The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Deshaun Watson, Brandon Staley, Eric Bieniemy, and more: NFL headlines with Mike Sando, and a Kansas City Chiefs Team Visit with Nate Taylor

Episode Date: January 20, 2021

First up, The Athletic’s Mike Sando joins the show to run through a number of headlines, hirings, rumblings, and general goings-on around the NFL over the last week or so, including Deshaun Watson��s tenuous relationship with the Houston Texans, the possibility he forces a trade to another team, potential landing spots, and more, Brandon Staley’s new gig as Los Angeles Chargers head coach, the Sean McVay-Jared Goff marriage on the rocks, Eric Bieniemy getting left off the head coaching carousel so far, how race is seemingly playing a factor in how franchise’s make their coaching staff decisions, and much more.Plus, The Athletic’s Nate Taylor stops by for a Kansas City Chiefs Team Visit to discuss the injury status of Patrick Mahomes, and whether the franchise QB will be under center for Sunday’s AFC Championship game against the Bills, the quietly important and underrated Chiefs defensive players, Eric Bieniemy becoming emblematic of biased hiring practices in the NFL, and much more.You can get an annual subscription to The Athletic for just $3.99 a month when you visit theathletic.com/footballshow Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Great show for you guys today. My buddy and our Chiefs writer, Nate Taylor, is going to be joining us a little bit later to do our Chiefs team visit. Very excited about that. Before we do that, though, I wanted to dig through some of the headlines in the NFL this week, whether that's Deshaun Watson, the coaching carousel.

And we just happened to have someone on staff who was written about all of these issues recently. And that is Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing, man? I'm doing well. Robert, how are you? I'm doing good. We're just off of divisional weekend. We're doing this on Monday, which is a day earlier than we typically do it.

Monday is I typically spend in a haze the entire day because I've been up until usually like 2.30 in the morning on a high from doing the Sunday night show. But we did a little earlier last night. I still didn't get to bed until 2.30 in the morning. So that's always how it goes. I'm with you, but my brain is less frazzled with fewer games. I have such a hard time. I marvel at you on your show because you're like, on that.

third and seven in the Buffalo Tennessee game in week four. And I'm like, how does he know this? How does he know this? You know, and with fewer games, I don't know, maybe I just have to focus on a smaller number of things. But the fewer games thing helps me keep track of what the hell happened this week, you know? So here's my problem. And I honestly, if I'm being frank, I thought I did a terrible job on the Sunday night show this week because I was just getting so deep into the weeds with certain things. There was no structure to it. And I went back and and listened. I was like, you were a terrible podcast host. But the problem is that, with the Saturday Sunday setup, right?

So I watched the Saturday games. I was at the Packer game. And then Sunday I wake up. And by the time I started to rewatch, the All-22 is out for the Packers game. So I was like, oh, now I can watch every play twice from two angles. So then the prep starts going totally off the rails where usually I just have the 45-minute condensed version.

And then I was behind on my prep. And then I couldn't pare down my notes to have a structure for the show. And then everything just starts to get totally away. from me. So that's what happened on the Sunday show. If everyone was wondering, why are you so bad at this? That was the reason why. I noticed like the data comes in faster to our little search tools and stuff too with a fewer number of games. I was like, ooh, this stuff's in there. Like some coverage stuff was in there. I was like, okay, I'll take a look at this. So there's not a shortage of information, that's for sure. We are two supremely weird people. And I hope that people appreciate that.

So today, we're just going to get into some of the news. Obviously, the games have been hugely important, but we've got a lot of time to talk about the two conference championship games over the course of the week. We'll do that with Lindsay and Nate on tomorrow's show. But the news has been pretty much nonstop over the last several days, and we haven't gotten to any of it because a lot of it is broken since we recorded our last Thursday show. So let's start with a topic that you've discussed last week on The Athletic and what I really want to dig into here, and that's Deshawn Watson. It feels like a new blockbuster bit of information comes out about this every 10 minutes or so.

Keeping track of it has been a challenge for all of us. Chris Mortensen, I think, has been doing the most substantial reporting on it when it comes to Deshawn's unhappiness, what the future might look like, what a possible trade destination might be. So he essentially has said that he thinks Deshaun Watson has played his last snap for the Texans. And I think the line he used was, this is not about Jack Easterby anymore. They would have, Cal McNair would have to fire Kelmick.

which seems like sort of a difficult circumstance there. So let's just talk about what this is like from Deshaun's leverage and what he could possibly do because you explored last week the idea of whether he could actually force himself out of Houston. So why don't you pull the curtain back from me a little bit and lay out some of the considerations and some of the questions you had for people as you were digging through this? So traditionally forever in football, more than other sports, the team's just sort of fold their arms and wait for you because people won't miss game checks. I was taught that

from the day one of beat riding 101. Everyone gets all excited and then the player comes into camp the last minute because he's not going to miss the game check. So that is football back in the era when like people had to make moves because of the salary cap or whatever. You know what I mean? That's just the old NFL. And it still holds true a lot. But we have seen some. We have seen situations where there's a principle involved beyond money. Okay? And that's what we had to ask a week ago. Is that present with Sean Watson? Because Carson Palmer got to that point where it was about more than money in Cincinnati. He had made $80 million. And he was done with the owner of the team. It wasn't fun to come to work anymore. So the old rule about Carson Palmer will show up

because he won't miss game checks, wasn't true for Carson Palmer. And so what we were trying to figure out with Deshaun Watson, and we still have to figure out for sure, is, is that true with him? So he made $29, $30 million last year. If this is truly over and there's nothing they can do to say otherwise, then Deshaun Watson knows that. And we have to set aside then the traditional rules of football, which are, Sean Watson's not missing game checks.

That's what everybody would have said forever. It's starting to feel more and more like he has that component too. My question is, okay, does that change if they hire the quote-unquote right head coach, maybe even Jack Easterby goes away, and that correct in his eyes coach, Deshaun Watson, comes in and makes a good faith effort to bridge this gap? Would Deshaun Watson still say no? It's too late? I don't know the answer to that, but I do feel like he's much.

more, this much more feels like there's a principal at stake here, and that he and maybe his agents too want to see how far they can take it. I think that all sounds right to me. And I know one of the execs you talked to had said that if they bring in the right head coach, this blows over. That was his kind of general thought about, I think it may have been a former head coach, actually, who said that to you, but somebody said that, thought that if they bring in the right guy that this can blow over it, that feels possible. You know, all of this stuff, when it's seems irreparable. I remember this is not the best example, but just one that sticks in my mind. I remember Lance Briggs once said, I'll never play another down for the bears. And of course,

he ended up playing another down for the bears. And this, like you said, it's much different when it's a quarterback solely because of the amount of money that they have. And beyond the $40 million in career earnings that the Sean Watson has, he's got Bose money and Nike money and the things that come along with a quarterback that aren't considerations for other positions. But it does feel like he's got enough leverage in this moment where unlike guys that are, you know, left guards, he could just say, I'm not coming to work. I dare you to blink first. I think the line that you had that I absolutely loved in your piece was that what did you say?

Based on recent evidence, anyone who spots Texan's owner, Cal McNair at a poker table is encouraged to pull up a chair, which is absolutely correct. And I think that has to be on Deshaun Watson's mind as he thinks about to stare. contest he's about to engage in. Yeah, a couple things here. You're right. I mean, if he could force him his way out, he changes the way things have been done in the NFL. That's just not the way it normally works. And so we've all been talking about sort of this idea of player empowerment and what does it really mean and how far does it go.

Very few people are in Deshawn Watson's position with a ton of money in the bank, even fan opinion on his side. Usually in these situations, and this is even different now. It used to be everyone's preoccupied with practice and covering the team and games. And then everybody gathers around the coach at the end of practice. And he gives the team side of things. And the player back in the day wouldn't really have his voice. He didn't have Instagram. He didn't have Twitter.

Well, now no one's gathering around the team. We can't even be there. Everything's on a Zoom. So we're not really getting, there's not really a relationship between the reporters and the, front office and the coaches to get their side of it every day. Well, the company line that we're getting from Houston is coming from Jenny Varentis and Greg Bishop S.I. stories that are destroying the structure of the team. That's the only public things we're getting in part, by the way, because the Texans decided to fire Amy Palsick, who was a very good public relations professional for their franchise for many years.

I think that's working out well for her to not be associated with this. That's probably, yes. Yeah, absolutely that. And then now Deshawn Watson has a, he doesn't need Joe Beatwriter, right? I mean, he can just put it out there and it's news everywhere. So a lot of things have kind of shifted here. So if Deshawn Watson is serious, bottom line, if he is serious about not wanting to be there, he can push this to a point where they have to decide if they want to get no value for him,

when really they could get a lot for him maybe, right? And if you wait a longer period of time, maybe there aren't as many suitors. don't know. We'll see what it comes to. The next thing for me is just who's the coach and how does he handle this? I think the player empowerment consideration is a really interesting one. And when we think about player empowerment in the NFL and players using every ounce of leverage that they have, one of the things that has prevented that so far is that players have been incentivized not to use every ounce of that leverage, right? Patrick Mahomes didn't have to sign a 10-year contract with the chiefs that was under market for the most part.

He could have gotten a $50 million a year annual contract from Kansas City that was a two-year, $100 million deal and he gets up again when the cap explodes in two years. He didn't do that. So we haven't seen that many players at that position, which that's, goes without saying. Quarterback is the only position where they can truly push this kind of stuff. So the only instances we've seen of guys really using this leverage, I think the best example is Kirk Cousins because he had no incentive to do a favor for Washington. So he gets the franchise twice and then same deal.

He's going to Minnesota. I want a fully guaranteed contract and he was able to push the limit of that. Watson now has zero reason to do any favors for the Houston Texans organization. So it's a rare circumstance. And Dak Prescott is possibly going to push this too, right? Absolutely. These are all different things that are happening here. The one thing about Watson is they can.

can try to reclaim bonus. And if they wanted to get really ugly and dig in, it doesn't seem to be Cal McNair at the poker table, but they could, you know, make it, he could lose money at a certain point. But who's going to buy their season tickets and follow that team? That's exactly right. If they're keeping him off to the side and saying he's never going to play again, I mean, come on. You have no goodwill. And the fact that they have absolutely nothing to stand on here and they're completely in the wrong. And the realm of public opinion has completely vilified them, that makes that stance and that hard line stance difficult. So now we have a 25-year-old franchise quarterback with every bit of public support on his side.

