The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Brandon Staley out, a TNF beatdown and QB observations

Episode Date: December 16, 2023

The LA Chargers made the move to fire HC Brandon Staley - Mike and Randy discuss the somewhat not so surprise firing of Staley. From there - we focus on the Raiders team- record 63 points on TNF. After that - we observe some of the QB's around the league talent and skill level. Lastly, the conversation ends with the GM notebook and Week 16 predictions.  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 along with the GM, Randy Mueller. How you doing, Randy? I'm doing outstanding, Mike. Fired up about some games this week. And always when the Saturday games come on, it's like we know we're getting close to the season

and things are ratcheted up. And Saturday games have always been a part of my life. So I enjoy watching them. I'm fired up to have some games today. Now, hold on here. I am Googling throughout our show Brandon Staley because

things to be breaking. And I'm seeing right now, two minutes ago, sources Chargers Fire Brandon Staley after ugly lost to radio. I see another one. Chargers Fire head coach Brandon Staley, GM Tom Telesco. That's two minutes ago since we started doing this.

Now, let's just see if that's true. Let's just see if that's true. Uh, per Adam Schaefter. Now, I know this. Adam Schaefter doesn't get a lot of these stories wrong. You notice that? Adam Schaefter pretty high batting average. Yeah, pretty high.

That means his sources are pretty good. Sources are pretty good. Adam's not just guessing on this. How you doing, Adam? I know you're a big listener of the show. Adam was covering the Broncos when I was covering the Seahawks back in the day. So great, great guy and great reporter, obviously. and he's got Telesco and Staley out from the Chargers.

It's funny, Randy, we were talking yesterday about how, hey, the Chargers are such a complacent organization. These guys may be safer than you think. And then when it was 42 nothing and a half time, I got a text from you saying, all that stuff I said is off because something's going to have to happen after this, right? Yeah, I've not seen anything like what we saw Thursday night. That's for sure.

I mean, there's enough blame to go around. indictment on really a whole building. The Chargers leadership had been tuned out. You could tell that these players weren't ready to play. Let's not forget the Raiders were playing a rookie quarterback and hadn't scored a point the week before. So this game is about really character building and character missing within the Chargers building. And I'm not surprised by these results. I think at this point something had to happen. And it has Raiders 63 Chargers 21. The Chargers are We're going to use this game as a way to talk about these two franchises. We're obviously not going to break down the X's and those of the game.

I mean, it is what it is. But I think these two organizations are very interesting to talk about in terms of big picture and how they're set up and what our concerns are. So let's do that here. We'll start with the Chargers, Staley and Telesco out. As you've been saying all along, it was probably going to be none, neither of them or both of them, because if they just fired the coach, it was going to be the GM hiring his fourth head coach, which would be a lot, wouldn't it?

Well, I think two or three is a lot. Four is, I think, unprecedented. I don't think I've ever seen anything like that. So, yes, it was always in my mind. The hard part is, and I've said this as well from the start. I don't think Brandon Staley was on the hot seat within that building like he was outside the building. I just know how they work. I mean, I spent 10 years there.

So the dynamics there are interesting, to say the least. Tom Telesco, John Spanos, run the football side. Dean Spanos, the owner, his other son runs the business side. So it's a family operation. There's no doubt. And when you fire what would be your third, fourth head coach, when your son is involved in the hiring process, it's hard, I think, for families to be accountable. And it's hard for them to say, hey, my bad. And that's kind of what's happened there for a lot.

long period of time. So I'm not taken back by the news, but I know nobody on the inside thought this was going to happen. The other thing is Tom Telesco and Brandon Staley have that John Carroll tie, which there's a lot of John Carroll guys out there, and that water is thick. And regardless of anybody's bio, the production has to be there. And so this broke that tie. And I wasn't sure that that tie would be broke as well. So it's been a tough franchise. I mean, like I say, I spent 10 years there, Mike, and the best way I can describe it was, I don't want to say I wasted 10 years, but it was a really hard 10 years because we never got ahead. I felt like we never did enough.

And nobody ever asked the hard questions. Nobody ever held anybody accountable like I would have liked you. And frankly, I came from Nick Sabin in Miami where we spent two years of Alaskin daily questions and you tape your ankles every day. And you were over the top organized and procedurally oriented. And the questions do get asked. And my time in San Diego was probably just the opposite of that. I never saw any hard questions being asked and anybody ever saying, what are we doing here?

That just never happened in the presence of most of us rank and file employees. And you were mostly on the road during that time doing your scouting, and that's what you love to do. I mean, scouting. I obviously loved being a GM too. But you were not in the office every day, right, when you were with the Chargers? Not every day, but I would say we spent at least a couple months a year in the office. whether it's building around draft time, training camps.

You're around enough to get a pretty good flavor for what's going on and how things are being operated and communicated. And it's a... Oh, yeah, no, I wasn't challenging that. I was just curious of the structure of the job and the level of the involvement. Like, how much of a voice do you actually have in an organization like that? I had no voice, and I was the National Scout with a trumped-up title.

So I was just on the outside listening. And I'll say this, and that's not meant as an indictment. I was there 10 years and never had a single conversation with anybody above me about football of any consequence whatsoever. What? What? Yeah. There you go. How does that work? I have no idea. I just, and I had had pretty good success in the league, built playoff teams, had been around some really influential people in my life. I just never was used in that role. So this is not about that. And this obviously pot is not. But that's just kind of the way things are operated there. And it is a fine line. between building consensus and collaborating and not having any conversation with regard to any process

of why we are doing this. So you're not expecting them to suddenly have a totally different process now that works way better? I'm not. I'm not saying that shouldn't. I mean, we've heard the rumors about Bill Belichick going there and I've said there's no chance that'll happen. I think it'd be the best thing they could do.

But it would go against every fiber in that franchise's history to do that because that's just not, they'd have to give up power, they'd have to give up money, and that's something they've never been willing to do before. So it's a complicated set of circumstances is really all I'm saying, and it's, I think people always just shake their head and say what, and it's, it is what it is. Yeah, if you were the agent for Justin Herbert, or if you were Justin Herbert, what do you, I mean, they just signed a long-term deal. Is this a place where they basically can't win?

Well, I've said all along, it's hard. There has always, been an acceptance of mediocrity from, really, before they moved into this facility, from their facility in San Diego to where it was when we moved to L.A. Everything has been, you know, from being the JV team in that stadium that they're in now, there's been an acceptance of just, you know, collecting checks and moving along and not a high quality demand from anybody. I think, though, if you went back even over 30 years, the most demanding leadership has ever been there was probably when Marty was there and maybe when Bobby Ross was there. Bobby Ross, yeah.

Yeah. And those two didn't work out. They didn't like that demanding personality per se. And obviously that's what you get with Belichick too. And I think that's very much needed, but it's just never been their style that I've been around, that's for sure. When you look at who they've hired lately, it hasn't been those guys like Marty or Bobby Ross or even Norv Turner, you know, guys who really have been around a long time.

Well, the last three coaches have been first-time coaches promoted from the coordinator roles. Yes. And I'm not surprised that this is how this one turned out. I mean, nothing against the people that are involved, but there wasn't a great track record of success. You know, and Brandon Staley had been a short-time coordinator with a very short number of years in the league. And trying to change an organization like that, where would you even be? begin, right? Where do you even begin? Yeah. And in his case, he didn't really have a long track

record of skins on the wall at all. I mean, that's what I mean. Yeah, NFL less than five years. Less than five years. So he wasn't going to come in and, you know, have some amazing blueprint and be able to push it through. But I'm not sure that's what they want. That's my point. That's what we're saying. So, yeah. So what, and this is what we said when when people were trying to push Sean Payton and all these names there, you led the way saying, okay, I believe it when I see it because that's not what they want. So I think a lot of the analysis that gets done from afar about these NFL teams doesn't take into account the teams in their DNA. Most of it's like, hey, here's what I would do. Here's what makes sense. That's not what the chargers do. They don't do what you would do or what makes sense. They do

what's comfortable for them. No question. And they make a lot of money. I get it. There's tons and millions and millions of dollars. And a lot of times, and I've worked at big companies where, like the dolphins, We're a big business. Seattle was a bigger business. New Orleans was mom and pop, much like in San Diego. And it's a different mindset when you have ownership with a different criteria for what's being successful. Yeah. Yep, absolutely.

