The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Free Agency Recap, Day 5: Packers trade Davante Adams to Raiders, Baker Mayfield requests trade, Allen Robinson signs with Rams & more

Episode Date: March 18, 2022

Robert Mays is joined by Mike Sando to break down the latest madness in NFL free agency. They discuss the Packers trade sending Davante Adams to the Raiders. They examine both sides of the move, Adams’ new contract and more. Plus, Baker Mayfield wants out of Cleveland. They talk about what’s next for the Browns at QB. They wrap by assessing the Rams deal for Allen Robinson. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Friday, March 18th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, the Athletic Zone, Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I'm doing well. I was just thinking about this new NFL that we're in.

It is unbelievable. It is really fantasy football now. It's crazy. So let's go through kind of what last night felt like, because it has been a week. It has been unseasoned. Every single day has brought something new. It's been fun.

It's been exhausting. Like you said, I mean, this is a new feeling for how this stuff operates. And when the news came down that the Raiders had traded for Devante Adams, it felt fake. I mean, it just felt like something that would be drummed up by some fake Adam Schaefter account in the midst of everything rather than a trade that would actually happen for a bunch of different reasons. but it is very, very real. So I'm curious, when you say that, when you say that this is new and it's not normally like this in the league, you have such a great sense of the historical precedence that this stuff is comprised of.

Why do you think it feels different right now? Why do you think this rash of moves and these sort of huge splashes are happening in ways that we're not used to? I do think the money is bigger and bigger, which means different things to different teams. I think in the case of like the Rams with their big trade of golf, the owner's a billionaire now. It's not mom and pop. He can eat the golf contract. So the rules that used to constrain teams and apply about whether it's dead money or cash, you have to be careful.

Don't apply those now as a hard rule that, hey, the Steelers won't cut Antonio Brown. It'll be 20 million of dead money. Well, they might, right? So I think we've crossed a little bit of a threshold with that. You know, when the players are making so much money, then maybe they feel empowered is probably a word that's overused, but they probably are somewhat. I think there's that component to it. It's just a different time also probably from the leadership of some of these teams. people a little bit more open to making big moves.

I think the league is less risk averse. I think you're seeing that. I feel like that that's kind of been one of the overarching themes to me over the last couple years is that whether it's a younger contingent on the coaching side or just some of the changes in mindset, I mean, some of the, it was such a risk averse league. And teams played it's so safe all the time. And I just don't think you're seeing as much of that. You're seeing a level of aggression on so many different levels that it's kind of shocking.

It's very, and it's jarring at the very least. And I think there used to be, the power component used to be that you could really, a team could really strong arm a player more easily and you had no recourse. You just had to eat it. Now, that wasn't always true. I mean, shoot, Fran Tarkington in 1960, whatever, forced his way off the Vikings. He still never play for him again. They traded him.

So there's been, there's always been players forcing trades. Okay. Okay. Koi Bacon was a 20-sat guy in the 70s for the Bengals. No one's ever heard of him. He forced his way off of multiple teams. So the idea of that sort of thing, the trade, the trades have always been happening. I just don't think with this, I think that with this many of them and the quarterback stuff that we've seen, which I think some of the quarterback stuff is probably guys are playing longer. So, you know, years ago, Philip Rivers would have never gotten to, you know, years ago. Philip Rivers would have never gotten to, year 16 or whatever her, Brady wouldn't have. So they would have, they would have just retired after 12 years with their team. So there's some of that on the quarterback for, and I think when the careers extended, Brady, these guys, that's helping fuel some of this. A Matt Ryan would have been retired. He may get moved now. He wouldn't even be playing. So there's some of that at the quarterback position, but clearly there's more to it. There's more to it to see this type of a move

happen. So let's get to the particulars of this. The Raiders trade for DeFonte Adams. He gave up their 2022 first and second round pick. They hand him as part of this deal, a five-year, $142 million contract, $28.5 million per year, 67.5 million of that fully guaranteed. I mean, those numbers are astronomical and when you consider the trade compensation as part of that. The part to me that is crazier than anything, Ian Rappaport reported last night that Adams' his agents, not someone from Green Bay, who would have incentive to put this out there,

but Adams agents confirmed that the Packers actually offered him more money and that Adams wanted to play in Vegas with Derek Carr. When I heard that, I was like, what is going on here? That's just a plot twist to the story that I did not anticipate coming. You never know what a player's motivations are. People have been asking us for days, hey, where's Deshaun Watson going to go? And I don't know what he wants, right? What's important to you, right? I mean, that's the, the, critical variable to the whole thing. So I never am going to say that a person's motivations aren't those, right? We can't apply our own. Hey, you've got a great thing going to Green Bay.

