NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL Around the League: July 24th, 2013

Episode Date: July 25, 2013

In the first episode of the new-and-improved Around the League podcast, Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Gregg Rosenthal get you set for training camp with all the news from coast to coast. Plus, the guys wrap up their team-by-team previews with the NFC North and NFC East. Check out our newly-minted podcast and look for us soon on iTunes!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. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else.

It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And I'm joined by Greg Rosenthal and Mark Sessler, colleagues. You'll notice that. We didn't call it the ATL debate club because, sadly, it is no more. You called it another edition of the Around the League podcast,

but technically this would be the first edition of the Around the League podcast, even though it's really not much different than the ATL debate club. Why don't you explain why we've even gone down this road? No, this was a decision that was made where you have a brand new schedule for the show, which is actually really exciting. Greg, you want to lay it out as the fearless leader of ATL? Yeah, we're going to do three days a week here. We're going to be talking news, not just one day a week,

tacked on to Damashek, like some little, you know, ugly step-sister. We're going to have our own iTunes, you know, to subscribe to. That's going to be up, hopefully by the time you hear this, definitely soon. Monday, Wednesday, Friday in training camp, starting with this show. So we'll be back on Friday. It will be a rotating cast. the three of us, Chris Wesseling, who's on vacation right now, will also be joining in very often.

And hopefully we can get it even more than three days a week once we get to the season. So if you guys listen and subscribe and tell the people, then maybe we can do it five days a week. This kind of feels like to me in Wayne's World when Noah's Arcade came on board and it changed it to a more corporate type of show, I don't know, Mark, what do you feel about this? well I don't know the only thing I would have some issue with is that calling us a the red-headed stepchild it was actually it was ugly stepsister was Greg's words because we worked with you know a string of

you know high level corporate types to approve the name debate club there was no debate well there was some debate I think there was one show when we debated I think because Dan and I are you know our our friendship as co-hosts grew to the point where I couldn't disagree with anything he said. It reminds me too much of Skip Baylor so no more plus it reminds me of being I was actually in a debate club when I was I can't believe you're mentioning this again

you got to bury this. Yeah I got to forget about it but I'm excited around the league podcast I mean you guys did a great job building up the debate club you've built up a big group of loyal listeners so hopefully you guys all come with us most in Australia mostly in Australian

outside America very few Americans well let's be honest not that big but Hopefully they come with us and we grow this thing. Yes, it's very exciting and we're going to be on iTunes and that's a big deal too. So all the people that have been tweeting us asking how to find the show, it's about to get a lot more accessible. So that's good. When I moved out here, I think it was they just heard this sort of whiny voice with a lisp

and they said, we've got to get that on more often. You know what I mean? Little effeminate. Like, let's jump on that. they have tastemakers they know what people are a trio that knows how to sell ourselves yes that is for sure so we we should talk about some NFL now and now the housekeeping is done what is the the big story today has to be bill bellichick right what an image that was on nfl network today when belichick was talking about erin hernandez and you don't really see him in this mode i think being a little vulnerable being

a little apologetic, being more open. Granted, he was reading from a statement, and he's talking about Aaron Hernandez and what happened. And then all of a sudden, there's a split screen on the show, and Aaron Hernandez is walking into the courtroom, and he's being tried for murder, and it was kind of a procedural day in the courtroom, and there's Belichick on one side.

We're listening to him. There's Hernandez on the other. And, you know, as a Patriots fan, I mean, you could have never seen this come in, It was just one of those moments in the NFL we cover the business that I know I'll remember. I'll remember that five years from now, 10 years from now. And I think like with Belichick especially, he's so, you know, celebrated as this guy, this stoic guy that is a few words and would take the most emotional situation and boil it down to nuts and

