The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Most recent coaching hires, Brock Purdy's clutch situations and Super Bowl predictions

Episode Date: February 3, 2024

In the past week we saw a few coaching hires in the NFL. Mike and Randy discuss these hires and how they might fit. Then we take a look at the 49ers and wonder if Brock Purdy is bailing out Kyle Shanahan? Lastly we wrap things up with the GM notebook and Super Bowl predictions.   Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football shows, Football GM podcast. Welcome, everybody to the Football GM podcast. Mike Sando here along with the GM, Randy Mueller. And I could ask you, Randy, you went to Mobile, Alabama. How many days of your life have you spent in Mobile? I'm just curious. And hello, good morning. That's a good question.

You know, I probably should add those up. It would be scary. I did that one time when at the Seahawks, we had training camp in Cheney, which is eastern Washington and I figured out I'd spent over a year and a half of my life in the dorms in Cheney because I included going to summer camps as a kid and it was nuts. So I don't want to do that with Mobile. I'll kill myself. I'll jump off a bridge if I find out I'd spend a year in Mobile too. Yeah, no, I did that. But I enjoy it. I love Mobile. I love the football environment. And so you mentioned, and I was at the East West game before I went to Mobile. I love these

All-Star games because they are a cool way to evaluate talent as part of a bigger process. I'm going to talk about. I love it, Randy. But yeah, I enjoy the mobile trips, to be honest with you, much more than an indie combine trip per se. This is more all about football, less distraction, and you can go sit and watch practices and kind of hash it out. It's a great environment for scouts, and I think anybody on the football side in these NFL

franchises. Yeah, so today we're going to dive into the hiring stuff, bunch of stuff around commanders, Seahawks. We've got a fully loaded show. But with Randy coming back from Mobile, I love this, Randy. Number one, loved having you join the Athletic, obviously. But this is really sort of your first full cycle of being with the athletic in this capacity

to go to these All-Star games for us. And I'm super excited because during the draft last year and even the year before that, we always got great nuggets. But now we've got you there. I mean, you're getting like another set of eyes and another set of experiences here. But tell people, if you would, what is valuable about Mobile and what is not? I think that's interesting, too. Can you actually get out of that?

Yeah, I think it's an interesting concept. I think, as you know, the college draft has become such a, it used to be a cottage industry. Now it's an industry in itself where there's a lot of outside sources. Everybody has opinions. Everybody wants to write about players. and I get it, I understand that, but a lot of times that's from an angle that's kind of in a cave, right? It's a small sample size of this kid did this. And for those on the NFL side, it's one step of many in gathering information.

I think it's less about evaluating and more about gathering some gray area or some missing elements to your evaluation that you'll finalize down the road. So I think it's, I used to love it with our scouts because we could sit around together. And this never happens in real life in NFL buildings anymore because we're always spread out all over. And especially in this virtual world. But all of our scouts, I would want us all to sit together. We would talk about things that we saw. It really became kind of a scout school, right? And in exchange of ideas.

And that's the biggest thing. I think that's a difference between guys who evaluate. and we have our own guys and they do a great job at the athletic of evaluating these these players individually but the thing that's missing from that whole concept is the building of consensus one because I guarantee you six of us are smarter than one guy that's just the way it is it's just part of real world right and the other thing is it's a it's a group that has in their mind exactly clear uh you hope anyway has clarity on what they're looking for so a criteria that specific to their coaches and their scheme.

And those are the big difference. And sometimes as listeners and readers, we get tied up in a sequencing of players, which I actually love, but we forget the other elements that are involved. And these All-Star games are a chance for us internally at the club level to review the criteria, to talk about specific identification of traits and skills and ask ourselves questions of stuff that we didn't see about certain players on school visits. So it's a cool, I think, sterile scouting environment, which never happens anymore. So I'm going to ask you about some of the quarterbacks you saw there because people are interested in that.

Sure. Why are there not a lot of coaches there? Well, I noticed that too. In fact, I wrote a column for the athletic that came out this morning. I would say this year probably more so than I can remember, less head coaches for sure and less assistance as well attended the senior bowl. specific because let's face it, that's the big All-Star game. That's the one that everybody in the past has always attended

mainly because they have had the best roster. They've had the ready-made NFL players there, and a lot of these guys will be second, third-round picks, maybe not as many firsts, but it's been a destination because of the quality of player there. And I found that, well, let's

just take this, for example, there were, what, eight teams that staffs, coaching wise, were in upheaval, so they don't have a staff to go. I also think that the first impression that an evaluator gets on a particular player in an environment like this can be bad and it can be good. And I always felt like as kind of the guy in charge of the whole operation, I really didn't want our assistants to go there without having a chance to develop an opinion on film. In other words, they hadn't seen these kids. They're going to go there.

and the first impression is hard to erase. And let's say I'm going there to watch a tackle who I haven't seen yet, but he's played left tackle his whole career. I go there and the first day he's playing right guard or right tackle, well, there's a pretty good chance he's going to fail and it's not going to be pretty, right?

And so I have that impression in my mind as an evaluator that, man, this kid can't do that. Well, if you know the whole backstory and you know where he played and connect a few of the dots. Been watching them from. for months or whatever. Or for two or three years.

You kind of know the chronology of how he got there. So those first impressions are really important, but I wanted our guys to be qualified to then intake that first impression. So I think some teams have come to that conclusion that it's not great to have a lot of coaches involved in that process because, let's face it, they've been busy the last six months.

They have not been looking at college tape. They don't know. And at some point, in some of these organizations, the coaches have a little input, but in others they have a lot. And so it kind of depends on the structure of your front office. But I think that's why a combination of those things, why maybe there were lesser NFL coaches there. Now, I saw a ton of college coaches.

I saw more head coaches in college from giant powers than anything else, I think, because it's a great recruiting tool. They want to see some guys who they coached that are in the game. They also kind of want to be seen because it's free publicity, right? They're going to be on the NFL network channel all day every day. So they know every recruit in the world is going to watch this. I thought, yeah. Yeah.

They're there to be seen. So there were more college coaches than I've ever seen before. Did someone put out a picture? It showed the current Washington coach walking past the former Washington coach, were they both there? I don't know. It was funny. I saw something like that. That could be.

I did see, yeah, I did see him standing next to Michael Panix, who we're talking about. That's what I want to see. Yeah. Because I got this text from Mueller during the thing saying something about Pennix maybe being looking like the best quarterback there. What did you see in the quarterbacks because people are going to want to know that? And this is one little piece in your eval, which has a lot bigger context. Well, for my money, he was definitely the best there. And I think he's been really on the front burner for a lot of NFL decision makers since the playoff run, right? I mean, it was phenomenal how he finished the season. I think he may have been

a second, third round pick for a lot of college scouts. But he's raised his game at the point where the lights were brightest, and that has to factor in. He did nothing to discourage people that are considering him as a possible first-round pick. I mean, he did a really good job there. The thing that interests me so much about him is, and I could watch this kid throw all day. Normally a left-handed quarterback, I struggle. My P. Brain struggles a little bit just because it's back. It just looks different.

Yeah, it just looks different. And I've had this discussion with NFL coaches and a couple other GMs, and they have the same problem. We just don't see it a lot. So we want to, our brain is conditioned to see it differently. But anyway, I like this kid because I can watch him all day long. And the thing that jumped out at me again in this setting, it's not always great for quarterbacks to go there.

