The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Head coach opening rankings, available offensive coordinator gigs, and the NFL's potential scheme to ruin conference championship games with Mike Sando

Episode Date: January 24, 2023

Which available head coaching job is the best? Could it really be...Houston? Additionally, one-quarter of the league is going to hire a new offensive coordinator in this cycle, and that doesn't include the teams that are also looking for a new head coach. Robert Mays and Mike Sando dig into all that, plus the horrible idea hosting conference championship games at neutral sites, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeToday's episode is brought to you by...Peloton: Try Peloton risk free with a 30-Day Home Trial, New Members only at onepeloton.com/home-trialBetter Help: Visit betterhelp.com/mays today to get 10% off your first month of online therapyPenrose Hill: Go to tryfirstleaf.com/mays to get your first 6 bottles for $39.95 plus free shippingPhilo: Sign up today at philo.tv and use promo code MAYS to get 50% off your first monthRoman: To get ready, Roman Ready, for better sex this Valentine’s Day. Go to ro.co/athletic today to get 20% off your entire first order. Place before February 8th for guaranteed shipping in time.Tommy John: Get 20% off your first purchase at tommyjohn.com/athletic right now for Valentine’s Day!2:32 Ranking the head coach openings22:29 Open OC gigs, starting with the Ravens35:14 Chargers44:19 Rams46:19 Jets51:42 Lightning round: Patriots, Buccaneers, Titans, Washington63:02 Save our conference championship games! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome. It's the athletic football show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's the athletic song. Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing?

Very well, Robert. Good to be here again. Appreciate you doing this. We got a couple more of these left. Yeah. I believe you'll be with us next week after the conference championship games. And then we will pivot to a slightly different schedule for the Super Bowl. I've really enjoyed doing this with you every single Monday.

I appreciate you. taking it on on top of the 10,000 other things that you have to consistently do throughout the week. You know, it's been good. It's good. It's fun to do. But it's a good exercise too because we come up with some topics and we have to look at it. Right. You have to sort of do some homework. And we get better doing that and learn to pick up a couple things that I'll use the rest of the week in the season. So it's good. It's fun. We're going to do a couple things today. There are eight, I believe, offensive coordinator openings that aren't tied to other head coach openings. So teams that currently employ a head coach but are looking for an offensive

coordinator. Mike, that's a quarter of the league. That's one quarter of NFL teams looking for a new offensive coordinator. I want to talk about that more generally, but also some of the openings, the ones that we find most interesting, maybe kind of go through those in that order. We're going to talk about the league's questionable floating of the idea that they might move the conference championship games to neutral sites. I wanted to address that before we finish this show. But I want to start with where you began your pick six column today. And that is

with kind of an unofficial ranking of the head coach openings in the NFL after canvassing some people that you know throughout the league. Yeah. And one of the reasons I wanted to talk about this is that I found the results kind of shocking when you actually stacked them up and you started ranking them, I was like, holy shit. And I think what's driving that the most is you had the Houston Texans at number one. So explain the methodology a little bit for people. And then let's go through these. I kind of feel like I wish that it was Carolina, but I would go back and forth on those two.

But really, obviously you're looking, you do look at ownership and you look at what's the quarterback situation, right? I mean, can we get one? Do we have the ammo? Or do we have one? Do we like them? Are we committed to them? And I think when you look at those teams, Arizona, Denver, Indy, Houston, and Carolina,

Denver and Arizona have anchors around their ankles, right? So you're going in there, you're committed to a big money deal with Russell Wilson and all that comes with that. Having traded away draft picks, they actually have a little bit of age on their roster. I'm not overly concerned with it, but I think the offense isn't that great. Defense, pretty good. But the Wilson thing hangs over it. And this is not Pat Bowens Broncos. We have a new owner who seems to have a lot of money, and that's great.

