The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Coaching candidates to watch in 2023 with Conor Orr

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Conor Orr returns to The Athletic Football Show to bring you his list of the best up-and-coming coaching prospects before the season kicks off. Plus, he and Robert dig into some real solutions for the RB value dilemma and what should the Cowboys do about Zack Martin's holdout?0:00 - 31:30 - RB value solutions31:30 - 39:49 - Zack Martin’s holdout39:49 - Prime head coaching candidates Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, one of our favorite guests from Sports Illustrated. It's Connor. How are you, man? I'm doing well, thanks. How are you?

I'm doing very well. Appreciate you joining us today. One of the reasons I wanted to have you on today is that as we get toward training camp here, this is really our last show before we get into the meat of camp. We're going to have a show come out on Monday. Players are already reporting. I think all veterans report on Tuesday. So our deep preview content begins starting next week.

But I wanted to do one more show that's kind of like a bigger picture consideration here about the next wave of potential head coaches in the NFL. It's a question that we get in mailbags pretty often. Who are the next guys that are going to be getting looked at at these jobs? Because it's good context to think about as you're watching this season. Who are the actual assistants that we should be keeping an eye on keeping tabs on? I have some ideas about what that list should look like. You know, I actually asked a couple coaches and GMs this week about who they think should be on these lists just to get a better sense of it.

But this is something that you pay a lot of attention to. You put a list out every year. You're keeping a ton of tabs on this. So I wanted to get your insight on what that list or at least part of that list looks like before we get into training camp here. Yeah, no, I appreciate it. It's like the one time when there's like a war in an obscure part of the country and like you just, you majored in like Yemen studies.

It's like, hey, I want to talk about head coaches. Here's the guy. And I'm very excited. I love talking about this. It's my favorite thing. We've done this before. We talked a lot earlier this spring about the mistakes the teams make when they pick these head coaches.

And again, you spend so much time and you have so much consideration when it comes to this subject that I definitely wanted to dig into it with you. Before that, though, a couple kind of newsy items and bits of football internet discourse that I wanted to talk about because we haven't really a discussion. address them at any other point this week. I wanted to talk about the running back conversation that's been happening. And so much of that discussion over the last five, six years, really, it seems like the entirety of my football podcasting career. I've had this discussion so many times about how valuable are running backs and how much should we pay running backs. And this week and what's

happened with Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard, and Sequeaune Barclay feels like a tipping point in that the discussion has shifted from should we pay running backs to okay we're not paying running backs so now what are the solutions so i wanted to talk about this a little bit because a lot of them have popped up from various very smart people over the last week that have given this a lot of thought we talked about some of it kind of nodded at it when mitchell schwartz was on the show earlier this week during our mailbag but i think that we're we can have some more considered kind of fine-tuned discussions about this now that I've had a few more days to think about it, now that really smart people have thrown out some potential solutions into the ether over the last 72 hours or so.

So as you've thought about some of these solutions, as you thought about how we might fix this problem or go about starting to fix it, where would you start? So I think my favorite commonsensical solution that I saw was maybe in the next collective bargaining agreement, you start to take average career lifespan into account and you adjust the length of the rookie deals for each individual position. Okay, X position has a longer lifespan. That can be a little bit longer. Running backs, rookie contract is two years.

And then these guys get to come up again and again and again and in order to maximize their net worth and their value. That said, you know, I was talking to a couple of people about this over the last few days. the most effective solution. I don't know if you've ever seen the movie Whiplash with Miles Teller. I certainly have. It's one of my favorites. Yeah.

So is to basically pull a J.K. Simmons. And if you're Sequan Barkley, the second quarter of the first game in a need to have its situation, you look at Brian Dable and say, I'm not going out there. I'm a third downback now. You gave me a third of the contract that I wanted. And I'm going on the field a third of the time that you're asking me to. So good luck figuring out when that's going to be. be. And that to me, I mean, J.C. Treader joked about it, right? I can't ask guys to fake injuries,

wink, wink, but I could. And to me, that guerrilla tactic style is really going to be the only, if you were able to somehow unify that, I think that's the only thing that actually moves the needle because it embarrasses people. Yeah, I just think that's so much to ask of a position specifically. It's so much to ask of a single guy to be able to go out on that limb and do it. I understand that work stoppage and the running back strike may be something that does move the needle, but I just think it would be so difficult because there are going to be guys who need to get paid. They're going to be guys who are willing to play the position and eventually I think you run into some issues there. I think that this whole thing begins, right, with the rookie salary scale and how much more detrimental it is to running backs than really any other position. And this is not anecdotal.

We have a hard data surrounding this now. Tim O Risk and PFF did a study last year based on things. PFF war where he was looking at the percentage of war created based on age. So essentially aging curves at various positions. I believe the onus of the study was actually looking at when you pay tight ends and how paying tight ends, an amount that doesn't seem right based on their prior production is actually okay because they're going to break out a little bit later. But one of the takeaways I thought was particularly interesting is what it had to say about

running backs. 58% of the total war created at the position is created by players before they turn 25. For a context, it's between 40 and 45% for virtually every other position. Okay. So that's a huge difference. And then if you look at it on the back end, 8% is created after players turned 30. For every other position, it's between 16 and 20%. So it's half for running backs. So when running backs are valuable and when they contribute to their teams is just different than it is at every other position. And for the most part, running backs are contributing during that span when their salaries are completely controlled by where they get drafted.

So the way that the rookie wage scale is set up disproportionately affects players at this position. So unless you get rid of that, they're always going to be starting from behind the eight ball. But I do think there are a couple other interesting solutions that we can dig into that kind of keep that all in place. Because like you mentioned, if you shorten the contracts, my concern there is, teams aren't just going to, they're just not going to spend draft capital on running backs. If I only get the guy for two years, why would I ever draft one in the second round? So then you're kind of creating another problem that's the downstream effect from that solution. Yeah.

And what's hard is actually doing part of a virtual camp tour and just kind of thinking about that position in particular. The amount of weight that in hidden responsibility, and it's so hard to measure that, right, but in terms of past protection, in terms of what they are now asked to do as receivers that they have, haven't been asked to do in the past, their responsibility to career earnings potential, the ratio is so wonky. And I wonder if, you know, I did the story on quarterbacks a few years ago where they talked about the slow drain of defensive positions and how those players and those athletes were eventually injected into the quarterback position.

Could you, over time, see such a slow drain at the running back position that, I don't know, maybe 10 or 15 years from now, it's not non-existent, but it's to the point where it's by far the weakest position on everybody's roster to the point where they would almost devolve to the salary point that they already are right now, if that makes any sense. Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder if there are enough good athletes that are specifically built to play running back, that it would be difficult to siphon them off into other positions. Maybe with certain types of training, that's possible. But I look at like Sequin Barclay's body type. Like, what else would he play? would you just have him be built a little bit differently,

train a little bit differently and try to have him play receiver? Is that possible? I just think that we're still talking about like tens of millions of dollars that these guys can make. So if that's still your best pathway to tens of millions of dollars, I still think there might be enough of a pipeline where you're going to get a decent amount of athletes at running back because right now there's a surplus of them,

and I think that's part of the problem. It is one of those positions where there is still an attractive, a detractiveness to it at a young age where you can specialize in it to the point where when you get to college, nothing else feels natural. There are a couple, the running back to linebacker transition I've talked to some coaches about is not as bonkers as it seems, but you're right. You're sort of on an island where you're almost like a kicker or a quarterback where there's not a lot of places they can spin you off of and sort of reutilize you.

