NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Best/Worst Rosters, Stars And Scrubs & Other Hot Takes

Episode Date: May 14, 2018

A room filled with heroes- Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling & Marc Sessler- check in on the latest news from around the league, including the sad passing of former Rams and Seahawks coach Chuck Knox (8:00), DeAngelo Hall retires after 14 seasons and Blake Bortles helps take down a teen accused of trying to steal his wallet (13:00). John Elway makes a bold statement about the AFC West (15:00), the Supreme Court strikes down the law against sports gambling and Gronk celebrates his 29th birthday (24:00). The heroes weigh in on provocative hot takes from Gregg’s projected starters series (27:00) and the return of ORR YOU KIDDING ME (43:00)!Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. The Around the NFL podcast always gets their man. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL Podcast. My name is Dan Hansis. I'm joined in a room that's filled with heroes. Mark Sassler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosethall.

What is up, boys? Hey, Dan. Hello. It's Monday. Everybody have a nice Mother's Day? Mark, you did not. What does that mean? He texted with me.

Simone's not... First of all. Spone's not listening. Back the truck up. It's not... I think that, you know, Mother's Day and Father's Day have now boys. boiled down to, and tell me if I'm wrong, in some sort of modern day scenarios for if you

have young kids, where when you sort of ask, what is it you would like for Mother's Day, the underlying request is for all of you to get out of the house, which we were not able to accomplish to a satisfactory degree yesterday, I thought. So I think I could have done a better job. Let me put it right there. My wife was on a business trip that coincided with our anniversary Saturday and Mother's Day yesterday. So I actually, handsome Hank of Dave Damshack football program of fame and I, his wife also out of town

his wife also named Emily we got together took four boys and a girl to a local area park then went and got a little bite to eat had a beer. Nice little Sunday. And then everything around that was pure hell. I am this is I've never

that was the worst weekend of my life but now now it's in the clear that's standing. If you look Like the Instagram feed, like there's a photo of us at Barney 66 down in Santa Monica, Coulton eating like a giant piece of bacon. It looks like we're having this amazing time. But it was a nice hour and a half clumped into what was a day where the two children could not have understood what Mother's Day stood for any less. Where was Simone and all this?

So you're saying social media, sometimes paints a rosier picture than reality. Sometimes it does. No, she was not feeling too well also. So there were a lot of factors that I think we need to redo. I mean, it wasn't, I saw that West went down to San Diego this weekend, and it looked like quite luxurious and quite restful. I think we might have got to Sunday night in different places. It was semi-debogged.

Wes only has a couple of these left, let's be honest. Yeah, I'm still in my like, cancers in the rearview mere liberation zone here. Yeah, but the paramour is only going to be cool with that for so much longer, let's be honest. Before Mother's Day turns into something totally different for Mr. Wesley. Oh, no, there's after Tybee is the reckoning. Oh, that's like my recess is over. It's back to school. That's when Lakeisha takes off your pants

and puts them on her body. This is all totally unrelated to the paramour. Sometimes you check yourself in the mirror and know that a reckoning has to come. Does she know about this timeline? Self-reckoning. No, it's more of a self. It's something I decided over the past couple of weeks

as I was slowly regressing to what I was before cancer. Interesting. Yeah. Wow. Wes, I feel like, is that's kind of your, move every once in a while you start to check yourself you re-evaluate and then you change some things yeah because i am i have a long history of making bad decisions so when you pile when you stack up bad decisions there's a reckoning that comes from that you have to look in the mirror

and then step back and say i have to be a new person another example would be your odoul summer of 2009 i don't know if that's the correct year but there was an odouls sum it was actually a different it was some it's a non-alcoholic brew for those that aren't aware it was like a buckleys i think it was called like a fancy non-alcoholic beer yeah that might have been like 2011 2011 yeah the odoul summer of 11 that wasn't it was no fun i'll tell you that much uh all right welcome to the around the nfl podcast monday edition big show coming up uh we're going to talk about a famous player retiring a famous coach uh passing away and other news uh including a famous tight end who's in his final year of his 20s then gregg you've been working on your

projected starter series you do it every year uh so we said gregg it's time for you to out with it let's get some provocative hot takes from you connected to your uh projected starter series uh and then a little a special guest at the end of the show that's all i'll say special guests we haven't heard from in a while and it's time to touch base uh but before Tony Romo back on the show. Tony Romo's back to tell us an amusing anecdote about his uncle that surely was not canned or read off a script. That's some deep cuts from longtime listeners might understand it,

but let's do some news, Lindsay. I got married and I moved to Nashville. Jay is a different breed. Writing me love emails and love letters. I don't know what happened. You decided to go to bed at 8.45 or not. That's Kristen Kavanaugh. Calgary Cutler, who has a new reality show, I believe, on E.

And, of course, the voice there was Jay Cutler. Mark, could not look any more slumpy at that fine eatery where he says that line about his wife. The off the field, Jay Cutler, I am a tremendous fan of. And he, yes, he's sitting with, it looks like they were on some sort of a double date. And he's wearing just a giant winter hat and, like, basically bro-it-out clothing, just sort of sitting slumped away from Kristen Cavalieri. and when she tries to complain about,

I used to write all these little love emails. He was like, no, no, no, you go to bed at 8.45 p.m. That is the end of love emails. That was kind of a cutting line. It was cutting, but it is, I think every married couple can say on either side, you used to do this, and now you don't, and here's why, and it's like. Not everyone has cameras and a microphone.

That made me want to watch the show. I might only... I'll watch the parts for him. Exactly. Fast forward, because the dynamic, even in that little clip, was amazing. He sort of obviously did not care about her friends. or what was going on.

