The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Hard Knocks Jets, Johnny Manziel, Dalvin Cook, Zack Martin & more camp notes

Episode Date: August 10, 2023

Mike Sando is on the road covering training camps, and he and the GM Randy Mueller have both watched the Hard Knocks premiere. What are their takeaways? And what about a GM's take on the Johnny Manziel documentary? All that plus Zack Martin's holdout, Dalvin Cook, the Commanders and tons more camp notes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show's Football GM podcast. Welcome everyone to the Football GM podcast, Mike Sando here, along with the GM. Randy Miller and Randy, you know his training camp because I'm sitting in a Dodge Challenger rental car. You ever drive a Challenger on the road? Oh, yeah, many of them. This is like I'm at your high school back, you know, burning rubber on the speed bump on the way out of the back. Okay, this thing's got a lot of torque to it. So it's kind of fun a couple days.

But it's raining out. And if the podcast goes too long, I may just pass out because it's about 200 degrees here in raining in Florida. My training camp, visit. How are you doing? I'm doing great. Good to hear from you. I'm glad you're surviving. And so far, so good.

I understand you're near Hurricane Alley. So you never know when the next one's coming, you know. So I was in your, I was actually at the Dolphins the last couple days because they were, joint practicing the Falcons. And you know what that's like standing out there in Miami. Yep. Woo, they gave me a towel because I'm kind of a face sweater at the risk of too much information here. But, you know, this is coming down into my eyes. I mean, they get me a big old gatorade towel. You got to see this thing. This thing, I could, you know, I'm holding this up.

Not everybody can sleep, but Rannick can. I could, you could sleep into that thing. You know, it's a big old blanket. So they didn't want it back after I wiped my face with it a bunch of times. I don't know. I don't know what it was. It's this time of year and you can set your watch to systematically getting some kind of precipitation, that's for sure. I've never been a place where we had preseason games

often get pushed around, canceled, people off the field, teams off the field. I mean, it's just, I know it's a common place in Florida, but you have to adjust and it plays havoc with football practices all the way

from lightning to rain to all kinds of stuff. So you're always dodging something in Florida. That's for sure. So yeah. And so I call, my wife called me when I was there and three hours earlier on the West Coast in the Seattle area. And she said this morning, well, you know, while I'm walking in about felt like a hundred degrees, she goes, yeah, it's 62 right now. I just drove past a golf course. Guys had their little umbrellas out. It's a little misty this morning. That's too bad. Amazing. We're in the same world. So, you know, going up to a high of 74 or something, hey, I'll take that. So we got stuff to talk about training camps. We put down

some notes here and let's get going, huh? Yep, sounds good. I watched Hard Knocks last night, Randy, and I think I'm going to keep watching it just as a matter of curiosity. I mean, you've been skeptical on the Jets as it is, but after watching Hard Knocks, did you go out and buy a number eight Jets jersey? You got to be one over after that, huh? You know, I'm trying to warm up to what everybody talks about on TV, whether it's the worldwide leader or somebody, you know, raising the pom-poms of the Jets.

But I was disappointed. I mean, I hate to rain on the Jets parade. I don't know anything against them at all. To me, the coach seemed contrived. He seemed like he was really forcing it to try to be something in front of the cameras that he wasn't. He clearly was worried about his team's confidence in one of the speeches. He mentions that, hey, we're not the same. old Jets. My question was, does that mean they were the last two years? Because it's not his first

year. He's been there, right? So does this mean the team that we rolled out there the last two years was the same old Jets? So, I mean, there was some miscommunication as far as I'm concerned. You know, this year's theme is what? I know we're all in on Aaron Rogers. I get it, but do you think Nick Sabin or Bill Belichick would be worried about Zach Williams' elastic around his sleeves and how good that looked and made his guns? You know, show and these are the kind of conversations that Robert Sala was having. So I just had to think that it was less than authentic because if that's the way he really is, we're going to have some issues.

Because we're worried about the wrong stuff most of time. I mean, I understand now kind of what Sean Payton was saying, right? They're all in from one quarterback and it's his game. I get it. I also felt bad for the Packers in that if Aaron Rogers is so engaged in this, he kind of jipped them the last two years, right? Because he wasn't engaged there. And maybe they brought some of that on,

but he's completely reborn. I get it. I've said from day one, I think the biggest beneficiary of this whole Rogers deal was going to be Zach Wilson. And after watching the show, I still think that might be the best thing is that they've saved Zach Wilson now.

And his career path has taken a little different trajectory. And all of a sudden, people are okay with Zach Wilson now. And he's going to get better and he's going to learn. And so maybe that's the positive that comes from it. I don't know, but I struggled with it. Yeah, absolutely it paused. You know, he was on a rapid descent into the dumpster kind of there. And now they pause it and he gets a chance to kind of, you know,

regroup, right? Whether it's going to be with the jets in the future or not. Who knows, maybe he gets a chance. Maybe Rogers is banged up or something. He gets a chance under different expectations, you know, and that sort of thing. But, yeah, this whole hard-knocking started out, Randy, with, Did you follow the Sala comparing the jets to an eagle who's fighting off on attacking crow by flying higher and higher until the crow suffocates and falls to the granted?