And that's just a rare circumstance. And that has given him unique power in all of this. So one of the teams that he has reportedly mentioned, I want to say Chris Mortensen also reported this, that Watson will be open to, is a trade to Miami. So let's think about destinations and what the price here would possibly. be. The price becomes

a product at a certain point of the leverage on either side. If we're doing this in a vacuum where the Texans have a bunch of leverage and we're talking about Watson's true trade value, I said this the other day and I firmly believe it. I think it starts at like five first round picks. Five, wow.

I honestly do. If you were doing it in a vacuum where the Texans didn't need to trade him And we're talking about what is he really worth? I think that is around what the price should be. Because if you could have five first round picks or Deshaun, let's say you're any quarterback in 80 team, hypothetically, let's say you're Chicago, all right? If you could have five first round picks or Deshawn Watson,

which would you take? You'd take Deshaun Watson every time. You're saying that, though, as if the option is never being able to find a quarterback at a reasonable price. I mean, when people do it all the time, right? Oh, I'm going bird in the hand here. Oh, you're a bear fan. We can't have this conversation with you. This is a complete distortion of reality. Paying paying for certainty here is something that you have to consider. Every draft pick is a beautiful resource until it has to turn into a player. And I just think that having Deshawn Watson, who is arguably, in my opinion, already might be the

second best quarterback in the entire league and is 25 years old, even at that contract, I honestly think in a vacuum, and this isn't happening in a vacuum, and that's why it's a theoretical conversation. In a vacuum, I think five is completely reasonable. The problem is the Texans aren't getting five because they have nothing to stand on here. Right. So it's interesting, though, you say that because when I sort of approached this trying to

come up with offers, I was like, okay, to really make this, you know, quote-unquote work. I was looking for teams that were drafting early enough that there would be a chance that Houston might find a quarterback in the draft. But what you're saying is, no. I mean, the whole board's open here. Let's look at the Colts. Would the Colts give up five ones?

They're not going to trade them in the division, but Chicago, whoever, the Washington, these teams that are picking 19, 20, you know, that don't have somebody for the long term, then if it's five ones, you just take the five ones. You're not as concerned if it's the fifth pick this year, right? You're just because you got five ones, now you can move up if you want him in the draft to get a guy or you can do whatever you want. Let's think about a team that has, there's more in a practical level.

The Rams haven't had a first round pick for four years. If you have the right players at the right positions, you can win without first round picks because those picks eventually have to turn into players. Deshaun Watson is the right player at the most important position. I just think that there isn't a five player, if you take the hit rate of first round picks and you think about positional, half of them aren't going to work out. So now you're at two and a half players

most likely with those first round picks. And if those aren't quarterbacks, and it's just, I think that you get to the value very quickly. So I think that's why that's where it started for me. But that's, again, it's theoretical. In actuality, I think a package that Miami or a team like that could put together where it's the number three pick, let's say two is in there, another first round pick

and then a couple more, like maybe a second round pick one year, another third round, fourth round pick. I think that's probably where I'd start if I were in Miami. And I think at that price, let's say San Francisco is in that conversation too, this year's first round pick, next year's first round pick, possibly another higher pick in like a second and then like maybe a second and a third. Two firsts and then a bunch of other stuff. that's probably where I'd start if I were the team going after Watson.

And if I were the Texans, I'd ask for more. Yeah. Yeah. And so in my little blockbuster review here, I had Watson to the Dolphins for Tua, the third overall pick this year, a first in 2022, and then a second in 2023 that can upgrade to a first, let's just say if the dolphins make the playoffs, which they probably would have a good chance having Watson. That sounds right to me.

We're on the same track here. You know, I was thinking of this from the other side, though, that's an impossible situation for Tua, who's not as talented as Watson or whatever, through no fault of his own, he's going to have to fill this void in Houston of somebody who, you know, was kind of a budding star. On the other hand, they were four and 12. So it wasn't like, maybe he can do better than four and 12. But I just think of the mess there and somebody going in who's maybe going to be a good player, but not a savior, right? Tua is not going to, is Tua going to go in there and just turn him around and carry the franchise? I don't know. He's always going to be the guy who isn't quite Dishon Watson. Oh, it's a terrible. outcome for him. I mean, it's the worst possible scenario. You get traded away. You have to start over again with the franchise that now has some draft capital, but is already low on it and has no financial resources, even if they trade Deshaun Watson. It's not a good situation for him if that ends up happening. I don't think this happens. If I had to bet on it, if they appease him with the coach higher, which we'll get to here in a second, I just think it's way too, it's way

too drastic. I just think that there's no price that would make it worth it for Houston. I hope he gets traded because I hate that he's had to endure this. It's an absolute nightmare. But maybe I'm just, my imagination isn't strong enough and we haven't seen these types of moves often enough. It's just hard for me to picture a team saying we're better off with Sean Watson, even if you're trading a bunch for him. Absolutely. So if I'm then, if I'm then, if I'm them and make it clear we're not turning out, I would, let's just say you, if you hire Eric Bianami as your head coach and he comes in. He's no nonsense, right? Eric Bainting comes in and says, hey, grateful to be here today. It's a new day in Houston. Really looking

forward to this season. And I expect Deshaun Watson to be there with everybody else. We're looking forward to meet him. Great player. Great young player, excited, had success with great young player. This is a man who has heard some press conferences in his life. You know what I mean, though? You just put it out on the table. Then what does he want? What is he going to not come in? we're moving ahead. We're getting the off-season program going. It's about team here. Sean's a big part of it.

We're excited to see Deshaun here. We wish he was here. We wish him the best, but we're concentrating on the players that are here in the building. And what happened before is really none of my concerned. Frankly, that's a bunch of bullshit.

You know, and they beep him out on the thing. But it's just no nonsense to be enemy, right? We're getting to work and, you know, he needs to be a part of it or whatever. Or he could say, he could say whatever. He doesn't have to be that known on.

sense. But if you start, if the train starts moving forward with one of the coaches that Deshaun Watson said he wanted to have there, then the only thing that's left, I would think, is the Easterby situation, which is a big deal. At a certain point, whether it's, what are the stuff that's being written about him is true or not? Let's just say it's completely false and he's a wonderful influence on everybody there and has done everything according to how it should be done. The perception is otherwise, the organization's bigger than this one guy. And there is no possible reality where his contributions to the organization are worth the optics of this. There is no possible world.

It's just stunning to me that there's no one there because people spoke highly of him and doing it. And there's nobody there stepping, standing up for him and saying anything about him. Brandon Cook swore by him. Brandon Cook swore by him a month ago. What's going on? I know Greg Bishop and Jenny Vrentice and I respect them both a lot. I do trust what's in those reports.

I'm not questioning the reports. Even if they weren't true, there is no way this is worth it for the Texans. Before we move on here, where would you want to see him go? What would be your favorite ideal destination? Okay. The one that's fun for me is Atlanta because he's from there and Matt Ryan's near the end. They need a refresh. They need to get it going.

I think that whole town would get extremely excited around Deshaun Watson. Arthur Blank can say he's in it for long term and give these guys time to decide what they want to do. Bull, he wants to win. it wants to be relevant. I think they're suddenly relevant in that division, right? Drew Brees is going to retire. Brady's got about seven, eight, ten more years left. So Deshaun could probably play longer than Brady at this point. But it would be exciting. To me, that would be the spot. You got a better spot? Oh, I just love to see him in San Francisco with Shanahan. I just think that watching him and Brandon Ayuk and Debo Samuel and they would just explode scoreboards. It would be one of the more fun

offenses I've ever seen. You know, for you, just for you, I want to be. want them in Detroit now. Since you're a bear fan, I think I want to get out of here. That's why you doing this to me. Why are you doing this to me? Having to root against one, Aaron Rogers, who continues to torment me at every single turn. And then not only the bear's passing on Deshawn Watson, but having him in the division to be reminded not just every four years when they play the Texans, but every eight weeks when they play against the lions twice a year. No, that is the cruellest possible outcome for me. Yeah, I'm with it.

That would be cruel. All right. Let's get to, speaking of San Francisco, some of the kind of smaller hiring news from this coaching cycle before we get to the head coaches. The Jets have brought on reportedly, Mike Silver said today, offensive line coach John Benton from the Niners

and Mike Lafleur for Robert Salas staff, which I love. I think that the offensive line coach is a hugely important consideration for all of these guys. If you look at some of the teams that have been successful quickly, they've had good offensive line coaches. Bill Callahan going to Cleveland has been hugely important. And I, if I'm going to hire a defensive head coach,

going with the Shanahan model offensively, I think is the easiest route to success. And that's what they're doing. And then to replace those guys, Mike McDaniel, who is the run game coordinator in San Francisco, is now the offensive coordinator. Yeah. Fascinating background.

did not play football, went to Yale, was an intern for the Broncos. If you look at him, I think I wrote last year around the Super Bowl, he looks like he should work at Grizzle from Parks and Rec,

like a fake tech company. That's what Mike McDaniel looks like. But guys swear by him. I remember talking to Andrew Hawkins about McDaniel when he was a wide receivers coach in Cleveland that year in 2014 when Shanahan was there. Hawkins, who is

maniacal about receiving and the ins and out of the to the position, all of that stuff, essentially told him that Mike McDaniel broke down everything he thought he knew about getting open and worked it all the way back up. And now he is the offensive coordinator for the Niners. So long story short, I think all of these moves make sense for both parties involved. And I'm curious to see now what this iteration of that offense looks like now some different guys are in charge in both of those places. Here's what happens. After two days on Shanahan staff on Wednesday, I think he'll be hired by the Eagles coach.

And they'll say, by the Eagles has their head coach. They'll say, look, two days in the Shanahan scheme is enough. One wouldn't have been enough, but two days is enough. He's our guy. Clearly has proven it around the office in the last 48 hours. And that's who we're introducing. So I'm with you. I'm like the Donald one is interesting to me because I agree with you on that scheme.

I think that's one of the regrets of the mysteries of Adam Gacer is like, what offense did he really want to run? You know, what's our run better? What's our identity? What do we want to do? What does our offense look like, right? and I want to be able to see that with any offense, but especially there where you have a quarterback who maybe can, you know, maybe you can win with him.

Maybe he's not a Hall of Famer, but maybe he can be a good enough quarterback to win with and at least get on your feet there as a new staff. I'll be honest with you, Mike. When it comes to the company line coming out of New Jersey about Sam Darnold, I am getting strong Josh Rosen 2019 vibes. That's absolutely what's happening there. I think that if you want to trade Sam Darnold,

your reaction is to tell everyone you don't want to trade Sam Darnold. So that would be my, I assume that's what's going to happen there. I also, I mean, just quickly, the Shanahan scheme stuff, I like watching what's happening. I think that it limits the pool of candidates for coaches and that we can get to that later in the show,

which we're going to. And I think that's a problem. But for the most part, I said this earlier this week. I remember watching the Texans, like, 08 and 09, when they had Matt Scharrow. and Andre Johnson and Kyle Shanahan was the office coordinator. There was his first time as an office coordinator.

