The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Tom Brady retires, 49ers QB outlook, Sean Payton in Denver + more

Episode Date: February 2, 2023

Mike Sando and Randy Mueller have the latest news and notes around the NFL. Tom Brady retires and this time he says it's "for good." The guys discuss what made TB12 one of the best players of all-time. What should we expect from him in the broadcast booth? Kyle Shanahan says the 49ers will move forward at QB with Trey Lance and Brock Purdy. Was it a mistake to take Jimmy G out of the equation? Sought-after HC Sean Payton lands in Denver. Is it surprising Payton landed in the talent-rich AFC West? The guys remember Hall of Fame former GM Bobby Beathard who died Monday at the age 86. The GM notebook this week is filled with interesting tidbits about Kellen Moore's move to LA, the state of NFL officiating & more.Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Time codes:2:00 - Championship weekend reaction4:00 - Tom Brady announces his retirement17:00 - Kyle Shanahan say no scenario includes Jimmy G returning21:00 - Broncos hire Sean Payton as Head Coach35:00 - Hall of Fame former GM Bobby Beathard dies at age 8641:00 - The GM notebookToday's episode is brought to you by...Atlassian: For projects impossible alone, visit www.atlassian.comHoney: Get PayPal Honey for FREE at joinhoney.com/maysMorgan & Morgan: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. For more information go to forthepeople.com/mays Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Everybody, the Football GM podcast, Mike Sando, from The Athletic here, along with the GM. Randy, I was going to say Randolph Mueller, Randy Mueller. What did you forget my name? You forgot my name? No, I thought you might have a formal name. I mean, were you named Randy? Do you, sir.

Sir Randy to me. That doesn't change. That's what I'm calling you anyway. Randy, you know, came out as a ballboy initially in the NFL. I'm still a ball boy. I still go get the ball for Randy when it goes flying, you know, past us. We're going to really go off the rails here. I actually had a player throw a football at me one time in that practice.

It was Ryan Leif. Is that surprising to you? No. Did he do it on purpose? Well, there's a little lore built up around that, Randy. And everybody, we will get to Tom Brady retiring and all the big topics. some day. Maybe, you know, there was some debate about that. Ryan Leaf and I actually laughed about it later. I was a beat reporter covering the Washington State Cougars the year they went to the Rose Bowl

in the late 90s. And, you know, he was, as he might imagine, the way his prokerer went, you know, he was a little rough around the edges, Ryan Leaf was. A little impulsive, you think? Oh, yeah, and he was, he was ticked off because, ostensibly because of something I had written about his backup, a really nice guy named Steve Bernbaum was a backup. And so he was trying to, you know, bully me in some way. And at practice, he threw this ball.

It was right by my head. And I made some comment, you know, that so-and-so, I think I said, Chad Davis would have hit me. That was his old, that was the old start of the year before.

I was, I questioned his accuracy, but I didn't say it loud enough for him to hear me, but it kind of became lower. And it made it, I confided this in somebody in a press box, and some guy who worked for radio station,

heard it, went on the air with it. It became its own stories. So, yeah, I wasn't really. really a ballboy, but I've been, I've been targeted, maybe, possibly. Didn't that happen to Al Davis one time, stand on the sidelines? Have you heard that story about a quarterback that was in warmups and drilled Al?

You know how Al used to stand on the sidelines and watch the other team? White suit. White track suit. Some other team, a quarterback during warmups, drilled him. I don't know who it was, but I remember hearing the story. And I remember laughing about it because he always used to irritate people by standing on the sidelines and watching the other team warm up, you know? And somebody didn't like it.

Somebody didn't like it. And he drilled them with a ball about 30 yards down field. And it sounded cruel. But if you had seen it, it was kind of funny. That is so awesome. You know, oh, man, we were, I joke with our producer that we, I gave him the script to the show. I said, you know, we could really go off the rails.

We usually stick to it pretty good. But we are way off. We're into Al Davis. We're into Ryan Leaf. We are going to talk about some of the topics today. But what do you think of the games last week? just do a quick, you know, initial impression. You know, the Eagles 49er game, I was so disappointed in it

and almost disgusted because of the quarterback situation and the fact that we had to watch what we did. I mean, the game was over before halftime, in my opinion. 49ers had no chance. They couldn't complete a forward pass. It was just very unfortunate. And if you were going to ever make a case for a third quarterback as an emergency guy, that would have been it.

And I think part of it was Josh Johnson really seemed unprepared and he was like went from the dock of the bay to the autobon and cars were zooming by him and he could react quickly enough and it happens right i mean they're on there let's face it fourth quarterback and and it was just ugly i think the eagles won the game they were probably the better team but they really did nothing other than you know the average i thought jalen hertz was average and they just the 49ers had no chance so i was disappointed in that game I came out of those games

and we won't do our Super Bowl pick this week. We don't have to. We don't need to be wrong twice. We can come back to go next week. But I came out of the at the time thinking, you know, the chiefs are going to roll the Eagles. And I may come off with that by the time we do it.

It was just my impression of watching the game was like, I don't know, you know. We'll see. We'll get into that maybe a little bit later on. But you had one more thing. Well, I was just going to say it was more about, for me, the 49ers losing it than the Eagles winning. Yeah.

I didn't think they did anything out of that. the ordinary. So we'll see. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. So big news of the day, Randy, for the second, I think the second February 1st in a row, Tom Brady announces his retirement, films a little video there, says this time it's for real. We used to say for reals as kids. Is that for reals? You know, last time he was back after only 40 days away. I believe him this time. You know, I do think this is going to be it for him. What was your? initial takeaway. Yeah, I'm not surprised by it. I think we saw the the wilting of Tom during this season and a lot of it was based on his

personal life, right? I mean, let's face it, he went through some stuff that none of us hoped to ever go through and he did it in the middle of a season where he spent in 15 hours a day at the office. So I think it showed, we saw the body language, we saw the frustrations. I think there were probably was a little more going on behind the scenes for the Buccaneers than we actually know about. They were struggling on a couple different fronts. And you could tell that Tom's offense wasn't what he wanted it to be.

