NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Darkest timeline for four contenders

Episode Date: March 22, 2017

A room filled with heroes – Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler, Chris Wesseling, Gregg Rosenthal & Lindsay Rhodes – recap all the latest developments from around the NFL including the news that quarterback Cam Newton is scheduled to have shoulder surgery on his throwing arm, and the Jets signing quarterback Josh McCown. Then the heroes lay out a few dark scenarios that could doom four contending teams.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the NFL podcast is 25% vegetarian, but 100% meaty. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hanses, and I am joined by a room filled with heroes, overflowing with heroes. Heroes here and Heroes on the way. Mark Sessler Chris Wessling Greg Rosethall

and Lindsay Rhodes Hey hey That for your Emmy Reel What? I'm just glad Sessler's here And not driving to Costa Rica Because I sort of was under the impression Yesterday was that yesterday?

Speak for yourself That you were What happened? I know that I know that Dan no longer follows me on Twitter So the tweet It's a decision everyone's got to make It's a tweet

You're referring to a tweet, Lindsay, what Mark made yesterday. He tweeted something like 70 hours, and he'd like routed the drive from here to Costa Rica, which confused some people that I was with who thought Costa Rica was an island, by the way. Bad job by them. When I received that information. They were adults. I'm not going to out them. But, yeah, so I thought you were literally making the 70-hour track to Costa Rica in your car with your family.

And I was wondering why you got so much vacation time. Well, don't have the vacation. in time, would not have been able to take the family, would not have gotten clearance to go by myself on any level, on the employer or the home front. I read this tweet differently. It says roughly 70 hours to drive to Costa Rica and vanish. In this scenario, I don't think the family is involved.

At no point did I think the family was involved. Of course, not. He wouldn't vanish without his family. I would tell them. I would tell them. He loves them. You would tell them. That's right.

You would tell them where you were? I would tell them. He would vanish from his family. That's amazing. it's not just a picture of blue. That's true, too. Lindsay, you're back on the show. Hi.

Isn't that great? It's been a while. Lindsay, of course, I like to call her the co-face of the NFL network. I don't care. You could disagree or agree, whatever. It doesn't matter to me because Lindsay, along with Dan Helly, another friend of the show,

co-host the flagship program of NFL Network and Total Access, Monday, through Saturday, like five o'clock Eastern. Like, roughly, like roughly, five o'clock Eastern or seven, seven o'clock Eastern is when it's on. Excuse me, I'm in Pacific and I got that wrong. You said like, so it was in that, you know, give, take. Seven o'clock Eastern, four o'clock Pacific. There you go.

There you go. We're flying. So Lindsay, happy to have her with us today. Big show. What's the last time you were here, Lindsay? It's, I, I, spend a minute. A year's in a very long time. It was deep in the offseason last year.

It was, right? Yeah, the whole season we went. Yep. Oh. There's a whole hierarchy. How did I stay away? Within NFL media. Lack of need to be on the show on your part?

Start there. A real job? There's a hierarchy and Lindsay is above us. That is not true. She's true talent. She is on the big show as I alluded to. And during the season, it's like, we were smart. We knew not even to, like, approach you.

because, you know, Lindsay was going to say, no, no, no, what do you? Wait until I make eye contact with you. Yeah. So we just said, you know, have permission. You may speak. There's a whole hierarchy. I don't know, where do we fit in. We're like in the middle.

We're like in the middle. I'll tell you where we are. You guys are all over the tube these days. Well, we just were listening to the studio people behind the scenes doing a sound check for us. And we were referred to as the podcast bozos. So I think that tells you where we are. We got, and it didn't seem like a. Did they know that you could hear that?

It wasn't a joke. It could have been, but I don't think so. Okay. I don't think so. I don't think they knew. I think that that, again, speaks to where we are. I'm going to find that person. Dan has on his notes written down and underlined bozos.

Yeah, I was going to hit that. He made note of that as well. There was also a shadowy league figure. I think we brought it up on this podcast that we heard a note, you know, the note, you get notes. Everyone gets notes on camera people that, you know, do this better, do this worse. It would be weird for them to say. Do this worse. Please be, please stop being so good at this, you guys.

Those are the notes I get. Yeah, one of the notes we got. You're out shining hellie right now. We don't want him to feel bad. Take it down. Take it down. One of the notes that we got from a higher-up who's no longer with the company is that when we wear the headsets on television, we look like a, quote, bunch of dweeps.

So a bunch of dweeps, bozos. That's what people behind the scenes are saying about us, and it feels good. That's half the people watching NFL Network, so we make them feel good about it. It makes you approachable, likable. The bunch of dweaves thing was even worse than a note. It was actually just something they said to despair just to other people. It was like a third hand thing that we heard. Anyway, big show today, a show in which we will break down the latest that's going on in the league.

And it's good because Lindsay Hazard T.A. show she'll tape live later today. And it airs, of course, at 7 p.m. on the East Coast. And this is almost like a little, you can do a little boning up. Like a primer. A primer. A primer. So here we go. We're going to go through some news, what's happening in the league.

And then, oh, we're going to bring this back. This is fun. We did this last year, too. Free agency, kind of in the rear view a little bit now. The draft right ahead. This is now where we look into the darkest timeline for four teams. We'll talk about four. Maybe more than four.

You don't know. But at least four teams will talk out what could go wrong. What could go terribly wrong? What could go wrong? Worst case scenario. But, you know, within limits. It's not like the team is going to drive off. Oh, no, I'm going real dark.

You can go real dark, but just stay realistic. I'm going like pitch black midnight. That sounds scary. You can't, the team can't pack up and move to Costa Rica or anything. It would take them 70 hours to get there if they drove. Yeah. Yeah. It's true.

So that's the show today. Big show. And let's get to it. La Cid. How are you, by the way? I'm great. I'm just, you know, plugging along. trying to get this network thing up and running, you know,

to boost you guys to the level you deserve. You're running the network now? Pretty much. We are on up to the minute live on Wednesday. It'll be too late for the people listening to this podcast. But we're back on every day this week up to the minute people should watch 2 p.m. We'll be back on Friday. Except for tomorrow.

