The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Players turned coaches, Will Mays tribute and WR Brandon Aiyuk

Episode Date: June 22, 2024

What's the difference between J.J. Redick and Jeff Saturday? Mike and Randy compare the former players turned coaches and consider how coaching differs in the NBA compared to the NFL. Randy pays tribute to the late Willie Mays, his childhood idol, and compares meeting the Say Hey Kid to meeting Muhammad Ali. The guys also discuss the Brandon Aiyuk situation with the 49ers and more on this final episode of the Football GM Podcast until training camps begin. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome, everybody, the Football GM podcast, Mike Sando here, along with the GM, who I'm told his car is idling in the parking lot because we're about to break for the summer. And we probably won't do another football GM podcast until we get going in training camps. But we got stuff to talk about, Randy, even deep into June. How are you? I'm doing great. It does kind of feel like the last day of school, just to 10. tad bit.

And the technical difficulties we've had to pull this off to this point, even makes me want to do more. So, yeah, we don't have to. Looking forward to chatting on some of the topics. We've got sketched in for sure. Never let him see a sweat. But we got all kinds of stuff going. I'm two states away from normal.

Randy's got people in, I think, in his house, demolishing his house, it sounds like, for some renovations going on there at the Mueller estate. So when we first started trying to record, I think I heard dogs. And then we, then you were dealing with a couple. of guys who I think they might be Russian-speaking contractors because there was a little bit of a language barrier there. So no stress. You got no stress points today, Miller, you got no excuse except to bring your usual, relaxed A-game, just like when you're golfing. You hit it right down in the middle every time. I'm ready, man. I got no issues. I've dealt with everything on

and we're recording on a Friday, which is always a good day. It's great. And by the way, the Mueller estate, some fairly extensive renovations I hear here, huh? Well, I wouldn't say anybody's pushing down walls or anything, but a little update here and there, mainly from technical point of view. So, yeah, we're doing good. It's been a summer full of hammers and paints and paintbrushes and everything else. So we're getting there. Well, hey, same boat here. We've had the same kitchen forever, decades, 20 years.

And it was 20 years old then. So we're getting that redone this summer, too. But we are actually out of town for that. So no hammers, nothing in the background. Kids are old enough now. You're not even going to hear kids crying in the background. So if you hear anything in the background here, it's probably not going to be much. Maybe the air conditioner down here.

I'm in California. It's a little bit warm. But we got action elsewhere in the state, Randy. And we've done this a little bit lately where sometimes, you know, when there's not as many necessarily just, hey, this thing just happened in the NFL. Some of these lessons in other sports we can apply to the NFL. And I think it's a great way of, you know, hitting on a top. and then also having some interesting corollaries to it. And one of the texts from Randy this week as we went back and forth was,

hey, what's the difference between JJ Redick getting hired by the Lakers and Jeff Saturday by the Colts? I think that's a great one with several angles we can hit on with the Lakers finally hiring Redick, which had been sort of reported, then was maybe it was going to go another direction. But it's done. J.J. Reddick, no coaching experience, a bunch of playing experience in the NBA. some good college experience under Coach Shosheski. When you sent that to me, what's the difference in Redick and Saturday? What are you thinking, Randy?

Well, I was truly looking for some help because I don't know what to think. I struggle with the whole concept of this is the best coaching pool we could hire. And far be it from me, I'm not an expert in the NBA, but I've hired a few coaches in my time. I would probably not start with the pool that at least publicly we've heard of. So I don't know. It's just I understand the fact that I think JJ is probably a good communicator with the modern day player. I get that part of it. I think there's a lot of things that go with coaching that a player or a former player who has never coached before is going to really struggle with,

mainly fixing things during a season because these seasons are long, much like in the NFL. Well, there's a lot of things that happen every day and need to be decided. Maybe I thought, well, if he has an experienced GM that's been around the NBA long time with him, maybe. Well, guess what? The GM of the Lakers, Rob Planker, comes from the agent world. So he's an agent. His experience is limited as well. So I'm really not sure what to make of it.

I'll be honest. And this is, again, outside my lane. But I don't think if the Lakers are what they used to be, I don't think it's a great job. I worry when the players have as much cachet as somebody like LeBron, because I think that has a lot of positives because of his skill set, but it also comes with a negative of, is this his hire? Whose higher is this? We all know that JJ did a podcast for the last, I don't know,

however long with LeBron and their buddies. So anyway, just a lot of different questions that I have at the end of the day. For me, I landed on this. and sorry to be so long-winded, but I landed on after he gets hired, in my opinion, the pressure goes 100% on Rob Polenka, the GM, and he's got to sort out all of the issues that JJ doesn't know and lacks experience in dealing with. I don't know what you think. Yeah, well, and Polinka has an interesting background himself, played college ball at Michigan,

got a law degree, became an agent, a really prominent agent represented Kobe Bryant, becomes GM of the Lakers. They're up and down. He kind of has a back and forth. with Magic Johnson that wasn't good when Magic left. They win a championship, though, with Belon-Lebron, but they're going through coaches every two or three years. I guess I see the Jeff Saturday comparison this way.

