The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Ravens & Lamar Jackson, Daniel Jones’ new deal, Jets QB situation & more

Episode Date: March 9, 2023

Mike Sando and former GM Randy Mueller are back to discuss a busy week in the NFL. They talk about the Ravens placing the non-exclusive tag on Lamar Jackson, the Giants deal with Daniel Jones and Geno Smith’s new contract in Seattle. They also weigh in on Derek Carr, the Jets QB situation and much more. Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube1:45 Is the 2024 QB draft looming now?9:07 Ravens use non-exclusive tag on Lamar Jackson22:52 Giants sign Daniel Jones to 4-year deal27:56 Geno Smith & Seahawks agree to extension 36:32 Derek Carr signs with Saints 38:55 Jets QB situation41:50 What’s going on with Aaron Rodgers?47:30 GM notebookToday's show is brought to you by...Atlassian: For projects impossible alone, visit www.atlassian.comPhilo: Sign up today at philo.tv and use promo code MAYS to get 50% off your first month Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast, Mike Sandos, senior writer from The Athletic, along with the GM, Randy Mueller. And we're back, Randy. The band is back together after, I don't know, you've been celebrating, I'm sure, as I have, picking the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl. I think that was our last podcast, Super Bowl week. But good to be back, huh?

Yeah, very good to be back. We're kind of celebrating our win. We both picked the Chiefs. So that's the only time we both were right, I think, all year long. Well, you probably picked them and I just went along. I just went along. Yeah, there's cool stuff to hit on. And heck, what better time than to rekindle it and start during free agency and the whole bit?

So I'm excited about it. Absolutely. You know, I just love, we've got so much going on every day. We've got quarterback signing. We got franchise tags. We got stuff tucked away in the GM notebook. But I think we're obviously going to get to all of those quarterback signings for sure, the decision on the market.

Jackson. We mentioned, you know, Daniel Jones, Derek Carr, Gino Smith, all of that. I kind of wanted to start out, though, with maybe an overarching one over all of these quarterback deals. Daniel Jones, Derek Carr, Gino Smith. Let's see what the GM thinks here. I was actually talking to someone, Randy, you know, who's in the industry and he's, and he knew, I was doing the podcast. He goes, ooh, ask Randy. I want to know what Randy thinks is. So it's probably going to be summarily dismissed by Judge Mueller, as usual, no. But so anyway, here's here's the thought on what's going on with these contracts. See what, see what you think, Randy. So the little headline I put in here is the 2024 quarterback draft looming now. So to set this up, the NIL stuff in college football

has given incentive for some players to stay a little bit longer. And so, there's some thought, certainly by people who recruit these quarterbacks as agents or in the league, that some of the guys who might have come out this year did not return. They ended up returning to college. And so maybe there's a few quarterbacks that are going to be drafted relatively early this year in 2023, but then there's a big drop-off because some of those guys that were on the fringes or might have gone whenever, later first round, we could envision, aren't coming out. So if you're one of these teams, sign into Daniel Jones or Derek Carr or Gino Smith, if you look at the structure of these deals, they're ones the teams can get out of pretty easily after a couple of years.

For example, if they thought, you know what, we're not really in position to get a quarterback in the draft this year. Maybe we don't like the quarterbacks in this draft, but there's not enough of them. 2024 may be a better quarterback draft year with more of them in there. So you have Derek Carr a four-year deal. team can get out after two, save a ton under the cap. Giants four-year deal, Daniel Jones, team can get out after two, save a ton of the cap. The CX deal with Gino Smith isn't even that.

They could get out after one or two. It's basically, it was told to me before it came out that it was one year 25. It's obviously three and 75, but there's flexibility. So I'm just curious from your standpoint, Randy, in the GM chair, does that add up? And then how much, when you're looking at like a situation this year, would you take into account the next year's draft or a bigger picture than just what's available now? I think those are all good points. And I do think I would agree

with most of them. You have to have a bird's eye view when you look at really solving, especially the quarterback, but high skilled positions. You're not just going to settle, right? And so I think you're probably right. In this case, unless you're the Rams who were able to acquire Matthew Stafford and win a Super Bowl, for the most part, if you look at the quarterback landscape the last couple years and the teams who have added new quarterbacks, it really hasn't been successful. Change at that position takes time, in my opinion. And I think what you saw a lot is teams like the Giants, teams like the Seahawks, especially.

They were looking to minimize change, not take steps back for different reasons, I think, and decided that, hey, let's invest in the guys we have at a number that we can used to continue to build our team. But I think you're correct. I think at the end of the day when the NFL evaluators get involved in this, which includes some coaches, I don't think it's going to be a great group of quarterbacks for this year's draft. I chuckle. Every time I hear, most of the time it's from media source, I'll hear somebody on TV say, well, this guy is great. He is a he is a prospect. He's a little bit of a project, but I would rather have picked him than have to play against him in a couple of years. I got news for you. That might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard,

because there is no way you're going to pick a project in the first round. We see how that goes. We see how it went for teams who picked projects in the third round last year. So you're just not going to waste a first round pick on somebody that can't play at the level you need them to play at now and bank that you can develop them better than anybody else. That's just not going to happen. So I think that's a pie in the sky type approach that teams just won't do. And I think you're right. And we saw some of these teams decide that the options out there, whether it's draft, whether it's another free agent from another team, just weren't up to what we are right now.

So let's nail down the guys we have. Let's continue to build around him and not take a step back and move on. You saw what the commanders have done. They've wandered around and whiffed on quarterbacks for two or three years now. Same with the Colts. They've wandered around and they're, you know, no further along either. So these teams that have taken swings at other players who may have flaws, other quarterbacks, it just hasn't worked out.

So I think they're better off. And I can make a case for all these deals having been done that they make sense, including the Saints who really had nothing and were able to jumpstart their whole situation. And I know we'll talk about it by getting an early window into Derek Carr's world. and they were able to make that happen. So I don't disagree with what you're saying. And we definitely will get into each of those deals and the dynamics and greater to tell. One of the things you said that caught my attention, I love, you're just a truth teller on the

quarterback in the draft. So you haven't fully evaluated the college guys this year, right? Correct. I've seen one or two of them, but I wouldn't take a stand until I see all the tape where I felt really comfortable. But the odds are, just. just the odds are that you're not going to come out of this going, oh, wow, there's four guys I would take in the top five.