He was like 28 years old. I remember watching those offenses and Matt Schaub throwing for 4,500 yards, back when it was a big deal to throw for 4,500 yards. And thinking, that is offense. That is the easiest way to do this. By having every single pass play, essentially, not every single one, you know what I mean, but a huge portion of your past plays look like your run plays

and marrying those two things together, that seems to be the hardest type of offense to defend. The number one name of the game is to pass when they think you're going to run and run when you're going to think you're going to pass. I mean, that's football. So having those things look identical, even back then, I was like, that's it. I was in college. I just remember watching those teams and thinking that. And now it does feel like we're trending in that direction. You think about all of the places where that's being run now and it's worked out. And when they all have their different flavors on it and all that stuff. And I think that now as it becomes more prevalent, defenses will work to defend it in the same way we've seen. for all of football history. As schemes rise and fall, their reactions to it. But I do think that for the most part,

that scheme has withstood the test of time. I talked to Gary Kubiak about it this summer when they were putting that thing together with Alex Gibbs and Mike Shanahan in 1995, 1995, 1996, and a lot of the stuff that were the bones of that offense, Kevin Stefansky has plucked plays that are straight from day one Kubiak installs from like 2008.

This thing for as popular as it's gotten, and all the dialogue and all the kind of discourse about defense is starting to react to it, a lot of it at its basic level is very similar to what it's always looked like, because fundamentally it's about making defense hard. And I just think that as it becomes more prevalent in the league, it's going to be really interesting to see all of the different spins

people put on it. I think it's going to be a story moving forward. I wrote about it before the season, and I don't think that that is going away. I don't either, and you're right, that it's going to keep producing head coaches, right, as long as it keeps being successful. So I'm with you.

All right, let's get to some of those head coaches. Let's start with something we touched out on Monday's show with Nate, but I want to get into a little bit more here. Brandon Staley, hired by the Chargers. There's been no bigger fan of Brandon Staley than me. I don't think over the course of this season. I wrote a story about him in December. I have not been shy about saying that I think he has a chance to be a really

special head coach. I think that he has all the traits you'd want. He's a really good communicator. I've heard he's a very good teacher. He taught me things very briefly and very easily that I think speaks to his ability to communicate some of these ideas. I think that he goes beyond just being a defensive head coach. I think that he's going to be able to kind of inject ideas for their offense. He's a former quarterback, all of that stuff. This makes sense to me, but it did happen very quickly. I'm sure you've talked to people around the league about him and what this kind of means and what he his chances to succeed there. So what was your initial just impression and reaction when you heard he had gotten this job?

Well, the first thing is 38 years old. He's been in the league four years and he's got one year of coordinator. So on paper, there's going to be a lot of other people in the league going, what about me? Yeah. Four years. What the heck's going on? I can see what they're doing because, okay, think of the Chargers. They've been running the Gus Bradley offense or defense.

It's static. It's, it's covered three. it's worked really well in the league with the right pass rush. But if you've been watching them probably internally, they're going, hey, they're looking across town on the Rams going, hey, can we mix it up and do some different things? Let's get some creativity on the defensive side. Can we blitz more? Can we do this?

Can we try that different coverage? So I think he scratches that itch, right? Then as far as the rest of the staff, you're getting him for the defense, but you leave your offensive staff now. They don't have to make a bunch of hires. Shane Stuythin's going to stay there. No one can say his name. I screw it up every single time.

I know him. I mean, I've talked to him. But yes, so he gets to do that. I think there's probably a perception there that, hey, Anthony Lynn, old school, wants to run the ball. Maybe is he in the way of our younger offensive coaches just sort of turning it loose, right? And so now you're going to have Brandon Staley. He's going to come in.

He's going to be opened to all the new stuff. And maybe we can get what we can get out of the way sort of what's been holding us back from being our most dynamic selves, offensively and defensively, most dynamic, meaning not just line up in our schemes and do our things and not just, you know,

emphasize the run or whatever, but really be on the cutting edge of football. The questions are going to be on the leadership and on the football gym podcasts that we take today with Randy Mueller, he said, that job is being able to fix things.

Are you a fixer? Can you fix what's going wrong? And it's not always in your area of expertise. So we don't know. We really don't know any, we don't know whether he can do that any better than someone who's got 10 years of experience as a coordinator, really. I mean, there's some of these things that you just got to find out on the job and, you know, how you treat people, deal with people, all those things.

Good positive impression, but not a lot to go on. I've said this and I'll continue to believe it. If he was just a guy who we plugged into one year of a coordinating job and he was doing things that we've seen a million times over again and succeeding because, of the talent or in large part because of the talent on that defense, then I would have a different impression of him than I do. The fact that they were really pushing limits in a lot of ways schematically and doing things that aren't typical in the NFL and his value system was something we'd seen all the time

and not something that was a little bit different in the way that he was talking about allocating resources and all that other stuff, I would think of this differently. And I would say he's only been a coordinator for one year. Do we really think that he's the right person for this job? but I do think the ways that they deployed their players and just the way they play defense, how well they communicated, how they were always a step ahead. You go back and watch that Seattle game, and they're just swarming all over the place.

And the idea that he had Jaylon Ramsey and Aaron Donald, and that's a big thing. They got a lot of talent on that Chargers defense, too. It's not going to look the same. The Seahawks are loving this higher by the Chargers. Get him out of there because I'm with you. I think that's 100% true. I even went through and stacked. It took the EPA per game for his defense and the last 20 years of Wade Phillips's defenses.

This was number one. It was better than the Denver defenses. That says a lot for how freely the ball moves nowadays. Even from five years ago, it's different. So totally got results. I'm with you from that side of it. I think ideally we would like to see more years of it and proving it. But sometimes, you know, we talked off the air.

I mean, this is sort of how these hires happen is like there's either a connection between the owner and them, or you're admiring what somebody did and you want to get them before somebody else does. I will say, though, here's my word of caution. I'm not comparing them to this coach. They had, in 2013, an interview lined up with Bruce Ariens, and they canceled it because they didn't want to lose out on Mike McCoy, because they were so smitten with Mike McCoy, and they thought that he was going to do with Philip Rivers a bunch of great stuff.

And so they rushed. They hurried and they got the hire done. And it probably wasn't the greatest hire. So you hope with all of these that the process is right and that you really did, you didn't just luck into him if this guy's going to be a good coach, but you really did slow it down. That's what Tony Dungey's always said. It's not about who gets hired.

It's about how they get hired. It's about the process. So if they had a good process, more power to them. If they just jumped at it, then they got to get lucky. That's all totally fair. And I think that, you know, that speaks to what ownership looks like and the coaches that they're hiring and seeing themselves in those coaches and all that, which we'll get to here in a second.

But I completely understand all of this. And I've honestly sat back and thought with the ways that I've talked about him and the ways that I've kind of pushed him up as a candidate and the way that we've done on the show, is that part of the problem in the way that we elevate these Wunderkind young white coaches in the NFL? And I've really sat back and considered that. But I also think that sometimes you just have a guy that really is a little bit different with the way that he thinks about things. And I think that he might be. And that seems to be the place that the Chargers landed. So that puts the Rams in a really interesting spot because they now have to

replace him. And they now have to replace the guy who oversaw the most important part of the things they did this season. So now, we talked about this with Nate, if the defense falls off a little bit, now the offense needs to kind of pick up some of that slack. And that is now a question with the Rams, because Sean McVeigh has had every opportunity in the last 48 hours or so

to commit to Jared Goff as their quarterback moving forward here. And he has not taken that opportunity. And sometimes we can read a little bit too much into this stuff, but some of the things he has said, they gave him so many shots to do it. And Steve Weish from the NFL network came out today and said, that relationship needs a little bit of counseling right now. And at the very least,

this seems like something that we're going to have to keep an eye on over the course of the off season. Oh, yeah. I almost had it as an item in my pick six column today. And I thought, I just, I didn't, wasn't quite, I wanted the research, do a little more research. But this hasn't felt right to me all year.

And after the Miami game, he was very critical of golf. And one thing you got to remember about, Sean McVeigh is he comes from John Gruden. And one of the player criticisms of those coaches is that when it's going good, it's all about them. And when it's going bad, it's the quarterback. It's Derek Carr.

It's Jared Goff. It's all these guys. Those quarterbacks never get the credit when it's going great, right? It's always about the guy who's calling the offense. And it's a little bit unfair sometimes. So that was a little bit on my radar when they lost to Miami. It's like, hey, where's your protection schemes then to come up to match Brian Flores? I didn't see that.

Does anyone, is anyone saying we need to do better there? It's just Jared turned the ball over. We have to remember, McVeigh didn't draft Jared Gough. He inherited him. So McVeigh hasn't chosen. But he did have a role in wanting to give Jared Gough that contract.

Sure. Yeah. He could have stopped them from giving them the contract. But we don't know exactly. I actually don't know internally what the, what percent of who was pushing for that deal and whatnot. really, I don't know. Yes, he was involved in it, but it's been very clear with his comments. Like, after the game, when he said he's our quarterback right now, after the game.

And then the next day, you're given a chance you'd think, hey, cooler heads prevail. You come back to next day. Jared's our guy, you know. Look, I just, he can even start the news conference. Hey, look, I'm not on social media, but, you know, my fiancé is. And I hear you guys are talking about, you know, whether there's anything wrong with golf. Let me just clear this up. Jared is our guy.

He was a trooper out there with his thumb. He gave us everything he had. He did say that, but that's all he said. And here's five things I like about him. You know what I mean? And he didn't say that at all. Here's the exact language. I'm not saying anything other than we're evaluating that right now.

I think it's important that you do that at every single spot and no position is excluded from that conversation. Wow. Day two with your $35 million a year quarterback. This is how I was feeling like Brian Schottnery's in trouble because like the day after the game, the night of the game, Pete Carroll was talking about we didn't adapt well enough this year. The next day he's talking about two high coverages. Pete Carroll's a 30,000 foot guy.

He's not 10 minutes after the game. He's talking specifics. Well, Brian Schottnheimer's out of the game. 10 minutes after the game and the next day, McVeigh is given vibes that like you don't usually give unless there's a real issue to me. So I'm totally on my radar And I'm like Like I even thought about the I was I didn't have time to do this in my

I need to think things through a little bit sometimes But I was like should the Rams be in this to Sean Watson thing? Is there anything they have no picks? But is there like any way they could do it? Give you our next 10 ones. I mean they're the type of team that would do a weird thing. It's going to be fascinating to watch and obviously They have no cap space.