At 2 to 3. We will not be on Thursday show, but they should still watch it. Those are the Pacific Times. Pacific times. Yeah, enough of this East Coast bias. Let's start talking Pacific. So true. They're going to use us until things pick up just a little bit,

and then they'll just flush us right out of the show until next spring. That's the way it works. Let's do some news. I hate the New England Patriots. Who was that, Greg? Your dad? Come on. The director of the FBI testifying before Congress making a somewhat labor.

It could have been my dad, Keith. Hey, Danny, I don't like these Patriots. They're no good. making a labored metaphor, I guess you could call it about... Which he referred to as a homely metaphor. Homely? I didn't quite understand that. I was like, is there a different use of the word homely?

Incorrect usage, I would say. Long way to go. It was all about the situation with how Russia may have impacted the general election with Trump and Hillary. And I guess someone had questioned Comley said, Hey, you're saying, what did I say? Comey. Just conflated them.

Yeah. So, you know, someone had said, hey, how about the idea that if they weren't trying to help Trump, they just didn't want Hillary to win? And he said, well, it's like the Patriots. I hate the Patriots. I don't get anybody. It's only two teams. I want the Patriots to lose all the time. So he's admitting.

Whoever they're playing, I'm rooting for. He's admitting that the plate gate was manufactured. Dun, dun, don't. Maybe he knows how to get that Super Bowl ring back from. Putin. Let's, well, they got the jerseys back. Let's move on. Let's start with the Carolina Panthers. Not good news. I don't like this news. Cam Newton, star quarterback, Superman, they call him, but he is dealing with a shoulder injury, a partially torn rotator cuff. He will have surgery at the end of this month to repair it. The injury was suffered in week 14. I mean, just the cherry

on top of a really terrible season for Carolina. So he'll have surgery at the end of this month. He's expected to be ready for the start of training camp. But, you know, Lindsay, that is a start of training camp. That means he's not going to be involved with the offseason program. You never want to get ahead of yourself this time of year and say, oh, the Panthers aren't done because of this. But it's not a good way to get going this year. It's not a good thing.

Obviously, quarterbacks usually spend a lot of time in the off season working on timing with their receivers and stuff like that. So this puts him pretty far behind the eight ball. I think Mike Garifolo's date that he'd thrown out there for when he could start throwing was somewhere around July 20th because he's not even having the surgery until the end of March. Why isn't he having it until the end of March? Because he said that there were some commitments that he had that he didn't feel comfortable ducking out of between now and then. So that feels, I'm really curious to know what those commitments were.

There better be some badass commitments. Right? I don't know. It feels like whatever they were. There's a larger commitment called the Panthers, but... Well, the bigger issue is it's taken two months to realize he needs the surgery. You know, like one week doesn't seem like a huge issue, but the fact that...

Well, they thought it would heal on its own. Yeah, it's just unfortunate for them, and it makes me, you know, makes you rethink the end of his season. It was the worst part of Cam Newton's disappointing season was December after this injury occurred. I mean, just the last couple weeks of the season. You're underselling it.

It was one of the worst stretch. of passing the NFL has seen in the last 25 years. Whoa. Well, and then there was no tie gate, right? Exactly. All sorts of issues. Well, he had a lot going on. I think that his struggle started even before that, I believe, like that, that poor streak.

Like, it was already happening. It's like he was having a bad season, but then he started throwing interceptions. It got even worse. I mean, he's had a career where one season's great, the next is terrible. He's due for a great season, but this isn't a good thing. If you wanted to sell them as some sort of a bounceback. team, two years removed from the Super Bowl, well, that becomes much harder right now. In other quarterback news, the Jets have found their presumed starter, at least for the start of

the 2017 season, NFL Network insider Ian Rappaport reported that Josh McCown signed a one-year contract with the Jets. The Rappaport added that McCown can earn up to $13 million in gameplay and performance incentives, but the fully guaranteed part of the contract is $6 million. That could jump up to $8 million or so if he makes enough starts. But I imagine, Mark, and you saw plenty of Josh McCown last season, well, not too much, but enough, I'm sure, that McCown might start the season,

but it's very hard to envision him finishing it, either by injury or with the Jets taking a look at their younger guys. I think they have to be committed. If they're truly trying to throw the season, which I don't buy that at all from the coaching angle, there is absolutely no way that Todd Bowles thinks, hey, listen, let's go out and go 1 in 15, because I'll definitely be here at the end of that.

You won't be there by Thanksgiving if you're 1 in 10. So you've got to go out and get a veteran that you believe is good for these other quarterbacks in the roster. Josh McCown will give you about three or four games until the collarbone gets shattered somewhere before October. I love Josh McCown, the guy, but this has happened year after year. The reason that, you know, Tampa Bay, Mike Glennon became a thing is because

Josh McCown couldn't stay healthy. The reason Cleveland had five other quarterbacks take snaps last year is because Josh McCown, the guy they planned to go into the season with, couldn't stay healthy after Robert Griffin went down. So the same thing is going to happen in New York. Even if he doesn't get hurt, I think they, listen, you're going to keep drafting quarterbacks. They might draft

another one this year. You've got to take a look at some of these other guys at some point. Why did you take Christian Hackenberg in the second round? Because you know what? Even if you say Todd Bowles is gone, but the GM stays that he has some mandate to do what it takes to rebuild the team. He has to still explain to fans why we drafted Christian Hakenberg

in round two. It's not a cute thing. You have to, that is an irresponsible pick if he goes another season without playing. He, yeah, to me, listen, you know I'm a Jets Homer, but I'm also, I go after the Jets when I have to. In this case, the Jets are having a sneaky good offseason.

