Green Light with Chris Long - NFL News From Last Night. Uncut Gems Review. Y'all Take Care.

Episode Date: March 17, 2020

Open and coronavirus and news updates - 0:25. Uncut gems review - 10:45. Talk Football (Free agency, Franchise Tags, and NFL updates) - 21:17. About Chalk Media: Following the unfiltered voice and vision of Chris Long, Chalk Media is the interactive online community for you, the intelligent and humorous sports fan. Driven by access, Chalk delivers a unique perspective that cuts through the canned talking points and provides a variety of content from your favorite sports and entertainment celebrities. Here at Chalk, we don’t take ourselves too seriously, but we are rooted in challenging the perception of professional athletes. We embrace the “real” with a unique combination of humor and intelligence. Chalk is a community with a voice beyond 240 characters that brings a perspective and vibe to a traditionally brash and boastful sports media space. Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more. Nothing is off-limits at Chalk - hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. 🌍🏀🏈SUBSCRIBE NOW ⚾🏒⛰️ http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to Greenlight Pod. I am your host Chris Long. It's just me in the studio right now. I am socially distancing. Again, I am Chris McCandless with this social distancing. I am first team all pro. I don't mind it. Obviously, the reason that we're socially distancing absolutely sucks.

You feel like the world's ending. But it's kind of nice staying home with my family. I also know that I'm very lucky and I don't have to worry about certain things that other people do. So I am definitely saying a prayer for not only everybody's health, but business owners, people trying to make money, going to work and whatnot. But NFL news did not stop today. It could have been, hey, we're going to shut down or move back free agency. that didn't happen. Tampering period open today.

The tag deadline passed. And this afternoon, as I shoot this in the evening, about 6 o'clock on Monday, a ton of stuff transpired when it comes to NFL news in the past couple of hours. And I'm sure once we hit stop on this thing

and this thing will come out Tuesday morning, there'll be a bunch more that will transpire as we are wrapping up our Monday. So, you know, the NFL thing, I get it. Like at first, I was like, yeah, the optics of free agency right now and people seeing a number of millionaire athletes getting even more money to play a game as they struggle to make Edens meet.

They worry about where their next meal is coming from, where their next checks coming from. There's going to be guidelines for businesses and whatnot. not there already are. I know some small business owners here back home are already bracing for the impact that this extended period is going to have on their on their families future, et cetera. I get the optics of the NFL running free agency as usual are not great if you look at it that way.

But I also think that for every person sitting there being like, yeah, what the fuck? there's probably people just hoping to get their mind off of everyday life. And that's what I always hear in general. You know, when people say, hey, keep your politics out of football. Football is a distraction for me. You know, football is, and sports in general are great distractions from all the garbage going on in the real world. And I can see that angle.

I'm not always agreeable to the, hey, football is my personal sanctuary for my headspace. But I assume that to be true for those folks now. I assume that to be true as well right now. So I got to say, well, initially I looked at it and I said, it's kind of funky to see that Big V in Philly is making $50 million in five years for the Detroit Lions, a third tackle in Philly. it's kind of funky to see that as the government's, you know, administering guidelines for gatherings

of people and businesses are hurting and people are worried about their health, people are sick, people are dying. Sports, whether you like it or not, will be a distraction. They always will be, and we couldn't have it on the court with March Madness. That would have been stupid. You know, it stung when I heard it would happen because I love March Madness, but it's turned out to be the right thing. Like, listen, there's so much stuff going on in the world right now that's real deal stuff. I have forgotten about March Madness. It pops into my head once or twice a day,

but I'm spending most of the day thinking about keeping my family safe and keeping my neighbors safe and thinking about people who are actually affected by this stuff. So a little bit of remote sports in the form of free agency. where nobody actually has to break the guidelines that we're all trying to stick to. Well, not all of us, we'll get to that in a minute. Free agency can be done over the phone, over FaceTime. Now, there are some things, you know, with free agency

that make you wonder how they'll get it done. Most specifically, I mean, when you're a free agent and I was only a free agent, well, I was a free agent twice, and it was late in my career before New England and before Philly, You have to come in, you have to get a physical, you have to meet with doctors and that sort of thing. I don't know how they'll pull that off. There is a concern there that, you know, you are putting the general public at risk, you know, taking away space at hospitals to get this stuff done. You're also putting the players at risk.

