The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Trevor Lawrence extension, Atlanta Falcons tampering and the CapFriendly website

Episode Date: June 15, 2024

We made it to another week of the Football GM - Mike and Randy kick off their discussion with Trevor Lawrence's extension and why did the Jacksonville Jaguars decide to extend him now? Then the guys shift their conversation to the Atlanta Falcons and how they forfeited their fifth-round pick. After that, we discuss another non-NFL topic from an NFL perspective. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome everybody, the Football GM podcast, Mike Sando here, along with the GM, Randy Mueller. And I just sense it, Randy. I know I'm in an upbeat mood. It sounds like you are, too. How are you doing? What's kind of putting wind in your sales today?

I'm doing great, Mike. Thanks for asking. I'm happy fishing is good in Idaho. So that gets me upbeat. I'm a simple-minded dude, man. I'm telling you, Mike, something that probably don't affect anybody else in the real world. I thinned out a few of the Coquiney in Lake Cordon Lane.

So that's always good. And looking forward to doing some more next week. But yeah, always some little football topics to research and talk about. So I'm fired up for the show. So the Coquene are you doing like down rigors and stuff in a boat, that sort of thing? How do you do it? That's available. And for those listeners who are turning their dial,

coquony are little landlocked salmon. So they're a smaller version. And I love to smoke them. And so, yeah, we catch them trolling for the most part. but they're not that deep to where down rigors are involved. So it's more by feel. And yeah, it's something I've done my whole life. So I love it.

It's a great way to spend a few hours when you have some time during the day. And it's handy for those of us in northern Idaho currently. Yeah, years ago, I took my son out on Lake Tahoe and did that. We just, you know, I think it was Tahoe, where we just limited it out. It was great. So good and grilled them that day. So I'm getting me hungry. I'm excited because the last couple weeks I've I've traveled around to some teams I went to six different teams

visited them and I just get recharged doing that just just getting to sit down with people talk to people get reacquainted meet new people you know I always have these projects I'm working on in the off season that will come to fruition with something all right in the athletic eventually but it's just fun to kind of connect that way and and get challenged. a little bit and I love that. So I'm also excited too because this time of year we start to get into some vacation time too. You mentioned you're fishing. We,

you know, we've got some vacation time coming up. It's just I like the pace of, I like the whole year, year around, but each new season and each new time is just kind of get excited about. So we're almost to that point of the calendar now. The teams are kind of breaking now and going to go in their separate ways.

And that's a fun time too. I always remember when you talk of teams breaking and going away for the summertime, and I probably told this story on the podcast, so I apologize if people have already heard it. But it all depends for these teams on the tenor of your spring, how it's gone early in the summer, the pace of practices and these OTAs, and the intensity of it. One year in Miami when Nick was the coach, Nick Saban, obviously our intensity may have been ratcheted up a little bit based on the tenor of the head coach. that's just the way it is. Sure. And we had had a long, hard spring. And we were, as a staff, fixing to leave the next day to go on a golfing junk in Ireland.

And Wayne Hizenga, our owner, God bless his soul, was loading up about, I think there were 12 of us. We were going to Ireland for a golfing weekend. So you would think we would all be in a pretty good mood, like the last day of school, right? And I figured Nick would kind of go easy on our guys. And we would, like we see nowadays, given. And coaches give days off a lot easier, but not with Nick. We had Mike on the last day of practice, which is considered the last day of school, the biggest knockdown, dragout brawl I think I've ever seen between our offense and our defense.

And it went completely off the rails. And it's 20 minutes. This is like Jason Taylor and Zach Thomas and legitimate players that had just had enough all spring and all summer and wanted to get away. from each other, but it turned into a complete brawl. And so I remember on the plane that night, as we're heading to Ireland, I remember thinking, I can't believe I just saw what I saw. I've been used to these summer camps and OTAs and many camps winding down in a very peaceful way. And this was a complete crazy show for the better end of three, four minutes. And so I know these teams are ready to leave. I know these teams are ready for the most part. Now, there are some teams that schedule OTAs

after this just to keep players around. But for the most part, you're right. They're going to depart and move in their own ways. And for the next six weeks, try to enjoy their offseason. So it is a crazy time, even in the NFL, for teams depending on what they've accomplished to this point. Yeah. I think most of the mini camps this year were June 4 to 6 and 10 to 12.

So the teams that were in that 10 to 12 bucket have kind of wrapped it up. The car's idling and guys ready to get out of there and go their separate ways. Some of these coaches, you know, don't even really. haven't even relocated their families or for an office people. They've been in, you know, they've changed teams or I was talking to a defensive coach yesterday who was in that boat where, you know, he's been away from his family for the whole offseason. So that's the nature of this league too.

Randy, with so much change and turnover. People are eager to get back to their family. Sometimes their kids, their spouse or thousands of miles away because it's just not worth relocating them and pulling out of school when, hey, dad might be. on a one-year deal here, right, depending on how things go. So I think that's a part of this reality, too. There's a human component this time of year where people want to get back together. I think these staffs and people forget when they do get put together in January and February, families go two ways.

