2029 Future NFL Predictions With Ben Solak!

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This episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes. In football, staying ready isn't just about what you do on game day. Good recovery is just as important to be prepared for your next matchup. Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout. With high-quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate, this shake has all your recovery needs in one bottle. Available in 26-gram and 42-gram protein shakes. If you'd like to learn more about the Tramphya Power Protein Shake, visit www.Tramphya.com. For more information on Tramphya, visit www.Tramphya.com. weeks of the season, there's bumps in the road. ups and downs, but it's like, they're sticking with it. They're not getting away from it. There are some flashes, their defense is good. So they're staying afloat in terms of their record. And then they want to be a team where like around Thanksgiving, you're having a conversation going, Oh, things seem to be clicking here. Okay. I see what they were trying to do. And it didn't look great in week three, but in week 11, it looks a lot different. And now they're getting ready for the stretch run of the season. And maybe they're a threat in the NFC playoffs. What do you think? Is that, is that aligned with how you vision sort of the, uh, the bull case for this Eagles offense in 2026? I could see them hitting the ground extremely fast because I think that you have seen young coaches from this tree, get their, their hands on a team, like, you know, full control over it, get two or three wrinkles into the kind of the existing, very healthy Sean McVay, Kyle Shanahan stuff, and then hit the ground very, very fast before teams kind of get wise to it. I'm thinking about Bobby Slough with the Texans. I don't think about Mike McDaniel with the Texans. I'm thinking about Mike McDaniel with the Texans. I'm thinking about Mike McDaniel with the Dolphins, where those guys were Shanahan guys, more of the Mannion. Mannion's more of a, you know, LaFleur and by LaFleur Shanahan, uh, McVay guy, excuse me. But there's a lot of ways where like, you know, the, the, one of the things the Packers did really well with Jordan Love was getting, uh, you know, to a lot of like McVay staples, but from the gun instead of from under center and running the ball from the gun instead of under center. If Mannion like brings that to Philadelphia and gets a good gun run game into a good play action, gun play action game, that's something that like really fits what Hurts does well. And even in their best time with necessarily the strength of their game with psyching, it was more like gun RPO game. So there's a world where they walk out and it's just like, Oh my gosh, like they got stuff we weren't prepared for. You know, they're, they're breaking tendency and, and, and new wrinkle in offense that like defenses haven't seen a little bit. And they go steamrolling for six, eight, 10 weeks. I can see that universe. And then they run into like, I didn't make a Ryan's Mike McDonald, a Brandon Staley, like a guy who like comes up with ideas defensively, get punched in the mouth. And then you'd see what Mannion's really got, right? How deep is your bag when you're not just like, you know, running the stuff you've prepared for and you've kind of been fast starts. I also hear you though, in the sense of like, there's a lot, even over the four offensive coordinators, there was a lot more same language, same philosophy than it feels like there is for this fifth offensive coordinator. So there are like big growing pains worlds as well. That wouldn't surprise me either. All right. So that's interesting. So you're thinking more, Hey, maybe the plan B is where they run into challenges versus, Hey, these are all the things we rep during the off season. And we're not reinventing the wheel. It's just a lot different, but we're going to see how that goes. So we'll see which way that goes. I think Hertz is a, you know, I think Hertz, if you pulled a lot of people and said, do 20, 29 predictions, I think Hertz would come up a lot. So he came up in my first one here. Uh, so like, so here's my first one, 20, 29 Hertz Stroud finding success in their new homes. What are we, how do we get a backdoor Stroud in there? What are we talking about? So 20, 26 Eagles tried to make it worth work with Jalen Hertz and Sean Mannion. And you know what? It just didn't look good. Team made the playoffs. Defense was still very good, but the offense wasn't great. Story was similar in Houston. CJ Stroud just still did not look like the guy he was during his rookie season. Was it the OC? Was it the O-line? Was it the lack of a run game? Was it CJ Stroud? Who knows? But you know what? The Texans, they had a decision to make. Do we sign this guy to a massive contract extension and make him one of the highest paid teams in the NFL? Cause we're entering the final year of his rookie contract. The defense was still good. There's still a playoff team, but they're unsure about their quarterback. So Howie Roseman, Nick Casario have a conversation after the 20, 26 season and how he's looking at Stroud and going, they screwed that up. That's a talented quarterback. They didn't put him in the right position. He's only 26 years old. When do you get a chance to get a 26 year old quarterback who can operate from the pocket like that? I think he's got to, he gives us a better chance to win than Jalen Hurts who might has won a lot of games, but might have some limitations. And then Nick Casario brings in D'Amico Ryans and they say, Jalen Hurts. I mean, that guy's the perfect culture fit. Houston native winner. Yeah. Doesn't turn the football over. We don't need him to throw for 5,000 yards. We just need, he's going to be running the football. He's going to raise the floor. We know he's not going to turn it over. He's going to be a great leader. We got a championship caliber and he's going to be a great coach and he's going to be a great coach and he's going to be a great coach and he's going to be a great coach and he's going to be a great coach and he's going to be a win-win. Neither side has made the Superbowl yet, but they won a lot of games and they're both going into the 2029 season Stroud with the Eagles and Hurts with the Texans. These are two trendy Superbowl picks and some NFL pun pundits bet are even saying Eagles, Texans, Superbowl, both quarterbacks. Oh, wow. They're former teams. What a story. When you say some pundits, is this you saying this? You might be me. I don't know who the pundits are at that time. Who knows? Will there be pundits at that time? Anything could happen. What do you think? You sold me on that one as we were going, because I think if the Texans mismanage Stroud and they don't extend Stroud, that'll be just a pretty big error from a team perspective. But the exact sort of GM who would be bold enough to go and get that deal done fast before Stroud, whatever, breaks out or looks like he's going to the exact sort of coach who would fall for somebody like Jalen, both in a good way and in a bad way. Like, you know, fall sounds a little pejorative, but like D'Amico would be like, yes, absolutely. Get me like, you know, culture guy, quote guy. Quarterback version of me. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So I like that, that, that, that flop makes sense. I personally would never have gotten that prediction because I'm never trading CJ Stroud, but I do. You sold me on that one as you went. That was well done. Okay. So you said you're never trading CJ Stroud. Now, I don't know if everyone's seen that. I don't know if everyone's seen that. But Solak's doing some video content. The man is in his garden. I honestly have no idea how he's putting these together. Some of the most compelling content on the internet. That's kind of you. Thank you. If you ask me, I mean, I got it. I'm making him on CapCut. I'm a youth. All right. That's what the Gen Z are using. All right. Well, now I need to go like download that and figure out how to do it myself. Not just me staring into a camera, but he's in front of his garden and he's just firing off these NFL takes at me. I mean, incredible. And one of them I saw was Solak just giving a full hearted defense of CJ Stroud, where if you look at Stroud's numbers the last couple of years, they are quite ugly. There have been times watching him, even me as a CJ Stroud fan. There were times watching him last year where I go, Ooh, is he developing bad habits? Is this not the guy I loved during his rookie season? Or is it just the situation you made the case, Ben, that it is almost entirely the situation for CJ Stroud. So give that case here and are you expecting it to look different in 2026? Or you might be here next year being like, all right, I know his numbers were bad again, but I still love CJ Stroud. What do you think? What's in the future for Stroud? Well, so first things first, let's start with bad numbers for Stroud. As Stroud is a rookie, right? 