Nerds are back. Zach Lowe is a super basketball nerd, and he’s never been more back. The Ringer is just a bunch of nerds talking about their passions at depths completely foreign to non-nerds. Much of the non-nerd internet is devoted to yelling about everything, all the time. Bo Burnham, one of the internet’s original GOATs, asked us on his special Inside in 2021, “Can any single person shut the fuck up about any single thing for an hour?” The answer is still no.
But our nerd kingdom is mighty. I’m confident there are at least dozens of us beyond these (Slack) walls traversing the slopified robot internet desperate to dive deep into why Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert isn’t the problem, why the Los Angeles Rams are still the best team in the NFL, or why Indianapolis Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon is just a flashy nerd herself. Nerds and wannabe nerds, this is a Bat-Signal out to all of you to baptize your souls in this week’s NFL Take-O-Meter, because the only way out is through (all the tape and stats and stuff us nerds look at).
Remember: The scale goes from 1 to 11 (the higher the number, the more I support the take), because 11 is bigger than 10. If you need more than that, read some of my previous Take-O-Meters. If you’re a Meter Reader and just reading this reminder again for the fun of it, welcome back home, brethren and sistren. Blessed be the fruit. Also, I have some news: TAKEOMETER@SPOTIFY.COM IS ALIVE!!!
Email me at takeometer@spotify.com the following and only the following:
- Pleasantries: Please include what name you’d like to be called, your age (as specific as you’re willing to be: e.g., “in my 30s” or “don’t worry about it, millennial swine”) for historical context, where you live (if you like), your favorite football teams, and on a scale of 1 to 5 how much football you watch every week. This will provide instant context and help me organize all of your ideas easily.
- Subject lines: Do not take the subject line lightly. Swing a big bat and chase something when you write the subject line. It’s a pseudo-opportunity to write an internet headline, which can be fun. And even though I’ll watch every movie Christopher Nolan makes, I particularly enjoy when he starts films in the middle of a bank robbery (The Dark Knight) or an airplane takeover (Rises). Give me your best shot; punch me in the teeth, even. No contact singles, and no bunts.
- Takes: Duh. I’ve been screenmaxxing and doomscrolling way before Brick started telling people it’s bad for you, and I’ll never stop. But even I don’t see every take the internet has to offer, and I know I don’t see every take your dad, your mom, your brother, your sister, your partner, your neighbor, your coworker, that random person you met that one night, or just you have after every Sunday. Send me any and all takes that hijack your scroll or group chat or family dinner. Meter Readers don’t take on any takes alone.
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OK, enough dillydallying. Let’s get to the show.
The Chargers should reconsider trading Justin Herbert.
The internet never skips an opportunity to raise hell, thanks in large part to nerds like current ESPN and former Ringer NFL analyst Ben Solak stoking the flames with a perfectly timed fake trade scenario. Solak asked his feed a serious question (lol) about Herbert’s trade value, to which the internet replied expectedly: like dogs chasing a meat truck. Any football show worth its mics, whether it’s on TV pretending it isn’t a podcast or it’s a traditional podcast available now on most TVs, built conversations around the idea of Los Angeles moving on from its superstar quarterback at the peak of his athletic powers after an ugly 0-5 start to the year because Solak tossed it up like he was Chris Paul at the peak of the Lob City era. Everyone got so hot and bothered by just the idea that Solak’s ESPN colleague Adam Schefter even ran the idea by the Chargers.
“We have never even discussed that idea,” a Chargers source told Schefter. “The sentence ‘Should we trade Justin Herbert?’ has never once been uttered in our organization, nor will it be.” That’s the only response the Chargers should have. Before the Bolts’ season went to shit in five quick weeks, consensus among NFL scouts, coaches, and executives (per ESPN) was that Herbert was one of the seven best quarterbacks in football. The idea of trading 28-year-old Herbert with four very affordable years left on his contract should be uttered only for content’s sake, not by any serious people in the Chargers building. Herbert wasn’t the problem in any of the last six regular seasons, and he’s not the problem now. Everything else around him is the problem. The interior offensive line is still a mess, both starting tackles (Rashawn Slater and Joe Alt) are hurt again, all three running backs can’t find open holes, a bunch of receivers are banged up, the tight end room has no juice, and—more important than any concerns with on-field talent—none of the players look comfortable in the new Mike McDaniel offense.
