NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL Around the League: July 26th, 2013

Episode Date: July 26, 2013

Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Gregg Rosenthal are back at it again, discussing the latest news from around the league and the major stories trending on NFL.com, including the Eric Wright saga and the Seahawks' troubling news about Percy Harvin.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 i am joined by the great mark sessler and also great gregg rosenthal what's up fellas You sort of hesitated about calling me great. You weren't going to do it. I was going to say not quite as great, but then I didn't want to hurt your feelings pleasure. My boss would have gotten weird. So I said, also great.

We're all even in that sense. But now you've told me that I'm not that great. And a bit of a hole to start things off. But I am great because this is the first time the ATL around the league podcast, whatever it's been called in the past, the ATL debate club, has gone for a second time in one week. Isn't that true? That is true. I was fine with the introduction.

I knew you would be fine with it No issues You know Chris Wessling Who is the fourth member of this podcast Still missing an action He's on an island off the coast of Georgia We don't know if he'll be back

But we're excited He could be back next week We also may never see him again He's catching up with some locals down by the bayou Well we're Facebook friends with Wes And he's a character I'll just be honest But he you know

He's a very rabid Facebooker Constantly posting photos messages, updates about his whereabouts, total radio silence as of about, what, 80, 90 hours ago? Yeah. He lives on some strange, or he used to live on some strange small island that we found him in in Georgia where a bunch of alcoholics that don't really do anything. So we don't know if he's going to be back. Hopefully he's back next week.

I'm going to be going to Hall of Fame game next week in Canton, so I won't be here after Wednesday, but training camp's already been rolling. I mean, yesterday was about as busy a July day as I can remember. Yeah, we are rolling again. I mean, there are a lot of, so many subplots after weeks and weeks where nothing was happening, it felt like. Even though things were happening, it just wasn't happening at a rapid pace. And then all of a sudden this week, it hit you in the face.

And yesterday, Thursday, I should say, in particular. Greg, let's start with you. Like, what's jumping out at you right now on Friday? Well, I think, to me, the biggest takeaway so far in camp is Percy Harvin, because I'm thinking about what story is going to have the most resonance for the rest of the 2013 season. And this is the key off-season acquisition, perhaps the key to the entire offense of the Seattle Seahawks

for a team that we think could maybe go to the Super Bowl and right off the bat, we're hearing he might have hip surgery. If you have hip surgery, who knows? You're probably not going to be a factor this year. We don't know what's going to happen with him. But it just reminds you, I mean, doesn't it seem, like we've heard this story before with Percy Harvin? Yeah, we have, and I think that

was the caution, although the idea of plugging him into Seattle's offense was so sexy that I think that there were no issues going in. I was funny because last night I was watching the opening of that Niners game where Seattle just romped them. Like, as a quick backstory, I

watched that at a local pub. I think it was like Week 16. It was a 42 to 13 win, and I remember, you know, we're in California, there was a scattering of Niners fans that were just shouting at the screen as Russell Wilson was just rolling over them like who is this guy and I was watching as thinking imagine plugging Wilson into what we saw in that game harvin or sorry harvin into that game and it's just it's a shame almost that we won't get a chance to see that potentially

yeah well let's we don't know we don't know but we don't but you know if it is a worst case scenario and he is out for the year I do see some symmetry in this with the Niners who you brought up their biggest rival they're without Crabtree their best receiver but Harvin is an even bigger blow than losing Crabtree is for the Niners because he had a chance to completely make that offense a real almost unstoppable force potentially if Wilson continued to progress and Lynch stayed healthy and all those things came together.

He could have been the X factor. Now all of a sudden you don't know what you're going to get or if you're going to get him at all. And it reminds me so much of what happened in Minnesota because you're already getting a sense. Maybe there's a disagreement between Harvin and the team about how to proceed, because it leaked out our, you know, Ian Rappaport of NFL.com reported that the Seahawks basically said that he doesn't need surgery.

They don't believe he needs surgery, that he can try to rehab it or play through it, whatever it is. But he wants to go see a second opinion. There might be some disagreement. There was a lot of drama between Harvin and the Minnesota Vikings. This guy just got paid, and it's like, okay, now it's all starting all over again. And this is a team. Yeah, I agree with Dan.

