NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Teams Changing Identities for 2017

Episode Date: July 12, 2017

A room filled with heroes – Dan Hanzus, Patrick Claybon & Gregg Rosenthal – recap all the latest news from around the NFL including the Chiefs promoting Brett Veach to GM and the Panthers wanting Cam Newton to run less. The heroes also debate who will win the running back battle in Seattle and which teams are undergoing a facelift heading into next season.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. The Around the NFL podcast is a room full of bozos. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast presented by New Era. My name is Dan Hansis, and I am joined by room filled with some heroes. Patrick Claibon to my left. Greg Rosenthal, also to my left. What's that, boys? Hey, Dan.

All right. You know, I go away for a couple weeks. and things change. Welcome back, though. Welcome back. Thank you for welcome. Good to have you back. Yeah, it was nice to be in the case.

You're talking about that? Yeah, I come here. First of all, two people sitting there left. I've never done a show where nobody was to my right. I tried to talk to, you know, Noah's Arcade back there. Yeah. And they wouldn't stand for it. Got to sit here.

We have the show is, is our video show we're doing with new hours of spot. We're very excited. We've got these hats. That's another new addition. And right now the audio, the audio audience is like, I don't care about hats on the desk. Don't care about any of that. But we care.

We got some nice designs here, cults, chiefs, Seahawks. Very exciting stuff. What does this mean for our show, Greg? Is this bad or is this good? I think it's good. It means that there's money coming into the building that our show is, in theory, providing for the NFL, and eventually maybe that money gets into your pockets and your son's pockets.

What about my other son? Only one of them? No, only Jack's getting in the money. And speaking, I got to, I got to say, and we'll get, we've got a lot to get to in today's show. Two, you know, two weeks back home. I have, you know, Jack, who's going to turn three next month. I know both of you men have young children. I have another son that's eight months old.

And if you are listening to the show, you don't have kids. After spending all this time on vacation with these tiny children, I can't say whether if you don't have kids, right now which direction to go I can't go either direction I can't tell you should definitely have kids for the audience you mean yeah for the audience for us and I can't and I can't say that you definitely should just stay single or stay with your your loved one and be in that type of relationship I I'm on the fence after this past week Dan this is going to have implications for like our society right well that's true I think that's what the

handmade's tales about I haven't seen it yet Japan's running into that problem not enough kids these is that true yeah they're running out of people. I wish I remember his name. I want to send a shout out because you're probably listening. A young guy seemed like a very nice dude. He stopped me at Newark Airport and was very excited, a big fan of the podcast. Oh, wow.

So you know who you are. Shout out to some young guy. Some young guy. Shout out to him. Anyway, today's show is a good one. We're very excited about it. We're going to talk about, you know what I'm going to go through it. We're going to talk about Cam Newton.

Okay. We're going to get into some Cam Newton talk. We're going to talk about the idea of Cam is, how is it going to change, how they're going to use Cam to keep them healthy. We're also going to get into, you know, now that we're sponsored, a new sponsor. Yeah. A little, you know, it's tough to move on with a new sponsor. But we're going to talk about a spotlight on a training camp every show for the next couple of weeks.

And we're going to talk about the Seahawks running backs. That's an interesting situation, Greg. I know you're excited about that. I've got some hot takes on that. And I do another hot take, Greg. We're going to talk about teams that I've talked about. undergone an off-season identity change, Todd Gurley and the Rams. One of those teams, how exciting is this?

What a show. Patrick, you excited? I'm very excited. Pre-show grade? I'm wanting to be here for a pre-show grade. I've never gotten a pre-show grade on a show that I've been on. Do you want a pre-show grade? I really want one day.

All right, let's go over it. You got a new sponsor? I figure we're going to get some new hats. Sully, are we going to be able to keep some of these hats? Yes. We have like six box full of hats. On hats, on hats. Perks.

So new hats. New hats for everybody. Claibons here. I've never seen Claibon this happy. I love free stuff. That's why we do what we do. Well, free stuff right off the bat. I'm back.

I'm happy to be back with you guys. You want a raffle? You found out when you got back? I want a raffle. I got some free swag downstairs. Do a lot of free stuff going on right now. But as far as the show goes, Claibon's here. Other boys aren't here.

We got free hats. Eh, B minus. Yeah. Respectable. Yeah. All right. All right. And if people want to watch the show, by the way, it is streaming every Tuesday in July.

930 Eastern, 630 Pacific. You know, they're saying if they want to watch it. All over it. I think you can find the, you can probably find a link after. Yeah, we'll shoot a link out from the around the NFL handle, which everybody should follow if you're not already. Let's get going. Let's do some news. Sully, let's roll.

Is this such a good time to check the sink on these podcast models? All right. We'll start with the Kansas City Chiefs who have made a decision on their new GM. The Chiefs have promoted co-director of player personnel, Brett Veach. Veach, am I pronouncing that correctly? That's how I've been doing. Oh, God.

See, this is this stuff that we've got to talk about in the pre-production meeting, guys. Is it Veach? Is it Vich? Like, Kate Veach. What other options would it be other than Veach? Yeah, Kate Veach from Dodgeball. They're related. I think that's it.

