The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Takeaways from the 2023 NFL Draft, Jordan Love’s contract, fifth-year option lessons & more

Episode Date: May 4, 2023

Mike Sando officially welcomes Randy Mueller to The Athletic staff as they examine their top takeaways from the 2023 NFL Draft. They talk about Anthony Richardson, Jalin Hyatt and more before revisiting Randy’s top 10 players and where they were selected. Then, they discuss Jordan Love’s contract extension, the fifth-year option and the Eagles-Cardinals tampering case. Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube4:01 Randy’s top draft takeaways24:50 Revisiting Randy’s top 10 players in draft40:03 Packers sign Jordan Love to one-year extension44:12 Fifth-year option lessons47:06 Eagles & Cardinals settle tampering caseThis episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/mays and get on your way to being your best self. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast and not just any football GM podcast. Mike Sanda here, you heard Randy Mueller, the GM laughing there because starting Thursday, May 4th, 2023, and timing up nicely with the end of the XFL season of which Randy's been a big part as GM of the Seattle Sea Dragons. Randy Mueller joins the staff of the athletic, not just on the football GM podcast, but as an analyst in the app, as a writer, welcome. I mean, you've hit a new low, Mueller. You're now in the media room with me.

I can just see our listeners right now, their eyes rolling and they're shaking their head and saying, what the hell this idiot from some logging town in Idaho is going to write? He can't even put two sentences together. So I'm sure they're going to, hey, I know this, that if they like anything they've heard on the podcast, maybe they can get a little bit more of it on the journalistic side. And you'll coax me through writing a few things that might make some sense to some people anyway.

So I'm looking forward to it, Mike. It's been a journey for you and I. This is our third year, going to start our fourth year of the podcast. And to be part of the big show on the other side, I'm honored. I think it'll be cool. And hopefully the people will find my column somewhat interesting. and hopefully they can fire back because I don't want it to be just me

preaching. I want to hear what they have to say and they do, as you know, on Twitter. They'll come at us any way they can but I'm happy about it. It's been fun and I'm looking forward to doing more. Put your waiters on that you use fly fishing up there in Idaho when you go into the comments section underneath. You never know what you're going to find in there.

You could the first comment could be, hey man, love your work, Randy, or it could be, you know, who the hell are you? Aren't you the guy who drafted something? And then they'll name the one, you know, some guy that you drafted it that didn't pan out. You know, that's all fair game. The ones that kill me are the ones that stop trying to be relevant.

That's what they say. I don't want to be relevant, okay? I'm not trying to be relevant. But those are the ones that I just shake my head at it. Stop trying to be relevant. Well, you know, people have been reading you already on MuellerFootball.com. And I can say, you know, obviously I'm sure you have, you know, somebody who reads it before it goes on there. But your writing is good.

And, you know, here at the athletic, it's going to transfer really well. I've already seen Randy's first column, which as we record this, you know, on Wednesday has not yet posted, but we'll post Thursday along with his kind of, you know, welcome intro column, kind of identifying, you know, his background and why he's there. But you dove into some stuff from this draft that we're going to talk about on the podcast as a little bit of a companion. because I would imagine there's some people here knew maybe they saw your column and weren't familiar with the podcast, and now they've seen that we've promoted that in the app and your writing. And then there's other people that have been here, but obviously haven't seen your writing yet. So we're going to marry those things up.

And with the draft coming on, shoot, we got so much to talk about. We'll talk about Randy's draft takeaway column hitting on the Colts with Anthony Richardson, the Giants with Jalen Hyatt, Miami, with some interesting decisions they had to make. I wanted to revisit Randy, your top 10 players in the draft and just kind of look where they landed. I think that's a fun way to tie up a loose end there. We had Jordan Love doing a different type of a contract. We had fifth year option deadlines, certainly some things we can talk about there.

And that's not all. So pull up a chair, join me, Mike Sando, and him, Randy Mueller, of the athletic. How about that? That sounds great, Mike. Where we start. That's good. Let's start in your column. Take us away. You wrote it. I have read a, even though I said it's not publishing until tomorrow, I did take a peek. I had inside access. I was able to take a peek, so it's good stuff. Well, again, I have different takeaways probably than most when really evaluating and following a draft. I don't necessarily get tied up with the strengths and weaknesses of a particular player. I'm more of a 30,000 feet guy, being a GM in the NFL. I kind of.

hone in on the processes and how things look cosmetically and kind of the the interactions in draft rooms and things like that because I've been in so many of my kind of there's a language there that that we all can see and I'm sure you noticed some of it too and the thing that jumped out at me first off was I thought the the first three picks were kind of chalk but when we got to Anthony Richardson that was the that was the elephant in the room right there was so much polarizing information about this kid when he came out and what you were going to do with a, you know, 54% passer that had thrown a ton of interceptions and only started 13 games. And you knew he was going to get picked at some point. But when they showed the draft room for me after the selection,

and I saw the looks on, you know, Chris Ballard's face and Ed Dodd's face. And knowing Jim Ursay like we do, I just, it just made me think, gosh, was this really a, you know, a, the pick that everybody wanted. And what I talked about was in the column, I love to build consensus. That's what I like most about the whole team building part of it. I love to take information from everybody in the room. And the advantage I had for so many years is I had ability to have conviction in my own evaluation. So I didn't, I couldn't really be talked into things, but I wanted to hear everybody's opinion so that we could, none of us are smarter than all of us. So we wanted to get it right for us as a club, not for us individually. And I knew that the Anthony Richardson whole

scenario was going to paint a rough picture for whoever did this, because I guarantee you, there were people in the drafting process involved in Indianapolis that had kind of the feeling that I did is that this guy's a project at best. I see all the great athleticism. I see the effortless arm flow. I see his arm strength, the stuff that make you go, wow. But There's a lot of other things that consist inconsistent accuracy, processing information sometimes was a little slow for me. Those are critical factors as well. So my point is there was probably some pushback in that room during that process, not on draft

