The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Broncos hire Nathaniel Hackett, Bears choose Matt Eberflus, Byron Leftwich & more coaching updates

Episode Date: January 27, 2022

Head coaching hires have been the story of Thursday in the NFL with the Broncos hiring packers OC Nathaniel Hackett and the Bears going with Colts DC Matt Eberflus. Robert Mays is joined by Mike Sando to discuss the choices and what fans can expect, plus update you on where Byron Leftwich might be headed and what's going on with Dan Quinn & the Dallas Cowboys. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to a bonus episode of the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's my good friend Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I am doing well, Robert. Thanks for getting the band together here real quick.

We've got a lot of stuff going on. Yeah, it's just, it's like clockwork, right? So Lindsay and I record our coaching carousel update podcast yesterday at 5 p.m. Eastern time. And by the time it's, what is it now, noon Eastern. It's no longer relevant. Three of those coaches have been hired. Three of those jobs have been filled.

It's the risk you run at this time of year. So we wanted to just run through the coaching news that's happened. Again, it's about 1230 Eastern time right now. We've had some jobs filled today. It sounds like there are others that are headed that direction pending a couple different things, a couple different considerations. So let's start with the news that kicked off the day and made me realize that I wasted a lot of time yesterday.

And that is Nate Hackett, the Packer's Offensive Coordinator, getting hired by the Broncos. We'd heard about this for a little while that he was in strong contention to get that job. He's been around for a while. He was the office coordinator for the Jaguars for a couple of years. Then he went to Green Bay.

So he's had a couple different stops as an OC. And now he will be taking over as the Broncos head coach. What have you heard about him and just this process overall as it relates to him? Yeah, he's been around the game forever, obviously, in his family. I mean, I think it's wonderful job by him getting fired by the Jaguars aligning with Aaron Rogers. I mean, you can't, I mean, that's just the way the game is.

And I'm not saying anything good or bad about Nathaniel Hackett, but if he had stayed in Jacksonville and gotten twice as good at his job during that time, he wouldn't be hired right now. I agree. That's the way the game is. So, yeah, at the same time, I think George Payton is good. I think that he'll, I would trust his judgment over a lot of people's judgment. And here we are.

You can't help but connect some dots in your mind. wonder what is going on behind the scenes with Aaron Rogers, who knows what? And is this now, do they have a bunch of guys here who there's not that much of a difference between him, right? Doesn't it feel like in this cycle, as far as what you can actually know? There's not a Jim Harbaugh, John Gruden, there's not the sexy name hire. No, it's the typical pool we're used to, right, where it's the hot coordinators on the hot teams. and you kind of pick between them.

And with Hackett, he's just somebody that he's a ball of energy, man. I mean, if you ever had a conversation with Nate Hackett, he is, he loves football. And it kind of comes out of his pores when you talk about it with him. And I think instilling that kind of, it's very different than Woodvick Fangio is going to bring to a building. Their overall presence is extremely different. So, and, you know, his background is interesting. I talked to him this summer. we were just discussing kind of the ins and outs of the offense that the Packers run under Matliflor.

And that is not a place that Nathaniel Hackett comes from. His background is not in that wide zone Shanahan system. So when he got to Green Bay, it was one of those things where he said to me, I wanted to know how it worked. That was part of the appeal of taking the job is that you see this stuff from afar. It's like, how does this offense work? And so he got to kind of see the inner workings and the mechanics. and the mechanics of how that system actually functions and goes.

So coaches that have that sort of varied background, I always find compelling. And it comes from a very different place than what they did in Green Bay. But now he has that background of working with LaFleur and with Rogers in that system for the last few years. So, yeah, it's an interesting background. I mean, he's an interesting resume, and I think that it makes sense for them right now in this moment.

