The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: SB LVIII takeaways, 49ers and Steve Wilks split and Commanders staff taking shape

Episode Date: February 17, 2024

In this post Super Bowl 58 edition, Mike and Randy discuss their takeaways from the game. Then the discussion furthers with the guys wondering if the 49ers are unraveling a little bit. From there, we talk about the decision made by head coach Kyle Shanahan to fire Steve Wilks. Then the guys shirt their discussion to the Commanders and how their staff is taking shape. And lastly, the GM Notebook.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome, everybody, to this post-Super Bowl 58 edition of the Football GM podcast here on the Athletic Football Show feed. Mike Sando here with the GM. Mr. Mueller, Randy, how you doing? I'm doing great, Mike. Glad to be back with you for another version of as the world turns. The drama that transpires after these big games never ceases to amaze me. And some of it's on the field, some but's off the field, some of it's in the box.

I mean, it's crazy. It's what makes it all so compelling, and we're going to dive into a whole bunch of it. I did want to say up front, I went back to my normal attire here. I'm not wearing the Vegas shirt. I've got kind of the Steve Jobs black shirt on. You can't screw that up. I was going to start calling you Danny Terrio from Dance Viver if you rolled that out again. That's good.

Actually, I like the shirt. I've told you that a couple times. It was good, fun to see it. It's been great. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So let's digest the Super Bowl a little bit. and hit a couple of our takeaways. I know you've got some.

The first one I wanted to hit, from my standpoint, was you mentioned all the peripheral stuff, Randy. We're going to get into it, you know, whether it's Steve Wilkes, whether it's the overtime coin toss decision. I think all those things are fun and important and they're good for analyzing. But when I look at the Chiefs winning the game, 25 to 22 and overtime and the disappointment the 49ers feel, to me, it gets back to what, you know, Mike Holmgren always used to say. is to win, your best player's got to play their best. He used to always say it, and I'm sure coach said it way before he did. But it's always stuck with me. When you really want to analyze what happens and why you win or lose,

I look at the best players on the San Francisco 49ers. Trent Williams, great left tackle, has two drive-killing penalties early. We would not say he had his best game. Christian McCaffrey, the offensive player of the year, drive-killing fumble at the Kansas City 29, after they went right down the field. Everyone knew if these guys can get rolling, get that energy, they're tough. That's a killer.

Debo Samuel, I think he played, but he was covered like a blanket by your guy, Trent McDuffie. That was your number one corner in the 22 draft, and we saw why. George Kittle, I mean, I don't know if he had a great game blocking. He may have, but it looked like he maybe was responsible for missing that protection on the third and four from the plus nine and overtime. Big play. They have to settle for a field goal. Even Brock Purdy, who we think had a great year. I think he had a fine Super Bowl.

But there were a couple plays he could have hit that maybe he hits in a different game that he missed. So to me, that's the takeaway, not luck or an overtime thing. Don't you think that's the number one thing, right? Your best guy's got to bring it. Well, I think it's a valid point. And obviously it wasn't the 49ers, you know, best effort. That's for sure. I think you're right.

These games do come down to a small margin for air. but you can only control what you control individually, and some of these guys won individual battles from what I saw on the Chief's side, and it didn't happen for the 49ers. Now, I thought the 49ers had control of this game, especially throughout the first half, but I never felt like the Chiefs were going to lose the game, if that makes any sense.

I always felt like there's another card to be played, and I had a lot more confidence in that the Chiefs would play it and not the 49ers, and that's kind of the way it rolled out. It's just, I thought it was a clinic of coaching, and I wouldn't say this about a lot of defensive staff, but I thought they, Steve Bagnola staff, his plan, and not only his initial plan, but his adjustments, I think were high level. And really, that put these players that you mentioned into positions to make plays, that, again, accentuates their strengths and at the same time hurts the opposition.

Isn't that what coaching's all about? Everybody says, we had, I mean, no doubt. Well, you'd be shocked. at how many NFL game plans are rolled out without that being the focal point. So I thought they did a really good job of that. But yeah, it does come down to players. And some of the things we'll talk about later in the podcasts are what this means for the 49ers going forward. I mean, were they disappointed to the point where how much change is made?

We've already seen some staff changes. We'll probably see some more as well. But a loss like this for however the perceived reasons are, probably dictate some change down the road, and I don't think that's bad either. I think a lot of these teams in the NFL nowadays, they do not seem willing to make the amount of change that is needed to get them over the hump or to make them better or to change course. They want to be comfortable and not necessarily they can talk about winning, but they want to be comfortable first before it makes them uncomfortable to think about change.

So we'll see what happens with the 49ers. I know we're going to get into some of that. I think your point's valid. Good players have to make plays to have a chance. And we're going to get into that next. So let's just wrap that up, though, on the Spag's adjustments. What did you see? What did you like?

Because I know, I'm sure many times, Randy, you watch from the booth and you're like, why aren't we doing this or that during a game, right? From this one, you just loved what Spagnola was doing. What did you like? I think he kind of went through it since then. and kind of gave his vision of how he saw the game unfolding. And to be honest, it was kind of the way I felt about Brock Purdy all season. And I like Brock Purdy a lot.

But I do think there are certain instances when I wish he could set his feet and drive the ball with more velocity. That is the one thing that I have not seen from him. Now, when you face zone coverage, you can afford to time your throws, to anticipate your throws, to kind of throw to an area where a receiver will be. break into. When they play man to man and get in your face, which is what I think the adjustment Spagnola made and getting back to what he said, he said Brock Purdy tore our zones apart, so we had to change and play some more man to man to man, which I think they've always wanted to play man to man there anyway and done a lot of. But I think the plan initially was to change it up

and play some zone, and that didn't work. Well, you mentioned the fact that McDuffie was great, Sneed was great. Those guys were great because they got put in one-on-one situations and came through. And it didn't seem to me like Purdy could fire the ball into those really tight windows, which is what you need to complete passes against man-to-man coverage. So you've got to set your feet and drive the ball and put it right on the spot. I just don't know physically if some of those things he can do. Now, earlier in the regular season, Brock Purdy faced blitzes. So I don't think it's necessarily the blitzes. It's the kind of coverage that backs up those blitzes because he actually was fairly successful against blitzes, I thought, during the regular season.