day, but leading up to it where there were differences of opinion on Anthony Richardson. Let's face it, we all had them on the outside, so I know they had them on the inside. And so I felt for the decision makers there when they had to make this selection. because anytime you have differing opinions, it puts the main decision maker in a little bit of a bind in that I don't want yes men. I want different opinions and ideas, but it does make you really second guess some of the things you do because sometimes people see it totally different than you. And usually what I would do, Mike, is then I would pick a different lane. I didn't want us to have a player that maybe a coach didn't want or the scouts didn't want or I'm kind of. kind of the mediator, right? I don't want to force a pick in that one side's going to be disappointed

when he gets chosen. And I just felt like in this case, the Anthony Richardson thing, there's probably enough pushback in the Colts organization that this was an uneasy feeling. And it showed to me with that draft room camera, there was a lot of uneasiness to me. It was awkward anxiety. I don't know if you saw that. I did. Yeah, you know, I watched all 32 teams post-draft news conferences too, because I like to see, some guys I haven't seen before the camera. They're a newer GM. I want to look at Monta Ossin for it.

Hey, how's he handling this? What does Brett Veach look like when he's after the draft? All these guys, I love to do that. I think if you have time to do it, I really recommend it. And you get just a feel for different people.

And a lot of the people you know, so you know who they are. And I had that sense too. So I think that impossible to have consensus on this type of a prospect in the top five. It's impossible because, like you said, he started 13 games. It's been hit and miss.

You can see a lot of talent. You can see other things that make you wonder if it's going to work. To be that high, there's no way. And we don't have to look at the reaction in the room. It's just impossible to have a full consensus on that. The other issue or challenge they have there is they have people on different timelines. They have a brand new head coach with a six-year deal. If Anthony Richardson doesn't work, well, guess what?

he probably gets another shot. Yeah. Probably. But those other guys that you mentioned, Ballard, Dodds, I mean, they're pretty far down the road. And they just went through Jeff Saturday happening. This kind of has to work. So what I saw in, you know, what I saw from, you know, Ballard when he was talking was, hey, everybody, let's not get the expectations too high.

Hey, this could be two or three years. Whereas I think typically on draft day, what you're talking about is you lean into the excitement. I mean, we see these draft rooms and sometimes you're like, that's BS. They're not that excited. You know, they're like, but it's like, oh, they just took the number three corner and they're going, woo, like they just won the lottery. You know, they're so excited. It's canned excitement for sure. It's false chatter.

It's canned. Yeah. But in those situations, it's canned, but there still could be enough consensus around it, right? It doesn't mean, because it's canned doesn't mean there was people who are nervous or think they're, think it's just going to blow up. I think this one is, I think your observations were similar to mine. The stakes are so high with that owner. What is it? Now, that being said, before the draft, you had said, like somebody like Will Levis,

the earliest you could take would be late first round, and then you wouldn't want to take Anthony Richardson in the first round. Not that they're not going to have good careers. They could. They have talent. I'm not saying they're wrong for doing it. doing it. Yeah. So let's just put it this way. If you were in this spot, because we have to take, in the Colts defense, you have to take into account the context of whether it was Frank Reich, whether it was Battered, it was all of them. They were doing a quarterback of the week club. There's been some swings and misses. There's been some swings. Yeah. No doubt. The owner's done. Yeah. So, so let's just change these parameters, Randy, and put yourself in the shoes of Ballyt because you're, you're criticized. We're, we're criticizing an organizational decision.

I'm not criticizing it. I'm just saying it's awkward. Yeah, yeah. But let's just put yourself in the GM chair and say, okay, you're being told you got to get one. So now you have a decision to make at four. And you don't feel great about Levis and you don't feel great about Richardson. But you could see, I think all of us could see one of them is way more talented just

physically, right? You'd say Richardson is more physically. Athletically, yes, 100%. Yeah. If you had to pick from one of those and you had to take him at four, because there wasn't a lot of people trading up from 17. Not to get him, no. Yeah, or, yeah.

The second half of the draft, first round, there was hardly any trades. I mean, guys moved two spots. So it wasn't like there was a bunch of people everyone was pining for. People were trying to get out. Yep, no doubt. So if you had to make that choice, and I guess you could bring Hendon Hooker into that, whoever you want, you had to take a quarterback at four and you couldn't have the first two. What would you do?

With this coach. Well, that's a key because this coach did just have Jalen Hertz, and they did devise an offense that fit him. And maybe their thinking is that they can do the same with this. I don't think that's anybody's first choice. And my guess is if you gave Shane Steichen some truth serum, it wouldn't be his first choice as an offensive structure. But you're right, there has been some swing and misses. The owner is standing above all, and maybe the referendum did come down that, hey, we have to have a quarterback. it would have been a hard pill for me to swallow because I think there's a high,

there's a, there's a swing and miss element to this. And this type of processing, if it happened in the fourth or fifth round, I've been in those rooms and it made me sick to my stomach in the fourth or fifth round. Imagine if it was the fourth or fifth pick. So it's times 100. So that much anxiety, that much angst probably would have forced me to, to try to do something with that second pick to move up to to find a position for a hand in her hooker or something like that or in will levis thing i didn't wasn't interested in that is

what it is that's just not one that he's had plenty of starts he's had a ton of experience he couldn't win the job at penn state and i'm not beating up on him i'm just saying i couldn't have drank that kool-late either so maybe at the end of the day this was their only option if they couldn't find a way to really assure themselves that Hendon Hooker was a possibility. Now, they might not have liked Hendon Hooker either. Sure. You can make them like that. So I don't know how they felt about that.

So it's hard to say, you can say what you would do if you had your own process in place. It's hard to say what their process, what options it gave them, you know? So let's take away all the pressures and levers and the history of all of it and just take the move in the vacuum and say they take Devin Witherspoon. Devin Withershman was the next player taken by Seattle at a position that they could use. They traded Stefan Gilmore. People saw him as a good prospect, right? I mean, people definitely saw him as a top half of the first round pick, wouldn't you say? Yeah, I agree.