But we don't know. And there's just, to me, I didn't write as much about this. That just seems to be a place where there's a lot of smoke and narratives coming around, right? Like, I'm just not sure what, I'm not sure that that's what I want to walk into when I have to have Wilson at age 34, given what, where he's had in his career. And the extension hasn't even started. I think Arizona is a little bit of the same thing where Kyler Murray, not only is he injured, but you're, you're tethered to him on this big deal at a place where they've done all kinds of crazy things.

Steve Wilkes, meet Josh Rosen. You're both fired. Hey, uh, great job, Cliff. Great job, Cliff Kingsbury, Steve Kime, uh, Kyler Murray. Here's new contracts. You better do your homework, Cather. And then a year later, you're fired. So, uh, that is not a great situation.

And as we talked about, they have the oldest offensive starters in the league when you remove quarterbacks from the equation in Arizona. That is kind of shocking. That is despairing. So I think those two go to the bottom as we do this. And when we look at these teams, one of the things I mentioned is this isn't the Rooney's hiring, right? These are all sort of bad situation teams. That's why they're in this mix.

That's why they've won 28% of their games over the last three years. So now you're like, okay, most of these places have some concerns over the owner, right? Jim Ursay, Mike Bidwell, Cal McNair. We're not sure on Tepper yet. but certainly Houston has the best draft capital by far, a few good pieces out of their last draft, a running back, a corner, a safety that you like. And you're hoping now that after one and dunning David Culley and Levy Smith,

you're going to get a little bit of a runway. This is for reals now. Whoever comes in there is going to be able to get a quarterback, have draft capital, and go with an owner who's not great, but does it I don't think the owner's actively bad I don't think the owner's going to pull a he may be vulnerable to someone who's bad but he's not going to pull an ursa and have Jeff Saturday come in in week four so you know you're laughing because all these situations are fly I laughed at it for reels I thought that is I for reels this is for reels killed me we're going for reels like your kids are we playing for reels yes so I think that's exactly right in terms of the framing because when you had the Texans in one my first thought is, have you seen Cal McNair? Have you listened to Cal McNair? Have you seen what's happened in Houston over the last five or so years?

It's been bad. But you're right. If you look at all of these situations, I think there is uncertainty or real questions about the ownership. Arizona, even if the Caler Murray question aside, you know, this is a team, like you said, they fired Steve Wilkes after a year. They just fired these guys after giving them a contract extension. The one element of Arizona's overall structure that I would be maybe a

little encouraged by because it's going to be different is that it's going to be different. Them bringing in Moni-Aaustin Fort and not going with someone who has worked in the organization for decades. We talked about this last week. You talked about this with Randy. I think that that may be them turning a page and maybe will things feel a little bit different. Is that a positive or a negative we don't know? But all of the other ones, Denver, we have no idea.

We've absolutely no idea what their ownership is going to be like. All we have so far is the huge trade that George Payton made and what the roster looks like. not with Russell Wilson, even if I think George Payton still has a pretty good reputation around the league. Indy, for so long, I think, was held up as one of those, not model franchises around the league, but a stable place. They were a place that was successful year after year, and they were always relevant. Well, I think a lot of the reason that they were always relevant is that they went from 20 years of Peyton Manning to five years of Andrew Luck immediately. And now that you remove some of that, you kind of have Jim Ursay and his erratic behavior and the way that he handles this kind of stuff coming front and center.

And I don't know if that job has the cachet or the shine, then it would have, that it would have five, ten years ago. And go a little bit further. I would be too. I absolutely would be too. And so I think that that one, that would be the first one. I was like, well, the Colts, you know, that one, that's more of a known quantity, but I still feel like that's way more of a crapshoot than it might have seemed a couple years ago because of the decisions that he's been making recently. And so ultimately, I think the biggest question involved in this, and you and Randy have talked on that this a little bit, do we think Dave Tepper is a bad owner based on what we've seen so far?

