NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Free agency: Who was damaged, who was helped?

Episode Date: March 21, 2017

A room filled with heroes – Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler, Chris Wesseling & Gregg Rosenthal – recap all the latest news from around the NFL including the discovery of what happened to Tom Brady’s missing Super Bowl jersey, and the Raiders signing quarterback EJ Manuel. Then, the heroes break down which players benefited, and which were hurt by free agency this offseason.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 burns the midnight oil. Okay. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansis and I'm joined by a room filled with heroes. Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosethal. What's up, boys? Hey, Dan.

Welcome back. Here we are again. and again and again and again Monday's episode one time after the night I mean we planned this show in about six minutes oh stop oh no no no it's 12 maybe 12 did you guys notice the new additions to the NFL media grounds some of the aesthetic changes happening on this campus yes yes lots of big changes lots of murals lots of billboard type pictures who do you think of all the people on the wall now that they they invested who knows they probably paid a company 10,000 dollars to do this way more than that way more but image I don't know like I work in the custom design I just saying that's this has been like a multi-day many people working on it there's there's cranes and like 10 15 people you know putting things up you know 10 or 15 people I don't know it was like it was like three people

most days. I'm just saying $10,000 to paint a few things on a wall. It's not going to be a crazy price. Triple figures. Yeah. Okay, $100,000. Well, they know who the client is. Well, all right. Let's get past that. Who on the wall do you think most likely

will they have to scrub off the wall due to getting cut by the team they're on or some type of off the field incident? Mark, I'll start with you. Maybe Dan Helly from NFL Network. Oh, wow. No, no, no. I did think that was a mistake. Well, part of that...

Well, it's not how I'd frame it, Greg. There's a picture. I think it works in Dan and Willie McGinnis' favor. There's a big picture up of Dan Helly and Willie McGinnis. Monster picture as you're going through one of the hallways. That's leverage right there. When their next contracts are coming up, it's like, Willie just... Willie Zayin just has to be like, what, you're going to get rid of my guy?

He's on the wall. So it wasn't a mistake to put them up in terms of who they selected. No, no. Great choices. There were some concerns that you thought maybe someone in this room and not the three of Josh should have gotten more attention in that space. There was talk about that? Where was there?

Where was talk about that? I say, is that NFL networks? Greg Rosenfall? Here's my answer, though. I think it might be Josh Norman. I was looking at all those, because a lot of them are like, unless something really crazy happens,

these are like locked in starting quarterbacks. We should let the audience know there's. Cam Newton. These are people all painted. on murals outside of our building. There's, for 10 grand. Just take a picture. Cam Newton, J.J. Watt,

Bond Miller, Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers. These type of players. Joey Bosa in the hallway here? That's weird. And then Josh Freeman, is Dak on the wall? Josh Norman. Upstairs.

Freeman. Excuse me, Josh Norman in the mix there. And it's like, oh, we'll see about that. I don't know if that was a great contract. Yeah. I think he's the right answer. Well, there's a reason for that. Right.

TV people made the decision, and TV people love when Josh Norman opens his mouth. Yeah. The other adjustment that was made on this campus was they ripped out the couches in the lobby, and they have over the weekend installed – I kid you not. They installed stadium seating in front of a big TV where it's actual, like, the seats you would see when you, like, went to MetLife Stadium or any NFL stadium, and you sit. But there's no other options to sit. they took out the couches and replaced them with a row of seven seats. And now you get the site, and Mark, you and I,

and maybe all of us at some point before we started working or you sit on that couch waiting for someone to come to bring you in for a job interview. When you see people waiting to be brought in now, they're sitting in these stadium seats. And it's just a little bit, it's a little silly looking. Going to take some time to get used to. Their suits. It looks like they're being inculcated by Scott Hanson. And like we brought up on our road trip pod.

cast mark it looks funny it's like when adults are in a backseat of a car it's just like it's exactly looking it's going to take time to get there was also at one point a huge collage celebrating the 10th year i believe of NFL network which had little faces of everyone that was in the lobby as well they ripped that right down that's gone so that's what's going on around the campus and i'll take a photo of the mural and you guys can listeners can chime in who you think will come down, be scrubbed off that wall first, or either a move that takes them away from the team that they're portrayed with in the image

or an off-the-field incident. Gronk's a little under the radar. That's a long shot there. Or an off-the-field incident? Whether it's injuries or off-the-field incident, bringing some sort of shame to the NFL family. Injury, I guess, would be a better thing. Great Patriots fan.

All right, today's show is sponsored, of course, by Mr. Flames' economics class in the Hague, the Netherlands. And we will now talk about, we're not now, a little later in today's show, we'll talk about collateral damage and collateral beneficiaries or benefits for players.

So if you got banged by the events of the past couple of weeks, if you got helped out by the events of the last couple weeks, those events mostly tied to free agency who really came out of this better who came off a little worse mark we'll get to it we'll get to it uh and i'm excited about that Greg you wrote an accompanying banger that will be going up on the site at some point well collateral damage that one that one is up yes you mean these guys they weren't free agents they were just hanging out at home they're watching

the TV and suddenly you know shrap out how hitting them they're getting affected that hurts So we'll talk about that. And we also got some news to get to. And let me check in behind the glass of Sid. Sid, how was Magic Mountain? How was Six Flags this weekend? You know, it was great. I will say if I had known what going to Six Flags

was going to do to my mentions, I would have just stayed home. There were all sorts of horrifying pictures of Mickey Mouse that were sent my way. I may never sleep again, but, you know, I got to ride a few roller coasters. Hey, Sid. You shouldn't have done that.

I don't like it. I don't. Wait, Sydney, before the show, when I asked you, you utterly buried Six Flags. So why now is the, you know, a little bit of a less of a heat-seeking review? Or should I not have just said that? Yeah, no, I just, I've been getting, I think people don't believe me. When I just, like, put Disneyland up on a pedestal, so I was trying to, like, soften it, I guess. You put the Disney on a pedestal.