100%. So if they were to take him, then you are in that world of, okay, we got to get a quarterback. We got Minchu. Or I guess, yeah, it's hard to divorce yourself from the position they're in with the owner that they've been in. and needing to get somebody soon than later. It's hard to remove that. And I think that's behind the whole deal. It could very well be.

If you would have done something like that, I think you immediately start working with that second round pick to get back up into that front half of that round is somehow, some way. Maybe you have to overpay to do that. But I'm not saying you don't have to get a quarterback. I get that. But I just,

I struggle being forced into taking somebody for those reasons that I have really a lot of, I don't have consensus on. Yeah. That's my only point. So it's a tough spot. That's all I'm saying. I'm not saying that they're wrong. This may work out for them.

He may be a home run. Yeah, he may be. I'm just saying it's a really hard position and I understand why we heard and why we saw what we did after this election. Yeah. It's sort of like they're up to bat and they have to swing. Yeah. And if it's an outside pitch, I may look like a fool, but I'm going to have to swing

because the guy's stealing, you know? The guy's stealing. So we got to swing. So that's your first note in there. The second one was interesting to me because we had talked about Jalen Hyatt, who before the draft, was your number one wide receiver. The Giants end up getting him, Randy. 73rd overall.

They moved up 16 spots to get him. Yeah, moved up 16. So what do you got on this one? What caught your picture? Well, they gave a fourth round pick to get up in him. But the interesting part for me was not that they moved up, but two things. One, the deal to move up was instigated by Brian Dayball, their coach, texting Sean McVeigh and saying, hey, we might be interested in doing that, which normally that would not happen.

You would not have a coach do something like that. But it also tells me that him and Joe Shane, the GM, are really on the same page. It's a valuable tool if you can include your head coach in this process like that, because you've got to really be on the same page and on the same way. wavelength when you do that. But it also, it was a, I think a genius way to involve Brian to really make him part of this now to the point where he has pride of authorship. He's going to really make Jalen Hyatt a focal point in our passing offense. The criticism came on Hyatt in that, well, he's not a great route runner. He's got some, he's a little bit raw. What I saw when I

looked at him on tape was a route tree at Tennessee that wasn't a. inclusive of a lot of routes that he will run at the NFL level. But I saw enough of his skill set and enough of his detailed route running ability that I think he'll become a really good route runner at the NFL level. I don't think it's a hard dot to connect. So I just like the fact that they worked together on it, that it came from the head coach. It started with the head coach's text to Sean McVeigh, which again, on my experience, I've never been part of something like that.

Not that I haven't always been on the same page with the coach. It's just that this is the day and age of some of these things, you know, working out in a different fashion. So I loved it. I think the head coach is on board. I think you're going to see Jaylen, hi, have a really good rookie year. And a lot of it is based on the fact that day ball's all in with him now as well. And he really wants this guy to become a good pro quickly to show everybody that, hey, we knew what we were doing. Yeah, you can kind of see, you know, they, they,

They paid a lot for Daniel Jones this off season. We talked about that, you know, but they're now giving him some arrows, right? Some. 100%. Yeah. And I do think that Jalen, for me, was the one guy in this group we're talking about who could take the top off defenses. He will help their running game.

People will have to defend them differently just based on his skill set and the type of receiver he is. Jalen Hyatt, 18.9 per catch. 15 TDs at the college level, his senior year. Those are big numbers. And I think that'll equate to, like I said, defenses having to look at them a little different. Even if they don't throw them a ton of deep balls, they're going to have to defend them different.

And that's always been my philosophy with adding speed to your group on offense. A note from my Friday column coming up, the Giants wide receivers had 13 touchdown catches last year. Randy, as a group. As a group, all of them had 13. No one had more than four. Well, and again, we said it, I remember last. You were talking about this, Mike.

It was a bunch of neighbor kids. I mean, it wasn't a great group at all. Yeah. And nobody could really go like this kid can. So I think he changes their dynamics on offense. And they don't have to manufacture and grind out 12 to 14 play drives to score. Hey, when do speed receivers bust? I'm just curious on that.

Because I've always been fat, you know, speed is, even if the guy's not good, speed really can affect. And, you know, we've talked on the show before when you were a GM, you know, you drafts Joey Galloway, Ted Ginn. These guys played 200 games in the NFL. And even in years when they didn't have, Ted Ginn probably had years where he didn't have a ton of catches. He was accounted for fully on every play. He made differences in offenses. So, but not every fast guy. Shoot, I grew up a Raider fan, man. Yeah, I was just going to say. James Jet, all these, you know, Rocket Ismail, all these, they weren't all amazing. They weren't all always effective. So when, what's the line that makes somebody like Hyatt be effective while someone who might be just as fast isn't.

Well, the line of delineation is when they can't catch. That's really it's simple. Simple stuff. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. It is one thing to grab, you know, Bob Hayes could catch enough to where he could convert his gold medal into being a really good NFL wide receiver with the Cowboys back in the 60s and 70s.

So speed kills. That's not been a secret in anybody's draft room forever. Yeah. But they've got to have a catch. radius that doesn't doesn't preclude them from from actually completing the task of running deep and catching long balls. So I always think if you can match up that catch radius and actually hands and ball skills with a fast guy, that's how you get the Joey Galloways and Tedkins and things like that

because they've got to be able to catch for sure. And I think this kid can do that. And he was the one guy for me that matched up that four four speed. I think they even had him faster than that at the Giants. Yep, yep, absolutely. So your third item in there dealt with the dolphins, what do you got there? Well, not so much that it was a referendum on what they did as far as who they picked. They didn't have a first round pick, so they drafted Cam Smith, the corner from South Carolina.