You and I have talked about this in the past where I'm not sure I would if I'm a top ranked quarterback because I have more to lose than gain. You're running an offense you just learned today. You're throwing to receivers who you've never thrown to in your life. You don't have any idea sometimes how deep they're running. there's just all things that you haven't played in a game for a while right you're a little rusty yeah and all things that can go wrong end up coming back oh that quarterback sucks or that quarterback he missed whoa he missed him yeah you don't even know what you're doing half the time so i'm not saying

it's for everybody but the fact that if you have that kind of cloud over you when you go there people have to understand that there's going to be some bad things that happened but getting back to penics what made me want to watch every throw of his is his calmness his pain patience. You would know this was this kid's first day running these these routes and this offense for sure. Easy. It was he can make all the throws in a smooth fashion. I love watching him throw the ball downfield. And we get so much nowadays with these spread offenses of these bubble screens and tunnel screens. And if I have to watch any more of those, I'm going to puke, right? It just, it's not, I hate watching it. It may have an efficiency that's beyond me,

but anyway, not in, not in Washington's system and not at the bowl games. You get to see real NFL throws being made. And this kid was effortless. He made all the throws downfield to receivers that he didn't know running routes that he could have easily looked bad throwing. But I just thought he handled it all with composure that tells me that this kid's going to be okay when the lights are bright, when stuff goes bad, he's going to be okay. And so that's why for me he was the best at this game, at least in the practices. And I know we've talked about this before. Let's just assume that Caleb Williams is the top quarterback in this draft, right? Would you say that's fairly safe? And then is LSU? Is Jaden Daniels probably two for you? He is for me, and I think

for a lot of NFL guys so far, yes. Now, that's where it gets interesting. How close is Pennix to be in the third guy for some teams? What do you think? Well, I think it depends on your opinion of Drake May. That's where he fits in at. And probably J.J. McCarthy as well. Those are the five names of people that are most talked about in NFL circles and really the five guys I've spent the most time on studying them. And as we always say, that's why Baskin Robbins has 31 flavors. Everybody gets to pick their favorite. I think your system matters, your scheme matters, your team matters for that, from that standpoint, to where we are as a team. But I think if you're trying to evaluate these guys in a vacuum for me, yes, Jalen Daniels would be second. But I think I see more out of J.J.

McCarthy. Now, I think the rest of the league will catch up to him at some point, but I would probably, for me, just my opinion, doesn't mean, I mean, you might think I'm crazy, but I would have to look hard at Pennix over Drake May, just because of the volume of NFL throws that this kid has made and the ease of which he can anticipate, he has perfect trajectory. It's a lot of instinctive innate anticipation that he really has. Yes, a lot of nuance. And that's impressive to me. And I haven't seen that part of Drake May's, you know, repertoire yet.

So Pennix is going to be up there. I would imagine, you know, as we sit here now, I don't know, Mike. It's February by the middle of April. Penix is going to be looked at as probably somewhere in the middle first round, to be honest with you. Yeah. Yeah. When you have a quarterback who can throw like that and, like you said, it has some of the nuanced stuff, I don't think they last that long.

Well, the need pushes up those guys anyway. You know, now they can also fall if there's teams that don't think they have a need, right? We've seen that happen with good quarterbacks too. Aaron Rogers famously fell, but it takes a team that wants to take a quarterback to take a guy too. It's not when we sequence these guys and when we're talking about it like on our show here, the sequencing of them is important just from a standpoint of kind of how we see them, but we're not predicting when these guys are going to get drafted. And when I put a guy at third on the quarterback list, it means I think he has the third best chance of being an NFL player, not when he's going to get drafted.

Because half the teams won't agree with anything I say. They have their own criteria and their own way of evaluation. Those are all the teams that are hiring new coaches every year, the ones that don't agree with you. They're the ones. Yeah, right. I don't know about that. But I just think I caution our listeners to find somebody, if you're going to go with their evaluations, find someone that has a pretty good track record. of valuing and of looking at players at the NFL level and kind of stick to that.

Don't just box yourself into looking at evaluators sometimes who are doing it in a vacuum. And I understand that. And it works great for sequencing them. But then you've got to put a value on him as to what kind of player this guy is going to be at the NFL level. All right. We're going to talk about a couple teams that just hired head coaches. One of them, the Washington commanders, could be in the mix for one of these quarterbacks. But let's start on the West Coast here.

Randy, with the Seahawks hiring Mike McDonald as their head coach. What do you think? Love the hire. I think it's and people will say, well, a little outside the box because he's 36 years old. I don't see that as being a negative at all. Even the inexperience that seems to come with a young guy, I don't see that. This guy had the number one defense in the league this year. Seattle has good players on defense that, in my opinion, have underachieved. So I think that's a good fit. He has taught. and developed players at the collegiate level and now at the NFL level to get the best out of their game. Look at the year that Jadavian Clownie had this year with the Ravens. For my money, this guy hadn't played like this maybe ever. I mean, he's always been kind of an underachie achiever.

A flashy underachie achiever. He had a hell of a year. Maybe the best year I've ever seen him have. Those kind of things are great. Plus, when you talk about the fit with Seattle, you got to play the Rams twice, got to play the 49ers twice. What's the thing that jumps out at you about those teams? They're officers. They're play callers, their coaches. And now Seattle has a little bit to push back, a little bit of a competition now that he did a pretty good job this year in Baltimore of shutting down offenses like that, in particular those, for that matter. I think I read where he went four and oh against the NFC West this year, right? Yes, he did. And he has to be. And he has to be. And he has to be. And he I think he had an 8-0 record against kind of Shanahan tree coaches,

although Sean McVeigh's offense did quite well against him. I guess when I, I do have a few impressions. I also had a positive impression. I mean, one of the things I really liked off the beginning was when John Slander, the GM, I went over to the press commerce because I live in the area. He introduced McDonald as a quote-unquote learning networker as opposed to a quote-unquote climbing networker. I love that distinction.

I think if you have an awareness of those types of things, it shows a growth mindset, which I think is really, really critical. I don't like hiring a coach for his defensive scheme because a specific scheme gets solved every few years. A few years ago was we got to have Brandon Staley, we need the Fangio scheme. Is anyone talking about that right now?

That's why I want somebody who is growing and evolving. And when you look at Mike McDonald, he went, so he worked under Dean Pease. He worked under Wink Martindale. And then he went to Michigan and ran his own defense and taught it and implemented it, obviously with good talent. And then when he came back to Baltimore and was entrusted with that coordinator job, which is a big leap there for a veteran coach like Harbaugh to make, when you've had the Dean Peas's and the Wink Martindale's to put someone in there at age 34, he came in with a different defense.

He's not just running Wink's defense. So he looks like somebody to me that is kind of on the cutting edge and is always looking. He's not locked into, hey, this is how we're going to play for the next 10 years. He's looking for that edge. He's got that learning networker mindset, right? He's got that growth mindset. That's the impression. Like you said, there's not as much of a track record.