Definitely a long-term player-turned analyst with no coaching experience just like Saturdays. But I wonder how different the sports are. You talked about the cachet that a LeBron has. Well, that's just sort of the nature of basketball, Randy, because any one player in basketball makes a much bigger difference than any one player in football, unless it's a, you know, a Peyton Manning coming to your franchise or something, that would be the only comparison that you could have as a quarterback. And sometimes those guys have a ton of cachet and they can get people fired

or they can, you know, have input in the organization. Probably not as the same degree as NBA. But is the NBA game sufficiently different that, you know, you almost need a guy that the players approve of all the time? And I laugh because I'd run across some. my social media timeline, some clip of Bobby Knight from 40 years ago saying, hey, we ain't going to take a vote. This ain't a democracy. I've forgotten more ball than you guys will know. Well, that's not how it is now. You do that now and guys are going to transfer in college or

they're not going to play for you because you're not going to have the backing of the front office for that. And we're not saying that's what you have to hire. But is there any advantage to going the Reddick Red and the NBA that doesn't exist in the NFL, or is it, put another way, is it less of a downside to hire that type of a coach? We saw it was kind of tough, obviously, in the NFL, but could it be, hey, this is just sort of the way the NBA is now or no? Well, I think you're right. I think it definitely is the way the NBA is.

I would say this. The amount of coaching that needs to be done at an NFL level or even at a college football level, to me, seems like way more than what is being done at the NBA level. You're talking about very few people, very few players involved at the NFL, I mean, at the NBA level. Jeff Saturday had to deal with 65 players and another 20 coaches and staff and everything else. It is a giant operation of some days just spent communicating with people and sitting in on

meetings and the whole bit. I would think it's pared down quite a bit when your team is, you know, 12, 13 guys and you've got three or four other coaches with you. I'm sure there's more to it than that. But just from a pure volume standpoint of really things that can go wrong, things that can, you know, multiply and fester in the locker room, I would think an NFL locker room would take a lot more of that moxie, of which obviously Jeff didn't have either.

But does that make any sense? Yeah, it does. It does. Yeah, I just fascinated with it. I love the, you know, thinking about high. What's important in hiring? And you're right. This just does not feel like, you know, the greatest process, right? You talk about the pool of candidates and all that.

I guess it depends what you're looking for. But it's pretty hard to just defend on the surface. Even that Dan Hurley, part of this equation, was so convoluted that, to me, the Lakers kind of got played in the whole thing. It was a bunch of agendas being served by a bunch of. of people, including media folks, and that kind of spun out of control, in my opinion, as well. So this was the best choices we could come up with? I don't know. Maybe nobody wants these jobs anymore. Maybe you need to, maybe it's a political-type job more than anything else. So, you know, it's a struggle. And maybe it's a short-term higher. You know, I think what they're

thinking probably is, hey, this guy can grow into it and we'll go through the end of LeBron, but we think this guy has an amazing upside. We'll see if that's how it works because I think it's hard to actually live that out if you're up and down or fail to meet expectations. Well, I think you're right. And I think the upside in this case is probably what Steve Kerr. You know, everybody's looking for a Steve Kerr who hadn't coached either when he got the job. But you've got five, ten times as many players jumping into this role in their past that didn't

work out to find the one Steve Kerr. So, I guess time will tell. Yep. So before we get to Randy, we want to talk about the 49ers. the Brin' and Iuke situation there. The Broncos have made a hire to their front office that we can look at from a couple different angles. We've got one of, I definitely want to discuss your column that you wrote this week about the Jets and the Browns.

But first off, going from basketball before we get to football, baseball, I thought of you when Willie Mays died, Randy. I know you're a huge Giants fan and I just thought give you a chance to reflect on him. 93 years old, right? 93 years old. Yeah, and just a powerhouse in sports. I mean, many decades after he was finished playing. I mean, you just say the name conjures up an image of excellence. Your thoughts?

Well, I think you're talking about, and everybody says, iconic. No question, he's iconic, but iconic in the game, in the sport, and really in the sports world. I had a chance to meet Muhammad Ali at a Super Bowl, many years ago. And I would say he was probably the one guy who I've met in my life, other than Michael Jordan, who kind of gave me goosebumps when I met him. And I've met a lot of people in a lot of places at a lot of times during my NFL career. The Muhammad Ali one made me smile like a kid. Yeah. I would say the same about Willie Mays. And yeah, I was a Giants fan as a kid. So it strikes extra close to home for me. Shoot, we used to trade. I didn't have trading cards,

as a kid, but what we did have were pictures in magazines that my buddies and I would, whether it was Sports Illustrated or Sport Magazine or whatever, and we would cut these pictures out and trade these pictures with each other for our walls, depending on whose team, you know, that was in the picture and who your team was. And I used to collect all the Willie Mays pictures I could. I'd get all my buddies and we would trade and they knew if they got a Willie Mays picture to bring it to Randy and he would give him something for it, you know. And so, yeah, I've, you know, I've been a Giants fan.