You're going to be a Super Bowl contender. Your rapport with Rogers. Those may or may not matter as much to Devante Adams as they would to me, just looking at it from the outside. Those would be the critical components. So we can't question that, but I don't know about that. I mean, Frank Bauer, the agent, this could have been a messy deal behind the scenes. The Packers could say, hey, look, we're going to take a lot of heat on this. Frank, would you mind saying that we were right there with the money, even though we're never going to $28 million and everyone knows that you're, we'll play ball with you here. I don't know.

I mean, could that have happened? Sure. It just seems weird to me. That component seems weird to me. That aspect doesn't fully add up to me. I could see the Packers being motivated to want that to be said, even though Frank Bauer, the agent, is saying that, I don't know. Does that all add up to you completely?

No, it doesn't because I just don't understand why. I mean, you look at the two situations and we'll get into this. And the report with Rogers is such a big part of it. Even if you played with Derek Carr in college, obviously, I mean, even if they have a relationship, that just doesn't make sense to me. That you just like, I want to play in Vegas. So if the money is the same, I'm going to go. know if Carr's going to be there. He doesn't even know if he's not making the move to go play with their car. I mean, that's an added part of it. But are you surprised that the Packers would be willing to do this so quickly? I mean, if there was like a level of animus behind the scenes about the franchise tag and he didn't want to play on the tag and that was part of this and they were far apart on the contract, are you surprised that they weren't willing to call his bluff a little bit and at least play this out a little bit longer because here's what I have a difficult part.

square. And maybe, and we can get into this, but when you look at what they did with Rogers's deal and when you look at what they're doing with some of these other contracts where they're bringing guys back and they're going to keep pushing some of the finances on to future years and understand that we are putting ourselves in a precarious spot in 2025, 2025, 26. But we're willing to risk that and we're willing to endure that because we understand that this is what our window looks like. We have these three years or so with Roger. left. Dealing the best receiver in the league for a first and second round pick, even if the value does make sense in a vacuum, when you consider the particulars of where the Packers are

on their timeline, those two things are hard to reconcile in my mind. I am with you 100%. I feel like this is kind of not a great move for either team. And here's what I think about the Packers, though. I think that Rogers really, really had him over a barrel. And so they acted in ways that they don't normally act. The normal Packer way is to draft Jordan Love. It's to trade Devante Adams instead of go to $28 million when really you can say that Hopkins was making $27, but it wasn't like that. I mean, really the top of the market was going to be more 21 or 22. So this move is a total packer move. okay but because they compromised their principles on rogers they really decided to say you know what we're going to screw our cap in two years we're going to do he's got us over a

barrel we've got to do what we got to do here they were willing to do that for him but that's not who they are now and this reminds us that it becomes who you are now right that that's my thing is when you've made the decision there's no put in the cat back in the box well i but all of sometimes we do things that are out of character, but then you try to pull your character back, right? I mean, it doesn't mean that you're, they got pinched by Rogers. And because it's a quarterback and it's Rogers, maybe they weren't willing to, because if you get rid of Rogers or don't do the, you know, go to Jordan Love, you really don't have a chance. You're really, you're really just almost Detroit, okay, if they were to go to Jordan Love. They're really totally irrelevant.

This move really hurts you right now, but you've got six months with some assets. You can have a good receiver core. So I think it's a little bit of a compromise for them that I totally know I can see look on your face. And I'm not saying I disagree with it. I'm just trying to explain this. Like, I think that's what it is. There's anything to disagree with.

I don't think I have a stance on it. I'm more just thinking about the two worlds here, okay? Are the Packers a better team in this three-year window with another first round pick, another second round pick, the money they would have had to allocate to Devante Adams than they would be with just Devante Adams? The answer could be yes. I'm open to that idea. I just did not expect them to approach it this way after what their decision-making looked like here over the last two weeks or so. Yeah. So they, I would imagine part of this was Devante Adams just saying I'm not signing with you, right?

which is probably, if you watch the Seattle Press conference, they basically said Russell Wilson and his agent told him they weren't going to do a new deal with him. So then they have to make a decision. Are we going to run it back for one year and then really kind of be on a barrel? Or are we going to try to take a deal when we know we can get what we can get, right? So I think some of that for Green Bay has to be, do we think we're going to be able to get this type of a deal when we're more over a barrel? Right? Then you're dealing from a little bit of a position of weakness. And then plus, they also know Devante Adams. They know his character. And they know they may have a good feel for that he's not going to come to camp or there is going to be an issue. And then if you're dealing with that the whole time and you know he's not going to sign and you know he's not going to be there all off season and you know that he's not going to, maybe he's going to miss the start of the season or whatever. They just make a decision to move on from that and get, you know, get a first round. pick, a second round pick. And by the way,