I mean, you could be a career special teams player, obviously, but you're not going to make that. You're going to make running back money anyway, doing something like that. Let's talk about a couple other solutions here. A couple of them we talked about on Monday's show that I actually think are fairly interesting. One of them is just a single tag for all skill position players on offense. And that means that running backs would just be less likely to get tagged. If you're taking into account the top of the wide receiver market,

you're not going to give a running back that based on what you think their value is currently in this sport. So I think that means they're just less likely to get tagged and they're going to hit free agency a little bit sooner. I think that's important for running backs because I think overall, We've talked about this. We didn't entire show about this in February. I think the downside of the tag is overstated for players at most positions. Because even if you're tagged, your top of the market player and your earning potential is likely going to continue even if you get injured. Deck Prescott is obviously the biggest example, but quarterbacks are their own thing.

If you look at somebody like Chris Godwin, you know, who got tagged while he was on, who got injured while he was on the tag. He still got the type of contract he probably would have otherwise. But for running backs, it's just a different sort of career arc. So one year on the franchise tag and not being. able to get a multi-year deal with maybe 150 or 200% of the tag total guaranteed is a huge deal. One year may be like 20% of your prime and when your actual earning potential is at its highest. So I think that's a huge deal. If a few of running backs are tagged.

And if they get, if we're looking at this where a running back gets tagged and then gets tagged again, it's $22 million guaranteed. But I think then for a lot of running backs, that that second tag may not come because the cliff comes so fast for guys at that position. 100%. I mean, if you're, I think that's why, and Sequin Barclay is sort of taken on, it was Josh Jacobs before the tag, and then it was Sequin afterwards. And his case is uniquely interesting to me for a couple of the reasons that we can get into. But I think that he's kind of taken the mantle here. And that's why you're hearing him speak up. He's, what, seven years in at this point, he's going to be seven years in at this point after the tag.

He plays a very violent version of the position is essential in the team's past protection scheme. you're not only talking about, you know, running back miles, attempt miles. You're talking about every time that he's in on third down, he's taking some version of the same abuse that he's taking as a rusher. You know, you're going to get that sixth guy that isn't factored into in the past protection scheme. And so that is why I think you've seen the discourse sort of reach a fevered pitch at this point because, and we've talked about this a little bit, I think the last time I was on, I think that running backs are no more value. than they've ever been then right now at this moment in this period of time economically, but you've seen basically the top three of them get completely stonewalled. And so that's kind of where we're at this weird sort of tipping point.

And one of the reasons that the franchise tag thing is coming up is that this is a fairly new development for running backs because it didn't used to happen this way. The running back tag was no less than it was at most positions because what those guys were getting paid was rising in accordance with the salary cap the same way every. other position was. The last running back who was tagged and did not get an extension that was not Levi-on-Bell, which is its own weird kind of example, is 2009 before this off-season. Every other running back between 2009 and this season that was not Levyon-Bell that was tagged signed an extension. Matt Forte, Derek Henry, Darren Sproles was the last guy who was tagged and didn't eventually

sign an extension before this group. But that's because the franchise tag is now lower and lower for running backs compared to other positions. So I think we're going to start seeing. it more and war. And that's why I think that having like a franchise tag specific solution actually makes sense because I don't think this is an isolated case. I think we would be seeing this more and more often because paying that guy for one year and having one year of guaranteed money is really important because the shelf life for running back is not the way it is for other positions. The other one that I saw that kind of interests me. I think it was Dominique Foxworth. Oh, we're going to get into that because I'm very interested in this. Oh yeah. Yeah. Basically the

reallocation of the bonus pool money at the end of the year, which I had no idea it was like $336 million. Like I know as a beat writer, I remember we would get the our players on that team that we covered, whatever it was, that specific amount. But then you don't extrapolate it out to like a thousand players across the league. You're like, wow, there's a lot of cash out there. Okay. Well, because a lot of guys are getting like 90 grand.

I mean, it's like 20 players per team when you look at the entire list. the last public lists that I found for an entire season was 2020. I couldn't find one more recent than that. The only thing the league puts out is the top 25 players total. That's like the press release they send out. So this $336 million, okay, is based on, it's right now the way that it's calculated is that it's a percentage of total revenue. It used to be a set figure every single year, but I think the league or the players smartly

in the new CBA, I think in 2021 or 2022, the formula changed. So now it becomes a percentage of total revenue, and that's why we see this number kind of creeping up and up and up. But one of the reasons that I think it's problematic, and for people that don't know, it's based on playtime percentages. So if you play a certain percentage of the snaps, and then that's the numerator of the equation. And then the denominator of the equation is your salary. So if you have a low salary but pay played 90, 95% of the snaps, that's how you get the biggest version of this bonus. Marcus Epps led the NFL last year, the safety from the Eagles. This guy making a million bucks, but he played 100% of the snaps.

And I think he made 800 grand total. So one of the issues there, though, is that running backs don't play high percentages of the snaps. So if you're a running back, even if you're a really good rookie running back, if you're a Damien Pierce, or you're a guy like Jordan Howard used to be, you know, when you're a sixth round pick, but you're the starting running back, you're not playing 80, 90% of the snaps like a safety or a cornerback is. So that is inherently limiting what you're going to get out of that pool. You're going to get something, but it's probably not in line with where you fit at the position. If you look at those top 25 lists every single year, you're not going to find a running back on there because they're simply not playing enough snaps to get into the top part of that pool. So one of my questions is, should we play with the formula?

Is it worth looking at certain production metrics as part of this? if you get 200 carries as a running back or 250 touches, whatever we want to use, is there some sort of multiplier that goes into it where you get a bigger part of this pie? Because I have not seen that thrown out there anywhere, but I think that could be useful because it disproportionately affects running backs who don't play a ton of snaps. I think what's interesting about that, though, is I think that individual solution is more based on, and you're right, even then these guys wouldn't necessarily hit the play

time totals, but that solution I think in particular is thought up to take care of the sequins of the world, right? You know, your true three down running backs, guys who are going to be on the field multiple times. And to me, that's sort of the itch we're trying to scratch here. These are the guys that we're trying to pacify are the ones that are good enough to earn the franchise tag in the first place and thus sets themselves up for a larger pool. And so I think you're right.