Yeah. Mark, you've cheated on girlfriends before. like when after the fact you feel like why did I just do that I feel dirty I feel ugly well not confirmed I haven't had a girlfriend and like the ages and ages I'm talking about prior even as even you know no not in not in any case would I sit there and say yes that's an easy you know go to Greg with that one hey Sid you'll be sorry right news want to do some News? Okay. What would happen to the analogy? What? Mark Cheney on his girlfriend. Oh, well, obviously Mark wants us to get away from that topic. It's, there's nothing there. There's

no evidence. There's no evidence. There's no evidence. Other than your panicked, like, stammer there. There's like, maybe like the 16-year-old me, but not the adult version of me. It's a great non-denial. Maybe the 34-year-old version of me, but. Not true. Nice try by you. Let's do some news. someone needs to do some explain what's going on I implore you everyone to check out the trailer

to speaking of Rob Grankowski and things that could get him taken off the wall here at NFL Network headquarters he has a cameo on a new movie and I wrote about it on the end around it's one of those movies you know it's a bad movie when a name brand like Rob Gruncowski he agrees to do a low

budget movie and has one line in the movie and they put him front and center on the poster and put his name above the line. The name of the movies, you can't have it, and even the name is terrible. Watch the trailer embedded on my story on the

article, but that's Gronk's entire dialogue and movie. First build front and center on the movie poster. Gronk doesn't say no to anything. Is it like a rom-com or is it? It's about I don't know, I'll just read the tagline. drinks, sex, murder, all before last call.

You can't have it. All right, let's do some news. And let's start. Let's stay with the New England Patriots. And, yep, it happened. Case cracked. Tom Brady's missing Super Bowl 51 jersey was found. Oh, my goodness.

The NFL on Monday released a statement confirming that a joint operation between the league, the Patriot Security team and the FBI God damn it the FBI recovered quarterback Tom Brady

Stolen Super Bowl 51 jersey also apparently we didn't know probably because the old Zooser didn't get that on video the stolen Super Bowl 49 jersey that was also gone and recovered and according to rap sheet

the man who allegedly took the jerseys is Mauricio Ortega a former executive with Mexican newspaper company Diario La Prenza in a statement La Prenza announced Ortega resigned from the company last week. Not a good look for him.

Ace closed. Hmm. Woo! Essentially a one-man crime ring. Yeah, which is weird because he stole the jersey two years ago and he still had it in his possession. So it's not like he was able to move it and have a big score and then say, oh, let me get another one.

So he had both in his possession. So got nothing out of it, probably a lot of stress and anxiety, and got banged on it. Also, I'm quite impressed because we're talking about dive bombing into two totally different NFL venues. Who knows how much experience he has in either locker room and pulling off a master heist with hundreds of cameras and other recording devices all over the place and eyes everywhere. How do you get away with this? Didn't we also see that he stole Von Miller's helmet too? Look at this guy. This guy's flying.

Potentially, yeah. He was the director of the newspaper. I got to think his long game was he was going to sell this in, you know, many years from now. And moved to Zia Watanayo. In another country. I don't know. I mean, he was going to have to sell. He was waiting for it to die down a little and sell them in 10 years and retire on it.

You got some light fingers, every. All right. You could sell that stuff on the dark web. Yeah. I mean, as someone that was so involved in this, does it give you closure, Dan? Well, it's funny you should bring that up, Greg, because as the resident ATN Media Insider, AT&A, AT&Media, Media Insider, Inside, Dan, Hands, Hands, for the truth, go to the zoos. Obviously, I played a small role in an international crime conspiracy.

I shot the video that led to the breaking news, and I don't want to do a ton of a media on this. I don't want to do a lot. So I figured why don't I just knock out my availability on the show today? Has there been any requests for you to do any any media? Just let me do it all today. Because that way, I got a wife, I got kids, I got other work

to do. So what I wanted to do and I want to say, well, who do I respect in the media? It's like when someone has like a big sit down, oh, give me Diane Sawyer. Well, okay, I couldn't get Diane Sawyer. But who I could get was CBS Sports.com

senior writer, Will Brinson, he will represent all of the media. So again, with peace and love, no more requests. I have Will on the line. Will you here? Yeah, Dan, I thank you very much for making me your Diane Sawyer. That's great time. So we got Will senior writer at CBS Sports. He will serve as the media contingent asking me about this.

Last time I talked about it, Will Fireway. This is like a pool report, and Will is playing the role of Peter King at the Super Bowl. Absolutely. In fact, I'm probably wearing a similar outfit right now, so that works. If you combine Peter King and Diane Sawyer and create this a hideous monster, that's Will. Well, look, Dan, we'll get right to it. First of all, you know, the simple question is, how does it feel to know that you're the sole person responsible for blowing the lid of a vast international conspiracy to steal millions of dollars worth of merchandise from multiple Super Bowl? MVP's you know what the job of any journalist is to get get your hands dirty when you have to

and if you see injustice to seek it out and expose it and i and you made a good shawshank redemption west minutes ago uh same thing andy duffrain he he gets the wardens uh incriminating documents he he puts it in the mail you let the media and the authorities handle the rest that's what i did i just got the video i said something was going on here blast it out, and away we go. We're flying. So it feels good. Not all superheroes wear capes.

Dan, you know, follow up to that. At what point did you really understand that you'd used your natural media insider instincts to sniff out the biggest and most viral NFL moment of the 2017 years? I didn't do very well with that, in fact. I sent out the tweet with the video, and I even labeled it incorrectly.

I labeled it as Robert Krabb. have hands out victory cigars. I didn't realize what I was sitting on. It wasn't until I got back to the press box and I told a social media man here, Bryce Gustafsson, who's very good at what he does, what I had. Gustafs said.

Okay, whatever. Goose. Yeah, Goose. There you go. I told Goose this. He was like, whoa, that's really good. And that's, I only then realized what I had really procured. Anything else?

Yeah, one more thing, but I would have added that we were i was actually in the press box when you tweeted it out and noticed it's like wow victory cigars we got halfway through brady was yelling about like all right man i really has no idea what he has on his hand so the insider the insider didn't know anything of what he you've just you've just incriminated yourself are you a little worried about this pipe down great don't be jealous NFL dot com's greg rosenthal go ahead thank you very much here with nfl dot com's gregg rosenthal Sorry, Will.

