Speaker 1: They are around the NFL podcast Wishes You were Cooler?
Speaker 1: From the Chris Westling podcast studio. It's around the NFL.
Speaker 1: I am Dan Hansis.
Speaker 2: I think you're pretty cool. Listener Mark Cecler Greg Rosenthal says.
Speaker 3: I'd imagine there was a few people that heard that
Speaker 3: and felt that it was aimed at them appropriately.
Speaker 4: Right, It couldn't be talking about us, though. The Jacket
Speaker 4: Bros are coming strong to Jack Brows cool.
Speaker 1: Dad's Jack Bros. You guys are total Jack Bros. That's
Speaker 1: the way I look at it. That's a good nickname.
Speaker 3: I don't want it, the clothing thing to become a
Speaker 3: like a day by day insurrection, because I just want
Speaker 3: to wear this sometimes just because I don't want to
Speaker 3: wear other stuff.
Speaker 1: When Levi comes out, though, there's a different cess energy.
Speaker 1: We've talked about this. You got the when faded Denim
Speaker 1: Levi comes out, look Out rock and rolls in the building.
Speaker 5: You've issued that they were morning for that.
Speaker 1: I want to say before we get into everything, including
Speaker 1: a little fly on the Wall and NFL facilities here
Speaker 1: in the off season. Some news I declare vengeance and
Speaker 1: it's been a while on late week news, dumps in
Speaker 1: the off season. How dare you Arizona Cardinals on so
Speaker 1: many levels, release DeAndre Hopkins after we complete taping Thursday
Speaker 1: and just let us steal on our own mess Thursday
Speaker 1: afternoon all through Friday through.
Speaker 2: A holiday weekend. Are you kidding me?
Speaker 1: Vengeance declared you do it on Monday morning, nine am
Speaker 1: East Coast time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they're not understanding how media works. I know that personally.
Speaker 3: I'm with you on this. On the Vengeance streak, we
Speaker 3: found out as we you know, just after we wrapped
Speaker 3: our show on Thursday, and it's one of the situation
Speaker 3: where I was stuck in like a thicket of traffic
Speaker 3: and I thought, there's a world here. We're going to
Speaker 3: say this is such big news that you know, circle
Speaker 3: the wagons, go back, get back on screen Yard you
Speaker 3: were worried about that text, absolutely, just like this could
Speaker 3: bubble into more.
Speaker 1: Work, like the guys that did the Roquan Smith emergency podcast.
Speaker 2: This could be a situation.
Speaker 4: Well, it's the off season, and I don't like stewing
Speaker 4: in my own juices, but sometimes it's it's good for
Speaker 4: the juices.
Speaker 6: Stewing your own.
Speaker 1: Juice somehow even grosser, but so just be mindful of
Speaker 1: that NFL transaction wire. We're all in this together ultimately,
Speaker 1: and we don't like getting scooped.
Speaker 5: Oh, it's unrewarding.
Speaker 4: I actually conducted multiple podcasts that I wasn't recording, but
Speaker 4: I just had to like get the juices out, get
Speaker 4: it out. You just talked DeAndre Hopkins by myself ring
Speaker 4: out the underpants in my garage that it's not worthy.
Speaker 5: A little strange and lonely life. Greg.
Speaker 1: Yes, so we are going to get into all that
Speaker 1: because that is timing aside, a very nice morsel of
Speaker 1: information and speculation to get into around suddenly a number
Speaker 1: one wide receiver? Is he kind of maybe suddenly hitting
Speaker 1: the market.
Speaker 2: But first, yes, we're going to get to that and
Speaker 2: everything else in the news.
Speaker 4: Shot up Murray out of the pocket seven seconds, six seconds, Murray's.
Speaker 2: Hopkins, No the hell.
Speaker 1: Mary from Kyler Murray and what a play by Murray,
Speaker 1: uh to DeAndre Hopkins to beat the Bills in happier
Speaker 1: times for Arizona. The Bills, by the way, we probably
Speaker 1: took notice of that as they formulate how to handle
Speaker 1: their wide receiver room in the next days and weeks.
Speaker 1: But yes, the Arizona Cardinals and DeAndre Hopkins are no
Speaker 1: more because the official release came down on Friday with
Speaker 1: a team announcement. His future had been in question since
Speaker 1: the end of twenty twenty two. He had a nearly
Speaker 1: thirty one million dollar cap hit, the most among any
Speaker 1: wide receivers in the NFL, seventh highest overall, And the
Speaker 1: Cardinals said, we're gonna eat it. We're gonna eat the pain,
Speaker 1: and you could greg, you could follow, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about teams that make sense, but you could follow
Speaker 1: again the path of what Arizona's doing this year, which
Speaker 1: is we could try to figure out something to spread
Speaker 1: this out or make a deal that makes sense and
Speaker 1: allows us more financial flexibility, but we're not trying to
Speaker 1: really win this year, So we're gonna swallow the pain
Speaker 1: move on. And for a guy and Hopkins who arrived
Speaker 1: with so much fanfare three seasons ago, and when the
Speaker 1: Cardinals pilfer the Texans and that trade once upon a
Speaker 1: time for him now to go out the door for
Speaker 1: nothing in return and narry a playoff win, it feels
Speaker 1: a little empty at the end.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the entire Kyler Murray era, which DeAndre Hopkins was
Speaker 4: such a big part feels a little empty. That one
Speaker 4: playoff appearance we were at them getting blown out Murray Magic,
Speaker 4: which we just heard was kind of the highlight of
Speaker 4: this era, and them taking the pain now really surprised
Speaker 4: me because they have twenty one million dollars in dead
Speaker 4: cap money with DeAndre Hopkins's release, and if they had
Speaker 4: waited till June first, it is a rare time where
Speaker 4: they would have had to wait because they already used
Speaker 4: their first two pre June first designations. You only get
Speaker 4: two that you can just use before it's actually June first.
Speaker 4: But they said, if this guy's got to keep going
Speaker 4: on podcasts and basically talking about like he wants to
Speaker 4: get out of here, what are we doing here?
Speaker 6: He doesn't have.
Speaker 4: Any our quarterback, right, maybe we'll just throw it out
Speaker 4: there at the end or the beginning of a holiday week.
Speaker 4: And the transaction isn't official even as we're taping this,
Speaker 4: which is just shy of four pm Eastern on Tuesday,
Speaker 4: it should be official.
Speaker 6: Then it won't be official till the very end of
Speaker 6: the weekend.
Speaker 4: So if some team wanted to step up and actually
Speaker 4: trade for him in between, they could, But I think
Speaker 4: they were confident that wasn't gonna happen. It doesn't seem
Speaker 4: like that is going to happen. Nobody wants DeAndre Hopkins
Speaker 4: at that price, and so they just like, you're right,
Speaker 4: make as strong a statement as they have so far
Speaker 4: that they're essentially not trying to win this year.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's a full on rebuild.
Speaker 3: And I think that was clear prior to this move
Speaker 3: because DeAndre Hopkins hung out on that roster and it
Speaker 3: just didn't make a lot of sense. And yes, I
Speaker 3: think his own words hastened the process here. And it
Speaker 3: also tells me that, you know, we've seen this before.
Speaker 3: There wasn't intense There are teams interested, we know that,
Speaker 3: and we'll get into it, but there was not intense
Speaker 3: interest in taking on his salary. I mean, it's not
Speaker 3: that the Cardinals didn't try to trade him, but they
Speaker 3: couldn't move. They couldn't make it happen. It doesn't look
Speaker 3: great for them, but I think teams knew that ultimately
Speaker 3: Arizona at some point would have to hit the ejector
Speaker 3: seat button and they'd have a chance to get DeAndre
Speaker 3: Hopkins in the open market.
Speaker 1: And this is a learning lesson for all of us
Speaker 1: because it happens a lot in this league where a
Speaker 1: decorated veteran is on the trade block, and we do
Speaker 1: remember its doing an episode a couple months ago. We're like,
Speaker 1: all right, what would he fetch? Oh yeah, late first
Speaker 1: round pick maybe, And then things play out and you
Speaker 1: see the market isn't what you expect, and yeah, financially,
Speaker 1: there's a reason for that. There is a ped suspension.
Speaker 1: That's a reason for that. You talk to certain people
Speaker 1: that follow the game closely. Even though somebody like JJ
Speaker 1: Watt comes out and says this guy still has the
Speaker 1: best hands in the league, there are some deeper under
Speaker 1: the hood numbers that reflect he's not as good in
Speaker 1: man to man anymore.
Speaker 2: He doesn't maybe have the speed yet used to have.
Speaker 1: So you factor all those things together and the trade
Speaker 1: value we expected to have isn't there.
Speaker 2: That's it. Greg.
Speaker 1: However, I think it is fair to give this Arizona
Speaker 1: regime some heat because there had to be a better
Speaker 1: way to play this if you were going forward without Hopkins,
Speaker 1: whether it was the trade deadline last year or figuring
Speaker 1: out something before this happened, and they just didn't do it.
Speaker 1: And I just think, once again, I think when you
Speaker 1: make the list of what organizations feel like it's a
Speaker 1: little loose at the steering wheel.
Speaker 2: The Cardinals are that team to me right.
Speaker 4: Well, Hopkins talking about how he wanted stable front office
Speaker 4: management at his next place got me thinking of, like,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, he went through the Bill O'Brien Jackie Easterby
Speaker 4: mess in Houston and then went to the Steve Kaime
Speaker 4: debacle in Arizona's Then you know, I guess he was
Speaker 4: working for Fox Sports. So people have seen Steve kay
Speaker 4: Steve Kaiine, but he disappeared for a little while in
Speaker 4: during that season. They they weren't run well. He was suspended,
Speaker 4: so they couldn't really trade him during last season. And
Speaker 4: I think what's key is when he returned, he wasn't
Speaker 4: the same player. He averaged eleven point two yards per catch,
Speaker 4: that tied for the lowest in his career. He's not
Speaker 4: as explosive. I think he can still be a number two.
Speaker 4: And I think the Cardinals this offseason, with their new
Speaker 4: GM Monte Austin, for probably did blow it in some
Speaker 4: way because, at least according to our insiders, trade talks
Speaker 4: were heating up previously and basically if they got any
Speaker 4: trade offer and they didn't execute that trade before the draft.
Speaker 4: They messed up because something would have been better than nothing.
Speaker 4: Maybe it was just a fourth round pick or something
Speaker 4: like that. Maybe Hopkins's side made it seem like, we're
Speaker 4: not going to renegotiate unless we get released, and so
Speaker 4: there might be more to this story, and the Cardinals'
Speaker 4: hands were tied.