The odds are not that. And yet, when we hear people talk about the draft, we got a bunch of these guys bunched up there. So it'll be interesting when we get into it, you know, how that's going to fall. I remember last year you said, you know, the Steelers, Kenny Pickett was the only one to go in the, you'd take in the first round. And what do you know, he was only one in the first round. So it would be very interesting when you look at these guys, you know,

Bryce Young and C.J. Stroud. and Will Levis and Anthony Richardson, I can't wait to see where you eval them and how early you'd be comfortable taking them. That's going to be a huge fun thing we do, probably coming up here on a future edition. Well, yeah, and I'd like to get it done by next week. I don't want to promise you,

but I've got about 12 hours of flying here to do over the next few days. And so I love to look at tape, and there's no better place than on an airplane to knock it out. And especially with all of these evaluations coming out on Twitter. I mean, this has got to get you just going, I got to look at, I can't stand this. I got to look at this. There's no way this could be the way that it is. And that's right.

Randy is your title's not general manager of the XFL, Seattle C Dragons, but is that effectively what it is? Yeah, that is definitely effective what it is. Yeah, yeah. Unless you're going to give me the title of fixer, fix problems, that would be more apropos, you know? I mean, you're basically, you've been. a GM in the NFL with and without the GM title. I mean, you were certainly the GM in Seattle without the title. You were the GM in other places with the titles. So yeah, I knew that's mean much is what you're saying. And I totally agree. Yeah, but I know that's what you're doing.

So we got XFL. We got games on Thursdays. We got games on Saturdays. I live in Seattle area, hoping to get out there. Maybe we'll get out to a game pretty soon. We've got a couple coming up in the next 10 days. So I'm going to use those flights to study a little quarterback college stuff. Can't wait. We'll talk about them next week. Okay, so let's go from there. I can't wait. Look at that. We're already teasing that for next week.

Love it. But let's get into the Baltimore Ravens using the non-exclusive franchise tag for quarterback Lamar Jackson. And what that means, there's two ways that you can use a franchise tag on a quarterback. Non-exclusive means you promise him a one-year deal at a lower number. but he can go out there and talk to other teams. He could sign an offer with a different team. And as long as that team has first round picks in the next two drafts, the Ravens could then decide to match the offer or they could say,

nope, and they would get that signing team's first round picks this year and next year. A little bit more complicated if the offer was made after the draft this year, then we're talking about later picks. Or you could do the exclusive franchise offer, which would be for a higher price, and then Lamar Jackson could not negotiate with anyone else. He'd basically just be able to play for the Ravens. So they did the non-exclusive route, and it's really created a little bit of, you know,

some waves in the water here as everyone tries to figure out what is going on. It seems to me that, Randy, that the Ravens don't think another team is going to really give him the fully guaranteed deal he wants. They probably are stuck. He doesn't have an agent. This lets him maybe get something going. Maybe if another team gets in there. And then I think the third part is the Ravens may be more willing than people realize to move on from him.

You've mentioned during the season the relationship seems fractured. I totally agree with that. And then if I was doing a long-term deal with him, I would guarantee some, but you don't want to go too deep in the guarantees because he's been missing games. And he may in the future. So what do you think about this, the non-exclusive? Put yourself in the GM chair here and give us the analysis. Well, first off, I would have done the exact same thing. I was asked on the radio show the other day what I would do at the end of the day,

and this is exactly what I would have done. I would not have given him the exclusive tag. I just think this kind of gets the clock rolling on Lamar either being here or not. And he'll either get what he wants or he won't. And I think that door will close, you know, over the next couple months, one way or another. I think all the points you bring up are good. I don't disagree with any of them, but it is complicated.

I actually think it might be less about him wearing down in missing some games. I don't know that that really bothers him. Everybody understands his style of play. I think there might be a little bit of a misjudging of the market by Lamar and whoever is advising him. I found it interesting that I read, and I think you were going to hit on a couple of these things later, that the union is kind of behind him and communicating with him, of course they're going to want him to stand on that hill of a fully guaranteed deal. They're going to want that regardless of if it's good for Lamar or not,

because they want that for the big picture of all the precedent-setting deals that that could be involved in. And the other thing is, Lamar has to find a way to, well, what's the word I'm looking for? Let me just backtrack. A lot of ex-player analysis has been that this is, is their best chance to get back at ownership and that the Ravens should pay. They have to do this because he's a former MVP. He's the only option they hate. I'll agree with the fact that he's the only option they have, but I don't believe, like you said, I agree that I don't think they're going to give him a fully guaranteed deal. But I think the whole question comes down to this for me. I think it's about

his skill set and the style of play that they have to play to get the most out of Lamar. And I'm not sure at the end of the day, that skill set or this style is going to win you Super Bowls. Now, it's always said, it's all they need to put more people around them. They need to do this. They need to do that. I understand. You can always build a better roster? But at the end of the day, can you win a Super Bowl playing offensive football like this? I'm just not sure. And therefore, I think there's some hesitation there. Now, John Harbaugh would tell you, yes, he's my guy. I'm going all in. I understand that. I would want the coach to back him in any way. I'm not sure at the end of the day that. that management feels the same way, that this is the style of offense that we're going to run

and we're going to win Super Bowls with this. So at the end of the day, have they made, have they given themselves options? That would be the one question I have because I don't think they have given themselves any options. I think you're right. They're probably going to match any deal short of a guarantee, a fully guaranteed deal, because they don't have any options. But I guess you could say if they took two number one picks, they'd find a way to get in

the quarterback mix maybe a year from now. I would think, and I'm kind of surmising here, Mike, and you've talked to more people than me. I would think that Eric Acosta has to have opened a dialogue with some quarterback that's out there or two or three just to cover himself in case some crazy deal comes down to where they just say we can't do this. And we all know that we can't then pick up the phone and get in on a deal. You'd better have something to have talked a little bit about that. They're allowing Lamar to go shop. They need to be able to shop too. One of the fascinating things about this, Randy, is to me, that Lamar doesn't have an agent.