I mean, I don't know about you. I wouldn't want to be at a hospital right now. That's kind of the front line. So again, shout out to doctors and the people that actually do that stuff. willingly. It's unbelievable. But if you're a free agent getting ready to sign a deal that might secure your family's future for the foreseeable future, you're probably not wanting to enter a hospital to get a physical that kind of runs counter to securing your family's future. You're also putting your family at risk by not socially distancing and being somewhere that's

kind of sketchy right now. Or it will be sketchy before long. Now, you can, you can, you You can get a lot done over FaceTime. Obviously, you know, today has been really active and free agency officially begins Wednesday. We've got a ton of NFL news. I'll get to that in a second. I do want to set the table for, I don't know about set the table.

I want to complain. I want to bitch about some of the idiots in our country. who are not socially distancing. Some of them are my friends. Like, what are you doing out at the bar? You literally just take a break from drinking. You know, I said this before. You'll probably come out of this thing.

Your liver will thank you. You'll look healthier. You'll look younger. God willing. Just stay out of the bar. You have the rest of your life to piss away your hard-earned checks at an Irish pub on St. Patrick's Day.

I love St. Patrick's Day. I love St. Patrick's Day. Patty's Day, St. Paddy's with a D. That's tomorrow. So for you, it's today, for those of you listening right now. But it's not worth it. It's really not. I mean, you're seeing the scenes in Florida at Clearwater Beach. That's the most recent. It looks like the beach before Jaws came. The Post-Malone concert on the eve of everything getting canceled, I thought for sure that would be the last embarrassing display of arrogance in the face of a pandemic. But not so.

Disney World had a fucking goodbye party with like Minnie and Mickey up on like a balcony. So like the performers were quarantined, but just a bunch of people at Disney World. How do you like Disney World enough that you risk. This pandemic. Like, is Disney World that fucking cool? Is it that cool? I thought about boycotting Disney for that, but I kind of want to get into Disney Plus,

as I sit at home. And sitting at home is what I'm doing a lot of. I mean, there's been a ton of bad takes. I've got the, you know, who's that sheriff from up in Milwaukee? What's his name? David, what the fuck is? David Clark, the guy with the cowboy hat.

Yeah. That guy sucks. go into the streets folks visit bars restaurants shopping malls churches in all caps because david clark's very religious and demand that your schools reopen now if government doesn't stop this foolishness stay in the streets end government control over our lives if not now when this is an exploitation of a crisis i mean there's so much caps to lowercase to caps. I mean, this just screams mental illness to me.

And you have to be a little bit mentally ill or ridiculously arrogant or willfully just politicizing this thing to say to scream at people to take to the streets and gather in places that the CDC doesn't want you gathering. So David Clark and anybody like David Clark, you're acting like a fucking idiot.

Just stop. Like we have one test here as younger people because this thing is probably not gonna affect us so much. Like our generation is gonna be faced with one big test here. And that's to stay the fuck home and watch Netflix for three weeks. All the other generations had to do things like go to war. Or like, you know, fight the Nazis or, you know, the flu in 1918 or the Great Depression. young people today have to stay home and do what they're absolutely great at,

which is sitting on the couch, myself included. You don't have to twist my arm. Just stay home for a couple weeks. Do the things the scientists are telling you to do. And things won't be so bad. I'm going to watch a lot of movies. I'm doing bracket ranking for some music, some TV shows, some different random stuff. So comments and brackets that you'd like me to fill out, some things you'd want ranked.

We're working on it already. I did watch Uncut Gems the other night, so if you don't want spoilers, I'll try to avoid them, but maybe fast forward through the next three-ish minutes of this pod. I really liked the movie. Okay. It came down to watching the movie about DuPont. about the water contamination or uncut gems two nights ago. Let me tell you, I watched this movie,

and I stared at the ceiling in bed till 3 a.m. like I was on methamphetamine. I mean, there's just no break. There is not a three-minute period where Adam Sandler's character is not confronted with a new self-imposed hardship. I mean, this dude is just, a it's a master class in fucking your life up there's obviously the degenerate gambler angle uh but this

dude is just a hustler man i really like the movie i knew it was gonna be weird though because as soon as it starts you're in adam sandler's colon like there's just a and i apologize cowboy reed hasn't seen the movie cowboy reed have you seen the movie so you got to cover your ears can you cover your ears by producer covers ears. Well, spoiler, the movie starts with, um, the movie starts up Adam Sandler's ass, and I thought it was like an interstellar type thing and it just ended up being his asshole.

Probably not his actual asshole though. I would assume they have like, uh, where do they get colon B roll in movies? Uh, do you, because I figure that's kind of interesting with HIPAA, can you just get video? of like one of those micro cameras swimming up somebody's colon, that's what they did in the movie.

How did they procure that? And also is it computer generated? Because like privacy and HIPAA would leave me to believe that you can't just take somebody, unless somebody was like, man, I'm donating the footage of my colonoscopy because that would be dope to have it in a movie. Maybe that's what happened.