You have X amount of carries. You want to do X amount of total snaps. proportionate to, you know, you take the running back playing time throughout the league, you find out whatever it is, the top 15%, top 20%, whatever it is. That playing that amount triggers it, and then through that you can extrapolate out some sort of formula. I'm okay with that because it's almost like, oh gosh, it was like Dwight Freeney a couple years ago where he just signed some crazy incentive-laden contract and then ended up making

like $8 or $9 million down the final stretch of the season just by having a banana's amount of sacks. That to me is, while not the best solution, at least one of these where a running back can then give the middle finger back to their team for not, you know, helping them out. And it ends up being kind of a win-win situation. So that's a, that's a scenario where the current player pool would just, the running backs would get a bigger slice of that, right? Because we would factor performance into how it was calculated. The other part of this that I thought was worth noting is that if you look at who gets these bonuses, there are guys who played for a decade that can be up near the top of the league because that's not really taken into account.

It's just your salary and what your playtime percentages were that year. So the example from this season that I thought was kind of nuts is that Tashon Gibson made $700,000 this year because he was a starter for the Niners but was making a million dollars. If you look at what he's, he's made $40 million in his career. So I just don't think that's the spirit of what this was trying to accomplish, where you have guys that are 10-year veterans and have gotten big second contracts, but they can be at the top of this pool if they have low-based salaries and play a lot. So is there a world where in the next iteration of this, you cut it off at a certain point? If you've made $15, $20 million in the NFL, are you no

longer eligible for performance-based bonuses? And if you did it that way, I think you could free up like $30 million a year. And maybe you just earmark that for a certain position. The problem with all of this is that you would have to convince the player population in general to concede this stuff for one specific position, whether it's taking a bigger percentage of the cap and giving it to running backs, cutting it off for a certain amount of years, a certain amount of career earnings, all of this stuff, you're going to have to ask all of the players to make concessions for one specific group. And I just don't know if that's something they're ever going to be willing to do with any of these solutions. And it's already skewed, like, you know, in,

And, you know, we saw this, I think, at least in my opinion, with when they parroted out the practice time, stuff like that in the collective bargaining agreement. This is already a setup that edges towards veteran experienced players. It's somewhat quarterback-driven, but I would say, for the most part, these six, seven, eight-year vets. And it's more about their lifestyle at their stage in their career because they've ascended to a leadership role. And they're thinking about themselves at that stage in their career. And so there aren't a lot of running backs at that table to begin with to lobby for themselves. But yeah, you're right. The running backs need essentially like an Andrew Yang wild card in the NFL Players Association to allocate for some sort of like universal running back income or something like that.

I don't think that it should be based on years played in the league because I think part of the reason that this was instituted is that you have guys getting squeezed in two different ways. You have players who are underpaid because. they're on the rookie wage scale, which I think is a good way to think about how to use this money. But you also have veterans getting squeezed because they're getting paid less because teams aren't willing to pay for middle class veterans. So if you're a guy who's just kind of been toiling away in the league and you're in your sixth, seventh year, I think you should be eligible for this sort of money. But if you've made $15, $20 million playing football, I think there should probably be a cap on it. A couple of years ago, one of the leaders over the entire league was Kelvin

Beecham, who had made like $25, $30 million because it got this huge, second. contract. So players that get those sort of contracts, I just don't know if this is the right way to use that sort of money. So if you can somehow put a cap on it, you could free up $30 to $40 million a year and you just say this is the running back performance pool now. I think that that would be a potential solution. It's one of those things where what is the phrase where it's whatever the default is the feature, you know, for the NFL, this is everything that we're talking about fixing is strategically broken. And so this is one of these positions where,

and we've said this about the tight end position for a couple of years now, and I do think that there is some realization of that on a miniature end with the running backs and that huge market and efficiency where we're seeing runs on these guys because of the incredible value, no matter how you extrapolate that out. And I know their career percentages are still low, and their average lifespan is still low. But what they are doing for you right now,

I think is different, is better, and is more advantageous against the kind of defenses that teams play than it ever has before. So you are seeing sort of not a hoarding, but I mean, one coach told me this the other day, if you don't have four that you really like, you're kind of S.O.L. And so that's one of these things where think about how many other positions you would really say that about, I mean, you know, maybe wide receiver, but not a lot of other positions in the NFL you're thinking that about. So this idea of making sure we're paying more guys early on when they're on

these low salaries. I think that's for the running back population in general. I mentioned some of those names that I was thinking about. But this is the problem for me is not even the Sequons or the Josh Jacobses who are first round picks and have made a decent amount of money playing in the league. It's guys who were six, seventh round picks, underrafted free agents that just get run into the ground during their rookie contracts and never see another deal. Chris Carson, you know, I mentioned Jordan Howard before. Philip Lindsay, I think, is a good example of this. You know, these guys that I think could really benefit from something like this. in their careers.

The guys that we're talking about now, you know, the Sequin Barclays of, Tony Powell is another example of that, right? Like, Tony Powell is a fourth round pick. But the Josh Jacobs, the Sequons, the Sequins made a lot of money playing in football. I think on the other end of this, one solution that I think is fun but a little bit less realistic, what if there just wasn't a salary cap on running back contracts? What if salary, running back contracts just never hit the cap? What would it look like?

Because I think that there are teams who believe running backs can be valuable. but they're just not as valuable for as long. So that's the downside. The downside is you don't want to give guys guarantees two, three years down the road because the cliff comes so fast. But if there just wasn't, if the number you gave a running back just never hit your cap, what would a team pay for Nick Chub in a single year? Then it just becomes a cash question.

And if a team is willing to throw around the cash, then they can get a superstar level player on their team for one or two years. and it just doesn't affect the rest of everything else and how you're giving up your money across your entire roster. And every team except the Bengals and the Raiders would have good running backs then, essentially, right, in terms of cash on hand and being able to spend. I like that. I mean, I guess I've never thought of something like that before, but the solution has to be that drastic because the running back position has become that much different and that much of an outlier. that said, you know, we need, running backs need their kind of Malcolm Jenkins type player. And maybe it's Austin Echler, a guy who's been able to navigate the system, who's been able to make some money both on the field and off the field.

Maybe it's Sequan Barclay or Derek Henry, someone where they need someone with tenure who has good standing who can advocate for something like that the next time a CBA comes around. I think there are three different deterrence to that plan. one, you still need the owners to spend the cash and maybe they just wouldn't want to do it. That's always a question. Two, locker room dynamics, like if Nick Chubb's getting $20 million a year or some running backs can pay $25 million a year for one year, how are other guys around going to feel? Just like, all right, I understand that this is how it works now, but you're making a lot more money that everyone that's not the quarterback.

How do we feel about this? And the third one is, and it's why it's not realistic, this is a concession that you would have to put forth to owners. the player population in general, again, would have to take something else off the table if they were going to do something like this, and it's for one position. So you're asking the whole to sacrifice

for a very small group, and I think that that's probably just unlikely to happen in every one of these circumstances. I think by the time that the Players Association got to taking care of running backs specifically, we would be at the level of we're agreeing to play 27 games territory in terms of concessions. Yeah, we will play 27 games and we will do it wherever you want.

