The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Difficult GM decisions, Justin Fields’ involvement in Bears draft, checking in on the worst teams from 2022 & more

Episode Date: May 18, 2023

Before diving into NFL offseason news, Mike Sando and Randy Mueller check in on the NBA playoffs and big decisions facing GMs. Then, they talk about Justin Fields’ involvement in the Bears’ draft and how we feel now about the teams with the worst records in 2022. They wrap with a packed GM Notebook involving the Commanders, the AFC East, the Jaguars in London and more. Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube1:13 NBA playoffs & difficult GM decisions25:34 Ryan Poles involves Justin Fields in Bears draft31:53 Worst NFL teams in 2022 and how we feel now?38:27 GM NotebookThis episode is brought to you by...BetterHelp: Visit BetterHelp.com/MAYS today to get 10% off your first month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Before we jump in, I want to tell you about New York Times Audio, a new iOS app for the New York Times News subscribers. It's got our show, plus all of the other podcast from The Athletic, exclusive shows, narrated articles, and more. New York Times Audio. Download it now at NYTimes.com slash audio app. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast, Mike. sand out here from the athletic along with the GM Randy Mueller also from the athletic I'm still getting used to saying it still loving it how you doing Randy I'm doing great Mike this seems like the first kind of week that the offseason might be upon us

so it's kind of a mellow GM notebook this week a mellow GM podcast yeah there's not tons of pressing stuff but I tell you the the GM notebook has about five items in there there's good stuff in there I didn't you know pull anything out of there separately. We may move it up in the order this week. But it's funny, do you watch much of the NBA? Randy, you've been watching the playoffs at all? I do. I'll tell you, I've always been an NBA guy, even over college basketball. I'll go to a college basketball game occasionally in person, but it doesn't do it for me on TV. But I do love the NBA and have watched it forever. Of course, I'm a diehard Seattle Sonic fan, so I'm a little frustrated the last 15 years.

Oh, I know. But still, I do watch the NBA a lot. I think it's the, The level that they bring athleticism is unbelievable. And for me, no matter the sport, I like to see the best in the world at whatever they're doing. So it's an easy watch for me. It really is. I'm bringing it up today because we're going to talk about a couple of the issues going on there and maybe tell a couple NFL stories and tie it into things that can happen to teams and in the NFL. One's the John Morant situation.

Obviously, he's, you know, been, I guess, suspended from off-season activities with the Memphis Grizzlies, was in a social media post for the second time where he was kind of brandishing a gun. And then also with the Warriors season ending that the preseason fight between their players, the punch, I guess, it was more a punch than a fight, Draymond Green, their star forward, punching Jordan Poole, one of the younger players on the team. And then that becoming delight after the season is something it has to be dealt with. So those were a couple things. But I got to tell you, I love the NBA too.

I've really reconnected with it this year more, especially in the playoffs. But, man, that joker on Denver, I mean, that's stuff that he was doing against the Lakers and the first game when he hit that ball at the end, he hit that 30-footer at the end of the quarter. And, man, the guys just looked at him like, okay, what are you going to do? It seems like people really struggled to treat him with respect. Maybe it's the, he's not an explosive athlete like the rest of the league. Yeah. But everybody kind of, yeah, I got it. He's a couple time MVP, but nobody really wants to stamp him. I wonder why, because all he does is, well, now he's winning, but all he's done is embarrassed people for the last four or five years especially. And he just keeps doing it every night. That's what I like. It's as consistent as you can ever see in any athlete. I can't believe like the studio hosts still point out that he's okay, not the most athletic or whatever. I don't know who the car. comp is, you know, in the end, it would be like talking about Jerry Rice's 40 time not being fast enough. He's faster than the guy chasing him, right?

He's fast enough, yeah. There's different types of players that don't have, you can be an all-time great player. He just happens to be so tall, too, to be able to do it. I mean, it's like Larry Berg was 610, so deal with it. You know, he may not be the most athletic guy, but he sees everything and plays it great. So love it. It's been fun to watch. I'm going to watch the rest of the final.

You know, I waited overnight outside once, outside of an arena. tickets to see Michael Jordan. How about that? Really? Yeah. When the, when the Kings moved to Sacramento where I was living when I was growing up, I had been a Laker fan before they went there. Kareem was my guy.

But yeah, they came to town and we, I can't imagine that I would ever let my kids do something like that now, but me and a buddy, a bunch of people were down there and people were barbecuing in the parking lot and throwing footballs around and we waited outside overnight. The ticket was eight bucks and that

included one dollar for parking. I so got the ticket. That's not. One dollar for parking and we saw Jordan put up 40, put up 30 points. Awesome. We were there. They got off the team bus and walked to the arena. Like, you know, we were standing there. We got to shake a couple hands. It was just amazing. Well, that's what you did back in those days. That's exactly what you did. I remember some buddies in mine in high school back in, and I'm going to high school in northern Idaho. They would drive over every year when the Sixers came to play the Sonics. And mind you, this is about a seven hour drive from where we lived in North Idaho, because they wanted to see Dr. Jay. And they would do the same thing. They'd go to the hotel. They'd be there early just

to watch them get off the bus and go inside. And they'd do whatever they could to get a ticket to just see Dr. Jay. And so we all kind of had our guys, right? And those guys still talk about it. Shoot, they're 60 years old. And they talk about how they used to go to the Seattle Coliseum to watch Dr. Jay play just once or twice, you know. And those are lifetime memories for sure. I as a, as a parent, took my daughter in Seattle and I don't know what you. this would have been, but she probably wasn't old enough to really understand it. I wanted her to see Michael Jordan so bad that we went and bought tickets and went and saw them play when he was playing with the Wizards at the time. And I knew he wasn't the Michael Jordan I had seen, but I wanted

her to be able to say, I've seen Michael Jordan play too. So we went for that reason just to do that. So yeah, the NBA is interesting that people want to see their heroes as much in that sport as any other sport, I think. I know. They got to fix the load management thing. I can't believe it. What if your daughter went there and Jordan sat out? That's a tough one.