I do like that aspect of you being in more than one place and having been fired and just sort of knowing how the league works. You know, he's been, I believe, in Tampa under John Gruden, right? He's been in Buffalo with Chan Galey, I believe. Was he with Chan Galey? He's been in Jacksonville. I mean, these are some interesting places. He's actually been in places where it's been really tough

and you haven't always been supported to the degree that he is going to be in Denver. So I also think that offense obviously is a good one in the NFL right now. So to have components of that, you don't. know who you're going to get. You may not get Aaron Rogers. Obviously, Aaron Rogers can do great in almost any offense. But this system, if he adopts some of what he learned from Lafleur, could be a good thing to try to elevate or win with somebody who's probably not going to be as good as Aaron Rogers unless you're fortunate enough to get that done. And oh, by the way, if you are fortunate enough to get it done, having him there helps you. I don't think that's the

reason why you'd make the hire, but it could help if he felt as good about him as everyone else. I just, I want to know what happened with Dan Quinn. Like, to me, that's the most interesting thing of this whole thing. I thought he was going to maybe go there. And he's going back to Dallas. So interesting to me. With the staff that Hackett is apparently bringing there, Ian Rappap report reported today that it sounds like Adjero Everro,

the passing game coordinator for the Rams is going to be the number one choice for the defensive coordinator spot there. If you look at where the Rams have been over the last couple years, he was a prominent assistant on that team in 2020. when they were the best defensive football. He got elevated to passing game coordinator before this season and was a huge part of kind of creating the bridge between last year's defensive staff and this one with Rahe Morris coming in.

So his resume is such that he would be a guy you look at for this job. He also happens to be Nathaniel Hackett's best friend. So he was his best man at his wedding. So you can connect the dots there. It makes sense on a couple of different levels. And then the offensive coordinator is apparently, going to be Adam Stenevich, or that's who they wanted to be, who is the offensive line coach and run game coordinator for the Packers. And bringing that Packers run game and the design of it

in there and having, you know, offensive line coach is always a huge hire with these jobs. So having an offensive coordinator who is a proven, excellent offensive line coach that's done a really good job in Green Bay, I think has to be nothing but a positive for the Broncos who've had Mike Munchak for the last few years. It is, but I think the one guarantee, there's two guarantees we know about their coaching change. One is that they're not going to have as good of a defensive coordinator, no matter who you get. I don't care if they hire Mike Zimmer, okay? Yeah.

Vic Fangio is as good as you get, the gold standard. I understand why they're making the change from him as a head coach. But I think one of the guarantees was you're not going to be as good defensively. As far as hiring your, you know, close friends and all of that, everyone, just about everyone does it. But one of the things I think that really set Mike Ravel apart that I think we talked about before was he didn't do that on purpose. He said he told his, I can't remember who it was, but he told his friend, I don't think that fits right. Let's not do this. And he's done a great job of hiring offensive coaches, their offensive coordinators that weren't necessarily his close associates. So I understand why coaches do it. This may be great for Denver. It may be the best fit. I need to see it. For sure. Because I need to see it. I'm not looking, I'm intrigued by the hirings, but they're not getting. and better than Fangio and Munchak as far as the defense and the offensive line coach.

And who knows, the head coach is probably going to grow into the role a little bit, you would think, having not been a head coach before. I agree. And I think that even if they're not going to be as good defensively, which you would assume, the fact that their defense is most likely going to share a lot of DNA with what they've run over the last few years, I think that is a positive. No, Joe Evo worked for Fangio before he worked with the Rams. I mean, he is fluent in that defensive system.

So it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the friendship part of it is we can talk about that forever. It's a huge thing in the NFL all over the place. But even beyond that, I think that a lot of the reasons you'd hire him for this job make a ton of sense to me. So we'll see what happens. Let's get ready to talk about Aaron Rogers here for the next six months or so and what will end up happening there. Absolutely. Yeah.

Nathaniel Hackett from UC Davis, by the way, not far from Sacramento, which isn't far from Butte. We can connect all the dots we want. There's going to be a lot of conspiracy theories happening here over the next couple months. I promise you that. There absolutely are. By the way, his agent, Roger's agent is UCLA's own Dave Dunn. George Payton, UCLA. We can connect dots all day here.

So, you know. All right. Nathaniel Hackett goes from the NFC North to the AFC West. Matt Iberflus comes from the AFC South to the NFC North. Matt Eberflux comes from the NFC South to the NFC North. Matt Iberfluse is the next head coach of the Chicago Bears. And, you know, it's kind of funny. I've mentioned this over the last couple of weeks.

Matt Iberfluse is somebody that I've been familiar with for a decade, more. He was the defensive coordinator at Missouri when I got to Missouri. And coordinated those very good Missouri defenses when they were one of the best teams in the country, worked under Gary Pinkel, who was just a phenomenal college football coach. And then he was the linebackers coach for the Cowboys at a certain point. his first NFL job was in Cleveland. Yeah, with Manjini. Yeah, with Manjini.