At the Combine, you just spent a week there, and all of these deals and things get done there are hashed out. I mean, a year ago today that we're recording, the Seahawks traded Russell Wilson to Denver. Well, George Payton, the GM of the Broncos and John Seahawks met physically, you know, in the same room in India. So much business gets done there. I think that's an interesting component because, you know, you've been through a million of these things. I mean, shoot, when I first started covering the Seahawks, you were, you know, in the front office there and the Joey Galloway thing. Remember the, all of that? And I can remember, shoot, I think I just met my, my future and current wife there. I spent more time talking to Joey's agent, Eric Metz than I was talking to my wife. I mean, we were talking all the time. Boy, what's going on? What's this or that? I just, how does, how does, this is complicated stuff. Like, like normally an agent would be laying the groundwork. you'd have relationships and trust with people throughout the league.

You'd be able to get a feel for the market. You'd be able to talk to Miami on the download and say, look, is there any chance you guys will be in on this? Lamar can't practically do that. How much does that impede the ability for something to happen here? I think it's a giant imposition. It's the first thing I thought about when the Ravens chose this road to go down. I'm thinking, I hope Lamar hires an agent. It's one thing to represent yourself with an employer that you kind of know and trust and have been around for a few years.

It's another to wade out into these shark-infested waters of the NFL business world as a restricted free agent in this case. And that's really what he is. He can get a new deal wherever he wants. I would not want, even as an expert negotiator, and I've done thousands of deals, I wouldn't want to put myself in that position without a wingman, without somebody to bounce things off of. And I understand he has the union and maybe his mom and whoever else. But I would want a seasoned guy leading the way. I got to thinking, as a GM, what do you do if you want to make a deal figuratively? Yeah, do you call Lamar Jackson?

What are you going to talk to Lamar Jackson? I mean, that sounds crazy. Talk about awkward. I mean, the dialogue is going to be, I don't know what it would be like figuratively. It's crazy. But I would hope, and I don't know if he will, but I would hope he would hire some representation to help him navigate. this stuff. It seems impossible. It's pretty new. And we've had players, Bobby Wagner negotiated with the Seahawks. We've had others that have negotiated with employers as well. This is a different deal.

This is a higher level, multifaceted, multi-level. You may have five irons in the fire at once. And for a player to say, I'm going to navigate this myself, I think that's hard, man. That's really hard. So I feel bad for him if he's going to do this. I think he should hire somebody to really help him in this instance. Yeah, I just, I don't know what another team does, to your point, like if you really wanted to do this, but you want confidentiality because you maybe already have a quarterback or, or you just want to sort of figure out, hey, what is it actually going to take? Because like, we may be in on it for a certain level. Hey, what, how far will the Ravens go, right? If there's an agent, they know the answer to these questions. Hey, you know what? Here's what the,

if you want to do this deal and get it done, here's what you do. And, and, and, and, and, you're, And the Ravens will stop at this level, right? Well, if I'm a team now, I'm going to call Lamar and ask him. Yeah. And here's the other thing, Mike, with regard to that, if you had an agent, he would have already covered all this. So you would have ended your negotiations with the Ravens already knowing what's out there. Or maybe Lamar did that. Maybe he went out and searched all these other.

But he can't do that because it's tampering. So no one's going to take his call or vice versa. But an agent can make some of those calls ahead of time. and gather the information. It may turn out that the best deal he has is the one they offered. But you should know that ahead of time if you can't. Yep. So there's been a lot of kind of dust up, I would say, in social media over some of these reports that came out saying,

this team's not into Lamar, this team's not in Lamar. And people going, oh, well, how could people not be interested in Lamar Jackson? Number one, I don't read it. I don't take those literally. I mean, I think if a team is interested, they're not going to tell their beat reporter or somebody that they're interested. This is a general situation. You don't think? You don't think so.

If you got interested, that ain't happening. So I don't put anything into that. But it still comes down to, if I'm another team, I have to do a deal so rich that Lamar Jackson will accept it without really maybe even being able to talk to Lamar beforehand or his agent to find out what that would be. and then it has to be so big that the Ravens won't match it. And then we have to be comfortable doing all of that and giving up two first round picks to do it while taking on the contract. That's not easy. It's a big ask.

There's a lot of moving parts, I'm telling you. And I don't know that a deal could be put together. And maybe that's part of the Ravens thinking, right? Maybe they'll say, hey, we're going to put this out there. We're going to allow you to shop yourself, Lamar, any way you want. it's enormous. And so I don't know. I don't know that a deal can be put together that that truly again, I don't know what Lamar's feelings are. Does he want to stay? Does he want to go? You know, no team's going to sign him to a deal that they think the Ravens are going to match because

that's wasting everybody's time. So they're going to want to put some poison in there that makes it really hard for the Ravens to swallow. And if I'm Lamar, do I really want to do that? You know, I don't know. I just, I get, I know I could work this out with an agent. I don't know if I could working out with a player. Yeah. And so for me, the idea of a fully guaranteed deal, you know, shoot, Kirk Cousins did a three or one. I guess if I was a team that was really desperate, I might do that. But beyond that, I just don't see why a team would do that. And, you know, people are going to talk about collusion in the league. Well, yeah, I think the league, the owners for sure don't want to have another fully guaranteed deal, right? That's a big

priority. I agree with that. I don't think there's any collusion to it. I think that's just business sense. And you'd hope they all have that. But yeah. Well, it was pointed out to me that Denver's new ownership said right away that they were not, they were not going to do a fully guaranteed deal. And you'd wonder how they got that idea not to do one. It's not like those guys have been in the league for a long time. That was the one thing I thought that, huh, it must have been talking to somebody, whether that's collusion or not.

I think it is a priority for the teams to not do it. And I don't think anyone's doing it with him. Yeah, I'll be shocked if somebody does it. especially after we now are two years into the Deshawn Watson deal and the workup that it's taken to get owners and people back on the brown side still hasn't happened yet. And not that these owners care, but they do have respect. And I don't think anybody wants to go down that road right now. I don't know if that's collusion. That's just, like I say, that's just business 101.

I think somebody would surely do it for Patrick Mahomes or somebody who's completely going to change the game. But like you said, you've got to play a certain way with Omar Jackson. thing on this, do you think you could play a different way with Lamar Jackson and just be more of a conventional offense? I don't think so. I think this is the skill set that got him where he's at and got them. And I'm not disparaging it at all. He was an MVP doing things his way. I just don't know if the passing game will ever involve at the level that you need to to be able to win Super Bowls. That's all. So it's a choice. What kind of ice cream do you like? And I don't know that that ice cream is going to be chosen by a lot of teams. So the market is probably going to be more, it'll be less than people

think, both from the amount of teams interested and I think from the amount of money that's going to be demanded. I just don't see a lot of people lining up to play football this way. To me, it's an owner who wants star power in his market. And it becomes not a football decision. That's why I thought it would be, you know, potentially somebody like a Stephen Ross or, you know, Miami. I thought of an Arthur Blank or just somebody who wants to really be on the map. isn't thinking as much about the football consideration, right? And so we'll see if that happens, but I don't know. Like we said, do they call them more directly?