It is a tough one. Drive seven hours to see Dr. Jay and, you know, they played Portland the night before, so it's not going to play tonight. Could you imagine? No, it would send you through the roof. Yeah, I know. It would be. That's one thing.

There's a couple things I think they could improve. But, you know, I, as we talk about this Morant situation and brinishing the gun, I just think of, I went back and I was, It reminded me in a, it's a different type of thing, obviously, a more innocent type of thing. But the NBA used to put out, or the NFL used to put out those posters or maybe. NBA did it too, but yeah, all sports did it, really. Yeah, yeah.

So I found this one from the 80s. It's got Jim McMahon and Walter Payton in it, and it says Chicago Vice, and Jim McMahon's holding like a semi-automatic pistol there. It kind of looks like Don Johnson or something like out of the Miami Vice TV show back in the day. It's probably good that Jim McMahon didn't. have social media. Who knows what we were seeing and what the bears would have to deal with. Was that a Nike poster, by the way? You know, I've got it here, but I can't, it doesn't say. That would be interesting because you talk about John Morant and him losing shoe deals possibly,

but yet Nike put out some posters that, you know, probably wouldn't fly in this day and age either. But, hey, life and times, things have changed, that's for sure. It is. But I kind of, and you recommend and maybe we talk about this, and I agree because it's not just topical, but these are the teams that you deal with, the types of things you deal with on your team. Morant's going to get $33 or $34 million next season, and so you expect certain things from them. Right. Maybe.

Maybe now. Yeah. Maybe or maybe you don't. Just curious what you're, I think sort of GM's ears perk up over the stuff, even if you're not in that league, right? If you're the GM of somebody in the NFL, you're thinking about what will we do or what does it all mean? or it's not like he committed a crime or something.

I don't even think it was his social media feed. Somebody posted something. He's in a car hanging out with whatever. What do you think? Well, yeah, there's no doubt. And we've talked about it forever. Everybody does that times have changed. And the fact that everything now is available to everybody 24-7.

Yeah. When these people and gosh, some of us, the minute we walk out our house, we're on stage, right? And so you know that somebody's going to have something to record something that you may not want. So it's kind of not fair, but at the same time, having just seen what John Moran went through a few months ago to do this again, it's obviously a lack of judgment. You know, I tried to equate it to anything that I would have had to deal with in the 80s, 90s, 2000s with regard to dealing with an NFL player. I didn't really think of anything like this other than, like you said, it's just the times are different. people see things different now.

Now we have, you know, it's crazy. We have mass shootings. And these leagues now go so far out of their way to stay away from a controversial branding issue. I mean, you have to look, gosh, no further, especially the NBA when the China deal came up a couple years ago and all kinds of stuff. It's really changed the outlook of consumers. And that's what really, that's where the money comes from, right? So, you know, it's a tough spot for Morant to be in because of that money that you just said, he's going to get $31 million if he just keeps his nose clean and he proved he couldn't do it.

So it'll be interesting to see how this works out. I think most are now pretty much saying it's a foregone conclusion. He's going to be suspended for a giant chunk of change next year. But you're right. He did not break a law. He did not do something to harm anybody at all. And I'm not saying it was a good. idea and that he didn't have a bad case of, gosh, we got to do better than this. But there is two sides

to it and it puts the league in a tough spot as well because they surely don't want this out there in their name. And they're going to have to come down on him now at some point. And when I saw the commissioner's reactions that he was shocked, I don't know if I would have been shocked because let's face it, the eight game suspension and the classes that they made him go through, you're not going to fix this in two or three weeks. This is a deep-rooted judgment thing that these kids nowadays don't really have the mechanism to deal with sometimes. So I think a longer term solve is probably where the NBA is going to go with it. And it's probably a good lesson for the other league's professional sports for sure.

Talk about times changing. I think at a recent combine or somewhere in the last few years, I had dinner with a former player who had played it back in the 80s. And he was in the league for one of the strikes. There was strikes in 82 and 87. And he said one time, I don't remember the exact story, but there's something along these lines, things had got so tense over players breaking the picket lines or strikes. It was a well-known player, I think, who was a union rep or something.

He actually brought a firearm into the facility, like angry, you know, and it was kind of in a threatening way, you know. And I actually went back and looked if that was a public thing. I don't know that it was. I'm not going to reveal what was the secondhand story. But I can imagine. and something like that happening now, and I'm sure you've seen a few things in your day, too, that would dwarf a social media post that's grainy and might show somebody in a passenger

seat having a gun. Yeah, there's no doubt. I mean, I can recall a time in Seattle where we had two players get into it. Actually, it was in the off season during some workouts, and they got into a physical altercation in the weight room, and one of them, it kind of spilled over into the training room, and one of the guys went outside to get a firearm and made it known he was going out to the car to get his gun. Dang. And I remember our trainer calling upstairs and our assistant Jim sprinting by my office to go downtown.

I mean, to go downstairs, I'm thinking, what the heck is going on? It wasn't until after it was kind of calmed down. Did he say, hey, so-and-so went out to get a gun. They were going to fight inside. Who knows what's going to happen? Nowadays, that would all be on social media. Every bit of it, we would have been known the whole time. And I don't even think that altercation rose to the league level.

I don't even think the league knew about it. I don't think anybody knew about it. But those are the kind of things that you could keep in-house, which just tells you how different it is now in managing and running a team. Absolutely. The editor incident we alluded to talking about in the family and the team was the Golden State situation where now their season is over and they're dealing with the fact that one of their top players, Dremont Green, had punched one of their younger players, Jordan Poole, before the year.

