Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - NFL CBA Developments, Dak Prescott’s Contract & Joe Burrow’s Tiny Hands

Episode Date: February 25, 2020

Geoff & Gabe are back after a two-week hiatus to bring you the latest on NFL CBA negotiations, what the Cowboys are planning for Dak Prescott & why Joe Burrow’s hand size doesn’t matter. NFL CBA Agreement: (1:38) Dak Prescott: (20:42) Joe Burrow / Combine Assessments: (30:42) ‘Move the Line’ Betting Segment: (39:35) - Taysom Hill - Dez Bryant - XFL weekends 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.

You know, these measurements, you can take so much from them. If it's a glaring issue on film with turnovers, yeah, it's probably an issue. But, you know, I didn't have a lot of fumbles or anything like that, so I just tried to, you know, make a little joke out of it. From The Athletic, I'm Jeff Schwartz, and we're back after a two-week Super Bowl hiatus, and the CBA deal between the players and the NFL owners is close to being done. Joe Burrow has tiny hands, and Dak Prescott still hasn't made his money.

It's Tuesday, February 25th, and this is Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You. Welcome back, everyone. A short hiatus. We are back. We're back for good. We'll take you through the entire offseason. We have a couple changes. We'll announce those as we go.

But I'll still be here twice a week. And we're going to talk football. We're going to talk life. We're going to have so much fun. Thank you guys, as usual, for tuning in. And stick it with me through the break. Welcome back, Gabe Goodwin. Gabe, how are we doing?

I'm doing great, Jeff. I figured after a little break, the best thing to do would be to come back with no action on the field and just talk in legalese and contract status because that's something I'm really good at. That is where this NFL office, when you think there's nothing, nothing happening, right? We have the combine obviously now, but last week we did not. Must be quiet time and boom, CB negotiations in full swing at the NFL owners owners got the media got the pa everyone going at it now we have a meeting i think today tuesday today there's a meeting there'll be more meetings thursday there's votes no one knows what to do they're on twitter jj watt jarvis landry

sherman everyone tweeting about it it's wild right yeah if you think politics twitter is a confusing scary place just check out cba twitter that is a wild west of opinions so let's get into it um you mentioned some of this and cut me off wherever you need to because this can get confusing and i don't want it to be boring the goal of me explaining all this is for the fans who listen to the show to get a little bit smarter to read the headlines a little bit smarter to interpret the takes from people on tv a little bit better this week some of this is dense jeff cut me off if i need a little help here. But players and owners are meeting at the Combine

probably right as we record this today, Tuesday, to hash out the details of a new collective bargaining agreement. If it goes well today, there'll be a vote soon, and basically we can be done talking about this. But here's the latest proposal. Alright? 17-game regular season.

An extra playoff team in each conference, which would mean more playoff games. Keep that in mind. Less one less preseason game. Players would get a bigger piece of the revenue split with owners, meaning they could raise the minimum salaries. Rookies could make some more money. There could be benefits for players after their playing career that don't currently exist some good things for players in this potential deal uh owners would get to put all this behind them this would be 10 years of peace with the players which would help them obviously negotiate a better deal with networks like fox and espn and the others who show all these games um and of course we fans would get one more game of football in fact a few more games of

football if you add up all those playoff games so here's the thing i'm not trying to be difficult i know sometimes on this show i sort of uh in the vehicle for the craziest takes out there in this case i genuinely am confused why isn't this an obvious no-brainer for players it seems like a bigger piece of the pie more football for everyone everyone, more chances to earn money, more playoff spots. What am I missing here? Because you've been talking a lot about this. Some players are not happy with this idea. Well, I think it comes down to the 17 game part of the new CBA and how much we're getting back. Now, there's increased minimum salary. So the PA is trying to get players more money early in their career. There's deals with fifth-year options and escalators.

And then they're removing a franchise tag. They're adding some benefits post-career where they're increasing pensions for certain players. They're increasing this health savings plan. To your point, the guts of the CBA look much better than they have been in the previous. I went through 2011. It wasn't a great deal. We did it. We caved.

A lot of players weren't prepared for the lockout, and we got what we got. But for players, the 17 games is the number one holdup, in my opinion. And a lot of them do not feel what we're getting in return for 17 games is worth it. The number one question that I have, I don't have an answer for, and I'm going to go about this assuming that most of the benefits that are in the CBA, that are proposed in the CBA are not tied to 17 games. Because if they are, that obviously changes, I think, how the players should look at the revenue split that's the number one concern is the revenue split right now for players

currently the proposal is if we stay at 16 games we're at 48 percent of the revenue split of all revenue 17 games we're at 48.5 and a lot of players feel for the extra half percent playing one extra game is not worth the risk. And look, I understand that the NFL owners have offered to lessen practice time, to lessen time in the building. That to me is fluff that gets a lot of players excited, but isn't actually anything that helps us in the long term. No players ever retired and said, you know what, I was glad I made less money because I had less practice time. A lot of players would trade, you know, two extra hours in the building five days a week to make more money, right? And we

look at the injury rate. In the last 10 years, practice has significantly been reduced. It was reduced in the previous CBA. It went from double days to no double days in training camp to off days to limited padded practices to two-day acclimation period. The new CBA. It went from double days to no double days in training camp to off days to limited padded practices to two day acclimation period. The new CBA, they want to do five day acclimation period. They're limiting pads, eliminating all this stuff. Injuries have not gone down in the NFL. In fact, they've gone up in the NFL, right?