forever. I think the one thing that he does for me is he kind of transcended the sport. And I guess that's what I started to say is his presence, his aura, everything about him kind of transcended the sport of baseball. And my guess is if you had football players or basketball players or hockey players, they would feel the same way about, you know, Willie Mays as what we felt about Muhammad Ali or Willie Mays or I guess in time, Michael Jordan is probably that way right now. Tiger Woods is another one. Yeah. These people,

these are the, on the all-time face of all-time sports, and I think Willie would definitely be one. And all around could do it all. You know, there's so many of the great players, you know, were great at a certain thing,

but maybe not as great as another thing, but this guy checked every box, really. It was kind of the perfect player. No doubt. They talk about five tool players, and I thought Reggie Jackson said it nice on the telecast,

of the game between the Cardinals and the Giants on Thursday night. And I do want to talk about that as well. But he said Willie was a six tool player because Willie had the instincts that nobody else had to play the game. And I thought that was a really good way to kind of set him apart. The one thing I did see, and we didn't see a lot of these guys growing up, right, because they were older. But the highlights that I just happened to see over the last couple days, the one thing that jumped out at me as a guy who has been an evaluator, an athletic evaluator for really my whole adult life.

When I watched the highlights of Willie Mays, the suddenness, the quickness, the acceleration that he had, both as a base runner and as a fielder in center field, jumped off at me when I see these. And that is athleticism I don't think can be found. And maybe that's why he's considered the best ever in baseball. You just don't see that. This tells me this guy could have played other sports as well.

I always, you know, King Griffey Jr. is a great athlete. I just don't know if Ken Griffey's athleticism would fit like a guy like Willie Mays, because Willie was sudden, he was quick, he was instant, and it was a different kind of athleticism than all these other guys that I've seen. So I would have loved to seeing him play a different sport. He'd have been a great corner or a center fielder, I mean, a free safety or something like that because that quickness that I saw in these highlights are things that I look for in football players. It's funny, you talk about, we always have these goat-discipline.

discussions with quarterbacks, you know, or LeBron and Michael Jordan, but there doesn't, maybe there is that same debate in baseball, but maybe it's just Willie Mays. No, I agree with you. I haven't heard many of the debates, which brings up the point. Did you watch the telecast on Thursday night from Birmingham, the Cardinals and the Giants by the Chances? Unfortunately, I did not. I did not see it. It was a fascinating show from the minute they came on in the pregame to the end, in my opinion. And I'm not big on all the pomp and circumstance and all the other stuff.

I thought Fox did an awesome job, Mike. And it was one, it was about three hours of education, history. It was everything to do with baseball. The fact that Willie had just passed the day before or two days before made it even more cool. I thought Fox captured the Negro leagues, the basis behind why they played. They had a lot of the old players back, both from the Negro leagues and Major League baseball. I just thought it was a really cool, entertaining event. And kudos to Fox and Major League Baseball for putting it on because it was like, picture the old stadiums. And they, they played this

game in a stadium in Birmingham where actually Willie Mays played as a Negro League player. And they kind of retrofitted it over the last few months so they could have a major league game there. So it was really cool. But if you were sitting in the stands, they were the same seats that they sat in 50 years ago or whatever. And so they didn't do, they couldn't make it into a major league stadium. So it was kind of like a retrofit, you know, for technology and everything else. But I thought the story that Fox told by their pregame, they even went during the game, Mike, to some black and white production, which you thought you were watching a game from

the polo grounds in, you know, 1950 in New York. And it was the game that was on live on Thursday night from, They changed everything as much as they could for different parts just to give people the feel of the way old time baseball was played. And I thought it was awesome. I'll give you this one. And I didn't know this. I'm probably an idiot for not knowing it. The Negro leagues have their own Hall of Fame and it's in Kansas City.

And I will say this. I've heard enough now talking about it. The next time I go to Kansas City, I'll go to that museum just to see what it's all about. The Hall of Fame, the museum. I just think it's a great history lesson. And there were some cool things that happened in the telecast. It was very entertaining. There were.

There were. Yeah, and definitely, you know, Reggie Jackson's comments, I think, caught people off guard on that. But it was a part of that story, too, and it was raw, you know, and it just really gave, I mean, almost gave me, I saw that. I saw that part of it. It gave you, like, goosebumps in a way of just the history and the gravity of everything around it, you know. And I definitely saw that, which I would recommend. Do you ever watch the Reggie Jackson documentary, Reggie? I don't believe I have, but I, especially referring to the conference.

you just said he made, I would love to see that. I could see the passion and the, in his eyes in telling these stories with Barry Bonds and A-Rod and Derek Jeter and, yeah. The Reggie thing's great. There's a couple great base. There's some really good baseball ones. There's a great Nolan Ryan one, too. I just recommend this summer the Nolan one was great for it.