And then in these playoffs, after Poole got a big contract, he didn't do so well. And now the teams have a little bit, I wouldn't say a crossroads necessarily, but you have sort of the old guard of the team, the newer guard of the team, some decisions possibly to make. I thought, you know,

as I mentioned, I've been following these playoffs. I think Tim Kaakami, who does a lot of Bay Area and Warriors analysis, had a great column called the Punch, the struggle and everything about this warrior's season, point to a duel over next year. And in it, he detailed some of this.

I just was thinking about how, teams are families and within your family you do have conflicts and sometimes the family's not the same again you've got to make decisions off of that kind of reminded me a little of the gino smith situation with the jets where the course of a player or course of a franchise could possibly be altered right over something like this that you know especially depending on who's involved right well there's no doubt and in that case i believe it was some card playing and some gambling that it had happened on an airplane. That always used to scare me to death, Mike, is the gambling. And we all know guys want to play cards on the way home. They want to do this, that sometimes that got mixed with

alcohol and you never knew how much money was changing hands. There was nothing good that was going to become of this. And so there were a lot of years where we had to, you know, curtail all the card playing because it just got too crazy in the back of an airplane coming home from a game on a Sunday, you know. So those things always did bother me. I think in this case, with just Jordan Poole and and Draymont with the Warriors, I would really like to know what caused it. The punch doesn't really bother me, but I want to know why. Why did this guy feel a need to lash out? Is it something that was said?

Is there some character issues here that really set off an older, more experienced, Draymond Green? And you know how Draymont plays, right? There's not many competitors in the league at a higher level than him. You talk about want to win. And I always equated him to a guy like Ricky Waters. Remember the running back that we had in Seattle years ago, who gosh, was in my office every other week, complaining that he didn't get the ball or complaining that coach didn't do this or complaining that we didn't do that.

But you know what? He always used to say, and I believe him to this day, I just want to win, Randy. And I think these are things that we need to do to win. And I totally agreed with him in most cases. Sometimes there was nothing I could do about it. But I think in this case, with Draymont lashing out at Jordan Pool, and I don't know what it was, there's probably something there that if I'm the GM of the Warriors, I definitely know why. And that could determine if a guy is here or not, because that kind of stuff, if somebody, and I'm not, I'm just guessing, right?

If Jordan Poole is wired a different way, like maybe it all pays the same, I don't care as much as Draymont or can be perceived as maybe not being the same ilk as some of the competitors, the older guys, that would be a problem. That would be a definite problem. I remember a player that we had in Seattle years ago, who was a corner that we drafted early, first or second round pick, I think second round pick. And he came to us and wasn't playing much his rookie year, played a little more his second year. And I remember a couple veteran players telling them on the sidelines during practice,

hey, keep your head up, your time's coming. It's going to happen for you. You know, you have talent. And I was standing there at the time. And that kid's response was, you know what, I'm good with it. it all pays the same. It really doesn't bother me at all. And just that comment kind of paved his way out of town two years later.

Because once I heard it, I had a hard time accepting it. Because this kid didn't really care about, you know, the team, the competitive spirit that needed to happen. He was just there for a paycheck. And that bothered me. And it comes to find out another team signed him and paid him a lot of money. He never panned out. The player never played, in my opinion, hard. He never gave his all.

And yeah, so he made a few million bucks, but he was never, he never fit the skills that he had because his heart just wasn't in it. And I guess it's not for everybody, but that can rub teammates raw. And I don't have any idea what happened with the Warriors. But those are the kind of things I think about. You know, I'm always thinking that he must have set him off somehow, some way. Absolutely. And then Draymond Green, you know, his temperament, maybe he just lost it on a bad day. Maybe.

Maybe. Yeah, maybe. But there's, yeah, interesting things to have to deal with. I think in the NBA, it's such a smaller roster, too. You know, you're really, have to work more cohesively. If you've got a cornerback who gets into it with the running back, big deal, right? I mean, you know, they're not going to have to be in the same meeting room or anything like that. You just buy guns, be bygones.

And I think you're right, too. Like the flare-up that happens in practice because we're both going for a loose ball and we're getting on each other's nerves is different than a fundamental underlying difference that's going to be hard to reconcile. And so that would certainly come to mind. I do got a couple more NBA things for you. And we'll apply to the NFL as well because I want to ask you. Who's your greatest?

Who's your goat in the NBA? Who's your greatest player? Well, for me, it's Jordan. And everybody's going to say, well, that's age biased. You know, you saw him more. I watched NBA since I was a little kid. And I've watched it since Jordan left. And for me, the fact that this guy,

I was what, six three or six four and willed everybody around. He was six six, six, six, to a different level. You talk about a competitive spirit. All you got to do is watch the practices of the dream team in that dream team film or the other documentary that was made during the pandemic that we all watched the last chance. Those kind of messages, it just gives me goosebumps to see a practice that he really was behind when magic and bird and all these other dream team members are there. And he was running that show.

I don't know. And maybe that's more personality than anything else. I think a lot of people would say LeBron or maybe some of the more recent players. But I don't see LeBron James running a practice like that like Michael Jordan did. I just, I don't see that. So I'm a Jordan guy, but I could surely hear anybody's case for somebody else. I think it's a short list. Do you differ?

Do you have somebody else? So unlike you, I remember the NBA before Jordan, and I was actually a defender of some of the era before that. And so I had to grudgeonly be won over by him. Because if you remember the first five years of his career, he wasn't exactly winning a bunch of championships. He had to overcome the stigma of the guy who scored 30 and didn't win anything. But I think I have to give it to him now. And I think, you know, with LeBron, you could certainly make a case. And maybe we will.

