NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Coaching Carousel with Ollie Connolly

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

Gregg Rosenthal is joined by Ollie Connolly of The Read Optional to break down all of the coaching vacancies around the NFL. Gregg and Ollie discuss the Raiders (01:50), Bears (08:25), Jaguars (15:38), Saints (22:35), Cowboys (29:31), Jets (35:34), the Patriots hiring Mike Vrabel (43:20) and more!   Note: time codes approximateNFL 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. Welcome to NFL Daily, where we're always trying to get entitlement out of the building. I'm Greg Rosenthal in my garage. talking across the sea to our friend, Ali Connelly, we had him on in the preseason. We talked about Kirk Cousins potentially having a terrible season and what would happen then. And he did.

We've had him on a few times since, including in London. And I wanted to talk some head coaching GM openings. Welcome, Ollie. How are you doing? I'm doing great. How are you? I am good. The entitlement line, that's from Mike Rable.

We'll get to him in a bit. But I thought we've spent so much time analyzing the games that have been happening, and that is the fun stuff. And we'll get back to that tomorrow, previewing all the games. We have a lot of great guests. But like so much has been happening on the coach hiring front that, like, I just wanted to catch up on some level. And some of these teams, Ali, I don't know what you think. And we'll go through them one by one.

But there's some wild lists out there of GMs and coaches that are going on. Yeah. And there's wild list of GMs who aren't fond. but may be fired if their new boss, who is the coach, apparently, decides they don't want them in the building anymore. It's very peculiar. Yes. Mickey Loomis is one potentially like that, although I don't know.

He seems confident. He is keeping that job. We'll get to him in a bit, but we're going to roll through as many teams as we can. Everyone check out Ollie's substack. It is called the Read Optional. He does a podcast that you can get access to with John Ledyard, which is great there. He also writes there. So I don't ask for much.

as a host, but just let's show Ali, we can support them, subscribe to a subset stack. And while you're there, give us some good reviews on iTunes, Spotify. Why not? Okay, let's start with the Raiders. I just think the Raiders and Tom Brady's situation is relatively under the radar. And I wanted to lead with the show because of an article in the Las Vegas Review Journal, which is always very tied into Mark Davis, who had a quote from a source that said, this is Tom's show now.

So it feels like almost underreported that Tom Brady is probably running an NFL team right now. Mark Davis sold 25% of the team so he has a lot of cash that he doesn't mind spending on these coaches that he keeps firing every year. And there was the report that they at least contacted Bill Belichick. I don't know how serious that was, but Brady's got the Lions this weekend as his game.

and so he's literally going to be announcing the game and presumably, like, I don't know if he gets to talk to Ben Johnson, but he gets to be around Ben Johnson, and that's going to be one of the candidates. Here's the list. I'm going to list it for our listeners, who they have asked to talk to or spoken to.

Pete Carroll, Aaron Glenn, Ben Johnson, Vance Joseph, Todd Munkin, Robert Sala, Steve Spagnolo. Solid list. I've seen worse. What do you think about, like, what Tom Brady could possibly want in a coach and everything that's going, going on here. I really don't know.

I'm glad we have some clarity on who's running things. I thought Tom Telesco was done quite dirty in this situation, given they finally had an adult in the room to make good decisions as a GM. And I don't think he's a needle mover as a GM necessarily, but he certainly raised the floor from what they had in the past. I don't understand wanting to have joined-up uniform thinking, but I would think you would feel pretty confident about who that was. If you're going to move on from someone,

and that spoke to me initially as that, okay, this must be Brady's show. So Telesco is not making a higher Mark Davis isn't just doing it, carte blanche as he's done in the past. Brady's on this thing. And it's just beyond hysterical, it's journalistic malpractice, not that he's really a journalist, that he's allowed to call the game of a guy he's probably trying to employ and gets to spend four hours talking to his agent directly

through Fox's Airways for $28 million to kind of pitch the job for the guy he wants to get. So I find that side fast. And do you think that this Raiders job should not be as coveted as it seems like these guys are as excited to get in to discuss? Well, I think for coaches, what struck me going through this list and thinking about their process is that if you're a coach that wants some power, this could be. I guess Brady's going to have a lot of power, but they haven't really started talking to general managers at all.

So they stand out to me as an organization that doesn't have a GM in place and it's talking to coaches first. So presumably, if they hire a coach first, He's going to be kind of in charge or the one that has say. So that part of it's good. You know, they in theory have a lot of money, but it's a real rebuild. I mean, talent-wise, you know, what do you have? You have an all-pro tight end.

You have Max Crosby who may or may not want to be there. And you don't have much more. You don't have any quarterback. So I have no idea, like, what they're looking for. I don't think they know what they're looking for unless it's just Tom Brady wants like a good quarterback tutor, which. would make sense. Yeah, I mean, it's a pretty disparate list to have Ben Johnson and Pete Carroll. You're not exactly looking for the same thing when you go into those interviews. I do think

you hitting it, though, from the coaching points of view, which is these guys are control freaks. They want to have as much say as possible. And I get the Raiders job as viewed as not a great job. But I think in the specifics of what they're looking for, which is give me control, let me run the building. Mark Davis is incredibly accommodating on letting you do whatever you want to do. When Josh McDaniels went there, he brought chefs, he brought secretaries. He brought a bunch people from New England that upset people in New England. Most teams don't let you do that. Jerry Jones does not let you bring in a group of secretaries. You want to run the building for you. So if you want that stuff and it's important to you to build an organization, if that's what gets

Ben Johnson going, is that I want full power in a building and I don't want the guys who run the sixers coming in telling me what the draft board looks like, what the evaluation process is. I get why that would be exciting and enticing to a guy who could just say, I want to be with Caleb Williams and I'll figure the politics out of the building later. That doesn't help you when it's third and seven and AOC is your quarterback. That would be my concern for Ben Johnson. Come on, man. You got to support me in my lukewarm take,

which is that AOC is going to have like a nine-year, perfectly reasonable NFL career, which is a great outcome for a fourth round of quarterback. Do you disagree or not? No, I think a Donald-like trajectory where he gets with some whisperer and McCown four years down the line, I think is in play. I mean, that would be on the higher end.

Supposedly, I've seen John. on spy tech thrown out there, who works with the Buccaneers as a potential GM target, which again would have Brady's fingerprints. But yeah, it's multiple different sources, not just Las Vegas Review Journal, who basically said Tom Brady was like, no, let's push Telesco out. Like the day he visited with them, the next day, they fired Telesco and people inside the building are just saying, like, it is his team. Hell, Mark Davis is essentially said it could be his team.