But I heard a lot of pushback or a fair amount from fans, from media that, hey, we needed a tackle, we got to protect Tua. You know, that's the number one thing we needed and we didn't get that. there was some downplaying of Cam Smith. And I think in the world of fantasy football, and so many people play this and they really think that that is the way NFL teams are run. And as you know, Mike, it's really not. It's an integrity of a board that has been built for months. And to think that you're going to just start out drafting needs and regardless of where they were valued on your draft process or in your draft process is not true. That just doesn't happen. And for me, Cam Smith was, you know, one of my top 10 or 15 players on the board per se. I thought he was of great value. I think he's a starting

corner in the league. And now this gives them Jalen Ramsey, Cam Smith, and a couple other guys that they've really made a questionable position, a strength now. But the fallback was that they didn't get a tackle to protect Tua. For some reason, the Miami folks and its fans, and it's, and I understand, their love of Tua, I get it. I like the kid. Everything he does and says, I enjoy hearing. But there's always a little defense mechanism when you come up and if you don't do right by Tua, you're going to get hammered. You're going to get hammered, whether it's on social media or really any media. And I just thought in this case, the criticism that Chris Greer and the Dolphins got was kind of unwarranted because I don't believe they valued a tackle in the

second round where they were at all to the same level as a Cam Smith. So it was really the need versus best player approach. And my guess is Cam Smith, Mike, was probably in the top 15 on the Dolphins board. And he fell to them in the second round. That's just the way it is. That's the common thread in most NFL draft rooms is nobody stacks their board the same. Everybody sees these players different. Maybe he was a top 20 player.

But to be able to get him in the second round, it was a no-brainer because probably their next rated tackle was two or three values down. So to fill a need, it just didn't make sense for me. Well, after Jacksonville took the tackle at the bottom of the first round, the next guy went at 93, unless you count, unless you count Syracuse Bergeron, would you count? He could be counted as maybe a tackle, but isn't he more of a guard? Yeah, I think you could have reached on several guys. But they were guards. That's right. And I would rather have a full time, every down player that you valued, like I said, two or three levels higher.

He's top 15 on your draft board. You're going to take that. any day. And I think Cam Smith fit that. And I just, I felt it was a little disingenuous to criticize the dolphins because they didn't fill the need that most people wanted them to fill. Sometimes you can't force picks to fill needs. That's just what we talked about with the Colts. Sometimes it might work, but filling needs is going to get you fired if you're taking picks passing on really good players to fill those needs. That's not a good combination. I did, before we get into looking at your top 10 overall players in the draft, when you

mentioned Cam Smith being, you know, potentially in the top 15 or 20. You, you had him as number five among your corners, at least when I look at the list. So you had, you had Gonzalez, Oregon, Porter, Penn State, Witherspoon, Illinois, Deontay Banks, who went to the Giants, Maryland, and then Cam Smith. So did you see all, it was a pretty good year for corners, I guess. Really good year. And I agree. Yeah. And I concur with what you're saying. I thought all five of the corners that I had in that list were all first round legitimate guys. So I thought that was one of the strengths of this draft was the defensive back play, a corner play in this particular instance.

Yep. So, okay, great. That's Randy's first column. You can find that in the athletic on the app. I'm sure Randy will be tweeting it out at Randy Mueller underscore. I'll do the same at Sando NFL. Let's go through here. Revisit your top 10 players in the draft.

Now, to clarify, before the draft, Randy looked at the film of the players. evaluated it through his template of evaluating film. He did not sit in on the 30 visits and was not talking to the team doctor. So there could be something that a team knows that if Randy was factoring that in, might affect his eval. These are just watching the film, right? Yeah, just as players, and that's the only thing any of us, and I'll consider myself one, any of us draft Nicks on the outside can view is just what we see on tape.

So we're not privy, and you and I have talked about it many times, but these NFL teams know 10 times what we know about these players. So it's hard to really criticize what they're doing when you have about a 10th of the information. I wonder sometimes if that information, though, just leads you off on the bad paths. It can. You can know too many things for overthinking. 100%. And it can on the medical side, too. Sometimes we overthink it.

And I always go back to, hey, what was he as a player? Let's put him up there as a player. And then we'll adjust our thinking when we get this other information. information in there. So really, we're just taking the first step in the process by putting them up there as players. And that's what we've done for this top 10. And we talked about it a couple weeks back. When the Packers acquired Brett Far of the team doctors failed him on a physical and so he wouldn't play more than three or four years. And he set the right. He played forever. Yeah. And what happened to those doctors? Well, Ron Wolfe fired him actually got different doctors. There you go. If you got that much rope bandwidth, go for it. Well, Ron was feeling panicky. He made the trade. And then they failed him. And he was like, oh, shit.

I better get different doctors. I'm in with this guy. It worked out pretty good. So you had Jalen Carter, number one. He ended up going to the Eagles at nine. Sometimes, Randy, when guys fall, you know, you wonder, okay, is it really a steel? What do you think? Well, I don't know about steel.

I just know this. If you just looked at the tape, there was nobody that I saw that I enjoyed watching as much as Jaylon Carter, just because he was a boy, a man amongst boys in most of the film I saw. So I get it. I mean, his issues have all been public. We all know why he fell to nine. It was just a matter of when someone was going to take a bite out of that apple and say, hey, this doesn't make sense.

I understand all the other stuff, but we're going to play him on Sundays and deal with the rest and try to help him. And I think that's what the Eagles have done. As you know, Georgia Bulldogs are a dime a dozen with the Philadelphia Eagles now. They got a half dozen of them. And God bless them because they've been the predominant, dominant program in college football the last three or four years. Yep. So that's pretty good. You had Terry Wilson as your number two.

he goes to the Raiders and I guess does have a foot injury that's going to have to be monitored. Yep, he did. And that may have helped his slide. I just think in those two cases, you're talking about every down defensive lineman. And I'm kind of the other elk, Mike. I'm not going to overthink it. When I'm talking about a top 10, it's going to be filled with big guys and fast guys for the most part. And the first two guys were big guys that could both run.

