The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Examining how NFL executives view the 32 draft classes with Mike Sando

Episode Date: May 12, 2022

What do NFL executives think about the 32 draft classes? Mike Sando joins Robert Mays to discuss the unfiltered conversations he had with teams across the league. Is everyone really applauding the Ravens? Should the Titans have tried to trade Derrick Henry instead? They dive into the executives’ evaluations as well as Tom Brady’s contract with Fox and much more.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today is Thursday, May 12th. I'm Robert Mays. And joining me today, the Athletic Zone, Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I'm doing well. Thank you for having me on, Robert.

Very excited to chat with you. You and Randy have done a fantastic job with the football GM on Saturdays on the feed. Really through last week. It's funny because people don't really understand that the offseason really starts in May. You know, we've said that a couple of times. times on the show recently, but the off season really starts in May. So you guys are going to take a short break or a break of some kind now, but you guys have done such a great job. But we haven't had you on our show here in a while and think this is just a perfect time to do it. And I wanted to

talk to you about the piece you wrote last week after the draft. It's fascinating. You had just had the execs takes, which you know, you do it such a great job with, on all 32 draft classes. And I wanted to spend today just kind of going through the ones that peaked my interest. Because there was somewhere I was like, oh my God, that's incredible. And just the ways that other people talk about these teams and the ways that people in the league talk about these teams, whether it's their plans, the perceptions they have of them. I just felt like as we're kind of waiting into the offseason here, this was a really good time to kind of take a step back and not only look at the draft halls and plans these teams had, but just kind of think about the state of these teams as other executives. may see them. Let's do it. I agree. I love to, if nothing else, even if you disagree with the

takes, you learn, it's very valuable to know sort of, hey, what are people thinking? What I love is just the ideas of the conversation. Like, we're talking about almost like, I don't, like, I don't ever want to get into like this guard is better than that guard, because we can do that all day. I love the, that doesn't interest me at this point. Should they have done this? You know, what about if, what if Green Bay had done this? What if, we'll talk about some of these, what if Tennessee instead of trading AJ Brown, what if they would have done this? I love those are the things that are really going on inside the buildings.

And also, I think you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but this is my experience. When you're talking to some of these people, talking to GMs, talking to people within the league, those are the conversations that get people going. Because try to pry people like, what do you think of this specific player? Would you trade this guy or are you going to draft this guy?

It's why to me talking to personnel executives right after the draft is always a little bit more fun than talking to them right before the draft because this stuff just opens up in a way that it's not for most of the month of April. And Robert, I love having these conversations. I took a week off before the draft. Yeah. Not the week before, but two weeks before I took the week off because of that. The conversations I want to have are these where we're not where we can have a real conversation. Before the draft, that's really hard. You're putting people on teams in very difficult positions and you can't figure out anyway. They can't figure out, they can't do a mock draft because there's too many variables.

So that game is hard to be in. And it was actually nice to just get away from that. And we always joke that you'd almost be better with your evaluations from two months before the draft than the week before. So I believe that to a degree. All right. So we're going to go in alphabetical order here. So that was the easiest way. That's how you presented it in your piece.

So let's start with the Arizona Cardinals. And I was on Barnwell's show a couple weeks ago. And I think the way I framed the question to him was, what are the course? Cardinals. If you had to describe what they are and what their plan is, what would it be? And I think that's hard to pin down. And you laid out a couple things that some execs were talking to you about in regard to the Cardinals. And it started with the Hollywood Brown trade. And maybe what that says about Cliff Kingsbury's role and how that team gets shaped. If you think about all of the resources they've spent on the offense, especially at receiver, but you can go beyond

that trading for Rodney Hudson. They've done so much to really build up that. group and the results have been mixed, I would say. So what were kind of the impressions of that deal and really what it says about where the Cardinals are right now? Yeah, you know, I think when you have an offensive-minded head coach who is the play caller and you keep acquiring these very specific pieces on offense by trade, you don't look at a whole. Very specific is a very good way to frame it.

Because Hollywood Brown and Roddell Moore are very specific players. Yes. Yeah, it's not like, hey, let's just get a receiver. This is clearly the fingerprints of the guy who's calling the plays. And when you add it all up together, which I hadn't really done this when you just think about, you know, shoot, with him running the offense, they've traded for DeAndre Hopkins. They've traded for Zach Ertz. They've traded for Hollywood Brown. Those were all guys drafted in the first couple rounds.

They drafted Ron Dale Moore in the second, Andy Isabella in the second. They've been in on trading for veteran running backs, paying a veteran running back. they went for the veteran center. So I think you can definitely see Cliff Kingsbury's fingerprints on this. For as embattled as he has sometimes seemed, right? There's been a lot of speculation when he first came in. Will his offense work in the league? Then he showed that he wasn't going to run just that offense.

He evolves a little bit. Is he going to keep his job? Well, yeah, he got an extension. And now you sort of look back and say, hey, they're making this move for Hollywood Brown on top of all those other ones. Clearly, Cliff Kingsbury doesn't get talked about, I don't think as much as like a Sean McVeigh, right? In the same division, McVeigh comes into the Rams in 2017.

Suddenly their whole philosophy changes. Obviously, he drives the acquisition of Stafford. But I think Kingsbury hasn't been thought about that way to the same degree. Some of it they haven't had the same success. But clearly, as you look back on it, this is another Cliff Kingsbury move, right? Absolutely it is. And if you think about the total amount of resources spent on the offense for Arizona, looking at it right now.

Offense by cap, offensive spending to the cap. Cardinals are fifth. 55.2% of their cap spent on offense. They're paying a rookie quarterback. I know. Kyle Murray's on a rookie deal. The team's above them. What a list this is.

Tennessee is number one. We've talked about that a couple different times. So I mentioned that to a GM yesterday. He was like, really? And I was like, yeah, it's a little misleading, though, because they're paying Julio $14 million on that number. So in Tana Hill, they had to restructure his deal last year to fit Julio in. So they're paying the bill twice for some of the moves that they made.

But in the end, you still have to pay it. You still accounts for a part of your cap. Cleveland is number two. They're always going to be up there. They were number one last year. I think Andrew Barry just believes that in his bones that you want to build through offense. They just got Watson, you know. Yeah, they just got Watson.

That's with Baker on there at 18 million. So that number is not surprisingly high. Dallas is number three. Again, high-level quarterback, they paid some guys, they paid their offensive line. That's an expensive group. Detroit is number four. That may seem surprising until you remember that Jared Gough has made a $30 million this year, which is still kind of crazy.

But Arizona's number five with the quarterback making $11 million on a rookie deal. So it's right there how much they have spent and put into this offense. And we should really almost do non-quarterback spending, right? That would be the way to filter this thing and see that that was going to put them at the top, right? if you can just see by who those other teams are, they would be at the top. And I think that does tell us. Obviously, they're, they've been all in. I mean, I think they were this last season, too, with the J.J. Watt move, what are they're

trying to get out of, you know, get A.J. Green to come in. And then you have what happened to them in the playoffs, right? I mean, it's all going to come back to if Kyler Murray plays well and fulfills his potential. That will help them get the full value out of all they've put in. and that's a little bit of a question mark for them. So I think it's clear what they're trying to do and it's probably what they should be trying to do, maximize this while he's on that deal,

haven't gotten quite the results, although they have improved every year since Kingsbury's been there. It's just the way the season ended this last year was hard to take. One thing that an exact mention to you that I think it can be overstated as we talk about this stuff, said that, yeah, you know, they traded. And this part is true.

I think people have overlooked the fact that the Cardinals got a third back in that deal in the Hollywood Browns. trade. So it's not, they didn't trade a first round pick for Hollywood Brown. That was a part of the trade. But they also got a third round pick back in that. So when you do the points, it actually probably, it lands it more of a second. Yep. But an executive said to you that, you know, when he goes in two years, if they don't end up resigning him, they can get a third round pick back as a comp pick. So that's really two third round picks they got back for that. That's if he gets signed to a big deal. And they don't have offsetting free agents. There's a lot of it. Exactly. So I think

looking at it that way is that's a pretty optimistic viewpoint on what they could ultimately get back in that deal. I agree with that. And I think the only reason it's worth mentioning is because they did already get a three. So if you're trying to, if you're trying to say, if you're trying to sort of mitigate the risk in your mind of taking a player who's at best a good player, not a great player, and it's certainly not a complete receiver, you say, hey, we got a third back. And hey, you know what? You know what, boss? You're talking to Mike Bidwell, the owner there. Hey, you know, if If he just plays decently, even if we don't re-up with him, we might get a comp back too. So, yeah, I don't think that's a reason why you do it.

But it's fine for me to have it in the back of your mind that you may even get more than the three. It may be a little bit more of a wash of a trade than you think because of that. That's fine. The last thing that I wanted to talk about in regard to the Cardinals, this notion of shared history between quarterbacks and past catchers and whether or not that was an important factor when you're acquiring one. And we've seen it work multiple times, or we've seen it attempted multiple times in the last year or so, right? The Jamar Chase, Joe Burrow example being the best example. But with Tua and Jalen Waddle, Devante Smith and Jalen Hertz. A.J. Brown is, I guess, friends with Jalen Hertz.

And that was part of the reason that maybe that the Eagles were like, oh, man, this makes sense. They have a relationship there. Devante Adams obviously played with Derrick R in college. They've known each other for a very long time. Do you think there's anything to that, or do you think that that's kind of, just happenstance and almost a coincidence with a lot of these moves. I think it's largely the latter. You know, I think it's kind of an overrated thing.