Let's get into the New York Giants. They do a four-year, $160 million deal with Daniel Jones. They use the franchise tag on their running back, Sequin Barclay. Looks like a pretty good deal for Daniel Jones. His average per year is number seven in the NFL. But like we talked about with some of these deals, team could cut them after two years. They'd save 21 and a half million under the cap in the third year.

They'd carry about 18 million in dead money. Easily done if you wanted to move on, not saying that that's what they plan to do. I'm sure they hope Daniel Jones will do great, but this is not one that ties the hands of the organization the way like a Russell Wilson deal has with Denver. What do you think of this deal, that number, those sorts of things? What's your overall take on Daniel Jones?

Well, I actually am a Daniel Jones fan, and I think you know, we talked about this a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, as a guy that if I was Seattle and Russell Wilson had put the Giants on that list of places he would go to, I thought this would make some sense for Seattle. He's progressed from there to the point where now it's obvious that the Giants didn't want to take a left turn. They've invested a year in this guy and he's come a long ways. They want to continue to move on in that vein. They think you can get better. You mentioned the numbers and where they come in at. The NFC East is up for grabs. I don't care really what anybody says.

Eagles are what they are. They're fixing to go through another kind of roster rethink a little bit. They're going to lose some players. The Cowboys aren't what some have thought they were. Dak is not where he was. The Commodores or the commanders are completely, you know, wandering in quarterback space right now. They have no answers for what they're doing.

So I think this is a good move by the Giants. I really do. And the numbers coming in when you really evaluate them tells me it's not a bad business move either. So they've staved off making a change. They've staved off, like we said initially, at the top of the pot. You don't have to take a step back at the position. They're solid there. They keep Barclay.

They were willing to pay Daniel more in order to put the tag on Barclay, I guarantee, whatever it took to get it done. So I think it's a pretty clear move that, hey, it's, Daniel Jones was better for the Giants than any other options that were out there. And I totally agree. Yeah. And so I think just get him some weapons too, right? I mean, they made some progress. They played a certain way, but they really didn't start. They were not a team that came in and just ramped up right away.

They were kind of, you know, doing nothing by design. They had a couple high draft picks, but they were going to wait and let the, I think, the cap situation and all of that just sort of resum. set itself. So, we haven't even seen it. They had to wait the cap out. They had to wait it all out this year and couldn't even really put a spin on anything. So the progress they made was really just based on coaching. They haven't upgraded the roster like I think they will over the next couple years.

Yeah, totally. So we may see, we may see another level of Daniel Jones because of that. And like I said, without having to just be totally upside down on the contract situation. So can I say one thing, Mike? Yeah. And again, I don't want to go. back to beat up analysis that we hear around the dial, but a lot of people's initial reaction was, oh, this is crazy. How can they pay Daniel Jones, $40 million, blah, blah, blah, blah. You've got to look at the options.

You've got to look at your options, not what makes sense to somebody on TV or radio or something like that, because they don't know all the options. This option was better for them than Derek Carr. It was better for them than Gino Smith. It was better for them than Baker Mayfield. Keep going. Name anybody else that's going to be free. It was a better option for them. And it gave them. It gave them, them a little bit of a chance to keep Saquan Barkley too. So as a team builder, it makes more sense than as an individual one-off evaluation. That's a problem. And a lot of people on the outside see these as one-off evaluations. They're not. They're part of a big team built. Yeah. My favorite one, Randy, is, oh, this is ridiculous. Daniel Jones is earning more than Lamar Jackson. I'm like,

yeah, do you think that Lamar would accept Daniel Jones deal? He could make more than him tomorrow. So it is what it is. And like you said, what were they going to do, bring in somebody who's a similar type talent or not quite as good, who doesn't fit them. I do think this makes sense. I thought, you know, I wasn't sure where the number would come in, but I think with the flexibility they get to be able to really be into him for two solid years, that works for me. The key is the structure, not the overall dollars.

The key is the structure and the options it present down the road. Totally. And they have options yet. Daniel Jones gets a nice commitment. He's going to be their quarterback this season. And he's probably going to be their quarterback the next season. He gets a good two-year run to really seize the job. He's betting on himself. He's betting on himself again. He's betting on himself. And after two years, you're going to have $82 million. So that's pretty good bad. That's pretty good for him. Okay. Seahawks re-signed Gino Smith. This one was three years and $75 million on paper. $25 million a year is. number 16 in the NFL, but there's greater flexibility than even the Daniel Jones and Derek Carr one has the CX, I think, could still draft a quarterback this year if they wanted to. I don't think this is a complete total commitment. It's probably a couple years, but it could be less if they wanted to. I thought he was a good fit for them way better than for a different team. And then the other thing is, I do believe that that, that,

I do believe in rewarding people who do things sort of the right way in your program. And I can't think of anybody almost like Gino Smith, you know, who's been through what he's been through and then played pretty well and just sort of handled his business professionally. And look, I don't think anybody in Seattle probably thinks he's their long-term quarterback for the next five years. but certainly can be a good bridge quarterback, who they were able to win with even without having a good defense last year. So what do you think about that and what do you think about this deal? I agree with you on most of those fronts. I think he was worth more to them than anybody else.

Like you said, nobody was going to pay Gino. They're not going to pay any player that works in the dark for 10 years and has no production and all of a sudden comes out after a couple failed attempts prior to that. And now comes out out of the closet to produce like he did one year. No one was going to pay that kind of money. But it makes sense for them. I understand why they did it. You've got a 70-year-old coach who's going to resist a lot of change.

I get it. He doesn't want to take a step back. For the most part, he keeps his guy. They keep their offense intact. They're not good enough. So they've got to still find ways to produce and to build around him. These cap numbers allow them to do that. I think the key for Seattle is, you know, much respect to Pete's wishes of minimizing change.