4,000 passing yards, 23 touchdowns, five picks, a hundred passer rating, like great numbers, you know, looked beautiful. Advanced metrics. He had 0.06 EPA per drop back. He had a 45% success rate. Last year, 0.07 EPA per drop back, 46% success rate. Last year by our advanced numbers, he was about as good of a quarterback as he was as a rookie. Now, when he was a rookie, he saw more base defense than anybody else. He saw more cover three than anybody else. Teams were selling out to stop the run because Slough was running chain of hand stuff. And Stroud was just like nailing explosive plays like you wouldn't believe. So the raw stats are really, really good. The down to down snaps, like the per drop back stats were like, yeah, this guy's like a solid quarterback. The Texans inability to run the football, which is what I covered in that. And this is why I hate doing the social clips. Cause you're like, it's so I've made a full throated endorsement about the whole thing. It's context. No, I'm going to 90 seconds. Cause everybody's brains have been fried by phones to make like one point. And that does never going to be a full encapsulation of something. Yeah. But the Texans just can't run the football in Stroud's three years in the league. The Texans are 31st in Russian success rate. They are 31st in EPA per rush. Only the Raiders are worse. The Stroud has seen year over year, the base defense he's seen goes down the amount of, of, of, of pressure on, on third downs. He sees the third and longs. He sees he's more thrown along as any quarterback in the league last two seasons, save for Caleb Williams. Like it is just the Texans don't have a balanced offense. And so when Stroud has a good game, they win. I think everybody forgets that they won like 11 games to finish the season, three of which were Davis mills. Then Stroud came back in. They just kept winning when Stroud has a bad game and he turns the football over. He puts the defense in bad positions. They can't run the football to like sustain drives. They can't flip field position. And then the Texans, usually are still in those games late because Stroud can hit explosives in the second half and the defense is so good. Um, but in general, I just think that like, it's always, it's always the most recent thing we've seen, right? Like Stroud's two playoff games were the, just the two worst games I've seen him play. Like Herbert's playoff game against the Texans or not the Texans, the Patriots defense was like the worst game I've seen Herbert play. And so I was like, all right, like this is just the reality of these guys. No, if that's the worst game we've seen CJ Stroud play is those last two games, then I don't think he's that. I think that's his worst. I somewhere quite higher than that. And I don't think that's like a bold, bold take. I think he's quite a good quarterback. You're right. Still 12th in EPA per pass play last year, same ranking as someone like Caleb Williams or someone like Stroud second half of the season. I came back from the concussion. He was a little bit shaky at first, but then the last like six weeks of the season was ripping. And then he absolutely lost his mind in the playoffs in a way that's completely inexcusable and shouldn't happen for a franchise quarterback and is bad. However, two games in Higher than Trevor Lawrence. higher than some other guys here. Now it's just one stat, but no, I think that's a fair point. I thought he was going to really get, I thought he was going to make the leap last year to like MVP candidate, like he's going to be in everybody's top five at the end of the season. And I don't think that happened, but I think you're right that it's not as bad as it felt at the end of the season when they lose in the playoffs there. All right, let's take a break. We come back, we'll get to more prediction. This episode is brought to you by Ethos. Buying a house is one of those moments where you realize, oh yeah, I have responsibilities now. And if you have a family, you want to know they could stay in that house if something happened to you. Ethos makes life insurance painless. Get a quote in seconds, apply in minutes, all online with no medical exam. Take 10 minutes to get covered today with life insurance through Ethos. Get your free quote at ethos.com slash ringer NFL. That is E-T-H-O-S.com slash ringer NFL. Application times may vary. Rates may vary for 2029. All right, we are back here on the ringer NFL show. All right, Solak, what do you have? What's next? Peyton versus Brady once again. AFC championship game, Colts versus Raiders. The Indianapolis Colts are in an unbelievably odd management position at this time. I don't understand how the three daughters of Jim Irsay, like I understand on paper, how it's working and there's one in charge. They're all in the room helping to make calls on who we're drafting around too. I, they're on the sideline with the headset. Okay, I don't know if it's good or bad. I just know that it's unique relative to what I expect from NFL ownership, right? It's Jerry Jones theorem. If you are different than the average ownership structure, weird things might happen with your organization. We know the seats have to be relatively hot on Shane Syken and Chris Ballard. They have made a Daniel Jones commitment for the next year. It's like, you know, kind of one year deal with another year. If it doesn't work out well this year, they'll probably move off of Daniel Jones and I would assume move off of Chris Ballard and move off of Shane Syken. Now, who will they replace? These guys have had Chris Ballard there for a decade as general manager. You know, Syken's been the head coach there for almost four, gone on five years now. Well, you have seen this sudden uptick in ex-quarterback involvement in teams, right? The Raiders are minorly owned, minoritally owned by Tom Brady, which, you know, let's throw a quick, to stop on the rant. I can't believe we're all still okay with this, that he's always part of the Raiders and calls games for Fox. Every time I remember it happens, it blows my mind again. Anyway, maybe Bull British by 2029 will have decided to not let this happen. Whatever. So Brady, and like, you know, 100% has significant influence over the Raiders' football decisions. They try to downplay it because they want him to continue helping to run the team while also calling games for Fox. But like his buddy, he hired his buddy to be the general manager. The quarterback made his draft the one overall, you know, whatever it's like, you know, is his idol, so on and so forth. Chip Kelly said he talked to him once a week, I think, or at least once a week. Yeah, he's around all the time. The Falcons with Matt Ryan. The Falcons are like, man, we're bad at this. We're bad at figuring out how to put together a team. You know what would help? Matt Ryan. Let's get Matt Ryan off the CBS desk and let's just get Matt Ryan, you know, in charge of football, president of all football, and we'll be able to hire Ian Cunningham from the Bears. The Bears won't get any compensatory effects and Bears fans will go ballistic. Another hilarious, ridiculous thing that's been happening in just the machinations of NFL ownership. Anyway. Also, two search firms. So, I mean, two search firms hired and paid and what a coincidence, they landed on Matt Ryan, one of the best players in the franchise history. And then they hired Kevin Stefanski, who's also a Philly guy, with Matt Ryan, like, you know. Yeah, I mean, wow. Good job by those search firms. Yeah, and you have Aikman, right? Aikman with the Dolphins. Of course, Aikman with the Dolphins. Yeah, the Dolphins were like, man, just who do we hire? And Troy Aikman was like, well, in my experience, talking to coaches before, games, here's the general manager from the Packers. Like, how much did he interact with John Eric Sullivan? And then they end up hiring the head coach that worked with John Eric Sullivan. It's all a farce. It's all ridiculous. Drives me nuts. But you have just a lot more, like, it feels very, like, college recruiting-y to me, where it's like, look, like, our alums hang out with us. Come, you know, play for LSU. We're just two of these ex-quarterbacks who are just getting involved with team ownership and team decision making. Such that, you got to imagine, you're Ursae Gordon and you are, trying to figure out who's going to run the Colts here moving forward. I mean, your first phone call, if it's not Peyton Manning, it's Andrew Luck, right? I mean, like, that's one and two, is you call those two guys. Like, obviously, Luck's the GM of Stanford football. He's probably going to stay there. But you're just calling these guys and say, like, hey, do you want to just have, like, complete and total control? I would not be surprised, obviously, if, like, Jim's philosophy on Jeff Saturday trickles down to his daughter, where it's like, hey, like, you know, it would be cool if the ex-players just were more involved and we trust them. And Peyton was our heyday and let's get back to Peyton. So, Manning steps in in 2027 as the new president of football operations made up title for the Colts. And he hires, I don't know, you know, some gentleman, Adam Gase's general manager. Like, I don't know, just guys he knows, right? Yeah. The Colts fill out the roster. But then guess what happens? You know, the Colts' terrible season leads to them having the fifth overall pick. They spend it on Lenora Sellers out of South Carolina. He ends up being a tremendous quarterback for them. It galvanizes the team, meanwhile, in the AFC West, the Raiders are just chip, chip, chip in their way. Up the divisional rankings, the Chiefs start to fall apart. More on that later. You know, the Broncos, Bo Nix never comes back to health. Chargers trade away Justin Herbert, making my prediction from last year's episode correct. And the Raiders win the West. The Colts surge. They win the South. And we're just looking at the playoff bracket, realizing we might get another AFC championship game where, like, you know, playoff battle between Peyton Manning and Tom Brady. Just this time, in nice suits and nice shoes, walk in the field pregame with their little stooges and marionette lackeys on the field. You know, kind of the 2.0 chess match now of just football mimes. Our bodies have betrayed us, but we can still build teams to contend. And a new era of Manning-Brady starts in the AFC. Okay, I like the boldness here quite a bit. The Colts aspect of it, I can, it all comes down to, you know, do they draft a quarterback who's really good? Like you mentioned, they take Sellers or whoever else, and all of a sudden, they change the fortunes of their franchise because they do have some talent there on the roster. So you could talk me into that. The Raiders aspect of this, I mean, this is, you have faith. I know you like, I know you like Mendoza, but you have faith that Tom Brady is going to be able to build out this bad boy in three years. You think they're going to be good in three years? Two years? Sure, I think I'm making bold predictions for 2029. There's a little, it has to be a little ounce of something in there. It's more, it may be more of a Mendoza bet than anything else. I feel like, yeah, like anytime team makes first overall pick at quarterback, you can at least, put one egg in the basket of, you know, they may take it hugely, right? Because Mendoza might be that caliber of a guy. I also think team makes higher off Shanahan McVeigh tree also deserves an egg in the basket, right? Like Kubiak now with what he did with the Saints and Derek Carr before like Carr got hurt and all those injuries ripped through the offensive line. That