Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Julio Jones, Aaron Rodgers, and Each Contender's Missing Piece

Episode Date: June 3, 2021

Geoff is joined this week by Gabe Goodwin to discuss the latest with Julio Jones, Aaron Rodgers, and the player safety issues the NBA is facing - and how they affect NFL players. With Julio Jones being rumored to go to nearly every playoff team, Gabe and Geoff take a look at each team and talk about what one piece they are missing to take them to the next level. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Thursday, June 3rd. I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside Gabe Gowen. This is Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You. Welcome back, everyone. Hope you've had a good couple weeks. Hope you had a good and peaceful and enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. We are back. Football, 100 days away as of the day we are recording this. College football is even closer, by the way, less than three months away. And Gabe, I cannot wait for football to be back. We're going to have a fun show for everyone. We'll talk about Julio. We'll talk about Aaron Rodgers. We'll talk about fans who can't control themselves. Now we're back. We'll also have a fun exercise. We're going to have all the contenders in football. We're going to evaluate their rosters. But more importantly, we're going to evaluate

who's the one player they should trade for. We'll go through all the contenders. We'll have some fun with it regarding the Julio trade. And yeah, Gabe, how are you? I'm great, Jeff. I want to just peel the curtain back a little bit for the audience. People who listen to this show, especially this time of year, clearly dedicated to your life, hearing little things about you. So if they follow you on Instagram and Twitter, they should if they don't. But if they do, they know you've been traveling out west we got together in real life

yes and our wives met yes we talk about them regularly on here they met uh it went great except the place we met never brought you your meal no never brought my food yeah the best part was our wives having zero idea of what we actually do it's just the most amazing thing ever i just tell my wife i'm going to record a podcast she doesn doesn't know what it is, what I do, nothing. You know, you're doing your sleep training stuff. So you guys are all over the place as well. I love it. Yeah, so we're at this tapas place.

And it was hard to find a reservation. Still in California, right? Still regulations, still things happening. You got to get a reservation. You can't just really walk up anywhere. And we found this place right on the water down Washington Boulevard. And what part of town is that, by the way? Venice? That's Venice.

You were in Venice. I was in Venice. You were right at the Venice Pier. Venice Pier. That's where we were. So we get there. It's crowded. They seat us on time and everything.

And we ordered four exact things, okay? It's a tapas place. We ordered an appetizer. We ordered oysters and shrimp cocktail. Those showed up 45 minutes and 45 it took forever uh they brought us a basket of fries which you and your wife ended up eating because they were basically like hey sorry we couldn't bring your actual food here's things you did not order and then we ordered like a tuna pokey thing and fish tacos and the tuna pokey shows up and like an hour and a half later i tell the wait the waitress

like hey the fish tacos didn't show up just don't even bother but i ordered four things gabe i couldn't even bring and the worst part by the way is not that i didn't have my food whatever i'll survive without eating i probably need to eat less calories it said i watched them bring food to everyone around me the entire time i was there like that's the worst part it's like dude i ordered four things at a tapas place not very very much food. And I saw everyone else get their food. Where's my fish tacos at? Yeah. And every other place on the block and within a mile of there serves fish tacos. And it's not hard to get a fish taco in Venice, California. And yet you could not get it. I had a couple of drinks in that time and a lovely conversation but watching you not get

to eat was funny just to go back even further when we jeff and i were texting about whether how we would meet up and my life is complicated with my thousand kids and babysitters etc and jeff said hey well we're gonna eat really early but if you want to meet up after your kids go to bed i could just have a second dinner the idea of i would meet you for dinner number two was hilarious to me so half a dinner i would have had like a short dinner one and then my wife would have had with dinner two would have been my wife having more cocktails and then um and then we end up no then we end up having just one dinner was It was lovely. It was a lot of fun. Look, I love going back home to Los Angeles.

I mean, kind of just the west side near the beach. It's enjoyable to come home. I mean, the number one thing about the west coast is sports watching. Number one thing, okay? Because my kids don't get to watch sports because they go to bed on the East Coast like 7, 38 o'clock. And back home at 4 o'clock, 4 p.m. on any weekday, major sports are already on. NBA playoffs, NHL playoffs, East Coast baseball is already on.

You're at dinner. We watched all these sports the entire time I was on the West Coast. College softball, we watched baseball, we watched basketball and hockey with the kids because it's on TV. Come back here. I mean, Lakers, they play tonight at 10 Eastern. I'm not staying awake to watch that game. I wish I would, but I just, I'm not going to make it awake.

I went to bed last night at 930. So I enjoyed the West Coast and it was a lot of fun seeing you and getting together. And yeah, hope to be out there more often. The major news now, Gabe, are these fans, man. Like, come on, fans, figure it out. Yeah, well, so I'm going to throw a theory out there, and people may tell me this is not true. This type of stuff we've seen a lot in the NBA the last few days

rarely happens out West because the games start earlier, so people are a little less lubricated, not as many drunk people, and people generally are a little more chill and not obsessive about their teams out here. You might say that's a negative a lot of the time, but when it comes to fans acting unruly and being, frankly, dangerous and disrespectful, you don't see it as often. We've now seen it at a bunch of games in the NBA playoffs, players getting spit on, having things thrown at them, having really nasty stuff said to them and their families. It could be that this is sort of like when there's a shark attack,

then the news is obsessed with talking about sharks for weeks and that this is kind of a thing that goes on all the time. But it really does feel like this NBA postseason, there's been a lot of bad behavior from fans caught on camera. So takes range everywhere from the bubble was better because fans suck. No. Right? That's not a good take.