And then she pops in and he immediately has a zigger right back. This is a man wearing the pants in the relationship. Yeah, it's clear that that had been a conversation that's had many times before and he doesn't care about airing the dirty laundry. I mean, check out the tweet and we'll send it out from around the NFL or one of our accounts. He's leaning back. He's in like a sweatsuit. He's either just belched or farted.

And they're at this like fine restaurant where everyone is dressed up. Kristen Cavillary fashion is their thing. They're all wearing like $10,000 outfits and earrings and jewelry. And this guy just feels like he rolled off an airplane where he had like a red eye flight. It's awesome. I so approve. All right. So what's the name of that show, Mark, that we're going to be watching?

I think it's like keeping up with, I will research this. It's not keeping up with the guy. I don't know. Hold on. The Adventures of Jay and. Keeping up with a couple. I know the name of her jewelry store. Wow.

We will start with, what is the name of it? It is. It is. Uncommon James. Very Cavaliery. I have stepped foot in it. You chase the Paramore out of it. They had multiple meetings calls to come up with Very Cavalary.

That was like a multi-week process to get to that. The Paramore, Wes, you said in our I am client, you went on like a scavenger hunt to find Jay Cutler's wife's home improvement store. We went to Nashville and if I didn't know anybody, the entire purpose of going to Nashville was to go to like Cavalary's jewelry shop. She's all over the show. So she's basically told West, we were going to be watching this in our shared locations. And Wes has said, no.

The Paramore dragging West to jewelry shops, connect the dots. We start with some sad news in the NFL. Former Rams and Seahawks coach Chuck Knox has died at the age of 86. The Seahawks confirmed this on Sunday. One of the winningest coaches in NFL history, Ground Chuck was twice named NFL Coach of the year with the Seahawks in 83. to 84. He coached Seattle from 83 to 91, winning records in six of those nine seasons, reached the AFC championship game in his first year with the team 12 wins the following season.

So obviously in a time mark when the Seahawks weren't the Seahawks that we know today that had that glory run with Pete Carroll and the Legion of Boom, Knox was kind of a towering figure of the pre-Legion of Boom era. Yeah, I mean, it's easy to forget that this was an expansion team that had not had much success at all. And I think that Chuck Knox, we talk all the time teams that didn't have an identity. Chuck Knox was one of the first coaches in Seattle to come in and provide that for them. They had a fair amount of stars during his run, Cortez Kennedy, Kenny Easley, I know that's a big West guy. Steve Largent back in the day, Dave Craig, the up and down quarterback.

But I think when you, I came into football around 1985, and whenever you find football or a sport that you love and you really dive into it as a younger person especially. You become imbued and like enamored with all the current coaches and the current stars and they're kind of unforgettable for you. And Dave Craig was one of those guys. The old AFC West back before they moved to the NFC was a wild division and they were a starring contributor to the old AFC West. Kurt Warner was on that team. I think of the Rams really when I think of Chuck Knox and I know like he's more known for his Seahawks career now but his first five seasons of his career career. He won the NFC West with the Rams. He went to three straight conference title games,

lost all three, and it's because he never had a quarterback. I mean, the record in Los Angeles when he came in there is outrageous. I mean, the worst record he had in his first four seasons was 10 and 4. Just doing the math year, I think 54 and 17. I mean, that is unbelievably dominant. Had the number one defense a few of those years, had the number one offense, the first one of those years. but kind of like an Andy Reid in Philadelphia maybe totally different style didn't win in the didn't get to the I would say he was the 1970s version of Marty Schottenheimer okay where he was two run heavy two defense heavy and if you read like Lawrence McCutcheon who was his running back with the Rams had criticisms

that he didn't have a balanced offense and then teams knew how to stop them in the playoffs every year well it's wild he got fired after that run 54 and 17 and then he got let go which is which is rough but yeah you mentioned Seattle that That was the first time they had even never made the playoffs. I forgot he came back to the Rams in the mid-90s and coached them. Chuck Knox passes away at the age of 86. Moving on, DeAngelo Hall is ending his NFL career after 14 seasons. The longtime Redskins cornerback is retiring, he told reporters on Monday.

He's thinking about his next step, maybe TV, maybe moving into a front office position, if he can get one. He was a first round pick of the Falcons way back in 2000. And 2004 spent nine and a half seasons, though, with the Redskins, where he became a staple of that secondary. And Greg, he was a guy that I feel like DeAngelo Hall has been in the league for 25 years. It wasn't quite that long, but he put together a really long and strong NFL career. Yeah, he was kind of a sensation when he first came in in 2004 just because of his mouth, really. I mean, partly. I mean, not in a bad way.

He was a provocateur. I mean, he had a big mouth. He came in. He got a lot of hype around him. He was a little up and down in Atlanta. I always thought of him when we were at Rotter World as a guy who maxed out his money. So, like, I think that maybe that's not that important to us, but I'm sure other players kind of think about that.

And they look at the kind of career he had. Not a guy who was making a ton of Pro Bowls. He made a ton of money from the Falcons in that old rookie contract. And then, of course, from the Redskins too. And the Raiders. It was like a weird. He's afraid to Oakland, and then he was cut after the season. He has said, though, because he kind of views himself.

It weren't for the injuries over the last couple years. He views himself, he said, as a Gold Jacket Hall of Fame player. And now, we may not agree, but he said, I'm going to get there one way or other, whether it's through coaching or through being an executive, I'm going to find my way to Ken. I thought, wow, that's kind of a fiery exit interview. Yeah, I don't like his chances of wearing a gold jacket as a player. I don't think he made a pro bowl.

Well, I think he agrees that it's going to have to come through another route. I bet. I mean, the longevity, how many players would take the longevity? Or the paycheck. But he was a guy, and I think this is important thing about his time in Washington. He was a guy known as kind of a heady player, kind of the guy that other guys in the secondary look to as a leader, as a very smart player. And so, who knows, maybe the front. We've seen him around over city.

