The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: A dicey TNF, play calling duties in Carolina and a look at personnel in the NFL

Episode Date: October 21, 2023

Interesting takeaways from TNF. Concerning issues in Philly. A look at the Chiefs receiving core. WR Julio Jones finds a need home with the Eagles. Frank Reich handling over play calling duties. Mike and Randy discuss this along with Aaron Rodgers, teams with personnel issues, and Week 7 picks. Then, The Athletic NFL writer Dan Pompei joins Mike to discuss their book "The Football 100," profiling the 100 greatest players in NFL history. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast. Mike Sando here from The Athletic, along with my colleague, my partner in podcasting. Randy Mueller, how you doing, Mr. GM? Doing great, Mike. Great stuff to talk about this week. Got a trade deadline coming up not too long from now. I love it.

You know, when you're a GM, you don't get to. You have to sit on your hands these first six or seven weeks. There's very little you can do for helping your team. And so I always felt like when the trade deadline started to get even a little bit insight that we would go to work and try to figure out some way to make our team better. Nowadays, GMs are way more willing to make deals than they were 10 years ago. So I'm anxious to see what happens on the trade deadline. And that'll be a good topic for next week, I'm sure. Well, I know a good column too.

You wrote a column recently going through some of the things that you think are important for GM at this time of the. year. I've got to say, though, I bet you'd enjoy being a GM even more now because of that climate, right? I mean, if you're always trying to make deals, you want to have teams that'll do deals, right? That's how you can really make your team better, right? Yeah, no doubt. And, you know, like I say, 10 years ago, even 15 years ago, I remember getting a call from Ron Wolf one time leading up to the trade deadline. He was the GM of the Packers at the time. And I said, what are you calling me for, Ron? He said, you're the only guy that actually will listen to consider a deal, you know. He said, we can't find anybody to make deals at all. So I took that as a

compliment. And yeah, but nowadays you're right. People are willing to to strike deals. They're willing to be creative in how they create deals. And I think those are kind of fun too because you have salaries now that you have to kind of sort out as well. It was funny. The the biggest deals that have happened the last three weeks are the newest nuance of trading players for a cup of coffee, right? It's a player, a player and a seventh round pick for a sixth round pick from the acquiring team, and we've seen three of those the last two weeks. It's crazy. It's the new Starbucks for a player for a Starbucks. No, no, what this is is, hey, look, we made a mistake here. Yeah. But we're getting, we didn't have to cut the guy. We're saving face, so we're going to

switch four spots in the seventh round and we traded them. Isn't that all this is? Yeah, it's cosmetic. I'm not sure, and you'll know this name, the old time Joel Bussert, who ran the league office personnel department for 50 years. He would have probably called and said, wait a second, guys, I know what you're trying to do here. This isn't enough to make a trade, you know. He always used to tell us, you got to give something up to get something. You know, and the line is a little blurred now as to value. And yes, technically there is a little value from moving from the seventh round up to the bottom of the sixth round.

But, you know, it's not much. It's not much. It's not much. You're right. It's hard to find the paper trail. We can't figure out exactly what happened. Did they cut that guy? No, no.

Oh, they traded them. They traded them. Oh, so I guess it wasn't that bad of a move when they signed them to all that money because they only ended up trading when they got some value, right? Yeah. How long have Denver wanted to cut Frank Clark? I mean, that's been on the books. Is he still on their team? I don't even know where he is. They said they were going to cut him two weeks ago in hope that someone would give him a cup of coffee deal and that I don't think it's happened yet, but I don't even know. It's now you say you're going to cut somebody And it's a veiled threat to make one of these cup of coffee deals. Yeah, and maybe they can switch a seventh round pick in seven years from now, you know,

and really get something out of that deal. Unbelievable. So, hey, the Thursday night game gave us some interesting stuff to talk about. Jaguars 3124. Man, I thought that would have been a tough loss if the Jaguars lost that. Wouldn't it have been? I mean, that would have been. They let them hang around, too.

You're right. It got dicey there. Some fourth downs involved. One of the things I, this isn't in our. our agenda initially, but one of the things, you know, last week when Philly threw that interception on third and nine, remember when they could have just sort of punted and played conservatively and probably won the game against the Jets. They would have had the Jets with no timeouts, about a minute left in the game inside their own 15 and said they tried to go for it.

I was getting some texts from some of my, you know, guys that have been around in the league a long time saying, hey, have we gone too far with some of this stuff of always trying to be aggressive? And I had that thought a little bit last night when the Jaguars, you know, with Doug Peterson coming from Philly where they've really been at the forefront of trying to get a little bit of advantage here or there, you know, by not just doing the old traditional, hey, we're going to punt all the time on forked down. And I think the Eagles have gotten good value by being aggressive. They've got a great plan for it. They've been very successful with their short yardage packages. So, hey, more power to them. But when the Jaguars had that, gave them the short field there,

I had that thought a little bit. Did you? Oh, yeah. I mean, it's become hard now. to wind the clock. Nobody wants to do it. And there are many times in football, as we both know, we've seen a lot of things happen over the years where winding the clock is more important than scoring points. And I always go back to, it's probably the main reason why Mike McCarthy and Dallas moved on from Kellynne Moore. And that was really what he was trying to say is that when we get the lead, I want to wind the clock as much as I can. I don't necessarily want to have my foot on the gas all the time. Now, you can dispute that that's not the way to go. And I'm sure analytics tells you it's not. But there's a lot to be said for winding the clock, reducing possession

time for the opponent, giving them less chance to score. And the situational football is really the hard part for these analytics charts and things to really come into focus. You've got to consider where the situation is in the game and kind of the momentum and how it's going. You know, we're going to talk about the Thursday night game, that gets me thinking of that end of that Eagles game. So the Eagles against the Jets were leading 14 to 12, right? I think they were leading 14 to 12 late in the game. They let the Jets score. Do you see that play?

They let the Jets run it in. They didn't try to tackle the guy. Right. He just ran right at the middle. And so the idea was, hey, we're going to get the ball back with more time and two timeouts left. You know, they're not going to bleed our timeouts down here and kick a field goal and we get the ball back with hardly anything down at once.

So they do all of that, right? they let them score, so now they're down, I believe. They got down 20 to 14 because the Jets went for a two point and got it. But you had 146 left and two timeouts. So now you've got some flexibility at 146 and two timeouts. You do need a touchdown, but it's not Hail Mary situation. You can run a couple of plays here that are normal plays. You can mix in some normal plays, right?

Because you can set the clock. Well, they go pure dropback three plays in a row with a back-up right tackle. And it looked so bad. I mean, they had no chance. Did you see that? Right. It was just an interesting extenuation of it. It was like, hey, you've got this plan of how to have more time left.

You get the more time left and then you just implode. It was just interesting to me a little bit. Easy to have answers right, the next day and the next week and all that. Yeah, we're going to talk about the Eagles offense here in the next set. But there's a lot to break down there for sure. Yeah. Okay. So those are some interesting things.

Jaguars 31, Saints 24. I got a little slot here for Randy Takeaways. what do you got? Well, I think the game itself was a typical Thursday night game. I hate to beat up on Thursday night football, but they're becoming more of a burden for teams than I think the viewers deserve to see. I didn't like the Saints energy. I didn't like the way they kind of sleepwalk through the first half. I thought Jacksonville was the better team throughout that. But I just don't love what I'm seeing with the Saints offensively. I mean, you can see it doesn't take anybody with any brains to see that they're frustrated, that they're snapping at each other, that, you know, Kamara's back, the running back album,

Camara's back, but he's back as a receiver only, very little running inside, can't break a tackle, kind of a softer version of Kamara, I think, because he's trying to stay healthy, and I get it. And they were challenged last night with having their tackles out due to injury. I get that. But their wide receivers and Derek Carr are. about opposite ends of the book, not on separate pages. It's clear to me that they are not communicating well. Their routes really aren't adjusting to coverages that they face. And when I say adjusting, a lot of times we'll have routes that depending on the coverage will be different things.