One, they come immediately or two, like you said, they stay and finish school where they're at. And so in June and the first part of July, all of that takes place. So you're right. Some of these coaches, probably the new staffs have been away from family for the most part. And it is truly a last day of school. So we can go back to actually having a life and reunite family. So it can be a real fun time for sure. Yeah, very fun time for Trevor Lawrence here too, Randy.

Former number one pick in the draft signs a five-year, $275 million extension. So the extension part of it, the five years, has a $55 million average, which is tied with Joe Burrough for most in the league. I don't think anyone thinks that Trevor Lawrence is tied with Joe Burrow or one of those top quarterbacks, you know, for being that good in the league. I'm not sure he's a top 15 quarterback right now. But Randy, what's your sort of philosophy in a situation like this one where you can do a deal? You know, he's, you know, going to be your guy, but they've got two years left on his deal.

Plus, you know, practically you've got more than that with franchise tags. Are you rushing into an expensive wedding here to prevent there being an east? even more expensive wedding later, or would you rather bide your time? Well, I'm going to go back to the statement I often make on here is that there must be something that we don't know, Mike, because this sure feels and smells like a shotgun wedding. You know, I don't know the rush. I agree with you. I don't think anybody's going to have Trevor Lawrence in their top, maybe 10 quarterbacks

at this stage. But the tantalizing part of this kid is, and I wrote about it a couple weeks ago, is that the ceiling is still really high for Trevor Lawrence. Now, we haven't seen that get to that point yet in development, but it's still there. I've tried to think through this over the last day or so when I heard these kind of numbers, and why would you want to do that? I guess the extension, new money at some point comes after the fact, and as you mentioned, it does take the average down, but in this case, I think I want more information.

I think it really is like investing in a stock that is completely speculative and you think it's going somewhere. We're going to bet on Google to improve their AI side of the business, but it's still risky per se. And so that's what this really relates to in my mind. It's a stock that it could be risky. I don't know, Mike. You tell me, have you thought why they would do this now, knowing what you just said and everybody knows the length of the length of of terms that, you know, they had his services for he's not going anywhere. Well, yeah, I agree.

Now, the team, though, should know what they have more than we do. They should know what they have and they should know what the factors are in his, like we were talking about before, maybe I was talking to someone else about, you know, they may have known that he played last year with an injury or something like that, you know, things were like, hey, this guy is doing everything behind the scenes. We have some questions about our staff, maybe, and how he's. he's been managed, but we really don't have, you know, any question on on who he is and who we went to lead our team. Now, that being said, I don't know that you can assume the

Jaguars, given their history, their ownership are qualified to know that. But certainly they have football people there who've been around in Trent Balke and in Doug Peterson and should have a handle on how good this quarterback is going to be. I just think there's so much at stake. I know he's going to be there in two years. I'm not sure if everyone else. else was going to be there in two years. So I do think that there is, you know, there is a discount that you're getting when you, yeah, the $55 million is the highest tied for highest APY now. But that part of the extension doesn't kick in until after two more seasons. So they're basically locking in a price. And if you want to count the two years before then and call this a seven million, a seven year deal,

you know, maybe we're talking about a $44 million average, something like that. So they are basically saying, hey, two, three years from now when the extension kicks in, the top salary in the quarterback world might be $65 million or whatever. When Mahomes does his deal, is it $70 million. I don't know. And so they're going to say $55 then is going to slot about where we think he's going to be among quarterbacks in the league, and we're fine with it. So that's the way that you would defend it.

I always am with you. I think with an investment this big, the more information thing, I got no problem paying even more later if he proves that he's the guy, right? That doesn't bother me at all. Now, you've said in the past, though, that you do like to lock in for planning purposes. So there's an advantage there to know what he's going to cost for five, even seven years now. They know what their quarterback's going to cost and they can build around that, right? Well, for me, no question.

I think the big thing, if you're going to value the contract, you've got to value additional years that they now have based on comparing it to the new money that they paid for those two years. Now, I haven't seen the details of that, but that's really the value of the extension is how many more new years do they have him under contract and for what money-wise did they pay for that. So, yeah, I think the $55 million a year is upside. I get it. I think that's a little bit of a gamble, but I understand it. But like you mentioned, I like to be able to plan my team. So the difference for me is those cap years, and again, I haven't seen the total details. I'm not going to take for granted what I know so far, but those cap numbers, let's just say in year three and four and five, or at least

three and four, are manageable to the point where you can build your team around it. I think that's the really question from 300,000 feet is talk about the average, and that's what the agent hangs his hat on. But as a team, I want to be able to continue to build my team around the cap numbers of where we're settling on the quarterback. And so I don't know where those numbers are yet. I understand the early years. I understand getting them under cap count now that you can plan for, but they may gain additional years that they can plan for at below average numbers,

and then that makes it worth it. I just don't maybe there's a, and again, we're kind of jumping around here a little bit, Mike, but maybe there's a jumping off point later in this deal once we see all the details that you say, oh, yeah, now it makes sense. So I don't know that. The guarantees matter. I mean, I've read all the way from the 200 million guaranteed. I get it.

But it's also when those things are doled out. And guarantees to me are a little deceiving because obviously the first two or three years are 100% guaranteed. And I get it as they should be. But those are guaranteed really in most any deal. So although they can be trumpeted as part of the guarantee, the first two years are going to be 100% guaranteed no matter what. So whether you put guaranteed language in there or not, the cap is going to control whether you release that play or not. So they're really guaranteed. But man, if he flounders for a couple years, you know, and then you're starting a $55 million extension and you don't feel great about him, that's not a good position to be in.