Early in his career, he's known for his speed and taking. A lot of gambles. And tying back to our news drop today in 2010, he had a game where he intercepted Jay Cutler four times in a single game. That's an NFL record, a tie for an NFL record. So that's pretty cool. He owns Jay Cutler. My bad for taking pro balls away from him.

Made three. All right. Moving on, Blake Bortles. Listen, say what you will about the man, but he is a guy that will not stand for petty thievery. Here's a headline from the L.A. Times. Blake Bortles helps detain accused of trying to steal his truck

comma wallet at Jaguars party great headline it all happened at a party at teammate Brandon Lenders Jacksonville Beach home a young man by the name of Joseph Horton 18 years old open the door to Bordell's truck

Wes I know you're a truck guy so I'll tell you the model and make it's a Ford F150 very popular I had a Dodge Ram. All right. The most popular truck in the world, or certainly in this country. Dodge Ram? No.

Are you tracking the, F-150? Tracking the rankings? F-150. Well, I read this article how Ford's given up on, you know, cars in the U.S. And part of it is just because their truck is by far the best-selling truck. Do we think each of a row is heard of the F-150 vehicle? That's pretty good in Europe. Is this the, is this the pickup truck podcast?

I didn't think we'd be hosting this, but we did it. Anyway, Bortle's new Ford F-150, parked in Linder's driveway, and the young man, Joseph Horton, age 18, rummage through the truck, took Bortle's wallet. And by the way, I was about to get on Bortals for leaving his wallet in his truck. I do that all the time. Oh, old Zucer's always leaving his wallet on his front seat and all stupid things like that. What's in your car right now?

My key to my car is in my car downstairs. I asked the gentleman in this studio. Do you think it's a problem that the key to my car is just sitting in my car right now? No one seemed nervous, so I'm not either. Well, you're at, yeah, you're at work. There's security and whatnot. I did notice Sully, who was with us pre-taping a video

before we did this podcast. After he heard that, he didn't kind of make a quick exit. It's joy riding, like, in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Anyway, this kid belongs behind bars. Well, Joey Horton? Who, Horton? First of all, don't take stuff that's not yours. That's number one.

Two, this kid's weird. Not only is he going through the truck. he couldn't move the truck, so he actually went to the party. 18-0 kid just walks in the guy's house, the Jaguar car. I admire his stones a little bit. He's a crazy human. When Linder asked Joey who he was, Horton replied, Joe, and walked upstairs, according to the police report. Linder then realized the young man didn't belong in the house, called police, and then Lindered Bortles and Jaguars guard, Chris Reed.

I guess made a citizen's arrest, if you will, on Horton, Joey H. until police arrest. This is the part of the story I would like to see in the flesh because it sounds, oh, it's nice that Bordels to this, but suddenly you're Joey Horton, age 18, and you are being held in a driveway

by three large NFL players. I just would like to see how that went down. I wonder if maybe Joey started to crack a sweat at that point. His prank had hit the bricks. I don't know if it was a prank. Joe, whatever you want to call it. A crime.

Maybe a crime would be more technically correct. Best case scenario, he's got a little DiCaprio in him from Catch Me if you can. Worst case scenario, He's just a psycho killer. Exactly. In training.

Right. He's got some hutspah, you know? Is that what it is? Yeah. When you try to steal somebody's pickup truck, it's hussing. The fact that he went into the party, that's really. Lindsay, let's try to get Joey Horton on the show. Can you reach out to the necessary?

Bumping Connor or for Joey Horton. That's a spoiler alert right there for later in the show. You guys never heard that. Apologies. You never heard it. Moving on, John Elway. Oh, yeah. John Elway.

This one's for John. John, this one's for John, this one's for John, this song. John L.A. sees excellence. He knows excellence. And he says the bolts, the Chargers, the team to beat in the AFC West. Oh, my goodness, that sounds similar to some, like literally everyone in the studio. So I'll let you guys, I'll give you guys your mandatory 90 seconds to get all excited about the Chargers. Hit it. Well, every other team in the division has football questions. The only question surrounding the Chargers are related to the occult. Are they haunted? Like, really, that's all anybody can come up with for why the Chargers won't win the division.

Well, they have... You still got about 16. 7 seconds. Elway, he's clearly a great evaluator of talent, as you said. I've been trying to pare down what are my hot takes. Here's a Chargers hot take for you. They got the deepest cornerback group in the NFL right now. And the best past rush.

And so that's what I think John Elway sees. You get Jason Verrett back to a group that was already great last year. It's as deep as any secondary. They don't have an overt weakness. I think we get that at this point if you listen to this show. They have a quarterback that can't get a team over the hump to save his life. Well, according to John Elway, they're the one team with a settled quarterback. I found it interesting that after going out and chasing Case Keenham that he did not mention his own team as being settled to quarterback.

We love to kill Eli Manning for being washed up, but that guy's got two rings. What's Philip Rivers done in his career? I mean, the difference between the two of them is one of them's a good football player. And one has two rings. Right, but that was 10 years ago. What's that got to do with now? Six, but the first one was 10.

