NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Vinatieri Retires and Mailbag Questions We Wish You Would Have Asked

Episode Date: May 27, 2021

A room filled with some heroes - Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Gregg Rosenthal bring you all of the latest news in the NFL starting with the legendary kicker, Adam Vinatieri, retiring from the league (11:19), but not before getting into Marc's Wednesday schedule. The salary cap has been updated (18:19) and names and numbers are being taken off jerseys (21:23). Gregg takes us through his projected starters list in 1 minute (25:30) before we get to "mailbag questions we wish you would have asked" (39:12).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 confused by rock, paper, scissors. Welcome to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hansis. I come to from a virtual room filled with some heroes, Mark Zessler, Greg Rosenthal. You know, the way our schedule. What kind of operates right now is we have usually one of us or two of us or maybe even all three of us have a writing assignment early in the week. We've got the pod Tuesday.

You got the pod Thursday. We got the network show Friday. So we're earning our keep around here. But Wednesday for us is kind of a more quiet day where you're left to your own devices on some level. There's some pre-show prep things to do. But it's kind of an off day for us right now. And with that in mind, how you doing, Mark? Let me say this.

The Cessler Wednesdays, I would say they're on my radar, but that has a negative tone. I'm into these Cessler Wednesdays. But there is certainly. Manufactured joke. There is certainly something cooking on these Wednesdays at Cessler Manor. Yesterday is a perfect example. Yesterday is a perfect example. You were very fired up about some internal reports, about a return to the office for the NFL.

You also had a lot of takes. You had a lot. What was that forgs? Mark, you're so crazy. You had a lot of takes about our new NFL network program, a promo that's running, not necessarily positive ones. So just checking in. How you doing, bud?

I was highly annoyed. and, you know, when you get into that world of annoyance, it's for me, you know, you probably dig out of it maybe the next morning. But I am, I do have takes. And I would say this, anything that I tweeted about, you know, the whole concept of jamming pat people back into an office. And I've stayed at these points. So I'm not going to, like, you know, laboriously pour over them again.

Whatever I tweeted in my annoyance, I would tweet again right now. Although, I also don't walk around. I happened to notice. you had a scorcher, I know, I was alerted to that these weren't just in our text threads that it was on Twitter. And there are a few good ones up, railing against going back to work. I definitely am worried about the people who, you know, read your tweets and are wondering if they are the ponderous extroverts that come up to you.

I noticed Adam Rank, like, responded to one of them. And so I think that was his way of showing, I'm not one of the ponderous extroverts, am I? You're like, you like me. Of course, of course we love Frank. Good for you. A brief, like, kind of just to tell you, this gives you a window into Mark's Wednesday. It starts 22 hours ago. Kelly Holcomb on fire right now on NFL Network.

Does it unwell, though. Hashtag Brown. So I believe a 2002 playoff game, everything is cool. You have a Warren Moon tweet. And then you have, you quote tweeted a Forbes story about working from home. A study shows people working from. home are having sex, dating, taking naps, and doing side hustles on company time. Mark, quick, let's everyone get back into absurd office areas and forced into Machiavellian conversation

with people we have no interest in communicating with. There's another text. Tweet, get everyone back in these offices, pleaded pants and dumb small talk that appeases ponderous extroverts who must dish about themselves sunrise to sunset. Nothing else makes sense. Get back to the way it is. Then a Knicks tweet, and nice job by the Knicks, evening in that series against the Hawks. That's where the deleted treat was. I don't know what was hotter in that deleted one that you had to take off because it seemed along the same lines. Was there something you just thought could not last? No, you know what?

It was actually, there was a mistake in it. And I thought, I've also, like, I think I've made whatever point I was attempting to make. Not that I've convinced anyone, but, you know, just doubling down with like the third and fourth, like left and right hook seemed. There's one more. 15 hours ago, you can take all the tea in China and put it in a big ground bag for me, sail right around all the seven oceans, and drop it straight into the deep blue sea. Hashtag DGAF. Don't give a fuck. Also, looking through our group chat of the four of us right now,

one, two, three, four, five unanswered texts, and then a couple hours later, six, a six text that no one answered. And then Dan followed back up with something about himself. And Mark writes back, that's all that this was about. Dan has his attention and then more unanswered text from Mark. There's no context to that, though. That was a separate issue. That's about it.

Right. And that I don't think is for public consumption. But it's fair to say that I was sort of like a triple-pronged, fired-up scenario where like multiple things were feeding off each other. And I know that it's best for me just to go quiet for like having to never stop. You have to let it out. because one thing I've learned Mark over the last eight years, like, that fire is coming for someone. The whole goal for me is just make sure I'm not that person. That was a tough season, 2017.

Oh, my God, Mark, stop it. And, you know, so if it's got to get out, it's fine that it's at some faceless corporate overlords, especially since we're not really going to be asked to be sitting around in the office anyways. We'll be going and doing our podcast. And it's, you know, we love Mark. So it's like, we know, when we don't reply to. a mark. It's not because we're being dismissive or we don't like what he's saying. It's just like, because we're afraid. We understand what this is really about. It's kind of

a mark processing life situation. And like the thing where you replied to me that it was about me, like that I guess we can't share the context. But like I knew there was some type of rage and I was getting a little fire there. But I'm like, you know what? He needs this. I'm going to let him have it. And then everything's going to be fine in the morning. Well, I would also note that like, I don't float around with no conscience. Like, when I sent that text that kind of threw a jab at Dan, I thought, well, that was stupid. I shouldn't do that. Like, I definitely, I'm probably the most annoyed at myself through all this, these processes.

You also weren't serious. It's not like Dan was like, oh, Mark. Of course. I think it was deadly serious. Well, no, but I, like, here's the thing. I, like, when I was initially dismissed, when I raised concerns about a certain product that has our images is. Why can't we say what it is, by the way? Can we just say what it is? It's already the kind of thing that I think we've all, I'm dancing around it for a reason.

Let's just say there was a request apparently made to recreate a promotional product featuring us. And I raised concerns. And my concerns could not have been more valid. They were initially ignored. And then when reality strikes and everything that I said would happen, happen, it's like, oh, why is Mark upset? Fine. I mean, we're good. Like, life goes on. It's good that it's Thursday. And just so you know, just to be totally clear, I had nothing to do with any alterations to the product.

I mostly believe that to be true, but I'm still investigating. Mark's mad that we have an NFL network commercial that they changed. And I had said in text within the group, how it was kind of funny and a little bit annoying, that I didn't even have a line in the commercial. And I thought that was, I'm not the host the show in the first commercial. Never went beyond that. We kind of kicked around the idea of kind of creating our own commercial with Ricky's help, but that never happened.

I certainly never, like, mentioned it to anybody else. But then a new commercial shows up, Mark on Wednesday mark time, put things together and decided that I was Machiavellian and had gotten a new commercial made, which certainly was not true. Well, like I said, I'm still investigating. I don't know what is true or not true. I'm still currently looking into it. Anyway, we love you, buddy. Never change, please. Well, right back at you all for tolerating, you know, some of the nonsense.

Heavens. Today's show. We're going to have some fun Thursday show post-hump day, I call it. Most people, once you get past hump day Wednesday, you don't reference it again, reference it again until the next hump day. I'm so happy that you got past it that I think it should be celebrated because in general, I think Thursday is an underrated day. I always felt that way.

I feel very strongly about Thursday as a day in general and deserves more credit. So it's post-hump day for me. I love it. Okay. Today's show, you know, I had a mailbag. Speaking of writing assignments, a mailbag went up on NFL.com.

