NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL ATL: Offseason expectations, post-Super Bowl headlines

Episode Date: February 6, 2014

A room full of heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Chris Wesseling -- meet the offseason head-on, diving straight into post-Super Bowl headlines and analyzing the season to come.  Don’t miss which teams the heroes believe will have the most intriguing spring and summer, as well as which Super Bowl contender has the best chance of returning next year.  Who should you be expecting to make the leap from pretenders to contenders in 2014?  Tune in and join the conversation on Twitter: @NFL_ATL or #NFLATL.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the League podcast starts now. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the League podcast. My name is Dan Hanzas, and I am joined by a room filled with some heroes, Chris Wessling, and Mark Sessler. What up, boys. Hey, Dan. Back in our studio with beautiful sound quality. Yeah, we should say thank you, special thanks to everyone that listened to the show when we were in New York and New Jersey and put up with the sound.

You know, we had Kave, our fill-in producer, who did a great job, but, you know, we were limited by the sound. Now we're back in the studio, and it's almost like if you have like the zoos that the animals were kept in in the early 1900s and they would just be bars and very crude. and that's where we were in New York. Now we're in the habitats that you have at San Diego Zoo where they try to recreate what it's like for these beasts in the wild and everything is right. It's the way it should be.

Wait, we're still essentially under capture. We're caged. An inspired analogy from Dan Hanson. We're caged. We have shadowy league figures acting as our zookeepers, if you will. Yeah, it still feels ominous. But you're right.

There's more clarity. It feels more like home. Yes, we're back in L.A. and to get back to L.A. And we're going to get into some more Super Bowl, talk some final thoughts and talk about the teams and we're going to get into some headlines and some teams that jump out to us

as the off-season approaches. Those are all topics. But we should touch on, and by the way, Greg Rosenthal is on a sojourn, I believe, with his wife and young child somewhere. So he's out, but he will be back our next podcast. If Greg's listening to this, enjoy that sunshine, buddy.

that's it nobody has anything else to say to Greg no we totally agree enjoy it enjoy it all right have a wonderful time so to get back to L.A. we needed to take the charter flight which became one of the great great adventures or misadventures of the modern era would that be safe to say it was a debacle we basically the flight we got to the airport in Newark at about noon flight was delayed three or four hours he sat on the plane for two hours finally they said we're taking off, but we need to take 12 bags off the plane because we were overweight, which seemed like a personal slight. But they said the plane was overweight.

They took 12 bags off. Otherwise, we would have had to land before L.A. to refuel. They actually take 20 bags off, we learned. And we still had to land to refuel in Vegas, finally got home. It was like a 13 or 14-hour ordeal. But we were at least lucky enough that we weren't one of the 20 bags that got sent off to Seattle. Well, my favorite aspect of this is so we're sitting on the tarmac waiting for about an hour and a half longer than we thought while they pull said bags off the plane. And they were sneaky enough to have a cart with 12 bags.

And was it NFL media's Christina Poncher, I think is her name? That sounds fine. She took a shot of it, a picture, and it got sent around in a office-wide email. If you have a bag on this cart, you're out. You're done, baby. But there were another eight that they didn't even put on that car. And even beyond that, it was kind of a brilliant optical illusion because when you're dealing with those kind of stakes, which is, by the way, you're going to be on this plane for 12 hours. And then when you get to the Godforsaken LAX airport, your bag won't be there.

When you try to look at a picture like that, all you can see is your bag, even if it's not on there. Like, I was certain my gray suitcase was on there, but it wasn't. We were all lucky enough not to deal with that. I lost my iPod on the plane. Did you know that? No, that's... That wasn't the news. You lost your iPad.

I lost my iPod. Sorry to hear that, then. Some people lost their dignity due to the open bar on the plane. Not us, though. No, I would say that we were, we were rather sober-minded throughout the flight. I appreciate that the all instructions when we got on the flight was things will flow freely. That was very nice. Dammechek in the back of the plane had a podcast.

Plane cast. A plane cast, impromptu. We were not invited. But you know what? It bothered me initially, and I said that to Dave when we were in the air. airport after the flight, but then I said, that's okay. They have their own crew. We shouldn't impose upon their plane cast. They had a nice idea. And, you know, we stayed further up in the plane and played some cards and red, red books. Are you okay? You don't sound totally okay with it.