This just feels like psychological warfare to me from L.A. I think he's just, this is a perfect L.A. I thought you're saying in the studio. No, well, that too. I mean, of course it morphs into an Eli Manning scenario. But it's like, this is just Elway dropping little nuggets

in the middle of, in the middle of May. If anything, it's a slight towards the Chiefs. you know who I know they lost their quarterback in all but you know have been hefty portion of their defense not a great portion of it they only lost guys other than Peters that they wanted to get rid of

Peter's Bigel. So who did they bring in that's so great and it's going to read now I mean they have one of their worst defenses in the league don't they? We'll see all right see we have to have hit 90 seconds by now that's it okay we hit it it was 110 but I wanted

you guys to enjoy it The Supreme Court, big news and potentially troubling for our podcast because of Greg's past issues and struggles with addiction. The Supreme Court has struck down a law against sports gambling. The Supreme Court on Monday struck down a federal law that bars gambling on football, basketball, baseball, and other sports in most states, giving states the go-ahead to legalize betting on sports. Greg, you are our betting insider. So we will throw it to you now. The Supreme Court, and you could give a little more context, Greg, to this. Rule to strike down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act,

which I know has been a thorn on your side, Greg. Now, the 1992 law barred state authorized sports gambling with some exceptions. People that are against this, including union leaders, are really fired up about this and say it's a major concern for the leagues and the future of the sports. Why, Greg? Why are people so upset? I don't sense that, I don't think there are that many people that upset. I think this is a popular decision, which is just legalizing an industry,

which is already making, I think, some sort of estimate. It's like a $50 billion industry under the table on some level, and it's just making it legal. I find it really interesting just how quickly the wins changed. 2015, Roger Goodell was very public. in terms of how against he was changing some of the laws that was the same year. I believe they stopped our friend Michael Fabiano from being part of this like fantasy convention that was in Vegas just because it was like in Vegas.

Now we have a team moving to Vegas. The law, which is now it's giving the states for people, especially outside of the U.S., it's allowing the states to basically choose whether they want to. legalize sports gambling or not. New Jersey is going to do it quickly. There's a few other states that'll do it quickly. And it's expected that probably the majority of states will do it, you know, at some point in the next five years, it takes time. But just how quickly it changed from three years ago to now there's going to be a team there. It's essentially going to be legal in a lot of states. And oh, by the way, Robert Kraft and Jerry Jones are investors in daily fantasy sports

companies, which isn't, you know, there's a difference between that and straight up sports gambling, but now it's kind of all going to be in the same box, and it's going to be a huge industry. It reminds me a little bit of the state-by-state, I guess, groundswell at one point in terms of legalizing marijuana. And from another angle, too, if you're going, if you, if marijuana is in your, you know, world to do, if it's an interest of yours, you were doing it before and after it was legalized. And if you want to gamble, you were gambling before and after it's legalized in your particular state. I mean, they talk about the prop bets alone that occurred at the last Super Bowl.

Thousands of billions of dollars passed back and forth on bets like, what color will the liquid be that is poured on the game-winning coach? The answer was lime green, yellow, and I mean, tons of cash are going on. And these are bets being placed. You got a problem if you're making that bet. Well, but where does the problem begin around? We can't judge that. I understand why you went with fruit punch, Greg.

It's not a big deal. I just think I think the growth angle for it is big. Because they talk about internationally. People that aren't watching football normally because if you're in England of what time it starts, if you are into gambling, that could change a lot. It can open new doors. So I think the league is going to ultimately smile on it because it means major cash. They can say what they want about the integrity and all that stuff.

But that door has already been blown wide open. Football is being bet on nonstop if you want to do it already. It's amazing to watch over the past three decades. the country's attitude, change on gambling and marijuana, the two. Among other things. But just to watch, I think we've all just decided that among the things we need to be scared of in life, those two don't rank very high. And it's just been amazing to watch.

It's going to change. There's a lot to unpack with it just in how it's going to, you know, how much do they embrace it? Like, is it going to be in the stadiums like in the Premier League where you can do in-game kind of betting and you just have like you're doing. hey, well, who's going to have the next, you know, corner kick or whatever? And it's just like on an app on your phone. Or the team's going to get that involved.

The league, I think is... I find it hard to believe that it will become like that. I would just say this. I think there's a hang-ups. 15, whatever the time frame is, down the road, the same way that we quarter by quarter tweet and tout fantasy stars, when that, first all, that's just commonplace. None of that was happening 15, 20 years ago at all.

It seems so alien. The idea that someone can win, that a million, two million, three and a million dollars switches hands because so-and-so scored, Team X scored a touchdown drive in under two minutes, and people were betting at the start of the kickoff at each one of those things, if there's still a kickoff, like, that's going to become just as big of a deal as fantasy football. The confusion in the leagues, I think, have already started to ask, you know, Congress for it is that if it's not legal in every state, then how do they come up with kind of a uniform policy of how the league is handling it? But either way, it's going to change, like, advertising. It's going to change a lot. But everything's cool with you. Nothing's changed for me. I work for the NFL.

You are not allowed to bet on football. That's true. I just took like a compliance. Since well before I worked at the NFL. I just signed my compliance papers. And absolutely, it is a no-go. Finally, in the news, Rob Grunkowski, the Patriots tight end, turns 29 years old today. So the final year of Gronk's 20s.

You can't say that Gronk didn't make the most of his 20s, let's be honest. A couple of stats for you, stat heads out there. Most receiving touchdowns by age 29, Gronk, third on the all-time list. Who's ahead of him, boys? Randy Moss and Jerry Rice. Correct. Correct. And one thing to keep in mind is he approaches age 30.

Gronk has appeared in just two 16 game seasons in his whole career. So he's had health problems. It happens every year. But when he's on the field, he remains dominant. We'll see if he can stay on the field as he starts to get a little bit older. Or if he's going to choose to stay on the field because we know he already floated retirement once earlier this officer. You look at Tony Gonzalez.

He had eight seasons starting with his age 30 season from beyond age 29 and essentially dominant through all of them in terms of number of catches how he was used in the offense. If Granc wants to keep being called the best tight end of all time, he can't just hang it up in two years, I don't think. That would be my guess. I don't think he even cares. I don't know. I don't know if he cares or not,

but it's just like there's history of longevity at that position. That's true. All right. No, go on. Go ahead. You sure? I'm so sure. Your boy.

