The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: the Divisional Round, head coaching vacancies and the NFC East

Episode Date: January 20, 2024

The wild card round is over and now onward to the divisional round. But first, Mike and Randy take a look at all that went right and wrong for teams during the wild card round. From there, the guys discuss head coaching vacancies. Then we transition into a discussion about the playoff success of each team left in the playoffs. Following that, a look at the drama in the NFC East - except for The Washington Commanders. Lastly, we wrap up the conversation with the GM notebook and divisional round picks.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome, everyone, to the Football GM podcast. Mike Sando here, along with the GM, Randy Mueller. How are we doing, Mr. GM? Doing great, Michael. Always good to be back for another show. Our keys work again for another week, so I'm fired up. Yeah, no doubt about it.

We can't say the same thing around the league. There's a lot of change this time of year. I've been that guy where your key doesn't work, you know. That's why I chuckled when I heard Mike Tomlin say my key card still work. People think that's funny, but it's for real. You always see that little clip of the guy going on the Jets member and it doesn't work. You always see that as kind of like, this guy on Monday. How does that work, though, when you're let go, is it all above board?

Or have you ever had the key card not work? Or you couldn't go pick up your stuff in the office? Or how does that stuff work for guys? It's only happened to me one time. And it was Black Monday when I left the Dolphins. But to be honest with you, in fact, I said this on a show, couple weeks ago. It might not have been our show, but I knew ahead of time. You have instincts. We talk about players having instincts for the game. You have instincts for your own job as well.

And so Bill Parcells had been hired and he had been around for two or three weeks and he had never had a single conversation with me. And I would say we were friends. Really my whole career. I used to talk to him all the time. So we had a really good line of communication. Yeah. So once he got there and never really ever. Yeah, ever. I knew that he wanted to be the GM. I figured that much out. That type of stuff is so weird to me, though.

I mean, you guys are buddies. And then all of a sudden, for that week, it's awkward, huh? Well, it was for two or three weeks that he was on board. I remember the staff locker room. His locker was too down from me. And it's like we didn't know each other, you know, and I didn't press the issue. I just, I knew, right? And so that Monday, I had all my boxes packed.

I was ready to roll. probably within 30 minutes of our conversation, I was out the door. So I knew I was, I knew what was going on. And it was just time. So it happens, but I don't think anybody's ever not being able to get in their office because their key card doesn't work. Now, you may have trouble sending an email after the conversation because that computer is the first thing nowadays people grab,

or shut down per se. Well, I mean, in the real world, not the fantasy world of the NFL, people do get escorted out of the building, you know, all of a sudden they're done. Now, sometimes there's circumstances around that, you know, that are a little bit different. But, yeah, I just wondered how that works when it goes. You hear about guys going to their office that week

and pulling stuff out of there because they know it's coming, you know, and getting ready and all that. I think it happens a lot with coaches because you'll gather your files ahead of time if you know things that you'll want to travel with that the club, frankly, doesn't care if you travel with or not. So those things happen. One other funny thing about when I did leave, I passed a guy coming to interview for my job on the way out in the hallway.

I passed a guy who was, like I say, going to interview for the GM job later that day. So if it wasn't enough for you to get fired and have your boxes in hand, you pass your replacement all the way out. That's nuts. That's very funny because I caught an episode of the office last night where Michael was quitting as a regional manager. and, you know, because he's going to start the Michael Scott Paper Company, of course, legendary paper company. And as he's leaving, he sees the guy sitting in the lobby who's coming to interview for his job. Michael Scott sits down next to him and pretends like he's one of the candidates also.

I'm picturing you doing that as your guy goes in. Maybe you can interview for your own job. There's a lot of George Costanza moments in there. That's for sure where you just don't know. You can't make the stuff up. That's for sure. Yeah. Unbelievable.

Well, one guy whose key card does work is Michael. McCarthy for the Cowboys. Kind of an interesting situation, Randy, where, I mean, shoot, the last three years, there's second in the league and win percentage, right? Over 70%. Normally, you'd say no brainer, this guy's staying. But

the nature of how you lose in the playoffs, or if there's a cumulative effect of not getting over the hump, that thing comes into play sometimes, too. And we'll talk a little bit about that with, like, the situation in Philadelphia, too, with Nick Siriani, which I think we agree is different. In

this case, I came out of that Dallas game feeling like something does need to change, but I didn't really feel like it was McCarthy. I'm not ultimately surprised. What's your sort of thoughts? Yeah, I would agree. I was not surprised that he stays. In fact, I thought it would have been a major step back to make a move. But here's the problem, and this is not a media problem, it's a society problem. There was a vendetta to get him replaced the minute he fired, you know, Kellen Moore a year ago, right? And so if you weren't better, that was going to be deemed a failure.

And people forget that winning 12 games is really hard. And I know that's not the bar where we set to, you know, regular season wins matters that much. But it really does. Winning games is really hard in the NFL. I don't care if it's week one, week 17, or in the playoffs. And so I'm not surprised. I didn't think Jerry would reset every.

everything, hey, let's face it, Dax never played better. The offense, really, in my opinion, has never been better. So there's a lot of positives coming. But I agree with you in that I think what their losses this year showed me was that they have structurally some issues in team building. That team is not built to win certain matchups, especially on defense. And that was a struggle for me. And it was clear that they couldn't stop the run at crucial times during the whole season. I think the, I guess, referendum on Mike was that people were judging him really on the one game. And that doesn't really happen in the NFL. You have a bigger body of work to stand on.

And I think that's a frustrating thing for fans and for media. But that's what happened here is that there was a bigger body of work. Well, I want to get into that a little bit. But what you said about the construction of the team is really interesting to me. Raina, you and I talked a little bit about this yesterday, just on our regular. conversations, which we don't record. We don't put those out. Thank goodness.

But some of those are good. You know, some of those are good. They get us get our brain going a little bit. And one of the things we were talking about was, you know, when you think about a team that was really good, but took a long time to win in the playoffs, I always think of the Peyton Manning Colts of the, you know, the 2000s, really had great teams. They won a ton of games in the regular season, but it took a long time, I mean, to really get through in the playoffs.

Some of that, sure, you're playing against, you know, Brady's in the playoffs and all of that with those great New England teams. But I think the contrast between the team builds of New England and Indy back in that day, maybe apply a little bit now as we look at, you know, at how this team is built with speed. If you look at those Colts teams, Randy, as we talked about yesterday, great pass rushers. The idea was, hey, we got Peyton Manning, we're going to score 30 points. And then we're just going to turn these rushers loose and be fast. and win. And it did work. Because we're going to be ahead. Because we're going to be ahead most of the time. Yeah. Yeah. And I get it. I mean, it doesn't sound like a bad way to go. You play to the strengths of your team. But in Dallas's case in particular, they don't have Peyton Manning. They have a good Jack Prescott.

