The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Trey Lance questions, Sam Howell, Vikings, Packers, Dolphins and more

Episode Date: August 24, 2023

Mike and Randy are back with a GM's take on the Trey Lance situation in San Francisco, Sam Howell showing up for Washington, plus the GM's Notebook is full of preseason winners, Vikings talk, Packers, Dolphins and more on The Football GM podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show's football GM podcast. Welcome everybody to the football GM podcast. Mike Sando here, along with the GM. Randy Mueller, Mr. Mueller. How are you doing? Doing great, Michael. I think I've told you this before, but I'm one of the few that love preseason in the NFL. So I love to dig into teams and sort it out and figure out who's going to make it and who's not.

And uncover a few rubies here or there maybe, but I spend way too much time. watching preseason films. So to answer your question, I'm good. I'm fired up to talk about some things on the show today. And I like preseason. So we're winding down, though, we're getting ready to play for real. We really are. You know, and I think, you know, the phrase only the preseason does apply if you're looking at things like who won the game or, you know, that sort of stuff, that sort of stuff. But when you know what you're looking for and know how to look for it, as you do, just from four decades of being around the NFL, then you can really see a different game and get some of those observations,

which we're going to lean into today, beyond some of the newsy stuff that's going on around the league with the San Francisco 49ers situation surrounding Trey Lance and Sam Darnold. Obviously, there's a couple holdouts still going on with Jonathan Taylor in Indianapolis, Chris Jones in Kansas City. We're going to hit on some preseason topics of interest. some observations on Sam Howe. The GM notebook is loaded.

We'll get to that a little bit later. I had a column today looking at the huge disparity in schedules that teams are playing this year, arranged by how good of quarterbacks they're going to play. So we'll get into some of that. I have a few takeaways off of that that I think are going to affect this season. So we'll get into that. And we'll see what other direction we head, Randy. Let's start off, though.

not in San Francisco, but in Santa Clara. That's where the 49ers are now. Kind of miss Candlestick Park, even though it was a dump. Do you agree? I do miss Candlestick. We had a lot of events there. I won't say games, but a lot of events there that were dictated by the surroundings there. Of course, I grew up a San Francisco Giants fan, so I miss it for a couple reasons.

But, yeah, I like old Candlestick. It was kind of cool. There's nowhere I've felt colder than in August night at Candlestick Park Let me tell you, watching a doubleheader, Giants, Dodgers down there. We used to drive over from Sacramento where it would be 105 degrees. You're wearing shorts. Ha! Had night at Candlestick Park, you better have about two parkas on and earmuffs.

No doubt. It was unbelievable. And for baseball and football, the wind was always blown, so it always made it an adventure. And you never knew what you were going to get into you, that's for sure. You know, one of my highlights there sort of involved you a little bit in that Mike Holmgren's final game, as the Packers head coach was there, and we were anticipating the CX might hire him. And so I was a CX beat reporter.

I was down there. How about this? We got to go down on the sideline at the end of games than the media did. So I was standing right about at the line of scrimmage, I think, somewhere around there when Steve Young threw the fateful touchdown pass to Terrell Owens to win the game and end Mike Holmgren's run with the Packers. I wonder if the Packers had kept winning if Holmgren would have, would the CX have filled that job?

I wonder if history would have been different. a lot of fates were decided on that completion trust me and a lot in Seattle were decided yeah well obviously I was on the inside of that one to answer your question I don't believe they would awaited because I was in the middle of making that decision with Paul Allen's group with Bob witsitt and we talked about it it was one of those things where I don't know if we'd awaited another week and that's how quickly and had had the search advanced at that point so yes The fact that they were out changed the landscape. And those of you don't remember, it was the touchdown from Steve Young to...

T.O. Terell Owens had dropped a bunch of balls that day, and then he made an amazing catch and got smacked in the end zone. Yep, that's exactly right. So, yes, fate would have changed for a lot of families and a lot of people, I believe. And Jim Hazlitt might have been one of them. He was in line to possibly be the next head coach of the Seahawks. And you and I laughed a lot about it, and Jim still laughs about it to this day, how he was left on the curb and all of a sudden. He gets told that, oh, the Seahawks are hiring. Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So a little history there, a little walk down the lane. We'll go to current day 49ers right now. And basically, we heard earlier in this week that Tray Lance and San Bernardra might share the number two quarterback duties. But now reports will come out saying Sam Darnow will be the number two. The team is open to moving Tray Lance who was not at practice on Wednesday. What do you think, Mr. GM? Well, it's a dynamic. that every time I hear the Trey Lance saga and what's next, I go back to, and it's just history

that's water under the bridge now, but the fact that what did they give up to get him again now? They traded up before the draft two years ago or three years ago. I've lost track of days to get a quarterback. And this was done two weeks ahead of time, maybe three weeks ahead of the draft, right? And everybody's scratching their head, well, who are they going up for? If you remember, the word on the street was they're going up for Mack Jones. And then somehow in that two-week window, that became Trey Lance. So I'm not sure either would have been worthy of that pick as it's turned out.

But they gave away the farm to get up to three. And then after they got him, obviously he was one of those kids who had a limited body work, who was probably a year away from being a year away, one of those type deals. And it's just never lined up for the kid. I actually feel bad for him. You know, it's one of those things where all of a sudden you're picked that high to be the savior of a franchise. And every time you get one step forward, there's two steps back in the development process. So it is a, you know, penhouse to outhouse story of now I don't know how to answer it, Mike.

