NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Derwin and Nico Get Paid and Would You Rather

Episode Date: May 27, 2026

Gregg Rosenthal and Patrick Claybon get you caught up on all of the news from OTAs around the NFL including Josh Jacobs' arrest, Derwin James, Nico Collins and Mac Jones all getting updated contracts, Bucky Irving and De'Von Achane's status heading toward the new season and more! After the break, Gregg and Patrick play a game of would you rather where they tell you if they'd rather have Travis Hunter or Cooper Dejean, James Cook or Saquon Barkley, a Drake Maye or Mac Jones Super Bowl, and other NFL hypotheticals. NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Welcome to NFL Daily, where we always love to see three of the biggest superstars in the game getting paid. I'm Greg Rosenthal with Patrick Claibon in the country. Chris Wesleying podcast studio. And yes, that good news later in the show, as I call the big three in the NFL, Derwin James, Nico Collins, and Mack Jones. I'll get in their mind. NFL Daily favorite. All legends.

Good young players. Unfortunately, we've got to start off the news today with news that we never want to see coming across our timeline. We're going to do some news. And we're also going to do some fun. Would you Rathers later in the show? show. I know Patrick has been furiously coming up with complicated scenarios for this. But before that, as always, we start with the news. And we have to start with the Packers running back, Josh Jacobs,

getting arrested on five different charges in relation to assault. Felony strangulation was the felony charge. The arrest stems from an incident on Saturday morning in which police in Wisconsin were dispatch to a disturbing involving Jacobs. He was booked also on four misdemeanor counts of assault, criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct, and intimidation of victim. Matt Lafleur was asked about it. The Packers also released a statement that just said they are aware of the matter. Let's actually listen to Matt Lafleur after his OTA on Wednesday.

Well, I know there's going to be a lot of questions about Josh. I'm going to stick with the statement that we put out as an organization and just let the process play out. That as far as football goes, do you have to prepare for the possibility that you might be playing some of the season about him, especially this time of year? Well, I think a lot of that's going to happen between now and then. Yeah, obviously Josh Jacobs is an important part of that team. And these are extremely serious charges just to spell out the process of all this happened, how this happened. the Brown County District Attorney's Office also said the investigation into Jacobs remains open and ongoing. After reviewing the available evidence in the case, the Brown County District Attorney is not yet prepared to make a formal charging decision.

So they've requested an additional investigation. Just to be clear, there's a certain bar that they indicated has to be reached for him to be brought in. He has since been let out after posting Bond, and we will see if he is charged any further on the matter. Yeah. And to go through and evaluate all these situations, first and foremost, hopefully everybody, you know, the victim in this, we're able to find out what happened. The Green Bay Packers are able to find out what happened. And, you know, the process, the legal process, you know, as it plays out, you know, Josh Jacobs being a person with money and privilege has access to a lot. of things than other people charged in these circumstances. They may not need more information

to go back and review and determine whether or not they want to make any formal charges in this circumstance. We're not necessarily there yet in terms of information that we have access to, but hopefully, you know, we get some answers at a certain point. I generally am skeptical that the U.S. criminal legal system provides those answers in a meaningful capacity as it is a net distributor of sexual violence. And this, you know, these are domestic violence charges. The NFL has made kind of a strict rule of how many games you miss for domestic violence charges. They made it clear as a league how seriously they take it.

And this is going to be a test case of that. So we'll be watching what happens with Josh Jacobs moving forward. Some other notes just while we're on the Packers, who, you know, is having their OTA. Eight more teams are having OTAs as of Wednesday. I believe it was 11 that started Tuesday. The whole league is going. It is basically OTA season. I think there's only one or two that are not on this week.

So just a couple notes because we hadn't heard from Lefleur in a long time about the players on the field. Zaire Franklin is the one wearing the headset, their acquisition from the cold. So he's going to have a big part in their defense this off season. Zach Tom, their tackle, not expected to be back until camp. Micah Parsons is expected to open camp on the PUP list. no surprise there. But Tucker Kraft, their vital tight end, may be ready for the start of camp,

according to Lafleur, who, by the way, canceled all availability, which was previously set for his players with the Jacobs situation looming. I think that's somewhat unfortunate. I assume it won't last more than one day or maybe more than this week, but they wanted Lafleur to be the only voice

talking on that issue today. Let's get to the contract stuff. that I was talking about earlier. Three big deals. Tongue in cheek a little bit. Mack Jones' deal wasn't that big. But three big deals to guys who... Literally the money wasn't that big for him.