But they weren't backed up with that tight man-to-man coverage, like what the Chiefs did. Well, the teams that really made him look ordinary are unique or different types of defenses. If you look at Cleveland, the ability with a real elite pass rusher and then guys who can hold up playing coverage, right? They could affect that pocket for him and make him not be able to throw it with the velocity. And that's Kansas City with Chris Jones. and then those two guys, you know, on the outside covering, not everybody can do that, but if you,

but when you get to the Super Bowl, you may play a team that is able to do that, right? And that's where the difference between the two quarterbacks maybe plays out a little bit towards the end of the game. No doubt. And I think you're right. They do present a unique set of factors on defense, they is in the Chiefs,

with having two really kind of locked down corners. You mentioned Cleveland. Well, not only they have Garrett, but they have Zadarius Smith rushing from the other side, who is a top-notch pass rusher as well. So when they come at you with more than one, it's hard to adjust. And I think it's really hard for,

and I don't want to down-talk purdy because he's a good player. But there are certain things that are going to be more obstacles for him to overcome that being one of them. And he actually improved as his season went on. He found a way to use his legs and make some of that pass rush fail because that'll be the next thing.

When teams do say, oh, we have the blueprint. now we can play man to man or we can run certain pressure packages. Guess what's going to fix that? Yeah. Him stepping up and running for 10 yards for a first down like Mahomes does and some of these other guys do at a timely, you know, in a timely instance. And he's done some of that most recently in the playoffs. So I think there's room for him to grow. I don't think it's a fatal flaw by any means. I just thought it was great adjustment by Spags and what Kansas City did. And there was for me, a little bit of a coaching lesson in there. Yep. So for your takeaways here that you listed,

that I can see in our notes. Hey, are there some signs of cracks here for the 49ers? Are they unraveling a little bit? What do you mean by that? What are you getting at? Well, I just thought the whole narrative post-game was a bad look for them. You can blame this, that decision, whatever. But when your players come out and say, well, I didn't even know the rules,

I didn't even know how we were going to do this. And the narrative comes out where the other team is celebrating because you did take the ball, you know, and it's evident now that there were two complete different philosophies in how to deal with this. And it obviously worked out for Kansas City, so it's easy to get behind what they had planned on doing. But when one team is practicing an exact scenario in training camp and the other team says they don't know the rules, that's not good. I just think it's optics. It made Shanahan look bad. It made the 49ers kind of look bad and unprepared.

And I'm not saying it's fair. it's just we all get to perceive what the information we take in. And the more information we see and kind of get a chance to analyze, it just made me feel like the 49ers have some cracks here. You just mentioned playmakers getting shut down. I mentioned, you know, some post-game or some decisions now and the reasoning behind it didn't make sense for me either. I didn't.

Kyle Shanahan's explanation of why he decided to do what he did made no sense to me either. So we're going to base everything we do on getting the ball third. Wait a second. That's a long ways down the road for me, a little too far for me to infer that that's going to happen. So as it turned out, there was no third possession. So, you know, it's just, it's not the way it works. So anyway, it's just, it's a lot of things that look bad and it will take some enduring by decision makers, starting at ownership, John Lynch, Kyle Shanahan.

they're going to have, I think, a lot of nightmares before they can piece this thing back together. And I don't know that just saying we're going to run it back is the way to go. These things are tough. You know, this didn't rise to the level of, you know, the end-of-game scenario, remember where the Seahawks through the interception to New England. And then really you learned years later that the lasting effects of that, they never really got back. It was a, I don't think this had that type of a moment to it to where something so egregiously was done. but this sort of a thing, perception kind of becomes reality a little bit here too,

and that is something they're going to have to deal with. Let's get into a little bit of the immediate fall of this thing was the firing of Steve Wilkes, which was a real interesting situation. Their defense did not play bad in this Super Bowl. I went through and just kind of look, Randy, statistically. The last 24 years of Super Bowls, this was the 13th best performance on defense.

actually the, I think the fourth or fifth worst one was the 49ers against the chiefs last time. And Robert Salat took that performance and got a head coaching job with the Jets off of it. So, you know, in this situation, I don't think that anything Steve Wilkes did was a fireball offense. That being said, it's kind of a weird year, wasn't it? Where we heard after the Minnesota game that Kyle Shanahan was upset about a zero blitz call that let the Viking score. and then we heard during this game speculation that there was a timeout called because Steve Wilkes was in another zero blitz look and you know Kyle Shanhan didn't want to do it so there's there's obviously some stuff going on here about the fit of this thing yet it is being

perceived as kind of a you know and maybe rightfully so an unfair kind of repudiation of Wilkes do you think this is a sign of anything in terms of the like you said an unraveling or is this a separate situation for you? Well, I think each individual case that we've talked about so far, when you put them all together, it's kind of problematic, right? I don't think any one of these in particular would be something that you would say is starting to unravel, but we've already talked about three things that we have issues with, and we're five minutes into our discussion.