They've got to find a way to still get better. So they've got to be aggressive in some other areas. That's a hard line for the team to hold in that you're minimizing change in some areas, but you've got to be aggressive in others to try to get better. So that's always a struggle. But I think that I like the deal. Again, it's all about the structure. It's not about the total dollars.

It gives them options. They may or may not draft a quarterback this year. I don't think they'll pick one in the first round. That may not make sense, but they might pick one later, or they might, like you said, wait a year and decide to solve it then. Hey, most people thought they should have picked one last year after they sent Russell to Denver, and they figured out a way to make it work with Gino. So I'm trusting of these guys.

I'm trusting of John. I'm trusting of Pete. I think they know what they're doing. And I don't think they've gone out on a limb. When you look at three years, $75 million on paper, probably fair enough for them. Could he have gotten out on the open market? Probably not, but it means more to them. And so I understand it.

And it's less than the franchise tag number. Now, the one thing I do agree the older coach not wanting to change, but geez, a year ago today was the biggest change in maybe in this history of the franchise, Russell Wilson, do you take that into account in, you know, I think that would have gotten personal and they had no choice. They had to move on. But yes, I agree with you. And I'm not married Jean-Pete from that at all.

I'm just saying most of the time an older coach is going to resist change. he's going to, as much as he can to favor the status quo. And then the other thing is when you make that big of a move, right, Randy, and get the picks that they got, do you feel like organizationally those picks need to lead to your next long-term franchise quarterback? Or do you feel like, oh, no, they could just take a defensive lineman this year and move on. Because if they do that, then they get through the Russell Wilson picks basically without, I mean, they get, you know, without getting their next guy, right?

How do you feel about that? Like they have to get their guy out of that trade? I don't feel like they do, Mike. And I think when you start reaching to fill a need, that's when you make mistakes. I think they need a lot of things. Yeah, do they need a quarterback of the future? Yes. But they don't have to force anything right now.

Everybody says there's three or four quarterbacks worth picking in the top 10 this year. That's their opinion. The Seahawks might see it totally different. And that doesn't mean anybody's wrong or right. It's just the flavor they've chosen. So I would not think that they will force a quarterback early in this direction. that part doesn't make sense. I think they are of the oak that we got to find the best players we can to build this thing going

forward. And that's why I said they've still got to get better in a lot of areas. I think they know Gino can get them by. Gino's not going to, they're not going to win because of Gino, but he can sure get him by for a couple years if they build up everything around it. And I don't think they have to draft the quarterback this year or next year. They've got to find a better option, a more long-term option than Gino. Who knows how that might present itself to them?

Are you worried about him falling off? I know you've looked at him. Or, you know, he had a good year. Maybe it wasn't as good later in the year. How much can you bank on him being kind of what he was last year? Do you have a feel? Well, it depends. There was a lot of inconsistencies last year, too. I mean, I put on the Kansas City film the other day when they played the chiefs in Kansas City. And that was not pretty. I mean, he forced some decisions. He made some things that would make me nervous. But again, what were their options? Derek Carr? They determined that this, how about this?

They determined that Gino is they'd rather have him than Derek Carr. Because I guarantee you they could have paid Derek Carr the money that New Orleans paid him. But they decided they wanted Gino. So the things that bother me about Gino are the up and downs, are the inconsistencies. I'll tell you what he does have is he has a really strong arm. He can make all the throws. He's fairly athletic. And he knows a system that they run there and he's pretty comfortable with it.

He's going to have to find a way to iron out some of those other things. but that comes with playing too. And don't forget, we said it. He hasn't played for 10 years. That sounds crazy. I can't believe it. It's extremely shocking to me what he did last year, you know. But as I watched it without your expertise, but just watching it, I was like, well,

the passes seem to be accurate when he throws them. It didn't seem like it was unsustainable things, you know, that was happening. It wasn't like it was all a bunch of play action or they had this amazing running game. It seemed like he was just better than I thought. And it was funny. I was going back and forth with a couple people today in the league. And when you look at the NFC West, what quarterback situation are you signing up for as your favorite ones?

Because the Rams are going to give $60 million fully guaranteed to Matthew Stafford here to keep him. And he's missed 16 games the last four years. And his head coach, who knows if he's going to keep going and they don't have an offensive line. Arizona, Kyler Murray, you're kidding me? You want that deal? 49ers, we'd love to have Brock Purdy, but we don't know if he can throw a pass. We don't know what the future is going to be. We don't know what Trey Lance is.

And so really, for where Seattle's at in this division, they're probably not going to beat the 49ers in the division, but shoot their quarterback situation with some flexibility of a pick. Who knows? Isn't as bad as you would think looking at it as, hey, we got Gino Smith, to me at least. Yeah, I mean, I think it's an average situation. I'll be honest with you.

And again, depends what game you saw Gino in. I would be hard-pressed not to pick the 49ers as the best group. And I understand the purdy injury. Also, I'd rather have Matthew Stafford than any of them, but I understand that comes with some medical risk as well. But don't forget, Matthew Stafford had medical risk for 10 years in Detroit. So that's just his game. He's going to play hurt.

He's tough. I'm assuming they just redid his deal last year that they're going to get another two or three years out of Mass Staff. That's my assumption. So for me, he's the best in the business in the NFC. Yeah. Yeah. pick Purdy second and then I guess you'd pick Gino third. I'm not a Kyler guy and I think we've talked about that. That's just not a style that I want to play. But he has talent. I understand it.

I don't know if I'm willing to put Gino at the front like your source did, but I can understand how people feel okay about it. Yeah, I just, I don't love $60 million fully guaranteed for Stafford with where he's at, but we'll see. Now, the pretty one, he could be. I'm less worried about the money, more worried about the performance on the field as a gene. I want to see who's the best. That's what I was. Let's forget to pay for a minute. Yep. Okay. The Saints getting Derek Carr, we talked about a little bit, four years, $150 million on paper, $37.5 million average per year is about 10th in the league. But a lot of people pointed out to me, agents, people in the league, it's basically two years, $60 million.

The team, if they want to get out of that in the going into the, the third year, they save about $29 million against the 2025 cap, only $17 million dead money. So they buy themselves some time. There's $50 million tacked into the fourth year to make everybody feel good about the numbers. Kind of like this for the Saints. And look around that division. How do you like the quarterback situations there? It looks pretty good to have Derek Carr.