He was an intern 10 years ago. So he hasn't been around as much. But that part, I think, I don't. like your thoughts on that in terms of when you're hiring a defensive coach and he's had a successful scheme, don't you need to be getting more than that scheme? Yeah, I agree with that. I think the scheme itself is not necessarily why you would hire a guy like that. I think you've got to join at the hip with the fact that, and I agree with you, I think all the points you made are really valid and should be considered, but you've got to join the other side of the coin with it in that he's got to be a

really good communicator. He's got to be a connector and he's got to be a developer. And which means that scheme has to put players in position to accentuate their positives. And it looks to me like, and I've never met Mike, but it looks to me like he gets it with regard to that. Hey, if this linebacker can't drop and cover this, why are we having him drop and cover there? We already know he can't do it. So that's a scheme that's not flexible. That's also a scheme that what they did in Baltimore is similar to what Belichick's done for years in New England or what Nick Saban has done wherever he's been. Their scheme has enough flexibility where they always are looking to accentuate positives of the players they have. And I think that's the key.

If you can make your scheme pliable to the players that you have but yet still not compromise the principles, I think that's the perfect fit. And then like, oh, by the way, I've got to be a leader. I've got to also appeal to the other side of the ball. I've got to have their respect as well. And it seems to me like the energy that Mike McDonald can bring makes it a good fit for the offense, for the defense, and for being a leader. Hey, let's face it, he's 36 years old. Pete Carroll, who we all love and adore 72.

So we got half his age. That doesn't go unnoticed to me. And I don't think it will go unnoticed in the locker room either because the messenger just probably needed to be changed a little bit. That's all. Yeah, that was the second thing that I thought was notable to me was that Mike McDonald mentioned that he had never even met Pete Carroll, right? And so that to me was an important detail symbolically as this team transitions to a new era. McDonald was very respectful of Carol, so was John Schneider, which you would hope would be the case for all that Pete's done there in Seattle.

But the absence of any connection between the two, I think is probably a good thing for everyone. And when Pete was announcing his, you know, when they were announcing he was basically fired, but, you know, spoke possibly transitioning to some other role. I thought about that at the time. And kind of early on, I thought, well, maybe a Dan Quinn would be a nice transitional candidate for them. But as time went on, the more I thought is like, wait a minute, no, maybe a good, clean break is what you need and what you want. If Dan Quinn is there, maybe Pete carols in his ear as a friend, as an advisor. Sure. But if we're making changes, let's change.

I wanted to know what your perspective would be on that from two angles. One is as the GM. Put yourself in John Snyder's shoes. You've just had a great 14-year relationship with Pete Carroll. Yep. You love them. But you're also getting your chance. Yep.

So would you want to make that clean break personally? And then do you think it's also in the best interest of the organization? Yes and yes. Okay. I think definitely you want to make a clean break. break. And again, not being disrespectful of Pete or anything he did. I get it. And I think you're doing the same thing. I think John and the Seahawks in general wanted to turn the page. I think it was time to turn the page. I don't think they want to be, and there's nothing wrong with Pete's style

or as principles, but I think change is needed. And it was probably needed, Mike, if we're being honest, a couple years ago. Because the vision needs to change. And it can't be a vision from year to year. And I think obviously you get that with a young Mike McDonald. So I think all of the things we've talked about make this for me a great hire. Now, now we'll see. Here's the one thing you don't know for sure about Mike. How, and maybe John does because he did the research, how will he be when shit goes bad? That's what I want to know. It's been a good ride for him. He's had success. He's won a lot of games, whether at Michigan or at Baltimore. But at some point, and it's probably in this first year, shit's going to go bad. We always say, what are we three weeks away from a good mutiny? So I want to see how

he's going to respond to that, and that's the unknown for me. That and the fact that you wonder who he's going to hire for the offensive coordinator job. Those are the two questions I would have going forward, but I love the hire. I think it's a great fit. I think it's time for a little new vision. And I think I live in Seattle, obviously, as well, and you can feel the excitement. It's palpable in the community that people are ready for kind of a, a different face per se. You mentioned he hasn't, you know, had much experience with failure. I think the Ravens had one losing season while he was there.

I also heard when I was out of the press conference, I was talking to a couple people. I think even when he first started out as like a high school, you know, freshman team coordinator, they had like six shutouts. So this guy's always had success basically everywhere he's, he has been. And hopefully for their standpoint, they don't have a lot of failure to deal with, but you're going to have ups and downs. and so you have to be process driven and you've got to be,

things are going to go bad. And that's the other thing about this place is they got rid of Pete after back-to-back, nine and eighters. So they're not looking for Mike McDonnell to come in and go seven and ten his first year while he figures this thing out, I would think.

There's a little bit of an expectation. And you mentioned the talent in defense. I think they're expecting him to come in and hey, they're slacking this rope and he's going to get the most out of that and they're going to be a better team because of it. Another thing that stood out to me was something McDonald's said, and this gets into the scheme stuff,

this could have been perceived as a shot at Carroll if McDonald had been in Seattle last five years or if he was saying it in reference to Pete, but he wasn't. But at one point he was asked about his defense, and he said something along the lines of, well, you simply can't sit there in the same two or three coverages all the time, you're going to get picked apart.

And I just, I don't think he meant anything by it because, like I said, he's not even met Pete Carroll. He hasn't even been here. But if you've been watching this team and sitting in that same defense for a long time, that has been a frustration. So you can see where the appeal is from a John Snyder who's been sitting there watching that stuff too. They're basically, you tend to do this, Randy. When you get rid of one guy, you get somebody who fills in the voids of the things you didn't think were right, right? You fix the things you thought were wrong, and that seems to be what this higher addresses.

No, no doubt. And I think also from John's angle is when you acquire players, you want guys to come in. And I think that this has been the case in Seattle the last few years. You're trying, or Pete was trying to get those guys to conform to his scheme and his defense. And that's the whole thing. Well, I think now you're probably going to look at players that when they come here on this roster, the coach is going to adjust his scheme kind of to where these players' strengths are. like I said, that's a big difference when it comes to developing players.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. All right, let's hit on the Washington commanders. They hired Dan Quinn as their head coach, and not everyone seems overly thrilled about that, which we'll talk about. I just want to lead this off, Randy. For decades, Washington was a place where there were tons of agendas and leaks, and Dan Snyder leaking this or that.

Things were always getting out of there with agendas in mind. And hey, it's Washington. It's Washington. Yeah, hey, the Beltway. Yep. But, you know, with a new ownership has come new hope that things are going to be different. And I think early on when they moved quickly and hired Adam Peters as their GM, I think in general that was sort of applauded. But we were also hearing for a long time that, hey, Ben Johnson was a done deal as their head coach.

But something obviously happened there to where it looked like Ben Johnson kind of got out in front of whatever was going wrong and withdrew before the commanders are on their team playing going to to meet him and he withdraws from the process and then we hear we've been hearing for a while ben johnson wants too much money and then we heard that again and then we saw you know his agent had denied that and then we then we had people backtracking on that and saying nope actually ben johnson's just a loyal guy who wanted to stay with the lions money had nothing to do with that you've got to take a breath here with all of these competing agendas going back and forth. Then we hear the commanders pivoted from Johnson and actually made an offer to Mike McDonald.