Derwin James' money is massive. Three years, $75 million on his extension. I think the key number here, $57.5 million is guaranteed. We'll have to look under the hood. My guess is that's the majority of the next two years. of his salary are probably guaranteed, if not all of it, plus maybe a little bit into a third. It's been really fascinating watching his career. There have been some ups and downs. There's

been times where he's one of the best defensive players in league. There's other times where he's hasn't fit with the defense. He's had a lot of different coordinators or he's been hurt and there's been little dips. So it was great to see last season. And really with Brandon Staley there, rather Jesse Minter there in the Jim Harbaugh era that he has been just an incredible fit and they're looking to continue that. I think he is coming off of a high in terms of his play last season. Yeah, the Freudian slip there taking us back to the

defensive genius and mastermind where I think the most important aspect of a defensive genius, you have a player who does things that other people at his position can't do and you have him do those things and do them successfully and well. And Jesse Mentor was very, very good at that with Jerwin James and I would hope that, you know, Harbaal is able to, you know, get this team, able to be in the position to duplicate that success on that side of the ball

because that's how that's how team building should work. You get somebody that can do stuff and you have to do it. I got to admit, I had to Google while you're talking. I keep forgetting who's the defensive coordinator. And I always want to say like, O'Reilly Auto parts. I know it's an Irish name and that's being stereotypical and unfair. to Chris O'Leary. The thing I like about him is that he was with the team earlier.

Then he goes into college and then comes back, similar to how Minter did it. And Ali Connolly has pointed out, this is a specific strategy that the Harbaugh brothers have essentially started. Maybe more coaches will start it, where they tell their assistants, go to college, learn some stuff, get a bigger position, and that can kind of be your way to learn more,

and then come back to us. They're using the college as almost a feeder system. And very cool now. It's Chris O'Leary. Who's going to be using similar, I think, ideas to what Jesse Minter had. So that bodes well for- Yeah. What's in Western Michigan? I'm saying this to commit Chris O'Leary to my business as I was struggling to remember that,

you know, Chris, son of Patrick and Julia O'Leary. My apologies for forgetting you, but I will not. Chris O'Leary, the defensive coordinator of the Los Angeles Chargers. Now I'm putting two and two together because you know who used to work for. Western Michigan back in the day. It was Western Michigan, right? Ollie Connolly as this guy. So I see he's gotten in. I'm not trying to, you know. Call him out.

Source people. Outsource people. Derwin James, I just like the fact that he could be retiring as a charger. There's only so many LA chargers that are, that you think of as like and I know he's been with the team a long time. To me, obviously you think of Herbert, but Durwin James is kind of the definitive LA charger. Very cool. Nico Collins trying to become one of the definitive Houston Texans,

certainly becoming right there with the best wide receivers in their history behind Andre Johnson. Is Nico Collins already number two? Off the top of my head, I believe that he would be. He gets a raise over the next two years. He signed one of the most, I would say, team-friendly deals. They were ahead of the game. At the time, people thought they gave Nico Collins too much money because they signed him really early, but they knew what they had. And suddenly he's going into these next two years at only about $21, $22 million a year, which is very underpaid for his level of production. And so what they do is they don't give him an extension.

They just give him a raise. I like that. So he's still going to be a free agent in a couple years, but they give him $17 million more over the next two years spread out pretty evenly in each year. So like an $8, $9 million raise in each of the next two seasons for Nico Collins. What do you think about this trend of just raises?

that's it's kind of new you just hey you're so good we're going to give you a raise we're not even going to extend you because you probably don't want that extension you want to get to free agency but just you're so good we have to recognize and I feel like there's probably some teams that don't like teams just going and using the available space to provide weight raises to players because it's a solution to a problem that a lot of teams just in terms of public perception pretend like it's not available to them like oh well we got you know this this deal he's on this deal and we can't we can't make alterations and have a new, you can just give somebody a raise that would solve a lot of, you know, talk about people being disgruntled and all of these other circumstances and camp holdouts.

You could just give somebody a race. It's, it's so rare. This is a pretty unique case. And I don't think it's a total coincidence that there was some trade whispers going into the draft. And it was more teams, to be clear, it was reported interested in Nico Collins. but I had actually separately heard some whispers of that teams thought maybe there was a situation where he could be shaken loose. And according to Nick Asheria, the GM, that was poppycott.

That was poppycott. That was wishful thinking. Well, because he said, we're not trading Nico Collins, but at least the teams, for whatever reason, thought, hey, if we gave a godfather offer in a new contract, maybe we get Nico Collins. Houston, by all accounts, just shut that down. Smart move by them. I don't know why this all popped up,

but if it resulted at him getting a little money, I wish Nick Cicero would tell us which team would be most incentivized to participate in the poppycock. Well, that's interesting. Well, maybe they really wanted Nick. Oh, you're saying like another team that doesn't like the Texans is trying to like raise. No, it's a team that wanted Nico Colleen. Oh, yeah.

I mean, if I was the Patriots, I would have wanted him. How about that one? And so you go and say, hey, I think. Yeah. That maybe we can make Nico Collins available by facilitating this discussion. that I'm having with you right now. Right. And I don't know how this particular sausage gets made,

but that's just a little window into sometimes how the sausage gets made. But yeah, he'll still be a contract in terms of his free agency year will still pop up in what, 28 a couple of years from now. He'll still be young. Mack Jones also got a $300,000 race.