But I do think if you, I do think there's usually a connection when you bring in a veteran from the outside. There's usually something. There's usually someone who has a bit of a comfort zone, whether it was a coach who was with them. Yes. You connect those dots. So I do think that it's probably a small factor. I think it's not like Kyler Murray and Hollywood Brown are this legendary combination, like Brady and Welker, and this is, well, we can take this to the bank.

But I think at the same time for them, the relationship between team and quarterback has been a little tenuous here. It has felt this offseason. And so if this goes in the column of checking with Kyler, keeping Kyler happy as an organization, that's probably a good thing. So let's go move on to the Falcons here. Obviously, they took Drake London with the eighth overall pick. And there are some concerns about Drake London and just separation.

The Falcons, I think, were comfortable taking him because the GPS numbers were what they were. They saw him work out in person. They worked him out. He was fast enough for them. But there are concerns about whether or not he's going to be able to separate at the NFL level. When you're taking a guy eighth overall and you see some of the flavors of receiver that went after him, I think especially a guy like James and Williams came up in the conversations that you were having even about Drake London because of how different and dynamic of a player that Williams is.

what did you hear about that pick when you were asking people about it, Atlanta taking one and eight? Yeah, it's kind of rare probably to take the first receiver in the draft, have him be a top 10 pick and not have him check some of the important boxes. And I think speed is an important box for people. And so I have personally felt over the last two decades that that seven to ten overall range is where people make mistakes at wide receiver, where you're getting someone who has enough of a certain talent to be taken high, but isn't It's so dynamic that you take them higher than that. And so what are some examples in that range?

Mike Williams, John Ross. Henry Ruggs was taken right in that range. Here you, here you go. I've got your list, okay? Roy Williams, Troy Williamson, D.HB, Kevin White, Mike Williams. There's two Mike Williams. Kevin White, good Lord. David, yeah, David Terrell, Tavon Austin, Corrin Robinson, Reggie Williams, John Ross, Travis Taylor.

And then when you look for the hits, you're talking Mike Evans, Plaxco Burris, Ted Ginn, Michael Crabtree. Even Ted Ginn maybe is, you could talk yourself into that either way. You could talk either way, but you're basically seeing people who had a hole coming out in their game, right? Something you were willing to live with and you were betting on. And so, you know, this is going to be two drafts in a row with top 10 picks. And I think Kyle Pitts is excellent. He is a tight end.

I know, that is what it is. But are you going to come out of these two drafts? with absolute rock-solid building block and what's the bust potential for a receiver taking that high who doesn't check all those boxes? I think when you have guys go higher than that, sometimes you get a Calvin Johnson or Larry Fitzgerald or an A.J. Green or a Julio Jones, right?

Right on that brink of before that. And I think he wasn't in that category for people. You know, a lot of people who might have had him as their fifth receiver or their fourth receiver. there's a little bit more gray than you would like. In their defense, none of the top 10 picks in the draft were traded on draft day. Yeah. So there wasn't a big clamoring.

It's real easy to say they should have done this or that. But it'll be very interesting to me, like a Jameson Williams, who could potentially have a red shirt year, but is perceived as maybe more dynamic from a speed and explosive standpoint. Would that have been the ideal pick for them? I think they wanted size. Yep. If you look at how small their receivers were last.

year and the way they want to play and the yak opportunities they want to create. I think that they just need a little bit more beef at that position. I also think he's going to play a receiver, but he's not going to just play outside receiver. What he did, I mean, Arthur Smith said it in his post-draft press conference and in conversations I've had with people since, I think this also has come up. What he did, his second to last year at USC where he was an inside player and him showing he can do that. You think about how fungible the positional designations are on that offense with quarter up Patterson, with Kyle Pitts, with Drake Lund.

I don't think that's an accident. I think they want those pieces that can be a little bit interchangeable to be hard to predict, to be amorphous on offense and be a little bit, just tougher to pin down. It's like if this guy's lined up in this place, who knows what they're going to end up doing. And I also just think we're trending in this direction. And it's come up a lot in conversations recently. And I give all this credit to Nate for really identifying it early. just this idea of bigger slots and having that be a trend within the lead. You look at some of the guys who've led the league in Slot snaps last season.

Your Pascal's, Chris Godwins, guys that just look a little bit different. Even Byron Pringle was bigger than a lot of slot receivers are. And he played in the slot last season. So having Drake London really is like the furthest extension of that. I think that's what was appealing to him when you compare him to the other receivers in this draft. because even if you like the flavors of those guys, they are small. They are small or slight in a way that he is not. And I don't know if that's a good enough reason to take him with the eighth overall pick at this point in their team building process.

But I do think that was a lot of the reason that they were attracted to him. Yeah. And that last part is what the criticism would be. Those other guys you named weren't necessarily top 10 picks. And when you're drafting at that position, do you need to get someone who really creates the matchup problems outside? Then you can use them wherever you want. I think that's totally fair. To get the value is that what you have to get?

And I think that's the great question. That's the discussion point on Atlanta. The other part that you mentioned when you're talking about the Falcons was the Ritter side of this. And I'm so interested in this because I really believe, if you look at the way the quarterback draft went, the fact that Pickett went 20th and then these other guys went in the third round, those Willis to Tennessee, Ritter to the Falcons. both of those teams viewed both of those guys as better than third round prospects. But when you take them in the third round,

the hourglass gets tipped over in a different way. You don't have to play them right away. You can bring them along whatever pace you want. Malik Willis can sit on the sideline all year with a headset on. And it doesn't matter. No one is going to say a word about it. I think Ritter is going to have a chance to win the job in Atlanta. I really do.

there's no reason for him not to have a chance to win that job. I think they like his makeup, so many things about him in an intangible way. If he does get that job, which there's no barrier to him get it, and he doesn't play that well, no one's going to blink an eye if you spend a top five pick on a quarterback next year because you took him in the third round and not with the 40th pick overall. So I don't think it's accidental that this is the range that some of these teams were willing to say, what, we'll take a swing here because if it doesn't work out, no one's going to give a shit. Yeah, absolutely.

I love that about him. And I also like about him is unlike these other quarterbacks who went later because of, frankly, they don't check the boxes for size and some of the other stuff that is an issue. You can say it's not, but it is an issue. Height wasn't an issue for Russell Wilson because he could run around and do amazing things. It is an issue if he has to stand in the pocket all day, right? I mean, Drew Breeze is really the guy who's been shorter who's been able to play that way. And even they had to build that team in a very specific way

where it's overcome that. So that was a big lesson that Randy Mueller pointed out was like, hey, the league's not looking for these guys to be short guys. Well, guess what? Desmond Ritter's not. Desmond Ritter does check some of those boxes. So his challenges are a little bit different. But I think athletically, the way he throws the ball, like we talked about, his height,

he seems open to coaching. There doesn't seem to be any drawbacks from that standpoint. So I really like that in the context of being a third round pick. Obviously, there were issues with his accuracy. One of the points Randy brought up about him was it looked a little fast for him when he played Alabama. He just didn't seem to rise to the occasion. And so now going to – It looks a little faster a lot of people, I think.

It absolutely does, and it's going to look faster going in this year if he has to play. So I think ideally you wouldn't have him as day one, but you would get work for him. I do love to get enough games to get a feel. Want to see more. Don't overwhelm them because, look, they're not going to be a team that has a – great offensive line and run game and take the pressure off of him, he could go out there and be in trouble right away. I don't think that's the best experience for him coming right in. So I would like to see some mix of him playing, getting a chance, see how it goes initially with

Marioada, and then maybe make that transition. But I like this pick. I think that's a good pick. There was no criticisms of them taking him where they took him. I think that's a, that's applause. You could do whatever you want. I think you're right that it may not be prudent to play him right away. But if you think that's the best route just based on where you are, what he showed in camp, you want to see him get the most looks, you can do that. But you also have no pressure to do that. And I think that outcome with anything really on the table, that is a good thing. And that is one of the benefits of taking him where they did. It is. Now, I'm going to say one last thing, though, a team that really needs building blocks in Atlanta, are you for sure,

Getting that with Drake London, who could be a little bit of a risky pick. Desmond Ritter, another one early, that, hey, we're just taking a flyer on this, but the odds are low, right? Are you low oddsing a little bit when you need building blocks would be a potential question? I think the best case scenario with the Ritter pick is so high that it's okay for me. Because if he doesn't work out, it's a third round pick. You're picking him outside of the top 100, whatever. that's fine. Or right around the top 100.

That's okay. Yeah, 74th. That's okay. If that doesn't hit for you, that's okay. Because if it does, the value created is so astronomical that I think at that stage in the draft, it's okay. And the argument on the other side of it is that maybe he won't get as much of a chance as a third round pick. And because the timeline and the leash is a little bit shorter with where he was drafted, does that sabotage some of his chances? There's a lot of give and take when it comes to take him.

quarterback in that range. But I think what you could get out of it, I'm totally fine with it. And they had two twos. They had two threes. They had picks for Julio and picks for Matt Ryan. So they got replacements for those guys, right? Yeah.

Yeah. I'm okay with it. And I think with their plan right now where it doesn't prevent them. It's about opportunity cost to me as well. Is it going to prevent you from going to get a quarterback next year if you think that you have the guy you're in a position to go get one? If the answer to that is no, then do it. And I think because of where they drafted him, the answer to that is no.