He had he's getting paid like a top five quarterback and that's where you run into trouble. And I'm not surprised at all. I was like Google Jared Gough over the cap. Go ahead. I need to look at this. It's a $35 million hit next year. I promise you there are going to be a lot of people punching that exact thing into Google here over the next six months.

But if you trade them pre-June 1, you save $12 million. There you go. Then you can't cut them, obviously. And if Sean Watson this year makes $10 million, we've got a trade. No. But I mean, like the Rams are the type of team that will trade for Jalen Ramsey. They'll do weird stuff. They've done stuff counter.

You know what I mean? They're counter people. So I know this, Sean McVeigh is the most important decision-making decision driver they have, right? I mean, look, less needs the GM and stuff. But the head coach there is sort of, if he says, I can't do it with this quarterback, then they're doing something else, aren't they? In the same way that he said, I can do it with this quarterback. Let's give him that deal.

So, I mean, and now I think he's got a little bit of buyer's remorse. Yeah, this whole thing has to be worked out. Like, to me, there's something going on there. So I haven't talked to anyone yet, but I'm interested. Same way. I don't know anything. I have any conversations about that, but I still feel like this could be a weather, there's smoke, there's fire sort of thing.

I will say I would trade for Jared Goff if I were another team quicker than I would trade for Carson Woods, just because I think he is not irreparably broken in the way that Carson Woods might be. Do you want him on the Bears? Would you trade for a month of the Bears? Absolutely. 100%. Okay. What's his deal without the bonuses?

What's his base contract? He's got a 25. $25 million base salary in 2021. I would take it. That's not, I mean, that's going rate for quarterback. Yeah.

That's totally fine for me. You just signed up for Jared Gough. Love it. $25 million next year, $10 million, $20 million, $21 million. I'm with it. I would absolutely sign up for that. Yeah.

I mean, it's based on everything that I've had to deal with. Jared Gough at $25 million is not the worst thing in the world. Jared Gough for $35 million and all of that bonus money every single year for the Rams, different consideration. So speaking of Carson Wentz and the Eagles, very quickly I want to talk about their head coaching opening. They were looking at Brandon Staley reportedly.

He's now out, obviously. Jeremy Fowler from ESPN is reporting that Josh McDaniels seems like a prime candidate for that job, which I think says more about the quality of the Eagles head coaching job than it does anything else. Wow. Yeah. You know, it doesn't feel right there. Still doesn't feel right after getting rid of Doug Peterson.

I wouldn't want Carson Wentz as my quarterback. And I think that's almost a shocking place that we've come from where we might have felt a couple years ago. You now sort of connect everything together of like there were rumblings about him, remember, and like with teammates and things a few years ago. And now it's, now he sort of got trashed on probably by people that are that are in Doug Peterson's corner, I would guess. but it just doesn't feel like he's what you thought he was going to be, and it doesn't feel like that's a job you want to walk into with the expectations of the owner that this quarterback's going to play productive football.

How? They don't have much around him, and he may not be the guy. It just feels like a bad situation. I mean, the idea that Brian Daibel essentially said, thanks, guys, but no thanks. I'll wait for them in my next turn next year. next year. I think that's when you have guys that are begging off of jobs like this,

I think there's a lot to be learned from that. And it really does seem like that's the point that the Eagles have reached. And I don't think we should be surprised. And if you watch the way the Eagles season unfolded and the conclusion from ownership is that we need to keep riding with this quarterback, I wouldn't want that job either. So I'm not surprised at all that this is where we are. I don't, the McDaniels conversation, I think, is one for another day. If he gets the job, we can have that conversation.

Josh McDaniels has been a good coach for a while, but what happened in Indianapolis, we should not forget. We should absolutely not forget what that was like. It seems like a perfect match for them because of that. Just with all that swirls around Philly. It's a job no one wants and a head coach candidate, no one will touch.

They're perfect for each other. Wow. Yeah, I know you're so right. It is a bizarre situation. I think of this how long ago this says you'd be laughed. It'd be a duh right now. but I wrote a column earlier this season that I would rather be the Rams and the Eagles because I think people came into the season thinking the Rams have mortgage things.

They just have a couple stars and the upside for Wentz is greater. But probably even if we looked at the wind totals before the season for Philly, I mean, that is the biggest change in perception around a team. Can you think of a bigger change of perception around a team in one year? No. I picked them to go to the Super Bowl last year. Yeah. Yeah. It's a, it's a major. Amazing. It's just amazing. I don't know. It's to say we're, we're, we're speechless. I mean, I don't know what else to say. It's, I mean, it takes a much longer kind of deep dive than we have right now. But we will definitely get to that over the course. Be grateful you're a bear span. You know, be grateful finally for once you're a bear's fan. Trust me. We're not quite there yet. All right. One more job here. It sounds like based on everything that we're hearing that Dan Campbell is going to get the job in Detroit, which we'll get into this. That is the most outside the box higher of any of these to me. I mean, even though Brandon's.

Daly has only been a coordinator for one year. He's still coordinated and oversaw the best defense in the NFL last season. Dan Campbell is a tight ends coach, who has been a tight ends coach in an interim head coach for a very short period of time. I completely understand how the Lions could want to overcorrect from zero culture, Matt Patricia, to 100% pumped up leadership guy Dan Campbell. But this still feels like a fairly risky choice in 2021. to me. Yeah, Dan Campbell has had this, he's been someone sort of mentioned internally, kind of in the

league as a candidate, but he doesn't pass the test of having been the hot coordinator, right? The normal things that push you up. I think he's maybe in the Vrabel mold, like maybe seen a little bit as a leader of men type guy. I don't have, what are we judge him on? I mean, he hasn't coordinated as he called people. plays on a 25 and 40 second clock, has he coached up certain units? I mean, I think he's going to come in as somebody with, what, knowledge of the run game and past game a little bit from coaching tight ends, and maybe they're going to be physical and have a focus on the offensive line. But I don't know enough to say good or bad. He's just different from Matt Patricia, and maybe there's

a cultural element to this for them that was the number one most important thing. And they feel like he's the guy to do that. I just don't have enough. I don't have a big, if I could hold up an empty note page, I don't have a ton of notes on Dan Campbell. The Mike Frable comparison makes sense. Mike Frable has been to the playoffs the last two years. The guy who, in my opinion, was as responsible for that as Mike Vrable,

is now no longer a part of the Titan staff. When you have a guy who is not your play caller as your head coach, you run the risk of losing that guy and then what happened? And now the Titans are faced with that reality. The Lions are faced with that reality from day one. So look at that. So with respect to Tennessee, they lost Dean P's last year. That was bad for their defense and their scheming.

They're going to lose Arthur Smith. And you're right. Now you're left with the leader of men. And so what is Dan Campbell going to be able to put together to make sure that that's not the case with him? And what can he fix? What's his strength? Maybe it's communication and being all the things that Matt Patricia

supposedly wasn't good at. I guess I would like to hear what they saw, but I don't trust that they necessarily know what they saw. Mike, if we look at the jobs that have been filled, one name that hasn't gotten one of those gigs so far is Eric B. enemy. And one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the show was because you've done a lot of research and even written about the issue that the NFL has had with the opportunities

afforded to minority coaches. So as you've had conversations with people recently around the league about him and about his candidacy and about how this has not happened. Have you gotten any takeaways, either involving him or the idea in general about black candidates getting head coaching jobs that have really stuck out to you? The frustration among coaches of color and just a lot of people overseeing his resume, Bienname's resume, compared to the resumes of some of these other coaches who get hired, that's the most frustrating part.

I think, and for me, like, I don't think Eric Biennamy has to get hired for there to be a good process or for the hiring to make progress or all of that. But when none get hired and there's a bunch of coaches that, that one by one, we can make, like you and I did, we can make a case that Staley was good for the Chargers. We can make a case that Arthur Smith, whatever this. We can make a case that Dan Campbell that. We can make a case, Urban Meyer, this. each one individually, this is kind of like textbook how discrimination works, right? Each one of them can be sort of explained away. But the big picture is, why are all these guys getting the explanations away?

And no one's coming out and saying anything about what's up with Bienemy. And we can all find reasons why, okay, Bienami, he's not calling the plays. Okay, Bianami, look, if he left the chiefs, would they, would Vegas download, downgrade their win total, you know, probably not. But you can do that on all these header guys who are getting the jobs. So that's the disparity, you know, that's the clear disparity in it at a time, at a time when the numbers of coaches of color hit a low. That's what brings attention to it. So I can bring you the big, here's the big picture. I've tracked every coaching hire for 25 years. Okay. Before, then the five years before the Rooney rule was adopted

three of 47 hires of head coaches were coaches of color, three of 47. That's like nothing, okay? Since the Rooney Rule came in, it's been about 19% of all hires are coaches of color. And this year, one of five are. What happened was, from 2014 to 2017, there were 20 coaches fired, and only one of those was a coach of color. And so what happened was the numbers of coaches of coaches of color grew. There was suddenly eight. And people thought, wow, there's really progress being made. Look, eight of the 32 are coaches of color. Well, then in one year, five of them got fired. And now there's this big awareness of, wait, what happened? There's only one or two coaches of color and league and Eric Bianney can't get a job. And all these guys that have been in the league for

five minutes are getting jobs that are white. And that's where we're at today. That's what's focused the energy on it. Even though the hiring rate for coaches of color is pretty, much kind of what it's been. The total numbers have taken such a hit and there's focus on the disparity between how does a Bienemy resume not get considered when a Staley resume does? And I think that's all totally fair. And the problem is I think I, and you like you said, I think you absolutely can make an argument that if you sat down with Brandon Staley, Robert Sala, Arthur Smith even, and even their resumes next to each other, even though it's only a year for staley. I think coordinating the best defense in the NFL probably makes you a head coach candidate,

even it's a little fast. Sala, I think absolutely you could argue it. Arthur Smith has coordinated a top five offense for the last two years, and he's turned Ryan Tannahill into one of the most three or four efficient quarterbacks in the NFL. That allows you to be a really prime head coaching candidate the way the teams are looking for under a defensive head coach where it's clearly he drove a lot of this, whatever. Yes. But then I think you look at Dan Campbell. And that's the issue to me. I have said over and over and over again

that I think hiring a play-calling offensive head coach is the easiest way to sustain success in the NFL. We've seen it so often recently. But that comes with its own problems in that the pipeline of play-calling coaches in the NFL of color doesn't exist. There's only one of them. There's one black play caller in the NFL right now.