I would just say that for the better part of a decade, he's been one of the top 10 players in the NFL. That is amazing for a tight end. If he never played another game, he's in the Hall of Fame. Yes. He's that level of talent. And if you can do that before he turned 30, you've had a special career.

All right, that's what's happening in the news. All right. So, as we've mentioned, and if you go to NFL.com, you're aware, Greg, has been cranking out content NFL.com slash projected starters. You go through Greg, let the listeners know. You're going through each team and basically projecting what the week one lineup is going to be, the all 22, if you will. That's it. Basically choosing who's going to get the most snaps from each team's lineup. So, you know, in today's NFL, sometimes it's only two defensive linemen or two linebackers.

There's a lot of guys in the secondary on the field, but basically just picking up your starting lineups. Not too complicated. And then some little notes. The people like it, though. Some little thoughts. The people like it. I don't know.

They're crazy about it. I like it. They're lining up for it. I like it. I like it as an exercise. It's a selfish exercise. I like it as just a way to kind of study up on all the teams. Then you get a better picture and it all just kind of sits in your nog and going into the

seas. I mean, other people are, there's entertainment being brought to it, others in knowledge so it's not totally selfish i would look at it as hopefully it's a win-win it's also the middle of may so there's not a lot of news to talk about and so this is you know this way i can look at it and start thinking wow that uh raider secondary looks terrible right so it obviously serves a purpose for you personally but the content itself it it does serve a purpose for the audience and the people that want to learn more about their teams and the other football heads like it Yeah, like I think it takes a level of dorkiness to really want to dive deep into this in May.

But there's a lot of people like that, especially on, you know, that read NFL.com in May. So some would say it's a niche type of column. But if you do live in that niche, you love it every year. It's like the baseball fans reading Bill James in 1986. There you go. I mean, the opening tagline says it all. Greg Rosenthal will project post-drafts starting. lineups for all 32 teams dash dash called an m dash by the way uh-huh internally because that's

his idea of fun oh there you go i like that that's an important because it's like just be aware this is a little nerdy uh but if you're into this if you're into it you are into it so i feel like what we have is a perfect marriage here we have content that not only like getting gregg smarter and making him more knowledgeable it's making the reader more knowledgeable and smarter about the game I feel, do we have, like, time to fill or something? This is like, I mean, we're checking every possible box here. Siciliano, like, suddenly has, like, two hours to spin on one story. All right.

So that said, so now you understand what the segment, what, what that story and these stories are all about. But what makes a provocative hot take? Now you're taking, you're going to take something at its base is a niche type of article. But you're going to, you're going to pull out of it a real provocative hot take that even, you know, The guys that don't exist in the lab, and I don't know what that's like, not to be in a lab anymore, but the guys that are up in the kitchen,

they're interested. So Greg's going to give us five, and then I guess we will decide, we being Mark, Wes, and myself, whether it is a true hot take. Okay. Well, I didn't know. Some of these are more just,

yeah, observations than necessarily. I'll try to pick the hottest stakes possible. Okay. How about this one? Marvin Lewis is not an idiot. Well, Marvin Lewis is an idiot. If nothing else, just one little factoid I had looking at these projected starters was that the Bengals only have two players projected to start that are from another organization. And one of those is Preston Brown, who might not even be on the field more than 50% of the time.

And it just got me thinking, like, the Bengals head coaching job is just different than every other head coaching job. You're asked to do things in terms of drafting and developing and just, hey, we're going to draft your players. and then we're just going to keep the players. And those are basically the players you're going to play with. And there's a lot of reasons why the Bengals job is not like others. But it just made me, it reminded me that Marvin Lewis is not in. How about that, Wes? This was, what's the Around the Horn show on ESPN?

Around the Horn? I wouldn't have given him any points, really, because it was a tepid take at first. But the point about him being asked to do, this organization is not like any organization. He really does have to do the scouting. His coaching staff has to do a lot of stuff that other people, other people scouting departments do. I'm conflicted about Marvin Lewis. I mean, Mark's right, sometimes he's an idiot.

Well, you're a drop from three years ago. That drop is not like Evergreen, despite it being played nonstop. Some people actually think that that's me saying it live on the show. I got asked that question. It is. It is an old take. We just like point at Mark in a certain way.

I'll give the Bengals credit because when they did go out and get one player from outside the organization, it's somewhat self-corrected the Andrew Whitworth departure from a year ago when you go out and get Cordy Glenn at a position where that offensive line was their undoing last year. So that was a smart thing. But I would say even in 2015, two or three seasons in a row, we would point to the Bengals and say, no other team in the AFC has the level of talent that the

Bengals do, but they simply don't get it done when the games happen. So positive to Marvin Lewis for overseeing that, but then the games happen. And where is Marvin Lewis who's going to give you that hot January, where suddenly the Bengals live up to their talent. Yeah. Marvin Lewis stars. Agree with everything you just do. Yeah, I do too. And this isn't the most talented Bengals team that we've seen, but there's potential.

There is. I think the ceiling for this team, if things go right, including that Cordy Glenn trade, you know, they only have two guys that I projected as starters from other organizations. Well, Glenn is one of the most important guys on the whole team. And that was a nice trade. I think they didn't give up much to do that. But ultimately, if they could have resigned Andrew Whitworth, I'll say one thing. A year later, you give up a lot to get Cordy Glenn

in terms of you could have just re-sign your own guy who played at a high level for the Rams last year and probably helped, is one of the guys to turn that offense around. So please. So your final take on Marvin Lewis? Well, Marvin Lewis is an idiot. So it didn't change how you feel at all.