Or it was better when fans could get punched in the face by players and they knew the consequences. I think that's also not the right take, although maybe shrug a little. I mean, Big Cat on his take, on his podcast part of my take, was talking about like a one-time assault which oh look i mean if if fans knew we would react that way a one-time consequence-free assault it would change a lot of this i think it's a couple things gabe it's one that we're finally have fans back in the stands right which has been so so awesome we've seen it in basketball and hockey and baseball and fans are drinking they're back the stadiums, and they're fired up to be there.

Not excuses at all for throwing water bottles, for spitting on players, for dumping popcorn on them. And look, it is mostly happening in New York, Boston, Philly, but in Utah, those fans can't stop saying racist stuff all the time. Utah, Salt Lake City, get it together, man. Just be quiet, okay? Stop talking that way. It's so frustrating. My radio co-host lives in Salt Lake City. get it together, man. Just be quiet, okay? Stop talking that way. It's so frustrating.

I have, my radio co-host lives in Salt Lake City. He's so frustrated by it. But this is what Utah's become, right? They've had multiple instances now where they can't shut up and they can't say racist comments to families and players. And look, it's not all the fans, right? But again, typically, what? The minority, right?

The vocal minority are the ones that we focus on in sports media, news media. This is what we see. We see water bottles being thrown and popcorn. Again, the popcorn doesn't hurt Russell Westbrook, but dude just got hurt. He's walking off the court. And what? Shit thrown at him. I have people say, oh, you're millionaires.

You can deal with that. Is that really? Really? We can deal with it? Am I allowed to just walk up to anyone who makes a million dollars at an arbitrary cutoff line, oh, you're millionaires. You can deal with that. Is that really? Really? We can deal with it? Am I allowed to just walk up to anyone who makes a million dollars at an arbitrary cutoff line, obviously, and just throw a water bottle at them if I don't like their work they did that day? I mean, that's not what a ruling society is. It's just respect, basic respect for us. Don't throw stuff at us. But Gabe, the question is, I think for the NBA, look, they're never going to cut off

drinking. They're not going to cut off drinking. they're not going to cut off drinking but in other sports there's a barrier between the fans and the players right in football there's a barrier and again you can talk i don't mind if you say non-racist shit talking to me as a player okay i don't care and sometimes we dish it back to you baseball right there's a barrier and now there's a net behind the behind the backstop that goes out you know down to foul territory but look even then like you know the batting circles away from the fans, okay? The on-deck circles away from the fans. Dugouts are covered, obviously. The NBA, man, they're right there.

Like, literally right there. I wonder if the NBA is going to end that game, going to put some barrier between the players and the fans. Well, fans are costing themselves the chance to be as close as they are one of the coolest things about the nba is how close you are i mean a star player can literally dive into your lap oh yeah we've seen that it's fun it creates moments and the fact that players you can hear feet you know 30 rows up you can hear feet shuffling on an NBA court, they can hear you talking when they're in a timeout, they look up at you, that is a cool feature if you know how to

behave. So it would be a real shame if the league had to change something about this. I'm sure they don't want to. It's also the most expensive seats in the building are the ones closest to the court, they don't want to give up the revenue. But I'm curious if you think that the types of stuff we're seeing has always been happening, is happening happening in all sports and we're just paying attention to it better now or is there something changing in fandom and would this happen in the nfl because of those barriers you talked about well i mean we've had stuff people throw stuff at us all the time in the nfl not all the time but happens often we're wearing helmets or walking up the tunnel after a game people stuff you know but we have a helmet on or something like that um

no i don't i think we've gone to your point in the beginning we've gone in two separate directions which is kind of insane right which is like you know this happens all the time um or we're overreacting it's kind of in the middle right it doesn't happen all the time but it happens enough to where we know it's happening um i mean the the spitting thing it blows my mind the the fact that you think it's okay to spit on another human no matter the situation this is a freaking basketball game it's not like trey young turned around and told him to go f himself he just spit on trey young he spit on a basketball player who was three feet away from him the water bottle kairi okay you're upset he stomped on your poor little Leprechaun logo for literally half a second.

Come on, guys. Grow up a little bit. This is going to be a topic now, Gabe, the rest of NBA postseason. It'll go into baseball, which doesn't have as many incidents like this. We have the naked people that run on the field. There was that person who naked got in the tarp, hit in the tarp. But even yesterday, we're recording this,

not obviously on Thursday, but there was a fan that rushed the court in Washington. The Wizards are playing the Sixers and a cop tackles the person. No one else moved. There was no other security anywhere. I don't know if they don't have enough security at these games or they don't react quick enough.

When we see a player run the field on the NFL or in baseball, there's like a zillion security guards attacking that player, that player, the person. NBA, I don't know if the security's not good enough, if they're just lackadaisical with it, if they're not prepared for it because we have fans back in the stadium now but if i was a player i'd feel safe i don't think you'd feel unsafe but you have to wonder like where are the arenas doing enough to protect them from getting stuff thrown at them well let me let me throw this at you i i guess the

answer is probably they're not doing enough to protect the players that's what this week has seemed to suggest but is it also more of a weirder psychological thing, right? So stay with me on this. I think that people have so much access to these athletes now through social media, have so much ability to say whatever they want and feel a part of the show. You're allowed to just tweet nasty stuff to people whenever you feel like it. And it rarely comes with any consequence. I wonder if like the mindset of a fan has shifted in a way that you really think of yourself in real life as the version

of yourself online. That I would, I would say this to Jeff on Twitter. And now I can't tell the difference between Twitter and real life. So when I'm at the stadium, I think I might spit on Jeff, which is insane. Why would anyone ever think they could do that? Do you think that could be part of it? I think it could be.