The NFL.com. The NFL.com. The NFL.com. The NFL. The NFL dot com's Greg Rosenbaum. I should mention that I came up in the news on some articles today when this news broke. And I was referenced as NFL Network Stan Hanses a couple times. I don't know where that sits with you, Greg.

I like it. All right. Last question, Will. Yeah, it's fortunate that I know the length of y'all's drops, by the way. There also is some chatter. out there that the success of End Around and your NFL media insider success could lead to

a Zuser in the morning spin-off podcast, a vanity project if you will. Can you confirm or deny that something like that is in the works? Well, my contract's coming up and sit down with the people and we're going to hammer something out. I love being here. I love working with these guys.

But you just never know. Now that I'm on the radar like this, it just is what is. God forbid it all comes to an end. Will, thank you very much And that's it, that's it Now, Will, I want Will to stay on the line If you can, Mr. Brinson. Yeah, I got nothing else to do.

All right, cool. Can I ask you one follow of question? This will be, okay, last question. I might have one too. Listen, so you've essentially undone a Mexican crime ring and these people no longer have jobs Are you concerned at all that they might, you know, cross the border, back into the states,

and not just end your career as a so-called insider, but just end you? So like some type of Mexican mob? I mean, you know, your name's out there is the guy that started all this. It sounds like a perfect scenario just to take you out. I didn't think of that until you just said that.

I don't like the thought. I hope I didn't plant the idea in their head either, but it seems like a very logical counterpunch to the embarrassment you've caused many criminals. I'm a little nervous about that. I got to be honest. Streets have been talking a little bit about that. You know, you made a big name with this scoop.

What a splash. Weeks ago on this podcast, we kind of were like, all right, well, you know, insider. where's kind of the follow-up scoops. And you're like, oh, yeah, we got some scoops coming. Are you a little worried this far out, you know, since this big break? It's been pretty quiet on the insider breaking news front. I'll just say two things.

First of all, I know what it's like to be a rap sheet now. It's a stressful line. You have to stay on the leaderboard. Second of all, and I can't discuss it on the show, but I think you guys will all agree that I got some big scoopage, internal scoopage at the combine that I couldn't share here. Some of my scoopage isn't for public. It's just, you know, talking to people.

I got stuff going on. Is that not a fair answer? That's a stretch. Okay. You did get an internal scoop. I'll give you that. Okay. I'll talk about it.

Good podcasting. All right, Will, we're going to do some more news. You want to hang around? Yeah, no, literally. I have nothing to do. All right, let's move on and talk about the Bucks GM, the Bucs GM, Jason Light. It's not licked, right? It is light.

It is light. It's light off and on. Jason Light is speaking out on Roberto Aguayo. This after the Bucks signed Nick Falk as training camp competition. And in an interview with the Tampa Bay Times, light was very, very open. Quote, read the stats. He wasn't very good last year.

He wants to improve him. He's going to work at it. And we still have confidence him, but you're always trying to get better. Will, you know this. like everybody else, he got drafted in the second round. The Bucks traded up to get a kicker in round two unheard of, and then he was 22 of 31 last year. What does the GM's statement tell you?

That they're going to move on if they have to move on. Look, I mean, people move on for first round quarterbacks all the time in the NFL these days because of the lowered salary scale. Now, don't get me wrong, the second round kicker is absolutely the worst drafting mistake we've seen maybe since the Vikings forgot to make that pick a while. I think that, you know, what Wes and I were talking about this other day, but like the worst thing on Twitter, the worst thing you can do is not be willing to admit a mistake and go fix it.

I mean, the absolute worst thing he could do is just say, no, we invest in the second round pick in Aguayo, we're going to keep rolling this Shawshank Redemption machine out there and just let him keep kicking and missing left and right. You've got to bring in some competition, make him earn a stripes. Next to the quarterback, a head coach's confidence waivers with the, the kicker as much as any position in the league. If you're a running back in a wide receiver in a slump, they keep you in there. If you're a kicker, they've got to get rid of you because you have to be able to trust

him with the game on the line. That's why you don't spend second round picks on kickers. I also, there was another, I don't know if it was the same interview, but I saw it over the weekend where Light had this to say about Aguayo. He's a rookie, 21 years old. He had to learn that he's not doing this for fun anymore. Mark, that almost speaks to some issues behind the scenes, what they thought about maybe work habits or his effort.

That's how I read that. Do you feel so much? I think if you're going to invest in a second round pick, you should know pretty securely what he's going to be like on that front coming into the NFL. Now, I mean, we all follow teams that have done exactly the opposite

with first round. I mean, it was the most bizarre pick ever, partly because he wasn't that great a kicker in college. Like, he missed half his kicks between 40 and 49 in his last year in college. It's like, I don't know, the whole thing concerning is that. And by the way, Nick Folk, as I know as a Jets fan, he's a good kicker.

He's always been a good, steady kicker. So I would not. I'd be surprised if Folk isn't the kicker week one in Tampa. We'll see. Moving on. Oh, this is some bad news for Doug Whaley. E.J. Manuel's time of Buffalo has come to a close. The former Bill's quarterback signed a deal with the Oakland Raiders on Monday.

The team announced terms of the deals not disclosed. Please don't do it to me. Please don't do it to me. I love this guy, E.J. I believe it, just don't do it. Wow. I mean, that was Doug Whaley on the, you're the GM segment,

not actually Doug Whaley, but what might have been happening behind the scenes. Will, your thoughts on this move and Doug Whelie finally saying goodbye to E.J. Manuel. Yeah, we were talking about admitting mistakes.

You should have admitted it years ago. E.J. Manuel was somehow the first quarter. The 2013 draft class in terms of quarterbacks, I mean, Mike Glennon is the shining star left in this group of guys. I mean, E.J. Manuel, G.O. Smith. All-time bad draft class for quarterbacks.