All right. Let's get to Baltimore. I wanted to talk about the Ravens because I was fascinated by the tone of some of these quotes about the Ravens. It just the idea of... How dare we talk about the Ravens in any sort of way? Well, it was like a sideway. It was like a jab where one of the executives was like, if the Ravens took a punter in the first round, they'd get applauded for it. So I wanted to ask you just before we done you to some of the specifics here.

How do how do people around the league talk about the Ravens? Well, I think over the last 10 to 20 years reverently, I mean, they've done a great. That's what I would guess. Yes. I think the Ravens were a fun one to discuss and I sort of took, I enjoyed kind of putting in the counter to it because I think reflexively people do just give them A plus grades and look, they win 80% of their games. and it's almost like the Patriots off seasons for all those years. You can say what you want about them, but they're going to be winning in the end. But I do think they are perceived as maybe basking a little and being the smartest team.

Hey, we're real big on analytics. You know, we're not saying we're smart than everyone else, but when you guys do, we sort of not. And did you know, also the rest of the league undervalue safeties and tight ends? You know, our analytics guys figured that out. So, you know, we're really exploiting an inefficiency here. They said that after the draft. But they've won a lot of games. I think that the value of the criticism of them is that there is actually criticism, but there is actually, hey, wait a minute.

These are not sure bets they're taking in the first round here. They're taking a six, three or four safety who didn't run well. That's a risk. They're taking a center who is smaller than a lot of the centers who end up making it in a league. And so I think those were the criticisms of them as opposed to just getting in line and saying, they did it again, knocked it out of the park, which I feel like that's exactly what the media does almost out of habit. Those criticisms of positional value and where they draft those guys, I think are totally

valid. My response to the Hamilton pick would be this is a draft where that's right around the amount of players that people thought were work taken in the top half of the first round. I mean, there were guards that started going off the board right after the Ravens drafted Kyle Hamilton. So it's harder to criticize that for me because I do. do think that there was probably a drop-off as it related to prospect quality and available players at premium positions. I mean, Washington's taking Jahan Dotson with the 16th pick.

I'm not sure even if he's a receiver, Jehan Dotson is a more premium type of selection than Kyle Hamilton is two picks earlier. So I would better have Hamilton myself. I think I would as well. And I also think that the way the Ravens are clearly going with the way they want to play defense, safeties are going to be more important now. Think about the way their roster is now built. I think they're comfortable. And GM said this to me recently, and I thought it was such a good point about Baltimore.

One of the reasons they're so comfortable adhering to their board as all this chaos happens around them is they've done this for 25 years. It's the same people in charge. It's the same processes. It's a lot of the same staff. There's no getting rattled because, they've seen this a million times before.

If you have a front office in their first or second year and they've never gone through this in real time and fielded these calls, watch players come off the board that they wanted, and it's easy for players to fall to you when you have total trust in the way that you go about this. And that's what it feels like when you watch the way that they draft it. It's like, all right, if this is all going to unfold this way, we'll just take this guy and figure it out later. We signed Marcus Williams in Free Agency.

We also already have Chuck Clark. we'll figure out a way to have all those pieces fit together. Now we're strong at safety where we've been strong at Corner for the last five years. Do we play more Fé and Gio Staley-esque shell coverage and go to some of that stuff on early downs and be comfortable living that way? I think the answer is yes. And I think there are a lot of different factors playing into the fact that they're comfortable approaching it at their own pace and they're comfortable being a little bit more flexible than some other teams might be. If you look, though, they did have a GM change in the last few years.

you wouldn't say that in the last three drafts that they've absolutely killed it. They've signed a lot of, they've signed quite a few older players who've had injury problems. Their defense finally did fall off last year. Is it just assumed that, hey, we'll get healthy, everything will be fine?

Their offense, would you say, is trending in the right or wrong direction, right? So if we were, if you take, if you take a line or you take a build a wall between the last two or three years of what they've done in the draft and just overall and separate all that stuff. that came out before that gives you the benefit of the doubt, do you feel it's as good

and that they're definitely trending in the right direction to maintain this incredible winning percentage they've had, or do you have some concerns creeping in? And does this draft allay those concerns? I think that's the context to consider. I think that's fair. I mean, the 2019 draft with Hollywood Brown in the first round, and they traded away,

multiple picks, future picks to go get Lamar Jackson. But I mean, even like the 2021 draft, getting O-A at 31 and trading Orlando Brown the way that they, like to me, this is, I'm still fine with their processes because this is what happened, right? So they trade away Orlando Brown to Kansas City. They get the extra first round pick as a result of that. They draft OA at 31. He's a very promising rookie season, despite having zero college production. That, to me, is a nice piece at a really important spot. They signed Morgan Moses in free agency this year to a $5 million a year contract.

He'll be there for at least this year or maybe the next couple of years. And what's Orlando Brown making on the franchise tag right now for Kansas City, $16 million. So you got a first round pick and a pass rush around a rookie deal and then filled your hole at right tackle with a $5 million a year player. That, as a gambit, is totally fine with me. And it seems like they do this shit a lot. And it just keeps coming up over and over again. Now, remember, though, Lamar was a 2018 pick. He's an Aussie pick.

So if you take their draft picks since 2019 and stack them by approximate value, which is on the Pro Football Reference site, Hollywood Brown is number one at 24AV. Patrick Queen is number two at 18. And then there's a bunch of guys in single digits that are J.K. Dobbins' and Ben Powers'es. and Miles Boykin and Devin DuVernay and some of these other guys. And so when we're looking at that, we're not necessarily seeing, shoot, the number one guy that just traded.

And they gave a third round pick to get rid of them too, right? So I think it's just this is just a not, I would say, not intended to shot a crush bow. There's no F grades on them. This is just a, hey, hey, wait a minute here. Let's not just give the A plus every year. Let's look at what's happened the last three years, see if. it's been quite as good and see how this draft fits in. And if this is just, hey, if they're just drafts in Jonathan Ogden and Ray Lewis again,

then great. But that may not be the case. I agree with that. I just think, you know, in 2020, for example, right, they have four third round picks. Justin Madibuque, we like. He's a nice rotational piece. Devin Du René, who's going to be a player for them this year, but hasn't done a ton, Malik Harrison, Tyree Phillips.

It's not great. But I think if you can, if you continue to. to have like this year they had six fourth round picks ultimately i think in the end over time in the long run this way of doing things is probably going to net you more value than other ways of doing it and they can do it because of organizational consistency patients what they're allowed to do as a front office job security a ton of different that context that context and credibility is that credibility is well earned i just think you you need to know not just let it give you, may be the benefit of doubt on everything. David,

Jabbo is a great example. Another GM takes them. Oh, this is, they're taking a flyer and another injured guy. Can't do that. That's low odds. The Ravens do it. Oh, look at the value. Can you believe it? They got this guy who would have been that and that. And the truth is somewhere in between. Hey, they took an injured guy. And he could be good. Somewhere in between is definitely the right way to frame it. I will say that I am guilty of giving them probably more of the benefit of doubt than they probably deserve over the last couple years. All right, a team that definitely does not deserve the benefit of the doubt. Let's get to the Carolina Panthers. What is the conversation when you're talking to people around the league about their quarterback situation right now? If you were just trying to summarize the general

sentiment around what this search has looked like, how would you frame it? Disarray. You know, it's just felt that way. It's been hard to figure out exactly what they wanted to do. And obviously, and what role the owners played in it. And are they, are they, are they really? really in on Deshaun Watson and trying to get Russell Wilson. It just feels like a kind of a pile of certainly failure in trying to address it with anything. Is the sense that the owner is heavily involved in this from other people outside? Because that's just my assumption, but people that have a better sense of it, I'm wondering

what they think. Yeah, that is. You know, and I don't know that there's documentable evidence. So that's something you hear a lot that he's, you know, pulling some strings on this. then I think, look, with a quarterback position and he's a relatively new owner, I mean, I'm sure he wants to get it right. But they just haven't been able to get the solution. I don't know how you look backwards on this draft and see them doing a huge trade-up all of a sudden giving a 20-23 third to New England in order to make this move up. And then New England just sits there 43 spots lower and takes Bailey Zappy, who some people like better than Matt Corral.

including Randy Mueller, had him as his number two quarterback in this draft. I mean, would you look at the way this played out, the entirety of the off season, the quarterback pursuit, and then that specifically in this draft where suddenly you're scrambling to make the biggest trade up of anyone to get Matt Corral

as, oh, this really fell just right for them. The other thing that you wrote, and I really wanted to ask you about this, is that they tried to make multiple trades up based on conversations you had with people who may have been on the other end of that phone. What did people say about that? The other kind of forays the Panthers tried to make up the draft before they ended up making

the deal for the trial. Absolutely. There may have been some sentiment for Sam Howell there who ended up, I think, with Washington. Yeah, they were trying a lot to move around and get quarterbacks, which I think makes sense when you need a quarterback. I mean, you are going to be making calls and seeing where you can get in the draft. And then in the end, it just felt like they had to really race and scramble and give up more. it was hard to get

2003 high picks. None in the first two rounds changed during the draft. The only teams that that traded those were involving trades for Watson, Wilson, or the Saints. So for them to give up a three to do that was a lot. I mean, it was a, you know, at worst, it was a desperation move. But at best, it was a real aggressive one that showed they were willing to move around and try to get one of these guys. That's all right.