You just keep saying it. That's fine. Well, Marvin Lewis is an idiot. All right, all right. We get it. By the way, 16th season. That is crazy. That's why it's a job like no other.

Well, there's a lot of reasons, but that went above all else, that you could stay in the NFL, never go to a Super Bowl, never really make a deep playoff run, never win a playoff game, period, and enter your 16th season. There are 31 other organizations where that would not fly. So you're not an idiot if you can pull that off. That's true. It also reminded me doing this projected starters thing that, you know, Vinnie Ray, Vincent Ray is projected to start for Vantes Burfect while he, you know, fulfills his suspension. And I was thinking, it's really, he is the only designated suspension filler in the entire league. Every year I do this, projected starters, he's starting in week one for Vantas Burfick to spend it. It's not a bad thing either.

We keep them around. Just be good for like two to four weeks every year and you'll keep getting paychecks. All right, that was, I think that's a pretty good hot take, though, because. Good start. I didn't know these were going to be graded on the level of heat. Wes, one to ten. What's the heat on that one? He saved at the end.

I'll give it a good solid seven and a half. Seven and a half. Can we get some fire, Lindsay? Okay, there we go. Next, provocative take, hopefully hot. All right. This one, I'm going to combine two just to make it even hotter. The flame.

The flame. Just looking at the rosters. Here we go. The Buffalo Bills. have the worst offensive roster in the league and the Indianapolis Colts have the worst defensive roster in the league. Combining them too.

Would you like me to score that right? I mean, if that's, yeah. It's a one. Oh, give me a break. Everybody knows the bills have the worst offensive roster. You can be right, but also not be provocative. I think you're right. There's 31 other teams, though.

The cults especially. You want points for knowing how many teams there are? I feel like it's the third year in a row where you look at the cult's defense and you're like, who's the guy you'd put on the ticket or the game program from their defense? Name a cornerback for the Indianapolis Colt. It's an ever-churning list of no-name, so I cannot.

Pierre Desir is like their best cornerbacks. That's not a real name. He is not their best quarterback. They will believe that Quincy Wilson, who they think. Right. I was saying who actually is their best quarterback, not the guy they benched his entire rookie season. Yeah, it's pretty right.

So what you're saying, though, even though it's not necessarily provocative. I mean, I think that's provocative because there's a whole field out there of other defenses you can come up with. That's why you said. But like, when you went through this exercise, you were like, whoa, this really is a bad situation for both teams. Maybe Chris Ballard sees something and is building something. What's your favorite type of frog that we don't totally get yet? You know, he's got a new defensive coordinator, a totally new system there. You know, not many people could name their defensive coordinator, Matt Eberfluss. I don't even know how to pronounce it. Luster. He's been with Dallas for the last few years.

Luster is not a nickname you want as a football coach. He's already got a nickname on this. Tom Brady is cross midfield. What's fluster going to do about it? It's like sweating profusely, like trying to get in the, hit the exits. If he's great, then the nickname takes on a new meaning that he flusters the opposing quarter. I think they've got a better. I think there's some things, their offensive lines better, you know, there's some things on

offense to be excited about. They can be a really good offense. But on defense, it's like who not only is just who's your best player, like who could possibly make a pro bowl, let's say, out of the Colts defense. What do you think of the league hooker? Yeah. Leake hooker. Yeah.

If your best... Very high on him last year. Yeah, but he's coming off in ACO and that's your one guy who has provable potential. You made a good point about the cult's offense where it was, Andrew Luck came into the league and had, you know, as Peyton Manning did before him, a wealth of wide receiver and receiving talent in general around him. And now it's the line which we've killed for half a decade is improved in the wide receiver talent, not so much. And I guess the bills, the thing that struck me about them is just most teams. it's like they either you don't have like an offensive line

that looks terrible on paper and a skill position group that kind of looks bad on paper but the bills have both I mean they've got Lashon McCoy and 10 kind of question marks they could have the worst offensive line worst wide receiver core

and worst quarterback room in the NFL I was down in the lab over the weekend watching some film of DJ White not on Saturday you weren't I think he can do some uh I think you do some work in the slot DJ White I mean if we're going to kill DJ White what I don't have him on my

He's an actual DJ. Who is that? He's a DJ. To be fair to like Dolphins fans, their offense, I would take in two seconds over anything that's happening in Buffalo right now. It's completely much more solid in that own division. Absolutely. Look, DJ White right there.

He's going to make his way right up there. Oh, he's a fourth string weak side linemaker. What else he got, Greg? Well, you got to keep this moving because we've got a special guest coming up soon. Okay, well, this isn't really... See, I like Colleen Wolf. I don't think I understood, you know, the function of this second. Oh, Colleen gets dragged into it.

That's your honest take, yeah. It's like five observations. It's May 14th. I mean, whatever. Five observations. This is going fun. The Giants, I don't know if you guys, you haven't dived into fantasy strategy, Dan, quite as much, you know, through the years, theories and stuff. But it used to be a popular fantasy strategy, stars and scrubs.

That was a script. I've never heard of it. Tell me more. Especially like an auction drafts, you know, stars and scrubs. You spend a lot of money on the stars. I get it. I get it. You spend your less on the scrubs.

That's a good way. It's the only way to play auction. Right. Exactly. That's the thought. The giants are the stars and scrubs team of the NFL. Because. That's provocative.

You look at. That's a 10. That's a 10. 10 out of 11 out of 10. Thank God. I love you in the dust, Colleen. You're done. Stars and scrubs.

Put an asterisk by that one. Very nice. You got, you know, you got Janoris Jenkins, you got Snacks Harrison, you got Olivier Vernon, and who else am I forgetting on their defense? That could be great. Landon Collins, I mean, those are some stars. If he's healthy, yeah. But then you kind of look at the other spots, and you really don't know.