Yeah. And the weirdest thing I thought about the whole E.J. manual experiment was that, so when he was actually drafted, Buddy Nix was the GM in Buffalo. And Doug Wally hadn't been promoted. And Doug Whaley hadn't actually been promoted. And then after that, Doug Whaley got promoted to GM. And people asked him, they're like, hey, you know, were you the guy who pulled the trigger on E.J. Manuel? Or was that buddy? and he could have pawned him off, and he took ownership of it.

That tells me everything I need to know about Doug Whaley's management and personnel skills, the fact that he was willing to own up to E.J. Manuel, when clearly there was a major problem with him coming out of college, and as soon as he got in the pros. I would just say that had we known when that pick was made, it was such a surprising pick. It was a total reach for a quarterback in that draft at that point. Had we known that Whaley and E.J. Manuel were going to survive in Buffalo for four plus years,

you would have thought a lot of critics would be wrong. There would have been something good that came out of it. Will couldn't be more right. This divorce should have come two plus years ago. Right. He didn't admit any mistake. He just had people come into the organization that took his legs out from under him and he didn't get to make the decisions anymore.

As recently as midway through last season, there's still these leaks coming from the bills that are like, well, we still kind of want to see E.J. Manuel. Like, we wanted to bench Tyrod Taylor midway through last season. Like those leaks came. Remember when they were in London? When you were in London back in 2015, right? Greg Roman at the time was the one that a lot of people thought liked E.J. Manuel.

There were issues with whoever else was a quarterback, but what a mysterious career for E.J. Manuel so far. Am I the only one who thinks the Raiders should be aiming a lot higher for their car insurance after what happened in the playoffs? That's a good point. I would have taken Matt McLean on a re-signed contract over E.J. Manuel. Yeah, I would take plenty of people. Colin Kaepernan.

Ryan Fitzpatrick. There must be something in E.J. Manuel that these talent evaluators see that... I mean, he wasn't a bad guy. Yeah, he's a leader. Like, people liked him coming out of college.

He was Mike Mayock and Greg Kosol. He was all their number one quarterback in that class, too. Like, he had some skills. Yeah. Moving on, a report from the Observer Reporter, Ben Rothosberger leaning toward a return to the Steelers. The exact quote, actually.

I'm leaning towards it. That's the entire articles. That's the article. Rathlisberger in January after the Steelers were knocked out of the playoffs by New England, said on his radio show that he had to think about whether or not he was going to play in 2017. I will give credit to this room, but also the football cognizanti for seeing through this that Big Ben was never going away. Well, calm down, Big Ben. Nobody believed you anyway.

Yeah, I mean, Breaking News Scoopage here. I am also leaning towards writing about football in 2017. And I mean, I could get fired, I guess, for like a Morals Clause. Breaking News, Will Brinson will continue his career as a sports writer. Well, as he said, barring disaster. Right, again, or a Morals Clause. That's entirely possible. World's clause.

I do. I thought actually the most interesting thing, and I don't know Dale Lally at all, but did you guys, I'm sure at least one of you clicked on this Observer Reporter thing. Did you notice his bio in the top right corner? It's all I could think about what else. Oh, let me read it. Okay, go ahead. After hobnobbing around the NFL in the press boxes and sidelines,

sports reporter Dale Lolley will let you know the insider scoop. Dale can also be heard on the Steelers Radio Network pregame show prior to every game. Follow it on Twitter at D. Lolley lore. Hobnobbing. Yes, hobnobbing. Who's he hobnobbing about? That's not, you don't doing work at your hobnobbing? Obnobnobber.

Lally's got the insider scoop. So if you, based on this profile, if you do X amount of hobnobbing at any period, you're at that point, you can go into the bunker and just be an insider.

I guess so. You probably know. I thought you had to stay in the streets. Well, I'm kind of all over the place. I'm the president. You've carved your own path. Yeah.

Everybody goes their own route. The Lollie Man, the Lollipop went his own route. Well, I like that Ben, Rathosberger is still not committing. He said he's leaning toward it. At what point is he getting pissed or depressed or just is it making him crazy that literally

no one believes him when he's threatening retirement? Like his general manager has spoken about it publicly. The owner has said that they all expect him back. And yet they didn't do anything to address the issue in free agency. Yet he's still out there kind of being like, well, you know, I'm leaning towards it. Maybe not, like, no one believes this guy. I would go crazy if I were him. Maybe he should just retire just to stick it to people.

I would be fine with that. That would be weird. That would be a weird move to retire to stick it to people. That's a strange thing that literally no one believes him. I'm going to retire out of spite. We all got lullied there. And finally in the news, oh, man, this is a big one. Trooperat.

Trooper alert, Trooper alert. Blake Bordels. Oh, the trope alert machine's going to blow. Blake Bordel's confident about his offseason progress. This, Bordels told jacksonville.com, the first week, it wasn't pretty. It didn't look good. Part of trying to change things is it won't be great right away. But we were able to hash it out.

Mark, they hashed it out. No more mechanics issues. No more crummy interception rate. Blake Bortals is back because of his work with quarterbacking gurus Tom House and Adam Doodoo. You buy it? No, it's a trope because it's completely ponderously predictable

that we'd be getting this story right now. Thankfully for me, I won't be touching this issue all offseason. We have our no right list, things we would never be asked to write about. Mine includes Blake Bordles and the NFC. Has this ever been the entire NFC? Done with them. Just one question on that. I'll respect that, but I don't have any power within the organization.

Have the middle managers signed off on this, the people that would hypothetically assign to you various stories? Been fine so far. Mark has basically taken Napalm to our Instant Messenger client lately and told the bosses that he's doing whatever he wants to do. It's going very well. This is some of the same advice that Mark has given me in my dealings with my wife. If you wanted to bring that up, Greg,

That's fine. I mean, I don't know why you needed to do that. Neither does Will, I would imagine. There is a little bit of a connective tissue. Peter from Office Space 5 with you right now, Mark, where you're just seeing how far you could push middle management before they act. And maybe you'll just, you know, just promotion will come out of this. I think that's exactly what could happen.