was in 2024. And then when he did with Darnold in 2025, guys clearly got gas. Like he's got good, good, good offensive ideas. So good offensive ideas, coach plus first overall pick at quarterback there is like, all right, you might just become the sort of team that has the offense that can win you enough games, even if everything else isn't perfect. And let's say Max Crosby continues to play 900 snaps and recommits himself to the Raiders. Like you got yourself a star defensive player. Like this is what a stew is made up. This is how you kind of build a contender out. So I can see it. Okay. I like it. Raiders, Colts, weirder things have happened. I was looking at Chris Ballard's resume here. Nine seasons now, one playoff win with Chris Ballard as the GM. Five straight seasons of not making the playoffs, seven straight seasons without a playoff win. I don't need to do a Chris Ballard rant here. Enough ring around NFL show listeners. I've heard enough Chris Ballard rants from you over the years. My stance is known. Your stance is known. I know we've said before that like, oh, this is a big season for him. It feels like now with the change in ownership that actually now a lot of pressure might be on him here in 2026, whether this works out with Daniel Jones or not, whether they're a playoff team or not, could very easily determine whether he returns there as their GM or whether they say, hey, Peyton Manning, come on down to Indianapolis. And so I guess what? Just as you had a Cardinals one, just as you had a Peyton Manning one, I have a Cardinals one. I have a Peyton Manning one. Oh my gosh. But they're combined. So my next one, 2029, here's the headline. Mike Tomlin, Arch Manning, primed for leap in second year together with the Arizona Cardinals. I know what you're saying. How did we get here? Shield, this is crazy. I know everybody settled down. All right. 2026, there's this race for the number one pick. It becomes a huge storyline by Thanksgiving. Arch Manning's career, everyone clowned him at the first half of last year saying, hey, I'll hype this guy up. He stinks. He can't play. Well, now it's happening in 2026 for Arch Manning. He is the story in college football. He is the universal number one prospect. And now teams have to decide like the Browns. The Cardinals, the Jets, the Dolphins. They're like, we're pretty much out of playoff contention. How far do we want to go with the tank here around Thanksgiving? And in the end, it ends up being the Arizona Cardinals. They are in a tough, tough, tough division with the hardest schedule in football. Look at that. Non-divisional schedule. It's insane. It's the hardest schedule in football by a mile. If you look at any metric that looks at like projected win totals or Super Bowl odds. I saw one. I can't remember who had it. So forgive me, but somebody had like, you know, like a strength schedule projection. They were like, this is one of the hardest schedules of the last like eight years. that a team that's had his Arizona Cardinals schedule sucks. It's crazy. Yeah, it's not. And they're going to battle, by the way. So, like, with, I don't know, is Jacoby Brissett still holding out? Sorry, it's me. I haven't been just. QB1 Jacoby Brissett is making his money. And we got to respect the hostile, respect the grind. All right. Or Gardner Minshew. They got Mike LaFleur, who we'll see. But he did hire Nathaniel Hackett as his OC. So, you know, it just doesn't feel like a fair fight for the Arizona Cardinals. And it feels like a 2-15 season is probably what we're going to see here. And they're going to be able to secure the top pick. Okay, so that happens. And now the Manning family is looking at this going, hmm, do we want our golden boy Arch Manning to go play in Arizona? And there's conflicting reports all over the place. They got questions about ownership. But they also kind of like the idea of Arch going to a smaller market where he's not going to have a huge spotlight on him, he can learn, he can grow. So ultimately they decide, all right, we're fine with this. We're not going to put up a fight. Cardinals, you are allowed to select Arch Manning. Now, it doesn't come with a coaching change. So like you might think, all right, Arch Manning, bring someone in, start a new era. But you have to remember that Michael Bidwell is the owner of the Arizona Cardinals. And he said, wait, aren't we still paying Mike LaFleur? And we might still be paying Jonathan Gannon. And I don't know what other people are on my payroll. Let's just stick with LaFleur and give him a shot. And it's not going great. That's when the Mannings orchestrate a coup. Oh, my gosh. Peyton Manning. 30 minutes into the podcast, we get orchestrated coup. Peyton Manning not only becomes the team's GM, but he says, wait, what's in this for me? I'm making a lot of money. Life's going well. I have all the quarter zips I want. I'm doing the Omaha Productions. He says, I want an ownership stake in the, the franchise. They're really putting the screws to Bidwell. And ultimately Bidwell says, all right, I could think of worse ways than to align myself with Peyton Manning. So Peyton Manning is your new GM. He's got an ownership stake. And Mike Tomlin, meanwhile, he's been doing the NBC, whatever, studio show, whatever he's doing on TV. He's living a nice life, having a good time. But you know what? He always thought if I'm ever going to go back in, I'm going to go back into a place that has a quarterback with a high ceiling. Peyton Manning's calling me and it's Arizona. Yeah. Nice weather. It's going to be kind of a cushy lifestyle. They're paying me all this money. All right, I'll do it. So 2028, he becomes the coach. They go nine, Nate, they missed the playoffs. Tomlin still doesn't have a losing record on his resume. Manning showed some flashes. And then in 2029, Solak, they become the it team. They had strung together some good drafts. And Arch Manning, who is now this, he is the new polarizing QB. You got the hipster saying, look at this throw, tight window, look at the arm strength. You got the nerd saying his EPA sucks. You got the casual saying he's never even won a playoff game. Give me a break. He's the new guy everyone's arguing about. But the NFC West is there for the taking because Kyle Shanahan's out of San Francisco. More on that later. Sean McVay's trying to coach up Ty Simpson. It's not going great. Seahawks are a formidable team, but they're not a juggernaut. And the Cardinals have a real chance. And we are talking about Peyton Manning, Arch Manning, Mike Tomlin, and the Arizona Cardinals. What do you think? I did have one that I left on the cutting room floor, which is a Rams trade backup quarterback Ty Simpson to the Jets for fifth round pick or something. Just to nod at how poorly it all might go. Here's your number one issue. Besides the Manning coup thing, because the Mannings, I feel like, have done a really nice job of letting Arch have a regular process. As regular as you can when you're coming from the family you are and you have the last name you do. So I don't think the family would be coup-oriented, right? Like in my Peyton outcome where he's there with the Colts, Arch is presumably a starting NFL quarterback somewhere that's not there. I'm trying to decide if the Capatias are coup-oriented or not. You've got to look at a few years. Probably, I think. When you've made as much money as Peyton has and Arch has, then you get to not be coup-oriented. When you're abnormies like us and you have the opportunity for a coup, you do a coup, right? You've got to do the coup. I didn't like that. I didn't like nepotism until I had a daughter. And the moment I had a daughter, I was like, nepotism? I got to be making moves. We got to start lining things up for this girl. Anyway, I think Tomlin would never, ever, ever, like to go from the Steelers, storied winning franchise, and with how much he likes AFC North Bowl and how much he likes the physicality of it and the playing outside and the snow and the weather and the toughness and the physicality, to go to Arizona, to go play in a dome in Glendale, where it's just like soft and this is like the most storied lamest franchise, like they never win anything. I think Tomlin would take one foot into Arizona football complexes, get a sense of the vibe, and be like, you know, you got to paint the barn red, and then he would leave. Like he just can't, like he would never like, it's not the right franchise for him in terms of the way they play football, the area in which they play football, the style of football they've been associated with, and obviously the losing records. I do have a team that my Tomlin fits with, but it's not the Cardinals. This is where my experience comes in, Solak, because I can school you a little bit on this and what life's going to look for you, like for you in maybe 15, 20 years. See, in your 20s, you're like, snow football, great. Oh, I'll live somewhere where there's seasons. This is, I can't believe these soft people who like this warm weather. I want to put on that big jacket and gloves. Give it, this is fantastic. And then you get a little older. You think I'm putting on gloves? And a little older. And then you say, you know what? Southern California, you know, Arizona, Florida, maybe not the whole year, but December to, you know, February might not be the worst thing in the world to spend three months there. So your attitude changes a little bit. Not Tomlin. Tomlin might be getting a little soft here once he's in that cushy TV gig where now he goes there. He's like, this is great. There's not that many reporters covering the team. They're so happy to have me here after years of incompetence. I'm like the new Bruce Arians. Maybe he's rocking the Kangol hat like Bruce and he's just got the sunglasses on in the sideline. And he's loving life. All right. So you're not seeing it. But the Cardinals, who do you think, if you had to say right now, who, where is Arch Manning playing next year? And do you think, how confident are you that he will be the prize at number one? Where are you with that whole conversation? Because that's going to be a big conversation by the time the 2026 season starts. There's probably already markets out for what team Arch ends up with. There definitely is in terms of, if you want to just look at record and stuff, I think it's the