It was disjointed a lot of times. He had a lot of injuries. It wasn't the same team, but production was just not what Tom Brady's up to his normal standard. So I think that was part of it. But the personal stuff for me that, I mean, that would drag anybody down. And I'm not surprised he decided to step away. I was very happy that he did it in the fashion he did it today, as we record the show because he has self-awareness beyond where most would take him,

and he did it shortly. By most, are you talking about anyone in particular or any other quarterbacks or not really? Well, I just think it's hard sometimes. I mean, do you think Russell Wilson would have just did a 30-second deal and walked away? If he'd retired two years and they're probably not. Yeah, Rogers maybe as well. So, yeah, I guess so. That was more intent, but yeah.

But I liked it. And he did it. He did it with class and just stepped away. And frankly, I was happy about it. I just, I want to remember him for what he was, not what he was this year. Yeah, yeah. And what their team was, the whole thing. I mean, it takes more than just a quarterback.

And it wasn't going to come together. I still thought he could play well enough to find a spot. But this may show us, too, may not be that spot, you know, for him this year. And certainly family considerations, he's got kids in different places and all of that. I think he, you know, I think it's okay. that he came back and just to see if you could do it one more, but the time does feel right for him. Big winner here, though, Randy, wouldn't you agree is Tampa to get this news now? Other than they got to look for a quarterback.

They only have one under contract, and that's Kyle Trask. But cap-wise, it's a big advantage to have him retire as opposed to go into another team. I think we may have talked about it last week. If he would have went to the Raiders or somewhere else where it was rumored that he would go, he was going to cost the bucks $35 million in dead money. That's a hard pill to swallow. Now he gets to walk away, and I'm assuming this will happen. Drew Breeze did this in New Orleans.

He can redo his contract. He can take a lesser number this year. They can push half of it or more on to next year if he retires technically after June 1. So he can spread out some of this dead money charge. The Tampa Bay front office has always been one that very seldom tore up contracts and created cap space until Tom came. And then they pushed all their chips to the table and said, hey, we're going to rob Peter. to pay Paul and we're going to use some credit card spending. They have done that over the last couple years, really based on their window of when Tom Brady was

going to be there. So they've done some of that. I think him retiring allows them to share, cost share, some of the cap count. And this is all money that has already earned. So it's just a matter of counting it on paper. So they'll push, I believe I saw like 20 some million into next year and they'll count 10 or 12 this year to split up that 35 million. So they do come out ahead, that's for sure.

I got a couple Brady questions for you. Number one, what do you admire most about Tom Brady? Just as a player, you know, because it's easy to take for granted, right? And he almost, he's such a superstar. I mean, he's just one of those rare players who's almost like an entertainment superstar, you know, that you almost stop thinking about the details of it. But for you, you know, what do you admire the most? I think for me, it's not only the work ethic, but it's the attention to detail.

during a stint in my career, I had a chance to, like you, work at ESPN for a couple years. And part of that was that I got to go around and watch other NFL camps, which I had never done before. I had been with a team for 20-some years and never really saw how anybody else did it. So I spent one summer going to several camps, and I did go to Foxborough. And this was after Tom had won a Super Bowl and had been to a Pro Bowl. And I was so impressed by his attention to detail within that one practice where he was working, on little footwork things, Mike, that I'm thinking, this guy's already really good. Why is he worried about these little things like this?

But it was a step or a half a step. And he was working on movement in the pocket and all things that really made sense to me when I saw it. But he didn't cut any corners. Even when he got successful and got to be a superstar, he still did the little things. And maybe everybody does that to a point. But I'd be surprised if it wasn't with it.

This is painstaking detail that I never saw from a lot of. lot of other people. And so I admired that. He did not take shortcuts. He didn't do anything different than any of his guys. And I guess the other part I admire most about him, everybody that talks on Tom Brady said he's the best teammate they've ever had. So he made effort to communicate with everybody. And I always say communicating is hard. I don't care if it's in your house, your job, whatever. Communicating is hard. And for him to be the best teammate to all of these guys, that takes an enormous amount of time, energy, heart, effort, and that's something that's admirable, in my opinion,

that I don't normally see in this business. So that's going to play into what I'm going to talk about next, which is him going into broadcasting. But I wanted to ask you, you were obviously scouting back then. We may have talked about this before. I think we maybe did talk about this one other time last year. was he an easy guy to grade coming out? Because all that stuff, the attention to detail and the work,

no one knows for sure a guy is going to do that. That's what made him great. I mean, it wasn't like he was a surefire prospect who was going to be great. No, he had to work at it and make himself that way. Do you remember Scouting him, Michigan, all that? I remember the word that we had was that his physical skills were average. He was kind of a skinny, scrawny kid. And everybody's made such a big deal out of his combine photos and all that.

that. Yeah, yeah. He was not, I mean, there was a lot of Brock Purdy, I mean, to be honest with you, if you looked at a photo of Brock Purdy at the, you know, in his pro day, you'd say, whoa, that's not what we want. You know, that's not how we draw them up. But Tom took that skill set and went to a total different place. Obviously, you can say that everybody screwed up on Tom Brady, the Patriots drafted him

in the sixth round. They did it for a reason because the physical skills weren't over the top, because he had been on alternating for a job at Michigan. He had not gotten to where he is now. So I give him credit that he's gone above and beyond and made the scouting part of it far from exact science. I don't, if you had to go back and look at it again and try to sort it out, I guess the scouting lesson is you've got to find a way to know what's inside a guy. You've got to find a way to know that work ethic. So when you're scouting, it's easy to grade a guy and say, well, this guy doesn't have an arm, he doesn't have this, but he's got an unbelievable drive and will to be the best.

Everybody says they do, but their actions don't always back it up. And I think he had physical skills that were ordinary, and his mind and his work ethic took him over the top. And so he went from good to great just because of the way he's wired. It's hard. That's the hardest thing to find in a prospect at any position, Mike, when we would go visit schools and gather the information, the hardest thing. I can always see what I see on film and write it and report on that.

It's finding out how these guys are wired and finding out what's inside them. And like I say, another example of it is Brock Purdy this year. Again, average skill set physically. But to know what's inside him and figure that out, that will make you the best evaluator if you could figure that out. Yeah. Yeah. So Brady could now go into retirement and go to Fox. And they have a good former player there now and Greg Olson, who had a great comment, by the way, about possibly being.

displaced by Brady. He said, hey, look, I can't be Tom Brady. I can't be a Hall of Famer. All I can do is be good at what I do. That's all I can control. I love that attitude. Now, what's interesting about Brady going in there is he's always worked at what he does maniacally. I mean, we laugh about the TB12 and all that stuff, but it's a lifestyle. He's 24-7 to be try playing, you know, try being what he can do at his age, right? No one, there's a reason no one does it because it's impossible. You have to be maniacal to do. I think we probably don't even know the lengths he goes to to be able to play. And that's probably why it's a big relief to go away.