A little bit of like a frustration for me is that I write like you guys on the website, but a lot of people that ingest our content on this podcast, they, they don't connect those dots in the same way. So when I ask for a mailbag, mailbag questions for a written piece, I'll get a ton of questions about our podcast and heroes-related stuff, which is all fun. But at the same time, it's like, I have an assignment here.

I need your guys' help to make this work as a mailbag. Anyway, that's, I mean, some of it's fun. It's not like the 745th time that you get the question. If you're all on a deserted island, like which one is going to. survive. We answer that. We answer that in 2013. We don't retire that one. Anyway, today's segment a little later on is mailbag questions. We wish you would have asked you the listeners. It's not a personal attack, but it's just like, you know, please help me out. I try to make it very clear in the tweet that they're two separate worlds. It's a real struggle and I think we all

understand what you're going to. One of my questions was going to be specifically for Mark, but now we've answered it with our intro to the show, which was just like, How disappointed are you with the end of the pandemic? Because I feel like that's, that's really what we're all working out here. It's like, this was Mark's magical time the last year. He does not like it. Well, all right. But I mean, you know, I could do seven separate podcasts about it.

We're not, we don't need to, you know. Don't look at it this way, Mark. Don't be sad. It's over. Just be happy. It happened at all. Let's do some news. Now, I've been hearing a lot about a place called Super Duper Weenie in Connecticut.

Mark, Connecticut Native, have you heard of Super Duper Weenie, the restaurant? No, I haven't been there in like 20-something years as anyone that lived there. So I'm sure new businesses, strangely enough, have popped up since I was there. Sounds like an interesting place. Super-duper weenies. Check it out if you're in the area. All right. Let's start with news of a retirement.

Hit it, Ricky. This will be a. 45-yard attempt. That's Vinatieri's luck from this distance of late. This is the Patriot season on the line. The kick is away. It is good. But Greg won't be able to stand up after watching that highlight of Adam Vinicieri

hit in the 45-yard field goal in the blizzard at Old Foxborough Stadium in 2001 to tie that game late against the Raiders. Of course, he kicks another short field goal. in overtime to move the Patriots to the AFC title game. The rest is history. A dynasty was born. Venetieri went on to have one of the great careers.

Any kickers ever had, he's the NFL's all-time leading score. He announced Wednesday in the Pat McAfee show that he is retiring after 24 seasons. He's 48 years old. Only a three-time pro-ball selection, which surprised me, three-time all-pro as well. He played for the Patriots and Colts,

where he spent the final 14 years of his career. Greg, when you talk about the all-time Patriots, where does that a Vinetieri rank for you? He's high up there. I mean, he holds such a unique place in the sports history and in Patriots history. It's hard to like count kickers as the same as everyone else. But I think Belichick said it well in his statement.

I'm going to read it. But I love seeing that graphic as he was about to kick it. It said Vinetary had missed four. of his last five field goals before that kick. He had hit one earlier in that game, but that to me is what kind of Binateri's all about. You missed some in the Super Bowl, too, but when he had the game

winner, he hit it. And Belichick's got bars here with his statement. People say, you know, the Belichick's not great with the words, but he's great with a concise statement. I think he said it well. Adam Benetieri's greatest kicker of all time, who made the greatest kick of all time in the 2008-2001

divisional playoffs. It's consistency, mental toughness, and performance under pressure was legendary. I'm honored to have coached Adam going all the way back to his rookie year in 1996 and through some of the most special moments in Patriots and League history. Here's the sentence that stuck out to me. Adam is in the rarest of echelon of athletes whose career accomplishment may never be matched. Now, you could say whatever you want about kickers. I'm so mad you didn't let me do my bell check impression to read that quote. Good job by you. that you can say whatever you want.

He was put in that position and there's some sort of luck involved and like whether that has to do with Hall of Fame or whatever. But the last sentence where he says he's in the rarest echelon of athletes whose career accomplishments may never be matched. I mean, that's true. There's never been someone in football like Adam Venetary

because of what he did there. And there may never be. And that alone, like whatever you want to say about it, it's like that's just a unique and amazing thing as a Patriots fan and as a football fan. I don't know how anyone would not immediately ticket them for the Hall of Fame. There's really only two pure kickers in the Hall of Fame. It's Morton Anderson and John Stennerud.

I mean, because you've got George Blanda, who played quarterback and kicked. And Lou Groza played many seasons at Left Tackle, which I didn't actually know that. But this would be the third, and he's totally, I think Belichick nailed it. I mean, he nailed it. Is he the best kicker of all time? I don't know, but the longevity. No, just the Tucker is alive. Right.

Right, but the longevity, mixed with huge career moments, to me, is a Hall of Fame suit to come together. If West was here, I feel like he would sum this up really nicely. But, like, what is sports? I mean, it's a collection of moments and the great ones rise to the occasion. And even if he didn't have the natural ability of a Justin Tucker as an example, he, first of a lot, a ton of ability based on a quarter century playing professional football. But also when those moments arose, he seemed to always step up. And, you know, you have those two kicks in the snow.

You have the game winner in the Super Bowl that year. You have another game winner in the Super Bowl a couple years later against the Panthers. Greg, I'm sure you could point out five or six more big kicks that he hit during his run. And then he went to Indianapolis and it was pretty rocky in the end there. But he was rock solid for a long time for them. If he's not a whole favorite, it's not a debate. My point was like that's almost secondary to me because of what Belichick was getting at there was like his place is so unique. Like many people in the Hall of Fame will never have that place in the game.

He also, you know, 14 years in Indianapolis, he led the league in field goal percentage five years ago. Like 2014, he did that three or four times too. So he was a great kicker. He was there. He hit a lot of big kicks for those cold teams too. And he was very fortunate as well. I mean, part of what Belichick is saying is, He, to be able to be in this upper echelon, he had to have these opportunities and be attached to these teams and be in these moments and thrive when they counted.

So it's kind of like a perfect confluence of things that led to, I think, one of the most memorable careers of anybody. You know, forget about kicker or whatever the position was. Everybody knows Vintieri and what he did. One question for you, because I know it's like you're removed from the, you know, from the pro football writers Association of America. If you're pro quarterback wins, no one's allowed to even consider that as a viable way to measure a human being anymore. But kicker wins? Do we care about that? Is that okay to care about? I mean he doesn't need kicker? Define kicker wins. Do you mean the straight-up win-loss record of his team or like his kicks with the game on the line? Game winning kicks, I would say. Or go-ahead kicks earlier in the game, you know.

I'd like to see a percentage on that for sure. Happy trails. And by the way, the kicker club, we love. lower the flag out front to half-mast. So they're not allowed back into the club? Well, he has his own... Adam has his own kind of booth. Like, if you went to, like, the top clubs in Minneapolis or whatever, Prince would always have his own velvet area that no one else could even look at.

Adam has his velvet prince booth at the kicker club. The flag goes down to half-mast because seeing a guy's career end, no matter how long it went, is a reminder of, And everyone's mortality and nothing is forever. But it's a celebration, and we plan to celebrate Adam going forward in the club. 47-year-old guy from South Dakota State, you know, in the club. Look at Greg. Oh, yeah.