I mean, I think they need Harvin. You're going to have to have Golden Tate really step up if he's out. And you hear, whenever you hear something about a tear with a hip, it's almost never good. So, I mean, for that to drop out of nowhere yesterday versus, oh, he's on the Pupplist, I wonder what that's about. And then all of a sudden it's like Ian Rappaport, our colleague on Twitter, he sends out the tweet that we're dealing with a potential serious injury. To me, the biggest story of the week by far right there. Yeah, and I think it drowned out what I would pick is potentially the second biggest, which was, Matt Ryan signing that contract

because this has been the off-season where you've seen a wave of big franchise quarterbacks inking huge deals. You got Flacco, then you've got Romo, you got Stafford in there, one after the other.

And I feel like with Ryan, this is just my take almost as a football fan. Something about the Falcons and me don't click. I find them maybe they're so good on offense last season that they were almost dull to me.

And it might be because they play in a dome. I don't know what the deal is. but they bore you they bore me that ryan bores you yeah and it's we were saying before it's like the whole narrative around matt ryan and i don't i think in that city too i think they fell deeply in love with michael vick and i don't think that matt ryan is what that city is looking for as a as a come up to michael vick i just don't think he fits what that city's all about you know boo-hoo if atlanta can't connect with my with

matt ryan you know as a jets fan we've been waiting for 40 years for another good quarterback to come around. This guy is a stud, and he, you know, he put up his best year last year. He's, every year he's been in the league, I feel like he's gotten better. And now he's a guy that's right about, to me, is at that edge where he's, to me, is better than Joe Flacco, I think. And Flacco won a Super Bowl. I think Matt Ryan is capable of that. And what they did here by giving him this extension is they basically guaranteed that they were going to be competitive for another five years or six years. Well, they did the right thing. And I think, by the way, they have one of the best front office

teams in football, potentially the best. And, like, they've made one solid move after the other. Am I wrong, though? Or do you, is the Falcons that you yearn to see week after week? America agrees with you. I mean, America is bored by the Falcons. This, you know, we kind of pay attention to the numbers on NFL.com. People were not that interested in the Matt Ryan story.

I used to agree with you every time the Falcons were always on TV and it was like, oh, Michael Turner for three yards. And it just, there was something so vanilla about them. but once you throw a little Julio Jones into the mix and you get a new offense and you get Mike Malarkey out of there I think that's the common factor of boring offense is Mike Malarkey. So you got him out of there and they're throwing the ball around

and you got Julio Jones, you got Roddy White. No, you know, I'm all right with the ballgame. Did we forget that Seahawks' Falcons playoff game? Yeah, it's great. Richard Sherman and Roddy White going after each other. I mean, this, they think they fit right in there. Or the NFC Championship. People don't remember what a great game that was.

That's a fantastic game. This is not how I want to feel. I'm just saying this is how I can't control it. It's like something about Matt Ryan doesn't feel like a real intriguing narrative or a figure that kind of draws that out of you storyline-wise like some of the other big quarterbacks. So you much rather have Brandon Whedon behind center. I'm writing this down. Don't talk Ryan with Sessler in the studio.

He starts falling asleep. I guess the other story that jumps out for me personally as a Jets fan is Santonio Holmes, who today, I don't know if this was a new situation for him or someone just had posed the question to him in this way, but they said, do you think you'll be playing at all this year? And he said, I don't know. And it just underscores just what we're dealing with, first of all, a catastrophic foot injury that, you know,

a lot of people I don't think even realized how serious this thing was until now is we're creeping toward the new season and the guy can barely put any weight on the foot now. You know, is he a guy that we're not going to see again? or he's never going to be close to the same guy. It's fair to wonder if we've already seen the best of San Antonio Holmes now. This should send a chill up the spine of Dan Hansis and the rest of the Jets fans around the nation

because who's the best player on the Jets' offense? I mean, San Antonio Holmes, right? Yeah. If he's healthy. And like Harvin, this is a guy that's had a history of being a guy maybe you don't count on. I don't know if you want San Antonio Holmes as your leader. He already took a pay cut to stay with the Jets this year.

Maybe not too thrilled about that. This is his last year in New York. He knows it. The coaches know it. Everyone knows it. Is he going to be rushing to get back onto the field? I mean, we talked yesterday about a couple of people that were essentially on their last legs, last chance in the league.