But are they built a little bit the same way? And is that a fatal flaw, do you think, for them? Well, it can be a fatal flaw depending on the matchups. I think that's what you find. And you recall the Colts games or Colts teams. I was with the Chargers at the time. And I remember, remember us matching up against the Colts very well. And this is when we had good running back. The Danne Tomlinson. Yeah, we ran the ball right down their throat. And they were small and they couldn't do anything about it. And so matchups matter. And they seems like they get amplified more in the playoffs because it is all about one game, one scheme, one plan and one design. And that's, I think, what we saw happen with Dallas. And you bring it up that that was the Achilles heel of the Colts as

well. So sometimes your matchups favor the way your team is constructed. But if it's constructed like this where you have a lack of size, a lack of strength, a lack of sand at the point of attack, these things can be problematic when you face a team that decides they're going to run the ball and can execute it. It's one thing to decide to do it. It's another thing to execute a design plan. Yeah, absolutely. Was that in the playoffs, the Chargers? Did Phillips, Philip Rivers tore his ACL against the Colts? Was that what it was in the playoffs? trying to think. Maybe.

He played the next week. I know that. I think it might have been in New England or something like that. I think him and LT both did one time, and LT missed and the quarterback played. Yeah, I know he played in the New England game. It was just making me think of all that. But, yeah, that's an interesting component for Dallas to think about because certainly the head coach is ultimately responsible for a lot of these things and are you winning

in the playoffs. Mike and McCarthy doesn't get a free pass forever on that just because you're going to win 70%. But that component of it, I think I was sure, disappointed. pointed with some things offensively. I think Mike McCarthy alluded to the fact that it took a while for Dak to get going in the game, and Dak was not good early. They had pick six and all kinds of things,

but I would have hoped from a Dallas standpoint that their defense, which has been good statistically, could have held up a little bit better than it did and kept the game a little bit closer for them, and instead we saw it really, really exposed. So I just think it was a defense that at different times during the season showed us a little window into what we saw. Linebackers shaky, up front, not able to hold a point.

Secondary, different styles of play. And I'm not saying Dan Quinn's not a good coach because I think Dan is, but his defense has been built kind of to his liking and what they want to do. I'm not sure that's the answer in the long haul deep into the playoffs either. I think at some point, whether it's weather or whether it's the matchup, you've got to be able to hold a point, stop the run, and do some things other than just hope for turnovers. And, oh, by the way, in your conference, you know, the 49ers like to run the ball. The Rams have a little bit more of a run game and are on the rise.

Philly's been all about the run game, right? Their quarterback is built for it and all of that. When the Saints were good, they ran the ball too, you know. So, yeah, all these teams are going to run the ball. You're right. Yeah, absolutely. So I think that'll be something to watch as all the focus will be on deck Prescott, Mike McCarthy, what are you doing?

that defensive side of the ball for being as good as they were statistically has some issues that have been exposed and maybe need to be addressed for them to be a little bit more of a complete team. One thing that has not changed in Dallas as the coaching staffs have over the years is the way they evaluate and value players. And so that's another boat that has to be fixed in my opinion, or at least tweaked. And Dax said it best. Dax said it in the post-game press conference after the game. He said if McCarthy's on the hot seat, so am I. And others said there's plenty of blame to go around. So we'll see if Jerry's willing to make the changes he needs to make to his own side of the building. That's really interesting because, you know, look, bigger

pictures zoom out to 30,000 feet. I mean, I think we all agree that Jerry Jones is the common the nominator in the post Jimmy Johnson era for having to be the star of the show and out front, making it difficult to coach the team. And I really hold him ultimately accountable for their inability to break through. They always raise the expectations and don't deliver. But below that, let's just set that to the side, your component of the evaluation process is interesting because I think we do think that they've done a pretty good job of in the personnel department, right? we would say in general they've done okay in personnel, right, with Will McLeigh and those guys, but that what you're evaluating to in terms of the construction of your defense and maybe

the style of players, is that what you're getting at? It doesn't feel like they've had a ton of busted players, right? Well, I'm not willing to, and I like Will McLeigh, I think he's done a really good job, like you say. Two years ago, I thought the job was being done better than it was recently. So I'm just saying it ebbs and flows as well. Here's an example. They paid to right tackle this year, $15 million on average year and signed me to an extension. To me, he's just a guy, and just a guy. And how or why we decided to pay that, I have no idea, but he was getting run around like a turnstile the last few weeks. And I just don't know how that decision is made. How can we say this is worth this? And so decisions like that, you know, whether it's guys on

defense that we're paying five, six million a year. I don't know that that's what we want is all I'm saying. So someone has to, one, evaluate, two, value it and then build in the team, the team bricks of team building components to put it all together. And I think there's a little bit of not so good a job this year done in that regard. And they were really, I think, better a couple years ago from a total team standpoint. Yep. Yep. And I think the valuation thing always has been an issue with with Jerry Jones wanting to almost justify his decisions with some of the contracts. Can't wait to overpay our own guys. Yeah. Yeah. There's no doubt that's been an issue. Before we move on to Eagles and the rest of this division, really, we're going to talk a little anesthesia. I wanted to

just put a little bit of perspective here on the playoff success component. The last three seasons, seven teams have won at least 60% of their games. That's Kansas City, Dallas, Buffalo, San Francisco, Philly, Cincinnati, Baltimore. I thought it was interesting in just looking at the success of these teams. Kansas City, six and one in the playoffs, Cincinnati, five, and two. Probably no surprise,

those are the best records. They have the best quarterbacks, probably. 49ers at four and two. That's actually a little better than I thought. They've advanced in the playoffs, typically. Philadelphia, two and three. Dallas one and three, and Baltimore,

oh, and one. Isn't interesting? No one's talking about. Baltimore, John Harbaugh has won a Super Bowl, and, you know, we, he has a lot of respect, I think, rightfully so. But the last three years, they haven't won a playoff game. So, well, maybe we've been talking about them in a week, you know,

hopefully for them in a good way. But, you know, I thought that was interesting. Now, Eagles situation ran into the last three seasons, Nick Sierra only 34 and 17 playoffs every year, Super Bowl in 2022 season. But they are in a free fall without answers. And this is one of those cases where if a change were, made, I almost think the burden of proof is on Siriani in a weird way for having such a good record. Like, we've heard their meeting, you know, with ownership. I kind of agree. He's got

some explaining to do here, right? He definitely has some spaining to do. There's no doubt. That is something that, in my opinion, if he knew the answers, he would have fixed it two months ago or six or seven weeks ago. And that didn't, that was not apparent to me that he could fix anything. I think just as we talked about the personnel side of the Cowboys and the structure of that team being ongoing with change, you've got to be able to do that as a GM is managed change and manage the change of your people. And that's something the Eagles this year did a bad job of. They didn't manage the change really in personnel on the defensive side. And they didn't manage the change of two coordinators walking out the door. And so that is part of the job description for a head coach.

that is part of the job description for a GM. So I think we'll see how this goes in that I think Sirian has got to sell his vision and kind of not make excuses, but give his reasoning of why I can fix it now and couldn't fix it seven weeks ago. That would be my question if I was Jeff Lurie. I want to know if he have these answers, why not now? Maybe we were dinged up. Maybe he has some reasoning.

I don't know. I saw a team that did not really seem committed to playing. their fundamentals had really suffered. Their communication, especially on defense, was chaos half the time. So it was a team. It looked to me like Nick Siriani was so worried about almost like a politician getting votes from his locker room that he forgot. We got to work on certain things. We've got to grind on certain things.