Next year when they still need a quarterback, and they have less ammo than they need to go get one. And I'm sure it won't end up mattering. Exactly. Yeah. And you just, that's just a bad situation. It's just a bad situation. You don't feel great about Matt Rua where he's at.

You don't feel great about Darnold. You just don't feel great. It's never good when you sense the end coming for a front office or a coaching regime. And that front office or coaching regime is allowed to flail and use resources from a time that they may not be there anymore. Think about what's happening in Chicago right now. Think about what the Jets looked like when Mike McCagnan went on that spending spree a few months before he was fired. It's never good. And Dave Gettleman, another really good example.

I mean, just the quagmire, the Giants are in right now because of what he was allowed to do with some of these contracts because they were trying to scrape anything they could out of those last few months. It's just I never understand why ownership groups are like, yeah, you know what? Do what you need to do. And I think in this case, the owner may be desperate enough for a quarterback that that's why there's a pass on that. But it just so rarely works out for any when you operate this way. And maybe this is a compromise of, hey, we gave up a third next year, but we didn't give up everything to get some. It's not like they went all in on a higher risk player.

It's a good point. Yep. They didn't go all in. I think a third is a fine price to try to do something. But I agree. It almost feels a little bit like Chicago when the whole. Fox regime was running down or maybe, you know, the difference here, too, the GM and head coach aren't even on the same timeline, you know, so it just, it does feel like what would you bet?

Is there any way that Matt Rule is the coach in the 2020s season? You just feel like it's hard. I think it's hard. I think the road to get there is decidedly uphill. All right. I think rolling the Panthers conversation right into one about the Brownson-Baker-Mayfield makes a ton of sense because that was a door that Carolina didn't end up opening. They did not end up trading for Baker Mayfield because of some money issues.

When you were talking to people about the Browns and about Mayfield specifically, what are people's senses about how that ends up playing out? Really, that they may have to cut them. You know, I just don't think that there's a market because there aren't enough teams with a desperate enough need. And they have no leverage. And they have no leverage. So I think, yeah, I think he's also not an easy player to just fit into your existing QB room, especially if the salary, you're taking on a decent salary. So I also don't see the

Browns giving up a pick for some team to take them and pay some of the money. They need their picks. They already gave away a lot of picks next year for Deshawn Watson. So I would think it comes down to being released. I don't know that we see a real solution just because of all the spots filling like I was going to say people perceive that Seattle should have a big need, but I think it really only matters what Seattle perceives. And they haven't perceived their situation the way other people have. I don't know why they would suddenly rush to get Baker Mayfield now. I'm putting you on the spot here. But if he gets cut, who do you think would want him? I think Seattle would have a decent price. But what does Baker Mayfield see his prices and roll as being? You know, Pittsburgh. Would Pittsburgh

No, they're not going to now with Pickett. It's not that long of a list. Yeah. There aren't that many teams that have potential paths to starting quarterbacks but don't have any semblance of plan.

Atlanta is a team that doesn't have a first round pick or an established guy, but I think they're more than willing to just roll with the two that they have at this point and see how it turns out. Seattle is the team that makes the most sense. And I think that at a certain price, right, if it's one year,

million you know to say that that's worth it for us the answer to that's probably yes i would agree i think that's what it is and if you're seattle why would you do a deal try to acquire unless you could unless you can get a pick from cleveland's take on the money but i just to me it's a little bit of a waiting game and and uh you know cleveland's made their move right for beset they're they're not going to need baker mayfield or play them under any circumstance i wouldn't think no certainly not And the ones, I've met this comparison before, as we've talked about this scenario. And Andrew Barry wasn't there, but he did later work for the Eagles. I mean, the best comparison point to this for me is what happened with the Eagles in 2016,

where you have San Bradford and Chase Daniel on the roster. You've paid both of them. You still draft Carson Wentz. And then you roll into training camp with all three of them. I mean, when they did that, I was like, what are they doing? And then Teddy Bridgewater gets hurt. You get a first round pick for Sam Bradford. Keep rolling.

And the first you even ended up trading for Carson Wentz that same year doesn't end up hurting as much because you were able to flip San Bradford. So maybe there's a world where the Browns are willing to wait because they see something like that as worth holding onto him. But I just think some of the complications and the sheer awkwardness of it would, I would pull the trigger. I'd be like, you know what, this isn't worth it to me. But Andrew Barry is a much more patient man than I am. Hey, they seem to have a very high awkwardness tolerance based on the Deshaun Watson press conference. Clearly. Clearly they do.

All right. Let's talk about the Cowboys. And similar to Baltimore, my main takeaway from what you wrote about Dallas is that there seems to be a pretty considerable amount of respect with the way other teams and other executives. This may have been one guy that you were quoting as continuously saying this about Dallas. but just this kind of assumption and knowing tone when discussing the Cowboys that, you know, their scouting stuff is good. On a personal side, they do very well. How do people generally discuss the Cowboys when you're talking, when you're asking about that?

Yeah, I do think Will McLeigh is really highly regarded. He's been talked about as a GM candidate. He does a lot of, he's responsible for a lot of that there. Obviously, Jerry Jones and Stephen get all the press. But they've done a lot to, I think they've done a lot to keep him there, right? I mean, and he's a very important part of that. So I do think that there's a general high regard for their ability to evaluate the players. And then, you know, the criticism comes in in really the risk tolerance that the owner has, right?

Because the owner's going to sign off on some of the players that you do wind up taking. The owner's going to be at the press conference flashing his ranking of players. I think that's hilarious. But, you know, for them in this draft, you know, taking Sam Williams and then I think last year they had a higher risk player as well. Not everyone's willing to do that, but when your owner is Jerry Jones and is signing off on it, you're willing to do a lot more things, right?

When the owner is the GM effectively, even though Jerry Jones is not doing the scouting in the way that Will McLeigh would be, then your tolerance for doing these things, hey, people aren't worried about losing their butts for giving the recommendation because the owner is the one who makes the call. I wanted to ask you this,

because an executive asked me this recently, pretty much just flat out. Who do you think are the best front offices? And I kind of had to sit and think about it for a second. And I'm wondering when you are talking to people, generally league-wide, who do people in the NFL think are the best personnel groups? Well, the best front office and the best personnel

and the best scouting, there's probably a little bit different shades in there. But I think that the Steelers have been in that category. I think the Ravens have been in that category. I think there's some regard for, Indian Buffalo. Because the person I talked to, he said, I think Chris Ballard is the best GM in the league. So it's not just a media creation that other people think that Chris Ballard is very good at this.

Yeah. And it's funny. There are, I do know some people in the league who think that, you know, the Colts get a little bit of a positive coverage. It's probably a little calm. When you look, because they're, what, they're basically 500, right, during that period. Since then, with a lot of complications of the quarterback position that were kind of beyond their control in a couple of those cases, certainly in the case of Andrew Luck. But in the way they put together their roster, I think also, I mean, one of the really

distinguishing things with India is they're so frequent patient. I mean, they do not generally just, you know, the Wents thing they made a mistake on, but look, he had 27 touchdown, seven interceptions, played all the games. I mean, they didn't like him. But he wasn't just an absolute abject, abysmal player for them. They're patient, though, to wait things out and not make the misstep. And then have Matt Ryan fall to them. I mean, that is gutsy.

That is really hanging on. They're like willing to hold their breath under water longer than other people. That's very true. To the point that I think it drives their fan base absolutely insane when it comes to some of this stuff. Yes. And I think that all these jobs are different. Like we just mentioned with a job Will McLeigh does. And then you have Jerry Jones, who's just sort of all over.

the place. Jim Ursay is all over the place. I mean, you're, I think Ballard tries to have this real discipline that we're going to be patient and his owner's filming screeds on outside the corporate jet, you know, the team. I love that aspect of the league. All of these teams are different. The challenges are different. The places are different. The markets, the owners. And it makes it hard to just evaluate everybody the same, right? I mean, Eric DeCost is in a fundamentally different position than Scott. Fitterer is. Yes.

Yeah, Scott Fitterer, these guys are in fundamentally different positions than each other. And it almost makes it hard to, like, we evaluate drafts. Well, they don't need, the GMs don't even pick all of their favorite players in the draft because, you know what, I've got to throw a bone to the coach here. He's the last two drafts. We didn't get his guy. All right, against my better judgment, we're drafting this guy. Then three years later, we're like, this GM's an idiot.

He took this guy, and the GM's thinking, no, I didn't want that guy either. but we sort of met in the middle to have we found a consensus. So it does make them hard to evaluate. But I think those are some teams you can see process and plans, you know, come together. I was wondering if there was anything surprising. But those are the teams that I would probably mention. And then Dallas is a team. We've talked about the job Will McLeigh has done kind of ad nauseum on this show at certain points.

I mean, you think about their draft record, all of the talent that they've accumulated on that team. It's pretty damn impressive. So it's not surprising to me. all. Yeah, well, how do we not talk about the Rams? Because there's been a lot of talk about, you know, hey, teams have maybe become a little bit more willing to make trades and give away some, give, trade away some picks and, and do things a little bit of a different way. And they just won the Super Bowl. So I think they're a team that has tried to do do things a little bit differently and has tried to fill in the draft in different ways and purposeful ways.

I think teams were largely skeptical of that in the beginning and maybe have come around a little bit more. Oh, see, I don't think so. You don't think so at all? I think the teams think they're an outlier one. And I think team, and that has been said to me multiple different times. Like, that's not a model. And I kind of agree with that.