100%. I totally agree. I thought this was a great example of, and we always say this kind of tongue-in-cheek, but education is expensive, right? the Saints played the Raiders like a drum. I chuckled when they gave car permission to go to New Orleans. And I think we may have talked about it at its time. There had no intent of making a trade for Derek Carr.

We're going to bring him there. We're going to recruit him for two days. We're going to get him a physical. We're going to get to know him. We're going to get a jump on free agency like no other. And the Raiders allowed that to happen, thinking that Derek Carr would pass up the no trade clause and allow himself to be traded for the team where they were going to give up picks to get him

when he could walk in there on the first day of free agency or sooner like we found out and be totally unencumbered by any picks. So I just thought Mickey Loomers, the Saints played the Raiders front office a little bit. And the Raiders had no leverage. So they had no position to stand on. Once the no trade clause was included in his deal and these teams sometimes just throw around these no trade clauses like like candy, like we'll never use that, worry about it. news for you. It came back to haunt the Raiders and they can say what they want. It cost them

draft picks for putting a no trade clause in in Derek Carr's contract. So I like the signing. It's an easy upgrade for the Saints, in my opinion. They were going nowhere with what they had. I think it takes them from really last in the division like you said to maybe first in the division at the quarterback position. Yeah. No, I like it too. I think that's just a weird, so weird the way the whole thing went down with the Raiders, right? And now I don't know what they're doing. Maybe they're waiting for Jimmy Garoppolo like people seem to think or whatever. I did want to say, though, on this Derek Carr thing, because he was a potential, you know, potential candidate for the Jets as well.

And you had said something interesting, I believe, during one of our podcast before the Super Bowl, that you just didn't think the Jets were going to be the destination for quarterbacks that people thought they would be. You really downplayed whether a Derek Car would go there or even Aaron Rogers, maybe, and we'll see. That's not over. What do you think about the Jets handling of this? because I assume they could have maybe stepped up with some more money or something and at least been in it more.

But they, they bowed out. And now they're waiting for Rogers. How do you kind of see them in relation to Carr, Rogers, just the whole approach? Well, I think, and they've been here before, they've kind of been the team that gets used, right? Everybody talks about them. They want them in the equation. Everybody knows that they might throw out a big check. But nobody wants to go there.

So I think in Carr's case, he knew early on he wanted to go to the Saints. I think he drummed up some competition with the Jets, but what really drummed up some competition was Carolina. When he met with them, that also gave the Saints a little bit of a notion that, hey, let's pay him, let's get it done. I think the only way the Jets could have made this work is to give him a check and not let him leave the office when he was in New York to visit with him. I thought that was their only play. And when they didn't do that, I didn't think they'd ever come back around to him. I don't know if he told him that at that time,

but I heard a lot of jet fans say, hey, what would it take for him not to leave the building? And I thought about that long and hard, because as you know, we did that one time in Seattle. We signed Chad Brown away from the Steelers. He was our first visit for us, the first day of free agency. We picked him up at midnight in Paul Allen's plane. We brought him to Seattle.

We never let him leave the office. But it took Mickey and I sliding a check of $7 million across the table real money, and we said, you can walk. But if you leave this, the next guy was Michael Barrow coming the next day, he's going to get this check. And I remember Chad and Peter Schaefer saying, let's order some sushi. We can make this work, you know. What does that feel like to slide a check like that across the table?

Do you feel like a pretty much of big shot when you got to do that? Well, yeah, coming from a little logging town in northern Idaho, I felt pretty rich. I thought it was pretty outstanding, to be honest with you. And that's the only way the jets could have made it happen. But it probably would have taken a check for about 100 minutes. 20 years later, slide that across. And then Derek Carr would have had, hmm, that's something I've got to think about now. Yeah.

So do you think that they're still just going to sort of be used here? And I know you liked Mike White a little bit, you know, just as somebody you could, you could bring back. They've got a good defense. I mean, do you think, I guess one of the odds, you know, that their starter next year might be somebody like that? Well, it could be. We're stealing a little bit from the GM notebook here, but I don't have any problem.

them talking about it because we haven't really got into the Aaron Rogers stuff. I can't believe we're 45 minutes into a podcast and we haven't mentioned. I was dancing around. I can see or Aaron Rogers, but maybe that was your goal. Well, I didn't want to tell everybody that I peaked at the third item of the GM notebook was we've gone through this whole podcast and haven't mentioned Aaron Rogers seriously. So I was tiptoeing around it. I didn't want to blow.

But now that I've been exposed for peaking the GM notebook, it is an interesting situation for the Jets. I mean, they've created this expectation almost that, oh, we're going to get, you know, it's almost going to feel like a big letdown if they don't get them. But I never really knew if that was something in their control anyway, you know. Well, yeah, I think it's still in Aaron Rogers control. But when you really analyze it, what are his other options? Where else is he going to go? Is there a team on the West Coast that's going to slide in here somewhere and give the Packer something for Aaron Rogers?

I don't see that happening. Haven't some already committed to other quarterbacks? So maybe the Raiders, I don't know if that's, they've kind of chosen a different route already. I don't know. So I don't, the Jets might win this by default. Yeah, do we think that he's going to be traded though for sure? I've felt like the Packers are kind of done with him. But if he's not done with them, then they've got an issue.

Because I think he likes controlling them. I think he likes that whole thing, but he may not actually want to give that up, right, and go somewhere else, even though he had great control of the jets, I think he just sort of has the Packers in a spot all the time. And for him to want to go to the, for him to be traded, he has to kind of give the go ahead on it. If he says, I love being a Packer, he's sort of the good guy in the whole arrangement, but then the Packers are just sort of, not that you're stuck with Aaron Rogers, but you're kind of

stuck with Aaron Rogers. I just don't believe that he's going to force a trade to the Jets. What do you, even that he could, but I'm not convinced. What do you think? Well, I agree. I don't think that was his intent to force a trade to the Jets, but where else are you going to force a trade to? Well, I always thought my secret spot was Tennessee and they've already committed to Ryan Taneyhill now. So that one's a whole other can of worms. But I don't know where else can he go. Right, but does he have to go anywhere? Can he just stay where he's had? He can, but the fact that they've opened this can and allowed the Jets to talk to him tells me that you're correct and that they are kind of ready to move on. Yeah, I think they are. I think they are.