But it's just all wild to me. It's also kind of under the radar that Richard Seymour owns 0.5% of the Raiders. And it's spread out. Like he sold 25% of his team. I do think that's a factor in why he's spending so much money is that he has all this money suddenly from that. He's also newly rich just generally with all the Vegas investments and the franchises. He was kind of like cash poor for a long time.

They couldn't sign Freitans because you got to put the cash in escrow. So he's like a new rich old money guy, which is a really unusual thing to be. It's very, not very often you see someone who has like a family lineage of being rich and then they just get given a bunch of cash on top after having not had a lot on hand for a while. So he's just doing all the things. I mean, to turn over coaches that rate and to turn over when you allow everyone to bring whoever they want, right, strength and conditioning coach all the way down the line to

not have any kind of stasis between the staffs is a pretty wild investment to make to then say, let's do it again and then let's interview Robert Sala and Pete Carroll and Spagnolo and, oh, the hottest head coaching candidate on the market. Yeah, I just don't know based partially on Tom Brady's broadcasting career why he would be a particularly good person to run an organization. But we'll see. It'll be fun to watch. And as somewhat rudderless franchises go,

I would rather have the Mark Davis type that is, he's like reinvesting all the money that he's making. He's not being cheap about it. Speaking of, which, let's go through the Bears just quickly. We haven't been hitting on any of these interviews or what's been going on. So the Bears have Ryan Poles, their general manager in place.

I'm just going to list all the people they have asked or spoken to. Thomas Brown, their interim head coach. Matt Campbell, the Iowa State head coach. That was kind of out of nowhere. Pete Carroll, Brian Flores, Marcus Freeman from Notre Dame, they want to talk to.

We'll see if they wait around. Aaron Glenn Ben Johnson. Mike Kafka, who's still getting interviews, the Giants offensive coordinator. Cliff Kingsbury. Mike McCarthy is interviewing on Wednesday. Todd Monkin, Drew Petzig, Ron Rivera, and Arthur Smith. When a list is that long, do you think they know what they're doing?

Or is the list a bit of a tell? Yeah, I don't hate when people have long lists. I know people like to say, hey, go and point and get your guy. I like the information gathering side of things. You gather as much as you can, not just in terms of who you might hire, but how do they run their off-season program? How does this guy develop quarterbacks? Because they're things we can steal from different playbooks,

different ways they run the week that we can hand. to the guy we pick and maybe he synthesized it, go, oh, there's some good stuff in here that Drew Petzing had that I'd like to pinch if I can. I don't think there's any harm if you're able to do it. My concern there with their lack of joint up thinking is just who is running the building in Chicago. I think that's why Ben Johnson was like terrified by the thing and he could have just signed

there almost immediately and it could have leaked out that he wanted to go and work with Caleb Williams. Maybe he winds up wanting to do that. But this Kevin Warren Ryan Paul's who is running the show is Ryan Paul's actually good at evaluating talent with all the assets they've had there. I'm still unsure. And I just would not, if my career was involved in any way with Kevin Warren's, I would not like that. So I think a lot of people would view it pretty similarly.

Who would you like to be Caleb Williams' coach, just as a fan? As a fan, well, Drew Petzing excites me as a blend. But I also thought Shane Walter and him would have a fun kind of cocktail of stylistically different. And if you overlay them and it works together, we got this fireworks show that's really fun. maybe it is just as simple as getting a king's brain and saying let's really simplify this and play to your strengths and you know each other personally

and that will unlock you for a year or two. I do think maybe getting him just one or two seasons of this might not be the five, six, seven year guy that is tied in for his career, but let's try and get some confidence in him. Let's try and weed out some of the rough stuff. That might be the way to do it. Ultimately, for me, when you go and look at

when Vrabel's gone with Drake May, I don't think they have to be these offensive gurus to be tied to the young quarter. I think it's such a fallacy to say that. You go through the history of Peter, Manning, Brady, Rothesberger, on down the line. They're not always tied to offensive gurus and great offensive architects who wind up tapping into these guys the most. You just need a good head coach.

So whoever they view as a good head coach, I would hope someone with some experience. But if it's one of the hotshot guys, or Liam Cohen, someone like that, I would be excited about that. This was, to me, the most likely cliff spot if he wanted to. But there have been multiple reports out there. that just keeps saying, Cliff is cool. Like, Cliff is content to stay in Washington, specifically citing that he's getting paid as a head coach still from Arizona,

which is amazing. And if you were Cliff Kingsbury, Caleb Williams, I would think, would be pretty tempting because that's a unique player to work with. But any other situation, you know, you get to keep working with Jaden Daniels. You have all the fun of the job. You're getting all the money from Arizona. And you have like a fraction of the pressure and all the pains that come with being the head coach.

So that actually makes sense to me. I kind of believe that he wouldn't necessarily even take this job if the bears wanted him. Would Kingsbury be up high on your fancy list of guys anyway, quarterback unseen, if you were the raid as someone like this, that these reports sound awfully friendly to Cliff Kingsbury as though he can just walk in demand whatever he wants if we did not see him be a head coach in college and pro and it not go so well? I was so down. I've always been down on Cliff Kingsbury,

but this season has gotten well enough. Even the wildcard game, he keeps throwing out fun new stuff. Enough that I just want the best for Caleb Williams. I'm curious, while I have you here, and this is, it's the Ali Connolly show today. I might as well just get all the opinions I want to know the answers to.

If you're redoing the draft now, do you feel differently about Caleb Williams first, and then second, how would you sort those three-quarter? I do have concerns. I think the internal clocks is a real thing that you can split out from scheme and that kind of stuff. That really does concern in a way that I think will take three or four years to undo what I saw this year. Of him does not understanding the speed and rhythm of the game, how quick things rotate. I think believing he's probably a better NFL athlete than he is to evade the rush and go and create the way that he would want to. And then having this weird

midseason rift, I think, with the scheme itself, where he's so trying to stick to it, almost to prove a point that I'm not this great mover and creator, but then refusing to throw the ball and challenge down the field, maybe if you can just lock him in with a guy who can really simplify things and maybe strip out some of the ego of the quarterback you want to be versus the guy who can be successful really early on. As with Jaden Daniels, our scheme isn't that vast. It's not that overly creative as cliffs have been in the past, but he's just nails on third down and he knows where he's going with the ball and he gets rid of it. That maybe will change things slightly, but it'll take a while for me to unsee the indecisiveness, I think, early on. So I'd

probably go Daniels, May, Williams, I think. And you would have had the reverse before, or you had Williams, Daniels, May. I had Williams, May, Daniels going in. Okay. Yeah. So I like that. I like that you're willing to change it. I feel like some people get so caught up in the draft evaluation. And to me, like this, this tape is so much more valuable to me. Not that I have trust my draft evaluations at all, but it's like, well, seeing Jaden Daniels like this, I would probably take May. Maybe I'm just a homer, but the age does matter to me and the types of traits that he shows. But either way, I would take both of them over Caleb. I feel strongly about now. No, I think May is really, really special. I thought that going in, it was neck and neck for me

between him and Williams. I think Jaden Dianz has proven that there's something a little bit different going on there in the big moments and things like that go beyond like, hey, let's break down the film and the footwork and where he's going with the ball every time that there's just some kind of magic to him that you just can't really describe that I am all in on. I think the close game wins is no joke. I think having your offense basically burn two downs against a havoc creating defense in a wild card game and you're just standing there on third down and come up every single time. I think is a real thing that we haven't seen with the other guys yet.