No, I'm okay with it. I'm okay with it. And one other thing, I did tweet about the, a lot of people tweeted about that, the charter flight from hell. Someone tweeted back at me, um, You shouldn't complain about a paid vacation, which is just insanity. We worked a 14-hour day on Super Bowl Sunday before this flight. That's a job, bro. Well, listen, I think that there are enough people out there that, you know, if they're putting shingles on roofs or drilling holes in highways, they look at what we do is we're not getting our hands dirty.

That's fair. Am I wrong? No, I agree. That was my first Super Bowl experience. experience. I enjoyed it. I don't think I'll ever step foot in New Jersey again unless it's on the airport ground. Come on. You love it. But, you know, it was, it could be seen as a vacation, a working vacation. All right. So why don't we talk about before we're going to move forward into the offseason? And before we do that, why don't we just touch on those two Super Bowl teams one more time? I would like to ask both of you, gentlemen, by the way, the gold standards behind the glass today. How are you gold standard? Yeah, dude, just fine. Thank you. Did you miss us?

So tremendously, I would feel awkward putting it into words. That's cool. I noticed it was very busy during Super Bowl Week. I only saw about 300 to 350 soccer-related texts from the gold standard. I just want to keep you in the loop. Yeah. As everyone knows, my favorite soccer team is the New York, New Jersey Metro Stars. You got to go home.

Yes. All right, so let me ask you gentlemen. Which of these teams, the Seahawks and the Broncos, are more likely or is more likely to make it back to the Super Bowl next year? This is one of those occasions when I am very happy that I don't work for another network where they may encourage us to embrace one of these teams, even if we don't believe. Embrace the debate. Right, yeah, there's no debate here.

The Seahawks are clearly more likely to get back. Why is that? Well, they have a better salary cap situation. they're younger. They have almost every key player coming back. The Broncos don't have that. And the Seahawks were the better team anyway. So they have a much better situation.

Mark? Yeah, I mean, I think what Wes is saying is that we both clearly look at Seattle and say, A, they're young. They were built in a way where they're not a quick window, quick-to-combust-type team. And, you know, I look over at Denver and I say that they're not built around one player, but they certainly are much more to a degree than Seattle is. Seattle is a roster that every position group, their strength. And here's the thing, with their defensive backfield,

they didn't draft six all-pro players. What they did was they have the way their philosophy works, the way they coach those players up. They're coached well enough to go play and start anywhere else in the league. Yeah, and I wrote a really great piece this morning about how the Seahawks used the back end of the draft so well. You know, that is upset. What?

Do you hear what you just said? Oh, I meant Wes. Wes wrote a great piece. Wes wrote a great piece about how it's not just about a lot of people will point out and say, oh, Russell Wilson makes no money, relatively speaking, so they were able to beef up in other places, which is certainly true. But ultimately, Wes, if you can go down the line of some of those big guys in the secondary and linebacker corps. Well, the Seahawks have three players who were drafted in the first three rounds of the draft

that played a significant rule on defense. have seven players drafted in the last four rounds of the draft that played a significant rule. So you're talking about Richard Sherman, fifth rounder. Cam Chancellor, fifth rounder, all pro type of players. Byron Maxwell came out and played great opposite Sherman, sixth rounder. Malcolm Smith, Super Bowl MVP, seventh rounder. KJ. Wright, one of the best coverage linebackers in the NFL, fourth rounder. Red Bryant, one of the best run stoppers in the NFL, fourth rounder. And then Jeremy Lane, a guy in the secondary, who was one of the best special teams player in the NFL, was the sixth rounder. This is a defense where they're not paying

these guys a lot of money, but they're still playing better than anybody in the NFL. And that's when I look at the idea of a dynasty and how a team can be set up for a dynasty. I know people are going to quickly tell you to shut up and, you know, they win one Super Bowl and all of a sudden you're talking. But no, this team is set up for that type of run because they have so many of these guys that are under their control, so much talent on the roster. It's really, they have a very good shot at making a run. In fact, when you factor in young and talented

and also a third round pick, Russell Wilson, as the quarterback, no team has been this well set up since those early aughts Patriots team teams. And I just want to say one thing about the Broncos, Mark, you alluded to it that on some level they're really built around Peyton Manning and he's going to be 38 next year. You know, and this is, to me, when they look back at this season and we touch on this on the Sunday show, when John Elway wakes up on Monday morning,

he knows this was a colossal missed opportunity because Manning is going to get old. And even if he played at A, if it's fair to say, he played an A plus level this year, even if he drops down to an A minus B plus type guy in his age 38 season, which is highly possible. I don't think there's enough on this roster to fill the void.