I don't know what happens to him. I think they made it sound like he was in a competition with Sam Darnold, I think, to keep him in the game, to keep him alive, to keep him from being discouraged, and in hopes that maybe he would impress somebody in one of these games to where they may create a little value for them. I don't know who's going to give them much for the third-string quarterback, but that's what it looks like he's become right now. So when I was going around earlier this off-season,

I talked to an NFL coach who had some insights on the situation, and he said the 40-9s were just praying someone will give up something meaningful for Trey Lans. So they can have a kind of a softer landing to what so far is looking like one of the worst tradeups you could ever imagine. But here's the thing that shocks me, Randy. None of this is surprising. Nobody thought Trey Lance was ready to plug and play in year one or two. Nobody thought that. You said, and everybody, you said it again today, year away from being a year away.

This was a developmental prospect in every way. And so he has started, I believe, four games. I went back and looked today at quarterback's drafted in the last 20 or so years in the top three picks. In the first two years, like all of the other ones had started at least 11, 12, 13 games, and some of them a lot more. Before there's any sort of an evaluation made, you throw on top of it, he had an injury. So you're telling me that you moved up that much to get a specific guy, which I do think they traded up for Mack Jones and then somehow ended up taking Tray Lance. I do believe that's most likely. But none of this should surprise you that Trey Lance isn't ready right away.

And so that's the weird, bizarre part to me about the whole thing. So is Trey Lance done as a 49er for good or just for now again? Well, it depends if they trade him, but I don't imagine they're going to get any sort of an offer, right? No, but let's say Brock Purdy, you know, sprains his ankle next week and Sam Donald plays like Sam Donald has played up in hell now. Then what happens? Is there a chance that he gets a career that's resurrected or are they going to move off of him at this point? I think there is a chance too. I don't think that it really makes sense for them to trade him. Yeah, for as little as they'll get. A little as they'll get. And the upside with them is probably higher than it is for whatever pick they're going to get. If I were

them, I would be talking about, I'd be saying what we said is, look, we drafted Tray Lance knowing that this was a long-term project and that he needed some seasoning. just based on his body of work in college. And so, unfortunately for him, he was injured early, and he just hasn't had a chance to really get traction yet. In the meantime, Brock Purdy has done better than anyone expected. And that's just life in the NFL. That's the way that it happens in the league.

But we're not giving up on anyone at this point. We have three quarterbacks who all need to prove themselves to different degrees, and we're confident in our situation that one of them will. And right now, Brock Purdy has done enough to earn the start. job. We think we can go all the way with them. Just say that. Right? And then just move on. Couldn't you say that? And maybe they will. I guess we're trying to project what they may say or what their position may be. I agree with that. Totally. I think that's what they could say. He's played as much as Jordan Love is played. And Jordan Love sat there for three years, right? And now look at what's

being said about Jordan Love. He gets it. He's had his time to learn the system. There's a learning curve that is different for every one of these quarterbacks every year. I think you're going to see it this year with the batch that came out. I think there's going to be a learning curve for two of them. I think Bryce Young will come along sooner than those guys. He has some other issues. We talked about that. But where's Anthony Richardson going to be on this learning curve? We've deemed him the starter after one preseason game. I don't know, coach. I mean, that's a whole other can of worms and discussion. But these guys all need time. So I'm with you. I don't think the 49ers benefit from moving on from Trey Lance right now. Now, Trey Lance may, you know, want something different and they may acquiesce

to his wants and needs. I don't know, but hey, I'd probably just sit on him for now and just see how it shakes out. Everything changes. As you know, they were down to their fourth quarterback when the season ended last year. So, yeah, are we developers of quarterbacks or are we acquirers of quarterbacks and then we put them in a system that makes the job easier for them, right? Wouldn't you want to try to develop Trey Lance? I know you had major concerns about him coming out about whether that was even going to work, but it's not like he's had much of a run. If you're not going to develop them, and we're talking about they as in the 49ers, with

him right now, and again, we're projecting. We don't know what they're going to say. But if they have seen something that's fatally flawed inside the way he is wired, then I could say, okay, we made a mistake, we have some sunk costs here, let's move on. But that sunk cost might be as big of a price as anybody's ever paid to do what they did. That's why we said at the time, Mike, no matter what, I couldn't do it. Just there's not enough evidence here. And we gave them credit in that they were ballsy.

They stepped up to do it. I'm not saying it's the right thing. But as it turned out, it's not. It's just so odd for a team that was in the championship window to go all in to make a move on a quarterback who's a long-term project. Most of your all-in moves at that point when you're on. the brink of winning a Super Bowl, help get you over the top now, don't they? Well, no doubt. And they gave the keys to the castle to him last year. They were going to give him until he got hurt. He was

their guy last year. So they saw things a year ago in him that made them believe that after that first year, he could be a great player. And obviously that has changed now. The only thing that's changed is he broke his leg. So he really hasn't done anything to set back the project. or the learning curve, except that it's a year later. So I'm with you. It's a tough spot. Yeah. We'll see what they do.