Yeah. But I also think that there's a backlash to them now. I think people are kind of annoyed with them. There, there is. And the point that I would make on them is, like, you can say that's your approach, but it's totally fortuitous that they were able to get Matt Stafford. There's no other way. There's no other.

That's not something other teams could do. But I think you have to give them some least begrudging credit for being able to succeed and win year after year and find a solution at the quarterback position. And I think they've filled in some of those roles when people said they weren't going to be able to do it. So you're right. No one's going to mention them, but I think we should mention them at least as a team that has had some success in an unconventional way. and even if people say it's a little bit of an outlayer, they're not ripping them. There's no one saying what they're doing can't work anymore because you know why?

It just worked. Yeah, they have the trophy. That's the nice part. I want to be clear about this. I think what they've done is remarkable. And not just from a team building perspective, but just the conversations I've had about what it's like there. And just the feeling in the building and the dialogue.

And this is, this always happens after a team. team wins a Super Bowl where we do this kind of rose-colored glasses, revisionist history about what it was actually like there and how great it all is. This is years ago. Years ago, I remember sitting there in the locker room talking to Andrew Whitworth about what it was like to play for McVeigh and just the dynamic in that building and how much feedback is solicited from players, what the dialogue between both of those sides look like, what it's like to go to work there, what it's like to be in that building.

organizational culture and feel and culture in a way that is where culture really matters, that shit is real there. It's very real. And I think that we understate and underrate why they've been good under McVeigh, why they win double-digit games pretty much every single year. The real ingenuity offensively that they showed early in his tenure to the point that it kind of reshape the league in some ways, that was a huge factor. but I think all of these other underlying quieter factors go totally unnoticed from some people on the outside and are just as important in propping up the success they've had over the last five years.

And they've been unusually healthy. Do they have some sort of, you know, they would probably point to, you know, hey, their staff doing this and that, whatever. I mean, but they've had a great run of success. And it was funny. I was thinking I was reading the LA Times just had a big interview with Jeannie Bus and I've been watching the winning time thing. A reality of LA is star power, and they've been chasing the star power there. You have to chase almost relevance in LA. And I was wondering, you know, is there a fall on the other side coming, right?

For them, there doesn't seem to be. There potentially could be. But I do have faith in the person in charge there because I do think he's really good at some of those. Let's keep the train on the tracks. Let's keep everybody happy. Let's keep this moving in the same direction aspects of the job. All right. Let's move on to the Packers.

What I want to talk about in reference to Green Bay, I loved the discussion that you had with some of these guys about the approach to finding that receiver. So, all right, we don't think one's worth taking in the back half for the first round. Think about the players available, that's totally reasonable. You know, the run happened earlier. Most of them were off the board by the time the 16th pick happened

when Dodson went. And I don't think Dodson checks a lot of the size boxes that this team needs at that position anyway. So now you get into the second round, and they end up training those two picks with Minnesota to go up and get Christian Watson. And just this idea of, all right, how does that play fit into who this team is? How does that fit into, you know, is that worth going up and doing it there? At what point does it fall off where if you go wait for somebody else, is it not worth it anymore?

Like if you just sit there and try to get George Pickens with one of your picks, is that different or better than try to make them move up the board to get Watson? how teams look at tiers of players and when those tiers end and how it informs their urgency to move up and down the board, every single team in the league, and I think this would surprise people. It doesn't matter how analytically driven your front office is or how much they want to hoard picks. Every team at some point is going to be willing to move up for a player, everyone. And it depends on where the drop-off is with what their needs are and where the next batch of players is at that position. And how that drives action in the draft, I find so interesting. The evaluation is everything.

And we can have these sort of esoteric conversations about value and really this pick isn't worth much more than this pick. But you have to marry that with the fact that we do internally rank the players and we do have strong opinions on them. And we have to rely on it to some degree, right? We can't just say, well, all picks are worth the same through this band. You know, that's hard to do. So I think for the Packers are so interesting because they've been a little bit caught in the middle all out season, you know, mortgaging the future financially a little bit to keep Rogers with what could be a very short term window, but then trading Devante Adams. It's kind of this tension between the long and the short term there. As far as handling the receiver position for them, I do know some people in the league who really respect Brian Guttenkust as an evaluator of wide receivers in particular, the defensive.

if you had to list maybe where his strongest suits would be as an invalidator, that that might be one where sort of the scouts, you know, think, hey, Goody, Goody maybe knows, you know, to do that. So maybe that partly explains what I think, and everyone thinks, has been this aversion to taking one earlier, like, hey, relax, we got this, we'll get a guy, has almost been their MO at the wide receiver position. Now, that said, if they go up and get Chris Alaveh at 11, I think we're singing their praises. I think we're saying, aha, Devante was too expensive, but they get a pro-ready guy who checks the boxes, almost all the boxes, and should be good right away.

And we should be able to win in this window. I get it. Now, I think if they go up and take James and it's a redshirt year, we're going, wait a minute, does that really mesh with Rogers? Every game in a week season is one at a time and precious with him. So maybe the move to make was if they were going to do it in the first round was to get Traylon Burks. could you've gotten into that discussion, right? Instead, they get a couple defensive players that may be non-premium positions that may be really good, but leave you feeling like they didn't quite do the one thing they had to do this off-season.

But then they trade up so they get their guy and maybe you trust that evaluation. But it did feel, didn't it kind of feel like the caught in between off-season continued in the draft? And I absolutely did. And sometimes I do this too often where I'll be like, well, why didn't this team follow this principle stand on how they were going to approach the offseason? All of the moves follow this one singular theme. And it's because that's not how it works. Like you could do both things at the same time. Yeah.

And I forget that sometimes. And that colors my thinking in a way that it shouldn't. So I'm sitting here looking at the draft. And you mentioning the Lave thing, I think, is so funny. So let's kind of play out an alternate reality of the Packers draft, okay? Let's say, just for argument's sake, it would have taken the pick that they had at 22 and, again, for argument's sake, the one they had at 28 to go get Olave at 11. Okay? Yep.

Instead of, and that would mean they didn't pick Devante Wyatt or Quay Walker. So then they still would have had their picks at 53 and 59. All right. So at 53, trying to think, Federy and Mathis is. still on the board, okay? So let's say they take Federi and Matt, so he wasn't on the board. So let's say they take, sorry, this is all over the place. It is though. This is why you have to get almost a quiet room to figure out what you could have possibly done. Like, I was just calling up while you were doing that. Like, what did it take for New Orleans to get to 11, right? It took a lot.

It took 16, 98, and 120, but they were only going from 16 to 11. You'd have to double the, you'd have to get there from 22, right? You double the distance. Yeah. So let's let's just say for arguments they had to give up the 53rd or the 50 second pick. Let's just say they had to get. Don't be that specific. Let's just say they had to really pay more than they're comfortable with. Yeah. Yeah, they had to give up one of the second round picks to go up and get a lave in the first round. So they get one of the second round picks to do that. So then you get a lavee. You get one of the defensive players. And then you get one more player in the second round instead of going up to get Christian Watson. do we talk about this differently, this hauled thing?

Yeah, probably because the defensive players, the first round aren't as sexy. I think we definitely would because we all perceive what their primary need was, let's face it, we're all, we're evaluating now on how many holes were filled this offseason. Now, of course, there's a qualitative component too. But we're saying, hey, did you address this one thing that had to be addressed? And did you address it emphatically? Or did you kind of maybe address it and we're not? not sure. And I think if you go get Alave, though it's easier to make sense of the whole off

season. It's easier to say, ooh, I like Alave because everyone had him in their top three or four wide receivers. And some people had him as their number one receiver in this draft. So I think it would, it would make sense for us more. But they didn't do that. And they're basically saying, you know, look, the receiver we got, we like him. He's going to be really good. And we just sort of have to take their word for that because that wasn't a universally held opinion that he would be as good. And they also just, they have boxes that need to get checked with size with these positions. And they're like, Christian Watson, 6.4. He ran a 4 3. He fits in almost exactly, hopefully in the role that you would have for MBS within that offense. And I think that part of that was really

important to them as they were figuring out how they wanted to fill that spot. Yep. And they may feel like one of those two defensive guys is going to be a real star like a perennial pro bowler. And if that happens, you know, we'll event. evaluate it differently then. I think just for now, we're not sure if they sufficiently addressed that position, which has been a sore spot position and has fueled the Rogers dissension narrative because you specifically took a quarterback instead of one. And now you kind of addressed it. And the burden of proof really on them. Did they address it? And maybe Rogers loves the guy. Maybe Rogers watched his film and said,

you know what, I'm so happy to get this guy. We don't know that. He's probably not going to say that publicly, but maybe they feel better about it internally. I'm sure they do feel better about it internally than we are just looking at it from afar. Oh, I promise you they are. All right, let's get to a team that was in a similar spot to the Packers coming into this draft, I think, in a lot of ways.

And that's the Kansas City Chiefs. Something that was brought up by an executive that you talked to was just this chief's tendency to look at an area of weakness and say, we're going to hammer this thing over and over again in a single off season. Obviously, the most recent example is the offensive line last year. They spent multiple draft picks on it. They traded away a draft pick to go get Orlando Brown. They sat there and like, you know what?