Anyway, he's the new general manager. the development was first reported by Rapsheet and NFL Network's Tom Pelliseros. What you miss when you go away on vacation. New hire. I can't keep track all these people. Building the roster. All these people making more money than me.

But anyway, Vich's promotion comes after the Chiefs and former GM John Dorsey parted ways on June 22nd. Greg, your takeaways. Well, you know, one big reason to watch the video show is for all this Brett Veach B-roll. You're getting quite... This is all of it, by the way. Quite a job.

Just old Veecher walking around. You know, I can't believe they did this. I don't think Veach deserves this at this point. This is absolutely insane to promote. Are you being serious? No. I mean, how does anyone, I would have stopped myself at some point. I don't know how anyone has like a hot take when these sort of internal, you know, promotions happened unless you, you know, you're a real true insider, which I'm not pretending to be.

I don't have any hot takes on Veach. Yeah. And I don't think even the takes that people would say were the hot is. I don't know if they were very hot. People were just saying, well, they go from within to a guy who's close to the head coach, and the head coach was supposedly had no part in any decision to get rid. And so people are connecting that dot, but is that really that? That's a solid take there, Claibon.

It's mild. It's not my take. I'm just saying that's... You might have to put yourself on a claybought. What do we call it again? The Claibon, the hot takes on Budzman. You might have to put yourself on Blast. That is a take that exists.

I'm pointing out the existence of it. Okay, you're pointing out the existence of it. It is fair to point it. out that, you know, the general manager who had been doing a good job and was surprisingly canned in the middle of the off season is a strange situation. And they decide to pick a guy who gets along with Andy Reid. I mean, that makes sense. Now, Greg just made the sense. No, no, no. I'm, I don't think it's a hot thing. I'm saying it would be weird if they picked someone that didn't get along with Andy Reid that had no history with Andy Reid. I mean, what are we doing here? Oh, what about what are we

doing? Like, there's a story on July 10th, 2017, on NFL.com, about the chiefs picking their new general manager how did this ever happen in the first place this is a successful team i'm still confused about how this happened in the first place uh but uh good good luck to brett fiasche may maybe the c's silent bret fj it's possible also viach v i kind of like that one actually uh moving on let's talk about cam newton uh the carolina panthers quarterback as we know as we know patrick and gregg uh cam took a beating last year and I think the Panthers seem to be at a place now where they're saying, hey, we've got to keep this guy healthy.

We've got to keep him on the field because he can't continue to take this beating as he gets deeper into his 20s. Panthers coach Ron Rivera spoke to Sirius XM NFL radio on Monday and said that the offense was always designed to get the ball out of Newton's hands faster, but now they can possibly do that. They're actually built that way thanks to the addition of both Christian McCaffery and Curtis Samuel in the most recent draft here is the quote from Riverboat Ron

we struggled last year with that the first one being able to protect him our left tackle Michael or gets hurt and we got to reshuffle our offensive line and move guys around that wasn't the best thing for us we went out and made some moves and free agency to help sure up the offensive line then we go out and feel like we have to continue

to put playmakers around him we went out and found a very versatile explosive running back who had tremendous college career, and hopefully that translates to the NFL. In Christian McCaffrey, we went out and got Chris Samuel out of Ohio State. A very explosive vertical attack. Well, Riverbone Round feels good. He's feeling good about this. I think, you know, they telegraphed this even before the end of last season.

You know, they talked about that Cam Newton needed to evolve at some point beyond running, I think Rivera said 20 zone read plays a game where he's getting hit on 10. of him and they need to protect them. And our very own, Chris Wessling, not in the house today, which is too bad because he could be crowing because I think he might have had just a little bit of impact here. He wrote an article saying that they need to follow the path of Ben Rothesberger in the Steelers, kind of in the middle of his career when they got Todd Haley to maybe back off a little bit of getting him hit so much, get the ball out of his hands a little quicker,

even though he's a great vertical passer, protect him a little bit. And now Ron Rivera is practically quoting that article when asked about it on Sirius on Monday. You know, he said there's a great example out there. It's been written about and it's been talked about with Pittsburgh and Ben Rathosberger. And he goes on to say, you know, they actually looked at what the Steelers did in terms of their backfield and their receiver court. And they've kind of modeled some of the offense off of what the Steelers have done with Biggs. Yeah, well, Wes has the ear of Riverboat Ron. I mean, it's fairly obvious when you.

When you say that Wes was crowing, no, I said he had the opportunity to throw. Because he suggests. Are you making an illusion to go into the raven's nest? Is that what you? Is that a raven's nest? That was not it. I mean, crowing means like bragging, you know, you puff your chest out.

Patrick, I can't be the only one in the room that thought for a second. Maybe we were taking an impromptu trip to the Ravens. I was ready for it. The instant connection. Yeah, Sully was all over that. I saw it hovering like a raven. But going through the numbers of Cam and his yards per attempt, In the last two months of last season, he was under four.

He's never been under four carrying the ball in his entire career for a month of a season. And so he's playing with a shoulder injury that requires surgery. Right. I mean, he was playing with a partially torn road team. So it's tough to. Like, not only is it a smart thing to do, but eventually it wasn't going to work anymore.