Speaker 3: I do think that the new front office did a
Speaker 3: nice job in the draft, basically lining up for the future.
Speaker 3: But to your point, like, if it was clear that
Speaker 3: you're not going to get that first round pick or
Speaker 3: a second round pick for this player, why not hold
Speaker 3: out in a way to get literally anything you can?
Speaker 3: And there were teams interested. I mean, I think that
Speaker 3: his financials made them a tough trade for the team.
Speaker 5: To be on the receiving end.
Speaker 6: Those Chiefs have been the They're the two that are
Speaker 6: the reported, but.
Speaker 3: The Bills and Chiefs, I think this probably got in
Speaker 3: the way. And I know that the cap means literally
Speaker 3: nothing anymore. It doesn't really matter financially on any level.
Speaker 3: But if you go to over the cap, they are
Speaker 3: the second and third least amount of money to have
Speaker 3: to spend right now. So I think, like what his
Speaker 3: contract would have demanded would have required a lot of
Speaker 3: dance around that and figuring that out.
Speaker 1: Yes, and Burt Brier of Sports Illustrated wrote today that
Speaker 1: hopkins interest in Hopkins is quote very tepid from teams
Speaker 1: and that he may have to choose between quote taking
Speaker 1: the bag and chasing a ring. And also Bert wrote
Speaker 1: that the Odell Beckham signing by Baltimore, which raised a
Speaker 1: lot of eyebrows for how much Beckham got considering his
Speaker 1: recent injury history and having not played last year, that
Speaker 1: spooked other teams from wanting to be involved with Hopkins here,
Speaker 1: so you know. An anonymous executive also wrote told Breer
Speaker 1: he can't run anymore, so there are teams that are
Speaker 1: aware of getting into business with a guy in the wrongs.
Speaker 2: I think it's worth the gamble.
Speaker 1: I think the Bills makes so much sense to give
Speaker 1: Hopkins some run here. He doesn't have to be the
Speaker 1: number one guy with Diggs there. As long as you
Speaker 1: keep Diggs happy. Mahomes obviously is going to make any
Speaker 1: wide receiver better and squeeze everything out of him. It
Speaker 1: makes a lot of sense for him on a lot
Speaker 1: of teams. With those two teams, I'd still be surprised
Speaker 1: if it's not one.
Speaker 3: Apparently, what's happening a little bit in an arms race
Speaker 3: type scenario is that Buffalo wants him. There's interest in
Speaker 3: the Chiefs want him, but they definitely don't want the
Speaker 3: other team to get them. They're just mostly interested that
Speaker 3: the chief the Chiefs don't want the Bills getting him.
Speaker 5: The Bills don't want the Chiefs getting him.
Speaker 3: And the Chiefs of all's reporting that inside the building
Speaker 3: they view Kadarius Tony as a fairly legitimate number one
Speaker 3: if they don't get him.
Speaker 4: I mean, Kadarius Tony's never been healthy, Kadarius Tony's never
Speaker 4: been productive. That is quite a projection any other roster
Speaker 4: by it's like a smoke screen a little bit. I
Speaker 4: love Tony, by the way, I've been talking of Tony
Speaker 4: since he got DRNK. I love him, but it's it's
Speaker 4: a little much. Any other roster that you looked at
Speaker 4: Valdas scantleing Kadarius Tony, Sky Moore and Rashi Rice as
Speaker 4: your top four, you would be killing them for Like,
Speaker 4: why aren't you giving Patrick Mahomes more help? I know
Speaker 4: they have Kelsey, you have a great a very good
Speaker 4: offensive line. Maybe great and you have Andy Reid. I'm
Speaker 4: not personally worried, but they do have a major need,
Speaker 4: and I think the Bills have a need to. I
Speaker 4: mean he would fit in great as a number. Two
Speaker 4: complicating factors though, is that uh, I want to call
Speaker 4: him a vixen, but men can't be vixen. What do
Speaker 4: we call st st omni ominous? I mean it's the
Speaker 4: it's the agent who's not really an agent that the
Speaker 4: NFL has been telling, don't dashing. I mean I want
Speaker 4: a more foreboding, a man biscuit, man biscuit. I mean
Speaker 4: he could look like me. Well, I mean maybe I
Speaker 4: am a man, a little man biscuit. I love a
Speaker 4: little snack on you.
Speaker 6: What's better than a biscuit?
Speaker 4: I h I don't know what's up with the Saint
Speaker 4: Omny thing.
Speaker 6: Though he's so he doesn't have a real agent.
Speaker 4: Teams, according to Pro Football Talk, are anxious or worried
Speaker 4: about emailing hopkins Is representatives.
Speaker 6: There's an update Omne is involved. It's very strange.
Speaker 3: Just before the show Always Hired with DeAndre Hopkins hired
Speaker 3: agent Calton cren show up Clutch Sports, Okay, Clutch with
Speaker 3: a K Clutch with a C for you for digging
Speaker 3: up that little nug sure timely. Well, we don't want
Speaker 3: to get banged again like we did last show.
Speaker 6: Well what's up? Why do they who?
Speaker 2: What?
Speaker 6: I want to know what Saint Omne is doing behind
Speaker 6: the scenes, though.
Speaker 2: Mark don't ask questions.
Speaker 4: Because he's It's not like he's not getting it done.
Speaker 4: He got he helped get Rokewan Smith deal done. He
Speaker 4: helped get Laramie tunsel Uh one of the highest paid
Speaker 4: players in the NFL done. Says there's something that Saint
Speaker 4: Omne is doing that's really speaking to the people.
Speaker 3: I mean, he's also given himself a great name.
Speaker 1: In other news, also something I dropped Thursday after our show,
Speaker 1: the Athletics to Sean Reid reported that Jimmy Garoppolo, recently
Speaker 1: signed quarterback of the Raiders, underwent foot surgery after signing
Speaker 1: with the team. He's expected to miss Yes, this is
Speaker 1: the same Garoppolo who is always hurt, always when he's
Speaker 1: on the field. Put him in a good situation. He's
Speaker 1: a performer. When he's hurt, he can't help you. And
Speaker 1: he's always hurt and he's out for Rotier's Reid reported
Speaker 1: that Jimmy G's recovery timeline is unknown that there's a
Speaker 1: sense of the team is confident he'll be ready to
Speaker 1: play for the start of the regular.
Speaker 2: Season, but we don't know. They don't know.
Speaker 1: And then your boy Greggy, your old boss Florio did
Speaker 1: some dingy digging, got his hands on that contract and
Speaker 1: reported and a good job by PFT here that Garoppolo
Speaker 1: can be released without penalty by the Raiders this summer
Speaker 1: because of that foot injury. So if it's a situation
Speaker 1: in the where it's not progressing, they can just bail
Speaker 1: entirely out of the Garoppolo situation. Feels like kind of
Speaker 1: a disaster potentially for the Raiders here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well that's so.
Speaker 3: That's the thing they did business wise, which you just mentioned,
Speaker 3: was this addendum G inside the contract that created all
Speaker 3: this triple agility.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Sure, like so this is a disaster win waiting they
Speaker 3: Jared's didn't walked out the door, had a one great
Speaker 3: game and then one not so great game last year.
Speaker 3: Brian Hoyer is your backup quarterback. He's thirty seven years old,
Speaker 3: and you have a rookie eight and O'Connell is the
Speaker 3: only other quarterback on the roster right now, Arson Well,
Speaker 3: and so actually young Turner, Scott Turner is their pass
Speaker 3: game coordinator. So that either says now, I'm gonna tell
Speaker 3: everyone definitely don't get Carson Wentz or I've at least
Speaker 3: worked with him, or.
Speaker 6: You know there is a partial owner there.
Speaker 2: Well, that's the other certain guy.
Speaker 6: Tom Brady.
Speaker 4: The rules of the NFL are that you can't be
Speaker 4: a partial owner and also be a player unless it's
Speaker 4: approved by the other thirty one owners and there's contractual.
Speaker 2: Why would anybody in the AFC West exactly.
Speaker 4: So I don't think that would fly if this thing
Speaker 4: is as official as they say. It's crazy though, because
Speaker 4: the day Jimmy g was signed, you know, they did
Speaker 4: the press conference. If you guys remember, it was delayed
Speaker 4: a day and then it was delayed the next day,
Speaker 4: and it was all because of this is DNMG. They
Speaker 4: he was in the building, he got there, and they
Speaker 4: failed him on the physical.
Speaker 6: It's kind of it. That's going to be an award.
Speaker 4: It must have been an awkward twenty four hours there,
Speaker 4: and they were like, Oh, it's no big deal, we're
Speaker 4: just crossing Tea's dot and eyes. Nothing to worry about.
Speaker 4: Whereas there was totally something to worry about. He should
Speaker 4: have gotten that surgery right after the season, but I
Speaker 4: guess he was trying to avoid it happening. Remember it
Speaker 4: was the same injury that why he missed all that time, and.
Speaker 3: A surgery timeline was weird the first Yeah, they said, oh,
Speaker 3: he might be able to return for the NFC Title
Speaker 3: Game or the Super Bowl.
Speaker 2: The advance been.
Speaker 4: Playing the Super Bowl. I think that's what banged them.
Speaker 4: They thought, if we have a chance for him to
Speaker 4: play in the Super Bowl, he would But.
Speaker 1: Now, so you were going to bench rock party on
Speaker 1: a heater for the guy with the bet, let's stick
Speaker 1: a pin in all that talks.
Speaker 2: It's going to come up a little bit later.
Speaker 1: Finally in the news John Gruden, Greg, do you remember
Speaker 1: John Gruden?
Speaker 4: One of the central figures I would say, of this
Speaker 4: podcast for its first seven years as a broadcaster in
Speaker 4: a big spot, A lot of different opinions on Gruden
Speaker 4: as a broadcaster. We talked about it a lot, and
Speaker 4: then of course as the richest coach in NFL history
Speaker 4: at the time for.
Speaker 1: The Raiders, Hard Knocks star as well. So yeah, his
Speaker 1: DNA is everywhere on this show. But he also kind
Speaker 1: of got himself run out of the league.
Speaker 4: I like me bringing him up as if the audience
Speaker 4: has no idea who's done.
Speaker 2: So you never know. People.
Speaker 1: Probably Gruden got run out of the league during in
Speaker 1: the middle of his tenure as head coaches of the Raiders.