I think once a player's career is over for a while, it's easier to assess. We're in the moment right now. We're thinking about what he did last week or we're seeing maybe a little bit different version of him now as he's 38 years old. My favorite guy always growing up was Kareem. And I know that LeBron passed him, but I always defended Kareem

because he lost the first four years of his prime playing in the UCLA when you couldn't, weren't going straight to the NBA. And I think if he had four more years, if he had his first four years been in the pros, I think that scoring record would still be there. But I would still probably give it to, Jordan, and I still might go LeBron next.

I think one of the criteria in basketball to me is you just have an advantage if you can also bring the ball up. I think some of the great big guys inside really need to be set up. I think just there's an all aroundness to the games of a Jordan and LeBron that I have to take into account. And so I just think Jordan was the most guy I would fear the most. He's the guy I would not want to face the most if I had to go against. If our team was going to go into the NBA finals

And I could say, and you asked me, there can be three players that you can block from being on the other team. I'm going Jordan, Bird, and then just, I don't even know who I'd have to think about who'd be next. But I think those were the two killers to me that I think not only make everyone around them better,

but are going to tell you where they're going to make the shot, then do it. And you've got problems with those two guys. How about NFL for you? Is it easy for you that it's Brady? Yeah, it is for me, Mike. I mean, I've been a part of the NFL since the early 80s. And even before that, I just think the athletes nowadays are so much better than the guys from yesterday year.

And that's not to take away from them. But I think what Brady accomplished and then the icing on the cake was what he did in Tampa, he really gave a Patriot franchise a chance to not only win for 20 years, but a chance to really screw things up. I mean, they could do no wrong because guess what? They had the rim protector at the end of it because Brady made him all better. He made everybody better. Think of the players, the coaches, the front office people,

the money that has spun off for them to be coaches, head coaches elsewhere, GMs elsewhere, all to pretend to reincarnate. the Patriot way, it's never worked because you know why? They couldn't bring number 12 with them. I just think he was the common thread for me. And I saw him early in his career in maybe year three, four. It was when I was at ESPN and I got a chance to go around to some training camps, which I'd never done, and got to go to Foxborough and watch them practice. And I saw the attention to detail that he had, even after making Pro Bowls, it was unbelievable. So I think when you when you really break down why he was as good as he was. Obviously, he was talented, but he probably

worked harder than anybody I'd ever been around. He put in more time than anybody I'd ever known to put in, and the results were there. So he won at the greatest level more than anybody else, and he played the hardest position, I think, in the world to play and was the best there. So for me, he's the best football player I ever saw. You know, if you had come on to the athletic staff earlier, we could have invited you to influence the thing we put Dan Pompeii and I put together on the top 100 players in NFL history. There was a series that we had voted on a couple years ago, and then Dan and I refined it for a book that's coming out in October. I think it's the NFL top 100 players. And so it's hard to go with someone other than Brady for me, especially when you take into account going to Tampa and just, I know they had a good team, but just going to a team that had to a team that had.

hadn't done anything. They were a 40% winner for a number of years and then just winning it all to me is just the ultimate validator. It's the extension of what you're saying. They've tried to export the New England to other places. It doesn't work, but you exported Brady and it worked. Right away. It's really unbelievable. I'm trying not to overthink it. I just think it's it's so obvious to me that, you know, definitely makes sense. Yeah. So, you know, with hat tip to Jim Brown and Jerry Rice and LT. Yeah, I get it. A bunch of other guys.

They're good. I'll say this. How about on defense? And I mentioned this, LT was the best defensive player I ever saw. And I thought he could dominate from, and we talked about him a little bit, I think, early on the podcast, the fact that he could play the run, the pass. He could do it all at a physical but yet highly athletic level. For me, he was the best defensive player I ever saw.

I would agree. And I like a little bit what we talked about with Jordan. I like the killer. I like the guy who plays with a, I don't know if it's a meanness, but of violence with an intent, with a passion. And I think it's the intensity. Just that intensity that Lawrence Taylor had, you had to be worried when he was on the field. And I think there's few players that are really bringing like a fear factor almost in addition to, hey, this guy's going to be tough to deal with. He was coming with intentions.

Yeah. Bad intentions. Bad intentions. I thought that really set him apart, even from some of the other great players. Reggie White would be up there for me too. But I think LT had an edge to him. So, yeah, fun little good discussion. We got a few.

You want to go into the GM notebook next? We get a couple other things, but I wouldn't mind going in there. Whatever you got. You're in charge of this ship. I'm just a passenger, so I'm happy to chime in. If you're the passenger, just please don't brandish any firearms during the show. I won't do that. I don't even get about it.

Yeah. Yeah. All right. So what do you got? We got five things in the GM notebook. What do you got off the top? Well, maybe we should mention the Ryan Poles and the Justin Fields thing, only because I think that's really important. And this was not part of the GM notebook.

But it was a note that you put in here. I'll let you set it up. But I would like to make a few comments on that. Yeah, that's a good one before we get to GM notebook, which we're teasing now. Everyone can't wait. They almost got to brief your hand in the GM notebook. But you're just happy to get it up there because you're just happy to get it up there because usually most of the items have disappeared by now in the show.

That's right. Yeah, I would have used them all by now, taking credit for him. So this one was, I just saw, you know, doing a little show prep and just reading some of the headlines and things that are out there. And there was something about how Ryan Poles, the GM of the Bears, had kind of looped in his young quarterback, Justin Fields, before the draft. And not, hey, here's the draft board and here's everything we're going to do. But made him feel a little bit part of it. Hey, briefed him on the team's plans, that sort of thing. And this type of thing has been made a big deal about, I think, lately where, you know, Aaron Rogers, certainly in Green Bay, you know, wants to want them to feel included or Russell Wilson to some extent in Seattle.