I think maybe there's a, people have a more visceral reaction to players because they get to see what they tweet and disagree with them and hate on them even more than usual. And they, and maybe they feel too, like because of that, there's a relationship where you could throw a bottle at someone or spit on someone which again never do uh by the way one of your uh the team you root for in college football won a usc defensive end one time spit in my face um it was resolved over many

years in the nfl um but we got it we got it resolved eventually um you know spin my like that's just not acceptable um and so i do wonder if if there is that but look it comes down to this game is there is no punishment for when this happens right being banned from a stadium is not a punishment hey how does that work are the facial recognition software like i you can probably get it if you want to as long as you don't buy the ticket under your name um and then and then you know your boys give you attaboys oh sweet buddy got thrown out for throwing something to kairi awesome like good for you i know he's being prosecuted who knows if that actually sticks but that's what has to happen right there has to be some sort of of of prosecution or fine or or

you let the players assault the fan either one like those are like those are the way there's there's no repercussion right because they know that if we go in the stands to fight someone with those bottles because guess what if i came up to you and i threw a bottle at your face five feet away from you would fight me in real life you would come over and fight me but they know we're not going to fight them but what if we did obviously that's that's not going to happen but if we did though we would get sued we'd lose our job we lose money you would lose nothing if so there's there's an imbalance of respect here between what we're doing as players on the field or court and what you're there to do as a fan yeah and check out kevin durant who i think had the wisest words on this

yesterday he got quoted with the more the hot take your version of it but there's about a two minute clip of him answering this uh questions about this in a press conference and i thought he i thought he sounded as smart as anyone on this topic has it's worth checking out um i think he summed up how a lot of smart players feel i'm also curious the the players have made a reference and people as well like that to circus animals or being at the zoo do we throw stuff at circus animals and zoo animals like another thing that we do as well in public i don't know about uh no you don't do that like who throws stuff at animals at the zoo do we throw stuff at circus animals and zoo animals like another thing that we do as well in public i don't know about uh no you don't do that like who throws stuff at animals at the zoo yeah i mean yeah and then there's a whole other end of this conversation which i'm glad we're not going yeah we don't have to touch that has a lot to do with who who the

players get you know which players get worse treatment and who treats them that way and correct all those that's a very very very uh's a very valid point, but not the place for it. We can just say bad people are bad. Oh, yeah, 100%. I agreed. Let's get to football, or I guess drama tied to football. There's no football in this topic. So Aaron Rodgers is still, of course, the biggest offseason headline. We knew this would be the case.

Last I saw him, I think any of us saw him, he was hanging out at a Hawaiian waterfall with the guy from Whiplash. By the way, big win for Miles Teller, coming out looking more jacked than Aaron Rodgers in those pictures. I mean, Aaron Rodgers is a quarterback. You think jacked quarterbacks besides your boy? A health-obsessed NFL quarterback should have a better body than a child actor the only quarterback who was ripped was was was your boy who won a game completing two of eight passes don't try to do this to tim tebow

we can do him if you want to talk about him there's a lot of great photos of him out there let's talk about aaron rogers so he's kind of mia right right now. But according to The Athletic, the Packers would trade Rodgers if they, quote, believed he was truly committed to never playing for them again. The implication, of course, is that they think they're playing a game of chicken, that Aaron will ultimately calm down and come play for them or they would trade him. So I guess I'm curious, like, does everyone, has everyone forgotten the history of star quarterbacks in Green Bay and how Aaron Rodgers became the quarterback? Like, the Packers tried this game with Brett Favre, and eventually they had to go with Aaron Rodgers because the game of chicken didn't really work out. Isn't it possible this is just going to end in Aaron Rodgers being like, no, I wasn't kidding. I'm not playing for you. And now Jordan Love is your quarterback. Couldn't that be what happens? Totally could. No, I wasn't kidding. I'm not playing for you, and now Jordan Love is your quarterback? Couldn't that be what happens? It totally could, but let's think about it from Rodgers' perspective.

Are you going to retire over this? Are you never going to play again? Because the Packers own his rights if he retires, right? So he'd have to be traded if he came back to NFL to play again. If he doesn't play this year, are we saying he's retiring, Gabe? He's never playing again? Is that what we're saying? I can't see Aaron Rodgers hanging it up.

Right. So if the Packers can say, all right, well, we're not trading you. You are our quarterback. We've been in the Andrews Championship game two years in a row. You're not going anywhere. You either show up to us or you retire. I mean, they can call us bluff because they have Jordan Love on the roster. If they did not, he'd be in a better position.

Also, and I was a little bit, I was probably a little bit this way too. I don't watch Jeopardy, so I don't know if Aaron Rodgers was good or not. I don't know who the frontrunner is to take Trebek's spot. It seems like after some polling, it's Ken Jennings. Makes sense. But I just assumed that Rodgers was getting the Jeopardy job, I guess.