Speaker 2: After he came out of retirement.
Speaker 1: There are the Raiders again because of some emails that
Speaker 1: surfaced that had some you know, inappropriate language. We can say,
Speaker 1: yeah it was it was racist language. I don't remember
Speaker 1: exactly what it was. I'm not trying to pussy foot around.
Speaker 2: It, but it was.
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, it was enough to get him fired,
Speaker 1: like right before they played a game in the middle
Speaker 1: of the season. So Gruden has been laying low for
Speaker 1: a couple of years. No Corona commercials, you knowice that
Speaker 1: one away as well.
Speaker 5: Yeah, but sponsorship usually follows when I'm.
Speaker 2: Sure there was probably a board meeting for the Corona
Speaker 2: Beer Company.
Speaker 6: I don't think a long one.
Speaker 1: I think they did a vote. It was like seven
Speaker 1: to five, and they're like, all right, we got to
Speaker 1: get rid of them.
Speaker 5: You're going.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: Kudos to the to the lady in the corner who
Speaker 4: was like, what do you guys think about replacing him
Speaker 4: with Snoop Dog and Andy Samberg.
Speaker 6: They're like, actually, that'd be great.
Speaker 1: I mean I love Snoop, but Snoop not a sterling
Speaker 1: record either. Like when you look at like his past,
Speaker 1: so it's true they like Dancing with the Devil a little.
Speaker 4: Bit, that's accurate, But you put Samberg. I mean, I
Speaker 4: love Snoop. Where we're right across from his clothing store.
Speaker 4: He's actually got two clothing stores in the same mini
Speaker 4: mall in which I get Jamaican.
Speaker 6: Have you once a week? Have you shopped there? I
Speaker 6: never shopped there.
Speaker 4: Is it a clothing stores that sell those dolls? The
Speaker 4: it's clothing pop thing? Now, I've walked by it enough.
Speaker 1: It's clothing, But there's pop figures in there, because I
Speaker 1: think that's what the line is for.
Speaker 2: There's lines outside the building. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well when I I looked in, I just saw out
Speaker 1: they're figurines. They're like collectible figurines called pops figures.
Speaker 5: Really, I mean I mostly saw we'll do some digging on.
Speaker 4: You know, sneakers, some you know, shirts, sweatshirts, whatnot. I
Speaker 4: have not gone in, but I do appreciate they put
Speaker 4: the sound system with speakers outside outside the shop, and
Speaker 4: it gives that a hell of a career.
Speaker 6: That's good vibe to the whole Mini mom.
Speaker 5: Can I just sorry?
Speaker 3: People are lining up for for dolls, for figures.
Speaker 1: What kind of what does the they are? It's a
Speaker 1: brand is Funko. They're pop figures. My sons have some.
Speaker 1: They're they're like ten twenty dollars and they're specialty ones
Speaker 1: that are even more valuable. They're collectible items, okay, and
Speaker 1: they're kind of like think cabbage Patch kids and a
Speaker 1: new generation where people.
Speaker 6: I always thought they keep them in the box and
Speaker 6: the whole thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, Now I could be wrong, but there's like pictures
Speaker 1: and photos all right, let's.
Speaker 2: Get back Well they look pretty cool anyway.
Speaker 1: Gruden has come out of hiding, uh and the Saints
Speaker 1: are responsible for it. They bring in Grooted to help
Speaker 1: Derek Carr, his former quarterback during his Raiders run, and
Speaker 1: the offensive coaching staff under Dennis Allen. Nola reported this
Speaker 1: on Friday. So Carr and Gruden mark have a connection there,
Speaker 1: and I would imagine Gruden wants to be back in
Speaker 1: the mix in some way and this would be a
Speaker 1: first step toward that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I find it.
Speaker 3: I mean, I get why it's happening from a football angle.
Speaker 5: You know, it's been a while since we've seen John Gruden.
Speaker 3: I find it interesting that a year ago the Saints
Speaker 3: offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael kind of shrugged off wanting to
Speaker 3: do larger duties, and now he's bringing in a consultant
Speaker 3: to teach someone essentially his offense. It's not that the
Speaker 3: offense that Gruden teaches is not vastly different from what
Speaker 3: the Saints do, but I guess if it's anything you
Speaker 3: can do to make Derek Carr feel a little more comfortable,
Speaker 3: to surround him with, you know, a coach that he knows,
Speaker 3: I always I find it also interesting because I spent
Speaker 3: most of the car Raiders gruden tenure not really believing
Speaker 3: that Gruden was all in on Derek Carr.
Speaker 4: True, I think it's just Dennis Allen doing a solid
Speaker 4: yeah for a guy who reportedly wants to get back
Speaker 4: into the league, and this is a little bit of
Speaker 4: a trial ball doing how much blowback do we get?
Speaker 4: I asked a little bit just I'm curious if the
Speaker 4: Saints would hire him. It doesn't sound like they're hiring
Speaker 4: him necessarily but it's just someone who Gruden, who clearly
Speaker 4: wants back in, and this is a friend of his
Speaker 4: giving him a solid I mean, Greg Williams got back
Speaker 4: in the league pretty quickly, very different circumstances. Yeah, but
Speaker 4: it's just saying it's an old boys network where nothing
Speaker 4: would surprise me when it comes to in the NFL.
Speaker 4: Might the NFL might exert whatever power they have on
Speaker 4: not wanting John Gruden into the league. Though John Gruden
Speaker 4: versus Roger Goodell and the NFL was a bubbling legal battle.
Speaker 4: I think it might still be going on in the
Speaker 4: Nevada courts.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And just by way of a backstory, Gruden made the
Speaker 1: very like kind of boomer Dad mistake of just writing
Speaker 1: freely in an email, a company email connected to former
Speaker 1: Washington general manager Bruce Allen.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: And in the emails there's uses of misogynistic, racist, anti
Speaker 1: LGBTQ language, complaining about the league hiring women as referees,
Speaker 1: teams drafting gay players, players protesting the national anthem.
Speaker 2: It was just like, bro, are you serious?
Speaker 1: Like from like John Gruden at Raiders dot com to
Speaker 1: Bruce Allen at Washington dot com, Come on, guys, Washington
Speaker 1: dot com.
Speaker 4: And they I believe they kind of they had a
Speaker 4: falling out, Bruce Allen and John Gruden because Allen got
Speaker 4: buried as part of all this.
Speaker 1: Right, and that only came to it wasn't an investigation
Speaker 1: of Gruden, even which is I think Gruden led to
Speaker 1: some legal action. It was an investigation of Washington's team
Speaker 1: that uncovered Gruden's comments that then were leaked or got
Speaker 1: out there and away we go.
Speaker 2: Anyway, that's what's happening in the news. Let's take a
Speaker 2: break and fly in the wall time. Oh god, how
Speaker 2: annoying flies? Annoying?
Speaker 6: Yeah, they are all right, welcome back, good fly talk.
Speaker 4: I'm struggling to get rid of some flies in the
Speaker 4: new uh the new house.
Speaker 2: Such it's aunt season two where I live.
Speaker 1: Once, you know, the the weather springtime hits, they start
Speaker 1: migrating in the house and you just can't get rid of.
Speaker 5: What do you like jars of like open jams sitting around.
Speaker 1: I got two young children. Well I'll do it, and
Speaker 1: not now a dog. But maybe the dog can help.
Speaker 5: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't dogs train me to just lap up ants.
Speaker 1: Maybe you'll, you know, develop a taste for them.
Speaker 5: Feels like anti dog behavior.
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably fly on the wall.
Speaker 1: So there are things that we know in our league
Speaker 1: that are reported or that teams and players or players
Speaker 1: and coaches in front office people will publicly state. And
Speaker 1: then there are the real conversations that are happening behind
Speaker 1: closed doors at the team facility. And this segment is
Speaker 1: our way of kind of giving you a little bit
Speaker 1: more information or speculation on what those conversations might be. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then we discuss. That's that's the segment.
Speaker 6: That's how you I want to see you start this thing, and.
Speaker 1: I would like to actually defer to you. I'm going
Speaker 1: to defer to you Greg to start.
Speaker 6: I think it is.
Speaker 4: It's quite sure of the tone and how we're totally
Speaker 4: doing this solthough we've done it in the.
Speaker 2: Past, So just have some fun with it.
Speaker 4: I am a fly on the wall. Those beady eyes
Speaker 4: don't swat at me. In Green Bay, right near Lambeaufield.
Speaker 4: Pretty special. How you know the practice facility right next
Speaker 4: to the field, right next to the stadium.
Speaker 6: It's all one. It's just a small town.
Speaker 2: It's good.
Speaker 4: It's a really unique thing about the NFL. Well, I'm
Speaker 4: a fly in Wisconsin and I'm listening to what Matt
Speaker 4: Lafleur is talking about when it comes to Jordan Love
Speaker 4: in all of his young weapons. And I'm curious if
Speaker 4: this fly is really picking up on the anxiety in
Speaker 4: Matt Lafleur's voice.
Speaker 6: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I want to be a fly there to find out
Speaker 4: how confident he really is in this young quarterback, how
Speaker 4: confident he is in himself famously called the you know,
Speaker 4: the young bearded boy by Keith Hansis. This is when
Speaker 4: we find out if he's really a man as a coach.
Speaker 4: There's no Aaron Rodgers. There's a quarterback who's been as
Speaker 4: up and down when he's played in the preseason, in
Speaker 4: little regular season action as any quarterback possible. Tons of
Speaker 4: great plays, tons of head scratching plays. But it's not
Speaker 4: Jordan Love surrounded by a team of veterans to help
Speaker 4: pick him up. It's surrounded by the youngest skill position talent,
Speaker 4: especially at receiver, in the entire league. They're going to
Speaker 4: be playing Christian Watson, Romeo Dobbs, who are second year players,
Speaker 4: Jaden Reid, a rookie, and then at tight end two
Speaker 4: more rookies, Luke Musgrave and Tucker Kraft and so they've
Speaker 4: been on the field now for just a couple of weeks.
Speaker 4: We're just starting OTAs, and as a fly on the wall,
Speaker 4: I would just love to hear the real talk between
Speaker 4: Lafleur and his coaching staff of where he really thinks
Speaker 4: Jordan Love is right now and where he really thinks
Speaker 4: these wide receivers are right now, because I think you
Speaker 4: can find out a lot early and whether he's that
Speaker 4: confident and frankly just by the tone of his voice,
Speaker 4: because my fly is particularly smart, like how much self
Speaker 4: confidence he really is that he's going to show the
Speaker 4: league that he's the guy who's been leading these thirteen
Speaker 4: win seasons.