Some of these things have come out. So I just curious what you thought, because Fields isn't a 10-time pro bowler or anything like that. You might be able to make the case of, hey, wait a minute, you know, why would the GM have to do that? Is it good? Is it bad? Would you like it what? Well, I think in this case, it's really good. And the other inferences that you mentioned, it was almost like, and this is just my opinion, it was almost like those other guys who you mentioned were kind of entitled to be involved.

And I don't think that's the case with Justin Fields at all. I like everything I've read, heard, learned about Justin Fields. I like his temperament. I like his work ethic. I like all that stuff. So I think by Ryan Poles bringing him in and talking to him, I think it is a way to empower him. I think it's a way to make him, make it known that you're our guy. obviously they traded the first pick in the draft, which could have very easily been a quarterback for them.

So they've indirectly empowered Justin Fields. But I think when you bring a guy like that in and say, hey, it gives him some respect. It gives him a little pride of authorship by telling them ahead of time what you're thinking about doing. I have no problem with a dialogue with whether it's the quarterback or a couple of your better players who are also the leaders of your team. I don't think that's bad to keep them in the loop at all. it's not like you're going to them to say, hey, who would you think we should hire as a coach? Or who do you think we should hire as a coordinator per se? I don't want those guys really influencing who I'm going to hire as their boss or their director or their manager.

But in this case, I think it's just a respect thing to run it by him. And the other thing about bringing a guy like Justin Fields into your office is if I'm, you know, Ryan Poles, I might be asking him about all kinds of Ohio State guys, players he's played against and with that are in the draft this year. So there is a really good dialogue and a reason to have a dialogue with some of your better players who you know and trust and know that they get it. I would surely like some input from them on some of the guys who might have been recent teammates of theirs. And so I always thought that was good. That's one of the reasons when I was a GM Mike. I always like to be available to the players.

And it was maybe not in a formal way, but watching practice. I would always kind of stand where the players are just to have a kind of a, not that you want your players. bullshit and with the GM during practice. But there were times when there was, I mean, obviously I've been around a little bit, so I know when the right time is to have a conversation. I really enjoyed hearing from those guys at different times about anything. The other thing is those players, they know who the players are. You can't fool players.

They know who's talented. They know who's good. They know who has and what intentions. And so I learned from them occasionally about certain different players. So I just put it in your memory. It's not like they're recommending you do something. These are just things to add to information gathering to make you make better decisions down the road. So I think it's a great dialogue to start with polls and Justin Fields.

And I thought I had no problem with it at all. So let me put it this way. Let's just say if you were the GM of the Bears and you were bringing him in, what sorts of things you would be comfortable telling him or want to tell him as opposed to, you know, just asking and getting information from him about players that might be in the draft. Well, I might say this. Here's our goal, Justin. I want to get you as much help as we can.

I feel like, and I'm going to trust that our discussion stays right here, but I think we need a right tackle. I just think we need to protect you. We need to make sure you stay upright. That's something we need to do. But I also know that if we don't cover some guys on defense, and I'm making this up, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. If we don't start covering guys on defense, we're going to have a hard time because we're

always going to be playing from behind. I don't want you rolling out there as a sacrificial lamb behind by 14 points every week. So I would just kind of give him a little bit of a taste of your vision. I would also get his vision. How do you see our team? What do you feel like is important to you? So I think it's a really constructive dialogue and maybe I'm nuts, Mike, but I just think gathering information is part of being a leader. And I think you've got to be comfortable in your own skin. It's not like he wants to run your team or is even qualified to do so. But I think it empowers him and you want your quarterback empowered. I think that's much different than seeing on tape, whether it's Sean Payton or some other coach with Russell Wilson in the front row of an NBA game.

That's totally different for me. I'm not sure I really love that or buy that. I'm saying behind closed doors, I want that dialogue to be there and I want the respect to be there. And nobody has to know that. We don't have to publish this. We don't have to let people all in the loop on this because it might make people view just in the locker room a little different. I don't want that to happen or to make him have to adjust his leadership style because he's now known as, hey, a confidon of Randy's or the GMs or whatever. Is that making sense? It does.

Yeah. I think those public perception thing, you know, that. Yeah, those are tricky. Being seen in a social setting as a social friend of the coach, that's bad probably. Yeah. But, you know, involving and including in a way that doesn't go too. far would be good. Yeah.

No, I agree. So I liked it. I thought it was good. You know, I could delay the, it kind of segues into another item I had in there that we don't have to go deep on, but could just build the suspense even further for the GM notebook, which was, because the bears were one of them, I kind of sketched down on a sheet of paper, who were the worst teams in the league last year and do we feel much different about them, right?

So I had found, what, there's seven teams. Yeah, seven teams that were six and 11 are worse, right? That's a 35% win or worse. And the bears were obviously right in there with the worst record. And I was just going to see how we feel about these seven teams. And we're not going to go deep on them, but I'll go in the order of the worst record bears. You feel them better? They were three and 14.

High expectations for them? You think they're going to be middle of the pack? I kind of think in that division, it's a little more open. probably without a top quarterback in Green Bay. Yeah, I totally agree. I think they will be better. I think the record will show it. I could see this team being a six-win team,

maybe a seven-win team if they get a break here or there. Maybe you see them as even better. But I think they are in year two of a culture change. Their offensive system now has been in play for two years. Again, the second year should be a better year for staffs, for groups of people that, you know, in their second year and struggled their first year, they're going to be better in year two. So I'm not down on the bears at all.