The Reggie one was great. And some of his comments that he made that made the news come through in that and some of the stories. But just his whole aura persona, what he's about, the competitiveness. those Yankee teams he was on and not just the Yankees, but other ones. A little bit of a side note there, but if you haven't seen that, anybody find the Reggie documentary, it was really good and captured some of that era and whatnot. So back to football.

I think those are good discussions, but this 49-year-IUk situation has been percolating here a little bit. Been in the news. It's just not quite right there. and so it's a good probably one as we head the training camp to maybe talk about some of the possibilities there. I noticed, you know, they sweetened McCaffrey's deal there, Christian McCaffrey's, you know, and maybe that makes him happy for this season. But I don't know what they can do to make IUC happy other than really doing a huge contract

that they probably don't want to do right now. Well, and not only that, one that they don't have to do. I mean, the thing that struck me about the whole IUC situation, and in fact, There's about four or five of these deals now that are still percolating negotiation-wise, and I'm going to write about these next week for the athletic and kind of dip into each one of them and get into some detail as to who has leverage, who doesn't, how it might be used, how it might not be used. And this will be one of them.

The thing about it is the underlying thing is, Iuk started to talk about his contract. I want to say like a week after the Super Bowl or two weeks after the Super Bowl or maybe even sooner than that. And so it's been on his mind. And I always say some players handle the business of their sport better than others. And I don't know, Brandon, but I just don't think he's handled this with the right awareness and really understanding of the system as to how he was going to go about getting his money. I don't know.

He came out, correct me if I'm wrong, almost right immediately after last year's season was over and started talking about his contract. And that part has stuck with me through the whole off-season. The basics are he's scheduled to make 14 million next year. And guess what? The 49ers don't have to pay him. They don't have to sign them. They don't have to do anything.

So they don't have the leverage, or I shouldn't say, Brandon doesn't have the leverage to demand a deal that pays him north of $30 million a year. If he wants that, he's going to have to go back and play this year at 14 and then see where next year goes. But he's probably going to have to not only see where next year goes because they have a tag and they'll put that on him at the end of the year. So my point is he's probably two and a half years away from getting the $35 million if that's what he wants, even $32 or $33 million a year, if that's what he wants. If that isn't that important to him, if he's not trying to set the world on fire with a new age,

new top of the market deal, then he's probably going to have to settle for less. And that's kind of where the 49ers have been negotiated from what I've been able to gather. Yeah. So if you were him, though, I mean, he has succeeded in making the, be enough of a topic that we're talking about it on the podcast, that it's our top NFL story that we're talking about it, granted, it is June. What's the downside for him handling it the way he did? He wouldn't, if he just went to work and didn't say anything, we wouldn't be talking about it, and he wouldn't be in any worse position from a bargaining standpoint, right? I mean, I think he's

trying to do, these players sometimes are trying to do whatever they can to try to put any type of pressure on, right? We've talked about the, you know, guys coming to Kansas. and not practicing or whatever. They don't have that many mechanisms they can actually do. But one of them is to bring it up and make it a topic that people are talking about. Do you think it actually hurts his position anyway or is it just more annoying from a front office standpoint and a team standpoint? I know this. Having been on the other side in an NFL building, it doesn't matter. None of it's going to put pressure on us to do anything different.

Whatever gets said in the media, whatever gets said social media-wise, is going to have zero to do with what we pay it. So he can play these games. He can try to do these things and create distractions. And the media will bite on it and the media will run with it because like you just said, we don't have a lot to talk about, especially this time of year. So we're going to make it into a bigger deal than a day it really is. And I'm here to tell you that it's not a big deal on the inside. It is not causing distractions.

It is not something that's keeping John Lynch awake at night or Kyle Shanahan for that matter. Because guess what? At the end of the day, if Brandon Ayuk doesn't like what's been offered to him, his only other option is to come play for $14 million. He's not going to sit out and miss a year. It just doesn't happen. People won't make up money like that. So I guess to answer your question, yeah, you can try to play some of these cards,

but it's not going to really matter to a well-run NFL organization. If Devo Sandin weren't on the team, would he have a deal right now? Maybe. Maybe. I do think Devo is directly tied to him. I do think the drafting of Ricky Pearsall is directly tied to him. And you're stealing my column for next week, but these are all things that, when you give yourself options, you have the hammer in any negotiation.

I do think this, that Debo Samuel is probably the third or fourth best receiver option on their team. Now, having said that, he's probably the second best weapon on their team behind McCaffrey, as far as an offensive weapon goes. But don't forget, the 49ers also signed Jennings, the receiver, to be their third guy. They drafted one in the first round. Now we're playing music to my tune. They got a lot of options and they ought to build it.