That's been reported. And he was like, ah, thanks, no thanks. And signed with Seattle sitting at a press conference within 36 hours of that. We're not going to sort through all of this today and know the exact truth. But when these are the things that are swirling around your search, it kind of feels to me like there's still a ton of agendas there. What's your optic on this thing? Yeah, I don't disagree, Mike. I've said from day one, and then they, after this, they've assembled a team of people who

actually were involved in hiring Adam Peters, the GM. So many cooks in the kitchen. It just gave me pause and fear that what's going to happen. Then they had, they, like you mentioned, hired Adam Peters right out of the gate. And for me, he was the most qualified guy. And it made perfect sense. So I'm thinking, shoot, they got this thing figured out. We're not going to have all these agendas involved.

We actually interviewed a guy that was good, and we pulled the trigger on him. Now you advance that to where a month later, they're the last team to hire a head coach. And who knows what has happened in this process. Like you said, there's a lot of cooks in the kitchen, a lot of agendas and different postings of information that makes me nervous. I don't think Ben Johnson ever wanted $15 million, but that narrative was out there. nobody in their right mind is going to put that out there publicly unless there's a reason for somebody else to do it. So I think the cautionary tale is be careful when you read and hear this information out there because these agendas are at work. And sometimes the messenger,

who most times or not, it's the media, they get caught in the middle too. And they're trying to protect their own best interests. So it's best to just kind of bail on the whole process. And it sounds like that's what Ben may have done. He might have bailed on the whole process because all these rumors were swirling and just said, hey, this isn't, this is not for me. This is not a good, a good setup. He did, I think at least meet with the Seattle people. That part is true, right?

Or at least on Zoom, right? He would have had the Zoom with them. And I think once then he withdrew, that brought great clarity for Seattle. Because I think that, Seattle wanted to wait through the process. and I think it generally worked out for them. They lost, Rahim Morris was somebody they had interest in, and so he came off the board, but the other hires really weren't people they were looking at.

I felt like when Ben Johnson went, then it was like, okay, they moved on McDonald pretty quick. But it created the impression, didn't it, Randy, that the commander settled for Dan Quinn. Yeah, I would agree. The long and winding road took them to Dan Quinn, but if you can eliminate those six-rate bus stop, in between, you might think they had a plan to do this all along, but it sure came across

and was perceived by most that they settled on Dan, and the positive spin on this is, and I like Dan, I've known him forever, the positive spin on this is, well, at least they weakened a division opponent. At least they weakened the Cowboys' structure and what they had going. So if that comes out to be the most positive thing they can spin about the hiring of Dan Quinn, I don't know that I like that for the long haul. That's not enough. That's right. No, but I would say you mentioned the six bus stops and those do factor in to how things are perceived. But if we had asked people, Randy, December 1st, hey, let's rate the potential candidates for GM and head coach coming into this cycle, right? Let's just put together a list and it wouldn't have to be necessarily, you know,

you doing your homework like a GM would or a team president would. I'm talking. I'm talking talking about the generally accepted public list, right? If we just put together, hey, well, Adam Peters would probably be on everybody's top five of the GMs you could hire. And Dan Quinn would be in everybody's top three on December 1st, right? December 1st, Dan Quinn would be a top three to top five candidate easily. For different reasons, they may have got to that stature, but for the most part, yes, that's where they were. So what's happened since then is Dan Quinn had a bad playoff game against the Packers, which is part of the evaluation. And then the whole process played out where Washington ended up being the last team to hire a coach,

which isn't always a bad thing, but how they got there flailing a little bit, Ben Johnson, leaving them at the altar, Mike McDonald basically saying, sorry, that all makes it look bad, and that's all part of it. But if we had said on December 1st, hey, you know what, the commanders are going to get Adam Peters and Dan Quinn, what's your grade, Randy? What's your grade, Randy? grades, Sando, what's your grade media guy out there? I bet you the grades would not be an F, would not be a D, would not be a C, there'd be some Bs and A's. You agree? Probably so, maybe at the low end of B minus, you know, something like that. I agree. I think that what makes it problematic is what you were saying, all of the winding turns to get here and being last comes with some

issues now, but go ahead, sure. Yeah, yeah. And look, I have a spreadsheet with it has all the hires for over 25 years and whether they were the first tire, the second hire, the eighth hire. Sometimes those last hires, look at the Arizona Cardinals. They are left. They got no one and they end up with Bruce Ariens, right? And you go, shoot, five years later, like, that was the best tire of the whole dang thing. So this stuff will have to play out. But the optics on this were concerning for Washington and we're not ready to crown them.

No, that's right. But I'm not ready to bury him either. I still think Adam Peters is going to be a good general manager. I think his leadership will go a long ways. As long as he can, and again, this is the Washington area. It's not for everybody. It's this convoluted political, really cloud over the whole thing that there's going to be a lot of people in Adams here all the time, whether it's from inside his building or outside his building. He's going to have to be his own man.

He's going to have to not be influenced by the agent world, by the media world. There's a lot of, hey, I don't care. talk to talk to the hand you know talk to the elbow the hand's not worth it or however that goes but yeah that's that is a situation where he's not been before he's got to qualify all the information that he gets now as a GM and you've got to filter out agenda based info and that's not easy all right we got a bunch more stuff I'm going to share with our listeners my experience the other day um working out in the morning you have pictures your Will Farrell and anchor man,

1,000, 1,000, right? A thousand, 1,000. Working out, text comes in from Mueller, so I, you know, I take the 405 pounds and set it down on the bench press there, you know, and I set up,

and I got a text from Mueller, and he's saying something about Brock Purdy, and we had this Brock Purdy conversation about whether or not Brock Purdy is bailing out Kyle Shanahan, which I love this text, I got my attention, I got a nice little rest there between world record sets.

But it was great because I think the perception has been that, hey, Kyle Shanahan makes Brock Purdy, right? We don't give Brock Purdy any credits. Anyone could be in this system. Look at Jimmy G. Look at his numbers. Look at all these guys. So I love to get this text from you.

And it led to a good discussion. What were you saying about, wait a minute, it's the other way around? Brock Purdy bailing out Kyle? Well, I don't know if I'm saying that. I'm just saying this. The numbers lead you one way. And we all know how the metrics have shown where Kyle hasn't come back from anything really ever, especially in the fourth quarter. So that's been an offer until two weeks ago. And all I'm saying is there has to be a column for being clutch and Purdy has been clutch. He has been the one quarterback that Kyle has had that has made play. in the fourth quarter, made plays both with his legs and his arm, win behind, made greedy good decisions, good enough to where they've been able to come back and win a couple games. And if not so much a comeback, make plays in the biggest part of the game. And that's where this offense has really failed, really the last 10 years since his time in Atlanta. So my point was,

we want to criticize Brock Purdy, but I think we ought to be lauding him because he's the one guy that Kyle's had to where I don't think his scheme has to change. We talked about this with Jimmy G. We talked about this, even going back with some of the other quarterbacks he's had there. It seemed to me like he was always holding back a little bit to protect that quarterback. I don't know that he has to do that with Brock Purdy. I think he trusts his mind, he trusts his processing to where I think Kyle feels like he could call anything. But feeling like you can call it and having the quarterback then execute it,

to the nth degree or the highest level, that's something that hasn't been there. And so I think Purdy's done that. So my point was we ought to give Purdy some credit here for taking Kyle off the over streak from a number standpoint of what's the number was over forever of being down by eight points or more in the fourth quarter. Right, right, right. And he just proved that he can make clutch plays and that's something that this offense and Kyle has lacked. It has, and I believe some of that is structural and by the design of the offense. It feels to me, and we've talked about this, there's such an early down focused offense. They're so great at the play action and the things that really make you excel when you're allowed to play on your own terms, meaning you're not

way behind. We don't have to throw all the time. But we've criticized, hey, when you do have to get into two-minute offense or, you know, we're behind late in the game. They're not really set up to do that. Their drop-back game isn't as good as the rest of the offense. There's a gap between this great offense that's one of the best in the league, and it's why anyone who even knows Kyle Shannon gets head coaching opportunity, there's a gap between that, and then we got to get out and run. We got to go fast.