And that's a hard combination to find. I found over my 35, 40 years in the league, this is the hardest thing to come by in these big fast defensive linemen. There's never enough to go around. And if you look at college football, the landscape as well, Mike, big offensive linemen, big defensive linemen are the hardest and the thing that there are least of in college football as well. Well, we'll see Houston. The teams that didn't take quarterbacks, you know, early, you know, well, Houston did,

but then they took Will Anderson, Seattle took Devin Whitterspoon, and Arizona took Paris Johnson before we had Tyree Wilson come off. So it'll be interesting to see. I thought Seattle in particular was a little bit of a surprise being at five, not taking one of these big guys, but they decided to go with the corner. Maybe it's a little bit of a cleaner evel for them without the off field without. Maybe they didn't want to worry about that. And they just wanted their hit rate to be higher, right?

Is that possible? Well, I think that they really valued the guy that they picked Witherspoon. They thought he was a special type talent. And I guess the other way they could have gone is to take a guy like Tyree Wilson. And maybe Tyree Wilson didn't fit exactly their scheme. I thought Tyree Wilson fits any scheme just by his mere frame. But think about this. What if they had taken it, Tyree Wilson, then could come back and get a guy like Joey Porter, Jr.

in the second round, you know. And I don't think he was there when they picked in a second round. Yes. In a strong corner draft. That was the other options that they had. But you can't argue with Witherspoon. I mean, he's a really good player. And I like the way he goes about his business.

Yep. So your third was Bejohn Robinson and ends up going to Atlanta at eight. So so far, one, two, or three are all gone in the top ten. Yeah. And not a real surprise that Atlanta would take him. They've got an interesting offense. Yeah, it's a setup for him that's probably perfect. And people have said you're critical of Atlanta.

And I'll actually like the guys that run the Atlanta team. So I want to be a fan. of them. I want to root for them. I struggle sometimes when teams put a lot of resources in safeties and guards and sometimes, you know, inside linebackers. And I don't really subscribe to that theory of you got to build it from the inside out. But I do subscribe to building it with really good players. And I thought Robinson, the running back from Texas was a really good player. And I understand why they took him, especially in Arthur Smith scheme. I think it's a great fit. and he's a culture-changing type player,

and I think they need that in Atlanta, so I had no problem with them picking him when they did it at age. Yeah, and I think when you start looking at who was available after that, you don't get as good of feelings on the players in a lot of cases. Agreed. And your whole thing on him was, yeah, you understand, we shouldn't be taking too many running backs up high, but you were seeing Ladanian-Thominson just a special type of player

that, you know, if Lidane and Tomlinson's in this draft and we know what he's going to do for his career, no one's mad at you for taking him in the top 10. No, I think the thing that separates these running backs from the guys who get devalued are the ones that can take the offense above the X's and O's, and coaches really value this, like a Sequin Barclay in New York. Some of these backs, and they're the ones that really get paid are the ones that take it and get more yards than the way it's designed, more yards than the play's scheme to make. And these are the kind of backs, Bejohn-Rompson, specifically, that can take your offense to new heights above where Arthur Smith can take it by calling plays and designing things

in the run game. Robinson is going to make it even better than that. So that's why I think it's such a good fit. Yep. C.J. Stroud was your number four, and he ended up going second like that one. And Bryce Young was fifth. So you had those two guys high, but Stroud a little bit better because he's, not five foot 10, right? And not 190 pounds.

Those are evident. Yep. Those are evident. Now, Christian Gonzalez was interesting. He was six for you. He ended up going later than we probably thought down at 17 to New England. So maybe there was something there we didn't know. Well, I think a lot of his play, you've got to identify some things there that aren't consistently evident. You know, he's only a three-year player. He's a redshirt sophomore who I don't think is 21 yet. A young kid, but I saw so much upside with him with with regard to being above his height, weight, and speed that I think he would be a really good player.

And like we said, it was, I think, a great draft for corners. I think you could make a case for picking any flavor you want. There's five or six of these guys that I said, no problem. And I think we said that on the podcast. You could flip-flop all these guys, and I wouldn't argue a bit. So I happen to just like Gonzalez more because of him being younger with some more upside. And I liked the fact that he had played at two schools and excelled at both schools. This guy's been a leader and a player right away everywhere he's been.

I just think he's going to have a real seamless, you know, entrance into the NFL. I think he's a day one guy. You just roll out there. But these other guys are too. So I'm not critical of who got picked. Number seven, Broderick Jones goes to Pittsburgh at 14. And I know you like that big tight end that Pittsburgh got too. He's not in your top 10 overall players.

But when Pittsburgh picked, I thought Randy's going to like these picks. Yeah, I like them both a lot. I think these guys are really good players. I think the one thing that separated Broderick Jones for me was that he is so athletic, but yet he can anchor. And to have both of those is really hard to identify. It's hard to find, but then it's hard for some to identify. And I thought the Steelers did a really good job of that.

This kid could play anywhere up front. But I've been around the Walter Joneses and the Willie Roefs. And I'm not saying this guy is like that, but he has some of those traits that he can dance like a big bear, but he can sink his butt and they're not coming over the top of him either. And that's what I really liked. Yeah, yeah. That was a good one to see there.

And the number eight, you had Will Anderson who went higher. He went number three. I think a lot of people had him higher. You, I think, talked a little bit about fit being important for him. He goes to Houston with the Miko Ryans. What do you think? Are they going to be able to maximize him? Yeah, I didn't see a rare pass rusher in him.

I saw one that was effective and was schemed and was very productive. I get it. I just didn't see that rare athleticism. The twitchy bend and turn the corner of a Derek Thomas or somebody like that who would get picked that high. But I can't argue with what he is as a fit into the new head coach's scheme, the culture. I totally get that. I think he'll be one of the hardest work. is there. He'll be a guy that they build around because of his intangibles. And so I see the value.