McDaniel was supposed to be the mad genius capable of taking Herbert and the Chargers to the next level after the team moved on from OC Greg Roman, a longtime friend of head coach Jim Harbaugh. McDaniel has done anything but; his offenses, or any Herbert-led Chargers offense, have never looked this bad to start a season. It’s the worst offense in the league by EPA per drive, and it somehow looks worse than that on tape because the players don’t appear to understand or trust the offense's philosophy, concepts, or fundamentals. That, and—it needs to be said again—the talent level of the offense has fallen through the floor and into hell with all the injuries. Someone named Theo Wease Jr. and 32-year-old Marquez Valdes-Scantling led Chargers receivers in routes run in Week 5, OK? Alex Harkey and Travis Burke, two day-three rookies thrown into the fire before they’re ready, started at left and right tackle, respectively. This wouldn’t be a tenable situation even without McDaniel mucking things up with too much complexity in the players’ alignments and assignments, and Herbert has made things worse by forcing bad decisions under all the pressure that comes from starting as badly as they have and all the summer hype surrounding the McDaniel-Harbaugh-Herbert trio.
Harbaugh said earlier this week, “There are definitely times when [Herbert] was trying to make a play, and too many times this season, there’s been that desperation time. That’s what I’d attribute that to. Doing anything and everything he can.” It reminds me of when another former colleague and forever football nerd, Seth Galina, became the internet’s punching bag during Herbert’s OROY campaign because Galina said, simply and eloquently on my old podcast before the 2020 NFL draft, “He can’t play.” Of course, the sound bite was taken out of context, and Seth got dunked on repeatedly when Herbert took the league by storm with absurd box score stats and stellar play. But people forget that Galina said that because—under the bright lights, in the biggest moments, when the pressure was on—Herbert melted down at Oregon. Despite all of his physical gifts and robot-level mechanics, Herbert sucked in big spots. I was reminded of Galina’s one-liner on Sunday, too, when Herbert botched a QB sneak on fourth-and-1 and then threw an ugly interception right to a defender’s chest in the fourth quarter against Denver. But then I watched the tape afterward because I am a proud football nerd.
Look at the two screenshots from the sideline angle of the all-22 film. These are from the seconds before Herbert throws the backbreaking interception on fourth-and-6. Herbert’s throwing motion in the first screenshot starts with Broncos safety Brandon Jones’s back turned to the QB. Run the tape for one more frame (second screenshot), and you can see that Jones has brilliantly whipped his head around milliseconds before Herbert releases the football. It’s still a bad throw that Herbert probably needs to turn down, but it’s more of a fantastic play from the DB. Jones can’t see Herbert loading up the cannon before he turns his head around; Jones turns right when the receiver (hilariously, MVS in this case) makes his break to the sideline, which positions him perfectly for the easy interception. Sometimes you just have to tip your cap, to Jones on this play and to football nerds for fighting the good fight.
Meter Readers know I Photoshopped my head onto Kratos’s body on top of a black-and-white screenshot from Good Will Hunting last week in defense of Herbert. I remain unwavering, and now I am not alone.
What am I holding on to? That there's some good in this world, Mr. Frodo … and it’s worth fighting for.
Teams should be able to trade offensive and defensive coordinators.
How’s this for fake trade speculation? The NFL has never allowed teams to trade any coach or coordinator below the head coach, which is silly considering how important OCs and DCs are to the game today. The only way for the Chargers to move on from Mike McDaniel is to fire him. They’re in the same situation as:
- The Saints and DC Brandon Staley
- The Cowboys and DC Christian Parker
- The Lions and DC Kelvin Sheppard
- The Colts and DC Lou Anarumo
- The Eagles and OC Sean Mannion
- The Commanders and OC David Blough
- The Texans and OC Nick Caley
- The Titans and OC Brian Daboll
- The Dolphins and OC Bobby Slowik
- The Buccaneers and OC Zac Robinson
Teams have to either see their bad play callers through the end of the season or fire them midseason in the hope that someone below them knows what they’re doing (very rare). And the flip side is arguably worse. The teams that employ genius play callers get nothing in return when guys like Ben Johnson, Liam Coen, and Klint Kubiak move on to bigger, better opportunities. The game would completely change if (a) head coaches like Dan Campbell and Mike Macdonald could trade coaching talent for assets before their coordinators walk out the door and (b) teams with good rosters could risk assets to make an upgrade at coordinator before it was too late to save their seasons.