This is not going to torpedo us. We may struggle elsewhere. This is no longer going to be a problem. And that is what they did on defense in this draft. They went and used so many of the picks, a ton of the picks that they had because they had a bunch of extras from the Tyree Kill trade. And rather than using one high one in that way to go get a replacement for Tyree Kill, they traded up to get a corner, they drafted a pass rusher,

and they waited to get a receiver in the second round. Do you think that there's validity to this approach where it's like, all right, we're going to identify our weaknesses, and we're going to do everything we can to try to solve that weakness in a single offseason, and then next offseason, we're going to move on to whatever the next weaknesses. I think that that can lead to some problems, but I understand it if I'm Brett Veach. I think it's fine for their team.

Yes. Because their team has the great equalizer in not only Patrick Mahomes, but Mahomes being with Andy Reid or the enemy that group. That's been together. So, yeah, if everyone else can't really afford to do that, you get too many other things, right? If you just like, you know what, we're just going to be good at this position. Well, it doesn't, you can't throw.

They took, they drafted seven players on defense. They drafted five DBs. including a trade-up to get Trent Mcduffey. So they are saying, damn it, this is not going to be what holds us back. And it's kind of as a GM, you've only got so many fingers to poke in these holes as the water's coming into the hole of the ship.

But their ship sails so high in the water that less water gets in, right? Anyway, so they're seeing this one hole that's a real problem. They're like, we are patching this thing, seven different ways. And the offensive line, they did that. I mean, can you think of a team

that's done what they did for their offensive line in such a short period of time with the number one free agent guard at 16 million a year in Joe Tuny. The trading for the tackle who's going to find good money. I forgot about Joe Tutti. And drafting two guys. Yes. We forgot about the number one free agent in his position.

They didn't just go sign a guard. They went and got the number one guy. I was going to say, you know, the Chargers last year, they got Matt Filer and Corey Wensley and they drafted Rayshon Slater. But it's definitely more extreme with what the Chiefs did, 100%. And it worked. And the players are good. Yes, this is like the Vikings signed Steve Hutchinson and draft Twitter guys and trade for somebody.

You know, that's what they did. That's exactly the point that I would make about what Mahomes gives them. It's just such a foundation of stability where you just have this thing you can rely on in terms of quality of play. He's got a 10-year contract. He's got a play caller. at just a level of comfort within the offense where it's just so rock solid and it allows you to be a little bit more urgent in the ways that you approach some of these other things. You can plan. Yes.

You can plan years in advance if you want to. And that's such an advantage when you have these other teams where, I don't know if the quarterback's going to be here a year from now or two years from now or what the deal is going to look like for the quarterback. that consistency and certainty they have on that end is so important to them. And I think it's why, we'll get to them in a second, I don't want to get ahead of ourselves. But I think it's why the moves the Saints are making now are just fundamentally different to me than they were when Sean Peyton and Drew Brees were there. When you have that certainty of how good your offense is probably going to be

and how reliable the play you're going to get from the most important position is, I think it allows you to be a little bit crazier with some of the stuff that you do. And when that goes away, I think some of this knee-jerk stuff that a team like the chiefs can probably get away with and a team like the Saints could get away with for a while, it can expose you a little bit more in a scarier way than it did in years past. Yep. I agree completely. I think it's fascinating. And that's why there's not one team-building plan for everybody. You're in a different state.

that's why we're critical of some teams for like we're critical of the Saints, which we will talk about for behaving as if they're the Chiefs. They're not the Chiefs. They're the Saints basically did what we thought the Packers maybe should do, right? In terms of going and getting a wide receiver. And you look at what the Chiefs did and moving up for Trent McDuffie. And you alluded to where Randy had Trent McDuffie ranked me. You thought he was the best corner in the draft, right?

He liked him. He likes the versatility. Yeah. And I think that there are a lot of people that thought he was the third best corner, but that there was a band of three corners. So even if Kyrielem ends up going 23rd, and I guess he wouldn't have even been in range if they had not moved up. But let's, for example, somebody like Roger McCreary or Kyra Gordon or Andrew Booth,

these guys going the second round, could the chiefs have just waited and picked off one of those guys, one of their first round picks? Yes. But if you think that there is a band of players at a certain position that I need to go up and make this move because the drop off in tier is that significant. I understand that line of thinking. I think there's some credence to that line of thinking. And I actually think that there is a history that shows us that line of thinking can be correct.

We can identify bands of talent better than we can identify the differences between individual players. And I appreciate you using bands instead of tiers. I feel like too many people are saying tears. I don't know why. No, I'm just kidding. But I do, I agree with that completely. And I think that player for them, like internally, they have to know, can we evaluate the bands of players? How has this gone in the past when we've done this, right?

And if they know internally that they have a good record of being able to identify where those cliffs are, then they can feel even better about doing this. And McDuffie doesn't seem to be a high-risk player. It seemed like the reason he wasn't taken higher was, you know, he doesn't have. just amazing size or he's not just an incredible physical specimen but i don't think there's concerns about him right there there's not some fatal flaw to him i don't think all right let's get to miami here so much to chew on in the dolphins section of this piece that you wrote whether the hill trade is actually better than we thought it might be because of the talent drop off

in the first half of the second half of the first round in this draft, why it's important to deal picks when you know what those picks are going to be. And I think that's why the move that a lot of these teams made, the dolphins for Tyree Kill, the Raiders for Devante Adams, I think those two specifically, trading away a first and a second round pick instead of a first round or in a future first round or something like that, because you know what the picks are going to be. So I think all of that was really worth chewing on.

But the thing that jumped out to me the most was this question of, okay, are the dolphins really dangerous now? Like, after all this movement, after all these picks that they spent, after all this money they spent, their cash spending is right up there at the top of the league this season in a ways that you typically see from a team trying to win the Super Bowl. Are we confident the dolphins are in that group of teams? Like, where in the NFL do the dolphins sit right now

with all of the aggressiveness that they've shown in the last two months. Just remember, it may not be all about this year because. And I don't think it is. While they're putting, you know, certainly Tua, they're going to give them every best chance they've got. Unfortunately, their social media department doesn't know which plays from practice to put on Twitter. It was my favorite moment of the week. It was so, so great. The reaction it looks from everyone was amazing.

There were people who are just laughing their asses off. And then obviously there's the two and on crowd that is going to defend him at every single turn being like, I can't believe that you're, you think this is bad like da da da da da, he's wearing a bucket hat. Yeah. It's it was such a perfect. The draft is over. What is football content moment? I really enjoyed it. Yeah.

I think we've, we have sensed in recent years from an ownership level, though, that they're going to be in on considering Deshaun Watson or what to whatever degree you believe that Tom Brady. stuff, right? I think they're getting as many good players as they can. They still do have some draft capital for the future, and they'll be in the middle of whatever the quarterback thing is next year. And so that's why I think you could say, wait a minute, you're getting Tyree Kiel. That was one of the criticisms in the piece. You're getting these guys. What is Tui just going to throw a bunch of five-yard passes to them and watch them break tackles? That's fair, if this is only about this year. But I just feel like it's probably not only about this year. They still are in position to be looking for a quarterback and they'll get a full evaluation of two of this year.

I think that's exactly what I think. So the fact that other people might be along those lines and that's the feeling that you have coming away from those conversations, that's good because that's how I'm seeing this as well. All right. Let's get to the Minnesota Vikings, a team that, like you said and you wrote in the story, hard to pin down based on what they did. I mean, so many trades down.

With first year front offices, I'm always curious what the perception of them is from other people. So when you were talking to other people about the Vikings and what their draft plan was, what was kind of the synopsis of Kuezio Dufo Menza's first draft in Minnesota and what it says about how they might go about this. There's universal acknowledgement. He's incredibly smart. I mean, everybody respects that about him and knows that. I think one of the questions was how well would all be married up with their own personnel evaluations and what the coaches want and all of that. when you're making so many trades without it. I think with most of the trades,

a lot of the trades you can kind of see what was trying to be accomplished. This felt like, hey, we're just, we feel like we're just winning these trades by one or two percent, so why not do them? Why wouldn't you accept a deal to do it? And I think there was some criticism of that, that, hey, that sounds good, but that's not really necessarily how you get the guys,

the players that your personnel department and coaching staff are going to be most excited about, right? Is there maybe a little bit more of a balance in there? So I don't think anyone's looking at the players they picked and saying, oh, they did great or terrible. But, you know, they, the value they got for moving down from the 12th pick, they basically, the way I framed it is in exchange, they received the 34th pick in exchange for moving down 20 spots twice.

They moved from 12 to 32 and from 46 to 66, basically. and they got less than what the old-fashioned, whether it's the Jimmy Johnson chart, you know, would have said you'd get from that, which the analytics person, Quasi, would say, well, you have because people overvalue these picks. But somebody else might say, okay, did you just unnecessarily take a discount and define yourself as somebody who's willing to just trade down at a discount because we don't really value these picks? Does that benefit the Vikings?

I'm wondering if they thought this draft only happened. has 10 players. And we don't want to be at that 14th spot. We would much rather be in that 30 to 80 range where there's just a lot more players that we feel comfortable getting and we think there's value. How much difference is there between Kyle Hamilton and Lewis seen where in our minds, getting that 34th pick to move down those 20 spots is worth whatever the difference in those two players might be.

Absolutely. And some of the evaluators would rather have Lewis seen anyway. Yeah. So that could be a good defense of it. That could be a good defense of going from 12 down to 32. I don't know. It felt like, I mean, the flip side of that is, hey, wasn't everyone saying there was 14 to 16 top players in this draft and you just traded yourself all the way out of it? Well, maybe they felt it was 10. I don't think everyone thought there were 14 to 16 players in the draft. I think that I could definitively say that not every front office that thought there were 14 to 16 players in the draft. Right. So they were right on that, they were right on that fringe of it, right? Yes. So, you know, we'll see. I mean, I don't think there was over criticism, but it was noted.