I mean, he closed the goddamn stadium down with those two kicks. I mean, you can't write that stuff on the way to their first movie. The NFL, in other news, the NFL and the NFL Players Association have agreed to a salary cap ceiling of 208.2 million for 2022, Tom Pelliserro of NFL Network reported Wednesday. Pelliserro noted that there is not currently an agreed to cap floor and that the final cap figure will not be set until next February. The ceiling for 2022 is nearly 30 million more than 182.5 million caps set for 2021, pointing toward an expected spike in future revenue for the least. League following the COVID-19 pandemic year of 2020. And Mark, one of your tweets from Wednesday, you alluded to what happened at Madison Square Garden with an electric garden, 15,000 fans going nuts, say even their series, the Knicks

with the Hawks. And yeah, this isn't going up unless, like this, unless the NFL is like, okay, we're going to have full houses across the country. This is going to be much different than what happened last year. and that's something to look forward to. Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, if you go read some of those old historical epics that describe how the NFL kind of grew from nothing through the ebb and flow of it all, that there were a lot of franchises that struggled to even go year to year out of the gate,

and they were not equal. And it's just incredible to see that the NFL probably in all sports leagues were put through what are the most trying year that you could script on paper for sports in general. like no fans, incredible, like, you know, problems and issues based on a human virus that's knocking players and coaches out of the lineup left and right. And they've survived it, and they've survived it rather nimbly. And, like, you know, the cap number going up is, I think, also great for the craftier free agents that, you know, weren't going to get their worth on the open market that signs sort of these one-year,

I guess, prove it type deals or maybe NFL prove it to me that you're going to be around after this year and bang they're going to have a new chance if they if they succeed to sign a better contract a year for now so i mean it's a lot of business because it's the most business filled year of the NFL that we'll ever ever know and it'll be nice just to have it back that part of life back to normal well i think the patriots absolutely spent this offseason intentionally that they saved for this off season intentionally once they knew what the situation was going to be because cap space, now we can go back to it next year, doesn't have the same sort of value.

I just looked and half the league has more than $30 million in cap space again. And, you know, 25 teams have like, you know, 15 to 20 million. So there's very few teams that are going to be that freaked out. And there's a lot of teams towards the top, like 40, 50, 80, 80 million dollars in cap space, way more than they'll ever, you know, need. And so that's back to normal, I think. And, yeah, salaries will go up. But the good thing, I think, is we won't hear as many teams cry and poor and having to trade because of cap space and stuff like that.

And so the Patriots might as well have spent all that money this year. They still got $30 million next year in space. In other news, the Houston Texans, interesting relationship they have with the media down there in a New England Patriots type way. Nick Casario, of course, came over from New England to Houston. And this tweet from friend of the show, John McLean, for the first thing, time in 45 years of covering the NFL, I'm seeing something new, media allowed to attend our first Texans OTA and we're given rosters with no numbers for players, names with no numbers next to them with almost 50 new players. Idiotic. McLean says McLean is not happy.

And it's, you know, these NFL teams are trying to make it harder and harder for the media to share takeaways on these OTA practices, which you both understand. but also you get why this is kind of dirty business to me. And it's all, I feel like we're all part of the big ecosystem here and the coverage of the sport is good for the fans. And when the teams get overly cute and secretive, we don't really win and it should really ultimately be about the fans. Where do you guys come down on this?

Is this a trope alert now? Because I feel like didn't Joe Judge last year. There we go. Get himself in the same sort of trouble. except he took the names off the jerseys, which I think the Patriots have done in the past. Okay, but the names, okay, the names make it annoying. You take the numbers away, and as McLean points do,

when you have an entirely new roster, it's a total bank session. That is, you're basically saying you won't be able to do anything unless you can see inside these guys' helmets or whatever. I don't know what you're going to do. Remember, they're like 100 yards away on top of it. I don't know what the agreement, apparently there is no agreement around something like this

because, look, if you're, you know, we don't have to go do the job of a beat reporter where you've got to you've got to be precision mixed with quickness and facts and you can't get it wrong and you're turning that whole thing into mush for them and McLean who's been he's seen everything I love them because he has when he gets annoyed at the Texans he'll let you know on field stuff but you don't hear a lot of just like endless complaining from him and with this one it's like it stands out as a wrong a wrong done and like I hope you know either A they're that disorganized or B, they're doing it intentionally to the reporters.

I'm not sure which of those options I'd like better as a Texans fan. I mean, to me, I think it's a total hot mess. Yeah, it's got to be very intentional. This is an organization that A, cleaned out their PR staff and like a very popular one, replaced it with nothing of near, you know, likeability according to the people that work with the Texans and are essentially seen to be antagonistic towards the press and towards all of us, the cover football. And I just something about the whole thing. I think McLean nailed it. It's idiotic and it's aggressive. In other news. Some changes to how the NFL handles cutdowns this summer.

For years, of course, teams were required to trim their 90 men roster down to 75 players right before the final preseason game. They altered that in 2017 when they went straight from 90 to 53 ahead of week one the NFL changed things up with COVID last year and now the NFL's returning to multiple rounds of cuts so by August 17th you got to get to 90th by the 24th a week later 85 to 80 31st of August 80 to 53 Greg you wanted this in the news tell me I didn't I didn't do anything with the news this is a mark I'm actually in there it'll be nice for us on Labor Day weekend I feel like I'm sure it's the same with you guys, but Emika, my wife, she knows the NFL schedule now.

So she knows that the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, we're always getting banged a little bit. And we got to, yeah, I write a little column that day with the cutdowns and like family stuff is on hold until, you know, mid to late afternoon. So now that's all freed up. So thanks, Raj. Yeah. It's on Tuesday. That's a day where you're expecting to, you know, dig in and do some work. So I appreciate that.

Yeah. Very good. Todd Gurley. Remember when he was the best running back at football? It was like two years ago, three years ago. He's been unemployed since his one-year deal with the Falcons came to a close. He's getting interest from the Detroit Lions. He is in Detroit today, Thursday, post-hump day, to visit the Lions, according to ESPN.

That would re-team Gurley with Jared Gough if it happened. And, you know, again, we're trying to get the fans excited over there in Detroit. repairing Todd Gurley and Jared Goff five years after they were the hot thing, maybe won't do it, but it's good to see Gurley at least getting the chance to pitch himself because it's been very quiet for him this offseason. I was curious if he was going to be interested in taking the type of contract that I assume he'll be offered here, which, you know, he got $6 million to play for the Falcons. I thought he really hurt their offense last year.

I thought he was one of the worst, you know, running backs in the league that got over, you know, 100 touches and took a lot of negative plays and just made a lot of mental mistakes that just seemed to hurt the Falcons. So I assume he's going to get offered like a one-year $2 million contract or, you know, maybe some incentives, but close to the minimum. Is he going to be motivated to doing that after making so much money on the guaranteed contract that you're right, Dan? It's only three years ago. Less than three years ago this summer, he got that guaranteed money and he partly got it from Brad Holmes, who's their gene. I am in Detroit. He was in Los Angeles, so you see the connection. I like that we're ahead of this,

because I assume he's going to be signed in this contract. I think it's happening. I would wonder what he's being told his role would be, though, because you've got D'Andre Swift. They signed Jamal Williams. They currently have two other players with the last name of Williams, who also have the first names starting with Jay, Jonathan Williams, James Williams.

They've got three other running backs. They have seven guys on the roster right now. And I actually, I think Jamal Williams, was a good signing. I think he's an interesting guy on third down. And if they think D'Andre Swift is their lead dude, I know it's a new regime. What does that leave for Todd Gurley?

You need to go fight to make the team. You're right. I think it's just like... If you're interested in keeping your career going, come fight. And if he is, you know, 100% motivated and stuff, yeah, like he could outrun Jamal Williams maybe. We'll see. I don't know.