What if the Texans fired Caley and traded the package they sent the Cardinals for Marvin Harrison Jr. to the Chargers for McDaniel? Texans head coach DeMeco Ryans worked with McDaniel in San Francisco before McDaniel became the Miami Dolphins’ head coach in 2022, and Ryans has swung and missed on two OC hires already (Slowik and Caley). That trade can’t happen because of the NFL’s stupid rule, so we’re probably stuck watching the Texans struggle with Caley and the Chargers struggle with McDaniel until their seasons are over. The only reason this take isn’t an 11 is that this rule change would probably lead to some real nasty behavior in terms of blocking play callers from moving on to better jobs, and how confident are we in the fairness of the NFL’s current interview process? We shouldn’t be. Just ask Vikings DC Brian Flores, one of the best and highest-paid coordinators in the game.
The Texans got fleeced trading for a bust.
The only top-10 draft picks who have been traded within their first three NFL seasons since 2012 are RB Trent Richardson, CB Eli Apple, QB Trey Lance, QB Josh Rosen, CB C.J. Henderson, QB J.J. McCarthy, and now WR Marvin Harrison Jr. History would tell you that the Texans’ decision to fork over a second-round pick for Harrison was a mistake, and the film from his time in Arizona would tell you more of the same. ESPN’s Bill Barnwell, another GOATed football nerd, went deep on how bad MHJ has been with the Cardinals, and others have said he wasn’t supported in the way he wanted to be in Arizona. A now very public example of that is the Cardinals not buying Harrison the specific JUGS machine that he wanted, but I imagine that wasn’t an isolated issue for the second-worst (according to the NFLPA’s most recent report cards) employer in football.
If Harrison is ever going to live up to his original draft slot (fourth overall) or even the 2027 second-rounder that Houston just gave up for him, like Barnwell says, Harrison will need to be a completely different player. And even though really nothing MHJ has done since entering the league has given me any reason to believe that he can live up to all the hype (his Hall of Fame dad’s name included), I bet Harrison will be a completely different player in Houston. First, because the Texans are a better-run organization than the Cardinals by a significant margin, and also because Harrison’s supporting cast—led by Ryans, his former quarterback at Ohio State (C.J. Stroud), and a legit no. 1 receiver (Nico Collins)—will put him in his best position to succeed since he had over 1,200 yards and 14 touchdowns as a Buckeye with Stroud in 2022. To be clear, I don’t think Harrison will really ever become an elite separator with Deebo Samuel–esque YAC ability. Harrison has one of the worst YAC profiles of any first-round receiver since at least 2019. Harrison is a ball winner when he wants to be, and I think that’s what he’ll be with the Texans (if they just freakin’ buy him whatever JUGS machine he wants, please).
Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon should hire Nick Sirianni in 2027.
A Meter Reader DM’d me on IG to talk Pink Floyd and #CleanOutTheNest, two of my favorite foods for thought in October 2026. If you didn’t wake up for the Eagles’ 19-17 loss to the Jaguars in London on Sunday morning, the TLDR is that Nick Sirianni’s Eagles looked like shit again and lost another winnable game. Sirianni is seventh all-time in winning percentage among NFL head coaches with at least 80 games. He’s been to two Super Bowls and won one just two years ago. Yet this smart Reader (and maybe some non-readers, too) can’t even identify what Sirianni does for the team anymore, and the consensus among Eagles and non-Eagles fans, I’d argue, is that he needs the boot. But where would he even go? Would he take a gap year like Mike Vrabel did before joining the New England Patriots, Bill Belichick before UNC, Sean Payton before the Denver Broncos, possibly Sean McDermott and Mike Tomlin before new teams in 2027? Maybe. Gap years can be fun, especially if you’re paid millions for them. But if Sirianni coached a different team in 2027, who would be the best candidate? Well, the Reader actually had a good idea for that.
Sirianni was the Indianapolis Colts OC for three seasons (2018-20) under Frank Reich before he accepted the head coaching job in Philly. Part of me thinks Sirianni could even figure out how to turn current Colts head coach Shane Steichen, who was Sirianni’s OC during that Super Bowl appearance in 2022, back into an OC in Indy without a net-negative impact on the culture despite the demotion, but that could be impossible. The more likely scenario if Sirianni did go to Indianapolis in 2027 (one I’d be interested in Colts fans' reactions to, if you want to email me), is that Steichen goes elsewhere and Sirianni starts fresh across the board. What does a Sirianni-coached football team look like without Jalen Hurts, a dynamite offensive line, and a bunch of stars on defense? We’ve seen incomplete bits and pieces of it over the last two years, but not a clean slate. The Colts are barreling toward a top pick in the 2027 draft and are in desperate need of a clean slate after some frustratingly mediocre years with Steichen and almost a decade of roster mismanagement from GM Chris Ballard. Indy still has the Titans twice, the Dolphins, and Browns on their schedule. They’ll win more games. But Colts owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon has had a front-row seat to this team for five weeks; I imagine she can recognize this isn’t a competitive football team. Steichen, Ballard, and failed QB reclamation project Daniel Jones are all gone after this season, per Athletic Colts writer James Boyd, if they can’t right the ship, and I don’t expect them to. CIG’s next move will attract as much spotlight as she attracts herself every week by walking the sideline in bright, sparkly Colts blue. But I’m sure she knows that.