So I think your case is valid with regard to what happened to Robert Sala and where that defense was with regard to their last Super Bowl. This is the case this year with what, Wilkes and the Super Bowl. I do think this, and I'll take Kyle for his word, I think this is a bigger, a bigger picture, a bigger snapshot, a bigger body of work was used to evaluate both these situations. I mean, I've known Steve Wilkes since he was 22 years old. I signed him as a free agent in Seattle years ago, so I have utmost respect, and I would call him a friend, but I understand this. And you bring up a few issues where zero blitzes were not in really the vision.

of what Kyle wanted to do. And here's my point with all of this stuff. Forget any personal relationship with Steve Wilkes. I don't know if the relationship was ever to the point between Kyle and Steve where they had discussed all of this and were all on the same page with a vision. I know this. When I worked with Nick Sabin, I knew exactly what the vision was. We talked about it at Nausem. We all understood it. I don't know that people communicate to that level. And I'm not saying they don't, but it seems like it's fewer and far between that these relationships get built and then continue to be cultivated. Communicating is hard. We all know, Mike, whether it's in our own house, with friends, with work colleagues, communicating is hard.

Podcast co-hosts. I mean, it's tough. It's hard. And it's at the nth degree when these NFL decision makers with egos make decisions like this too. And I don't know that we, and again, I'm not specifically pointing to this, but I think in general, these relationships aren't worked on enough. They don't communicate enough. If Kyle Shanahan did have issues with zero blitz here or zero blitz there or a look here, why wasn't all this talked about ahead of time? And then it's clear if Steve defied what the plan was or defied the vision, then that's no problem. But after the fact saying we didn't like this look or we didn't want to do this, I'm assuming you said that ahead of time.

because if you didn't, don't bitch to me about it afterwards. You need to know exactly what we're doing ahead of time, and that's the reason why you hire a defensive coordinator and you're on the offensive side. You still have to spend time knowing what's going on. If you don't, that's on you. Yeah, and if Steve Wilkes did defy, then this is justifiable.

This is what happens. I think we, you know, the assistant coach's jobs is to win the game in the vision of the head coach to a degree. Now, we're going to talk about this a little bit later in the podcast because there was an interesting story about the commander's staff. and a bunch of guys pulled from different areas without these relationships.

We'll save some of the discussion for that, but it will be interesting to me to see where Kyle Shanahan goes with this next hire. I did hear, I do talk to some coaches around the league, and, you know, and of course they, you know, they look out for each other a little bit too, so we take that into account. But, you know, one of them made a comment that,

And I think this is someone had worked with Steve Wilkes. So it would be somebody who would be sympathetic of Steve Wilkes was saying, yeah, come on, this is a bad look. You know, it kind of reminds me of if you go back to shoot Mike Shanahan, went through some defensive coordinators too in his successful run with, you know, with the Broncos. So these things happen, Randy. Guys do get fired. And it's not the first time a defense coordinator has been fired.

I think what you said, though, the cumulative weight of all of these different things is a lot. Then did you see the replay where it showed George Kittle talking with George Karloftus and then Karloftus dives and lands on the ball? Did you see that? Yeah, I did see. There's like a thousand things like this that are, that none of them are really phallonious. You know, none of them are necessarily a, but when you have like 20 of them, or Debo-Samuel

kind of being shut down in the game. or Brock Purdy not missing him, not hitting him the one time he was open for touchdown? All of these things take on a lot of baggage that you take in the next year. Maybe some of these things aren't even talked about, but there's sort of lingering there, right? Well, that's my point. And you mentioned who does he lean on now, the new defensive coordinator and how does that dynamic change with Kyle? I've heard the rumors about, they were uptight about the way the coverage wasn't melding

together with the front seven and this and that. Well, this all takes time to sort out. These guys didn't have this all sorted out ahead of time. Guess whose fault it is? It's theirs. And who knows? Steve Wilkes might not believe in a couple of those guys on defense to do certain things that Kyle does.

And guess what? Kyle picked them. So there's all kind of angles that we have to adhere to. But my point is we're all in it together. I wish these guys would exhaust relationships. And maybe they did. Maybe they did preseason, trainee camp, all that. I just think if it goes the way of the world where people aren't communicating as often as I would like,

I can't help but think that the communication or the line thereof and the messaging was unclear for Steve or for what Shanahan wanted. And remember, let's just take this back to what our conversation was a week before the game or a couple days before the game last week was, God, the 49ers seem a little uptight here. I mean, they're worried about the practice fields, the fire alarms, all these. these types of things and, you know, just add it to the list. So if they win the game, I mean, it's all good. And they came extremely close to winning game. They should have probably won the game, but they didn't. And now you live with the fallout and all of these little things come into question. So we'll see where it goes. Our next topic is, will the Chiefs be better next year?

Let's just stick with the 49ers for a minute. Are you worried about them next year? Do we think we've seen the best 49er team of this iteration? I kind of think we have. Well, I would think so. I think a defensive coordinator or a change in, in philosophy is, you know, putting lipstick on a pig per se. And again, I understand we have to be held accountable. I do think that some change is always part of these teams from year to year. I don't think the 49ers have a bunch of free agents that they're, you know, worried about losing. I mean, Chase Young's on the list. Javon Kinlaw's on the list. I mean, those guys really had little or no effect on the game. So I don't think that's going to be game changing in any way.

they've got a safety that they've got to deal with, but I don't see from a roster standpoint, a giant turnover of any kind. I think this, here's what I would boil it down to. If Kyle and that group doesn't take a look at everything they're doing, including our protections on offense, which I thought was a complete fire drill most of the time.

The drop back pass game. That's what we've been talking about. Yeah, our drop back pass game. My point is they have to look at all this stuff, which includes looking in the mirror. If that doesn't happen, yes, things will start to unravel. But it has to be a complete reverse engineering of everything we did. And it can't be, well, my dad did this 20 years ago.