And finally in the news, we mentioned one trope alert earlier, the show. Here are some true vintage trope alerts. First out of Green Bay. Trooper alert. Jordan Love shows quote, progress

during first week of OTAs. That's a big one. It's like so many things in Green Bay. This all happened before. There's a little quarterback by the name of Aaron Rogers, who people don't I don't remember, did not play well his first training camp, was written about pretty negatively, struggled mostly in the preseason,

was behind Craig Nall, I believe, on the depth chart, was number three for his rookie year. And people were like, I don't know, this Rogers guy might be a bus. And then he came in in second training camp in OTAs, and everyone was like, oh, my God, Aaron Rogers is amazing. You know what, they were right in the end. So maybe it wasn't a trip. Maybe Jordan Love is amazing, too. I mean, I think the one thing, though, is like if you're going to go draft a quarterback in the first round,

Beyond all the drama that it's stirred up, I mean, if he's not going to play all year, he wasn't even active for most games last season. He wasn't even the second string quarterback. He saw no snaps. He got no experience. It's just like you're, these guys need to play. I mean, the Aaron Rogers situation behind Brett Farr was, if anything, unusual for a first round quarterback. But they've created it again. And maybe he is Aaron Rogers part two.

I don't see any evidence of that at all. These OTAs and mini camps will be good for him. But what if he had, I mean, I don't know. A lot of receivers didn't show up, though. That is, I don't know if it's on my radar, but I find it interesting, that a lot of the Packers' receivers, maybe in a bit of loyalty to Aaron Rogers, didn't show up either. And the trope that this is taken from, of course, is second year quarterback, colon. The offense is a lot slower. Everything is slowed down for me in year two.

Trope alert. Hit it again, Ricky. Miami Dolphins head coach. Trope alert. same category to a quote more comfortable heading into 2021 the game has slowed down for him he's the offense is more familiar to him and because of that he will be god's gift to quarterbacking in about four months i mean it's also a new offense like miles gaskin you know they have that co-offensive coordinator set up and great running back miles gaskin said that there's a lot of new wrinkles i mean he worked with some of these coaches in different places but um You know, Tua's, I don't like this for Justin Herbert, too, for Tua having to learn a new system in your second, in the offseason where things should be slowing down. He also, I think that the more notable thing he said was that his hip feels 10 times better than it did a year ago. Now, we spent all last off.

But I was told he was totally healthy last year. That's why, I mean, of course he's totally fine, couldn't be healthier. But if it feels 10 times better, that just was never the case last year. He also said he, you know, didn't have the comfort with the playbook that he would like. last year that he kept running plays that he thought probably were doomed to fail but he didn't have the confidence to audible or anything

and I do think for guys who play from the neck up as like one of their big assets and I put in a and I keep thinking of Alex Smith and Eli Manning for some reason when it comes to Tua both of those guys I think won a lot before the snap and were absolute disasters as rookies because that's the time when you're

You're just not going to do that. And Tua is like that to me. I think players like that have a little smaller margin for error, and they need a little more time. If he's going to be winning before the snap and knowing the playbook and all this stuff, like he doesn't have the physical tools that these other guys do. So it makes sense if he has a little slower.

It doesn't mean you're done. I'm staying optimistic for Tua. There is a weird, there's a faction. And Greg just spoke on it that, you know, it's not really nice to say negative things. things about Tua. Like, everyone is rooting for Tua. Don't, don't be critical of his rookie year. He's going to be fine. Who's saying that? He struggled. I just trying to put it into context of why it might not, why it might have happened. I think he has a lower ceiling.

I'm just saying. Then what you want at his number six quarterback, but I think there's reasons to understand why I understand that slow start. I know what Dan's saying. Like, I don't think that we've, there's a bit of a kid gloves with the media with Tua. Right. I mean, but we get it with everyone. Like Darnold had incredible. Here we go. Speaking of trouble alerts. But it's true, though, right? Like, we couldn't speak honestly two years in. Like, no, I don't think Baker did.

He was on people's radar, but he played great, so that helped. There is something about Tua that I know, Dan, it's hard to put your finger on. I know exactly what you're saying, though. Right. I'm just saying that my larger point is that Brian Flores is an interesting position because we had debates about this last season. He benched to him multiple times last year for Ryan Fitzpatrick. Fitzpatrick obviously not there anymore. is Flores going to be more patient with him in year two now that his hip is 400 times healthier

and he knows the playbook and all this other stuff we're hearing? Yes. Or is this a situation where Flores is not necessarily a huge fan of this kid and he'll pull him again. He's got another solid backup in Jake Brisket back there. He doesn't have the excitement level of fits or maybe the ceiling on a week-to-week basis, but it's not like you have a toll. It's not Christian Hackenberg back there. So I'll be interested to see how the season plays out with Tua.

If they pull them at any point for Jake Brisket, it's over to me in their moving. You got big problems. You got a big problem. Maybe not over for the season or not, but you're, you've made that decision. That's what's happening in the news. All right, before we get to mailback questions, we wish you would have asked us. That, it's, I just want to make sure. sure the listeners understand that I don't have an issue with you contributing to the mailbag.

It's just, it's just sometimes I want you to read the tweet a little closer. That's all. Put it on me. Put it on me, you know. It is kind of a Greg conceit and it was your idea, but I also don't want to make it seem like I'm throwing you under the bus, Greg. I don't believe in the sag or anything. Step it up with these questions. Before we get to the mailbag, though. Greg, you just completed your projected starters series. You went through the whole league and all the rosters. And

so check it out at NFL.com slash projected starters. Eight divisions. This is it. Eight divisions like this should work as a season preview. I will see you editor, you know, my editor. I'll see you in September. Like I should be good until

week one right now. You're good. Eight copy articles in two weeks. Forget it. You're good. Yeah, you should be. able to kind of hit cruise control a little bit here. Anyway, before we get to the mailbag, how about we put 60 seconds on the clock, Greg, and you give us some of your noteworthy takeaways from your studying of all of these rosters. Is 60 seconds enough?

Do you want more than that? No, 60's plenty. All right. Okay. I can't read my own writing here, though. Well, you better figure it out because the timer starts now. Okay. If you take out the offensive line and quarterback position.

positions in Denver. That's a top five roster. 11 went upside, maybe. Did you say offensive line quarterback? It's pretty big. Yeah, they're important. But top five roster, other than that, the chiefs, if Frank Clark doesn't rebound, their defensive end position is as thin and ugly as any in the league. As much as I love the Chargers, other than Joey Bosa up front, like they can put a lot of attention on Joey Bosa because there's not much going on up front. The Colts are not ascending anymore.

It's the first time ever, I think, Chris Ballard. The entire Bill's starters on both offense and defense were on their roster last year. So they're very chiefs-like. They basically, they brought it all back to. They didn't do too much. I don't know if that's a concern. The Ravens, they're going to really need to scheme up the pass rush. Every year, it's like, oh, we don't need offensive linebackers, the defense.

Well, our scheme will figure it out. Like, they are really testing that right now. The Titans, rather. I like their boom or bust defense. I like their defense more than I expected, and their offense less than I expected. It's fine. Got enough in. You got another one in there?

You got another one in the chamber? No. I wanted to say a few. I wanted to say the Browns, I didn't, the Browns, like, have clearly, like, the best-looking offense in the league or one of the top three or four. The defense, though, everyone's all excited about. And to me, it's like, yeah, that could work or it could be bad again. Like, defensive tackles bad.

Linebacker is question mark. Like, secondary is all. new. Like maybe they'll be good, but they might just be bad again. I think the middle of their defense has questions, but I would just say that of all the things that we do, you know, when you write about football, occasionally you find that sweet spot where who you are and what you want to be about comes, is part of the article's, you know, concede. I think this is the best thing that Greg does all year, and it's not to denounce any of the other stuff, but you should read these if you are literally anyone, whether

you're covering the sport or want to just like find out how much these teams have changed. The AFC South one particularly reads like a horror, a horror novel. I mean, there's a lot of problems going on in the AFC South. And I thought you really highlighted how none of those teams are really growing into something. They have a lot of holes suddenly, especially the Titans. Right. Jaguars fans, I think, like, that was one I didn't say. Jaguars fans got to have some hope here because T. Law, he's set up for some success. They got pieces. They could compete.