It's Byron Leftwich. That's it. That's a problem with the pipeline. The problem is these owners are going outside the pipeline consistently enough that you can't say a lack of black play calling talent is the reason for this shortage. When guys like Dan Campbell are getting these jobs, there is on paper there is not a single area where Dan Campbell's resume is more impressive than Eric Bienemy's resume. So if you're going to say we want a leader of men and a culture guy and all of that, Eric Bionemy is absolutely right there with Dan Campbell. And then if you want to go through all of the arguments against Eric B. enemy getting these jobs, these jobs, they fall apart instantly.

Okay, he has a past that has some issues in it that are worth addressing. So does Urban Meyer. Urban Meyer was recently suspended in college football for essentially covering up the fact that he had a known abuser on his staff. Okay, Eric B. Enemy doesn't call the offensive plays. Neither did Doug Peterson, okay? Neither did a lot of these coaches there getting these jobs. Campbell, I mean, yes, Dan Campbell doesn't call. call them either. All right. If you wanted to say that there's a question of whether, okay, and I think this is another

consideration that's important to think about. For a long time in the NFL, these head coaches were getting jobs because of their proximity to great quarterbacks. You mentioned Mike McCoy earlier on the show. Mike McCoy doesn't get that job with the Chargers, if not for Peyton Manning. Adam Gase doesn't get some of these jobs without his proximity to Peyton Manning. Think about how many Patriots, offensive coordinators eventually got head coaching jobs in part because of Tom Brady. Josh McDaniels, Bill O'Brien, Charlie Weiss, you can keep listing them off. Now, I don't think proximity to great quarterbacking is as important as proof that you can construct a system that can succeed, if not independent of the quarterback, but in a way that is not

totally dependent on him. I think Arthur Smith is an example of that. I think Sean McVeigh is an example of that and the disciples of Sean McVey are examples of that and what's happened with Kyle Shanahan. I think that's become extremely important. But there is no evidence that Dan Campbell or even Brandon Staley or Robert Sala is better able to do that than Eric B. Enemy. So that is part of the issue here. And it goes even further than that. Look at how many coaches from the past three cycles haven't fit that play calling offensive head coach mold.

Urban Meyer, Mike McCarthy, Joe Judge, Vic Fangio, Matt Rule, all of these guys. If you look at the last three cycles of coaches, kind of in the post-McVeigh world, there have been 14 guys hired, two more jobs to be filled now. Nine of them are not play-calling offensive head coaches. And then it gets into the idea of, all right, if we're looking for a certain type of play-call and coach, there is a pipeline problem. But if we're not necessarily looking for that, which teams have not done often in this cycle and others, then it's not a pipeline problem.

If it's not just play-calling offensive head coaches, then the pool of talent is deep enough that we absolutely should be getting more minority hires than we are. There are absolutely as a, there are tons, I would assume, and I guarantee you a lot of people would argue this. There are absolutely minority candidates with resumes as good or better than Joe judge's resume. I really don't have a problem with a coach without a huge resume.

getting the head coaching job, Mike Tomlin had one year as a coordinator for a six and ten team. Andy Reid had never been a coordinator. He'd been under a great coach. But same with, you know, same with the Brian Flores had the coordinator title, right? I mean, there's a, there's a ton of coaches that didn't have five, ten years of actually calling the plays who get hired for the job. So what I don't want to have the conversation become, though, is that Bienomi has to get a job for the process to be legitimate. There's no law that he has to be hired. I think what I want to see is evidence that these teams are slowing down the process and taking into serious consideration, a wide range of diverse candidates, and then some

of them are getting hired, right? Yeah. We need to see some of them are getting hired. You can't have it just be a shutout. And while Sala is a coach of color, there's been no black coaches hired. And, you know, I had a conversation today. I talked to Cyrus Mary. He's an attorney with the Fritz Pellar.

Alliance because we stay in touch a lot and talk about these issues. And I want to research this more, but he said something really interesting to me that I hadn't been aware of. He thinks that a lot of the minority coaches who are hired are the last guy hired in a cycle. Isn't that interesting that like... Well, we could be cruising to that with the enemy getting the Texans job. Absolutely. But in some cases, what jobs are left? Like the two, you know, there's smoke going out of this building over here and there's smoke coming out of this building over here. There's no smoke coming out of the Texans building.

It's in golden flames. So is that the job, though, that these guys are going to have to kind of settle for, you know? And right out of the gates, right out of the gates, we heard about Urban Meyer. That was, Urban Meyer was the sexy name hire this year, right? He was the big name hire. And that was the one we were writing about two weeks ago. Hey, Urban Meyer, is he going to fit? Would it be Jacksonville?

So there's something to be said about that. too, the order that guys are hired and are the black coaches having to settle for late in the cycle jobs? It may or may not be lesser jobs. I don't know, but it's something I want to look into because maybe we will have two hired here. Maybe we'll have one or two hired. And if one, if one of these jobs goes to a coach of color, then it's two out of seven, right? One, two, three. Is that what we got two left? Two left? Yeah. It would be two out of seven, which would be actually, you know, somewhat in line with what the, what the posterity rule rate has been. And I can, I think one of the biggest things kind of going back to we were talking about before

is the fact that the goalposts keep moving. And I think that's one of the reasons that minority candidates are so frustrated. I remember talking to Harold Goodwin, who's the run game coordinator for the Buccaneers about this last year when I was writing about Byron Lefich. And he was just saying that, you know, you need to be a play caller now to get these jobs, apparently. But then you watch a guy like Zach Taylor get that job with the Bengals, that ever being a play caller, just proximity to Sean McVeigh. So what is it? Do you need to be a play caller or do you not need to be a play caller?

And that's the concern. And if you think about what's happening in Tampa Bay, the only reason that Bruce Ariens is not calling plays for the Bucks right now is because he wanted to allow Byron Lefich to do it in order to give him a chance to eventually become a head coach. Because he understands how important that is. And I think that is the real issue to me. The real issue to me isn't a guy like

Brandon Staley getting a job after being a really good coordinator overseeing an entire unit. It's us talking ourselves into other guys who are not nearly as strong a candidate. Guys, you know, Zach Taylor could do a fine job with the Bengals. But he never oversaw a single side of the ball ever. Arguing that he had a better chance to be a head coach than Eric B. Enemy does, I think is completely unfounded.

it. And I think that's the issue here. And I also think we really need to analyze which types of coaches are getting the coordinator jobs as well. Because in my opinion, the idea that Adam Gase could be the coordinator for the Seahawks, that is five times more egregious to me than the Chargers hiring Brandon Staley to be their head coach. Because that's the problem, is that we recycle these guys over and over and over again back into the pipeline. And then they're the ones next in line to get these head coaching jobs. You know, Brian Dable is his fourth stint as an offensive coordinator, but he didn't go from being the Chiefs' Offensive Coordinator in 2012

to being the Buffalo offensive coordinator the next season. He spent four years as a position coach and then had to go to college for a year in order to pump his resume back up. And I think the same thing is true on the defensive side of the ball. Giving these jobs to guys like Dan Quinn and Gus Bradley instantly, rather than elevating people like D'emico Ryan's, who's now getting the job in San Francisco, go or a guy like Aubrey Pleasant who should be the first guy considered to replace Brandon Staley

with the Rams. That's part of this problem too, is that these guys who are head coaches just cycle back into these coordinator jobs and probably don't deserve them. We should be looking at other places to elevate these guys. Even black coaches on the defensive side of the ball are often fired offensive coaches rather than coaches from the pipeline that have been elevated. Think about guys like Patrick Graham, who's done such a good job with the Giants defense. or a guy like Gerard Mayo who should be getting his chance soon as a coordinator to eventually be considered as a head coach. I think that is another part of these problems that the same guys keep getting these

coordinator jobs over and over again. Yeah. How many changes have there, let's say there's been a hundred changes of those jobs, but are there really only 75 people filling them? You know what I mean? They just keep changing. How many people actually have, I can actually look at this because I track all the coaches, all the coaches on every staff, like how many guys actually get new chances.

Now, one thing that has changed big in the last two to three years is the number of quality control level jobs has roughly, I think, doubled. The total number of jobs has doubled. And all of the gains just about are coaches of color. So there's a ton coming into that low level, which is where a lot of these guys who become offensive coordinators start out, right? And now what we need to see is does that translate to numbers coming up? It's a little early to know that, but that's been a somewhat promising change in the last couple of years just to get some more people into those jobs. And we'll see if some of those guys move up. But you're right.

It is, it is frustrating to see the same names over and over and over, even in the absence of demonstrable success sometimes. And that that's the issue is that there is no reason for me to believe that's simply because this guy was a decent coordinator before he got that job. And often, it's not because they were decent coordinators that they're. got those jobs. Like, I, for all the success that the Seahawks had, I think that Dan Quinn is a lovely man. Those are super talented teams that were consistently successful in large part because of the talent that they had and Pete Carroll being there.

All of those guys getting head coaching jobs and falling out of them is not proof that they should be back to being coordinators again. I think that that is, it stifles innovation and it prevents probably the most interesting candidates from getting these jobs. People really don't know how to hire. I always joke that quarterback and head coach for the two most important things and no one knows how to hire either one of them in the NFL.

Yeah. You know, and that's, you and I aren't, wouldn't be hit a bad 1,000 either, you know? I mean, trying to find out who is going to do a job they've never done, which is really what a head coaching job is. And a lot of times what a coordinating job is, you're taking a chance and you have to identify in those people, maybe have a clear set of criteria. But in so many cases, let's say you're, you're, there's seven staffs open right now. You can't hire whoever you want.

How many people are even available? to hire. You know what I mean? You may have a list of people you want to get, but the people that you can actually get might be pretty small. And so a lot of times head coach then just, you know what, this first year, I want to get guys I trust. I'm going to get guys that I know. I thought Mike fable was very good talking about this on the Black College Hall of Fame sponsored Zoom that we talked about earlier, where he was like, I didn't hire my buddies that I'd been with all these. these years because I wanted to, I didn't think it was good for the staff. So how are these jobs hired, who gets them, what's the criteria, who's available is a bunch of gray. And we don't really,

I think we don't really have a great grasp of, like, if we even asked like, who should, who are, who are 10 offensive coaches who are not coordinators who should get a coordinator job right now, we don't always know. Teams don't know, guarantee they don't know. Expanding that pool to include more minority coaches is a way to help. help this problem. I think that giving a guy like Pep Hamilton another chance after the work he did with Justin Herbert this year, that is a reasonable place to look. And guys like that getting more play calling jobs and being elevated into those roles, go look at a list. We talk about the black play callers. There's one. But even go look at the list of how many black quarterback coaches there are.