So that's why I've slipped slightly towards Daniels. I agree with you on the NFL film, by the way. I think it's just so silly to default to your prize and hold on to it for four years and pray for the best. I go back and evaluate all my stuff to find out if there's something I've missed. or there's something bad in the process, but to just kind of claim you're right all along when your mortgage is on the line

because you're not actually in charge of the teams, I think is a little bit silly. Yeah, and I think Daniels has shown, and he's already improved so much, he's going to continue to improve. They all will. Let's go to the Jaguars, just because we haven't mentioned them at all on this show

since Trent Balke was left in place. I like their list of people they're talking to. You've got the offensive mind, Brady, Liam Cohen. Amazingly, is that the only interview Liam Cohen is getting in this cycle? That's really surprising to me. And then you also have Ben Johnson,

Todd Monkin, Kellynne Moore. I didn't know if Ben Johnson was going to take that interview. He decided to, but they're not just talking to offensive guys. Also, Aaron Glenn, Brian Flores, Patrick Graham, last with the Raiders, getting an interview. Robert Sala interviewed on Tuesday as we're taping

and Steve Spagnolo. So you have Trevor Lawrence in place there. This does feel like the team, I feel like that's going to hire a young hot shot play caller if they can. It'd be a fascinating place for Brady or Cohen. I don't know why, but I tend to think one of those two could land there. Yeah, the thing that makes it tough for me is, did Joe Brady or Liam Cohen have the cachet to push Trembalchi out?

And that is all I would be worrying about if I was in that building is how do we find a way to unseat that guy whereas not that it would necessarily be spagnol but Robert Salon maybe would have the cachet to come in and say

actually let's bring our own guy and let's reset how we do things and that to me is a more pressing need than just going getting the hot shot OC where you could maybe find a quarterback coach and where we give you a facsimile of it in year one. I do think just sight unseen

if bulky was out I would love Joe Brady or Liam Cohen to be there I think Brady particularly would be exciting with the roster they currently have with Lawrence. I think he could tap into some stuff whereas Cohen's is a slightly smaller sample size. And I do have, I think Cohen's not getting that many interviews

because Liam Cohen, I'm not quite sure wants to be a head coach yet. I think that there's a lot of stuff he wants to work on that goes beyond the scheming and the game planning and the stuff that he enjoys and I think is a really special talent at, whereas Brady has been basically plotting and planning for years now and how he would build a week out on what a head coach would look like. So I think he would maybe hit the ground running with some of the CEO type stuff better than Cohen would in year one.

There were some reports that like Ben Johnson isn't going to just take any interview and he wants a place where he can, be put in a position to succeed and that they're, you know, and he kind of like you're mentioning with Cohen previously has said, look, I'm, I love the X's and O's and maybe didn't feel like he was ready to be a head coach. Do you think he would potentially take a job where Trent Balke is in place? I was actually surprised that he, I think he isn't, you know, he's shown some interest in this job, but I do wonder if that would be a point that some reporters have hinted at that he would not want this job

if Balke is there. That is another one where I think as they've been laughing stock E or laughing stock adjacent for so long it often looks like maybe a bad job but I think coaches like the Khan family and particularly Shad Khan because they are patient and loyal to a fault

outside of the urban my debacle. They hold on to people too long. Trent Balke is still there. It is the number one should have been fired for the job he's done of any GM coach, assistant coach in the NFL and he's still hanging on by his fingernails unless someone comes in and says,

I want him out. So these guys are really loyal. They spend a lot of money. So I think if you just have the ego of wherever I go, I can fix it and I get Trevor Lawrence. I think that's why someone like Ben Johnson would take that interview

whilst maybe look inside at the Chicago situation where from the outside that looks like a better job ragged is offensive guy. They got all the weapons. They've got Caleb Williams. Whereas if you really are interested

in control and running the building, you know with the JAG situation that you would have massive say you'd have a bunch of patience and you'd get a bunch of cash spent on you too. Right. On Cohen, you were leading the brigade and I tend to agree that like the Bucks can't let this guy go out of the building. It was a special offensive season that they had.

It made that loss all the more frustrating. Ben Solac of ESPN had a great stat that they had the highest like passing success rate in a playoff loss ever or maybe it was the century. It was something like that. And they still found a way to lose that game. Maybe they weren't going to the Super Bowl anyway. with that defense, but I would have liked to see them keep playing. Do you think the Bucks would ever make the move to get rid of bowls if they felt

like they needed to keep Cohen? Now, just some context for the listeners, the Bucks multiple times have gotten rid of their coach like a week later, like late in the process. Like suddenly John Gruden is out. And it's the Tuesday, like eight days after the NFL season has ended. happened a few times. So it's been radio silent there for now, which it does make me wonder if that's at least a possibility because they wouldn't want Cohen to leave. Yeah, I think it would be a stronger possibility. If he was interviewing in four or five places and he was

like the guy, which I think he should be. I think he's really, really special. And I think it's foolish that he's not being interviewed everywhere. I think his season this year really reminds me McVeigh and Washington where it is both special from a schematic point of view and kind of like the M product of your by EPA for Playpoints per game, that is crushing people all over the place, but then how he gets to it by basically shape-shifting the scheme every week to plug holes to fix an offensive line that struggled for seasons. And I thought by the end of the year was the best overall unit, then maybe the Broncos and the Eagles, by the end of the thing, all the different creativity, but then just finding a way to maximize all the different puzzle pieces,

changing Mike Evans' route distribution, all kinds of little details, plus all the cool one-off stuff. I think where Bowles is that, it's almost, I think they'd have a really odd time firing him, but could there be some kind of semi-force retirement situation where it's like Bowles is ready to move on and we really want to keep Liam? That's a move I would make purely because I think we know what the ceiling is with Top Bowls. You just cannot at this point correct the in-game management issues.