And the receivers and the quarterback have to see it together the same way. And that clearly isn't happening. I saw the Saints throw a lot of what I would call back to the coverage routes. In other words, turn routes, curl routes, things where the receiver's coming back to the ball to catch him. It is very hard to get big plays. It's very hard to get chunk plays when the receiver is facing the quarterback and coming back at you. In other words, he's got to catch it and break a tackle. And it wasn't until late in the game where they started to get the ball to some people that were on the move where they could actually run after the catch. They're tied ends. I mean, we saw the end of the game. I felt bad for the kid that dropped a touchdown at the end of the game.

But those checkdowns that are tied ends are actually, in my opinion, less than if if we were doing it with a fullback. You know, and those are old school plays of, if we're going to throw a checkdown, the guy ought to be able to break an arm tackle. And the poor Saints are just undermanned. So, you know, it just didn't seem right. I think their running game is lacking.

You know, they drafted a running back in the third round from TCU, Kendra Miller, who played a little bit in the Tampa game early in the season. I thought, geez, they've had hit on a guy. He's a beast. He can run hard. He can also catch the ball. I've seen nothing of him the last two or three weeks. They're having some struggles. Clearly you saw Carr's frustration with the offensive coordinator. I don't know what's going to change. I really think Jacksonville is a good team. Obviously, their defense played good. Defense is hard to block and hard to scheme against because their players are so athletic, they can out maneuver your best plays and your best offensive schemes. So, you know, it was probably a matchup that in my opinion shouldn't even have been that close. The fact that the Saints hung around.

There's a blood for a while. Saints hung around and for whatever reason Jacksonville kind of turned it over a time or two and let the saints hang around. But I think the Saints are after looking in the mirror here. They've got some issues, especially on the offensive side. And before long, the defense is going to feel it because they're not scoring points. Now, I say that and they got 30 last night, but it seemed like there was a lot of things that happened late that changed the complexion of the first three and a half quarters. I want to talk about Derek Carr a little bit because we were, you know, we kind of applauded that move a little bit when they got them, just figuring, hey, in that division, You've got a good defense.

There's a bunch of teams in that division that, you know, we didn't know what they were going to have at quarterback, and they could finally sort of stabilize that position with a solid, but, you know, if unspectacular, but still a solid veteran starting quarterback, you kind of know what you're going to get. I don't want to read too much into the first six weeks of the season, but the car stuff with all the histrionics and yelling it guys.

Yeah, yeah. Really bothers me because, It's like fake tough guy vibes for me. That's not Derek Carr. Derek Carr is not a badass. He's not Dan Fouts wearing the MFIC hat. Remember that? He ever seen the MFIC hat?

You know what MF stands for? IC stands for In Charge, okay? That's the real tough guy to me. Right. Derek Carr just blasting his wide receiver who stops his rap. after Derek Carr throws the ball five yards out of bounds, there's no chance to be caught. Go lightening to the to the coordinator.

Now, you're new in this place to me. And you know who is a real guy who really has great relationships? In my opinion, is James Winston. I think James Winston really is a guy who connects with his teammates. and this is just an interesting dynamic to me. Just a little interesting. Maybe it's going to be fine. But I don't get the sense through six games.

They're better off than they were with Andy Dalton last year. They're paying $37.5 million to carve. What are the optics for you on some of these things? Not a big deal. This two shall pass. They'll be fine. They'll work it out. Or are you worried a little bit that some of these things we're seeing,

apologizing for ripping into your coordinator? really showing up teammates a little bit in the game to me in a national TV game. I didn't like it. What do you think? Overreaction? No, I think you, I think the observations are fact. I don't think you can make any, you know, other case for it. I think he is going out of his way to show leadership, whether it's authentic and natural.

I mean, who knows, but you're right. That hasn't been him in the past. I think he, and I've been in New Orleans, obviously I was there. I feel what he's where he's coming from, because. he probably sees it and hears it every day on the street. They are passionate about their team. New Orleans people especially know football. Everybody in the city is in tune to what's going on.

And I'm sure he feels some of the frustrations and he's hearing about it. And so I see a guy that's playing really tight. It's almost like, can you give him a couple shots of bourbon before the game just to relax him? I mean, that's crazy. But he's just so wound up. He's so tight. Interesting, yeah. I just wish he could let it go a little bit.

And some of it might be not believing in this scheme. Some might be obviously him and his receivers not, you know, on the same page. So that does get old. I don't know that James Winston would be an answer. I kind of felt like when Tassum Hill came in the game, they got a little juice. And I would have said early in the season, why are we playing him so much? But I would probably say now after six or seven weeks, we ought to play him more. Because there was a little energy at least, than a little bit of,

of just a little juice, you know, and some body language that I like what I see from Taysam Hill. I would say this about Carr's mechanics. He has become very mechanical, if that makes any sense. And there are certain throws I see him really struggle to make. He wants to throw the ball on a line as often as he can so the trajectory of his balls don't very much. In other words, it's tough for him to drop a ball in over underneath coverage. It's tough for him to to make some of those throws, like when you shoot a basketball and your index fingers, the last thing, it has some arc in it. It's hard for Derek to arc certain balls.

And that's just something I've noticed with him over the last few years that seems to be more prevalent this year. So not to get too deep into weeds, but there's some things there. I agree with you. There's some things. I think you're probably looking at a team that's in the quarterback market in the offseason. I really do.

Wow. Yeah. Yeah. It just doesn't look good. It doesn't look right to me. Maybe it'll settle out. But that pressure is only going to mount there in that place, right, with the expectations at an easy division to win.

And it just looks like off to the wrong start. We haven't talked a ton about Jacksonville. I just think this would have been a really tough loss for them. I think they're in a good spot. I think this extra little weekend will be great for Trevor Lawrence. I love the fact that he played. He didn't opt out and decide to rest it. And not only that, shoot, he had one of his longest runs of his career.

He couldn't really probably cut, but I thought it was a good performance by him for the most part. Got a little lucky that ball wasn't picked off. I thought it kind of was an interception by by Latimore. But all in all, I thought that's probably a win they had to have, a good one they can build off on. And I think they're sort of on schedule. Would you agree? Yeah, I totally agree. I think, you know, they've run off a string now. They're winning sometimes without their A game. These are all things that evolve your team into being a good NFL team. And I think the message he sends by playing in his locker room was loud and heard loud and clear. Everybody's hurt.

Everybody, including the quarterback, has to play in some, you know, uncomfortable situations. And I think he did that. There's a guy that's never missed a game. I don't believe he's missed a game at Clemson. And I think I read he might not have ever missed one in high school. So he hasn't been dinged a lot. He's going to get dinged longer he hangs around the NFL. So it's kind of cool to see him battle through that.

big strong dude though that can battle through that another reason why we all are looking for 6-5-2-30 when we find when we're when we're looking for quarterbacks yeah loved how he was running pretty fast for having a bad wheel i thought it was no doubt i wouldn't have said hey this guy's hampered at all no no absolutely not so great for them good for him and you know we sometimes early in the year we're like hey is this team arrived are they this or that it's just a process and i think for the jacksonville team this year has some expectations. And, you know, for the most part, nice win against Buffalo.

We know it was a tough thing for Buffalo to have to go to London. But they've notched a couple decent wins. And this was a good one to get under the circumstances. Now they can rest up and be ready to go. Let's shift gears to the Eagles. You know, and they're coming off the loss to the Jets. Normally when a 5-0 team loses a game, Randy, we sort of shrug and say, hey, long season. But this week with, it's funny, with a lot of people sort of bringing their hands over the

bill's offense, which I don't think any one of us is really that concerned about, you saw some issues in Philly that are a little more concerning than we might expect for a team, like I said, that was 5 and 0. How worried are you? What do you see? What do you make of that situation for Philly? Well, I would concur. I think, I wouldn't say what I saw was a trend.

I think the Jets have to be credited for a lot, and I'm speaking of the Jets defeating the Eagles a week ago. It was just kind of how they went about it. Yeah, everybody can say this might be a blueprint, but most teams don't have the volume of defensive players that the Jets rolled out there last week. And mind you, this was without Soss Gardner, too. So the Eagles were beaten physically in this game. The Jets finally played up to the talk of everybody saying they had a great defense. I'll be the first to say I hadn't seen it yet.