You want to fly us to American Samoa for a week. That's fine. We'll do it. Don't worry about it. I just think that something with the player pool, though, and that pool of money, I think there would be a potential solution there if you got creative with it. Even if it required the NFLPA's entire membership group to make those sorts of concessions, I wonder if there's a direction that you could nudge them, that there would be some sort of solution that's hanging out there.

I wonder if, I mean, locker room dynamics, or something interesting that you mentioned, though, and how skewed they already are. And so you think about Sequin in particular, how important he's been to that team. Sequin Barclay next year is going to make less than Adory Jackson. And if you're a, if you're Brian Dable, if you're Joe Shane, you are trying to, I mean, there's a culture-building aspect to this.

When the Browns came in, they were a very analytically minded franchise, Andrew Barry, Paul D. Podesta, but they still paid a running back. Yes. They paid a running back because they wanted other people to know that we want you to act like the person that we paid. We want you to work like the person that we paid. And so I think ultimately that is what surprised me the most out of this, is that Sequin Barclay, you could argue, is probably over the course of the entire franchise, business operations included, you know, who kids are pretending to be when they're running around outside the stadium at the Meadowlands parking lot. Sequin Barclay is probably their most notable player, second most notable player.

I would guess he's probably their best jersey seller at this point. Through a bunch of bad coaches and ridiculous franchise decisions, he's been a fairly good soldier. And so I think that's where the opportunity was missed here is to just give this guy a wink in a nod and say, hey, thanks. I mean, they hung on to Eli Manning for four seasons too long and they couldn't give Seqon. on Barclay an extra year on his contract to make this right. But look at Seguan's injury history. Look at how often he's been this player. I understand teams really weighing the risk and not wanting to do it.

But I think that's why we have to kind of build in some sort of solutions that don't put the onus on the team for doing this. We have to make it someone else's obligation and someone else's priority because teams just aren't incentivized to pay these guys in this way, because especially over multi-year deals. You know, again, if it was uncapped and it was one year, 20 million, let's roll with it. But if you want guarantees two, three years from now and you're a running back, I can understand a team being like, I'm not willing to do this. The track record just isn't there.

Do you think there is a schematic evolution or I guess revolution, as coaches will say, that puts the running backs in such a position of power that's incomprehensible to us now where, God willing, we're doing this podcast 30 years from now and we're saying, you know, people need to take care of these quarterbacks. This is terrible. Like running backs are making 90% of the cap. They're insanely valuable. Like I do wonder, is there something that happens to the NFL game over the course of the long term that eventually course corrects? I can't see it unless the game really becomes compact again like it did, you know, in your 20s, 30s, 40s, and that's your sort of revolution. But man, even then, it's sort of a tough, sort of a tough future, a little bleak. I almost feel like

you'd have to put a rule in about how many times you could throw the ball. I think that would really be the only other way to do it. I mean, seriously, I mean, that's not even a joke. I think that, like, if there was a rule where you can only throw the ball 20 times, then running backs become more valuable. But even as the structure of the sport changes, like it is right now, where teams are playing, you know, with lighter boxes and the running game becomes more important. One, there are just too many factors that affect the running game that don't impact, that don't involve the running back. It's offensive lines, it's box counts. It's who your quarterback is. And two, there's still the wear and tear physically on the position. So even if an

individual running back can be extremely valuable. based on how defenses are playing you, I still feel like you're not willing to pay them long term because the shelf life of these guys, that's not going to change. So I actually think that the way that the league is played right now and the kind of the trend and curve of the schematics makes the running game more valuable,

but I don't know how much more it makes, how much it makes running backs more valuable, if that makes sense. We would consider this week, right, the tipping point, but I kind of started freaking out about this. earlier in the off season when Austin Echler requested a trade. And if you look at Austin Echler caught 107 passes last year.

Out of 127 targets, he caught 85% of his balls. And so you're Brandon Staley. You used to be a quarterback. You love the Saints offense to the point where you stuck with it, almost to the point where it got you fired. And the checkdown is so. incredibly valuable in that offense. It's built in as a safety valve.

You know, most of the coach's success in that offense is informed by the way that Drew Breeze operated it. Drew Breeze is one of the most check-down heavy quarterbacks in the NFL. And when the Chargers just looked at Austin Echler and were like, okay, good luck. Go find someone out there. That's when I started going, whoa. And again, they did fix his contract. They did move a little bit more guaranteed money into this year.

They did pacify him to a degree, but not nearly to the point where I thought compensated for his total value. And I thought that was the first sort of salvo in all this where I was like, wow, these guys are in for a little bit of a hurt in this year. He's 28, right? Also, Nekka right now is extremely valuable to what the chargers are doing. You know, maybe not as valuable as he thinks he is, but I think that he has a lot of value in this current construction of the Los Angeles Chargers and his role within that offense.

But two, three years from now, within a different sort of offense, I think that's the question. And I think that's why he's probably not getting the sort of interest on the over. open market that he might want. And that's a lot of the problem here is that he's got to get deeper into their careers. That value just tails off very, very quickly at the position. I think that's part of the problem. Okay, let's move on. One more thing I wanted to address. The report from Adam Schefter yesterday that Zach Martin is very unhappy with his contract and he is considering not reporting to camp. I just wanted to talk about this very briefly because it feels like

Zach Barton is the type of guy that you should just pay. Like, and a lot of people yesterday, maybe it was just people on Twitter and I shouldn't be paying this much attention to it. Just like, well, you know, he signed a contract and he signed a six-year deal and, you know, why rip this up when that's just what you agreed to? People do this all the time. Like, when you're this sort of player, teams typically reward you. Like, you can go back through the last five, six years.

Lane Johnson signed a five-year extension in 2016 for $11 million a year, okay? that year, Jawan James and Trent Brown got signed in free agency. And the Eagles went to Lane Johnson and were like, or I don't know who talked to who, but it's like, there's probably something wrong here, right? Like, these guys are getting paid more than me

and I'm the best player at my position. Shouldn't we redo my contract? And they did. Aaron Donald signed a six-year extension in 2018 for 22 and a half a year. Several defensive players, edge rushers, started getting paid more than him over that couple year run.

After they won the Super Bowl, the Ram was like, hey, you got a couple more years left on your contract. But this is the right thing to do. we're going to make you the highest paid defensive player in the league. Travis Kelsey's deal was ripped up two years early when other guys passed him at his position. And I understand Zach Martin is 32 years old, but I just don't think it's that hard to throw a couple more years onto Zach Martin's deal. Tax and void years on there.

Move the money around to get the AAV at $20.6 million to move him ahead of Chris Lindstrom and just kind of call this a day. Yeah. I mean, when you're making, there's a difference between, okay, someone reset the market and you're making whatever. it is, a half a million, a million dollars more than me. I think Zach Martin, if I'm not mistaken. It's 14 million. Yeah, 14 million. So he's making six and a half million dollars less than Chris Lindstrom.

