The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Stefon Diggs situation, Stan Kroenke’s championships, Broncos sign Frank Clark & more

Episode Date: June 15, 2023

Mike Sando and Randy Mueller begin the show by discussing the Stefon Diggs situation in Buffalo. Then, they talk about Stan Kroenke’s multiple championships across several sports and what it takes to be a successful owner. They also break down Frank Clark’s deal with the Broncos, Danielle Hunter’s contract issues in Minnesota and much more. Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube5:33 Stefon Diggs situation in Buffalo25:50 Stan Kroenke ownership takeaways36:47 Broncos sign Frank Clark39:21 Danielle Hunter’s contract issues46:55 Franchise player updates49:09 GM Notebook Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Before we jump in, I want to tell you about New York Times Audio, a new iOS app for New York Times news subscribers. It's got our show, plus all the other podcasts from The Athletic, exclusive shows, narrated articles, and more. New York Times Audio, download it now at n.ytimes.com slash audio app. Welcome to the football GM podcast, Mike Sando of the Athletic here, along with the GM, Randy Mueller, and Randy. We are in mid-June. I actually was speaking with a general manager from an NFL team yesterday. He had the car idling in the parking lot, man. He was ready to get out of there. What was your mindset or is your mindset as a GM or just being in football this time of year,

right? People are ready to get out of there, aren't they? 100% yes. And most of the time, you and I are fired up on these podcasts to kind of tackle some of the topics, but I kind of have that same feeling as the GMs, although we're going to get into some stuff that I think listeners will find very interesting. You are ready the last day of school to get out. Whenever that is, and these teams all this week to end on certain days, we saw the Seahawks go for canoe rides yesterday off of their practice field. Everybody plans it and finishes a little different, but it does equate to the last day of school. And there's been a long. grind really all spring and it seems like these off seasons now are just attached to the season

but there is a month or so here of downtime where players coaches front office people look forward to getting away the biggest change i think we've seen over the last five six years especially is the rookie contracts don't take up as much time so the offseason uh draft you know analysis of every dollar being spent and allocated for rookie pool purposes and the rookie's contracts are pretty much slotted now. So that used to take up your vacation even when you weren't, you know, there in the office every day. But I can definitely feel people wanting to get out of town.

I think I remember standing around the last day or two of our mandatory mini camps, just crossing my fingers, hoping nobody gets hurt, hoping nothing bad happens so you can get out of town. Now it seems like it's more complicated than ever with a lot of the contracts and agendas that teams and players have. And it's just a good time for a break for everybody. So long-winded answer, but yes, Mike, I think we're all ready for a break. And you saw, speaking of injuries, the Jets lost Chuck Clark, you know, one of their safeties they signed. So they're kind of scrambling in that market. That's a, you know, always a bad type situation.

One of the things that's changed, too, I think, in recent years that I've liked just as a human being. As much as I like football, you know, you do like to have some time off in the off season is, you know, I think when the players did their bargaining, they got some of these weekends insulated. You know, so a lot of these camps have been during the week in recent months. And I've, I just like that. I just, there used to be, it's a seven-day-a-week thing during the season, of course, and it is really through the draft a lot. A lot. So getting some weekends built in, I think, running up to this. And now you basically go dark for a month in the NFL. And for us, this will be our last podcast until we come back for training camp. There are some things to talk about, some kind of mysteries, too. Interesting stuff.

I know, Randy, when I first started, I'd covered college football and, you know, high schools before that through a lot of the 90s. And then my first beat job, as you know, was covering the Seahawks in 1998, and I had the pleasure of, I wouldn't say replacing, but I was the next guy who was hired after John Clayton left to go to ESPN. And I remember John was a great mentor. We went out to mini camp together that May of, I think, 1998, and he was showing me the ropes and telling me how to do stuff. And he goes, hey, Sando, these camps here now, not a lot of meaning in him.

Don't read too much into them. really just go watch to practice, talk to people, get to build your relationships, but he goes, I don't even write out of these things. And it's funny, now all these years later, shoot, we're getting play by play is out of the mini camps, right? Do you remember any play? Do you remember your mini camp coverage from last year, Randy, and how that had applied or no? I don't know. Yeah, I think you're right. But I think the content now is everybody's starving for content, so everybody's trying to make up stories. But yes, 100%. These, these offseason really football issues are necessary, but they don't go a long ways. It's more of a teaching and learning type

period. And yeah, we get to do some things on the field that we've been teaching in the classroom for the last month. But you're right. As far as evaluations go, it's really hard to remember any particular day practice, period within a practice. It's just all kind of runs together. So as all being part of the process, it's kind of, well, you do nowadays, but yes, there's not a lot of decisions being made with what they see out there currently. But there are some lingering issues and things that are interesting. This Stefan Digg's situation is one of them, Randy, because if you go back to last season,

well, shoot, we can go back to Minnesota. I mean, he wasn't happy in Minnesota. That's why he got traded. So there's a little bit of a shelf life there, some management involved. And then he got to the bills. He's been very productive. I mean, he's certainly in the top five in the league for, I think he's number one in receptions the last three years. And then he's, you know, top five or so in yardage and

touchdowns and all that really has been a big producer for the bills. But there is some maintenance involved there. And so last season, when their season ended in the playoffs, you know, he was nowhere to be found afterwards, which isn't the end of the world. I mean, the first player to skip out on his interviews after the game when he's upset. But then even early this offseason, I mean, it was still. burning pretty hot for him. And now we have the bills at their mandatory camp. And if there is anything important about this association, it's probably the mandatory camp. You can get fine for not being there. It's mandatory for a reason. You probably get the best work with the most people there,