We got to drop back to put back to. pass in a drop back pass offense when the defense knows we're going to pass, has Purdy bailed out some of that? Is that what we're talking about is that Kyle doesn't necessarily put his quarterbacks in the best position in those situations? And Brock Purdy has overcome that with some of his scrambling, some of his running, some of his resourcefulness. I would agree with that for sure. I think the runs that he has made and the timeliness of those runs have kind of been the one thing that has carried this team when they couldn't protect him or when he did feel pressure. That's a, and I'm not comparing him to Pat Mahomes, but that's one of the biggest traits,

best traits that I think Pat Mahomes does is he gives you the perfect time to tuck it and run. Those are innate. You can't coach that. That's a feel. That's an anticipating skill set that you only get, you either got it or you don't. And I think Purdy has some of that, and we've seen him run for some first downs. but I thought some of the numbers that you had on Purdy, especially in the second half of games,

were outstanding. And I think I see that with my eyes just from an eye test standpoint. Yeah, so Purdy trailing in second halves, last two games on playoffs. He's 19 of 31. That's 61%. 236 yards and a touchdown. No interception.

Six explosive gain completions, meaning longer than 15 yards. Now, that being said, you know, against Detroit, great comeback. They never trailed in the fourth quarter. They got the fumble recovery. They got the pinball, deep ball that probably could have been intercepted, and it goes to a big gain to Brandon Ayuk.

So when I see some of those things, Randy, I'm willing to grant you, yes, the resourcefulness by Purity scrambling around. I don't know how repeatable a comeback like that is. You know, I think if they're behind the chiefs in a situation like that, it's going to be lights out. They had to have some wild stuff. maybe arguably the lions were complicit, depending what you thought of their decision-making in the game.

A lot of things had to happen. They really weren't behind for that long. Brock Purdy really didn't have to operate in that stressful environment for very long in the game because it swung so fast on the 50-yard completion that really wasn't a great play by him and the fumble by Detroit that set up a short field. So it is a team game. And one thing about comebacks, Randy, they always take the defense holding the other team from scoring. You can't come back.

So there is a team component of it. I think your point's well taken that Purdy's been able to do some stuff and create some things that weren't necessarily there to help his team get by the last couple weeks in games where they really weren't at their best, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I totally agree. And I'm not saying Brock Purdy is going to carry the 49ers. But I am saying he can raise the floor to where they have a chance if they can make some timely plays in the second half or later in games, even if they are behind.

I went back and listened, this is how much of a great life I have, I went back and listen to your eval of Brock Purdy at the end of last season, and it was exactly how it played out, just in terms of what he can do, what he can't do, what they were going to do. It's just interesting, the evaluation on him has been consistent. And I mean, you were saying from day one, this guy's a big upgrade over Jimmy, he gives him something that doesn't limit their offense. And so we've seen that play out. And now on the biggest stage, Randy, the Super Bowl, he gets a chance to really prove it. And I think one of the, we're not going to get into picking games this week because we don't have to. But one of the things

that's interesting to me is I think Purdy really struggled in the elements. I don't think he's a four-wheel drive quarterback. Okay. And we might even go back to that Cleveland game. Was that in some bad weather? I can't remember if the weather was good or bad. It was the best. It wasn't good. It wasn't the best, yeah. And then we had, you know, we've had rain and just outdoor weather these last two playoff games. I think it's affected them, throwing the ball.

And so you're going to get an indoor game now. You're going to get an ideal situation for a quarterback. Patrick Mahomes can probably succeed in almost any conditions. He's a different level of talent. I think Brock Purdy needs a good track. Doesn't he need a roof to really help him be at his best in good weather? So we may see a better version of Purdy in terms of just throwing the ball. What do you think of that?

I think that's definitely the fact. I think the rain or the weather bothered him a little bit in that setting. But here's the guy that played at Iowa State. And so the weather was, I got news for it. It's shitty. It's Shitty in Ames Iowa too. So I don't, I mean, he's not like he's foreign to playing in bad weather. I got a little nervous in that first game where he's going to wear gloves,

then he didn't wear a glove. then he was wearing two gloves and that and that always, you know, and I always go back to a conversation I had with Philip Rivers one time on the sidelines. I don't know if you remember, but Philip went through a stint where he wore a glove on his passing hand for a while too. And he's warming up in a game at 70 degrees and we're in San Diego at the time. And I'm standing on the sidelines and I said, Philip, what are you doing?

You got to explain this one to me. He goes, yeah, he said, I'm just trying. I said, well, give me the downside. He said, I feel like I have to throw every ball when I have a glove on, through a cement wall. He said, I don't have any touch. So my, my depth perception is, is not controllable by, by my release. So he said, I'm throw, yeah, my feel is that I got to throw fastballs at everything. And that's not good. So I always said, there's no way you can play quarterback with that. And to be honest with you, that bothers me about Kenny Pickett sometimes, too. His touch or whatever,

I think sometimes is a little off because the feel isn't there. And it sounds simplistic to, to say it. Having been a former quarterback, there's no way you could get me. me to wear a glove on my passing hand. I don't care if it's 15 below. I just want to feel it. I know. I want to feel the ball. And I guess each to his own.

But that bothered me about Purdy, the fact that he didn't really know what to do in that climate. And it was a little bit of rain. It wasn't, it wasn't 10 below. It wasn't what we've seen in some areas. So if conditions are bad, he's going to have to work through some of that to buy my confidence.

That's all. I get it too. But I'm just saying he doesn't have to deal with that in Vegas. So it's a good thing. I think after a couple of rough games where it may have been a factor. He just didn't throw it as well, in my opinion. It just didn't look good.

So now you get a little week to reset, you go indoors, and, of course, you've got to play Spags defense and all that. Let's hit some of these that are hirings around the league. We can run through some of these. How about Matt LaFleur going with the head coach of Boston College for his D coordinator? I kind of have to admire him a little bit here because it wasn't on anybody's list. I mean, he must know something. I don't know.

What do you think? Well, yeah, there's got to be a connection there, whether it's, again, through an agent or something. Their buddies, yeah. Yeah, that may be the case. I did not know that Chestnut Hill, whatever it is, where's Boston College? Jeff Halfley was not on anybody's list, okay? No, nor was the BC defense, because I happened to be looking at a couple guys from Louisville on offense at the senior ball I was at.

So I did roll out the Louisville BC game, and I saw a lot of confusion on the BC defense. of trying to get lined up and cover people, and that game was over fast. No. My snapshot was not a good one of BC and where they're at. Now, obviously, it's apples and oranges. Total different setup. You can have first round picks playing for him in Green Bay.