$20 million of cap space is valuable to them right now. Totally. Otherwise, I think it absolutely is. Yeah. The total package and the total haul and the amount of resources that you now

have in place of Devante Adams is a lot. Those two top 50-ish picks for a guy who's about to turn 30 and all that cap space, it's a lot. But I think it's one of those scenarios. And I think this thinking applies to the Raiders as well and we'll get there. If you look at the pieces that you could have, if you drop the receiver, let's say you get Chris a lobby, or whoever it ends up being in the first round with one of those

picks. And you can go sign a veteran receiver with some of the money with more even left over to go get a Rasul Douglas and do this and that. And you have like two to three players that you would have had to allocate the Adams resources to now. And then you have Adams. I can understand when you think about it rationally and you approach it that way that you can say this option A with these three players is as good or better when you consider all of

the relationship stuff and that behind the scenes haggling that might have happened with Adams. I can understand wanting to go with option A. I also think that if you look at the way that the Packers offense was structured and how important he was to everything they were on offense, how important their connection was to what made that offense go. Even if the rationality applies here. I think that there's like a secret sauce. There's just something there with that Rogers Adams connection that you almost have to detach yourself from the rationality of to truly understand what it means.

And I think that also applies to what the Raiders just paid for him. I was having a conversation last night with a coach and we were talking about this deal and he goes, here's what this is for Green Bay. Go back to that playoff game. They're running their four-minute offense against Seattle a couple of years. ago. And they throw an inside fade for a 32-yard gain with no hand signal. No, nothing. It's a, it's a mental telepathy thing. It's not the call, right? They do this without even a look. Yes. And they throw for a 32-yard explosive gain in their four-minute offense to basically win the

game. That's exactly what I'm talking about. That stuff gives you goosebumps when you watch the play. That can't happened. That is, that is magic to Kareem. That right, that, that is stockton to Malone. That is these, these, when you, when you look at the most telepathic relationships in sports, who, it's, it's Brady and Edelman, right? I mean, it's, it's people. Travis Kelsey Mahomes have this. It's just this unspoken thing that you can't truly comprehend. Yes. And there's tremendous value to that. I think the Packers know that and appreciate that. I do. I think they felt, I think they were in a much more dire situation than we knew and decided they would get out of it when all those other things could be maximized. The cap space, the draft picks. It helps to have all of that now compared to

a month or two from now if you knew this is how it's going to end. So we can criticize them and say they shouldn't have made it end this way. But if they knew it was going to end this way, those resources are valuable in hand now. You could trade one of those picks for a different receiver, right? You could know who you're going to draft in a receiver. You could know who you're going to draft in a receiver. You could use the cap space to do really valuable things for your team that could make a, that you may not be able to do if you felt like you had to do a big Rogers, or a big Adams deal, or his cap number is going to be on the books for this whole time when you know you're trading them anyway. So it is shocking, it is jarring. The Packers are not better. They

lose something that could be the difference between winning and losing a playoff game. And I don't, and I'm not criticizing them because I don't know what sort of behind the scenes factors were play here and whether they were motivated to do this for reasons we can't really understand. To me, it's more about weighing the two options and whether they're a better football team. And it's just hard for me to imagine them being better with all the resources they just got for Devante Adams compared to having Devante Adams. Because let's just play this out. If you sign Jarvis Landry and you draft a receiver, there's just no way within the limits

of how many years you have left with Rogers. You're going to build whatever that rapport is with those two guys that's. he had built with Devante Adams over the last eight years. It's just not going to happen. And that relationship and that connection was so central to their identity and who they were that it just feels like they lose something that goes way beyond what Devante Adams looks like on a salary cap sheet or a depth chart or any sort of rational approach you want to take to your roster building.

So let's now, the coral area off of this to me is I just called up. I go to overthecap.com here, Jason Fitzgerald's nice website. And I'm looking at the average per years here. And at the quarterback position, they're valuing the Rogers extension at 50 million a year. So that's $5 million a year more than Mahomes. And you can look at it different ways. But so the narrative here is not right that Rogers took a big discount to get a bunch of stuff done under the cap and keep Devante Adams, right? That's not the narrative.

It didn't happen, right? No, it certainly didn't. Now, maybe Adams was going to leave anyway. So maybe they know Adams is going to leave anyway. And so Rogers, like, well, then I'm getting paid. But that's an interesting part to me. If they would have done the deal that the Raiders did, they would have gone, I think, at least $5 million over the market, because I'm going to put Hopkins in a different category. And I think the market this offseason would be 22 maybe, right?

