The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Free Agency Day 4: New NFL TV contracts, Mitchell Trubisky to the Bills, Bears moving on from Kyle Fuller & more with Lindsay Jones

Episode Date: March 19, 2021

As NFL free agency continues, the league announces new TV contracts through the 2033 season. Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones discuss the streaming age of football before diving into the Bills deal for Mitchell Trubisky. Plus, they weigh in on Kenyan Drake’s contract with the Raiders, the Bears’ decision to move on from Kyle Fuller and Phillip Lindsay’s departure from Denver.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. The athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, my good friend, Lindsay Jones. How are you? I am great, Robert. I'm probably doing better than you are because I'm not a fan of the Chicago Bears, so let's go.

All right, we're going to get into all of that. So we're not doing a live stream today. It wasn't enough news. It didn't feel like it was warranted. We're recording this at 7 p.m. Central Time on 3.3. Thursday night. You guys will be listening to it on Friday morning. So just the normal disclaimers about signings that might happen, everything else. So just to give you a sense of the timeline and the wondrous time travel that goes along with podcast recordings. Before we get into anything that happened in free agency today, though, I wanted to talk about the TV deal announcement that happened. That's something that you've been following for a little while now. We knew it was going to come down at some point relatively soon. That day was today. What do you think is the most important take way that people should have about this new media rights deal that the NFL announced. So there's two, I think there's two important things.

One is this, this deal is going to be worth over $100 billion. That's billions with a B. Is that a lot? This is a massive amount of money. It might even be like $113 billion. So, you know, you can do a lot of math and figure out how much money that means for both teams. And, you know, we've spent a lot of time here on this podcast and in the, you know,

the virtual page or the digital pages of the athletic over the last couple weeks talking about the depressed salary cap and you know the all these teams trying to save money in 2021 that is not going to be the case moving forward after this year um is there a sense of when it's going to change is there a sense of when the bump could happen yeah i mean yeah i mean the NFLPA was really hoping that the deal was going to get done last week so that they could you know maybe borrow against future years knowing exactly what the TV deals were going to be so that the cap could have been a little higher this year. But there's a lot of confidence that the cap is going to, it's going to go up next year, potentially around $200 million, which would be slightly higher than it was in 2020. But I've talked

to a number of agents over the last week or two who are pretty confident from what they're hearing in their conversations with NFL teams that by 2023, the cap is going to be like in the $230 million range. So we should expect some pretty significant jumps over the next couple of years. These new TV deals officially kick in in 2020 or in 2020, and run through 2030. I just wrote a story where I was doing some math about trying to figure out how old I'm going to be in 23. And it was really depressing. But so these new deals are going to kick in. They're worth a ton of money.

So, you know, this year where a lot of players are. accepting below market deals taking a lot less than they think they're worth. We're seeing a lot of these, you know, one year deals for three, four, five, six million dollars. The expectation is that next year and then certainly in 2023, we're going to be seeing a much more active market and teams are going to have a lot more money to spend. And players in return are going to get a lot more money in their pockets. Part of the CBA that was signed last year is that players get a larger share of the revenue that they have in years past. So as league revenue, go up because of the TV deals, the players get more money. And they also had a kind of a media

deal kicker worked into the CBA where the players will get a slightly larger share. So basically it just means that there's a lot more money to go around. And anytime you might have heard, you know, or seen headlines or heard rumors that, you know, ratings were down and NFL on TV was dying, that is absolutely not the case because there is a shit ton of money in NFL broadcasting. The second part of this that's most important when you look at what these TV deals look like is that it's adapting to the modern broadcast landscape. I was going to ask you how it changes the way we're going to watch games. Yeah. So this is the big change.

If you're used to watching games on CBS and Fox and NBC and ESPN, you can absolutely still do that under the new television deals. The major networks remain the same for almost all of the broadcast windows. The big difference moving forward is that the Thursday night. games are going to be exclusive to Amazon Prime. They're only going to be via that streaming platform. And then the other change is that all of the other networks are going to have streaming options. It's going to be Paramount Plus for CBS. It's going to be 2B for Fox and then ESPN Plus for the ESPN games. So there's just going to be a lot more streaming options and they've built in some flexibility with the understanding that the way that we're all kind of consuming games here in 2021 is probably not going to be

the exact same that we're watching them in 2025. or 2028 or 2030 just as technology and viewing habits change. So those are the big takeaways, money and options for how to watch. Do you have cable? I do. Okay. So I have remained tied to direct TV for a very long time strictly because of Sunday ticket.

So I've been very carefully watching or closely watching what's going to happen with Sunday ticket. There's not a change right now that will be coming. For the next two years, Sunday ticket is going to remain on direct TV. But beyond that, very unlikely. It's going to be on direct TV. So at which point, I will probably finally cut that card. It's interesting.

I mean, I'm going to be in a spot now where we just bought a house or buying a house. And I'm trying to figure out my setup for how I want to watch games on Sunday. And this really does kind of make you think about how you want to involve yourself and how you want to digest and take in the NFL. And I haven't really thought about it in any critical way for a while. You know, I have Sunday ticket digitally so I can put those four games on one TV. and then I typically do a game and Red Zone. That's how I watch, and it allows me to watch about six games at a time on three TVs. And I've never really taken a critical eye to that approach in recent years,

just because in my mind I've always said, I need cable. I just, I need cable because of my job. And now with all the different avenues to do this, I think it's going to be the first time where I kind of sit back and I'm like, what's the best way to do this? Financially, logistically, all of that stuff. And I think the league is kind of taking that same critical eye as it's thinking about the best way to go about this. It's kind of the first step into the digital age and a really

considered way for the NFL. And I think in turn for a lot of us that cover it, live with it, watch it on a pretty constant basis. Yeah. So I think those are the big takeaways. And we're all going to be having those questions and those discussions. And, you know, if I didn't need Sunday ticket for my job and I wasn't doing the same thing where I had, you know, the game mix or the eight box up sometimes on our big TV, which I do not have the attention span to actually. I'm a four-box max guy. That's my max. I would be a red zone.