Because if you think he's not a bad owner, I think some of the talent on the Panthers roster, the draft capital that they have, and an owner who's maybe willing to spend and willing to push things a little bit can be construed as a positive. So I would be tempted to lean Carolina here just because I don't think that the ownership thing is as demonstrably bad as it is in a place like Houston. Right. I think the question, there's two different types of, there's different types of bad ownership, though. I think Cal McNair is not going to actively make you do things. He's not going to call you in and say, what were we doing on third down? He's not going to constantly question everything you do. But he might hire Jack Easterby and then have things be in a different odd state. He's not going to make it good. Or if you're Brian Gain, he's firing you and hiring Bill O'Brien and promoting Bill O'Brien. Yeah, but that could be Bill O'Brien involved in doing that too. So I think with a Cal McNair, you're very vulnerable to who you have. Like your head coach and your GM, if they're good, I think you can be great there. Whereas I think like in Indy, even if Chris Ballard and Frank Reich made missteps or should have done a better job, I think they were solid, stable people. And they got completely whacked by the owner, right? Like, I don't think Cal McNair by himself is going to do that.

He may allow within his organization for Bill O'Brien to force out this guy or for weird things to happen. So that's a distinction that I would make with Houston. They'll be as good or bad as who they have in there. Whereas I think Tepper is going to be more involved and it can be good and bad. The good part is I think he really genuinely is competitive and wants to win. In this business, they print money. is Jerry Jones every waking hour trying to figure out how they can win or is it just he loves owning the Cowboys? He's got a gold jacket.

He's won Super Bowls. To me, he's not pushing to win in the same way that Tepper might be. So that could be a positive. Now, as a coach going in there, you may have to really answer to him all the time. Why are we doing this? He may have ideas and that can be not for everyone. But I think he's going to spend money and he's going to really want to win and he's going to be trying to hold everybody accountable.

It's a fascinating conversation because in both Carolina and Houston, you have a GM who's already in place. So I think a big question of this is, how do you feel about Scott Fitterer and Nick Casario? I think Scott Fitterer has done a decent job with a lot of the player acquisition stuff that Carolina has done. I think the Carolina maybe has the best underlying talent of all of these teams. But you have a blank slate in Houston, but you have a blank slate where you have to work

with a GM who's been very involved. I mean, there are just so many things to consider. If you go to Denver, you have to worry about paying Russell Wilson, but you could make $18 million a year because it doesn't matter what they're paying their head coach. So there's a sliding scale on all of this. If you were to take, so like right now, Houston has two ones, a two and two three. So they own two and twelve, okay, as their overall picks. Carolina has a one, a two, two, two, and the three. If you move the 12th pick to Carolina, they're the unanimous choice on this list, wouldn't you say?

we'd see a one, one, two, two, three for them. We'd be like, oh, my gosh. So then you have to step back and say, wait, is that really enough to sway one of these things? Maybe it should be Carolina. That's kind of what I went back and forth within my mind was those two teams, but I felt pretty strongly that it was one of those at the top. I also think that the Texans being in a position to really take whoever they want a quarterback. They're going to come away from this draft with a young quarterback, whether it's at two

or whether it's them moving up to one, where Carolina becomes. a little bit more of a question how they get up there and find their guy. If I were the Panthers, I would be motivated to try to do that this year while I have the extra draft capital and while I have, I think, a fairly strong supporting cast around that guy. A lot of these teams, if you're drafting a quarterback in the top 10, you don't feel good about the situation you're dropping that guy into personnel-wise. I think the Panthers should feel okay about that. They have two young tackles that they probably have to feel pretty good about. DJ Moore is on this team. that guy would be more set up to succeed than a lot of teams picking in the top 10.

So I wouldn't, I'd be motivated to go make that happen. And then you look what's happening on defense, it's just hard for me not to pick Carolina here, even with all of the war chest of picks that Texans have. And part of this is you do have to go in and have those conversations with Scott Fitterer and Nick Casario. And I think, I think Fitterer is a better fit with a wider range of people because I think he's just more of a traditional scouting GM. I think he's pretty low-key. I think he's worked with Matt Ruhle. He's in Seattle when they worked with Pete Carroll. I think he's going to get along.