Do you ever do this, Will, at CBS, just start going rogue, push your boundaries, you know, start telling Priscoe to shove it? Got to go to fish it. cubicle? I tried it. And if you, the problem is if you go rogue on Prisco, is that he'll rat you out. He's just a very tan narc and he'll just, he'll just, he will take, he will go to the bosses and tell you, tell them exactly what you said. And I'm not, I'm not, I'm like, I'm really more of a stay in my lane and grumble quietly to the side kind of guy. How about, as Greg is starting to do, going totally rogue on the home front? I know you have, you know, a young child. You've

got a carrying white, but just going utterly rogue, you know, inside your house. Yeah, yeah, no, that's my move, Mark. Usually I'll, like, I'll take all the TVs up to my office and just hang out up in my office and not do any work. I'll plan trips to other cities to see concerts with friends and tell my wife the week before we leave. So, you know, I mean, those sort of things, just really, you know, just power plays, if you will. You're owning that space. I like it.

Yeah. Will Brinson. At Will Brinson on Twitter. make sure you follow him you can read his stuff at cbsports dot com where again he's the senior NFL writer that is a good title i gotta get one of them

I gotta get a senior stay in your lane Dan I will back up and again will thank you for serving as the conduit for all the global media and I say this one more time no request

if you want any of my thoughts on the tom Brady Jersey saga see earlier in this podcast will thank you no problem I will uh I will type up my pool report and have it to you guys. I'll have it along with the TBS report tomorrow morning. Thank you.

Very nice. Will Brinson, everybody. And that's what's happening in the news. All right, guys. Very nice of Will to stop by and do that service, Mark. Did a great job. I thought he asked some, you know, the three top questions right out of the gate, like a true journal. And you're right.

You're right, Greg. It's time from, and I got to break something new. Globally. Streets are talking. You know what? At least they're talking. I'll take that. At least people are talking,

oh, what's hands is coming up with next? It was like Michael Jackson after Thriller. What's coming next? I feel like I've been, you know, if I was against this whole move and I've been more accepting of it on this show, but Greg seems to constantly be coming at you. I think you could read between the lines on that.

Really? Yeah, it's coming on Greg's corner. Is Greg an insider? Wouldn't it be Ian's corner? No, but like, you know, some of the network references I've gotten. Do we think Ian feels threatened by this? I would imagine not high.

Highly threatened, not yet. I think in terms of exposure, Greg has the most exposure on the network and things of that nature. So a story like this comes around, all of a sudden Greg's like, hmm, me no like you this much. Speaking of which, uh, we're mentally challenged Yoda. We'll all be on the network Tuesday. Oh, yes. Up to the minute live with a live hit. The show has now moved.

Dan, do you know what it is? No, no idea. It's literally we're taping it during the show, so you should be able to figure it out. Cool. It's like 5.45. 5.m. Eastern. Let me alone.

2 p.m. Pacific. All right. That's great. Our hit will be somewhere in the middle of that, I think. But yeah, I think we're on a few times this week, but definitely Tuesday. The producer actually approached our cubicle today and say, hey, we're moving you up in the show a little bit. I feel like that's a good sign. Well, last time out, Mr. F got a mention on NFL Network.

That was excellent. People starting to pay attention. Great job by Mr. Patrick Claibon with the Mr. F-R-R-F in a big spot. All right. Now, let's talk about, oh, yeah, it's collateral damage time. Greg, this is a two-part column. And why don't we talk about it? We'll go around the horn here a couple times, and you can go collateral benefits for a player,

any player, or collateral damage for any player. and why don't we start, Greg, since you wrote the piece on NFL.com. I'll start with the Patriots in general because I think the Patriots, what they do that is unique is they do a good job of planning for this year's team and ahead at the same time.

So three of their moves this year, I think, spelled some bad news for players on their roster coming up. Julian Edelman, his contract runs out at the end of 2017. Oh, I'd like to have an extension. Uh-oh, a little bit of less leverage, certainly fewer targets after getting Brandon Cooks. I mean, I can't see Julian Edelman having the same numbers.

And he's been one of the most underpaid players in the NFL, I would say, over the last few years, signing a four-year, $17 million. He's probably never going to get a big-time NFL contract, and he probably won't get in New England now. I think he'll have to take a below-market deal if he stays because of Brandon Cooks. And then similar to that, James White is the hero of the super. Super Bowl, and they bring in Rex Burkhead, who does some similar things, maybe even a little better than James White, and Malcolm Butler is a Super Bowl hero, and they bring in Stefan Gilmore, which is going to, I don't know if he leaves New England. I still think Malcolm Butler might end up staying, but he's going to have less leverage.

He's not going to get the contract necessarily that he wants because the guy's coming in. The one, and I'm not questioning any of these moves, some of the loyalty issues I could factor in, but listen, they know what they're doing. my one concern I would have since you brought up Malcolm Butler what Logan Ryan's gone Stefan Gilmore has had up and down NFL career he was actually really bad the first half of last year and then came on

what if you get like a crappy stuff on Gilmore and then Logan Ryan's gone and you let Malcolm Butler go to New Orleans they could jack up their secondary potentially so they're going to do some collateral damage to themselves possibly it's possible which is one reason why I wouldn't be surprised if they keep Malcolm Butler and who knows if they trade them

Maybe they use the first round pick, assuming they get one that they get back. Maybe they use it on a cornerback and kind of start all over there. I think Dionne Lewis, too. I mean, he's got to be watching this thinking, like, how do I fit in in this backfield where everyone's a receiving back? That dark timeline that you laid out in, 12 and 4. I would say, Dionne Lewis, if anything could be on his couch watching Super Bowl 52, the Patriots taking another one.

This will work out fine. I do this every year. I'll lay out a dark scenario for the game. the Patriots and it never takes. So this is my new one right now, is the secondary, I guess. But there's some logic to it, right? That could backfire. It absolutely could happen.

And then the offense scores 38 points a game. 13 and 3. Wes, give us some collateral. Well, are we going for benefits here? Whatever you are. Either one. Damage or benefit. It's a weird year because the signings are so spread out.