So I just can't imagine him going into something that he's taking seriously and being a failure, being bad at it, right? Going into broadcasting. But broadcasting is a different thing. And I think what's so interesting about it to me is, like when you think about the all-time great broadcasters, you have to think of John Madden. Okay. and John Madden had this big personality and was funny in the beer commercials, but he worked at it. He watched the film,

and when you talked to the coaches that knew John Madden was coming in for the production meeting, they were nervous because John was going to come to practice, and he was going to watch their team, and he might pick up on two or three things that maybe you didn't pick up, because as the coach, even though it's your team. And so you had to be ready because he was going to, find out. And I think that's what differentiates anybody and anything they do is the preparation that they're willing to put in. And I think sometimes we see players come in. And you may have an

immediate advantage because you just played, right? You may know the inside thing on a locker room or you may know something about an offense you ran. But to stay good and be great at it like John Madden did, you have to be on the bus watching the film like he was. You have to go to practice. You have to put the work. I'm kind of excited to see Tom Brady in this role because I can't imagine I'm doing it any other way. Yeah, no, I agree with you. I guess, and I don't really know because the job does come with personality. You've got to have some personality that translates to the listeners or to the viewers. Yeah. And I mean, let's face it, Drew Breeze was a great quarterback, but probably was an average Yeah, announcer. And he watched tape as well. So there has to be a little bit of your personality.

there has to be a little bit of a salesmanship that comes with it so that you can keep people interested. I mean, there's no smarter football guys than Tony Dungey, but to me, sometimes he comes across as not the most exciting, not the most exuberant, but I know he works at it. So I don't know. I mean,

that's a hard one that. Obviously, Fox has made a big bet on him because isn't his deal like $400 million for 10 years or something crazy? I mean, they're all in. Here's one for you. Would you put him in the booth next week for the Super Bowl, just to try a three-man booth with Greg Olson,

at least part of it? Or would you wait until next year to see how that works out? I mean, you're never going to have a bigger stage than right now to sell that. I think I would probably do it if those guys we thought had a good chemistry and were fun together and you were light about it. Like, one of the things during the championship weekend that I kind of cringed at was they put Rob Garnkowski in the studio and they had him try to deliver like a script, right? Yeah.

They had to him putting statistics in there. and it was like something that, you know, a sideline reporter would do, which is great. Sidered reporters do a nice job. But gronk just has to be gronk. If you take away him being off the cuff and funny about it, then he's no good. Right.

But you're right in that Brady's not gronk either. Now, now there's a side of him, though, in that locker room, obviously, that resonates. And maybe, you know, he's been such a serious performer. And there is such a serious,

to the way he plays and attacks the quarterback position. So maybe we'll see a more playful side to him if it exists. Yeah, it's got to be playful. It's got to be personable. It's got to people got to want to. He's got to be interesting. And that's so much of really the color analysts, especially if they're not interesting,

it's almost like it doesn't matter what they're delivering, but they have to have a style that that people want to hear it from them and make it interesting for him for sure. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, Tom Brady retiring. that takes away all this off-season speculation of he might go here or there, including San Francisco 49ers.

I thought it was interesting that not only is Tom Brady not going to play for the 49ers, but Kyle Shanahan today said, I don't know why you would say this, but he said there's no way, there's no scenario he could see Jimmy Garoppolo returning to the 49ers even. And I thought, whoa. I mean, why would you want to, John Lynch was sitting next to him? I was trying to look and see what John was thinking,

because why eliminate options? you don't know what's going to happen. Brock Purdy may, maybe they know, but Brock Bertie may have Tommy John surgery or something. Trey Lance's ankle may not be ready or he could easily just not look good in camp. So I thought that was a little bit of an interesting comment for him to make.

We think Brock Pertie could be back in June. We're not sure. Like I said, we don't know about Trey Lance, but I thought that was, like to me, it's hard to go in with just those two guys. why would you eliminate Jimmy? Maybe they've made a deal with them or they know it's over? I thought it was a little odd. Yeah, I think you're right. I think there were a couple things that came out of the press conference. That's one of them. I'm like you. I wouldn't eliminate any options, but they didn't want Jimmy G.

last year. He just fell in their lap because it happened that way. And I think Kyle wants to take it completely off the table so it doesn't fall in their lap again. I don't know what his vendetta against Jimmy G is, but it's clear that he does not want him there for whatever reason. So I guess they're going to have to bring in another quarterback. I don't have any doubt. Now, they also said in the press conference that we think we have two starters. So we're going to play that card too. And so on one hand, they're being obvious to get rid of Jimmy G. On the other hand, they're going to hold their cards close to their vest.

So they kind of tiptoed around the Trey Lance versus Purdy decision. And so they're willing to play the game publicly. I would have just probably done, like you said, played the game publicly throughout the whole press conference to really not said anything. But definitely Jimmy G's out of the mix after you heard that for sure. For them, you know, who'd be interesting to me is Chacoby Percette. I thought he was in that Kim's fancy world offense and shoot, it was better with him than it was when Deshaun Watson came in. Not that he's going to necessarily, you know, be an all-star, although the Ravens backup quarterback made the Pro Bowl. So maybe he could be a Pro Bowl.

or, but that wouldn't be a bad, you know, somebody like that, I don't know what you have to pay, but. That's the thing for me is I think they're the only way they get a legitimate guy is to pay him. Because no one's going to say, oh, that's a great spot for me. They have Trey Lansson and Brock Purdy. So the only way you're going to get them, I think, is to buy them. And I don't know where they are cap wise next year, but they might have to buy someone and guarantee his whole deal. And whether that's a Teddy Bridgewater. or something like that.

I mean, there's not a lot of great backups in there that I would feel comfortable with. It's more about what can he bring to the table off the field in the room. I don't have any doubt Tray Lance's injury is recoverable because that happens to many guys every year. He'll be back from that. The pretty one I don't really understand. I've heard some people say it's Tommy John.