He makes less than Elton Jenkins, Brandon Scherfe, Joe Tunney, Joel Betonio, Wyatt Teller. You know, he makes about as much as Lake and Tomlinson, right? Which is crazy when you extrapolate that out on a down-to-down value basis. The Cowboys, it's interesting, right, because if you look at play direction, play propensity, the running game actually does get pushed to the other side of the formation a lot. That said, by far their most successful runs are right off of Zach Martin's right shoulder. So between the right guard and the right tackle, they're averaging about 4.7 yards per carry.

That's one factor that I would think is in his favor. and then I just did a quick glance at the Cowboys schedule, and at least by my estimation, 11 of the 18 teams that they play, I would say their best defensive player or very close to their best defensive player is a premium interior pass rusher. And so if you're Dallas and you're looking at this,

like, what is the holdup here? Like, why isn't the, okay, you're our best run blocker, you're a best pass blocker. We're going to get absolutely demolished if we try to piece someone in here. And Zach Martin would have a career after this year. He could sit out this year and actually become more valuable. He's still the best guard in the league.

This isn't something where he's living on past reputation. He's still the best guard in the league. And so again, even if I'm not saying you have to sign him to a five-year extension that takes him into his age 39 season. But tack a couple more years onto this thing, placate the guy, and let's just keep on rolling. And I think part of the hesitancy here probably is that they're going to have to give CD Lamb a contract here pretty soon. They're going to have to give Trayvon Dix a contract here pretty soon.

and there's some cash that they're going to have to throw around, and maybe they don't want to throw Zach Martin onto that pile. But it just seems like it's worth this guy being happy when he's that sort of presence and that sort of player. I mean, this is a Hall of Fame player who's been there playing at this level for seven, eight years. These are the types of guys who get rewarded early around the league. That's just how it goes.

And if you look at how teams have historically had success defensively against the Cowboys, I mean, yes, good edge rushers tend to win. Dak Prescott is a little bit like Tom Brady in the sense that I feel like he is more vulnerable to interior pressure than he is to exterior pressure. That's another thing for Zach Martin. And you have your most vulnerable offensive lineman is playing next to Zach Martin. And so you're counting on him not only to take care of his own, but to elevate his side of the line as a whole. And so it's sort of the definition, the NFL salary definition of F-round and fine. out. And it seems like they're somewhat interested in finding that out. I mean, there could be someone

that they love that we don't know. There could be some sort of a faith in the system, the coaching staff. But I can't imagine Mike McCarthy is not sticking his head into every office in there and be like, when are we going to get this done? Because, you know, I'm kind of in a make or break year here too. And there are examples of this in Dallas specifically where they haven't retooled these deals. Tyron Smith being the best one. Tarant Smith was consistently injured. deeper into that contract. Tyron Smith was not the sort of kind of iron-clad player and an iron-clad bet that Zach Martin has been throughout the entirety of his career. So even if the Cowboys didn't redo Tyron Smith in the similar situation, the situation isn't that similar. And there are people

like, well, he signed a six-year deal. You know, he got six years of security. The six-year deal is much more beneficial to the team than it is for Zach Martin. One, the contract becomes out-of-date a lot sooner. And two, they've restructured this thing every year for the last four years to create cap space. The six year part of this is more doing a solid to the organization than it is getting six years of security. So I think he's already done his part in this entire relationship, this entire situation.

I think the Cowboys should probably just do theirs. If you, I mean, it would be such a weird but awesome NFL moment where if the Cowboys actually decided to put him on the block during training camp, I mean, it would be such a weird but awesome NFL moment where if the Cowboys actually decided to put him on the block during training camp, I mean, I don't know what kind of cash teams would have left to try to allocate something and to make a sign and trade work at this point. But I could see, I don't know, 10 to 12 teams making an active run at Zach Martin at this point with the Jets maybe willing to fork over a percentage of the franchise's total value if they were to be able to make something work. So you said 10 to 12 teams? I would say 10 to 12 teams. I got one, two,

maybe one, two, three, four. Oh my God, what about the Colts? The Colts have all that salary cap space and Will Fries is their right guard. I bet it's half the league. I bet it's half the league. The Raiders, Alex Barr's is currently the starting right guard for the Raiders.

Mark Lewinsky is the starting right guard for the Giants. Tyler Steen right now is Pennsylvania is a starting right guard for the Eagles. I don't think that's actually going to happen. That's just on this step chart. But I think it's a lot of the teams around the league that would be willing to make that move. If you talk to good defensive tackles, they will say that the best thing that another team has is a bad guard because guards are traditionally your most active offensive linemen. They're going to pull more than any other position.

And if they are able to tell in any way what they are doing before the snap, they have the possibility of. blowing things up completely before the play even starts. So you look at a guy like Zach Martin, he's not only protecting the passer, he's not only your most valuable run blocker, but he's also disguising what you are doing. He's making your running game better because he's really good at not letting people know what he's going to do on the next play. And I think that's sort of an underrated part of guard play in general. But yeah, I mean, who wouldn't want this guy on their team?

And Jerry Jones has been theatrical to a degree historically in these things, but this is not Ezekiel Elliott. This is not something where you can drum up attention for yourself by refusing to pay somebody. This is just a good guy who's been your most valuable player for a very long time, and you should probably get that done. I totally agree. Okay, let's get to the reason that you're here. Let's talk about some of these coaches. If you were starting a short list of the guys who are probably going to be prime head coaching candidates heading into the 20-23 season, where would that list start for you?

The list starts with Ben Johnson, the offensive coordinator for the Lions. And here's something really cool that I heard recently about Ben. And I thought he was smart to sit out this last cycle for the reason that I just understood. Ben is brilliant. Ben could have gone to MIT. Ben could have been a rocket scientist if he wanted to. although we there's a there's a murky history of rocket scientist head coaches in the NFL especially in Detroit specifically yeah we know that um but what I think was cool is Ben knows that

i think Ben knows that Ben is really good at diagramming offenses digesting tons of information working really hard putting a plan together that no one else would expect and being um and being unique in the way that he disseminates these plans but when you know that you're as good or at that point where you're about to launch, that extra year that you're giving yourself is such a powerful tool because what you're doing now is you're not only doing what you do best, which is coordinating an offense,

but the things that Dan Campbell says and do throughout the season, they're going to hit you differently. You're going to look at the way that he makes decisions and they're going to hit you differently. And you're going to say, oh, wow, not only am I just thinking about this as my head's down, I'm an offensive coordinator, but, oh, when I'm a coach, that's a really cool thing that he does.

did that I didn't think about before. And now that you know that that's a realistic possibility, you're not only coming out as the hottest candidate, but I think you're also molding your experience curve and you're giving yourself a little bit more of an edge on the market. Yeah, and I'm curious, just in terms of like interpersonal dynamics with players, what have you heard about him specifically? Because that's the one area where obviously we know he can coordinate an offense. We know he's lifting the players around him. I mean, they were one of the three or four most efficient offense to the league over the second half of last season, and with Jared Goff and Amon Ross St. Brown and not have a lot of star power at their past catching spots other than that.