bolts and leave everyone searching for a quote to put into a story. But he really showed his humanity today. And, you know, I think when I remember back to like the football life special on him, you did see behind the veil a little bit how he really cares about his players and there's relationships there like I'm thinking of when Randy Moss sat in his office trying to convince him to have a Halloween party there's his other side to Belichick that came through today it was pretty rare to see that in a press conference yeah I kind of thought heading into today that he would be dismissive of it maybe address it with one line and then give a lot of non-answers but as he started talking you

began to realize that he actually had to address this head on and he did it was a prepared statement And then he went much more the Bill Belichick we know when they opened it up to questions. Every question he answered saying he can't get into it or he was told not to get into it. But on balance, I thought, you know, he gave people some insight to where what he was thinking. And you don't get that usually from Belcher. But even then when they asked kind of a question that wasn't specifically about Hernandez, he did talk. And one thing that stuck with me when he was just saying that, look, this is real life.

You know, this isn't about football. I can't think of anything that would be more, you know, serious than this. And you saw a guy that is so in his football cocoon that he did seem a little shaken out of that. He understood the gravity of the situation. And Dan hit the nail on the head with, I think the expectation was he wasn't going to say anything. So maybe we're just so trained by him not saying anything that this was a surprise. Right. But he did a good job with that.

Well, yeah. And Deadspin had a pretty good post today where they collected all the sports, writers that tweeted breathlessly about what a beautiful job by Belichick. It really wasn't a beautiful job. He did what any other coach would do, but we're just so used to Belichick not really treating the press all that well that this seemed like some type of revelation. But he's also Belichick. So I don't know if Pat Shermer is going out there and talking like this.

When Belichick wants to be smart and funny and incisive, he can be. He's sometimes like that about football, this time about something else. Well, do you think they're going to, I'll go out of the way to never address this situation again publicly if they can. Yeah, they're having the captains speak, and after that, I think they're going to have the captains address it in some way, and then after that they're just going to turn the page. I mean, he already basically said, I've been advised to just talk about it once, and he's not going to, you're not going to get this Belichick again next time. Right, and I think Brady and the rest of the captains are going to be pretty tight-lipped about it. There will be no statement from Brady or anything like that. Well, we did see Brady talk to Peter King about it, basically.

And he was so typical, Brady, I thought, in such a constructed quote where he didn't even use Hernandez's name. He basically talked about, listen, I am here for my teammates, the guys that are here, you know, focused on winning football games and were only focused on that. That, I thought, was even more, much more robotic than Belichick's response. It was behind closed doors, though. So the other big news today, Von Miller, who we learned. was facing a four-game suspension. He spoke to the media today. Mark, what do you see? What's going on right now with Miller in your mind? Well, I think that's another situation where he chose to really not avoid the time.

He couldn't talk about the topic with any sort of detail. There's an appeal coming up. And I thought I was a bit surprised on his response. Someone said, do you feel like you've let your teammates down? And he said, no, I don't. And, you know, I guess we have to see how this shakes out. But, I mean, that defense will not be the same on any level if this carries through and he has this four-game ban. I thought it was interesting when we first learned of it, and that was Monday, I guess, that the NFLPA came out quickly with a statement kind of backing Miller and saying, you know, basically saying some things are not right about this situation. So I expect a pretty big fight to protect this guy from a four-game suspension.

And our guy, Ian Rappaport reported the appeal is expected. in mid-August so we should know before the season whether he's going to be suspended and you know Josh Gordon is an example this year of a guy we didn't know he was appealing but essentially he got his suspension reduced so it might not be four games I'd be surprised if it was nothing but you know there's a lot we don't know about the situation and the funny thing about the Broncos is they you know there were it was almost like when a pitcher is thrown a perfect game and then someone in the dugout speaks to him people were so high on them when they signed Welker and there were stories about how the Broncos were on an unprecedented winning streak. And then almost immediately

from that point forward, things started going bad. And this is now the latest and really greatest setback for them that they have to put up with if they're going to get back to the playoffs. I mean, I do think it's such a long season that some of these, you know, remember when Big Ben got knocked out for four games for his penalization, it was like, listen, the Steelers are going to suffer. They come out of that three and one, I think it was. And they wound up fine. They end up going to the Super Bowl that season. You're right. It might be the difference between the one seed and the two seed or something like that, or it might be nothing.