Especially when you look at the rest of the wide receiver market, I mean, it's, which I want to get to here as we get to the Raiders end of this. So they would have, they would have Adams at 20. when the next guy is really 22, if we put Hopkins aside. And they would have Rogers at 50 when the next guy's at 45. So that's a little bit of a hard thing to do when you're already sort of credit carded out a little bit with your cap situation. You also aren't the most expensive left tackle in the league. I mean, there's a lot of things. Jair Alexander extension that may have to happen here soon.

Kenny Clark is on a big deal. This is the downside of having a lot of really good players. You know, if Adams didn't want to be there, that's an issue. but how much nicer would this have been, just legacy-wise, for everybody? If Rogers decides, you know what, I'm going to take away less. I'm not going to screw us in the future. I'm going to do the, I'm going to outdo Brady on this. And then Adams comes in at a slot that, you know, maybe his slot tire.

And then Aaron says, you know what? I'm doing this for Devante. And I've made $200 million in my career. It's so great to have them here. That may not have been an option available to him, because Adams really truly may not have wanted to be there for whatever reason. But it sure would have felt awesome in the bigger picture for Packer fans for everybody. I mean, shoot, my son's got a Devante Adams jersey up in his Packer decorated room.

You know, I mean, it would have been. It's a collector's item now. It would have, well, yeah, it would. I took him to Green Bay this last season to see the Ram game. He'd never seen Rogers. And I'd never been to a Packer game in person. And he bought a, he bought a Savage jersey. he wasn't, he wasn't, he was worried.

He was worried about Rogers leaving. He bought a 76 Savage jersey instead of one of these guys, although he already had Rogers and Devante, but still. So let's talk about the Raiders side of this. And here's what I want to say before we start this conversation about the Raiders approach to this. I think the world of Devante Adams, after week one of the 2020 season, I wrote, after he had that game against the Vikings, that this was.

this was the moment where he was going to become the best receiver in the league. When you looked at the landscape of the position, Julio getting a little bit older, dealing with some injuries, what happened to O'Do Beckham, everything that happened with Antonio Brown's career, there was kind of a void at that position for somebody to really take hold of the mantle. And my goodness, has he over the last couple of years. He is the best player at that position in the NFL. But he's the best player at that position in the NFL with Rogers.

and that's not to take away anything from either of them. I think that it's not that one props up the other, it's just that together there is something that's hard to replicate immediately. That applies to the Packers like we just talked about, but it also applies to the Raiders. When you give up everything that you've given up for this guy, you can't expect him to be the players that we just saw in Green Bay over the last couple years.

And that makes it hard to justify everything you just gave up to get him because the package that you just offered, the picks, plus the contract, is absolutely for the player he's been over the last two seasons. I agree. Now, I think a lot of those things do transfer. I do think he is unique in ways that transfer. When you watch it, when you just watch him play, when you watch the feel he has for the game, the strength of his hands, the things he can do at the goal line, the way. The release stuff is amazing. He approaches a position in ways that very few guys do. I love talking to him about it. He is a special player. Yeah. And so just watch him, even when he gets smashed or hit, the guy pops up in two seconds and runs back to the huddle.

There's no milk in it. There's no bad body language. This guy's unbelievable. He's a Hall of Fame player. I think he's going to be that still. I do think he brings something to your new program in, uh, if you're Josh McDaniels, I don't have as huge of a problem saying this is a standard bear. Watch how this guy plays.

I think there is a positive effect on that. But there's nothing fundamentally sound about giving up huge, almost acquiring a quarterback draft capital and going to the top of the market by like 20% or whatever it is. There's no way we can sit at the Sloan MIT conference and say that's what you're supposed to do. Okay? This is not how you do it. I mean, you look at it. The other guys that have fetched something similar to this, when you consider the contract and the draft capital,

I mean, it's a short list of guys. And for the most part, they are mistakes, right? Laramie Me Tunsell, Jamal Adams, Khalil Mack. Jalen Ramsey fetched two first round picks. Jalen Ramsey went for a $20 million year extension. Jalen Ramsey was traded when he was 24 years old. I mean, when they made that deal when the Rams did, you're catching a guy going into his prime at one of the most important positions

in the league and you're paying him barely at the top of the market like you've alluded to. If you throw out the Hopkins money, which a lot of people do for purposes of this because of how unique a situation it is and what it really means, it was tacked on to a contract that already existed. Every other receiver in the league right now is sitting around $20 million a year. Look at all the contracts that have been handed out over the last couple months. No truly elite guys have gotten new extensions because Godwin's coming up. for 20 C.L.

