The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Broncos fire Nathaniel Hackett

Episode Date: December 26, 2022

The Athletic's Broncos beat reporter Nick Kosmider joins Robert Mays to discuss the lead-up to, and fallout from, the firing of Nathaniel Hackett.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nick on Twitter: @NickKosmiderSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. The Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, it's our Broncos writer at the athletic, Nick Cosmiter. Nick, how you doing, man? I'm doing good, Robert. Thanks for having me. I appreciate you doing this.

I know today has obviously been very hectic for you, as it always is, for our writers who cover teams that have just fired their head coach. And that is what has happened with the Broncos. Obviously, the news came down. We were recording part two of our Week 16 recap. We hit it a little bit with me and Nate. earlier, but wanted to take a step back and actually with some time to think about it, consider all the angles to it, talk with someone who has thought a lot about this and has had some time

to think a lot about this. Before we dig into what comes next for the Broncos, everything that led to this moment, Jerry Rosberg was just named the interim head coach for the Broncos. He was the special assistant that the Broncos hired early this season to help with game management decisions. I'm trying to say all of the company terms here, as I explained. in who he was supposed to be and why. What do you think about Rossberg being the interim over a guy like Adjero Evereaux who works the players every day, has done a great job this year? It was a little bit surprising that news, I think, to a lot of people.

I was a little bit surprised by that. I think Egero Everro, you know, there's a little bit of a complicated dynamic there in that, you know, Jero Evereaux is like one of Nathaniel Hickett's best friends, you know, on the planet. They were the best men at each other's weddings. Right. Just have been connected at the hip for a long time in this. game. And so you do wonder whether there was any sort of reluctance on the, on the part of Evereaux, although I would imagine that, you know, Nathaniel Hackett would have, you know, would have endorsed him

to go ahead and take that, you know, for his own, his own career. But, you know, it is certainly a different situation. Perhaps if it was had happened earlier and there was, there was more time for Evo to actually gain something from that experience than maybe it, perhaps it would have been different. But with only two weeks to go, I'm just not sure how much you really would benefit, you know, kind of from getting that that run. Yeah, it doesn't really matter. You know, obviously I think that it would have been nice for a Gio to get that chance to be a head coach in any capacity as he's trying to forward his career. And I have to assume he'll be in demand this offseason as a defensive coordinator and maybe more.

I mean, based on how good of a coordinator he was over the course of this season, he will definitely be having some conversations with teams. And that would have been a nice little feather in his cap for his resume. But ultimately, probably not the most important thing. after yesterday, after that game against the Rams in front of the entire national audience in front of children on Nickelodeon, which real tough conversations with some parents and their kids after that game, I have to assume. Did you feel like this had to happen? Is this almost an inevitability this morning when you woke up? It certainly felt like that last night, that this was something different than what had come before it. The Broncos obviously have had a disastrous season.

It's been embarrassing on a lot of levels, but what they had avoided was that sort of just like absolute train wreck, fall apart kind of day, right? They had played poorly. They had lost a bunch of close games based on Russell Wilson's poor execution down the stretch based on Nathaniel Hackett, not having a good grip of things in the late games, but this was just an utter and total colossal disaster,

whatever adjective you want to use. It was their worst loss in 12 years in terms of margin. And not only was it that bad rubber, you saw it included these sideline flareups, you know, Dalton Reisner's pushing the backup quarterback. He's getting pushed by, you know, Latavius Murray, you know, Randy Gregory's throwing his helmet, picking up late hits, punching a guy after the game. It just looked like a chaotic mess. And that was just one thing that I think this ownership group said, we've stomached a lot of this. But after that, there has to just be some accountability, I think, was sort of the view that we had last night in kind of preparing for this possibility.

You wrote this morning in talking about the firing that Nathaniel Hackett becomes the second head coach since 1978 to be a first year head coach that was fired in season. The other one was Urban Meyer, which is arguably the most disastrous head coaching tenure in the history of the NFL, or at least the recent history of the NFL, in the NFL as we currently understand it. This now joins a short list of coaching 10 years after that Urban Meyer stretch in Jacksonville. When did you start to get worried that we might be headed for something like this? You know, I think really going into the London game, the Broncos were two and five.