We've got to use all our OTA days in the off season. We've got to actually practice hard and practice tackling and do some things because all those things went the wayside for me the last five, six weeks with that team. I didn't see the commitment. I didn't see the commitment to fundamentals. I didn't see a team that really had bought in. So there's some missing element there. I don't know. You tell me how we fix it. I'm just looking at them a little bit bigger picture. We know Jason Kelsey is very likely to retire a stalwart player, a great player at a kind of an anchor position that can calm the quarterback position that really is huge for your offensive line. Dr. Cox is, you know, nearing the end probably just chronologically. He's been around a long time. And, you know, certainly if he's assessing his future, which he is not committed to returning or saying he's made a decision, this wouldn't be probably a bad time for him. Brandon Graham, you know, has been there a long time. And I think he said he would like to come back. But there's a lot of guys that have been with this team for a long time who may not be in the future. This was kind of the last hurrah, probably for that group. They have a ton of work to.

do it looks like in their back seven defensively you would say that's got to be a huge thing so we're going to we're almost in a little bit of a not a reset this year but there is some resetting maybe of the leadership of the team uh you know like we said defense there's a lot of things are going to have to change if you were the GM uh do you kind of decide maybe that hey it's time we we got to reset this whole thing uh or do you do it incrementally well maybe we do we do because like I said, I think you've got to go back to your roots when you struggle. And for Nick Seriani, he grew up on the offensive side of the ball. As you and I both know, he was an assistant for Norv Turner,

was with the Chargers for several years before spinning off and going with Frank Reich to Indy and Philly. And so he's been down the offensive tree 100% of his time, as far as I'm concerned. The plan that I saw them roll out against Tampa last week was embarrassing. That was the opposite of making adjustments, the opposite of dealing with blitzes, the opposite of anything that you could have given your offense hope. And I thought I saw that in body language of the players. The body language, it's hard when you, I think, lose a little bit of the locker room.

And because of these veterans that are maybe walking out the door, like you said, it might be a credibility issue that they've got to find now from the top on down. I don't think Howie's going anywhere, how he has built this team over and over again, and I think does a good job. But he's going to have to look hard at where does the locker room and how do they view the job of the head coach and how are they viewing our job to build this team? Because players do know. You can't fool them. So I think they've got a tough task in Jeff Lurie and Howie Roseman in dealing with how we restructure this. And sometimes change is hard, but they have found a way to deal with change pretty good.

I think we'll see. I would not be surprised if they made a change in Philly, though, and I could totally understand it. And like you said, it feels different for me because you have a longer history of body of work that happened all the second half of the season, really all the season. We've never been completely happy with the way Philly played all year long. So I think they've got enough body of work to be able to get the answers they need for sure. Yep, absolutely. And to clarify, there was not an overlap with Norv. and Nick, I think it was just Shane Steichen, who had the Norve Tides.

Oh, maybe he came with, he came after. Yeah, he was after. He was after. And so, yeah, I bring that up, I mean, not just to clarify, but, you know, the roots and background that you have as a coach can influence whether, you know, what answers you have to. Oh, 100%. You know, and we are seeing Shane Stuyken have some of those answers in Indianapolis that looks like to me. When they had to think on their feet and go with a different coordinator

and this type of thing, he seemed to navigate that. And I think the contrast between what Shane Steichen has been able to do in Indy and then what it's looked like without him in Philly may give informed ownership and management there in Philly with the Eagles of okay, right? That's one of the things I'd want Nick Suryani to explain to me. Hey, are we just missing? Are we missing these guys? We can't do without him. What happened? So interesting. No, that's a good point. And that's my bad for thinking they were together because they were both with us at the Chargers. I didn't realize that Nick wasn't under Norv's direction. Well, it was very close.

I think Norv was gone in 12 and I think he came in in 13. I got you. But yeah, all these guys overlap to some degree in two degrees of separation. Yeah, but Shane stayed beyond that as well. One was a quarterback coach, one was a receiver coach for several years for us with the Chargers. Yes. Let's move on to the Giants too Because kind of under the radar this week

I know I shared with you that That New York Daily News piece That really You know Got into some of the turmoil And the coaching staff there Just a lot of stuff's been kind of swirling around From where we were, Randy, a couple of years ago

You know, after the 2020 season, I think a pretty good outlook with the Giants You know, we liked what they had done there but almost everything sometimes you're going to have a you know a regress year and maybe you won too early and that sort of a thing but i think there's different types of regress years and hey you get your quarterback hurt your running back was hurt okay if it was just a personnel thing and you stubbed your toe but some of this stuff that's been coming out i would like your kind of expert feel on what matters or not um we've seen basically the idea of the new york day news story was basically

hey, you know that volcanic version of Brian Dayball that we see on the sideline, the guy throwing his tablet as he kind of walks away from Daniel Jones, the guy who's just ripping Tyrod Taylor on the field after he makes a situational blunder and the half runs out. The guy who couldn't meet with NBC's halftime reporter, sideline reporter, because he just, quote, in her words, said his head is not in it, can't focus on anything right now in the Buffalo game. Well, basically the Daily News story said, yeah, that version of Daveau is the guy who's in the building as well. That's why there's this conflict with Wink Martindale. That's why there's all these sources that are coming forward now and basically painting it as a chaotic situation. They're saying the GMs had to be on the headset, if not police. What's going on with the coaches at least listen to it. There's a story that, you know, demeaning Wink Martindale over the head said,

hey, try not to blow this call, trying to blow this game like he did against the Jets. All these sorts of things that tend to come out when you made some enemies. And, you know, there was a very negative article this year about Sean McDermott as well, painting him as kind of a tyrant with Buffalo. The bills have won six in a row since then.

So sometimes these things can have truth, but we don't always know, Randy, like how important it is. Or I would like to know what's your sort of optics feel here. What should we think is important? or not? Is this just a bunch of sour grape stuff that's coming out? Or do we have genuine concerns about the leadership of the Giants? Well, I think your points are all right on. You do have years when you have things not go right. And they are coming off of what I would consider it a great year for them last year. And it seemed like this year was filled with every move they made

turned out bad for whatever reason. But I'll also say this. There's a history in this league of coaches who become head coaches and change their personality, change their agendas, change their communicative skills, all of these. And I'm not saying this has happened to Brian, but it has happened to others where power, money, all the reasons that they move into these chairs aren't becoming of them. And they kind of change the way they are. I thought Dable was a really good offensive coordinator. He did a good job in Buffalo for many years. And I even think before that, you know, he was with Sabin at Alabama, has a history. I think of designing, constructing, and implementing schemes, systems, and game plans all really well.

I was disappointed that he's kind of gotten his, gotten away from that. And I think sometimes a coach like Brian who can sink his teeth into a game plan and kind of give everybody else their room because of it, because he's so involved, is sometimes more effective. And this seems to me like it might be one of those times when he probably needs. to do less management, less communicating with others, and sync into what I really do good. And that's what he did was call games, implement systems and do all that. So he's went away from that. Mike Kafka called the plays.

Then Brian, it sounds like we'd get involved at certain times, kind of pull his weight here, but then run from it here. That's a very frustrating component of leadership for those under you when they don't know what's coming next from you and they don't understand it. And it seems to me like there's been some up and downs and people can take things however they want. But the light that he shines has been inconsistent. One second, it's super bright. The next second, it's passive, you know. So I don't know. If this keeps happening, there will be a credibility issue in the building. And I don't know if Joe Shane, the GM can cover for it all. But credibility in the locker room is the number one thing

that will get you. And I don't know where that stands with Giants players right now, but when you throw tablets at them, when you embarrass them on public, on national TV, they don't like that, nor should they have to like it.