I wouldn't, you know, I think I'm totally on board with them picking him when they did. Now, this one, number nine for you was Joey Porter Jr. Another corner. And he went to Pittsburgh as well. That's the other one I was thinking about. First picking the second round. Yeah. That you'd love Pittsburgh extract. I forgot about Joey Porter Jr. how high he was on your list. But interesting that he would be around that long. I guess maybe it's what you said. There's different flavors, and it just depends who's picking. Yeah, and maybe he was the fifth or sixth on some people's board, but I guarantee he was not on the Steelers board.

So he might have been two or three on their board, and obviously it makes sense. Yeah, it was for me what the Steelers did. And again, I know those guys, and it's not really because the Steeler decision makers I've had a history with, they were all with me in New Orleans, believe it or not, when I was the GM of the Saints, and they're all there now together. I'm proud of what they did, and I had no discussions with them at all about players. That's why I was going to ask you. No, none whatsoever.

Moonwriting as a consultant. Mere coincidence. So I probably would have fit in good in building a consensus in their draft process, that's for sure, because I liked all three of those players. And I think it's great. I'll be interesting to follow how much of an impact those guys have on Mike Tomlin and the Steelers this year. Because I think they hit a home run the first couple days. Yeah, absolutely.

The number 10 for you was Dalton Kincaid, and I thought he was interesting. As Dallas was about to pick, I kind of wondered if that's who they were going to take. And then the Giants, I'm sorry, Buffalo must have been wondering that too because they came in and got them. So I don't know. Sometimes that maneuvering stuff is overrated. But Kincaid, you liked him. It's your favorite e-val, you said.

He was the most fun for me to watch on tape. This guy can do so many things. He's not just a tight end. He could be a receiver. He could be a back. He can be a fullback. He can be a weapon. What he really is is a past catching guy that he will be a focal point of their offense and be awesome in matchups on

third down and in the red zone. And for me, he was at a different level than all these other tight ends as a past catcher. He's kind of a getting away blocker, but I loved his route running. I loved his hands and the fact that he can catch when he's covered. And he's going to make plays at a position that there's not that many playmakers in this league that I consider playmakers as tight ends. We all know the obvious, the kiddles, the Kelsey's and those guys, but this guy's going to be right in the mix with him. He is really a twitchy athlete that finds a way to get open regardless of coverage. And I think he's going to be big for Josh Allen in that whole Buffalo weaponry.

They can use another guy or two like him that can score from all over. And the fact that he's 64242, 240 even makes it, you know, more appealing for me. I know, Buffalo is one of those teams that, you know, they've been good the last few years. And if you look at them statistically last year, they're practically like a top five offense and defense. But it sort of felt like it has felt to me like, okay, did that? they peak a little bit and it's hard you know they're they're committed to big money with von miller which you know yeah maybe hasn't worked out so it with their cap and their cash and all of that it's a little bit harder for them to just go out and make a big splash so maybe this is a at 25 in

the draft randy is this a pretty nice ad for them i think it's an awesome ad like you said mike he doesn't cost them a ton of money he is a valuable weapon and can kind of change the way people do defend that team and normally i would never say that about a tight end but this guy's that special. So I think it's great. And I think, yes, it fits with what they want to do within their cap structure, what they can do. And then offensively, they needed another wrinkle.

They needed something else to add to the mix. And I think there are very few guys that could do that, especially in this year's draft. And I felt like Dalton Kincaid was one of those. So great pick and a great fit for me. Yeah. And even though you can sometimes find a tied-in free agency, like they can't really be spending $12 million for one. or something, you know.

So this works out well for them. They get them young. And I bet you they're really excited to work him into that offense. It was already good, even though it's been disappointing end to the last couple of seasons for them. But he's going to give people a different way to have to defend them now in a different headache that they've never had to mess with before. Yeah. It could help Diggs and everybody there, Josh Allen, everybody. So I liked that pick too.

I thought that was exciting. I found myself, Randy, because I, you know, but I'm not a film breaker downer. And I don't get. No. And I'm not a, and I'm not somebody who gets overly into all of the, you know, the pre-draft talk about the players. But what I do like is like keeping your, the ones you do off to the side because I know you, I trust you. I know you have a process. I know then we can refer back to it.

I know when I've kept track of two or three years of years, it makes sense. And so that's what I've really enjoyed. We did it last year with some of the players that you had picked, you know, in various places or, you know, ranked. And so that was really a fun thing. I hope people on the podcast enjoy that component of it, too, last year, you know, there were some names that, you know, I wasn't really thinking about. And all of a sudden, oh, this guy, yeah, remember Randy mentioned Isaiah likely or Bailey Zap, or these guys. Some of these guys on the fringes, that was kind of fun. So we'll transition out of the draft.

You got anything else on the draft? No, I think it's good. I love the time of year when that happens and ends. But you know what? Then we have mini camps coming up, rookie mini camps. There's a lot of things that are going on in NFL contracts. And we're going to hit on some of the contract things that have come up the last couple days. And I'm glad to jump into some of these other topics.

Yeah, absolutely. Jordan Love was one of them. I think, you know, it was such a weird situation, Randy, that you'd have. Remember when they drafted Jordan Love in Green Bay and traded up for him, you really started the clock ticking on, okay, when is the end for Aaron Rogers? and you kind of thought maybe, you know, as early as it could be as early as a year later, but then you thought, okay, maybe two. Well, here we are, you know, three.

And now they have to make a decision on whether to exercise a fifth-year option for the 2024 season. If they did not exercise the option, which they had to do this week, he could become a free agent in 2024. I don't think anybody wanted to do that. But if they exercised the option in 2024, they'd have to fully guarantee over $20 million. to Jordan Love, who's hardly played. So they reached a compromise, which is somewhere in the middle here, where he gets 13 and a half fully guaranteed for 2024. And then if he hits incentives, it could go to 22.5,

which would be more than the fifth year option. So this is a solution. It looks pretty good to me. What do you think? Yeah, no, I love it. I think it's great. I love when the agents and teams can work outside the box on some thinking that's not traditional.