So the actual command that he might have have put into this situation, how do you feel about that? See, that was interesting, right? Because we tend to, and I always try to catch myself because there's that automatic, there's that automatic thing in our brain that just pigeonholes people that labels people. And with Ben, right, it's brilliant, it's scheme, it's all this, you know, brain power, that kind of thing. Those are the adjectives that you throw at him. But I was asking somebody about him the other day, and they said, yes, every nice thing that you hear about Ben is true. But the thing that he's best at is relating to other people. And I thought that was really interesting because it's something that you don't really talk about as much.

And as an owner, you're sort of taking the blind gamble on. You're sort of taking somebody's work. Yeah, that's how mistakes get made. Yes, 100%. And you can fake someone throughout the course of a four to eight hour interview, especially if you have a good agent, especially if you're trained well. Again, look at what happened in Detroit, right? And so I think to hear that about Ben, I thought was one of those things where it was just like the largest part of his brain power, I think, is devoted to the awareness and the humility factor, which is such a big thing for coaches right now. And I'm really glad I think there's a trend.

And I don't think Mike McDaniel started it. But I do think that he hires a lot of people who embody that, which is it's about humility. It's about relationships first. and then you build everything out from there. And I do think Ben is one of those people that I would put in that bucket as someone who's able to behave in that way. So we know to ask about this now, and we know that this is an important factor in who succeeds

and who fails as a head coach, is that interpersonal dynamics being able to relate to people. It's not about being the mad scientist who's just locked in a room for hours and hours and hours drawing up the prettiest plays that you can. What do you think now is maybe something we have a harder time figuring out someone's capacity or a harder time projecting moving forward. Because the first thing my mind goes to is there's no way to understand how a head coach will

figure out like the scope of the job, like the organizational aspects of it. And like, all of these different sorts of problems and setting up practice and setting up what the weight routine is going to look like and how the day should go. Like the actual scope of what the job entails, that still feels like it's really difficult to project moving forward because we've just never seen these guys in that role before. That's why having someone with like a Doug Peterson or a Frank Reich, somebody who's shown capacity for the gig before, feels a little bit safer because we know they can do it. It's interesting though to me, right?

And this is one thing that I heard sort of really strongly right before the carousel opened last year but then ended up not coming to fruition, although a couple of these guys did end up getting interviewed. To me, there is a fine line between all coaches that come out. They will, you talk to these guys who are prospective candidates, they say, oh, I love the way that this guy set up practice. I love the way that this guy did this. I like the way this guy did this. So this is what I'm going to do.

And they, as busy as coaches are, seem to have a tremendous amount of time to be able to think about things like this. The thing to me is how do you plan to transcend that role and add your personal sort of extra 5% that puts you guys over the edge? And to me, that's why I always wondered why we weren't seeing more of these long-term, like, yes, it didn't work out for Vic Fangio, but guys like that who could transcend sort of the BS portion of the job, who could, who understood how to delegate, were secure enough, certainly, had already made enough money at that point in their career where this is just a legacy thing for them. You know, I think about guys like Wink Martindale with the Giants who did end up getting a second. interview with the Colts last year. Rich Besatja got one interview with the Colts last year, and their process was a little bit intentionally broad, obviously, but I'm curious as to why some of those guys aren't getting tapped more frequently because I think that they probably have a better chance of

a, hiring good young coaches, facilitating good young coaches, and B, transcending the difficult parts of the job to set themselves up to be your sort of John Harbaugh, Mike Tomlin, Bill Belichick, where you're using your free time to your advantage and creating that extra 2%. I've taken a soft course here, but I think that that is a very interesting thought and one that is worth revisiting at some point. Let's keep going with the list. Who is next year for you? I think Aziro Evro in Carolina, to me is just such a slam dunk. And it was interesting. You look at how this offseason played out. I wrote about this.

So David Tapper basically had Frank Reich in a room after he got hired or when he was hiring him to be the head coach. And he said, cool, cool. We're going to do this. But here's the thing. We're not hiring any of your friends. I don't care how much it costs. We're hiring the best coaches in the NFL. And I'd like it better if you didn't have a prior working relationship with them.

This is going to be about accumulating brain power and not accumulating relationships. And so you saw a very. very aggressive push. I think Aziro Evereaux had the Vikings job if he wanted it, if my memory serves me correctly, but then Brian Flores came in there, but I know that Carolina was very, very aggressive in pulling

him away. I think he is among the highest paid defensive coordinators in the NFL now. And you just look at the track record from last year. It was a difficult hire to make at the time coming off of the optics of the Denver Broncos. But man, if they have even a

half-decent year, I think that staff gets absolutely pillaged. And we can talk about Josh McCown. We can talk about Thomas Brown. But I think Evereaux is probably the first guy to go from there for sure. So obviously, the acumen in calling a defense is obvious and what the Broncos look like last year when they were healthy. You know, they were one of the scariest defenses in the entire league before injuries got involved. And also they started trading away their players. So when they were at full capacity, they were terrifying last season. And it was really fun to watch him put his spin on some of these ideas where, you know, he came from that defense that Brandon State was running in Los Angeles.

He actually had other exposure to Vic Fangio. I think when they were in San Francisco together a little bit earlier in Gerald's career, but watching his version of it and the way that they were sending pressure, all of the stunts that they were running up front, there were just little wrinkles that were very fun. So I feel like he has transcended any sort of schematic tree that he comes from when we're talking about the on-field product and what his defense looks like. But same question. What have you heard? about just him as a people person, him as an organizer, him as that person who's going to be at the front of a room, the front of an organization, and everything that comes along with that.

I think his biggest selling point is going to be watch, go back and ask anybody in that room what happened while the Broncos were absolutely careening into the ground. And I think that that coaching staff in general did a better job than they're ever going to get credit for at keeping the wheels on in terms of how aggressively and how aggressively and quickly they could have fallen off. But I think that the way that he was able to keep that defense together specifically and playing as hard as he did, I mean, that is Mike Tomlin level stuff in terms of motivation in terms of player appreciation for you, willingness to go out and do something like that at

the end of the year when you are so beaten down that some of your players are openly screaming at your quarterback on the sidelines. Like, I mean, it could have been so much worse. And I do think some of their best defensive games were at the tail end of a loss season last year. So, yeah, I mean, I think that's sort of a resume underliner to me. All right. Who's next? I would say, you know, you have to look at the Giants guys.