They were on a four-game losing streak. Russell Wilson was already playing, you know, the worst ball of his career. They had the lowest scoring offense, couldn't score in the red. zone. And although there was nothing associated with the Urban Meyer type off the field stuff, it was just simply a thing where you said, this just is not, is not working. And it doesn't seem like there's a lot of evidence that this can be tenable going forward into next year. The biggest failure of this, you know, there were so many things, I think, beyond Nathaniel Hackett's control. Injuries just, I think, disrupted a lot of the plan from the very beginning. But central to his job was to kind of create

an environment for Russell Wilson where they were going to get the you know the kind of Seattle type play out of him and they just they just never did that and because that looked so out of sorts from the start going back to week one in Seattle and that you know fateful end of game decision it always

seemed like a possibility because there was just this disconnect between he and Russell Wilson that it just was hard to see that ever coming together what do you think was at the source of that disconnect I think for me, the dynamic from the very beginning, I think was unique and challenging. And I think Nathaniel Hackett

was probably naive to just how challenging that would be. They brought in a player to whom they gave complete control, you know, whether it's giving him an office in the building, whether it's allowing his whole, you know, kind of team of trainers, coaches to be around the building to be a part of kind of the every day, you know, putting him in sort of every, you know, every marketing material. And really putting this idea that he and his winning past is going to be what helps, you know, put this team finally over the hump after six straight years without the playoffs. And to have that dynamic where you're giving this guy so much control next to a first-time head coach who has this just sort of affable personality, that's sort of always been kind

of his deal. I just think there was never, there was never sort of that obvious accountability factor to it. I mean, even Sunday, Robert, you know, Nathaniel Hackett's seethed in his halftime interview about Russell Wilson's interceptions. You could see it after the game, more of the same. It's the close that he has come this year to really kind of, you know, going off on Wilson's performance. He's taking all those arrows the whole time, but I think that frustration has been there throughout. And it's just been this back and forth where, you know, I think Russell Wilson would bring things to the table in terms of what they wanted to change that, you know, just were at odds with, I think,

what Nathaniel Hackett saw as possible, A, with their personnel, and be reasonable to fit within the scheme that they had already built. And so I think that disconnect, even though they said all the right things all the time, it just seemed pretty obvious from the beginning of the year that they weren't, you know, they weren't on the same page. I remember in training camp talking to a couple members of the offensive coaching staff about what that process would look like. It's always interesting to You know, the Rogers, LaFleur dynamic in Green Bay and how that ended up taking shape while Nathaniel Hackett was there. I remember being there in 2019 and they were struggling a little bit on offense and there was some frustration. I think probably on both sides of the aisle about what that relationship had looked like and how Rogers is kind of unwilling to fit into the box that the floor in that group wanted to put him in while being a large box that there was some room to grow in.

And eventually they ironed that out. And eventually it became perfect for both sides. And he won two MVPs and they look fantastic on offense. And what they were saying about Russ in training camp and Nathaniel Hackett saying to me that we're really going to let Russ make a lot of these decisions. And what Russ likes is how we're going to drive this. And Justin Outton telling me their offensive coordinator that he brought this empty kind of package with him from Seattle that it really lets him kind of be in control when he does all of this stuff. even schematically, they were letting him drive the bus here in a way that it didn't seem like there were any checks and balances on the process and how they were trying to build it. And I think that what we've kind of learned over the last couple years and how it went bad in Seattle and what Gino's looked like at times in Seattle and what this looks like in Denver is that you need those checks and balances around Russ's skill set because it is specific.

And without that sort of system in place, you can have an end result like the one you've had in Denver. That's compounded by an inexperienced coaching staff, compounded by offensive line injuries. Tim Patrick gets hurt in training camp, a bunch of different things to consider. But the formula and kind of the overall equation as to how we landed in this spot is fascinating. I think it involves a lot of different stuff. Yeah, and it is.

And it's, you know, it ultimately became a situation where the job that Nathaniel Hackett had going into the season was different than the job that he, you know, kind of took in January. Now, obviously, you know, there was talk already at the point in his interviews about what they would do at quarterback. You know, Aaron Rogers, obviously his status was up in the air.