I think we've seen teams do that. we saw a little bit of it with teams declining fifth year options like Giants did with Daniel Jones, but that doesn't mean these guys aren't going to be part of your process. It just means you've got to find a different way to keep their services, and teams are doing that now. That's a big nut for these guys to bite off on, a fifth year fully guaranteed when you're talking about these players that are $25 million in guaranteed money. So it is a big challenge to make that work. And no matter how good these guys are, and if you're not,

a full-time player like Jordan Love, it's really almost prohibitive to do it. But it didn't make sense. I felt like Jordan wanted this because he wants more time. He knows he needs more time. His goal is not to get the free agency right now. He's got to prove he can play. And so I think the more time he gives himself contractually and on the field is a benefit to him. I thought it was funny. And maybe you saw this. I mentioned it before the show. Did you see any of the little memes sometime that came out? Once the trade went down where Aaron Rogers went to the Jets, there was a little short video. Somebody had it on Twitter where it's like a garbage man throwing bag after bag.

Yeah, I saw that. It was like they said, this is Jordan Love cleaning out Aaron Rogers's locker once the trade went down. And this bag. Yeah, he was chucking bags left and right off the front porch, you know. He threw one of them like all the way over a car, you know, and it landed in the back of the can, and back of the garbage, you know.

And I think I responded, this is probably not far from the truth. Maybe Jordan Love didn't act like this, but I guarantee he thought it, get your stuff out of here, you know. I just laughed out loud. I thought it was funny. Maybe some of our listeners saw it. Yeah, no, I thought that was funny too. And this totally makes sense.

So he, you know, he has made some money, you know, being a first round pick, but he gets some assurances he's going to be there. Right. I think you didn't want to, if you don't pick up the option, you're really sending a signal as much as anything. Aren't you, Randy, like, hey, wait, is he your guy or not? You're kind of saying he's not if you do that. Yeah, I think sometimes those fifth year options, and now they've gotten to be even larger the last couple years,

but sometimes I felt like a front office picked him up to justify that they're right in picking them. Oh, yeah, yeah. And there's teams that do that. They'll, oh, yeah, we're going to pay him. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, let's pump the brakes here now. Why are we paying him? He hadn't done squat. We lead the league in homegrown draft choices on our roster.

Yeah, but do they all suck? No. Yeah, it's not an easy, yeah, there's some agendas at work here. So sometimes the thinking isn't as pure as we'd like to make it. Which is a perfect segue into my next little item here because, so, you know, the fifth year options have become fully guaranteed recently. I think it was easier to pick them up before in your mind when you knew you might be able to get out if something happened. But now you're fully guaranteeing it. That's a different deal in terms of cash flow and that sort of thing.

So I was looking at the last three years of drafts and I was looking at who had and had not. picked up the fifth-year options. And it may play a little bit into what you're talking about. Maybe not exactly. But I was laughing because obviously, if we, if I was to ask just a regular, you know, NFL fan or season ticket holder, hey, three GMs have had at least three first-round picks over the last three drafts and picked up all three or more fifth-year options, who would it be?

And the answer is Marty Herney, Jason Light, and Brandon Bean. So a mix. Marty Herney's not even with Haryline anymore, but he had Derek Brown, Brian Burns, DJ Moore. Brandon Bean had Josh Allen,

which is only one that counts, but Ed Oliver, Tremaine Edmonds, Jason Light had Tristan Worf's, Devin White, Vita Vea, which is interesting. There's a lot of big guys in there,

a lot of big defensive linemen that are getting them picked up. And then Brian Gutakust. Jordan Love, I'm giving him a half on that, but he picked that up. Darnell, Savage, Rishon Gary, Jaira, Alexander.

So some pretty good players in there. But then on the other end, guys who've had at least two picks and no pickups, there's some real successful people in there. Howie Roseman didn't pick up, Jalen Rieger, Andre Dillard, Kevin Colbert, Devin Bush, Drell Edmonds, Bush was an interesting one.

They moved up a lot to get them. And then really in their own category as the Raiders. That's crazy. Mike Mayak, but I'm putting slash John Gruden because they're 0 for 5. to have five first round picks and never pick up a fifth round option? And they should have probably on Josh Jacobs. That's like the golden sombrero, right? I mean, that's like five strikeouts in a game.

Yeah. Yeah, that was Damon Arnett, Henry Ruggs, who was just, I believe, sentenced or got into some plea agreement. Jonathan Abram, Cleland Ferrell, and Josh Jacobs, who is a good player. Yeah, and he's there still. I like how he plays. He's a good player. I agree. So, yeah, kind of what you were saying, right?

I mean, some of these things, to just go with a scorecard on option pickups, you've got to look at what position, where were they in the draft, right? What's the price tag? And then is the guy, are you just picking it up anyway? Because you got nobody better, right? Yeah, there's some definitely, and when you really look at it, a couple safeties in there, which tells me, I don't know, you know, a couple positions that aren't priority type guys who you would pay to start with. It's hard for them to get that second contract. I get it. Yeah.

Yeah, these things can run deeper than just a scorecard for sure. Yeah, absolutely. So that was that. I thought, you know, one thing that got lost a little bit in a shuffle going to the draft Randy is the draft's about to start. You know, I'm sitting there and got my laptop open and I had a couple screens. You know, we're watching the draft and all that. And then into my inbox pops this email from the Arizona Cardinals' public relations.

It says, I mean, this is like. minutes before the draft. It's really right there. Arizona Cardinals and Philadelphia Eagles have agreed on the settlement of an issue concerning an instance of impermissible contact by Arizona during its head coaching search this past January. The Cardinals self-reported to the NFL. Self-reported.