It was noted the amount of trading without being able to see exactly what it was they were trying to get always. And they're trying to do this thing, this competitive rebuild thing, where they balance winning now and also trying to build for the future. and that's hard to do. And talking like we did before about, all right, does every move you make fall within this one theme? And if it doesn't, is that a good or bad thing?

Them signing Kirk Cousins and that deal the way that they did, that's a win now move, them trading back in the ways that they have, I think is a, let's think about what the next two to three years of this looks like. So they're trying to do both of these things at the same time. And that can be a difficult balancing act to pull off. And I'm okay with it, really.

I think it's okay. for them to look at this NFC and say, let's not just, we don't have to just get terrible right away. That's easier said than done. You want them to get rid of cousins this half season. So who are they going to get? Totally.

And pick it, you know, so I'm okay. I'm okay with how they played their cards in general. Yeah, I tend to agree with that. Okay. Let's get to the Saints. We don't have to spend a ton of time on this. I just thought it was wild that other, like people in the league were talking about the Saints like us analytics nerds on Twitter.

to talk about the Saints. I'm absolutely going after them for some of these trades that they made up the draft. Well, God, it took me a while. I had my draft calculator out trying to figure out what it was. In fact, I'm buying time right now, Robert, to go to what it was that, what was the net trade? I've got it in, I've got it in the piece here. I think it was the, they traded the equipment of, I want to say the 28th overall pick. Well, but to get the two players they got, Alave and Penning, they, they,

They gave up 1898, 101, 120, 237, plus their 223 first and 224 second. Jesus. That's a lot for those two players. Now, it's interesting because I asked Randy about this on our podcast, and he made it a point that I hadn't really thought of, which was in the position they're in with being so leveraged on the cap, there's really no other way than this that they can get what they think are elite players. So if you're about adding elite pieces and not about buying lottery tickets, right?

If you want to get elite building block pieces, they can't be in the free agent market for Tyreek Hill and pay them $30 million, right? They can't be in free agency buying the most expensive tackler guard. So what do they do? They spend a bunch of draft capital to get a lot of. who they think is that in penning, who they apparently think is that. But I don't think it's universally thought of by others that those guys are that, especially penning. So, here they are.

That's the problem with thinking that way is that you can't necessarily identify the elite pieces. Oh, yes, they can, they say. But then they point to their 2017 draft where they draft for those guys by not trading up. It was five years ago. It was five years ago. They've done fine. It's not like the rest of their drafts have been some abomination. But it's not

I have a hard time with it. And somebody Somebody was like How dare you talk about the Saints? Somebody on Twitter recently How dare you talk about the Saints? Like the 17 draft of some sort of aberration. Like look at all these hits that they've had.

And they listed Marcus Davenport as one of them. As a hit? Yes. And it's like, do you think Marcus Davenport is worth two first round picks based on what he's been for them? He's fine. Like he's a good player. But for what they paid for him,

I wouldn't say that that's a value. And so I just don't think there are not that many examples of them having solved this better than everyone else has. And we can't operate that way. I remember earlier we talked about the Ravens and I had their last three drafts ranked by A.V. I did it for the Saints too. And it's Eric McCoy, Chauncey Gardner Johnson, Caesar Ruiz. Those are the only guys with double-digit AV to last three drafts. So we'll see.

Well, they've only drafted six guys in the last three drafts. You're right. That's part of the problem. You're right. Yeah, that's funny. It might be 15 guys in the last three. Well, that would be not counting this year. But yeah, it's a slow number.

We joke. But in the 2019 and 2020 drafts combined, they drafted 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 players. They drafted 9 players in the course of two drafts. The Ravens have said publicly many times, we want at least 11 picks in every single draft. And the Saints had two players across two drafts or nine players across true drafts. It's amazing. Yeah.

Again, going back to teams to handle this stuff differently. And maybe they're going to get a one for Sean Payton and go get their quarterback next year. I don't know. We'll see. Well, they're paying James Winston a decent amount of money. And if they don't think James Winston's good enough to win with, a lot of the moves that they just made don't make a ton of sense to me. What are they waiting out? They're going to say, okay, Brady's going to be gone.

Hopefully after this year. and then we'll have James Winston dominating the division, whereas Carolina still looks for theirs and Atlanta, whatever. I don't know. We'll see. A couple more teams that wanted to hit here. The Eagles, we talk so much about the AJ Brown trade. I don't think we have to do a ton of revisiting of that as it relates to Philadelphia. I get why they would want to do it.

The point that was made about Jeffrey Lurie from an executive that you talked about, you're so good at bringing this up and reminding me of it. and just the importance your owner's mentality and willingness to be aggressive has as a way that some of these teams can operate. How often does that idea come up when you're talking to executives about the way that they and other teams operate? The fact that your owner being on board with how you're going to do business ultimately dictates the way that you can handle some of stuff. Yeah, it does a fair amount.

I think it's something that, you know, he's taken for granted. And as I said earlier, it's hard to compare everybody the same. Compare all the GMs or, right? Everyone's in a different situation. And I think the things that Philly's been able to do with that ownership willing to spend, and like we said, eat Carson Wentz's contract, is, differentiates him from some other teams and owners. And even the Rams to some extent, we're willing to eat got, got's contract, right? I mean, you have to be willing to do these.

You have to be willing to say, you know what, we made a mistake. It was really expensive. Let's go. Let's not recoil into a ball. let's go big again. And so here they are. I do think it's a great point on Lurie. And, and, you know, he's almost, he's almost a little Eddie de Bartolo-ish, right? That way, doesn't have the five Lombardes, but he's got one now, and they're right back in the middle of it. The Eagles are eighth in cash spending this season. And when you look at cash-to-cap ratio,

they're right up there near the top of the league. And if that's right in a group of teams that a lot of them trying to win the Super Bowl, you know, Browns are number one. The bills are number two, Saints are number three, Rams are number four. The Jets are number five. And like you alluded to in the piece, we're not going to talk about the jets at length. But there was a certain urgency that permeated their moves that had not in years past. I think you see that with the amount of money that they've thrown around. And the Eagles are right there.

The Chargers are 10th. I think the Chargers are not usually in that conversation, but they fancy themselves a contender right now. And you look at a team like the Chargers and you compare that to a team like the Colts, who has a ton of draft capital, but they're in the bottom third of the league in cash spending. and they're probably going to be in that range a lot of years because of the way that they typically do business. So the ground from which these teams operate,

I think is more different than outside perception is often willing to admit. Absolutely. Or you don't even really appreciate it or understand it. Nope. I know for a way, it's taken me, still I have to remind myself of it. Well, I'm thinking, well, they have $80 million in Capspace.

Why aren't they spending $80 million? And it's because you have to spend $8,000. $80 million. Like, it's still $80 million. It's not just a number on a spreadsheet somewhere. Ultimately, the money has to get paid out. And you have to have someone willing to do it. There's budgets that are not always the same as the salary cap.

Yes. These are companies. And they have budgets the same way any company does. And I think that's really important to remember. All right. Last thing I wanted to talk about is related to one of these teams. I love this game. when you were talking to people about the Titans,

this idea was floated to you about the Titans, hypothetically, trying to deal Derek Henry instead of A.J. Brown and what that might have looked like. When you first heard that, I have to imagine you're just sitting there

with a smile on your face. Like, this is amazing because that's, I love those sorts of conversations when they come up. I do too. I love that. This is the part that I love more than, that's why when I do this,

I don't have, there's no letter grades on here, right? This is ideas. This is hopefully a form for ideas. And I love that one too because I was actually doing radio in Tennessee this morning. We were like, okay, but what could you get? They already, their identity is wrapped up in being this tough Mike Vrable, Derek Henry, and A.J. Brown football team. They're tough.

That's how they play. That's how they win. If you get rid of A.J. Brown, you lose some of that. if you get rid of Henry, you lose a lot of it, but maybe it was the right time to do it. He just had a foot injury. He's a bigger guy. Are we going to start seeing him miss seven, eight games a year? The end is coming at some point, the way he runs, certainly. Could you have done it? On the flip side, what could you get for him? Who, with his salary, he's going to be 28 or he's 28 in that range?

Would that be worth it to do and pay A.J. Brown? Would Pete Carroll have given up a pick, one of those second round picks for him? Would that? be worth it to you to do it? You'd be a totally different team, but they're going to have to shift at some point. It's going to happen to them. Could they have gotten in front of it? I don't know what the answer is,

but I love the possibilities. No team in the league is giving up a first and a third round pick for Derek head, right? No, I mean a second round pick. Yeah, but I would say no team. You're getting more for A. Yeah.

You're getting more for Aja Brown. Yeah. And also the players available. I don't think that Chalon Burks is the ready-made a.J. Brown replacement that he's being made out to be by some people. I think that he has further to go in just some of the technical aspects of the position, his understanding of what he's allowed to do, even when you compare him to AJ Brown as a rookie. And that's something that came up recently in a conversation I was having. I was like, all that's good to know, you know, that he's probably

not going to be able to hit the ground running and do all the same stuff or even a modicum of the same stuff that AJ Brown did, even as a rookie for what that offense looks like. So I think that's important to keep in mind when we're thinking about expectations. But the players available, if you could replace him in that range and what you could get for him in a trade, I think that I get going with AJ Brown. But if you could get a second round pick for Henry and just roll and pay AJ Brown and not worry about it, that's the door I would have opened for sure. Yeah, pay him and then take one of those backs in the second round if you really love, if you really wanted to have one. Or maybe you wait a little bit. But you could probably get a starting running back with the pick for Derek Henry, be a lot cheaper at the position.

and move on with a 24-year-old AJ Brown in the prime of his career. Yep. I'm with you on that. And Derek Henry right now, $6 million in dead cap, if he would be traded. So it's not like you're taking on a huge amount of money. And what does he have, at best, two more years there? Would you say at best? Yeah.