Even Von Miller coming back, I think that they need him to be at that level to be in the mix. Well, look, it's saying it starts with Peyton Manning. If he is able to approach the play from this season, I'd have no problem with Denver with, even if they lose Decker and maybe a player here and there, going 12 wins, maybe even more, and going right back to the AFC championship.

If he pulls a late last season FARV type thing, which I don't see happening with Peyton, different situation where he's not getting hit like that. But what you're talking about a little bit is that the Broncos were built to sign Peyton. He's eating up all their cap space with a window built around Peyton's career. As far as he goes, we will go. The Seahawks built their team completely different. And people were ripping Seattle three years ago on draft day when they were picking players that everyone else said, not on our board, what is up with Pete Carroll, John Schneider's crazy.

everyone's saying, oh, wait, they were building a defense based on a different type of defensive back that other teams don't use now they do, but they were ahead of the curve where Denver, I think, is patched up a lot of holes this offseason before this year with veterans, with guys Elway went out and got veterans in known quantities. I think there's a lot of talent on Denver's roster, and I think Elway's done a great job as well. I don't think this is a situation where Schneider blew Elway out of the water from a personnel standpoint.

And to your point about far, I don't think, I don't see. a Manning dropping off the way Farve did in his last Minnesota season. But I don't think it has to be that much of a drop for them to really come back to the pack. There's no way he's going to repeat what he did. And he probably won't even come close. When we predicted in August that this offense would break records, we did so because they had that foursome, Decker, Welker, Thomas. And Thomas, if you take Decker away, they no longer have that forsoom.

They no longer have the pick your poison offense that forces defenses to play one-on-one all over the field and the more teams embrace what Seattle's doing and play physical, get big, physical defensive backs to push the Broncos receivers around this wasn't the first time all season

that happened. The Colts won by doing the same thing and if more teams start to emulate that I think the Broncos will have more trouble I just don't see the Broncos I think they'll have to be the AFC favorites again depending on what happens in the draft and free agency they were clearly the strongest team in the AFC but they can't hang with the Seahawks in 49ers

But here's why you can't go out Anyone thinking that Denver's going to come out next year And lay an egg I talked to Robert Mathis at NFL honors And what he said was Well this is this is how it works Dan we talk to people that tell us things That the reason that Indianapolis

You explained yourself there Usually we all just kind of blow over it Mark's like well let me tell you why it is That I ended up speaking This is why I just dropped this name Because yeah I thought that indie game was so interestingly close to how Seattle put pressure on Manning. He said that he put all the credit, Mathis, on Indies defensive backs.

And that game particularly said they gave us that extra half second, second. And that's exactly what Seattle did. So if you don't have it out back in the back of your defense, you're not going to be able to slow Manning down next year. There's no way I can sit here until they're going to fall off a cliff or something. One last question I'll present to both of you guys. can you envision a scenario where the Seahawks don't win 11 plus games next year? It would have to be injury-related, especially maybe with Russell Wilson getting injured.

That's a scenario. But they basically have a one-year, one more year window here where they can build the best roster in the NFL because they don't have to pay. Russell Wilson's going to go from $500,000 to $20 million when he gets his extension probably. And by the way, the NFL's collective bargaining agreement works, they can't even offer him an extension until next off-season. Yeah, I'd agree with that because you look at, like, for instance, if Marshawn Lynch went down,

they've gone out of their way with Christine Michael and Turbin to build up the ranks behind a lot of their star players. But just like Denver, if they were to lose Russell Wilson, you're not plugging Tavares Jackson in there and getting the same results. You're not plugging whoever the heck it is they have as a backup next year. He is a special player. He shouldn't be completely overshadowed by Manning here.

But yeah, they're built to win games with anyone on the field. We saw that they lost their entire defense of backfield in chunks over the last two seasons, and they continue to win. All right, fellas, good talk. I was really impressed by the knowledge that you brought on that topic. That sounds a little condescending. No, it was professional. Okay. And, Wes, when I said that I wrote that article earlier today, total accident on my part.

Not something I was trying to get over on the audience. Fair enough. That's fine with me. Listen, let's just move forward. Hey, the gold standard behind the glass, why don't we do some headlines, okay? Let's do it. We'll start with news that broke yesterday. The NFL and CBS will partner on Thursday night football in 2014.