So we'll see what they do, but we're not expecting it to be a big fundamental change. By the way, this organization, one thing that was different this year for them is the amount that they went all in on some of these guys. And as a result of that, check out these 2020. cap numbers to get an idea for some of the rebuild that's coming. Kalil Mack, 38.5 million, Joey Bosa, 36.6. Keenan Allen, 34.7. Mike Williams, 32.5. Derwin James, almost 20 million. The big cap numbers, not a problem when they're associated with guys that are really producing and really worth it. But when you start to have a big gap between either the performance

level now, in maybe the case of someone like Kalilomac, or what it's going to be, projection, to be in the future, like Akina Allen's still a good player, but obviously older and on the downside, then you start to see a real big problem. So I would almost expect a retrenchment from them in this next year, wouldn't you? Well, they've never spent that kind of cash before. They'll spend to the cap, but as you know, there's a difference between spending cap and cash. And they stretch themselves out a little bit this year, which is not the charger way at all. They are going to probably be up against it next year and may have to do some creating to just get cap compliant in some areas. So we'll see. I think part of the disappointment that I even saw last night,

which was easy to find, but for the most part for them is I never see their best players playing great in big games. I just don't see it. I know everybody says Joey Bose is this and Derwin James is this. Derwin James was one of the biggest offenders last night in I thought lacking in effort, in heart, in the whole bid. And so I just don't see these good players play good. And other than being labeled that by the media, that's one thing. So they get to, everybody says their roster's this, their roster is that. I just don't know. I don't know about that. No, very overrated roster. They're going to play at some point. Yeah, very overrated. Yeah. Yep, absolutely. Let's flip this around now and look at the Raiders. Last week I'd written a piece

putting down the records for these NFL owners. And I noticed kind of comically that, that the Raiders in their last 11 full seasons under Al Davis were 70 and 106. Their first 11 full seasons under his son, Mark, they're 71 and 107. So basically they've been the same team for most of the past two decades. They've got two winning seasons in their past 21. They are 3 in 3 under Antonio Pierce, beat the Giants, Jets, and Chargers, lost to the Dolphins, Chiefs, and Vikings, probably beating the teams they should beat,

losing the teams you would think they would probably lose to. they're going to finish at the Chiefs at the Colts, home Broncos. I don't know what the over-under is the rest of the way for wins, but it's probably low. I wanted to throw out a few questions here, Randy, but maybe the real conversation is on a higher level. The lower level questions are, how seriously would you be evaluating the job the interim coach is doing,

or are you focused on the outside candidates? I think that would be a typical place to look, but maybe we need to zoom out like we did in the Chargers and say, hey, it's not really so much about that. It's more the greater, bigger forces around the organization that are defining where they're at. Do you feel that way with the Raiders too? That it's not really so much about, who are the good best candidates? There's some structural organizational issues here that you have to account for first. Well, I would agree with that.

and to stick with the ownership topic that we talked about with regard to the Chargers, I think there are a couple issues when you really sit down and analyze the Raiders structure, like you said. That backdoor hallway stairs to the owner's suite that the players have from the locker room would be problematic for me as a GM. It would be problematic, I would think, for the head coach. It sounds nice, but I also know that Mark Davis has surrounded himself with some people internally that gather a lot of information for him on a daily basis, and the players are included in that.

And that, to me, is a hard, that's a hard no. Unless Mark is going to turn around and start sending some of those requests, ideas, conversations back to the GM and the coach, I think they're going to have a problem. Now, I actually think, and I don't know Antonio Pierce, I think he's done a pretty good job. I think he's done as good as he could with what the hand he's been dealt. I would be more interested to know how he is handling things behind the scenes because once a player and a good player like he was for a long time, he's going to be able to converse with other players in that locker room really good, I would think.

Yep. It's the conversations that I would want to evaluate are with the other coaches, the game planning, what can he bring to the table from a football acunum, and his conversations with the GM on team building, many evaluative conversations, can we set our criteria, what exactly are we looking to build here? Those conversations aren't conversations that we're privy to. So I'm not surprised that he does well with the players and that the players love him. I don't think we have enough information to judge those other ones. But that backdoor hallway to Mark Davis's office would be a concern for me, even if I'm champ right now, is it champ Kelly? Champ Kelly, yep. Yeah, as the GM,

because I want those players coming to me. I want to do something about it. I don't need an intermediary as in ownership. I want to fix them or I want to address them head on. I don't want to really hear him coming from the top down to me, if that makes any sense. Well, and when they show Mark Davis up in the box, it looks like he's sitting next to a former player, possibly up there. Do you notice that? Well, yeah, there's a lot of people around.

And they've always been a franchise, and his dad was like this, too, that used. that that used their alumni and their people that were once successful in their operation as resources for finding correct success going forward. I know they used former players and former front office people in their last search for their GM and head coach when they hired Josh McDaniels. So there's a lot, there could be some out of touch stuff there, but they trust only, I guess, Raider family. And so they do lean a lot on those people. And I think it was too much to overcome for Josh and his crew.

Now, part of the success I think AP is having is because they were so happy to get rid of Josh. Because he... Josh brings his own set of problems of how to run it. The benefit of how much the players love this coach is partially because they hated the last one. So that's just my opinion. And that's always part of the evaluation of an interim coach. Isn't it kind of like a substitute? teacher sometimes. You might love the substitute teacher, but it's not a sustainable formula to watch

movies every Friday, right? Or to watch movies in the classroom. I don't know if they still do that now, but when we were in school, if you had a substitute teacher, sometimes they would just like play a video or something in class. And so, you know, when you talk about sort of the Raider family being super involved, we talked about that with the Chargers. Well, with the Raiders, what that means is you have Ken Hiroch running the search. Herach's a long time, good, successful personnel guy, but he's, you know, his time probably was a different time than now. He was involved in the search. I think they had the old tight end was involved in the search too.

So those types of things point to some potential, just flaws or things to deal with internally that could hold them back over a long period of time. Now, one thing I say about the Raiders is they were 30th on defense. last year and their 15th this year. Their defense has gotten better. Is there anything that you see to build on here, you know, with the current group? And could that be a smarter way to go for someone like Mark Davis who maybe isn't the best

of hiring anyway? He's chased the bright lights before. He's gone for big names. He hasn't really had a real good process. Is there a, if he blows the whole thing up, is there a greater chance he makes it worse than if he builds around some of the things that are actually working well there right now. Yes, there is a chance. If he uses the same process he did last time, I can guarantee it.

He probably will swing and miss. I'll say this, though, when you embark on a journey that takes you from 30th to 16th, that's like throwing a couple deck chairs off the Queen Mary. We need to get up there a little. We need to make a little more of an impact on the ship itself. I like Patrick Graham. In fact, I'll say this. I thought Patrick Graham was really good when he's at the Giants.

And he deployed a three-four scheme that I think was starting to show real effectiveness with the Giants before the Raiders hired him two years ago. And so I would not be opposed to that. Now, they already bypassed him to go with Antonio Pierce as a head coach. But I do think there is some merit there. I think their players tend to do less but do it better the more comfortable they are. And I think there is a little comfort zone there. Obviously, they've got to do some things offensively to, despite scoring 60 last night, they scored zero the week before.