Okay, sure. Hey, mom, dad, you know, I stayed out late last night. You guys didn't catch me, but I had a few beers, you know, smoked a joint. I just wanted you guys to know in good conscience. that that's what I did last night. Anyway, the Cardinals self-reported of the National Football League, the general manager Monty Austin Ford, had a phone conversation with then Eagles coordinator Jonathan Gannon

in the days following the energy championship game, a period during which contact is not permitted under anti-tampering policy. To resolve the matter, the Cardinals and Eagles have agreed to swap third round picks in the 23 draft, and the Cardinals receive Philadelphia's fifth round selection in 2024. So this came out at the very last minute. it so it didn't really get any of run. It was a classic news dump. And then second, stuff just doesn't add up to me that they self-reported because we know

the Eagles are ticked off about the Super Bowl and did Gannon do a good job. Their defense couldn't hold the lead. I wonder if this is the end of this thing because it feels like to me there's the rest of this story, right? Yeah, I mean, the fact that it came out when it did, the timing alone sets off some bells and whistles for me. They want something to go away fast. It almost seemed like a friendly version of blackmail, to be honest.

I've never known them to allow teams to settle their own grievances. They settled their own grievance right here. They couldn't go anywhere. How could that happen? Because now if I'm a team that's embroiled in something like this, hey, can we just work something out on the side here? Yeah, I know. Yeah, they let them handle their own grievance, which the league never does.

So I don't know. I don't get it. Hey, we'll go swap third round picks if you let this go away. Well, I thought you made two calls. Okay, we'll give you a fourth on the side. You're right. There's got to be something we don't know. Something we don't know.

It didn't end well in Philadelphia with that Super Bowl loss. That's a tough one. And I don't know. I think there's a lot of situations where if this had happened, like nothing would come of it. Right. If you just, someone's leaving and they had been a valued employee for a long time. Yeah, you know, we talked on the phone.

But you knew what I was going. They'd be happy for you. You got the job. Right, right. If they win the Super Bowl, there's no way this happens. I totally agree. Yeah. Why would you even bring it up?

Let them go. We got what we want. Yeah. This is only because, to me, the Eagles didn't like the way the Super Bowl went down and think their defense was to blame. There's principles. No doubt. It's principle. And that's probably why they did it.

I gave up a draft pick one time for a coach, and it was all about principle. We swapped seventh round picks, which was like five picks in the seventh round. You tell me that wasn't all about principle. That was totally about that. Yeah, what coach was that? The coach was Ron Zuck. He was a defensive back coach for the chiefs. And when we got to New Orleans, Jim wanted to hire him, Jim Hazlett, our head coach,

wanted to hire him as our defense coordinator. And the chiefs and Carl Peterson wouldn't let him go, wouldn't let him go. They had already hired his replacement, who was Joe Vitt. and he had his boxes stacked out in the hallway, and Joe was a friend of mine. He said, hey, can you get Zuck out of here? I need this office. You know? So I finally agreed with Carl Peterson that we'd swap seventh round picks, so they would let

Zook out of his contract to come to the warrants. Zuck had his stuff packed on the inside, and Vitt had his stuff packed out in the hallway. And so they could move the boxes. We finally agreed to the trade. So it was all principal. Talk about the history there. So the history there is, so Carl Peterson was. GM of the Chiefs.

And Randy had been for an office of the Seahawks when they were both in the AFC West. And Derek Thomas was trying to ruin Randy's Sundays twice a year and did a few times. And so there's that history. So I could just see Carl being like, eh, no, we're getting something, right? And little did he know. We were just fixing to sign Joe Horn, their receiver away from him like a few days later. Really? This battle went on and on.

He was the fifth receiver with the Chiefs. Did you, you knew you were going to get them? I didn't know I was going to get him, but I knew we wanted to. That's great. So is he pissed when you got horned? Or did he think he was going to get him? He was their fifth receiver, so I don't think they knew what they had. So he became the all-time leading pass catcher of the Saints a few years later.

But anyway, it was, yeah, these trades, these grievances, the trades become grievances and teams working them out on their own, sometimes goes public, sometimes they don't. And I think you're right with this one in Arizona. and there's something we don't know. Well, this one had to go public if there's draft things involved. Otherwise, people would be like, hey, why did the draft order change? Especially because the draft was just going to start. Yeah. Draft was going to start.

So that was just one that was interesting to me. You know, generally I've been, like I said, I watched all those post-draft press conferences. I was pretty impressed with Montioss &port, actually, and how he handled everything for his first time and in front of the cameras. It was, they're just, an Arizona is just a little bit of a, you know, weird situation with that stuff with the owner. You know, the stuff with Gannon and the Eagles, Gannon didn't even do a press conference during the thing. So they've still got some stuff to shake out of there,

but I think they came out of their draft pretty darn good with some future picks. Yeah, you know, and it ended up being probably a good day for them overall with an inauspicious start. So no doubt. We'll see that. You know, I was going to say, we're down to the GM notebook, Randy, but we unloaded the notebook. It's your column, right?

Yeah, you pilfered that right off the get-go, right off the top, you robbed my notebook. So we're good to go. Is your column, are you going to do a column that's kind of called the GM notebook? I don't know what they're going to call it. There may be some GM, some things that come out of the vault there. It's not as easy to tell a story in written form as it is for us to talk about it here. So hopefully people will hang right here with us and we can give a few more details, I think. Oh, absolutely.

Well, yeah, there's different ways that people can consume it now. And so there's other ways you can get into more detail in a column. And there's other ways you can get into more detail in a story. So we're going to balance those two things up here on the football GM podcast with Mike Sando of the Athletic and Randy Mueller of the Athletic. That has a nice ring to it. We had to retape that because I'm not used to sand it. But we got it good on the second time. Randy, people can find your work and my work on the athletic.

They can find you on Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore. They can find me on Twitter at Sando NFL. Thanks for coming along and we'll do this again next week. This was the Athletic Football Show.