Doesn't feel like he's getting the Jeopardy job. So now, he's going to do nothing and not play football anymore? The Packers feel like they have more leverage now because of the Jeopardy poll that came out and where the fans are aligned in Jeopardy, plus also the idea that probably he's not the favorite to get that job. And again, they own his rights, Gabe.

They could be like, hey, we're not trading you. Okay, fine, retire. Don't play. I don't think Rodgers has retirement in him. Maybe he sits out this year. But again, next year, the Packers, again, still own his rights. Yeah, and I don't think the Jeopardy thing is really even relevant. I mean, he either wants to continue playing football or he doesn't.

So I think the obvious answer is no to the question I'm about to ask. But is there any chance he'll show up at these voluntary OTAs later this week? Like that seems like, of course he won't, right? No, so it's a good point. So he has always been off season workouts, okay? But, but remember,

last year when the new CBA got finalized, about a week beforehand, Aaron Rodgers, who was not part of the process at all, But remember, last year when the new CBA got finalized, about a week beforehand, Aaron Rodgers, who was not part of the process at all, rushed in at the last second and said, I want off-season workouts eliminated. So for him to sit out makes more sense when you think about it like that. He doesn't want to be there anyways. Even if he was happy, he still doesn't want to be there. He wants to be in Hawaii, hanging out with his fiancée,

with famous friends, just living the best life. He's got the long hair now, kind of like a midlife crisis hair thing happening a little bit, just living his best life. So he didn't want to be there anyways. The holdout isn't as important. But the question is about the wide receivers. The wide receivers are going to show up. That, to me, is – the wide receivers have even less leverage

than Aaron Rodgers does. Like, Devontae Adams is not going to play if Rodgers doesn't play? Okay, like there's a whole boycott of players if he doesn't. So I'm curious to see the wide receivers show up to kind of get used to playing with Jordan Love. Yeah. Well, yeah, I don't know why they would tie themselves to Aaron Rodgers. They seem to have. They didn't show up.

I mean, it's nice of them to show support to their quarterback and i'm sure ownership gm whoever can kind of look the other way but they're not actually going to be able to tie their whole careers and futures to aaron rogers being unhappy that that doesn't make a lot of sense so let me ask you this if we believe let's go back to this quote from the athletic reported uh that if they believed he was truly committed to never playing for them again, they would trade him the Packers. So let's say they do trade him. What are the cap implications of that? And has the ability to trade him changed since the last time we really spent time on this? All right. So there's all the, um, the June 1st stuff,

right? Where June 1st kind of changes the... And I never understood how that works, to be honest with you. I... Oh, God. I was coming here to get smarter from you. I know, dude. I've tried to read up on it. It doesn't feel like I kind of know.

But I mean, it just... So basically, a post-June 1st trade allows teams to split his dead cap charge over two seasons. That's what it is about June 1st. So, you know, it says here the Packers still need million in dead charges in 2021, as opposed to the original $31 million that would have occurred. That $17 million difference would be incurred in 2022. Right. So they'd be taking a pretty bad cap hit two years in a row instead of a catastrophic cap hit one year. But the fact is, they're screwed either way it really it really messes with their ability to build a proper roster if they trade him now so

they don't really want to trade him now and they don't there aren't really many teams who can or would want to take him on right now right so we kind of their bet is to take him but not i don't think much more so we're down to one team denver who doesn't even give him a better chance of winning which apparently is what he wants like he's not going to have a higher odds of winning a super bowl in denver this year no probably not so is this really just about doing again what brett farve used to do extracting something skipping a lot of camps you know generating some buzz like is he basically just holding his own team hostage to ultimately

stroll into camp at the last second try to win a super bowl and then do this again next year isn't that what we're about to enter like two or three years of this yeah it it seems like rogers is upset more about management you know not not keeping in the loop about events that are happening on the team and i understand where he's coming from but i also get where management's coming because management is not going to let rogers dictate what happens on the roster but management can also just let him know hey man we're thinking about signing these wide receivers or thinking about drafting these certain places rogers that even though the packers aren't taking his advice rogers feels in the loop about what they're doing which i think is important

right because look some quarterbacks do not care some do rogers seems to care the packers should try to keep him more involved again that doesn't mean they're going to do exactly what he says, but Rodgers saying, hey, I want X, Y, and Z wide receiver. The Packers say, you know what, Rodgers, you're right. We'll try to get him for you. Now, again, it doesn't mean they're going to get him, but Rodgers feels involved in the discussion. You know, when I was planning my wedding, okay,

my wife, you know, know was like originally was like you don't you don't you don't know how to be planning up blah blah blah so during the planning of the wedding i attended all the calls i nodded yes i and at the end she's like man you were so helpful i go we did everything you wanted to do i just made you feel like i was like i was being part of the process right that's what the packers have to do with rogers just make him feel like he's part of the process even though they do's what the Packers have to do with Rodgers. Just make him feel like he's part of the process, even though they do exactly what they want to do. I remember vividly, she's like, oh, you do a great job.

I go, what did we do that we never think you wanted to do? I just was like, babe, I support you, basically, right? So that just has to be done here. And the Packers haven't seemed to figure that out yet. And I don't think it matters anymore, honestly. But I do not think still they will trade him. I think week one it'll be jordan love or rogers sitting on his ass at home all right well i mean i guess we'll just talk about it again in a week or two whenever we have another show like this for now let's talk about a more likely trade to actually get executed

that by the way this comes back to the packers quickly. If you type Julio Jones trade into Google, it like then auto-populates. You can get about 10 teams pop up there because every team in the league thinks they have a chance at Julio Jones after he maybe accidentally made it very clear that he doesn't want to be in Atlanta anymore. See Shannon Sharp on that one.