So I'm not going to give them too much credit for everything they did last night. But yeah, I think at some point, that is one thing. At another level, they have to add some team building acunem. And you say he went for big name coaches, and obviously that's true. But John Gruden was never known as a team builder of any kind. In fact, if you said anything about it. John, you'd probably say he wasn't really good in personnel, wasn't really good in the evaluation part of it. And they gave him all the bells and whistles to run that organization.

So if that's the option of what we're going to do, I would probably rather see them stick to where they're at than do something crazy like that. And reading some of Mark Davis's comments, Tashon Reeds had a couple pieces for us talking to the owner that have been great. I think he is going to resist that idea of giving too much power to a coach. I don't think he's going down that road again after seeing really when you do that I think one of the things he talked about learning is then you basically let the coach pick his GM too right so you're you're really concentrating too much and so I would be very surprised probably if he were to do that again and so that's why it makes me think okay you know he had a chance to keep the interim coach last time I don't know if he regrets keeping or not keeping him I don't know what are he should should have or not should have, but, you know, he's probably, you would hope, learned some lessons from the mistakes that were made in going all in with head coaches and then their every wish in personnel just because you thought you had to do that to get them to come to there. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. I think the dynamic to watch for is, and it sounds like,

I mean, obviously, Tashon would have a. his finger on the pulse of that team. If they do indeed hire a GM first, I would like to know the criteria for that position because some teams, and we've mentioned that there are other people in Mark Davis's ear, and my question is, do they hire someone that maybe knows less than those people that are in his ear or has a lot less experience than the people that are in Mark's ear? Or do they actually hire someone with some skins on the wall that has done this, has proven to be a team builder and leader of men.

So that could go either way. And I think that's a dynamic that I'll be interested in in kind of following over the next few weeks. Yes, absolutely. I'm just looking at some of his comments here about hiring coaches. I'm getting good at it, Davis said, with a wink and a smile. You got to get it right. He's had a lot of practice.

A little self-awareness there. I like that. He's had reps. I like that. I like that. I like that he said, I'm getting good at it. I think he's spoken fun of himself.

Hey, I'm a rep guy too. I like to think I need. to it at everything I do. He said, you got to get the whole structure right so everybody's working together. The left hand has to know what the right hand is doing. That's the goal to start with getting people with passion for football and people who are afraid to work. It's not a nine to five job.

It's an eight days a week job. We are trying to build something. I want to have patience by I understand when I make a mistake. I'd rather fix it. I can't sit on it. I got to fix it right away. That's something that's tough to do because you've got people with families and lives involved.

That's the hardest part of making the change. But there's so many other people involved that rely on you to make the right. decision. That all sounds good, doesn't it? The word speak is awesome. The actions will, what determines if it's good for me, I think they do get caught up there in the Raider way a lot, and I'm not sure there is much left of the Raider way. I think they'd like to have it be like it was when Al was there, but the Raiders have not been a successful organization for a long time. So they have got to find a way to not rekindle the past, but not in a disrespectful way, but build toward the future.

And to do that, you've got to have some team-building pillars and acunim exactly identifying what we want to do on either side of the ball and how we want to put it together. That, to me, is what's been missing. We just can't have a bunch of bells and whistles and throw them together with a bunch of fast guys and all of a sudden pretend we have a team. So also in this story that Tashon Reed wrote, Raiders owner Mark Davis-Tuck's coach GM Search and who held the power in the former regime.

He also expresses an awareness of different types of coaches. which this is, you know, this is me, Randy. I like putting things into little buckets so I can understand them. I have to simplify everything, so I can figure it out. You have to simplify it for me. That's the thing. I need all the help I can get. So what he was talking about, though, is basically he said there's four types of coaches.

And I don't know that I fully agree with this, but it's interesting. He said there's the offensive guru, the defensive guru. You could get somebody with a special team's background like a John Harbaugh, or there's kind of the quote-unquote leadership coach. I kind of see those as sort of the quote-unquote the walk-around coach. I mean, they're walking around on game day. They're involved in everything, but they don't have their head in the call sheet, right? I think some of the greatest coaches in the history of the game have been that even though Bill Belichick could take over and run the defense, he's coaching the whole team, right?

I think John Harbaugh does that now, right? Yeah, he's involved in all the game plans, but he's coaching the team during the game. I think you can really, you know, do well when you have. It's hard to call the game. You've got to be probably special to call the game and be the leader, wouldn't you say? I would agree with that. It's funny that he says that, but yet Rich Besachi, who was probably the closest to Jarn Harbaugh, at least when he had him at the Raiders, he let him walk out the door.

Because I do think Rich is one of those guys that coaches the team, that communicates with the whole team and having to come up through the special teams side of it. So he talked about the offense, the defense, and he put Harbaugh in the special team's gallery, but I think he is also a leadership guy. So his leadership bucket type of guy, he said he's got experience on one side of the ball or that, but he's not considered, you know, the expert on this or that. He can put a staff around him and be a leader. So there's four different ways to look at it.

And if I were to put Antonio as one of those groupings now, I'd put him in the leadership role. So I do think that role can work. You always talk about the coach, hey, can he make a difference on game day? What do you think about that? Because sometimes in these cases, you know, I don't know how much all of those. we could talk about, you know, Pete Carroll or Mike Tomlin. They've been great coaches, but when it comes down to it, can they make enough of a change in the scheme? And does that concern you at all if you were to keep an Antonio Pierce?

I'm not putting him in the class of Tomlin or Carol at this point. But you know what I mean, that type of a coach who is the quote-unquote leader, do they have to be able to take the reins or you'd be nervous or no? I would be hopeful that they can take the reins on one side of the ball. Now, they don't have to be, obviously, the callmaker on Sundays, but they've got to be Monday through Friday, an intricate part of putting that together. If they're not, and I think Pete Carroll is, I think Tomlin is, their specialty, their side of the ball. They know what's going on. They know why we're doing what we're doing.

Because somebody has to ask the questions. Someone has to hold others accountable. And if you don't know the information, everybody can't be held accountable. You can't ask the right questions. And that's at every level, and especially with a head coach in dealing with his staff. So I don't know if AP does that. I don't know how involved he was in the game plans before, but that would be my first question is that's when I said,

we don't know those behind the scenes conversations, is he involved all day, every day, and setting that defense up and putting together a game plan. Yeah. I think one of the challenges they've had since firing Josh McDaniels is that they didn't have, Josh McDaniels did everything on offense, and they didn't have a veteran coach who was superversed in the office.

They had Scott Turner there, who's had some experiences of collar, but not in the system. So they've had to kind of be green on that side of the ball. And, hey, amazingly, guess what? Those guys get to put the highest scoring game in the history of the Raiders on their resume. So good for them. And that had to be kind of a just getting away from the philosophical part.

That just had to be one of the coolest things for these guys. You know, living under stress, you just got shut out. You just lost a game three to nothing. I mean, you're going to this game thinking, you don't know what's going to happen. I mean, this could have – this had to be one of the most fun, second halves of games. for that coaching staff that you could ever imagine. And players. My guess is they didn't smoke one cigar last night.

They may have smoked a couple. That's how good they felt. I would have said, hey, I know we had the home game here. Can we fly around the world back to home and just have a great flight home after this thing because that was really cool for them? Well, the good news is they could just go down to one of those casinos and do that and never leave the ground. I don't know if that's good. It's bad it is.

Well, I don't either. It's just what it is, yeah. Our point is, yes, they do feel good about it. And I've been part of some of those wins, and you don't want to let it die. And the good news is for them, it happened on a Thursday night, and they have an extra day or two. Hey, now they go to the play at Kansas City. So we'll see about that after their little weekend off. Everyone gets to have a little bit of a mini buy.