Some of the defensive stuff has tailed off, though I still think he's one of the great defensive architects in the league and it's done really well after the buy this season. I just think it's really hard. It almost reminds me slightly of Dan Quinn and Kyle Shanat and where the league was training in such a way you didn't want to get out of the Kyle Shanatam business even if you really liked Dan Quinn

and thought he could be a successful head coach somewhere and you just don't want to miss that and have it go to Jacksonville and they're going to the playoffs three years in a row and you're two years down the line and Bowles high as a Dodd O.C. He has a in-game management snafoo the cost you a playoff spot

and you're looking going while we had Liam Cohen in our building. Yeah, that would be a tough scenario. Ultimately, I think they're going to have their cake and eat too, though probably have them both back which would be excellent. And give Todd Bulls credit for the hires. I mean, I don't know if it's all him

making these hires, but if Mike Tomlin could choose OCs like Todd Bowles could, like they would be winning playoff games in Pittsburgh. And I don't even need to see what happens this offseason. Like the bucks are going to be my pick to win that division unless they totally have a brutal offseason. They have a lot to like, you mentioned the offensive line, and then the coaching returning. And the defense has room to improve certainly next year. Let's go to one of their division rivals, which is a mess right now, the New Orleans Saints. Their interview list, at least in terms of their desires. Mike Kafka, again.

Aaron Glenn, who has spent time in that building, might be one of the favorites. Cliff Kingsbury reportedly, Kellynne Moore and Anthony Weaver, the Dolphins defensive coordinator. They've also been tied to Mike McCarthy, although I don't think that's officially come up that that was going to be a request. I wanted to talk also about Mickey Loomis, who had so many gems in his crazy defiant press conference on Monday that I had to play some of them. Eric, let's throw up the Mickey Loomis one about the results, not being what he wanted.

It doesn't mean, by the way, because the results aren't what we want, doesn't mean that we're doing something wrong. There may be some circumstantial things here, but we have to look at all of it and be honest with ourselves. Hey, we didn't do a good job in that area. We've got to do better. How can we do better? This man is saying he's got to be honest with themselves.

He started the press conference defending Dennis Allen, St. Derek Carr is a great quarterback, which I get why you got to stand up for Derek Carr right now. But more than anything, the thing that drove me crazy was that he said he's been drafting well. And it's like what, yeah, 2017 was like a long time ago. If I'm a Saints fan, I'm hoping for a coach that would be powerful enough to push Mickey Loomis to the side.

But I'm losing confidence that that's, a possibility. Yeah, I really thought when there was the weird press release when they let go of Dennis Allen, where Mickey Loomis was like, he's actually a great NFL ed coach, and I don't know why this is happening, that that was just a tell that he'd already lost a power struggle, and he wouldn't be involved in this decision at all. And I thought when they were kind of back channeling early on, that Aaron Glenn, you know, if he wants the job, it's his job, if he so decides that that was another tell. Like, this is going to be a complete reset. They've accepted it. They're going to hire a coach. They give at least three seasons, figure out what the salary

cap situation is, which is just still a complete mess. and he'll be unburdened by that by year, two, year three, if they're going to torch through it in one season, for him to still being charged, to be speaking in such a bizarre way with seemingly no hold on any of the facts of what his roster entails, and the situation therein is pretty concerning,

which is one where Aaron Glenn, who I think could have that job if he wants it, I think the other ones are all fallback options if he gets a second ask, or the lines come up with a huge pay increase where he goes, it's not this year, call me in a year after you've done the one and done higher Mayo style. Yeah, I feel like,

Aaron Glenn can probably get a job in this cycle. It's really hard to ever turn down an NFL job, but the Saints and the Jets and everything that you hear about Glenn in terms of how he would be as kind of a leader of an entire building makes him an attractive option. And yet, I think that the Saints are more likely to hire Mike McCarthy. I kind of think that is the direction they're going to go because the Saints remind me a little bit of Dallas in that it's a really unique setup where they've got their guys. They don't want to go outside of their guys. McCarthy and Loomis go back all the way to the early aughts when McCarthy was there in New Orleans. And more than anything, I think it's like they would help each other have power. Like McCarthy would be a guy

that Loomis is happy to let do everything that he needs to do. But just some whispers that I have heard if he can land McCarthy, that would almost be viewed potentially by ownership as like, hey, Mickey Loomis, he still got it. He can get us Mike McCarthy and actually guarantees them that they can work together for the next three or four years. Yeah, that feels like the self-preservation move. And I'm not sure it's the worst move. No, it's not. It's not bad. You bring in a first-time guy into that situation where you either keep paying on the credit card and then it comes due in two seasons or whatever, or you decide to just tear it down in one year and they get, you know, lovely Smith does something out of the door inside 18 months. So I just don't think it's the greatest

spot for first time. I really thought that Anthony Weaver would go in there. I think he's got a chance to be a really talented head coach. I think all the owners really like him. He's super intelligent. He runs a creative scheme. It's right within the vanguard of what everyone's looking for. Do we want a Dan Campbell? Do we want to Mike McDonald? Do we want to Sean McVeigh? Well, Weaver's right there in both the Campbell and McDonald type world where you get the kind of leader and men type personality, but the really cool innovative scheme. I thought he'd go in and maybe you blow away one of these teams who wanted to do the retread hire, right? The Jets, the Saints, who maybe want more of an adult in there where he could come and convince them that I'm

kind of a bit of both where I've been around the block for a while. I know how to run a program, but then also I've got this really cool innovative scheme. So I like him as an outside bet if Glenn just says no, and then for whatever reason they can't work out the McCarthy. But I don't think, I think Mike McCarthy's just a better coach and people think. I think he's a complete floor razor. It's not going to get you excited. You won't throw parades. You probably won't raise a Lombardi while he's there. But I do think he'll be a floor raiser. And if they're still in that view that we can be competitive and we can keep pushing this thing out, then he does make logical sense there.

Yeah, and he could hire a staff, which they might be starting late in the process. I agree. That's the thing is I don't think it's a bad hire for them for where they're at. And if we're just assuming Mickey Loomis is there anyways, if I was a fan of the Saints, it's probably the best you could do. One thing was clear from that press conference is there's no way they're tearing it down. he wouldn't even recognize that they have any salary cap issues and he liked the roster. He says you can turn things around in a second in this league and he is not looking to the future.

Although he isn't really looking at Tankathon very often either. Let's listen to him and talk about his draft pick. You know, it's not like we have the first pick of the draft. It's, you know, we're at 10, I think, as I recall right now. What are we? Nine. Excuse me. It was 10 before. I mean, it's pretty bad, right?

How is that not an immediate, fireable offense? You ask your coaches to sleep on mattresses, to miss all their kids' dance recitals, to not grow up with their family, to have the highest divorce rate behind lawyers in America, and the guy doesn't know where he's drafting. Right, like, what's he doing? Scouring the waiver wire for Pelicans players still?