Okay, so if you're producing that show. Yeah. Which I know you've been on some of those shows before. No, I've helped produce that show before. Okay, that if you're producing that show. Yeah. Which I know you've been on some of those shows before. No, I've helped produce that show before. Okay, that exact show. How are you handling that? Like, was that something you think Shannon just, like, called him on the spot? Yeah, I want to be careful just because I know some of those people.

I don't know. I didn't ask anyone. I haven't talked to anyone over there. I have a feeling Shannon called him on the spot and for whatever reason believed that Julio Shannon called him on the spot and for whatever reason, believed that Julio understood he was on the air and Julio probably did not understand he was on the air. And I'm sure, I hope that they've, Shannon has cleared that up. If, if an apology was needed, I'm sure that that was a honest miscommunication and Shannon wasn't trying to surprise him like that, but that's why

you don't do things like that because look how quickly it you know you can lose a lot of credibility I'm assuming Shannon has enough credibility banked up with current players that he can make a mistake like that say sorry and move on but I mean who else is picking up his phone you know and not saying yo give me a minute like I would just text him back like just give me a sec and like make sure you weren't on the air when you called him back um but i i don't think that they tried to like surprise julio that that's not the kind of thing they would do okay that's i was just curious about that i really don't i know people have a lot of theories on skip and i i really don't think that that's what they were trying to do at all i'm sure they felt awkward

about it well it uh there definitely was at least some reported blowback from the falcons nfl from his agent and whatnot um all right let's continue on please i was just curious well also i yeah i want to continue but let me just say i think as a guy who's been in the media his whole life not a guy like you who played in the league or a person who worked for a team or the league i think that any time a team or the league has the chance to hammer people in the media and and actually has some legs to stand on and pick up some leverage and basically say you owe me one they're gonna do it so it doesn't surprise me at all that people called whoever the folks on that show or the network and said you owe us one this was screwed

up of you you you messed up because they're constantly looking for leverage. That's just a negotiation. Oh, that 100% makes sense. I believe you. Yeah. This episode is brought to you by HP. Whenever you do your best thinking, the HP Spectre x360 is ready when inspiration strikes. With power save for battery life and focus mode to multitask, you can do your best thinking whenever and wherever it happens. You can't always schedule when and where you might have a brilliant thought,

whether it's in the morning or before bed, when you're at your computer or away from it. Thinking can happen anywhere and anytime. The HP Spectre x360 2-in-1 convertible PC with Windows 10 saves battery life whenever an idea hits you. HP Spectre x360, a more thoughtful laptop. So, so Julio Jones is the guy who's going to get traded. In years past, we all in NFL media sort of gather around a player here or there who we're all convinced is going to get traded somewhere and then take that team to become a Super Bowl contender.

It was Jadavion Clowney. It was J.J. Watt. It was Levian Bell. The list goes on and on. Can we look at the teams where Julio might end up and use this as a jump off for what they should actually trade for, whether it's him or something else? Can we do that now? Dude, I would love to do this. We have written down the playoff contenders from last year, plus a few others. I jot a few down.

And I'm so excited to do this. It's not this is not as intense as like Bill Barnwell's trade article he writes, which is incredible every year. And we're going to keep this light and loose. Like there's some guys that, you know, are not tradable. We're going to pontificate on whether or not they'd be very helpful for the team. So you want to start with the Packers? You want to start there? Number one, Peter Wester.

Is Julio the guy they should trade for? Would that solve all the problems? I mean, I put down this trade for a new general manager. feels like that would solve all the issues right getting a new gm in there and rogers shows up tomorrow not going to happen obviously look to appease rogers a wide receiver would be the way to go i would argue they need to continue to help defense right so whether it's a cornerback or another safety or whoever else but to solve the problems they have currently now it'd be any wide receiver that you can find right it'd be julio alan robinson dk metcalf um it could be you know

it could be hopkins it could be any wide receiver that that rogers wants to take i think that would solve with digs as well i'm trying to you know uh you know maybe it's a tight end maybe it's waller or kelsey like i feel like those would be the guys that would save this relationship okay let me ask you something about that in growing up i always thought wide receivers just felt like there weren't enough balls to go around. So if you have some other great receiver on your team, he's taken away from what's on your plate. And now it seems in the last few years, like every great player just wants to be surrounded by other great players.

And nobody's as worried about as many targets or as many touchdown passes. If you can get some other guy to take double coverage off you great is that the attitude that receivers especially have these days i think a couple things one is that there's so much money now now this is a down year for the cap there's so much money now that players are getting paid even if they don't have 1500 yard seasons right like you're getting the money if you have the talent, right? Because a team will see it. And a lot of these guys, too, that want to play as kind of like the super team, already are established, right?

They've got their money. Now they want to win at Super Bowl. So I think those are the reasons why players are okay kind of forming these super teams. Yes, when you're young, probably you don't want to go somewhere where you have to split all the reps. But the older you get, the more you've been paid, the more you're not winning a title, the allure of winning a Super Bowl. Look, I just speaking strictly for like the media perspective of this.