Some people get paid to take, take the brunt of the blame. And this might have been one of those cases where the high road has never really done me wrong. Brian could take the high road a few times as well. Yeah. Yeah, my takeaway is from listening to that insight, Randy, would be, hey, dayball runs a little hot.

We would agree with that. Dave ball runs a little hot, and dayball is good at the game. plans. So find a way to turn the dials in a manner that accentuates what he does well and maybe, you know, softens the thing that is possibly a problem or gets him into trouble, right? That's probably the fairest way to say it. Whether or not all these details are true or the sources behind them have peer intentions

or not, those are probably a couple of things that we'll be looking for this next season with the Giants in his leadership style. and then, like you said, hands on in the game plan. We've been seeing Mike Kafka go around and interview for jobs, too. So, you know, they're already, the defensive coordinator left in a huff, and then the special teams coach is gone,

I believe, right? You made a change there. And so if you have, if the offensive coordinator is being allowed to look around, which I guess he can, they can't stop him if he's doing it. I guess it's head coach interviews, but we'll see what his future is there

and just the overall vibe of this offseason. And it'll help us kind of research. set and know what to look for next year besides the wins, which are going to have to come for him too. Yeah, I think it's a, this is a side note, but you see Kafka interview, you see the offensive coordinator, Brian Johnson from the Eagles interviewing other places as a head coach. You see the defensive coordinator from Carolina interviewing. Those interviews are important for them and for the teams.

Maybe they don't end up being a real candidate as the head coach, but when they do hire a head coach, they will have already interviewed a coordinator who, it sounds like in those three spots, they might be available. So don't just write off those interviews as, why would they interview this guy? He might get fired. Well, there's a reason behind some of that. So they're gathering information these teams all are, as are the candidates gathering information about the teams that they get to show their stuff in front of in one of these interviews. Yep. How about this? We're talking about NFC East drama, and we haven't even mentioned the commanders. And we just spent, you know, a good chunk of the show, drama, and there's nothing on the commander. That's got to be a pretty good thing,

right? They're not in the center of a bunch of controversies. That is a plus beyond you could ever imagine. And I totally agree. And I'm not sure I would have believed it with the setup that they had going, with Josh Harris coming in as a new owner, with implementing a all-star panel of interviewers and red flags, man. Yeah, all kinds of red flags. But I'll tell you what, you got to give them credit. They were decisive. They made a decision quickly. And in my opinion, by hiring Adam Peters, their GM, they took the top candidate off the table of anybody else. So I got to give them credit for acting in a way that I wasn't sure they could do with all those people involved. Okay. So is it a good thing, though, that they moved first? I mean, why would it not be? I would

have wanted to get the guy I wanted, and clearly he, for my money, was the best perspective. It also tells me that they're definitive in their structure. They want the general manager involved in the head coaching interviews. There's some of these places that don't have a GM and they're interviewing coaches. Well, okay, that's fine. But at some point, you better let the GM be involved in some of that, at least. And it looks to me like that in Washington now Adam Peters, not only is involved,

can run the search for the head coach. My thought on that, just a potential counter would be, okay, you're the ownership who has the most to learn here, right? You have the most to learn. And you're making the decision first. Aren't you listen to as many people as you can and really trying to figure this thing out? Or they've had the whole year to do that, the whole season to do that. And so now they know.

And right when the period starts, hey, this is the guy we want. We know what we want them. That's how you're seeing it. I see it as we, maybe some of us, me included, thought that they were sleepwalking for the last six, eight weeks. And no, they were just the opposite of that. They were gathering information. They had people on the panel. They had, you know, the Bob Myers's, the Rick Spielman's.

those guys have been around in their particular sports. They're going to know probably more than anybody else. They'll probably know more about what they need than Magic Johnson needs or Josh Harris needs. So those kind of guys will help you get to the decision quickly and decipher BS from BS, to be honest with you. So I think they did gather. They had their ducks lined up and you've got to give them credit for acting in a definitive way. Now, and on top of that, there's a potential that Ben Johnson could be a guy that they're looking at to be their head coach, which I think people would think, hey, that's one of the number one candidates by name, right?

Yep. You know, he's called 36 games in the NFL. It's not like he's got this huge amazing track record, but it's looked very good in Detroit, at least in terms of calling the offense. But I wanted to circle back with you on this because we've talked before, hey, the Beltway is a place where we really want a veteran GM and coach to handle all the market. You've got this ownership group with a bunch of voices from whether it's the end, NBA or NFL or all these people with opinions on what's going on.

You're going to really need some experienced guys in leadership to navigate all this and handle it and to have credibility and to really show the owners around the league. And hey, this is how the league meetings work and this is what we need to have ready for the competition committee. And here's what we do this and that. Well, if you got Adam Peters and Ben Johnson, that's not exactly guys who've done those such things before. Is that concerning to you at all or no?

you think the guys are so good that you just do it. I think of all the guys who got interviewed and all the candidates that Adam probably was the most qualified from all the reasons you just gave. No, he's not been a GM. I get that. But I'll also say this, him together with Ben Johnson and who's to say they don't add another person or another couple people to the mix. I do know this, that Adam worked with Martin Mayhew, who was the GM there with the prior regime.

They worked together in San Francisco. maybe that relationship gets extended. If not, Adam, I feel like, will hire a former GM, somebody who can fill the role to connect some of the dots that you just said, because I do think it's a vital role still. And you're right, they are light on experience and perspective in a market that, hey, there's sharks swimming every day. So I do think that will be part of Adam's plan going forward, whether it's Martin or somebody else. he'll bring in a former GM that makes that thing kind of the glue behind ownership being new,

a GM being new, and a coach being new. Before we get to, we want to talk about Matt LaFleur today. Also going to go through these head coaching vacancies. I'd ranked them in a column. I want to get Randy's thoughts on that. But let's quickly move through the Mike Tomlin news slash non-news, depending on your point of view. It's been a weird run down the stretch. here to the last few weeks where there were, you know, kind of rumblings, not really reports,

sort of reports, suggestions from the Adam Schifters and Jay Glazers of the world. You know, hey, is there some uncertainty with Mike Tomlin's future? Could he take a Sean Payton year off? Those sorts of things. Then we saw kind of comedically funny. When Mike Tom was asked about it after the game that they lost in Buffalo, he kind of walked off, stormed away, and I was wondering, okay. Are you saying that was a plan?

Well, it looked kind of choreographed to me, but look, you know, the whole thing seemed kind of weird down the stretch for me. And look, he's, he's, they usually do a contract for Mike Tom when I think, you know, April, May, June, that sort of a thing. So it's not like it, you know, he was going to lapse and his key card wasn't going to work. But let's just go through what he said. He said, yep, I expect to be back. Imagine the contract will take care of itself. good relationship, transparent relationship with art, meaning art Rooney, too. You know, we can communicate all the time.

Don't imagine it's going to be an issue. It'll probably get done at the appropriate time. My mindset is to coach the team. And then when asked about the rumors, hey, you guys in the media are better equipped to understand the origins and some of that stuff. I understand the speculation is a component of what we do, trying to get caught up in it, distracting in it, particularly when it's not where I'm at.