The comparison is with Sean Watson. Now we're at the $63 million cap number for him, and he has failed for a couple years. And now how does that leave the rest of our team, you know, eating up 20, 25 percent of your cap and building a team around that? That's problematic, especially in both those cases. is with Deshaun and with Trevor. They're not viewed by those who do this for a living in the top 10 or 12 in the league. So that's a problem. Yeah.

I think Deshaun was, though, at one point, kind of in that range when he was with Houston, but then so much happened. And with him, there was also a team change, a scheme change, a long layoff. So I see that one is way more speculative and also, you know, it's fully guaranteed the whole way through. So to me, that's a, that was a felony, you know, to really do. And I feel like this is, I don't know if this is, Mr. meter.

Yeah, I don't know. it's even that, but it's just, it's just interesting. Well, there's plenty to be excited about in his game. So I can say that, and I agree with the Jagg's, you know, optimism here. There's plenty to still be excited about whether Doug can get it out of him. I don't know. But I do think it swings the pressure now to Doug and the philosophy and everything. Now, he's got to make him better the next year, especially.

They've got to see progress at the end of this year. and then extreme progress in year two, which would be 2025, or we're probably looking at more changes in Jacksonville. Oh, no doubt about it. Yep, I think this makes that clock, which is already there, be ticking. They're all in on him. Now we know it, and it's up to everybody else to make sure he's good or else there'll be other somebody else's there to coach him and lead him for future of this deal.

We talked about felonies and misdemeanors. Let's get into this Falcons situation where they are docked a fifth round pick, find 300,000, including 50,000 for their GM, Terry Fontno. I always wonder, before we get into that, Randy, so when they fine the GM, like, $50,000, is that, is that like withheld from your paycheck? Or you have to, how does that run? They're asking the wrong guy. Fortunately, I've never had a round.

I've never been penalized for something like that. That's a good question. I don't, unless there's some way that the team can help you out on that down the room. That's what I always wondered. Like, does a team, like, does he have, like, some, does he get a $50,000 a raise next year. The league probably wouldn't allow that, but, you know, 50,000 bucks. I all, you know, I guess now GMs make five million bucks. So if it's all relative, but does this go into like the fine money, you know, the kitty for charity? I'm just curious. So anyway,

the crimes and misdemeanors, uh, traffic, is this a traffic violation, parking violation? Basically, the Falcons were convicted, I guess here, by the league of, uh, some improper contact with Kirk Cousins and a couple of other free agents. And Kirk Cousins kind of maybe spilled the beans a little bit in his press conference when he alluded to having contact personally, I think, with their trainer is where this started. But somebody I know, Randy, I'm not going to name him, but somebody I know, somebody I know who likes fishing, somebody I know who lives in the Northwest, former longtime executive. might have called this the Rich McKay pillow penalty as a joke when we were joking around here on this, because implying that that fine and that penalty is really not that big. What would somebody mean by that, coach?

Well, a couple of things. As you know, I think for me, it was clearly a slap on the wrist, maybe a small shot over the bow. I don't think it was a direct hit by any means. You know, in my opinion, it's either tampering or not. I am positive with regard to the Richman Kay factor that he was involved and that this may have even been a negotiated penalty. I don't know that for sure. It's an interesting dynamic because Rich is the guy who is a longtime president of the Falcons who said a couple of times now he's not involved in anything football-wise. But yet he's in charge of the most powerful football committee in the history of the league in the competition committee at the league level.

So you sort that out yourself. You think there might be, have I had some connections? Yeah, I think there might be some connections there. I don't know. The whole thing for me is really, I think,

laughable. And I understand they have to put some parameters on what teams do. I get it. Hey, we've all fudge time periods a little bit. I get it. But the league has made tampering now

almost a tongue-in-cheek, laughable offense. Because last time I checked, don't we have now a legal tampering period before free agency starts. So they just keep drawing back to a finer line as that what's tampering and what's not. And this comes down to me as a penalty that was, yeah, maybe they did something wrong, but we're not going to get in the middle of mitigating every one of these deals.

And if I was a, I guess my question comes from, and maybe you can help me, who was who was on that? I know the Falcons were the defense. Who's the prosecutor? Who really wanted this thing to be sorted out? Was it teams? Was it the league being, you know, upset because they, got disrespected because someone didn't follow their rules. I can't imagine a team coming out and say, hey, these guys tampered.

Stop whining. Just be in contact with your players and sort it out yourself. You tell me, Mike. Yeah, it seems weird. So, you know, obviously we're a little bit of speculation here, but I made a couple phone calls and what do you think happened? That's sort of a thing. People who have a feel or perspective on this.

And, you know, what I heard was that basically the team was dealing with the players directly regarding travel and press conferences and those sorts of things, as opposed to usually I think you would go through agents on that type of stuff, right? So, you know, that could be, I don't know if that would be a common thing, but when Kirk Cousins made the comment about it in the press conference, then you start, you know, then there could be an investigation. And once there's an investigation, you're looking at people's texts and phone calls and you say, well, yeah, you know, whatever.