As someone breaking into media, just one single job. My job would have been a lot easier if I had won a Super Bowl ring. Like a thousand times. Like that's how important, just for that, right? That doesn't count with a marketing experience i could have had or other things in my life speaking or whatever else just from like my little job winning a ring would have been much easier for my ascension in the media players know that too players know that a ring solidifies their career brings more money and more power and more glory

and they want to go chase that ring if they have to do so by getting 30 less catches and 300 less yards after they've been paid they're fine with doing that okay yeah well said and good comparison and i'm thinking of other guys who have jobs like yours who happen to have a ring um who are great at what they do but so are you and yeah you're right i mean a lot of guys working at major networks as far as on television every day, have Super Bowl rings. It's hard to find. I mean, Dan Orlovsky might be the highest person at any network who doesn't have a ring. As far as who talks to the NFL.

I could probably spend a minute thinking about that and maybe come up with another name or two. But you're right. He's definitely the guy with the lightest on-field resume and the highest profile at a network right yeah all right um let's talk about the bears i mean it'd be fun to see julio go there but they got alan robinson i don't i guess he isn't all that happy there anyway at least he wasn't but they got the quarterback now it seems like there's some new optimism what do they need to trade for yeah you know they're they're actually not that bad of a team there's with the optimism what do they need to trade for yeah you know they're they're actually not that bad of a team they're spent the rosters because you know defensively um you know they've

been good now for many years i mean i look defensively i think you'd always find you know basically a a book into cleo mac but we know akeem hicks back and healthy ready to go i mean that you know two pass rushers there. Linebackers are good. Maybe you look at the back end of the secondary. I think maybe. But to me, it's probably an elite tight end. You have Jimmy Graham. They have Cole Comet, who they drafted last year.

But to me, if you can add a playmaker tight end, whether it's Waller, Kelsey, we're going to repeat a lot of the same names because a lot of the same guys fit a lot of places but a tight end would help your young quarterback a lot like a stud tight end i'm not saying that graham and commit but like adding kelsey waller kid all those type of guys that to me feels like what would help fields the most is a stud tight end yeah i my impression also is a young mobile quarterback needs someone who can just get into open space six or eight yards downfield like buy him a few seconds and then be a dump off and tight ends the way that tight ends play these days the good ones

at least are built for that you know you block you buy the quarterback a second or, and then you just sort of scrape along the line of scrimmage with him and grab it when it's near you. All right, so a tight end would be the trade. There's not an obvious tight end like you said earlier. These are all somewhat fictional ideas, but there's no obvious tight end for them to go get. All right, the Saints, so they lose their Hall of Fame quarterback in Breeze. They have a capable quarterback in Jameis now.

And then whatever we think of Taysom Hill, what do they need to trade for? They have receiver running back, two quarterbacks. It seems like the answer has to be defense, right? I think the answer is a big play wide receiver outside of Thomas. Someone to kind of help out Winston. Obviously, look, quarterback, you'd say for half these teams you'd be quarterback but let's avoid that right let's say winston this guy look defensively you have to hold marcus davenport can kind of fill the role of trey hendrickson cameron jordan's elite i mean maybe d tackles the way to go you

look at and um you know obviously anyone could use Aaron Donald, but defensive tackle. But I'm not sure that really impacts their team as far as winning and losing. I think another wide receiver from Michael Thomas to help Michael Thomas, not instead of him, is the way to go for offensively to help Jameis Winston out, bring themselves another wide receiver. Well, if we're going to pretend that we thought that the Saints were real contenders, then we would have to think that they're going to need to go through the Bucs in a meaningful place. So they'll have to play them twice in the regular season.

They would theoretically have to play them to win the NFC. So what do they need to have a better chance of beating the Bucs? Well, the funny part is they beat them twice last season in the regular season. They were a lot better team, it seemed. Yeah, I mean, the Bucs got better throughout the, you know, to me, it's hitting Tom Brady, right? So I would say that if that's the angle, then it's getting a pass rushing three technique. It's Aaron, obviously it's Aaron Donald, but, you know, Hicks, it's someone that inside can really get into Tom Brady's face. We know that what hurts Tom Brady in the past is pressure kind of up the middle, right?

So it's not necessarily edge pressure. It's kind of, quote, unquote, getting him off his spot, right? And finding a way to get him kind of, you know, in his face right away. And it feels like that, you know, someone inside uh some big lug d tackle inside they can they can really kind of hurt tom brady uh you know chris jones i think would be a fantastic fit there as far as a guy that you that you would would fit kind of what they're looking for okay um let's go to the seahawks who for the first few weeks last season looked like the obvious best team in the nfc it kind of didn't play out that way i don't think that julio jones would make a whole lot of difference there they

they've got a couple good receivers um so if they were going to make a big trade in this fictional land what are they trading for it seems like defense yeah i could see defense um updating their secondary continuing to get pass rushers i mean they're just so young on defense and kind of very unapproved. So any pass rusher, I think, would be very welcome in Seattle. So, again, you can pick anyone you want. Miles Garrett, Von Miller, Watt. Again, like this exercise, maybe not specific players, but we're looking at specific needs.