You weren't going to be able to build the whole plane out of cam for much longer. I wrote about the Panthers as part of this article, teams that are changing their identities. Oh, we're going to get to that. We're going to get to that. Yeah, we're very excited about that. But since we're talking Panthers now, I mean, their identity in the past, I think,

was counting on Cam to complete really low percentage throws. I think he's a streaky passer, but he's a very good downfield passer. But I watched some game pass for this article. Humble bad. And, you know, if you want to play a game, if you're a very masochistic Panthers fan, you know, on a dropback pass for Cam Newton,

and just pause it when he gets back to the end of his drop and look for an open receiver. You can't find one. You got Kelvin Benjamin's covered. You know, Devin Funches is covered. Got these two slugs on the outside. That's what I'm saying. You essentially, but now you get, let's incorporate some easy throws into the mix.

McCaffrey, you know, Samuel, some short throws, you know, just what the rest of the NFL is essentially doing. Claymon, yes or no? Panthers bouncing back this year? Yes or no. Yes. Because it was so bad last year. The quarterback's hurt.

Yeah. They got to go up. You know, that's sports. You know, he goes one way, then goes like the other way, and then we all talk about it. I texted Wes about this yesterday because I thought he might be excited about this.

Where did he come from? Where did he come down on this? He was excited. It made him like Ron Rivera. He says Ron Rivera is willing to change. You know, he got more aggressive in terms of going forward on fourth down, you know, Riverboat Ron goes for touchdowns more instead of field goes. And he even thought,

we might have to bring it back around with the Panthers as a team of around the NFL. Oh, my gosh. They were the original. So that's what it takes. If you want Wes on your side, you just got to. Oh, just praise him.

He's got to cite as well. I mean, he doesn't, West doesn't like to talk about this. But in a lot of ways, it is the team of West D.L. No. He will not, he will not really get behind someone else.

It's more like when West comes around the team, great, you're shaking your head. Like, this isn't been the reality. But in the Panthers case, the first time around, I was fully in on those Panthers. I loved the 2013 Panthers. That was about your ego there.

No, I was saying both of us. You were in on the Panthers. No, I'm saying where we were sharing it that year. So it wasn't just Wes. Okay. I know where you're coming from now. That's why you went, oh. It wasn't about you thinking I was slandering West,

with you not getting the credit you felt you deserved. It would be fun to go through all the teams of ATL and find out where you guys stand on them now. Yeah. Well, we got it. I mean, this could be the last team of ATL. Yeah, we've, we've, kind of swung and missed two straight years. I think the Panthers the first time around was a big hit,

and since then it's been trouble. All right. Moving on. One team that won't be a team of ATL is the Seattle Seahawks. And you know, you read the ESPN story last month. I think it came out where it spoke of a lot of discord going on behind the scenes there, some mistrust, some Russell Wilson heat involving some key players. A lot of the players, including Richard Sherman, um have come out and said that story's bogus there's nothing do not look behind the curtain everything's cool uh cliff averill is the latest man to do so uh he told the NFL no huddle podcast i'm not familiar neither my we are now the middle of july um he told them uh this past friday i think it's all hashtag fake news he didn't say hashtag should um i think it's all

dead it was a dead period so people needed something to talk about at the same time too let's be honest it's 90 guys in the locker room right now there is no way that 90 guys are going to always get along and that's just what it is i'm pretty sure there are people at your job right now well this is interesting that's way less than 90 uh that don't get along that's just part of it that's exactly what i would say i mean you could you can make a situation for virtually any assembly of humans where it's like oh this guy this guy once said something that this guy i mean they went through an experience in the super bowl where they lost like obviously that's going to be a memory that hangs on to people for forever and you could write some story

two years down the road that say well they're upset about this well yeah they're upset they lost in the last play of the super bowl it's a fair point in terms of uh co-workers not getting along i mean when i came over to the NFL you know i was coming from kind of a little mom and pop shop i was amazed that some of the the trash talking you know in different circles about other people that worked at the company, you know, people got the rivalries. They got... Let's not pretend... Get your act together, bro, you're trash.

Let's not pretend there wasn't he back where you left either, though. You know, it doesn't matter how big or small a company is. There's always... People don't always get along, which is Cliffs' point. Yeah. Yeah, I've got a couple things about this. Number one, the No Huddled podcast, Mm-hmm.

Hosted by NFL Network, former host Brian Weber. Webbom. Oh, my God, BWW. Rubber Brian Weber. Webhead. Host of NFL AM. I remember. Dave Damashek with the famous impression of Web.

Great Weber impression, yes. I never met Greg or Brian, Brian Weber, but I don't know why I'm bringing this on right now. It's a good get. Number two, fake, you know, using the term fake news. Like, this has been an effect. I know we don't, this is not the politics, you know, podcast here. I was going to say we could just tee up Claibon and walk out and let him dissect. I'm just saying fake news, like this as a strategy, it's working.