teams I mentioned where it's Browns, Jets, Dolphins, and Cardinals are probably the biggest teams. The big four there in that top two. I think because of the total weight of 2027 first round picks acquired, I would say Jets, right? Because I think that in the event that a non-quarterback needy team ends up first and that becomes a trade pick, they're probably the best trade packages. And then they also have a really good shot to be the worst team in football, just as the Cardinals might. And so Jets, to me, reads as the right team. I will say, Arch seems to me like he's an excellent prospect, just from cross-watching, watching college football, and then watching prospects this year, it seems like a clear, sort of guy would go one overall. But like, it's the other, it's some of the more dudes. Like, this is going to be like a, you know, 2021 draft, 2024 draft, where there's like a lot of quarterbacks talking about in the first half of the first round. So even if you're not getting the Arch pick, like, we're coming up on a pretty good year. All right, there you go. Well, all right. So you said Mike Tomlin. Was this one of your storylines? Yes, it is. Oh, okay. All right, let's go to it. Chiefs head coach, reigning Super Bowl champion, and reigning coach of the year, Mike Tomlin. Quote, the standard is the standard. Quote, the 2026 season for the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes coming back from injury. We've got him. We've got Kenneth Walker. You know, we have retooled the secondary tradeaway, McDuffie J. You know, Jalen Watson got out of the building. Like, you know, we're about to like, you know, we had this terrible year. We had the ninth overall pick. We're about to reignite and restart a new era of Chiefs football. I got to tell you, man, like, Andy's offense last few years has just been painful to watch. Like, just from a, like, from a scheme perspective, it is tough. And this goes back to like, even though, you know, the season where they lost to the Eagles badly in the Super Bowl and they were kind of eking their way through offensively that year and then going into 2025, or excuse me, 2024, when they were still winning all of those games, but it was with, you know, just like super unexplosive offenses. They just live in the gun. They run the same RPOs over and over again. It is just like very, like, Andy's cleverness is very much cordoned off to second and goal wing T formations. And like on a base down perspective, they're just running the same stuff they've been running for Mahomes for the last five years. And they're clearly trying to figure it out from a running game perspective with the investment in Kenneth Walker. But like, let's say it doesn't work. And I think that's like a reasonable bet because they have like a good offensive line and they, you know, kind of think Walker's a good running back, but they have no blocking tight ends. They have no blocking receivers because of the way they build this team. I think it's just hard to build a modern NFL running game if you're not asking your skill positions to get involved in the blocking attack. So let's say the running game doesn't work. And then let's say, and this feels like it's a reasonable thing to say, that losing three starters in the second, the area between McDuffie, Watson, and Cook, like I know Spaggs is good, but there's a limit to how good a guy's goodness is. And, you know, Leo Chanel's out of the building. They still haven't figured out the pass rush. Chris Jones is like, just kind of showing up for the big games and is increasingly fading down the stretch as things go on. You know, defense doesn't save them. Offense doesn't get much better. I think, you know, you're going to see Andy Reid frustrations. I think you're going to see Andy Reid's job get called for. Would be very surprised if they fire him after 2026, but I'm not going to say it's impossible. So then you're sitting there. You're the, you're the, Chiefs, you're Patrick Mahomes, and you get to hire whoever you want. And Tomlin did it is one year on the NBC desk and you do, you know, it's week 14. You're probably going to keep Andy. Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But you put out the feelers, right? What does Sean McDermott think about getting back? What is, you know, what's the other coaches? Are we going to trade for Kevin O'Connell? That's the thing we always talk about every single year for some freaking reason. You know, okay, you're doing all like this. It's just the background work. Just, you know, the back channels. It doesn't, you know, get to the media. And you put out a feeler to Mike Tomlin and Tomlin is very clear. Like, listen, you bring me to Kansas City, right? Again, like legacy of winning, cold weather, outdoor stadium. And I get to bring my caliber of toughness and winning close games of competitiveness to a roster that has a star quarterback, but like, you know, needs a jolt from what they've, you know, kind of the soft spread style of football they've run. Like, I'll come there and I'll, you know, I'll win you a championship. So Tomlin gets hired. 2027 season is the retool season, right? Kind of, you know, some key players, you know, Chris Jones gets traded away. You know, they go, they make a new defense coordinator hire because Spags doesn't want to come back without Andy. They reinstall the new defense. They invest a little bit in the offensive line. You know, they change, they trade for Darnell Washington, right? They get their sixth offensive lineman to a J-pound tight end. And then the 2028 season, they just walk out and just shred. Just, they shred with culture and with Mahomes beauty. It looks like we thought it all would look forever with Mahomes first on. They're never going to lose. They're 15-2. They waltz to the AFC playoffs. I don't know how this lines up with my Raiders-Colts AFC championship game. Don't worry. Anyway, they waltz to the AFC playoffs. They win a Super Bowl emphatically over like, you know, I don't know, the Anthony Richardson Lions or something. And then, and Tomlin's coach of the year. And then we're back in the summer and the entirety of NFL media has descended on the training camp. You know, Mahomes again, the Chiefs are back. Tomlin's getting asked, you know, what does it mean if you finally win a championship outside of Pittsburgh and the Chiefs ring again and you guys are looking at, you know, tying the Steelers or chasing the Steelers for the most rings ever in a franchise history and you're setting record. Can Mahomes beat Brady for the most, the most rings quarterback wins and Mike Tomlin goes, standard is the standard. And we're just, we're back, baby. We're so back for the next two decades of Mike Tomlin, Patrick Mahomes and Chiefs greatness. This is such a funny exercise because of the people we are landing on a lot of the same people. Yeah. So it just really narrows it down to who are like the main characters in the NFL for the next three years here. And certainly Tomlin's a good one. I may or may not have a Chiefs one in a minute here. But I always think about with Tomlin, like I forget if it was when he gave that great interview for the pivot or whether it was somewhere else, but he actually surprised me when he said like, I take great pride. It's not getting the D players to be C players. It's not getting the C players to be B players. He's like, the most pride I take is when I see a great player who's like, and I know they're an A plus player and they haven't gotten there, but they've got that level of talent and I can coach them to be like one of the greats. Cause I always think I always thought like, you know, coach talk. It's like, no, it feels great to take the undrafted free agent and we made him like a special teams player. Man, we changed his life. He's like, no, I actually really take pride in coaching greatness. And for as long as he has not had that at the quarterback position in Pittsburgh, that would be very, even if he's loving the broadcasting life and he's like, all right, I put in my time. I think we're both on the same page that it would, it would take a situation where he views greatness in a quarterback or a team or a roster or all of the above. He has that selection now. Like he doesn't just have to go back. He, he, he doesn't have to. I love how you said it takes him seeing greatness. You also sent him to the Arizona Cardinals with a rookie quarterback. if he sees, listen, if Arch Manning, you have to go back. Remember, so like I was saying, Arch Manning looks like a great quarterback prospect in this made up scenario that we have. And you'd already seen him in the NFL, but yes, Mahomes, obviously, if you get a chance to coach him at that stage of his career, that would be very, very interesting. Now, do we, do we have an OC for Tomlin at this? Because, you know, that hasn't been necessarily the biggest strength. Do we know? The other name I considered for making the head coach of the Chiefs was Mike McDaniel. Like he does like two years for the Chargers. Absolutely strides with Herbert. And then the Chiefs hire him away to go make him head coach. So maybe somehow he gets Mike or somebody off of Mike's staff and runs the Mike McDaniel offense. Okay. So the other interesting angle of this is Andy Reid. What I was saying is that, all right, we both view Andy Reid as like, oh, I don't know what the next couple of years are going to look like for Andy Reid. Every, I feel like every podcast thing I've done for the last couple of weeks, Andy Reid's name has come up. We had Pat Daugherty on last week and we were doing like, if you were starting an expansion team, where would you have Andy Reid? And I was like, yeah, I don't know. And then I was on with Mina Kimes and it was just coach, just ranked the best coaches right now. And we had an Andy Reid discussion. I'm with you, Solak. We're aligned on this. I feel like he's losing the fastball or has lost the fastball. And I am very, very concerned that when he thought I need to make a change this off season and we got to get this offense going, that he just went back to Eric Bien-Ami when he really could have done a big search and been like, let me find the next great offensive mind in the NFL who I can align with, who can bring in some new ideas. That's not what he did. He went with someone he's comfortable with and it almost