I was thinking, man, if certainly Tomlin and his camp had to know these rumors were going on for weeks, they could have easily put him to rest easily. There's just a single phone call to one of these NFL newsbreaker guys. That didn't happen. Just curious what your read is. Well, I would agree with that. I don't think Adam Schaefter or Jay Glazer is going to come out with just rumor and innuendo without having some kind of smoke behind what they're saying.

And I do think you're correct. He could have put it to rest. I think they all came out for a reason. I think the message is always fluid with any of these teams, not just the Steelers. But I do think Mike had a method to his madness and probably some truth to the fact of when he walked away from the podium after the last game, that he was still sending that message. For the most part, I liked what I heard from Mike in this post-game press conference. He was non-committal on a lot of things.

I think he was asked a lot of questions. he's always pretty pure and to the point. I think he was still sending some messages when he was asked about players regarding their status. I think the contract taking care of itself, like you mentioned, is fact. They are not going to be able to hire an offense coordinator with Mike being under contract for one year. So that makes no sense at all, nor does it really make any sense for him to go into the last year. Now, it may be a one year and an option type extension. That's fine.

The one issue that I did, two things, the offensive coordinator to me now from what he said is clearly going to come from the outside. I get it. The narrative on the Steelers for the last six weeks has been they're just a quarterback away from being great. I don't necessarily buy that because the quarterback, although I'm not in love with the way Pickett's played, I'm not in love with Mason Rudolph either. I think it's more all from 30,000 feet. They're a offensive system away from being. a playoff team. So regardless of the quarterback, their scheme sucks. Okay, it's been bad for two years. Everybody's made fun of it. They've got to figure out a vision for what they want to do and where they want to be going forward on offense. That's more inclusive than just a quarterback. So they've got to sort that out. The other thing I think with regard to him is he will, he, he, in talking about his contract, he was also asked, is this going to be a year-to-year thing for you? Is this something that you foresee being here long term. His response to that was telling for me in that he didn't say I'm here for the long run. This is when he came out with the comment of, hey, my key card still works. I love what

I'm doing. I love getting up every day. He didn't answer the question. And I know, I think you understand, we've gone through this really in Seattle with Pete Carroll. We've gone through other places where if the coach isn't in for the long haul, different decisions have to be made with a vision further out than year to year on building your team, on how you're setting club precedent, on really the construction of your whole organization. So at some point, I would hope that Mike either says I'm in here for the long haul, if for no other reason, just to build some faith that we can make decisions for the next two or three years. I don't need a commitment for five years. But the year to year I feel good about when I get up every morning, that rang hollow for me

and that I thought he needed to make more of a commitment for that. That was the only really negative critique that I could give what he said, because the rest of it was pretty much coach-speak, but in Tomlin way that makes you think it's very authentic, that's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. I've always liked his delivery. But I think he's also super smart and intentional with everything he does and says. Super smart and intentional.

Yes. Everything sought through. And, you know, as I looked at them, just kind of the landscape. there, you know, a couple things occurred. One, haven't won a playoff game since the 16th season. That's a long time ago. You go look at the league in 2016. A lot's happened since then.

Dan Rooney's died, Big Ben retired, Kevin Colbert retired, and so on. So, you know, I have just kind of been curious to see, you know, how great the partnership will be. He did mention a great relationship with Art Rooney. So that's going to have to sustain this whole thing. And it can. It can. I agree with that.

Because he was also. asked about Omar Khan, the GM and how confident he was in that Omar could do his part of it, and it was a one-word answer back. He said, confident. That's all he said. There was no expanded answer. There was no nothing else that I heard about it. So that was a little bit, you know, I wouldn't say it's alarming, but I would have thought that there may have been more of a wide-ranging answer in collaborating with Omar instead of just one word. That's for sure. Because he did take the time to say, yeah, the Rooney relationship was what it was, and it was glowing, glowing. Yeah, just all of those changes have happened and they happen incrementally over time.

And then you have to look back and realize that, oh, my gosh, like the most important things to the head coach, there are different than they were before. So you have to think about these things. And it doesn't mean you spread rumors of that it's going to fall apart or something. No, but these are things to be aware of and that usually typically have to be navigated. and we're just attuned to it. So that's what I'd say about that. Let's move to another historic franchise from the Steelers to the Green Bay Packas.

Big winners in the wildcard round. I'll tell you here in the Sandow House. I got my office downstairs, Randy. My son was corrupted by his kindergarten teacher was from Green Bay. She got him going on the Packers since he was like four years old. And so I'm trying to work down here. Watch at work.

I mean, like my job's work. But I'm trying to, you know, monitor the games in my office. And the TV upstairs is apparently a few seconds ahead. And so I'm here, I hear this stomping upstairs. I know something big happened for the Packers. And then the dog comes running down scared. And it was quite a day for my son wearing his, his Savage jersey, number 26 on the pick six.

Really, for a team, Randy, that had a bad year in 2022, did not start well this year. Could have been really easy to question Matt LaFleur, where they're at. They win seven of their final 10. The quarterback looks good. They add an eighth win in the playoffs. Shoot, we've got to give Matt LaFleur some flowers here, don't we? Oh, I think you definitely have to.

I think one of the biggest questions we had when the season started was, how would Matt LaFleur lead? This is the first time without Aaron Rogers, where he was kind of lone soldier, right? He was HMFIC, you know, this was for the first time. And so it is what it is in that he has weathered the storm. I think for me it's as much of a testament as how much coaching matters,

how much teaching matters, and how much developing players matter. Because it's been said from day one, how young this offense is for the Packers. And it's come light years since we saw them week one. These players, especially that receiving room has done really good. They've evolved as improving at their trade.

They've evolved in learning a system. I think for me, it showed me that Matt Lafleur is not just a play caller. He has a system in place, and it has answers for the quarterback. And if the quarterback can feel comfortable with the speed of the game around him, he's going to be supplied with answers. And that's why I would be most excited to be a Packer fan, is because the speed of the game hasn't bothered, and love, and the offensive system, not just plays, the system gives the quarterback all the answers

he needs. And if he can find the answers, once the snap gets in his hands, like he has the last few weeks, the sky's the limit, because really he's going to get a lot better with the reps he gets in regular season and these playoff reps are super valuable. See, that's interesting to me, because I can remember a few years ago. It's been a few years. Well, the floor's been there a while now. But a few years ago, I can remember when they maybe lost a big game to the 49ers. And I remember talking to a coach who was critical a little bit scheme-wise, you know, in what they were doing. And it's always been interesting to me because as much as Matt LaFleur was, you know, enabled by the greatness of Aaron Rogers, he also probably couldn't do everything he wanted to do

because Aaron's going to do whatever he wants at the line of scrimmage and improvise. And, you know, he's a virtuoso out there doing his own thing. So maybe we've, you know, if you were fearful of what you might learn about Matt Lafleur in the absence of Aaron Rogers, it's actually been a good chance to see that he does bring a system to the table. And we've heard some of the players there or we've heard even opponents there talk about what that means. It's a little bit more of a coherent, purposeful progression, right?