I mean, causing, sowing the seeds of concern and people doubting the, whatever you want to call journalism, like, people are doubting it. It's working on Cliff Averill either. And it is, it is starting to erode. Like, it's an effective strategy that's going on in the fake news. Yeah, people need to pick and choose when they use fake news. That's what I'm saying. Like, because, I mean, I just did an update where I talked about Emmanuel Sanders diet and cutting out fast food. That's not necessarily fake news, but it is because there was.

There's not a lot of stuff for us to do in the update. So I talked about, you know, cheeseburgers. Right. That kind of is fake news. A little bit. Yeah, it can go either way. Well, it would be fake news if I said he was a clown and he was murdering cats. Like, that would be fake news.

That's very fake news. I hope it is anyway. And finally in the news, I just want to do a little public service announcement. On behalf of the city of Minot, the new automated collection cans continue to be delivered. we ask you not to write or mark on these cans. I repeat, the new automated collection cans continue to be delivered when you get one at your residence.

Okay. Please do not write or mark on these cans. Sometimes people like to write their address or some identifying marker. Don't do it because the city, you know, in all their wisdom, and I trust the reasons are divine. They say, do not.

refrain i mean i thought you were doing a really nice public service announcement for the city when you retweeted it from uh the around the nfl account only only for uh our editor and it was a big mystery we have a we have a instant message client which will not be named where you know we're all talking on it and there was a big mystery who who did this well you know you're not the only NFL network insider yeah and this i've come to the bottom it was it was dan it was Dan Hansis and David Ely with no sense of humor, our editor, unretweeted it. Wait, no, he did? He did.

That's the thing about Ely is now that he's... That's the lamest thing I've ever heard. He's entrenched at the top of the pyramid on the news desk. He thinks he can make those decisions unilaterally. And it's like, bruh, you don't unretweet something that a founding member of the around the NFL team tweeted out, retweeted. I made that decision. That was my call. I wanted to get the word out.

And you don't go on retweet. You know what? He stick to football to you. God, terrible. And by the way, and a follow-up tweet, The City of Minot lets us know that the reason why

that you should not mark your cans, there are already three forms of ID in place, including RFID chips to help track the cans. Okay. That's good to know. There's your City of Minot update. Now it's time, gentlemen. That's what's happening in the news.

And now it's time for a little training camp spotlight. And it's presented by, you know what it is, new era. And I know what listeners are going to do. They're going to say, how do you move on so quickly from sponsor to sponsor? I was told, I was forbidden from saying anything about our previous sponsor. We have to, there are no reverse gears in this tank. And we're moving forward with the new era. It's a new era.

It's a, literally. It writes itself. And you know what the training camp's, training camp spotlight is? Yeah. You know what it's going to be about? Why? Cals, Seahawks. We're just talking about them.

But now we're going to talk about the running back situation. And we want to figure out. And we talked about this a little earlier in the spring, Greg, about what, there's a lot of haziness around that backfield. Where are you coming down on it right now? I'm coming down on it that Thomas Rawls is the man to watch. If you're in fantasy drafts, I know we don't do a lot of fantasy advice here until our fantasy Spectacular, which is coming up in a few weeks.

The entire week, by far, Mark Sessler's least favorite part of the calendar year is the Fantasy Spectacular League week here on the Round of the NFL podcast. It's coming next month. Yeah, here's a preview. Number one, Thomas Rolls' old teammate, Marshawn Lynch. Why is he getting drafted in the second round? That's bananas. And it's even more bananas that Rawls is getting taken four rounds after his teammate Eddie Lacey.

It was just a year ago that Rawls was coming off very serious injury. People kind of forget Eddie Lacey's coming off of ankle surgery. He hasn't been healthy all offseason. Rawls knows the system. People think they're just going to hand the team over to Eddie Lacey. He's not making that much money. Rawls is under contract, actually, for a longer time. And the bigger factor here is I just think Rawls is a great player.

And it took him a little while to get back from injury last year. The offensive line was not great. But I think given the chance, he can be a better player than Eddie Lacey throughout August and be your week one starter for Seattle. You just feel better about this team at the running back position than you did a year ago. Yeah. It's good to have both and CJ Pro Seize. The ship has more direction. And like you said about Eddie Lacey, where you go back a couple of years

and people had Eddie Lacey on there and never draft again, if we can still be talking the fantasy world. Yeah. You've already gone there, so we have to move forward. Yeah, he let me down. I'm never drafting him again. And people think that Eddie's problem was just that he was overweight and that it had nothing to do with being injured.

Right. So if those guys can both come back and be healthy, you feel so much better about the Seahawks at that position. Well, how about the idea, Greg, if we're still talking fantasy, but we shouldn't. Rawls and Lacey, maybe neither are great fantasy options, just because they could go 50-50. And maybe it's the best for both of them for it to be that way, because neither guy has shown the ability to stay on the field. I think Rawls has had bad luck.