You know, Mike Williams is Mike Williams. But everybody in the league right now, that's not Devante Adams, essentially, after Julio's contract has come off the books, is sitting right there around $20 million. Maybe Tyree Kill would bring that number up a little bit on whatever his next time looks like. But he's also creeping up past 30. So now you're looking at the Devante deal as it relates to the rest of the wide receiver market for a guy who's about to turn 30. It's a 42 and a half percent bump over the next closest.

player at the position. It's an astronomical price. It completely is. And I don't love that. I don't love it. I don't love this reader team. Really don't. If the Packers had signed it,

I would have just said, you know what? This is a consequence of the decisions that they've made. You live with it. They have committed themselves to this path. But with the Raiders, you not only give up the contract, but you give the two picks plus the contract.

And I just think right now, Devante Adams, for the reasons that we talked about with that connection and whatever that is, he is more valuable to the Packers than he is to the Raiders. And that says nothing about what I think of Devante Adams as a player. Think about the history of these sort of deals for wide receivers. They so rarely work out. And I think it's just because the rapport and the relationship, it just takes such a long time to build. And there's something so specific about the way it works in one situation with one quarterback

that's just difficult to replicate no matter what you think of the player in question. Plus, the Raiders have Waller. They have Renfro. It's not like the cupboard was totally bare. You could have seen them, look, they lost Henry Ruggs in that tragic situation, but you could see them drafting one, right? We've seen there's tons of good receivers coming out of college. You could have, you could have paid those utter guys, paid Waller, and then filled in the rest and have a, no one would be saying your receiver corps is holding you back, right? from their standpoint. I think, I honestly think

in terms of the X's on the chalkboard thought of this, it makes a ton of sense. Because I really do think they needed an outside option. They did. They did. Alpha outside option.

And they went to get the true alpha outside option and drop him into this equation. In that way, I think it makes sense. But when you try to square it with the value side of it, it's just my head starts to spin. But no one was sitting there 24 hours ago

going, boy, they got to get a receiver. They got to make them. Oh, I would have said that. I would have said that. Yeah, but not like they had to trade everything for them. Yes, you would get a receiver, but there's lots of ways to get a receiver, right? That's fair. That is totally fair.

But if I were sitting there looking at the Raiders depth chart 24 hours ago, that spot on the outside would have been one of the most glaring needs to me. That's one of the first places I would have gone. But yes, you can do that in the first round of the draft. Yeah, no one was saying, though, it wasn't like so urgent that you had to give up everything to get. Now, this is a unique situation too. Usually the best receiver in the league, who is in his prime? I know he's 30, but I think he's got, what's he got left? Three great years. I think that's probably fair. Yeah. And a couple other years. So they're going to probably get through this

contract, they're going to get to the point of this contract where they can get out of it without compromising them. I get that. So they're going to get great play from him. That's a unique opportunity. So sometimes we look at what you should and shouldn't do, but sometimes those options aren't even available to you. And this is probably a unique opportunity to get a player you normally wouldn't get. And so it's a unique compensation package too. I don't love it from the fundamental standpoint. But like you said, they got Devante Adams now.

And he seems to be really happy to be there. And he's going to help their team. I just don't know that they're going to. going to win the championship. You, you can see what the conversation looks like, right? You can picture what that moment was like in, in the, like, when Dave Ziger walks in in Josh McDaniels's office and he's like, we can make this happen. He's like, wait, what?

We can get Devante Adams. And then he tells him, it doesn't matter what it costs. Like, let's go do this. I can absolutely see how that happens for a player of this caliber. And when you think about it on a football level, this is fun. When you pair him with Waller and Renfro and you have. have Derek Carr, who I think is a pretty good quarterback. I mean, Derek Carr looked good in moments last year

throw into Zay Jones. Now he has the best receiver in the league on the outside. Those pieces all together, that's exciting to me. If we kind of throw value out for a second. Oh, yeah. Look at some of the other underlying things they've done on offense. It's kind of interesting, right? So now they have Devante Adams.

They sign Brandon Bolin and they go get Jakob Johnson. So you have this Patriots feel to what they're doing. But then you have Devante Adams, Hunter, Renfro and Darren Waller now with a quarterback that I think is playing pretty good football at this moment. The only real concern I have about their offense personnel-wise at this stage is what the offensive line looks like. But everything else, it's like, I can get behind this. I mean, this is a really intriguing group. Yep. And then they help themselves defensively, obviously, too, with Chandler Jones. And to me, that's been the huge component. I've got in front of me,

Robert, you remember during the season, I did that piece on looking at how supported every quarterback is by their defense and by their special teams component. Here's where the Raiders have ranked in Carr's career on defense slash special teams. Oh, no. 27, 18, 15, 28, 28, 38, 38, 38, okay? That, you can't win. You can't win to do that. So have they made enough moves defensively to just be representative?

If they have, if they're representative defensively, if their defense special teams is 18th instead of 28th, and you add this stuff to your offense, they're going to be in the playoffs. So here's my only concern about this. Even if you look at the pieces and you look at what the offense can be from a playmaking standpoint and you like it, does this move the needle enough?