That can't be the answer because things change, offenses change, schemes change, defenses change. So we've got to go back and look at every little thing to kind of re-engineer what we have here and make changes if that's what's needed. The problem that they have is no matter what. if they get to the Super Bowl, they're either going to face Patrick Mahomes or somebody who was good enough to beat Mahomes.

It would be a red-hot Josh Allen or a Joe Burrow. They're almost invariably, even though Brock Purdy is good, they're almost invariably going to face a great, more talented quarterback on the other side if they get there, right? Yeah. Because of just the nature of the AFC,

it's either Mahomes or Mahomes lost to somebody because that guy, because Josh Allen was playing out of his mind, right? And that's the thing that, you know, I think gets interesting. I think you might have to score a few more points. Yeah. I agree.

I agree. I think that might be the first place I'd look. Or, yeah, pick up some blitzes or have an out or a hot read that doesn't include throwing through the blitzer, you know, right through him. So all those things, yes. I mean, they did hold Mahomes down in the first half, right? I mean, I don't know. I can't remember the exact score and how it transpired.

10 to 3, right? So, which takes us to the chiefs. And our question here is, will the chiefs you've been in next year? This was one of your questions coming into the podcast today, which I think is great to answer. Because I felt like, Randy, for much of this game, their shortcomings during the regular season were on display. And I almost questioned myself like, call, you know, maybe I shouldn't have been so confident in picking them to win. They really looked limited offensively and just kind of a little bit of a struggle. Will the chiefs be better next year?

What do you think? Well, I think they definitely will be better. Obviously, they have some things to decide and to dole out some money or not decisions on defense. But I don't think offensively, they're willing to roll this out there just like they did. Obviously, the offensive line, I'm going to be honest with you and I'm going to try to be nice. It was awful. The tackle's performance was awful. And they can say what they want, but, you know, they skated around half the time. And Mahomes got rid of the ball when he had to. And he stepped up and helped those. tackles for the most part. Their receivers are what they are. Rashid Rice, we all think can be a pretty good player and has improved throughout the year. But no, they're going to have, I think you'll have to assume that they're going to be better. I don't know where Kelsey is, the tight end, and if I haven't studied the film enough to know how he compares to week one through five, as opposed to week 12 through, you know, 17. But that seems to be a question for some. So that has to be discussed. But yeah, the next year's version of the Chiefs, I would have to assume,

is going to be, I think, more talented than the group they have now, for sure. You know, in writing my Monday pick six column, I was looking at that because I just felt like the Chiefs just won back-to-back Super Bowls without their best teams. These were sort of transition teams post-Tiree Kill, you know, and then this year with the issues at wide receiver, those could be fatal flaws for a lot of teams in terms of winning at all. So I went into pro football reference,

and you can look at each team's history. And I just sorted, they have a little category to sort the strength of these teams by point differential, kind of adjusted for schedule strength. This was the 28th best team in the history of the Chiefs. Last year was the 19th best.

And so if you go back to 2019, that was the sixth best. That was a real amazing team. But these are not what you would see on paper as, hey, they're going to win the Super Bowl. And we didn't feel that the way they played. Now, we have to give credit to, you know, they have an elite quarterback in Patrick Mahomes.

And that's usually everybody's pushback. Right. Yeah, yeah. And so when they need to turn it on or whatever, and they have a really good defensive coordinator, like we said, with a good defense and those sorts of things. But to me, for them to be able to win it all with this type of a team, they're going to be better than the 28th best team in franchise history next year,

I think for sure. And so I do now, you mentioned they have some issues here with, you know, like a Chris Jones, Legerius Sneed. Did you sense from the, what's you're reading the tea leaves on Chris Jones with kind of his post-game comments? Because his expected valuation is probably over $30 million a year. Be hard to do that probably at this stage of his career, wouldn't it? With Mahomes being where he's at, you've probably seen, you're probably going to get one or two more years of Chris Jones Prime, right? That's about it.

if you were to do a deal. But he's critical to them, Randy. Could you let him go? Or do you sense that maybe he's willing to work with something, you know, in the framework for them? Or what do you think? Could they keep him? Well, I think there's a couple angles to go into just what you said. One, people's post-game talk in, and I know we're going to talk about this later,

but I'm not sure if they're liquored up or not half the time when they say things they should, when they say things now, they shouldn't say. But with regard to his love for Kansas City, I think that's reciprocal. I don't know if you saw the video of him laying on the field and Andy jumping on top of him. Yes. I loved it. I think that relationship. I think Andy might have started the fall, but I'm not sure he went with it.

And needed to be helped up. We'll leave that part out for a later discussion, but he could barely get up. I know that feeling. But I just think the relationship they have is unique for sure. And again, that goes to not only Andy and Chris Jones, but Andy and a bunch of others. But I think Chris Jones in particular, and yes, I think it's going to be hard to pay him long-term and crazy money. But I think Chris Jones is worth more to them than he would be to other teams.

And here's why. In reality, what a team will do is they'll look at all the tape on Chris Jones before they and put a body of work together that says, hey, this is how this should be valued. They're going to see a lot of things when they watch Chris Jones on tape where he's not really engaged. He's not really interested in playing every down. and you have to learn how to take that bad with the good, right? He will make game-changing plays.

We saw it on Sunday, and so everybody said, oh, it's worth it. He prevented two touchdowns, you know, he just by his play alone. I get it. I get it. All I'm saying is, and they get it, and the chiefs understand what exactly he is.

If you're an outside source, an outside team that look at this, you might be more turned off by the many plays where he's not engaged, where he's not even getting out of his show. shadow after he gets out of his stance. So there's a lot of go that go with this. So I think the chiefs will be able to make a deal with him. I think there's motivation on both sides. I think it makes it makes sense to keep him in their locker room more than it makes sense for let's just say

the Seattle Seahawks to go sign him to come to another environment and change everything he's doing. So I think the advantages the chiefs have and the relationship that we know he has with them as well, I think that bodes good for probably a way to keep him. As far as Sneed goes, he's going to be a top market corner on the street. And I don't think there's going to be any discount. I don't think there's going to be any difference in indifference into where he goes. I think he's going to go where the money takes him. And he's 27 years old.