So we'll see how it shakes out, but you're right. It did catch people as an outside-the-box hiring. The one other note I would make is, and we're seeing this, because we've heard of Chip Kelly now trying to present himself as an offensive coordinator candidate somewhere. if we didn't know then we do know now college football is a mess these coaches are bailing yeah they're bailing as quick as they can't we've had guys retire we've had coaches that have been head coaches take lesser jobs i don't even think they care about the money anymore they they want out of

college football so if that's not a message enough they don't like not being the absolute kings who can just control everybody's fate and be unaccountable they don't like that they don't like that's changed huh well it used to be the best job in sports sports 100%. Oh my gosh, these guys. They're like a king on campus. So now they've got to live like everybody else and they're like, oh, I want to go to the NFL. Now the footing is equal. Now the footing is equal. They can have better players than everybody all the time. But guess what? The other teams in the NFL are really good. And yeah, that's hard to swallow. I was kind of going to say, I don't think this is necessarily right. I was going to say, Matt Lefleur needs to get this one

right because this staff, you know, the defense, he hasn't been able to get it squared away. But guess what? Matt LaFleur is winning a bunch of ball games anyway. He's got his quarterback playing great. Matt LaFleur may be fine, even if this doesn't end up being a great hire. But it feels to me like for them to get over the top, this has to be a great higher. Well, I would hope so. I do think there'll be a certain amount of rope given him, though, because he finally did cut the cord with Joe Barry. And Packer fans are so happy that that happened that I think they're willing to try anything just just for change sake. So whether that's a lot of it. fair or not, I'm not here to say, but change, I think, is probably what everybody wanted the most

out of Green Bay's defense, and this will give him something else to, if nothing else, somebody else to yell at. So Cliff Kingsbury goes to the Raiders, which is an interesting one to me. You know, I think an initial reaction to that could be along the lines of, wait a minute, they got this linebacker coach and Antonio Pierce, he's going to want to play defense, run the ball, be physical. We're bringing in Cliff Kingsbury. When you think of Cliff Kingsbury, you think of that white couch down there in the desert when he's, you know, he doesn't look like a guy who wants to roll up his sleeves and run the ball and present a physical threat. Now, two things about that, Randy, that may not be true. I mean, Cliff Kingsbury ran the ball, has run the ball

decently before, a little bit in Arizona. But the other thing is, Antonio Pierce may not be doing the hiring here either, right? When these hires get made at different places, how empowered that coach is can determine who's picking the staff, right? Well, no doubt. I think a couple things jumped out to me is one, obviously, Antonio Pierce was an assistant at Arizona State when Cliff was the head coach of the Cardinals. So there's probably a connection there. I do think that Cliff's offense is something that people want to dabble in. The things that held Cliff back in the past were the late in the season digression of his offense and the lack of being able to adjust to certain defenses and schemes once they had figured you out a little bit. So there was a lot of, no second pitch, there was no adjusting. So that will still be there. But the other thing is, and I don't know, this may go with a little bit what you're saying, who is involved in the hiring. Tom Telesco, their new GM, and I worked for him for years with the Chargers, wasn't always concerned with size and power, but was more of a, I'm okay with small guys if they can run.

That is, that is really in a nutshell, the offense and what Cliff has had in his history as well, smaller fast receivers, smaller in all regards to stature across the front line. So maybe that connection with Telesco in philosophy makes that easier to swallow. I don't know. I think it's probably a pretty good hire for them because they will be wide open and spread. But you mentioned a good point. And is Patrick Graham still the defensive coordinator, by the way? I think he is.

Yeah, I know he was interim. He's probably the one that's not loving it. He's probably the one guy that's not loving it. you said, because the time of possession will definitely favor the opposing team because of the way Cliff handles it, much like Chip Kelly's offense, their time of possession, and that's the main reason why it didn't work in the NFL either. They didn't possess the ball long enough to ever give their defense a break, and the complementary football just wasn't there because the possessions get reduced down to where six or eight possessions in a game is all we get, and we can't screw

things up, you know, so that that leads off to a whole other set of dynamics. So let's just, now you got my mind really racing. Sorry. This is dangerous. I'm all over the place. But no, no, listen. Think about this. Tom Telesco, if this hiring is a Tom Telesco fit hire, okay, more than anything.

Well, Tom Telesco was hired after Antonio Pierce was already the coach. So Tom Telesco did not hire Antonio Pierce, correct? Correct. If he's hiring the offensive coordinator who's been a head coach in the NFL, that's interesting to me. Well, I'm not saying he is. I'm saying that Tom probably, I mean, if anybody's using common sense at all, probably got the job with the Raiders based on his experience level and the fact that he can kind of oversee and his perspective.

And if they didn't really talk to him about this, if this is something Antonio did, that that relationship is doomed. Because they've got to do these things together, in my opinion, to have a chance to be successful. Yeah, and we're not saying they didn't. I don't know if they did or didn't. Yeah, just. let me unrace my mind and not let it go too far ahead here but that was just this was an interesting hire

let's see how it plays out let's see what people say it could be none of those things but it was just huh that was just one of those huh I didn't have that on my Antonio Pierce list right if I was trying to find the best fits for him Cliff did interview in Chicago for their OC job as well the way I understand it so there was a little bit of

of a cry for this offense or this setup for sure Okay, you had put down here a note on the Titans 2 and Brian Callahan and his hiring. What do you see there? The minute Brian Callahan became a candidate for me in the league, which was early on in the process, he had a lot of things, a lot of interviews set up. I was thinking it's a combination because you're going to get his dad. And the pushback would be, well, he works for the Browns, you know, he can't leave. He's not going to go there.

Bill Callahan's known as the offensive line coach, one of the better ones in the league. He's been a head coach himself. Are you going to tell me he's not going to want to go work for his son? He's 65 or 67 years old himself. This is a chance of a lifetime for him. So I looked at it this way as you're getting the packaged deal if you do hire Brian Callahan. And sure enough, we read just recently now that the Browns and kudos to them, they're going to let Bill go work for his son.

And I think it's a great get for the Titans. I think he's a good old line coach. he's a good mentor, obviously for his son, and I think it's a great fit. If you were making me value assistant coaches from a positional standpoint as to what the most important hires were, and if I'm Brian Callahan, probably my defense coordinator might be my most important, but my O line coach is always right under the coordinators, no matter what side of the ball the head coach comes from. The O line coaches are valued around the league because they are the communicators, the protection experts, all the things that that, that

make offenses go are really determined by how the people up front play and how they communicate. And I think the Titans are getting a good one to go with a total new setup in Nashville. And that relationship can doom things more than people realize. Here's what happens a lot of times, Randy. You get the hot shot young coordinator comes in. He's going to call the offense. And he's 36. And he knows everyone's excited about him.

your run game coordinator offense guy is 54 and he spits his dip into a cup when he's watching the film and he's got a couple days of stubble and he's looking over at this young guy going we ain't running these protections what's he thinking about

coach we're not doing that on Sunday you're going to get our quarterback killer we're not doing it I don't have a protection for that don't want to do it so if you have to have alignment in those two positions you cannot get better alignment than Brian Callahan and his dad, and that's going to be great alignment.