I think Casario comes with a very new- It's actually a great point is that he's been a GM in two places where the coaches had a lot of say. Yeah, a lot of say. So now Casario isn't for everybody because he's coming from New England. He has, we talked about it. He has a headset on on game day. He's into that. He's been a coach on the field. He's been a front office guy. He has sort of his hand and knowledge probably in a lot of different things that some coaching staffs may not want to have him involved in and we'll see how that evolved. Do you need to be kind of familiar with New England to fit well with him? I think that is something we don't really know until they until the candidate goes in there and has a feel for it. It may not be for everyone that

could elevate Carolina and make them a little bit more open to anybody. The one thing I will say is that the question of the two quarterbacks that we're talking about. I wonder if we're not using our imaginations enough about how attractive the job is in Denver, and we're overrating how long Russell Wilson will have to be there. If you're going to get that job and they're going to pay you an astronomical amount of money and it's going to be an ownership group with endless amount of resources, and George Payton is a solid GM, which I think he certainly has a chance to be. and you have to kind of bite the bullet with one year of Russell before you cut the court after this season.

Does that job suddenly become a lot more attractive if you know that you're safe no matter how Wilson plays this year? Yeah, I think that helps. I think it depends on kind of who you are too. If you're bigger than Russell Wilson, right? If it's a Sean Payton, to me it's a lot easier because if it doesn't go well, we were like, okay, it was Russell for sure. You know, if it's a Hackett type, then they just blame Hackett, right? And so I think that, yeah, I think if you know you can get out of it. But that's the internet.

I would love to be a fly on the wall in those conversations with the new owner who's new to football and everything in it, but has been around the last season. And then George Peyton, who really kind of put his neck on the line and not only hiring Hackett, but bringing in Wilson, has Peyton had to tell those owners, hey, look, you know, Kyle, it just didn't work out. But Russ is going to be fine. Trust me. We're going to get this turned around. or can he honestly tell them, hey, look, Russell is not what we thought it was going to be, and this is going to be tough, we're going to have to get out of it. Because you just don't know, but can you imagine being George Peyton in that situation with new owners?

What do you have to tell the new owners? What's a reasonable amount that you can come clean with a new owner if you've messed up? Now, he may genuinely think that Russell's going to be fine. He may genuinely think that. But what if he sort of has his doubts, but then you have the new owners, can you really? can you really tell your new bosses, hey, the only things I really messed up was the head coach and the quarterback. Can you really say that, right? Because we know that the coach has been rolled on.

Everything was his fault. He couldn't manage the games. We had to bring people in. So we've already had to say he's fair or not a complete failure. So what do we have to say on Wilson? I would love to hear that. I would just love for a little way to what they're thinking. I totally agree.

Yeah, that's a delicate thing. But if I were a coach, it would be the number one question I would ask, is how is my fate tied to the quarterbacks? Is it at all? I would want to know that the moment I sat down. What does the coach have to say to get the job? And who, you know, if it's Sean Peyton and he goes in there and says, look, Russ can't play.

I mean, we'll make the best of it, but I'm worried. Does he still get the job? Or do you, if does Dan Quinn go in there and say, you know, I think we can do this. We'll hire Brian Schottnheimer or whoever's work with him. We'll get this thing going. even if he doesn't fully believe it, you know, those are all weird discussions. Like, what would you do to get a five or ten million or $15 million your job? Just from a distance, it feels like personality-wise, that would be something that Dan Quinn would say.