Not a big one, but they did decide to just give Mac Jones. I mean, $300,000 is still a lot of money in my mind. Mac Jones, baby. Mac Jones also featured in one of my would you rather's for Greg. Oh, okay. He also got $2.5 million added in incentives if he happens to wind up starting and playing well like he did a year ago.

So he is not getting traded and he will be a free agent after this season. Speaking of how the game has played in terms of trade, Jordan Schultz reported that there has been interest in a Josh sweat trade. Other teams wanting to pry Josh sweat loose. We ranked him quite high on our edge defender

rankings. A lot of controversy. People commenting on some of those rankings. Abdul Carter, we had quite high. People just upset that their favorite players not getting ranked high enough. I thought we properly rated Josh Sweat here. And apparently there's a bunch of teams

that are kind of sniffing around Josh Sweat as a potential edge to add. Maybe it would be during the season, but maybe in training camp. Yeah, a team game, where the team defense really fell off towards the, the end of the year. He was top 10 in time to pressure, converted about 28% of his pressures into sacks. He was top five in that regard. A solid season rushing the passer for Josh Sweat, even if the defense was nowhere to be found towards the end of the year. Yeah, it was, it was not his fault. He wound up getting taken 15th. I would say the most common complaint, weirdly, was from Seahawks fans that were like,

well, I guess you guys ranked the offensive line below average, and we got no defensive linemen or great edges on the team. And yet we were supposed to be like one of the best teams up front. First of all, they didn't really read it or notice that DeMarcus Lawrence was there at 27. Get them, Greg. He counts. Second, Boye-Maffa made the list. He was on the team last year.

He's just no longer on the team. He had two sacks. I mean, for what it's worth, we put two guys at edge on the list out of 32 who combined for eight sacks. Now, I think their value is why we put them there and valued them. But I think that was being fair to those two gentlemen. And sometimes it's more about the team than it is about the individual players. Seahawks, I just enjoy winning the season. I think most of them are happy.

Yeah, there's just a couple. That is, you know, there were three. You a bit itchy here. Yeah. There were like three different ones. There were three. I'm blaming this on like three. I'll take ads.

Okay. Some injuries at the running back position. We've had an audible this week in terms of our weekly ranking series, the NFL Daily 32, where we rank the best across the NFL in a variety of positions or even head coaching GMs. We're now doing running backs this week. And so we're going to be talking about Devon A. Chan. We might be talking about Bucky Irving.

Does he make the top 32? Some updates on their injuries. Devon A-chan is officially coming off a shoulder surgery. Didn't know that for sure before, and he's not 100% back. The dolphins anticipate he'll be ready for training camp. He is doing some activity at OTAs, but not fully. So that's interesting. Most interesting there is though that they gave him his contract extension,

knowing everything about his surgery. And so they're obviously not concerned, so I won't be either. Bucky Irving, maybe a little more concern after listening to Todd Bowles' comments this week. but he's coming along fine he's working out he's rough we expect him sometime back in the summer or to fall and we'll look forward to him when he gets back

our friend Josh Norris noted this is like an annual occurrence where Todd Bowles just says something very loose at the podium that makes fantasy football experts like yourself say like wait what? Fall Bucky Irving? Are you concerned?

Yeah I'm generally concerned he plays football I think maybe that was a little more hesitation in Todd Bowles' mind. You know, he's focused on football, maybe not like equinoxes and such things. And he's realizing that, you know, August, September.

Sure. But that would kind of indicate, if you're saying into the fall, that's like a serious injury that he, we knew he was coming off an injury, but we didn't know it was, you know, potentially that serious.

The fall does technically start. You're right. September 21st, 22nd. Mm-hmm. So I would say, you know, I'm not selling all my Bucky Irving shares. I think he's that good of a football player. I'm trying to win in weeks 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. And so I'm willing to deal with some light action in the first few weeks of the season.

Maybe get a couple Sean Tucker games in there. I'm completely fine with that. I'm not dropping his ADP that much. Yeah, it's a shoulder injury for Bucky Irving as well. So he's coming off a shoulder surgery as well. Kenny G's there. Kenny G's there to soak up some Team MVP.

Wouldn't be surprised if he leads the Bucks in touches. In fact, the Bucks running backs, I would pick him. Knowing Bucky Irving's injury, especially, puts it over the top. If you're just saying who gets the most touches in that backfield, I would guess it's Kenny Gema.

Good player. I mean, he'll live where Kenny G. lives. It's going to be some fourth quarter Baker scrambles and dumpoffs where you'll look up and, Ah, Kenny G has 17 fantasy points again. Arm them cannons. No, down double war.

Yeah, that might be what happens after Sean Tucker gets the scary, the goal line like he did last year. Lamar Jackson has returned to OTAs. If you're on Lamar Jackson. Oh, he's trying. OTA watch. He's also going to be talking as we're doing this show. So we'll see if he says anything interesting. And I've got a trade for you.