What you just gave up for Devante Adams, does it really move the needle in an AFC that has gotten absolutely ridiculous in recent weeks and recent months? There are Super Bowl odds went from 60 to 1 to 50 to 1 after the Adams trade. That's a slight shift,

but they still have the worst odds to win their own division. And I understand that. When you look at the other teams in that division, when you look at some of the moves those teams have made. So that's kind of, it brings us back to the value points. Like, what are you really doing here?

It's like, oh my God, we got to Vante Adams at a position of need. That's so exciting. But where does that bring us? And would the, it's the same with the Packers. Would the other door been more attractive to us even if we understand how we landed on option B.

Yeah. Yep. And I think the question you're asking yourself is, do we give up and say, ha, this AFC is too stacked, you know, this is a three-year plan.

Or do we say, all right, you know what? You guys, we're really calling here in poker or something. We're like, hey, are you playing?

Hey, Mae, is you playing? You in? Are you going to go? And you're, you're a competitive dude. You're up there like,

yeah, man, I got a pair of sixes here. I'm going to try to get a six on the river. You know, and maybe you shouldn't be in with a pair of sixes, but what else are you going to do? I mean, I think with all this stutter stuff going on, they're Chandler-Jonesing. They're Devante Adams. They're saying, hey, we can do this too.

And when you look at, even last year, you look, shoot, the fourth-seated Bengals made it to the Super Bowl. It wasn't like, as good as all these quarterbacks are, there's not a perfect team. I think last year showed us. It wasn't juggernaut. Justin Herbert didn't even make the playoffs, right? Yeah. So maybe it's a little more open than we think. It's a free-for-all, but it wasn't like there were perfect teams.

I mean, they're taking the Russell Wilson trade not as a reason to back down, but as a shot across the bow. It's like, all right, well, I guess we're going to have to respond here. And this is their response. It's a pretty fun response. I'm going to tune into a lot of ASC West games this year. I can tell you that right now. Hey, like the fantasy commissioner wouldn't approve a lot of these trades, right?

You have players that are off limits and you're like, no, you can't do that. Those governors are off in the NFL. It's like, oh, yeah, we're in. Yeah, you know what? Hey, let me run to the car. I've got a couple things of value here. I can put in the middle of the table here. I, you know, shoot, I got this old, some jewelry, you know.

My wife's got a ring here. Let's put that in the middle. And we're in. Deal me in. Just throwing your watch down on the table. Throwing your watch down. Yeah. So let's hit one of the other bits of news that came out really right after we stopped recording yesterday.

I mean, the Baker-Mayfield drama has been ramped up here. So Mayfield yesterday afternoon officially requests a trade and the Brown swiftly deny that request. Unbelievable. We've talked about this a decent amount over the last week as things have happened with Deshawn Watson as this situation has evolved a little bit. I'm curious, what do you make of the dynamics at play here as you've watched all of this unfold? I thought it looked to me like the Browns were trying to get Baker Mayfield to break up with them. Like this is like junior high and they're like totally doing stuff. Because they have to have some sort of a feel if Watson would seriously consider them, right?

Wouldn't this be part of the calculus if you don't think you have a chance? Now, the other thing, I don't have any inside information on this, but when you start dealing with quarterbacks and especially somebody with Deshaun Watson's issues off the field, the unresolved cases. I always feel like ownership's involved and stuff like that and so part of me was reminding myself

that Jimmy Hasam owns the team and I talked to somebody who's been in Cleveland recently and he was like nah, I think Jimmy's gotten away from it. I wouldn't think that this is Jimmy doing it.

I think it is Andrew Barry and Stefanski doing it. But to me, Barry and Stefansky they literally are Ivy League guys, right? I mean, they're,

this just, they seem buttoned down. and do a little bit by the book. And look, I don't think Baker Mayfield is a great, necessarily a great fit for that offense or them, frankly. I don't. I don't think Maker Mayfield is a long-term fit for what they are. But is Deshaun Watson?

I mean, it's just a strange situation to me, especially if you didn't think you could get them. It's like, well, I guess they're going to see how Baker Mayfield responds and maybe they're going to move them. Maybe they don't care what he thinks. I think the ownership part of it is definitely something I was thinking about recently as well. It's like, all right, is this a decree from the owner that's like, all right, we have to go explore this. But the report, and it's hard to square all of this stuff, but the report that they had met with Baker's people at the combine and told them that this was a possibility leads me to believe that there was more of a set out plan and a premeditated plan that we were willing to do this.