I would be like a red zone only consumer if I were strictly watching from a fan perspective. And it's the Red Zone channel having had a year where I basically, when I was on maternity leave, I watched a gate when I wasn't writing when I was on maternity leave. I only watched on Red Zone and it completely changed the way that I consumed the NFL. So, you know, my viewing habits are changing and I'm a, you know, almost 40-year-old person who's been tied to for way too long. So I can only imagine what people who are 10, 15, 20 years younger than me and how my daughter, who only knows how to watch games basically on my phone, how she'll be watching sports when she's 17 and these TV deals are up. It's funny that at age 33, I feel like

I'm too old to change, but that's kind of what it feels like sometimes. And the other thing, I feel like going back to the cap for just a quick second, this could be a useful example. So the teams that are adding some of these dummy years and making these accounting changes, is because of the unique circumstances this year in those jumps that could be happening. Let's look at Tom Brady's contract, for example, right? So it's a two-year, $50 million deal with those three dummy years added on.

So what that means is, and I'm sure people have read a little bit about this, and we've done some good explainers about it on the athletic. What that means, though, is that his bonus is spread out over five years instead of two. So the dead money cap hit of that three years of $8 million proration will hit the bucks cap or schedule two. Tom Brady might play until he's 70, but it's scheduled to in 2023.

When you said the cap could be as high as $230 million. So that's the bet that some of these teams are making in that if we push some of this stuff on to future years, it's going to explode where it's going to be a dent. We're not even going to feel it. And it's just going to be one of those things where we're happy that we borrow it from future years because of the way it's going up. Some of these contracts that teams have handed out, you know, if you're paying, Corey Davis, $13 million a year, and the cap is $230 million in two years, you might feel a little bit better about that.

So just a lot of stuff to consider with how the TV deal affects not only how we watch the game, but how teams plan, how teams build, all of that stuff. Yeah, it's interesting that a couple of the guys who were very intimately involved in negotiating these television deals were guys whose teams handed out a lot of money recently. Jerry Jones with the Cowboys and then Robert Kraft, who's the chairman of the television committee and obviously his team went

on a recent spending spree and clearly wasn't concerned about their immediate finances. Well, it really is because handing out money and free agency with these three, four year deals is really, it's about opportunity cost. If you're giving these deals out, what aren't you doing?

And if you're not really worried about extensions and everything else, I mean, it's a multi-year process when you're thinking about these deals. It's not just this year, and circumstances could drastically change here pretty quickly. All right, let's get to actual football stuff that's been happening. Obviously, the biggest news of the day,

Mitchell Trubesky signed a one-year deal with the Buffalo Bills to be their backup quarterback. Makes sense to me. I mean, I think this is a good partnership for everyone involved. You know, you have Josh Allen, who's a very mobile quarterback, a gifted quarterback. Trubisky doesn't have Alan's arm strength or anything like that, but similar mobility.

You can have concepts that apply to both of them. I also think it's an interesting way to think about who you want your backup quarterback to be, because there are a lot of teams around the league who want that mentor type guy. I'm going to teach my young quarterback how to watch film. I'm going to be an influence in the room, all of that. That was Derek Anderson for Josh Allen four years ago. Now Josh Allen's an established veteran. The bills are probably thinking, if he gets hurt for a couple of things,

games. How can we stay afloat? And a guy like Trubisky in my mind with his mobility, he gives you some volatility. He can have a couple like big moments here or there. We'll see what he can do with Brian Daible. Brandon Bean came out today and said he didn't expect Trubisky to be in Buffalo for very long. I can't wait until the Bears sign him next year for like $20 million a year to be their starting quarterback. So I joke. But I do think that it's an interesting kind of thing to think about when you're looking at why teams choose certain backup quarterbacks and what they're trying to accomplish at that position. Yeah, and you know, maybe he hits it off really well with Brian Dable. Maybe he does great in preseason and in training camp and maybe in some limited action.

Maybe Brian Dable is a hot head coaching candidate next year if they have another really good season. So, you know, there's some connections there. I mean, when I looked at the Trubisky to Buffalo, it was just very clear to me that once Chicago decided that they were not going to resign Mitchell Tribisky that they were going to go with Andy Dalton. There weren't a lot of options for him to go elsewhere to be a starter. So if you're Tribisky, then you're looking around and saying, okay, what's the best backup option? What's a system that I want to be in?

Where's a place that I'm going to go and probably have a good time? You know, it's going to be a good quarterback room. I'm going to learn a lot. We're probably going to win a lot of games. And from that standpoint, Buffalo made a ton of sense. From where I sit here in Denver, I know there were a lot of, maybe Trubisky could come to Denver because he was kind of one of the guys that you could imagine coming into Denver and actually challenging Drew Locke and maybe making it an interesting competition. But, you know, ultimately the Broncos,

I don't think were significantly in on him. I still don't think they're done at quarterback, which is going to be, which is going to be really interesting to see where they go. But there just weren't a lot of options. I mean, if this is musical chairs and you're figuring out, okay, who's going to fill each of these spots. The quarterback market is thinned out really, really quickly. And the options for starting spots, I mean, there's not a lot of openings left, right? I mean, there's only a couple places where you think, okay, there's definitely going to be a new quarterback coming into the spot until there is some sort of movement on the trade market. And that just hasn't transpired yet in free agency. Yeah, I'll be, you know, we'll see what happens with the rest of his career.

He's a talented guy. Obviously, he had some moments. The mobility is always going to make him somebody while he has that that can give you a couple games here or there. And he's a a couple plays here or there. And I totally agree. Also, impressive job by Buffalo just turning itself into a destination. You know, think about the guys who have wanted to stay there, the amount of players they've retained, players that have agreed to take pay cuts in order to stay on the roster.

And, you know, Buffalo is not the sexiest locale in the world, but their facilities are amazing. They clearly have a really good culture. Guys want to be there. I mean, it says a lot about what Brandon Bean and Sean McDormit have built in that place that it has been. become a magnet, not only for free agents, but for players that have seen what it's like in the building and gotten exposed to it over any sort of period of time.