I mean, Mike Kafka certainly, I would pay attention to what happens with the Northwestern job here. I think if he's name, which I expect it to sort of breeze in and breeze out, I think he's one of those guys who's, next up on this list. I think that being connected to a Brian Dable offense is going to end up being a thing within and of itself. And especially now that he's taken the Andy Reed tag and he's been able to successfully transplant that somewhere to a quarterback that I think we all believe improved drastically under his purview. I think that that's one of those guys who's probably just going to shoot up your boards. And I mean, I would imagine. there was a parallel universe where Eric B. Enemy gets a job like the first year that he was

hot. And Mike Kafka is probably already a head coach by now. Yeah. And I also think that, again, structurally, the offense looking so much different than whatever they did in Kansas City and it not just being a Xerox copy, like a cheap Xerox copy of what the chiefs were doing, is such a point in his favor. Because I think you and I've talked about this a little bit. Just the ability to mold your system around your players and not have that just be lip service has become so important. with success stories for coaches around the NFL, like what the Eagles have been able to do. So those to me are the best coaching jobs right now,

especially on offense, when you can say, all right, this is what we got. These are the 20 players that we got. What is the best way for us to create an efficient offense from these 20 players? And for the Giants last year,

the answer was very, very different than what it might look like for the chiefs or Brian Dable's bills. And I think that's extremely encouraging. All right. So Kafka, I think is that's totally fair. I completely understand that one. Who's next? So this one I'm going to sort of blanket. I'm going to hedge my bets here. And this is something that I think that not a lot of

people or not enough people are talking about. The fact that Sean McVeigh strategically retooled his entire offensive coaching staff this off season. And everyone's like, all the Rams are going to suck this year. Are you serious? Like they still have Matthew Stafford as a quarterback. And If Sean McVey, who, again, I mean, this is a guy who, you're all right, everybody who knew Sean McVeigh got a job and got hired and there was a joke. But look at all those guys who got jobs. Zach Taylor went to a Super Bowl. Kevin O'Connell won 12 games or 11 games, whatever it was, in sort of historically lucky fashion with the Vikings in his first year. Most of the Sean McVeigh guys that got hired are really good at their jobs.

Brandon Staley is another example where Sean McVeigh found him. because the Vic Fangio system annoyed him so much. And then he found that Brandon was sort of the purest representation of that is a defensive coordinator. And it took like two minutes during the interview process for him to suss that out. He spent an entire offseason doing that. And now you have all these guys in here where, I mean, whether it's Mike LaFleur, who was the offensive coordinator of the Jets, and my God, would that be the ultimate redemption story if that franchise ends up bombing out? And then you have a great year with the Rams and you become a head coach the next year.

and you were the sacrificial lamb for, you know, whatever was happening there at that point. Seems like it might be the case. It's just like, I don't know. That's strong. Let's say I wouldn't be surprised if that ended up happening. To the point where I understand what I don't understand, but I know probably what was going through Woody Johnson's head at that point was we kind of have to, we can't just accept. the results of this season and change it got to do something it's such a dumb thing like there's no other word for that it's just dumb but i think he ended up firing a future head coach you know and i think

he's got a really good year with the rams and i think that turnaround might be fast jake pete's is another guy that i think has been around is super smart is not talked about a lot and nick cayley too who was the titans coach in new england i mean i would assume assume that if Bill Belichick didn't have a sort of familial connection with Matt Patricia, there is a very understandable universe where he just becomes the offensive coordinator there. That team wins 10 games last year. Nick Cayley, yeah. Who is the tight ends coach in New England for years?

I think it was five or six years and is now the tight ends coach for the Rams. Yes. And I think that's another guy where all of a sudden you put him in a different place. It's like you're, you know, you move the plants from one side of the yard to the other and they start growing faster. One of these three guys is going to skyrocket at some point, and perhaps all three of these guys, because I don't think that people realize that Sean McVeigh is one of the best identifiers of coaching talent in the NFL on top of being one of the best coaching talents

in the NFL. And those are usually coaches are sort of one thing or the other. He's both, and I would pay a lot of attention to the way in which he restructured things this year. What about Rahim Morris? So Rahim is interesting because I was asking roundabout him this offseason and everyone's saying, well, what you need to do is you need to evolve the Vic Fangio thing. The next thing is going to be who can evolve this? Who can keep pushing it further? He can keep doing more and not just waiting for Vic Fangio tape to come out on Sundays and then copying it the next three weeks after you get all the all the PFF data on it and stuff for whatever exos.

And so the name that I got was it's Rahim. It's been Rahim. It's, you know, he has taken this to new places. He is probably the one candidate where I don't have a good answer for why he hasn't gotten another shot. It is, and I would say this, like, there has been people, there have been people who have said to me, like, if you want proof, ultimate proof of sort of the disparity, the racial disparity in hiring practices, you would look at someone like Rahim, who, every single box that you would have in a blind resume contest, in a blind resume contest, he checks, right? He's called offensive plays.

He's called defensive plays. He's worked with some of the best head coaches in the NFL. Oh, Dan Quinn is a hot candidate. Rahe Morris was one of his top lieutenants. Sean McVeigh is a respected head coach. Rahim Morris is one of his most trusted sounding boards. I don't know what it is. I don't know if it was the fact that he had Jalen Ramsey and Aaron Donald.

And so did Brands Staley. Right. Yeah, it's one of those, you know, I can't figure that one out for the life of me. And I think, I've said this about general managers too, but I like second chance head coaches. I really do. And he was, I would, you know, he got that job very young, taking over for a very cult of personality type guy like John Gruden in Tampa. That was a hard job. That was a really hard job to get really young in your career.

like what is stopping us from giving that guy a second chance when you know we're on third chances for some of these coaches who have far less of a resume i i really like Raheem and it's the one that it's tough for me to talk about because i don't have a good answer as to why like even you know there are certain coaches that you know will come in and out of the your consciousness year and and you're out in the cycle and everyone will say why not that guy why not that guy and you kind of know in the back of your head, why not that guy? Rahim is one of those people that I don't know. I'm so glad you're saying this because I kind of feel the same way, just based on my interactions with him, which have been brief, but we've had a couple kind of extended conversations and I've

always been very impressed and impressed with his ability to communicate, but also just the way he thinks about the game and just how many different versions of football he's had to consider. He's coached in every defensive system. He's coached on offense before and really digging in, and this is hard to describe and hard to identify, like what makes a really, really good head coach. You know, what makes the Bill Belichick's, what makes the Mike Tomlins. And learning more about Mike Tomlin, it just seems like he considers every single detail about the way the game exists and why it exists that way. And he wants to know all this information. And I just feel like Rahim Morris has so many of those characteristics. And it's been so long since we've gotten to see him

in that role. I would like to see him in that role. You know, he got multiple interviews with the Colts, which I think is probably deserved it. I asked a head coach in the league this week, what's your list of guys? Just send me a list for guys. Rih Mors was the first one on his list. And I just think that that is probably going to continue. And I kind of think it's going to be difficult. I think it's going to continue to be the sentiment for some people in the league,

coaches in the league, people who cover the league. But the problem now is the defense is likely to be so bad this year because of the talent that they have is his best chance has it already passed him by. So I just think it's worth continuing to mention his name beyond even what that individual unit is doing. because he does check so many of those boxes like you alluded to. And it's one of those weird things where, and this has happened to other candidates, right, where you kind of miss an obvious cycle.

And there were some sort of happenstance hirings, I think, and there were some timing issues with certain stuff. And the Rams are obviously coming off a rough year. And so it sort of dings your candidacy a little bit, even though I argued at the end of last year that was the absolute best chance to get a good McVeigh assistant was last year because there was almost no competition for them. I think it's one of those deals where if you miss on a cycle like that, then all these other owners are so worried about getting punked and embarrassed that they just assume that someone knows something that they don't. And that's where sort of this hidden disease sort of comes in where all of a sudden a coach becomes less desirable for no other reason than the fact that he missed one good shot.