And again, they're not trying to ram a deal down Brandon Ayuk's throat. They're not. That's the one thing you don't want to do as an organization is you don't want to embarrass any of your players ever. But it's going to have something to do with what they offer and what they're willing to pay at the end of the day because they've, one, got a Debo deal that maybe they wish they hadn't done. he's not the receiver that they need necessarily in their offense. He is a weapon. And that is a position that you and I have talked about it. Some coaching staffs do better with those weapons than others,

but a lot of times it's the scheme that creates and puts these players in certain situations. Yeah. It's going to be interesting to watch it pan out, and we know we haven't heard the end of this thing. So we'll see how much he can keep it alive through camp. Well, I don't think he's going to get traded, that's for sure. And there seems to always be traction to where Brendan,

you can be available. I don't think so. I do think a team could get and make a deal for, for Ebo Samuel for probably less than they think they could, just because that is probably the albatross hanging around Iyuk's neck right now as far as getting what he wants. Here's one part, and I don't want to prolong the discussion, maybe we're boring people to death,

but he said last week in a call with, was it to, Jayden Daniels, who was his college teammate at Arizona State. They don't want me anymore. They don't want me anymore. Nothing could be further from the truth. The 49ers want Brandon IAek, trust me. They did not tell him they don't want him there. And what they don't want is him there at $35 million a year.

So just not taking his deal does not send the message that we don't want you. It's just that we don't want you at that deal and we don't have to have you at that deal. So that's more political jargon that's. Sometimes a player or his representatives will try to play those cards. But obviously the team knows where they stand with Brandon. And all these other things are distractions, really and fun things to talk about for us. They're not really affecting the deal on the inside. But there's more ways the player can get sideways with the team now

because there's more voices that he's hearing through social media, through, you know, these guys are on podcast now with each other. And so there's probably, it's probably harder for the team to control. all of that and to make sure that it's voice, you know, with the player and relationship of the player is being maintained, right? Because it's easier, isn't it easier now to lose a player kind of mentally a little bit? Well, I think this is the answer to your earlier question in that what's the gamble when a player does this? The gamble is that he gets sideways in his own mind with the team. Right. The team's never going to respond to any of this stuff publicly, as you know.

They're going to respond only internally, and they know, Brandon and his representatives know they stand. I used to always think that we have to make sure, and this might be one of those those situations where I wanted to talk directly to the player. I want the player to know how we feel. And therefore, nothing can be wedged in between us, whether it's an agent bringing some information back to the player or media source or somebody else. A third party could harm the situation for sure. But I always like to have that relationship with the player that, hey, you know how we feel. So none of this is true. Nobody's saying we don't want you.

You just don't know how that information starts to gain momentum. And before you know it, as a team, then you have to respond to this, but you'll never respond publicly. Yeah. Fascinating. We'll see how that plays out. Our Denver note this week definitely caught our attention with the Broncos hiring David Shaw, former Stanford coach, a senior personal executive. Interesting for a couple of things.

But the first thing I noticed, Randy, was Mike Cliss, the reporter in Denver who reported this. He kind of went out of his way to note that GM George Peyton was making this hire. And then he alluded to this being the second major hire that George Peyton has made to his personal staffs this season with Cody Rager being the other one. But Cody worked for Sean Payton with the Saints. And David Shaw does have some ties to Sean Peyton. I mean, he was on a staff with him in the Eagles 25, almost 30 years ago. But he also has ties with Broncos ownership through Stanford. That just caught my attention to the idea that they're saying this is a George Peyton hire on a team where Sean Payton basically seems to have control of everything.

The Broncos put out in their release saying that George Peyton announced the hire. So am I reading too much into the semantics here? It doesn't mean much. It just caught my attention at a place where we've kind of been watching to see how power is wielded. Yeah, I think you're right on the point, Mike. I know Cody Rager and the reasons he could reason. He came from New Orleans and that clearly was a Sean and hire. I think that's not a secret to anybody in the league.

That was kind of one of his guys there and bringing that over, regardless of how it's versed and how it's announced. Same kind of with David Shaw. I don't know what to make of the David Shaw stuff. Other than to think this is an ally for Sean from a coaching standpoint who I know David Shaw quite a bit. And I think David probably perceives himself as a candidate to be a GM in the NFL. And who knows he might be at some point.

So he's looking for a window to get involved with this kind of setup. And Sean, obviously, Sean Payton and him have a prior relationship. So I would say this as a betting man, which I'm not. Neither one of these hires were good for George. And I don't, you know, regardless of how it comes out, I just don't see. how they're positive for George Payton and the prior personnel staff, because I think these are, these both have Sean's name written all over him, in my opinion. Yeah, absolutely.

It probably, I don't think there's anything afoot there right now, but I think that's just going to be a place to be watching, you know, in a year from now. When you start getting these other places, these other pieces in order that have ties to the head coach, who we know is kind of trending in that way anyway. So Bronco is always interesting. There's always a little more. It feels like behind the scenes at that place. But never lose sight of the fact that Sean Peyton, you know, has a ton of juice there.

The Shaw thing's interesting to me. Really a successful run at Stanford. I could see him, you know, wanting to go down the road of a front office type of a job. So that part interests to me. What's your experience with, you know, making. transitions from coaching to personnel or vice versa when you have a lot of years in one realm, right? How about coaches in general, Randy, or college coaches going into a personnel role? Is that an easy transition? Is it problematic? What would make it work? That kind of interests me.