Kirk Cousins did talk to the trainer or whatever, you know, even if it was not about something that was all that significant. That's one way you could get to this type of a situation. But it does seem like the, you know, the league isn't always fully clear about what happened. And then the penalties vary by the team. We saw the 49ers have a salary cap thing, somebody, you know, probably even a lower level employee for them. didn't understand some rules, and they got a little bit off there, and then when it was discovered later,

they got a bigger penalty on it. Why would that be, right? Well, I think the league always reserved judgment if new information comes out to reestablish a different penalty, that's for sure. Yeah, but I'll just say this, Mike, not to interrupt, but if teams are dealing directly with players, in some of these factors, that's something that shouldn't be done in all my time.

Now, I recruited players indirectly at times before the window was open maybe to do so. But that's, again, to me, that's competing. That's a fine line. Am I really breaking the rules here or not, you know? And so I would hope we don't go down that road of, hey, I can't talk to this guy or that guy at all. But you're right. And that's probably the case. And when I hadn't thought of, frankly, is the communication is always through the agent.

If somebody's communicating directly with a player, that probably tells me that the negotiations, or there's something that's way down the line with regard to marrying that player with that team. And when you look at the Falcons, even though, you know, Rich McKay is there and has tons of experience, he would not be the one doing that. So you have a, you have a newer, you know, GM or whatever, someone on the front office or people that. Yes, some people that maybe haven't been. you know, in their role forever. And so some of these little details could, you know, get out of line.

It doesn't seem to me that there was some massive conspiracy that helped them get Kirk Cousins when they wouldn't have otherwise. They paid them. Right. They were willing to pay them. And if somebody else wanted to pay them more, they could have got them. So this just, to me, feels like protocols weren't followed perfectly. And so you get dinged.

It doesn't feel to me like, oh, my gosh. Yeah, the team's on the other side. aren't pushing this at all. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong. The Vikings aren't ticked at the Falcons. They clearly didn't want to participate at this price. Other teams and the market was kind of going to be what it was. So other teams aren't feeling shut out of the conversations.

I don't think. So this is strictly a league mandated policy type. And maybe that's why the penalties were as low as they were. It's just a matter of some detailed policies that weren't followed. Yeah. So that was kind of interesting. And I think people, you know, sensing your reaction and some of the skepticism, you know, on how teams are treated differently with somebody, like you said, who's so established as Rich McKay. That's a very common feeling around the league that, okay, they've got this guy who's on that committee, you know, that's how it works.

And it's a very natural reaction in the league, isn't it? Oh, and 100%. There's a lot of these committees that are run. And, hey, long-time executives have relationships. And I mean, it is what it is. Sometimes it's, they work for you. I mean, most of the time, I would say they work for you. So, goodos to them.

All right. So here's one. We're going to talk a little last week, and we're going to get to, we're going to circle back on the Dan Hurley thing because we talked about it last week. But first, another sort of non-NFL thing that we can look at from an NFL perspective. You flagged this one, Randy. The NHL's Washington Capitals purchased the cap-friendly website. And the cap-friendly website, I have to admit, I like the cap-friendly website.

I like the cap and I'm pretty friendly, but I'd never heard of the cap-friendly site because I'm not a hockey guy. But the cap-friendly site had some smart guys working for it who analyzed the salary cap in the NHL and then also had a lot of the salary data, stuff that we take for granted being around the NFL. There's lots of websites or ways you can find out what the salaries are. But this hockey site was purchased by the Washington Capitals.

And then their GM, Brian McClellan, said this. This strategic move will provide the capitals organization with the ability to digest, present, and analyze both our internal and league-supplied data. We anticipate this acquisition will significantly enhance and integrate the various branches of our hockey ops department, allowing us to strengthen our management, scouting, analytics, and player development. In addition to augmenting our salary cap and contractual applications, Randy, as someone who was in the NFL for so long, you had to be doing a double-take reading that. Well, it caused me to ask some questions, and I'll be honest with me, Mike, I reached out to a couple people in the later way smarter than me just to get their thoughts as well. Because really, the number one thing with this site is it's being supplied by a third party for free for the most part. So what are they buying? So that was my first question is what's the service provided for free worth however many million to a specific team for?

I think where it led me to go down the rabbit hole somewhat is that the NHL must not give support to teams data-wise like we do in the NFL. So they must struggle to gain everybody's data and information from all these contracts. The league, the NFL gives the teams every minute detail. And the teams also employ now two, three people in a cap department that that's all they do. So they analyze everything that these cap companies and businesses are doing. So I figured that, and maybe this is, I think you've done a little research as well, the NHL teams just don't have that same support. And they don't have people fully dedicated to salary and contracts.

Maybe, and again, I'm speculating here, but maybe it's the hockey people. Maybe it's the GM. Maybe it's those people who do all the negotiating and and around and research that we have four or five people doing at the NFL level now. So I guess my other questions came to me was, are they buying a version of, we have its equivalent maybe in the NFL, a couple places, PFF, pro football focus, or over the cap, which, what are they buying? Similar setups to that.