And that's probably a whole other segment of the show. But they beat the Eagles on both sides of the ball. And I know what the Eagles have been and done to others, especially that offensive line. The Jets got after him with pad level. They got after him with power. They got after him with energy. And it was a bad matchup for the Eagles. The Jets won the game at the line of scrimmage.

And I just think it's one of those cases where teams are going to try to try to do certain things to Jalen Hertz and that offense, the Jets were able to pressure him with some, I think, some crazy exotic blitzes. I don't know the numbers behind this, but I saw several kind of blitzes and packages that I said, whoa, I've never seen that before. And they played really good coverage and they played pressure man-to-man coverage on the back end. And it affected Devonthe Smith. It affected some of the running game that the Eagles have really been known for doing. And it just made me think. And when you go back and look at, I think this system that the Eagles are running has had changed now. Shane Steichen's gone. Jalen Hertz was hurt a little bit last year. I think they're really still reaching to find their comfort zone. I don't see as many RPO's run by Hertz. And I understand it. They're trying to keep him healthy. The play action pass isn't quite there. I see a lot of plays being called for longer throws, maybe he's trying to hit a home run here or there and not. using the middle of the field and running some checkdown stuff.

So I see some things that normally the Eagles don't do that they did against the Jets and maybe they were just pressured into doing it. And you mentioned the right tackle. Lane Johnson missed a portion of that game. There was also a big drop off there and they got after Jalen Hertz. The Eagles played a right tackle who was a draft pick from 2020. Big step back. Yeah, big step back.

I think Lane Johnson. if he is going to miss time, that's going to be problematic for the Eagles. So again, not at alarming, but a lot of these things are things that teams go through during the course of a year. 17 weeks is a long time. You're going to have two or three week periods where you've got to play with not your best players, and you do have to change things. But I think if you look long term at where the Eagles are after six or seven weeks,

I think we're seeing a little different offense than what we saw last year or the year before. Yes. And one of the things you've talked about is sometimes when you, when you sort of take the world by storm a little bit, you know, the defenses adjusts, and you sort of have to have another gear, right? Another option. You sort of have to have an answer,

an alternative, something you can come back with. I know you've stressed that before, and we'll see that with them. Jalen Hertz year over year. Here's just some things I looked at. As you said, they're throwing the ball further down the field on average for less yardage

with far fewer explosive canes after Hertz holds onto the ball longer, a lot longer this year than in the past, with less early down play action, a slightly lower quarterback designed rush rate, a slightly lower RPO rate, with as many Jalen Hertz turnovers through six games this season, which is eight,

as he had in the entirety of last season. So, hey, they're five and one. They've got a really good team, but those sort of vitals on him are definitely bear watching over the quarter, course of the season as they, you know, really we were waiting to see, hey, is it sort of a next step? Because I think as you've noted, like it's not like their skill personnel is worse this year. They got DeAndre Swift, right? I mean, they should be, they should, he's better than they've had.

That's right. They're almost a little better on paper, right? Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I totally agree. I think A.J. Brown is really good. Devante Smith we know is really good. DeAndre Swift is unlike anybody they've had in the past. He can play, he can run inside, outside, and edge the ball. So, yeah, I just think all of their parts aren't quite adding up to the sum that we are accustomed to with the Eagles offense. And it's a little different style, as we all know, new coordinator, feeling his oats there still. So there's just a period of adjustment here. Not really to set the alarms off, but some of the credit has to go to where the jets and how they attacked them. So no doubt. But some of those other things are trends over the whole year, too.

It's not like they just had, you know, it was just one game. So there's a few underlying things. just to keep our eye on as it develops over the course for the rest of the season, because they're obviously going to be a playoff team. They're going to be in the mix to go to the Super Bowl. So we're holding them to the standard of that they set last year. And that's fair. That's a high one.

Yeah, that's a high one. Hey, the chiefs reacquire Mikul Hardman, wide receiver. So now their receiving court consists of Skymore, Marquez Valdes, Scantling, Cadarius, Tony, Justin Watson, Hardman, and Justin Ross. I guess this might be a case, Randy, of just adding whatever you can add on the season. What do you think? Yeah, I think it definitely makes sense.

I think it's an easy move for them to make. Here's a guy that you can have show up on Wednesday and he's going to play on Sunday because he knows the system. He doesn't take two weeks of coaching him up to get him ready to go. So that's a big plus. I think his style and his skill set are obviously usable. He's been a fairly productive player for them in the past. I don't know that that's the same. skill set that I think solves the chief's issues, if we are to even say the chiefs have any

issues. But I've thought all along that the letdown that the chiefs have had are with the, and I'm not against these players. They're just probably not of the caliber that I would feel good about, Justin Watson, Valdez Scanling. You know, these guys are kind of just guys for me. And I'd love to see them still go out and maybe even add another receiver, more of a production based guy. Like, even like a Mike Evans from Tampa, not saying he's available. but we know he's had some contract issues there. Somebody like that. Another Kelsey, but at the wide receiver position,

that Mahomes can find, who has great feel for separation and spatial awareness. All these guys that they have, these young guys, like you mentioned, Tony, Rice is going to be okay, I think, as well. But these fast guys, they don't have the experience and the spatial awareness to find the soft spots.

Kelsey, the tight end, maybe Mike, as good as I've ever seen, of finding space. He's the best. I've seen at least the last 10, 15 years. So they need another guy kind of like that and then use these fast guys like Hardman, you know, Tony, to run deep and spread things out. And that's the combination that they lose a little bit without Tyreek Hill and a couple of these other guys. So I'd love to see him find another receiver somehow, a more accomplished version of Watson or Scantling. And hey, they're playing Scantling 10 million a year.

So they obviously think he can do a lot more than I do, but I just don't know that the production's been there. Yeah, so I was looking at the teams with really bad records, right? Sometimes when you're looking at, hey, who would be acquire a player from? Sometimes you look at, hey, who's out of it? Maybe not that they're looking to get worse, but maybe they have somebody who's not going to be in their plans in the future, right? And so you kind of make a little bit of a business decision.

Hey, we're not bringing them back, this season's not going great. But you look at who those teams are with the worst records. The Panthers shoot. They need receivers. or their young guy, Bryce Young's not going to do anything. The Patriots, the Giants, the Broncos, those teams need receivers. Now, Denver could move, but obviously they're in the division. Arizona has Marquis Brown in the final year of his deal with about $8 to $9 million to owe to him.

Does that do anything for you? I mean... Well, it might. Again, it's not worth the money they're paying him, but you're talking about rental in that case because he has no contract. But, yeah, unfortunately for them, and I think there's going to be a competitive market to add receiver. help over the next 10 days to two weeks.

I think it there's, you mentioned, there's several teams looking. But unfortunately for a team like the chiefs, the Jerry Judy's, Cortland Sutlands, Hunter Renfro with the Raiders, they aren't coming to the chiefs. They're not making those deals. So division teams aren't going to give another division rival, unless they just overpay to the point where they have to forget who they're trading him to, but I just don't think that's going to happen. Chiefs and Raiders have done a deal. I can't remember what it was.

Didn't they do something last year? I'd have to look. I feel like it was a draft day deal, though. Yeah, it might have been a draft trade, not for players. Yeah, going through the bad teams, though, you know, Chicago already traded Chase Claypool to Miami. Minnesota's not in position to trade anyone. They just, they're trying to hang on and they've, Justin Jefferson's hurt. Tennessee's two and four and has DeAndre Hopkins, but I don't think they're trying to get worse. I think they're going to try to

scrap and claw and stay in it. They're not enough out of it. And they've got received, they've got quarterbacks, young guys who need help. They need guys. So depending on Ryan Tannanil's situation, I guess we could ask you, the Chiefs, more at the position in this past off season or no, hey, they used a second for Rishi Rice and we'll just see how he comes along. Is that a reasonable thing? They do. It's not like they're losing every week. No, that's right. And I agree. They are coming along. I think he especially kind of holds the key to their offense, in my opinion, because Rice is a bigger body guy that can go. And so I think he's, he fits the skill set that I'm describing. I just don't know if he's

ready for prime time yet. And maybe that's their best answer. They just got to wait him out for another month and hope at the last third of the season, he's improved and ready to roll. Hey, speaking of receivers and acquisitions, I know you're super fired up about Julio Jones. How can you're laughing with Julio Jones going to the Eagles? Doesn't do it for you? Yeah, no, probably not. I mean, I like Julio Jones. I have much respect for him. He might be going into Hall of Fame someday. I get it. But a couple years ago, there was a little more tread left on the tire. I just don't know what he can do. Maybe he can send a message in your locker room that, hey, we're going to bring every veteran in here we can.