I figure Reddit knows. I'll check. So yeah, I thought it was like we were traveling through a galaxy, but we were just, we were just, yeah, enough said. And then like the first scene, I knew the dude in the blue sweater was trouble. He just was trouble. I didn't know he was that troublesome, but he was bad news. I mean, he slapped this shit out at Adam Sandler's character for asking him if he wanted a water. You had Mike Francesca, you had Kevin Garnett, obviously, you had fat Jewish make a little,

appearance who by the way you go from starting a social media an Instagram empire like basically being one of the founding fathers of memes as we know it to starring not starting in a movie to having a cameo in a movie with with Adam Sandler and it's not one of those cameos that I think I think most people know what fat Jewish looks like I think most people know you know he's He's kind of an icon. It wasn't like, oh, yeah, that's him. It was like, oh, that's fat Jewish.

KG was hilarious. I pray he's playing himself. I mean, he was so attached to that fucking rock. It was. I found myself laughing, I think, with KG for most of the movie. All right. When his advisor was like, no, you shouldn't buy that rock. He was like, no, chill, this is a very important rock.

I was like, This is unreal. Not only that, but he just let Adam Sandler's character just take his ring as collateral for a few days, which he pawned off. The Doc River's speech in the halftime was kind of weak. And I wonder if that was really his voice, just bouncing around here while we're on KG. The only bad actor in the movie actually wasn't KG. KG, I think, okay, the post-game interview was a little bit tough after. I think it was game seven of that series.

And that was the 2012 series with the Sixers. Actually brought back some memories. Imagine going to that game, taking your shirt off and being the fat guy that went viral in 2012. And all you got was like a couple thousand retweets. Eight years later, you're in a movie. And I don't think he gets paid for that.

So shout out to the big fat guy in Philly who got put on the silver screen for pulling up his shirt. at the Wells Fargo Center. You know who's got to be pissed is got to be the fat white dude who's kind of taking this dude's place is the viral Philly fat guy

with the I-95 tattoo. Everybody knows who I'm talking about. He has a name. I'm sure a lot of my Philly buddies know it. Where's his big silver screen debut? The only bad actor in the movie was the dude who was quitting while Adam was unpacking the

rock from the fish that guy was not a good actor I mean I don't know if he's not a good actor but that was noticeably bad it was fun seeing the old series and the thing that I couldn't get over was one the whole movie because it was basketball related

ever since I've seen that Adam Sandler video of him playing basketball pick up basketball I'm pretty I'm pretty intrigued with his physique I mean he did not look athletic in that video also amazing that Billy Madison became that character

that Adam Sandler and Billy Madison is the same guy who played that role and he was terrific I thought he was great I thought the movie was really good it was a throw ride as I said I felt like I I don't know because I've never done meth. That's probably what meth feels like is trying to go to sleep after that movie. Yeah, Ron Dunphy is the guy.

Ron Dunphy is the tattoo guy. I feel bad for Ron Dunphy. Ron Dunphy, well, you know, dude from 2012 in Uncut Gems in the background did it first. So maybe he deserves the cameo and Ron Dunphy is next up. He's got next. I found myself laughing at the movie a lot. And I think there were scenes that were meant to be funny. The funniest scene in the fucking movie is when Julia Fox, who was terrific.

Terrific. After she cheated on him with the weekend and she just won't leave him alone. She had a smoothie in the hallway. And Adam Sandler goes, this was his character. He was so erratic. One minute he's talking to him, he's like, oh, you got yourself a smoothie, he just fucking knocks it all over. I was like, you know, from, from, from the way he tried to win his family back to

his antics to his bad financial decisions to, you know, not knowing when to say when at the end of the movie, he was, uh, it was quite the character. I could never quite figure him out other than the fact that he was a total degenerate. I'm going to give that movie four out of five stars. four out of five and I'll be watching more movies as the social distancing project continues

also the twin dudes were the funniest thing in the movie at the end when shit was just hitting the fan and the one little twin who Adam Sandler owed money was bringing the doorbell he was just such an afterthought the whole movie those guys literally came off the set of curbier enthusiasm

I swear. They were hilarious. Everything in that movie was really good except the guy that was yelling at Adam Sandler when he was unpacking the rock from the fish. Also, the soundtrack's probably pretty cool. It's cool in that like the whole first 15 minutes they were just playing electronic music. Like through multiple scenes. I was like, are they going to play this kind of mortal orchestra? If you know, Mortal Orchestra, that's who I actually thought was doing a lot of the stuff because it sounded so much like them. But, It was just like electronic music the entire time. I don't know that there were any real songs on the score. Not to offend anybody who likes electronic music. I don't mean that those aren't real songs, but it was definitely different. So off the movies, on to current events here in sports. Good news on the coronavirus stuff is that Gail Benson

has stepped up in New Orleans. Bull's ownership, I think, stepped up yesterday. Some of these owners are finally reading Twitter. and realizing that people see them not donating money in the face of crises like this, especially when their employees are being paid by people like Kevin Love and Zion Williamson. And Gail was a day behind Zion,

but that's why these players are leaders. A lot of people, when Kevin Love donated that money, you know, were like, oh, big fucking whoop, he makes a bunch of money. You could just do it privately, 100K. and that's always mad guy. That's mad guy's response. Always, I've been through that.