feels like his instinct right now is to take more control. I can fix this. I'm the guy. And he's got the Hall of Fame resume. Maybe he can, but the last two years only two teams in the NFL producing explosive plays at a lower rate than the Kansas City Chiefs. I mean, that is wild to say considering who their quarterback is. And to your point, it's not just that. It's the combination of all of it, the run game, the scheme. And so how, how likely is it that you and I are going to be feeling foolish? You know, we'll see each other next year at the Super Bowl and we're like, man, I hope no one really sees that podcast we did in May when we were saying If anybody ever complains about any take on this exact show, you're not allowed to look at it. Listen to the podcast moving forward. All right. But how confident, how strongly do you feel that it's just not gonna kind of get corrected here with Andy Reid in the next couple of years? What percent chance would you put it that Reid is the head coach in 2029, right? The start of the 2029 season? Like, he'll be 70. Yeah. And like, they're either bad, in which case I would say with some degree of confidence that like, you know, they're going to look into moving on from him or they're really good, in which case they're probably winning a ring, in which case Andy's getting asked if he's retiring, right? Because at some point, you're 70. So I don't know. I would say the percent chance that he's the head coach in 2029 is like 42%. You know, like, you're giving me that three-year sort of window. I don't think it's like, oh, if one bad year and Andy Reid's gone, like 2036 is happening. But I do like, to me, like, there's two outcomes, bad and good. And in both of them, there's a chance Andy's stepping down, stepping away, or being asked to step away. And so, like, it's, I think, you know, he's been the head coach since 2013. It's been a long, long time. And it's very reasonable to expect by 2029 there to be somebody else in the chair. All right, let's take one more break. We come back. And yes, the Kansas City Chiefs are making a coaching change, but it's actually not going to be. This episode is brought to you by Nationwide. A football team is so much more than a set of players. It's a complete roster filled with depth and grit. It's offense and defense coming together to make something unstoppable. It's like how Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. They're one of America's largest financial services companies too. Insurance and financial services together, that's a whole team in and of itself. Team Nationwide. For your insurance and financial needs, Nationwide is on your side. Nationwide Investment Services Corporation, member FINRA, Columbus, Ohio. This episode is brought to you by Chevrolet. Chevy drivers need a truck that shows up the same way they do. That's why Chevy Silverado is number one in manufacturer loyalty so they can go where others won't. Make their own way there and always get it done. And as long as Chevy people keep showing up, we'll keep building trucks that do the same. Chevrolet. Together, let's drive. Visit chevy.com slash trucks to explore the lineup. Mike Tomlin. I'll tell Solak who it's going to be when we come back. All right, we are back here on the Ringer. NFL show. We are sticking to Kansas City. Here's the storyline. Solak, 2029. Kyle Shanahan re-energized by second act in Kansas City. Gosh, we love to fire Kyle Shanahan. We've done it twice now. He will always make the show. I don't care what year it is. If he's been with the Niners for 30 years, we'll do the show. We'll be like, all right, but I think really. Where's Kyle going? Yeah, three years from now, he'll be somewhere else. All right, but here's what has happened in this situation. We're going to be we're aligned. Reed couldn't get back to the mountaintop. He and Patrick Mahomes, they tried their best. They had good teams. They made the playoffs, but they ultimately did not get back to the Super Bowl 26, 27, 28. He actually got three seasons with the Kansas City Chiefs. And then he said, you know what? I'm now 71 years old and I've had a great run and you might want me to chase that all-time wins record, but that's not really what I'm about. I've had a great record. I'm going to the Hall of Fame. I don't need to stick around anymore. Maybe he's getting nudged a little bit by the Chiefs at the same time, but they do one of those like an amicable, you know, both sides were aligned and they do the press conference. Yeah, it's never the case. That's what actually happened in Philadelphia when he got fired there. They tried to make it amicable and then he's like, no, it's not amicable. I don't want to do this. But Reed is out there. So he's had a great run. And how does Kyle Shanahan enter the picture? You're asking. Well, Shanahan was actually out of football in 2028. He had coached the Niners in 2026, 2027, but the roster got old. He lifted the floor. 49ers, though, they weren't really a Super Bowl contender. They were a solid team. He was still working his magic, but it just didn't come together. McCaffrey, Mike Evans, Kittle, Trent Williams, all their best players got older, and it didn't work out for them. So after an 11-year run, both sides decided it's time to move on. This actually was an amicable breakup with Kyle Shanahan and the 49ers. So he looked around, because he's not somebody who wants to not coach ball. I mean, this is Kyle Shanahan's identity, is coaching ball. But he looked around, and he said, you know what? I don't see a great job here for me in 2028. So he takes the year off. He studies some offensive trends. He's talking to high school coaches, college coaches, coaches at the NFL level. He's jumping into some podcasts. The hipsters are loving it, man. He's just explaining some of the schematic stuff. It's not really the mainstream, like the casuals. It's not doing numbers, but you know what? The hipsters are loving Kyle Shanahan doing some of this analysis. And then he says, I'll get back in in 2029. So it's 2029. The Chiefs job opens up, and he has a call with Andy Reid. And Andy Reid explains, Kyle, you remind me a lot of myself, your stretch with the Niners, my stretch with the Eagles. We had a lot of success. We were widely acclaimed as great coaches. We never won the Super Bowl. I never hoisted the Lombardi. But you know what? Kansas City would be a great place for you to have a second act. And Shanahan looks around and says, I get a chance to get Patrick Mahomes in his age 34 season. He's had some injuries, but he's still a top five guy. He's chasing Brady. I'm chasing a ring. Let's go together in Kansas City and win big for this second chapter of my career. Kyle Shanahan, Solak, with Patrick Mahomes in Kansas City. In the year 2029, what do you think? My time was more fun. I like my time was far better. More fun? What's he going to bring in? What's that guy, Matt Canada? Who knows? I mean, geez. Kyle in Kansas City. So like, I feel like it would be very good. But also, I feel like the discourse of Mahomes, the Shanahan quarterback, would be unbelievably toxic, right? Because he would win, and he would look great in the offense. And we'd all be like, man, Mahomes is so good. And then there'd just be like a huge. Uproar of Niners fans being like, oh, but I'm sorry. Brock Purdy wasn't elite when he was in this offense. We all just like pretend we didn't see Mahomes for the last eight years playing without Kyle Shanahan. I like, yes, sure, absolutely. Do you think Andy would call Kyle and be like, I see a lot of myself in you? Or do you think Andy would call Kyle and be like, just go to bed, man. Like, it's not worth it there. It's crazy. No, I think Andy Reid probably likes Kyle Shanahan a lot. And I don't think. Andy Reid knows no life. That doesn't involve Kyle Shanahan. That's why this is actually a hard exercise. Because I don't know that there will ever be a time unless there's like a health event or something that really is like, dude, you need to slow down. Unless there's something like that, I don't know that he's ever going to be the person to say, I don't want to coach anymore. I mean, I had one on the cutting room floor where I had Andy Reid with like a third team at the, you know, at age 71. I was like, could Andy Reid coach the Bills? Do you know Bill B. Smith, Texan's tenure? We were just like, why is this happening? I'm like, maybe he goes to Buffalo. And it's like, all right, Josh Allen, you know, Kansas City didn't want me. I'm going to Buffalo to get Josh Allen. Josh Allen over the hump here. So I don't know that that would ever happen. But this brings to light that that Kansas City job at some point here with Mahomes still as the quarterback is kind of one of the most intriguing storylines maybe over the next three years. And they're just going to like internally promote Spags, which would kind of bang. Not going to lie. I would enjoy. I don't think enough people who consume the NFL understand just how New Jersey accent Spags voice is. And they need to hear him more. But more Spags presses, I think, are good for the people. All right. We've had too many, too many repeats here. I have an off the wall. Okay. All right. Give it to me. You're up. 2029 preseason of exclusive robot refs forces questions about future of umpiring in the NFL. All right. Okay. We planned this pod before the ref CBA was ratified. And did that CBA throw off my plan a little bit? Yes. Because. Because there's like a new seven year commitment to human being reps. And as part of the commitment is like, we're going to develop more officials and we're going to have a bench and so on and so forth. Good. I could do whatever he want. He can. Exactly. I'm just going to put the big NFL shield up and be like, you know, we get to do whatever I want. Yeah. Uh, the league is not going to suddenly walk out in week one and be like, you know, all calls are from New York. All calls are from the booths and, you know, from the VAR and whatever. But the league is, there's no way league's not going to. Start investigating more and more. We saw a rule change already this year where more calls can be made from New York, can be adjusted from New York. So the league is going to continue to experiment with how can we not pay, you know, refs on the field to make these decisions and have all these, you know, our