So I'm still a little surprised that JJ Watt didn't end up there. Me too. I mean, that's, but you can get guys like Emmanuel Sanders on a pretty cheap one-year deal at this point because it has become that sort of destination. People love playing there. I remember I talked to Dion Dawkins for a story I wrote about Brian Daibold near the end of last season right before during the playoffs and you could just feel how good of a time those guys were having how much they were enjoying themselves it it had the approval rating for players in that building right now

is extremely high and i just think that matters when you can get guys moving in the same direction that's a real thing and it has a real impact and i think we overrate the whole like where you're living and what the night life is like and what the weather is like especially for guys that are kind of in win now mode in their career. And there's just, there's, there's clearly something special about Buffalo and the way that they relate to their players, the city of Buffalo, the way that they kind of embrace that city, that I think guys who maybe were a little wary of signing there before show up there and they end up loving it.

So yeah, they, they've been really fun. I loved that Emmanuel Sanders dealer. I loved Amanda Sanders signing with New Orleans last year. And now that he's going to Buffalo on potentially a better team on a cheaper deal, that was one of my favorite kind of underrated moves. I look a lot of the AFC deals or AFC North and East deals. We'll get to the AFC West, I'm sure, at some point. We absolutely will.

Let's stick with the Bears for one moment because right before we started recording, Ian Rappaport reported that it sounds like the bears are going to be cutting Kyle Fuller, which Eddie Jackson tweeted the face palm emoji shortly after it happened. And that's kind of how I feel about this. I don't want to linger too much on a team that is going to win six games this year and is an embarrassment. Andy Dalton is its starting quarterback, which is not a dig in Andy Dalton. It's a dig at the process. This is, again, just bad process.

So this started in 2018. They gave Kyle Ford the transition tag, even though they had a bunch of caps base. The Packers signed him to an offer sheet. The Bears matched that offer sheet. It was a backloaded deal with an $18 million base for this year. last year in order to free up cap space in part because they decided to sign Jimmy Graham and Robert Quinn, both of which were misguided signings. They converted some of Fuller's base into a signing bonus. They pushed money out to this year, taking his base from $18 million to $20 million.

And now, because he's a $20 million quarterback, and you have Nick Foles at $6 million of dead money left in the cap, and you're paying Andy Dalton $10 million, and the cap is depressed to $185. and Robert Quinn is on the book still for about $15 million, you can't move on from him. You have to cut 29-year-old Kyle Fuller, who is arguably your second best defensive player because you no longer have any more money. So that's where we are. And it's just, it's extremely frustrating.

It's two steps forward, one step back, not even two steps, one step forward, one step back for this team constantly. It is, and just another instance of Ryan Pace and that front office looking at the market and looking at what it reads and saying, oh, yeah, the transition tag is five for Kyle Fuller. That'll be a safe way to do this, even though the franchise tag is only $2 million more. And then a team does sign him to an offer sheet.

You get put into a bad spot. This team has never met a staring contest that it didn't lose ever, ever, since this regime has taken over. Every single time they have had to put their finger on the pulse of the market for quarterbacks for whoever, they have lost. And that's what happens. when you were constantly misvaluating players and misvaluating the market, you arrive in this moment.

But I want to talk about where Kyle Flore might end up because free agency is often overrated. If you have a bunch of money, the pool of players you could spend it on is underwhelming. Guys hit free agency for a reason. But every once in a while, players are disgruntled, you can trade for someone,

or a team mismanages its captain, so badly that they are forced to cut somebody like Kyle Fuller. And it just so happens that two defensive coaches with a lot of familiarity with Kyle Fuller have both a need and the cap space to possibly bring him in. I think he would make sense in both Denver and with the Chargers. Is there anywhere but you would like to see him end up? Well, I sent him to the AFC West for sure. I mean, obviously, you know, that'd be either a Fangio, for Fangio, for whom he played

before and had some of his best success in his career in Chicago, or the Chargers for Brandon Staley, who is a Banjo disciple, also formerly in Chicago. So those make a ton of sense. The Broncos are very actively in the cornerback market. They already gave $10 million a year to Ronald Darby, but I don't think they're done at that position. So I would certainly expect that that's something. I will say there's one thing that we have to make sure we're considering, and this is the risk when we're doing a podcast at 8 Eastern in the evening, is that, So this has not been processed yet. Kyle Fowler has not yet been released.

We saw with the Raiders earlier this week where they said they were going to, they indicated they were going to release a player. That makes it clear to the rest of the league that this guy isn't happy. He wants out. So let's get some offers. So let's see if maybe they end up seeing if they can get something. So if there's a team that wants to give him a fifth round draft pick or something, to see if they can get anything back for a guy that they were already planning to release.

So that would be an indication to me that if you're the Broncos or you're the Chargers and you really want this guy, you might want you might need to make an offer tonight, a trade offer to the Bears and not just hope that this guy's going to get released and you can sign him to a new contract. It looks like his base was $13 million. So if you were to trade for it. Yeah, it's 2021. Right. I'm losing my mind. It looks like his base, his base was $13 million, which is tolerable, more than tolerable. I mean, I think that.

ideally you want to sign him after he's released so you can push that cap charge down or even if you want to do a restructure, whatever. But this is where having cap space is nice. It's all about flexibility. Spending big in the market isn't always great, but when guys like him become available, it's nice to have the flexibility to make a play for him. Another team I would mention, I just want to see him with the charters, by the way. I'm just looking at what they already have defensively. They re-signed Michael Davis, one of the other corners that they have. they still have Chris Harris Jr.

Kyle Fuller was awesome in that system. When he can play off and he's playing zone coverage and he can read quarterback's eyes and really be a playmaker, that's where he's best. I mean, he's just a supercharged version of what Darius Williams gave the Rams last year. You drop him into that defense. I think you're going to see fireworks.

I would love to see that. But obviously the Broncos makes sense. The other team, I think that it would be logical on two different levels is the Packers. They signed him to that offer sheet two years. two years ago, three years ago now, and now you have Joe Barry there as the defensive coordinator who came from the Staley system

and is likely bringing it to Green Bay. So I think on both levels, he would make sense for the Packers on top of the Chargers and the Broncos. So we'll see what happens. And we'll just want to hurt you. Honestly, at this point, it doesn't matter. I saw Julius Peppers do the Lambo leap. Yeah, first of all, I'm done.