If I was looking at your list, and if it's okay, I'll just read some of your games. And then we can touch on a couple. We don't have to do every team. Chicago, Houston, Arizona, Indie, Denver, and L.A., and that's Rams. I would probably put Chicago in the middle of that group, maybe toward the upper half of that group of your six teams. That's just my opinion. So of those, Chicago, Houston, Arizona, Indy,

Denver, Rams, and Raiders. Is there anyone you'd single out, potential playoff team, make a big move out of it? I think the only team for me in there that I see really trending to the playoff level will probably be the Raiders. I think that's possible for them. Not that I'm a giant Jimmy G fan, but I think they're in year two. They're in a little different situation. I think they'll definitely beat six and eleven. I know they're in a tough division. I get it. But if If those are my choices, I'm trending with the Raiders, you know, winning eight or nine games. I still have questions about some of these other teams. I have questions about Houston.

I don't know if they've got enough. I have a lot of questions about Arizona. I don't think they'll be very good. I don't know, you know, what the Colts are going to do. Quarterback-wise, I think that could be a mess early on. I do think they're a pretty good team. so maybe I'd put them under the Raiders. I think the Broncos should be better.

That's a team I was going to talk about because Sean Payton comes in, and we haven't loved everything about his arrival there. And certainly it was tough to get excited about Aaron or Russell Wilson after this last season. I see decline there. But that's a team that probably should be multiple games. better in the standings. I would think Sean Payton stabilizes them a little bit. And that's a place I wouldn't be surprised. See what you think about this. I don't know if I said this on here, but like, it wouldn't shock me if like Stidham was playing by the second half of the year. Do you buy that?

Oh yeah, I'd buy that in a heartbeat. I think he's going to have, Sean Payton has no reason to not play the best players. And I've said that from day one. When he got there, everybody was on notice. I don't care if he's in the front row at Denver Nuggett games with the quarterback or not. He's going to play the guys that give him a chance. He didn't give Russell Wilson the contract. He didn't give him the trade compensation that went to get him. So those aren't on his watch. He's going to play the best players.

And I haven't bought into Denver being as talented and as deep as others have in the prior couple years. Remember the last couple years? Everybody keeps saying, oh, Denver's good. Denver's good. Oh, they're receivers. Yeah, they're receivers. Some of the best in the league. I haven't seen it, okay?

I'm just not ready to buy all that. So I think they could be better. I could surely see Stidham playing at some point. If Russell struggles early, I don't think there will be a long rope there. Maybe I put them under the Raiders or with the Raiders at the top of this group. I don't think the Rams are going to be good. I just don't. I think they have depth problems.

They've always had depth problems and now they have it more than ever before. I actually think the Rams are a team. And you may not agree with this, Mike. You know, every year there seems to be a team and somebody that media usually starts saying, oh, they're going to tank. They're going to tank. I could see the Rams doing everything they can, maybe not publicly tanking, but I could see them taking a step back and trying to set it up for the future,

if that makes any sense. Interesting. Yeah, it's interesting you say that because I've always, I consider Sean McVeigh to be a top coach. And typically, I agree. I do too. Typically the great coach rarely has a terrible record. Like even when their teams are really bad, it's very rare. If you just go through the great coaches in the history of the game, even last year,

disaster season for their ends. They're five and 12. It wasn't like they were picking first, right? I mean, they were down to starting quarterbacks. They signed during the week. Had nothing going. But I'm with you to the extent that I don't know that the depth regenerates. And so they might be in the same boat again.

And they could have, you know, be a staffer going to hold up all of that. So I think there are a very interesting team. here because I think with the others, you can kind of see what they're trying to do. And with the Rams, you're just not really sure if it's going to. I just don't know how much all in this year they are. That's all. And maybe that's the price they pay. Everybody keeps going back, but they won a Super Bowl, but they won a Super Bowl.

And I get it. They did win a Super Bowl. But at some point, we knew they were going to have to pay the price. They were going to have to pay the Piper. They paid a lot of money to a lot of people. Some of them aren't even on the team anymore. So that comes with a for sale sign and it's out right now. And we'll see.

I mean, I'm with you on Sean McVeigh. I think he's a really good coach. I also struggle with the idea every offseason now we're going to, we're in or are we out? What are we going to do? I know he's in now, but I don't know. Let's just see. Yeah. All right.

Now we'll get to the GM notebook. A couple things. Start with this and you've got to help me a little bit. my memory isn't as good as it used to be. The commander's sale. Everybody says Josh Harris, that's the new owner coming from wherever he comes from. He also owns the Philadelphia 76ers. Snyder, everybody's happy having parties that he's on his way out.

We've seen some rumblings and heard some things rumor-wise that this may not be as a solid, the most solid sale structure that the NFL has ever considered. and I don't know if this is true, Mike. That's where I need your help. Some say that they're acquiescing off of some pretty strict structure rules that they've used in the past to make sure that Dan Snyder is escorted out the door and that the new guy does come in. I thought it was just kind of ironic because the only sale in the history of the league that got turned down at that finance committee level and by membership was a sale that brought the Redskins into the hands of Dan Snyder in 1999 when he was a minority partner with the Milstein group who purchased this from Johnny Cakes, Cooks, the son of the

the son of then the Redskins. And so that sale was disallowed. It didn't happen. It got to this point where we're at right now with the Josh Harris sale and the league turned it down. That's the only time in the history of the league it's happened. I just thought it would be ironic that now we're going to maybe turn down another one and Dan Snyder's on the other end of this one, but Dan Snyder's, the effect is still there. Yeah, there was some kind of a complicated thing called an earnout in it. Do you see that? There's an earn out in this current deal.

In this current sale, in this current sale where basically the amount of compensation to Snyder could change based on what the team does in terms of hitting some financial levels, right, after that, which is. That sounds like a little bit of a cooking the books to me, but I hear you. It seems a little shady. Potentially concerning. I know back in 99 when Snyder was part of the Milstein group, the rub that the NFL had was, it was all credit.