Now, you never know, but, I mean, he's had broken bones twice in a row. He had a broken leg and came back and broke his leg again. He's got bird bones. I hear me? You got Boyd bones. You know, sometimes you seem like you're injury prone early in your career like a Matthew Stafford and then suddenly you play seven straight years

just because you have... Usually it's the other way. No. Usually you're showing early on that you're brittle. You got the bones of a boyd and then you're out of the league in a few years. Thomas Rawls has had some bad luck. Broken bones, if there's an injury,

not that you would want to have the injury yourself, but as for instance a fantasy owner that you want a guy to be coming back, from it's usually broken bones because that's just kind of random you can you can return from that Eddie Lacey's a little different and Rawls is getting taken in the ninth round so the way I see it they'll probably take turns maybe Eddie Lacey gets a run where he's five or six games as the primary guy and then Rawls gets eight or nine games and who knows if they're healthy you know you're going to be happy with eight or nine primary starter games from Rawls if you draft them that late in

your draft nine 10th round here's a hot take prediction there we go pro size runs for more yards than any of them I don't like that I feel good about it. It's pretty hot. The heat's coming off. I don't feel good about it being right, but in terms of being a hot take at this point. If you went yards from scrimmage,

I could buy it. He could be a big factor in the passing game and all that. I'm just saying this time last year, the Kristen Michael, what did we call it back then? What was it last summer? The awakening. Yeah, the awakening was in full bloom,

and it just shows that whatever logically makes sense. It doesn't always play out that way. Seahawks backfield's been kind of hard to make sense of ever since Marshaun kind of exited the picture. Even the final Marshawn Lynch year was not great because he was injured a lot. And it distracts from the fact that, you know, offensive line wizard slash guru Tom Cable hasn't actually coached the good offensive line for like four years.

It's like you give this guy, you know, you know, a shooting guard from the pack 10 and he can turn you into a starting left tackle. Yeah, but are they any good? No, they're lying stings. I'll tell you one thing about Tom Cable. he's a football coach that's like his number one claim to fame

I mean people were trying to get him head coaching job I'll tell you he's a football coach with a troubling history of abuse yeah this guy breathes oxygen he's certainly a person hey this guy

he put him on the field 11 guys on one side 11 on the other every time that was the training camp spotlight presented by you know what it is I'm aware of it isn't

Why is it so hard for me to move on? I don't know. We are the only part. We might be the only entity that gets. Yeah, you can, we got bucket hat. You can wear them in anything. But don't we become overly attached with the, the companies that sponsor us? Maybe we need to.

I don't know. I didn't even. I was legitimately hurt when I found out that I didn't get to do the last read of our previous sponsor. Uh-oh. Clay Bunn's putting on the hat. Here we go. This is really, here we go. That's good.

I'm all about new era products. It's an advertisement. This is the reason to watch us on screaming. It is a little bit annoying that Claibon puts on a ridiculous hat and he's still better looking than the other two guys in the room. False. All right, here we go. Moving on.

All right, Greg. Greg, you wrote a banger. I enjoyed it. I had not read anything about the NFL for approximately two weeks. I unplugged. It's good. I went, I was at Keith Hansis, my old man, and Deb. We were staying at their house by the shore, and I just unplugged.

Jersey Shore. Yep. And then I picked up this piece of writing from Greg headlined, Rams, comma, cults, comma, Panthers undergoing offseason identity change. Greg, that's an SEO headline. I don't write. You're a little better than that. I don't write the headlines. That's not the headline that you see on the site.

Must include as many team names as possible. off season as well change here it says we'll search that in Google on the site it says new year new identity teams flipping the script look I just send in the copy the editors put the headline up but yes like many a great movie from the 80s I was going to say today it's about identity change before we get into identity changes and teams that are undergoing them what is the better stillborn Jason Bateman identity switch vehicle you could choose between Between, here are your options. The change-up, 2011 with Ryan Reynolds. Why don't we do it purely on plot synopsis? Dave is a married man with three kids and a loving wife, and Mitch is a single man who is at the prime of his sexual life. One fateful night.

I hear that. While Mitch and Dave are peeing in a fountain, lightning strikes, and they switch bodies. Science. That's pretty good. That's pretty good. Okay, so that was the change-up, and now I will look up identity thief. Identity theft, yeah, little Melissa McCarthy.

All right, here's this one. Mild-mannered businessman Sandy Patterson, that's Mr. Bateman once again, travels from Denver to Florida to confront the deceptively harmless-looking woman who has been living it up after stealing Sandy's identity. All right? What do you guys think? I like which one was better. The better stillborn Jason Bateman identity switch vehicle.

You put that word stillborn in and it's just to be able. Well, they both, you know, I don't think either did well financially or critically. I'll have to go with the change up as the better one because to me, this is a genre and it hadn't been around for 15 to 20 years. You know, of course you had the Kirk Cameron vehicle like father like son, I believe back in the 80s. It's a classic. Absolutely. And I feel like if you're going to do this movie, the lightning striking while you're at the urinal,

that's a perfect way to get in. I like it. I like it. Doing some research here, there's a Bateman movie called The Switch as well. Wait a second. Is this a Jason Bateman thing? Who is your agent?

Jason Bateman. Jason Bateman's awesome. And he's been having a great post-arrested Development. Arrested Development is incredible. I love Arrested Development. But let's calm down with a, the body switch comedies. That's all I'm saying.