Hey, listen, I said eight and a half. I bang me over and you were fired up about that. That just felt aggressive. but in that division yeah i think there's a there is a scenario where that could happen i'm not saying it's greater than 50 50 but there's a scenario for sure and i i agree with mark this is why this is certainly right in greg's happy zone which is why we gave it exactly 60 seconds in the middle of may on our podcast it feels like maybe a miss maybe a whiff yeah yeah it's fine it's fine some things you know don't translate as well i feel like from uh i don't know man but you're right we could use the

content these days. I feel like that was a gimme. I didn't realize you had already finished it. Last one went up today. Yeah, AFC West. I am excited about these Broncos. I'm now convincing myself to root for a Teddy team again.

It really is like a good looking roster. Like the I'm not talking to you about Teddy Bridgewater. The idea that we're doing a fake mailbag now instead of having a more deeper dive on

projected starters. I have some regrets. Maybe let's, let's keep the door open here, Mark. Let's talk about this. Because Greg seems a little bashful about it, but maybe next week we should have some type of projected starters type seg. That just makes sense. I mean, he gave you, having read through it. He gave you just like a small little look inside a massive machine filled with knowledge and information. I just feel like we're not doing, we're not being, we're, what do they say don't look a gift horse in the mouth, which is just a strange thing. That's what we're doing. right now we're going to have a projected starters episode next week make out with that gift horse give it a sloppy one you know right on what is it was there a time when people were

giving horses to each other left and right it feels kind of upper crust action to me right i think yeah in the 19th century perhaps uh among the landowners oh here's a little here's a little horse yeah yeah right would you like this gift horse no thank you i appreciate the sentiment it's a nice looking horse horse this gift horse but thanks but no thanks I'm good I don't need it was the thing that was happening yeah I will not

people like don't do that that's a gift horse but why like the look in the in the mouth what is that I don't know maybe examining it's um oh that's it you figured it out there that is we're not the smartest but we work hard and eventually we get there that's it that's pretty good that's pretty good

so basically if you're kind of digging in to the oral scenario here with the horse, you are perhaps over Yeah, take the gift. Just take the horse. That's a nice looking horse. It doesn't need to have perfect chompers, you know, fix it up a little, you know, just take it.

The idiom itself probably stems from the practice of determining a horse's age from looking at its teeth. It would be rude to receive a horse for your birthday and immediately examine its mouth in front of the person who gave it to you. As if you were trying

to figure out the value of your gift. Got it. This happened to me a lot as a kid. Right, right, well, Erica is from that Upper Crest, Rhode Island Society. That's the same as if somebody sent you some type of electronic or whatever it is. And the first thing you do is you pick up your phone and look it up on Amazon. Don't do that. Good modern update.

Really help sell it to the millennials. Gen Z. No, forget about Millennials. It's not about millennials anymore. It's about those Gen Zers. It's a rough and tumble crowd, that Gen Z crowd, from what I'm understanding. Hey, Ricky, I feel like this, what's your name, Olivia. Rodrigo is right up your alley.

I feel like you're all about her. She's a Taylor Swift sort of sound with a little bit of Lord thrown in there. It's pretty good. Yeah, I, I'm into it. I'm not as into it. I think I'm a little, you know, definitely going back through my high school years. Like, you know, I'm like the Jamie Lee Curtis and Freaky Friday, like trying to be in a rock band vibe. But, you know, yeah, it's there.

It's good. It's got some. It's like when all of a sudden Ashley Simpson was a punk rocker and it was like, well, I don't think we're going to give you this one. Skip that era. For a little bit, if you're a little bit older, she gives. me vibes. Like when Alanis Morissette came out in the mid-90s, what made her cool was like she was not only this young singer-songwriter that came out of nowhere, she had like a little bit of an edge to her. Like she sang about things that you usually didn't hear about. She used some

salty language. And I kind of, I think that upped her credit. I don't want to say Olivia Rodrigo is a product because people say she's kind of legitimately talented. But it seems like she's studied a lot of this stuff or people with her have studied different but that's okay she's a pop star you're supposed to figure out the formula and has like crazy crazy smash hits

coming off this you know I caught Greg he didn't realize his camera was on but he was like singing and dancing a driver's license and like crying it was like really uncomfortable oh that's it's good in the album spin it's solid it's definitely solid too alright let's get it

it's tricky especially once you get into the age range wherein she's an she's kind of an exciting new artist that people are talking about and it's like my I don't know my kids my kids will like it though like she love they love BTS too like it so it's a good you have cover I'll be satisfied like it's it's it's better than kids music so I'll take it I like it I don't have a daughter and I'm not going to have a daughter which is a minor point of contention in my marriage but ultimately I don't hold the cards in that realm so this is what it is But I do, I think one advantage, I would imagine, of having a daughter is that you get to kind of experience all sides of the pop spectrum as they get older, which I find interesting.

If they're into music. Yeah, I've got to say Walker's more into it and dancing around than Ellis, for sure. All right, let's get into the fake mailbag. 60 seconds on projecting starters, fake mailbag. Here we go. Greg, you get us going. All right. And, you know, I'm thinking, what do I want to know from you two?

Oh, yeah. So we're basically just... No, there's a lot. There's a... You're making up a question. Yeah. The other two people have to answer it. And Ricky, you jump in whenever you want.

In this scenario, your fandom of the Jets and Browns will be wiped from your brain. You're not going to miss them. You have no residual fandom left over. It's just like a blank spot. But you are waking up today and you do love football just as much. And you are choosing a team to root for that you hope is, you know, last the rest of your life. and it's starting right now and which which team do you root for i'm probably i'm probably picking the rams there there's a lot of complications um when you move across the country

and kind of start your life over and you have all this stuff that you were born into and you grew up loving and for me one of the tough things about being away from new york for the past decade is like you like i use the nix as the example like such an exciting time in new york sports and And I just feel disconnected from it. So even though I love watching the Knicks and the Yankees and I love the Jets, obviously, it would be just easier and cleaner if I were back in a home market. And especially I have now two young sons and it's a little bit of a conflict about, you know, how do they, who do they support?

How hard do I push or do I not push at all about who I root for, all that stuff? I'll just wake up one day and be a Rams fan. And then if they're Chargers fans, that's cool too. And that's it. So that's me. Stay in the L.A. market, old school style. That is very altruistic of you and thinking about everyone else's needs and wants. I don't have, I'm not able to do that on this front.

I would, Greg, so, dude, did I have the same, did I grow up in the same places? Did I listen to WFA and all that other business? If the answer is yes. Yeah, yeah. It's just like somehow your fandom was wiped and all the memories. So in theory, like, this would be hard to get to. You could even like the Ravens because you don't even know that they were the rival of your own team. You have no history, but yeah, you're choosing a team now from scratch.

All right. I would go, you know, I gave a second thought to the Steelers just because I think I'd be attracted to long running historical franchises that, you know, know, know what they're doing. Because time is short. I don't have 20 years to put up with an organization that's, you know, riff, raff and mentally confused. But I am going to pick the New York Giants with the hope that they get back to those ways. That's just the team that I think has always been my second favorite team. and my heart would go there. It's the first thing that came to mind.

What about you, Greg? I didn't come up with an answer here, but I'd probably just think short-ish term and go chargers because they have Herbert and Chiefs with Mahomes or Ravens with Lamar would be probably two and three. But since the charges are here and they have the quarterback, yeah,

that would probably win the tiebreaker. What about you, Ricky? Lamar would be. I'm not some, you know, no, turncoat. Patriots are died. Well, you don't have that knowledge. No, I feel like she would wake up and still be a Patriots fan. Yeah, I'd be like, oh, whoa, where am I?