And I had to put Rex Ryan in that category. And I think he's an extremely talented coach, a creative coach. But it concerns me because I think he's going to be tied to the fact that during his tenure, that team went from having quite a bit of talent. It is arguably the least talented offensive team of all 32 squads right now. Yeah, and for me, I'm looking at the Jets, and obviously this isn't a Super Bowl team, probably not a playoff team.

But with Gino Smith, and Smith is going to get in there eventually, you want to give him a chance in his rookie year, and you want to have some people that know how to play on the field. And right now I'm looking out there, and you're hoping that you could pencil in Kellynne Winslow, junior for 75 catches, and you realize, wow, this is really dark. Well, I mean, they got the 2005 Browns back together.

You got Winslow and Braylen Edwards. I mean, Dan and I were talking about this the other day, how sad it was, how small a story. You know, Braylin Edwards returning to the Jets is like, oh, Braylin Edwards returned to the Jets. Who cares? Yeah. Well, and it's like all you need is make a swing of trade for Derek Anderson, and you've got big things potentially. But it is, it is a dark time.

but I think the Jets are one team that could potentially surprise us because I kind of like Rex Ryan backed into a corner where everyone's predicting three or four wins and it makes sense logically, but maybe he does something coaching-wise that he was born to do. Yeah, but you still got to score points. And if Holmes is not on the field, it's going to be very hard for that team to score more than 17 points a week.

I feel like I've been kind of driving the Jets are going to be better than people think bandwagon, you know, just because I think the defense and what you said. Driving it into a wall. And I like Rex, but now that, you know, I'm kind of, they're convincing themselves into Braylin Edwards and Winslow as potential, you know, help to this off. I mean, that's a big, big problem. Yeah. So those are the big stories of the week.

What about the stories that maybe they don't have the big long-term impact, but struck your fancy so far in training camp. Mark. Wow. I mean, the story with Terrell Brown and his issue with his agent. Yeah. I think it's interesting because there's the role of the agents obviously evolved and changed so much over the years. But basically, you know, if you didn't hear about this, you know, he was going to get a $2 million bonus, right, to participate in off-season workouts. And he diligently, we assume, was working out on his own.

And this was, you know, fine print in his contract that he was not aware of and that his agent did not inform him of. and so bang he finds out what on Twitter yesterday that he's lost out on what is essentially two-thirds of his salary because his agent never picked up the phone or sent him a text and you know in terms of bad news to receive in your life finding it out from the Santa Clara Register beat guy that you just lost $2 million it's probably the worst thing that could ever happen and then can even imagine if he's if you're in the same position

you click at the at or the mentions and just people calling you an idiot and calling you stupid. You probably, if I'm that guy, if I'm Brown, I am going and I'm finding my agent and forget about firing him. Which he did. Yes, which he did, which is the right move, obviously. But I am going after the agent physically in a very angry manner. Does this top the Elvis Dumerville fax fiasco?

Blows it out of the water, doesn't it? I don't know if it does. I mean, I think it's worse. I mean, he was set to make almost three months. million dollars he was a late round draft pick who signed a contract i mean this this is big time not that two million dollars is ever small money but it's not a guy that's made a ton of money throughout his career i mean that's devastating just to take take money off the table for that guy and the only way to look at the bright side of it is is that he is a talented cornerback he's a starter and he's still

28 so as long as he doesn't get hurt this year you know he should be able to make some money as a free agent whether it be with the niners or someone else but still it's rough speaking of rough Alex Wilk is back behind the glass. Wilk, who was missing in action. We were waiting and waiting for him. We had to have Dylan Milner, his colleague, fill in for the early part of the podcast, but now he rolls in as if we wouldn't notice.

There was no ill intent, I promise. Is this the first ever NFL.com producer pinch hit in the middle of a podcast? No. Oh, no. Certainly not. There was actually, to give you an idea of the old ATL debate club as I pour some out on the carpet, there was one podcast Mark and I did a couple months ago where there was no producers, so they basically had somebody come up here, hit record, and then just leave the room. And there was just Mark and I in an empty room looking at a ghost behind the glass.

In the lonely silence. I don't feel like it's that much different right now. Wow. Oh, man. Here I am gathering important content for our draft 365 blog that I'm. I'm sure you've worked on in some capacity, and you're just dumping on me. To his credit, Wilk is sober this time. Yes, sober.