And then he went to Dallas and worked on those Rod Marinelli defenses and was the linebacker's coach, you know, when Sean Lee was really thriving there. I remember talking to him first to write it about Sean. And then he goes over to Indianapolis as part of Josh McDaniels' staff as their defensive coordinator. And obviously everything happened there with Frank Reich. So, I mean, he comes from the college ranks and then he has that kind of Marinelli. Lovey Smith type of DNA defensively. They use a lot of the same language. He did a good job with the Colts defense.

This is a top 10-ish defense over the last couple years that lacked true dominance at pass-rusher, didn't have a true lockdown corner. They have really good guys up the spine, DeForest Buckner, Darius Leonard, but it's not as if this is a defense that's laden with all pro talent at every single position. So as far as his resume and the defense of success,

I think it makes total sense. To me, the biggest question is, What does this mean for Justin Fields in the offense? That is the number one thing that just blinking in lights. If you're going to go with the defensive-minded head coach, what are the challenges of that? What are the benefits of that? And what does it mean for the quarterback that you've spent a lot on emotionally and in resources? Yep.

Hopefully this means that he's absolutely the best guy for the job. And I agree you hire the best head coach. You don't just hire the system guy to help your quarterback because you'll end up doing it. That's what they tried to do with Matt Nagy, right? I mean, hey, we're going to get this system. and it's going to help our quarterback. So I'm fine with that. I share the same curiosity to see what they're going to do.

I think I like the fact, like we were talking about Hackett's been around. Iber plos, think of the situations he's been in, you know, to be in Cleveland with Manjini, to be in Dallas, he's been under a Jerry Jones, to come to Indy under these weird pretenses, and then not only stay, but get a ringing endorsements from Chris Ballard and the people, Frank Reich, the people you ended up working with and to have done a good job, by all accounts. as well. So you're right. It's a million-dollar question. What are they going to do on offense and what's it going to look like? And is it going to be another situation where it's somebody that

has to prove themselves in the job? We've seen a bunch of different models work out. I think ideally, in a vacuum, if I was picking this, if I could pick my guy from scratch, I would probably pick from the group of play-calling offensive head coaches. I've said that in the past and I firmly believe that. I think that is the easiest way to ensure that you're good every single year in an offense first league is to have one of those guys. It's to have an Andy Reed or a Sean Peyton or a Sean McVeigh or a Kyle Shanahan. But you need the best guy for the job. It doesn't happen in a vacuum. You have to find the best guy for the job and then figure the rest of that out later. We've seen plenty of examples recently. We've seen plenty of examples recently.

I think that some of the numbers for how the success of defensive first head coaches are a little bit skewed, especially because of what New England does to those numbers. They've mostly had Josh McDaniels for that entire stretch in Pittsburgh with Mike Tomlin. You know, Ben Rothesberger runs that offense. It doesn't really matter who the offensive coordinator is. The Bears don't have Tom Brady or a Ben Rathesberger. They have a second year quarterback. But you look at situations like Baltimore and Buffalo.

Baltimore, John Harbaugh, has been there through. multiple offensive coordinators. They draft Lamar Jackson. They do a really good job of building an offensive system around Lamar Jackson that works for him. That is a shining example of what this could be like. To me, the best example is what's happened in Buffalo. Everything they've done in Buffalo with Sean McDermott and Brandon Bean and the model

that they have followed, bringing Brian Daibble in during Josh Allen's rookie year, having Brian Daibble oversee that offense, bring out Josh Allen's development along. He's still the coordinator there. If he gets hired away, you feel good about where Josh Allen is right now. But that hire in bringing Brian Daibel in there. And that entire offensive staff, right? The offensive staff they hired and what that plan was in year two. And it's important to remember that was the second year for Sean McDermott.

That was not the first year. They had Rick Denison there their first year. And then they ended up moving on to go get Daibel. So getting that guy right is hugely important. Whatever that plan looks like, it needs to be a solid plan. I'm not worried about the office coordinator. hired away. That's not what I'm concerned about. I'm worried about figuring out that side of the ball and getting it right. Hiring an offensive guy doesn't guarantee that that's going to happen either,

but what they do for Justin Fields' development in this crucial, crucial time in year two and year three, in my opinion, is going to go a long way in making or breaking this hire. Yep. And you can't always get the staff you want in the first year. That's the lesson of that with McDermott, right? You have to keep your eyes and mind open to who else may be available. Well, if they had hired today, Brian Dable or Doug Peterson, what would you feel like? I think that's an interesting juxtaposition because those are two offensive coaches that potentially interviewed for the job in Chicago. And if you hired them, you would know where you're going to go offensively. And you didn't.

