NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL ATL: Live from the combine!

Episode Date: February 22, 2014

An arena full of heroes -- Gregg Rosenthal, Marc Sessler and Chris Wesseling -- deliver all the goods from the 2014 NFL Scouting Combine. The heroes check in live from Lucas Oil Stadium, where they pick apart the weekend’s biggest headlines and surprises. Which prospects, coaches and general managers impressed the heroes the most? What have they learned about the Jim Harbaugh to the Cleveland Browns rumors? Who was caught in Indy on a fast food walk of shame? All this and more on the latest episode of the “Around The League Podcast,” so tune in and join the conversation on Twitter: @NFL_ATL or #NFLATLLearn 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 League podcast can beat Rich Eisen in a 40-yard dead. Welcome to another edition of the Around the League podcast. I'm Greg Rosenthal alongside a stadium barely filled with a couple of heroes. Mark Sessler and Chris Wessling. I'm not going to say what up, boys. I'm still going to say, hey, Greg. This is big time right now.

Yeah, we are 20 feet away from the Indianapolis Colts End Zone here at Lucas Oil at the Combine. Yeah, we are inside the stadium. We're actually recording this through a camera, but no one can see it, thankfully. We're about 50 feet away from a group of tight ends who are stretching and getting ready to work out. Meanwhile, we're just, you know, trying to not look like total pieces of, you know what, after being out. and about in Indianapolis all week. We just got off the elevator with Josh McDaniels, Michael Lombardi, Bill O'Brien. One of those men gave Mark the stink eye.

That's not true. Well, it seemed that way. But you know what? After some of the stuff we've written in the past few months, I would think that's fair. Well, let's start with that. That is an experience that only happens at the combine. And it seems to always happen. On the way to dinner the other night, within five minutes, I walked past Kyle Shanahan,

alone, Rob Ryan holding a steak and shake bag, almost like he's playing to the stereotype now. Like he just feels he has to walk around with that at all times. And Mike Tannenbaum, who said hello and is always very nice. And then here we're in the elevator down to the field, and we see Josh McDaniels. We see Bill O'Brien, Michael Lombardi, who I talked with briefly about how happy he is. He doesn't have to do any more mock drafts anymore for NFL Network. He was hired this week by the Patriots. It is sort of a dizzying week of just NFL personalities passing you at all moments.

Has that been disorienting, Mr. Wesley? No, I've enjoyed the experience. It is a little odd, though, because, you know, every other day of the year, these people are basically off access to you. You have no access, and now either up front. Mark can go up and introduce himself to Belichick. It's fun time. Well, let's get to that.

I guess we'll start with that. We were at Shula's last night, that's the Steakhouse, at our hotel, the Weston, where we all stay. The NFL media group is there, and we're having a couple beers, and we look over, and right next to us, Greg Shiano, Michael Lombardi, and Bill Belichick are hanging out on the couch, having a gay old time, and Mark goes up and introduces himself. Well, what is, you know, what's wrong with being social? Nothing. That's what this is for. I mean, I don't think that they were waiting for my input on anything that's occurring this week.

It was a very brief introduction. You said you got some news from Belichick at the time. You told him he gave you the scoop on Vince Wilfork. He swore up. No, that is not accurate. He gave me a very cordial handshake and then shifted his eyes to his fellow guests. And it was time for me to leave. It looked like if you hung around for five more seconds,

Belichick was going to do Darth Vader and basically grab you by the throat and lift you up off the ground. But that's what the combine is. You're absolutely right. It's almost like when you have a strange. dream where you wake up like in a fevered sweat where in the dream you saw like 40 people from different parts of your life the combine is almost surreal and that you walk into a bar or restaurant and there's like 15 head coaches and norv turner and his son walking around and it's just bizarre well you tried to convince yourself that maybe i should go back over to belichick and tell them

about when i was a kid and i used and you used to write letters to bill belichick i actually wasn't a kid i was in college so that's a little embarrassing but i'm trying to save you yeah yeah it's uh no i i i i wrote him i actually went to school with the thought that i'd work for the browns and he was at the time the coach and i wrote him all the time and i made like actually t-shirts for the team and all this stuff and i called one time my friend called around christmas and his secretary answered we called the brown stadium and she's like oh mark i know i know who you are would you like to be connected through to belichick and i said absolutely not i don't want to interrupt him because the day before their playoff game.