Concussions have really not gone down in the NFL. The length of her career hasn't improved. So we've already made changes to the practice schedule, and they haven't actually helped anyone avoid injuries or have their careers be lengthened. So they're throwing out stuff that the owners are, they know that players think is good for them. I'm telling you as a retired player,

I would have taken more money overall for the group of us. I would have taken better benefits to practice a little bit more. So that to me is, I know it sounds good for players. That to me should be a non-starter for why the players agree to 17 games. The reason they should do it is we get more money

and more health benefits post-career, okay? We should be up in the 50% range, in my opinion. I think it's not doable in this CBA, but even at 49%, a little bit of a win for the players, I think they'd be in at 49 to 50%, because then you have to think, Gabe, in the this CBA, but even at 49%, a little bit of a win for the players, I think they'd be in at 49 to 50%, because then you have to think, Gabe, in the next CBA, we'll be at 50%, right?

So if you think long-term, we'll be there in 10 years. Hopefully, I think the term of the agreement, there's so many things to talk about, but the term of the agreement is way too long, in my opinion. We're not going to get into that right now, but 17 games to hold up. More money, We're not going to get into that right now. But 17 games to hold up. More money, more overall revenue, and then better health benefits when we retire. As it currently stands now, you get five years of health insurance once you retire, no matter how long you play. You play 20 years.

You play four years if you're vested at four years. You get five years of health coverage when you're done playing. And the new CBA, the one they're proposing now, that's not changing, but they're going to build clinics in NFL cities for retired players to go and get treatment. Again, I don't know if that's going to be

at a discount, free of cost. I don't know how that's going to work. But really, players want, in writing, our health benefits will improve to 17. Because the risk that we take moving from 16 to 17 games is all on us it's on our bodies we get hurt in games games are the reason why players retire because of the wear and tear of games i know practice yes it might be helped a couple guys to lessen practice but overall we get hurt in games those are high leverage reps

they're high stress reps. Your body actually needs practice to get into the rhythm of playing in a game. Your body needs practice to get in those weird angles you're gonna be in on Sundays and Mondays and Thursdays. And if you don't get that, it actually hampers, I think, your ability to stay healthy during the season. So less than practice time should not be the reason why we do this.

It should be because we get more money and more health benefits. Okay. So a lot of follow-ups here and I'll just go in no particular order. Um, JJ Watt, who, uh, comes up jokingly on this show a lot, but in this case was the biggest name who spoke out saying he would be opposed to 17 games and a few other players, some stars, many who are not stars joined him in in that philosophy that 17 he didn't explain but 17 games seems like too much for him so i guess it's because of what you're saying the injury risk now again we'll put aside jj watt who doesn't even play 16 games most seasons but we're not gonna we're not gonna make a joke there. We're just going to say understandable star players probably don't want an extra game because please clarify here.

The 17th game check would not be at the full rate that they make on every other game, right? Yes. Yeah, that's also a problem. But here's the thing with some of that too, Gabe. And I talked to some of the player reps about this. You know, when you're part of a union, right? The goal is to obviously benefit all, right? And if, let's say you agree to the CBA as it is now, 19% of players would make less money in a week 17, a week 17 game, or 17th game, I should say, than they would playing the rest of the season, right?

But if the other 60% of players, I know that 19 to 60 is not 100, but let's say 60% of players that are on the rookie deals get more money because of this, then is it worth it for older players to sacrifice a little bit to get younger players paid more? I mean, the increase in revenue is more for everyone. Is it worth it to some of those guys to sacrifice a little bit of what they're making for a better deal for younger guys? I mean, I'm looking at a TV right now that's on a news network, and it sounds like a very similar conversation that half the country's having right now. We won't have that conversation on this show,

but I think what you're getting at here is that if you make a lot of money as a player, maybe you personally don't stand to gain very much here if you're the average guy and there are lots of them out there you have plenty more to make so i guess here's my question by the logic of jj watt and i think aaron rogers is with him there there's i mean a lot of players who would be incentivized to agree that 17 games is too many games well would they be happier with 15 games or 14 games like what i guess i don't understand what is the threshold of the amount of games that's right if you're being

paid more for more games and by the way if you make the playoffs and there'd be one more playoff spot and you would no longer be basically sitting out for free during a bye week you'd get paid on a bye week there's more opportunity for good players to make more money here. Isn't that a good thing? I'm glad you mentioned J.J. Watt's tweets. J.J. Watt is not part of this negotiation. All players that are not part of the negotiation should not be tweeting about it. Okay. It does not help when J.J. Watt tweets about it.

It does not help when Jarvis Landry tweets like, get ready to watch XFL because that's like in our future. They're not part of the negotiations. They're not part of the phone calls. They're not part of what's happening behind the scenes. Players can voice their opinions about this. Obviously, you're allowed to, but I think you need to be more subtle and you need to kind of not fall in line with the PA, but at least be supportive of the process. I feel like tweets like JJ Watt and Jarvis Landry don't actually help the situation at all because players, by the way, that are younger, that look up to J.J. Watt,

they're going to ignore their player reps and just look at what he tweets. So I think players, there's some responsibility here to be unified. The owners are. Now, again, you don't have to agree with the deal of your players, but that's what your player rep is for. Call your player rep. Have him go to bat for you in these meetings. Obviously, there's a big split with the players anyways on the cba i just want to make make that point um well to your point look

we're used to 16 games now we're used to preparing our bodies for that we're used to the pay that comes with 16 games and again it comes down to do how players feel about the extra benefits afforded to us for 17 games and the salary. And a lot of players would agree that I've talked to a bunch of them that there needs to be a closer to a 50-50 split on revenue if we're going to do this. Because again, the risk is all ours on this. And there needs to be better post-retirement benefits for every player that's going to be different. And some players want 49%, some want 50%. Some want lifetime health insurance, which I look, I would love it, but I think that's very unrealistic to get lifetime health insurance

when you're finished playing. I think a tiered system where a certain number of years gets you a certain number of years of health insurance is probably the better way to go. But there's no way we're getting lifetime health insurance. I think players should not negotiate from that standpoint. Yeah. One last thing on this topic.