The break to CBS will produce all the games. They will air eight early season games before NFL Network takes over for the final eight games leading up to the postseason. 14 games will be played Thursday with two late season games taking place on Saturday of Week 16. Yes, the return of Saturday NFL football, a double header. Phil Sims and Jim Nance will cover a call 14 of the 16 games. Seems to be pretty much a slam dunk for the NFL. Am I correct on this? Seems like it would help more fans.

More fans who don't have access to cable can watch basic television and see games. That's true. I also think that when I say slam dunk, this is going to be a ratings bonanza for CBS, And I think it's going to, on Thursday night, on the biggest network on television in terms of ratings, on the biggest night for television in terms of advertising, this is going to be huge. And I would be kind of surprised if eventually all 16 games weren't on television, on broadcast TV. The only thing that I was kind of bummed out about, because I would like that there, I like Thursday night football. I know a lot of people don't. I'm happy that Saturday football's back.

I'm a little bum to lose Mike Mayock and Brad Nessler. I thought they did a good job. I am too. I wonder if they'll find, well, those guys also broadcast plenty of other games. Mike Mayock is a busy man. I know that. I think this is going to make a lot of rich men much richer because this is a home run right out of the park.

But the Saturday night football, I mean, I remember as a kid watching that, right? End of the year, that was when you knew Christmas was close. Yes. You were getting close to school holiday when those Saturday night games rolled. Well, in the old days, they weren't Saturday night affairs. They'd be Saturday, but they'd throw a few, like, four, the other four o'clock eight on the East Coast. It's dark by the time the thing starts. And it works because college football is over by that time.

And, you know, to me, it's good because it gives another reason to get Sessler into the office on a Saturday. Wes, if you are covering this sport 20 years from now, will you be covering a primetime game every night of the week? I would say no. I think there are issues. There are political issues involved. It all gets tied up in that stuff where college football is going to say, hey, we own this night. Or high school football says we own this night.

I love high school football taking down the NFL in this scenario. It's an anachronism, but that's one of the reasons why the NFL and college don't play on Friday nights because lawmakers have had to agree to this kind of stuff when they okay antitrust exemptions for the NFL. And, Mark, your favorite show, Big Bang Theory, getting moved off Thursday because of this. I actually have no idea about that, when that is on the schedule. Didn't even know that was on Thursday. Respect the show. I did not even know it was on Thursday.

I think we've tapped this well. All right. Tony Gonzalez tells ESPN the magazine, quote, Matt's an excellent quarterback, referring to Matt Ryan, the Falcons quarterback. But he's not elite. He's this close. And I imagine Tony Gonzalez is holding his pointer finger and his thumb together, as he says that, like this close.

But we don't know that. It could be, he could be stretching his wingspan as far as he possibly could. Is that the technical name, a pointer finger? Pointer, you're pointing with it. What is it? Four finger? Index. I don't know.

I don't know if that's right. I'm pointing with it. Do we agree with what Tony Gonzalez has to say on this issue? I think that's fair. Can you name a quarterback in the NFL who is elite but is not the best player on his offense? I can't. I think that's a fair way to put it. I think the silence kind of.

And Holyo, Joe. We talked about this when Julio Jones went down with the injury, that Matt Ryan's limitations will surface. He's not a guy who can carry an offense. He depends on his surrounding talent, and he's as good as you can possibly be by surrendering, depending on your surrounding talent. But Julio Jones makes that offense go, in my opinion. I'm not sure what, I mean, you know, we were at one point barred from writing articles that talked about any quarterback being elite. Do you remember that tip? The E word.

Right. And so I'm not sure what it means because I think it's. say it's bubbled up in the last four or five years, not to talk about the players that are, but to talk about the players that, well, you think you've done this, Eli Manning, but you're not elite, or Joe Flacco, you're not elite. And then it's like, I'll go win a title, and now I'm elite. So I'm not sure what it has to do with beyond winning titles at this point. I think Matt Ryan hasn't won a Super Bowl, and that's why people say that. It's an elusive definition, but I think in order to be elite, you're going to have to be better than one in the playoffs.

And that's what Matt Ryan's record is. And I also think if you, and you use Peyton Manning as the most recent example, you can be elite, you could be the best quarterback in the world, you need the team around you to get over the hump. And that's how Eli Manning ended up with two rings. And that's how Joe Flacco got the biggest contract ever for a while there and won a ring. The Falcons regressed talent-wise and dealt with injuries last year, and it made Matt Ryan look worse.