Like, I am so tired and so beaten down. Like, there is not, We're as far as we can go. But on that side, when I saw Peppers do the Lambo leap, there's nothing that can hurt me more when it comes to former bears having success in Green Bay and in Packers' uniform. So Kyle Fuller goes and he plays great for the Packers. Good for him.

I'm in adults. I have reached a level of maturity that hopefully I can deal with that. All right. So sticking with bear-centric ideas in some way, I outlined this show before the California thing happened. I want to talk about Marcus Mario da, very briefly, because it sounds like they, the Raiders have asked him to take a pay cut to $3 million for this year, which when you're a backup quarterback, you can understand that.

He signed a contract. I can understand where he doesn't want to take one. But if he gets released, do you think he suddenly becomes an interesting option for a team like Denver or somebody that might be in that quarterback market? Because if I'm Chicago, I think that there's an argument. that you would have rather waited to see if Marcus Marioita got released and signed Andy Dalton just because the upside is a little bit bigger. So if you are one of those teams that doesn't have a kind of defined answer at quarterback

and you might be searching for that upside, Marioita becomes an intriguing option if he does hit the open market. Yeah, because right now you really look at, it's supply and demand, right? And who is actually out there and available on the free agent market? I mean, you can you could have this wish list of, oh, we could get Russell Wilson or oh, we could get to Sean Watson. But the realistic options, if you still want to upgrade your quarterback position or at least create some sort of competition.

At least tweak your quarterback position, I think is a safe way to put it. Just add a new human body into that room. It's Sam Darnold. It's so funny because that's all my team does, is they just put more warm bodies in the quarterback. Can we confirm that Nick Foles is a human body? I'm not, I'm not sure. So we have, we have what, Sam Darnold? Gardner Minshu.

Oh, yeah. He's a human body. Alex Smith. I mean, it's not like, it's not like they're, this bull is overflowing with really great options right now. Oh, trust me. I look over them every single day, so or had been until the Dalton thing happened. So don't worry. I'm very familiar with the crop that's available.

Yeah, I mean, if you're the Broncos, who we've mentioned as a team who is not completely settled at their quarterback position, they're lukewarm at best in their. commitment to Drew Locke. I mean, maybe you, maybe you do look at Marcus Mariotta as a guy who could at least legitimately come in and compete more than the previous backup options that you've had. I don't know, you know, if you're Carolina, do you go into that market? Do you just, you know, just keep hoping that you're going to be able to get Deshaun Watson at that point? But yeah, I mean, I think Mario, I think Mario will become intriguing at a lower price point. If he becomes available as a free agent. You can get them for, you know, five million dollars or less. You know, I think the Raiders

would have loved to have traded him and completely gotten his contract off the books. But that doesn't really seem to be the case in cutting him is probably a more realistic option. So is there, is there anywhere that you would like to see Mario da now? That's a good question. I mean, I think that it's the same group of teams we keep talking about. You know, Denver would make sense if they can't make a splashier move than that. I'm still surprised that he didn't make more sense for the bears if they would have waited. I just think that he's a more interesting option than Andy Dalton. Not to the point where I'm going to lose sleep over it. I just think we've seen a lot of Marcus Marioota. He's struggled to stay healthy. The amount of sacks that we've taken, I don't want to

read too much into one primetime game where he looked pretty decent in very limited action. But it does seem like at age, I believe he's 27. We've seen some flashes from him in the past, but I don't think he's an overly exciting option. So I think a team that's looking for token depth and competition like Denver or maybe even San Francisco if they liked him, those sorts of teams, the usual suspects in the way that we talk about this stuff. But I don't think we need to spend any more time on Marcus Marriota. All right. Sticking at the Raiders, though, I do want to talk very briefly about this Kenyon Drake signing.

Let's go. So two years, $11 million for Kenyon Drake, I want to be measured in how I respond to this. This is not going to make or break the Raiders. Like, right, like giving $5.5 million a year to a running back is not the worst thing you can do. It's not some miscarriage of football justice, whatever. But it's the 12th highest running back contract in the league by AEV. It's right behind Kareem Hunt's deal that he got from the Browns. Kareem Hunt's deal is for a productive former starter, and it protects them against possibly losing Nick Chubb in free agency.

His deal comes up in 2023. It gives them some leverage in how they want to handle the Chubb thing. The Raiders have no excuses for handing starting running back money to a guy when they spent a first round pick on Josh Jacobs two years ago. It's just a misallocation of resources. And when you're cutting your expensive offensive linemen in order to spread that money around elsewhere, I don't think giving $5.5 million of it to a running back is the best way to use that money.

Like if you want depth behind Josh Jacobs in case he gets hurt, that's what fourth round picks for, especially when you've spent a first round pick on the guy whose replacement you're planning for. It just doesn't make any sense of me. It's bad process. And it just relates to all of the conversations we've had about the Raiders over the last few days in that I don't know what they're doing and I don't know what the plan is. And I don't think they do either.

Yeah, because you could look at that deal in a vacuum, right? And say, okay, or if we were looking at this in 2020, when the cap is $230 million. And like, that's not a bad deal. But you have to look at it in the scope of what is the running back market like right now. Aaron Jones got a really big deal to stay in Green Bay. But other than that, the running back market has been dead. And they gave Kenny and Drake basically double what all the other backup running backs on the free agent market have gotten in terms of guaranteed money, total contract, and average salary.

They're paying him more than Devon. Tate Booker, the guy who left to go be in, who was their backup running back and is now going to go be the backup running back in the Giants. So it just, it's just a, the term is exactly right. It's a misallocation of resources. They could have been spending their money elsewhere. And I just don't know what their plan is. And look, the NFL is a better place when the Raiders are either good or a complete disaster

where we are looking at them going, what the F Raiders. And I believe we might have even had a headline like that that was like WT, WTF or the Raiders doing. Vic Taper has just been crushing it and to Sean Reid on their on their Raiders coverage lately because Sean's read like 50 stories in the last three days. Those guys have not been getting any sleep. I'm very impressed. And Raiders fans are going to benefit from it because they're really, really plugged in

there with as much as you can be plugged in a team that is completely unpredictable as the Raiders are. So I would love to hear what the plan is. I would love to sit across a table from John Gruden and Mike back and just be like, all right, explain this to me because I'm sure there is one. I don't think that there's some rudderless football people. I just think that they've been running in circles here for a little bit, and I don't know what it is.