I've heard other people say it's a six-month. Tommy John's a year-long injury. So if it's that, I find it hard to believe that he would be ready again in July, because that's only six months away or even less than that, now five. So I don't know. What's your angst level, though, if you are John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan

with a young quarterback you really like, and as you've said on the podcast here, I mean, I think if he wasn't hurt, you'd have no problem going in the next year with him as your starter. But the throwing arm of quarterback is a fairly important deal. Fairly.

You know, I mean, I'd be worried because I don't, to me, trying to play Tray Lance the whole year sounds great now, but they've got a team ready to win now. They've got real upper echelon players. Maybe Kyle Shannon's so good that it doesn't matter. Well, they showed it this year that they have blind faith, in my opinion, in Tray Lance.

And he did not prove to me that he was any further along after those first couple games this year. I thought it was a struggle. And I'm not sure they would have ended up where they did with Tray Lance as their quarterback. So I couldn't see that one. Those dots being connected. So, yeah, I mean, I don't know.

I think I wouldn't trade, Tray Lance, but I surely wouldn't bank on him being the guy. But I would have to lean on the medical team to enlighten me on the Brock Purdy injury before I made any decisions. And even though I've stated a few holiday ends, I'm no doctor. So I do not know the facts behind that one. Another big, shoot a bigger development this week is the Broncos getting a head coach now in Sean Payton, who we talked about last week when, you know, it looked like maybe. We weren't that impressed with some of the way he handled some of his public comments and talking about the compensation and all of that.

I was laughing when he took this job, Randy, because here he is joining the AFC West at the exact moment Tom Brady is leaving his old conference, the NFC South. There's not a quarterback in the NFC South, but here he is in the AFC West going against Mahomes, Justin Herbert. He does have Russell Wilson, who's been good in the past. I don't know how good he's going to be in the future. But what do you think here, Randy? Are you buying Broncos futures right now?

Or is this the case of just a big name? Or what do you think? Well, we talked about it before. I'm not surprised that he ended up there. This was the first name that you and I threw out when it became evident that he was going to be an option. I didn't think he would have a whole bunch of options. When you consider what has to be given up,

And you knew Carolina it was going to be two number ones to them if it was one number one to Denver. So that really wasn't going to be an option. Any other teams, I can't see Arizona ever pay in it. They're not going to pay a coach $20 million a year. So these other options, Houston's going to pay somebody or hire somebody that's of the Patriots vision and do things the Patriot way still. So that wasn't going to be a fit for him. It didn't seem like the Colts were in it was any place that he was willing to go. So it kind of came down to this is the best place he could land that could pay the money,

could get the Saints what they wanted in compensation. So I'm not surprised by it. And we talked about this too. Remember Russell when he made his list of people or places he would go to when he left Seattle, had the Saints on it. Well, that was because of Sean Peyton and the offense for sure. It wasn't to go there and work on his branding like some other places that were on the list. So I think there has been a connection between those two.

I don't know. I mean, he's the only guy that we said this. He's the only guy that could walk in that building and be in charge without saying a word. And they mortgaged their whole future on Russell Wilson, and he ran the show last year. Didn't matter who the coach was. Didn't matter who any of this stuff was. They made everything that they did. They made it all about Russell Wilson.

Well, they can't have that. They can't run that back. There's no way. So who's the one coach they could hire who is going to say, I'm the guy. I'm the big show. Russell Wilson is not. And Sean doesn't have to say a word. He just walks in with that persona.

And Russell Wilson gets in line. I don't think there's any question that this is the guy that they had to have. They couldn't bring an assistant in there like we talked about. Russell Wilson had run over him too, you know, just like he did the last one. So I think this was kind of a no-brainer, whether you agree with it or not. I think it's a doubling down by the Broncos. on their investment of Russell Wilson to try to make that pay. And that's what Sean Payton brings to him.

Plus, he's a good coach. But it's, but it's doubling down on, I mean, but it's not doubling down on doing it the way Russ is making it about Russ, though. It's saying, we're this far in on Russell Wilson, and now we need a way out and we need a way to make it not about Russell Wilson. So, like it wouldn't surprise me that when you think of Sean Peyton in, in New Orleans, anytime their defense was halfway decent, even if Drew Brees wasn't playing, you know, they were competitive teams.

So maybe Sean Payton goes in there and, you know, even if Russell Wilson isn't great, you know, maybe he gets a nine and eight season out of them, right? Or that sort of a thing. And they're competitive right away with that hopefully still a good defense for them. And then it buys you some time and you can still make a decision than when it's a little bit easier on a financial standpoint with Russell Wilson. But maybe he could just steady the ship, right, make him respectable. Maybe.

Again, it all comes down to what Russell Wilson has left in the tank. What we saw this year was not a seven-win quarterback. It was about a two-win quarterback of what they ended up. So I just, I haven't seen that Russell Wilson the last couple years. And this again, like we talked about, it'll be the fourth offense he's learned in the last four years, fourth different coordinator. I don't know. To answer your first question, I'm not sure I'm buying a few.

futures in the Broncos. But yeah, they should be a little better and we'll see. I was trying to paint the best possible picture, but I don't know. You know, what do you think about the big name, big time coach the second time? You know, and shoot, we've been there. We were both around Seattle when Mike Holmgren came in. And he eventually, the team did eventually go to the Super Bowl. There were some lean years to start out with.

You know, is there any parallels to that or is there? I sort of feel like we've probably, Sean Payton's winning percentage for his career probably isn't going to get better from here and out. What do you think? I would agree with that. I don't think they're ever going to get to. I think they're going to be better than where they were, but I don't know that it's going to get to the end, like you said.

And this isn't the move that puts them over the, top to be a championship team. This team was talked about as a Super Bowl team last year. I didn't see it. The results clearly didn't show it. So they've got some retooling and rebuilding to do. I think the parallels that you can draw from are, you know, conclusive in that it is similar to when Mike came from Green Bay, both from George Peyton's standpoint. And I was George Peyton in Seattle. So I've seen that. George has no ego. He will step aside and let Sean run the show and be the public face. I don't think George will have any issue. with that. I've been there. That's something that I think makes George the perfect guy to work with Sean because he has no ego. He's not looking for credit. The question for me will be, can he keep Sean from being impulsive and trying to be involved in every personnel decision? That didn't always go well in New Orleans. And I'd like to know what that part of the structure and hierarchy looks like because George is going to have to stand up for what he thinks is

right a lot of times and that's no fun. That's for sure. That's a no fun job. What's so interesting about that is that George is known as a big consensus builder, not someone who goes in there and says this is the way it's going to be, right? And there's no consensus with the power coach, right?