We'll see what they do and what they say. Don't want to put words in their mouths. My old colleague at ESPN, Bill Barnwell, reminded us today what players came out of that trade. So Miami moved up to six and took Jalen Waddle, then used the additional first-round picks for Tyree Kiel and Bradley Chubb. So that's two out of three. Philadelphia moved down to 10 and took Devontas Smith. Boom.

Dallas used the 12th pick for Micah Parsons. You ever hear of him? and San Francisco got Trey Lance. And there's a lot of players around there. There's a lot of fates that are, yeah, there's seven degrees of separation there. Like we just talked about with regard to Mike Holmgren. But yeah, one move like this changed the fate in three or four cities. Absolutely.

Okay. Let's go to the Washington commanders. Everybody's favorite team to beat up over the last 20 years and understandably so for Daniel Snyder and all the bad moves and bad teams and head scratchers they've had there. but Sam Howell now, the quarterback, is getting some love. After leading Washington passed Baltimore in the preseason, the Ravens, of course, hadn't lost in the preseason for like 24 games. That was kind of fun to see the commanders celebrate.

But afterwards, Jim Nagy, who I know you know, tweeted, Sam Howe, looking closer to being the guy media had in way too early mock drafts entering his junior year than the guy who wound up going in the fifth round. We get it. It's only preseason, but the league might have overthought this one. End quote. Okay, Mr. John. Jim, what does the film say on Sam Howell in the preseason? How do you interpret that? Well, I think Jim has some valid points without a doubt. And you know this.

Before I even start to say what I saw, I was not the biggest Sam Hal fan coming out either. His senior film didn't match his junior film at all. And I think if you talk to scouts after his junior year, that's what got him placed high up in the media mock drafts early in his senior year. The senior year at North Carolina was, you know, a dumpster fire. It wasn't a good year for him. It wasn't a good year for Carolina. It wasn't a good year for Carolina's offense. So he paid the price for them not being very good, but he didn't play very good either.

So I guess the old adage is what year's film do you use to evaluate the most? And obviously, recency tells you that you got to look at the senior year. He falls to, what, the fourth round. When Ron Rivera named him the starter and when all in, after one game last year, a meaningless game at the end of the season against Dallas, we all were skeptical. But two things. One, I looked at the film and I'll talk about that.

But two, I'm asking myself, why were we so skeptical? It was the senior year was bad at North Carolina and the fact that it was Ron Rivera going doubling down on Sam Howe. Now, I mean, we know Ron. I love Ron. I was with him several years with the Chargers. he has not been a quarterback whisperer per se. They have swung and missed at quarterback's there for the last three, four years.

So I think when you hear him be the messenger of we're going to double down on the quarterback, it automatically puts your antennas up to say, here we go again. We got Carson Wentz. You're discounting Rivera as much as you are. Howell? Yes, exactly. So that's what I thought. So when I looked at the film from the other night, and I'm going to reiterate, it was one half of a preseason game.

But having said that, Mike, Sam Howell was awesome. He showed me in that half that I saw, poise, the game was not too fast for him. He showed mechanics in the pocket, both fundamentally and mentally that I thought were outstanding. He looked receivers off. He processed information. He got the ball to second and third options. Way better than some guys who we talk about now after two years and being drafted high in the first. round, we haven't seen them do yet. So there's a lot of mechanical things that that he does naturally.

I saw a guy that looked downfield, poisoned the pocket, made certain throws from the pocket that were really good. And all of this and got the ball out on time. And all of this adds up to me that as a pocket passer, Sam Howe was pretty good. The one thing he didn't do in this game was throw the ball downfield a ton. But he saw the underneath stuff. He got the ball out on time. He got it accurately delivered to the targets. He was pretty good. And it's not just numbers that were impressive. It was for me, the poise, his decision making, the processing, and the comfort that he felt in the pocket. Because he's not a huge guy. This is Philip Rivers or Peyton Manning. You know, he's six, one and a half, something like that. But he was very comfortable in the pocket.

So from that standpoint, I think commander fans should be ecstatic. Not only they have a new owner that has turned the page on 20 years of dark days, maybe they have a quarterback here worth considering as an answer for the future as well. But I was impressed with the film. Now, it's, again, one half of one preseason game. So I'll stop gushing, but it was pretty good. And I've looked at a ton of film, as you know, this year in preseason. and I haven't seen a performance like that from any of these other quarterbacks,

especially the ones that are kind of middle tier like I'd consider him, developmental type guys. He did really good. Yeah, and at the very least, we want to see Sam Howell now early in the season. We're excited to watch this player and see if he can build on what he did. Because if you look at who's been opening the season as the quarterbacks for the commanders, I mean, you're, you know, it's a list of quarterbacks you really wouldn't want to see. We knew everything about Ryan Fitzpatrick or Alex Smith or Carson's.

Wants or whoever the guys they've had in there in recent years. So this is at least something to go on and a positive showing. There's one more player I saw getting some accolades this preseason than it is limited exposure. But Zay Flowers of the Ravens at Wide Receiver, 22nd pick in the draft, seeing some media excitement, PFF excited, is Mueller excited? Anything different from the regulars, from him coming out or what? Not for me. I think I'm okay with Zay Flowers. I think he's a good player. I don't know that he's dynamic, but I think in this system he's really going to be featured because we know how much Lamar wants to throw the ball between the hash and between the numbers. That's why those tight ends are as effective as they are, Mark Andrews and the kid from Costa Carolina that they drafted a year ago. Zay Flowers is in the same boat. I believe his college tape showed just what he is. He's a slot receiver. He can get away from tight coverage. He's not fast. He's not going to stretch the field, but if you have a guy or two that can stretch the field over the top, he's going to work well underneath, and he's going to catch everything you throw to him.