It wasn't enough cash up front. That was the whole, he was buying it, you know, it was a house. built on sand. And I don't know if that is part of this deal or not, but usually, and I thought that Josh Harris had come to the table with a ton of cash. So I don't know, again, the details of it, but I just thought it was worth mentioning that Snyder on both ends once he got. And I might add, as Milstein's were turned down, that's when Snyder put together a group and then came back and bought the team and was awarded it. So now we're having some second thoughts about, is this a good deal for the NFL to take or not.

For so long, the focus has been on just getting Snyder out, right? We didn't really think about what it would take to get somebody in. You just assume, okay, there's going to be somebody with enough billion dollars, billions of dollars that they'll get it done. But maybe this is showing that, hey, that's still a lot of money for anybody, you know. And, but I do think their priority, obviously, is to just get rid of Snyder. You do have to have a plan for what's next. So we'll see how that one goes.

Interesting. What else you got? The other thing I had, a couple of personnel moves that just kind of made me sit back and think, and under the radar signing, the dolphin signing tackle, Isaiah Wynn, former Patriots tackle who I think was a first or second round pick. He was really high. Been injured a little bit, but I think it's a really good signing for the dolphins. I think it gives them some depth.

It gives them, again, a little more protection against an injury-prone quarterback. I thought it was a good get. I actually really like what the dolphins have done. with their player acquisitions this offseason. You can even take it one step further. My sleeper pick in the draft this year was a running back that they chose at A&M, Devon, A. Shane, who's also an explosive kickoff returner. I think in this system he's going to be a name that people talk about a lot, even as a rookie.

I had him rated, and this will kind of lead me into another GM notebook, and this is just me. So it's just my opinion. I had him rated right with Jamar Gibbs, the first round pick that the lions took to replace DeAndre Swift with. And so I like Gibbs, but I had a Shane right there with him. And I think that kid is a really good player. And the dolphins have done a lot, I think, to this group who was already pretty good. But as we mentioned in the pre-show call, as you mentioned, I should say, it's all dependent on keeping the quarterback healthy. And if they can, for some reason, keep him healthy.

I think the dolphins are a really good team that could end up winning the F.C. East. They're kind of a team that we've had a lot of reason to criticize in recent years, right? I mean, from the owner, the tampering thing, they've made some odd moves, certainly before, where they got rid of some good players and you wondered what was going on. Do you feel like they've stumbled into this, or do you like the process a little bit of what's going on right now? No, I very much like the process. I think Chris Greer's done a good job. I really do, and I like the way that they've handled it.

They've added players. They've done it with the right vision, in my opinion. So, yeah, I think they're going to be good. Now, I happen to feel better about Mike White, who they signed from the Jets as their backup quarterback. I feel better about him than most. So I think he is an upgrade over where Teddy Bridgewater had them as the backup the last couple of years.

So I feel better about that. But it is all about keeping Tua healthy. I think Tua is, and it really is. not arguable. We know what he is. It's just the durability factor. And that's the same question I had on him coming out of Alabama. You're not a big, you're not a big fan of Teddy Bridgewater being paid over $40 million since he went to Carolina a couple years ago. It makes me think the people would not watch film anymore. Are their projectors broke? I mean, I feel bad. I know he's a great kid. I get to all that. But it didn't happen for him in Carolina who paid him a bunch of money.

Denver paid him a bunch of money. Miami paid him a bunch of money. You talk about the business of pro sports now. That guy, since he got hurt in Minnesota, has made, how many million did you say? I think, well, I know since Carolina, it's 40, I think he's made 60 over 60 for his career, but yeah, it's a lot of money. That's nuts to me. I mean, recently without, you know. Yeah, come on, people.

Doing a ton. You can't do better than that. So that's good for Miami. I think it's just very interesting, too, in that division. And so that's one of the most intriguing divisions there is in football. year with where the bill's being so good. A couple question marks. New England kind of all over the place with their coaching staff last year on offense.

And then what the heck's going to happen with Bill O'Brien coming in? And, you know, they drafted a bunch of, they drafted some defense. I think that makes that whole thing interesting. And then, oh, by the way, I think the Jets added a new quarterback. I don't know if you heard anything about that. So there's a lot going on there. I think it's awesome. If I had to pick one division just to watch this year, that's it for me.

How about you? Yes, and I love it. Line those four teams up for me. I'm asking you, line them up one through four right now. How do you see this going? Yeah, I'm going to do Buffalo number one. I think I will put the Jets too because I like the prospects of Rogers playing the whole year, better than I like the prospects of Tua playing the whole year.

And then I'm probably with Miami and then I'm probably with New England. How about that? You just pick New England fourth in division. We might lose. our license on podcasting. I'm not saying that it's not going to be close or a tie. You know, I mean, some of these things, it's like lining up a bunch of guys who are the same height and measuring them by height.

I'm not saying there's a huge gap, but is that an unreasonable order? Are you going to take, are you knocking Buffalo off their perch? No, my order is exactly the same. I'm just giving you a hard time. It's exactly the same. And I think there is a separation to New England. I think New England is definitely fourth, but I think they're down. I don't think they're in those first.

three teams stratosphere right now for multiple reasons, but I just don't see the talent that New England has. And things have to go perfect for Mac Jones. I think we've seen that now. He's got to be schemed and things got to fall his way. They've got to do a lot of things to make Mac Jones a winning quarterback where some of these other teams, their quarterbacks make everybody else better. And I just don't see that in New England. So I'm turning the GM notebook into a GM essay here because I find this so interesting, but we can do it. We got time. I want to ask you, I want to ask you about that with your evaluation of New England

because they're kind of one of those teams that looks for specific types of players and fits and that type of thing. They may have a little bit of a different personnel approach than others. And I wonder, even when New England was really a top team, did some. Sometimes your evaluation of their personnel be lesser than what their team end up being. Does that make sense? Because they kind of make it fit together. Maybe Brady makes it all work or whatever your thing was.