And so many of the big names, Tony Romo, Jimmy Garoppel, Adrian Peterson, Jamal Charles, Jay Cutler, like Garrett Blunt even are still out there. So if the Packers or the Raiders had signed like Peterson to go with Martellus Bennett or Peterson to go with Jared Cook and Cordarrel Patterson, I could see those being winners. But I'll take James Winston just because I thought he really needed that second receiver behind Mike Evans and he got the best deep threat in football and Deshaun Jackson. I know Greg was really excited about the Bucks last year and I wasn't ready to go there with James,

but I could see this being the breakout year. Offensively, I agree, because I think they're going to get better at running back, too. I don't know who it's going to be, whether it's going to be a free agent or a draft pick or both and Doug Martin actually does something. But just the simple fact for Winston, they can't get worse.

Charles Sims is healthy. And in 2015 was one of the best receiving backs in football, and he didn't really have his services last year at all. I like teams that understand that it's not just signing, a name at the top of the list, the guy at the cost the most, but it's about fit inside your offense. And Deshaun Jackson was the perfect guy to match with Mike Evans. And by all accounts, James Winston had been lobbying for Deshaun Jackson for weeks and weeks.

And so they showed his quarterback, too, we're going to get you what you need. How about Nick Carter, the blonde one from the Backstreet Boys, publicly pushing for a Deshaun Jackson signing with Tampa? Is that play a role at all? That was a huge factor. Maybe out here we don't notice that But down in Tampa That is an utterly massive factor

Wes, name one Backstreet Boy song Backstreet's back all right That's correct That is a song It's insane that that's the name of a song By Backstreet Boys Sidney, we can't play the song Can't believe I knew that

Yeah, it's a good job We can't play the song But let's play a song that sounds like Backstreet's back She likes a peppermid bubblegum sunday She's hot like that Okay, that's kind of what it sounds like All right, Mark, your turn.

Get collateral. I'm going to go collateral damage. This person was damaged so far by the free agency process. Like psychologically? Well, I don't know. I think you'd have to ask. You'd have to ask. It's Colin Kaepernick. And this is a guy that is, you know, years from being a Super Bowl starter. I know he's not the quarterback that he was and his potential is bottomed out. But the 49ers quickly went out and signed Brian Hoyer and Matt Barkley as

better options than Colin Kaepernick, which a couple years ago would have been a, would have been like a stunning move. At this point, I think the reason I look at Kaepernick as damaged is because of what happened last season, all the sitting during the national anthem business, you thought, oh, you know, people will get over that and the country's changing and evolving. And by the time the off season hits, Kaepernick's market wouldn't be affected by something like that, except you look at who the NFL is owned by for the most part. And it's super billionaire, typically, you know, conservative. Conservative, hyper-patriotic, don't want to affect their alliances in business or their marketability of their team. And they don't want to bring in that kind of.

drama and this is a guy who over the weekend raised over a million dollars to fly an airplane to Somalia which is in deep famine to bring water and supplies it's one person doing something he cares about Colin Kaepernick in many ways has done nothing but this kind of stuff for the last year to he is becoming in his own way politically aware he cares about issues he's doing something positive to try to help and he cannot get a job he's viewed as it seems seems to me completely toxic to most of these teams. I had someone texted me today who is not a big football fan but is socially aware and wanted to know why what is the real answer for why Colin Kaepernick isn't getting interest.

And it's a very complex issue. First of all, we're talking about a guy who lost his job to Blaine Gabbard and then couldn't regain it last summer. That matters in the NFL when you're a quarterback who can't beat out Blaine Gabbard. his he lacks field vision he lacks accuracy he lacks touch these are issues he has so 25 out of 32 teams probably aren't even going to sign him because they don't want him as a starter and at that point are you going to sign him to compete it's the same thing with tibo do you want the circus in town right and one anonymous aFC general manager spoke with bleacher reports mike freeman

and here's in that vein what the gm had to say the problem is three things are happening with him First, some teams genuinely believe that he can't play. They think he's shot. That's what Wes is getting at. I'd put that number around 20%. Second, some teams fear the backlash from fans after getting him. They think there might be protests or Trump will tweet about the team. Think about that.

Oh, my God. There are GMs, according to this GM, that feels that the president tweeting would stop a team from pursuing a quarterback, a football player. I'd say that number is around 10%. Then there's another 10% that has a number. a mix of those feelings. Third, the rest genuinely hate him and can't stand what he did, kneeling for the National Anthem. They want nothing to do with him. They won't move on. They think showing no interest is a form of punishment. I think this is getting out with Mark. You were saying, Mark. I think some teams also want to use Kaepernick as a cautionary tale to stop other players

in the future from doing what he did. Yikes. I want to see this play out a little bit. And I, look, you'll never, you'll never go wrong expecting the worst out of billionaires generally. I mean, so on some level it makes sense. But everyone's saying blacklist. And I guess I wanted to see it shake out because I think if he did nothing last year off the field, there was no kneeling controversy. And he was a free agent right now. Would any of us be that surprise?

No. I mean, Jay Cutler's a free agent. Ryan Fitzpatrick's a free agent Chase Daniel's a free agent Robert Griffin the third's a free agent So if he doesn't get a job the entire offseason Then I would listen to that And maybe all this is true

But he's damaged goods Even putting all that aside So I kind of think And I'm thinking the best of these teams That he will get a job And that just like Gino Smith Just signed for $2 million You know for a very low price

I think eventually he'll find some fit Like these other guys like Fitzpatrick I refuse to think that it is only because of him, the football player. Aaron Murray has signed a deal. Kellen Moore just re-signed with the Cowboys. But as Rickson, Jay Cutler has not. People at his level or above, very similar. I think it has to, we would have to, we would have to willingly close our eyes to say this has nothing to do with something beyond football.

And again, not in every case, but with large chunks of the league. Because when you're, if your GM goes and does that, who does the GM have to answer to? The owner, I think this is an ownership issue in many more cases than it is a GM or a coaching staff issue. And it could be that the owner isn't even publicly or even privately voicing these concerns. It could be just the GM saying, I know my owner wouldn't like this. And reading the T-LAT leaves, like what's the benefit here? What's the opportunity cost, basically what it is? As you said, it's a complex issue because I think if Kaepernick was 30% better last year, then it wouldn't be an issue.