I've never heard of that. There is a great, do you ever watch a documentary murder of crows? No. That's awesome. Crows are amazing. The crows are amazing. They remember faces. Like, they're vindictive now.

You know, if you harassed. I'm trusting you. I get it. They're watching you from the top of the building. and they are, you, those crows really start crowing. I mean, that's personal. They actually know it's you. So we had the crow thing.

I didn't really follow. But the Rogers worship, man. Oh, my goodness. And this goes back to me. Woody Johnson and the press conference stopped the press conference when they announced them and made people applaud during it. Hey, how about a random applause? It's so over the top that at one point, the camera shows Sala kind of whispering with

Revens. I mean, this is like he's made a pilgrimage to a holy sight. And he's almost emotional like, God, what a throw. What a throw that was. This is our quarterback. This is our guy, you know.

Oh, my goodness. Everyone is chasing the top tier quarterback. They change lives. And then the defensive coordinator was like, he's ours. He's ours. I know. He's ours.

I'm like, did you just have a child? You know, this is our son. You've been going through an adoption process for three years and we got him. You know, that's what it felt like the emotion of this. Garrett Wilson referred to Rogers as the blessing. The blessing we have around here? They did a whole segment on no look passes, okay? That he, like he invented that.

And tell me that wasn't all contrived. And they weren't, you know, it was just a weird show to me. It was just weird. And you mentioned it, and I know you're going to talk about this, but all of a sudden the narrator is famous. Who's the narrator? I've never heard of him in my life, and they fly him in a helicopter like he's some.

I thought it was Liam Nisem when they said Liam. I think he's he an actor? Who is this guy? Well, yeah, Liv Schreiber. And I, when the helicopter came in and he got off, I thought that my mind must have been wandering and I missed who this is. So I had to rewind it. I hit back, I went back 10 seconds.

it wasn't enough. So I went back about 30 seconds. And I'm like, who's this again? Like, and Sala didn't even know he was the narrator, just like me. I know. I didn't either. I mean, shoot. Yeah, you'd think it was the announcer at the Price is Right or something, you know?

Don Pardo. Was it Don Pardo? Who did that? Bob Parker. Yeah. Bob, yeah. So that was a total mix up to me. We have him suddenly on the show.

Yeah. How about Saul on the sideline? on the sidelines during the Hall of Fame game when the unheralded linebacker makes a pick. It's like he's doing a victory lap with his coaches upstairs or the ones on the headsets telling them that's my guy. That's that I don't know. You guys don't know what you're talking about. They had clearly had arguments or had discussion about this kid where opinions differed.

And this was this was Saul's, you know, victory lap and he was going to tell him and that, that even made the show. So I just don't know where the show's going now. This is. this is it. This is the Jets. We've already, we got Soss Gardner in the, in the Hall of Fame. We got Aaron Rogers, everybody bowed down on one knee, two knees, whatever it is. And so I just don't know where it goes. Yeah, I thought the one funny, decent line was when the quarterbacks and Nathan Allen Hackett were playing that game.

I know where you go. Yeah. So if you hit the pylon, you get like two points. If you have one hop it there, I think you get a point. If you miss, you don't get any points or something like. like that. Yeah. But the whole thing of it is, is you try to throw off the other guy. It's like yelling in his back swing of golf or something. So when Hackett's going to throw, Rogers said Sean Payton. I thought that was pretty good. And it was a terrible throw.

You know, he missed the throw. So I give Rogers credit for that. I thought that was pretty good. I think the whole show told me that Sean Payton might have been onto something. That's all. The whole thing was, I just don't know if I would sign up for all this. How about the fact that. Don't forget.

And his, Robert Saul is, I guess, defense, you know, he was against having hard knocks. Now he's, now he's going to be part of the process and embrace it.

So somebody clearly told him, this is what we're going to do. You need to change your narrative, you know, it is what it is. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably what it is,

though. They didn't want to do it. Then you have to do it. But you can't authentically be into it. And so I think the other thing is, you know, if you had cameras, Randy,

following you around for a long enough period of time, you would become desensitized to them. Eventually, you'd just start being yourself. I think that a lot of us would have a hard time going about our jobs and interacting with our friends or coworkers the way we do if there's a camera four feet away and a microphone on you. I think people just behave a little differently sometimes, and we're seeing that.

We're seeing that part of it played up. The stuff about where Rogers is talking about Nathaniel Hackett's affinity for Goldfinger, and that the red zone is the gold zone. I mean, I'm like, what the heck? He somehow he said, Hackett knows how Goldfinger got gold genitalia. Roger said that during the thing. I mean, I'm like, what are we even talking about?