including the important players on your team. And so yesterday, as we were recording this on Wednesday, so it would have been on Tuesday, basically we had Sean, Dermott, the coach of the bills, telling the reporters after Diggs wasn't at practice, Steph is not here. Everybody else is here at the current time. He was asked, how concerned are very concerned, very concerned? He said, I respect everyone's questions and they want to know about our team right now. I'm not going to get into that. So later we found out Diggs was in Buffalo. He was even at the facility Monday and Tuesday, left before practice. By the way, he did get a new contract last year. As a GM, there's always something, Randy, right? There's always something. There's

probably 10 more things going on behind on Brandon Bean's desk that we'll never know about. But where's this, what's your sort of feel when you see something like this? Well, I had several takeaways, to be honest with you. One was just the demeanor by which Sean McDermott answered those questions. It seemed to me like, Mike, that either he wasn't informed, hadn't thought through an answer, or he was just kind of panic-stricken. It didn't come across this, hey, we have a plan here. Let's kind of slow play this. Let's poop-poo it a little bit. He led his reactions and his emotions show, in my opinion. The same can be said when they put Josh Allen, the quarterback in front of the media at a later date or later time as well. He seemed

like he was kind of covering his tracks about certain things. And there's definitely some drama behind the scenes. The other part of it that I thought was really interesting, and I think we'll get more facts as this case kind of unfolds without a doubt. I always adhere to this boring statement, but there's something we don't know the knowing of which we'll change everything. That's just the way it is. And the other thing, though, that I thought was peculiar was the fact that his agent had been there and the last couple days involved in some kind of discussions for maybe reasons we don't know. Now, it's it's not uncommon for an agent to be in town if he's working on marketing deals or some other outside football type uh you know negotiations it would be interesting to know why he would be there

on if if any of these discussions were on the football side because as you mentioned mike stephan digs just signed a new contract a year ago i think he's due 24 and a half million dollars this year so that really can't be at stake so i don't think because he just signed i think i think it was a $98 million four-year deal. So there's plenty of money there. That shouldn't be a problem. But we have in the past seen teams kind of implode when pressure is on them. And you mentioned this in our call yesterday about, has Buffalo cracked a little bit here?

Or have they showed a little bit of a crack in their armor with a window closing narrative that's been out there in the media now recently that they've failed to push it. through the last couple years, has that changed the dynamic of where they are as a team? I don't know. But the answers for me, in the demeanor of, like I said, Josh Allen and Sean McDermott yesterday were a little concerning. So I echo the coach's feelings. It was concerning for me the way he answered the question.

So a lot of drama, a lot of narrative, probably a lot of things we don't know, but that was kind of my general takeaway. Oh, there's a couple of areas I want to go on this thing. then because I think with McDermott, he is kind of, he can be terse and fiery, and he doesn't do always a great job of just not letting him see you sweat. He's kind of up there after games, and he's hot about things, and you can kind of tell. So that could just be, what it is, everyone has a different demeanor. That seems to be kind of the one that he brings. He's pugnacious. You know, he's a defensive coordinator, and he's emotional.

But on that, so big picture on that Bill's thing, you know, one of the things I think that's notable, I think there is a lot to the idea of there's pressure on to win a championship with this group or even get to a Super Bowl. But the thing I've noticed about the bills is that in trying to keep up with the Chiefs, they're actually possibly losing ground even as they press harder. What I mean by that is the Chiefs just won the Super Bowl. during a season in which they kind of did a reset on their books. You know, they unloaded Tyree Kill. They embraced a bit of a youth movement on defense, which is continuing this hot season. It would have been real easy for them to be the team that falls short.

And, hey, you know what, we've won a Super Bowl, and now we had to do some things cap-wise for our long-term future. And in the meantime, Buffalo, that was their window to kind of win. But instead, while they get rid of Tyree Kill and have to reset their whole offense, they win it all, which to me is just such a great testament to their team and their quarterback. They have a magic quarterback, the injury in the Super Bowl.

They're able to do that. But meanwhile, the bills, instead of unloading a Tyree kill and having all this flexibility, shoot, they're leveraged. You know, they've got the contract to Von Miller. They guaranteed the first three years, haven't gotten much in return because of the injury, the age. They have less flexibility, a smaller margin for error, even though they're the hunter.

And so this dig situation, maybe it's nothing, totally unrelated to that. But I think it is related in this sense that even, I'm not saying Tyra or Stefan Diggs isn't there because of any of that. But if you go into this bigger, it's just another thing that is kind of part of the pressure point. And he has really enunciated that pressure point too. If you go back to even this offseason, he's still been frustrated about the loss. he's made comments to HBO that basically it wasn't like

I mean he's mystified of why they didn't win but what's he leaving unsaid he said we've got the players we have to play as things aren't coming together what do you mean by that because that's not right after the game that's in February March you're saying that

so then when you don't go to any of the voluntary stuff you just got paid here you okay no big deal but now this yeah no no Yeah, no, I agree. I think there might have been a slight reflection pointed at coaching per se, our offensive philosophy maybe. I mean, this is a team that added Dalton Kincaid and now they're rumored to be interested in DeAndre Hopkins. So they're talking about adding another piece to the puzzle. I thought it was interesting in that when you break down exactly what Josh Allen said. He was effusive with his praise for Diggs and the fact that Diggs was his guy and that I, maybe the organization hasn't communicated to him, to us, you know, like we would like him to. So he was obviously covering some type of a riff somewhere in Diggs's mind, at least, but for

a quarterback to have to come out and hug up his receiver, who everybody knows is his guy, but publicly I thought it was a giant Kumbaya moment where he's trying to draw Diggs back to the fray here by saying, hey, we're going to have him back, we're going to get it sorted out, we're going to get to the bottom of this. It just seemed like kind of weird timing for all of this to have happened, you know? Yeah, so I think that's a great point because within the past week or 10 days, Brandon Bean, the GM of the bills, said he spoke personally to Andre Hopkins. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, these guys care, obviously, receivers about their numbers. It's their money. It's their livelihood. And Bean said at that time, he would not rule out adding Hopkins.