And by the way, 32 reps, one for each team will be part of the next conversation with owners. The one we suspect is happening right now. And then after that is hashed out, if there's something to vote on, then that goes to the whole body of players in the union. And I believe you need two thirds vote from players to advance this and basically say we have a deal till 2029. So there's a few steps left here.

But you're right. J.J. Watt is not a formal part of that process. He has a lot of influence. But that's why guys like Richard Sherman have said, hey, cool. Communicate with your player rep. You know, he's not. He's a rep. He's on the executive committee.

He knows. He knows that like this is not it's not productive to get on twitter and start shouting about the cba when you're not part of the process so um yeah there's so many things it's so complex but i but i think that i want to make the one last point here gabe is that and this is something that i don't know i don't think anyone else knows besides who's in that room, is if we say no to 17 games, what part of the new benefits that we get in the new parts of the CBA go away if we don't agree to 17 games? And I guess we don't know that. Obviously, maybe the leadership knows that. And final point I want to make, because it's important, I think, to maybe gloss over this.

I did at the start. The owners right now are not trying, in my opinion, obviously, they're not trying to bully the players into doing a deal now. The reason why they want a deal now, and it makes total sense to me, from the beginning, this has made sense to me, is they want to negotiate TV deals as soon as possible. Because the bulk of our revenue in the NFL is from TV and rights deals, right? There's deals with Verizon. There's deals with Amazon. There's deals with DirecTV and CBS and Fox and Disney.

That's the bulk of what our revenue is. And if you have a 10-year CBA locked into place with basically fixed costs, you know what things are going to cost. Obviously, the cap rises each year as the TV rights deals, you know, the money to put the boards in does. But you have a general idea. You can go to these networks and say, look, we want more money now. And while the market is still good right now and still hot, and the election obviously

is in November, it might change based on the results of the election. The owners want to get this done now. There might be more money now than there is in next March. So that's why they think they're doing now. It's not like a bullying thing. I think that actually if the market stayed the same and then next March came around, we get the same deal. It just, maybe the leverage, we get a little more leverage if we waited. I do not think the owners are going to pull the entire deal away from us. If the market dips by next March, sure, they might change the terms. I don't think they're going to change the terms a year from now if the market continues the way it's going.

Okay, well, fair enough. Last point, since my job here is to sort of be the voice of some fans who don't get to pick the brain of a former player, a thoughtful former player like yourself. Let me raise something that I think comes up a lot. And this is where I am not with the masses, but I just want to bring it up because it's probably one for you to tee off on. What the hell? Just get to work. I wish I could make $30 million a year playing football. I played high school football and I loved it and I didn't get injured. What's the problem? Go to work. What do you make of that take? And I'm obviously being a little condescending to fans who tweet that kind of nonsense, but it is nonsense, right? Can you please clarify why what one person makes in their living is not the same as what J.J. Watt, to be fair to him, makes for his living? The risks that he takes and the value that he provides are a little different than me and my job, which is not the same. Well, look, when I talk on Twitter and we talk on this podcast, I talk about football in football terms, right?

I don't talk about your job. I don't compare your job. Football players are extremely talented. They play in a profession that allows them to make a lot of money. I don't compare them to firefighters, to police officers. And look, the funny part to me, Gabe, is that we should root for everyone to make more money. You should root for teachers to make more money. You should work for social workers, for cops, for firefighters. I root for everyone to get paid. The medical field, my wife is a nurse. They don't make as much as they should.

Like I root for everyone to make money. And the idea that you wouldn't root for NFL players to make as much as they should, considering that you and your own job would want more money if you thought you deserve more money is just I'd never understand I understand rooting for a team and siding with the team like in a con an actual contract between player and team right but but but siding with the owners who by the way it's not like in theory in government when if, you know, if they have extra money, they're going to spend it. Right. Which, again, we're not getting in that type of show. In theory, they're going to spend the money. Right. They're going to give it back to infrastructure, whatever they're going to use it for. Right.

The owners, the money they save, they keep themselves. They're not reinvesting the money they save from not paying the players into something else. They keep the money as profits for themselves. So that to me is like, it has made no sense to me why people have sided so much with ownership. You don't get, you do not get lower ticket prices if the owners get 47%, you know, get 53% or 52%. They're charging you the same. So like, it's always baffled me.

The owners are keeping the money they save. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, this is something I would just say to all the people who listen. And I think the folks who listen to this show are paying close attention to the game and love the game and think about it critically, or they wouldn't have clicked play on what you're talking about. Guys, just one heads up.

I've worked in this world for a long time. You're falling for a little bit of media bias and spin here from an owner's perspective when you view some of these stories. The sources that the best reporters in this industry get are typically from the business side. They're not usually talking to ho-hum average player you never heard of who has a stake in all the things Jeff was describing. They're talking to agents, they're talking to network execs, they're talking to owners and people in the front office,

all of whom are incentivized the way Jeff was just describing. So just be mindful as you read these stories or read even shorter these 280 word or character tweets. Just think about where the information is coming from before you leap to the conclusion that the owners are right and the players are wrong. That's all. I'm glad you brought that up. I actually tweeted that out essentially. Like, hey, I'm tired of like the NFL shills

tweeting out NFL. Like, I mean, look, what was the tweet that bothered me to no end? Someone tweeted out that, you know, the players getting set week 17 money capped at $250,000. It solves the problem. Solves the problem? How's that solve the problem?