I'm wondering, as he remember, this ridiculous young fellow that consistently badgered him with letters. I thought he wrote back to you one time. Well, no, there was always a waterfall of return mail with his signature. But what I'm realizing now is that I strongly believe it was his secretary that wrote all this correspondence. I don't think he sat down in his schedule and tapped out seven paragraph letters responding. That's pretty cool, though.

He would have remembered that. I think it was probably a smart move not to go tell him that story. but I think that would have been cool. I mean, he would have remembered that. There's no way you could forget Suss. If this was three hours later in the night, Mark would have gone over there and told him that story. Mark might have tried to kick him out of Shulis.

Listen. Mark did play bouncer last night at Shulis. That room needed some policing towards the end of the evening, and that's the service that I offer. So there's a lot to get to. We can talk about what the combine is like, especially through the eyes of a first-timer, like Chris Wessling.

This is the first time he's been to in Indianapolis. But let's get to some of the news this week. We've been focused on the general managers and the coaches. And there's no other place that has access quite like this. There was 27 general managers and coaches that spoke on Thursday. 20 on Friday. They have a big podium session. And then they often speak to people on the side, the local reporters,

whoever else wants to wait around for him. You tracked Mike Zimmer into an elevator, I believe, Mark Sessler. Yeah, well, a lot of these guys, the great thing is after their initial presser, which there is a great chance for us to ask questions. You can go out in the hall and spend another 10 minutes with a smaller group. And if you know, if you started on some topic, you can kind of further and get, you have a chance to get a little more layered with some of your questions with these guys. Zimmer got ushered right out, and I very much annoyed his PR attaché guy. I convinced him to let me wander into an elevator, and Zimmer reluctantly answered a question I had. What's the word you've used for Mark all week as a reporter?

He's a dogged reporter. He is. If there is a member of the Around the League team that I'm going to assign, and I would include myself in this group if I was going to assign it to myself or anyone, who is the man to go get a quote? Who's the man to elbow the people out of the way and get the brass tacks, get the news? It's Mark. He does not take no for an answer, despite that genial personality.

He's a pit bull. It does not always produce content that is engaging, let's be honest. Yeah, it doesn't produce a lot of head coaches who give you smiles afterwards. Sometimes they're a little annoyed at the answer. Well, let's flip it around here, though, because I think Wes, you know, the combine's a tough event to come do initially. And you're battling, it's almost like Super Bowl working. You're battling hordes of reporters, and they're all shouting. By Wes's second or third press conference, he knew the right position of standing,

which is the standing position right to the right of the coach next to the podium. firing hard balls at these guys. I wouldn't necessarily say they were hard balls. Well, let's talk about some of the surprises of the week. What were the most surprising answers or things to happen from these press conferences, from these conversations? Let's start with Mark. I think what developed talking to Panthers General Manager Dave Gettlement A

and then the next day, Coach Ron Rivera, was Gettlement initially, when asked about Steve Smith, who you'd think, on a team without a lot of strength, the wide receiver, and that's been their number one guy for so long. He'd be back for sure. You know, it costs $4 million. He's got a $3 million bonus, but that you need him to do what they need to do on offense.

And Gettleman, very strangely, said we're evaluating Smith, and we're evaluating his situation, which to us it just came across as odd. And we followed up with Rivera the next day and said, listen, can you take us through what's going on with Steve Smith? Because we're a bit confused after what we heard from Gettelman. And Rivera, you know, I asked him, is there any scenario where Smith's not on the team next year? And he said, I'm not sure.

He didn't have a definitive yes or no. It was just, it came across to me that they're going to ask him to take a pay cut. That's a lot of the subtext of this week are coaches, GMs talking about guys that they're in negotiations with, maybe sending messages through the media. And that took me by surprise. Damasek said it on Twitter last night. The Panthers without Steve Smith would be like, the Yankees without Derek Jeter.

It is hard to imagine, and that was one of those little colonels thrown out that we learned during Combine Week, that it's no lock he'll be back. They have a lot of tough decisions to make. They sounded more optimistic about Greg Hardy. They did not sound optimistic about Captain Munnerland. They have a lot of cap problems. So maybe we do say so long to Smith and Carolina. Yeah, he is basically the face of the franchise.

I think, you know, they're not, the Panthers aren't the most widely red team on our website. They should be. the official team of the around the league podcast. But I think that Steve Smith articles do really well. People around the league know him. He's a character. He's, you know, face of the franchise kind of guy. I'm sure that factors into their decision.