So I could see Diggs being the type of player who could see this as being a threat to his numbers or his sovereignty or his position on the team. What are we doing? You want to talk to because DeAndre Hopkins isn't just another receiver. He comes in. With some cachet. Yeah. He's an alpha. I mean, and physically he's different.

Like he comes in like he's taller. He's a big dude. And he's going to want that ball a lot. And he's going to be a new. new friend. You know, right now it's been Diggs and Josh Allen besties, right? Well, hey, what do you mean? You're going over to this guy's house after school?

No, I hear it. Add Dalton Kincaid in there who we all think's going to have a giant year and be a big weapon and he's more than a tight end. He's really another option. So, yes, they're adding options to the fray. I don't know if egos are getting bruised here a little bit or not. But when you couple that, and I didn't mean to cut you off, Mike, but when you couple that with the response of Josh and what he exactly said, there's a little soap opera stirring here, I think, you know. Absolutely, yes.

So, you know, I think the Hopkins thing, just looking at this thing from 10,000 feet, that makes a lot of sense that that could be, hey, what are we doing? I did mention the new contract, you know, for Diggs last off season. And it was solid extension, but it wasn't like he was on the market. It wasn't the sort of deal Tyreek Hill and Devante Adams got, you know, where they really were in position to leverage even more and got higher AP-wise, average per year and all of that. And so it made me think, you know, at the risk of getting too far removed from what may or may not be going on there.

But I was just looking ahead big picture. And, you know, when he was, when Diggs was traded from Minnesota, they got a first-round pick they used for Justin Jefferson. Well, Justin Jefferson's about to get a new contract, too. And don't you think Justin Jefferson goes the top of all of them? He goes above Tyreekill. Do you think so? Well, he's probably going to go above most.

Yeah, and you're right. I guess if you're looking at it, yeah, that's kind of the timing will be important when it happens. But he probably does go to the top. I would think that he does. I mean, he is sensational, and he's younger than those guys. And there's everything about him. There's nothing about him that you're worried about. Right.

You know, like, Terry Hill has some, yeah, Terry Hill has some, you know, some baggage, right? Oh, yeah. There's nothing you worry about Devante Adams, but he's a little bit older. You know, I think Justin Jefferson is in his prime, maybe even still ascending. Arguably, if he's not the best receiver,

I mean, certainly if you were going to sign up, if you can sign up for any receiver in the league right now for the next five years, you'd take him, right? Yeah, probably so. Yeah. Yeah. So I think he's got a great. case to go to the top. And I think that will be another sort of thing. Like if you have Diggs,

who's just a little bit fragile here, or, you know, there's always something. He's, he's kind of balancing to stay there. You got the Hopkins flirtation. You got his old team, Justin Jefferson. What if he gets the deal that he never got from Minnesota, right? Yep. And you never know who's in these guys here. So I just couple that all in with all the, all the, the Buffalo pressure. Yeah. No, I think you're right. And I think you mentioned it earlier, is that they could have doused some of the flames. They just fanned the flames with the reaction and the demeanor of both the coach and Josh Allen. So it's not going away. Again, I think there's stuff we're going to find out down the road that we're not going to address on this podcast. But there are some things that make you wonder what's going on there. I will say this, Brandon Bean has guided a ship in calm water. for the most part throughout the last few years very well. Now the water is a little shaky. We've got some waves coming in.

It'll be interesting to see because he's going to have to be the guiding night here. And I don't have any doubt that he'll do a good job. It's just that it's a different role. They have swung and missed in some guys, some people's eyes the last couple years. The pressure is on. Now we've got a little drama to deal with. So there's some different kinds of aspects to running a team that, most don't see until it happens.

And so we'll see how this shakes out. But yeah, I think the pressure is definitely on for all those reasons in Buffalo. And sometimes you wonder why, certainly as a reporter, you've wondered, you've wondered this, you always love it when the GM or the head coach are totally forthcoming and tell what's on their mind and all of that. But there's kind of a reason sometimes why they don't even say that they talk to DeAndre Hopkins or that they have to personally. I agree.

Because you got a bunch of people in that locker room who are paying attention to every word, hanging on every word there, you know. And so maybe, no, that's a great point. I don't know that I would have been. Yeah, I would have never probably come clean with any of this stuff. But that's the times have changed, I guess. They feel like they have to come clean with a lot of stuff. I could easily play dumb or, you know, like you said, the Bill Belichick, hey, we're going to

you know, cover up some of the things we've said and not in a deceiving way, just that some things are better left unsaid. And if the outside world connects the dots, so be it. And the other big difference from even 10 years ago is social media is people's lives. It is their reality. It is to be reckoned with. And so the players, I mean all of us, but especially players who have so many followers and they're in the news all the time. They and their families, you know, their spouses, their kids, their parents are all aware of everything that's being said. And so it can really create, I thought that was, I went to the Raiders camp earlier this off season and I was really impressed by Devante Adams because I believed him when he said it,

he spoke with conviction about not living in that world. Randy, you know, just you can drive yourself crazy as a player worrying about the wrong things. And I don't know, you know, I'm not saying this about Dig specifically, but just in general, when what's happening in social media is a huge percent of your experience, it is your, it is reality for you. That's a component of all this stuff too. That's hard to, it's hard to deal with that. It's hard for kids to deal with that certainly these days.