I know that sounds crazy. What? What? I know that sounds crazy. It sounds crazy. Let me elaborate. Thank you. They know where, they know who they are. They know what they have to do they are rebuilding so let me some things of the old jets or the jetsy type things they could have done this year that they didn't they could have overpaid to get mike lennon they could have deluded themselves into chasing tony romo they could have talked themselves into j cutler uh they could

have spent a lot of money in free agency to try to build another uh eight and eight nine and seven instead they do this is a perfect example of i think ownership or at least the general manager, Mike McCagnan, is thinking of this in the proper perspective, go and get Josh McCown, good guy in the locker room, but really at the end of the day, he's just going to hold the fort, have a steady guy in there that then could turn things over and you get a look at Hackenberg and maybe Petty. I don't know if Petty's even going to be on the team, to be honest, but we're going to see a lot of Christian Hackenberg, and it might be grisly and ugly, but this just confirmed to me that we will see a lot of Christian Hackenberg, and if it

ends with Hackenberg surprising us and looking good, then the Jets will not feel so terribly about that draft pick if he bombs out, hey, it moves them closer to a, you know, a little scam for Sam situation. There's a term for young quarterbacks who are two or three years away from playing, six or seventh round draft picks, not second round draft pick. Yep, I'm not defending that pick. Lindsay's just scowling at this whole point Dan's trying to make. No, I think your point is well taken in that they didn't overspend for people

that are only going to be like one or two year contributors that they're at least embracing the fact that they're rebuilding mode, which you're right. They clearly are in. And that's kind of what this signing screams to me is that he's just a stopgap quarterback. You bring him in.

He's being paid like a high-end backup, you know, who might be given the chance to start or start a couple of games down the road at some point. I think what you maybe are seeing here, is that they're just kind of putting somebody in that's serviceable while they're admitting that they're kind of going to suck this year and put their pieces together for this season, maybe next season, and then try and plug in a quarterback that they actually think is their guy.

It's great for fans that want them to lose. Yeah, that's great. I mean, it's great for the idea that maybe we'll play the young guys. Like, I think they even mentioned, like, they think McCown's going to be a great tutor. But no one's point out, like, Josh McCown was never that good of a starting quarterback. and last year he was terrible. He had one of the worst completion percentages,

according to pro football reference, compared to the average quarterback in the last decade. Like, he wasn't good. Like, he's noticeably worse than a lot of people out there. This is a guy who is like 37 years old, so it's just a strange guy to be starting week. But what's a better option for them? If they really don't have many pieces around him right now,

they're not in a position to compete. Well, a better option, depending on what? they want to do. I mean, I just, I don't buy the idea that the organization from top to bottom is trying to throw the season. And even if they are, you know what, but bad teams. It's about being realistic. Right.

You could be a, this whole scam for Sam thing, it's a rough road. I'll tell you that following the Browns last year. They wound up with the number one pick, but it came down to the very end. There are going to be a lot of things that happen along the way. The Jets could still go 5 and 11 and be one of the worst teams in league and be out of the reach for one of those quarterbacks. Plus, the Browns have enough picks to move up over just. about anybody.

Plus, Sam Dynard might not come. You got to be one or nothing. You might not be in the draft. You never know. I mean, he's a red shirt fresh. Oh, God. Wait. He might not be that good.

Like, there's a million things. Stay with the Trojans, Sam. But Lamar and Jackson might be even better or Sam Rosen might be better. Or none of that might happen. At this point, last year, everyone was like, wait till next year's quarterback class. Lindsay, way plugged in on the USC scene. A USC alum used to work for the university in a professional capacity? No, I mean, just, you know, I covered them regularly as being.

Just go with it. You know for sure whether Sam's coming out, so you're going to let us know right now. We have an exclusive Lindsay way plugged in with the Trojans. Sam Donnell coming out? Is he coming out of USC after one more season? That's what I want to know. I know you're plugged in on this. You think he's worth all this hype.

You know, we got USC expert here. He's pretty good. He's pretty good. I mean, I'm not as close to the, you know, team as I was in the past because I don't cover them with any frequency, but just from a fan standpoint. Boy, he's fun to watch. I want him on my team for a few more years. They'll get the number one pick and take a defensive tackle. Let's move on the competition committee gathering next week's annual league meeting in Phoenix. And they are talking about the idea, according to NFL

network's Judy Patista of shortening overtime. The Judy Patista tweeted Monday that the committee will propose reducing both preseason and regular season overtime periods from 15 to 10 minutes. Postseason games would keep the traditional 15 minute time limit. And why would they do this? Judy says reports that the committee believes there is a, quote, real disadvantage for a team playing an entire 15 minute overtime period before having to turn around and play a Thursday night game the following week.

Greg, what do you think about this? Much to do about nothing? When they do moves like this that seem minor, I want them to do more. Like, okay, who could even disagree with this? It's a half measure. Who could even disagree with taking five minutes off? If you're really concerned about safety, you wouldn't be playing on Thursday nights. Yep.

The Thursday night argument doesn't make sense to me. I like, I don't mind overtime being shorter, but you got to deal with more ties. Why don't we want more ties? You're right, though, like 10 minutes more? I mean, it's only five minutes left, less. That is a very small percentage of a 75-minute game in theory. You're knocking it down from 75 to 70. And if you want to talk about half measures, what this would really affect,

and this is from NFL research, 83 regular season overtime games in the last five seasons, 22 of them, which is about a quarter of them, have featured an OT that lasted more than 10 minutes. So we're talking about a handful of games. What if the competition committee, you know, the NFL dominates the sports role. They want to help out their fellow sports that they motion to shorten the Major League Baseball

and NBA regular seasons by 50 to 60 games each. I don't know. What would that accomplish? Lessgate for the other sports, but those sports would grow in popularity because the people that are 24 today don't hang with 162 game baseball schedule. Dan doesn't like this at all.

He's a baseball purist. The NBA season is too long, but the Major League Baseball game is too long. Yeah. I have no problem with it. 162 baseball games. You play every day in baseball. Also, I love counting stats and baseball. I love 100

RBIs. I love 20 wins. I don't want to mess with that. NBA, it's an average league. Now, let's cut, let's come down. They already tacitly admit the regular season doesn't matter when they bench all their stars for the big games. All right. All right, we kind of veered there, but it's okay. Beard into correct territory.