I couldn't articulate it to you, and I think that anybody outside of that building would also have a hard time figuring out exactly the direction they're trying to take here. So from left to right, I thought on the line, you still have Colton Miller, who has been much better than it looks like he was going to be as a rookie, incognito, who's age. but still has been a useful player who's been on the field. Andre James, who's the street free agent that they signed in 2019 that they think could be a viable replacement to Rodney Hudson. Denzel Good, who underrated player, and then their right tackle was a question mark.

Then they also just signed Nick Morton, I think, from formerly of the Texans to give themselves a little bit of depth and competition on the interior. It's one of those things where Denzel Good was fine when he was playing. He was a nice little surprise last year when guys were hurt. but now you're relying on him as a starter. It's just you're taking one step down as you release these guys and you try to piece the line together. And now you're going to have a diminished line.

It's probably not going to be as good as it was last year, even if there had been some injuries. And now you have Kenyon Drake is back there now. I just don't even understand what it's supposed to be. And then you look at the defense and, yeah, they signed Quentin Jefferson, who I think is a nice piece, but he's a rotational interior rusher. They have Yankee Gengakwe, who I think is fine. And it looks like they're banking on further development from their very young secondary.

And if that doesn't happen, how much better is the defense going to be? It's just, again, running in circles. I don't know how much ground they're actually covering here and how much better they're getting. It's very hard to decipher what the plan might be. We've made progress, though, when we talked about the Raiders from preseason last year, where the biggest questions were about Derek Carr. And now we don't – Derek Carr is the least of their point. problems. He is one of the best things now that they have going for them. The questions are

everywhere else and what are they doing to actually help Derek Carr at this point. I'll be, you know, we'll see what happens with him. I think that if you're a team like Washington, you know, we talked about this, I think a little bit with Sheal, but when you're looking at quarterback and you're trying to figure out who your quarterback is going to be and you think you're a quarterback away, who knows where the Raiders are going to be in a year. There's absolutely a chance that this is a rough year for them. They're thinking about, do we have to rebuild, how much do we tear down and a guy like Derek Carr becomes available. I mean, the same way that we saw with Matthew Stafford from last year to this year.

It didn't seem like that was an inevitability at this time last year. And now he's suddenly on the Rams. So we'll see what happens. I mean, he seems like a certainty for them now. But that's the thing with the Raiders. It's very little seem certain. He seems like a certainty for 2021. Yes.

If you had told me that Rodney Hudson wouldn't be on the roster three days ago, I don't know how I would have responded to that. All right. I have one thing on Matthew Stafford. Did you see the pictures of him in the New Jersey's? I did. The Rams put out there. There we go.

Somebody said he looks like an Uno card. Now I can't get it out of my head. The jerseys are fine. The bone ones are terrible, but I think the blue ones are acceptable. They really popped. The blue ones are okay. The blue ones are okay. The bone ones are unacceptable.

All right. Let's get to some actual fun, exciting signings here. So essentially right after we got done with a very long conversation about the Washington football team and their plan yesterday with Sheel, they go out and sign Curtis Samuel to a three-year, $34.5 million contract. Explain to me why I shouldn't be excited about the Curtis Samuel deal, why it could be not as good as I think it is because I need somebody to walk me back a little bit because I think I'm getting too pumped up about Washington. I'm going to channel Sheal for a minute. And what Sheal would tell you is that when when Curtis Samuel was playing for Ron Rivera in Carolina, he was one of the least efficient receivers in the NFL. And he didn't have his breakout season until he got into the offense with Joe Brady.

So now you're putting him back into this Scott Turner, Ron Rivera, where he wasn't utilized to the best of his abilities. So are we going to see 2019 Curtis Samuel? Are we going to see 2020 Curtis Samuel? If we get 20-20, Curtis Samuel, that's freaking awesome. And you should be very excited about it. If we go back to see a guy who maybe was not used in the best way, then maybe it won't be quite as fun. So that's the Debbie Downer, Sheel Capadia take for you.

No, you didn't sell me. I'm still excited about it. You're still excited. I still excited about it. Why did it take so long? This is one of the, like, the clearest fits in free agency was Curtis Samuel joining the Washington football team. and it took until Thursday night.

It took until Wednesday night. I lost all sense of space and time. When I first started thinking about the fits and what they needed and everything else, I thought him and a guy in the Marvin Jones mold with Fitzpatrick was the ideal haul for them in free agency. That's how I had presented it to people when this whole process got started.

That's just I saw it in my mind when they missed out on Stafford. We're two-thirds of the way there now, and we'll see how they want to add a bigger option offensively. Because I agree with you. We saw a different version of Curtis Samuel last year, and it was when he moved full-time to the slot, or a majority of his snaps in the slot. And that's why, if you're thinking about it just in terms of diversifying skill sets in your receiving core, him and McLaurin can be a little bit redundant. They're undersized, fast, all of that stuff. But if you move Samuel inside and you have that true X outside, I don't know if they think it's Cam Sims or whoever,

if they think they need to go get that guy. Then it becomes really interesting. You have Samuel in the slot, McCorn on the outside, and a bigger physical presence that I still think helps. I think it's nice to have a ball winner. You look at what the bills did last year with three undersized guys. I think that's a tough needle to thread. And with Fitzpatrick, I don't know how efficient that offense is,

but I know it's fun as hell to watch. Yes, it will. And that's kind of where we are. And we'll see what they end up doing at left tackle. I think the rest of the line is solid to good at some spots. And, you know, it's not one of the best five offenses in the league by any stretch, but you have reached a level of competency at quarterback and just with the overall dynamic element in the skill position group that you just didn't have last year.