Maybe the lowest octane trade of the offseason. No offense to Irv Charles, but wasn't as familiar with the special team. work was very good on special teams for the 2024 Jets, Torres ACL. So it hasn't been as much in the mix. Traded to the Seahawks for a 2028 conditional seventh round pick. You can trade the 2028 picks now that we are past the 26th draft. That's according to Zach Rosenblatt of the athletic, an exclusive Irv Charles trade. While we're talking, Seahawks, I did find it, fascinating that Mike McDonald has a new slogan

that he wanted to break out, he wanted to test it, being asked about how it is to coach a team defending a Super Bowl title. Every coach kind of has to make a decision. They're like, no, we're not defending it. The season starts over. No, we're doing this.

They get really hung up about the idea of defending the Super Bowl. Here is Mike McDonald being asked about running it back. We're using the term we want to run it forward. it meaning our process and who we are. I think this is going to be a conversation that, you know, something that we're going to talk about consistently. I don't think it's a one and done type of conversation.

Really, it's just how we talk about, how we operate all the time. You know, it's something that we're having conversations with our team and our units every day about who we want to be and how we want to do things. And this situation is no different. So it's really nothing more or less than that. The exact same confidence is when he came in there, and he took all the old slogans and standards off the wall and people had a lot of things to say about it.

At the time, he hasn't changed, and it's not lip service. I think they are oriented towards the process. And yeah, they would like to win another Super Bowl. Right. That's why everybody's playing. And he doesn't care. Like when he said, I don't care. And his eyes sparkled up and everybody went crazy.

Mike Mac does not care at all. He does not. What do you think just as someone who is a lover of words, speaks words, about just the slogan, run it forward? Now, that's, you don't want to run it backwards. No. It is what the sport is built on running it forward. Yeah.

Run it for, don't run it back. Don't run it back. Run it back. You lose yardage. Run it forward. Like, let's get two or three yards. And also that team doesn't exist anymore. Yeah.

Like big time contributors aren't there anymore. And so look. the rearview mirror, you know, whatever slogan you would like to apply, uh, you know, Mike, again, it won't matter, but now they've got Irv Charles.

Now, well, what about what Ken Walker, who's not there anymore, used to do, which is I would find a lot of times he would run it back. He would run it back. To run it forward.

Sometimes. Sometimes you got to make three lefts. Let's take a quick break. We're going to have some fun playing a game we like to call. Would you rather, uh, we're going to decide the most important issues, either ors in the NFL today.

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Borrow better with FIG. Visit fig.ca. Back on NFL Daily. The music, very appropriate here. Before we get to Would You Rather, I did want to update you guys on something before Greg demeaned and diminished the trade for Irv Charles. Irv Charles, his freshman year at Penn State. Average 53 yards per reception.

Whoa! That was two catches. We got to get Irf Charles the Baltimore. 6.3, 223. So that's 106 yards. I want to find out how that was broken down. Yeah. 85 and 21.

That would be my guess. Probably. Something like that. Shout out to Irv Charles. The fourth. PFF at him as a, uh, Pro Bowl special teams level player in 2024 for that injury. I won't block that guy.

It's Would You Rather time. Patrick and myself will pose questions to each other. And we might take some questions that were created back there by Chris Pabona and Eric Roberts that we both answer. Very simple. Would you rather? Eric killed it on this music. Either or. It's like a true crime documentary where people profit off of somebody else's grisly murder. It's like, yeah.

I'm reading a great true crime book right now, London Falling by Patrick Raddenkief. This would be an appropriate background music for a lot of what I'm learning. Okay. Recommended. All right. All right. I'm going to start with, let's start with Patrick. We need him to carry this thing.

No, wait, you don't, that's false, by the way. But okay. Let's do this. Greg Rosenthal. Okay. Would you rather? Yeah. Drake May, a successful career.

as the starting quarterback of the New England Patriots starts until the year 2040. In the year 2037, they win the Super Bowl, shattering a lot of doubters. Yes. Or that's it. They battle out May's next deal after some C.J. Stroud-esque down years leading to May,

departing and winning two Super Bowls for the Detroit Lions in the 2030s, the Patriots cobbled together a pair with Jerniam and starting quarterbacks, one in 2030 two, and another in 2040. Oh. First journeyman quarterback is none other than Jacksonville, Florida's, McCorkle Jones. Oh, my God.

That was a journey. Just thought I was taking the first one to thought I'm then taking the second one is the amount of Super Bowls that your team wins ultimately more important than who is one with. Mac Jones, baby. You get one with Mac Jones. Drake, famously the only thing that matters gets to be your quarterback until 2040 or he's discarded in search of one. Well, I'm a big fan of McCorkel and as a man, as an NFL daily guest, and as a quarterback. And yet, I like the journey. And you're telling me he's going to get that Super Bowl eventually.