So then we got the Sauce Gardner, right? Sauce Gardner. Sauce Gardner gets to meet Rodney Harrison. No, no, no. It's the other way around. Rodney Harrison gets to meet the great sauce gardener. And he's having to use himself like, hey, I'm on. TV with NBC. I played at the same time Revis played. Like, Rodney, you're a great player for a long

time. We shouldn't have to introduce your credentials. They should be bringing him over to you to say, hey, here's a veteran guy you could learn a lot from. This guy knew how to play ball. Hey, Soss is already in the Hall of Fame. That's his goal. Play 40 years and be in the Hall of Fame, right? I think he meant to say I want to play till I'm 40, but he's standing there with Rogers and he goes, he says, I have aspirations of playing in the league for 40 years. And Rogers is like, you could tell Rogers, like, huh? But he goes, oh, that's going to be a long time. And then Suss comes back and is like, yeah, I think I'll play until I'm 40 years old. But I think you also get the feeling of how new all these people are together.

They're not good buddies yet, not that they're off to a bad start or anything. And you just can't. Right. Like I would pay to see this hard knocks with like Farrv and his guys back in the day, right? Like Farr, you know, winners, the center and, you know, Antonio Freeman and all those guys who had played together and were, I mean, had a ton of personality. We're busting on each other that. You can only do that when you've been together a long time and you've been through, you know, some battles and you've, you've gotten in fights before and you've made up and all that. Like to me, that's what would make a great hard knock.

So the Jets are probably in a tough situation here because they don't have. This is all new. They don't have anything. They don't have the relationships. You could tell that they weren't authentic. Even Zach Wilson. I mean, I don't know what kind of personality he has, but it kind of looked contrived too. And his give and take with, you know, the coach, the quarterbacks, the other guys.

You're right. It's just all kind of made for TV and it just hasn't come together yet. Maybe we'll see that in future episodes where it actually does, but it just seemed really forced to me. So I know we don't want to go through pick apart every part of it. But I was left with a little bit of a, hmm, now where do we go for the next month, you know? Yeah. Well, I just looked it up here. Don Pardo was the announcer on the Price is Right.

I think you got that right. Maybe I said Wheel of Fortune. Yeah, I think I said Price is right. So anyway, we got him. We got the announcer coming in and they finished it up with the announcer. So I thought that was great. I really am now interested in watching the second one to see if it's made better. But that's our media review of the day.

And you haven't watched the quarterback show yet, right, on Netflix? No, I need to. That's kind of embarrassing that I haven't. Oh, no, it's good. Yeah. It's worth your time. I think it's a good show. Yeah, no, I'm totally into it.

I did have someone refer me to it when I was discussing Kirk Cousins and the bad throw, you know, the throw at the end of the Viking game. or at the end of the giant game in the playoffs when it was fourth and eight, and he checked it down. And some of the guys in the quarterback tier story were talking about how, you know, hey, that's Cousins for you. And then somebody said, hey, Cousins had a great explanation for that on the show. And I said, yeah, I've talked to enough coaches to know all the quarterbacks have explanations

for every one of the bad decisions ever. Isn't that true? A hundred percent fat. They can explain it. They're smart. They can explain exactly why. This was only 20 percent. I can't wait to watch it, though.

It's a good show. The concept, like you said, it's a believable story that I don't think has to include star players either. Obviously, Pat Mahomes is in this first one, but I think the fact that it's more about processes, directives, kind of just a whole what goes behind the scenes, more than it is a player's personality or having to be a star to make it make sense. I like the idea that they sort of did, you know, the elite quarterback in Mahomes, the good, solid. veteran starter and cousins and then kind of the struggling guy who's maybe on his last legs with Mario, that's a good concept. So, yeah, I'm going to recommend people see it before I even see it because the feedback's been great. And did you think it was accurate in terms of the portrayal of what these guys go through? Yeah, 100%. I think people don't know the time commitment that it

takes, especially Monday through Friday, Monday through Saturday. And, you know, we've talked about it on the podcast. When we moved from San Diego to LA, the Chargers, Philip Rivers had a vehicle totally pimped out with video ability, all kinds of TVs to watch. So he could spend, he just couldn't give up two hours a day, not watching tape and preparing. And every day is like a final, right? And so they have starting Monday through Saturday night, a prep that is long and detailed and refined every week and it includes everything. And I think even Kurt Cousins is probably a little anal, probably a little over the top and too much into every little aspect of it.

But he must think he needs that to perform. So I think everybody, it should be interested to everybody because all the quarterbacks are a little different in how they learn and how they process information throughout the week. But the takeaway is it is realistic. And it is, it does differ from team to team. But it's really, I think, an insight into how much of a commitment, especially the quarterbacks have to make just to get ready for Sunday. Yeah.

And I think the flip to that is not all of them come into the league willing to do that. And so there is a little gap from some of these teams. And I've heard, you know, talking to some coaches, when you have a guy, we saw the Kyler-Murie clause in the contract. Like, not everybody does this. and that, which kind of segues into one of her other items today with this stuff on Johnny Manzell that came out. Yeah. Mansell, you know, the Netflix documentary, which I'm definitely going to watch this one.