This is his chance. Yeah, this is his chance to get paid. I think his cover. skills speak for themselves. He can do anything coverage-wise for the most part that you want. There's two things that are working against him, in my opinion, and his market value. The kid made 18 penalties last year during the season. By far the most. So he is really aggressive. And you'll say, yeah, you got to take the bad with the good. You just said that about Chris Jones. Well, some of that is discipline. Some of that is he's going to have to clean that up because I guarantee

it's cost his team a time or two. And that next team that he goes to might not have Pat Mahomes able to patch it all together at the end of the day and overcome some of these mistakes. So that's something to factor in. And the other thing is, Trent McDuffie's going to get paid here in a next year or two. And they're going to have...

They're going to pay him. Yes, that's my point. He's first team all pro. Maybe the best cover guy going right now. He plays nickel, does everything. I don't know that they would have room to pay two like that is my only point. So I think the Chiefs might be more reluctant to pay him,

even though he's younger. And I think he'll be more value by other teams than to say Chris Jones, where they take a discounted deal on both sides to make it work. So I don't know if any of that makes sense. But I think there's a couple things working in both of these type of negotiations where it'll be fun to follow over the next couple weeks. Absolutely. Yep.

McDuffie has been an absolute star. and stud for them. And so he's going to be the guy for sure who has to get prioritized. And just to explain to our listeners, there will be a bunch of teams who don't have McDuffie, who don't have anything like Legerry Sneed. So guess what? They're going to pay through the teeth to have that one guy. And he will be the one guy for them.

So he's going to get top notch maybe above what anybody gets. There's a chance that he gets the top corner deal in the league for that matter, just because timing is everything, and he's 27. Hey, we asked earlier, are the 40-9ers unraveling? Hey, if the chiefs had lost this game, Randy, and the game had gotten away from them, the Travis Kelsey bumping into Reed and screaming at him situation could have been seen as, you know, hey, a sign that they were unraveling.

Right there before our eyes in the middle of the game, been a lot of sort of back and forth on this. I saw, you know, Jason Kelsey and Travis Kelsey do a podcast, and they, you know, Jason was saying, hey, you crossed the line, this sort of a thing. I'm just curious, I have some thoughts on this, but I'm curious what your thoughts are on that situation, big deal, no big deal, handle it internally, double standards, what do you got? A little bit of everything. I do think it's a big deal.

I do think he crossed the line. So there's truth on both things, both behalf. I think this, Kelsey's lucky that Andy Reid was his coach. And that it wasn't, you know, Bill Belichick or Nick Sabin or somebody like that, right? I want to see someone do that to Holmgren during the game. That's, that would be another one. It clearly startled him. But as soon as Andy Reid saw that it was Kelsey, he went into damage control mode.

He's a father figure to these guys, I'm telling you, he understood where he was coming from. I've heard Andy's description of Kelsey coming out of school in his first few years with Kansas City. He was a wild man. And it's easy to see he still got some of that in it. Oh, yeah. So I think there is a full-time management of players that Andy. he handles different than a lot of other coaches. And he's been around the pro game his whole life Andy has. So he knows there's different rules for different players, depending on who you are and how good

you are. Jimmy Johnson used to make no bones about how he had to treat Emmett and Michael Irvin and those guys different than the rest of the team. I just think you know a volatile personality. You know that you're going to get that from Kelsey. I just think there's a lot of familiarity there. But here's the other thing. When we get down to it, what made him pissed? Was it because he wasn't on the field? He wasn't playing in certain situations. They had just come off of a drive that was not successful. I remember thinking myself during that first half, and I haven't studied the tape since then, but I think he missed a good chunk of time at different times during that first half. So you know what? I wouldn't have reacted like Kelsey did, but I'd be pissed if I was him too. And I've often said,

sometimes an assistant coach, and I'm not blaming or saying this is the case, but I would surmise that somebody forgot that Kelsey wasn't in the game or they made a point that, hey, he's not blocking, so we're going to play this other guy when we all know there's, yeah, there's more in Kelsey's tank. So I'm just saying there's, we can overthink ourselves too and outthink ourselves. I'd be pissed if I'm Travis Kelsey and wasn't in the game as well. You mentioned Jimmy Johnson. You know, one time when he was Cowboys coach, Randy, he cut a guy for falling asleep in a meeting.

But the funny part of that is they were going to cut the guy anyway. The players didn't know that. If Troy Akeman had fallen asleep in the meeting, he wasn't going to be cut. And so that's part of this. There's a double standard for the star players. But also kind of think if you're coach and quarterback and tight end or business partners together, which these guys are doing State Farm, it's a reflection of the relationship they have this different.

Yeah. And so most people would never, you know, you could get in. major trouble for challenging one of your parents or something, right, in the wrong way. But in a different context, maybe you wouldn't get in trouble. You know, maybe it would be, you know, maybe if you're playing basketball in the driveway and your chest bump your dad, it's different than if you do it in the kitchen when he's trying to tell you to do something, right? So in the heat of the battles. So some of that stuff's going on. You've got to consider the sources in these cases. And, hey, managing people doesn't stop just because the whistle blows.

trust me. Yeah. And I think your point, too, is that they don't necessarily, they kind of see Andy Reed as a father figure there anyway, right? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I don't have any doubt that there was no challenging of anything. He got a little close to him. And like I said, Andy got him with startled, looked like Sergeant Schultz, you know, on Hogan's Heroes.