Well, you know what happened is after Kevin did it, a bunch of other players did it, and then some owners started doing it even more. So that's the way this works. That's what leadership is about. So kudos to those guys. It wasn't their responsibility. They made it their responsibility.

And subsequently, there was action from the top. Hopefully that the rest of the NBA ownership, I don't know if you can say NBA ownership anymore, although I say ownership, NBA ownership. Will they follow suit? Now, again, I said that today's been very, very busy. Tag deadline has come and gone. Tag players, some major tags.

You know, obviously, DAC, who's going to make north of 30 million, and I don't know how viable a holdout is anymore with the new CBA because that's going to become increasingly difficult. But this is one that you would think, hey, Dack, don't show up and play under the tag. Don't do it. Now that's going to affect the Amari Cooper situation, and we'll see how that plays out. Hunter Henry in San Diego, sorry, L.A. is a big positive for whoever the Chargers quarterback is.

So if you are a quarterback on the market or you don't know you're the Chargers quarterback, yet you might end up being the Chargers quarterback and have no idea that you're the future Chargers quarterback. That's how weird this quarterback stuff is right now. You'll be happy that Hunter Henry's there. Also, the Ravens used the tag to complement their new trade piece in Judon and Calais Campbell, who came from Jacksonville, basically a gift of fifth round pick for a guy that's had double-digit sacks the past few years at like 34. Teams that need rushers are kind of losing out because guys like Ingaquay and Shaq Barrett are remaining on their teams.

You know, you've got one of those two guys is probably a lot happier than the other. Ingaquay famously tweeted a goodbye, a heartfelt goodbye to the Jacksonville community. And then within minutes got that tag slapped on him. and that sucks. And Shaq Barrett on the other hand, I think he's probably pretty happy because you've got to figure somebody with, although it was a lot of production,

it's one year of production, is not going to get those long guarantees that some other kind of perennial pass rushing pros would have gotten on the market. But it's not like Clowny's ever put up numbers like that. No, I will say this, Clowny is an all-round,

just wrecking ball. I've said that a number of times. But speaking of Clowny, it's Clowny and basically Fowler left on the market for edge rushers. So teams that are in need of edge rushers are probably looking and saying, well, the coverage kind of bear. And then you're looking at the draft. And I don't know outside of Chase Young, you know, as far as edge rushers who you really like, it's a lot more unsure. you know when you saw that guy epinessa from Iowa who's probably going to slide him at the combine you've you've got the LSU kid who looks to be more of a backer kind of do it all so if you're

looking for an edge rusher that's that's a defensive end kind of a base defensive end you've got Chase Young 2020 draft edge rushers let's see who we have because it's been a little bit yeah You've got the kid from Penn State, Aquara, Torel Lewis. There's a ton of question marks with the guys south of Chase Young. And so for people in free agency, it's not like if you miss out on wide receivers, and it's funny we've seen this with the wide receiver class. Teams have kind of been a little inactive in the market. pursuing wide receivers. That'll be interesting to see how like DAC Press or not

Amari Cooper's free agency situation is going to be you know down the stretch they went to Gallup down the stretch you know and through the entire year and historically Amari Cooper's road splits haven't been as good. There's going to be factors that make the market a little bit smaller for for Coup and looking at you know the depth at the wide receiver position in the draft, you know, Robbie Anderson, I think, saw how much smaller his market might be coming up

compared to what he probably anticipated it to be, and it's all because of this deep, deep wide receiver class. You don't have that at defensive end. It might be deep. I don't know how you look at that, but there's a lot of question marks south of Chase Young.

And, you know, with the free agency thing, you know, I mentioned that that free agency is going on as planned. The draft is not I believe it's been canceled as far as Vegas is concerned. You know, you're going to see more of a

Pete Roselle and a chalkboard thing. That's going to affect some teams that aren't as well, I'm talking about the pro day situation. Okay, so like not only is the draft canceled as we know it in Vegas, there'll be no boats, there'll be no Venetian vibe.