and a star like that who's 20, 25 years old, having people say you're getting disrespected or whatever, right? They're listening to a lot more people. It's hard for us as adults, Mike, 60-year-old adults to deal with it. Because you and I both know this in the... You're not, but I am. But those of us even in the media that we put certain our name on content, and it gets drugged through the mud and criticized by those who know way more than us.

and I'm saying that tongue and cheek, but it forces us to not have to go down that route. I can't look at all these comments that are being said about the article that Mike Sando wrote. It doesn't. Why would I get into a, you know, a tet per tete on something like that with somebody. It just puts us all on alert all the time. And I can,

and we don't have one tenth of the pressure that these players, coaches, GMs have. So yes, I see exactly your point. And I totally concur. and it can be your whole life if you allow it. So you have to have some sort of discipline, and that's hard. Maybe you do it, but like you said, the rest of your family does not.

They don't want to see their loved one get beat up. So they're responding to this or to that. It's a hard, hard, it's a hard position to put these players who are on stage 24-7, 365, in trying to keep sanity in their world. Well, I, I, Stefan, we'll bring this back to Stefan Diggs because he, in an attempt to, I don't know what, maybe bring some clear to this heat, where did he go? He went to Instagram. Yeah. Right.

What does that tell you? Yeah. I don't know what he was saying. Yeah. It was pretty cryptic. I know that. Yeah. It was a little cryptic.

Yeah. But now we're forced to have to read through cryptic notes on Instagram to sort things out. There's such a thirst for the content, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And look, you know, maybe if I was in high school, this would make total sense to me. Let me guess there's some abbreviations and some things that makes sense. My phone's been silent for like six years. You know, I mean, yeah, I don't know what he's, I don't think anyone really knows exactly what he's referring to. But he knows and it's really important to him. Think of that. It's really, it's important enough for him potentially to not be.

There? I don't know. Maybe we'll find something else out. I just think it's fascinating. I think all of this team management of the team stuff is really what we talk about a lot. And so whether or not the digs thing just blows over, whether or not it's just a misunderstanding, this is kind of a little bit of a window into, you know, it's a big part of this. You've got to manage your team.

And we've said this on this podcast often and risking boredom. When GMs get hired, everybody thinks they sit in a room and pick players. Even ownership, even search groups, they don't know what it entails because these are the kind of things that take up about 70% of your day. You become a fixer, a people person, a communicator, all of the above, and maybe 30% of the time do you get to sit and watch tape? So you have to depend on a lot of others. But yes, managing your team and these kind of crisis modes are the hardest thing. predict when you hire decision makers of how they're going to handle it because most have never been a part of it most have never been down this road to have to make these decisions and you hope

that they are wired into dealing with chaos better than the other 31 in the legal or at least most of them and so yes it's a part of the job now that is every day and it was like that you know for even the last 30 years you've got to be a crisis management guy and a communicator with people and teams who hire people to pick players usually fail, not because of the players, but because of dealing with all this other stuff. And keeping the ship on the waters or the train on the tracks is a hard, hard job. A little bit of a segue here. We're going to talk about Stan Cronkey and his ownership takeaways. But when you said that, talking about building a team, I was thinking of the Denver Nuggets owned by Stan Cronkey winning this championship. And just how low-key and low-maintenance their

superstar, Nicole Yolkich was. Unbelievable. I mean, the game's ending. He's going over and shaking, like he felt bad for the heat. You know, he's like, hey, guys. You know, he's consoling these guys. And then he's like, oh, there's a parade. You know, I want to go home.

You know, I mean, it was as if they had just won, you know, a game in May almost. You know, it was unbelievable. I mean, you talk about what it takes to put together a team. You can't always control, you know, how your best players are going to conduct themselves. but I thought, wow, watching that window and seeing him perform and the way he reacted to it, that's going to have some staying power. And so did you watch the end of the NBA finals? I watched every minute of it, and I concur 100%.

I would want to hug this guy to death and then ride him like a horse as long as we could. I will say this, and this is not a basketball podcast, but when the coach came out afterwards, what's his name, Mike? forgive me, Mike Malone, who we all know is a coach at heart, his dad was a long-time assistant with the Pistons, Chuck Daly, all of that. The one takeaway I had was, is that almost immediately after that game was over, he started to set the direction of his team and his franchise by saying, we're not done, we expect more. Was that a subliminal message to Stan Cronkey and to ownership? because we all know what they're going to about to go through money-wise and have to ante up for contracts and reworking of this franchise.

My point was, was that a conscious effort by him to say, hey, we've spent money in the past, but we're going to have to spend a lot more. And we all are on board with this trying to put pressure a little bit on the future to hold this team together. Or was I just, you know, is that more dots to connect? I love that. Because the reason I put Kronki on here was, I'm sure people have seen it written about how he's got this run of success with these teams, right? The Rams won a Super Bowl a couple years ago, the Nuggets now, NHL's Avalanche, he owns them. There's even a couple other teams, Randy, I wasn't sure existed, the Colorado Mammoth of lacrosse. Even a Call of Duty league team.

How about that? That's awesome, man. He's a winner. He's a winner. I needed a video game team when I was younger. but that's a pretty impressive run. And so I guess the one thing that stands out to him, I just know mostly from the Rams,

is just he seems pretty generous for the checkbook. You know, the Rams have bought their way out of contracts they didn't love, Jared Gough, whatever. We've talked sometimes about what makes a good owner, and a lot of times it's a good players and a good coach. But it's really hard to win a championship. You think how hard it is, Randy, to win a championship. You know, really, really hard to win a championship.