It was 1,000% a tweet, basically, from an NFL owner that was given. And it's just like, and I tweeted that out, basically. I got a bunch of media members got all salty and texted me about it. And I was like, you know I'm not calling you out. I was like, you know, I'm not calling you out. If you didn't tweet it, I'm not calling you out. But I wanted to remind people that when this came out Thursday, I think it was Thursday, it was all from the NFL side. The PA had not talked yet and they had not gone the owner's term sheet yet.

It was 1,000. And I get it. There's reporters who work for NFL Network. They're NFL media. I understand. But you can also report the news without adding anecdotes like, this is solved. And there were plenty of reporters that did not do that. They just presented the facts as they were.

But again, there's only a couple guys that I can think of off the top of my head that get a lot of information from the player side. Yeah, it's infrequent. And it's a great transition to hopefully get a little bit closer to just football talk here. But Yeah, it's infrequent and it's a great transition to hopefully get a little bit closer to just football talk here, but still it's the offseason guys. So we're still going to be hung up on some contract stuff and some unfamiliar terms. So let's talk about one of the biggest stars out there right now with unfinished business. Dak Prescott, still not signed in Dallas. Okay. The team and his agent haven't spoken substantively about a contract since before

the season and that at the time seemed like the right thing to do right Dak wanted to play he wanted to compete he didn't want to have this be lingering all season long but here we are in the offseason his chance to do a new deal and it isn't done so Stephen Jones Jerry's son and VP of something or other you know somewhere within that, he has clout. He insists that Dak is still their guy. All right. But they won't be able to do a long-term deal until all this other CBA nonsense we just talked about for a while is resolved. So that's kind of a confusing position to be in. My opinion only. The Cowboys aren't in any rush to do this deal. I don't know if they're out on Dak as a player or tired of the way he's handling it

or just rethought about the money, but I don't think that they're going to make him the kind of offer that he wants ever. And I think we're at a bit of a standstill. So they can say all the nice things they want about him being their guy, but I don't actually see them figuring out a way to get him paid as much as he wants

and on this roster by next season. Do I have this wrong? figuring out a way to get him paid as much as he wants and on this roster by next season do i have this wrong so i think we're heading to a franchise tax situation with dac and with um the cowboys actually we're heading into into cousins redskins territory where neither side can agree upon the terms of a deal and we're going to keep franchising each you know for two two years basically 70 million dollars over the next two years um you know there are a couple alarming things in my opinion one is that um you know stephen jones the uh vice president had said that they haven't talked to dax agents since september and they're not planning on doing it in in indianapolis that worries me that's very odd

considering they admitted they talked to mark cooper's people. They redid Zeke's deal. They did Jalen Smith's deal. We'll get to those in a second. It worries me that we haven't talked to him. Mike McCarthy admitting that he hadn't called Dak after like a week

of being the Cowboys head coach is super alarming. Okay, guys? That is as odd as can be. Matt Rule talked to Cam Noon the day he signed with the Panthers. How does Mike McCarthy not have five minutes to call his franchise quarterback up obviously that was part

of the conversation when they talked and hired him was what are your plans for dac prescott and the idea that he hadn't called him is shocking to me i think the cowboys why i know i know the issue and the contract now from 33 million dollars per year essentially the holdup is the number of years the Cowboys like longer deals uh for homegrown guys uh you know Dak's people obviously want shorter deal especially the new CBA pops and the and the salaries rise I don't think Dak Prescott's waiting for Pat Mahomes's deal because that's not even the same stratosphere they're not even close the same player and I I do not think that that is what they're actually waiting for. I think they can't agree on terms. I think we're heading to a situation where the Cowboys aren't quite sold on Dak,

especially at the number he wants for a contract. Dak's not going to want to do a long-term deal in Dallas if it's not under his terms. And we're going to a franchise tag situation where it's tag this year, see how he plays. Tag next year, see how he plays tag next year. So he plays give him money or not give him money. I'll tell you this, Gabe, you know, this, you followed sports long enough, football long enough.

If a team wants their quarterback, they get a contract done. Sure. Yeah. I mean, and that's why I'm saying I'm not, I'm not a hundred percent sure they want this guy any longer. I mean, they've, they've paid other people on that. I think they want to, I think they want them at a certain price they don't want them above that price which is so unlike the cowboys but that feels like they're saying like look this is our price

either you know you either meet it or you don't meet it uh and i will say this one one thing that has bothered me about this conversation is that people have said dax should take less money which is which is silly the reason why they want to take because the Cowboys foolishly paid Zeke Elliott first, and then they don't have as much money. The Cowboys should have prioritized Dax first, then Amari. It's not Dax's job to be the cap manager for the Cowboys. His job is to get as much money as he feels he deserves.

And I think, Gabe, I think we're hitting a situation where I don't think that, I think either side's knocking a bunch. Well, it's not people who are suggesting that. It's arguably the most famous Dallas Cowboy of our lifetime, Emmitt Smith. Well, who, such a hypocrite who held out for two games. Right. So it seems odd to me that Emmitt, who is now at the stage of his career, where again, remember, who's incentivized to think like who?