You won't see Mackay Beckton sink a boat on his way to put on a New York Jets hat or a Giants hat rather. You don't have pro days either. So the entire draft process is all screwed up. You know, the pro day thing is going to hurt some smaller school guys. It already has, I'm sure. But as far as the draft is concerned, you know,

the personnel departments that are really good at this stuff are going to rise at the top. The cream's going to rise at the top. They can get it done with tape, with homework. But the guy that loses is that guy that Belichick's out working out in the rain, some small school guy that makes a buzz because you never heard of him and a coach is out there working out with him. I think there was an HBCU combine in the pipe.

I don't know if it was for this year or the next year. you know guys like that are going to be missing out on some of the exposure the draft is one of the easiest things to get done without fans it does not matter if there's fans there it matters to Vegas it matters to the NFL but as far as the logistics of the draft are concerned that just means a lot more players in their living rooms in fact all of them will be in their living rooms and honestly I would rather see all the players getting drafted at home because that makes for better TV. Because then you've got more people in the party. You can only bring like 10, 12 people to the draft. I don't know if they've even shrunk it from when I got drafted, but you know, you've really got to select the best behaved people. When you've got the living room set up,

you got possibly some future TV stars that you don't even anticipate. You know, there's a lot of people in those rooms chasing clout. They might be on their best behavior. not. I kind of like seeing everybody in their living rooms. Also, you know, the draft, it's a big production. And this is just fine the way it is. I'm not worried about the draft being canceled. So another thing about the CBA, as I was thinking about it, I don't know, I'm sure people have picked this up, but CBA was obviously ratified. By the way, 500 missed votes, really bad and I wasn't always the most informed person as far as our as far as the PA was concerned when I

played but you could you could believe if there was a vote that that was going to take place I would be voting and especially one this hotly contested you have 500 missed votes the margin is about 60 so all that took to turn around would be 31 votes or 32 votes or whatever was. Disappointing. It makes the union look kind of weak. It makes the players look disengaged. It makes the players look like they don't care or they're not sure. All those things are bad. There was a lot of turmoil this year with O'Kong filing suit against D. Smith, a number of players being outspoken against D. Smith saying there needs to be new leadership. Treader. subs in for for Winston there's a lot of uncertainty with the union even though we have

11 years of labor peace or whatever it is depending on how you look at it uh it's not too much peaceful about 17 games an extra playoff game uh without splitting that pie 50 50 although that would have been a long shot now i wonder if for some players uh the uncertainty might have swayed them one way or another the uncertainty meaning that if you look at this thing with the coronavirus, I don't know that this thing's going to be under control the way we imagine it being under control in the fall. I think a lot of us are thinking, okay, if we stay home for a little bit, this will pass, and look how long the NCAA tournament thought about it. The NBA suspended things. They haven't canceled. They're talking about getting back out

in June. I don't know how things are going to be in June from everything you're reading. Like the initial surge could be past us, but we could have a ton of people. people infected with this thing and no vaccine in the fall. Cold weather could come back strong in the fall. I hate to be like a doomsday guy, but football being unaffected is no sure thing in the fall. And so if you're a player looking at the possibility of foregoing checks because of a pandemic in the fall

and then consecutively had this not been ratified, you might be missing your 2020 checks as well because of a lockout, that'd scare you. Especially a lot of these players are thinking about right now. as evidenced by the divide and conquer that the NFL executed. There's a lot of players who don't have that wealth that some of the older guys have. And although I would have voted no,

there's certainly a lot of younger guys who have to think, and they don't have to think about anything, but they might be inclined to think about the here and now and the me. And it's just so much uncertainty right now in the sports world in general, the CBA, the security that that brings for ownership and possibly for the new TV deals is one thing, but for players, there seem to be a lot of meat left on the bone.

And I've been getting texts from older players losing out on some disability, some retired players losing out on disability. There's a number of disappointments, and we won't get into it because this is a really beaten path. I would have voted no, but I'm also somebody who, you know, I'm imagining myself being in my 11th year secure financially and just ready to pick a fucking fight. Anyways, let's go through what happened real quick before we get out of here with everything today.

Okay, some things that caught my eye. Obviously, there was the big DeAndre Hopkins movement. And DeAndre Hopkins is one of the most loved skill guys in the NFL. To me, he's one of my favorites. He doesn't play or act like a wide receiver. There's no diva in him. You hear all these guys making noise elsewhere. All he does is play his ass off.