I think there's one. I'm pretty sure there's one or two. And that's it. And that's part of the problem here. And I know that teams are, again, talking on both sides of their mouth by saying we want all these offensive play calling coaches and then not going out and hiring them. And that's part of the issue here. But I still think that the way the league is going, it's going to be important to at least have coached or been close to the quarterback position and offensive play calling. And that means we need more coaches at lower levels teaching quarterbacks. I do think that's going to be important.

It is important. You know, I did look at this. I don't have it on my screen. But like from a five or six year period, I tracked all of the coaches of color. who had the title, the word quarterback in their title or offensive quality controller, all those ones that are sort of the Wunderkin job ones. And I tracked what happened to them over like a five-year period and like a bunch of them were out of the league.

It was depressing. A bunch of them were out of the league. They didn't, they didn't sort of graduate on to those plum coordinator jobs. Pat Pippelton was an XFL coach earlier this year. Yeah, he left. If it was a, you can easily see a scenario whereby if it was a white quarterback's coach for the chargers that they might be getting an interview. You can easily.

Or at least be, that's the issue. You mention more. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it is. Well, Mike, I appreciate you dig it into that with me. I know that it's not the easiest conversation and because there are no easy answers.

And I think that's part of it. And we're trying to figure this out. The league is trying to figure it out. And it really does feel like we're having the same conversation over and over again. But it's a conversation that needs to happen. And the more that we do this, hopefully, there will be some. progress. I don't really know what else to say. But I really appreciate the time. It's always

good to hear from you. It's always good to get your insight on this stuff. Thank you very much. Really enjoyed the conversation. And we'll watch and see how the rest of this plays out. I am thrilled now to be joined by my good buddy, the Athletics Chiefs writer Nate Taylor. Nate, how you doing, man? Robert, Mays. Amazing. Happy to be here, dude. We're colleagues. We're colleagues now. For like a whole football season. It's been, it's been great to to hear the show develop under you, man, and to really just, just to see, just to see we've been doing this for a decade now.

We're getting old, dude. So people, I'm sure they don't know. So we first met, it's almost 11 years ago now. I know. Which you have, you have like a real child that has grown into like a person. Like so many things have happened in the meantime. But it was 2010.

It was a summer 2010. I had just graduated from Missouri. I got an internship at the Boston Globe. you also got an internship at the Boston Globe that same summer. So we worked at the globe together covering all sorts of stuff. I knew you were wonderful and talented back then. But the story that I still have to tell is that we together covered a NASCAR race at London, in New Hampshire. Yes.

And if you never covered a NASCAR race before, it's a very strange event to cover. So you're just kind of, you're sitting there in the middle watching the cars go. And if you're not into NASCAR, it can be a little hypnotic. to the point that I was I just wasn't I wasn't prepared as they would say

you fell asleep at a table with your head on the table while we were at work at the NASCAR race and then the funniest thing was a crash happened

and that was my assignment and I was like who okay let's go wow there's a big crash what led to it everybody is everybody okay Okay, everybody's cool. Okay, now we need the racers to be mad at one another.

And so to be introduced into NASCAR in New Hampshire was hilarious. At least we had a lot of good lobster that weekend. We really enjoyed some New England seafood, which was excellent. We did. That story still cracks me up. But we went divergent ways after that. We've come together. And I really wanted to have you on because as we were discussing beforehand, as I've said on the show before, when we're doing these team visits,

You almost have to do it like a survivor pool where you have the bad teams on first or the teams you don't think are going to go very far. And the teams you know are going to be there at the end, you come to them a little bit later. Right. And I was fairly confident that the chiefs were going to be sticking around and we could wait this out. But the moment has arrived in large part because it has not been a normal week for those Kansas City Chiefs. There's a lot going on. So let me be the, I'm assuming, 500th person to ask you about this. Sure.

where are we at with the Patrick Mahomes health situation? Obviously, there's the concussion protocol to worry about, but also the toe. So what have you heard here in the last 24 hours? We're recording this at 4.20 p.m. Central time on Tuesday. Yes. I just put it out there on Twitter a little bit ago. It appears that Patrick Mahomes is expected to practice on Wednesday. So that is a tremendous sign, I think, for the Chiefs.

And it has not been a normal week. Just because Mahomes has been healthy, the team has really not been bothered by the injury bug a ton this year, and obviously they went 14-1 with Mahomes as a starter. In the five-step concussion protocol, clearly step one is rest and recovery. He mostly did that Sunday night, a little bit Monday morning. He went through a concussion evaluation, seemed to come out of that fine. You know, I think he would be somewhere between step two and three, is my understanding, where you could be from like, hey, light exercises, let's see how your body responds, whether you have concussion symptoms sort of after exercising.

And if he does practice tomorrow, what I was told by a couple people was it's going to be probably individual work. So it won't be anything team related, but at least he'll be out there, continue to do something that's strength and conditioning, you know, trying to see how his body responds to maybe throwing the football a couple times. And so if you're a chiefs fan, the whole. And maybe if you're just a football fan who wants to see, you know, two of the best on quarterbacks play with another on Sunday, you want to see my homes, you know, get through

Wednesday, you know, safely. Maybe Thursday or Friday is something football specific. Then you can do something where Friday or Saturday gets to a point where maybe he can get through that final step, which is full football activities, no concussion symptoms. You've returned to your baseline that you had set in the preseason, right, or during training camp. and then an independent neurologist basically confirms with the team doctor that, yes, he is clear to return to play. That could happen Saturday.

That could happen Friday. That could happen Sunday morning. But I think for the chiefs, they feel somewhat optimistic that he's gotten through the first couple steps or the first couple, you know, processes pretty easily. And if he continues to not have symptoms, as he goes to each step, he should be in uniform against the Buffalo Bills. I assume he's going to play. I'm assuming that they're operating as if he's going to play. If he's not, what I thought was really interesting when Chad Henney came into the game last week is they're running the same stuff. It was wild.

It's almost as, and I'm sure that's in part because the game plan was for Patrick Mahomes and you can't change things midstream. Has anybody asked whether they would consider tailoring stuff specifically to Henney or if the offense would look similar? Has that been something that's come up in the conversations you guys have had with Andrew? you for the last couple days here? Yeah, I think that's a, the way you framed it is perfect because now, instead of just preparing for the Cleveland Browns, as if, you know, Patrick Mahomes is going to go out there, you're going to use every play that you have put in the playbook, and then you're going to start to select certain things that you know are going to have high success rate.

This week, I feel like the team is going to have to start to build stuff specifically for Chad Hennie, who is capable. And I know a lot of people on Sunday were like, Chad Hine is still in the lead? Like it's a totally reasonable response. Here's the thing. If you get replaced by Blaine Gabbard in 2011, it's totally reasonable to wonder if you're still in the league in 2021. I think that's fair.

It is. It is. And look, he did start in week 17. But again, that game was not relevant. The Chiefs had already locked up the 1C. So I did not watch that game. I'll be honest with you.

I was just about to say, I contractually obligated to watch that game. Nobody else was. So a lot of people were like, whoa, Chad Hennie's in the league. But the fun thing is, is that there are certain play, certain concepts that Hennie likes. And Andy sort of alluded to that both after the game Sunday and talking to reporters again on Monday as to like, hey, you know,

we've had discussions if something were to happen with Patrick that, you know, we have a certain, you know, framework to work in with Chad. So you're going to do that. And then half of it is, okay, what worked against the Buffalo Bills in October with Mahomes at the helm, assuming he's going to be fully back? And then how do we expand on that? Do we change wrinkles? Do we add new plays in? Again, if Patrick is able to do, you know, mostly full football activity, you know, like kind of go through a walkthrough or go through, you know, some light work with the actual first, you know, team unit, then maybe you can start to say, okay, we kind of know,

this week is going. We can kind of, you know, shift all of our attention to what we would normally do for a regular season or, you know, usual game plan week. But I do think there are going to be some fun aspects schematically as to what Andrew E can do with Chad Hennie that, again, not people have seen just because, you know, I'm sure this caught your eye, Robert. They had Tyreek Hill in the backfield quite a bit against the Browns. So that that is available for Chad Hennie if you need to go there. And who knows what they'll create if Packer Mahomes is in uniform based on what they knew worked back in October when they beat the Buffalo Bills in October. So just to clarify, I was wrong about Chad Henney losing the job to Blaine Gabbard in 2011. That was Luke McCown.

Chad Hennie was Blaine Gabbard's backup in 2012. So the point, the point still still stands. If you were playing Gabberts back up nine years ago, it's impressive that you're still in the league. Good for Chad Henney. I don't know how much money he's making this year, but I'm impressed nonetheless. If you can keep getting those checks, good for you. He signed a two-year deal this off-season, this past off-season. I was at Chad Henney's last college game at Michigan against Ohio State in 2008. It was, or maybe 2007. It was the, it was a terrible game. They played awful. It was cold. It was rainy. And I'm sitting here and Chad Henney is still in the NFL. So good for him.

So outside of the concussion concerns and considerations, there's also the toe. And do we know the extent of that injury? And is there any word on if he's going to be limited, even if he is somehow able to play? Yeah, that is something I'm going to watch during the open portion of Wednesday's practice. It was clearly bothering him in the second quarter, right? When it became apparent to everyone, hey, he's not moving with the same fluidity that he normally has or he can't have, you know, the full range. of improvisation just because, you know, he's obviously worried about his toe. He got to look that twice.

I thought it was honestly impressive that he ran into the locker room after going through the initial concussion evaluation. So if Patrick Mahomes is a limited participant on Wednesday, I believe it will be because of both the concussion protocol and to make sure that he sort of rests and not flare up that big toe that he was dealing with during the Browns game. But, you know, we've seen Patrick Mahomes in the past play with a really swollen ankle and still be accurate, you know, for the majority of his passes. So I'm not, I'm more concerned about going through the concussion protocol and making sure that he is, you know, fully ready to go in, you know, the most important game of the season. Then I would be if he didn't have a concussion understanding that he can, you know, he can sort of find his way as to what he's truly capable of doing, you know, even if he's a little hobbled or a little.

you know, feeling a little pain with that toe. When you think of turf toe and injuries like it, the first place my mind goes is Antonio Gates, who dealt with it so often during his career. Doing it as a tight end and a quarterback is two entirely different things. Because I had it last year, a version of it. And planting and pushing is really difficult because of where the pain is.