She'd be on her helicopter, like, going over the vineyard and just be like... You did just say something was wicked, annoying before the show, which I haven't heard since senior year at Minichag Regional in Western Massachusetts. I mean, it is legitimately a new team because they're going to not win for the next 20 years. So you would be having a very different experience as a Patriots fan. Yeah. I think I'd probably pick like some random team that doesn't get like I don't know I've always sort of like liked for underdogs so like I'd probably be like oh the lions have like a crazy story of like despair like I'd want to like fight for like I feel bad for those types of teams so I'd probably go there it's but really before your time all kidding aside but once upon a time the Patriots were that very thing oh I know for ages um all right Since it's in a similar vein where it's kind of creating a separate timeline and involves

fandom, Mark, I have one for you here. Okay. All right. So I'm going to give you the choice of two doors to walk through here. One is the Browns win three Super Bowls in the next 12 years. That's nice because not only you get three rings, it's spread out nice. That's a dozen years. That's a nice chunk of your life.

and you got two boys there, they're going to fall in love and all that stuff. Or you go Mr. Destiny. All right, but play this clip in case you forgot about the 1990 film. Your life's being changed. This is your house. Those are your children.

And Cindy Joe is your wife. Happy birthday, darling. God, old man. Yes, James Belushi and Michael Cain as the kind of angelic figure involved. And the plot of the movie was this regular Joe guy has this huge moment when he's in high school with the game on the line with the like state championship on the line of baseball. He strikes out. Mike, he goes to a bar. He's down in his luck as a grown man. Still thinks

about that moment and how he blew it. Michael Kane gives him a tonic. He drinks the tonic. And all of a sudden, he hit a home run in that moment. And it changed his entire life. So. And then he learned his old life was better all right because it's not about blah blah blah also he you know he chose linda hamilton over rene rousseau it's a movie okay so you mark you parlay this is your mr destiny moment you parlay that much referenced peewee football career into high school stardom you become a three year starter for a respected d3 program that includes all conference selection honorable mention as a senior. Your pro day, you just wake up.

You know, sometimes you wake up and you just feel good and you're just having a good day. You have an awesome pro day. Like, I guess this would be the Mr. Destiny moment. You just play out of your mind in this regional pro day. Wow. And you end up becoming a surprise seventh round pick by some coach who values how gritty and gutty you are and all this good stuff.

You go on to play in parts of four seasons in the NFL, okay? Mostly as a special teams guy. But you do finish with 27 catches and two touchdowns in your career. Okay. Your football career is over by age 27. You kind of bounce around with some have-nots. There's no, like, big Super Bowl thing. It was a very nondescript NFL career, but you did bounce around for four years.

You never made more than the league minimum, which, by the way, is $610,000 in the new CBA. But whatever. I guess we're going to back this up to when you were 22, so whatever. It's nice money. do you take that life basically starting over age 27 non-descript NFL career but really an awesome sports life

or current life with three Super Bowls for the Browns your favorite football team well I mean this is a huge like sliding door scenario where I probably like the children that I think about you know every minute of every day don't exist because I probably would have met someone completely different

like René Rene Reusson. Don't hide behind that don't hide behind that. Yeah keep to try to I know what you're saying because it's almost impossible as a parent to think that way. But try to keep the kids stuff. You might, you might have met Simone, like that's eight years away from even meeting Simone anyway. Simone is like a groupie and you met her like outside like a hotel or something. It's great. A groupie of a seventh round pick. I get it. Look at, I mean, I, you know, outside of the eradication of my actual family, which I will, as you say, bury that to decide.

Try to. I'm going to go the Browns because I'll tell you what. I think that helps a lot more people. But for me, I think, like, I don't know what I'd be if I were an athlete that fizzled out at, like, age 32. I don't think I like, 27. I don't necessarily love the second part of life and the third part of life after that. Just knowing myself, I would rather have the current structure with a huge, I mean, you know, with a huge Browns, like, decade plus coming down the pike. I don't know. That's my answer. Like, maybe I've displeased you with that, but And what about if you and both scenarios, you end up with Simone and the boys? I don't know what I, what am I, so I'm at like, you know, I'm out there with my pals telling them about my three and a half year NFL career from like 17 years ago.

I loved playing football to some degree, but I also remember that like these two-hour practices, I was just sitting there being like, please be over soon. Like I, you know, like Charlie's Angels is on tonight. You got to love the game. You got to love the game. Mr. Destiny thing, you're really talented. You're in the top, you know, 1% of football players in the country or whatever it would be 2%. So you're probably enjoying practice more

because you're great at football in this scenario. That makes some sense. I mean, I could tell you that I will take that over the Browns thing if that's what we're looking for. But I think I'd probably just become a total A-holt on some level. I'm definitely not looking for anything. I guess I was a little surprised, but that's good. I mean, you showed out at that Williams College Pro Day.

Like, you really showed up. If you threw in like, look at, you were a real plucky athlete who also had this huge moment that helped your team win the Super Bowl and your career was four years long. That's a little different. I feel like I kind of, yeah. This will bring you down to Earth. There's also choice C, which is reality, which is you'll get neither. That's exactly right. All right, Mark, go ahead.

Okay. So I'm going to throw a quick one out of you here. I noticed that some of you, especially the clown reading this, absolutely fall in love with various coaches. And like a ton of them, they totally peter out and don't do what we say. And I can think of a couple off the bat. But from where we stand today, I know, Greg, you've done your coach rankings, your GM rankings. Who is the most overrated head coach in the NFL? Well, active? I mean, someone that we're talking about is one of the 32 head coaches right now.

I mean, I would say I don't like going down this road because I feel like he's a bit of a punching bag at times, even on this podcast. But, you know, Gruden in 2021 in the fourth year of a $100 million 10-year deal. I don't know if we're supposed to factor in all these elements to it because if he was on a more normal deal, I probably, and there weren't the outsized expectations when he came back from his time in broadcasting. What was the exact wording he used? He said overrated. So that's true. Just overrated. At this point, he gets so much grief. Yeah.

That's the word overrated. I guess I would say Gruner, but he's like, yeah, like you say, he gets so much heat now. because I think people, there's a little bit of enjoyment in seeing him scuffle and the Raiders. So maybe he's not overrated, but Cliff Kingsbury is the other one that comes to mind. Yeah, I think. What have we seen from Cliff Kingsbury on this level, really, to warrant all the hype that he had coming in. So maybe he's the answer for me. Yeah, similarly, I thought like McCarthy at first, but it's like he's not really rated highly.

So you need someone that doesn't get a lot of critique. And I didn't think I could come up with one, but then I did. Hey, Mike Brable. Hey, you're a defensive guy. How about have a decent defense once in a while? I know he's like, he, he, everyone likes him. He's a, he, uh, strikes a cutting figure up there. He's great.

His teams have done pretty well, uh, but he is a defensive coach, whereas the, the sum of the parts on the Titans defense never quite add up. Like he's got good, some good players and they always kind of stink. So, uh, I'll go Mike Brable. I, just to have something spicy. Yeah, I also like, And I agree that, like, some... Titans'ams are not going to be happy about that.

No, the reaction to these guys is so fierce now that, like, it's, it is maybe hard to find classically overrated coach. Right, because McCarthy, I could say, but, like, everyone bags on McCarthy. Here's the thing about McCarthy. Here's why he came to mind, though, is because during that, like, three-hour-long DAC press conference, how many... Jerry Jones is like, and we are here with a wonderful coach. We just have a wonderful coach.

