Blau are calling plays for teams next year. Declan O'Doyle is a first-year offensive play caller. Davis Webb is taking play caller duties from Sean Payton. The league is changing because they know if we don't have this guy locked in, our team can't take the top off.

1:14:35Our team can't go the distance. It's like, it's the only reason, not the only reason, but a driving reason why the Seattle Seahawks offense was able to get to the Super Bowl the way they did and unlock Sam Donalds because Clint Kubiak was this kind of next thing. And now all of a sudden, obviously he's gone and they're going to have to try and do the same thing. I think there's going to be a lot of pressure on Brian Fleury and Drew Petsing and these guys to come in and immediately do it because they'll be the first to blame by fans and the teams probably if the offense isn't working out.

1:14:58Austin Gayle:And listen, if those guys are really good and they like their situation, it doesn't mean they have to leave right away. Like Ben Johnson stayed longer than we thought Ben Johnson was going to stay. He said, let me wait for the right opportunity. I'm going to sit this year out. So that could happen where you keep a guy. I mean, it's almost like if you are able to keep one of those guys for three years, that's a great stretch. And then you have to find the next guy. Now, can you build a pipeline? Can you have a quarterback's coach under him who's really good, who's really talented, but inexperienced?

1:15:27Austin Gayle:Now he's the next guy you bring in. It is a big storyline happening in the NFL and the way those guys perform in 2026. I mean, that'll go a long way in just determining which teams are good and which teams. It's over half the league. Over half the league. Over half the league. It's crazy. It's crazy. All right. His name is Austin Gale. Bring in the juice as usual. Thank you to Austin. Thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing. Stefano Sanchez on video. An additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal. I'm Shiel Kapadia. We will talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL Show.

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