Just the sour cap companies have to deal with less information than NFL teams have themselves. So they're never exactly on equal foot. with NFL teams, but for the most part, the people that use these sites are like you and me, and it's good enough information to us for us to run with. It's less than 100% that the NFL teams have, so they're still a little gap. Yeah, and I would say like it would be like over the cap or spot track, you know, those types of sites. I think PFF with ultimate product and all of their charting, you know, across whatever, 180 data points for every play, we sort of laugh when, you know, people cite the PFF grade.

but the league doesn't laugh about the charting because their charting data is really good and really consistent. And there's definitely value in the grades. The grades, yeah. But yeah, no one in the NFL wants someone else telling them how good their players are. I mean, that's just a natural reaction, right? That's part of it, yeah. And then you can get into whether, you know, we agree with it or think they do a good job. But they provide a, their charting of the play-by-play data is what really gives them value in buildings.

And I think that's different than this hockey site, which seems. seems to be more rudimentary and more. I just think it's a reminder to me that the NFL is so big and so much money and has grown, has developed out in so many of these ways that if you were to go back, well, you know, when was the NFL the equivalent of what the NHL is now in terms of its development and growth, right? It may have been back to an era when there weren't three guys handling the cap, right? where maybe somebody who studied the cap, you know, who didn't even work for a team, but was really into it, could provide a real edge for a team.

And even now, we see teams hire people who are super interested in the cap with a college Ivy League background or a college background and they're super good at analyzing it. And we know some people. I know people that I follow on Twitter that are like that. Actually, they're really good. So, but there is definitely a gap there. and this was a little bit eye-opening. It reminded me, Randy, I think about 40 years ago, our pal John Clayton, rest in peace, John, he sort of legendarily, I believe, secured salary data for the players in the NFL, and it was a big deal.

That stuff hadn't been available publicly. They printed the salaries, like listed them in the newspaper, player by player, team by team, hundreds of them. And then, you know, 10 or 12 years later, the cap went into effect. And even then, it probably took NFL teams. a lot of them 10 years to kind of really figure out the cap and how to plan it and not have it be such an impediment. Remember, teams used to get into cap jail. Oh, my gosh. They actually did make some moves in the 90s because of the cap, right?

They're way over it. Remember that. And so the league, the NFL is way further down this road, apparently. The other person I reached out to who has some hockey familiarity basically said they're also acquiring the guys who ran the site, sharp guys. and really at that point your decision, once you acquire those, you're going to acquire those guys, what do you do with the site? Well, you just buy that too and shut it down. Sorry, anybody wants to look at it.

You can't do it. I'm sure another site, there's other sites that will pop up. Now there'll be a market for that publicly, probably in hockey. I totally agree. And I think just what you said takes me back to probably pinpointing, this is the equivalent of 1995 NFL standards and level of collecting the data, of putting it to use in the best ways for teams. That's what we did, like I say, back in the mid-90s. There were times early in the cap days for an NFL team where we had information that the league didn't have either. So it went

both ways. But yeah, you had to, yes, it was, you had to dip in as deep as you could. And really, for the Seahawks, this was in the mid-90s when Mickey Loomis and I were kind of in charge at the Seahawks. We did all of this just the two of us. So this sounds like where hockey is right now. So I think it's probably safe to say that they're about 25 years behind the NFL in the collection of data and how it's used. It's interesting. Yeah, it was just very interesting. I love that you flagged that and brought that up because upon reading it, I was like, yeah, that is really interesting. And just a reminder of these leagues who are in different spots in their development. And the NFL has grown so big.

We take a lot of things for granted that really would have been a huge luxury at different points in the past, right, in terms of data. Yeah, an acquisition of this might have made sense to us back. in 1995. Yeah, totally. Really interesting. Well, hey, back in June 7th or so when we recorded our last podcast, we were talking about Dan Hurley and all of that interesting situation and really talking more about the college coaches, whether it's NBA or NFL, coming to the professional ranks.

And I had to raise the point that, you know, maybe the gap between these two worlds is smaller than it used to be just because now players are getting paid in college. but let's just put a bow on this, Randy, with Hurley going back to Yukon and people wondering, okay, was it even a real, you know, a situation where he was maybe going to go there? Was it a power play, whatever? How do you sort of tie it up? Well, I think the thing for me is, and I would think a lot of our listeners realize this, too, is these deals are orchestrated deals.

They don't just come out of the blue and all of a sudden the Lakers call and say this or that. These deals are orchestrated at the agent level, the planning level, marketing levels. They are long drawn out moves that are made for reasons that, you know, the answers are there. So these questions come up, right? And most of it is leverage generated on one side or another. So I don't think, I wasn't surprised that Dan Hurley went back. I do think it's hard for these college coaches to make the jump. It depends on your personality.

and that's a whole other discussion on a particular coach's personality that has little or no pro experience making the jump from college, whether that's Jimmy Johnson or Nick Saban or Dennis Erickson and those latter two I was part of when they came on from college. I don't know necessarily how Dan Hurley's wired, but there's a lot of convoluted theory on why Dan Hurley was brought to the table or who brought him to the table. and what his intent was at the end of all this. Sounds like there's media wars involved as well. And the breaking of stories was ego-related at times and infiltrated with their own agendas as well. So I guess that's the one word that probably comes away from me after the whole thing and how it transpired is. There's a lot of agendas at work.