Then you look at their offense. I don't know if there's a better combination of a running back, two young receivers, and tight end in the league, in terms of young, fun talent than Sequin Barkley, O'Dell Beckham, Sterling, Shepard, and Evan Ingram. You love yourself some Evan Ingram, too. I do. I love Ingram, and I love Shepard.

Eight months. And so the four of them, but then you look at the rest of the offense, and it's like, huh? Like, people are Penciling and Cody Latimer. They're like, oh, that's their slot receiver. They signed them. Like, what? The Broncos, he couldn't get on the field for the Broncos for four years. They don't have anyone.

I like it. This is a great take. Dan, who are Chad Wheeler and Patrick Amame? They are Giants offensive linemen, actually. Nice. That's who's starting on the right side of the line, and everyone says this is a really improved. I know.

Nicely done. They have a bad line still. It's hard to improve. You got Nate Solder. It's a huge question mark. Yeah. And Solders got to be healthy and play like Nate's. Nobody mentions the other three guys.

It's just Nate Schuster and Will Hernandez every time. Yeah, and it could be Eric Flowers who did return to the team. They tried to trade him. I didn't project them as a starter just because we'll see. We'll see what happens. Like if he sticks with the team. The one thing with offensive lines, and even defense is to be fair with Indianapolis. Sometimes a coaching chain.

they're tough to predict you know what I'm saying I hear all right that's good Greg you got your dignity back there now we're going to close strong how about one more you got one more you don't even have to hit a home run you already hit a home run so you're kind of playing with round will double right here yeah all right a chopper up the middle the the Jacksonville Jaguars are one of the most stable franchises in the NFL you know you don't really think of them that way but when you look at all the players returning how how little turnover they have in terms of their starting lineup. They basically don't have any position

battles almost, except for maybe their receiver position. It's a stable team. Even with the Joey Horton incident over the week? I don't know if that's. It looks like last year's roster. Basically, yeah. Stable. And yet I feel like they're the team, a lot of people are dinging as well. Listen, like this is a nice season and all

but just not going to happen again. I mean, why are we looking at them as someone that can't get back to the AFC championship in a week AFC. Everybody hates the quarterback. Right, and that's why the grade isn't eight because it's an original concept but I got to take two points off

for the same reason I take points off for the Jaguars organization. From 10 to 8 or from 8 to 6? No, it is an 8. It would have been a 10 for the originality of the concept. But you got to dock points because Greg has the same flaw as the Jaguars

he doesn't believe the quarterback counts in the Stable factor. And it's like... Stable doesn't mean good at every position. He said it just, it was consistent. And I think it is consistent. You got the same quarterback. I see what you're saying.

But in terms of roster turnover, though. Right. But if your franchise quarterback is unstable, your entire organization is then. I agree with that, but I think that more answers my question about why we're downgrading them. Greg's conceit was that they have not had turnover and they've had no turnover at quarterback. All right. Tony Reilly just gave a successor one point. I'll be the reality around here.

And stable has several meanings. We're using all of them. All right. They just gave West two points. Remember when we used to have the stable, the Wes had, Wes had his stable. Stable of boys? Yeah. Table of boys.

That's what it was. That was like the Mark Ingram year, I think. My goodness. How time has flown. Greg, you've done it again. You wrote an incredible banger, a series of bangers. So check it out, especially if you're a football nerd. But now that you're in, I'm sure your curiosity must be piqued a little bit, you're

like, wait a second. I want to consider myself a football nerd, but I really enjoyed that segment. and I feel like Greg knows what he's talking about, let me dive in. We just got a whole new demographic that could be coming to your content. Yeah, come at me. Come with me.

Come with me. Come with me. Either or, as long as you move the needle. Into the singularity. All right. Now, you may have already heard a little slip of the tongue from the sizzler, but that's not a big deal.

I mean, if it was a big deal, we would have cut it out of the show. But we said, ah, what the hell? We'll just leave it in the show. I thought it was appropriate I thought what I did was appropriate It was a tease Yeah

Yeah it was a little hint It was a little hint You know what? Here's the thing I don't want people to feel like When they find out Oh there's a big surprise Then the surprises revealed

Being like Hmm Little underwhelmed This way I prevent anyone feeling that way About our guest And then they said I knew this was coming And I couldn't be happier Although it's hard to imagine

Anyone feeling that way Right It's interesting that your mind went there I don't know how people feel I mean it's not It's not it's you know It's not More like the Heat and Slight podcast.

Oh, 12 minutes, it's like the hard knocks video of the dance contest that guy goes running across the Chiefs Lager Room. All right, here we go, Bernard Pollard. Let's button down now. From the Around the NFL podcast line direct to a haunted mansion in New Jersey. Yes, he is a man who once upon a time, single guy, a young beat reporter, kid on the rise, and then life intruded. Serious journo.

Yeah, serious journal. It was time to get married. And then it was time to get the mortgage. And then it was time to have the kid. And now here we are in 2018, Connor or with a beautiful, healthy baby girl in the home. And guess what that means? Even though there's a kid in the house, Connor or has to get things off his chest. so let's start though by just saying hello to Connor it's been a while we had that little

mishap or you got escorted out of lucas oil stadium at the combine so you're you're no longer detained by security there apparently uh yeah i mean i would i would certainly suggest that there's at least some sort of a tap a phone tap situation going on but you guys all know that working for the league that's pretty standard obviously obviously uh how are you buddy because we miss you obviously now that you're over at the MMQB, but your life has changed now. Yeah, you know, it's, uh, I'm, I'm a dad, which is, uh, and congratulations from all of us.