I like the relationships that we form parisocially with the players we root for. And so I want the long may. And now this might be, you know, as our friend Dan Hansis would have said, me talking about the throne of ease, you know? I've seen the Patriots win a lot of Super Bowl. So the whole like two versus one, I'm getting two with Mac and one versus me, feels like a little less of a big deal.

Yeah, I want me. I just want to watch him play football. I'm going to watch him play football no matter who he's on. I mean, he does get two with the Lions. That is tough. Yeah. Shoot. Wait a second.

I didn't really think about the Lions angle of it. That is specifically the Lions. That's why I made it very convoluted. I might be switching because what this does is guarantee the Lions two Super Bowls specifically. The Lions get two Super Bowls. Drake May gets two Super Bowls and the Patriots get one, but. Well, they get two. Yeah, you don't get.

They get two Super Bowls, but you don't get a Drake May Super Bowl with the Patriots. Okay, I'm switching it. Just because I'm such a good guy and out of the goodness of my heart, I think Kevin Patrick and all the Lions fans deserve that. I'm still getting what I want for the most part. I made it too sweet. Since I have a similar-ish question, okay. This is just more testing how aligned you are with the Ravens.

Would you rather a Ravens Super Bowl win or a youth league title, you know, pick a kid like this year. I'm talking about this year. Pick a kid. Yeah, either kid. I don't want to, I don't want to, you know, name them necessarily. But they each could be like, you know, it could be the basketball title. I don't know what sports they're playing.

soccer or and I'll throw this one in another LeBron's LeBron James title and to be clear this is not your youth league. Now you are coaching though right now, right? Not actively this.

But you were coaching. Yeah, but I was coaching. Okay. I was coaching Malcolm's team. Would you rather like a Malcolm Youth League title in that league or Raven Super Bowl or LeBron? I'll throw LeBron in there. Honestly, because the team that won the title.

They beat us in the championship game this year. Some methods I don't necessarily align with. Some attitudes I don't necessarily align with. My team had fun. They loved the game of basketball. They grew and learned together with each other. And I would not trade that for a ring. Okay.

I would trade it because, again, a lot of the affinity for the Baltimore Ravens is specifically based on. But it's this year. I'm counting Lamar. Lamar's, yeah, the quarter. And being right, which is a big thing for me. Oh, okay.

So, yeah, I would take the Baltimore Ravens. I think that makes sense. Honestly, youth league titles, the kids are happy. The kids are happy either way. There's an eight-year-old team. Right. When they get older, it gets to be a little bit of a bigger deal,

but their kids, they're resilient, they win some, they lose some. I was so much more crushed when the basketball team I coached. which ones lost so badly in the championship that they had to do the thing where you couldn't guard them anymore outside of 15 feet. They just had to let them shoot

because we were losing like 40 to 9. And I thought they would be crushed. They were fine. They didn't care. You know. Yeah, Youth League is like... They cared but not really. Youth League is like those early relationships.

If it doesn't work out, that's a part of the learning process. Exactly. You get the one that you really want and you focus on it. You probably get one eventually in some sport Anyways, you keep playing.

I'll give you another question. Host or analyst? Would you rather host the show or be in the spot that I guess you're in here, NFL Daily? Caviot. Yeah. I enjoy being employed and able to support my family in Los Angeles, California. Whatever it exists. Both is the best.

The pay the bills. But I do enjoy getting to answer things. Oh, okay. As opposed to asking them. Just, you know, because I'm verbose. I like to talk. Same bro. Same bro.

Not compared to the rest of NFL daily. But not on this show. Like when it comes to TV, there's some times where it's like, oh, NFL Network Insider Ian Rappaport joining us now to tell us more. We just found out about this. Tell us more. I know all the things that Ian's about to say. I could just say that. But there's the like, like here, let's.

do this presentation in a format that pays the bills. So we do with that. You could also do that. But in this format, I want you to start, you know, hosting NFL Daily when I'm not here. And then maybe you could play in my style, which is a little more like Jalen Brunton playing point guards. Like, you're like, yeah, I guess he's the point guard.

But he's going to get his shots up. Yeah. That's for sure. Do what great player put on this earth to do. Absolutely. What a comp I'm giving myself. The edits have been great on Brunson, by the way. He really is incredible.

They might just do it. All right, you're next. Would you rather, Greg, two unbeaten teams, no common schedules. One in the AFC, for example, those Cincinnati Bengals don't play the Dallas Cowboys. The AFC and the NFC make their respective championship games. Okay.