Let's mix it up a little bit. By the way, and I should apologize to Melissa McCarthy. Her movie with Bateman made like $135 million. All right. Now, so did we decide? What was the decision? Yeah, I'm with Greg.

I'm with the change. Body switch peeing is the best way to go. Yeah. Peeing in a fountain and you just switch bodies. Who comes up with this? Excuse me. Here we go. Let's start with the Los Angeles Rams.

And this is a team, Greg. And again, Greg did write a banger. I, what the point I was trying to get to was that Greg broke this all down in his most recent column to check it out. But we were, you know, if you've been watching all or nothing, things, that team could not be further away from contention or being in a good place. So what do they do?

They just blew it up. And now they're giving the kid Jared Gough of a fighting chance, aren't they? They are. And I think that was the entire, I mean, they did the easiest way to do an identity change. I mean, the Panthers kept their coach. Well, peeing in a fountain is, like, at least conventionally, is an easy thing to do. You've got to wait for the lightning.

That's true. I'm just saying, like, the Panthers, for instance, they're trying to change identities without really changing their coaches, without changing the GM. Like, that can be complicated. Only the Patriots can pull that up. The Rams did the more conventional approach, which is get rid of the coach who hasn't had a good pass in game

in his entire five-year run when he was in Los Angeles. You know, this is their fourth offense that they're learning in four years if a guy was on the Rams the whole time, stopped playing offense passively. I felt, and watching all or nothing really cemented it, underrated season, by the way, I think we'll talk about it some other time, that they were playing offense to just avoid making mistakes.

They were just hoping that the quarterback stays out of the way so that the defense and the running game can win the game and don't let the quarterback blow it. Like, that is 1980s football. That is 1985 Bears football that Jeff Fisher was on on that team. It's like, work anymore. Now you've got a coach in Sean McVeigh who does a really good job. He kind of, you know, floods the field, three or four receivers. He makes it easy for a quarterback to kind of identify the mismatch.

And it's just like point cards. It should be very quarterback friendly, like short passes, open receivers. That's what made Kurt Cousins. So you say they're going to, the identity is going to go from passive to active attacking? I don't know about attacking because actually it's like a short, a short passing game, but I do think, yeah, they're trying to dictate a little more, and they're not counting on Todd Gurley to be running the ball on second and eight into a brick wall. You know, they're not just going to play things safe. I think they're going to be a little more aggressive. Yes.

You, uh, you know, drinking the Kool-Aid? You drinking that McVeigh Kool-Aid a little bit? I'm more into Wade Phillips. I think he changes that team quite a bit. But I do think they were so bad last year, like almost to the point of being, I don't want to say unprofessional, but like they were way behind the modern NFL in terms of the passing game. So if they can just be like respectable, just like not be embarrassing,

be the 26th best passing game, it's like then they can be a lot better as a team. I can see not having Greg Williams also as a significant alteration to your identity as well. That could be good. You both also have to have to relieve yourselves at the same time. That's tricky. You could be P-shy. That's a problem.

All right, maybe it's not as easy. Maybe not the easiest route. Let's move on. And we'll talk about the Indianapolis cults. Another team, Greg, that you wrote about. Now, this was a situation where you could do it different ways. This time, they swept out the brain trust. And who comes into town?

Our friend. Man, that's not easy to figure out. He's the former chiefs director of football operations. His name is Chris Ballard. What's your favorite type of frog? But guess what? He asked questions. He asked questions.

And he asked the right questions. How do I fix this team, Claibon, and what did he do? I mean, they go out and they make the moves that are necessary, and people feel like they've made, you go back to the Ryan Kelly decision to draft last year, and they try to build off of that and bring in and surround luck with the right people. But the question goes to Greg is what is this offseason enough to really alter the identity of, well, we got Andrew.

Andrew, let's see if he can sling it around and get enough done to get us a Super Bowl. Well, the changing identity to me is that they're addressing the defense that has decayed under Chuck Pagano and Grigson. People think of Chuck Pagano. He's this kind of tough talking guy. He's a defensive coach without really noticing their defense has been bad under Pagano. And it's gotten worse and worse. It's been an older group that isn't very good, which is a bad combination. They've held on to veterans that aren't performing.

And so I really like how decisive Ballard has been. They signed so many players in free agency that they might have seven to nine new starters. They drafted a defensive player in each of the first five rounds. They have 22 new defensive players. Whoa. And that's a lot of new defensive players. That is an outrageous amount.

That's too many. You could have almost four new linebackers starters. All four linebacker starters should be new. I don't think that's too many. Well, here's the thing. It could work. It was nearly as extreme last year with the Giants did in free agency, and it worked for the Giants.

But you're asking a lot of things to fall into place for these guys to immediately be able to play together. You're asking a lot. And then you're also not for nothing on the other side of the ball. You don't even know how your quarterback is. To me, I know this room seems bullish on the Colts, and I'm fine with that. To me, it still seems to be a lot.