It would be something that Sean Payton would also say. Trump would come in and be like, absolutely like, this isn't going to work. And Dan Quinn be like, you know what, I think we can do this. Dan Quinn, the eternal optimist that he is. I'd be fascinated to see how those would unfold. The Cardinals part of it, before we move on, that's the most interesting one to me, just because outside of Kyler, it does feel like a little bit of a blank slate. I understand that's a pretty important caveat, considering he has a $52 million cap hit in

2024, and you're tied to him for several years. But other than that, if they're going to move on from DeAndre Hopkins, again, they have the oldest offense in the NFL this season. You look at building blocks on the Arizona Cardinals' offense. What would you say? Hollywood Brown maybe is young. He's going to be on their roster at least this year, but he's nearing the end of a rookie deal. I mean, that's really it.

DJ Humphreys, who's on the wrong side of 30 now, they just don't really have much. So you're starting over, and I think the rumblings about Hopkins being traded is a clear declaration of that. And then you go to the other side of the ball, and Boota Baker's pretty good. Baker's great, man.

We need 11 of him, please. They have some interesting pieces that maybe aren't for everybody, right? The outside linebacker contingent, are those every-down players for everybody. They're kind of some positionalessy, right? Or kind of, it's just, yeah, JJ Watt retires. I felt like it feels like they just patched with a lot of veterans and never did figure out really the cornerback position, right?

There's just no underlying homegrown talent on the team. We said this last year. I remember Nate and I having this exact conversation after they lost to the Rams and talking about what the roster looked like. And I think that now you're seeing exactly how prone they were to the bottom falling out. So you move on from Hopkins, and I mean, you look at the roster, D.J. Humphreys, Buda Baker, Hollywood Brown, Zach Ertz, you know, James Connor, and then the linebackers that they drafted. Jaywin Thompson, they extended.

It's just a very, very weird team. And I think you can construe that in a good or bad way. If they're closer to the beginning than the end, can you have a lot of leeway as a general manager to kind of rebuild this the way that you see fit? How much flexibility do you really have, though, if you're having to build around Kyler in that contract? fascinating, isn't it? Because you're so committed to Kyler that we have to get this right for him in his window,

right? Isn't that the normal thing? And they're not really set up to do that. And what does the owner think? What does he want? I would think Moni Austin Ford has to be thinking long term, but does he get to do that? We'll see. I think the conclusion we have to come to at the end of this is, like you said, the Roonies aren't hiring.

The Steelers aren't looking for a coach here. And it feels that way. And I think you put in the Texans at one. and be being like, wait, really? But then actually thinking about it for five more minutes, it's not a great slate of jobs. Yeah. Yep. That's why they're open.

We'll have a lot more time to dig into all of those. Let's talk about the Office of Coordinator openings. There are eight of them, again, that are not tied to head coach openings. We wanted to order these and kind of how interested we are in them. The first team that came out of your mouth when we started this discussion was the Ravens. And I totally understand why you'd go that direction. So where is your head at with the Ravens offensive coordinator search right now? I'm so fascinated by it because there's been such kind of debate around the Ravens in terms of what they should be doing with Lamar and how good of a passer Lamar really is.

And what it would take for him to really expand as a passer. or they've had bad wide receivers there. It's been a very run-oriented offense. There's been criticism of Greg Roman that it's too run-oriented. Yet at the same time, if I was bringing Lamar Jackson to the league and could pick one coordinator, it would be Greg Roman.

I think he's a perfect fit for them. So I actually think they can't get anyone who's a better fit for them than Greg Roman. But I also understand sometimes a 10-year runs its course. And now we get to see. What fascinates me is I think John Harbaugh wants to run the ball and play defense anyway. I think that's what he wants to do. I think that's his mindset.

I think that's what he comes from. And so what does Lamar Jackson think he needs and wants to be? Because they sit at the press conference. Hey, he's going to be involved. If you don't want Greg Roman, what do you want there? What's the offense look like? You want to have just a regular pass offense? I understand the guys that they're going after, right?