He's a free agent after the 20-23 season. He'll be 30. Yeah. They won't be doing a big deal. I totally would have been fine with that. I'm also wondering, just to wrap up here before we talk about how much money Tom Brady's about to make. What were your kind of takeaways and thoughts?

I'm sure you asked everybody about this, this wide receiver market and what's driving the movement? Teams willing to move on from some of these guys, the glut of players available in the draft. Just give me like kind of two or three takeaways from the chats you've had about where that position stands and where the market on it sits right now. For a long time, that position was stuck. You go back to Larry Fitzgerald,

was at the top or a couple guys were there forever. It was him and Calvin Johnson. Those were like the two guys. They were in a league of their own. And that was, I think, driven in part. And it's important to remember this where they started getting paid because those guys were top three picks in the old CBA where based on where they were drafted, they're already at the top of the market.

And so even that is inflated in a way that is a little bit misleading. Yep. And then I think for a long time it's been Julio Jones. He was sitting there at 22. And there were some other deals that came up big. And people talked about Christian. Kirk and this and that. But I think that once his, once these really top guys started getting new deals, they were going to come in above that. And so now we've seen a shift depending on how you value

these deals where it's almost like a plate tectonics, man. When that plate shifts, it moves a lot. Sometimes it moves a lot all at once after being incremental or not moving as much for a long time. And I think now teams are, now that it's moved to the level that it's at, teams have to ask themselves the question, is this too big of a puzzle piece? There's, as I wrote in this, there's two teams in the league that have top five APYs at quarterback and wide receiver, Buffalo and the Raiders.

So if you have a paid quarterback, do you feel comfortable doing now a top five paid wide receiver? Well, maybe you do if you think this person's Tyree Kill and they're an absolutely incredible talent. But if it's AJ Brown, even if it's a little bit of an older Devante Adams and we're a bit pinched right now, how high are you willing to go

to get what necessarily isn't maybe Julio Jones, right? And I think that's a calculus that's different depending on the makeup of your team, where you're at for Philly. Have you struggled to draft guys, right? Do you just need to, how desperate or eager are you to get a fix to get a sure thing at that position versus are you willing to take a little bit of a chance? Like Tennessee, they're constructed around the run game a little bit more. Maybe they feel okay taking a little bit of a chance on the position.

So not everyone's going to be willing to do that. Whereas I think if the market had stayed at 22 was around there, I think a lot of teams would be willing to do Devante Adams at 22, or the Green Bay would have, right? Or Tyree Kill almost got done as it was. He almost got done with Kansas City as it was. So it just a little bit of a little bit. It went beyond where everyone's necessarily able or willing to go.

Yeah, or comfortable. And I think that makes sense. I will say the only reason to me that A.J. Brown is not worth paying at the top of the market of that position is injury. It is the only reason. In terms of how dynamic he is as a player compared to Tyreek Hill, sign me up every single day for AJ Brown making top of the market receiver money based on the player he is purely.

But he's missed time. And if he's going to miss time and continue to miss time, that would be the only drawback for me. But what he is on the field, I think he's as worth paying as any receiver in the league right now. I struggled with that for Tennessee just going like, One of the discussions I had on that day was, okay, then who do you want to pay on that team? If you had to pick one guy on each side of the ball to hit your wagon to for the next five years,

it's going to be Simmons up front on defense, and A.J. Brown, right? Yes. He's 24. That's who you would pay. So if you can't pay him, who are we going to pay? And the answer is a combination of other guys. But they're going to know more about him. Maybe there's reason to not like him as much as we like them. But that's hard to let a 24-year-old talent go out your door.

I think it, the being on the field aspect to it is the only one. I think that's the only point of hesitancy, even from people there about what he, about why you wouldn't want to pay him. In terms of his on the field production, I think they believe he was as good as we believed. But when you think about the market and his availability, those are the drawbacks and concerns. All right. Last thing. We have not talked about this. I want to talk about very briefly before we get out of here.

What was your reaction to Tom Brady making 37.5 million? to call some football games. Why didn't I think of this before? Because Tom Brady always seems to have a plan. It's a ton of money. I don't know if that the Fox started to put out a statement saying, well, yeah, he's coming on, but I don't know. He's an ambassador.

It's an ambassador. But I think it's such a genius move by him because all he's done, it doesn't mean he has to do it for the next 10 years and doesn't have better options. If that's the money, he set his floor. Yes. He set his floor. What a great floor to have. That's where he starts.

he's not going in and making a transition and going to media training or or trying to find his way or he's going to go be the next analyst in ESPN studio shows he goes right to the top and it's almost like you know how when people are coming out in the draft that teams are willing to draft a quarterback number one without really knowing if he's the next John Elway we don't know how great Brady's going to be that's the that's the amazing part about this he might be bad at it He may not even enjoy it. It's so awesome for him. It's so great for him.

If it's $375 million and he's made through this year, $333 million in his career, $708 million for what would be a 30-year career in football. It's awesome. And it's great for the other analysts in those chairs, too, because we thought that number went crazy with Romo going to 18 and then whatever Akeman got. Now it's just astronomical. cool. So I wonder what Peyton Manning's thinking. I would love to be, and I'm sure that there's some validity to wanting to do this. I would love to be a fly on the wall in some of these meetings at Fox or Amazon or some of these places. Just hearing the reasons why it's so important to spend that amount of money to have the right guy in that chair. At first glance, I just don't know

that it is, but listening to the reasoning as to why they think it is, I would love to hear what that conversation is. Clearly branding. It's branding clearly. And it's like, I agree. No one, I even thought of this when, you know, when Aikman made the move. It's like, look, no matter what you think of Akeman, people are going to watch the games at a certain number.

The announcer isn't necessarily moving on any one game basis. I think we can all agree that, right? If they suddenly had a different announcer, it's not going to change. necessarily, but the branding these companies have in tying their brand to a certain person has value to them. And I don't know how you measure that. Maybe they know how to measure that. And the different opportunities and doors that are opened and credibility that they get. It's kind of like when when Fox came into the NFL in the beginning. And got Madden. Yeah. And got Madden. They just went to Madden and ended up being an amazing investment for them. Now, he was a proven commodity as an

an announcer who had an announcing brand. I guess that's it, right? It's not about can we get this many more people to tune into the game? You know, can we, it's about Fox is the NFL. Look at who's in the booth. It's the greatest player of all time. And being able to wield that, I'm assuming, has immense value to them or they wouldn't do something like this.

Because really, they benefit more from the partnership than he does, right? Would you rather be, Tom Brady has this impeccable reputation and brand as the ultimate winner, the ultimate winner and competitor who everybody wants to play with and be a part of. Fox wants that. And Fox isn't that. Fox now has that. So I'm sure there's, to some degree, there's, you know, the egos get involved of the executives and the top people. And damn it, we want them and we want to be associated with Brady. And there's probably some of that.

maybe you can't prove that he's worth that to them in dollars. But what is their NFL brand worth? It also strikes me as what a bet this is on a league that at various points over the last 10 years has been perceived to be vulnerable in different ways. It's not. It's not. That bet that's being made, like no one's even talking about what this is about the league. The league is an ATM with an unlimited well of money that just can't.

Keeps coming out. Listen, sounds good to me. Yeah, I guess I'm going to want to continue covering the NFL. I think that's fine with me. I do this all the time. A lot of talk about football. So I'm not upset that that tends to be the direction this is heading. Mike Sandow, always so good to chat with you.

Really, really enjoyed this. Appreciate the time. And thank you again for all of the work on the football GM. When you guys ultimately come back, we're all going to be better for it. I really, really appreciate it. My pleasure. Thanks so much, Robert. Appreciate it.

All right, guys, just a heads up. We're not going to have a show tomorrow. I don't know if you guys saw my tweet or those of you that did. It's in the mid-80s in my house right now because our air conditioner is broken. It's 90 degrees outside in Chicago. So we're going to move likely to a friend's house or a hotel or something like that. In the meantime, as our stuff is getting repaired. And that means that I'm not going to be a position to do a show for tomorrow.

So hopefully that's okay with you guys. It pains me to not do one. But I think this is ultimately the best outcome here. We're going to have a bunch of shows next week, perhaps an extra one. We're going to figure that out. So we'll try to make this up to you in some way, shape, or form here over the next week or so. In the meantime, I hope you guys enjoyed the show. I really appreciate you listening.

Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice would mean a lot to me. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show. It's where you can read Mike's piece talking to all these execs about the draft classes and a ton more great NFL coverage. You cannot follow the league without a subscription to the athletic. So I highly recommend you get one if you do not have one.

We will be back next week on Tuesday with our next mailbag. So please send in your questions. Athletic Football Show at gmail.com. And we will try to answer as many as we can on next week's show. In the meantime, enjoy your guys' weekend. Appreciate you listening. We'll talk to you later. This was the Athletic Football Show.