And we don't even know. I know Chris Ballard, getting a lot of good grades also. see how this all works out he's made a lot of changes sure anybody can make a lot of changes is it going to work i don't know you go safety corner linebacker back to back to back in the draft right i i guess what i like is that he looked at the defense and just said i'm going to spend this off seat like our offense is in pretty good shape overall the offensive line could be better but it's that it's in better shape i think that it's been i'm going to spend all these resources and see what sticks jabal shear john simon shan spence

You know, not all of them are going to work, but some of them will work. Jonathan Hankins, they're bigger, their defensive coordinator. Do you know who their defensive coordinator is? It's not a name that people. I do know it actually. People know. No, I don't. Ted Monachino.

Ah, Monachino. He says they're different. We're bigger, we're younger, we're stronger. We've got some guys that are more the rule than the exception around the league, where a year ago, maybe we had a few more exceptions. That's a shot fired against Ryan Grigson. Classic Monachino. That basically they had a bunch, they had like guys that just weren't NFL caliber.

What I think Ballard did, which just kind of reminds me a little bit of, you know, when Bill Belichick took over the Patriots, he just signed everyone with like, you know, actual NFL players and just kind of figured out which stuck and kept those guys. That's fair. You go back to June 1st, they get Kristen Michael, but then they have to ensuingly put him on injured reserve, but still they were awakened and they got Kristen Michael. Do they stay, do they stay woke even though he leaves? I think once you are woke, you cannot go back to sleep.

I mean, he's a good presence just to have on your injured reserve list. I mean, think of the good teams he's been on. Packers, Seahawks, great organization in general. Cowboys, it's true. They're all winning teams. That would be one of the greater storylines in sports history if he was like 70 years old and teams were still signing him and just putting him an IRA because he had this magic juice.

Keep an eye on it. saying that's all i'm saying just keep an eye on it see where he is it's a little hard to imagine you know keep an eye on christin michael's magic juice did you think the falcons are gonna blow the super bowl i'm just saying you never know in sports the michael could be on somebody's i are in forty years i know you didn't we're looking back you know dan was sitting behind behind us in the at the super bowl and his face was just going ash and he was so excited he was so excited at half time and then just slowly he's like this isn't really going to happen is it no it was a bad day for the NFL.

But it wasn't as bad a day as it was for. Oh, yeah, the greatest comeback in Super Bowl history by one of its greatest players. What a terrible. It was a comeback. Not everybody enjoyed it that much, right? Yeah. But it wasn't a bad day for the NFL. It was a very bad day for the NFL.

But it wasn't as bad a day for me as it was for poor Ludacris, who it remains one of my favorite NFL memories is he was seated in the next box over from a sitting alone watching it all crumble. And I couldn't stop looking at it, ludicrous. And by the end of the game, chicken and beer for no one. Popular album. Yeah, I got you. Once upon the time.

They got you. Nice call back there. It was really good. You're going to do ludicrous on the old throwback podcast? I would. I would love to do a ludicrous episode. Maybe get luda in the garage. Finally, we'll talk about one more team and this team.

Oh, my goodness. They're just going all out. They're saying nothing was working on either side of the ball. ball. So this whole thing, we're just putting the dynamite stick and starting over. So, yes, that would definitely be an identity change. The Niners, Greg. No team, I think, has changed more over the offseason than the Niners. They're a little under the radar because the expectations are so unbelievably low because

the rosters bad, but they could have new skill position players starting at basically every position. You have Brian Hoyer. You could have your top three wide receivers are all brand new. You could have a, you know, probably will have a different tight end. And even Carlos Hyde, there was a report out there today that he hasn't even necessarily earned his starting job that he's going to have to battle for it with Tim Hightower and the rookie they drafted. It's like just a team where it's like Kyle Shanahan, show us how smart you are.

Because I think with any other group of players, any other coach, people would just assume that they're going to be terrible. Maybe people do assume that. I don't know. I feel like there's much better buzz around this franchise. And maybe that is everyone just, it's kind of more, they're one of those teams. I feel like the NFL is a little more fun when the 49ers are better. And when they just spend the dregs of the league for several years now,

they seem to be hitting on some things with their new GM and the coach was a good hire, which surprised a lot of people that they pulled that off potentially. I think there's a reason for there to be optimism. Yeah, well, there's a commitment to at least a plan, right? because you've wondered what the plan is out of Santa Clara with Jetting Company for a long time and there's a coach, there's an interim coach, there's another coach, are we committed, we're not committed.

Well, now we've got the coach and the GM on six-year contracts, and so let's say things are horrible. Brian Hoyer implodes, the defense is a sieve. You still know that there's people that are going to be in place in 2018 and they're going to try to do things. It's Kirk Cousins on the horizon. There's a reason to be hopeful. That's a great point,