When an owner has multiple teams and multiple leagues and they're all winning at all, is there something to that? What do you think? Oh, 100%. And I totally agree. I think it does start at the top. It does start with ownership. And I do think Mike Malone was subliminally sending a little message that I think he knows the answer to.

Stan Cronky has never shied away from spending money. There are, well, I'm just going to guess, at least half of the NFL owners probably would not do what Stan Cronky did. when it comes to writing checks coming up with the cash that the Rams came up with prior to the Super Bowl, during the run, and then since. They have flushed millions and millions and millions that most NFL franchise would never even consider doing. In fact, when they got rid of Jared Gough after just paying him, you'd say, that's asinine. That's crazy. You'd never think of that. How can you flush that much money down the tubes?

Then they redid Ramsey's contract. and they redid this guy's contract and they paid a ton of money. They just keep doing it. And so I give Stan Cronky credit for not being deterred by being willing to spend the money to get the championships. And I think you'll see that in Denver now with the Nuggets. I think he'll sign those players that are said to be on the road. He'll pay the luxury tax. He'll do whatever if history is any indication of the future and we know it's the best predictor of it.

So I think he will come up with the money to pay, just like he did with the Rams. And I think he should be lauded for what he's done because I've been some places where the answer is no before the question even comes up. And I don't get the sense that the Rams get told no very often for anything. That's what I was going to say. So one of the really interesting points that was made to me a couple years ago about owners was I was talking to somebody who was really impressed with Jeff Lurie of the Eagles because his theory was on luring and owners in general

that not all of them stay hungry. Like you win it all, are you willing to keep pushing, right? So if you look at the Eagles, you know, when they, you know, when the Eagles won the Super Bowl, they reset with a different group. Yep. You know, and really poor, I mean, shoot, they ate contracts on Wentz. They kept pushing, and you can criticize moves. any individual moves, that's not what I'm talking about.

I'm just saying they stayed real active. They were chasing it as if they hadn't been to the Super Bowl, right? 100%. And I think that is a test probably too of ownership. And so now that Kronkis enjoyed that success, does it, I think what you're saying is you do expect him to continue to push. And that's an interesting take to me on Malone's thing. When Malone said that, I thought of Pat Rowley.

Remember when they won the Lakers, when he was their coach in the 80s, I think they won the 87 NBA title. And then at the parade, he guaranteed another one. Now, Malone didn't guarantee another one. But it was a way to keep his group of veteran players motivated. This would be a different type of a message. Well, I think it's a way to keep his group together. I think that was his message was that whoever is listening, let's keep this group together and do it longer because we have the makings of what could be a dynasty unless we get in the way, unless we don't want to pay, unless we decide to make some changes.

So yes, and your point on Lurie is exactly right. This year's Eagles is exactly the example. They have been willing to go out and acquire players and pay backups, role players, rotational guys, where a lot of ownership would say, whoa, whoa, do we really need that? Do we really need the backup running back to make $3 million? You know, there was no questions asking Philadelphia. And I've always thought this about Jeff Lurie. And I think Howie has been a reflection of that. There is no hurdles that ownership puts in front of them that stops them from building and building and building.

And that means one through 53. And you wait, they'll end up spending some money on some practice squad guys more than anybody else will pay. And so there's no hurdles. And it's a great time or a great spot to be Howie Roseman because you don't have, that's not a common thread throughout pro sports. Right. But the analysis that you'll read or see from people will be like, oh, you got to credit Hallie Rosenman. I'm not taking anything away from Howie Roseman. No, no, I get it.

But like if he was on a different team, somebody else might be in Philadelphia being aggressive, not as successful or maybe more. I have no idea. but that starts with ownership, your ability to always be in every deal and to be creative and say, why not? Hey, no doubt. Let's do this. Even this last draft, let's take Carter. Let's take Jalen Carter. There's some teams that we're not doing that.

It's a swing. They could fall flat on their face, but they're swinging all the time. They're never going to say we didn't give it our all. They're never going to say, hey, we're not all in. Those are the kind of places that are all in all the time, and I absolutely love it. Yep. Okay, another place that's all in on a couple of guys is Denver. They obviously are all in, which I want to, before we talk about the Frank Clark signing, now I just think of this.

We're talking about Cronky and the Nuggets. You a big fan of seeing Russell Wilson and Sierra and Sean Peyton and I know Peyton these guys in the front row or whatever at Denver. Just curious what you thought in the optics of where the Broncos have been. All good, just all part of the tone. team or what do you think? Well, we've talked about it before. I, you know, I hate to pile on. I do think we've seen less of that from Russell this past off season. I think we've seen less social media activity, less attention-driven posting of stuff that, you know, but yeah, I really, I mean,

everybody's wanting to get in on a world championship. I get it. And we saw Peyton Manning. We saw others that were highlighted on the telecast. I understand it. But, you know, I could probably live without it. I just think that where they are as a team and as an organization in Denver, and again, they can't control what people show on TV, but optics are important. I just think I would love to see it more team-oriented, more all of us are in this together, not setting aside special, you know, but they can't control what TV shows. But you can't control the position that you put a group in so that optics do matter.

So, you know, I'm not going to make a big deal out of it, but I prefer not to be honest with you. Yeah, I don't think it's a big deal at all, but I do think that it shows. There's not an intentional effort to look like it were nose to the grindstone, right? Which is what I would probably be encouraging is, hey, guys, they got a lot of work to do. So it was just interesting to me, like, hey, stars at the game. And I thought even one of the announcers kind of took a swipe at Russell there, you know, a little bit. It was just kind of, I don't know. I agree with you.

I think he's an easy target now because of his play having dropped off. We're going to get people that say, you guys are old guys on the yard trying to, you know, tell people to get off our yard. I get it. I understand. And is it a giant thing? No. But it is. Yeah, it was, I just noticed it.