Yeah. Well, we've made it almost 10 minutes into the podcast, and we haven't talked about the bomb that was dropped. We might have buried the lead here. Yeah, Friday evening when the report came out that Jim Harbaugh spoke to the Cleveland Browns, the 49ers and the Browns. discuss some sort of trade. There's a dispute over how far long that process got,

but even Ari and Rappaport has reported that the Browns went after Harbaugh, that they wanted to get Harbaugh. Harbaugh's come out on the record and say he knew nothing about it. The 49er CEO, Jed York, says it's not true. But some sort of conversations apparently took place that this could have possibly happened. To me, that's the most surprising thing of the week. And Cleveland had a chance to come out and swat it down or bury it, and they, in their statement, they far from denied it. Three consecutive NFC title games. It's so bizarre to hear that Harbaal, you know, would go anywhere else

but stay with the 49ers, you know? And I know there's contract talks there. The 49ers reportedly don't want to pay him like a Super Bowl winning coach because he isn't won a Super Bowl. I don't get that. Why would you not want to pay Harbour? as much money as you possibly could to lock him down. Pay the man. Just pay Jim Harbaugh. Coaches are worth it in football. There's only five or six that matter,

and there are five or six that are terrible, and the rest are just in the middle. Just, what, he's not worth more than Joe Staley? Give me a break. They know he doesn't need the money. He only buys $8 pairs of pants at Walmart. It's crazy to me, but it also doesn't totally shock some people

that have been watching this Harbaugh. 49ers situation really closely because there's a feeling whether it's because of the contract or he's just a guy that moves on after four or five years that maybe something was going to come to a head between these two sides and it wasn't a lock that they're going to have this long-term marriage and I think this news coming out oddly helps Harbaugh because they have to give him a contract now they can't go into this year with all this uncertainty and present that to their fans and players it's weird isn't it does it hint I mean because initially it was, oh, let's look at the Cleveland angle of this,

because it's a bizarre team to even think about attracting someone like Harbaugh. But Flipside, it's a much bigger 49er story because you heard hints and whispers that there was a fissure there between Harbaugh and the decision makers on that team. And I don't know if it was a power struggle or a long-term vision type thing, but it's clearly still there to some degree if he was considering leaving. There was some kind of a struggle for power over small things like Harbaugh. wanted to sign fullback Owen Marisich, who we had at Stanford, and Trent Balke, the GM, reportedly did not want to sign him. And maybe that was one of the cracks, one of the fissures

that you talked about. But it sounds like there was some tension there between those years. Having watched Owen Marisich play because he was in Cleveland for a while, that's not worth a franchise coming to its knees on. Michael Labardi and Harbaugh are known to be close. Right. And that's the connection there. And there was. was a mystery, mystery candidate. Joe Banner is on the record saying when they introduced Mike Patton, there was this mystery candidate all along. So it's hard not to think that that was probably Harbaugh. And it's interesting. If that could have somehow happened, Harbaugh would be in Cleveland. Sessler would be fired up. Lombardi would be in Cleveland. There's a report that Jim Tom Sula

would have been the coach of the San Francisco 49ers that they already had. their backup plan in place. What a weird world. What a Shakespearean downfall for Michael Lombardi to go from almost bringing in Jim Harbaugh to Cleveland to a few days later being fired. It shows you how... To be on an elevator with us. It's very bizarre, and I think the one other takeaway for me

is that, like you mentioned, is Harbaugh a guy that maybe something about going to a down-and-out team at its lowest point was a challenge to him that appealed to him? How much longer does he want to ride this fort? It's hard to get to three straight NFC title games near impossible. Can you, is this team ascending still or does he want to maybe jump ship before they go the other way? I don't know. He's got Colin Kaepernick.

He's got a good roster. Win a title first. Then maybe go somewhere. I'd rather be at the place that has a quarterback. Right. I would not want to be the guy at the place like Mike Patton who spoke today. And we watched that press conference, Marr. and his response to the whole Harbaugh thing was interesting.

He said he wanted to shoot the messenger initially. He heard it from a Brown staffer who said, this thing is going to come out. And he used some choice words like a flying, you know what, he said, and a rat's body part was mentioned. And he just said, this is a bunch of noise. It's not going to matter for me doing my job. And he even spun it around to say it's a positive sign.