Speaker 5: Now, I like this, This is good fly work.
Speaker 3: I would say that I think like you have a
Speaker 3: star potentially in Christian Watson and Dobbs showed a lot too,
Speaker 3: and I think if you're you're maybe walking around with
Speaker 3: a little bit more of a strut and a little
Speaker 3: more confidence because you ultimately won this battle with Aaron Rodgers.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like Aaron Rodgers sort of controlling
Speaker 3: the coaching staff as as he's want to do, and
Speaker 3: you know, all this offseason drama year after year, it's
Speaker 3: a it's I think if you're a fair minded Packers fan,
Speaker 3: you'd say, we're resetting. We don't know what Jordan Love is.
Speaker 3: There isn't actually high expectations of Jordan Love at this point.
Speaker 3: We understand that he's got a young offense around him.
Speaker 3: It almost, if anything, buys Matt Lafleur time, where the
Speaker 3: narrative before was like, yeah, you can win in the
Speaker 3: regular season, but come every January you get axed and
Speaker 3: you're the coach that can't seem to win these playoff games.
Speaker 3: And now it's like, we know that your talented, you're
Speaker 3: a good coach. You it's your job to show what
Speaker 3: you can do in a young quarterback. And I don't
Speaker 3: think there's an expectation has to happen starting in Week one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if I ever saw it as
Speaker 1: a Rogers v. Laflor like battle, where it's more like
Speaker 1: he outlasted Rogers. And then the circumstances of the Love
Speaker 1: drafting have now presented this situation and him as a
Speaker 1: first round pick, and I think what it Listen, he
Speaker 1: has a seven to twelve winning percentage as a head coach,
Speaker 1: and that's great, even factoring in a losing record last year,
Speaker 1: but I think myself, certainly Keith Hansas in the garage
Speaker 1: there in Culver City with their bearded boy three years ago.
Speaker 1: But you know, even though the record's great and they
Speaker 1: won a couple, they won a couple of playoff games,
Speaker 1: you know, never got over the hump. But it's always
Speaker 1: been a little bit like, okay, But like, is Matt
Speaker 1: laff Like you can talk him up because of his
Speaker 1: record as a top coach, but what's he really about?
Speaker 2: Like is this guy legit?
Speaker 1: And that's why this year it's a great kind of
Speaker 1: subplot in the NFC, And I think I think it's
Speaker 1: gonna buy him two years because even if I think
Speaker 1: Jordan Love doesn't play well, or let's say he like
Speaker 1: it is terrible, let's say he has a really bad year,
Speaker 1: which is within the range of outcomes, I don't think
Speaker 1: that would get Lafleur canned. I would think he would
Speaker 1: get another chance next year, whether it was year two
Speaker 1: with Love as starter or or if they went a
Speaker 1: different direction. But at the same time, I think certainly
Speaker 1: he could be strutting around with confidence, but also there's
Speaker 1: probably a little part of him that's like all right,
Speaker 1: and the spotlight's going to really on me now. For
Speaker 1: all the frustrations that Iron Rodgers became kind of bigger
Speaker 1: than the team, he took all of the kind of
Speaker 1: spotlight and for better or worse, the good and the
Speaker 1: bad that came with that. And now it's going to
Speaker 1: be right on the head coach to find a way
Speaker 1: to make this young quarterback play at a high level.
Speaker 6: Plus, it's the off season.
Speaker 4: It's beard and body time for lafleur and hair, and
Speaker 4: he got an eyebrows. He got a lot of shots
Speaker 4: from Rogers compliments really, but a lot of mentions of
Speaker 4: how tight the eyebrows, the beard, all of it were.
Speaker 4: But the Love contract is partly why I want to
Speaker 4: be there and hear what they're really saying, because I
Speaker 4: was surprised it.
Speaker 6: Did to me.
Speaker 4: People say, oh, it was a good deal for the Packers,
Speaker 4: it was good business, blah blah. Like it did show
Speaker 4: to me a lack of total confidence in Jordan Love,
Speaker 4: which is fine. I guess it makes sense they're not
Speaker 4: totally confident in him. But I was a little surprised
Speaker 4: that they're not going into this new era with Jordan Love, uh,
Speaker 4: with two feet in It's kind of one one foot
Speaker 4: in and to your point, he could stink this year,
Speaker 4: like they can get out of it after this year.
Speaker 4: So how confident is he really? And how confident with
Speaker 4: all these young players around him?
Speaker 3: I find them finally intriguing because since nineteen ninety two,
Speaker 3: every coach has had Brett Farvar Aaron Rodgers's quarterback. And
Speaker 3: now we're like in totally unstarted.
Speaker 6: What's this funny? This is a theme with Mark.
Speaker 4: He's only intrigued by great teams once they.
Speaker 6: Stink, right like the Rams.
Speaker 1: Once the star's gone typically market, it's an opposite bandwagon move.
Speaker 6: So I listened.
Speaker 4: I was curious what the fly segment really was, so
Speaker 4: I actually was googling it.
Speaker 6: Yes, and I say the same exactly and little similar ish. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And first of all, we both found that there's some
Speaker 4: podcast called Fly.
Speaker 2: On the Wall with Carvey and Spade that talk old SNL.
Speaker 6: It was getting in the way of our Google search.
Speaker 4: They found the first time we ever did this, and
Speaker 4: we were talking about McVeigh as maybe the next Waltz
Speaker 4: and uh, and Mark said, well, let's see when he has,
Speaker 4: you know, something happened to him like that is when
Speaker 4: I'll be interested.
Speaker 6: And you were right. You're now more interested in the
Speaker 6: Rams now that they've struggled.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I believe in the You know what I've said
Speaker 5: in the past, it will come true.
Speaker 2: Go ahead, Mark, you got head to another facility.
Speaker 5: I am.
Speaker 3: I'm going to fly in a in an emptied out
Speaker 3: office in outside of Denver, Colorado. And it's the you know,
Speaker 3: the fly is thinking, you know, no one's here to
Speaker 3: swap me away. I'm also not sure as a fly
Speaker 3: that I actually can hear the way that humans do,
Speaker 3: which puts a bit of a log jab into the
Speaker 3: concept of the segment. But we're going to forgeh on there.
Speaker 5: But into the.
Speaker 1: Doorway you can hear actually.
Speaker 5: Otherwise segment over it.
Speaker 3: But into the doorway comes Bronco's head coach, Sean Payton,
Speaker 3: and he just comes into the middle of the room
Speaker 3: and he just starts giggling because this was Russell Wilson's
Speaker 3: little private office from a year ago, where he'd go
Speaker 3: up and unlike all the rest of the players on
Speaker 3: the roster, have his little meetings and phone calls and
Speaker 3: his special little time in his little corner office out
Speaker 3: he gone because now Sean Payton has basically made it
Speaker 3: very clear that these the Russell Wilson experience is going
Speaker 3: to be rained in hardcore. No more private office, no
Speaker 3: more performance team getting special access to the building and
Speaker 3: you know, waving feathers at Russell Wilson's hair and flexing
Speaker 3: his muscles. He now has to prove that he actually
Speaker 3: can play football in this new offense. And while there
Speaker 3: is a lot of belief that he'll be at least
Speaker 3: serviceable because it's Sean Payton's offense, I just think that
Speaker 3: where Nathaniel Hackett had no choice but to endure Russell
Speaker 3: Wilson's horrible bottom five play all season, that I want
Speaker 3: to know as a fly, I'm going to start to
Speaker 3: fly out of this little office when Sean Payton walks
Speaker 3: out of it, and I'm just going to track him
Speaker 3: quietly so that I don't draw too much attention or
Speaker 3: get swatted, and listen to little conversations between him and
Speaker 3: general George Patten, Peyton the general manager, and just what
Speaker 3: in general the agreement is, because if Russell will.
Speaker 2: Do we think that do you think they've spoken yet?
Speaker 3: And I think they're on the same page about something
Speaker 3: because Peyton is lucky to have a job after I
Speaker 3: think we're eating those picks away.
Speaker 4: I think Peyton is on this George Peyton is on
Speaker 4: the same page as John Payton in the same way
Speaker 4: like Tom on succession was on the same page as
Speaker 4: what's his name?
Speaker 6: No, no, no, Matt's it. He's yes, sir.
Speaker 4: Anything you watch, sir, I'm bendable, Sir. I will get
Speaker 4: the players that you need to get rid of.
Speaker 3: I totally agree with that. I don't think Peyton is
Speaker 3: sitting in the power seat. He's lucky to be there
Speaker 3: at this point. It was a terrible miss Staton.
Speaker 6: Well, they're both Peyton, so that's a problem for both
Speaker 6: of us.
Speaker 1: I thought we decided for this show's purpose we were
Speaker 1: just going to call him General Patton. And it's even
Speaker 1: more important now that Peyton I think it's in the
Speaker 1: power seat.
Speaker 3: Patten is lucky to be and but I think that
Speaker 3: there must be And I just want to say this
Speaker 3: is to me quietly. I lauded the media a couple
Speaker 3: of weeks ago for not starting to dive into billions
Speaker 3: of think pieces about Russell Wilson, the rebuilt, you know,
Speaker 3: bounce back quarterback, and I just want to know what
Speaker 3: the actual verbal agreement is that if Russell Wilson comes
Speaker 3: out through all of camp and flatlines and then in
Speaker 3: lays see you know, multiple eggs in a row in
Speaker 3: the regular season, how quickly, how soon do we see
Speaker 3: Jared's Didham who they paid a lot of money to Halloween.
Speaker 2: I think he gets about six weeks or so.
Speaker 3: I think that's fair. I mean, I think it's like,
Speaker 3: you need to be you need to have been given
Speaker 3: power to move on from this?
Speaker 2: Can I throw out? Can I throw out?
Speaker 1: Because we're heading towards the new season and that was
Speaker 1: tremendously confusing at points and not not your fault.
Speaker 2: It was because of the last names, right.
Speaker 1: Can I call a measure to order and get a
Speaker 1: vote and has to be unanimous to pass that on
Speaker 1: the for the purposes of this program moving forward for
Speaker 1: the duration of the current general managers stay with the Broncos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that we now call him Kevin Saunders.
Speaker 6: Wait, what's wrong with General Patten or General George?
Speaker 5: But I'll write that down.
Speaker 2: Saying I'm just saying that way.
Speaker 6: He has fun.