I mean, I don't even think it reflects poorly on that. the guy. I think Matt Ryan played the exact same as he did in 2012. He just had a worse offensive line and two receivers who were injured. That's not really his fault, but the game film shows the same quarterback. Now, next year, he has to do it without Tony Gonzalez. Just for fun, Wes, would you rather have Matt Ryan or Joe Flacco on your roster going for? Matt Ryan, easy decision. Yeah, that's not a hard decision. All right, fine, whatever. What about you? Go to you, Dan. Matt Ryan. But I like Matt Ryan more than

West certainly, and I believe Mark and I might be a little more on the same page. I'm not a huge Matt Ryan fan, but that has more to do with the Blasey nature of their home stadium. And Matt Ryan himself, even his name is Blase. I like Matt Ryan. I thought you didn't like Matt Ryan. No, I like him. You can't say he's a great – he doesn't carry the offense like guys like Aaron Rogers do. I just think he's ranked where he's supposed to be ranked.

He's about the eighth best, seventh best quarterback in the NFL. Yeah, which isn't such a bad thing. Is there a AR scale? after Ryan's skill I'll work on that for you that's interesting maybe he's the dividing line between elite and

oh we might have some cooking here he might be the he's in the Philip Rivers category to me he's a dividing line between elite and yet still a franchise quarterback we might have to go into the lab on this one for a couple of months Tony Romo might be around there

big Ben I put closer to elite than the rest of those guys and finally two former Packers standouts with neck issues are hoping to be in the mix in 2014 Tight-injured Michael Finley said that he wants to finish his career with the Packers after his spinal fusion surgery. And then safety Nick Collins said he's, quote, willing to take a chance after two years away from the game after suffering a serious neck injury.

You know, maybe it's just me, but whenever a guy says, I'm willing to take a chance and he's talking about a neck injury and the type of thing that could put you in a wheelchair, I don't know if that's necessarily the right move. Well, he's willing to take a chance, but last year when he was. was free to sign wherever he wanted, no teams were willing to take that chance. So we'll have to see if anything's different this time around. I think it's easy to forget just how good Nick Collins was. Three straight probles before that neck injury ended his career. The Packers' defense has really not replaced him since he left. That's been a big vacancy in their back end.

And that says, though, because they haven't filled the void at all, how serious being close to that player, they did not want to flip the switch and put him back on the field. I don't know what front office decides to take that chance because Because it's a tough situation, but it's a PR disaster waiting to happen if he gets injured. Well, I think I have a problem with someone telling another person how to live their life. So for me, if he wants to play, go for it. Sure, for him, but someone's got to agree to be that team. I would never criticize him for taking a risk to put himself in a wheelchair.

If that's something he wants to do, and he's a thoughtful guy, he's considered all the ramifications, go for it if that's what you want to do. Your Michael Finley, we should note, last time we talked about. talked about him, there was a debate. There was plenty of question. I remember Mark Shamirah said like 99%. 99% chance Finley never plays again. So now all the news is he expects to be fully cleared within a couple of weeks. It looks like he will play again.

I doubt we see him in a Packers uniform. Well, and by the way, Peyton Manning, we were having this conversation about him two seasons ago. So it's, you know, these guys do come back and they have the best treatment in the world and they seem to come back from injuries. We would never come back from, especially Dan. To quote Michael Scott, it's all nebulos. Yes, that would be action. All right, let's move forward.

Offseason, we're about to get into it in a real way. The combine's coming up. I believe you two gentlemen will be going. Is that correct? I have my fingers crossed. That's close to my hometown of Cincinnati. And it starts on my 40th birthday, so I'm hoping to fingers crossed. A few people make the caravan to Cincinnati for that.

Chris, I'm going to make that happen. I'll make sure you're in that building. Hey, I appreciate that. Yeah, I have that kind of sway. You know, who's going to call me out right now in the middle of the podcast? No one. But, yeah, so the combine, to me, it's like the unofficial or official start of work. It's not an original thought by me.

The combine is a big part of the draft process. I never thought of it that way. You know, that's the way I always look at it. And I'm a little outside the box, but combine draft, there's a connection there. So we, this is off the rails. So I ask you, gentlemen, and I will offer my own team as well, but try to play this off as if you hadn't had time to prepare. Most intriguing teams as we hit the offseason.