It shows the Browns were willing to do anything, which is kind of a mature, interesting take. That is interesting. I loved watching Mike Petten. You've got to be excited about him. Yeah, I think we all sort of said this when he came off the stage, is that he doesn't seem to be, they've had a string of coaches who seem challenged to think for themselves

and to stand up and have some sort of, I guess, more alluring identity or a real presence. And I think that Petton, and it probably comes from his years with Rex Ryan and seeing how much attention that team got in that head coach. He did a nice job up there, and I feel like they threw, you know, he's been asked a lot of tough questions for a new coach over the last month. And I think he did, he sort of alluded the fact that has this been a busy first month in Cleveland? Yes, it has, and he's kind of waiting for it to quiet down and just, let's do our work now.

Yeah, he said, I think the question was, has there been a little more noise around the Browns than usual? And he says, what do you say? theoretically you could say that I mean he just he's been he was great when I asked him I asked him about the quarterback situation he did not mention Brandon Whedon's name period he just talked about Brian Hoyer that he's going to be a fact that I asked about Whedon and both him and Ray Farmer essentially said that we didn't know how we feel about him and his agent will know and his agent will know when we tell them but we know how we feel about him and that's it that doesn't sound like yeah that doesn't like a contract extension descending from the

guys. So if Dan Hansis was here, he would have set this up professionally and said, what's coming up in the program? We're 15 minutes into the program, but I'm going to do it anyways. We're talking right now about the biggest surprises that we've had. We'll also talk about some of the QB smoke screens, some of the transactions of guys we think are going to get cut or tagged some of the news, and then we'll also give our impression which coaches and GMs impressed us the most. But let's stick with our surprises for a little bit more. Chris, Do you have a surprise? The Cardinals news, hearing Bruce Ariens talk, you know,

you identify this offense with Larry Fitzgerald, Carson Palmer, Michael Floyd, and Ariens says he wants to build his offense around Andre Ellington, who was a scatback last year. It was awesome, though, wasn't he? He was awesome. He's gained 10 pounds, they said, that they're, you know, his role is going to increase. Elings and not Ariens. Well, no, Ariens looking very good.

Ellington is gained 10 pounds, that's correct. But also, I thought the Carson Palmer news was a little bizarre. Yeah, we had, I think we've all expected them maybe to draft a quarterback in the second or third round, develop him and maybe replace Palmer next year. And Ariens talked as if Palmer could play three or four more years as a starter. And I asked him out in the hall because I always think that Ariens is an underrated kind of quarterback whisper that did great job with Big Ben, obviously. Excellent work with Andrew Luck. And I said, do you want to bring in a guy that you can groom on your own? And he said, basically waste of time.

Because if you're not going to throw him into the fire right away, he's not getting practice reps. He's sitting there holding a clipboard, and that's not how you grow and learn. So I come away from this combine thinking they're absolutely not going to draft a quarterback. I asked about the backup situation if, you know, maybe you would draft someone to develop to take Drew Stanton's place. And he said Stanton could go in there right now, and it wouldn't be much of a drop-off. And, you know, basically that he's one of the best backups in the league. And you're right. He didn't sound interested.

He actually compared Drew Stanton to someone he used to coach in Cleveland. The legend. Kelly Holcomb, yeah. Kelly Holcomb. I still remember that big shootout playoff game against the Steelers. Yeah, he had a couple explosive games, and I look back, and I realize, wow, Cleveland had this great offensive coordinator and didn't even realize it at the time. Right, Ariens was there, and there's a reason why Butch Davis has the best winning percentage of any Browns coach. It's not because he's a great head coach.

It's because he had B.A. Bruce Ariens. Fair. Now, watch. Here's with the real combine messaging is when Arizona out of nowhere trades up and takes Teddy Bridgewater number four, five. After all this thing, we think we've learned this and that. No, we haven't learned anything. I was surprised by the Bengals' insistence that they want to talk contract with Andy Dalton this office. What did Marvin Lewis say?

We want to lock up all of our good young ball players. Right. He's including Dalton in that mix. He said he'll sit down with Dalton and his representatives and see if they can work something out. It's the first year that they can resign Dalton. And if I'm Dalton, it's a rare case where I think a free agent should not want to get to market. Because I don't think Dalton would be that popular.

And I think he risks having another bad year. And if they offer him $9 or $10 million thinking, well, he's not going to take this. Most of the great guys are making $16 or $17, I just run to that contract, sign up. Start buying houses for my seven kids or whatever Dalton's got in the mix. I think it could be a lot trickier than that. We're talking about a guy who had the third most touchdowns in the NFL last year. He had 33 touchdowns. His numbers are there.