Speaker 2: We will never confuse the Peyton Paton Peyton thing, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And its like now he has a totally different
Speaker 1: name than the head coach, and it will what just
Speaker 1: happened now will never happen again if he's Kevin Saunders.
Speaker 3: Kevin, And it's even worse when you have to write
Speaker 3: about both of them. We've had that before where it's
Speaker 3: a Smith and Smith and you have to put the
Speaker 3: first name back in over and over. And I stepped
Speaker 3: right into it.
Speaker 4: All right, Kevin Saunders, it is from now on. And
Speaker 4: if you happen to have missed the May thirtieth episode
Speaker 4: of The Round the NFL Problem, it's going to be confusing.
Speaker 4: If you're friends with anyone that listens to the sho
Speaker 4: let them know. So everything's covered and it kind of
Speaker 4: reminds Kevin Saunders reminds me of Steve Sanders, who's you know,
Speaker 4: an all time on television character on Beverly Hills nine
Speaker 4: to two and now.
Speaker 1: Right, and I mentioned Breandan Walts earlier, So yeah, everything's
Speaker 1: tied together, all right.
Speaker 5: Maybe we tweet that change out all right?
Speaker 2: Behind the glass?
Speaker 1: Can you miss make note of that that the general
Speaker 1: manager of the Broncos on this show is Kevin Saunders.
Speaker 4: I think, by the way, Russell Wilson has no excuses
Speaker 4: in a way like this offensive line looks pretty good.
Speaker 4: They're quite deep at wide receiver, and he's got this
Speaker 4: amazing coach. But if you look at what's worked under
Speaker 4: Sean Payton, what he prizes, it's like kind of the
Speaker 4: opposite of what Russell Wilson is. It's it's closer to
Speaker 4: a Teddy Bridgewater tape. I think that's why I like
Speaker 4: Teddy Bridgewater. Drew Brees is the Hall of Fame version
Speaker 4: of that. But it's like quick decision making out of
Speaker 4: your hand, fast over the middle of the field. Literally
Speaker 4: all the things that are the opposite of what Russell
Speaker 4: Wilson did well even when he was one of the
Speaker 4: best quarterbacks the week.
Speaker 6: Problematic.
Speaker 2: Can we head back to the desert in Vegas?
Speaker 5: Sure? Why not? You're a fly.
Speaker 2: Because listen, just a fly.
Speaker 1: I don't know nothing for nothing, I have no agenda
Speaker 1: because I only live for like thirty days.
Speaker 6: Right, is that true?
Speaker 2: That's it. It's about a month I got.
Speaker 1: So when I tell you this, I'm not trying to
Speaker 1: further my own career or hurt someone in a way
Speaker 1: that will allow me to advance as a species. Or
Speaker 1: thirty days. It's about four weeks and I'm gone. So
Speaker 1: I was in this Raiders facility, and there was it
Speaker 1: was a dark room.
Speaker 2: And I'm just gonna need your guys help with this.
Speaker 2: And I'm gonna.
Speaker 1: Apologize to your producer Eric ahead of time because I
Speaker 1: think this will give him a little work in post production.
Speaker 2: So apologies Eric from the fly Me.
Speaker 1: So this man he was wearing kind of a hoodie,
Speaker 1: dark hair, about you know, forty something, maybe late forties.
Speaker 1: He was hunched over. This was I should let you know.
Speaker 1: This was about late last week, okay, and uh and
Speaker 1: this is just again I don't know, I don't know
Speaker 1: what any of this means. But here's a translation or
Speaker 1: here's a just a transcription of what this.
Speaker 2: Figure was saying.
Speaker 1: And then he fumbled for it was it's like a
Speaker 1: black rectangular device with like buttons on it or something
Speaker 1: I don't.
Speaker 3: Know what, calculator, an iPad device of some sort or
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's like something he could talk into cell phone phone
Speaker 2: a phone.
Speaker 5: Yeah, you just don't need a cell phone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was in his It was in the compartment.
Speaker 1: There's like a compartment in the.
Speaker 6: If so intelligent about some aspects of human life.
Speaker 2: And yet it's like he was wearing.
Speaker 1: These and he took out the phone from the pants
Speaker 1: and then he's hitting the phone and the first three
Speaker 1: digits that I could see were six one seven. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's as Boston area code, and it
Speaker 1: seemed to have gone straight to voicemail. And then this
Speaker 1: this guy left like a sobbing message. He was really
Speaker 1: emotional to some guy named Bill or William and he
Speaker 1: mentioned something about regrets and again, I'm just to fly. Actually,
Speaker 1: Bill O'Brien, sucks, was said at one point, and then
Speaker 1: a bunch of pleases, and then he put down the
Speaker 1: phone and then sobbed again, really at an emotionally high register,
Speaker 1: alone in this room until like it seemed like a
Speaker 1: staffer came in and he very quickly kind of rubbed
Speaker 1: his eyes and kind of walked out of the room
Speaker 1: with his head down. So I don't know like all
Speaker 1: the specifics, but someone was very upset about the state
Speaker 1: I would imagine of this business, whatever this business.
Speaker 3: Is, I've been doing. I've been digging while you've been talking.
Speaker 3: And there's a couple candidates here, Okay, but I did
Speaker 3: look up the age of head coach Josh McDaniels, who
Speaker 3: likes to wear the hoodie like his former friend Bill
Speaker 3: Belichick the Boston area, and so he's forty seven, just
Speaker 3: turned forty seven during the off seas got to be him.
Speaker 5: You could see why.
Speaker 3: He'd be very frustrated with what we talked about in
Speaker 3: the New seventh with Jimmy g And yeah, I think
Speaker 3: it's pretty common to have the Patriots on speed doll.
Speaker 3: The last time that Josh McDaniels ventured out as a
Speaker 3: head coach, I was a one and done disaster scenario
Speaker 3: with the Rams. Actually as just as an OC last
Speaker 3: time he called plays outside of New England, and that
Speaker 3: offense finished thirty second in points, thirty first overall. And
Speaker 3: here he is in a situation potentially on a Raiders
Speaker 3: team that I felt even weeks ago was a floating
Speaker 3: ship in the darkness with no quarterback. Potentially, he must
Speaker 3: and I have to get going.
Speaker 2: I have to lay some eggs and year.
Speaker 1: But he is entering his second year in Vegas. He's
Speaker 1: his career record is seventeen and twenty eight. So we
Speaker 1: just talked about seven to twelve for Lafleur. McDaniels is
Speaker 1: three to seventy eight as a coach and winning percentage
Speaker 1: and now you have to be thinking that he is
Speaker 1: very nervous about what's going on, like that he is
Speaker 1: now tied to a team that might not have a quarterback,
Speaker 1: and he's coming off eleven loss season, And is McDaniel's
Speaker 1: going to get out of this alive? And if Garoppolo
Speaker 1: is not available? Like it feels like this is one
Speaker 1: of the grimmest situations the side of Arizona.
Speaker 4: On paper, their offense is intriguing, total continuity on the
Speaker 4: offensive line, pretty good weapons for Garoppolo. Yeah, defense looks
Speaker 4: like a mess though, And then you look at this
Speaker 4: backup situation, it's it screams for someone else. And that's
Speaker 4: why I thought when you said it's a mid forties
Speaker 4: guy in the Raiders facility who wears a hoodie, I
Speaker 4: was thinking of a much taller, much more handsome man
Speaker 4: who also, you know, happens to have the most Super
Speaker 4: Bowls in NFL history. I thought that was Tom Brady
Speaker 4: having regrets.
Speaker 2: I'm not familiar with who that is, right, I know
Speaker 2: you're a fly.
Speaker 4: But Tom Brady, reportedly a partial owner of the Raiders,
Speaker 4: potentially could have regrets about even doing that because this
Speaker 4: job could be sitting for him with his old buddy.
Speaker 1: But what this Tom Brady guy, why would he want
Speaker 1: to get involved with this particular team at this stage
Speaker 1: of his life?
Speaker 6: Well?
Speaker 3: Why why was he shawing Bill Belichick crush?
Speaker 4: That's where I lost me and I realized I was
Speaker 4: going the wrong way here. Well, he has a deep
Speaker 4: burning desire inside to overshadow Jimmy Garoppolo and try to
Speaker 4: war his happiness at every turn, and that alone would
Speaker 4: make him want to do that.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've talked about that a couple times on
Speaker 1: the show Brady and mc daniels, but we don't actually
Speaker 1: think this is gonna happen right now now.
Speaker 4: I don't because of the whole ownership thing. None of
Speaker 4: it makes sense if.
Speaker 3: You're Tom Brady, though, what's attractive about coming back to
Speaker 3: play for a team that seems to be in total chaos?
Speaker 2: And it's interesting with the parallel with Arizona.
Speaker 1: If this Garoppolo thing really goes sideways, and as we
Speaker 1: learn more through the summer, if they are indeed kind
Speaker 1: of shipwrecked without a quarterback here, wouldn't it make all
Speaker 1: the sense in the world then to move Adams and
Speaker 1: they say, oh, you can't make it work with the money.
Speaker 1: But just like the Cardinals are saying, we don't care. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll take all the pain with you.
Speaker 6: But no, because DeVonta Adams is great, right, but.
Speaker 1: What do you I mean if you're if your season
Speaker 1: is basically cooked, if you don't have a quarterback. We
Speaker 1: all know that, and they obviously don't have the defense
Speaker 1: to save the day. That could lead to another pivot.
Speaker 1: I'm just saying it kind of opens the door for
Speaker 1: a lot of different avenues for this team to go. Hopefully,
Speaker 1: and listen, we don't want to overreact on May thirty if,
Speaker 1: like just because of one Jimmy Gripolo report out there,
Speaker 1: like he could be fine for week one, but it's
Speaker 1: just a little bit ominous given his history. And if
Speaker 1: you're the head coach, you know you are in a
Speaker 1: very vulnerable position right now.
Speaker 3: And let's just say in another world day, because I
Speaker 3: think one possible reality is that if they move on
Speaker 3: from Jimmy g initially, they could resign him at a
Speaker 3: different price. That seems weird, but let's say there's a
Speaker 3: scenario where Brian Hoyer slash aiden rookie man, is you're
Speaker 3: starting two pack come September, where what will DeVante Adams
Speaker 3: be saying by October he already talked about the fact
Speaker 3: that he wasn't totally on board with the idea that
Speaker 3: they went and got Jimmy G.