Thank you, Mark, for steering us there. Mark, you nailed it. Moving on, Kiko Alonzo. Good news, Dolphins fans. After having a nice bounce back season. The Dolphins announced on Tuesday that they gave the lineback rate three-year contract extension, taking him through the 2020 season. Extension is worth $25 million, including $18.5 million guaranteed good money.

That is like NFL Total Access co-anchor money right there. Oh, man. Exactly. Anyway, that's all from Mike Garifolo. Wes, Kiko kind of fell off the radar after he got banged up with some injuries in a couple of years. Was he worth this type of investment? He had a good bounceback season. So he reset his market after being a absolute bust in Philadelphia. But if you watched the Dolphins linebackers,

they were among the worst in coverage of any group in the league. I'm confused about this one, that this was one of their big priorities. Was he, did Gico Alonzo get you going? Get the dolphins going last year? This was a team that a couple weeks ago we thought was going to blow up the free agency market. And I would say they were not one of the, the teams that, you know, stole the show, as that lady would say down in Florida.

You can't have a newcomer come in and steal the show. But how about this? I think sometimes you do these things just to kind of validate what you did an offseason ago. We traded for the guy. Now we're going to show you that we were right about it by giving him a contract. And it seems great to the people that aren't really watching the games. I think Kiko Alonzo's not the worst guy to resign. He's fine.

But it's not like, wow, they hit a home run and they're doubling down on it. Right, he's fine, but they seem too excited to, like, bring the gang back together of one of the worst defenses in the league. They're like, oh, wait, we had Andre Branch for a million and a half last year. Let's pay him nine. Like, I don't know. What's going on with Zach Brown, who was also there that day? That would be a nice move.

It's seemingly just touring the country. Difference on money, I think. He had half a Pro Bowl season and then kind of disappeared in the last two months. And now is visiting the team that he played with last year. Costa Rica. Which feels weird to me, if only, right? How do you have a visit, though, with the team that you played for last season? Does that seem awkward?

Like touring the building? Well, any Lacey visited the Packers at one point two. I agree. It seems weird. What's changed in the last two months? You know the coaching staff? Hey, here's the weight room. Just get free breakfast at the...

69 hours to Costa Rica, Mark, if you're trying to think of a memoirs title. If you actually go through it, not bad. I will go through it. If you're gronk. nice there's a little pop to it in other middling linebacker news mantai teo has found a new home with the saints after spending the last four years in chargers uh with the chargers the former second round pick agreed to a two year deal with the saints mike garifolo reported uh teo uh 38 games with the chargers 221 tackles a sack and a half two picks uh has dealt with

some injuries and west again uh teo he's not going to get anybody excited and he hasn't really lived up to the hype but the hype was mostly about one of the greatest sports scandals of all time never about what he could do in this league it's a perfect fit for him to land with the saints a coverage deficient linebacker who's always burnt it's right they always sound they always sign these other linebackers that struggled on other teams like and it never works teo to me is just a good reminder of someone someone said this recently and it struck me These players that are in the draft that are the focus of this draft, they will never be, for most of them,

they'll never be more famous than they are in the pre-draft process. Even if that Teo crazy story never happened, he never would have been more famous just coming out of Notre Dame. He was a big name, you know, a well-known guy. And then most, you know, they have careers like Mantetere where he's just kind of forgotten about after a few years. He'll kick around for seven years, make a good living, and who knows? Let's move on.

on Monday's show we had a I would call it a spirited discussion about Colin Kaepernick and why he's unemployed and the reasons that is going on that's a big story around the league right now and in the Mike Freeman Bleacher Report column that we cited during that conversation one anonymous AFCGM had said that some teams are spooked by the idea of Donald Trump tweeting something negative about the team and I don't know if I'm I'm going to say maybe not just a coincidence that now after that report gained some traction, the president opened his mouth during a speech of some kind.

Your San Francisco quarterback, I'm sure nobody ever heard of it. There was an article today that NFL owners don't want to pick them up because they don't want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump. Do you believe that? I said, if I remember that one, I'm going to report it to the people of Kentucky. because they like it when people actually stand for the American flag, right? The guy is drunk. Greg, first of all, I like you, you captured it well in your description of when Trump first

delivered the comment, the way he stood back and then just soaked in the adulation of that. He's just like a stand-up comedian at this point who's only happy when he's getting the adulation and cheers in these rallies. before he has to go home and read, you know, everyone hammering him in terms of the articles and everything. Like that, who is still rallying? He's not reading that. Peter King's got to feel good, though. Wasn't that from his article?

Was it not Mike Freeman? That was a bleacher. Oh, my bad. It was Freeman. I think Mike Freeman is suddenly on fire. An anonymous quote to Mike Freeman. Maybe name drop him if you're the president. One anonymous general manager now being quoted by the president.

Exactly. Exactly. And, you know, all that nonsense aside. Wes, you actually, because it is something people are talking about, you went and you watched every snap from Colin Kaepernick in the 2016 season, and what was your takeaway? Well, first of all, I'm fascinated by Colin Kaepernick because I don't think anybody truly knows who he is or what he is at this point, but he has become like a Rorschach prism where you see in him what you want to see and let it reflect your own personal agenda. I don't know who he is, but everybody's got an agenda with Colin Kaepernick right now. on the hierarchy of reasons why he does not have an NFL team right now number one is he's not a good passer he lacks anticipation he lacks touch

if you watch their offense last year in the first couple of starts he tries a few sideline passes down the field and deep they completely disappear from the office offense for the final two months of the season because chip kelly knows he can't make those throws he's never asked for the final two months of the season to make a throw outside the numbers to a wide receiver or down the field so when you see a 16 the 4 TD to interception ratio, that's what it's reflecting. The second reason Colin Kaepernick does not have interest is because he's never run an offense outside of the read option successfully in the NFL or in college.