He seems to be a good teammate. Great player. Catches everything thrown his way. He's a guy that everybody respects. And then what you have is GM and coach, Bill O'Brien, who everybody kind of hates right now. And you go from being up 24-0 at the half against Super Bowl champions to trading away.

your most beloved player along with Deshawn Watson and JJ Watt for David Johnson who's like the third running back Bill's traded for in the past couple years I mean he just keeps firing

and Bill's starting to look like and people are seeing it this way it's almost like he's like the tweeter that just tweets something to keep his name hot like fuck it let's just do it they'll talk about it i know that's not why he's doing it but it seems like an all-presses good press thing because people are scratching their head their heads universally

at this thing now the last trade if it if not for the clowny thing um how do you trade clowny and uh hopkins consecutively in two years and not get a one for either of them the last trade that that made a stink like this was Khalil Mack getting dealt to Chicago. I would say over time, the court of public opinion has swayed a bit, at least if you're being intellectually honest on that trade. I think the Raiders took home a nice haul

and that the bears, as I suspect, it wouldn't be able to capitalize on it. I don't know about this one, man. This trade is going to make the Cardinals better. They do a lot of four wide, So this takes pressure off of fits. You drafted somebody last year, Christian Kirk. You've got Isabella Butler.

They run more four wide sets than anybody. You can't have enough receivers. They also added Kenyon Drake last year, who they franchised with the transitional tag. I know that they really wanted to keep him. I think they liked him from the minute he got there. He infused a little bit extra into their offense last year when he came over from Miami. and you could tell right away that David Johnson was on the way out. Although everything they were saying was kind of counter to that publicly,

they kind of fell in love with Kenyon Drake. And I don't know, man. On the other side of things, you've got Bill O'Brien who has traded away Dwayne Brown, Clowny, and now Hopkins. And they seem like all guys that he had personal problems with. Because there's no explanation for dealing Hopkins, unless you think, you know, that he's some, you know, bad influence,

or you don't like him personally. I think it's a bullshit move. If I were on the Texans, one, I would be side-eyeing the living shit out of my head coach. And two, I feel bad for David Johnson, who small school guy came out of nowhere, a really exciting player, has had a really solid career. Has it had injuries, though. At his best, he's been magnificent in Arizona. I feel like he's wasted a lot of his career there,

playing losing football, the injuries, and now he's going to be resented in Houston. That's the most fucked up thing about this, is, you know, people are all feeling bad for the Texans, and, you know, they should, because Bill seems to be sinking that. ship one player at a time. But here's a guy at David Johnson.

He didn't do anything to anybody, and he's going to be looked at and resented by some people in the locker room and in the stadium when Game Day comes around in Houston this fall if it does.

So yeah, a lot going on there with that trade. It made big waves today. I wasn't crazy about it at all. I'm not going to, I got no hot take on this thing. That trade kind of sucks on the surface. Now here's one team that's getting better, okay?

The Browns, they keep pulling me back in, man. It's like Godfather 3, okay? Keep pulling me back in. Hayden Hurst, first of all, heads to Atlanta a couple hours after we learned that Hooper signed in Cleveland. Okay, Cleveland's getting better. I think Atlanta's going to be better.

next year too. If you look at the futures on some of, on some of, you know, the NFL teams this coming year, I think if you were to buy Atlanta, it'd be a smart buy. Hayden Hurst is an upgrade, I think, over Hooper, who's headed to Cleveland, especially because Hearst had to share the feel with Andrews, kind of overshadowed last year in Baltimore. But still, Cleveland is getting better. added Hooper, I think four years, 44 mil, that's going to make him the top paid tight end in the league. And what happened in a tight end position, by the way?

I mean, Hooper is a really good player, but you wouldn't think of Hooper as like some superstar, and he's kind of like the blue-chip guy right now in free agency, and he's going to be the highest earning dude. You know, here's what we've got in Cleveland. Now we have with Injoku two tight ends. Guess who ran more two tight end sets than anybody in the league last year, Minnesota. Stephansy's going to bring that 12 personnel bully down there. You've got two good backs.

You've got weapons at receivers, a receiver. And the Browns keep, you know, sucking you back in, man. Like, you can't. I just said that. I'm not going to say sucking you back in. The Browns keep pulling you back in. Stefansky did what he did in Minnesota. He's going to try to do it in Cleveland.

I like him. I like his demeanor. I've always said with Mayfield, what you've shown me is what I expect from you. And what he's shown is that he can be very successful. It's on a coach to bring it out in him. And I'm sitting here, getting ready for the pod, And I'm saying to myself, man, there did a lot of shiny objects, though,

kind of like what got Cleveland in trouble last year was they brought in a bunch of skill guys didn't address up front. As I'm saying that, Jack Conklin flashed across the screen. Obviously, Tennessee will miss him, but couldn't pay him. Jack Conklin headed to Cleveland at right tackle. They could still probably pick up another tackle. You could never have enough of them. You could probably invest in another alignment.