Yeah, no doubt. I think, and again, this is the next step. We hadn't seen Matt Lefleur at this level do things in the playoffs that actually paid off. They've been good. They've won a lot of regular season games, much like we hear the criticism out of Dallas about Mike McCarthy. But I think these playoff games, and you know how I feel about the second half of NFL seasons. I think it's all about coaching. These playoff games kick it up a notch.

It's all about specific designs, game plans, doing everything you can to win one particular game. I think Matt LaFleure has done that coming down the stretch to where he's definitely expunging a lot of the questions we all had about the system and his operation of it. And I can't overemphasize enough that it's all about giving the quarterback answers. That's why I feel bad for a guy like Jalen Hertz in Philly because I don't think he had the answers. I feel bad at times for Justin Fields in Chicago because he didn't have all the answers. it's just it's a marriage between the system and the quarterback that advances your offense and it's really evident at the NFL level. It seems like it was a great one between Jay Gruden and RG3.

Have you seen their Twitter stuff? Very mature, high level. It's been very entertaining. Yeah. Yeah, those. Because I think Jay said, oh, man, I apologize to any quarterbacks. If I put them in as bad a position as the Eagles are putting Jalen Hertz in it, And then Robert Griffin threw a third out hilarious.

It was so funny. He had so funny. He had a picture of him with his glasses down on the end of his nose like, excuse me here? And then that devolved into an absolute food fight. Unbelievable. That's a good description. This is great.

Nobody wants you. Nobody wanted you. Yeah. I'm watching the whole thing, okay? I love it. I mean, it's bad probably. It's not very mature, especially for the coach. I mean, come on.

The coach can't be doing. You know, just a high road. You mentioned the high road, but isn't it entertaining when people take the low road? It sure is. It happens so often. This ego is just immense, right? And the power of ego and the power of an agenda. It just kills people if they could only just bite their lip and take the high road.

It would serve them so much better as a professional. And I think personally. You learn a lot about people. That's for sure. You do. You mentioned it all about coaching down the stretch. You know, I've been talking to a former GM, sorry, Randy. You're not the only former jam that I talked to.

Oh, man, I'm hurt. No, but he said it wasn't in relation to the L'LFluor, but we were kind of more talking about McCarthy. But he had the axiom kind of of something along the lines of general managers win regular season game, coaches win playoff games. That's kind of what you're talking about. You're talking about even the second half of the season, but the coaches have to differentiate, right?

You can put a good roster together that's going to win a lot of games, but the coaches do differentiate a lot in the end. No doubt. I think what that roster becomes at the halfway point is what a coach has to work with in the second half of a season and in the playoffs. Hey, let's face it, Bill Belchick's won a lot of games. Nobody has been better at designing game plans and strategy on a week-to-week basis than him over the last 20 years in the league. And that's why most people think he's the greatest, at least over that span of time. So the good coaches, they get noticed in the second half of seasons and in the playoffs, and it really matters.

So one last thing on the floor The elephant in the room here is just that everyone was kind of calling for Joe Barry's head During the season And then they obviously had a great first half defensively against Dallas And in the end of the game their stats weren't good defensively But they dominated defensively to put them the big lead And then Lafleur even sort of apologized for taking players out They gave a lot of meaningless yards and points late in the game

But I think that would be an interesting thing for Matt Lafleur. We've talked about that before, that the job is also in the offseason. It's being able to make the tough decisions. It's having the right plan for your defense. I think that will be interesting. I'd love to be in on those meetings of, hey, what are our issues on defense? Is it, to what extent is it personnel, to what extent is it coordinator, to what extent is it the match of those two things? Because really, they, now, if the doors get blown off of them, you know, and they give up 50 points to the 40-liners, you know, it's probably easier to make a decision.

But shoot, they're playing, they played pretty good. So I think that, isn't that kind of a, where would you be in a conversation like that? I mean, does the GM take a lead in that or is it all in the coach or what? Well, I think it depends on your organizational philosophy. I think a lot depends on how involved the GM feels comfortable getting. I never felt great in demanding coaching staff changes from my coach. But I do think a conversation like this has to. lead the way. And sometimes it's hard for a head coach to make a decision based on

recency biased. And that's kind of what you're going to see, I think, come out of LaFleur with regard to Joe Barry is the last couple of weeks weren't so bad. Why would we want to change that? But again, you've got to go back to the full body of work. I keep saying that, but you can't be swayed by one game here or a half there. You've got a full body of work to consider when you come up with these plans. And I think if nothing else, it's the GM job. to keep that conversation on track with that, with that cloud over the top, right? We're going to look at, let's look at the last two years and where we're at and have we evolved. If not, if our personnel doesn't fit, and if that's what the coach is saying now,

then why didn't this come up before? If it did, there should be evidence clearly now whether that was right or that was wrong. So these conversations, I think, are fluid. I think they have to happen. There's a lot of places, and we've talked about it here, Mike, on the pod, a lot of places where they won't have these awkward conversations. They just want to rubber stamp something because this is what the coach wants or this is what the GM wants. I'm all for having these conversations because I think it makes us all better at the end and is stronger for the organization.

And if you have an owner that wants to weigh in, you know, hopefully not in the style of a David Tepper, but somebody that wants to weigh in, you've got to take that information in. None of us are smarter than all of us. And so it depends, like I say, on the organization's philosophy, but on the GM philosophy as well as how he wants to manage the whole picture. Yep, absolutely. So before we get to the GM notebook and into our picks here, we'll just touch on with all these job openings.

There were eight openings. One of them really wasn't an opening because New England had a plan with Gerard Mayo getting the job, but we'll lump him in there. I went through this week, Randy, and kind of ranked these in order of what I thought would be the appeal to a candidate, which my order came out being chargers, falcons, Seahawks, Patriots, Raiders, commanders, Titans, and Panthers. And basically, when I tried to come up with the criteria,

I was thinking from a head coaching standpoint, I would be looking at, hey, what's my odds of winning in the first couple of years? Because these guys get fired if you don't. You have to show something right away, typically. And then is the division a killer or super easy? I think that is something that a lot of candidates would look at. You can't be choosy in these situations, but that's something you look at.

And then is there a fatal flaw with ownership, you know? Right. what do you think of that from a coach's standpoint? elbow to elbow every day all day. And what I would want to know as the head coach is, can the two of us, you know, get support in every way from ownership and get all the tools that we need to make collaborative, correct decisions going forward? I think that's the key for me is the collaboration and the setup and the relationship.

And sometimes that includes evaluating personalities. It definitely includes perspective and communicative skills. those are all important as well. So I don't disagree with your criteria. We'll see how some of these places work out. I didn't disagree with your order either. The only criteria that I would include said another way is that some of these teams don't have a GM yet.

So my order could be subject to who the GM is going to be. For example, we've talked about Adam Peters being in Washington now. To me, that might move them up a little bit and the way they went about their job of hiring him. So I might move them up a slot or two, and I can't remember where you had them, but I think it was below the media. Yeah. I had them, I had them only above Tennessee and, uh, in Carolina. And Carolina. Yeah. So that may move them up a little bit because we know more. That may be more stable now than, say, the Raiders, who I would have thought is a good job or even New England at this point. I like the setup better for them to succeed, whoever the head coach is with,

with the commanders. So those kind of things. You know, I probably have New England a little high. I ended up having them forth. And as I look at this, I just, you know, we have question marks about, it's funny, question marks about the crafts. I mean, Robert Kraft's going on the edge of the Hall of Fame. But it's kind of an interesting place now. My quick run through these was, for me, the chargers with the top quarterback and

owners who don't drive success, we've talked about that, but maybe give your candidate a longer runway. They're going to let you. Really, I believe Brandon Staley would still be there. if he had a little bit of a different personal style, right? All those other guys, Lynn, McCoy, they got four years without really, maybe each one won one playoff game. So for a candidate to go in there, I'd feel like, hey, off a staley, I'm going to have a real chance there with Herbert.