And now all of a sudden everybody just assumes it was for some other reason than it wasn't. All right, let's get to a couple more here. Who's your next one? If I had to, so I'll give you one more kind of obvious one. And I think that... I was going to ask one obvious one and then one under the radar one. So you're already ahead of me. That's perfect.

Good, good, good. Luke Getsy from the Bears, I think, is just going to have another really good year. And if you look at the additions that they've made, everything that you hear about not only him, but about Matt Eberflus. and that entire, I think there's very much good vibes going on there. I know that I'm talking to saying good vibes to you and the Bears is probably like a dangerous territory we're waiting into you. You're not going to get any sort of good reaction out of me from that. I think how he was able to elevate certain positions, hide certain deficiencies.

I think that has not gone unnoticed. I think he will interview really well. I think he will interview heavily next year. And maybe next year is the year that this coming year is the year that gets him the oil sort of primed to become sort of a fixture on the cycle. But I wouldn't be surprised. I wouldn't be surprised to see him go. And my surprise candidate, who I'm kind of excited about, is a guy that would have been so obvious two years ago that I think it would have just been, you know, trite to sort of discuss it. But I think Joe Brady is going to make a comeback.

And I think that there are people who know that, who have seen that. And look, sometimes when you're a coach, you just get, it's like pinball, right? You just get banged into a bad corner of the NFL for a hot second. And all of a sudden, you're sort of just in the mat rule thing. And that's a mess. But now you're in Buffalo. Everything's working out. This guy was such a hot candidate.

He interviewed so well, like two years ago. What he did at LSU with obviously Joe Burrow, you had a pretty good quarterback. and some pretty good wide receivers. But I don't think that that good taste went away. I think that still exists there. I think if the bills have a good season, I think that guy might be able to leapfrog his way back into it. That's a really interesting one.

The one name that I came up multiple times when I talked to people, that I think this is probably the year if they continue to play well, is Brian Callahan, who's the offensive coordinator for the Bengals. So, you know, Brian has an interesting background. He worked with Peyton Manning, and, you know, they obviously, Zach Taylor brought some aspects of that Rams offense and that system with them. but their offense is a combination and kind of amalgam of a bunch of different ideas and that kind of

Peyton Manning-based passing system. The Bengals run a decent amount of that. He's fluent in quarterbacks. I think he has a lot of modern ideas. And he's, again, just a good people person. I think that that aspect of the job is something he would be able to handle pretty well. So I think if they continue to roll, he's somebody that I think he had multiple interviews in Indianapolis this year. He interviewed the Cardinals this year. He interviewed with the Broncos two cycles ago. So I think the interest with him will continue, and I would be surprised if he wasn't a head coach at the end of this cycle next season. I'm going to do every owner out there a $250,000 service here, and I'm going to give

you them one name that I don't think, to my knowledge that anyone has interviewed so far, but is someone who people have just said is, like, one of the biggest rising stars that no one talks about coaching, and that's Chris Horton. He's special teams coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens. He was on my list. Come on my list. multiple people where what you know i love search firms i in another world where people care about coaching as much as i do there is a situational office comedy about coaching search firms and just

how ineffective their process can be and chris horton is one of those guys that here's the way i'll put it there are people that i get information from or you know people who will talk to me about coaches and you know that they're trying to talk about that guy for a certain reason. And then there are people who just love talking about good coaches. And the people who love to talk about good coaches, talk about Chris to the point where, and I'm not saying that this is true, but a lot of coaches, when they have good coaches, don't brag about their good coaches because they don't want them to go anywhere. And so I think this is one of these guys where maybe you just haven't heard that much about

him. But I mean, if he's not in an interview room this next year, don't pay a search for him. I'll do it for like, you know, 2250 an hour. It was an AFC head coach that told me about Chris Hurton, so maybe that's what it is. He's just trying to get his name out there, so the Ravens are a little bit worse. Yeah, just take this guy away from him. But yes, no, I think that's one of those. But this will be a very fun year, I think, just trend-wise, wrote about it a couple years ago,

but just how kind of much more powerful offensive line coaches have become that's something to watch out. for some of these guys accumulate more power. Will someone like a, you know, will someone like a Hank Fraily end up getting a job, you know, at some point will someone like Adam Stenevich who's already gotten the O.C. tag from an offensive line role. Will that be another guy who continues to climb? A lot of fun things. I think this is going to be a wild year for coaching.

I did like kind of a cold estimate and I could get myself to 10 openings after this year, which is. Yeah. It's very different than the landscape last year, right? I think that's why the candidate pool is probably going to look a little bit different. And a guy like Ben Johnson isn't going to sit out this round. A guy like Dan Quinn may not sit out this round because the quality of the jobs and the scope of the jobs changes a little bit. All right, before we get out of here, while we were recording this, the sale of the Washington football team,

which I'm going to continue to call them, is officially done. Josh Harris and his group now own the Washington football team. We've talked about this a little bit on the show. Don't think there's a ton to get into specifically with that. Great news for people. who like this franchise or want to return to this franchise. I think the idea of him not being Daniel Snyder is the most important factor here. So great news for people who root for that team. The other bit of news, which I'm sure we will revisit it a different time, the NFL has made

public the Mary Joe White investigation findings, and they are finding Daniel Snyder $60 million. So that's your last bit of news for today. Again, I'm sure this is stuff we will get into a little bit down the road, but at least wanted to mention it because it happened while we were recording the show. Boy, the worst, this day is the worst for whoever is now the worst NFL owner, right? Daniel Snyder provided you so much cover for so long, and now your worstness is going to just bloom in ways that you didn't think was possible. So tough day for whoever we believe that person to be. Yes, feeling about as bad as the people who love this team are probably feeling good. Who knows how it's going to work out, but God, it's got to be nice to feel like you have a fucking shot.

I mean, just to know that you're going to wake up tomorrow or next season whenever they retool this entire thing and know, we have a fighting chance to be a respectable NFL franchise now. I can't imagine how good that feels. So congratulations to everyone who roots for this team. It was a long time coming. And it has finally happened. So we'll see how it ends up going out.

Conoror, thank you very much, my friend. Always good to chat with you. we will catch up down the road. Thanks, Robert. All right, guys, that's all we got. We will be back on Monday with my friend Courtney, with my, sorry, five, four, three. We'll be back Monday with my friend Courtney Cronin from ESPN.

We are going to chat about our biggest questions that we have heading into training camp because guess what? Training camp starts next week. I will be on the road starting Sunday, very much looking forward to it. I'm going to have dispatches from all of those different stops, really excited about having football conversations

with football people in person again. So be on the lookout for all of that along with kind of the ramp up of all of our preview stuff. It's that time. Very excited to get back into it. I'll talk to you guys soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.