I just noticed it in the game. We were going to talk about Denver. It didn't even occur to me again until we had the Frank Clark signing on here. And I thought, oh, we're talking about the avalanche. I just, or the avalanche, the Nuggets. and seeing those guys, you know, basking there. It's cool. It's cool they're sporting.

I just, I was curious what you thought. Now, they do sign Frank Clark, turned 30 years old on Wednesday. The Chiefs had cut him, moved on to some younger players. He had a career high 13 sacks, and his final year was Seattle before they traded him to Denver. Didn't have a double-disset sex season in his four years with the Chiefs unless he got the playoffs, but really played a role on a team that won a couple titles. Just curious what you think about Frank Clark specifically as in addition to the Broncos under Sean Peyton. Do you think he's got juice left or what do you think?

Well, I would say the move on its own doesn't really move the meter for me, basically because I think there are pros and cons to doing it. I think it's a little risky because, you know, the rep out of Kansas City was that he didn't play all the time. They had to rotate him at certain, you know, times. We all know about the off-the-field baggage. that kind of continues to rear its head there. I was a little surprised in a environment that's trying to change culture and build culture. I guess what Sean Payton thinks is that his sacks being a subrusher maybe,

the role that he's going to give him and the fact that he has been on a couple of Super Bowl teams, that outweighs any of the negative parts of it. I'm sure they had to get a sit-down meeting and Frank said, hey, I'm all in, I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that. time will tell. It's not a move that moves the meter for me. I don't think he'll be a vital cog for them, but I think what Sean sees is a guy who can make a sack and change a game. His impactful plays and the position he plays are something that are hard for teams to acquire. And I'm sure that's why Sean viewed this one, even though it's a one-year deal on a guy whose production has not

showed. Yeah, and maybe he's, you know, maybe he's up for a couple games against Kansas city every year and it helps them uh you know that patrick mahomes is 26 and three against the fc west 26 and 3 that's unbelievable yeah he never lost to denver he's never lost to denver i did not know that i think the chargers maybe got him twice and the raiders once that's crazy 263 is pretty good so that's pretty good out in the yard playing with kids that's pretty good is that pretty good that's what patin's walking into here in that division yeah i mean So you're right. I don't think Sean or anyone there thinks that Frank Clark is tipping the balance,

but you're adding a veteran player at a premium position. And, yeah, it's not a huge deal. But another pastor who's in the news, a little bit is Danil Hunter with the Vikings. And I think his case is a little bit interesting too. I think you did too because I'm looking at our notes here. You sketched a few things in there. But this one's interesting to me because of just all of, of sort of where the Vikings are at, where Hunter is at in his career.

He's entering the final year of his contract. He had 10 and a half sacks last year. He's got 71 sacks for his career. I think he's eighth in sacks over the last five seasons, even though he's missed a year and a half with injuries. But you've got this new regime, relatively new coach, GM, that's totally in reset the books mode, Randy. I mean, they're moving on from guys, Dalvin Cook,

getting out of contracts more than investing in what was there. I guess you could say they invested in Kirk Cousins, but even in doing that, they gave themselves an exit that maybe wasn't as easy before. So then you bring in Brian Flores. There's scheme components now. If you go back to when Flores was in Miami, shoot, there were good players who didn't fit

or were coming in and out of there all the time. Just curious what you think about Hunter and the fit there with the changes in that situation. Yeah, I thought there was a lot to unpack based on who Daniel Hunter is. Like you said, Flore is the scheme. I think we've been through this before. I was surprised when I read that he's only 28 years old. It seems like we bet a lot of contract issues for a guy that's 28 years old.

And maybe that's just me. He reworked his deal last year with him. And they front-loaded a bunch of money, which really brought his base down this year to $5.5 million. So that's a little fictitious in that he's, everybody says, oh, he's way underpaid. Well, he's underpaid because he got paid it all last year. They moved it all forward. And I thought our colleague, Alec Lewis, did a really good job in a column for the athletic this year of breaking down the details behind why win if what Minnesota is going to do and kind of reasoning behind it. But you hit on a couple things.

One, the fit does matter. They are a team who has not hesitated to get rid of veterans. Like you mentioned, Cook, how about Adam Thielen? Eric Kendricks. I mean, they've got rid of some stars there in the past. This guy has one year left on his deal. My guess is he's looking for a big money, long-term deal. They may or may not give it to him.

I don't know how that's going to work out. I think you'd like to see him fit in with Brian Flores' defense before you committed. I think even last year, as Alec pointed out, they used him to drop into coverage more than he ever had before. So fits matter. We talk about it when drafting players, and we've talked about it on the podcast, how fit matters. Well, it matters with veteran players too.

And when you have coaching changes, scheme changes, that matters as well. So it'll be interesting to see how they, you know, view him. I think it's easy for listeners or fans to say, just pay the player. You had this many sacks or this many this. Well, okay. And so you have to pay him in accordance is the contract part of that. And you have to value the contract and the player's ability. But then also you have to value your own.

own options. We saw the Vikings have options with Alexander Madison. And yeah, maybe Alexander Madison isn't quite Dalvin Cook, but he's not far off. And that's why they did what they did. I'm not suggesting they have another rusher of Daniel Hunter's ilk. But as a GM, if I know I'm going to have to pay somebody, I'm always out looking for somebody that's going to help me save some money down the road and not drop off in production. Really, that's what team building is all about. It's about options. So it'll be interesting to see how this deal works out.