Well, this goes with our offseason forecast, which is being placed on the website this week. Nice sell. Dan is going to start with the Jets. Mark has done the Browns. One team I'm interested in is the Pittsburgh Steelers. I feel like this is a pivotal offseason for them. We heard reports.

the season that if things didn't go well, Palomalo will be dumped, Ryan Clark will be dumped, Brett Kiesel, Ike Taylor, there's talk that Lamar Woodley will be cut. Maybe Jason Worlds is a free agent. Do they re-sign him or resign Woodley? There's a lot that can go on on this defense, and it's basically, do we expect to contend

or are we going to go with a flat-out rebuilding season? So to me, that's the one I'm most looking forward to. How about what came up at the end of the year when the rumors bubbled up that Big Ben might be dealt. Do you, that at this point I view that as a non-enticity. There's no 0% chance of that happening. I will say just to play devil's advocate, though.

If they do decide internally to do a full rebuild, does it make sense to have a 32-year-old quarterback that could yield a small fortune on the open market? Sure. Sure, it makes sense. Because you're never going to get value for a franchise quarterback. And teams are looking for franchise quarterbacks. This is what the Steelers, if they trade a Big Ben, they, go into a window where they have no replacement.

And really, we've seen one good draft, one good offseason can turn a franchise around. Look at the Seahawks as an example. 2011 draft and Free Agency, they turn that franchise around. The Steelers can do the same thing. So when you say that you're most intrigued by the Steelers this offseason, is there a scenario whereby the Steelers hit a home run in the draft and make a couple depth signings in Free Agency, and they're a playoff team next year?

Absolutely. Look at their offense by the end. end of the year. Laveon Bell looked great. Heath Miller is coming back another year removed from knee surgery. Antonio Brown was one of the better receivers in the league down the stretch. And the offensive line, I think, gave Big Ben as few at sacks in five or six seasons. There's a lot to look forward on offense. They just have a lot of homework to do on defense. And Rathosberger looks so good in the second half. He was pretty good all season, but in the second half of the season, if you take his stats and his production put up against anybody,

he's right there. So this is a guy that's still right in the prime of his career. If you put some talent around them. They're going to win games. This is a team that went eight and four in its final 12 games. It's not that outlandish to think there'll be a playoff team. Mark, how about you? Well, I mean, there's a bunch. I go Houston right now because I think, A, they've got that

number one pick. They've got a new coach. We're already hearing that the owner wants, potentially Johnny Mansell, but the coach might want a different quarterback based on his own read on Johnny Manzell. I think it's going to be very intriguing to see what happens leading up to the draft.

because, you know, out of the gate, a lot of people thought, well, you know, look, this defense is so dominant when it wants to be, it was two seasons ago. What if we add Jadavian Clowny to the mix? So there's a lot of ways you can go, but I think that what we've seen, even in the last couple of days, they didn't hire an offensive coordinator. So Bill O'Brien, what that tells me is we're going to go out and get Matt Schaubb is out the door, obviously. Case Keenham, I think he'll get a look, but that's about it. we're going to get our own quarterback and our head coach is going to be tied at the hip to this guy from day one. And that's going to define O'Brien's legacy as whoever they pick and how that works out. But at the same time, the thing that stood out to me during O'Brien's initial

presser was the owner, Bob McNaro, basically said, we are not rebuilding. We are a playoff team that had a bad season. We're going to go right back in and win now. And how do you attack that from the draft because I look at Houston and say you actually have more holes than some people think you do and that coach might be under more pressure than any other this first season to win right out of the gate and go right back to a

12 and 4, 13 and 3 type scenario and that's tough to do with a rookie quarterback depending on who it is they get and it's tough to do with... It's nearly impossible to have that type of season with a rookie quarterback and I mean it's will O'Brien navigate you know I understand at Penn State he didn't have an

OC and he called his own plays But being a first-year head coach, and when you read books about first-year head coaches and you get what they said coming out of it, it's like, I knew nothing last year. And the second year, I'm starting to finally get a drift of what's happening. That's a tough thing to not have a coordinator on one side of the ball. Can you say Johnny Football again? Johnny Football. I saw it.

I saw your heart. Skip a beat in your chest, Mark. Well, that's right. I like to imagine you having daydreams while at the office or sitting at home of you and Johnny Menzel getting a condo together in downtown Cleveland. Wait, why are we going down? Why would I be living with him? Just friends.

It's like a friend thing, but you're like going through, you're almost like his turtle to use an entourage analogy. It is interesting. Whatever they do at number one, if they go defense, the Rams.