I thought he's out of that business. How does he not know what pick he has? I feel like that should be a bigger story. I'm glad we got it into this shoot. Let's take a quick break here. We're going to come back. There's a lot of other situations which are really interesting. The Cowboys, the Jets.

I want to talk a little bit about Mike Rabel. We've got Ali Connolly back after the break. Well, first of all, look, we get the best professional sports league in the world, right? And there's 32 jobs. And a lot of guys want to be head coach. So every job is attractive. They just are, including ours. What's up, everybody?

Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the Sticks, we take you inside the game from scouting reports and player development to team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. Every week, we study the tape, talk to decision makers, and share the insights you won't find anywhere else. It's the kind of conversation that connects the dots, from college football prospects to the NFL stars of tomorrow. We break down the draft, analyze matchups, and evaluate how teams put it all together on game day.

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a fantasy vet. We've got the insight to help you crush your opponents. 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. All right, it's catch up on the coaching and GM situations day on NFL daily. And the Cowboys letting Mike McCarthy walk. didn't want to give him extra years on his contract, apparently was where they were really disagreeing on things.

So whether it was McCarthy kind of leaving or Dallas letting him leave, he is no longer there. And every name that they throw out for a potential coach gets wilder, Ali, we've got Dion is in the mix, supposedly. Jason Whitten has been now mentioned by multiple outlets. Don't be surprised if Jason Witten gets in the mix. That was from pro football talk, among other places. Mike Zimmer has been mentioned.

I don't think as a head coach, but maybe Jerry would force him on as a defensive coordinator, which wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. And maybe he's, you know, kind of like the guy that Jerry's got in his back pocket in case nothing else works out and just makes the head coach. Kellen Moore has been brought up.

So a lot of familiar faces, what do you think about the cowboy situation? I mean, it's the strangest situation we've seen. I think it's some time to, to let a coach going to the final year of his contract is a strange thing anyway. You just don't see that in any professional sport, right? It's known as a lame dog, so you just let the guy go over the second. It's done. Even guys like Doug Peterson, who was not actually technically a lame dung, he knew after London, like, I'm out.

He got the team kind of quit on him. They did it with Garrett, though. They did the exact same thing with Garrett, actually. This is the cheapness of the franchise, which is just so peculiar. And then to look at the list and go, okay, so if there's a Mike Zimmer thing there, that would sound to me like we could be pair Kellemore, a guy we know, which is a very Jerry thing, right, with the old hand so we can kind of help gain through, which I don't think would be the silliest move.

I'm not pro Kelmore as a head coach. I'm not particularly pro Kelimor as an OC anyway, but moving him to the head coach, maybe he's just better at that job than is just calling plays and running an offense. But you see this with Mayo Hackett, the guys who have really terrible times are just having this really inexperienced staff

who've just not been around or be in those roles before. So maybe keeping Zimmer there and pairing him with a younger guy would at least give you some of that where they know how to get the planes to run on time and stuff like that. The oddest one, I think, is Dionne. I mean, Dion's statement was absolutely just peculiar, I think. I don't know, you were really good at deciphering what people are really saying when they release

these statements, and that really read to me is, I want the job, but I don't want to be embarrassed if you don't offer me the job. Therefore, I'll say I'm intrigued by it and we've spoke, and if you offer it me, I may take it, but I don't want to make it look like I was turned down if I'm not offered the job. Yeah, I think you hit the nail on the head here. It was to hear from Jerry Jones is truly delightful, and it's intriguing. I love Jerry, and I believe in Jerry. After you hang up and process it, think about it, it's intriguing.

But I love Boulder and everything there is about our team, the coaches our student body, and the community. And that's one directly to Adam Schaefter, which is interesting, too. I get the sense it's more people around Dion pushing, and maybe Dion's agent, pushing this idea. Irvin's been pushing this idea. And Jerry's open to it enough to do a few news cycles, but no one's really sure what he thinks, which I think is a growing problem for the Cowboys. I don't think it's ageism to talk about your ability to run an NFL team at the same level that you did 30 years ago when you're in your mid-80s.

Those were legitimate questions to be the president of the country. It's a legitimate question for the ownership of the team. And one of the things you consistently hear out of Dallas is, well, Jerry's not sure. Like, Jerry, like even with Mike McCarthy, publicly, he was really trying to make the bridge to keeping McCarthy. I think he thought he was keeping McCarthy. And McCarthy maybe stood up to Jerry Jones more than he expected. And he sounds like he doesn't necessarily know what he wants. The thing I would be fun about Dion, other than it just would be a fun team to cover, would be he would definitely keep Zimmer.

He loves Mike Zimmer. Those two love each other. And you've given me Dion and Zimmer, like, okay. It's quite fun. I'll definitely take it over Kellynne Moore or like bringing Jason Garrett back or whatever the other options would be. I mean, the other options feel like it would be such a tired, like they'd go and get Doug Peterson. They were just going to get a veteran guide to come in, replay the McCarthy thing. And I think you're right on Jerry Jones.

I've defended what they've done in the last few years in terms of he is not grinding the film and making all the decisions. They have decision makers you make it. but he is in charge of the big boy ones, right? He is in charge of the first round draft pick. That's his call, even though he's done a good job, I think, at times, of stepping back and saying, well, I've taken on all the information, I'll take the right player, and then picking the head coach and not selling a coach to an extension that you want to keep around,

who then maybe is from another team that that's where I'll go there instead and decides to walk away from the negotiating table. So if this is his call, it really, really does concern me. I mean, the list of candidates is so thin compared to everyone else to make it so you can't go and interview guys who are actively in the play. playoffs because you let go of your coach too late is really bizarre. And I just hope more than anything that it is a true wild card. I would love to have a different name in the mix. I think this way we do things of guy calls plays well, make him head coach. It's like a really Neanderthal way

of doing things and there are different ways of doing this. So if it was a fun outside the box higher, that would get me excited. Even if it is guy calls plays well and it's like a Steve Sarkisian and he tries to replicate Jimmy Johnson stuff from back in the day at the end of his career just drops a bag for Steve Sarkisian. Something like that would excite me more than what I think might wind up happening, which is they just go and get a retread head coach. Yeah, I just don't know if they're plugged in enough to come up with those names. Now, maybe Stephen Jones would be more likely to be plugged in. Maybe if he like asked Will McLeigh, whose contract, I believe, is also up, by the way, who runs their personnel

department, you know, if he's asking him for some input of who would be some good, like that's who they need to be asking. But you get the sense he doesn't really ask outside the family. Let's talk about the Jets who have interviewed enough head coaches and GMs to fill out an entire starting offense and defense and starting special teams with a couple people left over. I think we're up to 15 GM interviews and 12 head coaches. The GMs, you know, some good ones, some of the up-and-comers that you would expect to see on some of these lists. Mike Greenberg and Tampa has a lot of fans around the league. Alec Hallaby, who's the assistant GM with the Eagles and has an analytical background. I got an interview, but so did Jim Nagy, the Senior Bowl guy.