Right. I don't think the agent's just going to sit there and accept whatever breadcrumbs are floated as way by the Bengals. They should take a strange strategy and do just that. And underplay them. Like, just take whatever you can get if you're Andy Dalton right now. I would hate hearing that as a Bengals fan. Well, that's what I was going to say. If you're a Cardinals fan learning that Carson,

Palmer's your quarterback for the next foreseeable future two, three years, or that Andy Dalton is, which fan base is more depressed right now? This is going to sound odd, but I'd rather have Andy Dalton as my quarterback than Carson's Palmer. Wow. Well, I guess Andy Dalton can be your quarterback for a lot longer. He's younger, but that's even more depressing in my book. I'd rather be a Cardinals fan because I think they got more going on in general. And I think they have a better chance to win the Super Bowl next year than the Bengals.

And that's what I want as a fan, as a championship. Could they somehow win a Super Bowl next year? It would be tough, but I could see it happening. I can't see the Bengals. If he phrased it that way, I'd rather be a fan of 31 other teams than the Bengals. Oh, stop. All right. Let's move on to the quarterback talk.

Quarterback smokescreens were everywhere this week. We just talked, maybe Cardinals coach Bruce Arians just snowed us over by talking down all these quarterbacks. Maybe they are going to take someone early. I know you were at the Doug Marathon. own press conference you asked some questions there and he was interesting on the quarterback situation i was it yeah my ears parked up a little bit when he said we can go any direction at quarterback uh free agency draft i mean he obviously likes e j manual they drafted him in the first round but i don't know if it's a situation maybe like well faddeus lewis wasn't bad but maybe

they want to have a better backup plan or competition for e j manual you know i'll never forget that that offensive coordinator hack it, right? He spoke so gloomingly of Thad Lewis. He seemed to really love how quickly, from the neck up, how quickly he picked up the offense. Talked about how they could do anything with Thad Lewis where that wasn't the case with Manuel. And that's a team that also brought in Kevin Cobb last year

to maybe ease Manuel in. And Manuel instead gets thrown right in there. And his had, what, two or three knee surgeries at this point? You're right. They have to be open-minded, I think, to competition. A good portion of Morone's attitude seemed to be coming from the fact that with Hackett there, they hired a quarterback's coach Todd Downing and brought in Jim Hosler as offensive assistant or kind of a senior consultant role, but he thinks with those three minds,

basically you have three quarterback coaches, and he thinks that they can develop a guy or win just by coaching. You can't count on manual. You can't get him out. You have to hope that he takes a big step and he's your guy. But maybe you look over to Cleveland and you see Rob Chudzinski out after a year. Maybe you see Greg Shiano out after two years and you realize you're not on a timeline where you can hang around. You've got to have someone that can win right now. That's a good point.

Not that guy. I always, it's my thing. I hate when people stick to mistakes too long. And I don't think manual is definitely a mistake, but you better have another option. And if you love the quarterback in the first round, you were so desperate to take a quarterback. last year in the first round that you took manual 16th. Why not take another one? It's a quarterback.

Oh, I couldn't agree more. You're right. The similarities with the Browns last year at this time. If you told the Browns fans, look, Brandon Whedon isn't your answer. They would have said, look, he's your first round pick. Give him another year. They wasted a year.

Right. And 30 guys are out of a job because of that decision. The Rams keep talking up Sam Bradford. They have the number two pick in this draft. There are any chance that that's a smokescreen. It's one of the best smokescreens ever because they, They've been so diligent, and they've just hung on that. Everyone in an organization just stands behind Sam Bradford, no matter what he does.

But do you think that the knee injury that he had changes the trajectory of wanting the urgency to resign him, where it's now we've got to see, A, does he take the leap that we hope he takes, but B, is he healthy? Is he the same guy? Jeff Fisher said he wasn't losing any sleep over Bradford's ACL surgery. People come back from that. He said he wasn't losing any sleep over Jake Long's either, that he, that Bradford. Adford was one of, if not the biggest reasons he took the job.

So I don't think that's a smokescreen. Les Need talked a lot about how this time at number two, it's not as clear who's going number one. So that changes the dynamics in terms of trade talks. But they are very open to doing the same thing they did last year, which was trading down and getting a lot of picks. And they've talked about that that worked out well for them. They think that worked out perfectly for them.