He's really able to adjust the balls in and around his body or outside his frame. So he's a hands catcher. So that part was evident to me. And so I agree with what the accolades and bouquets are being thrown his way. But I don't think it's any different than what I saw in college. But I'm happy that they found another weapon. I think there's some other weapons that have been upgraded around Lamar. For me, when you talk about the Ravens, I think the biggest question mark for me is what do we have in Todd Monkin, the new offensive coordinator?

And this system, I'm a little unsure about what we're going to get. It's one thing to lead a Georgia team who has better players than what, 11, 12 of the games that we played last fall, to where now the other level of talent is about equal with us. and in some cases we may not be as good. Now we're going to see that scheme. Now we're going to see coaching. Now we're going to see adjustments. So it's a different game from a talent standpoint. And that means both on your team and the opposition.

So I think that's the question for me is what are we going to get in Todd Munkin? And frankly, how quickly can Lamar adapt to this new scheme and understand it enough to make the adjustments both post-snap and pre-snap? and within series is there's a whole process here that has to happen and it's all new. So we'll find out. But I think the players on paper are better than they've had before. So we'll see. Okay. So you know what?

We had a couple things sketched in here first, but I want to push them down to later. I think the GM notebook today is flush with other kind of observations related to preseason and preseason games. Do you mind, Randy, if we just go to the GM notebook and we can circle back to a couple of other topics as we get along, but I just thought you've got some stuff here on the Falcons, the Vikings, the Packers, and then your best player in the preseason so far is. I mean, I kind of want to get to that. That's how good the GM notebook is. I mean, I can't resist it. It's, did you ever start having dessert when you're at the table for dinner? You know, you reached over. Did you say you can't, you can't resist the GM notebook because usually it takes you about 40 minutes to pilfer through it before we

get to the end of the fucking show. So I'm just wondering, you're asking me to actually go to the GM notebook before it gets blown up at some point during the show? Yes, what I'm saying? Usually I would pull some stuff out of there and make them into separate items, but let's just go right to it because it's just, I was thinking as we went through this and we hit on how, we'd on the 49ers,

we hit on flowers, why not? Just go right into this juicy falcons note, which I love this type of stuff. These are some real GM view stuff. So let's do it. We may be bored our listeners to death, but it's stuff we like to talk about. No, no, no, this is great stuff.

So let's get into your falcons ownership observation is number one in the GM notebook. I couldn't wait. Well, it was kind of cute. And in talking about the Falcons, the first thing that comes to my mind, a lot of times when they show the Falcons on TV, it's about Arthur Blank. And he's become a big part of that franchise because he owns the keys, right? It's his deal. I just thought it was worth noting that, and maybe I'm too old school, and I know it's only preseason, but I don't know if you saw the end of the Falcon Cincinnati preseason game. It ended in a tie. But the cameras paned to the sidelines, and there's still time left on the clock.

And Arthur Blank, I'm sorry, Arthur Blank, the owner and Arthur Smith, the head coach, are in a dialogue on the sidelines while there's time on the clock. And it just made me kind of take a tick back and say, what are we doing? It was like he was describing to the owner while the game was going on, how the ending and what his strategy was. And I'm thinking, did Arthur come up to ask him about this during the game or did he volunteer this? The coach go to the owner and volunteer his side of it. But it just made me think about what the heck?

How times have changed. Could you imagine approaching Chuck Knox or one of these guys who I grew up with during a game and asking them to explain this? I never wrote the old owner of the CX famously landed on the practice field in his helicopter when Chuck was having practice. I don't think that went over very well. No, it did not. Now, it's the owner's prerogative. He can engage anybody at any time. I get it. It's his ball. But as a GM, I would never have approached a coach to get him to explain anything or even if it was a fun conversation. I don't think I could have ever put myself in that position to have a coach converse with me about it while there's time running on the clock while there still players at risk out there. I don't know. Maybe on the headsets. I mean, that's been done before. But I don't know. about in person on the sidelines. Well, I think what's most meaningful about this is what it says about the owner's presence in general.

Because I remember, you know, in talking to head coaches and others in the league over the years over what makes it easier or tougher to coach the team. And we've talked about this with like an owner like Jerry Jones that presents challenges when he's, you know, addressing the media after the game and that type of stuff. people know that he's not just in charge in a big picture sense, but maybe he's in charge of what happens tomorrow or even in the game. So I remember talking to a coach once who had noted that when Michael Vick was injured once on the field many years ago, Arthur Blank was out on the field, maybe even helping to wheel him off, which on the surface,

you might say, wow, that's a great owner who has the back of his player, how cool. And I'm not going to discount that entirely. but it also is notable to the people coaching who are trying to be in charge in the moment when maybe an owner is in an area that it's not great. He's in a lane that isn't really the owner's lane, right? Well, that's definitely not the traditional lane. That's for sure. And, you know, I guess it's different nowadays.