That was always kind of a seeming possibility for the Broncos. But you go from having Drew Locke and Brett Rippin on your roster to not only having Russell Wilson, but then the organization giving him a five-year extension weeks before the season, or 11 days before the season started, it totally changed what the job was, what the expectation. was there was no allowance for Nathaniel Hackett really to kind of go through these growing pains in the same way that even Vance Joseph and Vic Fangio were able to do even though even though the apparatus for the Broncos was largely the same I mean that the personnel was the same we thought that Russell Wilson was a significant upgrade over a guy like Teddy Bridgewater but that obviously

did not become the case and Nathaniel Hackett just was not granted that that sort of same ability to have a learning curve now that doesn't mean that he that that extra time would have, would have changed anything. It probably wouldn't have. But if Drewlock was the quarterback of this team, he would still be the coach. If they had the exact same record and Drew Locke was the quarterback, he would still be the head coach of the Broncos. No question. Yeah. Yeah. You want to, the expectations were enormous. And to say nothing of the fact that a new ownership group, which bought this team for a record $4.65 billion, didn't have any hand in the hiring of Nathaniel Hackett. Didn't have any hand in the initial acquisition

of Russell Wilson. Of course, they were in place when the extension got handed down. But again, just so many, you know, I had somebody describe it to me as it was just, it was the perfect storm of circumstances that just, and I remember you being at training camp and saying to me, like, how does this, how does this go wrong? Like, what are the things that make it not?

And in retrospect, I just don't think I myself gave enough, um, kind of allowance for the fact that that relationship, um, that seemed to have, a lot of like positives going into it that there were a lot of potential pitfalls. You talk about the trade, the contract handed out, the guy who hired Nathaniel Hackett, George Payton is all of those people. The statement that was released by the organization indicates that George Payton is safe by all accounts.

He's going to be a part of the head coaching search. Why has the light not shined a little brighter on Peyton in this process after he was the one that signed off on that trade that instigated that trade and kind of helped bring the Broncos to the spot that they're in right now. It certainly has, has locally. And I think that the somewhat of the disconnect is that George Payton, by all accounts, was getting rave reviews around the league for how his GM tenure in Denver began, right? Whether it's with some of the guys that he drafted, you know, Pat Sertan, Javante Williams, seemingly to have a grip on how to build through the draft. And at the time that the acquisition of Wilson, you know, was largely celebrated,

I think around the league for a team that seemed to just need that upgrade a quarterback in order to compete. But the two biggest decisions he has made as a general manager have been colossal failures. Nathaniel Hackett and to your point, Russell Wilson. And so I think there's some things in that statement that do suggest he is certainly under scrutiny as well. The fact that he's not going to lead the search for the new head coach, right? Greg Penner said he will lead it with support from George Payton. Greg Penner also said that they will be evaluating every aspect of the operation. So does that mean there could be somebody that comes in, you know, takes a role above George in the football operations department? I think all those things are on the table right now.

Let's talk about potential candidates for this job. You listed off some in a piece of the earlier today. Run me through who you think are the first people they're going to call and are the priorities as they're looking for the next head coach of the Broncos here. Well, the Broncos have hired three straight first-time head coaches. And I think they will kind of, you know how this goes. You go the opposite of what you've done previously. And especially that they have done it three times in a row and none of them have produced a single winning season. I think you'll see them really concentrate their search on coaches with previous head coaching experience.

And so for me, that would start with Dan Quinn. He is a guy who was a finalist for them in their search previously, which in which they interviewed an absurd 10 candidates, you know, traveling all across the country on a jet, somehow landed him in this spot. But I think you look at a guy like him. He's a guy that no, Peyton knows well. Again, they thoroughly vetted him through this last search.

And I think, again, but it's who do they want this job in return? Sean Payton is a guy that obviously wants to get back into coaching. There was a report by ESPN that says he, he wants to bring Vic Fangio along as his defensive coordinator. So that is obviously would be a complicated dynamic. You know, but that's another, that's another name that you look at. You know, I look like at a guy like Leslie Frazier with what he's been able to do in Buffalo, the experience that he had as a head coach in Minnesota when, you know,

George Payton was was there as well as a guy who could be ready for another shot. I think they will start in that kind of arena of coaches with Previck experience, even a guy like perhaps Frank Wright. I think they have to. Obviously, a lot of teams go in the opposite direction of what they just had, like you alluded to. And I think it goes beyond that. I think the dynamics of the situation

warrant them trying to find somebody like that. What happened with Jacksonville is instructive to me. It's an absolute disaster with Urban Meyer. They go get a guy in Doug Peterson who has a Super Bowl to his name, who was a very good head coach, and there's kind of a strangeness to those circumstances in Philadelphia as to why he was even available.