I've seen much more of it not work than work, Mike, to be honest with you. I see these total different mindsets. And again, not that one couldn't do that. A lot of times I think coaching is in your blood and the first chance you can, I've seen guys jump back into coaching. I do know this, having visited in Stanford many times as a scout and as an administrator when David was there, he always wanted to talk players. He would not be shy with his opinions on when he thought guys we'd get drafted. I don't know what his analysis of what a GM even does, but I could see some of the things that we would meet and talk about with other states.

staffs that he would have a demeanor for that. I think he definitely was interested. And he's a guy that's done the draft on the college side for one of the entities. I forget who that covers the draft. He seems to always have a part in the draft coverage. So I think that's as much as anything. And we don't know what he's going to do. Maybe they're going to give him, you know, a few schools to go to, some pro, you know, teams to cover.

And I can't imagine it being much more than that. but I feel like this to answer your question, once a coach, always a coach. And I do think he's a young enough guy to where I could surely see him being a college head coach again. Why he hasn't got one of those jobs, I'm not sure. But I could surely see that happening at some point. Yeah, interesting. Okay. Let's get to your column this week, Randy.

People can find that on the athletic, the inherent cost of the Jets All In approach. Never before has a team been more dependent on a 40-year-old Achilles. attendant than the Jets and the implications could be vast. The interesting part of this, though, to me, was the comparison with the Browns. I thought that was, you know, two teams that have struggled for a long time and have some real questions about their ownership. But the Browns, you know, have been winning and are making sort of longer-term decisions while the Jets have been kind of struggling through and are not making long-term decisions.

What was interesting to you about this? What was sort of the genesis? I think it's a good one to talk about. Well, for me, it was really the genesis was the fact that the Browns did sign Kevin Stafansky and Andrew Barry to long-term extensions in the last couple weeks. And what it does is it allows their thinking to stay with at least one eye on the future. And I just wanted to compare that to where the jets are where they have no eyes on the future and they've made no bones about it. They are all in for this year. one of the things that I think it affects is any planning beyond this year.

And there's a lot of decisions that happen in NFL buildings where you have to take the long road. A lot of its contract negotiations like we just talked about with some of these players. The Jets have done a ton of one-year deals. They've got a ton of one-year deals that will have to be dealt with at the end of this season. They've also got a bunch of their core players who are going to be eligible for a longer-term extension. at some point here soon, probably over the next six or eight months, I'm sure those have to have dialogue that go with them, at least my experience has been,

that sometimes you work on a deal like that, Mike, for a year before it happens. And I just don't know with everything being up in the air in New York like it is, all in, all in, beyond any team that I've seen in the last 30 or 40 years in the NFL, I just don't see how much business is getting done outside of, what's going to happen this year. And from the outside looking in, if I'm a player or an agent, do I really want to even talk about this? Because I'm not sure who's going to be making those decisions if the Jets don't win.

If the Achilles isn't what we thought, what they think it will be. So there's just a lot of decision-making processes that I think are going to get, have been and are going to continue to get pushed aside in New York for the sake of what do we have on our hands this year. Yeah. The Browns part interests me too because, so the Haslam's by the team in 2012, the team has the worst record in the league in their first eight years, 33, 94, and 1. The Jets over that span are the fifth worst record in the league. So along the way, the Browns, remember, they hired Paul

D. Podesta and people, football people kind of, okay, geez, what are they doing here? But not too long, a couple years after that, they get a couple of DePadestia, type hires, Ivy League guys, Andrew Barry, Kevin Stefansky. And there feels like there's this alignment there. And I would put the Deshawn Watson, a contract was a little bit of a weird thing where I wasn't, that made me pause a little bit like, okay, who was behind on this? And what was the, you know, was that the smartest thing to do? It was a little bit unlike some of the other moves that they've made. But they feel like they're on the same page with a strategy of what they're doing.

And as you pointed out in your column, they've been able to win even with the quarterback situation not working out so far. They've built a good roster. They've given themselves options. They've making decisions with the future in mind. If you're a Browns fan, Randy, what would you say to a Browns fan about how stable do you feel like this really is for the long term? Because I always wonder, like, how hard it is to overcome a bad ownership.

Or maybe sometimes owners mature and learn from their mistakes. maybe every situation is a little bit different. But is this a situation where you feel kind of comfortable saying that the Browns are a good organization, or could it just flip that quick with one bad season? And, you know, do you have a sense for that? Well, I think they're definitely on solid footing. And you said that these two decision makers, the coach and the GM, for me, are well united in everything they do. I agree with you.

I think there were a lot of skeptics on the half. family, even when they signed Deshaun, they took some of the heat for that as well. But I do think you can learn. I do think you can get better. And it seems to me like they've landed on two guys now that I really have a lot of faith in. I think they're both good at their job. They both worked good together. They seem to have a pretty good feel for evaluating and a pretty good feel for team building. And so, yes, if I mean, let's face it, the Browns the last four years have put a winning percentage together. I think it was only topped one time. And that was like 1980. 86 through 89 by the Browns of a higher winning percentage over any four years.