And as a receiver, that's obviously a huge deal. As a quarterback, you can play through that. So even if he's not 100%, I'm sure we'll still see Patrick Mahomes the way we understand Patrick Mahomes. So let's move on here a little bit. I wanted to ask you something because with a team like the chiefs, that's kind of a known quantity,

is this team that's going to be stuck that sticks around every year, we know who they are, they're going to be there till the end. Sometimes it's easy to check out from them in certain seasons. And in all honesty, I think that the chiefs at times checked out this year. This was their Patriots, Spurs, were in cruise control mode sort of,

season. They can say whatever they want. It looks that way at times pretty often. And I think that that kind of allows the details of those rosters to go overlooked. And I want to think about the defensive side of the ball because the offense, we know what the offense is. Obviously, there's been some shuffling along the offensive line. You have Mike

Grumerson for Mitchell Schwartz and they've been able to survive some of that. But the defense, there's some new faces over there and some guys that I think are a little bit underrated when it comes to how important they are to this team. So if you were thinking about a couple lesser known players on the defensive side of the ball, these quietly important guys for them.

Going against a team like Buffalo who's been crushing people down the stretch here, who are the guys that come to mind for you, players that if you asked Steve Spagnolo, who are guys you need to count on that maybe the general public isn't thinking about? It's such a good point. And I can confirm to you, Robert.

Yes, the chiefs checked out like five games this year. Like, there were times against the Denver Broncos, the Carolina Panthers, oh, the Miami Dolphins have a billion turnovers? All fine, we'll fix it in the second half. So true. That's so hard to do as a football team. It's a basketball team, you can sleepwalk through a season.

True. And you can win 50 games and you can get in and it's fine. Football is a much different sport. That just shows you how good they are that they could do it that way and still get the number one seat in the NFC. Yeah, look, I love talking to our guy, Matt Schneiderman in Green Bay. and I know Green Bay is like great, but I tell them all the time.

I'm like, the Chiefs haven't played a full game all season, which is hilarious, honestly. Like their most complete game was probably against the Ravens on Monday night football in week three. And then they were like,

eh, we could just, you know, dominate at certain stretches. What they did to the Miami Dolphins was hilarious to be, where Miami played out of its mind for about 35 minutes,

and then in a five minutes span the game was over. I said it when it happened. I remember talking about it when Nate that night, I was in Miami, and I just watched the game. And one of the first things I said to him was, that is a game normal NFL teams lose. Lose. Yeah, you're supposed to lose that.

It's against a good team. And that's the funniest part is that against that Miami team, it's so, this is so, it happens all the time. It's almost what happened when the Lakers won the title, right, is they win it so easy. It's like, oh, well, they didn't play anybody. In an actuality, they just stomped everyone. Right. And that's what happens with the Chiefs sometimes where you're excited about this matchup between

the Chiefs and the Dolphins. Like, oh, man, Dolphins have. of a top five pass defense. We'll see what they do with some of the pressure looks. I love four and having David Howard and everything else. Yeah. And then they destroy them. And then it's like, oh, the dolphins aren't that good.

It's like, no, the dolphins are that good on defense. The dolphins were like a playoff team, you know, they have some issues at quarterback and we all understand it. But like, that's a playoff caliber defense. And they torched them for like seven minutes and won the game. And Mahos had three interceptions and he still played pretty good. Like, again, you know, don't normally say these things often. But to get to your original point, I think of two guys.

And I am led to believe, or I believe I should say, that I caught this like a smidge before Tony Romo, which is like one of the more impressive things. Like if you can, if you, if you're, if you're on something before Tony Romo, like, packed yourself on the back. But it was about the halfway point of the year, Robert, where I started to realize, you know, Frank Clark's cool. Chris Jones is great. It comes down, like their whole season on defense comes down to their secondary. And a lot of it is Tyron Matthew, just being an all-world safety, can do whatever he wants, can match up with anybody and you wouldn't feel like you were at a disadvantage.

But the two guys that I think of in that secondary are Dan Sorenson, a guy who's been around the Chiefs forever, who my father says the Chiefs try to get rid of every offseason, but they can't get rid of. rid of him because he continues to make massive plays in the postseason. And then they got the still of the draft from the defensive standpoint outside of the first round in La Jarius Sneed, a fourth round rookie cornerback who is a monster Robert. Like, I don't know what the Chiefs necessarily saw from a scouting standpoint because, interestingly enough, La Jarius Need played safety last year at Louisiana Tech because they didn't have any safeties at Louisiana. in attack last year. So, hey, you're the best player out there. Go, go, just assure us that nobody

gets beat deep. So he was playing out of position. They scouted him correctly. He's been someone who has been effective in the Blitz, particularly he was the one guy who got the sack on Bay for Mayfield last week coming off the edge. The Buffalo bills are so good at realizing, hey, if we just put Stefan Diggs in the slot a couple times, that's money. Um, It may be a really interesting matchup if they move Stefan Diggs to the slot on certain situations to match up with Ligerius Neat because he's been one of the best coverage corners in the league as a safety in the fourth round. And to Daniel Swarison, the dude is just he makes all like all hustle plays. I mean, he was a guy that got Rashide Higgins to fumble the football at the, goal line. That is an all effort play, which Tyron Matthew told me after the game. And look,

he's got better hands that people realize. He sealed the victory against the Buffalo Bills in October with a one-handed interception. Quietly, Robert, he's their best linebacker, but he doesn't, has an S next to his name. He has an S, but he plays linebacker. Anthony Hitchens is really dependable, gets everybody in the right spot and doesn't miss many tackles. So, hey, quality linebacker. But in terms of being dynamic, in terms of covering running backs, making a play on the ball, doing all the little things, all the dirty things, because they call them Dirty Dan in Kansas City, that's Daniel Sorensen. And so if those two guys play well, if Daniel Sorenson plays well, Legerius Knee plays well, and you know what you're going to get

from Tyron Matthew, the Chiefs may win the Super Bowl this year because their defense was dependent upon coverage more than pass rush. I think those are all fantastic points. And I the way that it all fits together speaks to how secondaries are a puzzle, right? So Sneed comes in, he has to play for Breeland early in the season who's suspended. Sneed breaks his collarbone, correct, in week two, goes out, misses the middle chunk of the season,

comes back week 12, 13, full admission. I had not watched much Chief's defense in the middle of the season. This guy can play. He can play, man. And one of the most important things about him is not only can he play, but having him in the slot has allowed them to take Tyron Matthew

out of the slot. And that becomes a force multiplier where now, especially the way they played against the Browns, and I assume the way they're also going to play against the bills. They're playing all those two deep coverages with Matthew just as a roaming lurker

in the middle of the field. That's the way his interception happened. Or you're just allowing him to freelance and play. And also, he made a ton of plays, as Matthew did, as a run defender, down near the line of screen,

rimmage in the flat kind of coming down on the edge. Allowing him to kind of freelance and have some freedom really unlocks him as a player. And having Sneed in the slot lets that happen. And Sneed has done a really nice job whenever they've asked him to do. He's a savvy zone defender, which they played a lot of cover to recently, and he's very good at that. He had that pick against the Saints where he's just manhandling the slot receiver on that play in man coverage. It makes a great play.

And then as a blitzer, he's very savvy. Yes. He anticipates at just the right time when the offensive lineman thinks, oh, there's nobody's coming. Cool. I'm in my set. I got it.

Why are you coming? Why are you brushing me? Why are you running up to quarterback? He's great at it. He anticipates and pauses his blitzes in a way that feels like, are you Ronde Barber? Like, where did you show up with this?

It's honestly a great comparison because zone corner making place. So he has three sacks in his last three games. and the one against Baker, it was so funny because I want to say, I can't remember who it was on the edge, the left defensive end, but he pushed him inside and was hiding behind him, and that really kept him tight to the line of scrimmage and tight to the formation, so nobody could see him coming.

Just little stuff like that. And having a guy like that where you can drop him in to make some of those splash plays and you're not relying on Matthew to do that, it just gives your defense so much more freedom. And then, like you said, you add that to what they have on the front four, and that's kind of Chris Jones is one of those guys where I don't know how hard Chris Jones plays on every single snap, but I know when the game really matters and when things start to really matter, Chris Jones is going to be there. And you watch him against the Browns last week and he's making three or four or five just monster plays. I also think Derek Nottie is an underrated player for them. They've really, they under Vech and just under in the Reed kind of era in general. Right. I think defensively up front, they really liked guys who take up space. base, really good run defenders.

You're not necessarily one-gap penetrators. Those aren't the players that they usually chase. Jones is almost an exception in that way. And I think that Nottie does a really good job in that role. And 64 is who? Mike Pennell, right? Mike Penel. Yeah, Mike Panell, Kansas City Native.

Similar type of thing. They have those two guys kind of rotating in at that no spot. You have Jones at the three technique. And they are, there's an underrated group. And I just think that you have that past rush, you have that front combined with the ways that all the pieces are fitting together on the back end. it's a much better defense than I think people understand in part because of that

cruise control we talked about. Now that it's time to lock in and now they need that team to make some plays, especially against an offense like Buffalo, I think it is a group of players that people are going to kind of stand up and take notice of more than they would have during the regular season. It's a great point. And the last thing I would add about Chris Jones is I'm one of these people that tend to believe the comparison that the Chiefs are the NFL's version of the Golden State Warriors.

and, you know, Chris Jones is Draymond Green. It's a great, great comparison. When Draymond Green figures out that like, oh, I know what you guys are doing and I'm fully capable of stopping it, like Chris Jones becomes a game breaker. And it's not every game, but he has shown up, particularly last year in the playoffs and obviously what he did against the Browns. Like he doesn't get a sack, but in the second half, Baker Mayfield was clearly more uncomfortable than he was in the first half because Chris Jones.

Jones sort of figured out some of the concepts that the Browns were going with, how they were using their alignment to set up certain screen plays. And when it was third and long, I mean, he was the most effective guy in that pass rush that allows obviously that secondary to not have to cover too long, but on the initial read, where they're supposed to be. And obviously, that helps the pass rush. And it kind of, you know, both sides help one another as you're trying to, you know, get off the field. It's complimentary.

It's complimentary defense. And that defense complements the way they've played offense all year. We've said that a bunch on the show, and I firmly believe it. So the last thing I wanted to ask you about, you know, we just had a long conversation with Mike about this about just hiring practices in the NFL and how Eric B. N.M. and me has become emblematic of the problem with some of those practices. Correct. You know that and you know the way he's affected that team and the role he has as well as anybody. You wrote a story after last season.