And the owners have taken a much, much more of a front seat in regard to these type things. I can imagine coaches cringe, but obviously the owner is the boss. I can relate one time to when I was forced to come out of the press box to come down on the field. And we've talked about this, I think Mike on the pod before, in Kansas City. We played a game on a Sunday night, I believe, that was a terrible weather game. It was. Oh, I remember that game. It had white caps on the field. The headsets were out. It was miserable to the point where they had to suspend the game in the middle of it. And it was torrential rains. And the league didn't think we were going to be able to finish that game, the NFL league office. And they came down to my box in the game and said,

hey, what do you want to do you want to cancel this game? Do you guys want to come back here during the buy and finish it? Do you want to stay an extra night and play the next day? It was to that point, which I had never seen before in the NFL in all my years. So I thought, well, I got to talk to Dennis Erickson was the coach. I said, I got to talk to Dennis about this. And so, During the game, I weighed down in a suit and dress shoes and mud up to my ankles to talk to Dennis on the sidelines because the headphones were out. We couldn't converse in another way just to get his opinion on what he wanted to do. So I remember tapping him on the shoulder on the sidelines while the game's going on. And he looked at me like, what the hell are you doing?

And he used some verbiage much worse than that. And I said, hey, coach, we got to decide. He said, here's what I want you to do. get me the hell out of here. You do whatever you want. But the point is when you approach these coaches, and now that was a regular season game. So this is a preseason game.

But there is a little bit of a bubble around a coach, in my opinion, during the game. And that bubble was penetrated in this case by Arthur Blank. And so that's why I thought it was worthy of a note that here's a bubble that really may not exist anymore. So maybe that's on me. Maybe the coach is fair game during any environment. I don't think that's ideal.

I don't think it's ideal. The game you're talking about was in 1998 in Kansas City at Arrowhead Stadium. The roof of the press box caved in. Water came through and just drenched Bill Williamson, who was covering the Seahawks at the time for the Everett Herald. That game was also notable. I think Warren Moon got his ribs broken in that game on a missed pass protection. I won't say who blew the block on that one.

Well, I would only add that suspension was so long that Warren Moon was shot up in the locker room for his ribs. but the numbness went away before we got to play again because we were down for so long. Oh, man. So that's how messed up a night it was. I did start watching that quarterback series with Cousins and those guys that reminds me of because Coussons was moaning through the whole episode of episode three. Oh, that was a tough episode.

I was hurting watching him. But speaking of not Cousins, but of the Vikings, you've got a GM notebook item on the Vikings post-Alvin Cook. What did you see? I do. We've talked about the Vikings. decision earlier in the summer to let Delvin Cook go. And this was way before camp started. It was made somewhat less risky, I'd say, because they have Madison, Alexander Madison on their roster, a kid who they drafted from Boise, a third round, good player, but it made letting

Delvin Cook go. But last week, I saw on tape what made, I think, the decision, I won't want to say a no-brainer, but it made it fairly easy in that I found another guy on tape that most people outside Minnesota may not note, but just remember this name, Ty Chandler. He's a fifth round pick in 19, in 2022, played his college ball at Tennessee. Then he transferred to North Carolina. I'll be honest with you, Mike, and you know how much film I watch. I had never heard of this kid until I saw him on tape and I had to go look it up. He is a beast, a big kid who loves contact, extremely hard running, great pad level, makes a defender struggle to get him down by himself. Excellent vision. This guy was a really good player. It was fun for me.

to watch him. I was mad when he came out of the game because he was so fun to watch. But that to me is how a GM thinks. It's one thing to have a replacement for the guy you move on from. But if you have two, you're always thinking second level and third level. What may make sense for our listeners or a fan or anybody is that you can swap player for player. That's great. But the GMs are worried about who the backup is and who the backup is to him. A good gym. And in this case, this kid, I think, is a really good player. And it allows them to still have two running backs. We all know that running backs susceptible to going down anyway because they take a beating.

Well, now I think the Vikings have two. That had to make it easier for them to let Dalvin Cook go. Maybe it was only interesting to me, but you just usually don't see players that are as good as this guy in preseason is the only time you see him. So I just think that we were able to identify a guy that maybe led them to say, hey, we don't want to let Dalvin Cook go. But if we do, not only do we have Alexander Madison, but we also have Ty Chandler. And Ty Chandler's name had kind of faded from, I didn't know really anything about him either, except that when I went to Vikings camp in June and just talked to a bunch of people,

I think I'd been asking, you know, hey, who's a player to watch or somebody who no one knows about her talking about. And a little birdie there mentioned Ty Chandler. And I just had sort of forgot about it. Yeah, I had said, this guy is a player to watch and a reason the cook move was easier. And I just, you know, I didn't go write it or anything. I just sort of went into my, you know, went in the back of my mind. And then I went on to the next camp or whatever. But that, so that totally lines up that they, you know, they were, they knew what they had in this guy.

And now it's showing on tape in the preseason. And people can really probably feel good about that running back position, even though the big name guy, Dalvin Cook is now off the roster. I don't know anything about fantasy football either, Mike, but do you have an opportunity to grab a guy late in some draft that eventually, if he plays, could be really good? Does this even fill in some of those gaps for people? I don't know anything about fantasy either, but I play in a league every year with some guys,

and we get a barbecue out of it. You know, it'll be coming up here, and they all look to me as if I've got all the answers on some receiver, and sometimes I have some of them. but maybe that'll be a guy that I'll pick up. He may never play this year. He may be a pretty good addition to your fantasy lineup. Your third item here says Packers' defense has depth. Let's talk about that.