But Dan, I think, is right that, look, they should have had Elvis Dumerville and Von Miller, and now they're going to have Sean Phillips and Robert Ayers. And the Dummerville thing is kind of lost because the DUIs are such a serious thing, and they both got to spend it in the front office, and this Von Miller thing is an off-the-field. But the Dummerville thing was the biggest mistake of the off-season. And the Broncos really didn't take enough heat for that. It was all blamed on the agent, but it's the Broncos' fault just as much.

I mean, they couldn't have screwed that up more. Well, do you think it affects... You say that the difference between a 1 and 2C, do you still see them as a 1 or 2C team? I think that's the easiest division in football, so I'd be stunned if they didn't win it. So I think they have the best chance to get a buy of anyone in the AFC, I really do,

whether it's the 1 or the 2 seed. I'd give them a better chance than anyone. Okay, so for the past three weeks, we've been going division by division, big questions for each team heading into training camp. We have now reached the final two divisions, the NFC East and the NFC North. So let's start in the East. Greg Rosenthal, what do you see for the Dallas Cowboys?

Well, the thing I'm looking at is if this defense is going to come. We've been talking about this defense being a potential disaster the whole offseason. Since the day they got rid of Rob Ryan and they hired Monty Kiffin and there's a bunch of changes. and I talked about it was ridiculous to bring Jay Ratliff back at that money. What happens? He gets hurt on a conditioning test. A lot of people talked about Anthony Spencer, should you really pay that guy as much money to be a franchise tag player?

He gets hurt on the conditioning test. They lose their top backup at defensive end for the entire season to a torn Achilles. That's about as bad first couple days of training camp as you're going to have. Is Monty Kiffin at age like 104 questioning his decision? decision to join this effort? Well, it's better than USC. That's a fair point. Greg, you're off the podcast.

You're out. I mean, you have to be happy, Monty. I'm happy he's gone, but you can't imply that there's a job out there that's better than USC on this podcast. I'm not going to allow it. I'm sorry. Well, Wilk, as you might be able to tell, went to some California college. He's leaving us anyway soon, from what I understand.

So, Alex, just keep it, you know, let's keep it to the NFL. I don't care about USC, all right, buddy. Well, I don't care about my mom. And I don't know if Monty Kiffin cares about football anymore. I mean, I'm kidding, but let's face it, you want coaches on the way up. You don't want coaches at the end of their career. Was he that good at the end of his run in Tampa? Not really.

It was a very beguiling hire. After Jerry Jones said that, you know, we're going to reboot the machine here. We're going to bring energy. And I understand Kiffin's, you know, resume is impressive, dating back sometime. But it was not an energizing move for the Cowboys. And I almost wonder, like, between Rob Ryan, who's taking a. over what was the worst defense last season in terms of what yardage allowed, and you look at the Cowboys situation, which one of these coordinators comes out on top this season. The Cowboys

have more talent, but there's issues there. And I just said to Wilk that I didn't care about his college, but now I'm going to ask you, Wilk, as a USC fan, were you devastated, or was the fan base devastated that Kiffin left the team? No, we were all ecstatic that he left the team. Exactly. It was the best thing that happened to us all offseason. So that seems, it just seemed like a bit of an odd hire and now he's tasked with resurrecting this defense, which wasn't really that bad last year, is more injury riddled. I mean, Rob Ryan even said when he was defending himself after being fired that he thought he did about as good as you can do considering the issues he was up against. My other big takeaway here is I'm not sure Mark knows the meaning of the word beguiling.