Speaker 4: Maybe he knew about the foot stuff well, but either way,
Speaker 4: you're right. I mean the back seven on defense, like
Speaker 4: there's so much focus on the Actually, I think the
Speaker 4: offense is a chance if Jimmy G was healthy to
Speaker 4: be a top ten offense. I think that's their road
Speaker 4: map that they would see a top ten offense and
Speaker 4: better on defense. But the back seven on defense, their
Speaker 4: linebacker and their secondary, like it's a disaster.
Speaker 6: And you're right.
Speaker 4: It's funny because McDaniels held out so long and maybe
Speaker 4: you couldn't get it the right job or but he
Speaker 4: passed up a lot of jobs, and you was inty
Speaker 4: misus Colt's job, trying to time it, and a year
Speaker 4: and a half in, they don't look any better than
Speaker 4: when John Gruden was there. They probably look worse, and
Speaker 4: supposedly Hunter Renfro might get traded. There's still this buzz
Speaker 4: out there that the Saints are interesting. I don't I
Speaker 4: don't understand that.
Speaker 2: All right, let's take a break and then we'll visit
Speaker 2: three more facilities. All right, welcome back.
Speaker 1: I'm holding in my hand, by the way, a Funko
Speaker 1: Pop figurine delivered from one of our great maestros behind
Speaker 1: the glass, Christy Stapleton. It's an Aaron Judge Funko Pop figure.
Speaker 1: I guess taking off somebody's desk. Wait, let me get
Speaker 1: this right for you.
Speaker 4: You know, you really got to check out this cameraman's
Speaker 4: getting put to work with. The YouTube feed is really
Speaker 4: pop it off today.
Speaker 1: And this is this figure is uh uh, there we go.
Speaker 1: That's it Mark.
Speaker 2: So if you were.
Speaker 3: Curious, I've seen those so now I think they're very attractive.
Speaker 3: It's a very nice, very attractive. It's a nice hobbyist
Speaker 3: addition to the hobbyist collection.
Speaker 2: What is your where you at as a collectible throughout
Speaker 2: your life?
Speaker 5: Got post childhood?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Like what was your Star Wars figurines? Things as
Speaker 2: a child?
Speaker 5: Not as an adult?
Speaker 2: You have them in the boxes and no I.
Speaker 3: Play you know, I used to bury them in the
Speaker 3: yard and stuff, and that was part of the game,
Speaker 3: Like they have to go find their friend who's been
Speaker 3: buried on the ground.
Speaker 2: So remember that one in the sand pit and then
Speaker 2: you boy, some water.
Speaker 5: In there and it's freeze them and Ice.
Speaker 6: I did have that Alice Burke starting lineup figure come with.
Speaker 4: I had a lot of start my life for a while,
Speaker 4: but at this point I think wrestling figures.
Speaker 3: I had the almost the entire WWF collection, along with.
Speaker 2: A Steeler cage.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, you put King Kong Bundy Versu hul Kogan
Speaker 3: to mimic.
Speaker 5: I believe WrestleMania too.
Speaker 1: In fact, sitting on my desk in our newsroom is
Speaker 1: a Ken O'Brien and altoon a starting line of figurines
Speaker 1: from nineteen eighty nine.
Speaker 2: I had lost.
Speaker 1: I lost all that football helmets, every one of my
Speaker 1: football figures.
Speaker 2: Sometime in nineteen eighty nine and never found him again.
Speaker 1: So they're just catching passes and passing without any protection
Speaker 1: at all.
Speaker 5: M my laptop, Greg, don't do that.
Speaker 2: Why do you keep doing that lately?
Speaker 6: Almost it's just sitting there. I'm making sure I don't
Speaker 6: like take whatever.
Speaker 5: But I already told you before the.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but that's also it's a violation a little bit
Speaker 2: of his space.
Speaker 3: When you look, it's just strange. It's off putting.
Speaker 6: It's just right there.
Speaker 2: Would you want someone to do that too.
Speaker 6: I mean, if it's just my notes for the show,
Speaker 6: I'd be fine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you don't know what's on there.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what if I'm doing something else.
Speaker 4: I was making sure that I didn't take, but I
Speaker 4: go ahead. I like to leave myself options of what
Speaker 4: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna leave the forty nine ers
Speaker 4: to the side. Actually, okay, I am curious what what
Speaker 4: they think about tree Lance And they're darnold in reality
Speaker 4: behind the scenes and at the risk of leaning too
Speaker 4: hard on the six one seven area code, my fly
Speaker 4: is flying up to Foxborough and.
Speaker 2: Good we got We're all over this facility.
Speaker 6: And it's looking you know.
Speaker 4: It buzzes past the coaches, buzzes past Bill O Bright. Oh, like,
Speaker 4: what is mac Jones doing there in the men's bathroom.
Speaker 4: Let's just keep going. Let's go up to the ownership
Speaker 4: on the third floor. Robert Craft and his son Jonathan
Speaker 4: Kraft talking. There's no microphones in there, there's nothing only
Speaker 4: a fly could find out. And the Crafts are worried
Speaker 4: because they know Belichick has it bugged the whole building.
Speaker 4: Oh literally has the building bug But they made a
Speaker 4: special ownership craft only bunker where they can get real,
Speaker 4: and this fly is peeping a conversation between these two
Speaker 4: men who believe they should get a little more credit
Speaker 4: for everything that's happened over the last twenty plus years,
Speaker 4: and believe that the last three years have been embarrassing.
Speaker 4: And they especially Robert, because let's be real, Robert is
Speaker 4: the logan Roy in this situation, and Jonathan is is Connor.
Speaker 6: I don't know why.
Speaker 4: I'm that's fine. I made him Connor. That was maybe
Speaker 4: a little That's tough. Robert's looking at his age, he's
Speaker 4: eighty one years old. He's running out of time.
Speaker 1: Connor, who ran for president and got less than one
Speaker 1: percent of the vote, that guy successful campaign.
Speaker 6: At least make let's make him shive. Let's make Jonathan
Speaker 6: shive some strengths and weaknesses.
Speaker 4: He's looking at this Bill Belichick coaching record and saying like, okay,
Speaker 4: he's only a twenty plus away from breaking the all
Speaker 4: time record, but he doesn't care. He wants results now.
Speaker 4: And they're talking. I believe about a situation this year
Speaker 4: where this team needs to be showing progress on offense,
Speaker 4: needs to be competitive and have a winning record, or
Speaker 4: that they want to be steadfast. I believe Robert Kraft
Speaker 4: is telling his son that before this season, in the
Speaker 4: off season, the quiet of the off season, the fly
Speaker 4: is picking up that he wants his son to not
Speaker 4: let him off the hook when things get hard in
Speaker 4: January and he has to look Bill Belichick in the eye,
Speaker 4: that he actually pulls the trigger and he goes in
Speaker 4: a new direction if this team does not make the playoffs,
Speaker 4: that he does the type of thing that Bill Belichick
Speaker 4: was famous for when he Drew Bledsoe or traded Drew
Speaker 4: Bledsoe and cut lawyer Malloy back in the day, and
Speaker 4: shows that bloodlust, that ruthlessness unless they're a winning organization
Speaker 4: again this year, I mean, is.
Speaker 2: There because we're I agree with it.
Speaker 1: We've been talking about it like this feels like a
Speaker 1: pivotal year for Belichick in the marriage between Belichick and Craft,
Speaker 1: which is again, and it needs to be stated repeatedly,
Speaker 1: the most successful union of coach and head coach, coach
Speaker 1: and owner in addition to coach and quarterback. Ever the
Speaker 1: quarterback left, and ever since the quarterback left, the coach
Speaker 1: hasn't been quite as successful. And now there's growing tensions
Speaker 1: between the coach and the owner as an indirect result result,
Speaker 1: and it's just like, I don't know, like this almost
Speaker 1: feels still a little bit of a rush to get
Speaker 1: Belichick out the door unless you have somebody lined up
Speaker 1: that you absolutely adore and feel like is the guy
Speaker 1: that could give you another like twenty years.
Speaker 6: I think they do. Who Mayo. I don't know if
Speaker 6: that's gonna be right or wrong.
Speaker 1: We're gonna fire Bill Belichick to take a chance at
Speaker 1: Girod Mayo.
Speaker 6: I just think that's what they think.
Speaker 3: Well, so they yeah, they put in incredible effort to
Speaker 3: keep Mayo.
Speaker 5: Kraft has talked up Mayo.
Speaker 3: Kraft I think had the most pointed comments that you know,
Speaker 3: subtext were anti Bill Belichick, comments about the way that
Speaker 3: Matt Patricia essentially was put into a terrible position last year,
Speaker 3: didn't do a good job, not not a good job
Speaker 3: by Matt Patricia. But Kraft really went out to defend
Speaker 3: Matt Patricia that he was an incredibly hard worker and
Speaker 3: did what he could in a terrible situation. And I
Speaker 3: don't know, you'd have to dig pretty hard to find
Speaker 3: comments that reach that level of annoyance with his own
Speaker 3: head coach that said like Mayo aside or something like that.
Speaker 3: There's no one else in the building that fits the
Speaker 3: Bill right now, and I don't know how if you're
Speaker 3: going to move on from Bill Belichick, you better be right.
Speaker 4: Right saying I don't think any of this is a
Speaker 4: good idea to me. Bill Belichick is still a top
Speaker 4: three defensive coach week to week. I mean, they were
Speaker 4: number one in DVOA with that unit last year. Somehow,
Speaker 4: I think they have a chance to be one of
Speaker 4: the best defensive league this year, which would make them
Speaker 4: very hard to fire, and they have a chance to
Speaker 4: surprise people. But I do think this is where craft
Speaker 4: is at. And it's also not crazy if you had
Speaker 4: four straight years of mediocrity, there's not many coaches that
Speaker 4: survived that no matter.
Speaker 2: But I guess my point is, and again John Mayo
Speaker 2: could be great.
Speaker 1: But before you go fire literally Bill Belichick, how about
Speaker 1: we give Bill a true heir to Brady, an actual
Speaker 1: difference maker at quarterback, because I washed Cam Newton wasn't
Speaker 1: that guy. And Mac Jones has ability and has some potential,
Speaker 1: but there's a reason why nobody had him above the
Speaker 1: Dalton line when we did that exercise last week. So
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody sees Jones as a future star, Like,
Speaker 1: are you really gonna that's how this is gonna end?
Speaker 3: Like maybe, but here's here's the one problem. Like Bill
Speaker 3: Belichick is also the general manager, and Bill Belichick made
Speaker 3: the decision to go get Mac Jones, and he's he's
Speaker 3: also made a pretty trench in year after your decision.