Well, I will say this. There was when Mike came to Seattle. He was very respectful of ideas and things and welcomed them from me. I just don't know if Sean is like that. If he's going to welcome ideas and and really the respect. Mike treated me like a king, so I have no complaints about that. I don't know where Sean will be with regard to George. Obviously, there'll be a honeymoon

period, but I just saw the way it kind of went in New Orleans the last few years, and I saw a lot of guys on the personnel side in some way or another kind of roll their eyes just because of the impulsive decisions that they made in personnel that really didn't make their team better. So I hope that doesn't happen with Denver, really for George's sake, because like I say, I know George, he worked for me. I think he is a consensus builder and would like to, you know, none of us are smarter than all of us would be a great way to describe him. I don't know where that sits with what Sean wants to do. So my, here's my fear for Denver, just looking at this. So you made a mistake on Russell Wilson, and it was a mistake to pay him the big contract,

and it was a mistake to lean into it's all about Russ. That was all a mistake. So you basically started a forest fire with that, right? And now you come in and you put out the fire with Sean Payton because now he, like you said, he's the big show, right? So you neutralize that fire. But it doesn't necessarily mean you got a beautiful forest. Yeah. And that's what has to be built next. You have to rebuild the forest and you've given away all these draft picks.

I mean, Randy. The list, I don't know if the podcast is long enough. They've given up for Wilson and the head coach, the fifth pick in the 23 draft, the ninth pick in the 22 draft, the 30th pick in the 23 draft, the 3840, another second, 145, three players. That's a lot of the forest for our future to try to grow back. And so the listeners can't see you right now, but that look on our face is like, okay, worst-case scenario, they've won the press conference and they've stopped the problem they have,

but do they have the solution they need? Well, I'm not a math major, but that's 10 pieces that they gave up for a quarterback and a head coach. I've been part of a few rebuilds in my life. That is not the way that I would draw it up, that's for sure. So not to say that any of these individuals that are involved can't overcome that, But that is 10 chips that have gone out the door and you're not convincing me that they're ready for prime time yet. So I'm with you. I think it could be a little bit of improvement, but the improvement's going to be hard because of the picks they've given away.

And they're going to have to really dig deep in the scouting and lean on some really good evaluators to find talent in different ways when you don't have these picks. It's hard to give away all these picks and just think, oh, we hired a coach. He's going to overcome all this. I don't know. Yeah. Last thing on Denver, did you learn anything from sort of the optics of the search? I think the anatomy of a search or optics of a search could be interesting to people listening because we kind of watch the play-by-play of this.

And then there's reports and conflicting reports and they were doing this or that. And me piecing it together, it looked to me like they were really interested. and Harbaugh. That didn't really come the past. Sean Payton was in there. They liked him maybe, but it looked like it was hot for D'Amico Ryans. Then all of a sudden the owner is running off to talk to Jim Harbaugh, and then D'Amico Ryans is going to Houston. All of those things, Randy. Water on the bridge doesn't mean anything, or did you pick up anything just watching an owner doing this for the first time that is meaningful to where they're at or is concerning or encouraging

or what? Well, and my angle comes from strictly the GM chair. So I don't know, was George Payton part of that second trip to Ann Arbor to visit with Jim Harbaugh? I'm going to assume no. Let's just say no. I don't think so. I don't know any evidence of that. That would not be good. That'd be an owner that's kind of acting on his own fruition, which it's their ball. They can do whatever they want. But that's not a good thing for the GM to not be the voice that the owner is listening to and be part of any of those decisions. And maybe they have an agreement that Sean is going to be more than just the head coach. You know, we had that when Mike came to Seattle and I was fine with it. And I think it would have worked. I end up leaving the next year to go to New Orleans. But I don't know where George stands in this whole structure. Has Sean got his own deal with the owner?

You know, that's fine. Again, it all depends on how people work together and how people treat each other with respect or not. I don't know if we know that yet. We'll find out. We're going to see some moves here come up that you'll know. whose hands are, you know, all over these moves. So we'll see. I do think your point is valid. The way these searches kind of unfold can tell us some things if we dig a little deeper for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm not saying definitively George was or wasn't being fully consulted on that.

That was just the, we're looking at the optics of it with the owner showing up there. And the thing is as far as if it's Sean show, well, the owner said when they made the change, away from the Thanman Hackett, hey, the next coach can report to me or will report to me. Yes. Sean Payton is not reporting to anybody but the owner. That's guaranteed. I mean, I would be shocked. So, yeah, and I think that will be reflected then in the types of moves they make, and we'll see.

Yeah. And it's not unheard of that a GM wouldn't be part of the search, but usually it's the first part of the search where the GM wouldn't be involved in. And I re kind of remember how we went in Miami when we hired after Nick Saban left, the owner, the president, his right-hand man, they all went and interviewed about 10 people. And I wasn't even part of that. But part of that process was, hey, are you guys okay with Randy? And that's, I understood that. They had to find out if they were going to be okay as a partner working with me. And then they brought three guys to the table that they thought were the best of the crew that they listened to.

So it's not unheard of for a GM not to be part of it, but usually it's that first part, and he's a vital cog in the decision-making at the end as the owner's confident. Yes, yes. Okay, before we get to the GM notebook where there's always some good stuff, I thought I just wanted to make note,

I don't know if you got any Bobby Beatherd stories, but the Hall of Fame GM Bobby Betherd died at age 86. I was looking into, and I just knew him, a little bit. I talked to him a number of times over the years. But so Bobby Beatherb was quarterback at Cal Poly in the 1950s.

John Madden, who we talked about earlier, blocked for him. That's awesome. Madden was a tackle at Cal Poly. Betterer was a really good quarterback, small college quarterback. He ended up scouting in the NFL in the 60s, got to the Dolphins at a pretty good time, won a couple Super Bowls with Don Shula.