The Packers defense has been lauded a little bit this offseason. Obviously, the movement of the quarterbacks, and everybody says it's made easier by a defense that has eight first-round picks that contribute in some way on defense, which I totally concur with. They haven't always played like first round picks. A lot of that falls on Joe Barry and how he's the defense coordinator and how he uses them. But when I watch their games on tape in preseason, there's a lot more to this depth and this roster than just those first round guys.

The first thing that I look for when I watch these preseason games are pass rushers in the second half. Do they have some guys that can rush the passer? Because it becomes a passing game. becomes a little bit of recess oriented. You're always looking as the NFL GM for pass rushers, right? Yep. This group, I thought, I saw three, four edge rushing, really football playing jesse's. And it was fun for me to watch.

These guys all came to them in different ways. And I'm thinking of, when I look at my notes, it's Lucas Van Ness, who was a first rounder this year. Justin Hollins, who's a former Denver pick who has been waived twice and claimed twice. Kingsley Ingbore, a fifth round pick from last year, all of these guys, to me, Mike, are edge rushing guys who could play maybe elsewhere because these guys are all backups for Green Bay. They're not frontline names. So if you look at their depth chart, this is three, four, five options on their pass rushing sub package edge rushing list. So I think all three for me were really good looking prospects, all of them. And when I say rushing the passer, it's easy to just look and see who gets

to sacks. But these are guys with natural bend around the corner and strength to knock people back. They turn that speed into power and shove the tackle right into the quarterback's lap. This is a premium position that's really hard to find these players at. And to find these three guys all in backup roles on one team tells me that you need to give some kudos to Brian Gutikist and his staff for unearthing these guys, having them in camp competing, and this defense is deeper than just those eight former first round picks. That's to be lauded in itself, but they got a lot more players than that, and I think it bodes well for Green Bay over a 17 game season. You cannot have enough pass rushers ever, you know, I mean, you're going to need them. Guys are going to get hurt or whatever.

All right. So number four, the best player in the preseason so far is Well, for me, it's kind of a no-brainer, and it's Falcons running back B.J. Robinson. Not that this is earth-shattering news in any way. It's not. The trend is obviously the arrows have been pointed up on him since the draft. I think he was one of, if not the most talented player in the draft. But it's funny, because I went back and looked at my notes from the draft, Mike, and I think I anchored on one of the games that I watched was Texas, against Alabama early in the season. And he only had, I don't know, 50 or 60 yards. But I saw so many traits in that game that led to me believe this guy's going to be special that it was crazy, right? Usually you're looking for, I'm going to go watch the game where he gained 250 yards and he had 70 yard runs and this, but I didn't need to see that to know that he had all the traits. Very similar

the other night in that his numbers weren't gaudy at all in their preseason game. But this kid showed all of those same skill sets, and it might be a 10-yard run or a seven-yard pass catch or reception. Again, you're talking about big, sudden, balanced. Nobody gets him down with an arm tackle. His peripheral vision for me, Mike, is as good as there is in the league. And this kid hasn't played a real snap yet in the league. One of the things I remember about Emmett Smith, and this is the all-time leading Russia in NFL history, right? One of the things that made Emmett what he was is he knew where the second guy was coming from. He knew where the third guy was coming from while avoiding the first guy. In other words, he was thinking two, three steps ahead on any particular carry. Well,

that's what I see with being the most impressive thing about Bijon Robinson is his peripheral vision, his instincts to know where the next guy is coming and how to set up a cut way before you or I would make a move like that is it's special. And so that really exciting. And so that really, me about him. And like I say, because of that, the first defender never gets him down, but he makes people miss. One of the things Chuck Knox always used to ingrain in us with Seattle was when we, you remember John L. Williams, the back that we had. Yeah, yeah, he was a fullback, but he was a halfback who set records in Seattle for years on pass catching. He was a great catcher of the ball. We would throw him a swing pass and no one ever got him down in the flat, right?

So it was always a six-yard gain. And so that was always the one thing is Chuck always used to say, hey, Randy, can he make somebody miss in the flat after you throw him a swing pass? Well, you could make a living on throwing swing passes to be John Robinson because he's going to make people miss. They're not going to get him down. Just another reason to love this kid. But again, I'll stop gushing. But he was really fun to watch on tape.

And for me, he's been the best player of preseason league-wide to this point. Awesome. So isn't that, that was worth skipping to the GM notebook. Those are all great things. You're not seeing that type of stuff everywhere. So that was really good. And the last item on the Falcons does lead into one of the other things that I had put in here, which was looking at the trying to make some projections this season based on some really big disparities in the quality of the quarterbacks each team faces.

So if you look at Atlanta, they're a team that has not obviously invested a ton in the quarterback position. They're kind of building the team around it. And if Desmond Ritter winds up being the guy great, if not, I'm sure they'll be in the market looking for. for another quarterback and maybe they'll take a little bit of a bigger swing. But I took, remember, the quarterback tiers project, Randy, where we talked to 50 people in the league, put all the quarterbacks in the tiers. And, you know, the top tier quarterbacks would be Mahomes and, you know, Aaron Rogers and Joe Burrow, you know, Justin Herbert, that caliber of player.