So I got news for you. If they don't let this one play itself out, I think they're crazy. I think, yes, they're headed in a good direction. Now, the caveat, as we've mentioned, is Deshaun. And he's now coming into the part of his deal, where it's $68 million a year for the next three years. And that's a cap number. That is fully guaranteed. So we'll see they're going to be tested.

They're going to have to build a team around that number. And to get anything out of it, he's going to have to play better than he has. And he's now four years away from doing it. But here's the other side. They made the playoffs last year and they had five different starting borderbacks. So I think they have built a really good team around the situation and around Deshaun's contract. So they've had two 11 win seasons since Sopansky's been there. So the last four years.

But remember they won 11 the first year. Then they were 8, 9, 7, 10, 11, 6. So if they had a disappointing year this year, you know, let's just say they won six games, you could spin it the other way and say they've had three losing seasons in the last four years. And I just, this is the part of it that, like, I love the track that they're on, like you said. I think I need to see it a little longer from an ownership standpoint before I feel like they could write it out if they were to have a bad year or two. I think that's the interesting component, whereas I think we could look at it and say, hey, you know what? But if they stumbled, I'm okay.

We've got the right people, right? That would be the correct response. And I think if they do stumble, they've taken the guesswork out of it. I don't think there'll be a groundswell of, you know, wanting to get rid of the coaching the GM now because they signed them to a contract. Both of them. So I don't think you're going to get a lot of pushback from that, even if they did go, you know, seven and ten or whatever it is.

I don't think that you would hear the noise that you would have had they not signed extensions. We talked a little bit about this last week in the form of Mike Tomlin's deal and the stability that it gives the Steelers now by him signing an extension. Just by fact, if they don't do well this year, I don't think people are going to be screaming as much at him, knowing that the Rooney family is not going to sign off on letting him go and paying him for three or four more years. So I think the table is set for more of where they're at, and I think it is a little bit of a preemptive strike against the public coming after these places, if they're not 10, 12-win seasons this year. That's just my feeling. Yeah.

Okay, before we get to the GM Notebook, I just had to kind of put a little star here. I noticed, do you see the Falcons are putting a couple guys into the Ring of Honor? I did see that. I chuckled that one. So they got two guys going in. One of them is Matt Ryan, long-time quarterback, pro-bowler, MVP. Sounds pretty good, huh? Ring of Honor guy.

Yeah, he's well deserving. Got a ton of production for a long time and was no doubt an icon for the franchise. Yeah, the other guy owns the team. What do you think about the owners of the teams going into the Rings of Honor? Do you think they had to get special approval for that? Or, you know, do you think it was a tough sell internally to get the owner in? Or what do you think? I think someone's trying to solidify themselves within the organization, that's for sure, by bringing it up.

Let's just face it, the owners are in a tough spot, right? I mean, I think Robert Kraft clearly is angling for a spot in Canton. That's been on his agenda, and you can tell by the way he's handled really all of the media and everything since Bill Belichick's leaving. Can't help himself a little bit. Yeah, he can't help himself but try to pat himself on the back. I get it. But with regard to the Falcons, I mean, to put Arthur Blank in the Falcon, what's he done? What are we putting him in on?

What are we basing this on the one Super Bowl trip? Yeah, that's what I was thinking. I mean, I just thought it was interesting. I just laughed. I just think of what must go on internally to get the owner in the Hall of Fame. And like, you know, could you imagine there being like a debate, like someone internally going like, I don't think so, you know, I think, I don't think so. You think there's a lot of pushback on that internally? or you think everyone

is pretty much like, hey, you know, I think that guy who could fire me in five seconds, I think he's a good choice. That's what I think. I'd like to be on that committee. That'd be easy. That's the way it works in the Canton Hall of Fame for you and your conference there.

I'm not saying our process is perfect by any means, but I think it's slightly better than that. And I think Robert Kraft has a heck of a case for the Hall of Fame for the Pro Football Hall of Fame. But he's not even in the Patriots. Hall of Fame. So we got to see if we can get blank or we can get Kraft into the Patriots Hall of Fame. I think if he went into that, I wouldn't bet an eye with all he's done. I think he's earned at least that. So this one, yeah, I had to chuckle a little bit. Oh, we had one

more before the GM notebook. How about David Bakhtiari saying he's good to go, 32 years old? I finally had this surgery. I'm ready. Played one game last year, 11 the year before that, one game before that. I see you shaking your head a little bit. You're not, you're not signing up for that? That's going to be some tough Kool-Aid for me to drink, Mike. Sorry. I mean, I understand it. And I'm sure he'll want to be paid. I'm sure he'll take veteran minimum salary, right? To take all the risk out of it. Yeah, I think that's going to be a tough one. I think maybe that that's got Jets written all over it again, whether GM Aaron Rogers wants to handle that one or Robert Sala or somebody. But yeah, I just, I thought about him the last couple years.