It was rumored. I think Ian Rapapo reported last week that the Vikings are fielding calls on Hunter. It's a little bit of a convoluted compensative package that you'd ask for because, one, are you going to trade him on a one-year deal, which means you're not going to get much back? Or if you allow him to be part of the trade talks, that new team maybe signs him to a long-term deal. it also gets you more in return because he signed for three or four more years. So there's some convoluted compensative packages that I'm sure they're considering.

I don't know. This team is cap-wise going to be sound with the new GM because he's an analytics and a cap guy. I think I looked ahead into next year and their middle tier in cap available for 2024. So they probably have some wiggle room there if they wanted to sign him long term. I'm just not sure there's enough answers. for this new regime, coach GM, to value how Hunter is in their scheme going forward. So they may punt, which means look to trade him. I don't know.

Yeah, absolutely. The reason he's only 28 is because he was 20 when he was drafted. There you go. A little bit of a, seen as a little bit of a project at that time. He's had a nice career of production. I know this. If the team wants to play hardball, he'll play for this number. That's just the way it's set up.

So I think it's a peek into all of these things we're dealing with around the league right now. Every player is trying to make a stand at this point because it's their last stand. They can make a case for their new contract or whatever because in training camp, fines are for real. They're going to get fined a lot and they can't really hold out. If they hold out in training camp, they present a whole other set of problems. So I think around the league, you see more disgruntled players at this point because they can be than they didn't. other time. Yeah, and if I'm the Vikings, I want to see him, and I don't want to do a deal. I mean, he's been hurt a couple times, and I would rather have him. I want to see him in this new

scheme. I want to see how he fits with the new coordinator, which is interesting, you know, I kind of when I did a look earlier in the outseason of things I like to rent a league, one of the things I liked for some of these teams was when they made changes in the coordinator, they got some guys who have some skins on the wall, whether that's a Jim Schwartz or a Vic Fangio and Fores. But also, when you change, when you make abrupt scheme changes, you know, there can be transition periods too. So that would be, Minnesota's already in one, even if they'd kept at Donatel. They would still be, you know, going through some of these issues.

So I would want to wait and see how it fits. Well, yeah. They've already positioned themselves, Mike, in my opinion, as to changing of the guard, because they have, according to over the cap 38 million in dead money currently on their books right now. which is a high number. So that tells me they're transitioning as it is. And we all know the elephant in the room is what happens to cousins next year.

How is that transition going to go? So this is not a team that's even viewed by themselves. Now, I think they were very fortunate last year to come in where they did record-wise. I could see this team maybe being further down the road of winning at the playoff level, but not having the same record or not having as good a record. as they had last year. I think they could be closer to 4 and 13 and 4, really, this coming season. It wouldn't be a huge shock.

I think when a new regime comes in, too, they want to, when they know that they don't have a team that's going to win at all necessarily, you know, you kind of want to be able to have the flexibility to do things. And that's the challenge. You don't want to get worse. You know, you shouldn't want to get worse, but you kind of do when you're getting out of some of these contracts. Beyond Hunter,

I just wanted to quickly, before we get into the GM notebook, reset the, we're talking about discurrental players, the franchise players this off season. So we had two of them got deals, right? Lamar Jackson, Duran Payne got deals this offseason. And then we did not see deals for Sequin Berkeley, Josh Jacobs, Tony Pollard, obviously all running backs. And Evan Ingram, tight end. There's a message in there, isn't there, when you got three backs in a tight end? 100%. And we saw it last year when Miami tagged Mike Giusecchi their tight end and didn't sign him. I don't know that they're in. And I think Barclay is a little different. And maybe Josh Jacobs, but a lot of times when you put a tag on a position like a running back or a tight end,

it's not to get a long term deal. It's to buy the team one more year before you let them go. Safety. Yeah, safety net, especially when you have a change in in schemes or part of a team build. You're just looking to protect assets at that point. So they don't get long. long-term deal. So frankly, I don't know that Evan Ingram is going to get a long-term deal with the Jaguars. And that kind of defeats the spirit of the franchise rule. But teams have figured out, especially in these devalued positions, running backs tied ends, that, hey, we can just put a tag on a guy, not talk long-term and kind of fake it for a year and

then see what happens. Yeah. And when I said safety, I met the position, too. Because remember like, Apple Thomas or some of those guys, another position kind of in there where you don't, depending on the player, don't always want to go that high. But you want the player. You're willing to take that one-year price is actually a pretty good solution. But the problem for the player is a year of his earning power ticks away,

especially a running back. You have such a small window to be productive. I know when I did, Randy, when I looked at a way to, I researched kind of looking at the elite production of running backs. It's about a six-year window. You know, that's about it. You guys aren't going to have more than that number of really top years. So that's tough for Josh Jacobs or Berkeley.

I don't know. And Berkeley, they could franchise him again. They could have him for two years and 20 million or change. And then who's going to sign him when he's 29 or whatever? You know, it's a tough deal for those guys. No doubt. Not many options. What do you got in the GM notebook this week?

Well, I had one note in there, and it kind of piggybacks off what has been in the news the last couple weeks, and it's the Dalvin Cook deal. I read where he had made a couple quotes just in the last couple days, and they weren't alarming. but I'll just read from his quote. It said, I want somebody who values Dalvin Cook. I want somebody who wants me to be there and give me the ball. I just want to go into the right situation so I can help somebody win. He said, I play the GM role on Madden with my son,

and so I know how this stuff goes. And it just made me shake my head for a couple different fronts, as you can imagine, that the GM on Madden, and I've never played Madden, so I don't really know, I'm surmising that the GM on Madden doesn't quite have the same capacity as a GM in real life. But I thought it was interesting because a player's outlook on where is the best place for him doesn't necessarily parallel that of a team builder or a GM or a head coach. When he said, I want to go somewhere that values Dalvin Cook, there's a fine line because

if I'm the team, I want to show the utmost respect for Dalvin Cook, no doubt. I want him to see value. and I'm going to pursue him with that respect of, hey, you're going to come here, you're going to be valued. But the part that kind of made me just kind of shake my head was, I want someone to give me the ball. And if that is part of the equation, that could create a problem for a team.