I'm not accusing anyone of anything, and I certainly don't know, but it would seem like Emmitt is a little bit closer to the sort of ownership media world than he is the player world at this point of course yeah and so for him to be saying or suggesting that a guy in his prime should accept less to make the team better to maybe what win a ring like that that is the approach a former player would take in a guy who, yeah, fought for his own money in his prime. That seems odd to me. You know, Shannon, Shannon Sharp, who I think is as thoughtful about this stuff as anyone

we hear from, you know, shot that notion down. Go check out Shannon if you want to hear him disagree with Emmett. But where do you where do you come down on that? Like, what is the role of a former player, especially a guy who's known to be part of that franchise for so long should they be weighing in on this kind of stuff it's really interesting you say that because when we're talking about Emmett Smith I thought about Troy Aikman how Troy Aikman was like openly bashing Jason Garrett at points this year on the broadcast although it was actually pretty big of him because obviously he's very close to the ownership there. I think that

part of the tough job about the media and all the media is obviously deciding the bias that is out there, right? And I think that I do a good job

of not having a bias. Obviously, sometimes I troll about the Los Angeles Dodgers or the Washington Huskies and things like that. But I think for the most part, I'm really good about that because it's very hard to not have a bias when talking about anything, right? Your experience is playing to that.

And so, you know, with Emmitt Smith, it very much feels like Jerry Jones was like, hey, can you go out and say this? Not in those terms, but he's been talking to Jerry and Steven Jones and they're like, yeah, man,, we just need that to take less because we've got to get Jones in here, Byron Jones, and we've got to pay Amari Cooper, and we've got to pay all these guys. And hey, man, I think it'd be better if he took less. And he just goes out and says that. I don't really fault Emmitt Smith for saying that because he's probably closer to ownership now than he is

to any of the players on the team. He's not part of the CBA negotiations, right? He's not part of this. He has plenty of money. He's not worried about health insurance um things like that so um i i definitely this is a comment coming from a player who's probably spent a lot of time with with management talking about how they're going to structure their team i don't think they explicitly said hey emmet go go tell the media that dac needs but i'm sure they've talked about the need to want to pay everyone and pay amara

cooper and pay by you know pay byronron Jones and what that will all cost. Yeah, and I'll just read you another quote directly from Stephen Jones, the person who is most involved in this from an ownership perspective. This is him talking about the same issue as Emmett weighing in on. He says, quote, we're going to have some challenges with our salary cap. We are. Certainly with Dak and Amari, that's going to shrink it in a hurry we're going to have the challenges but they're not challenges that we cannot overcome so he's framing the whole thing as hey man there's only so much money to go around if we want to have all

these guys on the team and be a winner everyone's going to have to sort of tighten their belt up a little bit and to your point that may be true but that's his problem. That's not Dak's problem, right? Correct. And I just last topic here or question on this. Do you think and I don't want to make too bad a comparison here because there's obviously differences at position and point in their career and team. But do you think that there's any possibility we're headed towards something like a Levy and Bell situation where Dak sort of comes to the conclusion that not playing is maybe better for him long-term

than agreeing to a franchise or some other situation. I know it's a little bit of a sloppy analogy, but curious what you think of that. I don't think so. Dak does never, you know, I think Le'Veon Bell, I felt like he put that kind of out there for a while. I could see a situation where, you know, his franchise, doesn't show up until July. But again, with a new coach, though, he kind of needs to get in there early.

Get in the system. So Dak does not feel like that guy to me. Maybe I'm reading him wrong. I just don't see that. I do not see that happening, no. Yeah. And you mentioned McCarthy reportedly has not reached out to Dak. Well, this was a while ago.

My guess is the ownership group has asked him not to because they're in a negotiation, right? I mean, that's not that he's lazy or hasn't gotten around to calling his quarterback. I don't know, man. Are you telling me that he just – he hasn't been like – just a text like, hey, Dak, looking forward to working with you? I mean, like, really?

Like, you can't send him that text? I don't know, man. The Panthers might not. I've been on the management side of things. I think there's an argument to be made that his boss would say, hey, that's only going to confuse matters. Don't worry. We're going to let you have your time to talk football with Dak soon.

I, dude, the Panthers might not sign, um, might not sign, uh, uh, Cam Newton back. What is, what's that got to do with this? They talked to Cam Newton the day, Matt Ruhl talked to him the day that he got there. Oh, oh, I'm sorry. So you're saying in that scenario, they, they had the conversation. Well, okay. But I mean, this might be just a different negotiation. I don't, I don't think that Cam Newton has quite the same leverage over the panthers that dac is trying to have over

the cowboys so it's a slightly different situation and matt rule as we've talked about on this show is a coaching genius and phenomenon who cannot be stopped so everything he does is right exactly bingo all right let's move along um another new face in the nfl soon uh will be joe burrow but listen joe burrow has small hands smells like cabbage all right at least that's what we're being told apparently joe the presumed number one pick and arguably the guy coming off the best college football season of all time has abnormally small hands. His throwing hand is nine inches from point of pinky to thumb. All right. For reference, since probably most people don't know how big or small that is, I am a normal sized guy. I'm six feet tall. I have a normal sized hand. My hand is about

eight inches and three quarters of an inch from tip to tip. So I have almost as big a hand as Joe Burrow. That is weird. He is the smallest hand of any quarterback going into the draft in over 10 years. For reference, the average NFL quarterback has a hand of about nine and three quarters inches, so almost an inch bigger than Joe, which matters when you're gripping a football and running around as he tends to do. The ball is a different size at the NFL level. So this is something that people are talking about at the Combine. This is something that people are concerned about. Not Joe, however.

Joe tweeted, Considering retirement, after I was informed the football will be slipping out of my tiny hands, please keep me in your thoughts. Jeff, Joe Burrow can joke about all this he wants, but if I were him, I would be very careful this week. I would not let anyone measure shit about my body. I would not want any more information out there. All that can happen is things go wrong.