Because Tom Sulo was essentially on the hot seat after his introductory press conference. I've never seen a coach so openly doubted. And people just figure like, yeah, probably one and done. Which in the NFL, like that's not fair. He seems like a nice guy. And he just was thrown into a bad situation. And he wasn't going to overcome that. You know, Jimmy T. is doing it right, though, because the nature of coaching contracts,

he basically was a goner who was asked to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. And he got like an $8 million going. way gift. Oh, yeah. I think he got a $20 million contract. Really? What's happening? It was something insane. I think he's still making that money, even though he's a defensive line coach, I believe, with the Redskins. Their defense has been a little people haven't talked about their devens. We don't know much about their defensive coordinator, Joe Sala, but the talent's pretty good. I mean, if you look at the talent, they drafted Solomon Thomas in the first round. They drafted Ruben Foster in the first round. Those are exciting

picks and then you have Armstead, Buckner, you bring in Earl Mitchell, you've got Navar Bowman still around, you've got Amad Brooks still around. Like that front seven is better than a lot of front sevens out there. Yeah, and you've got Michael Bennett talking about this 49ers defensive line, a guy that's in the, you know, that's a rival is shouting out players on the 49ers defensive line. He said he's talking about Arick Amstead and he said that he's not normal and he could be a defensive player of the year. DeForest Buckner, excuse me. He says he could be a defensive player of the year

just because that guy's a not normal guy and winning defensive player of the year is a not normal thing. Part of you wonders also. That's a bold statement. DeFeris Buckner winning a defense player of the year. Maybe, though, people do love Armstead too. I mean, PFF loves both of those guys.

It's a different system they're now going to be playing. A lot of talent, though. Part of you, though, wants to see how Ted Monticino would work with that defense. It's like, what a part of you? Like just what would Bonichino cook up? What would Bonichino do? The cherry.

Let's get some wristbands made up. Probably slam the former GM in the press. I do want them to be interesting because I was kind of good. I was excited for the Chip Kelly era. I thought maybe they would be interesting if nothing else, but it, yeah, it was a bit of a let-down. It can't get worse, right? From the last two years, that organization, even if they kind of stink again. As long as there's some signs of progress, they're going in the last.

the right direction because they kind of hit rock bottom yeah these past two years yeah our producer uh you know for these video shows Alex Wilk you know we're going to go through division by division in terms of those camp as per his demand yeah and we and we started with the NFC West he's like oh let's get rid of uh let's get rid of the trash divisions you know off the top since people aren't really listening at this and I'm thinking the NFC West got you know the best team in the NFC for the last five years uh the Cardinals are an interesting team and you know the 49ers and Rams are getting a little frisky. This is the great division.

He's wearing a Rams lanyard is what he's showing behind. His Twitter avatar for the longest time was a Rams logo. Oh, okay. He's a passionate. And Sully reps the Seahawks. Yeah, he's not on the, you know, Mook's not on the, but my point is the NFC West to me is intriguing. I like the end. And it would be even more intriguing if the Niners weren't dog poop.

I guess, uh, it helps. That's, that's why he's the host. See, he kind of brought it in the background. He brought it back to where we started. Put it in a bow for everybody. All right. Let's, let's wrap things up here. I just want to say thank you to Greg Rosenthal and the rest of the Shield softball team

are winning both games in my absence. And does it make me think maybe skip needs to say, where should Skip be in the lineup at this point? Skip was playing well before you left. Yeah, but the point is those are two big Ws. And we got two games left in the regular season. We're six and four. I think we split. We get into the playoffs.

And all you got to do is get a ticket. We showed it last year. We got a ticket. What happened? We walked away with the whole damn thing. Whole ship. Play ball! Started throwing some heart, some fight.

Yeah. In these games. And Greg is making a hard push for rookie of the year. Hard push. He's also... Genuine joy across Greg's face of here. I was like, wow, Dan's never said anything so nice. He's, you know, listen, as the skipper, I can't always be throwing sunshine and rainbows

and everybody. I got to push you guys. guys. Yeah. They've done a nice job. You've been a nice part of the team. You know, you did admit at lunch that you weren't even tracking anyone else but yourself. That's natural.

When I asked for a scouting report. Well, he was saying who did what? A little Cam Newton, a little Terrell Owens type of vibe. I know the best way I can help the team is by playing, you know, playing. It's just all those ground ball, like, oh, who hit the ground ball, who hit the liner. Everyone was, no one was raking. I couldn't remember who did what. Well, two Ws, and that's very important.

So we'll keep you updated. as the season comes to a close, you can watch this podcast. And I know you want to. All you people out there listening, listen to the show, you have a chance to watch it in action. How exciting is that?

So go to NFL.com slash ATN video Tuesday today, 9.30 p.m. Eastern at 6.30 Pacific. So make sure to check it out. How exciting? It's a new era. We're going to be doing this once a week for the next two months. There's a Jets hat here.

I can't wait for you to get the emotional attachment with new era. There you go, great. You got a team? You got Pat's hat? My team is the league. I got to kick it down the middle. I know Clayvon's team. He tries to keep it under the radar because it's...

Oh, he has to be one of those. It's whoever's on the schedule of the AFC East. I'll tell you who it is. It's America's team. He doesn't like it because he's usually the guy kind of, you know, he's taking the contrarian stands or something. And then suddenly... I legitimately believe.

Let's save this. Let's stick a pin in this conversation because that Greg hit on something there potentially. Anyway, we will be back on Thursday. Claibon's got just like a knife sticking out of his back right now. We'll be back Thursday with another all audio show. So thank you everyone for listening. And we'll see you then. This is the Round of the NFL podcast, of course, presented by New Air.

Dan Hans is signing off for Claibon. Yo boss. And sally by the glass. Till Thursday.