In other words, do I want a guy? And is he valued in his mind? Is that value created the same as how I see him valued? So players who want to go somewhere and get the ball and do this, you may never hear a GM say this, but I'm here to tell you they push back against that. They really don't want to happen. That tells you his orientation. That's right.

And it's real. For play callers, for coaches especially, they want to respect the guy that's competitive that wants the ball. I get it. I'm all for that. But we'll determine what's the right way for us to go forward and win. And when a player wants to put personal stuff in there, it just makes it hard for a team. And therefore, this may take a while.

If that's Dalvin's outlook and if that is important, a certain amount of carries or this or that, very few franchises are willing to acquies to that type of criteria when adding a player. So you just kind of think, man, am I adding a headache? I know he's a good player. But if he doesn't get the ball, are we going to be dealing with some of this stuff later on? that we don't need that distraction either. That's the only point for me even putting this in the GM notebook was that there are two sides to that coin. The subtlety of that, you know, of that little comment standing out, give me the ball.

I think of that when even a D'Andre Hopkins or anyone who's been a star player or a really good player has to make that adjustment to suddenly being available in June. You know, when things have dried up. You're joining a team that already has other guys who are getting the ball, right? Or there's already egos in the locker room. It's not as easy as playing fantasy football. and just adding the guy to your team. There's all these dynamics that even, for all we know,

just talking to DeAndre Hopkins could affect the relationship with Stefan Diggs for the whole season forever. I'm not saying it is, but it could. Now, I have played Madden, Randy, and I'll tell you about my degree-vest team experience on that. I'm respectful of that. I'm very respectful of that. No, you're not. No, hey, I get it. I know.

This is how it works, okay? So this is actually fun. So my youngest son, he's 18 now, but for the last few years, he's totally into this Madden, you know. And I remember playing the first Madden games when they came out 30 years ago. But so it's ridiculous because before the game, you can play, you can play two people can play in Madden, but you can also do trades, okay, in Madden. So my son and I would sit there, playing the game, let's just say that playing the game, takes 45 minutes or an hour.

We'd spend two hours making the trades before. We'd be like, okay, you're going to be Denver and I'm going to be this team. And then we would go through, each player has a salary cap thing. You'd go through the rest of the league. And you'd say, okay, each guy can make 10 trades that fit in the cap. That was actually fun. Then we would play. We wouldn't even play.

We just enjoyed playing fantasy football. Because when we put the guys together, Dalvin Cook didn't care if he was valued or got the ball. Hopkins didn't have any concerns whatsoever. He was ready to go every week. You don't have to manage the fact that maybe Josh Allen called Hopkins to say, hey, we want you here. Whoops. Now I got to uncover that.

You don't have that as part of the Madden game, right? No, none of that's in there. It's just so easy and clean. All we got to do is make the cap fit. And I think we do, for sure, those of us who aren't on the inside of being a GM, we fell into that trap because we see these guys as we look at their stats. We look at what they're going to earn. and we say we want to put these things together, but it is a much more intricate, delicate,

balancing act than that within your locker room. I think the people skills are the common thread here that go undervalued for decision makers in the NFL. It can't be made decisions in a vacuum, and there's 100%. I'm sure Madden is fun. Don't get me wrong, but it's not the real world. That's all I'm saying.

It's actually what makes it fun is because you don't have to deal with any of that. Yeah, well, I'd sign up for that too. Yeah. You put them their own paper. you. And that's why anybody can do it, right? That's why everybody does it. You'd get very bored with it because it would be too easy for you. You know, I get the team. If you could just put a team together with no implications of anything, that's the way to do it. So that's the paint-by-numbers version of NFL GMs.

But that's Dalvin Cook's reference to how it would be as a GM, right? I've been a GM. I love it. I love it. Well, hey, you got anything else, Randy? No, that's it. I did just think of that, that Josh Alan comment, though, in trying to get behind the scenes as to what happened there, and I know I'm throwing this in at the end of the podcast, but do you think his response could have been all tainted or put around the fact that maybe Brandon Bean used Josh Allen to call Hopkins to recruit him to come there? That's what had been part of it.

Let's just leave our listeners with that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Something happened there. You said of the knowing of which. I'm going to get that line down, too, the knowing of which changed everything. but there's certainly something happened there is that no one is really comfortable saying it exactly what it is.

But that's the managing of the team. The M and GM is managing. And it's not just managing your cap, it's not just managing the draft, it's managing people, and it's managing egos, and it's managing your own egos for some of these guys and everybody.

So that's what makes us fascinating, Randy. And let's recharge, man. Let's go, let's do like the rest of the league here. Take whatever a month before we get into, you got your phone's ringing now. I mean, look at you're already the GM. People are already pissed at it. They're pissed at me for what we're saying.

Yeah, people are already chimed. Phone lines are hot for Mueller. But we appreciate everyone for going through us with this year. We love having the football GM podcast. We are going to take a little bit of a break here for the summer and come back certainly in time for training camps and all of that. In the meantime, you can find both Randy and I am so pleased to say on The Athletic. You can find us on Twitter. At Sandow NFL is one of us. I won't say which one.

At Randy Mueller underscore is the other. We'll see you there. We'll see you here. We'll see you everywhere. Have a great vacation, Randy. And we'll see everybody soon. Thanks, Mike. This was The Athletic Football Show.