And it's not necessarily as we perceive it initially, that's for sure. Yeah. But that being said, going back to Yukon, the right move. for Dan Hurley, in your opinion? I think so. I just think, and again, I don't know Dan Hurley, but I see the way he's wired, and I think he's wired for that game. I don't know that he's wired for the, I'll just say the NBA slash NFL way. I think that takes a different style, a different personality. And I only relate it to just the differences of those three coaches that I've been around a little bit and how they made the jump. So I don't know that Dan is the guy that's wired to

to take the Laker job, but the whole process served his purpose, and he comes away with maybe what he wanted at the end of the day. Yeah. It takes a unique person to really be great at it like Jimmy Johnson was, right, who could kind of thread that needle. And it was just great in really all aspects with not only just the demeanor and the relationship with the players, but also was able to bring a differentiating scheme that changed football on defense, right?

So that's the unicorn. I think that the underlying fact for me that differentiates between, and Dan Hurley gets us talking about it, but he's really not part of this conversation now, is that in Jimmy Johnson's case, he wanted an amount of control, but yet trusted, and maybe it's through his relationship with Jerry at the time, he knew there was another side of the business that he was somewhat involved in, but couldn't necessarily control. And I'll compare that with Nick and Dennis in my two experiences, taking colleges, college coaches moving forward. Dennis didn't care about any of those details of the business side, the contract side, making those kind of decisions. He wanted to coach ball. And it really wasn't about X's and O's. He was really good. All these guys are really good at the X's and O's part, where in Nick's case, he wanted to be involved in every little decision of those.

and there's just too many. And so the difference of coaching at the college level and developing a program is totally different. At the pro level, you have to lean on, you have to lean into, you have to have a whole bunch, especially another GM and an owner that are involved in these decision makings

and the execution of these decisions that you don't have to at the college level. Whatever Dan Hurley wants to do, whatever Nick Saber wants to do at the college level, he can do. It's just more convoluted and more complicated at the NFL level, and some teams, some coaches are wired better for that than others.

Does that make sense? It really does, yeah. It's a great way to look at it and to assess what the challenges are going forward and try to project, okay, where does this guy fit on that spectrum of these coaches in terms of the ability to navigate that and maneuver that and have a knowledge of it and tolerate some of the fact that you're going to tolerate a little more sort of BS in the view of the coach, right, or red tape or other voices, you know, and who, you know, and who, you're, you're going to tolerate a little more. and who's, hey, who's got the owners here?

You know, you don't always know. It may not be you as a coach going there. So, yeah, very interesting. Also in news, coaching news this week, a little bit under the radar, but I don't think it was a huge shock, but there's something to talk about here with Mike Tomlin doing a three-year extension. I'm personally kind of relieved, Randy, because while no one's talking about Tomlin right now,

it was a story late last season, wasn't it? Without a doubt. I mean, it was talked about, for several weeks there where is this his last year, he may have a losing record for the first time. I just felt like that kind of tainted his world, definitely tainted the Steelers world. And I think that's probably the purpose more than anything of them doing this,

is they didn't want to go back down that road again this year, no matter how the team was due. Yeah, yeah, yep. So we can take that off the table. It really was. I feel like they've had a one. I kind of like where Pittsburgh's at right now, even though, look, there's been.

drama following Russell Wilson wherever he's been. But I think compared to some of the other things they've had going on, I think Mike Tomlin can handle that. I think he's a master psychologist as a coach. I'm not worried about him being able to handle that. But they've sort of the things that have just been festering there, which was Tomlin's contract, and I think it's related to what they've had at Offensive Coordinator.

They've really tolerated offense that was part of the case against Tomlin. And if there was any case against Tomlin, that was it. And so, you know, I think now they have certainly a more higher caliber, qualified offensive coordinator with a vision. You can disagree or agree with his scheme or whatever. But I think we know what the identity meshes with what probably Tomlin should have had all along. And I think now there's some of those things that are off the table a little bit. and this extension with having a new offensive coordinator,

to me, calms the waters in Pittsburgh. 100%. And I think that's all what makes me feel pretty optimistic about where they're going, despite not being the biggest Russell Wilson fan. I see a match here that I don't see often in the NFL. And I agree with you. I just think the Mike Tomlin criticism last year, and it really, going back several years,

the criticism always seems pointed at him, him for this reason. Well, he doesn't run the offense. He doesn't run the defense. What's he really do? Everybody's always wondering what he does. And what you just said takes me to, has anybody ever seen the video that shows up online, whether it's an OTA meeting or some type of a coach's meeting or any time he addresses the media or his players? It's awesome. And I think that when people say, what are we paying for? That's what you're paying for. You're paying for a leader who says the right things at the right time, who gets in front of his players with a purpose and a message and has that vision every day of what he wants to accomplish. That is value. That's leadership. That's

exactly what we want in our head coach. I don't care if he doesn't necessarily run the offense or run the defense. The other people that come to my mind in regard to that are your Andy Reed's and your John Harbaugh's and those guys are very similar. They have a distinct way of messaging where they want their team to be and the details of what's going to get them there. And they stick with that. And that is coaching. It may not be the X's and O's that some of these, say, younger offensive coordinators or these young flight coaches now entering our league have. But that's a missing element if you don't have somebody on your staff that has credibility and ability and an ability to message this to the players in an authentic way. And I think that's what we get when Mike Tomlin signs an

extension for me. You're getting an often a very authentic leader and I think that's valued in this day and age. I don't care what team you're with. You know, I did a study a few years ago and I still have a little presentation off of it that sometimes I share with coaches and people in the league. And it was really looking at, I think it was maybe 17 teams that had a quarterback for at least 10 years. And just how how were you able that means you're going to have a good quarterback, but to what degree were these teams able to stay good on the other side of the ball, right? Defense? Because when you have that quarterback and you win on defense, you're going to be in the mix all the time.