I mean, on a serious note, he revealed that, you know, he'd gotten so low at one point, I think when he was benched that he'd actually attempted suicide when he was with the Browns. That's just horrific. But his agent had some revelations on there, like that his iPad. had tape watching hours with 0.00. He didn't even open it. He didn't even ever try to prepare, never watched tape, that he was doing things like getting other people's urine to pass the test at the combine, even had his dad fake a heart attack so he could go visit him and not have to do a drug test.

I mean, this is the other extreme. This is the quarterback show they don't show you, right? This is the cautionary tale and really, shows the gap between the guys who get it and are mature and really can do it. And, you know, the absolute utter extreme. Obviously Mansell is an outlier. But, man, I was just curious. Seeing this Manzel thing back in the news, I was just kind of curious what your eval was coming out. Like, we're probably surprised a little bit that it was this extreme. But is this exactly what you would have been warning people about when he was coming out?

Well, I had an uneasy feeling during the process of gathering information for sure. And the things that you mentioned, a good scout or a good NFL evaluator had that information. You had a lot of that information. So you kind of knew about it. But yeah, I have memories of exactly what I was thinking about when I went there because I had some good friends of mine that were there on that staff. And I just remembered a couple different takeaways with him when I made my, and I made two trips. that year to college station. He played to go with the exact what you said about maybe not study in and not putting

the time in. He played the exact same style that won in the Heisman Trophy and then throughout his career that he played in high school. He never changed his game. It was always a bit of a recess. Every play was unpredictable. This is why he was so effective against a place like Alabama or Nick Sabin. Because Nick couldn't scheme for him.

him. He couldn't game plan for him because it was all off the cuff and you never knew what was going to happen next. And so Kevin Sumlin was the coach obviously at A&M at the time and they had to acquiesced to this kid he's going to do it his way and his way only. So I really questioned that when he had to make the step to the NFL. I knew that that system would not work eventually because you know, when we talked about it, Mike, they're going to make you beat him from the pocket eventually. And this kid was never forced to do that in college, never forced to do it in high school. And the other thing is, I think it's okay to say this. A very reliable source when I went through there told me that they worried about the phone call coming in the middle of the night every night.

And they never knew what was next with Johnny because they knew about some of these issues. They knew that it wasn't if it was probably when. And I put myself in the NFL GM's chair. Would I want this? there's no way I like sleeping too much. I like to sleep at least six or seven hours a night. And it sounded to me like because of all the things you said, I found out some other things as well that they were,

they were always worried about the phone call in the middle of night. That's a bad feeling. We've all had that in the NFL from time to time. I just couldn't imagine our franchise quarterback giving me that gut-ache feeling all the time. So I was skeptical for those reasons, both on the field and off the field. Yeah, I see in your notes here you had him as a second round talent.

I did, yes. Yeah, again, I thought that defensive coordinators are really good. They find ways to keep you hemmed in the pocket. And he was an okay passer with I'd say an average NFL arm, but he couldn't operate unless recess broke out, you know, unless it was chaos. And that wasn't going to happen at the NFL long. level because they're going to not rush.

They're going to keep you corralled and you're going to have to do certain things to beat them. And as it turned out, that's kind of the way his career went. You know, he came and played in the AAF a couple maybe springs ago and tried to make a comeback in Memphis. This was after he had been cut in the CFL. So he's tried it at all levels along the way and it just, it just hasn't, hasn't come together for him.

This kind of made me think, Randy, with a couple of other things. I started thinking about Browns quarterback's because we got Mansell in this documentary revealing nightmare. Mayfield is starting a preseason game in a battle against Baker Mayfield against Cal Trask in Tampa. And who knows if he's even going to win that battle. And Deshawn Watson is also starting in a preseason game to kind of shake off the rest. Obviously Mayfield's in a position to start because he has to compete for the job. I like Watson starting too. I just think it looked shaky enough last year that he needs to play.

play, doesn't he? Yeah, I totally agree. There's a few quarterbacks like that around the league, and I'm happy to hear that their coaches have all come out and said, hey, they've got to play. Even the likes of Russell Wilson and some of these other guys, they got to play. Can he pick it? They got to play. And there, I think preseason does serve a purpose, and to play these guys or not play them, I think would be doing a disservice to their developmental, part of their games. So if Deshaun Watson wins the season opener, Randy, a little trivia here for you, He will have a four and three starting record for the Browns. Now, since the team drafted Johnny Mansell, they have had 15 quarterbacks start.

Wow. Okay. And Mayfield has by far the most starts with 59. The next guy's at 15. So of these 15 guys, two of them have winning records. And Deshaun Watson, if he wins, he'll join them. Here's who they are. Brian Hoyer at 7 and 6.

Wow. And Case Keenum at 2 and O. This quarterback list, Randy, is Baker Mayfield, Deshaun Kaiser, Brian Hoyer, Josh McCown, Jacoby Brissette, Johnny Mansell, Cody Kessler, Sean Watson, Robert Griffin III, Tyrod Taylor, Austin Davis, Case Keenham, Connor Shaw, Kevin Hogan, and Nick Mullins.