And look at how well that has gone and just how important that hire was for them. I think going that direction for similar reasons here because you need somebody who can pick up the pieces makes a lot of sense to me. Dan Quinn totally tracks in his personality, his experience, what he's done. But like you just asked, are those guys like Dan Quinn, like Sean Payton, the ones who are going to be at the top of these priority lists for the these teams, are they going to want this job? I remember after the Colts fired Frank Greig and Jim Mersey was just doing a bunch of weird stuff. I was talking to another head coach and I was like,

do you think anybody really wants to go work for that guy? And he's like, listen, there are 32 of these. Somebody wants this job. Somebody absolutely does. And that's the case with the Broncos. It's a legacy franchise. It's a prestigious franchise. It's a prestigious seat. Even with the Russell Wilson complications here, somebody's going to want this. this job. The question is whether that somebody is a priority or a sought-after candidate like a Dan Quinn. And I don't know if it's somebody like that. Yeah. It'll be interesting, too, because this is a ownership group that obviously has resources, right? So that part of the equation, I don't think, is going to be a problem for the Broncos as they look to hire who they want to hire. I mean,

this is a group with connections to Stanford. You know, Greg Penner and his wife, Cary Walton Penner are both alums. Condoleezza Rice, who's a member of the ownership group, are both alums. Do they look at, you know, saying, hey, let's use that connection. Let's go get, let's go get John Harbaugh, do whatever it takes, you know, get a guy like David Shaw, perhaps. I think you'll see them take some pretty

significant swings and put a lot of power, you know, behind that. And again, there are, there are 32 of these jobs. I would just say the thing that these candidates are going to want to know is what is the plan with Russell Wilson in terms of, you know, any kind of escape hatch that the organization thinks that it might have going forward if he continues to play at this level. Because, listen, you know, they just saw what happened with Nathaniel Hackett when things went sour with Russell Wilson. And a coach is not going to want to step into that same situation knowing that my whole existence here is completely tied to whether this guy can get back to playing anything resembling, you know, top level ball again.

That's going to be an important part of the equation, too, of these candidates getting an understanding. of what the plan is with Russell Wilson. So what do you think the plan is? I knew you were going to ask me that. You know, again, the contract is, look, we know that there is room to maneuver around these salary caps, but to do it this year, to do it this offseason, I see some things floating around there, like, just eat it all, just take your medicine now, you know, build a team on minimum free agents and, you know, vet free agents and all that kind of thing.

I don't think they'll do that with this fan base. I don't think they were going to ever just completely tear it down in that kind of a way. But again, because you would nuke the next year too. I think that's important to understand. Looking at even the options to make him a post-June first cut, you'd be at $40 million in dead money next season, which you could live with if you were the Broncos.

He's set to make $20 million. They have a bunch of potential cap space. You could feel the team. But the dead money hit in 2024 would be $67 million if you were to do that. You'd be eaten two seasons. And I think that's really, really hard to justify. Yeah. And even, yeah, even with the cap gun. The previous record at this point is the $40 million dead money for Matt Ryan, if I'm not mistaken. And Wentzen Gopher in that range. Those were the bigger ones that we had seen. So you're talking about, you know, well above, above that already.

And to your great point, two seasons of that, I just don't think. And Atlanta, also, they were rebuilding. Atlanta, Atlanta's deep in a rebuilding process when they ate that with Matt Ryan. The Broncos have real players on their team, and I think that's worth considering, too. Yeah, I absolutely agree. And the other part of it is just that, you know, again, do you look at it another way of saying, I saw Mike Sandel kind of entertain this as well. Money-wise, he is your quarterback. And it would be unprecedented to have a guy your pay to that kind of degree this early

in his contract and say, hey, he has to fight for his job. I don't necessarily think that they should stage a quarterback competition. but there just cannot be this acceptance of the standard of quarterback play that has been on the field this year. So, you know, again, do you, do you, they obviously are going to upgrade their backup quarterback position, but how much so? Like, do you actually go searching for a guy that, you know, that might make Russell Wilson feel the heat a little bit? That's, that's all going to be very interesting when I say, what is their plan for Russell Wilson? I 100% do.

No question. Because you have to build in some level. of accountability that didn't exist this year. And if you have to overcorrect and say, we need to actually put some guardrails in place to not lose the rest of the locker room, I think that's a part of this too. If you just let him walk to the job after the season that they just had, I think that you lose credibility with every single person in that building. If I am George Payton and I'm the Broncos ownership group, I have about like a three-pronged

plan here. One, I tell whoever the new head coach is going to be, one, I offer him like $15 million dollars a year if he's like a sought after guy because you can't there's nothing preventing you from doing that and if you want the best guys you open up the checkbook in a huge huge way it's a rounding error for the waltons to pay somebody 15 million bucks even after paying off this current staff and that that's just the reality of this situation that is where ownership and money and resources that's where you can weaponize it is in situations like this two i tell that new coach that russell wilson is not the day one starting quarterback next fall and you do not have to

keep we are prepared. I wouldn't say maybe we're prepared to move out from him after 2023, but I would not back whoever you're going to hire into a corner. There are two guys hitting free agency this year that I would seek to bring in, one of them above the other. One is your go we percent. The other is Andy Dalton. The Broncos right now are only paying Russell Wilson $20 million against the cap in 2023. With a couple reasonable cuts, Clarem Glasgow, Ronald Darby, who is a luxury, you probably can't afford it anymore when you're facing down the financial realities you're going to over the next two years, you can get to $40 million easily.