Now, the key is that Bill Callahan is a great line coach. Look, there's real downsides to nepotism, and you see some of these guys get jobs, and you're like, oh, my gosh, Bill Callahan is one who really is a great coach and is a differentiating line coach. So I do agree. I think it's a great fit for them. I don't really love all the staff changes that are. coming to Cleveland. That's probably another conversation sometime, but they make staff changes to me

sometimes where I'm like, huh. And then having to lose Bill Callahan on top of it, I'm not sure they're in a better position than they've been. So maybe we can look at that on a future one. You also put down the Steelers here with Arthur Smith. What do you got there? I just thought it was a really good fit and maybe one that perception is maybe part of the problem for me, but I think it's a good fit because it gives them an identity. Arthur Smith, if nothing else, you know what you're getting with him. You're going to get the play action game. You're going to get tight ends involved, pass catching. You're going to get a downhill run game for the most part. It's not going to be a fancy dropback passing, processing from the pocket type offense. I just think this is what this

team needed. I think they want to be more physical. I think Arthur Smith brings that physicality to the running game and they'll know exactly what they're doing. Now, you may have to tell Arthur what players are playing and how we're going to use them because that track record hasn't been evident. last three years in Atlanta, but I think Mike Tomlin would do that. I just thought it was a good fit. I also think it's a good fit scheme-wise with Kenny Pickett. Some of the other things that they do offensively in Arthur's system will benefit from the Steelers players will benefit from that. The other thing is we've heard from the Steelers standpoint, they're going to bring in competition, whether it's Mason Rudolph or whatever. I put the bottom line notes here,

what would Justin Fields look like in a Steeler uniform running Arthur Smith's offense? Who knows what's going to happen there. I'm just saying that to me would get my attention. That is interesting. If you look at that kind of division, you know, and you look at how football is played in the AFC North, you put Justin Fields with Arthur Smith and give him a defense. Yep. That's what, you know, people were talking even last year, hey, what if Justin Fields had been on Atlanta, right? And that might have been a great thing for Arthur Smith. Why is it, why is it good for Kenny Pickett? Do you, you liked Kenny Pickett when he coming out of the draft. How much have you changed on that?

And why would this scheme help him? I haven't changed. I think Kenny Pickett is a good player. I think the system needs to be confined to having some identity as to what we are. I just think he's ran a hodgepodge of plays through Matt Canada. And I know he had some of that in college with Matt as well. But I just don't think it gave his quarterbacks a chance with what they did. I think Arthur's system will give him a chance.

They're going to run the ball. They're going to be specific in how they did. design their running game. It's not something that I think the Steelers have done much the last couple years. They've called a bunch of plays and tried to run some fancy one-off stuff. And it just hasn't been a system, I think, that accentuates what their players can do. They drafted a tight end. Remember last year, Mike, from Georgia in the third round, I think that's, you like them, 270 pounds. And now we're going to run the other way, or he's not going to be the blocker that I thought he could be, or that they thought he should be. So they're just disconnected a lot of things

with the people and the players they've brought in there because of the scheme. And I think they can firm that up some with Arthur Smith running the offense. Yep. All right. We had a note on here, hey, wait a minute, Belichick, Rabel, not hired. People are asking, can they be defensive coordinators? That was your headline. Take it away.

What do you got? Well, I don't know. I mean, I think there are two really good football coaches. And we always talk about agendas that are within buildings are a lot of the reasons. Some coaches, some GMs get jobs and some don't. I don't know what's going to happen with either one of these guys. I know this, Belichick, 72 years old. His future is probably more in doubt as a head coach again, as opposed to Vrable.

But you know, you hear radio, you hear my buddies, I hear all these guys, whoa, why don't we make one of my defensive coordinator? They're not going to do that. I mean, I would be shocked, even if Mike Vrable does that to this point. I just think he is a guy who, if he doesn't end up coaching this year, and I'm talking about Vrable, will be at the top of everybody's list next year. He probably could take a year off and benefit from it to actually do some self-examination to see if I can't present a better package going forward,

maybe with a GM or two of my choice, that might make some sense for some people a year from now. I don't know if he has the patience to not be involved in football or not. That's a decision I think we'll find out more about once Mike comes out of his foxhole and kind of tells us. I just think those two coaches going in, you talk about the candidates who if made available probably would have been two guys you would have thought would have got hired right off the get-go. But I think we know that agendas matter, that structure matters, that packages get presented

from people inside buildings and just didn't fit with these two guys and their personality or the way they do their business. Yep. Okay. Well, hit quickly. You saw Jim Harbaugh was introduced. just talked about multiple Super Bowls for the Chargers. So I would hope they're getting everybody's ring sizes now just to have that ready.

What do you think? I love the whole press conference. I listened to it from start to finish just because that has been so void personality, a little bit of a caricature in Charger Man. They have never had something like this before. So I absolutely loved it. How about when he said he told his wife they're going to drive their RV out there and park it in at some RV park down by the beach? and that's how close to the office.

So he's going to go to and from work until they move into their new facility out of an RV. Just that outlandish thinking and some of the personality that he brings. It's easy to see how he can be infectious, right, and how guys like him. Oh, yeah. Some of it may be corny.

I get it, but I just thought it was cool. And it's something the Chargers have really needed and wanted. I thought it was cool to see smiles on a lot of Chargers people's face. And me and specifically, having spent 10 years, I just came from these All-Star games where I saw a lot of Charger people. There was a little bit of a bounce to their step once this announcement came. I just felt good for them that this is something that's probably should have been coming a long time ago in that Dean Spanos and John stepped up to the plate and did the right thing.

I thought this was a great fit. And I like the personality that Jim brings in exactly this fit with the Chargers. Yeah, absolutely. I'm not going to sit here and say, oh, come on, talking super, Super Bowls, you haven't won the division in however long. We'll let them have their day, right? I think let them have their day and really look forward to how it all comes together and in the season and all of that. And he's going to start in a lot better place than a lot of people because he has a talented quarterback.

So it'll be fun to watch that come together and see they've got a lot of work ahead. Their roster has a lot of work. But we got a GM notebook here, a couple items in there. What do you got? Yeah, a couple items. It was spinning off of the all-star trips that I made the last couple weeks. I thought it might be quick to run through our listeners as the next steps for these scouting staffs after these All-Star games, kind of what's happened because, as you know, free agency

comes before the draft. So we're spending a lot of time talking about draft prospects and how our things are going to line up. One thing that I always thought was critical when running a team was I wanted to know as much about the draft as I could prior to free agency starting because we have a list of things that I want to get accomplished in some boxes to check. I needed to work the draft in conjunction with free agency. So you have to formulate a plan based on what are our best steps to fill these voids on our roster.

And obviously the two best ways to do it are free agency and the draft. But I wanted to know as much as I could about the draft picks and about our prospects of acquiring them before we even got to back in years ago. It used to be mid-February, but now it's mid-March when free agency starts. So most of these teams leave Mobile, Mike, just to give our listeners a quick idea, they leave Mobile, they go back to their prospective buildings, and they're going to spend the next two, two and a half weeks with a fine-tooth comb for the most part just starting to put a worksheet up on their walls in their draft room.