And so here we are. And we don't know. We talked about this in the show with Lindsay yesterday. To me, it's about finding and building an incubator of all. offensive talent and a support system there that's going to facilitate the development of your offensive players and your quarterback. That doesn't necessarily mean it has to be a play calling offensive head coach, but you need to make sure that happens. You need to put together the right staff for that to happen. If let's say your offensive coordinator does get hired after one

fantastic season with Justin Fields, do you have a plan for what the succession will look like at that spot? Do you have a quarterback coach that you like? I think it's just about understanding that you need to build that group out with Justin Fields in mind. And it becomes more difficult when you don't have that guy at the center of it. It's just one more layer of difficulty. It absolutely can work out. But I think that it's a tougher needle to thread. Yep.

Absolutely. And we're going to find out, you know, defensive head coaches have certain ways they like to play the game sometimes. He's going to be, I assume, is going to call the defense. Yeah, but it just becomes a different dynamic. I hope that he's not like that. You know, I, like Brandon Staley is a good example, right? where he's a defensive-minded head coach,

but he's pretty flexible on certain ideas. That's why I appreciate Matt Iberfluse, because in conversations I've had with him just about philosophy and how you structure a defense in certain situations, he's pretty flexible about those kinds of things, where he'll look at, well, it depends on what quarterback we're playing, how we want to devote our resources. And his ideas about defense and about how you devote your resources

are pretty modern. and they're not really tied to certain principles and values that we ascribe to old school defensive coordinators. This idea of we have to stop the run and all this other stuff. That's not real with him. Yeah, I'm talking about how they want to play offense. So I hope that kind of flexible thinking extends to the offensive side of the ball, where you don't have a Mike Zimmer type approach where we need to make this as conservative as possible.

There's no way to know until he starts doing it, but I'm hoping that he looks at this a little bit differently than a lot of other defensive-minded head coaches might. Most of them, most of all the coaches look at it through who I have taken the snap from center. Yeah. And you'll find out a lot about what they think of that guy, whether that's Kyle Shannonham with Jimmy Garoppelow or Brandon Staley with Justin Herbert, who's going to say, our whole, we've got this trigger guy and we're going to be aggressive because we have them.

I don't know where anyone would, where he's going to be at on Justin Fields. I assume he likes him. He probably is excited to work with him after, you know, a frustrating. end of the season with their quarterback in Indianapolis. But all of this stuff remains to be seen. And there's no givens in terms of what he thinks of him or how they're how they're going to want to play. Or who is he going to get an offensive coordinator?

The rumor right now, I believe again, Rappaport reported that Kevin Petulow, who is the passing game coordinator for the Eagles, is on a list for their offensive coordinator job. He was the passing coordinator in Philly this year, came with Nick Siriani. He was on the cold staff before that in a couple different roles. So obviously there's some familiarity with Ibra Fluse and their time together with the Colts. I know very little of him. He was coaching receivers for them, the Colts.

I know very little of him. And you look at the Eagles passing game this year. It certainly wasn't the strength of that team. But also they tailored that offense and their entire plan to what they did well. So it's kind of hard to judge that. He was with Fitzmagic. The Fitzmagic Jets when they went 10 and 6. There it is.

That explains why they hired it. You went 10 and 6 with Fitzmagic and he threw for a career high 3,900 yards. Awesome. You are a guy franchise record touchdown passes. Put that on your resume, you know? There you are. Matt Eberfluse as a personality and as somebody who's been around for a while. And again, just in the few conversations I'd had with him, I think that he has the right temperament for the job. He has the right background for the job. I think that he deserves a shot at this sort of thing. To me, it's just about how you want to structure your staff and why. Yeah, absolutely. I've been impressed with him. too. I've been impressed with him too. I've been around him a little bit, watched how he coaches. And I actually went on today and was watching some of the mic'd up stuff of him just to get re-acclimated. So he'll put his stamp on it. And, you know, most of these coaches will be as good as their quarterbacks in the end.