It is a very different feel to what that offense is going to look like. And I'm excited to watch it. I think it makes total sense. And it's just another example of them building in a way that I think is prudent and it's going to make them an exciting team to watch this year. And that's a good deal for Samuel, too. It's kind of right in line with what the top free agent wide receiver deals have been this year. It's kind of in that the Corey Davis mold. It's probably similar to what we'll see Kenny Galladay end up getting Juju Smith-Schuster.

If he ever signs a deal, I mean, the wide receiver market has been really slow. We saw Chris Godwin sign his franchise tag today. I'm guessing he saw what all these other deals were that were out there and was like, cool, sign me up. So the Samuel deal is right in range. It's just ahead of what Robbie Anderson got last year from the Panthers and just ahead of the deals that guys like Tyler Lockett and Tyler Boyd got, which I think that's reasonable. Yeah. You're betting on 2020 Curtis Samuel if you're doing that, but he's like 24 years old. And he can do so many different things.

And that's why when you look at the skill position group they have there, just as a whole, independent of whoever the third, the second outside receiver is, you have Antonio Gibson, who's a 4-4 guy and has a really varied skill set. You have McLaren who's explosive. It just, I don't know how all the pieces are going to end up fitting together, but I know that they're a lot faster and a lot more exciting than they were at this time yesterday. All right. Speaking of faster and more exciting, Will Fuller reportedly assigned a one-year deal with

Miami. I haven't seen the price anywhere. Have you seen what the value for that deal is? Ian Rapaport from NFL Network has said that it's going to be over $10 million. But no actual numbers out there. If there's not actual numbers out there, it probably means that it's not a great deal for the players. That's probably a much more team-friendly deal because usually it's the agents that like to put out the numbers that make them and their clients look good. But yeah, the early indications from Ian were like over $10 million, which would also be right in that kind of range, the going rate for the receivers this year. But in terms of just sheer fit and you think of, okay, what do the dolphins need?

What sort of team would make sense for a player like Will Fuller? I mean, I like that fit. We'll just have to see exactly where the numbers come out. So if you look at just their skill position group as a whole, right? You have Devante Parker on one side now. You have Will Fuller on the other. I think they have absolutely have complementary skill sets. It's Parker big, physical, contested catch guy.

Will Fuller, we know what the speed does for you. Gassicki was really good last year. I'm more wondering how does Will Fuller fit with Tua if he's going to struggle to push the ball down the field again? How does that unfold? Did we see him take strides in that area? I mean, the dolphins are, the dolphins are a pretty good roster, man. I mean, them bringing in Justin Coleman on the deal that they did. There are not a lot of defined holes left on this.

team. I do think they should consider what they want to do with the offensive line. Ted Karras signed with the Patriots. We'll talk about that in a second. You know, obviously, they drafted Austin Jackson in the first round last year. Guys like Robert Hunt and Solomon Kinley, who were first year players last season, do they feel like those are going to be their long-term starters moving forward? They signed Matt Scura to be their kind of stopgap center this year. So do they go out and maybe get a tackle in this year's draft? Or do they roll with Hunt again? I don't know how they evaluate that group and what sort of strides they see from that unit moving forward here. But that's the one area where I think, all right. And then also with Fuller on that one-year

deal, it doesn't preclude you from drafting receiver early. If you want to go get somebody that's going to be part of your long-term plans, you have him and Fuller and Parker this year, I think that's pretty interesting. And the one other thing to mention, George Gottsey, who is now their co-offensive coordinator in Miami, he was the offensive coordinator in Houston during Fuller's rookie year. So you see that connection. I'm sure there's a familiarity, knows how he might want to use him. So I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, the dolphins were always setting themselves up to make Tua's development the most important question. And I don't think anything about that has changed. One note on Will Fuller. He has one more game of suspension, carryover from his PED policy

suspension that he started this year. So he will be unavailable for week one. But I think this is a smart move for him because I think it's it's really setting himself up for if he can play up to his potential, if he can kind of be that number one style wide receiver or the home run home run threat. He's really setting himself up to hit free agency again next year where maybe he can get, you know, a deal that's more on like the $15 million range as opposed to, you know, 10-ish or wherever his deal this year might end up coming out. He's a perfect candidate to sign a one-year deal. Injury history, it was last year blip, all of that stuff.

that's not surprising to me at all. So sticking with that Miami to New England pipeline, we've seen go back and forth. It's almost like they have an underground tunnel between their two facilities that they just ship Kyle Van Noye back and forth on. Ted Karras, after his one year in Miami, is now back in New England. That was really the last spot left along their offensive line. You know, they traded for Trent Brown. So you have that right tackle spot locked up. Still have Isaiah win there.

Now, I think you move on Wennu to guard. You still have Shaq Mason. Now Carus is there. We're in a position now where the Patriots are set to have seven different guys in starting spots than they did at the beginning of the weekend last year. I mean, there is a ton of turnover on that team. Not surprising for anyone who watched the Patriots passing game last year. But now that you've had a couple days to sit with these moves and kind of step back and evaluate what the Patriots have done,

do you feel any differently than you did a couple days ago when we were first trying to process this? spending spree that they had gone on. Yeah, we were kind of doing that in real time on Monday where it was like a holy crap. I mean, I really thought that Bill Belichick might have been body snatched and just something was crazy was going on there. An alien had inhabited his body. I still don't necessarily love all of the value, like the actual dollar amounts that they're investing in specific position, specifically how much they're spending on their two tight ends, you know, very top of the market deals for two players at the same position. But, I don't hate the plan where you're acknowledging that you were a bad team and that you're not

going to be able to make just one or two kind of savvy patriots-esque moves the way that you always have done it when Tom Brady was able to fix a lot of your problems and enabled you to kind of, you know, operate one way. You're going to have to operate completely differently than you have in the past. We'll see. I mean, when I wrote on Monday that I didn't think there were good value deals from the Patriots. It wasn't saying that they weren't getting good players. It was just you kind of had to look at it compared to the rest of the market and how much they were spending relative to the cap and relative to what other teams were spending

and how much were they having to overpay for some of these guys. You know, they had to make some big moves. So look, Bill Belichick is always kind of one step ahead of the rest of the league. And this wouldn't it be the first time that we're wondering why is Belichick doing something the way that he's done it? and only for him to look like a genius three months, six months, nine months later. So maybe that's what's going to happen. I still think the bills are by far the class in that division.