He was the Washington GM, Redskins, when they hired Joe. Gibbs won a couple Super Bowls there and then I thought of you because he showed up in the AFC West with the Chargers in 1990 helped build them into a

Super Bowl team and then at the end you know ended up with the Ryan Leaf selection we let out the show talking about him didn't work out well but didn't keep Bobby Bethard out of the Hall of Fame he was a marathon runner a champion body surfer what can you tell us about Bobby Bethlehurst I may have a

follow up question but what do you got I don't know, I don't know what you got. Well, I, I didn't, I won't say I knew him well, but I knew him fairly well. And he probably was one of the most cordial, kind people to me. And obviously, he is 20 years ahead of me, 25 years and owed nothing to me. But he was always so good with me, Mike. I always enjoyed our visits. Most of the time, it wasn't about football. It was about something else. He had a, like you say, a propensity to ride bikes to do things outdoors. I think he loved to come to Oregon and ride bikes. So we talked about some of his bike rides a lot of times.

It seldom was about football at all. He enjoyed life. Like you said, he was a surfer. He did a lot of things in the California coast that, gosh, a kid growing up in Idaho. I never even dreamed of, but that's the way he was. But he would go to the woods of Oregon or come to Idaho and do things. He loved the outdoors. And so it seemed like our discussions were more about that.

I probably knew his boys as good as anybody. Jeff Betherd still is a scout in the league, still a long time guy, and I've got to know him fairly well. Talk about Salt of the Earth, really good family. I mean, it's a sad day for everybody. And, you know, I think he's one of the few that endured this business by doing it the right way. I don't think he ever stepped on anybody's toes. He obviously thought that everybody, there was none of us that were smarter than all of us.

He was a consensus builder, and I thought did it the right way. So I always admired him, that's for sure. So I was thinking of him coming to the charges in 1990, and I looked at that draft. So there were two Hall of Famers picked in the top 15. You got one of them in Seattle, Cortez Kennedy. Bobby Bethard got the other at number five, Junior Seo. That's pretty darn good, Cortez and Junior Seo. Now, there were some misses early in that draft, Jeff George, Blair Thomas, Keith McCants,

Andre Ware. I was just curious. was what do you remember about that top five? Were there any discussion? You wouldn't talk to Bobby in the division about moving around or anything. That was a year, Mike, that we had two picks and traded both of them to New England

and went up to get Cortez. We had two picks. I want to say like 8 and 13 or something like that. We gave them both to get up to 3 to take Cortez. So that's the one thing I remember about it. The pick of Junior Seow was obviously a great pick. it's funny and this isn't a Bobby related story but years later when I was in Miami junior sale was on our team and he would come up to me at practice and I would be standing on

the sidelines and he would bitch and complain to me still because we drafted Cortez at three and he went five to San Diego and like it was a personal attack on me during practice often and every time he'd come I just roll my eyes and say come on junior are you not going to forget this I mean you were a great player why do you care about this? he said, hey, that's what I used to fire him up to. I'd say, you know, Cortez was pretty good. You know, a lot of people like Cortez and not used to tick him off even more. So the Junior Seo, Cortez, rivalry lasted until the end.

Obviously, two great guys, two great players. But that fire that burned inside Jr. Seow was what Bobby saw. I know that to be true. One thing about Bobby and his really picks, he was not afraid to go out on a limb now. would always pick a guy or two in drafts where you'd say, where the hell is that guy? Where did he come up with that guy at, you know, middle New Mexico state? You know, and where did this guy come from? And he didn't wait till the end to take him either.

If he felt like he had a guy that was a sleeper, he would pick him. So he was a confident evaluator and wasn't afraid to take some risks. Hey, so I went back, you know, what a great common thread through these guys, too, because Bob, my beth, they're great guy, junior sale, Cortez Kennedy. I mean, you just can't get, you know, better than that. I mean, this brings a smile to my face. I didn't know Junior Saleh, but I knew Cortez really well. Rest all of their souls.

But I was thinking of, so in that 1990 draft, this is a Bobby story. Jeff George went number one overall, okay? And Bobby had not really fully scouted Jeff George because they weren't going to take Jeff George. But he looked at some quarterbacks, and he drafted John Freeze out of Idaho that year. And I was reading the, this is a. how crazy I am. I was reading. I was actually reading about that today. I went back and I was reading from 1990. And they asked him if he thought Jeff George was better than John Freeze and he wouldn't say he, he goes, I don't know. He goes, I don't know. I thought it was awesome the way he said it,

like he was sticking to his gut and John Freeze. I mean, Jeff George stayed around forever because he kept getting that number one pedigree. So he got a lot more passing yards, but I'm not sure. I'm taking John Free. I would take John Frie over him. Yeah. I think Bobby also picked, didn't he pick Ripon later on with the then Washington Redskins? He drafted him. He drafted Stan Humphreys.

He drafted some guys. He was a tough dude. Yeah, but he drafted some guys that nobody else was on to. And he was not afraid to go off the radar. More evidence of that, like you say. We got the GM notebook. Let's bring some structure. back to the podcast. It's in here every week. The GM notebook always a highlight if I don't steal

the items out of it. What do you got this week and get us back on the tracks here? Well, as you know, I'm in Dallas with the XFL Seattle Dragons and so we get a lot of cowboy news down here. So the big news this week was Kellyn Moore, partying of ways and leaving the Cowboys and actually signing with San Diego, signing with the Chargers in L.A. I harken back to when Mike McCarthy was hired, and I swear we've talked about this forever, he never got to bring his offense. He never got to call his own plays. He never got to give his philosophy or use his philosophy on offense.

But now that Kellyn's gone, I think the pressure now does kind of swing back to Mike McCarthy, his play calling. He's a true West Coast disciple. He's going to run the stuff that he learned from Paul Hackett back in the day in Kansas City. That's where he got his roots as an offensive. coach. Now, Mike was our offensive coordinator with the Saints, so I knew him well back then. And he, I think, was an excellent play caller for most of his time in Green Bay. I found it really, you know, a stretch for him to become the Cowboys coach and not have his own offense and call the

plays. Now we're going to get that. So roundabout story. Kellan is gone now. Kellyn moves on. So I think we're finally going to get to see what, after three years, what kind of offense Mike McCarthy has. And his play. play calling acunim and see how it works out. Is it too late, though? I mean, I feel like I would have wanted his hands on the quarterback from day one. I mean, that was his calling card, right? Yeah, but I think that was Jerry's call to Kellyn kind of was his boy, and I like

Kellyn. I think Kellyn's a good coach, but I think that was Jerry's call to say, hey, Mike, we're going to hire you. You're a name guy. You're going to be the leader of our team, but you're not going to call the plays. Remember who we used to say he was a mall cop? He couldn't arrest anybody if he wanted to. Yeah, what did he do?