So they're very open to doing that again. And they were surprising just to throw this in there that they indicated Cortland Finnegan's going to stay on the team. We thought he was certainly gone. That was one of the surprises for me. It looks like he'll be part of the team in the offseason. But let's stick with the quarterbacks. Another team that talked about maybe taking a guy early was at Tampa Bay Bucks. Do you think they go with the quarterback or stick with Mike Glennon at number seven?

Well, I mean, I thought I heard Lovie Smith pretty genuinely praise Glennon and what Glennon did in year one. and I think there's a lot to like about Mike Glennon, and there's so much talent on that team that I don't know what you do. I don't know if you want to start over at quarterback again with another rookie. I think is Glennon that much of a falloff from any of the guys that could get drafted high this year? I'd be surprised if they went with a rookie. I could see them bringing in somebody like Michael Vick, though. When you're that high in the draft, though, you've got to think about it.

I mean, these guys, Bridgewater, Mansell, Bortles, maybe they're not all going to be awesome franchise guys, but maybe one or two of them are. If you do enough of your study, I don't know if Mike Glennon's the guy that's going to stop you from taking them, if they make it that. I thought the two of you both loved Mike Glennon. I do like Mike Lenin.

I mean, not personally, but I like his football. He seems like a nice guy. I mean, realistically, they may not know right now if that's even an option because that's a coaching staff that just got together. Their scouts are having to re-engineer what they're looking for based on the new schemes. I mean, they may not right now have a decision on if they want to go with Glennon. Based on no inside information, I'd be surprised if any of those three quarterbacks even get that far.

I just think with so many teams needing quarterbacks, why are they going to last past the top five? Why are the Cleveland Browns going to pass on a quarterback? I don't think they will. Ray Farmer said they might be throwing some curve balls. What kind of curve balls could they be throwing there? The curveball I could see is an effort. to get out of that spot, go a little bit farther down in the first round for a player that they are perfectly happy to take later in the first round. It might even be a quarterback that we're not

thinking of, one of those top three guys, and get more picks. I mean, I think this is a team that is committed to building through the draft, even though they've got a lot of money. But yeah, listen, Cleveland's been surprising us for, what, five, six straight weeks. So why not continue that theme? The thought is that with Michael Lombardi gone, that they're not nearly as likely to take Johnny Mansell. I get the sense of that, too. And it was like Peter King, I think, wrote that they were going to move heaven and earth to go get Johnny football if Lombardi had been in place. But you haven't heard his name from anyone since. And it was almost as a farmer who's been studying quarterbacks.

He was dispatched to look at passers from early on in the year. Has someone else that he would look to when Petton talked about? Who are you hoping for? Well, I still would have loved to see what to Johnny Football to come in. But, you know, they said they wanted someone that can throw the football in cold weather in that environment. But wait, Johnny Football has the biggest hands of all these guys that we've seen, right? It's important. Well, I think there was a few guys bigger.

Well, the big three of these, you know. You know who had monster hands this week? Matt Millen. I did a little hit just like you guys. You did it with Bucky Brooks and Matt Money Smith on the NFL. live feed of the combine. Everyone should be watching those two feeds simultaneously on multiple computers

while you have NFL network on. Great stuff. Good luck finding them first of all day long. Well, what, extra computers? I mean, all you got to do is go to NFL.com. On the site, it's like a labyrinth trying to find these videos. Well, you don't have to find us. I agree with that.

That would be tough. But you can find a live coverage because it's on all day, every day, while the combine's based. But when I went on that set, Matt Millen, I mean, his hand engulfed mine. I felt like a little girl. Well, these are honest feelings from you, Greg. I just wanted to throw that out there.

It's good to hear. Thomas Dimitrov talked a lot about trading up from number six. We buying that. Thomas Dimitrov and his sartorial splendor. Possibly the best dressed of all the GMs and coaches. Yeah, at the airport we saw him in a purple felt jacket. Some kind of bohemian look. And I think pants that were potentially sewn out of hemp.

I feel like John Fox is known as. sort of the mayor of the combine. He's a lot of holding forth going on. Um, but he had that health scare this week. I don't know. I haven't seen him around quite as much, uh, this year. I feel like the candidate to replace him eventually, Thomas Dimitrov. Oh yeah. I think everybody likes him. Mark, I think Mark and I talked about this from reading the war room. Just how cool of a guy he seems like he's a guy I would like to have a beer with. He's out and about. He's making the rounds. They have a lot of free agent needs. They have basically no defensive line. You hear some things. They might be looking at the free agency, defensive tackles, defensive linemen.