Wow. You think we've got to evaluate? the quarterback a little better? I feel bad for Browns fans. Because that's over several regimes. You can't put the game on one coach or one GM. There's been multiple that have come through there. And I always say some people can do it better than others.

That's evidence of that right there. You know, that's a bad deal. Amazing. So we got a couple other things for sure we want to talk about, including the situation in Washington with Ron Rivera and Eric Banyme. But, you know, in the middle of all this, Randy, the PAC-12 conference, kind of dissolved.

You know, we're a couple West Coast guys. You know, I'd never got used to being the Pac-12. I was used to the Pac-10. And if you're older than me, there was the Pac-8, even before that. Randy raised to say it. But, you know, I just thought of this from a bigger perspective of,

you know, the college game, of course, has been a great game, and the rivalries and all of that stuff, make it fun. But obviously it's a business. I'm just curious what you make of this. And then I'm also, you know, is it going to affect in any way the supply of players to the NFL eventually just as this thing continues to evolve? What's your sort of opinions and takeaways on this thing?

Well, for me it was sad because I'm like you. I go way back with the back 10, 12, 8, whatever you want to call it. I'll just tell you a quick story. When I was a ball boy for the Seahawks, I was 17 years old, and you know, they used to train in Cheney, Washington, right? to Eastern Washington University. And we had the equipment room set up in back of one of their rooms, but there was another cage behind the equipment room that had a bunch of stuff in it and had T-shirts and stuff that Eastern had.

And I remember us going back there one night and going through a box and it had pack eight t-shirts. And they were like, they were like your evil-kineveal t-shirt you wore about 40 years ago, right? These packed eight T-shirts. And I remember they said, yeah, you can have one of those. And I wore that thing until I was probably 25 years old, the pack eight T-shirts.

And so I was proud of the pack eight, but, you know, that's a Northwest kid. So you're, that's what you live and die with. So it's nuts. I think this, I think this all started when it was some lawmakers or some, I don't know if I want to blame it all on them, but I think this is where this started when somebody said we ought to pay the players. And I understand that the players should benefit and that others can't make all the money off of them.

I get it. But I can't help but think that. the idea was not to pay players millions of dollars. That was kind of... It's zero to 120. Yeah, you went from nothing to unlimited. That's a... Neither one of those is probably right.

No, it's not. And so I think that started it. And everybody has been in a race from the very next day to keep up with each other. And they can't throw enough money at these kids and players and sports and everything. And that's what everybody says, well, these are the unintended consequences. I think that's bullshit. I think you could have exactly predicted where this was going to happen because until you cap NIL, cap it.

Now, I'm not saying these kids have to play for peanuts, but they don't need to be making crazy amounts of money either. I think if you could set a cap on it and police it like the NFL does its salary cap, it would equate to a lot more level playing field. And right now, it's just a wild, wild west. Anybody can pay a dollar more. That player's going there. So it's professional sports.

That's the college moniker is just a joke. That's not true at all. Yeah, exactly. And if it was unlimited in the NFL, you wouldn't have Cincinnati competing with Dallas or whatever. I mean, you wouldn't have a competitive product. So, you know, the, maybe the stuff will work itself out, but it's not like the NCAA is as unified as the NFL or, you know,

has a leadership or there's no really, the accountability is not the same. And you have coaches who don't want it controlled, really. I mean, they might give it lip service, but right now, every major Power 5 program can pay whatever it wants to 85 players. Let's just say football. So they're just throwing the kitchen sink at 85 guys. And if they miss on 10 or 12, so what. We got another 65 that we know we're good. So there's no accountability.

Until you can harness the amount of money being paid and cap it, you can't find out who can coach. You can't find out who can recruit, who build a team. None of that. It just goes to the highest bidder. And so the coaches are making so much money, they don't want to kabosh it. This is easy for them. It is way easier for them because the margin for error in college now is the world. I mean, in the NFL, it's a fine line.

But in college now, you can swing and miss 15 times on players. But not every program can do that and support that. I mean, now the money is hitting concentrated. and you've got these, I mean, how many truly viable programs can there be? Well, there's going to be 18 in the, in the big 10, and another 16 in the, in the big 12 and the SEC, and as you find it, that's asked Washington State and Oregon State and some of those places. They can't hang with them. They can't.

So I understand why it's happened, and I can explain to you the process is why it's happened, but I'm with you. I don't think it's fair. I don't think it makes sense, but it's, I understand. from the school standpoint, they're just trying to keep up with the other guys. It's all about revenues. And the football, as we know, runs the whole budget for every one of these schools. And sometimes it runs the school's budget.

So they've got to do it. Yeah. Is there any effect in the talent supply to the NFL eventually or not really? I don't think so. I don't think the NFL really, you know, is going to adjust. I don't think they have to. They're going to take the best players every year. Now, it may be that they have to look at these players a little sooner.

it might be a given, but it also might keep players in school, too, because they're making so much money. Quarterback at Northwestern makes a million five. He's not going to make that as an undrafted free agent with the Bears. I can promise you that. Yeah, no doubt. I don't know. It's the Wild Wild West. I don't know if there's an entity, like you said, that can corral it all.