I just don't know that it feels the same impact that some of these other teams have done or to, you know, their philosophies sometimes are, as was mine, to bring a guy in, to replace a guy. Sometimes the name speaks louder. I just don't know that Julio Jones at this point is going to do it because other teams have tried. I think this would be what is third team in maybe the last couple years. Yeah. Yeah, it just hasn't happened for Julio. And, you know, maybe they'll find a way to unleash a little more left in the tank. But I think the tank's pretty close to dry.

Before we get to the jam-packed GM notebook, which I'm looking here, has seven potential items. I mean, that's a record. Seven-item-note book, unbelievable. And get to our picks after, by the way, we were combined four and no last week. So something went right for us finally. I do want to get to one other development in the league. with the Panthers coming off of their by. Frank Reich hands over play-calling duties after six weeks.

Now, Frank Reich did say from the beginning in Carolina that he would likely at some point hand over those play-calling duties to Thomas Brown, his offensive coordinator. He even said it could happen this season. I just don't think he probably anticipated handing over the play-calling after an 0-and-6 start where Carolina's average, I think, 16 points in change per game on offense. but maybe something had to be done. Thomas Brown, come on down.

What do you think? Yeah, I don't know Thomas Brown. Obviously, he comes from the Rams where he was their running back coach. He's a young guy, is 36 years old. He called plays before I did a little research at the University of Miami for three years. I did hear Andrew Whitworth on the broadcast Thursday night speak glowingly of him, and that would go a long ways towards selling me a little bit. Apparently he's a high-energy guy, really good rapport with the plane.

And the fact that he comes from Sean McVeigh school tells me he's been around one of the best play callers in the game. So I really think the offense had got to a point in Carolina where they, you're right, had to make changes. I don't know that all this bodes well for Frank Reich because he's brought there to be the offensive guru, to be the quarterback guru. It doesn't really reflect on him as well. But at least he's willing to pull the plug on himself, I guess. I don't know. It can't go any worse. They're all in six and really going nowhere right now.

now, so why not? I think it's not like they're rolling the dice. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I did think of, you know, there's been a lot this year about, you know, hey, Frank Reich talked about his meetings with David Tepper. We all know David Tepper, the owner's very involved in his opinions on what they're doing every week. And Frank tried to kind of spin that as, I thought it was a spin that as, hey, that's a positive thing. I don't think anybody wants to have weekly meetings with the owner who's got opinions on, you know, the offense and all that type of stuff. I did go back and watch. some of Reich's opening press conference when he was hired. And Teper introduced him as a man of great integrity.

He was excited to see him lead the franchise into the future. I don't think anything's changed there. But he also talked about how the final four teams in the playoffs last year had offensive head coaches. The league keeps changing rules, rewarding offense. And, hey, hiring Frank Reich was going to position the franchise really well in that context as an offensive head coach, which he can still do. It's only six games.

I just wonder now, I guess, if the offense is still really bad over the next six games, which it could be, Randy, they're not getting a, I think a lot of it's personnel based. You know, they really don't have weapons. Shoot their best weapons are playing for the 49ers and the Bears, right? Christian McCaffrey and DJ Moore. So I guess if the offense is still terrible or the same or even takes a turn, I guess you'd deal with. that when it comes along, huh? Yeah, I guess for me, Frank getting the job, and I was with Frank with the Chargers for several years, and you're right, you talk about there's no better man of integrity and a guy you want as a leader. I don't think I would put offensive innovator

at the top of that bio sheet, though. And they probably hired Thomas Brown initially to come with some new philosophy, to come with some of Sean McVe's ideas and kind of spin off his tree. I think to bring some of the philosophies that made Sean McVey what he is. So they probably thought that at some point. So I like that part. And again, this team's 0 and 6, you know. It's 0 and 6 and... Look at the GM's getting calls during the show.

The GM is not getting calls. That's ridiculous. I put mine on, Do Not Disturb. Mine is too. I can't figure it out. Well, I'm such a genius. Maybe it's from your contact. If it's from your contact, it could be let through, I don't know.

It's from my genius tech background, you know, that I can't even turn the ringer off, so I apologize. My point is, on Thomas Brown, though, he's a guy that I think can take risks. He can do some different things that Frank is really not a risk taker. He is conservative by nature. And I think that's probably what they're looking for. Plus, I think he does have a – Thomas Brown being 36 years old, has a really good rapport with the players. And I think they will buy in. right away he can get them to buy in so this team's 30 you can be down on the sideline yeah yeah you're

gonna give him some energy 30 first in the league at 5.5 yards per play per our friends at true media so we might as well try it right yep no I agree I agree we'll see how it goes can't get much worse GM notebook you wrote on this GM notebook obviously we're not going to get to all these that's in the notes Randy writes we're not going to get all these but we just might we might get to these so one of them was usually I'm accused you know sometimes right right leave of stealing from the GM notebook, but I think I contributed to the GM notebook. Well, I stole from you. I stole from you. So, yeah, Michigan sign stealing. That was definitely on my radar, Jim Harbaugh.

Who would ever think that a Harbaugh would possibly bend the rules to get an unfair advantage? I just think of like, I think of like the Harbaugh's driveway based basketball games and all those stories about Jim. I mean, Jim Harbaugh would do anything to win. I mean, it's kind of been seen as a as a ha-ha, right? Can you believe these guys? I mean, these guys are so competitive. It's un, he would, he would, he would rig the game, you know, in his driveway basketball game, if it meant beating his brother.

And everyone goes, ha, ha, ha, ha. So what do you think? Well, I laughed when I heard it, to be honest with you. But my world has been the NFL, my whole adult life. So I haven't spent any time in college. I didn't even know this would be illegal. Then when I dug in a little bit and heard they may have flown somebody. two games and there may be videotaping involved.

That's SpyGate. That's what New England did. That's the wrong part about that is that you can't do those kind of things. With regard to stealing signals, I'm here to tell you, Mike, I probably stole signals at 200 games in my career as the advance scout for the Seahawks. It was just part of the, it was job description, right? We all did that. They do it to this day.

There's a reason that these coaches talk and cover their mouth. They don't want to be, you know, lip red into submission. And so there's a lot of things. It's not as prevalent now as it is, you know, 10, 15 years ago because the players on the field have earpieces and they can talk into those before everything had to be signaled in. So this was, again, I don't know what happened, but it's an old school attempt to gain an edge, like you said. And that doesn't surprise me that Jim Harbaugh would do that. I just think it's a goofy rule by the NCAA for the most part. Unless the part of it that is really at the crux of it is the videotaping.

because NFL teams have stole signals forever. So I'm probably not the right one to say, way to go NCAA, way to stop illegal activity. Yeah. I just don't think, I have a feeling coming down the pike that the punishment is not going to fit the crime for me. That's all. I don't think it's a giant crime unless there's videotaping involved.

You know what? Another thing I thought was, you know, I don't know, Jim Harbaugh has become a little bit of a target here. He invites it somewhat to. I just wonder, you know, sometimes you wonder who's behind these sort of things. Like when Belichick got out of it, it kind of came back to, you know, Eric Mangini was sort of a

former Belichick guy and, you know, might have blown the whistle and that sort of a thing. So I just think it's interesting with Michigan having so much success. And Harbaugh being kind of a hated rival by a lot of people. Oh, you can be a target now. You can put a target on your back. There's no doubt. It's kind of interesting. Yeah, that part of it's interesting to me.

Just sort of, you know, all those types of imaginations. What else you got in our seven-item GM notebook? I'm going to call this a seven-step drop. I'm going to take that as a shot. I'm going to take it as a direct shot at the notebook. And, okay, I got it. No, it's not a shot at the notebook.