In fact, they're coming off a buy, I think. So they get, they're coming off a recent buy within the last couple weeks. They get another little mini one this weekend. Good for them. We'll see how that shakes out. Randy, we got a few other things. We got a big GM notebook today. I noticed that.

Yeah, I don't know if we'll get to that. That was kind of some topics that we, I figured you might pill for a couple, so I extended that. I extended it for a discussion point or two. Yeah, your self-deprecating act isn't fooling me, Randy. I know you always downplay. Here's Randy after, right before he's about to give some amazing insight, he's like, look, this and two bucks will get you a star, but this is worth enough. this is just completely common sense. And then you say something that's completely not,

this is completely next level. So I'm seeing through that. The GM notebook will be loaded and ready to go with great stuff. But I did want to hit on, you know, on the day after Aiden O'Connell outduled Easton Stick, although, you know, Easton Stick had great numbers. How did this even can numbers be sometimes? But I did, I did this week for my Thursday column,

kind of revisit the off-season quarterback tiers, where I had the 50 coaches and evaluators put all the quarterbacks into, you know, tiers from one down to one the best down to usually four, even five, if you're not even a starter. And the funniest part of doing this every year, Randy, is whenever I republish the way it was before the season, the first five comments on the story are like, this is ridiculous because they think it was a new thing. They're like, how's Brock Purdy still this low? Hello, this is from, we're talking about the way we had it before the year. So apologies. Are you saying some of our esteemed readers maybe don't read? No, they're exactly like, they're like all of us.

We all read the headline and then have our opinions for them. I do the same thing. You read the headline and then you want to immediately reach out to the writer and go, God, what an idiot. And then the writer goes, number one, I didn't write the headline. And number two, you didn't read the story. So I'm right there with everybody else. I'm not saying I'm better than them, but that's what happens in these things.

So just to refresh here, I think it could be a good, there's some good talkers, some good topics in here. Before the season started. When I talked to all the coaches and executives about this, Tier 1 was Mahomes, Joe Burrow, Josh Allen, Aaron Rogers, Justin Herbert. Tier 2 was Jalen Hertz, Lamar Jackson, Trevor Lawrence, Dak Prescott, Matt Stafford, Deshawn Watson, Kirk Cousins. Tier 3 was Kyler Murray, Derek Carr, Jared Goff, Russell Wilson, Tuatunga Voloa, Jimmy G, Daniel Jones, Gno Smith, Justin Fields,

Ryan Tannihill and Mac Jones. The top of tier four was Brock Purdy. He was kind of there because he'd only started five games. People liked him, but weren't going to move them up. Kenny Pickett, Baker Mayfield, Jordan Love, another one who hadn't played much. Sam Howell, same sort of a thing. Desmond Ritter, same sort of a thing. And then Gardner Minchew.

There were no rookies in it. That's how it came out before the season. There's definitely some guys to talk about here. And I think the Brock Purdy just conversation is where we'll start because my column a couple weeks ago, Randy, was, hey, because of the sheer production here, it's getting hard. Your case against Purdy being in the MVP conversation is harder to make than the one for him. And we've seen this play out. I don't know if you've followed any of this discussion on social media.

The brightest minds in Twitter, which is some really super bright minds. Believe me, I'm right there in the middle of all of them. Can't wrap their head around how this guy who was the last pick in the draft, who really doesn't have some amazing skill, that is like the most productive history, quarterback in the history of the world. So I'm going to you, Randy. The 49ers don't even have to pay this guy for a whole other year, so they don't really have to make a declaration. But, you know, what tier does he belong in now?

And how do you explain yourself on him? And you liked him, by the way, coming into the year. I do. And I like him more now. I'm going to disregard Cam Newton's recent comments saying he's a game manager, though. I think I'm going to pass on that one. But I'll say this. And I think the point.

polarizing part of Purdy is there's a fine line between being a quarterback of the best team. Uh-huh. Kind of like we see sometimes in the Heisman voting. Yeah, but then being a legitimate, really good player and a difference maker on any team. And that's the differentiating category for me. This is awesome. We should be talking about Purdy for the Heisman. We need a Heisman trophy in the NFL and he can win it.

Then everybody would be happy. He might. He might. Here's the problem I have, and I like Brock Purdy. He's just, to me, at this level, not a guy that can carry a team. He's not a Josh Allen or Pat Mahomes or even Lamar. When you listed your tiers, I'll fit him in right after Dak Prescott, which I think, the way I heard you, puts him middle of tier two. That's what I think he is. No doubt, a really good football player. His physical skill set, to me, is average amongst NFL players. but his accuracy, his anticipation, his football acunem puts him way above average and lists him

in there with those tier two guys for me. Purdy is sneaky athletic, but not to the point where a defense has to come up with a plan to stop him. Some of these other guys that I mentioned do, whether it's Josh or Mahomes or Lamar or even to the point where DAC sometimes and the way he's playing now, your defense better have an idea of his athleticism and what you got to do. They have to design ways to at least know what he's capable of. I don't think they have to do that with Purdy.

But above the waist, he's playing at MVP level. You just want to get a lead on Purdy and make him play, you know, more of an uphill game. But so what I believe is that you can have, you can name somebody the MVP without saying they're as good as Mahomes. They can, you can have an MVP type season. It's kind of like if a running back were to have, you know, an 1,800-yard year, but we didn't think he was Walter Payton, he could still be the MVP to me. I think a super special season of production, even if you're on the best team, can still be the MVP. I don't think we have to overthink it and say, yeah, but he's not tier one. I'm okay with that. I don't think Lamar Jackson

was tier one when he won the MVP, but he had an MVP season. He should have been the MVP. No, you're right. I think the definition of the award itself is dependent on, you know, who you ask. and everybody has a little different reasoning for why they would pick who they pick. I'll say this, another way to ask it is, is pretty the most important player on that 49ers team. He might be. So another note I had in this column, though, was that if you go, I was looking on pro football reference.

I think the stat was something like net yards per attempt for your career. Okay. And basically the top, if you had 50s, 1500 attempts, the top 12 guys were all, you know, who you'd think, Peyton Manning, Mahomes, Dan Fouts, Steve Young, Dan Marino. And then three of the guys up there were Jimmy G., Matt Schaub and Tua, okay? And they're all guys running the Shanahan offense, right? And we know who doesn't belong in the group, okay?

There's a bunch of gold jackets up there. And then there's a bunch of guys who played in the system. So it is a fair question to say, not could anybody do it as well as Brock Purdy, because Jimmy G didn't do it as well as Brock Purdy. But how disqualifying is that system? And I guess how many guys in the league could come into the 4-9 system and do it better? Is it just the guys you'd have in Tier 1? Or is Dak?

Maybe. Does Dak go in there and they're even better? I don't know that they are. No, I would agree with that. I think there are certain cases and the ideal situation looking for is an Elway in a in a Shanahan system or a Montana in a Shanahan system who is it's the Bill Walsh system, you know, extended out a little bit. So yeah, I mean, I do think the system should be, I don't think the system itself is involved in picking an MVP, but it's definitely

involved when legacy is is being talked about for sure. The system matters. Joe Montana was in a great system. He was in an awesome system. But that was always a point of contention for guys like Joe Montana, Steve Young, Jerry Rice. They used to laugh about it's always the system. It's always the system. And I've been around some of those conversations. And no disrespect meant to the system, Bill Walsh, Mike Shanahan, anybody.

But those players, trust me, they bristle when you bring up it was all about the system. Yeah. So if Joe Montana, let's just modernize Joe Montana to be playing. today, if he, if he dropped him into the four-niners offense, is it one percent better, 20 percent better, the same? What Joe Montana doing, how is Joe Montana making it different if he's in the system right now? Well, he'd been doing it for 10 years. And I think there are.