He should just keep his damn mouth shut and stay away. So I went on a website last night called NFL Combine Results.com. I know my head's big, but I just want to see my entire everything else. I was graded an F, by the way. An F. My brother had a worse rating than me, but at least I have big hands. My hand's over 11.

So I was like, yes, big hands can play offensive line. Yeah, this is so silly, dude. David Fleming of ESPN. com went and wrote about this. You go there and he said there's no correlation whatsoever that there is the QBR. The success rate of quarterbacks has nothing to do with with their hand size. The reason why people like hand size is because you theoretically hold onto the ball better. And look, there are guys with smaller hands that have fumbled a lot. And, you know, you have more grip strength and you're able to throw the ball harder.

Again, there's nothing really that shows that this is the case. But it's kind of one of those NFL tall tales everyone talks about as being true. And it's not. It's just so silly, man. it doesn't mean anything why doesn't it mean anything what like um i i think if i think if actually if it's if your hand is like really small nine is not that bad if it's like eight and a half that would be smaller than mine i mean that that of course not big enough how it right but but nine but nine is not where it's an issue, in my opinion.

And Joe Burrow has not had fumbling issues. And his arm strength is not the greatest. He's not Herbert with his arm, but he's very accurate, and that feels like it matters the most. But the only question is, look, in Cincinnati, when the weather gets worse, gets a little colder, having a bigger hand and a stronger arm would be important. But to me, that's not a reason to not draft him.

I'm not saying it's not a reason to not draft him. I'm just saying my man should be a little less cavalier making a joke out of this because the combine is all about those measurables. And measurables are stupidly how a lot of these people make decisions or sign deals so um he shouldn't sign up for anything where they can get a stat that gives them a headline or a lower third on a tv show that says he don't stack up i would just not participate if i were him um i'm i'm looking at a thread right now about charles robinson yahoo sports where all the offensive linemen measured today. And Cameron Clark, his hand is 11.

His left hand is 11. His right hand is 10 and three eights. And he put pinky deformity. So you got to think about those pinkies, man. That's actually why one of my hands is longer, is bigger than the other one is because my right pinky was dislocated when I, in high school. And so it kind of sticks out like a little bit like to more to the right.

And so I get like an extra, like probably an extra couple of centimeters. So maybe, maybe Burrow should deform his hands in the next few days and try to get a couple centimeters out of this. By the way, Patrick Mahomes, best quarterback in the league, your favorite quarterback.

His hand was measured at nine and one quarter inches at the combine so not that much bigger that's a that's a little bit of good news for burrow except again pat's hand is bigger uh yeah i mean this is the key to the super bowl is that pat's hands bigger um look this is the time of season where this just remember this type of year combine especially if we move closer to draft anonymous scouts become a thing obviously and um and the goal of a scout is to find reasons not to draft a guy to lower the value to get a value pick right you always want to try as much value as possible everyone can see that jo Joe Burrow's good, okay? It's weeding out the reasons why he might be bad.

And that's what scouts are doing now. That's what we're doing with Justin Herbert, especially they're doing that with Tua and his injury. They're doing that with Jordan Love. All the guys, they're finding ways not to draft them. And so this is the next two months, guys. We know Burrow can complete passes. We know he can move in the pocket.

We know he can read defenses. But what are the things that you can't do very well or struggles upon that's what we're going to talk about for the next two months and part of it is people believe hand size is a reason why a player you know will or won't succeed well that's interesting that you frame it that way because we're coming off a season where i i feel like every single week was spent talking about how those very same anonymous people got it completely wrong, especially when it came to Lamar Jackson. Right. This is exactly the moment a few years ago when everyone started talking themselves into reasons not to take Lamar Jackson. And he proved to be the best quarterback in the league last year, at least statistically. So, I mean, the best quarterback in the league won the Super Bowl, but I year at least statistically so i mean the best quarterback in the league won the super bowl but i said at least statistically don't worry you get my point right like this is the time where these scouts are trained to try to call damaged goods on all these players and lower

the value of them but in reality wouldn't they be better off looking for the steel looking for the guy who maybe doesn't fit the mold but is actually about to change the game well they're doing that i do think that there is an issue with the how we scout guys especially offensive yeah they're looking for reasons to draft but i think that the stuff we hear is the stuff the negative stuff because that's like like we like i said like like joe burrow we know he's good but like what sets him like what are the things that teams might not want to draft him? That to me is juicier than like, oh yeah, the Bengals are taking number one. It's easy pick. You know what I mean?

Yeah. No, I do. So let me ask you this and then we can move along. But we've already talked about a few conspiracy ideas in this show. Let's go even deeper. Do you think that teams drafting at the two or the three or maybe the five with the Dolphins, think that teams drafting at the two or the three or maybe the five with the dolphins teams that would love to get joe burrow might be the people who are seeding the like negative storylines and finding the problems in hopes that maybe somebody in cincy goes oh crap man this guy's hands are

only nine inches long what are we gonna do let's go get some guy with big hands and skip on burrow boom burrow lands in the lap of the team drafting three, four, five. Do you think that ever happens? Yes. Counterintelligence type crap. Yeah.