Close to 100% physically. That's good. All right. Well, thanks for joining us, Wilk. All right. All right. Appreciate the shout-outs. Yeah, exactly.

For me, Aaron Rogers speaking on the topic of Brian Braun was pretty fascinating. Greg brought it up downstairs in the newsroom point that I agree with. It, you know, we all thought both Bill Belichick for his press conference about Aaron Hernandez and then Aaron Rogers today would kind of be tight-lipped or be, you know, not want to get into it at all. But both of them, both Belichick and Rogers, were very open about this. Yeah, I was surprised Aaron Rogers came out and basically, you know, said he feels like he was, you know, wronged by Ryan Brown. Like he didn't hesitate at all. He basically says, I don't like being lied to my face.

and that was, I mean, I think Roger's going to score a lot of points for that. I just want a live webcam set up in that restaurant to AC, you know, the diners dispersing one by one. But secondly, what is, what happens with that business? I know it's a weird side issue, but does that restaurant just shut down? He touched on it. He touched on it. He's not really sure. Rogers isn't sure what's the next step with that. So it seems like one of the situations where they're going to let the dust clear a little bit.

I mean, with Rogers, a lot of people find him unlikeable. potentially and some of his saltiness and maybe his higher than now situation, but I think he handled it pretty well today. No, he was good. I thought it was good. I mean, he got burned by his friend and you can't really

get on the guy for backing his buddy that was lying to him essentially, and he finds out, along with the rest of us, that this guy was being dishonest, and he was open about it and said he was upset and didn't see it coming. Yeah, I want to see that conversation and the conversation of Terrell Brown

that the 49ers cornerback asking for his money back from Jim Harbaugh in the front office, which he said he was going to try to do. Well, I was actually going to say if you had to be one person for a horrible conversation, would you rather be Ryan Braun

when you see Aaron Rogers come up on your caller ID or would you rather be the agent of Terrell Brown? Oh, stop. What? That's close? I'd rather be Ryan Braun, a good-looking, rich, young Jewish man with an MVP in his closet and a hundred million dollars coming his way.

A total scandal. The Hebrew hammer. No, we just fell down a wormhole where Greg wants to assume someone else's identity. I was just saying for this phone call, what's a worst phone call to have to take? I think Braun, I'm sorry, I think the magnitude of what Braun did is much larger. The agent could say, listen, I'm dealing with 50 different guys. I made a clerical error. I'm going to blame it on my secretary, Eleanor.

It was her fault. It was on her list of things to do. Braun can't pass the buck on his situation. I mean, it's devastating because that agent's name is out there. It's bad for business. It's not the advertisement you want. So the one story that stuck out to me more than anything probably, and it happens every year at training camp.

I feel like I've written this post many times before. Joe McKnight fails a conditioning test. And Bryant McKinney shows up to Ravens Camp overweight. I literally went back and found the post that I wrote. at Pro Football Talk four years ago when McKnight first passes or didn't pass his conditioning test. I could go back and do the McKinney Post. It was in Minnesota.

It was in Baltimore. And it just happens every time. And Dan made a great point talking about McKinney just, it's only been a month since they last saw him. So, I mean, what happened in that month? Yeah. John Harbaugh was glowing, talking about Bryant McKinney a month ago, saying that he looked great.

He was moving the way he was during the Ravens Super Bowl run where he played so well at left tackle. And then, you know, in four weeks, this guy must have had a great time over four weeks. Well, this is why I'm concerned about, you know, the whereabouts and the condition of West because, you know, I feel equally he could show up in a tattered, tattered form. Wes in his 14-day-old beard and, you know, destroyed liver. I'm not sure that the glowing reports on McKinney were as accurate as what we're receiving now. He's always had these issues.

And I think it's like back in the old day, guys would use training camp to literally get in shape from doing an off-season of sitting on their couch, woodworking, or being insurance men. Now it's like, well, now they're supposed to show up in prime shape. And I think for some of these guys, that's not how their bodies work. And McKinney has just always struggled with this. Right, like they were literally Green Bay Packers at the plant picking up boxes. It was just easier to name their team what their actual occupation was in the offseason. And Joe McKnight is a funny one because this is a guy on, let's see when the date was.