Great two-minute quarterback, too. Yes, great two-minute. Great two-minute, great comeback quarterback. But I would say this, I've heard experts around the league comparing Purdy's skill set with Joe Montana. Nobody's saying he's Joe Montana. but there are a lot of similarities. Now there's, like I say, minus 10 years of body of work

and some two-minute operations there that make you wonder if he could be a Joe Montana, but I've yet to see Purdy fail at anything that says, yeah, I'd rather have this guy in that system or I'd rather have that guy in that system. We'd all rather have Pat Mahomes or Josh Allen or some guy. Yeah, we'd all rather have those, but we know those guys are few and far between.

I would be careful to pick pretty apart no matter when he got drafted. Well, and the funny thing is when Bill Walsh had Joe Montana, you know, the inside word was that, you know, he really wanted Marina. He would have made those types of moves if he could have got one of those guys that was different physically, you know. And, of course, shoot, he had Joe Montana. He was benching him and playing Steve. I mean, Bill Walsh, Bill Walsh is his own. But I think we do need to obviously give Joe Montana his due because great two-minute quarterback. And that's really when it is tough.

And now some of that was the system too. They had a great plan for it and all of that. But he was money at that. I've always enjoyed every once in a while. I go back and rewatch that great Monday night game where it was him against Elway maybe in 94. Montana was with the Chiefs. They both went down the field a bunch of times late in the game.

Awesome. So I'm not saying that if he put Joe Montana in they wouldn't get better because his end of game stuff and just all of that is brilliant. But it's just hard to get much more productive than the four-d-digners are right. now, almost no matter who you would put in there. Purdy is running it at an extremely high level, and I think it's okay to say he's having an MVP type year.

It doesn't mean I'm saying he's the best quarterback or I'd take him over all these other guys. To me, he's a little bit like a golfer who tease off on a downhill fairway. And so when he hits the ball 250 yards, it actually goes 290 because it keeps going. It doesn't mean he didn't hit it 250 right down in the middle, though, right? Right. Yeah. No, that's right.

I think it's a little bit to what we talked about in our conversation before the show in that Purdy's having himself a year where talent is one thing, but operating at a high skill level takes you way above talent. And that's what he's doing. He's operating at a highly skilled level. And that's not always the case, even for some of the most talented. Sometimes you see Lamar screw some things up. Sometimes you see Josh go off the rails. Oh, yeah. Seema Holmes make crazy things.

Well, maybe Purdy's skill level or his talent level isn't what those guys are, but he can play the game at a very, very elite skill level. If that makes any sense, and I know I've used that, but it makes sense to me. No, it does. It really does. So, hey, the best thing for them is they've got their guy and they can't pay him for another year and all these other teams are paying a bunch of money for their quarterback. It's a great competitive advantage for them.

And we'll see. You know, this is really a great year for them to win it all. It is. No doubt. Yeah. And you'd probably, if you had to pick one team to win it all right now, it might be them, right? I would. I don't think that I haven't seen anybody that can compete with them when they're healthy.

I think that's the key is they have to be healthy at left tackle. They have to have those receivers healthy. And Purdy is going to give you what he can, but it's 100% on his health as well and keeping him upright. And I'll say this. if the Chiefs had Christian McCaffrey and Debo Samuel and Brandon Ayyuk, I think that they would probably be scoring 35 points a game. Would you agree? Yeah, I agree with that. Again, I think skill level is is totally above where talent is around the league. And there's just not enough of it. And we see that in these places, especially with San Francisco. Now, they're just playing at a highly

skilled level. Yep. Okay. So let's go through, see if there's a couple more guys here. So, where are you, let's hit a couple of these guys in tier two. I know early in the year with Lamar Jackson, you had him on your list of potential MVP guys. He's coming off of a big win against the Rams, you know, in which he had a late drive with a touchdown pass to help them get into overtime. And this is obviously a little bit of a work in progress for them with the new offense.

Now Mark Andrews is hurt. How do you feel is he, is, Is he trending up? Do you think he's getting closer to tier one now? Or what do you think for Lamar? I would say this about the tiers you have your buckets these guys are in. For me, I would say, yes, Lamar needs to be moved up a hair. I think Dak probably needs to go up to the top of that second tier.

And I'm going to say this, and this isn't all his fault. I would say Herbert probably has to come out of that first tier, just based on where we're at right now. So I would say, yeah, Jackson trending up. DAC trending up, Herbert trending down. And I would probably put a hold on Jalen Hertz and Trevor Lawrence as young guys that are having some ups and downs this year. I'm not ready to downgrade him. Top of two. Two. Not ready to downgrade him, not ready to anoint them. Now, Herbert's interesting because we know how, I mean, shoot, people were joking last night during the game. Herbert won the MVP. His team was down 42-0. The minute he wasn't in there, why would you take him down a notch when it seemed like he's basically being put on a treadmill where he's got to run 20.

miles an hour uphill on 15% incline. And then we're wondering why he looks tired. What's to think that he's going to get off that treadmill? No, I know, but I'm just saying he may be there forever. I don't, I'm not convinced that he'll ever be good around him to where he can perform at an elite level. He's talented. I'm putting him in that talented beyond talent. But I, I think there's a skill level of football acunem that I have yet to see yet with him. And this was another year of not seeing that for me. Just not playing at that highest skill level that his talent should allow. And some of that system.

Some of it's what's around them in the whole operation. But at a certain point, so what we'd say is this is to this point, the talent was so obvious. And there were enough glimpses to say, you know what? I'm confident that this guy's tier one. And he kind of got put there. And then now we're saying some of these results haven't been good enough to justify that. So you're saying I might just knock them down. a notch and put them down, put at the top of tier two with some of those other guys who

maybe their trajectories are a little bit more up for that. I'd say also within tier two, Stafford's proved he's still there. He's had a nice year for them. Deshaun Watson probably is going to plummet quite a bit. I don't know. Do you think Watson's ever going to play at an elite level again? Or do you think he ever did? I don't know that he ever did. For me, he's never been a tier one guy. But you're talking about really now, what, three years of inactivity. You can count some of those weeks this week, but, I mean, it's been forever since we've seen this guy operating at, you know, full tilt.

And I don't know. I mean, I think you're definitely looking at a tier three guy when next season starts. Yeah. All of a sudden, we're giving Joe Flacco extensions now because the quarterback play has been so bad, and we're, we finally found the fountain of youth. So Joe's off to the couch, off the couch into signing extensions all within a month. You mean an extension for the end to the end of the year? For this year, yeah.

I'd say if they got another quarterback contract, that would be something, though. Yeah, yeah. I look at it as an extension. It's just a doubling down on money and a reward, which is fine. I love it. I love it. Yeah, Flacco does look like amazing compared to what they've been looking at before that. So that tells you a lot about what's going on there.

I think also in Tier 3, we need to see more from Kyler Murray. Derek Carr is an interesting one. I mean, I don't know. I guess for contract-wise, he has to be. be the starter next year. If you were coming in, let's just say they were to make changes there at New Orleans. If you were inheriting that, are you just, hey, you know what?

We'll get the right collar with Carr and he's our guy and it better than what we're going to get. Or are you sort of done with that? I don't know if I want to wade into those waters, but I would say this. I would probably look for change. Just because Derek Carr's contract says one thing doesn't mean he has to be the starter. He can be on your team. Now, if he doesn't want to be on your team, like he told the Raiders and walked out,

then we'll cross that bridge when we get it. But the play has not been good enough. I don't think the system's been great. I don't think they've all been on the same page there offensively. It's been a little bit of a hodgepodge. So I would think at some point we'll see some change there somehow, some way, how much I don't know. But he may be part of it. Yep.