The Falcons, to me, it's an easier division. I think the owner's fine. There's some imperfections there, but he's probably going to be supportive. And also, does it feel like Arthur Blank drives some accountability there too or no? Oh, I think he definitely does. I think you see that. And like I think you mentioned in your column, he's swung for big fish before and it doesn't bother him.

That may not be the best thing for Rich McKay or for Terry Fontno, but Arthur's going to do, Arthur Blank is going to do what he wants to do. And I think that's a good thing for the Falcons. I had the Seahawks next, but the more I think about it, like not only are you following Pete Carroll, they've got nine and eight twice. So they're not happy with that.

You go in there, you better be winning 10 games, in my opinion. You better be moving the needle quickly. They're not seeing themselves as much as a rebuild. They think they've got young players and are ready to go, and you better share that vision with their front office, right? Yeah, that can be concerning if you don't, for sure, because I think there's a sense that they might have underachieved a little bit throughout in their minds.

I'm not sure the outside world would drink the same Kool-Lade, but at some point... They hit their Vegas win total. Yeah, they hit exactly. what people thought they would be. They've checked the box of ownership. Ownership is very supportive of them, of the football operation, but yet they will ask some hard questions, as evidence,

by the change at the top now. So I like that. John Schneider's been around a long time. He's never really been in charge yet. So this is his first run through that, but he's a reasonable guy. I think we'll collaborate. Yeah.

In every way. So that's a plus. And I just think overall, this is an organization that has been run in a first class operation. I mean, they take care of their people from the non-business side to the non-football side, I mean, to the business side. All their people are well compensated, good people around.

There's a lot to be said for that as well. I agree. Now, they do have a situation where, you know, the team could be sold, you know, in not in the next year or so, but maybe two, three years down the road. Or it could be 10 years. There's an interesting situation there where Paul Allen, the. previous owner in his trust specified that all of his assets had to be sold. So if you're coming in as a coach, you maybe have some questions about that, make sure

everything's going to be a good hands. I kind of trust Jody Allen. I kind of trust the Allen trust to do what's best for the organization long term. So it doesn't overly concern me. Just something on the radar a little bit. I had New England next. We've talked about that. I feel like they may be in a little bit of a transition phase here figuring out who they

want to be. And so it's a great situation for Gerard Mayo because I don't know that he off of last season was going to get a job somewhere else. So it's the best opportunity he can get. But we have some questions about who they are. Raiders, tough division. Maybe not the coaching job for everybody. I feel like, you know, you've talked about the back stairwell being open to the owner's office. I believe then you need a coach that can really connect with your players or he's going to be in trouble, right?

Well, if that's the case, Antonio Pierce is the guy. unfortunately, whoever they hire as a GM is going to have to put a block going from the third floor to the fourth floor and direct those players into his office and not up the back staircase to Davises. I also thought, yeah, I think it'll be Antonio Pierce too. Mike Vrable would be an interesting one too also as a former player, right? Kind of straight shooter type former players, tough guys, you know. Accountable, yeah. But I think it's going to be Pierce as well. Titans to me, I think the owner's kind of been a little all over the place.

the GM doesn't have much of a track record. The roster's lagging behind the rest of the division. Yep. I had a hard time putting, they don't have a quarterback, in my opinion, and don't have a great way necessarily to get one. We'll see Carolina, David Tepper. We talked a little bit about that. That just is what it is.

No, I agree with you. The bottom of your list was even not debatable. I think you're right. Seven was Tennessee, eight was Carolina. And I feel bad pointing out the facts, but that's just the way he is. It is. Okay. So let's hit the GM Notebook before we get into our illustrious pick segment where it looks like we disagree on some games. So I like it. Well, we are, but you have the lead in the pick game. So I'm going to defer to your expertise. Your expertise is.

Oh my gosh, it's expertise at the highest level. I just have really one thing for the GM notebook. So I'll make it kind of short and sweet. I saw the other day where Cliff Kingsbury is set to interview for the Chicago Bears and their offensive coordinator job. Bears fans are very excited. A lot you can read in there. Yeah, the fans are excited. There's a lot to read into that decision to bring him in.

Obviously, we know Cliff's background, but most recently he spent the past season at USC as an analyst. So obviously he's worked with Caleb Williams, the connection he's easy to make there. I've often said, Mike, that I'm surprised when a team. that drafts a quarterback high doesn't bring some connection to his offensive scheme that he's been so good at that got him to where he was picked high in a draft with him to the new team. I don't love Cliff Kingsbury's offense, I'll say that, but it's obviously one that Caleb Williams has ran at the highest level. I think there's two reasons for this interview. One is you can gather intel on Caleb Williams from the guy himself who spent probably as much

time with them as anybody, Cliff Kingsbury, for the last year. So that's a great interview and great information gathering tool. The other thing is, does this offense make sense at our level? Let's just hear it from Cliff. You sell your offense to us. If it makes sense, we buy it. So it's a simplistic system when you bring a guy like that in. You get to hear his version of it. And I think it's a great move by the Bears and one that on several different levels can be really informative going forward. Very good. Very good. We'll see what they do there.

The whole Caleb Williams thing is interesting to me. We'll touch on that, I'm sure, in future GM notebooks and football GM podcasts. Are we still worried about him painting his fingernails? Is that the latest? Are we over that now? No, that was actually a nice one going around. I've seen people who was, there was recently there was painting the toenails too, you know. Oh, my gosh.

He can paint him whatever color he wants. I got bigger fish to fry. I'm not worried. I agree. He can paint him whatever he wants. Yep. Just as long as it doesn't. affect the grip on that football.

Yeah. So we're really... I would say this. Let me just add one more note to that, to the notebook about Cliff Kingsbury. I think Caleb Williams can run any offense. So his skill set transfers beyond the Lincoln Riley offense, beyond the Cliff Kingsbury offense.

So I wouldn't box us into having to run that. Because his skills and his ability, I think, could work as a pocket passer. it can work as a structured thrower, a non-structured thrower, uh, on the move thrower, all that. So I don't think they're limiting themselves by saying this is the only

thing he can do because I think Caleb is beyond any scheme. I think he's, he's that good. Right. Whereas with the Justin Fields, you might be saying, hey, let's get a certain specific guy who's going to do play to his strengths

because the versatility wouldn't be there. You'd want to make sure you play it a certain way. So, yep. All right. Mueller, we get into the picks. A big five and a one last week. Just kicking myself.