And then I just not sure, I'm not sure how much he is, I guess, just to any situation. Well, his actions have led me to believe that, you know, he's trying to talk himself out of the door the last couple years. They've had no case. They made a deal with the devil last year when they signed him to this contract. So they've had to live with it. And I don't know. Is there no other team that wants Aaron Rogers, the Jets. That's what's come down to. Yeah, I don't know. It's a great question. I think there's some limitations in the NFC. You know, I think if the Packers want to move on, they're going to trade him to the place that gives him the best deal. So I know it sounds great to not trade him to an NFC team, but they've had to be confident in their own abilities to evaluate people and players

that I'm not going to, I'd rather trade him for something than release him for nothing. So what happens if the Jets, if he says, nope, I'm not going to the Jets, then what's the next move? Well, they're not going to release them. What are they going to do? It's going to be their quarterback, right? I guess. I mean, that's a lot of meandering river that has crossed under the bridge now. And now we're back to Square 1 to be on McAfee every Tuesday and the State of the Union every week.

And we're living that life again. I think he likes that life, you know. Well, I know he likes it, but I guarantee you one guy it doesn't like it. that'd be the GM and the president and the rest of those people in the front office. But as we talked about when they configured the front office the way they did, there's not a real accountability check in there anyway. I mean, who's in charge? Who's making the decision?

Because if it is the GM, who's going to step up there and get rid of Aaron Rogers? Who's doing it? Mark Murphy, Brian Gutikus, Matt LaFleur, Russ Ball. Aaron's the only one that can get rid of himself. Right. And that's the issue. He's got control. He's the GM of the team. Well, yeah. And again, he has control of his contract and they've led him down that road. So he does have the final say. There's no doubt about that. I just don't, just when you look at the way they're set up, I don't see, I just want to know who's going to make the move in Green Bay.

Because that has to be an organizational decision. They don't have a, they have a GM, but they don't have somebody who just makes the decision. Right. my opinion. Or an owner standing over him and says, hey, what are we going to do, boys? Yeah. I think it's fascinating. I think it's really fascinating because Rogers is unified. He's got his, David Dunn's involved, his agent, but basically Roger, it's Rogers against this, it's not even a triumvir. It's like more than that. I guess it is a triumvirate, but just fascinating to see. And I guess I'll believe it when I see it that he's going to go put on a jet uniform next season. Maybe he will. Hey, I'm going to fall back to my old

old line. There's something we don't know, the knowing of which change in everything. Yeah, no doubt about it. All right. Well, knowing what the third item of the GM notebook was, why don't you tell us what else he got in there this week? Well, one of the things I had in there was that when I read The Titans of Shopping Derek Henry, that's a change of offensive philosophy and a departure from what the last seven or eight years, if that happens. I don't know that they're going to find takers, but that is a major story in my mind because Derek Henry is the Titans. He's their number one asset and has been, but it sounds to me like they're going to go some different directions. Now, I don't know if there's truth to that, but the fact that it got out

there and the fact that they've already said that Ryan Taneyhill is their guy at, what, 37 million against the cap. I guess the next shoot a drop would be to go to Derek and say, hey, do you want to stay here for less money? Is that the next step if they find no takers? I don't know. I just find all of these moves within clubs kind of fascinating because it's hard to get people on your own team to take pay cuts

and not bruise egos and that's rare. Especially when you're a big time producer like that and the whole game runs through you, you know? Yes. And has for years. Yeah. That's very interesting. So he has a $10.5 million base salary, $16.4 million cap number for Tennessee, which is pretty big. But more than that, he doesn't just define their books. He defines how they play. They have to play a certain way with him. It's a philosophy. It's total philosophy. Yeah, it's interesting. He limits them in some ways, even though he gives them what they are, right? He defines what they are. So you could make the same case than Lamar Jackson's case. He does limit them a little. bit, but he is what they are. Yeah, it's just better and worse. A million dollar base instead of 16. And it's mostly for better, but there is,

it's not for everybody, right? And I think the Titans will want to evolve away from that. I think it's surprising, really, probably that Derek Henry's been this good for this long. You know, credit for him. He's been productive when a lot of times those guys fall off. So we'll see if he has another great year in him, but they are at a point there. What else he got in the notebook? Well, just the other one that this day, this day on the calendar, or these days on the calendar are also filled with cap reductions around the league. And I think we're going to start to see some players released and designated with that June 1 release so that they can spread cap into next year.

And a couple guys who I think will fall in that category, probably are Ezekiel Elliott and Dallas and maybe Michael Thomason in the New Orleans. I don't think those two guys will be back with their teams. Again, it comes down to pay cuts. are involved pride is involved i think probably those two are headed for june one designations and releases and for the listeners if you don't understand that it just means they can spread out the cap um when they release a guy if they released him now they take it all this year if they release him in june one they push half of it in or the balance of it have balance that half of the balance into

two thousand twenty four so it's a way of cap counting yeah and moving some charge off into a future year yeah yeah absolutely um That's been kind of a long time coming on that one. Well, you think about how good Michael Thomas was, you know. Well, Zee grew. I mean, Zincaried him for years, and so did Michael. And maybe we end up with Derek Henry in the same vote. I don't know.

It's just this business, the way it's set up now, you do pay stars and they get a lot of money. But it is sad when it comes to this that you can't have them all forever. And there's a lot of emotion attached to some of these releases for GMs and for front office people, too. It's not easy. It's not going to be easy for Mickey to go into Michael Thomas and say, we've got to release you. It's not going to be easy for Jerry to tell Zeke, we got to move on.

I know they'd love to find a way to reduce salaries, but that's just easier said than done. So we've made it through our topics pretty efficiently, Randy. Should I use the time to sort of, remember when I alluded to the Evil Conneville story that I had? We had people asking us, Sando, you hung out with Evil Caneval?

What the heck? I think it's the perfect time to share that story with the listeners. Marissa can cut it out if she wants to. It's not very good. Did I tell you, so I'll set this up. So if you're of a certain generation, you obviously know who Evil Knievel was. As a kid for me, growing up way back in the 70s. I know you're a lot younger than that, Randy, but a wink, wink.