I believe the headline, I believe the headline on the athletic was it's a matter of time before he gets a job. and now here we are more than a year later, and it seems like it might not happen again. So I guess just the first thing I'd ask. I know it's a little bit harder because you're not in the locker room, you're not talking to guys casually the same way that you would. But just among the players on that team and even the people in that building, what has the feeling been like here over the last couple weeks

and have you sensed frustration even beyond some of the stuff we've heard publicly from Andy Reid? Here's what I sense and then what I've talked to with a little bit of people in the building is last year it was frustration. Last year it was, oh, so we have to win the Super Bowl to get Eric Vienaimi a job, right? Which is like, you know, not every office of coordinator is asked to do to sort of prove their validity or their coaching acumen to become an NFL head coach. You mean their last two offensive coordinators? Well, I mean, you know, Matt Nagy, Doug Peterson.

I mean, hey, the Andy Reed coaching tree, plenty fruitful history has showed us. So the interesting thing was there was frustration clearly last year. And I think a lot of that they were able to harness and to really use in the playoff run. Obviously, they had to come back in all of those games. Eric B. Enemy and Andy Reed and Patrick Mahomes, like the trio of them really have a great, I mean, it's a great relationship in understanding like how plays are called. What play set up the next series or the next quarter. Again, once the Chief's offense sort of figured you out,

it wasn't like they didn't have the answers, even with a quarterback as brilliant as Mahomes is. This year, I get the sense that it's utter confusion, which I am completely understanding and agreeing. Because one question I had, this was in December, This was as it appeared that the chiefs were going to lock up the one seat. So when you know week 17 is probably not going to be relevant, you can start to put out feelers, start to understand like, okay,

we know what some of the team's openings are going to be, who's going to be looking for a head coach, okay, I'm asking folks what best suits be in me, based on what I know, based on what the conversations are around the league. And a lot of people were interested in what he could possibly, you know, do with Deshaun Watson and Houston. remains to be seeing given Houston's unreliability.

That's a question of whether you even want that job at this point. I mean, that's part of the issue. And that's part of the issue. A lot of people mentioned Atlanta just because they have a, they have a chance to have a jumpstart to where it's not a full rebuild, right? And, you know, is that it's a lot to ask the first-year coach, or first-time head coach, I just say, the Brian Flores. model. We're like, hey, hey, dog, we, we're going to be bad. Like, we're going to be bad for a while.

So maybe that's not, you know, really appealing to be in me. But look, he accepted every interview this cycle. I didn't really hear anything that wild one way or the other. And so when you put all those things together, I mean, Andy Reid is confused because he's like, what are owners not realizing. Clark Hunt is confused, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, because as you referenced, Robert, that was Clark's quote last year in my story, where Clark's like, oh, no, it's going to happen. Like, you know, one of the things that I found really fascinating was, you know, Clark Hunt, one of the most respected owners in the league. He is the chief financial committee chairman, basically, of the league. So, hey, if you want to run the money, Clark Hunt understands what the league needs to. do obviously has a pretty good relationship with Roger Goodell and um I think I can say this here Jerry Jones didn't call him last year to ask about the enemy just didn't just just didn't call them the as I've said a number of times the Dallas Cowboys didn't interview Eric Beanie me last year I don't know why so that's that's what that's one of the ones that frustrates me the most

yeah because and I know that and we've we talked about this a lot with Mike and you know Brandon Stanley has become kind of the symbol of not deserving the job and getting one. But at least Brandon Staley was the coordinator of the best defense in the NFL last season. Mike McCarthy was a retread head coach whose team won 13 games last season in the first year he wasn't there. Literally the moment he left. And we're going to give him just he's going to walk into another one of these jobs. And I think that's the issue is that, and it's similar to what we talked about with Mike where the goalposts move. If we want to have questions about Eric Bion and me calling plays, which I want to talk with you about

in a second. That's fine. But so many of these guys don't fit that model. And if they don't fit that model and Eric B. Enemy doesn't fit that model, where are their strengths and the arguments for them over a guy like Eric B. Enemy? They start to fall apart really fast. Yeah. And so, I mean, Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson taught. Like, this is obvious. They have been friends for a long time. There was a reason Deshaun Watson wanted the Houston Texans to interview Eric Bienemy during the wild card round because teams under the NFL rules were allowed to interview the enemy because this team was not playing that week. The Houston, Texans didn't choose to do that.

So here's what I'm ultimately getting at. Andy Ree was pretty blunt two weeks ago and saying that the real issue is owners. And that is wild for an NFL head coach who was going to go in the Hall of Fame telling you publicly that this is an owner issue, that it's not. an issue with my guy in that I've developed guys in the past, Sean McDermott, who coaches the Buffalo Bills, carrying from the Andy Reed tree, Ron Rivera. I mean, the list goes on. John Harbaugh, like, he's been around this league for two decades. He clearly knows a good majority of the owners in the league. And Andy Reid is telling you the fan that it's, that it's an owner problem more

than anything else. So obviously the guys that have succeeded are a lot of defensive guys, and then there are questions about the offensive guys. In fact that Doug Peterson just got fired, it's unraveled with Matt Nagy in Chicago. And one of the things that people have wondered is, and this is difficult, it's difficult to parse credit for offensive success when the head coach is the main offensive designer, play call, or everything else. So you know the details of this.

So just pull the curtain back from me a little bit and just walk me through. what Eric Bionemy's role is in offensive game planning and design with the chiefs. How do him and Andy Reid work together on a weekly basis and what has Reed said about that partnership and collaboration? Yeah, I get asked this quite a bit. It's a fun answer, honestly, because Andy and Eric will tell you that it's a collaborative effort, and it truly is, and here's why. So Patrick Mahomes goes through every protection call with Eric Biedemy. That is not necessarily an Andy Reed thing. Andy Reed is designing plays to get people open. Like, that's where Andy Reed is honestly brilliant. He's amazing at it. You know, ChipJet Wasp is Andy Reed's creation. But

within the framework of short yardage, that's Eric Beade and Andy Reed working together. There was a play this year where Eric Beademi designed a play to get Eric Fisher, the left tackle, a touchdown. That is an Eric Beenemy play. There are plays at Mike Kafka, the young up-and-coming quarterback's coach of the Chiefs that get put into the game plan. If Andy Reid likes it, it gets ran. So this isn't necessarily just an Eric Beenemy thing. Like anybody could come up with an idea and Reed will run it. That was one of the-

Well, they have the genius board, right? Isn't that like the thing they've had forever where they have an actual board in Reed's office? I don't know if they have it this year, but that's been what they did forever where, like, it's- Yeah. I guess it's all on WebEx now. But yeah, exactly. But like the play integration within the Chief's offense is a meritocracy such that

If you have a good one, you can write it down and it is a potential idea, which I've always thought was a really cool thing that they do. It is. And so B. Enemy will go over sort of obviously the, so a lot of credit goes to Andy Reed in the 15 play script. That's fine. That's understandable. He's been doing it for two decades now. Eric Bien of me, one of the things he likes to do when Patrick comes off the sideline,

where the chief score or don't, is like, okay, what did you see? And then here's our immediate next sequence of plays. based on what you tell me. And then Andy Reid will go and basically oversee it and say, okay, well, we're in this down and in this situation. What do you like, Patrick? And then it's obviously a conversation and they go from there. So one of the fun things that Andy Reid wanted to be known,

and I sort of watched the game because, again, I was contractually obligated to do such. It was week 17. It was the Chargers, a divisional opponent. So obviously the chiefs know them well. And Andy Reid just basically watched the game like you and I, Robert. He was on the sideline and was just chilling. And it was Eric Vietnamese opportunity to say, okay, I got Chad Haney, I got Byron Pringle,

I got DeMarcus Robinson, maybe a lot of fans outside of Kansas, you don't know these guys, Dion Yelders my tight end. Darwin, I don't know. That is a made up person. Darwin Thompson is my running back, right? And, okay, we have to go put out a professional product. And to be fair, the chiefs on their first team. two offensive possessions scored touchdown.

So clearly, Eric B&M had worked with, you know, Chad Handy during week 17's practice to prepare him for such a, you know, opportunity because he, you know, the chiefs do not want him to play outside of week 17. And it was up to Andy Reed to sort of get the team from a leadership standpoint ready for the playoffs in terms of conditioning. What do I want to think about in terms of, you know, play concepts or sort of. situational football that we want to get a little bit tighter and hey, let's look at this on film.

But much of the day-to-day offensive stuff was given to Bienemy and then he went out there and the chief scored 21 points with no one that you've heard of. So it isn't a question as to whether Eric Biedemy can coach or as to whether he can't call plays to put his team in a advantageous position. But that's kind of how it all works. So when the Chiefs play the bills on Sunday, just know that Andy Reid can give the yes, no. Sometimes, depending on the situation, Eric Biedemy is just calling the play based on the situation, the down and distance, and where they are on the field, based on what they've already game planned out,

and then that is relayed to Patrick Mahomes. Sometimes Patrick Mahomes has his own ideas, and then it's up to Eric Bionemy and Andy Reed to sort of figure that out as to whether they want to do. And then ultimately, fourth down, comes to Andy Reed. And that's the fun of it is because clearly they've designed. all these plays. And then it's up to whether Andy Reid has the gumption to do it. And clearly, with Chad Hennie last week,

neither one of them plays. It sucks that we have to be having this conversation and having to explain it this way and having to kind of dig through the details in order to appease people who are just going to say, well, he doesn't call plays. But we've reached that point. I mean, the fact that he's still sitting here without a job, those are the questions.

And because you have the answers, I felt like you'd be the person to explore that with. So I really appreciate the time, buddy. It's always good to see you. Always good to talk to you. Uh, if the chiefs go to the Super Bowl, I think I might be going. I don't know if you will be. It'd be good to see you down there at six feet apart, but either way. Sign me up. Like the, a little insight. The last time we saw each other was at the combine. And we're not going to have the combine this year. Just, I know. I know. It's so weird. The fact that I'm not going to be sitting in a crowded steakhouse watching offensive

coordinators pound bud lights is a, uh, a new world. world for us here. Sad time. But thank you so much with time. Good to talk to you. Go enjoy the rest of your evening and we'll chat soon, okay?

All right, man. Thank you so much. All right, guys. Thank you so much for stopping by today. Thank you to Nate. Thank you to Mike. Really enjoyed that. We'll be back tomorrow with Nate Tice

and Lindsay Jones previewing the conference championship games. Until then, if you could rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice, I would sincerely appreciate that. Also, please consider subscribing to The Athletic. We have so much good playoff content up right now.

It's $3.99 a month. Still a great deal. Theathletic.com slash football show. Could not recommend it any more strongly. We'll be back tomorrow. Thank you so much for listening. Talk to you guys later. This was the Athletic Football Show.