And it was really interesting because the teams that did that the best stayed good on defense were teams led by John Harbaugh, Pete Carroll, Bill Belichick, and the combination of Bill Coward and Mike Tomlin. Andy Reed in Philadelphia also. But those other guys I mentioned, Harbaugh, Carol, Belichick, Cowern Tomlin, not play colors. Right. Culture setters. Three of them coached special teams in the NFL. They had a view.

Their big picture, what I would call big picture kind of macro coaches. Okay. And so those places with their quarterbacks, which would have been Flacco, Russell Wilson, McNabb, Brady, Big Ben, 28 total conference championship game appearances, 16 Super Bowl appearances. And when you look at the other, you know, the other long-term quarterbacks, I don't care if you had Rogers, I don't care if you had Brady, I don't care if you had Peyton Manning, Matt Ryan. These teams largely had other types of coaches, and they weren't good on that other side of the

ball. They didn't have the same identity, and they didn't win as many championships, weren't in the mix, even though they had better quarterbacks. So I think there's definitely value in that type of a coach, but he can't tolerate, he must enforce accountability on his staff. And I think when we've seen these guys lose their way, even Pete Carroll, great coach. I think that was probably one of the behind the scenes commentaries

was that, hey, by the end of his run there, his staff wasn't what it had been before. That's why I really give a lot of credit to the Andy Reid's of the world. Andy Reid reinvents himself from a scheme standpoint, but he really, he's got spank. He's pushing for new schemes. You know what I mean? He's not tolerating one hair out of place on your head when you're working for him.

And that's what you've got to be to be the true leader coach, right? Well, I think that's the line of delineation. That's what separates those kind of guys from a Matt Lefleur or guys that have become known just as offensive play callers, even McVeigh. But I think McVeigh carries over into that just because his personality. and the way he can lead. But yes, I think it's, I mean, obviously it's a leadership position. And my mantra as always, can you make a difference on Sundays? I think those kind of coaches make a difference on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday,

Friday, every day with the way they can message and the way they can control communication and teach it to their players. So nobody questions those guys is worth on game day just because they don't call the plays. And you mentioned a couple of those guys. Like, I think McVeigh actually has shaken up his staff, you know, and has enforced on his staff. And I think Kyle Shanahan, that's a real strength of his. Kyle Shanahan's got a video camera in each coach's office. I mean, you talk about trying to enforce accountability.

I don't think I would like that if I was working for him. But I think these types of coaches keep the guys on a little bit of edge, right, that, hey, we're pushing. We're watching. We'll make changes. You know, we've got no problem making a change if we need to. The answer to your question is, Mike kind of let that staff. erode a little bit of that credibility with regard to exactly what you're talking about. As you go along and you're a successful coach and you've won a Super Bowl,

I think it is easier to fall into a trap of getting a little bit comfortable. And you have some guys that, hey, you have some guys that you love and respect on your staff and you don't want to disrupt their families. And so you let it ride a little bit. And you can do that because you've got some skins on the wall. You've had success. You're respected. You don't feel like your job's imperiled.

But eventually it is. and and it didn't quite get to that point for Mike Tomlin because he was still able to go nine and eight, but guess what? Pete Carroll was nine and eight. And it caught up to him surprisingly. We didn't think it would necessarily happen, but it will get you eventually. So we'll see how it goes. I think the same can be said for the GMs in the world, Mike. When you have some success, you tend to push back against that change and reinventing yourself.

And you're looking for comfort. And I'll be honest with you. I subscribe to that theory of I don't necessarily want everybody feeling comfortable in this building. I want some uncomfortability that pushes us. I always harken back to my time with Nick. I was always uncomfortable, but I was never better and never sharper at my job. Yeah. Some of that leads to exactly that.

And you mentioned Lefleur, who now did make a tough choice, made a change on defense. And we'd kind of been watching that for a while going, okay, is he just going to tolerate this forever, right? So not that it was absolutely horrific, but we felt like there needed to be something changed up there with the talent that they had. So he made that move, but these are hard moves to make because these are personal connections. And there's, like I said, families involved. And when you've won, you can buy some cover to not make those types of changes, but it'll get you in the end. We're almost to the end of the football GM podcast. Randy, a couple things in the notebook here.

What do you got? Yeah, and we've kind of hit on them earlier. but I had put a couple notes in here. We talked a couple weeks ago about the off-season programs and what those might become if the NFLPA gets their way on a new proposal. And we, I think both of us had talked to enough people in the league to know that everybody was against it. Everybody wanted to have the time with the players for a developmental standpoint from team-building standpoint. And then I always shake my head, and we referred to this earlier, when we get to the end of these OTA days, and coaches just throw them away.