gambling partners, you know, get terrible looks when human referees blow calls. How can we kind of automate this process? I mean, like, you know, me, I'm not a baseball fan. I'll watch every single ABS clip that comes across my, my screen. It's incredible. Electric, right? I love a little glowy dot in a box. Yeah. Yeah. You give me a little glowy dot where somebody's feet touched the thing next to the sideline. I'm on the edge of my seat. So the 2029 preseason comes, the league is previously announced 18 months previous. Oh, we've partnered with new RoboVision company. Insert like the worst name you've ever heard here. Like Palantir named after villains. Like, you know, you got RoboEyes 2000 is here to, you know, we're going to debut this and the Eagle Eye technology. They're watching the games. And so everybody's fired up about this, right? It's a hall of fame game. It's the, you know, Jaguars versus the Texans. They never put the Jaguars in the hall of fame game. It's the Browns versus the Texans. They never put the Texans there either. It's the Browns versus the Cowboys hall of fame game. And we're going to, we're going to be debuting the robot. And like, you know, there's just like a little like floaty spider cam. It's wearing a little umpire hat and he's just like floating. He doesn't actually do anything, but like, you know, like that's, that's exciting for everyone. And we're watching the game and the first like false start happens. And like a little automated whistle blows, little yellow flag pops up on the screen. Woo, great. But then there's like a second quarter close touchdown. And we get like a dramatic zoom in. And like the picture perfect clarity. He just got his foot in on the third closest play to grass touchdown. There's a two minute warning, fourth and one attempt. And this would have been like, you know, bring out the note card to measure the ball sort of a situation. And Eagle Eye tells us, oh, short by three inches. It's a bomb. Like the game is so fun. All the like little robot bells and whistles. Go great. There's no like unnecessary roughness penalty. Like, you know, leading with the helmet on a hit from a safe product. The stuff that actually is going to cause problems when you take the human judgment out of it. It's mostly just like zoom in camera work stuff. And it's a great time and everybody has fun. And there's a few more games of it. And then there's stink pieces about the fact that because this was fun, there'll be no more human umpires in 2032. And we're coming to the end of the human civilization. If you have a robot ump squad, I'll be stunned. Yeah, I don't. I don't, you know, this one, as you were talking, my mind went in a bunch of different directions. I was trying to think of the robots that are actually in my life. Do you have robots at the grocery store there? No, they got robots at your grocery store? And now as I was saying, I don't know what they do. I know my daughter loves them and she has a name for the one guy that I can't remember. Harry or Marv or something. And I don't know what he actually does. Is he busy? I don't know. I was just trying to read. He's only at the one and you actually could like run into him. But I don't know what his actual function is now that I think about it. You've seen these at San Francisco at the Super Bowl. They have the cars that are without the drivers. Yeah. I want to hit it with a hammer. I don't like it. I want to be in a baseball bat. I've gotten in one of those. No shot I'm getting in one of those. Tried it out. Yeah. No way. I did that. So you got that. You have the robot lawn mowing equipment at golf courses now, Solex. They have the lawn Roombas. That's interesting to me. Yeah. Because a Roomba is not threatening. Yes. Roomba is not threatening. So you've got that. But to your point, there's always been pieces written. About the NFL. And I've been watching games for years being like, there has to be a more technologically sound way to do this because I don't think these refs are getting it right. And all due respect, there's got to be a better way to do it. And there's been pieces written that it's actually not that easy. It's harder to do in football. But man, watching baseball every night as I do this time of year, the ABS thing is so freaking exciting. I mean, I was at a game and I rose to my feet when the Phillies won a challenge. So it actually is so exciting. Tennis watchers knew. Us tennis watchers knew. When there's a close ball and it gets a challenge and everybody's saying, oh, like it's a fun time. So fun and so quick. It actually doesn't delay the game at all. And it's accurate. And so, yes, if there are ways like that to improve the football, I actually think it can improve the football viewing experience where it's not like, oh man, you added technology. Why are they doing this way? It extends the game. Other sports have shown if you do it correctly, it actually can add a little bit to the drama of the game. You're getting more calls right. And it's fun. It doesn't make the game longer. So I like that. I can't believe you and I were just, you know, I feel like we're kind of old souls, but we're just bringing on the robots. If the robots are going for the ump's job, they're not coming for this job, all right? They're distracted. We've sacrificial lambed the umpires. We'll be okay for a few more years. Listen, you can't do what we do. Did you hear? I mean, the parenting conversation at the top. Come on. No robots doing that. Yeah. How are we feeling? Can we get a quick fill of these check? Yeah, they're back in it after, you know, fire their manager, uh, 10 game losing streak. And now you. Donnie Baseball is the manager and I'm not sure that he does anything, but he did. You'll appreciate this. I've never understood what the baseball managers do even when it's good. So I'm fine with it being vibes. Because I feel like it's a Solak sort of a life lesson. You know, you've hinted at this, but he took the job right as they were coming after the hardest stretch of the early part of the season and right before the easiest stretch of the season. I mean, that's good. You got to appreciate that. That's good work right there. It's great work. And is he wearing the uniform as all the managers do? Yeah, of course. Yeah. It's the best job in sports. You're wearing the uniform to argue with umps. That's exactly the dream of every baseball fan. You wear the uniform to argue with the umps. Well, I was at the practice round for the PGA here locally yesterday. So like, and we noticed everyone here is dressed like we're about to play a round of golf. We are not playing golf. Why are we all dressed like we're going to play golf? So it's not quite the baseball manager, but it's pretty similar there. All right. I have two more for you. Okay. I have no more that I like. Okay. You have no more that you like. So I'll give you my two. You can react to these and then if it spurs anything, you can mention it. All right, here we go. Ravens Jets pull trigger on blockbuster Lamar Jackson. No, no, no. All right. Now, I don't know how Mama Solak Jets fan would feel about this, but let's talk about it. All right. So the Jets had three, you mentioned it. Jets have three first round picks in 2027. But the problem is you mentioned the scenario where, hey, if it's a team that doesn't have a, doesn't need a quarterback, gets the first pick. But what if it is a team that needs a quarterback with the first pick and the second pick and the third pick and they get like the fourth pick? Like those teams might not be trading out of those spots. And now all of a sudden you don't get the quarterback you want. So maybe they take someone later in the first round. I haven't studied all these guys, but I was looking at the early 2027 mocks. Oklahoma State has a guy. USC has a guy. Notre Dame has a guy. There you go. So there are other quarterbacks available, but then again, this is the Jets. So maybe they take a guy at like eight. And you know what? It's Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson all over again. They just can't catch a break. They can't draft the right quarterback. But you know what? They have a good roster in 2029. It is ready made for a veteran quarterback to come in and have success. And by the way, so like they have a good coach, a man by the name of Greg Olson, the former Fox broadcaster. Oh, wow. Analytics darling. Media loves him in New York. He grew up in Jersey, not far from MetLife. Would the media love him in New York if he's an analytics darling? I feel like that would be a disqualifying trade. I think Greg Olson is going to, whenever he gets a head coaching job, and I believe he will. I've been stumping for listeners. That's a good take. I thought maybe, I think he might be the Eagles head coach if they fire Nick Sirianni after the season. I could see their ownership. I could see their ownership just had Jeffrey Larry just being like, I love this guy. Josh McCown, OC, Nick Foles, GM. Yeah. So anyway, I think he's going to, I think he's going to get a head coaching job at some point if he wants one. at this point are ready to make a big move. You know, they don't want to wait too long on this rookie. Will he become something? Won't he become something? And then you have the Ravens. They're at another contract impasse with Lamar Jackson. It's just kind of defined his relationship with the team over the years. He's had enough. They're looking ahead going, hmm, he's entering his age 32 season. Are we sure we want to commit to this or do we want to be out ahead of this? He's still a good player. They can still get some good draft capital for him. And so they decide to make a deal. And so the Ravens trade Lamar Jackson to the Jets, revs up their fan base, and he hopes to become a hero in New York. You were shaking your head early. Why do you hate this one? So, okay, just so I understand it. They used the 2027 picks to take a quarterback and then also build out the roster. It doesn't go well with the quarterback, but the other picks go up. Just with the quarterback, but the other first round picks, they nailed them. The teams really got it. Olsen comes in, analytics darling, is like, you know what you got to do? You got to trade multiple firsts for a 32-year-old quarterback. So like an old school coach, he's not just analytics. I mean, he knows