But when you go ahead and associate every one of those quarterbacks and their rating kind of by the 50 people in the league, You notice that a team like Atlanta, Atlanta plays nine teams, nine games this year with teams that have tier four quarterbacks. So think about that. They have one themselves. We don't know what Desmond Rivers is going to become. But they're only playing one game all year against a team that has a tier one quarterback. And if you look at some of these other teams, Miami, the Raiders, Patriots, Broncos, they play six each. So one of the things I did in looking at this, the easiest, the hardest schedule in the league, by the way, that way is the dollar.

If you look at the dolphins this year, they're playing Patrick Mahomes, Josh Allen twice, Aaron Rogers twice, Justin Herbert, Jalen Hurts, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, shoot, we were 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. We're 9 games in and those are all guys you've got to have a game plan for. And even in the middle class of the teams that are playing Dak Prescott, Russell Wilson, Jimmy Garoppolo, Daniel Jones, you think's underrated. Ryan Tannenhill has been a good veteran player. That is a really tough schedule. And when you look at the other end. Look at who the Saints like. Their highest rated quarterback they play is Trevor Lawrence. Then you're into Matt Stafford in Week 16. We'll see if he's even healthy. Kurt Cousins, Jared Goff, Daniel Jones, Justin Fields, Tannehill, Mack Jones, Baker Mayfield, twice, Jordan Love, Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Anthony Richardson, Desmond Ritter.

I mean, that's a huge disparity. So I have a column on this today on the athletic, but when I went through and just kind of looked at some takeaways. And I was talking to this. some people during my training camp trip about this. Because Randy, when you do this sort of thing and you put these schedule type things together, the coaches from these teams eat it up, right? They want to look at it and go, oh, shoot, you know, this is who we're playing. So to me, Derek Carr is going to win the narrative over his former team, the Raiders this year. Because the Raiders playing in the AFC West and facing, I believe, six tier one quarterbacks

are going to have a hard time defensively. They're going to have a hard time winning. and when you look at Carr, the one year they were statistically decent on defense and special teams at the Raiders, he went 12 and 4. His flaws, his shortcomings prevented them from him from overcoming what has been the worst defensive situation in the league overall for the last decade. So I just see the Saints as a team with that type of a schedule, with probably certainly a top half of the league defense that's going to rank top five because of who they're playing. they're going to have a really good chance to have a winning record, a good record, while the Raiders probably might have a harder time than even we realize because of that disparity. 100% agree.

I think the points you make are all valid. And that's why, or one of the reasons why I think the Saints are going to win the NFC South. I think they're by far the best team. But consider the quarterbacks that are in that conference or in that league. they've got six games against guys that Derek Carr is better than, right? He's at this point. Now, Bryce Young may become a player, but right off the bat, he's not going to be. I guarantee you.

So it's going to take some time. And I agree with you. I think Derek Carr makes them obviously the favorite for the NFC South, but probably pushes them, like you say, maybe up to 12, 13 wins. You know, that's, has Vegas reached out to you on this? Because they might want to add Mike Sando as a consultant for some of the over and under. once these tiers of quarterbacks. Have you ever looked at that, Mike?

Did your tier of quarterback tier ever show anything? Is it ever affected on the Vegas lines? Did anything ever change on that stuff? Interesting about that? Because that sorts are valid. Yeah, I don't know. I think Vegas does such an efficient job of evaluating the teams because they have to put their money where their mouth is.

So one of the interesting things they do is assign a point spread value for each quarterback. You know, and a superstar quarterback might be worth six or seven points, you know, whereas a bunch of other guys don't really move the needle. That always interests me a great deal. I think another takeaway from this, I mentioned how difficult the Dolphins' schedule of opposing quarterbacks is with Mahomes, Josh Allen twice, Rogers twice, Herbert Hertz, Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, that, you know,

they are excited for having added Vic Fangio this year, but I could just see week 12, hey, Vic, how come your defense isn't doing as well statistically? Well, why don't you take a look at who they're playing? because that's going to be a huge part of it for them. Another takeaway I thought was, you know, we've had some faith in the Jaguars from what they're doing. You know, as Trevor Lawrence ascends,

Jacksonville is playing the seventh easiest schedule of opposing quarterback. So if Lawrence is already a solid tier two quarterback and makes a move towards Tier 1, I mean, they're going to have the better quarterback in a very, very high percentage of their games. So that makes me optimistic on them. And then I think the caveat you have to say is that some of this stuff changes, I mean, a year ago, we would have had Gino Smith lower rated than he ended up playing.

Even this year, you know, you've circled Kenny Pickett, Daniel Jones, maybe a couple others as guys that were undervalued in quarterback tiers. And shoot, we talked about Sam Howe, you know, we were laughing about him a month ago and maybe he's going to be better than that. So some of these things will be in flux. But one thing that won't be in flux is who the tier one quarterbacks are. So if you're playing six of them, like Miami, New England, Kansas City, or, yeah, Miami, New England, the Raiders, the Broncos, that's a big difference than the Panthers and the Saints who play zero. They have zero games against tier one quarterbacks. Big difference.