and the albatross he's had around their neck. You know, they've built a great team in Green Bay, despite the Aaron Rogers thing, despite not getting really anything out of Bakhtiari. I just can't see that happening. It's a lot of risk. He was a really good player. I understand that,

and I'm not, you know, disparaging that. It's just a, it's a risk reward league right now with teams and their salary caps. And that one makes less sense for me than the Tyron Smith one, you know, made with the Jets. At least he was really good for part of last year. I just don't see where the Bacchiari thing makes sense

unless he's going to take an undermarket deal and take the risk out of it for the team. Yeah, I lied. There's actually one more note I had in here before the GM Nova. We've got Sandus notebook here. We got the writer's notebook here. I just noticed the Patriots re-signed, extended Ramandre Stevenson. And I just seemed to remember someone on the GM football GM podcast, singling him out.

Wasn't he guy you singled out in Rookie Camp? Did you see him right away? It would be, I can't remember Mike McDonough with you. I'm trying to pat you on the back. I'm trying to put you into the athletic football show Hall of Fame here, and you're not even playing along. So anyway, I saw him get the deal done. I thought that was a kid.

I put myself in the Hall of Fame. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. All right, take it away to the notebook. I can't even, I'm trying to tee up and really, really kiss up to you here. And you're not accepting it. You find it interesting, know, that teams are trying to sign some of their better players, and obviously Stevenson is a good player. Yeah.

This is one that I wondered when I saw your note, Was this something Bill Belichick would do or not? Because they've always had the running back by committee there. Yeah. This is aversion to that running back by committee. They're actually going to pay one guy, you know, almost $10 million a year. So I guess they're going to get the, he's going to get the majority they carry. So I just thought it was an interesting diversion from the way they've done business there in the past.

I had a couple things in the notebook. One really we talked about was the Redick hire. The other thing was just the roster. adjustments now that the league seems to have approved. I know this time of year, all the teams have put things before the competition committee and want to get settled before the season starts. You actually brought it up to me, the roster adjustments that the teams had wanted. The league is now going to allow two more return from IR slots.

There was eight in the past during the regular season where you could bring a guy back from injured and put him on the active roster. Now they're going to give you two more of those in postseason. And I thought the interesting thing was if you hadn't used your eight during a regular season, those can carry over. So gosh, you could technically have 10 guys and bring them all back for the playoffs if they were all injured. So that was interesting. Yeah.

I think it was funny. The Lions asked for complete non-calculated moves. In other words, to do it whenever you want, you should be able to bring guys back. Clearly the Lions weren't around in the 80s and 90s when teams would stash players. you'd have to get a neutral physician to sign off on why they were hurt. And that was open borders per se where people come and go off injury reserve a lot easier. That's not going to happen. So I think the Lions were a little naive in proposing a rule that would allow you to bring back as many as you want

because teams would stash guys left and right back whenever they could. I mean, so what was the best Mueller stashing? Did you guys ever do anything completely ridiculous? Or, you know, the secret sauce back in those days was if you put somebody on injured and there might have been some hanky-panky behind, first off, I'll say this, I remember going to some preseason games and we're always in preseason looking for guys that are going to get cut, right? And back in the 80s and 90s, teams would have to cut players to put him on injured or put them on injured in there out for the whole year. I remember going to a game in Anaheim Stadium, the Rams were playing.

And I was watching a defensive back for the Rams because I thought they were going to have to cut him. and he ran down on two kickoffs that day, never touched a soul on either one, and the next day on the waivers, he goes on injured, or an injured, so they iced him for the whole year. And I can promise you he was not hurt one ounce, but they kept him for the whole year.

He came back and made their team the following year. So, yeah, teams would do that. But if you had somebody in doubt that you put on injured, it was always a back or a neck. Because what we found was that when they sent that player, when somebody would complain or the league would make you send them to a neutral physician. No other doctor is going to go against another doctor on a patient who just says my neck hurts or my backers. It hurts. What are they going to do? So they could never pin you for it.

There may have been a guy or two that we put on injured back in the day in Seattle that had a bad neck or a bad back that miraculously got well at the end of the season and was ready to go for the following year. That's great. Isn't that the thing about the rules, though? There really are just boundaries to be tested. And some of the teams are more aggressive than others, but everyone's going to walk up to that line and say, you know, you say what the limits are, it's like, okay, careful now, because I'm going right to that line a little bit past it. I'm just going to see if we can go a little bit past it. So, great stuff. Randy, we've finished another season of this. Football GM podcast. We're going to sign up and do it again next year. Super excited about it. Enjoy some downtime. Hope you get your

renovations done. We're looking forward to getting back to our renovated kitchen. So we'll be ready to go. Yeah, I guess we'll take about a month or so off. Come back when training camp starts, you know, later on in July and be ready to roll for another season. Yeah, sounds great. All right. Thanks everybody for coming along. We'll talk to you next time. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.