Beguiling? Just throwing that out there. No, I do. I absolutely do. Well, that will be next week's podcast. We're going to break down. Beguiling's exactly. definition. The Washington Redskins, obviously big story is RG3. Has to be. What else is there? I mean, that's what, there's a thousand yards between that and storyline number two. What is storyline number two? Alfred Morris, you know, learning how to horseback ride. I mean, is there anything really that where RG3 is the big story. Today he came out. He said that he's probably not going to play in the preseason. I mean, he didn't come out and say it definitively, but he's not going to play in the preseason.

But it all seems like everything's heading toward week one for him. Yeah, I mean, don't you think that they've eyed week one to be, why throw him out there into a preseason game? What's the benefit of doing that? Yeah, there is none. And you never know. He's not going to be in team drills right away, but it seems like they're taking that Adrian Peterson mold from last year.

They'll be safe for a couple weeks, and he'll be out there and he'll be fine. I really don't know what number two is. They need a tight end. They have about four tight ends that could all start. Their wide receivers are a little jumbled. But, you know, I like the Redskins this year. Yeah, I mean, the other thing with RG3 is they pushed it in the playoffs in January and he blew out his knee.

It totally makes sense that they would now be a little extra cautious, if only to protect, you know, their butts on this. But, you know, and as I said that I said, Greg, you have the definition of beguiling up on your computer? I did, and then I switched it. But, yeah, it means to influence by trickery, flattery, mislead. I think beguiling, I always felt meant like you are confounding, you're confusing people with something. So tricking to some degree. Yeah, not too bad.

Not too bad. I'll give Mark the point on this. I like who we're going Dictionary.com on this podcast. We should try, Will, can we try to get Dictionary.com as a sponsor, and we could work this into every podcast when one of us misuses a word? Except that I did not misuse it. No. Good point. Good job.

Wilkes, final move on this podcast. Okay, the Giants. What do we got? Jason Pierre Paul's health, this isn't a really intriguing camp, but he's one of the most important defensive players, I think, for his team in the league, and we have no idea if he's going to be back for week one at all. We really don't know after his surgery when he's going to be back on the field. Now, there was a guy on Giants.com today, I think, that said that, you know,

he's inside the building that they feel strongly that will be week one, but there's no surety. And that on the other side, tuck, he has shoulder injury essentially has never gone away, and he says that that player specifically is not going into the season healthy himself with a shoulder issue. It's a weird team. Mark Hurslick right now is their starting middle linebacker. They're counting on Corey Webster to really bounce back in the secondary. There's a lot of questions on that. It used to be this team was defined by its pass rush,

and there's probably more questions about the defensive line than anywhere else on that team. Don't you feel, though, it's something about the New York Giants under Coughlin. they have a way of kind of patching holes up and bringing an average position groups together and then they peak at the right time like every fourth or fifth season they seem to blow up. Yeah, which means this isn't off here for them. Yeah, so we've got a couple more years to wait.

They're also a hard team to figure out because they're coming off one of the weirder seasons in recent memory where they were dominating some of the best teams in the league and then getting wiped out by teams that were at their level and below somehow missed the playoffs. It's really hard to tell if they're now going to, you know, two years ago, Super Bowl, now is this a bounce-back year for them, or are they now going to, you know, be a 500 team?

Or are they, like, where are the Giants at right now? They're a hard team to figure out. I think the thing about, too, the struggle is, like, that's a team that has to deal with the Redskins and their offense twice. And then they have no idea what they're going to deal with with the Eagles. That's four games right there where you're not facing orthodox, like offensive attacks. And I thought that the Redskins did a nice job against the Eagles last season, or against the Giants. and I don't know, it's a big wild card, that defense. And since you brought up the Eagles,

they're another team where it's going to be a QB battle, something that's head and shoulders above any other plot line there. To me, Vic and Foles is going to be talked about a lot. Obviously, we've already done it, but this is the number one story in training camp to me. I mean, a football story. Because it's two players that are pretty good. It's not Blaine Gabbart and Chad Henney,

you know, competing to see who goes 3 and 13. It's Michael Vick and Nick Foles competing to see who starts on a team I think can make the playoffs. This is not a great division. I like the Redskins. I don't love any of these teams. I think any one of them could win the division. And you throw in Chip Kelly, if I could sit and watch one training camp and just go there and stay, they would be Philadelphia. I mean, is there any concern, though, with Chip Kelly in terms of this.