This wasn't something where it came down from on high. it snuck up on us a little bit and we had to scramble. This does feel like there was more planning to it than it might seem. Because I take this, no, we're not trading you as a way to maintain any sort of leverage in negotiation with other teams. That's how it came off to me yesterday. Not a, oh, we're so shocked that he feels this way. We're still committed to him as our quarterback. That's not what it feels like in my mind because I don't think that they're committed to him as their quarterback.

Oh, they're clearly not. They're clearly not. If they felt that great about him, they would have entered into a long-term deal with him already. Exactly. Exactly. So, yeah, and they're not, they're also not willing to put on hold any plans that might offend him, obviously, right? They're considering their options.

If he doesn't like it, then they'll deal with that. It could be a trading him. It could be forcing him to play if they don't get a good deal. I don't think they're just going to move him and not have an option. But all of these things have to be planned out. They have to, I think we're going to see a lot of stuff. off of this Watson. What's going to happen? If he goes to Atlanta, Matt Ryan's in play. Just Matt Ryan go here. What does that mean for Garapolo? Right? There's going to be,

there's more movement that hasn't happened and that could involve Cleveland and it could just be a matter of time before they have somebody different and they know it. All right. So let's talk about some of the ripple effects here and potentially what the Deshawn Watson decision, which, honestly, the way that it's turned into like something of a reality show is very off-putting. When do you consider everything that's happening? It feels kind of gross the way this is all unfolded. But as we sit here and think about the consequences of it, if Watson does go to Atlanta, does Matt Ryan, who apparently has delayed his roster bonus, according to Adam Schaefter,

which becomes interesting, does he make sense for a team like Indianapolis? If he goes to Indianapolis, where does Baker Mayfield go? Does he go to Seattle? Does he go to Carolina? How do you think this starts to unfold? What do you think the dominoes could potentially look like? I do think Indie, I think a potential dark horse for Matt Ryan, could be Philadelphia. He's from Pennsylvania.

And they've been mentioned here or there as a team that could look. So I think that's one to just kind of keep in mind for Matt Ryan. But the fact that the bonus is delayed shows that Matt Ryan's playing along, right? If he wanted to, this is a hardball situation there. So Matt, I believe it means Matt Ryan is going to go to a team with a chance to contender be in the mix. Now, Houston didn't want Andy to get Watson. Are they okay with him getting Ryan? because can they be involved to that degree?

Maybe Matt Ryan's okay. Maybe they're not that worried about Matt Ryan for the next two or three years or whatever he has there. But I think Ryan goes to a contender. It's funny, during the season, I was trying to find a quarterback for Pittsburgh and for an office guy is like,

hey, Matt Ryan would be great. Again, he's a Pennsylvania guy. So I think Ryan goes to some kind of a contender. I think Indy makes a lot of sense. Garapolo, obviously the 49ers, moved a bunch of money around. I think that they, that shows that they're going to wait for whatever it is.

And I don't know if that's now or in June because he's not healthy. I don't know how you can just look at the Colts experience with Andrew Luck. Can you bring in a quarterback who has a throwing shoulder issue and give up something for him and be on the books and commit for him? I don't know. That could have to wait. Do you think there's a world where the Niners just have to release Jimmy at some point

where when the music stops, all the seats are filled? He's hurt and they just can't take on that $25 million. or whatever it is, and ultimately they just have to cut them? I think there is a world where that could happen. I just don't expect that to be the world that happens. I think it's somewhat likely that at the end of the day, when we get to June and July, there's one of these teams didn't solve it to their liking. Now, if Mayfield's suddenly available, that could help somebody.

But I think if Mayfield goes, then somebody, then Cleveland has a need, right? There's going to, I think there's a better chance that they find one team that really needs him and they work something out at a time when Jimmy's healthy. Yeah, because there still are some seats, right? We'll see what happens in Seattle. We'll see what happens in Carolina now that they're out of the Watson mix. It feels like... Exactly.

Yeah. Yeah. Gosh, I mean, what a mess that is. You want a Baker-Darnold battle? I mean, they're a mess. I don't know who would want to go there with Matt Ruhl could be out in week four for all we know. Well, we'll have a lot of time to address all that here in the coming days. The last thing I wanted to hit, again, something that came down yesterday after we were done recording.

Alan Robinson goes to the Rams. Three years, $45 million, $30 million guaranteed. It was a little surprising. When you consider the amount of money, the guys they have there already with Woods under contract, and then if they were going to try to bring Odell Beckham back, when you look at that offense, it theoretically fits to me. Like he's in that X role potentially that O'Dell Beckham played down the stretch. but does that mean that Woods is on the move?