Within Tier 3, Jared Goff, he may go to two for all we know. But I'll just pose this question to you, Mr. GM. Ben Johnson leaves this off season. Let's just say that happens. How high are you going with Jared Goff? You're going to bet everything on that or where you're at? Do you have to? If I'm Ben Johnson, I'm probably taking Hendon Hooker with me at some point, somehow, some way.

I know what, it's not the question you're asking me. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. If you're the Lions, go ahead. Yeah, if I'm the Lions, golf has played well enough that I don't think that system's going to change even if Ben leaves. And I think they have no choice but to do. double down on golf at some point here and pay him again. He's been that good. Now, he hasn't been that great the last three weeks. I understand that. But when you consider your options, I don't

think you're going to find better than him right now. Do you, if you're in Denver, Russell Wilson, they're winning late in the year. You're, you're winning with him more than because of. And then you're going to have to make a decision as a Sean Peyton. I think if he stays on the team, you guarantee another 37 million fully. A little bit of a delicate contract. situation. The waters there seem to have calmed down a little bit. Would you be excited to continue? Or what would you be with that? I don't think even Sean is going to be too excited to continue. I mean, we're talking about throwing less than he's ever thrown, Sean, that is, in a system where he's become a downhill power offensive innovator, which is great. But I think there are

skilled positions there that don't fit the criteria that Sean wants. So I do think there'll be some change probably on the perimeter. There'll be some change maybe a quarterback and maybe Russell's willing to rework some money around as well. That would be one that I would definitely explore. Again, these decisions can't be made in a vacuum. They've got to be viewed with another eye on what's our other option. What's the best option? So I don't know. I mean, I don't want to I don't want to guarantee his contract either, but what are our options? And I don't think Sean will cut off his nose despite his face. He's too smart for that.

So if we have to live with this for one more year, so be it. So what's the difference between Sean Payton next season with Russell Wilson versus Jared Stidham? Is there a difference in the number of wins? I don't know that I have enough feel to answer that. I know this. He likes Stidham. They paid him fairly well.

if it comes down to that that that's a great question Mike I don't know if the question is stidim or guaranteeing another 37 million I don't know it's risky but you may have to jump off the ship if that's what you're going to do before the ship gets way out from shore yeah it's a fascinating thing for a Sean Peyton because I think when you come in I think he's done a great job over this season as it's gone along after doing a really shaky job early where I was questioning whether he was even going to win there ever. I think that he's really done a nice job. And now the question this offseason will be,

how much of a clean break do you want to make or how manageable is this? I think after a month I felt like he couldn't wait to move on to a different quarterback. And just anyone who he inherited he wanted to get rid of, you know. Which is normal for a coach, especially when he struggles with those same people. Yeah, and especially when you come in with so much accomplishments.

You know, we've compared it sometimes to we were both around the Seahawks. when Mike Holmgren came in, it was a little bit of the same thing. Couldn't wait to get rid of guys. Yeah, exactly. Even some really good players, like he was just ready to do his own thing. Get his own guys.

Yep. Get his own guys. And so there were some good players. Like Amon Green became the all-time Russian leader for the Packers. Well, he fumbled a couple times for Mike and that was it, right? So that sometimes can happen. Yeah, sometimes can happen. It'd be interesting to me to see if some of the success that they've had over the course of

the season, how much it resets Sean Payton's thinking and all of that. And then like you said, Russell Wilson's contract, does Russell Wilson look around and say, you know what, I'm willing to work with them because I've actually had some growth here, the second half of the year. And I feel like we can, I want to keep doing this, you know, and it doesn't have to be all about me, right? He's made strides on that already this year. He hasn't been made fun of it all for any of those social media awkwardness or something. And so maybe, you know, maybe this is a better fit for them. So I think that's an interesting one to look at. Also in tier three, you know, the Giants have decisions to make around Daniel Jones based on where they're picking. or do you, do they to you? If the Giants pick in the top five, are you taking a quarterback? It depends how in love with one of these guys you are. That's really the evaluation and the value you put on these quarterbacks. I mean, from what I've seen so far, there's a couple that I would pick.

I'm not going to go with the media evaluation and just say there's three or four guys now, and if we need a quarterback, we should pick one. That's not what they'll do, trust me. That will not enter in. So Caleb Williams isn't going to be available if Jaden Daniels is there from L.S. you, you would probably do that, just reading between the lines and knowing what you would. Yeah, me personally, I would.

Yes. Yeah, yeah. Also in there, we've talked about Justin Fields. That will be interesting to see what happens at the end of the year. We talked about Purdy and Tier 4. I don't think there's much to, you know, Jordan loves a little bit interesting to me. I guess they have him at a decent contract number next year, but you'd be generally optimistic there, would you?

Yeah, he would move for me probably up into that behind golf, behind, You know, Wilson, I think too is probably a hair low where he's at. Two is an interesting one that probably would go up into Tier 2 if he gets through this year healthy. But yeah, I think Jordan Love, for the most part, I think you'd have to stamp his year right now as I think we might have our guy. Oh, I forgot when you're talking about Tier 1, I forgot about Tommy DeVito. So he's clearly going into Tier 1 for you, right? And if he hasn't picked up his gold jacket yet. I mean, have you ever seen anything like that before?

That's what I want to know. Of the Tommy DeVito story, the region that is happening. Is it Team Tebowish? There's like a religious fervor by the supporters. And then other people are like, what are we doing here? Like you either get it, you're either in it or you're not, right? You're either part of this or you're not? Do you think he would be celebrated like he is if he played in Seattle or Arizona or L.A.

It feels like a New York thing. Yeah, it just feels like it's a perfect storm for him, for him, for his agent, for his family, and God bless him. I love it. I think it's awesome that they are able to live and experience this in their own backyard. That is a movie and book rights and the whole bit. Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, he should probably just retire now so it could, you know, so it's nothing changes. And I've sort of been, you know, I haven't really wanted to evaluate it that much because it is such a fun story, a cool thing for him. You don't really, you know, when when someone's having success unexpectedly,

it's not really the time to say, yeah, but he's not very good, right? I mean, I say it's just like, okay, just let him enjoy his moment. But I think the longer you're in the lineup and people start saying crazy things and hey, they've got this guy, they've got to think about Daniel Jones, this or that.

Shoot, the offense looks better with him than it did with Daniel Jones. How much does what we're seeing now, let's just say if they were to win a couple more games and he's functional, does it matter to you? or is your judgment and evaluation of him set, and there's no way he can really move the needle?

Well, I don't think the system that they're running now is sustainable for one thing. I do think this, he's not turning a ball over. And if there's a lesson there for Daniel Jones, that's the comparison that does need to be made from a realistic standpoint. I think you can see where the Giants land in this discussion. When Brian Daibald gets asked about the greatness of Tommy DeVito, he shuts down the report like, If he could pump the brakes and then slam on the brakes, that's what he's doing.

He like stops some mid-sentence now. Whoa, whoa, wait a second. Oh, yeah, like the seatbelt harness thing locks up, you know, and it kind of grabs your collar on. When he hits the brakes on the talk of Tommy DeVito being the greatest thing since sliced bread, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So we'll see how it plays out. Fun though, never less fun. I sense that that's going to get brought down to earth here at some point.

And like you, I've kind of just stayed away from it. Are we previewing the picks? Are we previewing the picks? Hey. Well, I don't know. We're going to get, so we had another item. So I want to do this. So you had put down here something about the Buffalo, Kansas City game, and the Chiefs.

I have something kind of related that I might want to do in my Monday column. And because we're a little pinched for time, let's table this one. Because where the Chiefs are at, and is it very interesting to me? and there's some stuff that I wouldn't mind just maybe expanding on it. Maybe we talk about it next week, depending on how things go. Because we've got a full GM notebook. We've got the picks, and we've just got so many things to talk about. I think that's one I just want to tease a little bit too on the Chiefs.