Now that switch happened very, very rapidly. But I think they're going to be more competitive now. They're going to need better play out of Cam Newton. And I'm very curious to see if they might still be in the quarterback market in the draft. I think that's going to be one of the bigger questions. I was actually on Jeff Schwartz's show earlier today. And we were talking about that idea of, well, you know, maybe they could trade up for a quarterback. There are only so many. You can't just conjure them out of thin air.

If four quarterbacks are expected to go in the top seven picks and four teams in the top seven picks or eight with Carolina want a quarterback, you're going to run out of real estate there. It's going to be hard to go get one of those guys. So whether it's San Francisco or the Patriots or Washington, not everyone can trade up for the fourth quarterback. I mean, Jeff, Jeff Howe, our beat writer Jeff Howe in New England, has kind of been laying the groundwork for how they could make a Deshawn Watson trade happen, which Jeff Howe is really smart and is really plugged in. So if he wants to keep that still on the table, then we'll keep it on the table. I mean, that's when you're plugging a lot of starters into your lineup with free agency,

you eliminate uncertainty and you, those draft picks don't become less valuable, but they become less urgent. There's less desperation associated with them. you don't need to fill starting spots with those picks. So that's where, all right, if we trade three first round picks, it's not as if we need those immediately. I still think you want to build through the draft. But it's not like a team, I'm looking at Carolina or something like that,

where if you were to trade three first round picks for Deshaun Watson, when you don't have a starting left tackle and you don't have this and you don't have that, then I think it becomes a little bit of a different consideration. But all right, so sticking in the AFC East very quickly, the Jets signed Keel and Cole to a one year $5 million deal reportedly makes sense, I guess. I mean, I think that they're going to move on from James and Crowder now. I mean, he's, I think, set to make $11 million against the cap.

It's only a $1 million of debt money. So you can understand they're thinking. If we put Keel and Cole on the slot where he played, I think, two-thirds of his snaps last year for half the price, is that just a better return on an investment than a guy like Crowder? I can understand why it would be yes. So a guy who was on the Jets is now moving teams. Prashad Perriman signed a one year $3 million deal with the Lions.

I wanted to transition to that because I kind of like what the Lions have done. Are we going down this road again? They haven't really done anything. So they signed Romeo Quara to that big deal, which one of the only reasons I think he wanted to go back there at that price because his brother was there. He said as much this week. And then they went, they did things that I like. like in free agency where it's like, all right, here's $4 million for Tyro Williams. Here's $3 million for Breshaad Perriman.

They signed Jamal Williams to a deal, which that's whatever to me. But it wasn't an expensive deal. It was less than what Kenyon Drake got signed to with Raiders. I think spending $7 million combined on Bresad Perriman and Tyro Williams just to give yourself warm bodies at receiver when you're playing. this waiting game and try and figure out how you want to refigure the roster now that Brad Holmes is there. I just think it's smart. I think it's the way I would do this if I were trying to rebuild the team. And, you know, it's, again, it's not going to move the needle. It's not

very newsworthy signing guys like Prashad Perriman to a one year, $3 million deal. But when we were sitting there thinking, who was going to catch passes for the Lions this year? Can they be a viable NFL offense? These are the types of signings that you should make. I think it's going to allow them a ton of flexibility next year when they can get out from under some of the free agent deals they signed that were misguided on defense and they can really start rebuilding this thing in a real way. So I just appreciate the way that they're going about this in Detroit. Yeah, I mean, you get you get Breshard Paramann and Tyrol Williams for $7 million total, which is combined.

Half of what you would have paid Kenny Galladay on the franchise. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I just think that if you're at this stage of your franchise, those sorts of moves make a lot of sense. Speaking of teams making moves that makes sense, Cleveland Browns signed Troy Hill to a four-year, $24 million deal that was reported today. I don't know what else to say except I love what the Browns are doing.

I kind of want you to walk me back about the Browns too. I cannot. I'm getting too excited. I'm sorry. I cannot do it. I love it. I love the move. I think that signing Rams, corners, and safeties from last year is not the worst idea in the

world. I've said this a million times in the show in the last couple of weeks. The Brown's plan was to find defensive talent at every single spot. They needed to build up that defense in a way that gave them flexibility and a way that added talent at every single level. Troy Hill was a slot corner for the majority of his time with the Rams, but he can play outside. So now you're thinking about the pieces and how you want them to fit together.

You're going to have Ward on one side, theoretically Hill in the slot. they view Greedy Williams as a bonus at this point, I would say. I don't think that they are counting on him as a foundational piece. So if you get Greedy Williams back healthy, I think you add one more corner to cheap price now that can play in the slot. So if you have to move Hill outside and play somebody else inside, you can. But that's what they're doing. If you look at the John Johnson signing, they now have Johnson, Delpit, and Ronnie Harrison. That may seem like too many bodies back there, but I don't think that there's such thing as.

that anymore. I think being able to have these different sorts of defensive backs and different sets of defensive backs that you can rotate in, rotate out. The same thing with signing Tack McKinley for one year, $4 million. And they're not done. They're going to sign a couple more guys up front, I would assume, in those mid-tier ranges in order to build depth and flexibility all throughout their defense. I just think it's a really prudent plan with the resources they had available. And like we said with Buffalo, too, Cleveland is now becoming a destination place. It's a place where veterans are going to want to play.

And when you talk about kind of, okay, what moves could they do? When you look at the list, you know, the big board, the top free agents left, there's a lot of guys that could be attractive as past rushers as kind of,

you know, one year, short term contracts. Melvin Ingram, Judevian Clowny, guys like that where you just drop them in. It's like, all right,

stir shit up, my man. I just want you to have three splash plays a game across the number. I'm just going to go out on third downs. sign me out. I think that's exactly what they're after. And I am excited to watch it.

This is a team that they want to be a top three offense this year. They want to be this year's bills when it comes to efficiency. I think they want to take a step forward on that side of the ball. And if their defense can get to, give me 15th. That's it. Give me average. And if our offense is what they think it can be, all bets are off. We are a legitimate contender.