Irsay-Gordon draws a lot of attention mostly because she’s different. First of all, she’s not a man. Hold on to your seats here, but most NFL owners, executives, coaches—most of them are men. Secondly, she’s on the sideline of an NFL game—the most-watched product on TV—wearing essentially a Colts costume, her way of showing support for, uh, the team she owns. Where she’s the same as every other NFL owner, though, is less interesting. She’s a billionaire doing billionaire shit, which is code for whatever the hell a billionaire wants. The consensus, given the jokes I see copied on X a mile a minute every Sunday, is to yuck this billionaire’s yum even though loudly supporting your football team is very, very low on the list of disgusting billionaire yums. Why? Oh, you know exactly why, and I’m sure she does, too. Hiring Sirianni might be a disaster, maybe one she’ll never even consider, but something needs to change for the Colts in 2027. And CIG giving Sirianni a spin would at least get us closer to figuring out what the hell Sirianni even does.
Take II: Klint Kubiak is a top-five head coach.
Remember when I said first-year Las Vegas Raiders head coach Klint Kubiak was top-five at his job after getting embarrassed by better coaches in only his fourth game leading a team from the sideline? Well, that was stupid and cocky—maybe as stupid and cocky as when Kubiak said he was going to “win the game” while up by three at halftime against the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 4. Or when Kubiak took responsibility for his team not being “ready to go” after they showed up flatter than the Nevada desert in New England on Sunday and got completely outclassed in all three phases by, again, better coaches. Let’s do a quick-fire mini-meter to give a necessary updated list of my top head coaches until I can stomach placing Kubs again:
Mini-Meter: Top 13 NFL Head Coaches Right Now
- 49ers’ Kyle Shanahan: 9.6
- Rams’ Sean McVay: 9.5
- Seahawks’ Mike Macdonald: 9.5
- Chiefs’ Andy Reid: 9.4
- Bears’ Ben Johnson: 9.3
- Jaguars’ Liam Coen: 9.2
- Vikings’ Kevin O’Connell: 8.9
- Patriots’ Mike Vrabel: 8.8
- Lions’ Dan Campbell: 8.6
- Broncos’ Sean Payton: 8.3
- Falcons’ Kevin Stefanski: 8.0
- Panthers’ Dave Canales: 7.8
- Raiders’ Klint Kubiak: 7.5
The Rams are still the best team in football.
Before you throw that tomato and start booing, the betting market—you know, where you can put money where your mouth is—still has the 2-3 Los Angeles Rams tied with the undefeated San Francisco 49ers for the shortest odds to win the Super Bowl. Of course, most power rankings have the 49ers ranked first and the 4-0 Chiefs second. The Rams, mostly because of their win-loss record, aren’t even top six on any of those lists I linked. Still, not enough non-Rams money is entering the betting market to move Los Angeles off as the cofavorite with San Francisco to win the Lombardi, which is evidence that sharp bettors still view the Rams as one of the top teams to beat even though they’ve lost three of their first five. Why? I think it’s pretty simple.
Rams head coach Sean McVay already admitted that he fudged the travel plans to Australia in Week 1. That was their first loss. They lost two more games over the next four weeks by seven combined points: to the Broncos by four on the road in Week 3 and then to the Bills by three at home in OT after a missed Harrison Mevis field goal on Monday night. A couple more plays bounce the Rams’ way, and they’re 4-1. When star defensive end Myles Garrett returns from his injury (knee), Los Angeles will be even better. The market reflects that because the betting consensus acknowledges more than just wins and losses, and even though McVay has made a series of special teams blunders and Chris Shula’s defense has regressed, odds are the superteam Rams are still the best team in the NFL.
Kevin O’Connell is a Brian Flores whisperer, not a QB whisperer.