There's some interesting stuff. You and I will talk a little bit off the recording because I think I want to develop it a little bit. So that's a little bit of a tease. Now, GM Notebook, what do you get in there? One thing that I loved last week in the Dallas, Philly game was not only the fact that Dallas continues to get turnovers, but the skill level in which they're doing it. And specifically, they punched out three balls last week from different ball carriers of the Eagles. And I've been around some teams in my past that had prolific

ability to cause turnovers. And it made me think back when I saw the way they did it. Turnovers, Mike, to me, are coachable. It is a topic. Think of Lovie Smith. Marty Schottenheimer, Chuck Knox, some of the old school guys. When we would play the chiefs and Chuck was against Marty, we had a complete different set of rules that week for practice, for way people were carrying balls around the office, knocking them out of each other's hands. It was a conscious effort.

And I remember this from our coaches. They talk turnover 24-7. And it is something that is tangible when players realize what it is and how much effect they can have on a game. And I found what the other thing that it did, did was it helped our offense too because when you have defensive players walking around, creeping around corners in the office and in the weight room and knocking balls out of people's

hands, it made it a topic of discussion 24-7. And I remember our coaches, like I said, all of them saying, hey, talk turnover, guys are coming out of the locker room off to practice field. They're talking about turnovers. They're getting out there early. The DBs are playing catch for 20 minutes before practice, trying to get their hands developed so they could make a pick. But I've just seen tangible evidence of this being a thing. And that's what I thought of last week when I saw the high level of football skill that the Cowboys defenders are using and credit Dan Quinn for punching balls out. It's such a thing that you can't just wave it off and say turnovers are lucky because they're not. Absolutely. For people, want to follow up on the Chiefs reference,

the Marty Days, just search in YouTube or wherever, you know, wherever you want to. Duran Cherry four interception game, okay? The guy picked out four passes and one game. Were you involved in that game, the four interception to run cherry game? Was that a Seattle game? I can't remember. I think it was. Now you're trying to ruin my day.

Yeah, no, those guys got after the ball. They got after the ball. And we did the same thing. We had four picks for touchdowns in a game. Oh, yeah. Against the Fouts. Didn't easily have three of them or something? I can't remember.

I think it was against the Chiefs, actually. Oh, it was it? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, these things, they, they are cyclical, but they are a real thing. And I've also been on a lot of teams that couldn't get turnovers to save their ass. And I used to press the coaches all the time by saying, hey, why don't we talk about this? But it was lip service. It wasn't the same. You know, so you've got to make a conscious effort to hit it in the meeting room, hit it in the locker room before you even get the practice. So that was the first thing on my mind in the notebook was turnovers need to be coached and I don't think they're coached enough. I know. Well, it's funny because in the, in your favorite world, the analyticsy world, especially on Twitter, you know, it's widely accepted that turnover sort of regressed to the mean in a year after year. They're not really a sustainable thing. I think for a lot of a league, that is true. You have some, especially like fumbling and whether you recover or the other team recovers. Some of there, there is a randomness to some of that. But what you're talking about is maybe having, you coach it enough so that, so that some of those situations where they're forced, where you're actually. hitting the ball out of their hands, you know. That's a skill. That's definitely a skill. We know Peanut Tillman. There's certain players who just have a lot of them.

If you remember Chris Dolman, remember Chris Dolman? Yeah. Obviously, remember Chris Dolman. He's a Hall of Famer. But like when he got to the quarterback, he got the ball out more. He knew what he was doing. So it wasn't an accidental thing. It wasn't a thing that fluctuated necessarily all that much.

He was great at it. What's number two in the notebook? Number two is just kind of a fun topic for me and maybe not fun at the expense of Belichick and where New England is now, but the whole New England situation to me is interesting because their defense is really good. Three straight games, giving up 10 or less points. They have good players on defense, and they're missing some due to injury. Matthew Judon's out.

Christian Gonzalez is out. These are front-line, I think, Pro Bowl players. They're out. But that same acunem of evaluating and developing players on offense has been missing. their offense stinks. So before we run Bill Belichick out of town, what if we just spent two seconds figuring out, maybe we just hire somebody to reconstruct that offense, let somebody else put their eyes on it. Maybe it's a different coach. Maybe it's a different scheme. But before we run Bill off, why wouldn't this work if Bill spent 90% of his time on defense, 10% of his time on offense,

and they did have somebody that helped out in that regard? Would that make some sense? That just me speaking out loud. Yeah. Thinking out, thinking out loud. I think it would make great sense. It might be impractical to try to pull off. But if that could happen, you know, because I'm just saying because of the, not only the power that Bill Belichick has had over personnel, but just over how they play the game, they're

super conservative, Randy. I mean, on the go forts and fourth downs and all that, I mean, I don't know if Bill Belichick has been, has moved as much as the rest of the league has on some of that stuff. So, you know, does he want to play the game a certain way offensively? Does he, even the types of players that he wants, which is a whole nother thing, some of these guys they've drafted on offense, just you'd have to be able to override that. And could that happen? Could that work?

I don't know. Well, my point is it has to be, he would have to be willing to override it. But I think you could document history and show that they have swung and whiffed as much on skilled positions, especially, but offensive players more than ever. and as much, if not more than any team in the league. So you could play that conservative style of clock management, ball management, all of that field position with just some better players and a little better innovative scheme. So that's all I'm saying before we blow it up.

And I know that's not going to happen. But I think their defense is really good. So I'm giving them some credit and not wanting to run them off. I'm wanting to just fix the offense a little bit on one side of my P brain. I like that one. All right. What else we got in there? The last thing I'll throw out is just kind of a, for reference as to what GMs and offices are doing now,

many teams are in the process having their college scouts come in the building and kind of download their information from the fall right now. They've had all their people out on the fall. It is a time when you start to plan with one eye on next year. But as we enter bowl season, I just thought it's worth mentioning that a lot of these things, when these scouts come in the building, you'll be kind of redefining what they're going to do over the next month. Bowl season is important to NFL teams. And I'm going to write something on this next week as well about identifying a bunch of names where a bowl game would really matter. So their evaluations are 80% done, these scouts. But at the same time, there's 20% of them that they need to see more on.

And maybe it's a guy that's been suspended or a guy that's been hurt or a guy that you haven't seen matched up against really good players from the defensive side of the ball or vice versa that the matchup will present. So these things are all part of it as well. But teams do have one eye now on bowl season and the draft. And I always like to have our college guys in now because I wanted to get a really good flavor for how the draft might lay out. Because guess what? In January, the pro scouts are going to do the same thing. And by mid-January, I'm going to have known the strengths of our draft so that I can parallel track it with the strengths of free agency. And we'll be able to put together a plan by mid-January as to how we want to.

an attack getting better from a personnel standpoint. So just a couple of notes on what teams are concentrating on now. Yeah, I think that's good. You ready to make some picks? I am. That's it. Let's roll. So I was 0 and 2 last week.

I didn't like them last week. And I was... You said that. You didn't have a lot of conviction. I mean, they still count. They still have two picks. I think there's two picks still counted. So you were two and one after last week.

So we're both just a smidge under five hundred minutes of spread. We're hovering. Hey, let me ask, let me just throw this out to interrupt. Sorry, I had coffee with a bunch of my buddies yesterday, and they picked games at a little local joint in a little logging town where we grew up. And these guys spend a lot of time at this, and they pick games every week. And they do not use point spreads, and they're still around 500. So my point was, without doing points spreads? So either they're idiots or we're pretty good at what we're doing.

So I'm betting on the truth being in between somewhere. And I do think it's hard to pick NFL games with point spreads. So kudos to the bookmakers, kudos to the guys that can do it for a living. It is really hard. I think to pick winners sometimes even without points spreads. I think it's a lot easier, though,

if you can siphon off $22 million from your employer. I think it's very easy then to... Good point. You have more margin for error, at least. Which, by the way, on that story of the guy skimming $22 million, and he was playing super aggressive daily fantasy. So, Ark, Kailen Kailer, I think Katie String had the, the first story on this, it was amazing.