The Texans. The Rams can, they potentially have that pick to trade right there. If someone gets desperate and wants to trade up for the quarterback they want, it's going to be very interesting.

Desperate and Browns. Those two things go hand and I think Cleveland's, you know, transmit for ages. If this is real, we want Johnny football or whoever we want, we're going to get them. This is a pretty cushy place for a quarterback to fall, though. People forget how good DeAndre Hopkins looked early last season before basically the two quarterbacks sabotaged the offense. Andre Johnson is still playing at a pro bowl level. I don't know how much time he has left, though.

Even though he played great last year, he's getting older. It's a good point, but he's still playing well right now. He could be at that right at that point, like the Steve Smith 2013 drop-off level. That could be happening at any point now. They are going to probably lose Ben Tate. Sounds like he's going to go out the door. And then, who knows, Arian Foster, a little bit injury prone. Coming off back surgery.

Right. Suddenly you don't have that deep backfield. Right. So we'll see. I just left Dan just staring, you know, a thousand yards stare into nothing across the room. Well, let me tell you about my team, Mark. All right. And Chris, more popular known as Wes and Seth.

amongst the East Rutherford scene of New Jersey and Newark and Jersey City. Sure. Very popular in Jersey. Did you guys get any heat on Twitter, by the way, for your assassination of Chris Christie's state? What's odd is I got not a single message. I expected to be obliterated. Not a single New Jersey and sent me anything. Maybe it's because we said the people were great.

It's just that in January, when it's eight degrees out, the landscape is bleak. There's nothing they can do about that. Jersey Strong I received a wayward restaurant recommendation I believe I got a few of those as well

I think people wanted us to enjoy our stay better than we were doing They did As someone that is a native of the region You guys were staying in the wrong area of New Jersey

One day I will take you to Nice areas of New Jersey No thanks I'll take you on one of those motorcycles with a side car There are 49 There are 49 other states All right

My team is the Arizona Cardinals This is an intriguing team they went 10 and 6 and a loaded division missed the playoffs of course but there are some things that jump out right now first of all you have Patrick peterson who's really emerged fair to say he's a top three top five cornerback in this league now yes he he hinted that he might hold out he actually told pft when asked about a the idea of a holdout to obtain a new contract i can't speak on that right now that sounded foreboding you also have also in that secondary honey badger who suffered, obviously, that bad knee injury in December.

There's a bit of mystery around him about, you know, I'm sure he'll be ready for the season, or he should be ready for the season, but who knows if he'll be Honey Badger again? Because he was probably, I know my boy, Sheldon Richardson, got defensive rookie of the year, but he really, that was Honey Badger's award that he basically had to give up. Fair to say? I think that's fair. He would have been in the running, definitely. And then Carlos Dansby, he was the anchor of Bowles' defense last year,

and he's headed towards free agency, plans to test the market. And he's an interesting case because he's turning 33 in November. And nobody really wanted him last offseason, if you remember. He sat out there forever like Daryl Smith did with the Ravens. Nobody wanted him, and Cardinals fans will tell you he was a legitimate defensive player of the year candidate. By the way, nobody wanted John Abraham either. Right.

That's true. But, I mean, how much commitment do you make to a 33-year-old linebacker? That's a good question. I look at like a nice eight-year contract, $70 million. Fitzgerald specifically mentioned Dansby and Peterson when he restructured his contract, that he wants that money to go to those guys. And oddly, threw Frosty Rucker into the mix. Yeah, that threw me for a loop.

Frosty Rucker released by the Browns suddenly is on Fitzgerald's wish list. When he's on Larry's radar. Well, I think the Cardinals, on the other side of the ball, they have to fix the offensive line. once again have one of the worst past protections in the NFL. They need a left tackle. What's good for them is they do have Jonathan Cooper coming back, their first round pick from last year who didn't play a single game. He should be coming back healthy,

but they need to retool that offensive line. And for me, I guess I'll always question Carson Palmer. Sure. But maybe they take a second or third round quarterback as his successor. That would make sense. Larry Fitzgerald Senior, of course, the father of the Arizona Cardinals wide receiver, was right in front of Mark and I

outside the winning locker room on Sunday in the Meadowlands and I did ask him I said Larry is your son going to be back with the Cardinals this is right before the restruction is broken he's like damn he just needs to get here or something like that referring to

the Super Bowl yeah the Super Bowl which makes sense did Dan not just completely name drop yes he did and we just want to confirm like what you know categorizes is that that was it out of the way name drop Sometimes you just got to work your way to there and then show your influence within the structure

of professional sports coverage. All right, so those are the three teams. Well, what's interesting about the Cardinals is I keep seeing power rankings on who are the five best teams entering the offseason. And I keep seeing the Cardinals in the top five. It's just hard for me to believe. Well, that's natural, though. I mean, they beat Seattle at the end of the year.