So did Ryan Grigsin, so did Chris Spielman, and then just like a lot of people in between. So that one's odd. And then the head coaching one, they did have a wild card. Mike Loxley, the Maryland head coach, which I like seeing that name just because, like, okay, I guess you're thinking. originally here, that's different. And then Vrable, they interviewed Matt Nagy, Joe Brady, Brian Flores, Aaron Glenn, Ron Rivera, Darren Rizzi from the

Saints, Rex Ryan, Bobby Sloick, Arthur Smith, and Steve Spagnolo. And just on Tuesday, Adam Schaefter said they are looking to expand their search. So 12 is not enough. They are looking for more. I am ready and available

for calls. Mr. Johnson, you can call me. I will interview, get that on the resume. I mean, this is just a crackers list. I mean, it's unbelievable. To speak to Bobby Slowick after the season he had is pretty embarrassing. To speak to Arthur Smith is embarrassing. To speak to Mike Loxley, you said you like that one. I mean, that is one of the all-time most strange interviews. Any NFL franchise has ever done. It's not that I know anything about him. I'm just like, well, at least you came up with a name that I hadn't really thought of. So I have no idea if he's a good coach. He's a bad coach who once famously

punched one of his staff members. I don't think that's exactly the culture reset that the Jets are looking for. I guess it is outside. the box. I almost think hiring Jeff Saturday makes more sense than interviewing Mike Loxley for... So maybe like a Mike Loxley and you have Ikeye and Impale in there as like your offensive coordinator.

Yeah, I don't know what to think about the Jets right now. It's just so strange. I mean, even interviewing Rex Ryan again, who I've actually lobbied for, I really want back in the league, I think the way the league's trended defensively. It's all got the fingerprints of Rex Ryan all over. I think if he was engaged and willing

and had all the vigor and energy to run a defense probably, he could still be one of the best D.C.s in the league just with the way the league has gone stylistically. To have him come back and be the head coach where it's just like a pure ego play and it's all teeth and he's not that involved in the game planning day today is not something I would want to sign up for. So you'd have to certainly figure that out. There's just no way of knowing what their actual vision is, what they're looking for based in the candidates list, whether they want to go and do an account and you go a bit off the wall and get the QB coach before anyone else gets him. Do you try and go with one of the younger guys

or do you roll in a Ron Rivera and everyone is very mad at you for two seasons until you have another reset? Right. It's hard to know because it's Mike Tannenbaum who's essentially running this search. He doesn't even work for the Jets. I mean, he's getting paid by them now as a consultant.

It wouldn't surprise me at all if this ended with Mike Tannenbaum working for the Jets. Oh, this has got Dick Cheney. The best candidate was in the mirror all along and he's rolling back Tanenbaum and Rex Ryan. It's got that written all over it. I see, I can't imagine, Rex. You make a good point that he would be an interesting play caller,

and yet you don't, I don't know if, like, it sounds like he's maybe made enough money that he doesn't want to become a defensive coordinator again and be in a subordinate role necessarily. Maybe he would. Maybe he would take those interviews. Let's go to the Steelers. I listened to Mike Tomlin on Tuesday.

There weren't a ton of takeaways. He was very non-committal on the quarterbacks, says we'll consider keeping them. He was much more positive for what it's worth on Justin Fields than Russell Wilson. He said age would be a factor with what they're thinking about. He says he's open to changing his offensive philosophies and kind of how he approaches things.

But I guess kind of the proof is in what's actually happening. It doesn't sound like Arthur Smith is going anywhere, although he certainly wouldn't reveal that at a press conference. If he was, no one really even asked him about that. I don't know what they're going to do at the quarterback position, but he made a point to say, look, Jalen Hertz and Lamar Jackson, they did not come from early in the first round. We don't have to try to get a high draft pick just to get a quarterback,

which I agree with. Jordan Love wasn't there. There are other routes to do it, but you've got to try to get one. Just because Kenny Pickett didn't go well, like it doesn't mean you should stop trying to draft quarterbacks. No, I think they need some kind of rudiment. change. When the top defense for the head coach beyond the fact he's not a losing season, which is true and real and I accept, is that everyone else would want him. I find a really

difficult argument to take in that we have the set your calendar by the Schifter tweet comes out, that there's teams who would fire their sitting head coach. They want to trade for Mike Tomlin. It's like, okay, well, what is he doing in the place he's actually in? And what's happening is they keep losing playoff games and it's not competitive. And they get smoked in the first quarter every time. That last five playoff games it's been 73 to zero in the first quarter.

They are not competitive when it matters most. And so they need some kind I think of serious overall, whether it's letting both coordinators go. I think the greatest thing that could happen to them is that Arthur Smith is hired

by the Jets and it gives him a get out of jail freak to try something different. They should have tried something different before. They should try something different now. And I think defensively he's got it over all things as well.

Yeah, he mentioned to possibly changing how they do defenses They're going to look at everything. T.J. Watt said, I got to look at, you know, being more willing to play on the other side. I guess it's T.J. Watt calling his shot that he basically stays on one side. And that seems crazy. To me, Minka Fitzpatrick seemed to be in the middle of something where people were angry at each other on the Steelers defense at the end of the season.

And Minko said, I don't have anything good to say. So I don't want to say anything at all and refuse to talk to the media. So something is going on there. I don't really know what it is, and yet I would, like, there's no chance that they're getting rid of Mike Tomlin, nor do I think they should. And there's probably not much of a chance that he's really going to change anything dramatically, because at this point, why would we expect that? No, I don't think he would do it. It's just difficult when someone's like top thing is that they are the culture setter and they lead the program and the hiring choices have been really poor

and the culture has been pretty fractured for multiple years where guys aren't being held accountable for coming late, guys miss planes. And it's just like, if that's the culture, I mean, culture can be done in many different ways, but if that's the culture, then it's not shining as strongly as it should be based on the reputation. So the only avenue out of this is to look into a quarterback, frankly, is to take someone in the 20s that people didn't see coming and that they should have gone in the top five to trade for, can you pull off a trade for J.J. McCarthy? Are you the team he just says, whatever, we'll go and give Sam Donald the crazy money and hope that this thing was real for nine weeks? You know, I think they're going to have to try and take it to

call the Cardinals and say, here's two first round picks for Kyla Murray, you guys in that business or not. I think they need to take some kind of major swing, and I just have no faith that it's going to be like a complete schematic of all. Yeah, you know, we're about to talk about Elliot Wolf. His dad, Ron Wolf, always used to say take a quarterback every year, especially if you don't have one you got it, which is why I wouldn't hate the idea of Justin Fields or Russell Wilson for that matter, although I guess Fields makes more sense to me with a draft pick. But you have to take a draft pick. Maybe it's a maybe it's even a third round pick. Sometimes they work out. You just got to keep trying until you find one. All right, let's talk about Elliott Wolf. One part of the