And then ESPN had a follow-up one yesterday or recently in which they got into like the fantasy, the fantasy, the fantasy, the fantasy, daily fantasy world. There's guys in that world who, you know,

bet a lot of money, and they sort of all know who each other are. And they said, all of a sudden this guy named Parlay Picker showed up. That's the guy who was skimming money from the Jaguars. And he's betting thousands daily. And on some days he had, he was betting three grand and then forgot to even update his line it.

They said he was terrible. And everyone was looking to her going, call. How is this guy doing this? He must be so loaded. People were actually jockeying to play against him in that community, guys who really do this for a living and have money to spend on it. And they were like, where is this guy coming from? So we need that type of bankroll here at the Football GM podcast somehow, some way. We'd have a lot of fun. I actually like doing it without. We wouldn't care so much. I like doing it without betting money. I always said if I was a fan, I would just always bet against my team every week. It would be my insurance policy that what would you pay for your team to win?

And if they don't win, I'm happy I'll take the money. I'd take the payoff. You win either way, right? You win, right? You win, right? Hey, I'd pay a hundred bucks for my team to win. Great, I'll bet against them. That way I win a hundred bucks if they lose. And if not, I paid a hundred for them to win. Happy either way, that's what I would do. This is even better than that because we're going to make picks. We're not putting any money on it. Just pride at stake. What do you got?

I've got three games this week that I kind of like. And I'm going to put them on my conviction meter probably at six, maybe seven, maybe just a little off course with my picks, but we talked a little bit about Denver and where Sean Payton has them. I like Denver this week. They're getting four and a half points on the road to play Detroit. Sometimes in these matchups, I look at it as who runs the offense, who runs the defense from a coach's standpoint. And I'm betting on Sean Payton's ability to design a specific game plan to take advantage of some of the Lions' defensive woes that we've seen the last couple weeks. So much, especially later in the season like this, it's about matchups. Denver's become that physical run downhill, hard-nosed team. And I like that. The Denver team isn't,

like we said, it's not what Sean Payton wants, but he's proved he can coach it. And for that reason, I like Peyton getting four and a half. And I think he can be a difference maker this Sunday against the Lions. So that's my first pick. I don't know how you feel about that. Ah, I like it. I'm worried about the lions. I feel like the lions got their nine wins. They've had a successful season. They know they've got some flaws.

I mean, they just lost 2813 of the Bears. That's a division game. They lost by two touchdowns. Yeah, I hear you. That's concerning to me. I think they're a great story, and we've all been happy for them. But I do think the question of how good are they really is real. Yeah, yeah.

I'm with you on that. The success story, but I like Denver. I'm not going to do it also because I steal enough from the GM notebook, but I like your thinking. My second pick might make you think twice of my football acumen, but I'm going to pick the Jets. The Jets are getting nine and a half points this week. And again, it's about matchups for me. I think the Jets defense can and is capable of mucking things up for Miami. Miami has some injuries, especially up front.

I think the Jets team can pressure Tua. Zach Wilson obviously has a little confidence now. I think their OC there has a little confidence now. I'm not saying the Jets are going to win the game, but nine and a half points is a lot. And I think they keep it closer than that. So I'm going to take the nine and a half with the jets. And the third game I like, yeah.

The third game for me is I'm going to take the Packers to bounce back over Tampa. Green Bay is a three and a half point favorite. And I think Green Bay is up, down a little bit, but they got knocked on their ass last week. I would anticipate them coming back with a little fervor. And I think they're more talented at key positions. Even though they're young, I think they're going to beat Tampa, and I'm going to take Green Bay and give the three and a half points.

I like those picks. So I'm going to pick four this week. And we're going to overlap on the Jets. I do like that as well, just from where Miami's at. So hopefully, you know, we get that one right. Here's my pick. So I'm going to take Chicago and get the three points against Cleverver. Cleveland because I feel like Flacco back to Earth game.

I think Cleveland's injuries are really real. They've had a lot of them. They put a defensive tackle on, injured reserve. You know, I think that they are, they've won some games good for them. But I just don't know. I feel like Iber Fuse has got that Chicago defense going. And then he's, the Montez Sweat is a nice piece for him to rush the passer. I kind of think I'll take the three points.

just take my chances that maybe I get a push out of it, maybe I get a win. Yeah, no, I can't dispute that. I like it. Yeah, and now it seems odd that I would take the Rams and give six and a half points maybe in a game, but they're playing Washington. Washington has lost the last three games, 45-15, 45-10, 31-19, okay? So that includes 319 to the Giants. I think the Rams are a salty team.

like, I think they're getting the most out of what they've got. And I think Stafford really has a going. They really probably should have won at Baltimore last week. Great performance by them. So I'll take my chances with Washington kind of going on the road. They're just sort of playing out the string, I think, at this point. And they haven't shown anything defensively that makes me think they're going to stop the Rams. This wouldn't surprise me if the Rams had over 20 points at halftime.

What do you think of that? Yeah, no, I totally agree. That noise you hear is the commander's cars running in the parking lot to head south for the winter. Yeah. They've cashed it in. I don't see it at all. I'm with you 100%. I think it could be a big Rams day.

Big Rams day. And I know that McVeigh worked for Washington. I think that would be an even better thing if Dan Snyder was there. But whatever. So McVeigh is a big advantage here. Now, a fourth one is I'm going to take my chances with Dallas getting two points of Buffalo. And my thinking on the bills is they really should have lost that chief game. And the way they mismanaged the end of that game in such a way that it easily could have been another thing on their ledger.

And what it took was a rare offensive off sides call negating an unbelievable play that would have gone down with 13 seconds. That play would have gone down with 13 seconds as the knockout blow. I don't feel like the fundamentals around the bills have changed enough in a positive way that they're just, solved. I think they're a tough team. I think they can win or lose any week. But I'm going to just kind of what you wrote about in your column a little bit this week, you like the fact that Dallas has a tough finishing schedule for the Cowboys. You like it for the Cowboys because this is a team that gets ahead of themselves. Yep. It'll keep their attention. It'll keep their attention.

Keep their attention. And I just, I just kind of, you know, with Dak Prescott, his mindset right now, where McCarthy's at. You talked about their defense. I'm willing to say, I'm willing to just kind of bet on it and say, put my neck out there a little bit and say, I'll just take the two points and take my chances with Dallas. What do you think of that? No, I'm not against it. I think it's a fascinating game and obviously it's the game of the week in most places. I love Josh Allen. I love to watch him operate.

I'm going to watch it for that reason. But he better hang on to the ball. He better protect the ball. And all those guys better protect the ball. So it'll be interesting. I think Buffalo is the more desperate team. But I'm not sure that Dallas. isn't the better team. So it'll be interesting.

Yeah, it'd be fun to see Dallas coming off of a big win against the Eagles. Look, that wasn't an overly close game. And I wouldn't say the Cowboys even played their best game, right? And it wasn't even that close. So we'll see. We'll see. I think the bills are just such a fascinating team. But that's where we're at.

We went a little longer the normal Randy, but don't apologize. I know your instinct is to apologize. Remember, you're bringing it. You're bringing gold every week. So going a little extra longer is a benefit. to all the listeners out there, right? Don't apologize. Hopefully they're still around.

I'm going to cut you off. I'm going to cut you off on the apology. Yeah, no, no crickets here. So thanks everybody for coming along. You can find Randy and you can find me on The Athletic. You can find us both on X at Randy Mueller underscore at Sando NFL. That you guessed which one is me, which one is Randy. And we'll talk to you all next week. Have a great weekend.

This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.