Have you sobered up yet? I mean, five and one, you might, holy macro. And it was so dumb because the one I missed was picking Cleveland, and I knew better. I just kind of wanted to see them play Baltimore. It was, I was kind of hope, I wasn't rooting in the game, but I just thought that would be kind of cool to have an AFC North game. But, hey, great job, Texans. It was true that over the course of a game, having C.J. Stroud was going to matter.

and have Joe Flacko on the other hand was going to matter. Brandy, you were three and three, not bad. You came close on that Pittsburgh coming through with that back-or cover. Yeah, I couldn't cover the points. Couldn't cover the points. I didn't think Pittsburgh would win, but I thought they'd cover. Really, same with Detroit. I picked Detroit to win.

They won by one point and not three. So I didn't miss my following. Yeah, yeah, it wasn't bad. All right, so we're picking all the games now in the divisional round. Who do you got? I'm going to make it easy for myself, and I don't know if it's, you know, you might talk me out of some of these, but it's going to be boring for me, but I like the home teams. I like the chalk.

I think the home teams are clearly the better teams, and I don't feel great about the numbers that they have to cover, but it beats the alternative for me. So I like San Francisco, given nine and a half points, I think Green Bay might find a way to backdoor cover that, but that burned me last week, so I'm staying away from that. Baltimore at being a nine point favorite over Houston. I think Houston is probably peak to where their offense is what it is, their quarterback is what he is for this year, which has been awesome. I just think at some point, these number one seeds are going to step to the forefront now having a week off. And that's what I see with Baltimore and San Francisco. Detroit, six and a half point favorites. I have more faith

probably in Ben Johnson on offense than I have really with anybody running an offense against Todd Bowles' defense. I think you know what you're getting with Todd Bowles, and I think Ben Johnson will have a plan to deal with that blitz much better than the Eagles did. And then I think the epic game, and I love that it's the last game, the Buffalo, Kansas City game. I think I told you this in one of our conversations earlier. The 13-second game from two years ago probably is as good a game as I've ever seen in the NFL. I absolutely loved every part of it. It was two warriors at quarterback going back and forth, making miraculous throws. If we get half as good as that game this week, I'll be thrilled. I just think it's Buffalo's time. I think they have a couple different ways they can win.

I'm picking Buffalo and giving the two and a half points. So I'm taking four favorites, giving points every one for home teams. Interesting here because I think I'm doing all of the other teams. Oh my gosh. I love it. So I love it. We can have some major separation here. It'd be over.

I wouldn't even have to pick games after that if I were to win or I could be right back. So here's my thinking. I'll take the Packers in nine and a half. I'm a little worried. I think the 49ers will run the ball. I think that the 49ers could really win. going away. Packers have covered 63% of the time versus opponents that are 500 or better at the kickoff. So I'm just going to roll with them being a little bit of a better team than they're giving

credit for. I didn't think that they were going to beat Dallas, but I did pick them with the points. I sort of feel a little similar this week that they're a team that's got something going. And look, I think that we're going to better should win the game. But I'll say with that amount of points, I'll take the nine and a half. I'm going to take Houston in the nine and a half too, and I'm also a little bit worried about it, but as I was going through and looking, there's a couple things that make me like this. Number one, I love the fact that Houston played Baltimore in week one.

I think Baltimore, there's something to that, you know, you always see, you know, Lamar Jackson's 20 and one against the NFC and all that stuff. I think when you haven't played Baltimore before, for whatever reason, Lamar, do the way they play. Yeah. It's a shock. We've seen them roll Detroit, roll Seattle.

Some of these teams that were on the fringe of playoffs or in the playoffs, they just made them look like the JV squad, and they beat the 49ers as well, although that game... They rolled them too, yep. But the 49ers had a lot of opportunities in that game, made a lot of big plays, probably had over 400 yards.

Some bad, you know, turnovers in the game really hurt them. But when I look at the Texans this year, when C.J. Strouds starts, They have lost by double digits in week one and two. Now, they also lost double digits in the jet game in week 14. But really, all the rest of their games, they either won or were super close,

not playing teams of this caliber. But I'll just give them that they can keep it within nine and a half. Let's just see. I'm going to take Kansas City and the two and a half. I'll just take Patrick Mahomes and an underdog any day of the week. I still have questions about Buffalo in the tight situations and the game situations. They've been able to overcome those. They're not playing the Steelers this week.

I don't think they should have beat Kansas City last time. It was an amazing play that the Chiefs made when they weren't even playing well to win the game, and we had offensive off sides. So there you go, whatever you think of that. I'm a little nervous taking Tampa Bay, but I'll take the six and a half. I'm just afraid the bucks can't keep up offensively. But Detroit, the last two times they were favored by six plus, both times at home, both times not that long ago against Chicago and Green Bay, they didn't cover. So I'm going to say that Tampa Bay against a good but flawed Lions team, maybe they don't win the game, but maybe they're feisty and hang around.

Just like Mueller, you're feisty, you hang around with these picks. you're right there, biting kneecaps, and you're ready to make a huge move on me. I love the fact that we're on the opposite ends of these. This is probably my worst instincts, because I've had bad weeks before where I make stupid decisions, and this could be one of those. I'm looking forward to the games, really. Can you believe that either Tampa or Detroit's going to be in the NFC championship? If you thought that going in, Tampa or Detroit's going to be in the NFC championship?

It's so set up for the 40s. Niners. Yeah, I agree. I mean, they better be in the Super Bowl, you know, this year with the team they've got, the health they've got. So that's going to about do it for us. I did want to address one thing. We had talked late in the year about the University of Washington coach, Kailen

DeBoer. And remember, we had talked about the fact that Jim Harbaugh and DeBore had shared Don Yee's agency as representation. I did learn that DeBore had switched to Jimmy Sexton at some point in the last see the season. I just wanted to clarify that because all these guys have been in the news with Caleb DeBoer going to Alabama, obviously leaving a lot of University of Washington fans upset. I don't know how you could turn that down though, Randy. Is there any way? Do you hold it against him? I'm just curious. I don't hold it against him. It's not like Caleb DeBorg is a northwest guy.

I think if, and it happens a lot. If you hire somebody from outside your region, I think the heartstrings are always tugging them to go home. And that's an issue. Like I think at some point, Dan Lanning's going to have trouble saying no as well. He's saying, yes, yes. You know, I'm staying in Oregon now forever. But at some point, somebody's going to try to drag him back home wherever he's from. But I don't hold it against him. I don't either.

No, the handling of it, I don't know any of that. But to me, if he had left for a similar job or even if he had gone to USC or somewhere like that, I'd be like, hey, wait a minute. You can't say we're building something special. But the Nick Saban retirement from Alabama, that's a once in a life. lifetime opportunity to get the Alabama job. And I think you saw that. Yeah.

Yeah. So I think you'd have a hard time turning that down. I kind of don't fault somebody for doing that if it's for that one job, right? Yeah, I agree. He's going to get at Alabama a higher quality player more consistently to help him win national championships than he would in Seattle at the U-Doh. I did think that's probably reason enough right there. That's not going away.

He'll always have a chance to, win a national championship every year at Alabama. And I bet it feels terrible. I bet it does feel you'd have to not be human or you'd have to be super cynical to say it doesn't feel bad to leave because you do leave them high and dry. But there's certain jobs that I think you take, you know, and you just, I can't, I got to do this. You know, the timing's tough.

So anyway, I want to put a bow on that. We put a bow on this podcast. Let's enjoy a great divisional round game. It's such a great round that we don't even have this. We have different picks on every game. So it should really be fun. Thanks for coming along. We'll see you next week.

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