Speaker 3: I know they had that free agency splurge a couple
Speaker 3: off seasons ago, but it's typically been like a weapons
Speaker 3: light attack. I mean, they're wide receivers for a really
Speaker 3: long time and just been kind of like you're looking
Speaker 3: at that group and thinking, eh, and it's like this
Speaker 3: year's group is sort of like, all right, I don't
Speaker 3: look at this if this is the year that Bill
Speaker 3: Belichick suddenly has to pull twelve thirteen wins out of
Speaker 3: his butt to get to the playoffs.
Speaker 1: But like, if they go eight to nine this year
Speaker 1: and decides to pull the trigger and start over, you
Speaker 1: know who's gonna be thrilled about that? All the other teams,
Speaker 1: every everybody THEFC.
Speaker 2: So like not to say that you shouldn't do it, but.
Speaker 1: It is I think you shouldn't do it. It wouldn't be
Speaker 1: a celebration. It would be a celebration for these teams.
Speaker 3: Do you think that Bill Belichick would turn right around
Speaker 3: al Pacino style and go get a job somewhere else?
Speaker 6: Oh? Absolutely?
Speaker 3: Like why not go back to like the Cleveland Browns
Speaker 3: where he started and say, I'm gonna accept to your No,
Speaker 3: he wants a good owner like I don't think he
Speaker 3: would buy buy into that ownership group. But like me,
Speaker 3: Belichick would be like, are you kidding me? I'm gonna
Speaker 3: go somewhere else. Not only gonna get the coaching record
Speaker 3: somewhere else, I'm gonna make sure that I spend the
Speaker 3: next half a decade sticking in.
Speaker 1: I'll handpick my quarterback wherever, whenever it pops up that
Speaker 1: has a great young quarterback and a team a roster
Speaker 1: that has some juice, I'll go out of my own terms.
Speaker 5: But it's Tom Brady part two.
Speaker 6: He's thirty wins away.
Speaker 5: By the way, Well what if he wins thirty games
Speaker 5: this year?
Speaker 2: Oh no, that would be really impressive.
Speaker 6: There is like a playoffs one.
Speaker 4: This is why I'm annoyed by NFL, NFL coaching records and.
Speaker 2: Stuff like that. Got to count the playoff gas.
Speaker 4: Look, I'm just the fly in the room. I'm not
Speaker 4: agreen with what you know going on here. I'm just
Speaker 4: passing along the info.
Speaker 2: Thank you for the info. Mark you got another one.
Speaker 3: I am a fly related to some of the other
Speaker 3: flies that have you know, we were flies. There's a
Speaker 3: long family tree here and I I I exist for
Speaker 3: less than a month in southern California. But right here,
Speaker 3: smack dab in the middle of my twenty eight day lifespan,
Speaker 3: I find myself in Los Angeles, in the Los Angeles area. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've attached myself to a human that is moving briskly
Speaker 3: down a hallway into a meeting room with a very
Speaker 3: good looking head coach. I myself, the fly that I'm
Speaker 3: the person I'm attached to also has an incredible head
Speaker 3: of hair. I mean, isn't a handsome man also, so
Speaker 3: it's head coach GM duo is attractive. And they're sitting
Speaker 3: down and say, look it like, I'm not sure where
Speaker 3: exactly we are with this team. We are we've built
Speaker 3: a very very young roster and we've got some problems though,
Speaker 3: And I think, let's.
Speaker 2: Just say it. I'm sorry. Is this the fly saying
Speaker 2: this or.
Speaker 3: The fly is hearing things like this? And it's you know,
Speaker 3: there's some muffled conversation. There's some sort of like tapping
Speaker 3: on the table because there's some indecision here because the
Speaker 3: roster that they're talking about just looks a little weird.
Speaker 3: And I keep hearing the name like, look at we
Speaker 3: love Matthew Stafford, the person. We know that Aaron Donald
Speaker 3: is one of the greatest defensive players of all time.
Speaker 3: Cooper Cup is wonderful too. But we have to take
Speaker 3: a real look in the mirror and say, who are
Speaker 3: we now for this season, for next season, and how
Speaker 3: quickly would we move one, two, or three of these
Speaker 3: players or other additional pieces if we really wanted to
Speaker 3: embrace the concept of a true startover. Right now, we've
Speaker 3: got a extremely young roster attached to an aging old
Speaker 3: quarterback coming off a disastrous injury situation. Who are we
Speaker 3: and what are we in? The training camp starts in
Speaker 3: a month and then they go silent.
Speaker 4: This would be the year to take on some dead money.
Speaker 4: They are doing it in a way that NFL teams
Speaker 4: have almost never done it in the history of the sport.
Speaker 4: I have seventy four million dollars in dead money, so
Speaker 4: they're just eating it. We talked about the Cardinals eating
Speaker 4: that Hopkins salary. The Rams been eating it. They got
Speaker 4: sixty from Alan Robinson, Jalen Ramsey, and Leonard Floyd combined.
Speaker 4: So I don't think they would mind the financial pain
Speaker 4: that it would cost to trade Donald or Stafford. Cup
Speaker 4: would make just no sense to me. So I'm putting
Speaker 4: him to the side a little bit. But man, I
Speaker 4: think it'd be tough to get a buy in. I
Speaker 4: think it'd be tough to think like that right now.
Speaker 4: I don't think they want to think like that, and
Speaker 4: I don't think I think it'd be a little crazy
Speaker 4: to go into the season thinking like that. Maybe that's
Speaker 4: a week five conversation. Maybe it's a plan ahead.
Speaker 3: Well, let me ask you a question, like from another angle,
Speaker 3: like if the Rams. First of all, I think they
Speaker 3: a year from now, we're going to see the Rams
Speaker 3: very differently. I think we'll see them in a positive light.
Speaker 3: But you have Stetson Bennett, who you know comes in
Speaker 3: with an interesting college career, and why why not get
Speaker 3: a look at Stetson Bennett sooner than in games that matter?
Speaker 3: If you're a team that starts off one in three
Speaker 3: or something, and you go into next year's draft class,
Speaker 3: which could potentially be explosive at quarterback, And know that
Speaker 3: you do everything you can if you're less need, because
Speaker 3: he'll do anything to get what he wants to get
Speaker 3: the number one quarterback. With all the draft assets that
Speaker 3: could acquire by trading some of these guys.
Speaker 4: Stafford specifically would not cost much to move and to me,
Speaker 4: would make the most sense of it if a team
Speaker 4: needed a quarterback.
Speaker 1: I think they want to compete this year. I think
Speaker 1: the only way we see Bennett is if Stafford gets hurt,
Speaker 1: which is certainly possible. Yeah, And I just looked it
Speaker 1: up because I was curious because there was a big
Speaker 1: hull of bloo obviously about Sean McVay whether he's even
Speaker 1: going to return this year, and then he was on
Speaker 1: the fence, and then it actually really looked like it
Speaker 1: wasn't going to happen, and he given his coaching staff
Speaker 1: permission to look for other jobs. And then all of
Speaker 1: a sudden it comes down that he is back, And
Speaker 1: I was like, well, is this just like a one
Speaker 1: year thing and this is going to be the way
Speaker 1: he is now? But looking back at his quotes at
Speaker 1: the time back in January, he had said that he
Speaker 1: made a discis for years to come.
Speaker 2: So obviously you can change. Head coaches are fickle.
Speaker 1: But I'm working under the idea that they're going to
Speaker 1: try to ring every last drop they can out of
Speaker 1: the Stafford Donald era here and see if they could
Speaker 1: do something similar maybe to what the Seahawks did this
Speaker 1: past year, where it's like they surprise some people, maybe
Speaker 1: win nine or ten games they're frisky, or maybe they
Speaker 1: get into the playoffs and all that, and then even
Speaker 1: if it doesn't work and Stafford goes down in week
Speaker 1: four or this or that happens, yeah, then you could
Speaker 1: start spinning the wheels in a different direction and then
Speaker 1: McVeigh and Snead can truly reboot the operation next year.
Speaker 1: So I think they I think, and I think what
Speaker 1: we do. Sometimes you kind of want to have a
Speaker 1: more clear idea of what these teams are doing, But
Speaker 1: the Rams seem like a team. They're kind of in
Speaker 1: the middle and they're operating that way, and that doesn't
Speaker 1: mean it's the wrong.
Speaker 2: Way to do it.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's like, oh, that's a half measure. They should
Speaker 1: be going all in or all out. But they kind
Speaker 1: of make sense to me to be doing what they're doing,
Speaker 1: and then they could pivot if they have to.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't think NFL rebuilds now if you're
Speaker 3: good or a season long, and that it projects as
Speaker 3: a potential one year rebuild.
Speaker 2: One good draft can really change organizations. You know, like it?
Speaker 2: I like it?
Speaker 1: Uh Okay, let me preface this by saying, I'm a
Speaker 1: fly still. We got that last time, not like the
Speaker 1: turn of the phrase, you know, unnoticed observer of a
Speaker 1: particular situation type of thing. I think you met my
Speaker 1: brother earlier.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so rather dim insect he Uh well, that's on tour.
Speaker 3: Maybe not on the scale of a fly, but he.
Speaker 1: Died of natural causes. He was twenty five days old.
Speaker 1: I'm quite literally a fly on the wall. And uh,
Speaker 1: you know, I'm gonna eat some poop. I'm gonna touch
Speaker 1: a bunch of things I should have spread some disease
Speaker 1: and and then I'll die again in a month. And
Speaker 1: I have no agenda, Greg, I know you why never do?
Speaker 1: Agents can't muzzle me, Greg, So I'll let you decode
Speaker 1: what was going on when I was buzzing around Brown's
Speaker 1: camp this week. I went to Brown's. You know, I
Speaker 1: like certain things I have a particular taste for things fair, yeah,
Speaker 1: brown things. Anyway, there was this here's here's the situation.
Speaker 1: There was this this handsome guy kind of like a
Speaker 1: I think i'll call him like a mezzanine level George Clooney. Okay,
Speaker 1: there's another guy there that was calling himself the Tasty Berry.
Speaker 1: I don't know, a silver haired, older gentleman, kind of
Speaker 1: prominent jaw, kind of like a Springsteenian jaw kept kept
Speaker 1: referencing his eighteen wheeler collection.
Speaker 4: It was weird knowledge about like Springsteen and what a
Speaker 4: mezzanine that, believe even means for a fly.