I don't know what else their needs are. I haven't looked at that closely at their draft. board, but they also added Case Keenham, the Minnesota connection again, and I know from experience that Case Keenum is a heck of a leader and a good influence to have in that quarterback room with Baker Mayfield. You're seeing this a lot now. You know, some of these older vets and Keenham's kind of crossing into that realm now are brought in to help, not only to back up the starter, the guy you've invested in, but also as an influence guy. And that worked really well in Philly.

It's not that Josh McCown and Case are the same guy, you know, football-wise right now, but there are two guys that can help you on the field, spot start, and also, you know, I look at the similar situations, and obviously, you know, Carson didn't need the help that Baker needs. Baker seems to need as far as, you know, staying focused and whatnot. but, you know, those two veteran-type quarterbacks, it just, it doesn't hurt to have one in your locker room. You know, if I was building a team,

I would bring in a veteran backup. You know, I'm not going to bring in a young backup unless I'm sure that he's the guy in the future and I'm developing him. My QB2 is going to be a guy, or at least I'm going to have a guy in the room, whether he's QB3 or whatever, that can, you know, sprinkle some positive influence

in that quarterback room. And I think that's what Case Keenan will do. So the fancy's got it going. I believe in the Browns. I'm believing in the Browns in 20. The only impediment there is that if Ben comes back healthy and that Pittsburgh defense is just as good as it was this year, that's kind of a perfect storm for them to regain dominance in the AFC North.

But shit, we're forgetting about Baltimore. I mean, that division could, that division could, that division could be one of the best in football next year if the Browns take a step forward. I do want to mention that DeForest Buckner was traded to the Colts for the 13th pick. Couldn't pay him in Armstead. Colts have a ton of cap room to absorb that contract, which was done to the tune of about $21 million, I think it was, and that puts some second in league among interior pass rushers behind Aaron Donald. He's been fifth in a league in quarterback pressures since he came to league in 16 as far as interior linemen are concerned.

And, of course, the Niners paid Armstead today, who had 10 sacks this year. Might have overshadowed Buckner a little bit, but I've loved Buckner for a long time. Armstead has been kind of like he needed that new scheme, and I think they must feel good about his projection in the future. He's a little bit younger. He had a bigger year. But Buckner has been a dog ever since he got in a league, and I think Indy seems very serious about winning next year. Now what they did is they gave that 13th pickup. So what that means is they're not going to be drafting Justin Herbert.

They're not going to be drafting a quarterback. They're going to be bringing in a free agent. There can only be one guy. I don't want to say there can only be one guy, but Philip Rivers, who spent time with Frank Reich in San Diego from like 13 to 15. This is a guy that would be perfect. The window is now. Phil two years ago was very good, very good, before he ran into a buzzsaw.

in New England, they just ran the ball up to Chargers' asses. It wasn't really Phil's fault up there per se. Phil had a really good year there. If you can regain much of that momentum from that year, Indy can be pretty damn good next year. And it sucks because last year I thought for a minute, Jacoby might be more than a bridge guy. But it is what it is.

You got the room for him, and it's win now. Again, Buckner, been very productive. He's faced the fourth most double teams among Intrille. Russia since 16. Armstead got five years, $85 million, had 10 sacks last year. Armstead did, but he was kind of overshadowed by Bosa, et cetera. And Buckner got overshadowed as well. Buckner is a tremendous football player. Now the Niners, this is a scary thing. It's a win for Indy. It's a win for San Francisco. The second best team in the league just got a top 15 pick. And they got cheaper help. So even if they go draft and interior linemen,

which they may do, I don't know. They do that for cheaper. And they have two firsts. Kind of scary. I mentioned Hayden Hurst. I mentioned Atlanta. I mentioned the Cardinals deal. Kirk Cousins, two years, 66 Mill, breaking the bank.

People are really, Kirk Cousin's a guy who gets hated on so much, dude. It's so funny to me. Guys in a league. And I know, you know, if you're, if you play in the NFL and you're out there, they're listening to this pod, which you probably don't. It's funny, when you get in a locker,

and the first thing they always tell you is don't pocket watch, don't be a hater, you know, get your money. But with Kirk Cousins, he really, he really presses that button. I see a lot of guys who are pretty jealous of this cat, and for good reason. He's made a lot of money, but he's also been pretty solid the last two years. He might not be the guy you want him to be,

but he's been solid. I don't know if he's the guy that Stefan Diggs wants him to be. As soon as you heard that he had that two-year $66 million extension, which lowers his 2020 cap hit. Diggs tweeted that it was time for a change of scenery. I think if your Diggs, you're either really unaware of the impact of your tweet or you're serious about it. And by the way, Diggs is supposed to make $10 million this year.