Is that something that is involved in your evaluation of them, that they might go for different types of players? Very much. I know they have a specific skill set and fit. I do think you still have to have big guys, fast guys, and really good players. So sometimes the fit and your stock. can get you in trouble too because you have to have guys that can hold up you have to have guys that can run fast I've said for years they just don't have any dynamic receivers they don't have anybody can take the top off of a defense so everybody gangs up on them they're they're able to

defend them differently they've never the only time they were really good other than the tom Brady factor's always been there but it was when they had Randy Moss when they had some of these fast guys where it was really a challenge for teams to defend them so I think the scheme sometimes does get in the way there. And that's the fine line, right? It's finding really good players and really good athletes, but yet not dipping outside your criteria for what you think at each position. So I think the happy medium is that still go with the bigger fast guys,

big guys or fast guys, and then try to fit some of these other picks in with your schemes. That's the magic behind team building in my mind. Yeah. Well, we'll see how it plays out there in New Orleans. England, one last item in the GM notebook. The one I picked out was, again, I'd like to know your thoughts on this. The schedule came out, as we all know last week, got a lot of garnered, a lot of interest. The one thing that jumped out at me is, and I've said this for years, so I'm probably a conspiracist

as much as anybody else. The Jacksonville Jaguars are going to London for two weeks. What does that mean? Is this a test tube that the league is trying now? They've always sent people internationally to play. I was part of the very first one to ever go abroad to play a regular season game. That's when in Miami, we played the Giants. They've come a long way since then, but I've always thought in the back of my mind, if the league could turn Jacksonville Jaguars into the London Jaguars, you talk about a bottom line win for the league and for all the people whose back pockets are dictated by revenue, that seems to me it'd be a pretty good revenue stream to upgrade from, being that Jacksonville is a small market team, not much Fortune 500 corporate support,

turn that into London. And this to me was more of a trial balloon than we've seen to this date. If we're going to send Jacksonville to London for two weeks back to back now, that seemed like, okay, now where are we going with this? Hey, and not only that, there's not a buy on the other side. Because remember, there's always these international games usually, oh, we're off the next week. Not always. I think it has happened before maybe where there wasn't one, but almost always there should buy.

But if there was going to be a team over there all the time, they couldn't, the visit visitors couldn't have a buy all the time. So we'll see Jacksonville play over there two weeks in a row, then come back. I think it's week four, they play Atlanta, and then week five, they play Buffalo. Those are the London games. And then week six, they come back and play home against the Colts. So their buy is not until week nine. So it will allow some of those things to play out as if this was just a team that was already over there. There's never been a situation where they've actually had a team set up shop abroad. So they will have to set up shop for a couple weeks wherever they are in London. And let's say week one, they have a couple injuries and they need

to work guys out. So does that mean the scouting staff stays behind in Jacksonville and goes through a normal Tuesday? You know what a Tuesday is like in an NFL office. There's a lot of coming, going, things happening. Three punters come in, whatever. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to do that in London probably. So you're going to have to have a base set up in Jacksonville still, which is easy to do. That's why I said, I think this whole thing about a team internationally full time is doable. But this is again taking it to the next level as to how some of logistics might work out or have to be tweaked still. Yeah. I think one of the things we talked about when we just chatted briefly before the show was maybe not a bad Swan Song legacy move by the commissioner either,

right, if that were to be kind of a crowning jewel at the end of his thing. Because you know how this happens. The commissioners are in office a long time. Then after they've been out about five or ten years, we start hearing about their case for the Hall of Fame, right? And all these things come up and how they did this or that. And, hey, brought the internationalized the game. I mean, that's the next frontier, right? So, no doubt.

You know, it's coming at a certain time. And no one's done it yet. You know, really, I think, I mean, you can say Toronto and baseball, but that's not. what we're talking about. We're talking about across the pond, you know, any, any sport going across the pond with a full-time participant, and you're right. I agree with you. It's coming. It's just a matter of when, not if. I want to be the Hawaii, the Honolulu writer, you know, maybe at some point. Hey, I've always said this, and I'm not looking for a job by any means. I got too many already, but I thought the dream job that I have, I always thought this was to run a team in

London. I thought it would be awesome. For some reason, that's always been at the top of my list. Everybody says, what's your dream job? I thought to run an NFL team from London, especially as it just gets rolling, I think it would be the coolest thing you could do in the NFL. I've always thought that. So whoever does get that opportunity, that'll be mighty cool. Are you a big tea drinker? I like tea. I like tea a lot.

Yeah, I am. I could fit in. Trust me. I could fit in. Renaissance man. Yeah, you know, a little cigar, a little tea, you know, whatever it takes. Yeah, you know. If you can get me on at St. Andrews over there when you're the GM, I'll be all for it.

No kidding. We could have the international football GM podcast. I like it. There you go. Well, that was a great GM notebook. I mean, shoot, could you just do a bigger GM notebook every week? I won't even have to prepare. We'll just have a conversation off of that and be good to go.

That was great. Don't give our boss, Dan, on the writing side, any ideas because I'll be doing that next week. So make a GM notebook, the written version. So, just kidding. That's right. That's right. Yeah, Dan's a good one. So that's it, everybody.

You can find Randy, and you can find me at The Athletic. You can find Randy on Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore. You can find me there at Sandow NFL. And we'll do this next time, next week, when I'm on the road at OTAs. This was the Athletic Football Show.