And everybody says, well, the genie's out of the bag. Now, well, it was predictable. It was so predictable that this would get to this point. point unless they form some committee of people that actually get it can actually understand the dynamics of this all. And both from a business side and a football side, it's going to continue like this and just spin out of control. Yeah, I was going to say, what is next?

What's it going to look like in two years? Yeah. I don't see how it's any better unless there's some governing body that can pump the brakes. And I don't, doesn't sound like it's the NCAA. the laws that have been passed are, I go back to the same old thing. Every time there's something that holds somebody back, we pass a law that lets them go around the fence,

around the gate. So they're not going to stop it now. It's off their hands, legislators. So I don't know what stops it. I don't know what saves it. Interesting. All right.

Washington commanders, been a pretty good offseason for them because they got rid of Dan Snyder. They got new ownership. kind of a new outlook, but Ron Rivera is still there coming off three non-winning seasons. They bring in Eric Bienomi as the offensive coordinator, but they don't really give Bienomi much in the way of a quarterback. They've got Sam Howell, who, you know, is a prospect, and then they've got Jacoby Berset, who's a solid veteran backup. Could definitely start some games for you.

And we get through into camp, and Ron Rivera kind of volunteer. that some of the players had come to him with concerns regarding the enemy's kind of hard-charging, harsh approach with the team. And, of course, most people, I think, figured Rivera probably shouldn't have said that. He probably should have protected Bianne. But now this is kind of a public issue. Curious to hear your thoughts here. I've got a few, too.

Well, the first thing that came to my mind is what you alluded to is why. Why did Ron have to come out with this? Was this provoked? was this a question that somebody asked him, why would he, in my opinion, lay out Eric Bien of me? I think the answer could have been, hey, we have been bad. We're trying to do everything we can to get better. If it causes strife with our roster, so be it. This is the way Eric coaches. We've known this about Eric. He's been aggressive in the past. He's been verbal in the past. Why are we now all of a sudden worried about feelings and participation trophies and everything else. Do we want to win or do

we not want to win? And he kind of, I thought, didn't back Bien to me. And now I know he's come out since with an apology that was contrived on an index card that someone like made him say this. But I just thought he did wrong by Eric Bien to me. I didn't like the way couched it. And he kind of left me feeling like, hey, there's an excuse there. Now, if this doesn't go well, it's going to Eric's style. That's the problem. It's not my not on my watch. That was what I took from. Yes. I think as long as the coach, I think you'd be harsh as a coach, but there does, you do have to be respectful. I think if he's, if you're disrespectful. And so, you know, this is unfortunately for Eric Beenemy now, this is what we're going to be asking about and thinking about.

Beenemy's been in one place a long time, you know, and we know he challenged Mahomes. But Mahomes is great. You can probably challenge him. And also, Andy Reid was there. So there's a framework. There's probably some limits. You have, you know, you're not going to supersede the head coach in addressing the offense. Well, now you go to Washington, and there's no one like Mahomes there. There's no offensive coach like Reed to kind of set the agenda.

I do think that Bianmi is the big loser in this whole thing. And then his own handling of it. I mean, I was reading what Bianmi said. and I had to reread it to make sure Bienemy said it because Eric Bienemy referred to Eric Bienemy in the third person three times in his quote. So if you are

Eric Bianami is already interviewed whatever 15 or 16 times for head coaching jobs and hasn't it gotten it. It's been a big story. So now he's going to go to Washington finally gets out from under Andy Reed. He's going to get to show himself. They don't get him a quarterback.

Then the coach, Ron Rivera, says, yeah, guys here have had concerns. with his approach. And then VienaMe talks, and he, like I said, mentions himself three times in the third person, which has to be some kind of an offensive coordinator record. I can't imagine any offensive coordinator's ever done that. And by the way, it's probably going to be a little bit of a tough season

because they don't have the horses. They don't have the quarterback. So rough one there all the way around. I don't think anybody looked all that good. And, oh, by the way, we have new bosses now. we all have new bosses. So new owner, new, new ownership group. Yeah. And they're all watching. I do feel bad for Eric because this was to be his coming out party, like you said, away from Andy Reid, away from Pat Mahomes.

And now I don't know if he's going to get a real chance to be judged. But I just, I didn't like the way Ron came across either in this whole hit for tat. And I thought he could have taken the high road as well. and he didn't. Yeah. I mean, the only solution and fix is just to have a better than expected season on offense, and that's still on the table. That could still happen. Yeah, it could. If the enemy does a great job, you know, because the expectations are not going to be high there. So really, if the offense is just, you know, middle of the pack even, and the quarterback

looks up a little bit, then I think some of this stuff might blow over as long as there's not more, you know, inflaming of this. And who knows, you lose some games, players, start to say things because the coordinator has been undercut a little bit. That sort of stuff will be interesting to watch play out. Well, that's the thing, right? Nobody's been squeezed yet. We haven't lost three or four in a row yet. Trust me, it's coming.