Mike Rable press conference I thought was interesting is he says he has a shared vision with Elliott Wolf, but then his first hire as a head coach is this guy Ryan Cowden, who was his guy back in Tennessee, who's a personnel guy. It's been reported that he's coming into the building under Elliott Wolf. And so I thought that was interesting. But that just sets up. potential palace intrigue again, which happened with Vrable in Tennessee and has been happening in Foxborough for a while too. Yeah, these dynamics are going to be interesting and it will be full Game of Thrones. I think Vrable being so empowered means it's only ending one way. I don't think Elliot Wolfe is standing up to that one. It's probably in his best interest to figure out how to

make it work. And I did have a smile on my face when Vrable was let go for falling out with Ron Cawthorn for basically how they evaluate the players. He had one way he wanted to do it, Carthorn, had this new, you know, hip, exotic way of value in players, and you go through the list of what Carthorne did over the time he was there, and it's just disaster after disaster. Meanwhile, Vrable took his teams to AFC wins in the playoffs every other season. So I think that the jury's out on which way he was going, and this is the guy he wanted in Tennessee, and they picked Carthorn instead. So at least that will be a unified vision.

And Elliot Wolfe's first draft was not exactly gangbusters, right, when he was finally running the show. So we're after being touted for 15 years that this is the next great guy because his second name was Wolf. So I think if I was him, I'd get on board with the Vrable Way doing things pretty quickly. Yeah, I'm sure he will. And no, the draft, you got to give it a little more time. But other than Drake May, which was an obvious pick at three, it was a fiasco.

Let's listen to something from Vrable in that introductory press comments. We're going to earn the right to be here every day. We're going to remove entitlement from our football team. We're going to get everything that we've earned from. from the head coach to the position coaches all the way down to the players. We're going to earn the right to be here every single day. Maybe that's in reference to Jalen Polk and Kean White and a handful of Patriots players who never seemed happy with how they were being coach,

although maybe they had good beefs. I don't know what it was. I don't know if you got a chance to watch the Vable Press conference. That little clip speaks to something that just as a fan kind of bothered me, is he just seemed so tired. like he did not seem like a first coat like I just got a job energy it was like the season has been going on for so long and he's just over it all a little bit and I'll share something else I heard later but just what did you think about that presser yeah a little concerning given it looks like

he just came off a hellish season when he didn't and he had this job sewed up like six weeks ago and he could have been in Carbo for six weeks he left the brown's job early to go and sign the contract for this job. And to look pretty inside of me, I think he is one of those guys who's just overdoing all this extra stuff and just wants to get on with actually building a football team. So I'll give him that grace at least. And that is a distinction between him and Mayo, which I think is why they decided they wanted for ABLE anyway. So at least it wasn't as self-destructive as calling your own team soft three weeks into the job. Naming a starter that doesn't start and things like that. No, he got great reviews. Everyone loved it. He knows half the people in the media room

because the media room is fairly similar to how it was back then. He's talking to Karen Garugian from Boston Herald. He's talking to Tom Curran, and it's a lot of familiar faces to him. But some of those were part of the in-house Patriots show. I don't even know what you call it, group. And that was where I saw something. I just flipped it on.

It was still live. It was like an hour and a half after his pressur and out. He was still doing the rounds, and maybe he was tired. But I clicked into it. for just a couple minutes. And he had this whole thing about what's different this second time around, you know, what's it going to help you? It was just a real softball to end the interview.

And he went on this wandering answer. And I felt like all his answers on Tuesday were kind of wandering and he never really would answer the questions. And that's fine. You're probably right. He doesn't want to do the media stuff and he's just saying whatever. But he had this whole long thing about, well, the difference is second time around is, you know, there is an advantage to not knowing, you know, now you know everything that's going to come.

And he sounded like very tired, just like thinking about that. And, you know, the other time, you know, last time I only had one team that was, you know, interested and I was really excited and you take that job. And then, you know, this time, in theory, you got a couple different options. And you get to, you start second guessing yourself and you start overthinking it. And for a second, And I'm like, is he that confident in taking this job at all? Like, at the last second, did the Raiders come in hard or a different team coming hard? He literally just said, like, I started overthinking it a lot. Maybe he's talking about particular decisions that go along with it.

I don't really know, but it was an amazing window into it. And then I looked back at the press coverage. I was like, that does look like a guy to be on some level that's wondering, like, was this the best job I could have taken? I know too much about this building. I do think once he realizes they have $130 million. in cabspacing Zach Bourne as a free agent. I think he'll perk up pretty quickly,

him signing a linebacker for himself for $30 million a year, whatever he decides to do for Zach Bourne, I think we'll cheer him up immensely. I think when you walk into a building that has been that fractured for that long and things that are really basic in everyday life don't work,

that's probably the exhaustion. That he's dealing with stuff. He did not even have to deal with in Tennessee, which is not exactly a great building when he got there, but really broken stuff all the way through the building vending machines not working like simple things right i think that's going to take a toll on a guy who is probably thinking i'm walking back into a team that's on the ground but cap situation's great i've got the quarterback he's spoken

about that before publicly that's probably pretty exhausting maybe he didn't quite expect to walk into that atmosphere in the first couple of days yeah and uh to be clear if that's what needs doing in new england he he is the best candidate for the job so i've i've i've I've been a little critical of the hire, just making it feel like more of the same, but maybe if everything is that broken, it's a lot to ask of an Aaron Glenn or a Ben Johnson to come in and try to fix that. And Rabel's a better option. And I did think one quote he had that stuck out to me, which was very Belichickie, which was, we want to be good enough to take advantage of bad football. And essentially said, like, were we good enough, you know, were the Patriots

good enough before? No, like, we were the bad football. And so that's very Belichicky. And I have notice how Belichick can't stop saying the nicest things about Mike Ravel in interviews when he didn't have one nice word for Gerard Mayo. Come on, man. It's like, come on. I was slightly concerned by the answer. He was rolling out. I think it was his advanced analytics. Maybe he spent the week at PFF that Mike McCarthy did when he was talking about if you run the ball 40 times, you win 70 percent of year games or something like that unless you have on Brady. It's like, oh, no. I thought that maybe Mike was in a box because he had right in tannet ill and Derek Cameron. He realized the right way to win football games. And that was probably.

slightly concerning, felt a little bit like we're in 1990s football. Hopefully there's at least, if you're going to establish the team that way, there's at least the Dan Quinn, Sean McDermott, evolution of being aggressive. Yes, I like to think that was more when he was on autopilot, because he did a lot of media, and that might have been like hour three into the media. He actually gave a really good answer about all the different types of things they wanted to be doing on offense and versatility that I liked during the original press conference. All right, let's just roll through a couple things more.

quickly and get out of here. The Seahawks offensive coordinator is fascinating because of who's in place there. You assume Gino's going to be back. You have the receivers. They've interviewed Hank Fraley, which was an out-of-the-box idea. The offensive line coach of the Lions. Fun. That's interesting.