So now we're going to see. Now we're going to get Mike's, you know, earlier version of him as a play caller and an offensive coordinator. So I'm kind of anxious to see that. I think it's good. So is he promoted from Malkup to like, is he working security at the concert now? Or is he a full sheriff?

He's a full-fledged sheriff right now because you guess who's going to get the blame if that keeps throwing our receptions? It's going to be the head coach. So that's usually what happens. and there was a purge of a lot of coaches in Cowboyland on both sides of the ball. They purged a lot of people. And I can't help but think that the pressure is going to be on Mike now to, one, replace those coaches, but two, he's going to be squarely on the hot seat now.

And this all, to me, points with big issues. We all have with Dallas, which is that you're doing things. The GM's got his hands in things in not always the best way and doing things a little bit for the wrong reasons, even though hiring Mike McCarthy could have been a good thing. I'm not saying it's been a bad thing, but, you know, the reasoning and the way that it's set up and now here you are going to do a new offense. What does that take a year to get going or, you know, or your personnel is declining, all of that. So I think that's.

Right. It is going to be tough on one guy, and that's DAC because Dak's been in the same offense now for, what, six, seven years. Because Kellan was here before. Yeah. And so now the offense is going to change. And so Dak's got to learn some new principles and some new things. So we'll see how that goes. Yeah. All right. What else you got in the GM notebook?

One other note that I had, and I don't know how you feel about this. I'm going to ask you this question before I go. The state of refereeing in the NFL, the state of officiating. What did you think of last week? Where was all that? Where do you think we are? So I think there's some, I think there's some framing or emphasis, kind of the way that officiating has gone about now that does produce. some of these results. I think they are being graded in in New York and they're they're officiating to those grades and everything is sort of taken the judgment out of the official, the old school official who's in who's in charge of the game, right? The best boxing referee doesn't take a point away every single time the guy hits below the belt or whatever. You've got a feel for it. You've got a command. You sort of know when to throw the flag, right? I think everything that

has become. So, well, we're going to send out, Perry Fuel is going to send out 17 videos this week. And look, this is like the, by the end, we don't even know what a freaking catch is, Randy. Instead of the official just saying, yep, he caught it, live with it, right? We've really drilled down to such a level that I think the games are harder to officiate. I think the feel for the game, like a perfect example, the Mahomes play running out of bounds. Yes, you slow it down. There's contact.

But look, their legs actually got tripped up. He did push him, but Mahomes sold it with the big flop. To me, I don't know that Red Cachin in 1986, that that's a penalty, necessarily for 15 yards to win the game. So I think there's some of that going on. I do think, though, officiating is always seen as worse than it's ever been. And I, you know, I love to go in the archives. and you can find stories from 1975, it's never been worse. 1985, it's never been worse, 1995.

So is it all getting worse than ever was? I'm going to tell you a funny story from the archives, the officiating archives. It involves Art Modell, okay? So there was a long time ago back in the, I think it was even back in the 70s where Art Models, Cleveland Browns couldn't beat the Steelers, couldn't beat them, no matter what.

And so they're playing a game, and the officiating goes sideways. They're going to win the game. Bad call. They lose again. And so he goes down to the official's locker room, okay? Art Modell goes down on the one of the teams. And so there had been a fight, I think, between Lynn Swan and it was Pittsburgh

Cleveland, Lynn Swan and somebody else. And basically they'd thrown the 15-yard penalty on Modell's guy, but they didn't see the first part of it. So this is what Art Mardell said. He says. well I had a few pops in me that's great he's drinking during the game and when the game ended I told him to take me to the official's dressing room right I go down there and I start pounding on the door he said I wanted to talk to ben Dwight the referee right the given of the business given

the business Ben Drey yeah yeah yeah Dreith yells through the door art that's going to cost you 10 grand and Art Madel says that's that sobered me up real quick then I said, would you come out for five grand? And Ben Dres said, he did. Of course he did. It cost me five grand, but I had the opportunity to tell him it was the worst officiating I'd ever seen. And Art Bred else had given the options, it was worth it.

So that's all. You know, I love it. Back in the day, the owner's drinking up in the box. And then after the game, he goes down and he pounds on the referee's door. And the referee says, it's going to cost you 10, grand. He says, would you come out for five? He goes, yeah. So he comes out and then he tells him it's the worst officiating ever that he's ever seen. Well, there's been a lot of games since then where a lot of people thought it was the worst officiated game ever. So I don't know that it's worse than it's ever

been. I mean, what do you think? Well, that's a great story. I do think it's when you add layers to officiating, and we've done a lot of that over the years, it becomes more agenda-based officiating to me because everybody has a little agenda, whether it's the guys in New York, whether it's the official that we hear on TV with his agenda, with the guys on the field have an agenda, and now they all have headsets and somebody's in their ear all the time. So there's a bunch of cooks in the kitchen, no doubt, and everybody has an idea of what they think should be right.

I would like to see him simplify it and maybe get rid of a lot of these layers. But the one thing I would like to do is, and we did this in the AAF a few years ago, we had an eye in the sky. We had a sky judge. it was kind of a lord over everything. And actually, Mike Pereira did it for that league. And I remember him sitting in the booth.

And he would just fix anything that was crazy, anything that didn't make sense. If it warranted, this is bad. This is a bad call. We know it right away. Boom. Let's change it right now. I just thought it gave everybody a little different opinion. We weren't based with a bunch of agendas of people in the league office or officials in New York.

or again, everybody's got the replay official. Everybody has some kind of agenda. We just put it on one guy and he was over the top of everything and he said when things got messed up, hey, this is wrong. This is this. Whether it was a bad interference call, he just had better eyes because he had an eye in this guy and it's almost like an instant replay or a challenge guy without challenges being needed.

So there's one guy and he kind of just made it right. I would love to see us go to that. They'll never do that because the league has half of the owners who don't want to change anything and the other half who thinks it's, think it's too expensive so we don't want to slow down games anymore. I actually think this was a way to speed up games where you don't have to sit through all those reviews.