But I can also see them like you know as much as i want to run the ball a guy like quentin nelson coming in and playing guard for them especially when with russell wilson bitching about protection that feels like some guy that pql would get behind it's a big mauling guard coming in you still want to run the football bunch um again defensively still some deficiencies but that feels like um uh you know a a wyatt teller right guard and now they traded for gabe jackson but one of these big interior offensive linemen that could you know move people off the ball okay i like that answer that's variety um that's why we're listening to you jeff because i think most people would just come up with a bunch of wide

receiver names to mention um how about the rams i think we're going to be in a spot where late November, early December hits, and everyone's going like, holy shit, the Rams, guys. Because they were damn close last year with a quarterback who really wasn't great. And Matt Stafford has something. I don't know if it's it, but he has something. So are the Rams like one tiny piece away from being a real super bowl contender and if so what's the piece so for the rams in my notes i literally put a question mark right because there's many different ways they can go i guess the question is is stafford enough on offense right is he enough

with you know cooper and and van jefferson and robert woods and higby and and the running backs they have with cam acres and henderson And I think that's enough, right? Offensive line wise, you know, move some moving parts here and there, but they got enough to get it done. To me, it feels like they've been lacking this for a couple of years now. It's an elite edge rusher, a guy you can count on to continue to rush the passer all the time, right? Just a guy that can, we we just we can't double Aaron Donald so one you know a guy you put Donald and Miles Garrett on the same side you put Donald and

Watt on the same side that feels like the missing piece they've had they needed on defense now for a couple of years wow okay so I mean then that what you're describing though is a pretty good scenario for them if you think that their offense is good enough and we already know their defense is very good and with this coaching staff they've been to a super bowl i i don't know you do the betting stuff usually with matt like i'm taking the over on the rams total this year i i just see it i maybe i'm la biased but like they have to be a better team with matt stafford they just have to be he might lose a game here and there but he'll win him some games they would have lost um probably yeah i i just think the division is very tough like i would take a healthy niners team over the rams yeah but they're

confusing the problem is that it was healthy you know yeah and we don't quite know what all happened at quarterback there um all right i'm going to name a few more teams. We can pick up the pace on some of these. In the division, the Cardinals, we fell in love with them briefly last year. They didn't really have it by the end. What do we make of them? What do they need? Oh, very simply, they need a new coach.

Trade for a coach. Yeah, any coach who's not Cliff Kingsbury. Okay. Simple. In D.C., they have a coach. Now they have a quarterback in fitzpatrick um what what does the football team need because i also really like their over i i feel like their defense is the best in the league their offense is fine what do they need yeah their defense is is fantastic to me it would it would be tight end elite tight end

yeah interesting here's a question you might just laugh at me for. I wondered why Brandon Marshall wasn't really, like if he'd come along a few years later in his career, or excuse me, if he had come into the league a few years later in the league's evolution, I think we would have talked about him the way Travis Kelsey is a tight end. Like he's just a big, strong dude who'd throw one block and then get open is julio jones like could he be that in the second phase of his career look here's the thing travis kelsey used to be an elite blocker and as he got older he doesn't do it as much they have someone else do it for him kittle can block waller can walk there's still you still

have to block at that position yeah so like i don't think brandon marshall or julio like that's not and no one's going to treat them as a tight end right part of why tight ends work so well in the nfl is defenses treat them as tight ends and they get covered by linebackers and and and whatnot no one's going to treat julio or brandon marshall as a tight end they're going to put a corner on them. Okay, so you can't, just by putting him in that position and putting another receiver out wide, you can't, like, find mismatches. I don't think so, no. Or if you put him there and his assignment was to block, he would not make the same kind of blocks and you'd have a dead quarterback.

I don't think, yeah, I don't think he can do that. All right, fair enough. The Bills barely need anything but they got to get past the chief somehow we know they drafted a little bit more defense try to put some pressure on pat if they face him what what would they have to trade for the offense looks good to me it's 1000 pass rush like i know they drafted two pass rushers the kid from miami and they drafted a i think a kid from wake forest um but to me it's it's 100 it's 100 pass rush they could not touch pam homes last season and so look again we list

off all the same guys who normally do but to me if they could trade for a defensive end or corner those are the two positions i would go for really more i'll probably maybe go for yeah corner slot corner safety or pass rush but it's not offense you're correct on that all right uh the dolphins the dolphins titans colts maybe even ravens and steelers they're all kind of in this bucket of like to me nine to ten win teams that are lucky in a playoff game so does it matter what they would well who cares i mean miami need a wide receiver this is quite simply yeah even after the draft yeah i mean waddle's gonna play you kind of inside slot guy for them i think i'd use one more guy i think on the edge i know i know that uh they have parker

there but i think as far as just one more guy to help two out as much as possible, Fuller cannot be always counted on, I think, with his injury history. That or continuing to build up the offensive line. I know they drafted an offensive lineman. They have a pretty good roster, man. They are good. They've got a really good roster. So then let's go back to where we started here with the Dolphins then.

Julio. Because as silly as it is, there's like an Alabama thing starting to build there. And I don't know. Like, is Julio the answer? That'd be a great trade for them, especially all the draft picks they have to give up. I saw today there was a quote where Tua said

that he basically didn't learn enough of the playbook from last year i'm gonna pull up the quote right here to he said uh via peter king i didn't actually know the playbook necessarily really really good and that's no one's fault but mine um but my fault so a couple things take away there i know you're cringing a little bit i don't like to hear that well there's a couple there's a couple like why questions which we don't have the answer to right is it because why okay is it because he didn't put the time in to learn okay is it because it was too complicated is it because he didn't know how much time he needed to put in right there's difference between not putting