Speaker 2: And of course Alex van Pelt was also there.
Speaker 1: Anyway, they were having an amazing time. In fact, Eric
Speaker 1: behind the glass, good to see you again. My brother
Speaker 1: is quite fond of you. I think I did get
Speaker 1: some audio of what was going on in this room
Speaker 1: with all these gentlemen.
Speaker 6: You hear that, Yeah, sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: They were having an amazing time.
Speaker 1: Drinks were flowing, they were throwing like popcorn in each
Speaker 1: other's mouths playfully.
Speaker 2: They did a couple of crank calls.
Speaker 1: That guy, the Clooney guy, kept saying something about the
Speaker 1: jerky boys being underrated.
Speaker 2: I didn't know any of that meant.
Speaker 1: But this is all happening while they were watching some
Speaker 1: endless highlight cutup of Texans games. I'm guessing from like
Speaker 1: when my great great great great great great grandfather was alive.
Speaker 1: I'm thinking like twenty eighteen, twenty nineteen, some from twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I knew because there's nobody in the stands. Must have
Speaker 2: been the covid era.
Speaker 1: Anyway, they were loving these highlights and seems pretty optimistic
Speaker 1: about their place in life. They had not a care
Speaker 1: in the world. And you tell me what this means.
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm just a fly. So what does it
Speaker 1: all mean?
Speaker 3: I uh, I will thrust my own personal experience into
Speaker 3: a part of this.
Speaker 2: Did I mention they were having sloppy steaks too?
Speaker 1: No, they were taking the They're taking glasses of water,
Speaker 1: pouring it over these steaks, slopping them up and just
Speaker 1: eating up with the steaks too.
Speaker 5: How did you resist not eating?
Speaker 2: Oh? I went down there. I took a taste. Put
Speaker 2: it that way.
Speaker 3: There is someone on the on the Brown's coaching staff who,
Speaker 3: on the first day he was hired, came on our
Speaker 3: network NFL Network and spoke with Andrew Sicilia and I
Speaker 3: had tweeted out that Kevin Stefanski, the coach newly hired
Speaker 3: coach side by side photos, did look like a relative
Speaker 3: or a brother or a cousin of George Clooney, and
Speaker 3: Cileano actually asked, you were that someone I tweeted that out, Yes,
Speaker 3: but someone like Andrew asked uh Stefanski about it, and
Speaker 3: he got very kind of agitated and slightly nervous. So
Speaker 3: that was my introduction. I think that's who you're talking about, though,
Speaker 3: That's why.
Speaker 4: You were connecting the dots, right the mezzanine mezzin, Well,
Speaker 4: he didn't like that people were calling him mezzanine level. Clooney, well,
Speaker 4: that's true. And who was a juicy berry. That's got
Speaker 4: to be the it's got to be the general manager.
Speaker 4: I think they're feeling themselves. I think they're they're feeling
Speaker 4: like they're a sleeping giant here. I think they're feeling
Speaker 4: good about their off season moves. I think they believe
Speaker 4: the hype that happened around this organization for a couple
Speaker 4: off seasons before Baker Mayfield's injury and then play and
Speaker 4: then this Watson thing all took took a side there,
Speaker 4: and I think they're feeling themselves.
Speaker 6: I think they're confident.
Speaker 3: I think they quietly had one of the better off
Speaker 3: seasons around. Their holes were in the middle of their
Speaker 3: defense up front. They had some issues in the secondary.
Speaker 3: They've added pieces all over the place. The Elijah Moore trade.
Speaker 3: Don't hate that. And I think it all comes down
Speaker 3: to whether or not Watson can play again. That's fine
Speaker 3: to look at that the people that you observe for
Speaker 3: watching these highlights from three years ago.
Speaker 5: But I could watch a lot of what's happening.
Speaker 2: I don't know. Something in my chest was it?
Speaker 1: The stake about twenty seven days old, So I don't
Speaker 1: have much time. I just want to say, like, wrap
Speaker 1: it up. I just want to wrap it up, say
Speaker 1: thanks for having me on the show.
Speaker 6: Shout out to Alex van Pelt too. I thought he
Speaker 6: was a great, good, great addition.
Speaker 1: I yeah, I think they believe that. And the small
Speaker 1: sample size we'll see it was bad last year, but
Speaker 1: I bet they feel like they are going to surprise them.
Speaker 4: The only thing that Juicy Berry and Mezzanine Clooney be
Speaker 4: worried about is that, uh, that eighteen wheeler guy. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I mean he hasn't always been keeping his his UH
Speaker 4: employees around that long if things don't don't end up
Speaker 4: in the win column.
Speaker 6: So I think they got to win. I think they're
Speaker 6: I think they're under pressure. I gotta win. But you
Speaker 6: might as well enjoy the off season. What was that?
Speaker 6: I mean they were really enjoying.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's bring that up. I got that on my
Speaker 2: UH off seas on my iPhone.
Speaker 6: What a time.
Speaker 5: So one of them is really.
Speaker 6: What production. I love it.
Speaker 5: I think I heard Van Pelton there.
Speaker 1: Oh Van pelt Is he was He had just tie
Speaker 1: off and then tied it around his head like that
Speaker 1: guy at the weddings.
Speaker 5: Lathered up Fredday kitchen style.
Speaker 2: You know that guy at the weddings. Yeah, like take
Speaker 2: the off all right? Anything else?
Speaker 4: Well, I was listening to our that first show I
Speaker 4: mentioned earlier, and uh, I don't know, I just was.
Speaker 4: I heard Wes on it and we were talking about
Speaker 4: the panthers. I tried to think about panthers angle today
Speaker 4: to talk about, but I was like, no, let's just
Speaker 4: play this on the show. Because it was talking about Spartanburg,
Speaker 4: West Virginia. And I always like to have a little
Speaker 4: bit of ATM history around the NFL history which he
Speaker 4: mentioned on the show.
Speaker 7: Spartanburg has some historical significance to this podcast. That is
Speaker 7: the exit I pulled over when I called Greg to
Speaker 7: accept this job. I was driving from Cincinnati back to Tiving,
Speaker 7: stopped at the Spartanburg exit. Tell Greg was I was leaving?
Speaker 2: Was there a shrine there? I like that dude just
Speaker 2: jumping in hearing his voice, awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I had checked in on another older episode of
Speaker 1: this segment and it was he was talking about he
Speaker 1: wanted to be a fly at the Giants facility to
Speaker 1: see the trow of it's a trout troth kool aid,
Speaker 1: and just to see what media members were drinking out
Speaker 1: of it. For Dave Gettleman, his arrow at the Giants,
Speaker 1: that's all. He wanted to be there, just to see.
Speaker 1: And we noticed that Bob Glauber was from Newsday now retired,
Speaker 1: was just sitting in a chair watching it. But Chris
Speaker 1: just wanted to know which Giants media member would would
Speaker 1: be bending over for Gettleman.
Speaker 3: Not the biggest fan of the New York media market.
Speaker 3: Chris or Gettleman, right, you like the hog Kali era. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I think there was some pro gettlement in there.
Speaker 1: Nice, excellent, Uh, what's up. That's it. We'll be back
Speaker 1: on Thursday with a another show. Actually it's going to
Speaker 1: be a road show. It's our annual road show. We're
Speaker 1: gonna be by the beach by the Sea, we'll call it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna have hopefully some special guests that will be
Speaker 1: joining us and Greg. We maybe we'll touch on your
Speaker 1: done with a lot of hard work you've been doing
Speaker 1: over on the dot com.
Speaker 6: Projected starter series is done. It's done and dusted.
Speaker 1: We bet we love doing some like some takeaways from
Speaker 1: Greg's projected starters.
Speaker 2: We'll hit that.
Speaker 3: And it reads like a very juicy gossip column. Often
Speaker 3: it's it's a good well, it's a good read because
Speaker 3: it's it's not like a typical column or sports writing
Speaker 3: piece of work. It's just like little nuggets and things
Speaker 3: that interest you for each team, little.
Speaker 1: Nugs and so that. So be ready for that, looking
Speaker 1: forward to that as the off season goes along. And uh,
Speaker 1: this is the Tuesday show. Here also happens to be
Speaker 1: our former producer, Justin Gravers. He's starting his first day
Speaker 1: at a new place and just want to uh, we
Speaker 1: want to take this time just to wish Justin the
Speaker 1: best of luck moving forward. And we missed having Justin
Speaker 1: around and he's such a great asset to the show,
Speaker 1: which he was still here, but he is there and
Speaker 1: he's gonna kill it. So we just want to give
Speaker 1: Grave Digger a shout out on the route Mount Rushmore.
Speaker 4: If you followed our socials, you saw we we had
Speaker 4: a chance to have dinner with Justin two just a
Speaker 4: few weeks ago and just couldn't thank him enough for
Speaker 4: the great job that he did in the in the
Speaker 4: couple of years that he was here one year running
Speaker 4: the show around the NFL really helped us a lot.
Speaker 4: And we love him as a as a friend, we
Speaker 4: love him as a producer too, So good luck over
Speaker 4: at Fox and uh, well we'll run into him down
Speaker 4: the line to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I thought he was so professional from the very start.
Speaker 3: I think when you cover football, we all learned this
Speaker 3: that the first year you kind of take over something,
Speaker 3: there's a lot of bier rhythms to the season and
Speaker 3: can catch you by surprise, and he was just rarely,
Speaker 3: if never caught by surprise. I thought he offered so
Speaker 3: much behind the scenes on air, he became a beloved figure.
Speaker 3: And I kind of look back to our trip to London,
Speaker 3: which is a time when we all get get closer
Speaker 3: together as people. R I really got to know him
Speaker 3: more as a person in the has sort of always
Speaker 3: been a kindness and a gentleness to him.
Speaker 5: And we'll miss him.
Speaker 2: Yep. One of the true nice guys. And you're right.
Speaker 2: You have to to be in that chair.
Speaker 1: You have to be able to roll with the punches
Speaker 1: and adjust and and learn on the fly and fly
Speaker 1: nailed it and Justin always did that and he'll continue
Speaker 1: to do that.
Speaker 2: And we love you, Justin Graver.
Speaker 1: How about one less grave digger drop if we got there.
Speaker 6: The love your grave digger love you Bud.
Speaker 1: All right, we'll be back on Thursday, like we said,
Speaker 1: road show. Until then, you know what.
Speaker 2: You need to do. It's Chris Wesley. He was known
Speaker 2: to say he the call