There is no defined starter right up, not just in the quarterback position, but with all these positions. I understand the competition side. but NFL players in general for decades have been doing things a certain way and it's cool that he can mix it up and do his Oregon approach but you know you got it or you've already seen some dissension there and some irritation on the part of Vic and Deshawn Jackson is it just those malcontents or does the entire roster going to be a little up in space that there's no defunctance

that is that's a mean word what have they done? I think that Vic is oh all right that is strong but I think that Vic could go he could turn evil on this team if he doesn't get his way. You've seen hints of that. Right. I actually, and when we were talking downstairs, that's something to me to watch.

If you're somebody that likes drama and when things start to get a little dirty and nasty, Michael Vick does not get this job. The hands of zone. Yeah, we get in the hands of zone. Vic doesn't get the job and he starts Malvin off to the media and puts Chip Kelly in a bad spot. It could get kind of fun in Philly.

It will always be sort of misdirected shots from Vic. that sort of his M.O. He's not going to take it on head on, but he'll kind of like let something sneak out a little bit that he's not happy. But I honestly don't think that's going to be a problem. I think he's matured. He said that he'll accept a backup job if that's what happens. And that's not a problem to me. To me, it's a problem, though, if he's not the best quarterback on the team.

And since we're talking about Vic, I have to bring up one of my favorite quotes, early favorite right now for best quote of training camp. He added four pounds of, in his words, pure muscle in the off season. And his quote, it was a classic Barry Harowitz, pat yourself on the back move. Quote, four pounds, four pounds of pure muscle, he said. So, it's a credit to myself. Michael Vick loves himself and Michael Vick. I like that.

I like that about him. Okay, so that's the NFC East. Before we go on, we should address the Cheetah situation in the NFL, right? We have to. I mean, I feel like it's the elephant in the room. It is. So apparently, Chris Johnson, there is a... Everyone's just wondering, why haven't they brought up the Tita yet?

Just to dial through, cut to minute 12. Chris Johnson and Devin Hester, apparently, there's a channel. Well, let's start from the top. Apparently, there's a channel that exists called Nat Geo Wild that has a week called Big Cat Week, which I'm not sure if Discovery Channel can sue them for obviously trying to co-op. Dark Week. But as a part of this, Chris Johnson and Devin Hester traveled somewhere and raced a cheetah. And, you know, that seems like one of the most dangerous, reckless things the human could ever do, right? And one of the easiest, you know, race as a Cheetah's ever

had. Is that really a competition? Well, Cheetah probably doesn't even know what's going on. Well, the Cheetah clearly doesn't know. First of all, can we get someone else other than Hester at this point in his career? That's a fair comment. Let's throw at T.Y. Hilton or something. I mean, how many people, even I believe, because I saw a still shot from the show, even though it's not airing until November, but apparently there was a wall between them, so there could be no jugular rips, which is excellent news. But I did some research around the league writer as I wrote the post, and as it turns out, a cheetah can go zero to 60 in three seconds.

So, like, you know, what are we doing here? What, as Greg says, a non-race? Couldn't we find a dog or something, something that would have been a close? closer race. I don't understand why a cheetah against a human was deemed something we need to organize an hour of cable television over. I wish Dan did this much research on football posts. I mean, he is like our cheetah beat writer.

He came in today and, you know, Sessler was going to do the cheetah follow-up because clearly the people demanded more cheetah. And Dan came in there and he basically just took the tape from Mark's desk and claimed the cheetah post for himself. It's clearly, you know, a post that's going to blow up on our site and Dan just took that gold brick right off my desk. I like it's being presented that way, but I can be the bad guy. I'll take all the metrics gold and be the bad guy.