So their candidates so far that they've interviewed, we might be missing a couple, but these are the ones that I had written down. Zach Robinson, who is the quarterback's coach for the Rams. I think trying to tap into that McVe-Shanehan sort of tree, obviously the Rams' offenses look very different over the last two years than it looked with Jared Goff, but the bones of what that offense was, where it was a lot of play action, a lot of move in the pocket, where the run game used to be very good,

trying to tap into that with the Ravens personnel. I totally understand that. Dave Canales is the quarterback's coach for the Seahawks. The Seahawks come from a kind of similar place with Shane Waldron as their offensive coordinator. Brian Angelico, who is the Vikings past game coordinator. He was a long time NFL tight ends coached at a bunch of different places. Minnesota, again, I think runs a fairly similar system that comes from a similar place as the first two that we just talked about. So just something that is a little bit more traditional, but also has that marriage between

in the run and the past that we have seen from those kind of true blue Shanahan McVeigh-type teams. I could see that it's the right path. I get that. I get looking in that direction. I'd like the Philly offense. How about that? Yeah. I mean, I understand that as well.

I think that, I don't know. It's, I don't think it's going to be as drastic of a shift to something like this as it might seem. I think that I feel the same way about this situation as I probably did near the end of Greg Roman's tenure with the Niners where you wrote about this today. You have this spike early on when he gets there because I think it's twofold. One, it's a unique offense. You know, Jesse Bates was complaining about it last week. He was like, now we get to actually prepare for a real NFL offense. I don't have to worry about the triple option anymore. So the novelty of it combined with having a supernova talent at quarterback that's very different than other players you're going to play

against. That's what early Kaepernick felt like and Lamar felt like the furthest extreme of that. I think eventually there are diminishing returns on what that sort of offense looks like. If you pivot away from it, I think that's your potential chance to kind of change the curve direction back in your favor. I think what happened though in both of those places is I think the personnel fell off too. You would have a Vernon Davis and Delaney Walker. or waning or leaving, right? You, the offensive line would be at a different spot. That's all happened.

There's been attrition in Baltimore, too. Baltimore this year through week nine before Lamar Jackson was injured and before they had totally lost Rashad Bateman and Devin DuVernay as wide receivers. They were top five in the league in offensive EPA per game and top ten in offensive points per game. And then everything, the change when they went to Titer Huntley and they went to a complete

just get us out of the game offense and their scoring was way down and then at the end of the year Lamar never comes back and Greg Roman's out I mean we're going to go through these quarterbacks these coordinators and what I did for every one of them is I pulled

up kind of some basic offensive stats for every one of them based on who their starting quarterback was they were top 10 or top five when Lamar was playing this year in those metrics, even if we didn't feel great about how it was looking or this or that. So then he and the receivers leave for the final seven weeks of the season and Lamar never

returns. And man, Roman's got to get out of there. Well, what if Lamar played the whole year? They might have beat Cincinnati. I think this brings me back to something you've said in that when they have to play on third down, when the game is no longer there. to dictate what does the passing game look like outside of Lamar using his legs. And I can understand if you're Baltimore looking at your struggles there, I'm staring at it

right now. Among 39 quarterbacks, Lamar was 25th and EPA per dropback on third down. Okay. That count. That number is a little bit skewed because that kind of scrambles. So looking at it one step further, taking out scrambles from that, quarterbacks who had at least 100 attempts this year, there were 47 of them. Lamar ranked 37th. an EPA per dropback per attempt. It was right next to Tyler Huntley, honestly. Below Marcus Marietta, below Russell Wilson, Andy Dalton.

So if you're the Ravens, are you looking at that problem that you faced and said, all right, with a new coordinator and a new approach on offense and a more voluminous drop back game and we have to drop back, can we find the next gear of who we want to be? And if the answer is yes, I get how you get there. Yep. I think it really starts with the quarterback's fundamentals becoming more consistent and just being really dialed in on that. And I think one of the challenges when you're so good and have a superpower is that you don't have to do that for the longest time. And so now you're trying to do that.