This is a team that has flexibility this spring. You give Jacoby Percette two years, $25 million, have a smaller number against the cap in year one, maybe it goes up in year two, and you have a quarterback competition to see who wins the job. And the reason that I would go with Peret is twofold. One, we've seen him be a reasonable starting quarterback in the league this year and recently. Two, it's a personality thing.

If you're trying to overcorrect from what Russell Wilson is, Jacoby Percette is beloved. There is a reason that he was able to handle the Deshaun Watson situation the way that he did in Cleveland this year. Kevin Stefansky and George Payton know each other very, very, very well. That is a quick phone call that George can make over there to Cleveland to see what it was like to have Jacoby Percette as this guy who was helping you navigate an uncertain quarterback situation.

And then at the end of the season, if Russ doesn't win that job and you want to put him on the bench, you cut them. And if you make him a post-June first cut, it's a $35 million hit in 2024, which you were going to pay him anyway. So as a team-building obstacle, it's not that big of a deal. You potentially have percent under contract for one more year to shepherd you through that. And then it's a $50 million dead hit in 2024. A lot of the contracts currently on the books are going to be gone by then. You figure out what the stage of the roster is two years from now. because I think that you have to do something to maintain some credibility and keep the rest of this thing together.

And going out and getting a guy like that to me is the answer. Yeah. And I think just to put a point on that, because you made them all really well, is that you can't allow this head coach that comes in to think that his success or his evaluation really has anything to do with whether he can, you know, turn this around with with russell wilson because it's that seems right now like just um an unfair ask yes you know like certainly they want that right that that would still be that's still their best path or their their sort of best hope in the dear term is that they can create something similar to what it looked like in seattle but again i just that that quarterback is not there

you see it in the in the pocket his his head is down at the first side of the rush by the time he's he's back up and looking again, you know, things are just all over the place down the field. It's going to be to me a pretty stunning turnaround if somebody can do that. But yeah, a coach just cannot come in thinking that he has to be tied to whether he is able to, again, to resurrect that. And I think part of the turnaround and part of regaining some real feeling for the locker room and having those guys believe that it's a meritocracy, all of those things, is rooted in the best quarterback being the guy who plays.

next year. And being a guy and bringing in somebody who can actually give this version of Russell Wilson a run in that competition at the right price, I think is something that's worth doing. And also there's the consideration of he has injury guarantees baked into his deal after 2023. Those are how a lot of those guarantees exist in that contract. If you're halfway through the season and he's not playing well, I'd want somebody that I can bring in, even if he didn't win the job in week one, that can be a reasonable starting quarterback

that allows me to have a functional NFL team in 2023 if they have to shut Wilson down at any point. So there is nothing prohibiting you in next year's cap to go out and shop at the top of the backup or borderline starter quarterback market. And that's what I would do. Yeah. I'm curious what you think. When do you start turning your attention toward a possible draft option when we talk about this? I don't think that's in their best interest, right? They have the Niners pick this year.

Niners pick. 31. Yeah, a Niners pick that could potentially go to New Orleans for Sean Payton if it ends up coming to that. I think that maybe the year after, maybe in the 20-24 draft, if you're still not a very good team when you have your kind of full arsenal of draft picks back. But this year, you're just not in a position to draft one. If you're picking in the 30s in this quarterback class, everybody's going to get pushed up. You're picking what, the fifth or sixth quarterback in the class, probably if you end up doing that. I just think that is operating from a position of weakness and urgency and kind of desperation

in a way that you don't need to. I would rather find a stopgap option in free agency if I could. And the idea that you would actually be creating a real competition with that kind of player back into the first round where they're so little guaranteed about who that player will be, it would also be a false notion. But yeah, that was kind of more my thought, though, was 2024. Because again, if this is sort of their team, they're going to, they're going to go out, they're going to make this team better. They hope Javonte Williams is healthier. They're going to