He's like, Mike McCarthy did nothing last year, and he came out of Green Bay with, like, a super low-que rating, so I don't, you know, Jerry Jones seems to think he's... All the bad ones. get fired that's unfortunately for NFL coaches it is a it's a tough business they're all gone it is a tough business and it's ultimately about wins and losses and brable in three seasons 29 and 19 they have a division title uh they have been to two playoff games uh they won a playoff game a upset went over the ravens last year i get it i get that said that said i i think a lot of people um who might feel so maybe even some titans fans out there want to see how this team is

Arthur Smith there this year. Well, and I'm in a compromise roster on offense, too. It's not, it's, you know, it's not just the defense that might underwhelm you this time around Greg. What is the, what are they, I know Corey Davis, obviously, is not there. What else are we pointing to? John Smith. Their death in general, yeah, just, you know.

It just, I know John Smith got paid like a superstar, but it's not like he was ever a superstar producer. But like now it's like FERC, sir and who is it? swam or something their two tight ends and their third receiver is like I don't even know they don't even have a third receiver they're going to have to sign someone and Reynolds who was the Rams fourth or fifth you know fourth

receivers or second if they went Julio Jones that changes things but I think also just like the environment around Derek Henry is going to be tougher well it took a while for us to go around the room once so now I'm going to go to one I have some more footbally ones but I do want to make sure we get this one

in because I yeah I guess we could start with Dan but it's for both of you, which is, why are you the way that you are? Dan? That's a tough one. That's a toughie. I think it's a combination of what you're born into and then the atmosphere, like what your environment you're around and the experiences in life.

I think that's the answer. Yeah, I agree with that. I know that I'm definitely motivated by slights and past failures to stuff stuff that from like even 18 years ago I could still be um ruminating on at times and it will drive me for two weeks now that's not healthy I don't think that's the only way to go something that like that got me inside that was good I like that's I think that's something that I would put as something I could work on potentially um but then you know although in Dan's defense like I am sort of convinced after having kids at least my experiences like they were who they were

before they could speak for the most part yeah it's like You couldn't change that. It is. You couldn't change that about them. Being a parent is, it's a blessing. It's a miracle. It's also, it could stress you out when you think out. Think too much about it, like things that you find are good qualities about yourself,

bad qualities about yourself. Like some of that is all hardwired into the children. It's pretty heavy if you want to think too much about it. So you don't. And you just try to teach them well and make them good humans. All right. All right, I'll throw another one out there. Did I do my Mr. Destiny one?

Yeah. You did do that one. I don't know. I kind of did a lot of research on this, but now I don't really care what the answer is. I was going to say, should we do a lottery in the NFL instead of the do a, you know, worst record gets the first pick. I mean, you come off a season where the Jaguars just lost 15 straight games to close the season, including the final four weeks when they were outscored by 85 points.

You have that Eagles, Jalen Hertz, Nate Sudfeld, disaster in week 17. Bad look for everybody. You see as a lion's fan. You know what's going on here. They're trying to get the number one pick next spring. None of this makes it for a better league. Why not introduce an NBA lottery to curb the urge to tank before this becomes like a hardcore crisis like it did in the NBA. Now, and here's the thing.

I'm afraid to put this out there. Because I know the shadowy league figures don't, not many of them actually listen to the show. But some do maybe. This is a slam dunk for the league in terms of a promotional. They're always looking for ways to stretch out the calendar. If the NFL wanted to, they could blow this out the week after the Super Bowl, right? So put it between the Super Bowl and the Combine, making a prime time event. You have Rich and Irvin and all the whole crew there, Mooch, to host it.

and you have all the representatives from the team, just like the NBA does. It's a great product. It really is fun to watch. It's exciting, as silly as it all is. And you kind of take over another week of the calendar as a sport. And then you also, you give teams less of an incentive to not try because you're lowering the odds of getting the first pick.

Just being the worst team doesn't give you the number one overall pick. I think now that we're in a world where it seems like every year there is legit evidence to look at certain teams and say they're tanking. I don't think that was the NFL way necessarily way back when, when I think the draft in general was a little bit more de-emphasized. So I think A, it's a great idea and it has value. I still think, and this will never happen, I would love, and this is an old Damashach, Dave Damashak concept, like a reverse playoffs, where you take the worst four teams

and you pit them up in like a reverse AFC and NFC title type game and a reverse Super Bowl, where now you can't, the losers get the lower draft pick. If you win that tournament of total Hammond Eggers, then you get the number one pick. I think that would be excellent television in a way, you know, with a real prize at the end. It's, football is so unique, though, because, man, it would be hard to, like, ask these players to put themselves out on the line to get a number one pick for a team they're going to get cut from. And also when they wanted to Most of them won't be. Right, most of them won't be back.

So I don't think you're going to, I don't think you'd want to add to the schedule with that. But I like the lottery. And I'm not even worried about tanking. I mean, compared to the NBA, it's nothing. And I don't think it ever will be anything like the NBA in terms of seeding. But I still say why not. I get the idea of why the draft is how it is. But that was that was back in the 50s for parody and stuff.

It'll, the parody of it all will work itself out if basically you've got to be in the top five or six to have a real chance to win this lottery, you know, or else your odds are infinitesimal anyways. So just mix up the top five or six. Don't you want to see Goodell's doing the pinball? I want to see that. I want to see the randomness. Plenty of times it doesn't work out. You win the lottery and you'll draft, you know, you'll draft Josh Rosen over Lamar Jackson

or whatever it is. I'm not thinking of there's better ones at the top of the draft, but it happens. You draft Sam Darnold over, you know, it's like you don't know what's going to happen anyways. I think it'd be fun. Thursday night. February 15th, 8 p.m. Goodell with the ping pong balls. Before the combine.

Yeah, that's good. It's only, and just so maybe people aren't familiar with the NBA lottery, only the teams that didn't make the playoffs are involved. So what is that? 20 teams. Right. If you were 7 and 9, you're going to have like a 0.5% chance. You've got to really be towards the end to have much of a chance.

And the NBA has made different things to continue to try to, make teams not completely give up. So now it's, the way it's set up now is the lottery is only for the top four picks. And then starting with pick five, it goes to, it reverts to, uh, worst record starting with pick five. But top four now is the teams with the top, the worst four records all have the equal chance of getting the number one overall pick. So they just, it used to be, um, the, the team with the worst record had a 25% chance.

Yeah, wait, waited, waited. And it was, and it was two. it was too much of an incentive for teams to still tank so now they've balanced that out and it's basically the bottom four teams all have i think a 10% chance and like greg said the team that went eight and eight missed the playoffs has like a point eight or one percent chance of getting the first overall pick uh anyway it's going to happen the NFL's going to make a ton of money off it and uh it might make for a better product that's my feeling i will annoy the NBA to to no end it's like you've taken the one thing that we do that you don't do and now you do it and you do it and you

get way more people watching it please yeah uh did you have another one mark i would i do have one here um all right so let's say that you two were suddenly given more football knowledge than anyone on earth okay like a c3PO figure times 500 you don't get you have insane you well it's you can look him up he's that a row it's a he is in popular culture for our popular culture man like a mix of gregg cocell and bill bellichick upstairs times like 30 and like Like, let's see, it's almost like a superpower. It's like a superpower kind of thing. But it's going to end in one year.

It's for one calendar year. So I would just ask you, like, you know, you've thought about having this power probably at some point. What would you do with it? Would you get the heck out of like your work environment and go write like the greatest football book of all time? Would you stay on this show? But then a year later, you'd be like, that guy was amazing. And then he went back down to his normal processing abilities and were a lot less amazed. So I'm just wondering, what would you?

you coach a team what would you do if you had that incredible knowledge so like would that knowledge allow me to be an ace in the stock market or something no it's you you have the more football knowledge than i mean you could oh it's football knowledge mostly football knowledge i like how mark prefaced by saying you've probably thought about this before so you know we know where he's coming from um i think you know you gave me the idea now that i think about it there's almost no way it's It's not like I could get hired into the NFL with all these, this knowledge quickly or anything. The timeline is very difficult. Staying on this show, that's not going to help me that much to, you know, have a couple good extra nuggets.