As an undefeated teams and both lose. Okay. Or two undefeated teams lose in the championship games. In the AFC and NFC championship game, it's very disappointing. We missed the game of the millennium. Or Riley Leonard goes on what can only be described as a Linsanity run. It's dimes 2.0 at the start of the season, except full Balco Labs. He has four games over the course of the season with a perfect passer rating,

maybe threatening the league's first ever 6,000-yard passing season. But prior to the team's week 17 game in Cleveland, a 100-year storm coming off of Lake Erie renders football impossible. possible, not just to see, but to play. The game ends up a zero-zero-tie in overtime, and Leonard finishes with negative 26 passing yards that ultimately leave him to finish the season, 5,450 passing yards, 27 short of Peyton Manning single-season record. Would you rather have an all-time team matchup ruined or an all-time single-season record

be ruined by weather? Well, Brian Leonard, for sure. I mean, all of that is delightful. And I don't know the young man, but that story. is so good all the way through that he'll live. He'll be remembered more for not

getting that record and having it taken away by the 100 year storm. And that game as a viewer, I know you say like you're not being a fan of weather games. It would be miserable, Greg. I think there is a moment where the weather gets so bad that it's entertaining and something you remember.

What do you mean? You would be barely able to see the game. It's zero, zero. Well, first of all, this is a regular season game. He played so well in his insanity run, I assume he's going to the playoffs. Yeah. Maybe he's even one of those under the team.

He's eclipsing the Kurt Warner, who is this guy? It's fine. What's a, what's a, no one cares about the passing yard record. That is helping to inform it. Plus it, you know, 17 games versus 16. I don't know if that's a factor here. He's going to be remembered for that anyways, and the rest of it is great.

Although the one knit I would have to pick is you said it's like diamond. it's like Dimes 2.0 on Balco Labs mode. I don't know if you saw the enhanced games or heard about them over the weekend, the Olympics where they got to use all. It didn't help to enhance. Balco, maybe just

it's not that big of a deal. Yeah, I don't necessarily put Peter Teal's assemblage of horrors on par with San Francisco. I did not know he was involved with that. Yeah. Did not. Yeah. Honestly, the two unbeaten,

teams in the AFC, NFC, losing in the championship games, I think would be great. I'm not saying that's what I would be going into the weekend rooting for, but maybe I'm a contrarian enough. And just like, hey, sports, it's unpredictable.

That would be maybe as epic a championship game weekend as we've ever had. You come into it thinking, we're going to get this matchup, instead they both go down and it'd be a great day. It'd be a great day. Wow. Great day of football.

That's all I'm looking for at this point. I'm going to give you a simple one. I should have gotten more complicated like you did. You can take either Travis Hunter moving forward, considering age, contract, everything. He's on your team. Or you can take Cooper DeGine moving forward. Now, obviously, Cooper DeGene, you've seen two years out of him. Yeah.

So you feel even better. I would think than you did as a rookie when he was great. Which player would you rather have moving forward, Cooper DeGine or Travis Hunter? I would rather have the cornerback. And I'm not even, I don't even consider the possibility of taking Travis Hunter as anything else.

I purely playing out wide at cornerback. I think he can be an all pro. Oh, I thought you were going to Cooper DeGine there. He played a lot of cornerback last year too. He played a lot of corner. And again, go back to the pre-gris. Cooper DeGine is not a safety. I'm not saying.

Just saying cornerback, Travis Hunter. Okay. Just playing cornerback. Like not trying to have him go in there and burn himself to death, doing all this stuff to play to play wide receiver purely playing court. In this scenario, you do have control of how he's going to be used. So that's an important case thing. I think I agree with you.

I'm leaving open the possibility to use him a little bit at receiver here and there, kind of like Dion style. What was just like for fun? Yeah. Eventually. Because boredom. I mean, Dion was pretty useful. He made some big plays as a receiver.

But ultimately he was like a fourth, fourth receiver. It's a tough one though. In general, in the NFL, it's such a brutal sport. So hard to predict. In general, I will take the bird in the hand. And Cooper de Jeanne's bird in the hand is very possibly like a multi-time all-pro player.

And so that's tough. It's tough when I feel like, man, I've seen enough to feel like he actually has a chance. It's way too early. He has a chance to be one of the best players at his position in his era.

And you know where that leads. And so it's tough when Travis Under hasn't shown it. And I have as high as Travis Under as anyone. And yet I do think I want the mystery box that is Travis Under. Yeah. This is two very, very good plays.

Right. No, that's what I thought it was a good one. Yeah. You want it to be even. Bobona had one that was, would you rather have Matt Ryan win the 2016 Super Bowl after that season or Cam Newton win the 2015 Super Bowl? And I thought, Chris, why would I not want the Patriots to complete the greatest comeback in the history of Super Bowl?

You know, why would I not want that? You know the answer. Maybe that's more for me. That's unfortunate. But he explained it's more which quarterback would you rather see kind of have that ring for legacy purposes, that it's unfair that the Super Bowl is kind of unfairly not happen for those two or tarnish them. Yeah, and I'm not even thinking about the quarterbacks in that scenario. Julio Jones got four targets in that Super Bowl.