All the time. Do you have real examples of when you think that might've happened? Cause I'm fascinated by, um, I can't, I, if I have a couple of this year that I think are put out there, um,

Oh, we'll make sure to talk about them. I don't remember, but there's definitely times where teams have, have tried to sabotage other teams for taking players. Yes. A hundred percent. I'll give you one without,

you know, I'm, this is not slandering the player at all, but I remember, you know, with Laramie Tunsil right at the last second there, there was that crazy video of him making like some homemade bong and he looked,

he looked kind of crazy. And all of a sudden everyone was worried about this guy and he slipped a little bit in the draft maybe not because of that but that was the narrative we all spun you know when you spot something like that right before the draft in april you'll you'll call it out on this show right well the laramie tonsil thing was by his stepdad or whatever like that's not by a team i don't think well we don't know we don't know who's paying who right that was not by a team i promise you i'm i'm going into like reddit thread nonsense right now let me let me ground us a little bit closer to reality we're going to go to moving the line a little over under game it's going to be shorter in the off season uh because

there aren't any games to talk about so here goes um i can't believe we've made it this far into the show without mentioning the greatest football player alive right now tasem hill i want to know jeff i was sarcasm for the record i want to know um tasem hill snaps in new england more or less than tom brady snaps in new england next season there's a report that bill belichick is interested who the hell knows where it comes from but it's out there i want to know how much florida was getting paid to tweet about tasem hill but like what number would what do you think i would what what number would this podcast have to take from his agent to tweet about all the things tasem hill is going to be good at he's six for 13 passing his last two years when the saints

when when drew brees got hurt they put in teddy bridgewater tasem hill is not a future star he's like 85 years old he's going to make5 million, $6 million as a restricted free agent. That's what he about should get. He's a utility player. No one's signing him to be their starting quarterback. Maybe New England signs him to be what he's doing in New England. I mean, excuse me, in New Orleans. Tom Brady will start in New England next year. Taysom Hill will not. No one's going to go out of their way to give up draft picks for Taysom Hill. I do not understand the love for a utility player in the NFL. I'm so glad to hear you say all of that. And we sort of talked about him as everyone got excited about him a handful of times this season

when he did do some pretty awesome things. I mean, there's some great highlights of Taysom Hill out there, including the game they lose in the playoffs. You know, he was almost the hero. But you mentioned Florio by name. So Pro Football Talk is the Twitter account. Mike Florio is the guy behind it. He has been nonstop PR campaign for Taysom Hill being the future of the league

in every way he can. I don't, I'm not thinking he's actually getting paid for that but why do play why do people in the media fall in love with guys like this and help drive the price up for them in free agency what accounts for that is it just his eyeballs are telling him something we're not seeing you love a player of equal don't do that don't do it jeff um not getting along great man we've got two weeks without doing that don't bring it here you love a player of equal um not more no not equal don't say equal but you have a player considerably greater fame and and ability

just go ahead say his name i'm allowing you to say this man's name timothy tim tebow um so uh no look i i think because um look there's a lot of um i don't want this to sound we've mentioned we're talking a lot about media members so far today and i want to make it make this very clear there's a lot of media members that i respect that i really do a great job that have put the work in understand the game understand the way it works that have their sources but they're you know they're very professional about it um and there's other guys that kind of just fell into this job and don't really watch a lot of football like like actually know what's happening. And, you know, they try to give their opinion.

I think that's where Florio's at. I don't think that he's not, he doesn't have a background watching football. He's a fan of football, but he doesn't have a background studying the game, right? He's not a scout. And they just fall, you know, Sean Payton says, oh, I like Taysom Hill. And everyone's like, yeah, of course, at the right price you do. but no one actually thinks the NFL is going to take over for for Drew Brees but Florio hears that and just runs with it it because he's not studying the game and so that I think is sometimes an issue with um you know people that give like player personnel opinions

okay well I mean, other people are buying what he's selling and Taysom Hill just will not go away. Unlike besides, besides, besides that one Twitter account, who's buying that? Well,

I don't know, but I mean, listen, it's, it's a pretty slow period of time. Talking to CBA is dull and confusing on a lot of formats. Certainly TV shows are not jumping at the chance to talk about labor negotiations. Dak Prescott is a fun and interesting topic with the biggest team in the league,

but nothing changes since September, so how many days in a row can you talk about that? This is just a thing that allows you to roll some video and talk about something new, so shows talk about it. And the way in is to mention florio's tweets so i you know it's not just him it's him sort of propagating a whole bunch of other people talking about this i i don't have an opinion on whether it's right or wrong i was in the business of of using the smallest thing as a topic you know if it got you to an interesting place but this one does seem strange we watched him play He's a nice change of pace player.

He's a good guy to have on your roster. He deserves a contract in the NFL. Drew Brees says he's great. He's great. But like you said, he isn't even somebody's backup. So I don't quite get why we have to pretend that he is. Tim Tebow, on the other hand, by the way, wearing 85 this spring training, still doing it with the Mets organization keep

an eye on him I think we're gonna see some better numbers this season he looks healthy yeah married man now things are good the older he gets the older he gets the the better people get in sports look in baseball years he's like 20 now okay guys guys just about to hit his groove stay tuned we'll get into that in a few weeks. Let's move along to our next topic. This one's sure to trigger you. Does Bryant catches with the Chiefs this season over under.5? Zero.

Zero? You're going under.5? Absolutely zero. What was that video that I scrolled past on my Twitter feed the other day? Him and your boy throwing passes to each other. They're in Fort Worth working out together. There's zero chance signs of the Chiefs. There's no reason for that. It's not necessary. It's not happening.

Wouldn't another weapon be helpful? They got a lot of guys. They got a sign. What if they can get Dez cheaper than some of the guys who are there currently? Why not? It's not happening. They don't need him. They need all their money for Chris Jones and Pat Mahomes. So the people who saw that video and instantly thought there was something to read into there are all wrong.