I do think I would write the book because that's like a dream would be to see my book on a shelf in a bookstore. And if I'm this smart, I could probably, I could write a good one. Maybe it doesn't make me a good writer, but I would be motivated. I'd take the leave of absence. and it is kind of a certain type of badass writer that, like, writes one amazing thing and then never writes again. I wouldn't try to do a follow-up

because it would stink because I would lose my knowledge. I'd write as much as I could in a year. But it'd just be like, hey, that's the guy who wrote the one awesome football book. That would be a good guy to be. I would just kick the shit of you guys on this podcast for a year. I think that's appealing. Then you could leave the show after a year

and never have your voice heard from again. And I go back just being me and get things wrong and stuff but like that would just be a fun year and and uh i don't know i don't know if i really need anything else it's kind of a weird superpower it's it's almost useless but also right it'll be a fun thing you would try to get on more podcasts like i would try to get on the move the sticks podcast to your point and start wiping the floor with daniel jeremiah it's like oh no one's going to want you didn't you yeah but at least you could surprise him just like oh you didn't watch that tape of the Saginaw Valley defensive tackle.

Like I thought he had, you know, I don't know, I'm just making them look like an idiot. All right. Before we go, Ricky, I'm going to ask you a question. Your three favorite sitcoms. Okay. Three, coming in at number three, got to go Fresh Prince of Bel Air.

Coming in at number two. You seem remarkably prepared for this. Yeah, you got to sell the fact that you're not prepared. No, no, no. I mean, I did have to look up because there's so many good ones. And you have to remember I'm in a different, you know. I'm not going to be like, oh, Seinfeld and Cheers, like, really get me every time. Fresh Prince is just as old, isn't it?

Yeah, it's 90s, too. But that 70s show or Broad City, which is, like, more current, which I think is good. You got parks and rec, but that's, like, different. You got to say three. You can't just make a big list. Number one is sex in the city. And I will die on that hill. That's funny because you were just saying, you know, you're talking about things that were too old to appreciate.

Like, you were a baby when that show was at its height. Yeah. So you discovered it later, obviously. Yeah, through actually, like, college had every single DVD set, every season. Wow. It makes sense because Erica's very, you know, fascinated. And that's kind of her lane, like rich white women. Like, that's like her thing.

My top three sitcoms, I'm going to say the office, American version, seasons. I'm going to break it down because a lot of these sitcoms outlive their usefulness. Right. So, especially seasons two and three, but we'll say seasons one through three. Arrested Development, seasons one and two, I think, are like some of the funniest TV you'll ever see. But I will say the best is the first, let's say, eight or nine seasons of the Simpsons. That's my top three. With Seinfeld, 30 Rock, maybe Peak, always sunny, all in the conversation.

after that. I had not a Simpsons fan, and I realize I'm in weird territory because everyone around me seems to be. I, for me, curb your enthusiasm, which I'm rewatching, is still awesome. The Larry Sanders show, I think that is one of the best shows around. If I want to go back a little bit further to what a more classic sitcom that I grew up watching, I think Family Ties, which I've showed to my kids. Family Ties. Family Ties is actually... That was your three. You just said three. Family Tides, you're number one. You're number one.

No, I put Larry Sanders show number one, curb two, and Family Tides three. But this other one that I used to watch Good Times was awesome. But I don't think that's more like classic sitcom stuff than longer hour long shows. I wouldn't want to watch Cheers right now, really. Although, I mean, it holds up fine, but I wouldn't want to. But in terms of the impact it out in my life, that would have to make the list because I just watched it nonstop. But that's like the first thing I ever thought of with comedy for like five years from

six to 11 or whatever. So Cheers makes a list. Cheers is awesome. Cheers holds up incredibly well. Right. It still holds up. I just mean I'm not like I haven't done it. But the others are on your guys' list.

I put a rest in curbed as my other two. Yeah. Cheers. Yeah. Cheers is really past the test of time. And I will say one off the radar kind of sitcom, if we're looking for, if you want something to discover here, check out review. Comedy Central, Andy Daley starred in it as this guy, Forrest McNeil, that would be challenged by his viewers on this like public access show to do these feats, these random feats, all very stupid. And you would think, okay, that's the premise of the show.

But it wasn't really that. He would do these feats. And then the show was kind of like how doing these strange things would affect his life. And his life just kept on going downhill. And he ended up losing everything because he was doing. doing this ridiculous show. It is amazing. Sounds familiar.

Great show. Check out review. Party down, another great one. Party down was great. It's coming back. Probably won't be good. But I like when these shows come back. Well, that's perilous.

It will see. Rest of development came back. Terrible. Not even, you know, it just paled in comparison. But watch the first couple seasons. Season three, yeah. All the stuff with We've written and they kind of lost the plot a little bit. I'm watching season three right now.

And I'm like, ah, this wasn't nearly as good as the first two seasons. TV talk. Got a whopper of a pod here. Or maybe we should bring this in for a landing. No matter what, it always ends up a little heavy. All right. 80 minutes. We'll be back on Friday on the network side.

We are now on right after Good Morning Football. Still unclear whether that's a good thing or that's one of those things. like speaking of sitcoms and all of a sudden you start moving around on the schedule and it's like the higher up to like what do we want to do with the show there's no NFL now so it's just like let's have it where NFL now was yeah i'm just saying you start bouncing around that schedule you don't know how that well no one came to it came to us and said you guys are lightning in a bottle um you're absolutely devastating ratings so we're putting you into this spot for that reason well we're off the schedule pretty soon we got a couple more weeks here a couple weeks off then maybe back for one and then and then hopefully we're back for the fall so forget uh hashtag bring ATN to London. I want to say forget it. Hashtag, no, don't forget it. We are, I want that. Give it to me.

I don't know if, I don't know if the hashtag is going to help us get there. How about hashtag keep ATN on the NFL network schedule? It's a little bit of a mouthful there. But let's do it. Keep AT& on TV. Yeah, keep ATN on TV for the fall. How about watch ATN on TV listeners? We love that and hear some feedback.

We work hard on that show and we are very proud of it. So check out the network show right after good. Good morning football on NFL network. And then the podcast returns next Tuesday. All right. Good stuff. This is Dananza signing off for Quiet Storm. The old boss.

When I was a senior in college, this show was at its peak, and my girlfriend at the time lived across the hall. All the girls would pile into our dorm room because we had HBO. Wow. My roommate got HBO, which is a crazy move in a dorm room. and they all watched it together. That's my Sex and the City story. Girlfriend across the dorm room hall, though, is good.

It's good, and it could be bad eventually, good and bad. It worked out. Dan Heads is signing off for a quiet storm. The old boss, Ricky Hollywood, behind the virtual glass. What are you, by the way, Ricky? Are you a Samantha? I feel like you're a Samantha. That is a big compliment.

Thank you. That's what every girl says because the other three suck. It's like, okay, you could be Cynthia Nixon and you're respectful. But it's like you're, if you're anyone else, it's like it's almost an insult. I know. Nobody wanted to be Miranda. Yeah, no one ever wants to be Miranda. No one wants to be Charlotte either.

She's like not sure of herself. I was going into Charlotte. I want to be, you know, Sarah Jessica Parker, but I'm not, you know, so I guess I just end up being the s***ing. That's Miranda. Miranda. Nobody wants to be a Miranda. Linda. All right. Till Tuesday. He'd the call.