And how many NFL offenses run a read option? Now that Chip Kelly's out of the league, somewhat in Carolina, somewhat in Seattle, but nobody's running a base offense that's a read option. Those are the top two reasons. After that, you get into issues like 2014 dividing the 49ers locker. room. These are things that GMs care about. And I think about fourth or fifth on the list, it's like, I don't want to deal with the distraction because he's not that good of a quarterback. If you want to have a fun drinking game, turn on NFL game pass, take a shot every time. Sounds like a

blast. Take a shot every time Colin Kaepernick opens the game with a third down sack. You'll be having a nice buzz. If you want to get hammered, take a shot every time he takes a third down sack. And if you want a useless game, take a shot every time he hits a wide receiver for a pass. I totally agree with your assessment. And I think that the thing that's getting lost in this is people are looking at it like, oh, there are 64 quarterbacks, you know, in the National Football League, between the starters, the backups, obviously leaving out the number three's there. And you mean to tell me that there are 64 guys that are better than him,

but that's beside the point. Because you're not trying to bring him in to be your starter right now. What we've seen on the field for the last couple of years isn't somebody who's proven that he can be an NFL starter, right? He's experienced success in the past, but these last two years, we've seen a lot of football reasons to not want him to start for your team.

He was the starter of the San Francisco 49ers. They're one of the worst teams in football last year. He couldn't succeed there. So if I'm another team, why am I begging him to come be my starting quarterback? And if you're looking at him as a backup, which you could make the argument that he's more physically talented

than a lot of these other backup options that are getting signed, you're looking at a backup that isn't the style of backup that reflects the style of the starter. So you've got the Giants who are bringing in Gino Smith. You could maybe effectively argue that Colin Kaepernick has more upside than Gino Smith to me, but Gino Smith is more easily plugged in to what Eli Manning does.

You don't have to change your offense for that. There's no way Colin Kaepernet's accepting 100,000 guaranteed like Gino to sit behind a quarterback who never gets injured. Kaepernick wouldn't even take the Giants backup job. I mean, and this thing does not exist. It's never existed where just because another quarterback, quarterback gets signed before you. That means that everybody thinks he's better than you.

This is a totally new thing. That's not a, it's, Benny Cunningham isn't better than Adrian Peterson because he got signed before him. But I wouldn't be willing to rule out that the social issues are a factor. They're absolutely a factor. That is not what I'm saying. No, I know.

You can hold the idea in your head that Colin Kaepernick is an uninspiring quarterback, and I still appreciate what he's done for activism to shed light on this issue. Totally agree. And my, my main point is just it's, it's premature. to have the conversation because I think he will be a backup in week one. That's the thing. It's like there's all this conversation.

I don't think this would necessarily be the time period where he would have been signed in any offseason. And I think when all the chips, when the draft happens, I don't know when it's going to happen. I think Colin Kaepernick will be number two on someone's depth chart in week one. So it's like a lot

of talk about nothing. If he's not in the league then, then maybe it's a blacklist. Two more points. Do you remember the great Ryan Fitzpatrick blackballing of 2016? Is Jay Cutler getting blackballed that? People use him for their agenda. And also, somebody needs to make the point that Colin Kaepernick opted out of his contract. He would still be with the 49ers right now.

He would have gotten cut. They would have got him. Well, he's the one who did that. But he knew that too. This presumes, too, that everybody in the league is on board with what Trump is saying. and that they want everybody standing up for the national anthems. They don't want to deal with any controversy. There are a lot of people in this league that are in positions of power that are incredibly liberal.

Our argument was that the – their politics. That is true, but if you look at the 32 owners, that is not the case. Well, I don't think the NFL is a monolith with all 32 teams holding the same view. I think – I agree with the U.S., but everything of what you said about on-field, 100% true. You just – you broke it down very well, but it's all a bad soup for Colin Kaepernick. I'm not sure we can easily say it's 60%, 10% and 5. It is a bad soup, you're right?

That's what's happening in the news. All right. A lot more to get to today. And it is now time. You don't like to go down this road, but sometimes just got to go down and check out what could go wrong with these teams. The darkest timeline.

Oh, that's so creepy. What's wrong with you, people? By the way, West does like going down this road. Yeah. I mean, Lindsay. West is gleeful. You know, you got all this on, you know, you're used to in total excellent. Every team's great.

Every signing's great. We're friends with all the players. That's pretty much how the show goes. Morson Lynch, FaceTime. Everybody's having a great time. We're friends with the coaches. No. Times it's dark.

We've got to go. We've got those girls. Someone's got to fill in this dark space. Take me there. Depress me. How about this? You are an optimistic person, obviously. You can jump in at any point.

and just be like, hey, listen, you know, jugheads. Here's the reason why that's never going to happen. Anything you want. Okay. I might stick with bozos. That seems to be this. You got dweeps, too. The bozo?

You guys are dorks. That's well. Dorks. So many options. We've been down this road before. All right. It does seem like this comes up a lot when you visit us. All right.

Here we go. So we're going to pick four teams. And Mark, why don't you get us? going the darkest timeline for the Cincinnati Bengals. I think we're talking about what your entire offseason is, and it couldn't have started off a whole lot worse for the Bengals. You really kind of sit with your hands folded as Kevin Zitler, your star right guard disappears to the Browns.

Andrew Whitworth vanishes to the Rams, and your backup plan is Cedric O'Bouye and Jake Fisher a tackle, and potentially you've got, and on Andre Smith, the ex-Bengal that re-signed to come in and try to play a guard spot. I think that this is a team that last year, only six other teams allowed six more sacks than the Bengals. They already had issues on the line. You're asking, Cedric Gubuya was benched last year from his right tackle spot. And now they're moving him over to left tackle with very little experience there.

And it is, I cannot think of a more concerning scenario in the AFC North than putting Andy Dalton in that situation. Jeremy Hill, I think the stock is down on Jeremy Hill. They're already talking about looking at running backs in the draft. Let's say you go do that. Let's say Jeremy Hill doesn't rebound, and then on top of it, you draft the wrong guy. Let's say you take some guy like, I don't know, Francisco Waxy from Toledo State. You don't take the right running back.