I'm not Derek Carring you. I'm not Derek Carrying you. Well, I don't know. I saw your eyes roll and you kind of put your finger up there. Ah, there was no eye roll. This is great. The notebook carries the show. It makes less work for me.

So I'm all for it. Plus, it's the better stuff anyway. So what else you got? Just another note that kind of caught my attention that I don't know gotten a lot of play outside of New York. But the fact that, that Aaron Rogers has reemerged with the Jets as a physical presence on the sidelines. I know got a lot of attention last week. He threw some balls without a boo. I actually think it is

giant. I think it's awesome. I think it's the best thing that could happen for Zach Wilson. I think that he, Zach Wilson finds peace of mind with this. He can go to Aaron still as if, you know, he was the big brother. I think, and I heard this that he texted Robert Sala about coming and he didn't want to be a distraction. And Robert Sala said, come on, we need you. I actually think Aaron Rogers helps Robert Sala as much as anybody because he kind of takes the edge off of him too. He doesn't have to be the all-knowing speak on every topic. Aaron Rogers does his fair share of setting the narrative just being on McAfee in a total different way that I was against when he was with the Packers. a total different void he's filling with the jets.

So I like the fact that he's back. I just think they can all use him as somebody to bounce things off of and just give comfort to a young team that I've thought all along is without leadership when he was in a hospital bed 3,000 miles away in California. Just my opinion. It's such an unexpected role for him. It's a role we wouldn't think he would be great in because normally to get in the backup role or sideline role you'd have to be benched or they'd have to be replacing you

with somebody else and you wouldn't like that. But in this case, it's a totally different set of dynamics. And I'm with you. All that McAfee stuff gets tiring. But I don't, I'm like, to me, the McAfee stuff, I don't even pay attention to anymore. Like, what, he's talking about this or that. It's just, that's not making the waves through anymore because he's not starting. It's not like, he's not talking about the game plan or that type of a thing.

The support role thing is interesting. And I agree with you. I think it's been a positive thing for them. And we talked about Zach Wilson last. week. And so, you know, we'll see how that plays out. But I agree. I think it's been a positive thing. I think Robert Sala needs Aaron Rogers. I really do. And I'm not, that's not just being disrespectful to Salah. I'm just saying. He's trying to find his way as a head coach still. And I think he finds comfort with having Aaron Rogers there. I really do. And I don't think he would

hesitate to bounce certain things off of Aaron Rogers as opposed to even another coach or something like that. It's just, I think he's, his perspective is more valuable to this younger on-the-come Jets team than probably it was where Green Bay was a year or the year before ago. Oh, yeah, because the context of relationship with Green Bay was so different. I mean, he was done there. He was frustrated. He wasn't really in the spirit of helping, I don't think others as much, which leads us into the number three item in the GM notebook. Yeah. What's wrong with Jordan Love? What's wrong with the Packers? I thought this group would be a lot better, more advanced at this point in, in the Cs. season. They are not. Just some of the numbers from true media that I know you and I both use

and some of the other staff members at the athletic, 16% of his throws have been off target. That's third most in the league. They have the worst completion percentage as a team in the entire league. They're 28th in passing yards. That's toward the bottom of every, you know, team in the league. I think there's a lot of issues going on there, but I think the biggest thing for me is the lack of development of some of these receivers. And again, we mentioned this last week and we've poo-pooed all along that Alan Lizard and Randall Cobb leaving. But it did leave a little veteran void there of certain routes, of certain securities that a quarterback needs. I don't think they've filled that. Dobbs hasn't really developed consistently. Christian Watson is still for me a

straight line fast guy learning to run route trees at the NFL level. I like them and a couple of their other young guys, but this is not a developmental league, Mike. It's not. It's going to chew you up. And there's a lot of developing going on on the offensive side. And maybe some of that is just filling the voids, but it's prime time. It's ready to go at the highest level. These guys that have to have on the job training, whether you're a GM or a head coach or a receiver for a team, it doesn't treat you well. You don't have time for trial and error. So every Sunday is a grind. And I just think all of the combination of that is showing now with this offense. And I know they had lost the running back for several weeks. They've got to find a way to get Jordan Love going with a little more

energy and some things sooner than later. I thought his vision from the pocket has waned a little bit and his decision making has has waned. And hey, part of developing at the quarterback position is especially developing thick skin and not caring so much about what's being said or how your critique is coming down the road. I don't know. We don't know how Jordan Love's going to react to that yet. We don't know how adversity might set him off a little bit different than somebody else. So it's been a learning curve that I didn't think we were still at. I thought the learning curve would be more advanced. That's all. Well, every wide receiver and just about all of the tight ends on the roster are super young, like been in the least.

league less than two years. So that's an interesting thing to me because, you know, you can have different extremes of this. You know, I think when, you know, Kyler Murray was young, he's playing with 30 fifth-year-old, AJ Green, DeAndre Hopkins. These guys who have been around forever and they're almost maybe in a different phase of their life. There's almost a, there could almost be a disconnect that way if you have too big of a gap. But in this case, maybe there's just too many super young guys, right? Maybe in retrospect, there should have been one veteran guy in there. We've, you know, you don't want to be in a situation like Carolina where Adam Thieland's your number one receiver, but maybe a guy like that, somebody, or even someone who's just got four years in the league,

five years in the league, might be a helpful mix to that group. Yeah, and there's no more David Bacdiari. There's no more Lindsay, the center. These guys have left too, veteran presence. I just feel like there's a little void there of in the huddle, if nothing else, just in the huddle. We look around and who we're going to lean on, who? these guys are all younger than me. You know, that kind of permeates throughout a huddle.

That could be a problem. Yep. Especially when you struggle. Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Be interesting to see, I noticed that his completion percentages, too. He's under 60% like most of the weeks. They're throwing the ball far down the field, too. There's just not a lot of rhythm and consistency and things they can count on.

So we'll see how they play coming out of the buy. What's number four in the GM notebook? I noticed a couple things this week just on personnel issues, and this might bore some of our listeners, but I find it interesting. Teams are starting to sign injury replacements around the league, and a lot of times they get them from their own practice squad. Well, I saw three or four of them this week change teams to go somewhere else. And what that means is when a team signs somebody off on another team's practice squad,

it's really allowed by the other team because they could match anything, but then they also have to have them active for three weeks. So it's a commitment by the new team to acquire somebody else's practice squad because you've got to keep them up. You got to keep them active. A couple of those stood out for me this week. The Rams signed Miles Gaskin, the former dolphin running back off Minnesota's practice squad. An offensive lineman, Sean Harlow, the Giants signed off Dallas's practice squad. So a little bit of an inter-divisional rivalry.

Both teams were in need of players at these spots. So I just find it a little interesting. These games are going to start to happen a lot more. injury replacements. In most cases do come from somebody's practice squad, but most of the time it's your own. But this shows us again that pro scouting departments around the league are beating the bushes on other team's practice squad guys. And if you find one that's better than the options you have, you can go get them. That's a possible. Now, I like the three game thing too, because I don't want those guys. It's bad for those guys' development if they're just being plucked

one week at a time here or there. Let's keep him on our team and develop them if we can. But if you want him, make a commitment to him. Then it's a win for him. Yes. So I like that cutoff. More so than just paying him a little more money to get him. It's a development of their career when they get that opportunity. Yep, absolutely. A couple other things that were part of the personnel grouping designated for return. And the place that that jumped out at me was in Arizona, where Buda Baker designated from IR. We all know he's the heart and soul, that team. What kind of happens with him over the

next few weeks interest me. The other one was, and got a lot of run was Kyla Murray being elevated to able to practice and opening his 21-day window to come back and practice off of the ACL from last year. I don't know their intent with him. I know this. Buda Baker is a proven commodity that could probably play for any team in the league. And it made me think about if I was a playoff team who really needed a spark on defense or something to put me over the top, Would I offer Arizona something they couldn't turn down to get a Buda Baker? You know, he signed, I think through 24. Remember a couple years ago, he signed one of the first big money deals by a safety.