I think they're going to be very aggressive all offseason. And they think differently. And that's why I could see them doing, shaking some things up in the draft, moving up, moving down. He said now that we're up at six, we're so close to the top, it won't be that hard to move even higher. Well, with the new CBA, he mentioned that too. Well, it's no longer new, but the current CBA, it's a lot easier to trade up and down because you're not giving these guys 50 or 70 million right off the bat. I think that that team is one where a lot of people might feel, hey, they're going to jump back to an 11 or 12 win situation.

I just don't see that with Atlanta because it's not just their entire defensive line. Their offensive line is a disaster. That takes years to rebuild those two units. Let's find out. He's a good general manager, two-time executive over the year. If he can pull off some moves in free agency and he has a great draft, they could be right back in. It's just hard to say in February how good the Falcons are going to be. Yeah.

If you have a quarterback, you always have a chance to win 10 games, I think. And they're getting a bunch of injured players back as well. Right. The best player on their team. So we were impressed by Dimitrov. Who are some of the guys at the podium, the coaches that caught your guys' fancy during the week? That, you know, before you were here, your opinion changed, and now you're on board. You're on the team.

Yeah, go ahead, Wes. My two favorites are both older guys, Bruce Ariens and Dave Gettelman, the Panthers GM. You know, you get a lot of guys closer to your age. Yeah, yeah, definitely. You know, a lot of these guys don't tell you anything. You know, they sit up there and they shoot down your questions. I can't remember Greg and I both mentioned. We've used the word noncommittal as a lead in so many stories this week.

You know, so-and-so is non-committal about this player. And it's so refreshing to hear Gettelman and Arians just straight shooters, answering your questions, giving you the right answers. I love Gettelman's accent, you know, Staud La Tulele. Yeah. He plays God. Got to get some offensive gods. Yeah, yeah.

I can't do it. That was terrible. Yeah, I think both those guys got to their positions later in life. Ariens was 60 when he became a head coach. Gettelman, I think, is close to 60 or at 60 when he got his first GM job. You know, I think they're just a lot more confident about who they are and, you know, about their philosophies on football. ball and they don't have to, they don't worry about being second guest on anything.

Another guy that I'd throw into that group is Mike Zimmer. I think, you know, he waited forever for his job. And the thing that came across to me with him is, A, he's prepared for this. He didn't seem odd at all. He was working the room. He knew every reporter and everyone by name when he was leaving the podium. And I just thought, you know, this guy is maybe one of the coaches that's really going to surprise us and turn that team around. I got a good feeling about him. There's a lot of work to do. He was honest about the fact that, you know, we don't have necessarily the quarterback of tomorrow. He also didn't dodge questions.

One guy who did, I think, and he's come from this Belichick school where you don't answer anything and you kind of windily go on and on with your responses was O'Brien. Bill O'Brien. And listen, I mean, he... We know your feelings on O'Brien. You gave a 45-minute discourse at dinner last night. by the end of dinner you know I didn't know if you were going to even show up to work today

you were so upset with Bill O'Brien I don't know what I don't feel as passionately about that today I'm not quite sure what sort of path I was on but he uh to me I feel like every question that came his way he gave zero information literally zero information and so he's been well schooled by you know his mentors to not answer a question that's why I loved Aryans and get them exactly you don't have to be that way You're not going into war. These aren't state secrets that you have just by answering a question on your plans for a player.

Maybe it's like these older coaches, they're more comfortable in their own skin. Yeah, definitely. And it's kind of like you guys as the elder statesman of the around the league. I know Dan and I are much younger. We're trying to be cocky and find their own ways. But you guys are like, we're old. We don't care. You know, we, by the way.

It's like an older woman. You know what I'm saying? It's like there are certain things, not as strong maybe. But other things, attitude-wise, not being as tent, you know. Well, you've just acknowledged that you have the hands of a little girl. So there are a lot of things floating around, things to consider. It's tough. My favorite coach this week was Mike Patton.

And he talks about that he doesn't love the whole media side of the job, but you wouldn't know it watching him. You know, I walked down in the hallway an hour and a half after he was finished and he was still out there talking to people. So I think he kind of might kind of like it. And he's got some good zingers. They asked him, you know, what did you learn from Rex Ryan? And he answered, well, you mean what to do or what not to do?