He'll get a job. Oh, one last thing. By the way, if the idea of this guy kneeling an international historical sign of fealty and respect during the national anthem causes you to hate him, you really need to do some soul searching yourself. That's all I'll say about that. You got to watch out with those Trump tweets, too. That'll get you in trouble. Mark, I'm looking at you, buddy. Well, he might be tweeting at you soon about your investigative work on the Patriots quarterback he's quite good friends with.

You're getting closer and closer to the web. You're insinuating that I'm in great danger. I'm just putting the energy out there to see what happens. You're trying to get me and my family killed. That's not really, that didn't come out exactly the way I'd say. I'm going to throw one out there, and it's kind of a tricky one because it's collateral benefit that can become collateral damage. Is that even possible? That's part three of the series.

His name is Eli Manning, and the reason should be obvious why it benefits. it. Brandon Marshall was signed to a pretty healthy contract for a team that maybe wasn't hurting at the wide receiver position. They went out and spent money to bring another veteran, Brandon Marshall, who is, people don't forget things quickly, but he had as good a season as any wide receiver in the entire league in 2015. The guy can still play, even if maybe he's lost a half step. He's a great addition and certainly an upgrade over Wes's boy, Victor Cruz. So you slide in Brandon Marshall with O'Dell Beckham and Sterling Shepard. Is that the best big three in football?

It's probably in the conversation maybe in terms of wide receivers. Absolutely in the conversation. I'd say at the top of my head, that's the number one. And then you have Eli Manning, who's coming off a woeful season. He's 36 years old. And this is where the damage comes in. It's almost like the Giants say, hey, Eli, put up or shut up now. Because if he has another season like he had last season, 20 turnovers,

you really get the vibe that Eli's starting job for the first time in 15 years would be in grave danger if he's not able to take this offense and put points on the board. And to that point earlier this month, Ben McAdoo kind of put Eli on the spot a little bit. And he said Eli needs to do a better job of playing with fast feet. And I think he needs to sit back, sit on that back foot in the pocket. he kind of put some of their ills on him. So Eli's got to have a bounceback season or I don't know if he has a job, a starting job. The GM also said in January,

Eli's on the back nine of his career. You don't hear Belichick saying that about Tom Brady who's five years older than him. Well, they should draft a quarterback then because they're not signing one. I mean, they signed Gino Smith, but even I don't think that's a long-term answer. So that means they'll tell us what they think

what they're draft. because that sounds great, but I will believe that the Giants will move on from Eli Manning when I see it. I think they're going to stick with him a year or two too long. Well, I think it's stressful. I'll never forget the Jimmy Johnson Miami Dolphins era where he attached himself to a late period, Dan Marino, after being with Troy Aikman's heyday.

And you could kind of just feel that it was not going to, all these people were like, oh, he's just going to go into Miami and duplicate what happened with the Cowboys. and it showed how hard that is, but especially when your quarterback is declining. And now if you're Ben McAdoo, it's a stressful role to be at the back end of Eli Mannion's career versus the every three years, four years he takes you to the Super Bowl

and has an amazing playoff run. I'll just add, I'm not ready to count him out. I think he could have a good year next year. I think he could be fine. We'll see about the arm strength. And Wes, you brought that up many times. If that arm is shot, then it's going to probably come back to really haunt him and lead to the end of his career.

We have no idea. It could just be an in-season thing that's arm fatigue or something. I'm just saying people have died of E.I for a long time. And he seems to have overcome doubts his whole career. So if he can extend his career another couple of years where he's a proficient starter, I would not be stunned. The other thing is they don't need to draft a quarterback now. It's not a great class for that. If they're not in love with someone, they don't need to find his successor.

And I think the Gino Smith signing for whatever it is, a patch tells you exactly that. But couldn't you see it? Would you be shocked if they? I wouldn't be shocked. Like picked in the second round and then blew the doors off everyone and be like, whoa, they just took a quarterback in the top three rounds. That's what the Patriots did. When the Patriots took Jimmy Garoppolo, it came higher than a lot of people thought the Patriots would pick a quarterback.

But it was at a time where you think Tom Brady's going to be great, but you don't know. You have to keep taking these quarterbacks. They took Brissette now. It's like, I think quarterbacks and the Patriots are showing this with Grop. There were so much. You should just take a lottery ticket in the third round if you got someone you like. All right, one more time around, and then we go. Greg. I'm going to go to someone else that got damaged.

How about Thomas Rawls? 161 yards in the playoffs. You know, at times he's looked like a top five running back, a guy who can carry the load. Now Eddie Lacey comes in, some similar skill sets there. I don't blame Pete Carroll at all for wanting more guys, but I think Rawls has had his chance, and he hasn't been able to stay on the field enough

at the same time. I mean, this is a guy that they believed in enough coming off ankle surgery that they didn't really get much support for Thomas. They were expecting him to come back and kind of be the man. I think they expected too much. They don't want to get burned this time around. It's going to be tough for him to get all those carries again. Most backfields ride the hot hand, and I'll be shocked if Thomas Rawls is not the one with the hot hand entering week one. I mean, I think Pete Carroll is very concerned about the durability of that backfield they had an incredible part of it is the reason is your is your offensive line is is a mess and and your running backs cannot stay healthy i like the signing i just we'll see it's going to be a

full-on competition that's all seattle does west i'll do another benefit ooh i like it twin jared goff todd girlie wow very faint benefit i like this you haven't heard a single positive thing proffered on this site about the rams and here it comes they got the best tackle on the market. Andrew Whitworth, they put him at left tackle. They moved Greg Robinson, who has been an immense draft bust off of left tackle, where he's been terrible. And you move him, he's going to compete at right tackle,

but the best idea might be just move him into guard where he can blow people off the ball. He was okay as a rookie. He played guard. Yeah, maybe you can help the run game and the passing game. You're definitely going to help the passing game with Andrew Whitworth, who is still playing at a Pro Bowl level as of 2016 season. And then if you move Robinson to guard and leave Havenstein at right tackle, I think you've helped the offensive line immensely.