Yeah, it's the offseason. This is what we do in the offseason. So are you saying, I guess here's something you can make us smarter about. Are you saying that all kinds of random combinations of NFL players are just throwing passes to each other in all parts of america right now like if i pulled up to some other random texas town and went to a high school field could i find two nfl players rolling the ball to each other no they have to be they have to be they're working at the same gym that's why like they're like a like a facility they're working out a facility together so yeah there's if you're exos and everyone's there i was at michael johnson

performance last week watching offensive lineman training if there was if pat mahomes and jerry judy who was actually there are my favorite non-jew ever and they were uh they were there together they would throw it doesn't mean the chiefs are drafting jerry judy i think i just heard jeff's report that the Chiefs are drafting Jerry Judy if he slips down to the 32nd pick. I tell I heard it. Well, if he slips to the 32nd pick, there's probably something wrong with him. That would be very weird.

All right. We'll keep an eye on him. But you're saying these guys during the offseason, the common tie here is the gym they work out at, the trainer they use, the facility. And so, of course you know they both they're getting something out of this they're going to just throw the ball around they're not giving away secrets and there's nothing to read into yes that's boring because this has been

for my whole life a fun thing to speculate about and now that we got phones in everyone's pockets with cameras attached we're going to get a video like that every single week from now until training camp starts so i want to believe that some of it has merit and is worth talking about but you're telling me go screw all right last uh last topic jeff this one's personal i want to know times that your wife will curse while you watch xfl on a beautiful saturday during March. Three and a half times on Saturdays this month coming. You know what? I don't think I've watched XFL for three and a half minutes

the last two weekends. Oh, come on. You're tweeting like crazy about the XFL. You love this. I did the first week. It's on in the background, but I'm not missing family time for it. And when March comes comes college basketball is

on march madness is on so that'll be on my wife and i have figured out a good like sports routine because she's not a fan of sports and not a fan of me watching it she actually thinks i can actually not watch football and talk about it it's it's really quite hilarious she's like you don't have to watch football you can just still talk about it i'm like that's not really the way it works um i we have many tvs in the house and like i have a TV in the kitchen that I often will just put on sports on mute. And then we have another TV for like the kids or my wife to watch. So that's how I've been making it work. I would say under here, I will say she was, I have a video I posted on Twitter now a couple of weeks ago. She was very surprised when XFL came on. And I was like, hey babe, look

what's on TV. And she's like, what is this? I thought the season was over. She was not happy about it. But no, I'm going to go under here, under. I'm not going to, it's not like, I don't feel any attachment to it anymore. It was fun the first week. I bet on a little bit.

But there's just not much of an attachment for it. I don't know many of the guys playing. I don't think the game is that crisp to watch it's not not interesting to me let me ask you this if guys play really well in the xfl but are you know getting beat up a little bit and putting mileage on the tires so to speak in uh february and march is this a pathway to the nfl like is this a place where scouts will be looking could somebody find a special teamer or a fourth string receiver you know fill in the blank some defensive back like is this a path i was talking to um a buddy of mine in the scouting world and he said that he

feels bad for people to have to scout um scout xfl because they're going to do it. They're going to do it. I think PJ Walker from I forget which team he's on is doing – he's playing well. There will be some guys that have – that get looks at it. I don't know if anyone's going to make it. But, I mean, you're the person who always points out – this is so stupid. I didn't even make it a topic this week. But you're the guy who always points out, shut up everybody, any XFL team is favored against LSU and beats them nine times out of ten. Like, if not nine out of ten.

Yeah, because XFL is, they're grown men, and a lot of them were the best player at their college, they just didn't make it in the NFL. So they would beat LSU, they would would lose the bangles by 5 000 right so they're they're in that middle territory so if you're a scout it's probably actually a very good place to look for talent because these are guys who are pros yeah but but they're guys that that you've already looked at and decided that they're not worth your time right but but maybe that's this is is the whole Billy Bean theory of baseball. Like these guys who slip through the cracks, who are not as sexy, who aren't worth the same amount of money

when they're coming out of school at 21, let's say, but at 25 are still working hard, are still in shape, can round out a roster. Who knows where this CBA stuff goes, but maybe there's more players needed in each game week if you have more games a year like i don't know i'm just being optimistic for the guys who are who are playing pretty hard in the xfl right now that maybe some small percentage of them do find their way in the nfl because of

success in the xfl i think there's a couple there were a couple from the aaf but i don't think it's going to be a high majority guys okay well i'm glad to hear that it's not going to cost you any family happiness. I, for one, have not once had to defend my idea of watching XFL on a Saturday because out here in LA that is not something that I plan on doing.

We'll see where it goes. I will give them credit. Their coverage is good. They're innovating some things. Maybe they're getting credit for some things that aren't all that new or interesting,

but they're making fans rethink the way the game is covered. And so that's cool. And so maybe we'll all, uh, we'll all see some innovation in the NFL coverage, but Jeff, it's, it's nice to be back with you talking football.

I hopefully soon we'll get to talk a little bit more X and O and real player talk instead of so much contract stuff. I'm thinking we might need to get a lawyer in here next week. If things go the way we expect, um, but I'm, I'm good for this week why don't you sign us off with any last thoughts and we'll get back into it soon yeah well obviously

any football topic i truly enjoy talking even if it's not some x and o stuff i hope you're able to hear you know what i was saying about the cba what players want and we'll be back uh next week no episode thursday i'm out of town we're working some things out. We'll have more news about our Thursday episode, how that's going to go. It's a little change. I think you guys will like it. But for now, I appreciate you sticking with me.

Hope you enjoyed the episode. Please leave a comment, a tweet. Let me know if you enjoyed this and we'll talk to you guys next week. you