They came within a game of the playoffs. And in that division, I thought they were one of the, the Arians was obviously a coach of the year type candidate. But those things don't tend to work out a lot of times. I just can't see a team with Carson Palmer as its quarterback being one of the top five teams in the NFL. No, and he had like the most Carson Palmer, Carson Palmer season ever this year. And now he's going to be 35 next year. I just, I mean, he's not going to get better.

He's just going to be who he is. And unless you really have a monster team built around him, they're not going to come out of the NFC or be one of those power players. Didn't he throw four interceptions in that win over Seattle? Yes. That's not a, that's not as a paradigm for winning in that division. He's sneaky terrible. I mean, I, well, you know, he was sneaky terrible early in the year. He did play pretty well in the second half, but I just, he's not a top 15 NFL quarterback.

I think they must know that though, and they're going to draft someone, don't you think, to groom? He is, he is basically running the border of the Dalton scale. Which is, we now know, is not a great thing to be doing in the NFL. At least it means you have a job, but it's not necessarily a great spot. Before we get out of here, we will be back, I think we'll be back next week doing three shows. We'll be back on Monday. We will be doing three shows a week throughout the off season. So while other people might slow it down a little bit right now, the ATL crew peddle to the medal.

We're continuing straight through the off season, giving you hard-hitting football analysis. I have, Wes, I have a couple questions. Number one, should we bring back Win West's Toaster next week? Absolutely. Find time to do it. Yeah. I think it's time for the challenge. This would be the Gold Standard's first exercise with Win West's Toaster.

I hope he understands in terms of production, in terms of the responsibilities, finding, locating contestants, screening them properly, getting the phone call logistics straight. There's a lot of pressure on you here. I'm on it. In the words of Bart Scott, can't wait. Wow. Love it. I now have people in my life. friends, family members who have listened to the show

and they now want to challenge me for the toaster. That's interesting. So why don't we on Twitter tweet at us, hashtag it, hmm, should we do WWT when Wes is toaster? That makes sense, right? Sure. And if you're

interested in taking Wes on and the gold standard will handle findings, a couple of contestants. So we'll do that next week. And also Wes, one other bit of housekeeping. What's going on with the map situation? Have you found a cartography store? I have.

I have a map coming. This has kind of been put on hold while we had our Super Bowl activities. Yes, sir. Me traveling to Ohio for a week. But it's now the time of the year where my spreadsheet is going to be converted from a spreadsheet into tax that are on the map to represent all of these different places that people are from. And we will have a picture of it up here in the Studio 66 that we will tweet out. Well, how big is this map going to be, by the way? it's going to be a poster size i like that well it has to be what were you thinking cereal box size

no i was thinking we need a big map we've got like right here i feel like works right well i'm giving some thought to buying a world map and also a map of the united kingdom i was going to say you need every village and township in great britain to we have a lot of listeners in great britain that's why yeah we can't have a crude map that just has the country we need to the towns. I'm thinking I've never purchased a map, but I'm thinking this would probably cost about $1,400, U.S. dollars.

I have no idea, but to have a map with that kind of detail, well over $1,000. We're going to do our best. And I don't want to leave out, like, the Channel Islands or Guernsey or something like that. We're going to have to have all the right Gensi places. Gansi.

All right, good. So you're on top of it, West. Yes. In terms of a timetable, is this something that'll be done by the end of February? Yes. Good. I'm excited.

I'll give you that pledge. All right. That's it. Greg will be back on Monday. Perhaps we all will. You know, during the off season, one of us might not be around for certain shows, but we'll keep the shows coming. We'll have some guests that jump on throughout the off season. It's going to be fun. I'm excited about the off season. I know you're excited because games are over, and you're not really into football games. It's true. It's one of those things. A lot of people don't know. I've never actually watched the game. Yeah, but you did a nice job covering them. Thank you very much. All right. Until Monday, this is Dan Hansis, signing up for the mailman. The Gold Standard, until Monday.

There's a darkness inside me, and I can't shake it. This is an I-Heart podcast.