where could he end up, I don't know. Kirk, though, two in ten against winning teams, but did beat New Orleans, and that's his Minnesota resume so far. What are you going to do, though, if you're the Vikings about mitigating the risk of playing without Dalvin Cook, I think you have to go snag a running back,

a viable second option, because Cook does have those injury, that injury history, it would be nice to add somebody to pair with that vertical passing attack, that play action, because you saw late in the year when when cook was out uh cousins looked a little bit more like all the uh the more jealous types uh version of kirk cousins in their head uh he he struggled at times

now the bears they're just i feel like they're just swiping right at 1 a m that's you know tender uh never had one old married dude but that's where i think the kids are doing and the bears are just firing Dalton, Foles, Bridgewater. Edward, Edwaters says Foles and Dalton, you're hearing Carr. You better get somebody, though, because if you're Mitch Trubisky and the smoke clears and it's you next year, I don't imagine you feel pretty good about coming to work in Chicago and the confidence that they have in you. They probably don't feel great about it anyways right now, but if they strike out on

all these quarterbacks and all this smoke, there's no fire. It won't matter because you probably damaged your current starting quarterback enough, you know, with the runaround. And then there's the Brady of the Bucks thing. You know, we're talking about it because Tennessee is out. You know, you've got Chicago looking at these other quarterbacks. New England and him having gotten a deal done two days from now, free agency. and by that at that time Tom's dead money number doubles

so you got to get this thing done soon the chargers again listen if the virus slows down construction I don't know when this stadium's supposed to be ready in LA I don't know if it's supposed to be ready in the fall but Tom is not playing at stub hub or ticket city or whatever

that's ineffective marketing that I cannot remember the name of that small soccer stadium. I played there. Tom is not going on silent count at home at all. So I'm just telling you, if that stadium ain't open in the fall, and I don't know when it's open, I'll look it up right now. Tom is not going to play somewhere like that. Los Angeles Stadium. When's that supposed to be done? So-fi, the home of the Chargers and the Rams when it opens the summer 2020. Okay, they're saying it is 20-20

but what if things get held up this summer and the chargers are still playing in the stubb hub center stadium is 85% complete right now is the last 15 going to get done what if there's you know shit hits the fan here out west um tom ain't going to play in the stub hub center

I'm sure it's locked in but my conspiracy like what if is what if they can't get it done on time The bucks have $81 million in cap room. They got Bruce Ariens. Again, a lot of people, when they break up with somebody to get a divorce, they go seek the opposite. That can go wearing motherfuckers about as different from Bill Belichick as you could be. Also good defense.

I actually don't mind that. I mean, I don't mind that marriage at all. I think it would be a lot of fun. I think if Tom was teleported into the backfield of one of two teams, one's in Tampa, one's in L.A. What teams better right now this second? It's Tampa. So again, I don't think Tampa's out of the question.

I see a lot of people saying, well, it looks like the musical chairs thing is happening, and Tom's market's not as big as he thought, and he might just end up back in New England. I don't think he would have gone this far if he really wanted to be back in New England. Devon McCordy and Slater are brought back, and I think Bill's going to need that leadership.

Obviously, they franchise tag Thune, and that's a solid move. He's been really steady. We talked about it on the last pod. And the Jags and Ravens, they got a total stud for a fifth rounder. Leadership, production on the field, Callais Campbell,

pair him with Judon. DeCoste had two first rounders in 2020, or two fifth rounders in 2020, and he parlayed those into Marcus Peters and Callais Campbell. It's not bad. And lastly, you know, where's Todd Gurley going to end up?

There's a lot of chatter today that he might be headed somewhere else. I think he's headed to Florida, okay? Hear me out. Either Tampa or Miami. By the way, Miami just paid Eric Flowers $30 million. but Miami's got no backs. They lead the league in cap space. I could see him out there.

Maybe Bill O'Brien wants to trade for another running back. He can't get enough. Or maybe, you know, Todd ends up in Tampa. I don't know. I've seen the Tampa thing floated, but I'd say keep your eye on Miami as well. Yeah, that's kind of all the news for today. I'm going to do something with a couple special guests this week.

Keep an eye on that. I'm going to try to get my brother on. And obviously, we're going to do a green light pod with Making Gunner this week as well. So a lot of content. We're trying to fill the time. I know people are sitting around and like to get their mind off all this crazy shit. We'll keep churning it out. And as you can see, the NFL marches on with tampering period.

and free agency coming up Wednesday. That's tomorrow if you're listening to this pod. Y'all take care.