That's fine with me. All right, let's move on. Let's move back to football. The NFC North, the final division in our breakdown, the Green Bay Packers. I think the running back battle there is something to watch. You know, they've survived for the last few years without any run. running game, and now they have a chance to have a really good running game. I mean, Jonathan Franklin was one of my favorite guys in the draft.

I mean, he fell to the fourth round, Eddie Lacey, Dwan Harris. They have a lot of options. I don't think it's going to be a bad running game this year. Yeah, I'm excited to see a more balanced attack from Green Bay because I understand you've got the greatest quarterback on the planet and you can throw the ball a hundred times to everyone, but it's like something stopped them each season, and I think that we saw them get physically pounded by the Niners in that playoff game and McCarthy said all offseason

we're going to be a tougher team on defense and we're going to be a tougher team on offense and it's like if they can do that I'd see that these one and done playoff shows are going to end for them. They have a chance to go all the way to the Super Bowl this year. I'm most excited about Aaron Rogers sitting

in front of his laptop trying to figure out how to craft the perfect tweet to come back from this Ryan Braun disaster. He's waiting. He's taking his time. He's, Aaron Rogers is a guy who takes lights from the media pretty seriously, and he carries it with them. So, you know, this is a case with Ryan Braun where he's taking some shots Rogers has in the last few days since the news came out. And I think he's just going to be so salty when he steps up to the podium.

And for those who didn't follow this, last year, Ryan Braun, who was a MVP for the Milwaukee Brewers and baseball, he got popped for steroids. he appealed it and won on appeal. This was last year. And then Rogers... People know the Ryan Braun. Some people don't know it. You know, so maybe our Australia... American baseball, that's true.

But anyway, so Rogers comes out. He's a little bit arrogant in his responses on Twitter. Let's face it, saying, you know, exonerated E. Crow MLB. And now it blew up in his face because not only was Braun suspended for the rest of the year on Monday, he also admitted that he was using. On the flip side, Dan is often attacked on Twitter. And I'll go out of my way to defend... him and you're not always dealing with facts it's just you're looking out for your friend you're

presenting me as Ryan Braun and you as Aaron Rogers I'm sure the parallel to some degree I mean but it's you know is he sticking up for his friend he did he know back then what the real deal was it's a legit issue because they own a restaurant together that's awkward which is like the MVP guys restaurant which that's the reality show we need to see right probably not gonna do too well in the future the Ryan Braun restaurant in Milwaukee no doors closing Minnesota Vikings. Now it's like the McLaughlin group or something. Minnesota Vikings, go!

I know that I talked about bringing up the new group of wide receivers, but I have to say when my mind with the Vikings immediately goes to the quarterback situation, I want to see how you've got two guys here, Christian Ponder, and Matt Castle. It's like I want to see how they do with their workload as the games go on. I think that's a regular season thing, whether if Ponder plays well, it'll be fine if not we'll hear about this more in week five i mean i'm looking to see how they use cordarro patterson whether he he could be a starter right away or he could be buried on the depth chart like fourth and he just has 15 20 snaps a game nothing really surprised me with him

i'm actually more interested are the viking's going to hold on to the 12th overall pick in nix may's draft are they going to try to trade up to get the quarterback you know wow well i think if if they end up with that pick and you're predicting some doom for them there It's like, absolutely, they're not going to stick with Ponder after this season. I think this is a last place team. I'm with Dan, maybe like the number seven pick. This is a tough division. This is my least favorite team in the division.