Kevin O’Connell’s inability to whisper enough good, smart things into QB Kyler Murray’s head to get him to play any differently than he’s ever played is driving me bonkers. No 5-0 team this century has had a worse offense by EPA per drive or success rate than this year’s Vikings (which of course includes some sad Carson Wentz dropbacks). The offense sucks partly for reasons that other offenses suck, including injuries (OT Christian Darrisaw, TE TJ Hockenson, WR Jordan Addison) and the new QB reclamation project not panning out. But KOC is supposed to be a QB whisperer, right? Coveted for his ability to maximize, if not transcend, quarterback talent. I’m ready to bury “QB whisperer” as a term right here and now. It doesn’t actually mean anything tangible, and it’s usually applied to guys who coached under McVay or Shanahan at some point. KOC doesn’t deserve that tired moniker—because his whispers to superstar DC Brian Flores are more valuable than anything O’Connell has said to any QB he’s ever coached.
O’Connell hired Flores in 2023, gave him ownership over the defense, and is 5-0 right now because of it. Flores hasn’t let off the gas since Week 1; his defense leads the NFL in pretty much every important metric (EPA, points, yards). O’Connell and Murray are undefeated while achieving historically bad offensive efficiency because Flores has saved their asses on the other side of the ball, which O’Connell (not Murray) deserves more credit for than I initially was willing to give him. Even if Flores eventually leaves Minnesota for another gig, O’Connell’s willingness to give someone else complete ownership of their side of the ball will help attract other in-demand defensive play callers if/when that time comes. Not a lot of head coaches have that trait, and most other “QB whisperers” are just hiding behind the bit until everyone finally catches on.
The Packers are back.
The Green Bay Packers are alive, not back. They might have just played the easiest matchups they’ll get all season, and I’m including the Jeff Hafley revenge game in Lambeau on December 20. In their past two games, the Pack packed up two backup quarterbacks, first Tampa Bay Buccaneers undrafted rookie Jalon Daniels in his first career start, and then the Bears’ Tyson Bagent. Green Bay narrowly beat Daniels and the Bucs by three, and they blew out the Bears. Bagent gave the game away with turnovers, and the Chicago defense is in this cluster of bad units that can get bullied by good offenses, such as the Carolina Panthers in Week 1 and the Packers on Sunday. Green Bay is only a 1.5-point home favorite over the Cowboys this Sunday and a 3.5-point underdog in Detroit in Week 7; those games are as winnable as they are losable. Victory Mondays are great, but they last only one day out of the week.
Green Bay is still one of the most injured teams in football and has no run game, a bad offensive line, and a struggling defense without Micah Parsons (knee), LB Edgerrin Cooper (Achilles), and now DT Javon Hargrave (Achilles). The Packers are going to need to win (probably in a shootout considering both defenses) against Dak Prescott and the Cowboys before I can crown them as “back” in any way.
Dan Quinn is 100 percent at fault for Washington’s tie-bacle.
I’ve watched the stupid goddamn play as much as anyone because (1) every sports show on the planet has been talking about it nonstop for days and (2) I just can’t look away, like the infected in Bird Box.
On Sunday, in the heat of the moment, I wanted Dan Quinn fired. Days removed, I really want Quinn fired. The people who are shifting blame to Commanders QB Jayden Daniels, people like Cowboys All-Pro Micah Parsons, are right to do so. Daniels’s lack of awareness in that situation is an ick we probably can’t ever unsee as football watchers or Madden players. But, like I said about Justin Herbert last week, it’s not his fault. And Kratos is always ready to throw hands (and blades).
After Daniels completed the pass to WR Treylon Burks, getting Washington to the Giants’ 28-yard line with about a minute to go in OT and no timeouts, Quinn should have told his OC David Blough and Daniels to run one more play and then quickly prepare to spike the football with however many seconds left because the clock doesn’t matter after both teams have already had possessions in overtime. Instead, Quinn and Blough watched Daniels snap the ball with 12 seconds left and the offense simultaneously collapse. It looked like a broken, confused play, and Daniels panicked into a boneheaded slide. If you’re the head coach of an NFL team, a professional football team of professional football players, there is ZERO—none, nada, zilch—excuse for an entire unit to do what they did and look how they looked in the final minute of a tie game in overtime. Anyone, including Parsons, who is saying Daniels got Quinn fired on Sunday might be right, but only because Quinn’s incompetence was so severe that football fans watched something they’d probably never seen before … over and over and over for a week. Watch the play 1,000 times and you might blame Daniels because you need another QB take to get your numbers up. Watch all of the Commanders games, and you’ll realize the truth is usually boring and that Quinn, Blough, and the rest of the staff simply have to go.
Woah, you made it to the bottom. Reward yourself by emailing me at takeometer@spotify.com.