football. He's like, hey, I played with Cam Newton. Lamar still got it. Now, maybe Cam Newton, that's not the best, you know, comparison because his career got short. Because by the time Cam was 30, he was broken. All right. So like, stop poking holes in this. Lamar Jackson's going to the Jets. Are you in or are you out? So Lamar's got two years left on his deal. So this is, he plays out 26, plays out 27. They franchise tag him in 28. Maybe there's a one-year something in there. Yeah, famously one-year extensions for franchise quarterbacks. Yeah. That's what they kind of, they did the weird thing this year. I mean, they can never get on the same page with Lamar Jackson. I guess he doesn't, but he also has a no tag clause. And so my idea of tagging him also doesn't work. I just, I think, I think you're, you're missing out on the real Jets disconcerted quarterback trade target, which is Broadway Joe 2.0, which is Burrow in Cincinnati. I couldn't get to a Burrow one. Do you actually, do you think he's going to get moved? I would say Burrow is more likely to be moved than Lamar is for sure. For sure. Because I think Burrow is much more likely to force the issue. Like Burrow is like very obviously to some degree discontented with the state of operations in Cincinnati. Lamar just like doesn't have, like his agent's his mom. And so like Lamar's just like harder to deal with, harder to parse than the typical guy because the process doesn't happen the same way every single time. Burrow like very obviously is mad about something in Cincinnati. The moment they traded for a 29-year-old defensive tackle I don't know if I agree with that. Are we sure he's not just in his feelings a lot? Are we sure he's not just in his feelings a lot, Burrow? I mean, yeah, but they do what he wants. Anytime he says, oh, the science, like, I don't know. They're building, they've built up the offense and they've made the moves he's publicly called for. The connection between they do what he wants and him being happy there is a lot less, like it should be one-to-one. But I would say one of the number one things I've learned about star athletes in my time is star athlete gets what he wants then becomes upset with that quite shortly after. Very good point. I always go back to Tyree Kilby and like, I'm so happy to be here with Tua Tunga-Vailoa. He's the most accurate quarterback in the world. And then very quickly being like, wait a minute, he's not Patrick Mahomes. Right? Like it's just like, he gets what he wants. Dexter Lawrence, he does. And then like his left guard is going to get hurt and he's going to get hit a few times. He's going to forget all about how much he liked Dexter Lawrence because left guard got hurt. You know, like that's what it is to be a quasi-GM player is to just like make bold demands and then have them not pan out and then blame somebody else somewhere else. So to me, like Burrow, you say like, are you sure it's not just in his feelings? That's, I think that's why he's more likely to get out of Cincinnati because he'll just get so deeply in his feelings that he'll be like, man, trade me. Whereas I don't think Lamar, like Lamar doesn't act that way to me. Lamar acts a lot more like, you know, we're going to get this done and like, until we get it done, we haven't gotten it done. Like, you know, he's just very like, he doesn't do like subterfuge. He just kind of is like weirdly and aggressively frank about stuff in his way, which is a very entertaining way. Yeah, I don't know. I was looking at Miami too for, I was like, the difference there, I think is the reason I push back every time there's like, oh, Joe Burrow is going to, you know, be out of Cincinnati. It's like the Bengals have zero motivation. Like I just, they have, they don't have anything like he is the franchise and they're not like a forward thinking organization. They're not going to just, oh yeah, we'll find the next year where the Ravens, I could be to see them being like, all right, you know, maybe this is the time to get out. We can still get a lot of value. We have a good team around him. Maybe you have a good offensive coach at that time. You can get me there on right. Like Lamar at 32 is much more likely to trail off dramatically than Burrow at 32 is. Assuming Burrow does not have any more major season ending injuries between now and then. Yeah. Yeah. So, well, the Burrow thing, I was looking at it going, is there a Burrow thing I can squeeze into this episode? And I just, I was like, I don't know. Like what would really motivate them to do that? If he was available, I mean, obviously you would get a haul and a lot of teams would be interested and he would, you know, be, highly coveted around the NFL, but I just wasn't, I just can't imagine a scenario where inside the Bengals building, they're like, all right, let's go ahead and do this unless he's just so forcefully making them do it, which I guess is possible to your point. And that's what I think I think anytime star franchise quarterback is to get traded, it's either like, hey, a Manning situation where, you know, like major neck injury, like, you know, like you got to like get off because the physical train like is might, they might be totally gone or it is, you know, massive, emotional problem, right? It is interpersonal problem that cannot be healed. And I feel like that, I can see that happening in Cincinnati in a way that I don't see it happening in Baltimore. All right. Last one I've got for you. And then I, you know what? I have this like leftover list, so I might just hit you with some quick hitting questions. Of course. Yeah. Just get it out there in case they're right. Yeah. All right. Last one. 2029. Bears, once again, the team to beat in the NFC. Heck yeah. It's 2029. Bears have just made the playoffs. Four straight seasons for the second time in franchise history. And last year, so like they got over the hump with their second Super Bowl ever. Ben Johnson has become one of the greatest villains the league has ever seen. LaFleur, McVay, Shanahan. They hate the guy. They can't stand him. And you know what? Bears fans love it. They're building statues. They found the younger generation of Mike Ditka. Caleb Williams has become the face of the league. His immense talent has been crafted beautifully by a generational offensive mind. Dennis Allen is the new spags. Nobody wants him as a head coach, but you know what? As a DC, he's doing work out there with these one-off game plans in the postseason in high leverage situations. And the Chicago Bears fans, they're in a place they dreamt. One day, one day, maybe we'll be in this spot. And guess what? It's 2029. And that's where you're at. So the Chicago Bears, how many teams have a brighter future the next three years? I'm not sure. So like very, very few. I had a Ben Johnson one, which I figured was too self-serving to do, but it was like. headline, how Ben Johnson normalized the lateral in NFL offenses. I want by 2029, I want a couple laterals a game for the best offenses. I think this would be a schemed up part of the playbook. You have to be defending for this. It's changing the way tackling angles work. And I figure if anybody's going to do it, it would be Ben Johnson doing it. But yeah, there's no 2029 headline so rosy that I think that's too much for the Chicago Bears. And I think especially because it's 2029 because I think in 2027, I wouldn't be surprised if they're just worse from a playoff results than they were. They went down to the bitter end of the divisional round. That's just very hard to do. They're one of the last eight and pretty much one of the last five teams standing there. They almost took the Rams the distance. And they just had so much turnover and that defense got a lot of luck last year. So I wouldn't be surprised that they're substantively better in terms of more reliable game to game. They don't have to win all this close stuff and all this gimmicky stuff. But the record doesn't super reflect it until they can fully reload the defensive coffers. And then in 2029, 28, they shoot to the moon. So yeah, I'm Caleb and Ben Johnson. Yeah, those are two horses I've been hitching my wagon to since before they got together. Now they're together. So I like, you know, ceiling is the roof. All right. I've got some just some questions for you. Let's look ahead. Look in your crystal ball 2029. Solak has Josh Allen won a Super Bowl. Yeah. In the year. No, I almost had a, you know, Josh Allen forcing a trade because he's just so sick and tired of getting close. And losing there in Buffalo, but I didn't want to do it to Bill's fans. I was trying to think of who the coach could be in Buffalo, where if this doesn't work out this stretch here with Joe Brady, who's the coach? Who's the GM? Hey, let's try this again. We still have Josh Allen in his prime. So yeah, other than Andy Reid, I didn't get anywhere. Could Tomlin be a guy for them in Buffalo? Would he come back for Josh Allen? Similar to our scenario there with the Chiefs? I don't know. I wanted to do AFC championship game. Andy Reid versus Sean McDermott, but McDermott's coaching the Chiefs and Andy Reid's coaching the Bills. Ooh. All right. I don't hate that one. That's an interesting one. Uh, 2029 has Lamar Jackson won a Super Bowl yet. Solak. Yeah. It's Jesse Minter experience. Yes. So you think more likely next three years, Lamar Jackson wins a Super Bowl than Josh Allen. Yeah. I believe in Minter more than I believe in Brady. And I believe in DaCosta a lot more than I believe in Bean. And like, I'm pretty frustrated with DaCosta right now, but I believe in him a lot more than I believe in Brandon Bean. Like, that's different tiers right there. That's a tough one because I feel like I'm still inclined to say Buffalo, even though I agree. I almost feel like I don't know how much the coach matters. I'm just like, the offense is going to be good. Well, maybe the defense, maybe the new defensive coordinator are, are you in on a Jim Leonard? Are you with the hipsters on Jim Leonard? Okay. So maybe. I guess it's hipster. I don't know. I like Jim Leonard has been known good at his job since the Wisconsin days. Like that's, he's going to be good. He's the, I mean, I don't even need to see a game coach. He's already the hipster defensive coordinator of 2026. I would have thought O'Leary. Everybody's talking