He caught all four of them, including in my estimation, the greatest catch, the best catch, the most difficult catch in Super Bowl. Bowl history and it's just kind of lost and he doesn't get that cherry on top of his career where they should have won that game. So you're going to choose Falcons. Yeah, they did every... Interesting. You know, Julio chose literally everything he could possibly do in this team game and it just

all fell apart. Well, that shows it was an underrated question because I'm surprised. I thought just as a big Cam Newton fan, it would have been really incredible. I mean... to imagine him as such a unique athlete in our sports history in that he had one of the most memorable college seasons and dominant and one of the most memorable and dominant professional seasons. And even if, you know, he didn't have the longevity

and the amount of big seasons as other quarterbacks had, that would have been cool for him to beat that no-fly zone. Broncos. Yeah. Wish, you know, they had a little bit more on offense on that, on that Panthers team, including up front. Okay. I would at this point like to get Chris on the mic to defend,

because I kind of went after him a little bit on text. And I feel bad about it, Chris. My pleasure. No, I feel like, especially with Cam Newton, you think about how that dragged him and he was dragged, weighed on his legacy in the media cycle post-super Bowl, for him to win that game. What would it mean for his psyche?

And I know that he had the shoulder injury too, but like, where does Cam Newton's career go? And then I think with Matt Ryan, you're more thinking, if he gets a ring, it's more of like, when does he become a Hall of Fame? I think that happens expeditiously if he wins that 16th Super Bowl. I think Matt Ryan is properly respected and rated. I think people think of him as one of the best quarterbacks of his era,

but certainly never, like, in the top three or four. And then he did get to have that MVP season, similar to Cam Newton, where they had that one season that popped up. And people kind of forget Cam Newton, you know, still had a couple really good season, a great season, couple years later after that happened. But yeah, I think that would have been cool. I would have gotten.

And also, I don't want my Patriots to lose that game. And also the fumble situation and everything, the criticism of that. Those people would have been on cam regardless of what happened in that game. Like, regardless of how it played out or however they lost, those same people were going to be saying the same things regardless. This season, and this is exactly related to the running back rankings that we're going to be doing to wrap up the week here. I think it's going to go up on Friday morning.

I thought this was tough. Jeremiah Love, it's just this season. Okay, this season. Fantasy-wise? Nope. Real-life-wise? Not really, because in this case, Jeremiah Love's not on the Cardinals. He's on your imaginary team,

which has a better scheme in an offensive line, hopefully. Oh. Just on any old, it's on a generic team. Okay. This season, 2026, Jeremiah Love, James Cook, or Sequin Barkley,

would you rather? on my hypothetical football team. Who's better right now? Who would you have faith in? James Cook. Ooh, that was the least likely answer I thought. That's why you ask. Running, receiving, you know,

cohesion in the blocking game. Safe as bet. I'm going James Cook there. As the total package, Jeremiah could get there. It's one of those things where like, I need to, I've seen it. I've seen it from James. Yeah.

Because I was at this point where there was question like, oh, this, you know, Dalvin versus James, where are we now? That's not even a discussion anymore. I'm struggling between those three when it comes to making my ranking. So that's why I was kind of looking for your help. Seekwon, just the second you doubt him, I know it's a little boomer bust, but, and he didn't look at his best self, maybe pops back up.

I'm leaning love, but kind of thinking that might be a little too, a little too over my ski. All right. It's going to be televised at halftime on Netflix. Thanksgiving Day. It's going to be a 40-yard dash between you, Patrick. Mm-hmm. And Rick Wullen.

Weird that they would think that that would be... Yeah, I don't know whether... Something people would be interested in it. But it's you versus Rik Wollin. Now, they fly your family down there. Uh-huh. They pay for your rooms. Okay.

They don't necessarily get you Thanksgiving, but there'll probably be some sort of staff meal you can get or maybe some leftover of the craft service, the steak or whatever. But it kind of disrupts your Thanksgiving. And there's a chance you would be humiliated. Or you have to hit one of three free throws at half time of an NBA finals game.

If you hit one of those free throws, get three. A lot of pressure on you, though. Three free freezes. You get a raise, you double your salary, multi-year security in terms of what would happen if you hit one of the free throws. But if you miss all three, you get slimed. Okay.

Nickelodeon style. You get a pay reduction by 50%. Okay. And you have to pay your family's way home. They also did come with you to the Christmas halftime. You have to pay your family's way home. Yeah, I'm shooting the free throws. Oh, you are.

Yeah. 50%'s a lot, though, and that's a lot of pressure. In the other case, you're not losing any money no matter what. But I'm also running for free. Okay. Okay. And like I got a call one time because there was a discussion about the fastest on-air talent. Yeah.

I was actually getting a root canal. And Jen Koski calls. was like, yeah, are you the fastest? And I'm like, yeah. It's like, would you, and like, I'm not running for free. Oh. I wouldn't, I wouldn't.