Every team faces adversity, and then we'll really see where the questions and the fingers start to get pointed. What do you got in the GM notebook this week? Well, a couple things that have been out there that I haven't really got answers to, but resolutions have to come at some point, right? what's the deal with Delvin Cook? And what made me think of it is J.K. Dobbins in Baltimore.

Is he practicing? Is he not practicing? Is he holding in? Is he holding out? Really, what's going on there? I think one way to fix it would be to try to bring Dalvin Cook in. And I know maybe cap and finances hold this back, but you see what happened in New Orleans. They brought in Kareem Hunt. Indianapolis brought in Kareem Hunt.

At least they're kicking the tires. at least they're trying to, trying to give the public perception that they're looking for options. I just thought Baltimore might want to take a look at Dalvin Cook and send the message that, hey, Dobbins isn't going to get a new deal. If they acquiesce to him and give him a new deal, that would set precedent down the road that they don't want to deal with. So that's not going to happen. But I think they could use a top-tier running back.

And we think we're all in agreement that Daubin-Cook is probably the best on the street right now. you can always find ways to create money. You really can. This might be one of those times that's worth it. And then we don't have to listen to the Dobbin's story. You know, am I going to practice? Am I going to play? I mean, I'll be honest with you.

These hold-ins really taint me wrong. I just don't like it. I don't like the message it sends. I don't like the way it is viewed in the locker room. And I think as a front office guy, you totally lose respect for these guys that are there but not there, you know? Well, as an executive, too, do you feel sort of like, I mean, what would be your remedy for it, right? Because I think teams are used to kind of being in control of these things and there's mechanisms in there.

And so this is kind of a way to skirt that, right? This is kind of a way to do it. So what would you do? You know, if you had a hold-in type situation at your facility and you're the GM, if it got to that, what do you do? I guess you bring someone in. I would think that's part of it. I think you do have to send that message. My reaction to it all is probably not even legal.

You probably can't do this. But I would send the guy home. Because if the guy's there and he is holding in and he's with his teammates every day, he gains a ton of confidence from everything that's going on around him. He's not missing anything. He's not getting fined. When he's isolated, when he's holding out the dynamics of that, holdout are totally different.

And that's what I've thought all along, that once they start to allow these hold-ins, it's almost like you've empowered them. It's okay to come hang around here. We'll work out a new deal. I just think it's sent the wrong message. But I don't even know if that's within the CBA rules where you can say, hey, you have our permission. You can go home.

That's fine. You don't even have to be here. I don't want it around if you're not going to practice. Maybe that's too old school. I don't know. Yeah. Well, the interesting thing about it, the thing that came to my mind when you said, hey, signed down.

Cook, and it'll be a little bit of a symbolic signing is we've kind of liked them for symbolic signing. So the OBJ signing was kind of a symbolic message to the locker room, message to Lamar that we kind of liked, right? I mean, that was a good move for them, even if OBJ is not great at this stage, and we'll see how good he plays. But that seemed to be that type of move. And the Cook one would be too, right? It would be a message, a message sending move. I think you've got to do something to try to do something to change the narrative, that's for sure. try to move the process forward. Which I think the OBJ thing did on the quarterback signing and all of that.

I think that was a good one for that. All right, what's your next note in there? Well, the other one, and it's again, it's a holdout. It's the Zach Martin, the guard from Dallas that's holding out. And Jerry Jones's stance on that, I think has been clear. I hear people on the worldwide leader every day trying to get this guy paid until he gets paid. They don't think the cowboys are going to be able to line up. And my response is stop.

Just stop. I know Zach, Martin is a really good player, but he's also a guard. And I think we'll be able to get by at some point. Again, I know he's really good. I get it. We want him on our team. But if Jerry caves in here, he's sending the wrong message to future holdouts, I don't think he can do that. It's not like this guy has been underpaid the whole time. He just signed a new deal three years ago, I think it was, that paid him top dollar. When you put pen to pencil, you are. are on the hook for the length of the deal that you sign. And like I said, Zach Martin wasn't underpaid three years ago when he signed this deal. The fact that it's changed, sign a shorter term deal. Only signed two or three years if that's what I'm worried about, if you're worried about outperforming your contract.

So I think that Jerry has handled this correctly. I hope he doesn't cave in to the fact that, hey, everybody thinks Zach's a great player. We all want him, but Zach brought this on himself. I don't know what you can do about it. He's going to get fined.

The fines can't be rescinded. It's different than the Bosa one in San Francisco. Yeah, he's going to have to pay these fines. I think Jerry has no choice but to send the message and write it out. Eventually, if Martin wants to play, he's going to come the week before the regular season. Well, Jerry has a history of taking care of his guys and almost validating the decisions on some of these, you know, and paying up. And maybe that's why it's gotten this far, because he has set precedent doing some of that. Absolutely.

If you're the player, you think, hey, I'm one of his guys. He's going to take care of me at a certain point. And in the meantime, you miss some camp, although I think it's $600,000 in non-rescindable fines. So that number gets too high. It's hard to make up for that in a new deal, isn't it, Randy? Well, it's going to be up over a million dollars if he stays out the rest of time. I think it's like a million three, five, or a million four, something like that. So I guess you could always give him a raise on top of what you agree upon.