So they're going to go through every player, every scout's going to have his say, everybody's going to have their say, and they'll come to a consensus on where these players are draft-wise. The coaches have not got involved yet. they're going to come later after the process. But for the most part, our college guys now have opinions on all these things. This is all prior to going to Indy and the Combine when we gather medical information. So these teams are going to spend, we used to call it 40 days and 40 nights, hunkered down in

their building, sorting out and building these consensus. Then as a GM, I kind of know, hey, if we need an inside linebacker, I might be able to get a guy that we all like in the second or third round. So I don't have to go out and spend $8 million. a year on one in free agency. My point is just that information leads me to maybe a step or two that I know I can make. Let's just say there are no tackles available in the draft this year. And I'm not saying that's the case. I'm just giving this as an example. I don't like any of these tackle options. Maybe we get a tackle at the first time we can make sense to us as around

four or five. So I've got to go sign a tackle in free agency because there's not going to be there come draft time in April. So these are the kind of questions that you start to formulate in your mind, Hey, after a playoff loss, I remember making a list of what we needed on the plane on the way home before we even landed back in New Orleans. I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to talk to our staff about as far as needs go. Well, this just helps you download more of that information now. You're going to have a really good picture of the draft board in your building before you even go to Indianapolis at the end of February.

And then you can kind of gather information there about free agency, meeting with agents, starting to formulate your deals and that kind of stuff. So that's kind of how it works from a chronology standpoint. Interesting. Very, very good. What else you got in there? The other one I had was, did you watch any of the Pro Bowl games on Thursday night by any chance? Where's your stance on where the Pro Bowl is right now?

And I say Pro Bowl. I like it evolving. I like it. I love the idea of skills competitions in general. Like I used to like back in the day all of those things, the Networks, Battle of Networks superstars, any of that type of stuff. I love those types of competitions. competitions. The old Pro Bowl, you remember they used to have like, you'd see Tom Brady and Peyton Manning seeing how far they could throw it. I don't know that I want my quarterback throwing

his rotator cuff out trying to throw it 80 yards. But I think anything like that where it's actual football skills, I don't really want to see the guys go play golf. Right. You know, as much. I would rather, I like the idea of throwing the ball or doing some different things. Remember Larry Allen used to be in the bench press? A bench press competition. Now, look, you don't want to get your guy hurt doing something stupid, but I love the competitions between the guys. What do you think?

Well, how did you like the Pooka Nakuwa doing backflips off a boat ramp behind a ski boat and making catches out in the water? If I'm less sneed, the GM of the Rams, I'm a little nervous when I watch that stuff for sure. Yeah, I think the Seahawks and the 49ers were good with that. The Cardinals were good with that. I don't know less. He wants to see his guy doing that after the guy on the butt.

Yeah, the guy on Buffalo got his leg smacked by a jet ski. Remember that? That's right. And he hasn't recovered yet. Yeah. I do like, I'm with you, though. I like the Pro Bowl games. I love the passing skill stuff.

I would have loved to, and that's really my note was, I would have loved to see, and nothing against the guys who were in it, I get it. They're there for a reason. But I would have loved to have seen the top group of accuracy rated passers go through drills like that. I think you could have made a whole TV show on that alone, much like the old battle of the network stars, the superstars. I just want to see the best. And Baker won it. Baker Mayfield won that, and I get it.

Great. But there are guys even that can do that, I think, at a higher level, I would love to see that. Quarterbacks go through all kinds of drills like that, making throws that could really be fun and charity could win some, or make some money. And I think you could really have a nice TV show based on that. Hey, you know, it would be fun too. Throw a little alumni component in it. Have a couple, because you didn't know, these guys who retire at quarterback, unless they're Drew Brees and their arms falling off,

a lot of them could still spin it for when they're 60 years old. They can throw the ball. Yeah. And they're competitive. I would love to see, you know, Aikman spend a little bit of time getting his spiral going again and then have, you know, or whatever, those types of guys that are in the booth. And maybe you have a category for those guys altogether. Yeah, yeah.

Or team them up. What if you put Mahomes, you know, you put Mahomes with, you know, whatever retired guy from, you know, from just name a quarterback who was a pro, Rivers or somebody, right? It's Rivers and Mahomes. The point is we'd watch it, right? Totally. And you know those guys would go back in and put some work in and, you know, get their passes going. I would, I'd be all for it. Yeah.

It would be. it would be a lot better than, did you see this, Randy? It would be a lot better than the second day of the NBA draft. You see that? They're breaking up the NBA draft into a two-day telecast. Can you name a second round NBA pick? Nope. In fact, I can't name one out of the top 10.

So they can have five days and they're going to have me still for the first hour and a half. And that's it. Yeah, I'll go for the Pro Bowl games. So, hey, we usually get to our pick segment here. I think we were a combined three and one last week. Is that right? Well, I've been on the 500 train for about three or four weeks now. I know you've been a lot better than that.

So I'm happy to be within spitting distance of 500, and I know you're over by quite a bit. Well, these games still make you sweat it out, you know, in terms of how it's going to go. Shoot, I thought I had the lions and I got the seven and a half. I thought I was doing great. This is easy. And then they almost lost the game. They could have lost.

They were down by 10. Weren't they down by 10 at one point? And they came back and lost by three. So, yeah, I did get them both. I can't pick against Mahomes. You kidding me? Well. The last two games, I thought they've a great chance to beat Buffalo and Baltimore.

I mean, I can't believe the 49ers open as a favorite. How is that? I know. I thought that was very interesting. And the point total or the line moved quite a bit, 12 hours, 24 hours right away and ended up shrinking down. Now it's popped back up. I know we'll talk more about the Super Bowl next week and I'm looking forward to it. I like the match up.

But more than anything, And I just, I think this is, the Super Bowl has become such a big item. I heard somebody, and I'm trying to remember who it was, describe it the other day as. It's the biggest event in American culture now. Give me another cultural event that's bigger than this. That brings, you know, 100 million people to the TV set. I mean, that's how big the Super Bowl has become. So I love it.

I love the week leading up to it. I like all the stories. I know it's crazy. I know it's out there. But I just think the Super Bowl, and that is a great description for me, the biggest event in American culture. And I think Europeans,

international fan bases are all starting to buy into it now. And I think you're probably going to get to a point where it might be the biggest event in world culture. This year, I don't know if you heard, but there's a famous singer involved too, that that will bring in an international audience too. So there you go.

Looking forward to it. Yep. All kinds of stuff. But, yeah, I just, getting back to the point spread, I just, I mean, who do you think so, just all things. Who's playing, who's playing better ball the last two weeks? And then I guess you have to take into account the whole season and all of that too. But I'm taking into account what I'm seeing in the playoffs. I'm taking into account what I trust the most.

And I definitely, at this point, trust Andy Reid and Pat Mahomes. Like you said, it's going to be hard for me to pick against that, that's for sure. And we'll see where that point spread is in a week. Yep. look forward to it next week. I'll be, I'll be in Vegas. So it'll be recording. It'll be awesome. Then it'll be fun. Love the Super Bowl. Love to go to it and see everything unfold. And yeah, should be great. You got anything else, Randy? No, I'm looking forward to it, though. Great show today. And hopefully our listeners found a little bit of that scouting notebook.

Somewhat interesting. I apologize if I bogged down too many details for on us, but hey, that's what I've done. Randy, you don't need to apologize for bringing the insight. We'll do it again next week. Love it. Keep the text coming. Love to have the conversation. Then we bring some of that onto the show. Everybody will catch you next week. Thanks. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.