Are you fast, though? I mean, you just had surgery. I mean, yeah, Greg, I would be willing to, okay, to run if somebody were willing to compensate me for it. Well, they're not. Well, they're not going to do a hamstring for free. They're paying you to go down there for Thanksgiving and stuff. Yeah, but if, I mean, even, even involving the risk,

and I would love to be slimed. Okay. I don't know if the Paramount family is interested in partnering. What if I made it one free throw? One? Yeah, you got to make the free throw. I got to make it. And I thought the 50% pay reduction was going to be enough to, you know, that's significant.

Yeah, but I also, you know, risk reward there. Okay, got it. I feel confident. 15 feet. Good one. Pressure bust. Good one by me. Or whatever.

Go ahead. Heal one injury in NFL history, ET style. Andrew Lugge's shoulder or the hip of one Vincent Bo Jackson. Bo Jackson. Now, I wasn't there for it in the same way, but I was a kid that, I was like nine years old when he had that run against the Seahawks or so. I believe that was 88.

That was old enough to kind of enjoy that. That felt more devastating. I appreciate the struggles that Andrew Luck went through, so it's a tough choice. But ultimately, I think he also helped too much. make that choice. You know, his body was telling him the answer,

whereas Bo Jackson almost was given no choice. Yeah. That sucks. There's nothing to say that even if Andrew Luck's shoulder wasn't bothering him, if he just makes the decision on after that he was going to be done with football. Bo had a lot left to give to sports in general. Yeah.

Still does. So I'm with you there. An NFL Daily guest, too. Yeah. Although I love Andrew Luck as well because he once, as a player, had his own book club, which you would just send tweets about.

I was like, oh, that's great. We get an 18 game season. Okay. Or we stay at 17, but they permanently play five days a week. So Saturdays, Fridays are getting into the mix, and we've got like a primetime game on extra days.

But we don't have the 18 game season. Which would you rather? as a as a fan I'd rather have the the 18 game season me personally I feel like you know sorry to keep bringing up job security I think 17 games games five days a week provides an opportunity

that's interesting for more people to be employed what about the health of the players you're not I mean it's surprised by Patrick not considering that no I am considering that but you know these are troubling times Greg Rosenthal you know, it's already, it's already not safe. Also the five days a week in that case, like you are playing on less rest more often. And you're presumably getting an extra buy week with the 18th game.

So although the extra game probably is worse, you know, there's mitigating factors there. Yeah. And probably some roster expansion too, you know, much to the chagrin. Because, you know, they feel like they'd probably be. And I know Mr. Kraft kind of let it slip that they'd be willing to have the second buy. there early. But I think that, you know. Look at you going, Mr. Craft.

Yeah. Breakfast Burrito or Alpestore Burrito? I'll accept other candidates, but to me, those are the obvious candidates. I will go Alpestore. And the thing is, I will go there 24 hours a day. I think the notion that you can't have certain things for breakfast is preposterous. if it's good at 1.30 in the afternoon, it's good all day. And the Mexican places I like give you that option.

You can get the Alpestore at 1030 in the morning at tacos 4.4. Bbona suggests pasta as some sort of non-applier here. It doesn't even make sense, but obviously both are still inferior to pasta. I have pasta whenever. Oh, yeah, sure. But not over the Alpestore burrito. You know, finding the perfect Alpestore burrito, and there is no such thing where Taco in LA is one of the joys of living here.

I will do all I can to find it. All right. Would you rather, Greg, officials never miss a defensive pass interference call or officials never miss an offensive holding call on the edge specifically. Whoa. Never miss. Never miss.

Well, I think it's clearly PI. Holding I can live with. I mean, I'm not, you know, it would be great if all calls were perfect. But you can only pick one. I wonder what it would do to the sport if they could call, by the letter of the law, call every hole to hold. That actually might be negative. I mean, it would change, I think, how tackles have to play.

It really might help out the edges quite a bit in a way that we don't like. Yeah. And that's the thing. The letter of the law includes so much gray that it would be impossible. they'd have to actually get the rules in a certain way where that could apply. But I'm just assuming in this hypothetical like you're watching the game

and you never disagree with one of the calls. I think we did it. I think that's it. We decided what we would rather. Bobona had another one that was your favorite team wins a Super Bowl or your rival never wins a Super Bowl again. And to me, the fact that he even asked that question

tells me something about our friend Chris. Got a little hate in his heart. I mean, who would possibly choose the rival? He hates the San Francisco Giants that much? It's taking the ball and going home, like, to win extreme. Yeah, that is a Dodgers fan question if I ever saw one. I mean, who would not want just their team to win? That's insane.

I know it says never, but still, I don't have that much hate in my heart. We got a lot of love for Patrick and Eric Roberts and Chris, who helped put this show at it. together. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. Patrick will be back next week, but we're not done this week. We are going to be back on Thursday with a quick news update with Nick Shook. Let's hit that music. As long as the fine people of Cleveland do not call him to jury duty. So far he's been like on call all week and haven't called him. So don't do it. We need him for Thursday on NFL daily. And yes, we'll have our running back rankings later in the week.

I can't wait to see you then This is an IHeart podcast Guaranteed Human