He was startled, but he got up. and the Hogan's Heroes reference. That is going back, Randy. I mean, that was in reruns when I was watching as a kid. I'm old. That's good.

Okay. So on a more serious note, before we get into some other stuff here, the post-super Bowl parade, I was just curious from your standpoint with that terrible incident in a shooting and they're still trying to figure out, I think, exactly what happened.

But it doesn't sound like somebody went there just to shoot up the parade. It sounds like there was a dispute of some kind. I've always kind of worried about these types of situations, Randy. Normally you would never take your whole team and parade them in front of a bunch of strangers, right? Where anybody could do anything.

I mean, at any time. I wondered if you, were the GM, would you be rethinking these parades and that sort of a thing? I was kind of thinking maybe you would make a special ceremony at the stadium. You can get 70,000 people in there. You could run them through a, you know, it's sad if you'd have to do it, but you run them, you do it for the game. You run them through a metal detectors. And then you could have an environment.

It wouldn't be necessarily open to everybody, but you'd also be a little bit more of a controlled environment. It almost seems smarter to me than having our entire team just parading around in front of who knows who's there and what state of mind they're in or what their agendas are. It seems a little risky in this day and age to me. Well, I think it's $70,000 is one thing, but when you have $700,000 or $800,000 or more in one spot, safety is definitely a concern. I did hear the police explanation, and they had, it sure sounds like every able body on duty.

I mean, hundreds of police officers ahead of time. So they were all doing. everything they could. So I don't know where blame could go here. And I'm like you. I'm not happy, but I'm at least somewhat okay with the theory that people didn't go there to shoot people. That's for sure. That's a little bit of a relief. But it still could happen in the future. It could. Yeah. It definitely could. I'm going to stay in my lane. I don't know. I think sometimes those are done for political reasons as well. And it's a citywide type thing. And I get it. It sounds mobile. It's what we've done for years. But you're right. It's 2024 and people's mindsets are different. So it's

probably something that have to be looked at. But I'll go back to what I said earlier, staying in my little lane. The only thing I'm ready to rethink is that everybody gets drunk and acts like you. It's on the stage. Okay. I've had enough of that. And it's okay if you, I always avoid trying to be the old man telling people to get off my yard. I'm I'm okay with that reference this time around. You can say that. I just, I'm done with, I'm done with listening to drunk guys with microphones. I know it's cute.

I know we all are trying to outdo each other. I think in all seriousness, that sends a wrong message as well. So that is an old guy's version of what we're seeing. But I just, that's play. I think if as long as it's Jason Kelsey, I'm fine with it. I think Jason Kelsey should go to every post game parade and just be that guy. I think he can pull it off. I think some guys can pull it off better than others.

I got you. There's a reason that that show, Jackass only lasted a few years and it's still not on. Just because that type of, I watched it too. I've never laughed harder than when Jackass was on. I know my wife used to just watch me watch it. The shelf life expired. Because the guy was dead.

The guy almost killed himself. I mean, it's unbelievable. That's what's going to happen here. I mean, it's crazy how these guys. And it happens in all sports. I'm not mad at the Chiefs. So let's have Jason Kelsey and Johnny Knoxville both be the post game guys. I've laughed to the point of crying.

Unbelievable. It was unbelievable. Couldn't believe. Yeah, that was great. This is coming in sources. This is Adam Schefter. Jimmy Garoplo gets two-game ban for violation. Performance enhancing substances policy.

Interesting. That shows you, Randy, when your career is kind of at stake and you're trying to get healthy again, that's usually a rest. for even some of some great players of all time. You know, Rodney Harrisons are good, you know, guys who are pro bowlers

have, you know, you do everything it can to get back and that's where it gets you, you know, they're really... Injuries are a bitch, man, and yeah, and I'm not making excuses for him if that's the case, but you're right. You go to extreme measures

to try to extend that window of collecting checks. No doubt. Yep. It's hard. Tough one. Tough one. It could be slipping away for him.

Hey, you're going to be doing the athletics free agency rankings. I don't think we're breaking any protocols to mention that. I'm so excited about it, Randy, because you know, you've looked at this stuff obviously for years. And then last year, you know, you've looked at some. But this, take us through sort of what you've been doing to have, I can already tell Randy through your Twitter feed, you're starting to get excited because you're putting out little things here. Hey, if your team needs to upgrade its past rest, your time is here. Very deep and diverse group in this year's pool, game changing group. And, of course,

some of these guys could be tagged and whatnot. And then the best players in this year's pool will be on defense, the best value will be in offense. I'm getting excited because I know you don't talk about these things unless you've done the film work. You don't just start pontificating on the free agency. This tells me, man, you've really looked at these guys. So what have you been doing and what's your process and I guess we're going to see this stuff pretty soon?

Well, I guess, yeah, all that is somewhat true. it has been really my life's journey, but it's been the last six weeks of breaking down all these potential free agents. And it has been a long process, and it's not just me. Our staff has been outstanding, as you know, at the athletic. They keep putting guardrails on me. And I told our esteemed David, our editor the other day, I said, you remind me of my college scouting director who said, Randy, we can't do that. You've already got this list going over here. We can't just keep moving names around all the time. Love it.

That's Dave DeShant for us. He is, he's pretty special with his detailed knowledge of the players. It's pretty good. He would be a great college scouting director because of that. And he can put it together in ways that I never thought of. My guys at the Saints always used to make fun of me because I'm a guy that I have it up here in my head, right? I don't necessarily put everything on paper.

But he puts it all on paper. Mickey always used to tell me, if you fall and hit your head, nobody has the plan. We have no chance. because it's not on paper. And I'd say, well, just make sure I don't fall and hit my head. That's all. Wear a helmet around the office. So David has been great throughout this process.