It's crazy big difference. And you're right. I think all of these things make sense, especially now because we haven't played a game yet. But having managed these teams for years, everything changes day by day. We're all week to week. And sometimes it is day to day. So this sounds really good. And I agree with you.

But things change. And you've got to be able to adjust on. the fly and make different adjustments to teams that lose quarterbacks who are playing good, who don't play good. It is a great way, though, to handicap in it this time of year. So I think the exercise you've done is, I think it's awesome. And I would use this and go to town with it if I was a betting man. I'd go to town with it if I was Vic Fangio or one of these coaches saying, hey, look, owner, coach, head coach, take this into account here. This is what we're doing. And this is why it may look a little different than what your expectation is.

Right. Because these guys get so excited. So let's wrap this thing up. You know, we have a couple of holdouts here, Jonathan Taylor, Chris Jones. Taylor one has kind of been interesting to me because of the dynamics involved in it. There's a little bit of a wild card scenario, a wild card sort of component with Jim Mersey, the only colds. I was going to say, you know, it makes. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. So what's, I don't know if there's, what do you kind of expect to happen? Is there anything interesting to you? I mean, the Colts have given him permission to seek a trade first off. So that's kind of a new development. Well, a couple things. And I've been asked this.

I'm sure you have on radio shows just in the last 24 hours. How do you see this working out? And do you see a deal getting made? Here's the thing. If I was looking for a running back, I would have probably signed Dalvin Cook already, right? I would have. Yeah. And it took us two months to find him a home to get him, what, his six or seven million.

So we don't have compensation. involved, there are less moving parts, and that still took time. This event of a trade request and having it be honored is got to happen in the next seven days before we cut down. Probably not going to happen. The other thing is, I think this, for me, is probably a step by the Colts in the bigger picture of this process in allowing him to go shop himself and probably find out that nobody's going to give us a one and nobody's going to give me $10, $12 million a year. So they don't have to beat that dead horse. They can say, okay, go get what you want to get.

So it's part of the process that, in my opinion, leads him back to the Colts in 10 days. Reminds me, Randy, when our oldest who's 22 years old now was a wee lad, and he was being exceptionally cranky and throwing a fit. My wife handed him $5 and said, fine, go buy yourself another mom. and man, he came and clutched on to her, running back and started crying. So we're not saying that Jonathan Taylor's going to do that, but there is a realization, I think,

that, hey, you know, what you want, isn't easy to get right now. You know, that go ahead, sure, go try to do it. If you can find a great deal, we'll do it. And then you find out kind of, oh, no one's really looking to do that. And then if you're a player, maybe you say there's collusion or whatnot, but I don't buy that at all in this case, because the running back market just is what it is.

It is what it is and the timing is bad. I mean, just ask Dalvin Cook how it was. I mean, he's, Delvin Cook's a really good player and probably even a better player in a passing game than even Jonathan is at this point. Now, I love Jonathan Taylor. No doubt he's worth what he can get. He's just not going to get it right now.

And some of this may be a little bit the fault of the representation he has, too. I don't know how experienced that representation is, or that representation is, I would not want to have this. This isn't the time to make a stand, in my opinion. And I think the kid knows that because he even said it back around the combine time, right? When he was asking about his contract, he said, I'm good. I'm going to honor my contract. And when my day comes to get paid, I'll get paid.

Well, then something changed. Well, what changed sounds like was he changed agents. And so everything kind of got thrown into a hopper. and some of our thoughts were, you know, not what they were months ago. So I think it's a tough spot. Again, I think the Colts method to their madness is, hey, let him go shop for a deal. But we want him here. He'll end up coming back here and understanding how much we want him here.

And if he wants to play and if the Colts want to play hardball, they'll ask for a lot. And he'll have to come back and play for them. That's kind of how I see it playing out. Yep. I don't see where else he can go. And although, you know, I guess if there's one owner that you want to tempt and see if he can make an irrational decision, it might be Jim Mersey, I saw in our notes here that you had put down that, you know, it wouldn't be the first time a great running back was traded away by the Colts. Marshall Falk. Marshall Falk was traded for a lot less than they're asking for this guy.

Plus, you're talking about, you're right. Jim Mersey, you don't know the impulsive nature of him. He may wake up tomorrow and say we're going to give him away. I don't know. And it's his dad that traded John Elway back in the day. So impulsive things do happen. They're part of human nature, and I get it. So I don't think this one is going to go that route.

I think Jonathan Taylor is going to play for the Colts this year. How about that? Marshall Falk was traded to the Rams after the season for a two and a five. Yeah. Kyle, he's such a difference-making player. I mean, forget running back. I mean, he could do it all. So,

Halo, all the fame. Absolutely, great player. Really one of the smartest, that's an interesting comparison there too, is Jonathan Taylor's supposedly super sharp, unusually sharp guy. So we'll see if maybe he's got this all figured out after all in the end,

depending on how it works out. Randy, you got anything else? I do not, Mike. You've allowed me to get through that notebook, and so my notebook is blank right now. So I appreciate the listeners hanging with us. Hopefully we didn't bore him to death with some evaluations.

preseason talk. I appreciate you wearing the weight belts to protect your back while you carry me through another show, and we'll do it again next week. Everybody can find Randy, and they can find me at The Athletic. You can find Randy on Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore. I'm Mike Sando at Sando NFL. Talk to you next time. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.