And hopefully they can support Justin Fields and bring them along as well as Buffalo has done with Josh Allen. You just, all you want from your headcoat, not all you want, but the most important thing is the guy who's going to set the tone in the building. How are we going to practice? How are we going to play? How are we going to go about this? and if that guy happens to be a defensive-minded head coach but gets that part right, that's the most important thing. And then everything else hopefully will fall in line after that. And if they can get that right, then we'll see what happens. All right.

Last thing here, talk about the Jaguars opening. I don't know what you've heard. It sounds like Byron Lefich, which is the favorite there, but there have been some concerns about the Trent Balke piece of this and whether he wants to work with Trent Balke, A couple different people have talked about this. I believe Mike Jarecki, who covers the Cardinals, said that they were trying to work out a deal in Jacksonville

to bring in Lefwich and Adrian Wilson as the new GM, who is, I believe, the vice president of player personnel for Arizona. So a lot of different things to dig through here. What have you heard about this? And where do you think this stands with the Jaguars? Yeah, I just think there's such a bad organization and the ownership is the common denominator for 10 years behind it. So anything's possible.

I can't imagine at this stage. even if you thought Trent Balke had discovered some amazing way to scout players, that that would be the sticking point and prevent you from getting a head coach. I mean, he's only been there a couple of years. So I don't know. I think they need somebody who's established. To me, Jim Caldwell's out there. He interviewed there.

That's what I would do. Now, he probably isn't coming in and working with just any GM either. But I'm worried about him. I think that that's a place where Byam Lefich could go. as a first time head coach and have a hard time, struggle to overcome the building. So it sounds like the Jags are bringing in Vic Fangio to interview him, but there are reports right now from a local writer John Reed in Jacksonville saying that it's not necessarily for the head coaching job.

It could be for the defensive coordinator job in Jacksonville. So if Byron Lefwich somehow gets hired in that gig and Vic Fangio is his defensive coordinator, that's a good outcome. That's a pretty solid outcome for the Jaguars if that ends up happening. Yep. With you 100%, I mean, he's just such a good defensive caller, and you'll know exactly what you're going to be, and they're going to get the best out of what they've got.

So I would love that. And if Balke can help deliver that, because he was obviously with Vic in San Francisco, then that's a pretty good asset to have, and it may be worth whatever concerns or preferences the head coach has. I don't know what other head coaching. jobs, Brian Rufflitz or anyone else is going to get, right?

Sometimes you have, you always walk into a situation that's imperfect. You rarely get everything you want unless you're just one of those superstar candidates that the owner is willing to do anything for. So that wouldn't be bad. If you had Vic Van Gio there, you'd feel better about where they're at and at least Leftwich knows Jacksonville. He is Jacksonville. He played there.

I still think it's just a lot to overcome. from an ownership standpoint. So we'll see if they can get the people in place to do that. Yeah, they're behind April. There's no doubt about that. He was also requested by the Saints today, Byron and Reefich was. So it's still a lot of other things kind of up in the air. And we'll see what happens with that Jags job here over the next 24 hours or so.

Mike, is there anything else you wanted to hit with these? I feel like that's most of the news that's been important. And then the other thing is Dan Quinn staying in Dallas. Yeah. Yeah. The ones that are really interesting to me is Dan Quinn sort of looking around, you thought he would have options at different places and deciding to stay with Sean Peyton suddenly becoming available. The whole Dallas thing is just interesting to me.

You know, Jimmy Johnson, now Jimmy Johnson sort of forced his own firing, but that one happened in March when Jimmy Johnson left the Cowboys. And just watching what Jerry Jones has been saying. I mean, he's been saying some things that are kind of disparaging of his head coach. So I don't know what's going to happen there. I mean, maybe everything just returns, but it just feels like there's something going on there that we don't know about. And I'm not sure if it means for this year or next year, but that was weird, Quinn staying. I felt like he would have his choice of a few places maybe. And I thought he was maybe the domino.

Maybe he was the domino. Once he came back, maybe these other things started, once he, you know, maybe these other things started moving. Yeah. So the Dan Quinn part of this, I mean, it seems like he looked around at the jobs and thought he had a good time in Dallas and wanted to stay there. I don't blame him at all. When you're a coordinator who's done a really good job and there's just less pressure and you don't have to worry about all of the, I don't know, all of the minutia and all of the bureaucracy of being a head coach, my personality, I would love being a coordinator in the NFL.