I think his last year there is 24, which is next year. So there's some value there. And the team I thought of, and we're just hypothetically throwing things out there. Yeah. What about the Lions? A team that is on the come, a team that could use a leader on defense. what if they offered Arizona a pretty good package of something? The lines showed they're willing to trade even in their own division by trading

Hawkinson the tight end a year ago. So they're aggressive. Brad Holmes wants to make a move. And again, I have no intel that says that this is possible. But if I was a team looking at GM somewhere and wanted to add a part, I would be after the Buda Baker thing just because I don't know if he's going to be part of their issues going forward, part of the fix, because he asked for a trade early in the season.

Yeah, yeah, he did. If I'm Arizona, why wouldn't I want to pay this guy a lot? I know he's had some injury issues, but he just seems like the type of guy you want on your team, doesn't he? 100%, but I just don't know what they're planned. Yes. I don't know. Absolutely. He spoke out publicly about, hey, I don't want to be here. We've lost forever. I'm tired of losing. Sometimes if that is taken the wrong way, and I'm not saying it would be, maybe Arizona, we know is rebuilding. We know they're getting, you know, set for the future. If they could get a couple draft picks for him. Maybe it's something they talk about. That's all. I just thought it was, someone would have to make an offered Arizona that's too good for them to refuse. I'm not saying

they would give them away by any means. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, that's thinking of that. That's funny you're mentioning that I thought of, they wouldn't, you know who I thought of? I thought of hooker their backup quarterback that we were trying to put on the trading block a couple weeks ago. I've got that in my notes and you're trying to ruin my column for next week. So yes, he is a guy who there is, I think, there's a couple spots where he would end up, where he should, could end up. If someone, he was a third round pick. And I'm kidding about the call. This will be part of a trade story down the road, I'm sure.

And others will probably write it too. He was drafted by the Lions with a third round pick. He's out this year based on injury, not going to play. But if I'm a team, after what we watched last night in New Orleans, if I was willing to give a second, round pick to Detroit? Would that encourage them to send him? They're going to have to sign golf anyway. Gough is playing at a higher level. They can't get rid of him. They're going to have to extend him and pay him, gosh, they might pay him for $45, $50 million a year. He's playing that good. So what happens to Hooker? If Detroit can get a second round pick for him and having given up a third

to get him, that's value, right? It's buy, low, sell high. I'm looking at a guy like Kinden Hooker because I think he's a starting NFL quarterback. Absolutely, yeah. Well, you mentioned, mentioned him in the, I didn't totally steal that one from you. No, I'm kidding. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I wanted to make sure. Yeah, yeah. Next column, I'll already steal it on the GM notebook.

I'm stealing out of future columns. Jeez. Holy Matt. Terrible. I found the enemy. It's us. Oh. Yeah.

Like, I'm stealing signals from Mueller. Yeah, come on, Harpaw. Yeah. The sixth item on the GM notebook, we already talked about that, that trend of the meaningless pick swap thing. So that was a good discussion. What's your last? item in there. The only other item that I threw out there just for discussion, because I'm not sure,

I try to look at these things sometimes from the GM's chair. The Devante Adams comments this year, or this week from out of Vegas when he said, just in the last couple days, it's not really about wins and losses. It's about me being great. It's about greatness. I sense he's a little frustrated. I understand he doesn't really, you know, stamp his role there. He's not getting a ton of But they're three and three. They're still a team that's probably got a chance here the next couple weeks to hang around. It reminded me of some conversations that I had with some older players who, at times, they get that they are a bigger part of the system. And they just feel like they're not being used.

I think Devante Adams criticized people criticized him for all of a sudden using and turning these comments around saying he doesn't care about winning and losing. I think he does. I just think he wants to be used. I think he's been frustrated since he got there, really. He really came there to play with Derek Carr. It didn't work out a year ago. Derek Carr got fired before he even got a chance to expand on their college relationship because they played together in college.

But I do know this, that the system with Vegas and that Josh McDaniels runs dictates where the ball goes and doesn't really highlight particular players. And I sense there's a little frustration with him and maybe even the running back as well. So again, this is a place where I think they'll be in the quarterback market this offseason. I really do. So I just looking at his targets. So he's got 59 targets in six games. So he's getting about 10 targets a game. That's more than I would have thought. Yeah. That's about what he gets every year. He's got 31% of the team target share. Last year was 32%. It was 32%. It was 32% in his last year in Green Bay, 34, 31, 29, 24. So his target share of the team targets is about,

you know, what it's been. I don't, I'm not sure what it is from a game to game thing. That's just interesting. I think they've also had a situation where, uh, they've had quarterbacks in and out of the lineup. They played Aiden O'Connell. They played Brian Hoyer. They played Jimmy Garapolo. And the outlook at that position is not what he, I'm sure, hoped that it would be. Yeah, I would agree. You just sense some kind of frustration with him. Some frustration and your points are valid. I agree. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Well, let's get some super valid points this week because we're, we are at the hot hand all of a sudden in the picks. I won on Miami, by the way, I picked Miami gave 13.5.

They were down 14-0-0. Still covered the 13-and-ath spread. That's ridiculous. And then, thank you, Raiders. I picked against the Patriots just because it's the Patriots. And the Raiders get the safety to cover the three points I had to give. I mean, that was just living dangerous. Hopefully you bought a lot of ticket after the game on your way home.

and won that too, you know. I was loving that. You won on the Giants given 14 and a half. Great call there because they played Buffalo Close. Really should have probably won the game. And then you won Cincinnati giving three, which I don't know how Seattle didn't score more than 13 points.

They're in the red zone about 35 times they never scored. So that one came out good. What do you think about this week? Well, I would start by saying my confidence meter, even though you gave those numbers and makes me 7-5 and 1. for the year. My confidence me are for this week in these games, I'm giving it a five out of ten. I don't have that same conviction, but I did find a couple games that I felt are interesting.

The first of which is I'm going to take Tampa. They are giving two and a half over Atlanta. I think the Falcons QB issues kind of came to light last week. I don't know that facing Todd Bowles and that defense is what the doctor ordered for where Atlanta is. I think Atlanta's offense is fairly predictable. They do want to run the ball. I think that can be a strength of Tampa, and I would think it would be this week. I think that it's going to be a low-scoring game, but I'm going to pick Tampa because I think they can make this thing happen with Baker enough to where they'll win by more than two and a half. Do you think, would you pick Tampa to win that division now? Probably, probably. Being the offense in New Orleans is so disjointed. I don't know how that one

get solved. So, yeah, Tampa's already beat, went to New Orleans and won. So, yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, it's just, you know, it's kind of a measure of how, yeah, do we think that Baker Mayfield is going to be able to play well enough throughout the whole year? Just kind of, it's interesting to me. You know, I, I, uh, like having him at that price, you know, for how he's playing relative to the other. What's your other pick this week? My other pick, I'm going to take Green Bay kind of bumping off what we talked about earlier. They're, they play Denver in Denver. I think Jordan Love gets well. I think some of the issues that I brought to light in our discussion with them can be put to rest against a historically bad defense.

I don't think that's going to really get fixed. So I think Green Bay could go there and win the game. And they're actually the favorite by one point. I just think they're the more talented team right now and playing with, even though they've taken a couple losses, they are really desperate with some authentic high hopes that have been dashed. I don't know what kind of mindset you're going to get for. Denver from here on out. I just think there's so many different narratives going there now with Peyton, with the receivers, with Russell, with the defense being bad. I just don't know that that

team's going to ever be on solid ground. So I'm taking Green Bay over Denver as well. Yeah. No, I understand that, you know, one thing about Denver was out of the blue, they played a good defensive game against Kansas City. You know, that's just kind of interesting to me. I don't know if that's replicable, repeatable, because they've been so bad. Yeah. So much of the year. So this is kind of a game where I'm not really 100% sure what to expect from either team, but it's definitely one Green Bay needs. So I'm going to pick more games this week, Randy. You have a good confidence level. You're way up there. Oh, dang. There you go. Feeling our oats all of a sudden. Give me the Greek here. I win one hand of blackjack and now I'm putting all my chips.