Yeah, you know, uh, everything is good. I'm trying to figure out now how to be like, you know, you want to be like the ultimate dad and, uh, you know, that's, uh, it's, it's my, it's mind blowing. Like, you know, they're not old enough yet where I can like go over the top with wild gifts and stuff. So I have to be like the dad who understands how to, uh, to, to have her talk. faster than anyone else or walk faster than anyone else. So I'm trying to do that right now.

It's going to be one of those guys. All right. So there you go. That gives you a basic idea of where Conner's head is out right now. But as you know, when we have Connor on, we give him a form to get things off his chest. And just because he's a new dad, it doesn't mean there's no longer any issues in his life. In fact, it might be the opposite. So with Connor back amongst us, let us now bring it on back with another edition of Are you kidding me?

What's grind in your gears, Connor? I miss that music. I would say, you know, it's the funniest thing to me. Like, after you have a kid, everyone says, well, I have to come over and I have to hold the baby. And it's like, why? It belongs to me. It's not something that you have, so, you know, why are you doing this?

Hands off the property. It's mine. I created it with my wife. So in other words, you don't like the idea that your baby, this beautiful thing that you created with your wife, is now some type of toy to be passed back and forth. Yeah, it's not like when you got an Xbox when you're little and everybody came over and, you know, you had multiple controllers. This is like, you know, this is one thing that's like only used to a very certain environment and now, you know, like distant relatives from the great beyond have showed up now to touch this kid and I haven't seen them any years, you know?

So that you don't like that. You'd rather it be more insular. This is a special moment, this new family structure. You don't need outsiders coming in to encroach on your territory. Yeah, I'm building a fence front and back. yards and then we're just going to kind of just give some certain people the code and then that's it my haunted mansion is turning into a compound you know anything else grinding your gears right now

are you at all concerned that this rant is similar to an episode of Seinfeld who you famously brought up in this segment very fair point um as one of the least funny shows ever. This very segment, ironic. Oh, well, if that is a similar bit, then I have gotten not, I've gotten unfunny. All I'd say is Conner's, I mean, the Seinfeld one was a specific, going over it, going over and seeing the baby. Well, Conner seems to be very down on. Conner, you'd seem to be anti-human contact. You don't want your baby being touched by people that you consider not inner circle. Yeah, you know what the best part of it was, right? Like, as soon

As soon as she's born, I got to sit in this, like, in this enclosed space in the hospital. And then when the nurse said, when you have people come over, I'll draw up the blind and they can point and wave and there's like eight inches of plexiglass in between. And that's totally perfect. And so I'm just going to try to do a similar setup over here, you know. So it does seem like this is all pointing toward you being one of those, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but a cliche, overly protective father of your little. girl is that is that where we're heading here you know what uh i would say yes i mean like ideally

like that but you have to have some sort of like every dad that i've run into that's like that down the road like you have to have some sort of intimidating sort of outward features you have to look like the guy from like orange county choppers in order to do that because you're like hey don't miss with my daughter but i look like you know like fat ted cruz with a beard and i can't really you know i can't really feel like hey don't pick on my kids they'll be like yeah whatever you know, and they'll probably pick up more. No one is intimidated by Ted Cruz. What a lick.

Is there anything else that you want to say? Were you kidding me, I guess, if I could. There you go. Evelyn, Marie, or, whoa, emo for short. That's right. Planned. how about that how about that uh congratulations to you and the wife who did most of the work let's be honest here Connor did some work you know what I mean I was a I was a source of steady

encouragement and uh and I drove 10 miles an hour on the way home with my four ways so that was my contribution to the whole thing oh that's sweet congratulations Connor what a what a family you've always been the most mature one of us so it really makes sense very nice It's leading to my inevitable early breaking point, right? Like, it's 39. Oh, it's coming. You're going to be like, wow. Like, they're going to have, like, the Save the Connor special on the, around the NFL podcast.

Just that would be amazing. Just easy on the accelerator with the protective dad bit because she will rebel like crazy. And, I mean, I don't speak from experience, but I've seen a lot of TV and movies. It's good to know. I'll let my wife know, too. All right. That the podcast gang way did. All right, Connor.

We miss you. continued greatness over at SI. All right. See you guys. Bye, Connor. There you go. Connor or new dad. We're all dads except for Wes. Just a matter of time there. He hit on one thing. Yeah.

I will say the scariest one of the scariest events of life was like when Luke and Colton and I'm sure you would agree to somebody. They are like two days old. You're putting them in the backseat of a car and then it's like the task is to drive to your house in insane L.A.

traffic and highway nonsense without anything bad happening. Well, there's that and also, and I don't think you dealt with this, Mark, but we did the C-section route. So you also have a wife that had major surgery, essentially, and hitting bumps or anything like that is not only something that would get her upset, it could actually lead to an issue where you have to go back to the hospital. So it is a highly stressful. It's an added layer right there.

A loaded moment of stress. But there's also, and I say this. And all kidding aside, West, something to look forward to in life if you do go down this road. One of the best feelings in the world is the first time you get to the house with your new baby. Oh, yeah. In the house, the first full day at home is one of the days of my life. That's the good stuff. All right.

We will be back on Wednesday and it will be the return every year. It's an annual thing. We need to always check in and make sure it's updated as we enter a new season. The Dalton scale. Calibrated for 2018 So make sure The scientists are going to have their pens and their pads out And also

You know Mark and I I still view myself as a guy upstairs in the kitchen Hang out with Mark You're not the only one Talking shop And so we will Recalibrate the Dalton scale figuring out who is the prime meridian

Meridian of NFL quarterbacks If it is still Andy Dalton So there's a little cliffhanger for you Until then And this is Dan Hansa signing off for Quiet Storm, the mailman, the old boss, Lindsay Fulton, behind the glass. Are you kidding me? Till Wednesday! Hey everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here.

And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move to Six, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else. It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Marcus Grant.

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