It's exactly where I would want to rise to. And no more than that. If I was a good coordinator, that's where I would just want to hang out. So good for Dan Quinn, just riding it out with year two in Dallas and seeing how that goes. You get to coach Mike McPherson's. He doesn't have to worry about the wins and losses being attached to his record. There are benefits to being a sought after a highly paid coordinator in the NFL. Yep, it'll probably be good again defensively.

The other one that's interesting to me is Brian Flores. I just, you know, his whole ouster, what was going to happen with Houston or not, he's kind of out there too as somebody who, you know, there's a little bit of a track record. And we thought that he was fairly highly thought of where the he lands is interesting to me, too. Yeah. And then the other thing is what's going to happen with the Giants now that Dan Quinn is off there. So Daeble has obviously gotten a second interview. It would make a lot of sense if they were to hire him with Joe Shane being their GM now.

I mean, I feel it's like arrows were pointing in that direction. And now with Quinn being out, it feels like even more of a reason that that might happen. Yep, I agree. Obviously, they talked to Leslie Frazier as well. so there's two people with the Buffalo connections. But when you see the owner and the team doubling down on Daniel Jones, then is there a little bit more of an impetus to make sure we have that squared away, maybe even with our head coach?

And that would obviously make sense for dayball. Yeah, I mean, what he's done in Buffalo, he deserves a chance to be a head coach based on the on-field results. Again, this job is about more than what your offense looked like if you were in offensive coordinator. And it should be about more than that. But there is no denying and no arguing with the results they've had in Buffalo over the last couple of years and what they've done with Josh Allen. Absolutely. And now everyone's like, oh, imagine if these other teams took Josh Allen. Well, there were concerns. People had concerns about Josh Allen. They did a great job of just

having a plan organizationally to almost in all regards, from the GM to the head coach to what they've done in offense. And why wouldn't you want to? try to replicate that somewhere else. And that's what, if you're a Bears fan and you're thinking about, you're sitting there today, what is the best case scenario for this? What would I want this to look like? That's it. It's what the bills did with Josh Allen.

You hire a defensive-minded head coach. You really blow up the roster and start over. And that's what Buffalo did. They pulled this off in a way that's very difficult to do with the way they built this team through free agency. But the way they did it with, let's take it. take a million dice rolls along the offensive line consistently. A ton of small investments in free agency combined with one big one in Mitch Morse at center and try to cobble together a functional line year in and year out and then

intentionally and consciously building the receiving core piece by piece with different skill sets and ultimately finishing it off with the digs move. That is the model. Yeah. And having a quarterback who seems to be wired, right? You say that about Justin Fields and Josh Allen, but how? has some issues that could be improved upon and just need some polish and some growth and could be a good player. We know Justin Fields has the tools, right? I mean, he could be a good

player. So make it happen. And you just have to hope that you find an OC and an offensive support system like the bills have formed. And that is difficult to do. But that is going to be the number one question for the bears moving forward here. All right. And the, yeah, and the bills were able to do it. They didn't lose dayball for a few years. So they were able to do it with the defensive head coach. Yeah. And I think. that's what often happens, right? The guy doesn't get hired away in a year for the most part. Even offensive coordinators that we like or we thought were hot shot candidates, typically it takes more than one year. Brandon Staley doing one year as a coordinator and then getting hired

away, or let's say if DiMiko Ryan gets hired away in this cycle, that doesn't always happen. It's not about losing the offensive coordinator if you hire a defensive-minded head coach. It's about finding the right plan offensively in a league dominated by offense. There's no guarantee that happens if you hire an offensive-minded head coach, but you have to get that part right. And I just think that part is difficult to get right if you don't have that centerpiece of your offensive plan as the one driving the vision for the organization.

It's just a little bit harder. That's it. Yep. All right. Now, it's all we got. Appreciate you guys sticking around. So this will be up on Thursday afternoon. If you guys want to give it a listen,

and then Friday morning tomorrow, we will be back with me and Nate breaking down the conference championship games. Sheal will join us for some conference championship game picks. In the meantime, please rate interview the podcast. on your podcast platform of choice, please subscribe to The Athletic, theathletic.com slash football show.

Highly encourage you guys to do that. We'll be back tomorrow. Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.