And he pretty much left it at that. Well, this is a guy with a copy of the Warren Commission in his office. He's a bizarre and interesting character, I think. I preferred when they asked Rex Ryan about Mike Patton. Yes. What did he say? Not a good-looking guy. And Petton, we've heard a lot about the Browns.

Maybe it's just because I walk around with Mark Sessler, but there is a buzz over the Browns in terms of half the workers in the stadium are wearing Browns outfits. What is going on with that? It does seem that way. There's a lot of backroom machinations, and there's a lot of rumors about how everything went down over the last couple months, and everyone's got a slightly twisted story, but everyone sort of enjoys talking about this. Are you looking forward to a day where the Browns are not on the tips of everyone's tongue? No, I'm not because that team has been, you know, in the wilderness media-wise, for so long that even though a lot of the reporting is destructive and disturbing, I would say, you know, because every time I talk to someone who's like, listen, you can't put this into a post or something, but let me give you a nugget about what I've heard. It's always death-defying information where it just makes me concerned about everything. but it is kind of interesting now the team that you follow

who's typically been off the radar forever bubbling up in rumors and like the Harbaugh thing for instance I think those things are happening so fast at the combine that we don't even have a time to stop and really think about wait this news item is out there that is a major that would have shifted the landscape of A, the NFC West the Seattle must be loving this potential fisher in San Francisco

but also you would have had the two Harbaugh brothers in the AFC North they would have been talking about that trade in San Francisco one way or another forever for 25 years. I mean, that would have been that type of moment. That would have been bigger than Belichick going to the Patriots from the Jets because Harba has already established that he's so good. Before we go, any final thoughts? Maybe your impressions, Chris, for being at the combine for the first time what it's like?

Well, I think what strikes me the most is, you know, I haven't met many of these beat reporters or national writers and seeing the difference in size from all these people asking questions to monsters. The beat writers must be like four inches shorter than the general population. And then these players out here, basically in their underwear, working out. It's just how far have we come from, you know, the owners sitting around the Huttmobile franchise in 1920, which, you know, by the way, breaking the law, drinking beers out of buckets during Prohibition, you know.

How far have we come since then? No substance abuse policy back then. Not for the owners. Hey now. It is different. I mean, it was the tight ends in the offensive linemen today. I might as well not be part of the same species. No.

Just walking by them, it's a totally different game. No, I saw a calf muscle on one man that was as the same, you know, my waist is smaller than one. Yes, aliens came down and saw this. They would be like, oh, this is funny. large men walking around in underwear while other men study them well this entire scene is bizarre at the combine and if there is an event that encapsulates how much the NFL owns America how it dominates you and your life and that you're listening to this podcast of three clowns on your iPod and enjoying it we thank you for that it's the scouting combine because this place is antiseptic

it's totally silent, it's devoid of flavor, and here we are, millions of people watching it, and everyone's into it, and we care about the hand size, and we care about everything going on here, and yet when you're here and you see it, it's just, it's a bizarre thing to witness as that this is some sort of big spectacle. It's a triumph for the NFL, and especially for NFL network, who built this entire event up. More than anything, I think the scouting Combines and Triumph. Your final thoughts, Wes, Sess. Wes or Sess? Let's go Sess. I, you know, I find this to be one of the more enjoyable weeks for us work-wise because A, you do get to meet a lot of writers that you're referencing in posts all year long and you find out, you're pleasantly

surprised by a bunch of them, actually. And I think for us, we're all kind of in the trenches getting to, you know, deliver original news versus sitting back in the office and seeing what comes at us. And I really enjoy the reporting angle of it and getting to kind of to be out in front of stories and working with you guys i'm pretty sure mark just is plean to come back next year despite a rocky i will say this i think it's hard for us to you know listen we miss dan this week too we miss him on the podcast day but uh he's back there he has our back back in culver city but uh we miss them every day we do need to get him out here next time yeah we'll try to get dan here next year and we'll be back in the studio in culver city next week we'll

wrap up the combine. Of course, it goes on for three more days on NFL network and on NFL.com slash live. Watch our hits on that. And we'll be writing up a storm. We'll be podcasting a storm next week back in California for Mark Sessler, Chris Wesseling, and a cast of thousands here at Lucas Oil Stadium. We'll see you next time. This is an I-Heart podcast.