You know, as long as I can be the sky judge, Randy, that's what I want to do. I can see all the fouls on the, I sit in the stands at my kids' game. I see every foul. I officiates the game perfectly. You know, one time, and it's true, I feel like I'm 100% right, but one time I actually was at my

kids games of seventh grade or something, and the officials didn't show up, so I got caught out of the stands. I had to officiate a game by myself. I couldn't see anything. I couldn't see anything. I realized how junior high basketball, I was like, I was asking the kids,

was that out on you? So I don't have any, I think it's a very hard job they have to do. We've got a bunch, especially for these big games, everyone's watching. We have 25 cameras in HD. You've got a 65-inch screen

and you're hitting rewind and they're going to all these angles. I think you can find a lot of stuff in there. After the game, everyone's like, well, look, this was holding here, this was that there. That's part of the challenge of this thing, Randy, is that everybody can see what they want to see,

and everybody can be aggrieved. Both those teams can come to that game and send 10 plays to league office, and they might be right on eight of them. Yeah. I don't disagree with that. It's a hard job. There's no doubt it's a hard job.

I just hope some way we can, again, I think the league office is like your first comment said, it's about it's about it. It's about it, so that's good for the game. I don't know if it's good for the game to mess up some of the things they do. And I would just like to fix the egregious things that sometimes it's the spotting of the ball. I mean, I can see from my couch that they messed it up. Let's just get it right and not have to go through a challenge or put a team at a disadvantage

because somebody put it down with their left foot and they really meant their right foot, you know. Oh, totally, totally got it. What else you got in the GM notebook before? Well, the only thing I had. The only other thing I had, which I think Art Mordell probably would, have been proud of and everybody saw it was the Travis Kelsey stuff after the game on in the post game interview. Wasn't that awesome?

What did he call the mayor of Cincinnati? Gibroni or something? Gibrony. Roboom of Jibroni. It was so great. And then he sang a, uh, what's the, who sings that? Who sing Beastie Boys song or something like that? Yeah, yeah.

You got to fight for the right to party. Yeah. But he grabbed the mic and took over and, yeah, I mean, these politicians better watch out. They start making bets just to get in the newspaper and they're on TV now. the players are going to start holding them accountable. I thought it was great. Especially, you couldn't get a geekier mayor. I mean, I'm sorry.

The way he was reading from that. I mean, it wasn't like, you know, it was very gibronish, I thought. It was very gibronious of them. I think Travis Kelsey captured the essence of it absolutely perfectly. You know, my biggest fear in picking Cincinnati, which we don't have pictures, we were both one-on-one. We got it with Philly. And I, you know, I was so afraid of the Mahomes setup idea. that and you know what do you think it felt like the narratives of the game you know that the

the bangles got a little ahead of their skis with some of the burrowhead stuff i just no doubt sometimes those things don't matter like in the end it just matters how you feel about it but i felt like a little bit of a shift there those chiefs sure were ready with with the gibroni comment and i mean they had to win that game or it was brohead the exuberance of their celebration told me a couple things, Mike. It told me that they were really scared about the game, that the Bengals had beat him three times, and it meant something.

You don't react like they did afterwards unless you really had doubt. You know what I mean? When you have a game that you're really doubting, it's a big game, you don't know if you can win it or not, those are always the ones that the exuberance shows afterwards. The ones that, you know, that's why I was kind of surprised by the Eagles, they celebrated.

They had no, 49ers had no chance. So what are you celebrating? I know you're going to a Super Bowl, but that game was over at halftime. But I just thought that the level of exuberance, the Chief showed, told me that they were sweating this game, and they were ecstatic to beat them because they had, the Bengals had had their number for sure.

So I don't know. We'll see. I was impressed so much by Mahomes and him coming out and doing what he did on really a high ankle sprain that sets, Most people back five, six weeks around the league with the same injury. And he sucked it up. It was crazy. I mean, it's crazy.

When you hear high ankle sprain as a GM, you think, oh, man, this guy's down a month. We got no chance. You know, he's not coming back. This guy didn't miss a beat. He came right back and taped it up and said, let's go. It's unbelievable to me. I know offensive linemen tape it up and stuff, but this is a little bit of a different thing where he's having to scramble around. and it's just really, really impressive.

And I was thinking now that, let's just say, Tom Brady's obviously retiring and Rogers didn't have his best season. I mean, what, how many standard deviations better than the next guy is Patrick Mahomes? I feel like he is, look, they take away to Rico. And I know he's got Kelsey and stuff, but it wasn't like it was a down year. It was a better year. And then you roll up on his ankle. Yeah.

And he does that against a team that has your number. I mean, I think he's clearly the best guy. Have they voted for MVP yet? When does that happen? Yeah, the voting is. Yeah, the voting is over. Hasn't been announced. It hasn't been announced, so it's going to come out.

But he's going to win it. I would hope so. He really, that to me elevates. I don't know. I just feel like there's, I feel like there's a gap. Yeah, I agree with that. I think the consistency by which he operated this year without his big play receiver tells you everything you need to know. He was not up and down like he had been at times in prior years. This guy had a steady, great year and I don't think you can even question it. I think you're right. He's the guy. If you were to pick teams tomorrow and have all the GMs in a schoolyard pick him, he'd be the first picked by 30 to 32 teams.

I was going to say in the other two take Burrow. Borough or maybe Josh Allen, I don't know, but that's probably your leading three right there. That Burrow pass, that Burrow touchdown pass. Yeah. I think Burrow will be okay. I think he'll be all right. I think it'll be okay. Yeah, but Mahomes is really special and he's done it longer and it was just a really impressive game.

So we won't pick the Super Bowl today, but we'll come back next week and do it. I hope everybody could stay with us this week as we went down memory lanes. We went down some back row. We swerved off the road a couple times. I'm supposed to have two hands on the steering wheel. But I enjoyed it, Randy, and hope you have a good week. Yeah, we still never have told our arrowhead stories yet that we promised we'd tell a couple weeks ago.

So maybe we'll hit on that next week, in honor of the Chiefs being in Super Bowl. I was supposed to tell something else. I was supposed to tell the story about your evil-con-eval story. Yeah, you were going to talk about evil-conneval, and I was going to tell the Arrowhead Flash Flood Warning game. story. That was crazy. Yeah, maybe next week I can get to, maybe next week I can get to evil, because we won't have games, we'll be coming off. Maybe there's some of these hearings will be done. Maybe we won't have anything left. We'll have to talk about evil con evil and

our model again. So anyway, hey, everybody, you can find me, Mike Sando, on Twitter at Sando NFL. You can find Randy at Randy Mueller underscore. Also, you can find Randy's Rook at MuellerFootball.com. Thank you for coming along. We'll talk to you next week.