Does that mean they don't want to bring Odell back and back? I'm happy for Alan Robinson, but this leads to a lot of questions for me as I think about the ripple effects potentially of him signing there. Yeah. This is just a reminder that the Rams are still in the game. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Because one of the reasons it was so quiet, it seemed quiet at the combine. Now, obviously, there was stuff under the surface going on with Wilson, but it seemed quiet early. And I was like, is this just because the Rams are sort of, have, you know, try, made their run and now they're out of it. No, this is a reminder that, hey,

and they're not afraid to, I don't know if it's upset the apple cart, but like to me, Robert Woods is just such a part of the fabric of who they are, right, and who they've been, and the way he blocks and the way he plays, this was like, whoa, this could, are they going to move on from

Robert Woods? But you're always, if you're not trying to get better, then you're not getting better, right? And this was just a reminder to me that they're in the game and they're changing their team. And I'm very much intrigued by Alan Robinson there because I think we've seen the McVeigh-Shannahan ability to scheme and sometimes get more out of a player or an offense. I believe in that. So that definitely caught my attention. And I wonder, they said they're still very much interested in bringing back to O'Dell Beckham. I mean, I could see that. But I don't think they could count on Beckham.

I don't think you can count on Beckham. I think that's what this does for you, right because now that you have allan robinson in the mix and you have him in cooper cup you can bring woods and beckham along whatever timeline you need to bring them along if you bring them all back i don't know if they have the resources to bring them all back can you justify bringing back four veteran receivers at a pretty expensive price when you consider how tight to the cap you are elsewhere i mean those are questions that they're going to have to answer i will say i love this for alan robinson now getting to be like a secondary player in a great passing offense with a real quarterback and a real offensive play caller when you consider

his history. I mean, value, roll everything else aside. I'm just happy for my guy here. And remember, they had a salary slot for Von Miller that doesn't exist, right? So that goes off. And now McVeigh, obviously McVe is like, dude, last year, what I tell you on Stafford, you guys were dragging your feet on Stafford? I told you you changed the environment, right?

Like, do you see the new Stafford commercial? I have not seen. it yet. So I saw it on mute a bunch of different times during the tournament yesterday, but I have not watched it with the sound down. He's like, you mean, uh, he's like, what if you have a phone for the last 12 years that this doesn't mean you're like giving up on all those memories of this phone, right? I mean, you could get a new one and just immediately. It was really well done. It was very well done. It was funny. It was great. And I think this is, this is one of the great things now, Robert, about this new league that we're in where all of these trades happen is we've always wondered what would happen. you take these guys in an extreme bad situation. Stafford, Detroit. Is it Detroit? Is it Stafford?

Well, after a while, they become the same. You can't separate them. Well, now we can separate them. Alan Robinson, could you have been in a worse situation? You know all about it. You're wearing a Bears hat. I certainly do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But now we actually get to see the other extreme of it. It's not like he's signing with Seattle and we don't know who their quarterback is and what his role is going to be. No, no, no. He's going to go into McVeigh with Stafford. They're going to have a complete offensive plan for this guy. we're going to see the best possible situation for him now. What does he do?

I bet it looks a lot different. I bet it looks better. I bet he's rejuvenated for his career. That's part of this too. These are humans. I think it's a huge thing for him. I totally agree. And when you think about if we bring this all back now to the landscape of the NFC,

like you said, the Rams are still in this thing. They brought back Brian Allen. They signed Joe No Boom to be their left tackle even with Andrew Whitworth retiring. They now have Alan Robinson in the mix. We'll see what their receiving core looks like. I mean, they're still going to be a team in the mix. What does the Packer, what do the Packers look like now without Devante Adams? The Bucks, they just signed Logan Ryan.

Like, if you look at the Bucks roster right now, I think you could make an argument that a week ago, we're trying to figure out who their quarterback is. Now they're the favorite in the NFC. I mean, it's wild how much all of this stuff is shifting in real time. Absolutely. And, you know, I think we have to remember, too, yes, the Rams won the Super Bowl last year. They were the fourth seat in the NFC. It wasn't like they were this.

You win the. Super Bowl, sometimes you think, okay, that's where we start from. No, no, no, you weren't even the best team last year. You just happened to win the Super Bowl, not taking anything away from you. You've got to keep striving. You're not trying to bring back and just maintain the team that won the Super Bowl, but if we replayed the season 10 times, is that the only time they win it? Nothing against them, but they were the fourth seed in the NFC. It wasn't like they were just had everything figured out. So I love the fact that you keep trying and realize it's not. bringing everybody back,

it doesn't make you be the Super Bowl winner again. You've got to keep pushing. You got to keep pushing. You got to be a little bit different. I totally agree. All right, guys, that is all we have for right now. We'll see what happens over the rest of the weekend.

Obviously, there's some stuff looming, and we will direct our attention to that when the time comes. We appreciate you guys listening. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform with choice. I sincerely appreciate it. Please subscribe to the athletic. Theathletic.com. slash football show.

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