like, Oh, like, you know, like you're too deep. See, this is the problem. I'm a casual. So I can, I can scout the hipsters. You, you think the hipster thing is the normie thing. So then you got to go deeper down the hipster hole and now you have to go, go down to O'Leary. This is why we got to touch base on these things. I become uncentered, but I'm not talking to you. All right. I'm too far down the rabbit hole. All right. You mentioned Mike McDaniel with the charge I was trying to get a Herbert Harbaugh chargers taken here, but I almost feel like I don't want to say this has to be the year for the chargers, but it's sort of like, I don't think you're going to get an extended window of Mike McDaniel and Justin Herbert. You know, I think you even alluded to that maybe two years, but maybe it's one year. Cause if, if Herbert's great this year, if their offense is amazing, it's almost like, no, you got to win the championship this year or get to the Superbowl. Because then if McDaniel leaves, now you got to find the next quarter nader for him. And who knows if that's going to work. So where are you with Herbert McDaniel Harbaugh, the chargers, the next one year, the next three years here. I love it. I'm so excited. I love, I love the way Jim's talking about the offense. Jim like, you know, he's, he seems like he's bought in on what McDaniel is going to bring the way he's changed how Jim thinks about football. You McDaniel gave an interview to the chargers.com last week. You should read it. McDaniel's basically just like, yep. Like McDaniel's been saying like about as boldly as you can say something in May. Cause he's doing like, you know, we got to work on footwork and timing and figure this stuff out. But when McDaniel was talking about this and McDaniel, he had a line where he was like, it's reasonable to expect season high or career bests for every single offensive player. Like something like that, right? Like he's like clearly very confident in what they're doing. Herbert seems bought in. It's all great. The guards are Trevor Petting and Cole Strange. And like I just refuse to participate in chargers preseason hype again, knowing that we can say everything about the excitement about Harbaugh, Herbert and McDaniel. About how Martin Hampton fits in the running game about how land McConk is going to use in the passing game. It can all end up being a hundred percent true, but they'll lose three key games because they still don't have guards. And then everybody back. Oh, you're an idiot. You believed in the chargers. But yeah, well, I thought they would have guards. All right. But you can't have a great player at every position where you want them to reach a level of average competence. I didn't say great player position. It's Trevor Penning and Cole Strange. I needed Isaac say a model at $8 million. There's a year and I got Cole Strange. Yeah. Yeah, that's tough. And then, yeah, last year they had a chance to trade down. They took Amari and Hampton this year. They take mess the doors 25 on defense. So they had to like mess some options to fill those holes and they did not do it. All right. I think I had a Rams Tyson someone on here, but you already gave your kind of take on that. I just wanted to do it just to be mean. Yeah, I like that one. Um, no, I think that I think your scenario is I'm not going to say I'm bullish. I mean, maybe it could work. I don't want to bet against John McVay, but I just like here's here's here's here's why it's a problem and nobody ever talks about this with the whole like developmental guy behind the older guy thing. Stafford plays one more year. The Rams lose in the divisional round in a very close game. Stafford has like a not MVP season, but like a really great season and then he retires. Simpson's going to take over as the starter. Simpson was the 13th overall pick. Less need put an enormous stamp of development on him. He's got one year in the system. Heck, make it two years if you want. I don't care. Sean McVay still coaching the team. Pogan Akua still catching passes. So team largely looks like they've looked to this point. How many games does Simpson get until we all start freaking out, right? It's like three. That's the thing with all you know, get the early developmental guy. Yeah, well, we're all going to be watching him and if he's not good fast and there's gonna be a lot of writing about it, a lot of conversations about it's gonna be a lot of hemming and hawing and hindsight 2020 and that matters in terms of a guy's development, right? It's hard to develop and you have that much scrutiny on you. So that's why like Simpson's gonna have a very short leash once he gets there to like show that he's got it. Otherwise there's gonna be a lot of pressure heating up on him. Not only outside scrutiny, but what's like if the first month McVay's like shoot, I don't know. I don't know if this guy's got it then right then what's your plan after that? So that yeah, it is a it was a head scratching pick that could look brilliant three years from now, but I'm not going to predict that it's going to look brilliant. You said Stafford retires. I don't know. I feel like Stafford's on another team next year. I don't he had unless his body unless he just cannot like move that is like he's in the Andy Reid bucket for me where he's like you will drag me off this football field. You think so? Yeah, but when he talks about I feel like he's going to be willing to retire really but he's had he's played through so many injuries and is still so good at what he does where I just feel like I think there's a place where there's a different science and it's just like you don't have to practice on these days and we're going to have you do X Y and Z and we can extend your career. I don't know. I think there's a difference between toughness and obstinance, right? I think that he's extremely tough, but that doesn't necessarily mean he'll be so obstinate. So as to continue playing when like he simply cannot anymore, right? I think that he continued playing this year because he could continue playing like none of us really knew what was happening in the heatwave UV truck, but like very clearly like there was a shot. I think once there's no more shot, he'll say there's no more shot. Yeah, but if he plays well enough with the team still pretty good, he feels good. And then are they moving on? They're going to be other teams who would want it. I think after a season like that, so the wheels would really have to fall off for him to not have a market. After this season. All right. Those are our 20 29 predations. Which ones which ones have the best shot? So like which ones are we feeling good about here? I love Tom and the Chiefs. I think it's so spiritually sound and I do like that. Yeah, and then he's very successful there and it like lead like, you know, everybody thinks the Steelers would have made a mistake except for Steelers fans who are all convinced that it was still the right move as Mike McCarthy goes like 10 and 7 with true Allard quarterback or something disgusting. I like that one. You're you got me. Uh, they're on on Stroud hurts. That's a that's an extreme one. I feel fast about when I came up with that. I'm like listen, Andy Reid might not still have his fastball shield, but you still got it. All right. This is a good one. We're going to surprise so like with this one. So there we go. Well, we'll see three years from now. I may not have gotten Peyton Manning to the Colts right, but I promise you within the next three years, some team is going to make some ridiculous ex-quarterback hire. Might have already happened to Matt Ryan, but I feel like that was defensive. Some team will make some ridiculous ex-quarterback hire that will then go absurdly badly. Yeah, we're aligned that Andy Reid is not going to be coaching the Chiefs. We don't think in 2029. We're aligned that we think Mike Tomlin is going to be back in the NFL in the year 2029. Hurts won't be an Eagle. Hurts won't be an Eagle in 2029. Uh, and what was the one you just said? The, uh, the quarterback. Running. I think we're aligned that Peyton Manning is going to be running a team in 2029. This is good. We went over in 2029. 2023, so we really need to hit here in 2023. no we didn't we nailed them but yeah you can't find those in the feed anymore something happened with Spotify but don't worry about that we nailed them I think it's a good scope into what we're going to be talking about maybe in the next three years sorry his name is Benjamin Sol you can check him out ESPN ESPN.com Mina Kaim show coming up yeah I got the quarterback draft next week that's right Mina Kaim show talking quarterbacks next week you can and don't forget on all the social medias this guy with the gardening football takes I mean I'm telling you compelling content check it out alright Solak thank you as always my friend thanks Joe alright thanks to Christopher Sutton for producing Stefano Sanchez on video and additional production supervision by Connor Nevins and Arjuna Ramgopal I'm Shil Kapadia we'll talk to you next time on the Ringer NFL Show 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas in affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC Kentucky or Wyoming gambling problem call 1-800-GAMBLER or 1-800-MY-RESET call 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org slash chat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland hope is here visit gamblinghelplinema.org or call 800-327-5050 for 24-7 support in Massachusetts or call 1-877-8HOPE-NY or text HOPE-NY in New York for Louisiana this Saturday this episode is brought to you by Core Power Protein Shakes in football staying ready isn't just about what you do on game day good recovery is just as important to be prepared for your next matchup Core Power Protein Shakes help you keep going after your workout with high quality protein to build muscle and electrolytes to help hydrate this shake has all your recovery needs in one bottle available in 26 gram and 42 gram protein options visit corepower.com to learn more every game day you show up for your team now it's your time We Go V We Go V ask your prescriber about We Go V some maglutide injection 2.4 milligrams a GLP-1 call 1-833-4-WE-GO-V or visit wegovi.com to view the medication guide and to learn more about We Go V why wait We Go V We Go V And I call 1-877-770-7867.