make upgrades on the offensive line. A lot of the defensive guys are coming back. So you could say, you could look and see like reasons to believe this team could be better in 2023, even with Wilson playing at an only average level. But to me, the possibility exists that 2023 could be another down year that could then lead to saying, okay, do we really go after this top quarterback in the draft, which this team has just avoided doing for years and years. You could also, if you wanted to, what the Giants did with Tyrae Taylor, I think is interesting. So they have Daniel Jones. They did not think that obviously his fifth year option had been declined, not a guarantee

that Daniel Jones is in the team's plans after 2022 with the new regime coming in. They signed Tyra to a two-year deal where his cap-it goes up a lot in the second year with the chance if they need to, he could be their starting quarterback in 20203 if they chose to move on from Daniel Jones. Something like that with higher non. numbers involved. Jacoby's coming off a season where he was a starting quarterback for half the year. He had some success. And also there's a chance that the money would be a little bit different just because they can afford to pay him a little bit more against the cap this year than they might

want to in 2024 when Russ's number goes up to 35 million, even if they cut him and that's what the dead money hit is. So there's a lot to untangle here and a lot of just shit to dig through that whoever takes this job or whoever is working with George Payton is going to have to handle, but there is a way out after next year. And I think that you start planning that way out even before that. I would not go into next season just saying, we got to fix Russell Wilson or we're screwed because I think that's a recipe for disaster based on what we've seen so far. Yeah, I agree. And I think the biggest thing to your point is so that you don't see more, more games like Sunday, which was embarrassing for the, you know, for the product on the field,

but perhaps even more so from, you know, just the look of a team that had completely sort of rebolted against what was going on. The other thing, other than, you know, obviously with the quarterback question, the offensive wine is going to have the most holes of any position group coming into next year, right? Because Glasgow is a free, Glasgow is probably going to be released. He'd be released. If he's coming back, it would have to be on a pretty significant restructure, yeah.

So Glasgow and then risers hitting free agency, and I believe Billy Turner is also a free agent. So you'd have to piece together, whatever that right tackle situation look like. Your only starters coming back. next year are bowls and cushionberry. So you'd have to figure out a way to piece that group together. Other than that, a good portion of the roster comes back next year. And I do think they have some talent. And that's why I just would want to make sure I'm not lighting a season on fire again next year.

And I have some sort of contingency plan, both to maintain respect and just cohesion within the locker room, but also because you got some decent players there. And I think that there is a path to competition and a path to being relevant if you make the right moves here. Yeah, I agree. There's certain things that they need to do. They need to be better at center. They need an answer at right tackle. We'll see what they do, whether they bring Reisner back or not.

They need a running back to kind of fill in the spot until Giovante Williams. We don't know what he's going to look like post that really significant knee injury that he's suffered against the Raiders and probably won't be ready for the start of 2023. So again, you need some more talent there. But you're right. I mean, they have talent. You know, I think it needs to continue to be upgraded like a lot of teams do. But they have the building blocks there to where, yeah,

they can't just say we're going to take a lost season on the chin. And in this statement, you know, Greg Penner kind of made clear, like, the fans did not deserve what happened this year. They feel, I know this organization feels for this fan base. that was sold that this was going to be this kind of big turnaround. I think they're really cognizant of not kind of having the disaster of a season that they did this year, avoiding that by at all costs. I truly can't believe that we're talking about this right now.

After seeing you in August, I remember the day of the trade happened. Even if you were trying to sketch out the worst case scenario, I don't even think it looked like this. How fast and how quickly it all dissolved, disintegrated, devolved, whatever verbatial. you want to use. It's truly baffling. And now there are some hurdles. There are some hurdles to finding your next coach because I do think there are some really unappealing aspects to the job, even if they can do some things to make it more appealing. So what happens here over the next couple months and who they end up landing and why to take this job? It's going to be fascinating. I agree. And we'll cover it all. We certainly will. If you guys want to, please go read

Nick's coverage of this on The Athletic, The Athletic.com slash football show. If you do not have a subscription. Highly encourage you to go check that out. He'll obviously be looking at this, talking about this, writing about this from every single conceivable angle here over the next few weeks. In the meantime, if you have not listened to our Week 16 recaps, part one and two, those are available in your podcast feed. Hopefully this will be out of Monday evening on Wednesday. We'll be back with Ben Solac doing a wild card threat index, talking about some of the teams playing on Wild Car Weekend and how dangerous they might be. In the meantime, really appreciate you guys listening. Nick, appreciate your time on a busy day. We'll talk to you guys soon.

This was the Athletic Football Show.