You take the wrong one. He doesn't start for you. Is that a real person? No, I just made him up. Oh. AJ Green. We all like AJ Green, but there's not a lot else happening in a wide receiver. They've settled at that position after massive losses last offseason

and free agency. And I look at the Bengals. They're a consistent team. They were a couple years, incredibly talented, but a lot's been chipped away. You've lost number one. You have three other head coaches around the NFL that were once on your staff. And it's Marvin Lewis now and a bunch of guys that are kind of filling in for all the people that are gone. And I think this has the makings of a six and ten finish if they don't go out and nail the draft. They are absolutely dependent on the draft. What was that, Mark? Well, Marvin Lewis is an idiot. All right, I don't know when I said that. I don't think he's an idiot.

I think, though, he could be, this could be the end for him if they go six and ten. Oh, now you're getting real dark. He'll never get fired. I think he could make that decision. How many more years do you go through with this? I don't think that they would do it to him. He may decide to do it. Didn't get that extension this year, at least not so far, and he was asking for it.

Not loving the vibe. That shows that Mike Brown maybe is not loving the vibe. It seems like that's a dark timeline, and none of that is like unrealistic, obviously. No, team only won six games last year. I thought, I thought in this base in December, I remember us talking about at Cincinnati. I remember thinking like it was a bad year, but if they just, they needed to add some weapons alongside Green and Eifford. And they still could. We'll see you in the draft.

But if they don't hit on those, if they decide that they can get by with what they have in house, I'm not excited about that offense. Or should you be? I don't think, I wouldn't. I wouldn't, I wouldn't give up on them yet, though. I have. You won't give up on them. the lens will you well you know i work on a show that's very optimistic for an hour a day monday friday at 7 p.m eastern uh sessler

had a pretty strong argument there though if you want to make a you know it's bad when geo bernard is posting during the middle of free agency to twitter just that emoji with the zipped mouth there you go right right didn't someone else say something about um questioning the carlos done that yeah he did something about what's the plan yeah What's the plan? They were a team that was a little unlucky last year. They outscored their opponent. So they're kind of the opposite of the Texans

and maybe the Lions who were extremely lucky. I don't think the Bengals were, they only won six games. They were not a terrible team. That's not helping my argument, though. No, I'm just saying they're off, their team is. They're worse now. They might be a little worse now. Well, their offensive line is much worse now.

To me, they have like eight and eight talent. They're not terrible talent team. Wes, you will be talking about the Carolina Panthers. A team that I assumed was headed right for the top of the NFC South again, but there's a lot that could go wrong here. Starting with Cam Newton, who, as Lindsay pointed out, waited too long to have the surgery because he had other priorities, commitments. What if it's training camp, and he's yet to take an off-season snap?

He's not ready for training camp, and they're implementing this new offense where he's not going to be as much of a run first quarterback. They talked about it for January and February. We're going to change the way Cam plays. He hasn't been able to incorporate that into the offense. They find out they missed against speed when they see that Calvin Benjamin and Delvin Funches aren't getting open. In the draft, they know that Jonathan Stewart's on his last legs.

The Jets take Leonard Fournette before they get a chance to. And then they're left, you know, make McCaffrey and Cook come off the board. And they're left with Francisco Waxy from Toledo State. At running back, I mean. Francisco's getting a lot of play. Yeah. Got a lot of pop. It's the bit most we've ever talked about

a college prospect of this podcast. Not a real person. Sort of a problem. A little problematic. They find out that Matt Kaleel really did turn into a pumpkin and they gave him 30 or 40 million at left tackle. All this goes wrong. And then here's the darkest of the darkest timelines.

Oh, it's getting spooky. Poor Luke Keeckley suffers a concussion. Oh, you know what's wrong with you? It could happen. It's football. You could get a concussion. Anything could happen. You've asked him to be a horror writer.

You told me to find the darkest timeline. It wasn't that dark until that happened. That was dark. That was Mark Sessler dark. I don't want it to happen. I like Luke Keechley. He's from Cincinnati, you know? He's a good Catholic boy from the west side of Cincinnati.

You just gave him another concussion on Thomas Davis's birthday. Wow. It feels wrong. Double shock power. Well, that's a certain, that's a very dark time. And I don't think there's any way Lindsay could fight out of that hole. Let's see if she can. No, it's dark.

That's just dark. It's all downhill from here, Carolina. You're screwed. I thought that was the purpose of the game. No, you nailed it. You nailed it. We don't want, let me just. Maybe with Mark, you want the Bengals to go down.

Why don't you just burn the other half of Ron Rivera's house while you're at it? I mean, give me a break. Oh, my gosh. But we don't want this to happen. We're just simply pointing out. I'd like to see the Panthers win the division. Yeah, what could happen? Because every year, everyone thinks they're going to the playoffs.

Then every year, a good portion in the league, stuff goes hayward. Dirt nap. And every year, in every year, we have literally, six months of shows to fill between actual football action. It's important as well to point that out. That's our decision. I'm going to talk about a team that, oh, man, they really, really boned the playoffs when Derrick Carr got hurt.

What did they do? Boned them. Okay. It was a real boning of the playoffs. When Derek Carr... It was like a homely metaphor to me. It was very homely. Went out for the year with the broken leg.

You know, and I was bummed out about it. But it did serve as a reminder of the importance and why Jimmy Garoppolo, for instance, it might still be on the Patriots. The importance of having a quarterback you can depend on if things go foobar. And Derek Carr went out for the year. Matt McGloin and Connor Cook were left behind. Conor Cook, I believe he played in that playoff game. It was pretty forgettable in retrospect.

Obviously didn't do much. He did. And it's my theory that our criticism of him in that. playoff game might have got us blocked on Twitter from Derek Carr. Wait, you're blocked on Twitter from Derek Carr. Burying leads.

All right, Lindsay, we got to talk about this. Hey, let's do it. Dan's brought it up many times on the podcast to my discomfort. You're blocked on Twitter from Derek Carr. This is amazing. Okay, so this is what you need to know. He's like the nicest human being on Earth and he hates you.

I, I, yeah, I got blocked by Derek Carr. We were never given any explanation why. Greg sheepishly admitted later that he was also blocked by Derek Carr. And I think this is where, and we don't know why. We love him. We think he's a great guy, a hero. He's sort of saved somebody from a car wreck every other day. Perfect for the podcast, right?