He's kind of kept, like I said, me in line. And I'll tell you what we did. We have done it just like I would or teams still to this day do it in preparing for an NFL draft or for free agency for that matter. You start with a combine list, which for me, the combine list was all of our team reporters and writers. they put together their list of who's going to be a free agent and kind of rank them the way they feel about them. So I use that as a starting point.

And I've looked at, I don't know, Mike. I'll bet I've looked at 250 guys on film the last six weeks. And so I spent a lot of time in the film room. And yeah, I'm happy to have most of that behind us. Not quite there yet, but we're getting there. And I would use that list of theirs. I would then build a list of by position, a one through 10, or depending on a position, one through 20 of the sequencing of how I like them. Dave and I would talk through it a little bit.

I'm all for getting a little bit of a consensus. So I used the writers and the reporters theory and feelings on these players as much as I could. And then the end of that process is you have, just like an NFL team, with all these lists by position, then you populate a big draft board of one through, in this case, one through 150. And so we're going to roll out one through 150 potential free agents, regardless of supposition, based on value, how we see them, and run with it next week. So it's been fun, it's been hard, it's been something that I love to do. So hopefully our readers and listeners will get a little view of how it's done. And I know there's a lot of fans out there that know way more than me.

Trust me, I get it. I hear from these people occasionally. What are you talking about? Know me way more than you about what? Players, team building, everything. And I get it. Rand, you've got to stop selling yourself short. Because none of these fans were telling me before the draft,

hey, Azale Lacky's my top tight end. Hey, Trent McCubby's my top corner. Hey, this and that. Come on. You can't sell yourself something like that. Well, you should look at some of the comments that we get. And it's based on the fact that everybody thinks they know their own team better. And the fan in all of us tend to always side with our teams and what's best for our teams.

I can't wait to see it. This is a look at a cloud of 150 players ranked in a specific order of, really what we came up with as value and how we would go about using this in free agency. I would say this, as you know, Mike, this is one snapshot because this list of UFAs then goes in conjunction with what the draft board shows us and how then do we feel our needs best. And so our vision to kind of jump back and forth and plan and strategize all the ways we can to make our team better, including a financial picture of all these UFAs. All of this comes together as part of a team building effort.

So this is just part of it. It's a small part of it, but the UFA project has been fun, and it's been a grind. I can't wait, though. Because when we were talking about you doing this, you know, you were saying, okay, guys, you don't know what this entails. I'm not just going to wing this thing. I'm watching all the players. So that has such benefits not only for our rankings, but for the rest of the

year. I've already, you've mentioned a couple things in passing about various players. Of course, I stole that. I used that in various places when I'm asked about whether a guy played good or not, and I usually credit you, but it's going to be a huge help. I'm so fired up about it. Let's keep moving along here. We alluded earlier in talking about the 49ers and Steve Wilkes and just the fit of the coaches and whether they had good communication. Something caught our attention today are Ben Standig, who covers the commanders. There was a headline on a story that caught my attention. Commander's new coaching staff lacks familiarity, but that's all by design, Randy.

And I thought, okay. We're in the lab again. We're back in the lab. We're taking out test tubes. All right. I thought about the Giants under Brian Dayball a year ago. They'd just gone to the playoffs and there was a big article about celebrating the fact that, hey, we didn't hire our friends on this staff.

We went out and got the best guys we could find. A lot of these guys hadn't even worked together. A year later, Wink Martindale's, you know, all but throwing his coffee in the face of the head coach and going AWOL. The special teams coordinators fired and the offensive coordinator is trying to make a lateral move that gets blocked. So obviously, their staff that didn't work much together necessarily imploded for reasons that may or may not apply to the commanders. Because Dan Quinn is a different type of leader probably than, then, uh, than Brian Dayball is. And so that's a key component.

But that being said, Randy, my antenna went up when I saw that headline. What about yours? Yeah, I would agree with you. And you mentioned it. Obviously, Dan Quinn's temperament, his mindset, his personality, his communicative skills are going to be different than Brian Dayball. And you know that we've been, or at least I have, been concerned about this group from the get-go in that there's always been for me a lot of cooks in the kitchen here,

whether it's Magic Johnson, like you mentioned. tweeting after games, whether it's Bob Myers, Rick Spielman, all these other people that they brought in to help them hire Adam Peters. I think this all sounds like a great idea. And I am not for hiring buddies. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying familiarity is there for a couple reasons. One is you understand the vision. You don't have a period that you have to get to know people.

And so I think you can hit the ground. running, the more familiar you are with the people around you. And it's also problematic because if you don't know how these people are going to react when shit goes bad, and trust me, shit's going to go bad. It's just a fact. It's life. Shit's going to go bad. And I want to know who in the foxhole I can trust. And I don't really have time to have a period of get to know each other in warm and fuzzy. Okay. I got news for you. We're rolling, baby, and we need to know. And as crazy as it sounds, I think the more you can communicate with others before you hire them, the better chance you have to succeeding once you're together. So I've been nervous about this type of setup.

Hey, how did it go for the Carolina Panthers last year when they brought in the highest- All-Star staff. All-Star staff of this and that, and none of them could talk to each other, and it was a complete debacle by everybody's admission. So I don't know. I hope it works out for them. I'll tell you what it does. It puts a ton of pressure on Dan Quinn and Adam Peters to be the glue. If not, they better have another person or two in that building who can be the glue, who can be the communicators, who can bring thoughts and ideas between silos together. Because you don't need silos. You need everybody under one roof working in the barn, okay?