Clint Kubiak, who I would think would be a pretty good candidate in this cycle. He's not going to get the Brown's job. The Brown's job is going to Tommy Reese, who a lot of people thought might go with Mike Ravel to New England, but that didn't happen. And then Thomas Brown, the bear's offensive coordinator, got an interview with Seattle. Any thoughts on the Seattle situation? Yeah, I think it's a really good job for someone to walk into. Those, that list of names, I find slightly confusing.

You know, Ryan Grubb for all the fireworks of the passing game and all this creativity in coming from college was an O-Line guy himself, so they had an O-Line coach as the O.C. It didn't go very well. Maybe they can just bring a better guy. And I really thought they would maybe look at T. Martin with the Ravens, So the one guy would be trying to pluck away. I think if I was another team, would be Frank Smith with the Dolphins, just because you would get something completely different and original.

And he doesn't call plays in Miami. So it may be a lateral move, but it would be probably a better launch pad to a head coaching gig, particularly if things go south next season, if Tyreek Hill leaves or it just falls off a cliff with Mike McDaniel. So if I was the Seahawks, I think trying to pull Frank Smith of would be the move I'd look at. That's a name that hasn't been mentioned at all. And maybe it is because he has the O.C. title, but that it's a great point.

Like, titles do matter, which is one reason I haven't mentioned this Titans mess. It was a whole story last week that they had to get permission from the league to interview other GMs because no one quite believed that it was a real GM job because they've made the president of football operations, Chad Brinker, have the final say. Like, he is in charge of football. Apparently, all along, he was winning Game of Thrones in Tennessee that Chad Brinker was the guy who probably pushed Mike Rable and Ron Carthon out or whatever. He's in charge now.

But they do say the GM job is a real GM job. And they've interviewed like 10 different people from around the league, even though this guy Brinker is going to have final say. But Titans like sneaky up there and like the biggest messes of an organization that's out there. Yeah, it's a bit of a disaster. And I was not surprised, Calla. I wasn't one and done, but I really thought that was in play. Particularly if you get rid of the GM after that level of investment,

they had passed off season. I thought maybe they would just try and pull the rip cord early. But that is a pretty gnarly situation to walk into. If you're not really making final decisions, or if you are allowed to make final decisions on the roster, but you're not allowed to make a call on the head coach, and that's the big boss's job. And you walk into a situation where you may have to let the coach go in the second year.

It's a pretty rough spot to walk into. Yeah, and they keep like just going through that cycle over and over, which is a cycle you want to get out of. Some defensive coordinator jobs that are open. The Colts are interviewing Dennis Allen, Steve Wilkes, and Lou Anirumo. Our very own Colleen Wolf broke the news that Lou Anirumo was interviewing with the Falcons. We hadn't even mentioned on this show that they fired their DC, Jimmy Lake.

Rahim Morris is a defensive guy. So I don't know if that was scapegoating or just not a good fit, but ultimately that's on Rahim Morris for that defense not working well, though that would be fun. They're also interviewing Wink Martindale, who spent last year at Michigan. That would be fun. And then the 49ers haven't fired Nick Sorensen, but he's not going to be their defensive coordinator.

They've essentially allowed him to be demoted if he wants to be. And it sounds like, you know, barring him getting some other good job. I think he'll just stay there under who does get the job. And I'm assuming it's Robert Sala unless Robert Sala gets a head coaching job. They're just kind of holding it open for him. Because he interviewed with Kyle Shanahan. And I'm just like wondering, what was that interview? So a couple of beers, a couple of broskeys hanging out, talking football.

It's peculiar to demote your current DC for a free agent DC who you know would take the gig because he's your friend. Couldn't you just wait on that rather than do one first? That's a bit strange. Wings also interview with the Colt, so he's clearly coming back, which is a strange one for Michigan to be involved with where he's just interviewing for multiple jobs and hasn't told them whether he's leaving or not yet. Maybe he's not returning calls and he's pretty clear that he wants back in.

Luana Rumo, you know, I'm a huge fan of Luana Rumo. No spots. I don't think ideal spots for him. I think the Atlanta one is particularly weird because him and Rahim Morris do not really run anything that's that compatible together. So that would be a strange fit whether Morris wants to be more of just the head coach. And he felt he had to be more hands on with Jimmy Lake who didn't quite have the same experience. I'm not sure. And he wants to maybe detach himself a little bit from the day to day. The defense that may be able to work there. The personnel would work. But the personalities is a, at least a funny fit to think about. I would like that on hard knocks. Yeah. I figured Lou would get a job, but there's not that many coordinator jobs open, actually, around the league. I guess there will be more when the new head coaches are hired. So Lou could also just wait to see if he's got a head coaching candidate that he would like to pair himself with. That's it. We did it. We went around pretty much every opening. I just was feeling like there was unfinished business. We just hadn't talked about this at all. Like I mentioned before, you check out Ali's substack, the read optional. You have anything else, Ollie, that you want to plug this week. You're wearing that Red Sox hat here. Are you becoming a Walker Bueller fan? There's nothing I'm plugging. I just really want this Dion thing to happen. That's what I think I need in my life right now is Dion on the Cowboys. For no other reason in entertainment, I will never watch ESPN again. That'll be unbearable. But I will certainly listen to

NFL daily for all my Dion Cowboys fix. appreciate you uh yeah people who complain about all the s bn shows i was like i don't i don't watch anything on spian anyways i mean who who really spends their time with that NFL live is great and like mina and dan o'lowski and ryan clarke like they have smart conversation with that on like check that out but if you're watching the morning shows that's on you yes just uh put us in your ears every morning we will be back on thursday morning so we're posting overnight barring any breaking news we will be previewing all the divisional round games, we have a lot of special guests, including Brian Baldinger. Each game has a different guess. I can't wait for that. And yes,

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