You also went from Kenny Britt to Robert Woods, wide receiver, not too excited. Yeah, but you went from Jeff Fisher's coaching staff for Sean McVeigh. I think they would, and they have a high draft pick, correct? No, the Titans have their first job pick. They sold the farm. God. I was going to say they would be well set up to take one of these dynamic offensive. of talents in the first round, but they kind of bang themselves

a little bit here. But let's stay positive. I like that, Wes. We might get, we might get to see the first five games of his career version of Todd Gurley. Who knows? That's fair. All right. Mark, why don't you finish it up? Collateral benefit.

I'm going to try very hard to spin this positively. Do it. Who benefits? How about football followers hoping for a mostly quiet march and very humdrum free agency period? If that's what you wanted, you benefited. That's what you got because you wanted. I don't

I like drama as much as the next person, but I think that we talked about this. You don't like drama. You like things nice and calm. Really? You would like drama if it came in the form of Jimmy Garoppolo to the Browns. Yeah, I mean, the rest of it, I think

we talked about the cap space thing where teams don't have to make dramatic cuts where this guy that you thought, oh my gosh, there's no way he wouldn't be on this team. Make sure, well, they got to free up cap space. I just think that free agency, if they want to turn it into this three-day long television gala where it's like the biggest thing on the planet, well, you've got to back it up year to year at some point. There's got to be these 10-Paul moments.

And this free agency period did not have that in my book. You can point to the Brock Osweiler trade, but it was more unusual than it was utterly game-changing. He's not going to be on a team next year necessarily. And I think that this is not going to get better in one year. It's going to continue to trend this way. It's going to be truly about eight or nine hours of real drama tucked into what we're being told is four or five days of unbelievable television. Well, this year has been weird, though, because of what West said before,

the biggest names, I've been on the hook to write a potential Adrian Peterson column for two weeks running now for both weekends. Like, okay, if Adrian Peterson signs, you're writing a column. Well, he's still out there. That anyone, there's someone on the Tony Romo beat. If Tony Romo happens, if it's Saturday night, you got to write it. It's like, that hasn't happened either.

Those are the big names. Jimmy G. is still sitting out there. Cousins is, in theory, not sitting out there, but no one's totally closed, like, the door on that. All the big names this year, it's still waiting. I got Mark on the Garrett Blunt beat for next weekend. I'm fine with that. Well, what happens, Greg, if Adrian Peterson signs at 10 at night on a Saturday and you have, like, six glasses of wine in you?

Greg's got to write it. Well, Greg's not going to have six glasses of wine in, first of all. Is that how you get a sign of these things? By the, I thought it was a sneaky, a humble brag from Greg. He was like, oh, I'm on the beat for writing the story about the most legendary running back of the last 30 years. Right. He and. All right.

If that's a humble brag, I'll trade it. One of you guys can go on that humble brag. I have no desire to be on that beat. Exactly. Exactly. But you're right. Like, I struggled. I've written this column for a few years, and it was harder to come up with some good

names. Like I went with Tyrod Taylor as a guy who suffered some damage. And like, what did he really lose? Like Robert Woods and Marquis good. It's just he doesn't have any receivers. It was kind of Tyrod Taylor. You know, he's stuck in Buffett. She used to not having receivers. Well, I know, but your number two receiver, at the time I wrote it, his number two receiver was Walt Powell. So it's just like the 2016 season. That sounds, that sounds like a guy that works in the maintenance department at the parks. Right. And that's assuming Sammy Watkins even healthy. He might be, Powell. He might be number one.

Hey, pal, you're on pitcher mound duty. Make sure it's rounded off nicely. You'd make a very nice, you'd make an appropriate parks and rec manager yourself. That was a good order. That was succinct. I could do that. It's good to have a backup plan. That's mine.

It's a deep backup plan. I'm in. I sign up for it. All right. Wait, I have a question on Greg's duty here. Oh, yeah. So have you pre-written any of it? Have you been tempted to pre-write an article, like, guessing on which team?

A couple nutt graphs. No, no, nutgraves? Wasting time on pre-writing things is Mark's game. I don't want to cut in. I would have written like 2,000 words about the, you know, summing up his career and just put like two paragraphs on top about where he went. I think that works, right? You could.

It does. You could write right now the state of his career, why people didn't have interest in him, that kind of stuff. I mean. I got burned in the Super Bowl pre-writing. I don't want to go back. So, but just in terms of unsolicited advice from your colleagues, bust a couple of nut graphs.

Just get them out. A little pre-writing. All right. bust a couple of... I think you can't lose. Trust me. All right. Just like the background on his...

That's how it works. The whole belt story and whatnot. I might leave that out. It was a switch. That's right. I just want to be factual as well. This is a big spotlight on you, this story. It happens.

Adrian Peterson to the Patriots. Away we go. We're flying to 19 and 0. And maybe that's why you don't want to pre-write it because it becomes more about the Patriots. being unstoppable once he's connected. He's not going to the pain. You're going to be home alone with your two children.

You're going to have to be handling them for hours and hours. All they're going to be going to be going nuts. And Adrian Peterson is going to retire. And you're going to be screwed because you didn't pre-write a word of it. Take our advice, Greg. All right. That's it. We should call up Judy Batista and offer advice on her writing career too.

Maybe. Former New York Times scribe now writing for NFL media, Judy Patista. Greg likes that everyone to be know every name that's mentioned deep background for anyone that might not be aware. You're referring to when I pointed out that John Gonzalez's nickname was gone. I had many people on Twitter thank me for considering that they might not be totally aware of one of our co-host's husband. Shadowy League figure was in your corner on this one too. The white night of the around the NFL podcast, Greg Rose. For all the uninformed listeners out there.

I cater to the informed ones. I don't know. Got all the base covered it. That's enough. What is happened in the last two minutes? It does. All right. We'll be back on Wednesday.

We hope to have a special guest joining us in studio. No, it's not Lil Debbie, but it is someone that we love and admire and has not been here in a while. So hopefully that will materialize. We'll see. If not, it will be just the four of us and we'll have fun. That's what we do. Let's go. You're in deep trouble, Sydney.

I'm really mad. Danza signing off for Quiet Storm, the mailman, the boss, a new money behind the glass. Till Wednesday. Everybody, yeah. This is an I-Heart podcast.