Now you want to roll the dice every day. Okay. Let's go. I'll be out of know. So, but I do have some that I'm kind of interested. I'm going to take Detroit and get three points against the Ravens. I think it's a game could go either way. I don't think Baltimore is necessarily the better team. I think this is a game circled for Detroit. I think this is a, this is a game against a stable, successful franchise. It's a measuring stick game for me. Detroit really stubbed their toe against Seattle earlier in the year when they kind of had an opportunity to beat a team that's been successful over a long period of time. And I think this is, I'm just not 100% sure where the Ravens are at on offense yet. I think they're trying to do some different

things, but I just don't know that they're there yet. I think they've been a little hit and miss. I think their whole operation, the management of the games, everything's just been a little bit off early in this year. They may get there by the end of the year, but I think Detroit is a team that's a little bit in further along and sort of where they want to be right now. And so I think Baltimore's a little vulnerable here. And so I'll take Detroit and get the points. I'll take Buffalo and give the eight and a half with New England. It's just continuing my thing that New England is really bad, and I'll just take the other

team, even after I have to give points, until I'm proven wrong. I got you. And I think Buffalo this week, people asking Josh Allen in his press conference whether he still has faith in his offensive coordinator. I mean, the overreactions of week to week and the bill's coming off a tough game against Brian Davey, who knows their whole operation, granted, it was a bad game. They didn't look good against the Jaguars in that game that, you know, was in London and stuff. I just think Buffalo is still a so much better team than New England.

I agree with that. And I think this is a get right game for them. And I think we're going to see it on both sides of the ball. And to me, I'll be surprised if it's closer than eight and a half. What about you? Yeah, I don't disagree with that. I think Buffalo is a way better team. and I don't have much faith in what's going on in New England right now either.

I just don't see what we can hang our hat on if I'm New England, especially offensively. It's been very milk-toast, very just a bunch of guys running around. I will also take the chargers in five and a half against the chiefs at Arrowhead. I think this is a charger team that we can all poke holes in, and I would never take it if it was an even pick. I had to, you know, there's no points involved. but they're the type of team that plays. They may lose, but they're going to lose like a close game. You look at the, they're taking Miami to the wire,

and then we're picking apart their game management and all these little things, but they're in it. And they're in it when they play Kansas City. They won at Arrowhead, I believe. They've won an Arrowhead under Staley. Like, I'm not saying they're going to win the game, but I just think the way the chiefs are with their offense not being quite as explosive. and I think a lot of attention on the charger.

I think Justin Herbert's still a really good quarterback, but he had a really bad game, I thought, against Dallas. Where did that come from? So unless Herbert's just totally off with his left fingers hurt so he can't throw the ball straight anymore, you know, I'm fine taking the five and a half, and Chiefs may win the game, but I think it could be close. Right.

So I'll do that one. I'm also taking the 49ers and given seven. Good luck, Minnesota. Good luck to you, Minnesota is in no position. I like that big a lot. No, Judge Jefferson. I mean, the 49ers just getting taken to the woodshed in Cleveland. And by the way, they win the game with a 41-yard field goal at the end. That's how, and this looked like, oh, my gosh, we can't even function. Well, that Cleveland defense is not showing up in Minnesota. No. I think this is a game, this is a get-right game for the 49ers, and they might win going away. might win by 10 points. Where's the game at? Is it in San Francisco? That game's in Minnesota.

In Minnesota. Man, I covered a great game there once. 49ers Vikings were far through the last second touchdown pass against the Singletary Vikings. I mean, it was an unbelievable play on like the last play of the game. That place is no fun to go to. I know it's not the old metrodome. Right. But going to Minnesota usually is a tough deal. You know, that horn starts playing. Yeah. Got a lot of memories.

of going in there. But I like the 49ers. So those are my Detroit Buffalo Chargers 49ers, and we'll see. I like the boldness. I like your aggressiveness. Hey, I'm for it. We're on a roll. Let's keep the pedal down.

I'm 8 and 7 this week, so I could be 8 and 11 after this week. I'm just banking on at least getting a couple of these ones right. But those are the ones I like. You got anything else? No, that's good. I like it. I thought we hit on a lot of topics today. So hopefully our listeners found it somewhat interesting.

We did. Oh, it's fun. It was really good. So you can find Randy on X at Randy Mueller, underscore. You can find me there at Sando NFL. You can find us both at The Athletic. Make sure you download the app. Make sure you come back here to find us every week.

Happy to be joined with my colleague, Dan Pompeii. Dan, welcome. We're going to talk a little all-time great football here today. Good to be with you, Mike. And always enjoy talking about football history with you. Absolutely. So this top 100 book, did you receive the books yet? I have not seen them.

Just so everyone knows, this book is coming out of the 100 greatest players in NFL history that Dan Pompeii and I wrote some of it. We edited a lot of it. We came up with the final list. But it was so cool the other day, six boxes of the actual book. These are big hardcover books. In fact, I got one right here. The Football 100, Mike Sando, Dan Pompeii, and the Athletic NFL staff,

the story of the greatest players in NFL history. It's really a cool, weighty book. I mean, it feels awesome. Really happy to get these. So I signed a bunch of these. Hopefully that doesn't hurt the value of them too much. I sent them off to you, so you'll be doing the same. It's six boxes of these things.

They're heavy. They're filled with all kinds of interesting tidbits and stories. But let's get to the list itself, Dan. Tom Brady, number one, all the way down to number 100, Fran Tarkenton. there are a lot of quarterbacks on here. What was sort of most fun for you or stood out for you in putting together this project that is going to be published here soon? Well, it was a democratic process, Mike, which you and I and four other people voted for

who was on the list, who's off the list, who goes where. So, you know, there are a lot of players that are in places that I might not agree, with it. You might not agree with, but, you know, that's kind of how this goes. And certainly, the readers are not going to agree with everything, which is kind of the fun of a project like this. You know, you have to kind of use a lot of your opinions, your knowledge, and that's going to be different. Your personal experiences are going to be different from everyone else's. I mean, I think you could even start arguing about number one. Well, certainly when we started this process, Tom Brady had not yet won his seventh Super Bowl as a member of the Tampa Bay Bucks.

And I think Jim Brown, we had Jim Brown number one in our initial list. And Brady kind of moved up a little bit. And I mean, I certainly think you could still make an argument for Brown depending on how you look at this. But, you know, Brady's championships are very difficult to ignore. Yeah. And what's so interesting about that too, Dan, and like you said, we had this. initial list that was published on the site on the athletic that's different than this one. That was an initial one where we had more of a democratic process. In the end, you and I were able

to make some tweaks a little bit more to our liking and kind of put our signature on it a little bit more. You were a huge advocate for like Dick Butkus, rest in peace, and he was at number 10 and probably you probably would have even put him higher than that. I think we could easily make a case for him being hired in that, which we can talk about. But the Brady thing is so interesting to me because not only did he win the seventh Super Bowl with Tampa, but then since then, we've seen New England struggle more without him. We now have a larger body of work of kind of Bill Belichick struggling to write the ship. And so it appears now that Tom Brady might have been even more instrumental in the success of the Patriots, especially when he goes and leaves and

immediately takes a team in Tampa that had talent, but hadn't won anything for years. I mean, they had a terrible record over the previous decade, and they win it all. So I do think it probably does, you know, cement his status at number one. And put it this way, if he was not number one, that's probably the thing everybody would want to talk to us about when the book comes out. And I've done several media, you know, conversations on this promoting the book. And no one has asked me, how did you have Tom Brady, number one? Well, I think, you know, the other, the interesting part of that, too, is that everybody who is reading this book, knows Tom Brady well.

They watched all of his career. They're very familiar with everything he's done. Jim Brown, not so many people saw him play. And there's a lot of players on this list. Johnny Unitas is number nine. You mentioned Dick Butkus. He's number 10. And then 11, we've got Otto Graham.