But Evil Knievel, Elvis Presley, Muhammad Ali. They're just certain iconic people that were so famous. You could just basically say their first name, right? even to an extent sugar rail Leonard back then there were just certain people that that resonated with everybody and for me as a kid evil con evil jumping over buses and you know we had the little toys and stuff i mean it was just an iconic person so uh when i was going to little mighty whitworth college uh in scokane washington not far from where you hang out some of the time uh randy uh it had come to my attention that evil can evil would sometimes be in town there he's a Montana guy. He would actually come over to the Spokane area and he had this girlfriend that was like a college golf star and they would hustle golf. Now, Evil Caneval was like a safe cracker back in the day. I mean, this guy lived on the margin. He spent a few nights in jail. Let's just put it that way. Was it Butte, Montana? Is that where he's from? I think he's from Butte, Montana. And so, you know,

Butte, Montana, Interstate 90 goes right through Seattle, Spokane, Montana. So he would be, there's times you would see this, like, fancy European car, sports car outside of one of the watering holes downtown. You knew evil was in there having a couple cold ones or having probably some really stiff drinks, right? And the guy broke every bone in his body. He probably needed that to not be able to just be able to function. But he would hustle golf down an Indian Canyon golf course. You ever played Indian Canyon, beautiful golf course there? Oh, man.

Too many times. In cocaine, yeah, I've left a few golf balls out there, tight fairways. But anyway, back in the day then, so early 90s, I think I was about 23 years old, I used to always get the fights, the pay-per-view fights in my little apartment. Had a roommate. My half of the rent in this apartment was $150, Randy. That tells you how nice of an apartment. We were living high on the large.

We had a little deck there out there, you know, a little propane barbecue. But anyway, I always get the fight. So George Foreman's fighting Tommy Morrison. So I said, hey, I got the fights tonight. know so my roommate. We'd oftentimes you'd have a few people over to defray the cost, right? You'd chip in. It might be $49, $49. Shoot, that's a third of my rent. Third of my share of the rent. We've got to defray the cost. So anyway, one of my roommate's dads was a guy who lived, I lived in Spokane, was like a business. He was kind of one of those guys who had probably been a millionaire and bankrupt. But, you know,

he was kind of one of those guys who just, you know, had lived a lot of different life experiences. and he would always be like downtown playing cards. He'd be in card games where you might see a character. There was a lot of those big, easy card places back in the day. Yeah, back in the day. So, but I just knew him. You know, I didn't know any of that stuff. So when I got the fights, my roommate said, hey, can my dad come?

And he's going to bring a friend. I said, sure, come on over. I'm thinking, you know, whatever, 10 bucks each, this is going to save me 10 bucks. That's 20 bucks, yeah. So I had, so sitting in my apartment, we're going to watch the fight. and my friend's dad comes in and his buddy is evil can evil. So all of a sudden, I'm in my apartment. There's no cell phones.

We can't, you know, you don't even, you don't want to call somebody because it's long distance, right? I mean, back then, it wasn't like yet unlimited minutes. So we're sitting there watching this whole fight. They brought about two cases of beer. I believe Evil's golf playing, much younger girlfriend was there. And we watched this fight. And I could the whole time it was surreal. It would be like I'm just trying to think of who is like that now, somebody that everybody knows, who's just a complete pop icon, being in your living room unexpectedly, you know, watching the fights with you.

You couldn't believe it. Exactly. Yeah. You just can't believe it. So we're sitting in this whole fight. And like I said, there's no cell phones. You can't take a picture or anything. But we had a Polaroid camera.

Remember Polaroid cameras back then. you press the button and then the print of the picture would come out like a little printer. So we all stood down there by my roommate's motorcycle and we took a picture. We took a picture with Evil and Evil's got like a pinky ring and he's pointing at us and he's going, hey, you know, hey, you know, like he's the Fons or something, you know. And so, but we lost this picture. There's only one copy of the picture and Evil had signed it. So my roommate had lost this picture and, you know, I thought we were never going to find it. So anyway, it might have even been since I alluded to this whole thing that I once had Evil Knievel on the podcast.

You know, I alluded on the podcast that I had in my apartment. My old roommate text me and goes, hey, we just moved and I found that picture of evil. He had no idea that I was even thinking about. I found that picture. So he texted me this picture of me and evil. and it's great. I'm nicely tanned, wearing a Los Angeles Lakers T-shirt tucked into maybe a pair of jorts, you know, with a belt tucked in looking great. Well, typical Whitworth kid. Yeah, typical Whitworth kid. You know, I had some hat with a turquoise brow. I looked like, I look, I look bad. I look bad. But we got this

thing and my roommate's name was Ron and Evil signed it something like, you know, hey, Ron, your pal, Evil Caneval, it's scribbled on there. And there we are, you know, our glory. My roommates there with his girlfriends there. They're married. They're still married there. And it's just the greatest find, you know, for me to have that picture. So maybe when the podcast comes out, I'll put that picture up of us with evil. Whenever I tell that story, which I hadn't told it for a long time, but I was actually mentioning to the combine, of people of our generation or a certain generation, it's hard to top evil can evil being here apart. There may be a lot of listeners. It falls on deaf ears. But those of us that are 40 and older, let's just say, 50 and older. Unbelievable. That's an awesome gift. You topped it right there. That's awesome.

So it was just a great memory. So, you know, we've made it just about an hour here. If people wanted to drop off before that, but there were enough people asking, enough people asking about the evil can evil story. I'll post that picture up on Twitter when we put this thing out because it's awesome. It was really a fun time. So anything else you got, Randy? I mean, no, we're good to go. I'm anxious to get to get back on a weekly schedule. And I know we've had a lot of listeners reach out to us and said we've been slacking for a few weeks. A couple of slackers.

We're a couple of slackers. I'll visit local bars and do nothing. Absolutely. That's carrying on next week. I'm anxious. Absolutely. Hey, thanks everybody. Thanks, Randy, for coming along.

if you want to check out more of Randy, find them on Twitter at Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore. You can find some of his columns and thoughts on MuellerF Football.com. You can watch the XFL Seattle Dragons. Randy Mueller, GM of that team. Saturday night on ESPN, baby. Saturday night on ESPN. And who are you playing and what's the time? We play San Antonio, 6 o'clock Pacific.

Sixth up on ESPN. Saturday night. Absolutely great. And if you want to find more of my work on Twitter at Sando NFL, certainly at The Athletic, thanks everybody for coming along, and we will talk to you next time. This was The Athletic Football Show.