But again, you're talking about the message has to be clear to the, the other 52 guys in that locker room, so as to try to nip this in the bud in future years. And really, that was what my third item was. It's really about these fines. And I think most people know by now that if you have a contract like Zach Martin or Chris Jones in Kansas City,

the fines cannot rescind it. But Nick Bosa in San Francisco, because he's on a rookie deal, he can be fined as well, but it could be that the 49ers choose to rescind those fines because he's on a rookie deal. And that's entirely legal. Everybody's on a little different playing field when they tackle these holdouts.

Yeah, a couple of newsy notes here. I think last week when we were recording, Randy, like during or right when we were finishing, there was something happened with somebody. And I thought, oh, it would have been nice to maybe Rogers did his new contract or something like that. So I'm just checking here. Adam Schaefter's got, Kareem Hunt leaves Indy without a deal. Colt made an offer, but the two sides were unable to reach an agreement. I thought there was a report by somebody else that he was going to the Saints.

Well, he did go there to visit, right? Yeah. No, I know, but he's going to sign there. Oh, I see. I thought somebody on that one. So this running back situation is interesting, isn't it? These guys are waiting to see who's going to get what or what? Well, and it takes me back to the Jets and Dalvin Cook.

That whole dog and pony show for two days last weekend. What was that all about? Because he hasn't signed there yet. There's no way that you would want that type of attention on either side. unless you were going to make a deal, right? Were they just kicking the tires? Why would it have to be so public like that? It's almost like that should be part of the Hard Knock Show too, you know?

We're making stuff up to talk about. If we're not going to sign him, let's move on. Yeah, no, I'm with you. You can't say it's about money because you'd never set up a trip like that if he didn't have parameters already as to what kind of money this was going to take. You can tell me the Jets didn't know he was asking for $10 million and they went ahead and brought him in anyway and took everybody's time and effort.

And then he said, oh, yeah, we can't match that. That's too much money. Are we back to the old days where these guys are trying to use visits as a way to get people to panic? Remember that? So-and-so's visiting. Oh, my gosh, we better pay them. They're not going to let them out of their building, right? Well, teams are waiting.

Hey, do you remember to that and do you remember the neutral verifier that we had in place for many years in the NFL? where this kind of things, if you went somewhere and you got an offer and another team said, wait a second, that's not true. You would go through a neutral verifier at the league office. George Young used to laugh at it. George Young,

the old Giants GM say it's the neutral vilifier. He called the neutral vilifier because everybody just made up offers. But anyway, that's how you would get to the bottom of when an agent said, I've got this offered. You know, the saints are offering this for Kareem Hunt. well, I can go to the league and check it out and make sure they did. That whole process, that was laughable. It became a binding thing, though.

If I went to the league office, that offer was on the table and the player could accept it. Yes, yes. And that's why it was the neutral verifier. You could verify if a team had an offer. But teams got to where it was very vague. In other words, I remember, I shouldn't tell this. But maybe I will. No, you got to tell it.

Now you got to know. There was a defense back from Canada that was coming down to, he was going to sign in And this was when I was in Seattle. And I remember he said, or his agent said, I've got this offered by the Giants. So I put it into the league to the vilifier, the neutral verifier. I said, what does he have an offer from the Giants? And that the offer came back that yes, here's what's been offered, but the player hasn't signed or agreed to it yet.

Well, that just tells me, if I offer $5 more, I'm going to get him, which we did. And the player signed with us. So that's how crazy that whole process was. But I don't think we've gone back to those times. but that's how far we've come in that you just, I guess, everybody's shopping offers all the time. That's all part of it. So it sounds crazy, but that's, that's great.

So that, I think that must, so I first started, I first started coming in NFL in 1998. And so I think I was covering colleges before that, but I think, I think this went out like shortly before that. Because I just, I just Googled Neutral Verifier. There's a great thing. in March 1995 after the Dolphins had topped all bids for Pittsburgh free agent tied into Eric Green. Remember Eric Green?

Oh yeah. Liberty. Yep. First round pick. Yeah, with an offer of 1.9 million year. Drew Rosenhouse, God, that's shocking. He'd be in the middle of this thing, wink, wink. Led Miami to believe that another club had up the ante at the last minute. Without bothering to confirm the agent's claim with the NFL's neutral verifier, Dolphins raised their offer to $2 million a year. The following day, Green signed with Miami for 12 million over six years, which made them the highest paid tight end in the NFL. Love it. Love it.

Neutral Verifier. That is great. Like George Young called it the neutral vilifier. Love it. I think our listeners learned something there because that predated me covering the NFL, and that's been a while. So, all right, everybody. You got anything else, Randy?

No, I'm good to go. I appreciate you taking time of your training camp tour to let us shoot the breezer. a little bit. No, it's always fun. We need a neutral verifier to make sure we're doing a good job here. Everybody, you can find Randy on Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore. I'm there at Sandow NFL. We're both on The Athletic. We'll talk to you guys next week. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.