You see the Detroit Lions beating out in Minnesota this season. I think Detroit is a potential playoff team. We haven't made our predictions or anything, but though I'm thinking about them as a wild card, yeah. Yeah, Peterson had one of the greatest years ever, but I can't remember too many weaker 10 and 6 teams than the Vikings were last year. just they don't do much for me and I think Peterson will regress as you know he almost has to and I don't see the quarterback play getting better

and they lost their best player besides Peterson and Harvard. It's hard to win in 2013 with Christian Ponder or whatever their pathing game is going to be all right the Chicago Bears Greg started off let's just see as Wilk fist pumps behind the glass

you know Cutler spoke today his coach and GM both spoke today and the GM said there's no contract for Cutler this year. There's no contract for anyone. It's going to be fascinating. I'm really excited to watch this team. I want to watch them week one,

because I really don't know what I'm going to get with Mark Trussman. There's not a lot up for grabs, I don't think, on this team in camp. But I just have no idea what Trestman and Cutler are going to be like together. It could be either great or it could be terrible. Well, I think it's funny because when we got the information about Cutler not going to be, you know, getting a new deal before this whole thing begins, it's interesting because I think Trespin is going to do wonders with Cutler he's done that with almost every quarterback he's had

but then that puts the Bears in a situation where if Cutler has a marvelous year they would have been much smarter to get that contract done right now when his you know the shines a little off on the guy it's the right move by the Bears it's and it's the same situation that my Jets were in last year only they made the wrong move where Tanenbaum gave Mark Sanchez a new contract when he didn't have to do the contract could have said just play it out

let's see if you earn it Cutler has been so up and down, really his whole career, but, you know, especially with the Bears, that I think it's a situation where his career is at the point where, yes, you're definitely our starter, we believe in you, but it's kind of put up or shut up time whether or not you are the long-term answer. Ian reported some stuff today basically that, look, if Jay Cutler plays really well, it's going to get really expensive for the Bears, but they don't care. I mean, you think the Ravens' minded pain Joe Flacco, they don't mind.

You know, I think once again, Dan's overrating Sanchez and somehow comparing him to Jay Cutler. Cutler's a far better quarterback. Who has more playoff wins? Oh, stop. I think Cutler's going to be a bare long term. I'd be really surprised if it went that south, just because good quarterbacks are hard to find.

I still think he's good. Well, and we learned this offseason. You saw a string of quarterback contracts come through. Did any of them really seem too outrageous for the guys who were getting paid and what they mean to their teams? Things would have to go really south on the field and maybe between them personally, I feel like Tressman and Culler just not being a match

for him not to be their long term. And then finally, you mentioned Mark the Lions, and obviously you're not very high on them. What do you see coming out of their camp? I don't think that I'm not very high on them. I just see in that division that they don't look like the most complete team to me. I know that the guy that we've focused on a lot

this off season is Reggie Bush and how will his production fit into that team. I'm sorry, I can't hear you. All I hear is like pistons pumping and laser beam sounds. It's the Reggie Bush hype machine rolling at a prodigious, powerful level. And it's just, again, you know, if you listen to all the reports about Bush, and this has been happening his whole career, but especially now that he's in a good offense with a great, well, maybe a great quarterback,

you would think that he's going to have 150 catches in 2,000 yards rushing. Let's just let it play out. But the idea that Reggie Bush is now going to finally become this statistical monster, I'm just sick of hearing it personally. I mean, the lasers, the lasers can get annoying from the hype machine. I'm with you. And this happened when Bush landed in Miami. And I think he lived up to reasonable expectations of what you could have thought for him.

I mean, but he's just a guy. I mean, is he any better than your average second round pick coming out of the NFL draft? Probably not. I mean, he's not quite a good starter, but he's not a bad starter. Well, it might have something to do with another hype machine, the USC Trojans. Oof. Am I, is that fair? Congratulations, Dan Hansus.

You got your own podcast. It's just you now. You and me. All right, buddy. Until you leave me and I'm all alone. So that's it. That is our divisional breakdown. Yeah, I got to go.

I got to run to the airport and see my daughter for the first time in a couple weeks. I'm excited. Wow. We'll enjoy it. It sounds like a lifetime special or something. All right. So we'll be back. No one would watch that.

Yeah, we'll be back on Friday, right? We will be back on Friday with another. Around the League podcast. All right. And maybe we'll be on iTunes. So just keep an eye out. We'll keep you updated. Thanks for listening.

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