enough time and not really knowing the responsibilities and the time it takes to be a great quarterback um or was just was it all together too overwhelming for him like there's many why questions i'm just saying admitting that out loud and the part about it when you say it's my fault well it is your fault yes but it makes me feel like it's kind of like the i didn't do enough taught which i don't i don't know i'm not gonna speak i don't know but if you just say hey man i just had a tough time you'll kind of grasp the playbook and i'll do better this year okay fine but when you say it was my fault uh it has me to believe maybe he's covering for himself but or covering for the dolphins but i don't know so that's a question for that receiver it also means i think he's trying to explain there was a reason they had to go to

ryan in a few spots i wasn't really ready and that was the reason not but not that anyone thought he was a better player is that good no here but i'm saying see like herbert's ready to play burr was ready to play the idea of needing time to play now is not not the way it works um but you can do that yeah all right um one of the julio destinations that comes up first in google uh is the patriots because obviously any anytime any guy who had success wants to go somewhere else late in his career that's where everyone says he's gonna go is there any chance julio jones ends up in new england and if so does it help them so a couple of these teams i have specific guys for right like some of them i just kind of have been like okay i don't i don't

know who these guys are you know but we know the position it's tom brady trade for tom brady done that's it there you go just trade tom brady back and that's it well so you've talked about jimmy g others have it's quarterback it's not jimmy g um it's an elite quarterback it's what they need elite or elite in the belichick mold um i mean a top 10 quarterback but i mean that's what they need not like jacoby brissett no no like a top 10 quarterback is what they need all right uh the chiefs don't need much they fixed the line um what else would you go get if you could make a trade levante david of the bucks um the Chiefs do not allow a lot of yards to wide receivers. At least they haven't last year.

They allow a ton of yards to tight ends. Tight ends burn them. Give me Levante David, one of the better covering linebackers in the NFL. Maybe he goes safety in that spot. But you've got a honey badger, right? I'm not sure you need a safety. So, to me, it's Levante David, Fred Warner, maybe a Darius Leonard,

but an elite level linebacker who could run sideline to sideline and then also take a linebacker up the seam. All right. That was a great answer. You still think of them as the favorites, right? Oh, easily. Yeah, by far.

Okay. I'll just ask this just to bother you as if it matters what what do the raiders need to trade for to be competitive uh new coach yeah yeah i mean i don't think it's gonna rush secondary i mean anything on defense name the position on defense that's what you need to improve at yeah well especially in that division uh which gets me to the chargers who again i'm not just doing an la bias thing it seems like the chargers are the team who could kind of put it together this year at least

start to compete it's kind of scary when you hear the chargers might put it together you're like i know it makes you wonder but they've done a lot of work improving in the last year and a half what else could they do what could they trade for um it's a great question so when you look at their at their roster in that division i mean you could say you could say corner say linebacker you know you help someone with kenneth murray maybe another pass rusher to pair with Bosa. You know, they address the offensive line in the offseason. They got Jared Cook, but it still feels like a second tight end to help out Herbert would be so important for them.

Out of all business, I can see, like, you put Kelsey in that offense with Herbert, and it just takes off. Yeah. You're saying tight end a lot, and it just takes off. Yeah. You're saying tight end a lot, which confirms how I feel about it. The league is like a – you need – tight end is what you should teach your kid to be if he's got the body for it moving forward. That's the elite position in the NFL these days.

Agreed. It's hard to find an elite offense without a great tight end. Yeah. All right. Well, the Steelers want to be that. They don't really have a great tight end. They have All right, well, the Steelers want to be that. They don't really have a great tight end. They have a million other things, including a new running back. Is there anything you'd trade for with the Steelers?

The D's good. Yeah, Deshaun Watson. Fair enough. All right. And we're waiting to find out if anyone wants to touch him at all. But is there going to be a Deshaun Watson trade at some point? Do you think that's really going to happen? No, I think he'll be in the commissioner's exemplars for a little bit of time before they

figure out um you know most i think i saw the last update was a lot of the court cases aren't going to happen until 2022 so um you know you're in a weird spot if you're the nfl right you're this crime and punishment league or discipline league we have a guy accused of now again i don't to my knowledge they're not they're not um uh what's the right word they're not criminal charges right they're civil charges but again the nfl fancy themselves on being this league that you know that they're going to punish every player whether or not there's proof or good proof um and so i i don't know what's gonna happen with him all right lost game there for a quick second so i'll just wrap this up on my own a couple teams left that i have on my list of interesting acquisitions look baltimore is easily a big possession wide receiver right i mean like

it's that simple right whether it's um it's a uh it's dk um whether it's uh, whether it's Keenan Allen, Hopkins, Julio, a big wide receiver. They need to give it one more shot with a big wide receiver in this offense. Tennessee Titans easily, a guy like Jalen Ramsey, to help in the secondary, add some swagger to that defense. It feels like that's the spot for him. And really one of my favorite ones to add, I went with the Browns here. I think the Browns would be the biggest threat to the Chiefs. The Browns, to me, I think Kittle in that offense would be incredible for Baker Mayfield.

Actually, one of my favorite of all this exercise is putting Kittle in this offense. I know you have Hooper. I know you have, you know, the joke. I think that put it on the sideline and put Kittle in this spot and let Kittle dominate in this Shanahan style offense. That's what I would do. So to me, again, the AFC has more exact comps, but for an exercise, nonetheless.

All right, guys, hope you enjoyed the show. We've got a lot more feedback. I appreciate it. Please rate, review, subscribe, and we'll talk to you guys next week. Have a great one.