Who played in, you know, B.C., right? So with the championship like every year. Now, easy, you know, there wasn't four rounds of the playoffs. or anything, but he still was like almost, I think just about every year of his career, they were in the championship. Well, and there was a long period of time, decades, when anybody did a list like this, Otto Graham was number one. So the point that I'm getting at is, you know, there's a real, I think, inclination, maybe a temptation to look at the players who have played in the last whatever, 10, 20, our lifetimes, you know, depending on how old we are, and say, well, those are the best

players of all time. And it's, it's easy to forget about players that we never saw a player. We don't know as much about who played in an era before all the media, right? You know, this crazy amount of everything is scrutinized like crazy now. We see every play. We see it on all 22 film. We talk about it all day. You know, there was a time, a point in time when you only kind of saw these things when you went to a game, really. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. What if we had done a list and it was like Jim, well, Jim Brown people know. I think everyone knows Jim Brown even. He's enough current to be legendary in people's minds. But what if we had like, you know, Autogram, Don Hudson, Sammy Baugh as our top three? That wouldn't that have been fun? People'd be like, how old are these guys? I mean, you know. Crazy. Well, you know, and you go, we, I don't think we have anyone. on our list who played in the 20s. I'm not sure if we have anyone who played in the 30s.

I'd have to go back and look at each name. But certainly, you know, Jim Thorpe is down on our list, for instance. And some people think he was the greatest athlete of all time and certainly a phenomenal football player. Red Grange not in our list. So it's an interesting aspect of the conversation that I'm sure a lot of people will enjoy. enjoy discussing. Yes, Thorpe was an interesting one, but you look at the number of actual years of playing in the NFL, it's not a lot of years, right? But just such a legendary figure.

So I would just like to kind of recap our top 10 here. So we had Tom Brady, Jim Brown, Jerry Rice, Lawrence Taylor, Reggie White, Joe Montana, Peyton Manning, Walter Payton, Johnny Nitis, Dick Butkus. Is there anyone down, I know you have the list in front of me? Is there anyone a little lower than that as you're looking that you might rather have in the top 10 if you were, you know, if you got to do just your own sole Dan Pompeii list? Or was there, is there anyone up there that you question at all? I would have Don Hudson in my top 10. You know, to me, he's neck and neck with Jerry Rice. Obviously, the hard thing is he played in this different era, right, where you really can't compare what his challenges.

were to what Jerry Rice's challenges were. What you can compare, and you did this very well in a tremendous study that we did in the process of this book, you compared how these players dominated in the period of their own era. So, and if you look at Hudson's what he did, I'm sure you'll recall, you might have. I can explain it, yeah. Yeah, why don't you take that? because Hudson to me was as dominant probably as any player in NFL history. I agree.

And who was I talking to years ago? I might have been, I can't remember if it was Lindy and Fonte or Zeke Bratkowski who had been in Green Bay. God, who was it? I forget who I was talking to. But anyway, they had made the drive to Canton from wherever they were coaching and they watched the Hudson films because they had all of his old films there and you could actually watch them. And it might have been Raymond Barry. I think it was Raymond Barry who did this great wide receiver. I think it was.

It was Raymond Barry. He watched all of Hudson's films and couldn't believe it. Could not believe how ahead of his time he was. You know, you look at the helmets, they were more than it. It doesn't look like it looks today. And you think, oh, football wasn't a sophisticated passing game wasn't. But certainly incredible. So what I did to evaluate elite wide receivers, this is what you were alluding to,

was I said, look, it's hard to come. compare across eras because a yard is not worth what a yard was before. The rules are different, all of that. But I think for wide receivers, we can agree that where you ranked among your peers in a given year in yardage is significant. And so if we just evaluated everyone's career by where they finished in receiving yards relative to their peers in their best seasons, we would have something to compare. And when I did that, I really settled on about, let's take the best eight years of every wide receiver's career.

Eight was a good number to require longevity, reward longevity, but not have unrealistic expectations. Because when you really look at it, besides a Jerry Rice, there's hardly anybody who has, you know, 10, 12, 13, 15, elite, totally elite years at receivers. So that eight-year window of evaluation, once I did that, uh, Jerry Rice and Don Hudson were like at the absolute top. They were number one like tied because I think they had each led the league in receiving like maybe five, six times. So there was enough of those years that they were almost in.

Their average year of their top eight years was almost like leading the league. Randy Moss, I think, was third. A little bit of a surprise Tori Holt was four. That just showed that Holt didn't play forever, but his eight or ten years were amazing. Steve Largent was up there. I mean, people forget he's one of the few guys to retire as the number one guy in receptions, receiving yards, and receiving touchdowns. That has rarely been done only a handful of times. And then another guy who was pretty high, who's a current receiver, was Julio Jones. So we ended up putting him on this list where I think initially,

you know, I don't know if initially he was on the first one or as high as he ended up being on it. Julio Jones here is, I believe, let me find, Julio is number 56, pretty high. And that study that I did really helped move him up. Well, and you know, another player who was not in our initial list, who ended up being included in this book was Patrick Mahomes. Yeah. Came in at 98, and there was an interesting discussion there. I believe when we first started the process, he had won one Super Bowl. And we said, well, you know, hey, there's a lot of quarterbacks who've won one Super Bowl who aren't on this list. Quarterbacks have won one Super Bowl who aren't even in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. And he was very young at the time.

And over the course of doing this process, Mahomes won a second Super Bowl. And he actually went to a full and lost it. So we said, you know what, we better get Patrick on the list. The arc is looking pretty good on the career. It was. We snuck him in in 98, but he's got a bullet next to his name, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He might be, exactly.

We're trusting that trajectory. I think one of the things that really stood out to me about him, when you look at most of the great championship winning quarterbacks over the years, you can carry Bradshaw in the 70s, Joe Montana in the 80s. Certainly there were some guys throughout the 90s and Troy Aikman and Brett Farr versus Steve Young, Tom Brady, certainly in the more recent era, the guys who won championships, they've typically done it while being great quarterbacks, but also having some really good defenses. In the 1980s, there's no team that allowed fewer points than the 49ers.

They had Hall of Famers on that defense. They were great defense. And you look at Tom Brady through his time in New England and even in Tampa Bay, those are top 10 type defenses. The thing that stands out to be about Mahomes is, he's won at all where the defense wasn't even in the top half of the league or they had a really bad special teams where they don't have a good running game. Those are all things that really make it easier for a quarterback to win it all and succeed. I think Mahomes is on a little bit of a different path here, so I felt pretty good about putting him on there, not just trusting what he's done in the future, but really appreciating that some of the things he's done already are a little bit different than a young Tom Brady with a great defensive team and maybe they weren't putting it all on his shoulders, right?

Absolutely. And you know, Mike, I think one of the most difficult parts of all this is when you move a Patrick Mahomes up onto the list, you have to move somebody off. And, you know, leaving off guys who are really deserving is difficult. You know, there's only 100 players in this book. There's 300 and what are they about? 350, I believe, now in the pro football Hall of Fame. So we're leaving off all those Hall of Famers and all the other great players, you know, a play. players who really changed the game and did things that hardly any others did before or after them. And, you know, that was a struggle. And there are players that we both think should have been on the list that aren't. How about this? Troy Aikman, winner of three Super Bowls, is not on the list. Jim Kelly went to four Super Bowls. Didn't win one, but the only player to lead his team to four straight Super Bowls, he's not on the list. Derek Thomas, not on the list after, you know, he sets a sack record.

You know, it's a hard of... Larry Fitzgerald was another one. I know Larry Fitzgerald should, I mean, should probably be on there, but it's kind of like when we do the Hall of Fame, you and I both on the Hall of Fame panel, you can only pick certain number so you invariably leave off guys who belong on it. Does it make sense to say that there's 150 players that should be top 100 players, right? And that's a fact.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you might expand. the number to 200. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I put a little list together, too, of like, you know, a couple other receivers like Marvin Harrison, James Lofton, you know, I think there's some other guys like, shoot, I really like Dan Fouts. You know, I think he was an excellent player, Willie Roof. You know, I think Michael Strayhan was very good, Julius Peppers. There's a number of really good, Derek Brooks. There's just a number of really good players that you could consider for a list like this. And we did. We wanted to put them on, but in the end, there were,

only 100 spots. I think it's a fun list. I think it's impossible to have the correct list. I think the criteria is too difficult across eras, across positions. But it's sure much fun putting this together. I'm proud of the list. I hope people enjoy it. I know you feel the same way, Dan.

Yeah, I was a ball doing this project and enjoy working with you. And I think the book is going to create a lot of good conversation, and people will get a kick out of reading. Absolutely. Thanks, everybody. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.