They say, we're not going to practice today. We're not going to go bowling or we're going to do this. I understand we need camaraderie and I understand we need everybody to buy in. I think we see this a lot with younger coaches that they're trying to gain some, you know, traction with their players, so making it easier for them after they've had a tough spring. So I get it. But I just think we've got to be careful in that we dismiss a lot of these days that are set aside for work days. and if the offseason program does get reconfigured,

we may not have enough of these days. And so we're going to wish we had these days back, you know? Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think if you go, yeah, I remember the taken bowling or two movie thing, you know, 20, 25 years ago, but there were a lot more of these off-seasoned. There were a lot more practices available. And when you got the training camp back then, shoot, there were very few restrictions. Guys would go two a days, right?

And if you were lucky, you'd get an afternoon with just a special team's practice. But they would be, you know, hitting. and really getting work and training. With that paired back, I agree that I, and I was actually, like I said, I visited some teams the last couple weeks, and I've asked head coaches point blank, like, what are we, what are you thinking here? But they felt like they still had enough time.

But I would sure be tempted to, hey, we've got to maximize all of this, you know. So they know their schedules better than me. They know what they can do. But it feels like, wait a minute, there's either not enough of these days or there's too many of them or enough. And are you basically saying we've got more than enough? Maybe they are. Be careful what you wish for.

Well, the other note I had was relating to the OTAs. And really what we see spattered around the league now is the withholding of services by players who don't show up or show up and don't do anything. That's nothing new. Missing mandatory mini camps now come with fines. We saw it with New Orleans with Alvin Kamar wasn't there.

Cooper, the receiver in Cleveland. Marry. Yeah. I just, I think it just makes me kind of roll my eyes. Does it really mean anything? No. I know it's a play to gain support by an agent or a camp by the media. You know, and then we have Aaron Rogers who no shows an OTA camp.

Now we're going to have to end the pot. We brought up Rogers. I mean, this is only going to go off the rails here, but wink, wink. But yeah, that's the best one to me. That's the best one. I just, yeah. I think that does mean something just because of who, Rogers is and how much of attention he has called him to himself throughout the whole process.

But I don't know. I just think these no-shows themselves make me kind of just shrug my shoulders. I don't think they mean anything. And it's really just a donation for these players. Now it's about $100,000 when you miss a mandatory minicamp. I just don't know that it makes a lot of sense. I don't like it when the paid quarterback doesn't show up. I still don't like that.

I think that's a different position. It's a different position. I agree with that. And I want them setting a higher standard in all ways. And we don't know what's going on behind the scenes or how the teammates really feel and all of that. But I would want that just symbolically, hey, this is, watch this guy. Do it the way this guy does it. I'd like to be able to say that.

It just seems so typical of maybe we've grown accustomed to the jets and the way they do business that this would happen to them and that would be Aaron Rogers. And, I mean, half the time we hear Robert Sol in front of the, microphone. I just roll my eyes. How are we going to try to sell this? What are we trying to sell? It's all kind of just, oh gosh, this is a dumpster fire, you know, and this was another example of that. I wish he would write a book. It would give it about five years. I would totally read a solid book because, you know, we've criticized him for some of us handling these things, but there's not a great blueprint for doing a lot of this stuff in, in that market, which is a different market, with Rogers. And then think of the owner they have there. You know, the quarterback they have there, I don't know how many coaches would navigate this. You might need a Tomlin or a Pete Carroll or somebody who really is just a master coach, basically, right, who can handle anything. They could be the CEO of your company almost in any field to be able to handle this.

I feel sorry for somebody who, you know, is basically a defensive coordinator hired as a head coach thrown in that market. First time coach. I mean, there's a long history in that market. It's tough. That market's not for everybody. Bill Parcells told me that years and years ago when he was involved with the Jets and he just said, this is not for everybody. You've got a lot of things you deal with in this city that nobody else has to deal with.

So you're right. And I've always thought to that end that when you hire a first-time head coach or a first-time GM, it's really a recipe for disaster because you have to fix things along the way. And you have to have instincts to kind of see them coming down to tracks. And it just seems to me like this group, it's a hard struggle for them every day that things get, they get slapped upside the head with something new. Sometimes it's created by their own actions, but it's just a different place. So I agree.

Yeah. And I like, that's why I like for some of these coaches to have, you know, a mentor type guy. Sometimes you see an assistant head coach, you know, like Antonio Pierce has Marvin Lewis there. I mean, to me that as long as everyone's, you know, on the same page. I think that type of thing could be really helpful for coaches, but still your- It's helpful for GMs too. And you see sometimes younger GMs add that to their staff, but when you make these decisions and the way you navigate them, it would help to have somebody, gosh, I harken back to many

times in my first few years in the league. I wish I could have had somebody to bounce things off of. And I think it makes us all better, that's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And as I look through the Jets staff here, not seeing them. Marvin Lewis type there. So a consideration. Well, Randy, we started out with

talking fishing, summer vacations, tons of energy, and we ended on the Jets. I mean, I think that's our cue to get out of here before this thing, you know, deteriorates any further. But fun having another conversation, and we'll do it again soon. Sounds good. All righty. We'll see you.

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