And I think that's exactly what they're thinking. and what their aims are. Where other teams like the Raiders, when you're looking at all these moves and thinking, what the hell is the plan? That's not a question I have about Cleveland. I am very excited about the direction that they're taking.

I think that's going to be a darn good football team next year. One more before we leave here. Philip Lindsay, divorce from the Broncos. We have to get your take as the other Lindsay from Denver who has, I don't know, you have an affinity for Philip Lindsay.

He's a Colorado guy. Yeah, I mean, look, Colorado and Denver. Denver specifically is not a place but has tons of homegrown NFL talent. It's just it's not like a huge high school football state. Philip Lindsay is the ultimate homegrown football talent. He went to Denver South High School. He played in the Denver Broncos Youth Football League.

There's pictures of him at, you know, with Broncos players when he was a child. He went to the University of Colorado. You know, so it was like he very much is a homegrown kid. you could see this divorce, though, coming from a mile away. I mean, it was completely clear a year ago when the Broncos signed Melvin Gordon. You knew that Philip Lindsay was not going to be getting a long-term deal. Right before they signed Melvin Gordon, they basically had broken off contract talks that hadn't really even gotten off the ground.

So you kind of knew where this was headed for Philip Lindsay. It's interesting to me that they, you know, so they put the restricted free agent tender on him. The original round, he was undrafted. So basically that meant that Philip Lindsay and his agent could go out solicit other offers. Broncos would have a chance to match first, which made it the way that this market is. It was going to be really, really hard for him to legitimately get a real offer anywhere because all it was going to do was going to be set the market. The Broncos could come in and just match it.

He'd play for one year and then he'd leave. It's interesting that they kind of came to this agreement now that the Broncos have a new general manager, George Payton from the Minnesota Vikings. Philip Lindsay's agent is the same agent from Kirk Cousins. obviously have done a lot of business together. I think there's kind of some relationships there. So I think they were able to kind of come to an agreement that would not have happened if John Elway had been the guy running the show, you know, kind of doing all of the behind the scene stuff with these deals. So it's going to be interesting now to see exactly

what Philip Lindsay's market is. Obviously, this is not a great year to be a free agent at any position, let alone a free agent running back. But he's got a really kind of unique skill set. he's kind of said it with Will Fuller as like a home run hitter. He's like a home run hitter running back. He's not super versatile. I mean, I think he views himself as an all-around running back. But he's, he's tough, he's fast, he's kind of mean. I think he'll make a team better.

So I was trying to go through and think of some potential fits for where he might end up. I put the Arizona Cardinals at the very top. Of that list of they need, they have a need at running back. You know, they really, they're spending almost no money at that position right now. Chase Edmonds is slated to be their starter. He's making $1 million. Vance Joseph is there. Vance Joseph is the head coach of the Broncos when, when Lindsay signed.

He had his most productive year, you know, with, so there's, there's a lot of familiarity there. I was also thinking maybe, maybe Baltimore. Well, I also think Sean Coogler, their offensive line coach, who I assume designs their running game, was the offensive line coach in Denver in 2018. Yeah, he was their offensive line coach in 2018 when Philip Lindsay had that really big year. So that connection also exists. Yeah. So I put that at the top of my list.

This will probably, it's probably already been edited out of the podcast. My daughter just came in, interrupted us a little bit ago. I have not yet broken the news to her that Philip Lindsay will no longer be in a Denver Bronco. She received a Philip Lindsay jersey for Christmas. My brother has a very poor track record. of buying jerseys of guys who immediately, he bought a Matt Prater jersey.

Wow. Right before he got suspended and then cut and signed with the Lions. So he needs to take his credit card away. He no longer has jersey buying privileges. That is 100% true. But he, so my brother bought my daughter, a Philip Lindsay jersey. Obviously, she likes, she doesn't really know much about Philip Lindsay, except for that she knows that that's mommy's name and it's spelled the same.

And so she's made, like I've picked her up. on football Sundays and she's come home and made a picture of like a football jersey with a number 30 and written out the name Lindsay. So I'm going to have to break it to her that this has happened. But it's, I mean, it's too bad that a kid who was so beloved in Denver just because he's played here forever. I mean, people have known who Philip. I can understand that. Yeah, I mean, people have known who Philip Lindsay is for more than a decade here. I mean, he only played for the Broncos for three years, but he's been beloved in this city and CU fans will love him forever. It's too bad that kind of had to end so quickly, but I think it's going to be the best for him.

I don't know if it'll be the best for the Broncos. I still don't necessarily love Melvin Gordon, but I think it'll ultimately be good for him in his future career. After you explained to Lena that Philip Lindsay's no longer on the Broncos, you just explained to her that Alan Robinson signed his tag and it makes no sense for the bearers to franchise Alan Robinson if they're going to release Kyle Fuller and allow Akeem Hicks to explore trades because those two timelines don't align and those two sets of moves are incongruous when you're talking about the same team.

You can explain that. I'll explain that to her after you talk about. I'll play this in the car tomorrow morning as I'm driving her to daycare. We need to go. We need to get out of here. Also, I'm going to get sadder and sadder. It's 8 p.m. It's dark here.

I still haven't eaten anything. It's been a long week. This concludes the Bears therapy session of the day. We'll be back next week for more. It will not be the last one. I can promise you guys that. We'll be back next week. We'll be back next Tuesday. I don't know what that show will look like. I'm sure it's going to be a look back at free agency. And then, you know, obviously there will be some more signings that trickle out here over the next couple weeks.

We will have some takes on those as they happen. But we will be going to draft coverage by the end of next week. So please check back for a recap of all the things that happened over the weekend. Until then, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform. I really appreciate that. Also, please subscribe to The Athletic. We talked about it with Vic and Deshawn, but it applies to Sheel.

It applies to Lindsay. There is so much stuff on The Athletic right now. If you want a one-stop shop for every single bit of free agency news, analysis, everything, The Athletic has you covered. Theathletic.com slash football show. Please go check it out. We'll be back next week. Until then, appreciate you guys listening.

Talk to you later. Athletic Football Show.