And I don't know you're always going to get that when you don't know the people you're saddling up with. That's a struggle for me. Yeah, excellent. Next week, Randy, I think we'll discuss this, maybe after we watch it, that dynasty documentary on the Patriots. I didn't want to dive too deep into that because I want to hit the GM notebook and we want to stay on schedule here. But we've seen a few things kind of come out of that that maybe they're just putting

out the parts that are most controversial. But what's your take there? Well, I have not seen it. I really didn't know if I was going to see it. But I've heard enough the last few days, especially, to make me now want to see it. Some of the stuff that's trickling out about the culture and the temperament and everything else that just kind of makes me think that is this stuff going to cost Bill Belichick a chance to get another job down the road somewhere?

Because the things that have trickled out have not set good with players, whether it's Tom Brady saying, I've just had enough or Gronk or I believe it was Gronk that said I just parked outside the building and I didn't want to go in because he knew the grind he was going to face. So, you know, I don't know that this stuff's going to help the cause per se. I guess it tells a story and it's compelling. I get it. But I don't know what it does for the future. And that's the first thing I thought of without seeing it is what does it do for the future of Bill

and really redoing this again for it. It is a true dynasty. Yeah, I'd like to see it. And then like you say, talk about it. Yeah, absolutely. Do you think Belichick could land with the Jets next year? Does that make sense to you? Because I was trying to find a place for him.

That was really a one. It might make sense. I mean, I know Woody. I love Woody. Woody's a great guy. He might be the kind of personality that just turns it over to somebody like Bill. Gosh, I don't know. Bill's going to be another year older.

I agree. I do think the Jets are as much on the hot seat as any team in the league. So if anything's possible, I think, in that building. All right. Let's hit the GM notebook and we'll roll out of here. Just a couple quick things. The first thing stemmed off of that free agent work. that we talked about.

I think for me, and this will be something we talk about over the next few weeks, the one team that's most vulnerable heading into free agency for me is the Baltimore Ravens. For one, they lost their mastermind on defense. He's now the head coach of the Seahawks. But I don't think there's another team who has more players in free agency that had impact with their team this year. So this team is not going to be the same team, I don't believe. And we said when the Ravens lost this year, we said this is Lamar's best chance because

it's the best defense he's had and the best team he's ever had. Will they be able to do it again? You tell me, they have both starting guards that are free. They have Van Nuoy and Clowny are free. They have Queens, the middle linebacker, who's really good free. They have all kinds of people. They have the defensive tackle who may end up being the star of free agency. My point is there is just a lot of potential for this roster to be raided.

Now, I'm sure they'll find a way to keep a few guys, but the OBJ is free, and I happen to think OBJ is still good and still has a market out there. Gus Edwards, he is a really good running back. So my point is out every level, they stand a chance to get raided, and I don't know that we're going to see the Ravens at the same. same talent level that we saw the last couple years, that's for sure, especially this last year. My only counter to that would be, you know, what's interesting is a lot of those guys are guys that they picked up from other places. They've been really good at getting the guys on their

third contracts, plugging them in, making them fit. But that's a lot of change with the new coordinator too. And if Mike McDonald really is all that and really was a big reason for behind their success, I agree with you. I think they and the 49ers had their best teams with this group, with this core group of the quarterback and everything to win the Super Bowl and didn't do it. So those are huge missed opportunities for them. What else you got in the notebook? One other note I had is we see teams now starting to shed themselves of contracts and of players already.

As you know, the roster's kind of opened up after the season is ended now and teams are free to make moves. Everybody says, why now? Well, as you know, a couple things. One, that contracts have triggering mechanisms that, you know, feature guarantees, roster bonuses, all that stuff factors in now. And so from a team standpoint, you're left with being up against it and having to make a decision to maybe not guarantee certain contracts.

We saw in Seattle this week where they said Gino Smith would pick up his guarantee at the end of the week and therefore guaranteed $12.5 million for next year. Decisions like that. So you see players with big contracts, especially get released. But the other thing is, players who there's any doubt in whether they're going to return or not, they kind of want to be released now as well. So they may go to a front office and say, hey, we let me out now and people say, well, why would they do that? Players want to be free when teams have money.

They want to be free when their cap is available. And nobody will have more cap dollars than after the first day of the league year because then it starts to dissipate. So players actually want to be freed up sooner than later as well. So I just thought we'd make that point to some of our listeners. Absolutely. And not just the cap space, but the cash budgeting is a huge part of that too. Once you start to, you know, once you start to do that and spend your money, you don't just have unlimited more money even if you have cap space.

So that's that. We've got one more item in the notebook. Kind of deductailing off of what we just said. There's some key dates coming up. And most our listeners probably already know this, but starting on the 20th teams can designate players for franchise and transition tags. That's a two-week window, 15 days, something like that. As you know, we're both going because the combine is the end of the month as well. That's the 27th through March 4th. And then there's a legal tampering in there on March 11, 12, 13th before the new league

year cuts off. So we had the Super Bowl Sunday, and now of a sudden we're already planning for next year. And these dates, I think, are important dates for the league. And I just thought sharing those some of listeners might in tune them to, we're already rolling on next year's stuff. We are. We are. We don't have any more picks, Randy, to make this year. Thank goodness.

No, we were, I'm going to, I got some good spin here. A good spin. So we both picked the Kansas City and the points, so we got it. So combined Randy, the two of us together as a dynamic duo against the spread this year, we were 60, 54, and 3. So we made our listeners tons of money. They were obviously making, you know, betting off of all of these. So they came out ahead.

I think we delivered, and we'll leave it at that. What do you say? I'm ready to leave it at that. That's perfect. I'm going with your spin. I like it. That's accurate, though. That was our combined record, 60 and 54 and 3, so we'll take it.

We'll take that against the spread. And we'll take this season anytime. It was a great season. And guess what? It just keeps on going. We are on to 2024. We will be going to the combine. And we'll have more for you in the weeks to come.

This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. podcast.