He's a hero. He's a hero. I have, I declare vengeance on people when they cross me. It's a long list. That's vengeance. I have not declared vengeance yet because he keeps on doing things to save people. and it's postponing my vengeance declaration. Well, you did declare it, but then you withdrew it.

I pulled it back because he saved somebody's life or something. I withdraw vengeance. Wait, what did you do to get blocked? All right. Do you want to know the truth? I don't know if we've actually shared this on the podcast. But after he broke his leg, this is just my theory. Yeah, you don't know.

I wrote a column in which I cursed the football gods for hurting Derrickard and messing up the AFC playoffs. Derrick are very religious man. I think that might have got on that script. That's it. It doesn't make sense to me. No. This is my theory because I didn't,

because this is when Dan noticed was right after the playoff game. And I was at that playoff game tweeting a lot about it. I think he was at home. He is on record that he didn't go to that playoff game. He's watching at home. He's got Twitter open while he's watching the playoff game. And Dan and I are taking pot shots at Connor Cook or how lousy the Raiders are or whatever during what was an incredibly depressing

playoff game. I'd have to go back and through. But I'm pretty sure. I took some pot shots at Connor Cook and whatnot. And he's like, forget these clowns going after my boys. Block, block, block. You know what's my theory. Here's the great reason.

We're going to get to the bottom of this. That's what I do. You have the power to. I know someone who knows him pretty well. Part two of this is Lindsay works closely with David Carr. Yeah. Older brother of Derek Carr. Is there a way, Lindsay?

Yes. That you can open up this conversation with Big Bro. Right. And maybe we can broker a piece here. I think we should. Well, broker a peace treaty. There's one scenario you're not remembering here. What?

Not considering. Derek Carr might have, he might have blocked thousands of people that night and have no idea who you clowns are. Well, I'm sure of that. Certainly possible. He doesn't follow me. Right. I'm sure of that. But that doesn't explain, like, what we did to.

Also, this is your theory that I was destroying Connor Cook that day. I don't remember doing that. You're just working under a assumption. Dan, you were with us later in the day, but that afternoon. But the greatest thing was. Some sort of anti-Raider thing. Wes and I were watching this game at a place called Rick's Tavern by the sea, and we made a pack to stop tweeting the minute the game started

because we had bruising us and we were off the radar. Derek Carr still loves us, still wants to hear what we have to say. We want to hear what he has to say. I'm sure you guys have an open dialogue with him. Anyway, so, Linz, we got to get rolling with the show here. But please, please work with us on this. Broker a piece. Well, okay, are you going to abort your darkest timeline for the Raiders?

because that might not help your cause. Maybe that's the darkest part of the timeline is what's happening. I can't, you know what? I can't sell this podcast down the river to. So I'll go to back for Greg. It's fine. It's fine. Thanks, Lynn.

Anyway, here we go. Here we go. I put the podcast first over my non-existent relationship. It's good that you have integrity like that. Thank you very much, Lindsay. All right, the Oakland Raiders darkest timeline. They went out and they got E.J. Manuel. And if Connor Cook, I mean,

If Derek Carr is unable to stay healthy. Because again, Wes, like you pointed out, it's football. What do they do? Physical sport to hit each other. And after they, did they learn their lesson? Now you're injuring him again. Did they learn their lesson? You know what, Greg, I see what you're trying to do.

It's not flattering for you. Did they improve the backup position necessarily? Is Connor Cook going to develop into a real quarterback, maybe? But is E.J. Manuel going to be the direct backup? That's a possibility now. I don't think that's a good backup situation. Still a problem there. Aim higher, Raiders.

Wes, you made the point in our last show. Aim higher. How about this? Everybody's all excited about Marshawn Lynch. We saw it on TA yesterday. Live FaceTime with real Robb. Lindsay just gritting her teeth being like, Mike Robinson, give me respect.

Put down your phone. I'm sorry. I'm getting yelled out by my bosses. I'm supposed to be working right now. Sorry. I was talking about how. I tuned you out so that then I He was referencing someone else using their phone, not you.

With my own credibility. I was saying how you were angry. And act like you were a big fan and there's no reason and I haven't heard anything negative come out of your mouth. And that's true because I stopped listening to you. That's a dark timeline. I was saying that you were angry. You were angry with real Rob for not paying attention to you on the show yesterday. And now I just looked to you and you were on the phone not paying attention.

I know. I apologize. It's like a TV within a TV. It's a vicious circle. And I wasn't even Face-timing with Marshawn Lynch. He had a much better excuse than I do. Anyway, the Raiders get too excited about this Marshawn Lynch thing. They go head over heels and they go and they get Marshall Lynch.

Only Marshaun Lynch isn't Marshaun Lynch anymore. He doesn't play like he used to play. He's in Oakland and he's a little bit distracted and, you know, he's a little bit old and it just doesn't work. And then it's like, oh, that didn't work out. What are we going to do? Oh, we didn't bring in anybody else in. So we got Taiwan Jones, DeAndre Washington, and Jalen, Richard.

Is that how you pronounce that? Reshard. Reshard, let's calm down with that depth chart. And then finally, this is pretty dark. It's called down with the depth chart. This Vegas thing. This Vegas thing, it's a distraction. It's a legitimate distraction.

We don't know what's going to happen with the next vote and if this is actually going to become an issue. But there is this, the Raiders seem really focused on getting out of town. And that probably doesn't sit well with one of the most. boisterous, loud, loyal fan bases in all the NFL at the black hole. There's some darkest timeline stuff there. I like that. The whole Raiders potentially agreeing to move,

and we'll hear more about this in the coming week, in terms of the owner's voting on it. And then theoretically, playing in Oakland for two more years is unprecedented, as far as I know, for that long. And I think it's going to be hard on fans. It's going to be hard on the player. Like, it's just an strange situation. Finally, Greg, we're got a few minutes left.

Hit us with a little Broncos talk. This needs to be, like, a very quick, apocalyptic type scenario. We've got five minutes. A meteor is headed towards Denver. Good show. No. Yikes. Tony Romo is not going to the Broncos.