I did it around the league post on May 16th after the Jets had acquired Chris Ivory and Mike Goodson. And, you know, his roster, McNight's roster spot was somewhat in doubt. And he said, I don't care who they bring in. They're going to have to kill me to take my spot. And now he fails his conditioning test. Like, what is up with this guy? Their skill positions with McNabb. I mean, think about the other running backs.

Okay, we have Mike Goodson. We don't know. I don't think he'll ever put on a Jets uniform. Yeah, we don't know if he'll ever be on the team again. He's on the did not report list. And Rex Ryan would not say if he's ever going to pull. play again, there's legal problems. He's like in the middle of Paris somewhere.

We have Joe McKnight. We have Chris Ivory, who's the Big Hope, started camp on an exercise bike, not fully healthy. You've pretty much got Bilal Powell running the ship right now. Well, I'm sure they, in the back of their minds three months ago, thought he would be the guy they would just cut. But now he might be the workhorse back as they head toward the free season. I like Chris Ivory if he gets healthy. He's better than what they've had in years, I think. Finally, today, we should talk about, you know, Greg, who I sit next to, Mark is a little further away, so he doesn't see what's going on on a daily basis.

Greg has a monitor that's the size of like an old drive-in movie theater that has all the metrics charts about what's going on, what's doing well. It's very robotic, you know, it's very statner driven. And Greg, as the editor-in-chief of our blog, is tracking what's doing well. Some stories do better than others, obviously, but some stories do really well that it doesn't really. makes sense. So Greg, I ask you, as the man with the giant screen, what is the story this week or in the last two days that's doing great right now and shouldn't be? There's always a story or two that you don't understand. Why is America, why does America care about this? Why is America so dumb? This week, it's Cedric Ellis retiring from the Bears, which you wouldn't have thought

would have been that big of an NFL story. Granted a former first round pick. You decided not to show up for training camp and basically just told them like he didn't want to play and this this is the most popular story on nfl.com for two days straight and i can just feel will cringing back there because it's yet another deeply disappointing former u s c trojan it's all right i spent all day at pack 12 media day uh hanging out with marquisley my my buddy marquisley i have high hopes for him yes name job let me why do you is it like are there are bots out on the web, picking this thing up? Are people actually swarming to this story?

There are weird trends. People really like retirement, I feel like, and first round picks that get cut. When Jamal Anderson gets cut by the Bengals and he ends up replacing Ellis in Chicago, those stories tend to do all. I guess because NFL draft fan, I really don't know.

Well, I guess we're talking about this because we don't have a logical reason for it. I'm really upset because I have hopes having written three stories about cheetahs this week, that the cheetahs would win the dumb metrics bomb of the week. Sorry, Dan, your animal narratives have struggled at times. They've done pretty well, I thought, but not well enough to beat Cedric Ellis. I'm not sitting next to the massive screens.

Maybe it's the story that kind of annoys NFL fans the most, kind of like guys failing conditioning tests, you know what I mean? Because those stories do well, too. You can't, like, imagine this guy just choosing not to play football. But it makes total sense to me. He made $32 million off his rookie contract. He made more out of his rookie contract than Andrew Luck, the number one pick, will make off of his. And he's signed to play for $1 million this year.

He's 28 years old. Do you really want to go through that all again? You got your money. And some guys don't love football. Some guys are just gifted physically and they keep rolling from level to level. And then they end up becoming millionaires because of it. At a certain point, you're rich and you're kind of over it. It kind of makes sense to me, too.

It's like C-Crest out for Cedric Ellis. It's going to be me. In a couple years. Wow, I've just got to ignore that that ever happened. What was that? I don't know. That was Seacrest's reference. I think...

He's dropped off the scene. He's done. I think that's our cue. That is. You've got to get out on that. All right, so we will be back on Monday, correct? We will. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, our first three podcast week coming up.

Exciting. Should we even tease the iTunes angle at this point? Hopefully you will go to iTunes and you will find it and you will subscribe and you will continue to support the around the league. And a lot of this is on Wilk's shoulders to get it done. iTunes is in progress. Many of you listeners out there will be hearing this on iTunes. I promise you.

That's a promise. All right, great. Until Monday. Have a nice weekend. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the Six, 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 Sundays. Don't miss it.

Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app. podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.