I'm convinced of this now. It's Texans or bust. I think it's going to be Texans. Both sides really want each other. And they have the money to do it now. And so I'd be stunned if Tony Romo is a member of the Broncos. They're not willing to bump up their pay for him. So, okay, quarterback's the same.

That they can maybe live with. Their offensive line is where the dark timeline stuff starts. Everyone loves John Elway. John Elway's bugaboo the last few years has not been able to solve this offensive line. Donald Stevenson at left tackle, signing Menelick Watson from Oakland to play right tackle. We'll see what happens in their draft. What they've done, that's not enough. Suddenly you got Trevor Simeon and or Paxon Lynch playing in a new system.

Is Trevor Simeon going to be as good in this system learning another offense with Mike McCoy? Good coach, but there's going to be some adjustment period here learning another system. Paxon Lynch looked far away from playing last year. He's going to be learning his second offensive system in as many years. That's a lot of moving parts. And then the biggest part of this dark timeline is the fact that Wade Phillips is not there. I don't think that's just a thing that can be glossed over. Okay, Joe Woods is there.

Joe Woods. Wade Phillips to Joe Woods. You're talking about one of the greatest coordinators in history to Joe Woods. And if that defense just gets 20 to 25 percent worse, suddenly I think you've got problems. I think you've got an offense that's trying to figure its way out. You've got a defense that's not quite as dominant. They don't make enough moves in the draft. They did not have a good draft last year.

and this is a team that's used to winning 12, 13 games a year, and they're in the toughest division in football, and I think the darkest timeline is their last place in the toughest division. Whoa. That last part, I think, is the strongest argument, too, because if Dan's terrible scenario, nightmare thing doesn't happen for the Raiders, your schedule is going to be an absolute, it's a first-year coach with a non. That defense kind of had issues against the run last year, too.

It's not the same defense coming off from two years ago. I agree with you. And part of it, is just expectations. It's almost underrated how good the Broncos have been just because people think, okay, it was all Peyton Manning. But, I mean, they won,

they had a buy four straight years. Only four teams in NFL history have ever done that. And the Broncos of this decade are one of them. And now you've, you know, this is not a franchise that's going to handle being six and ten very well. I'll go one step darker. Whoa. They don't even need to hit their darkest timeline

to finish in fourth place in that division. Yeah. They can have like a mediocre average year where not a lot goes wrong and they still finish in first place. That division is insane. And if the Chargers can just keep people healthy, they're right in it. Yeah, I think the Chargers have playoff talent. They've had insane injuries these last few years, the Chargers. Playing in a little like 29,000 person stadium, it's going to be raucous.

It's going to be intimate. That's being real. They've got a little around the league podcast team potential here. these chargers. I know we've gone down that road before. It didn't go well, but just saying, they're on the short list. They're on my shortlist. You won't be able to sing that song anymore because it won't be San Diego.

This is after years, Greg, of sticking up for San Diego's, you know, football fandom quickly jumps over to the L.A. Chargers as team of ATL. Says a lot. See how it goes around here. That's a lot. All right. Okay. Why are you looking at my?

I have a quick softball announcement, Dan. What is it, Wes? We better get tryout started soon. We got an email from the Culture Committee starts April 4th. Oh, geez. Okay. Well, we got to get off the air right now because we got to start preparing. I'm staring at Lindsay's Twitter.

Hey, get off my wire, Greg. Jesus. Total pros. Lindsay Rhodes is the host of NFL Total Access Monday and Friday, 7 p.m. Eastern. And you could also follow her on Twitter at Lindsay. And this is the important part, underscore. Underscore. That's why I was there.

Because I knew there was something. I was wondering why. Yeah. Your computer has my Twitter page up. At Mark Sessler. It's creepy. It's always like that. I know, right?

You walk by his desk. You guys, she tweeted. Mark is at Mark Sessler NFL. Colleen Wolf is Colleen Wolf NFL. You want to take a shot at her too? Well, you know. I didn't take a shot. But.

Some people are a little bit different than you did. Mr. Fancy Pants over there. That's how he got the name, Mr. Fancy Pants. This has been fun. Lynn, we will not see you again for months. He's like, I got to go. Lins, it was great to have you. Now you go off to do your other job.

Not to me, not the most important job you'll do today. You've already knocked that out over the last hour. Thank you for coming by and best of luck in all future endeavors. Wow. But most importantly, I should say, most importantly, it is time to start. plotting it out the broker a piece between the cars okay i'm working on it and the around the NFL podcast yeah half of it maybe we should have we're fine with him we could have david on first maybe david puts the bro i don't think it's happening the other way no let's have exactly

like derrick can you come you should book david see all broker david as a guest for your podcast i don't want to ambush and then you bring david on and then david calls up derrick and works things out live on the air how about this feels like really good We don't want to ambush. He could unblock you on during the show. Oh, my gosh, it would be. On live television. Oh, it's such a good podcast.

How about this? I can't wait. Lins, your role in this is greasing the skits. Okay. Making it clear the two of us are absolutely in good space. Oh, yeah, you're fine. You don't even have to be in the studio for it. No, we'll be in there.

Chief skit gris. Oh, the A, the two people. Greg hasn't said anything negative for like 24 hours. So that should help your cause. To keep it clear, Derek, the two guys you don't know weren't involved. but the two guys you don't know, we're involved. Be easy to keep track. All right, Linz, you have a very important part in this.

And we're counting on you. Yeah. Yeah, I'll make that conversation happen today. All right, cool. All right. All right. That's it. Exciting news here at the round of the NFL podcast.

We will be back Friday with our third show of the week. So thank you to everyone for following along. Make sure you check us out on the iTunes and leave some stars and comments. And we might even read them on the air. You never know. Maybe not, but maybe we will. Or tweet them to me and I'll retweet them, and then we know that Dan will see it. That's true.

Lindsay has not tweeted in more hours. Need more tweets from Lindsay. All right. It's time to go. Creeper. She's got me. This is Dan Hansa signing off for Quiet Storm, The Mailman, Linz, the mom. A new money behind the glass.

Until Friday. Peace. This is an I-heart podcast.