Can he get there and be as precise as you need to be and all of your drops and your footwork? I'm not a quarterback coach or an expert, but I've watched the breakdowns with coaches and seen that. and he has inconsistency there. Is that Greg Roman's fault? I mean, maybe it is. Maybe they should have been drilling that more. Maybe a different coach, certainly a different coach, will have a different style of offense

with probably more volume of the dropback. I just think when you look at the totality of Greg Roman's tenure there, let's just say if Lamar stays there the next three or four years, I think it's going to look pretty good compared to whatever it is that's next. I don't think we're going to see it get better than it's been on the whole for him. Do you agree? I don't know.

Just lock in those numbers. I don't know. So 26.9 offensive. 26.9 offensive points per game under Greg Rowman when Lamar Jackson starts. Okay. Plus 4.6 EPA per game on offense. 0.43 offensive EPA for drive, which isn't going to mean stuff. No one knows what that means.

But we could just put that in, put that down and just say, okay, let's look up after the next coordinator. If he gets, I think there's 54 starts for Roman there. Well, that's what I mean. I don't think the answer. I don't think it's going to be because the heights early on were so high that I think on average, it's going to be hard to beat that average. But I do think it can be better than what it is right now. Absolutely.

And I think that's the most important thing. That will be driven by person. You certainly can, but I think that will be as personnel. That will involve a personnel component too. Yes, I agree with that. At the receiver position and, you know, we'll see. I think it can't, I think more than one thing can be true that it can be time for some kind of a change. And I'm fascinated to see it.

I can't wait to see it, but I'm not like going out there and betting on it either. We'll see. We'll see who it is. And we'll see if Lamar's even the quarterback. Then what'll happen is once it doesn't happen, once it doesn't get way better, then it'll be, then Harbaugh will be blamed. Mark my words. That's exactly what's going to happen.

Harbaugh's holding him back, just like Pete Carrab was holding back Russell Wilson. He was, right? I mean, you've got to let Russ Cook. Russ doesn't need the heavy run game. Are you kidding me? This guy's CEO of the offense. You've got to turn him loose. I think it's about finding the right middle ground.

Get him away from the 71-year-old Pete Carroll. He's going to flourish. I think it's about finding the right middle ground. Yeah, I think it is. That's how I feel about it. And about taking, it would be so silly to think that you're going to maximize Lamar Jackson's value by taking away the bone. of that quarterback run game that you've built there. And by living in the shotgun and doing all that stuff,

I talked to a defense coordinator this year, joke to me, said every time they get under center, I throw a party. And I understand that. And you don't have to do that. I think the Eagles are a perfect example, right? Yeah.

We look at what Nick Siriani, where he comes from and where Shane Steichen comes from, and you look at what the Eagles are. It's an amalgam of all these different ideas where it's like, okay, this is where a quarterback does well. so let's take the ideas that we have and graph them on to what he does well. So I think you can have a more traditional NFL offense that shares similarities with some of these schemes we see around the league while also having the shotgun quarterback run game as an aspect of that.

I don't think that those two things have to exist in separate worlds. I think that it's about tweaking aspects of your offense, not about wholesale changes for the approach, because overall a lot of their philosophy that they've had in Baltimore is one of the reasons that Lamar has been able to succeed the way that he has. Yep. Yeah. Going to be fascinating. What do you think of the list of guys who are interviewing? It's interesting to me. I get, again, I get it. I think that the Zach Robinson thing makes sense. We talk about the next one here on this list. The Chargers also want to interview him. I don't know much about Angelico. I don't know if you know him at all. Dave Canellis, I think that what Seattle has done, you know, this year, especially on

offense as they've kind of transitioned away from what Russ wanted to do has been particularly impressive. So I get wanting to go that direction. I don't know. What do you think of the list overall? Do you think those guys are going to come in and tell John Harbaugh how they want to run the offense and just sort of how much they want to pass the ball and incorporate the dropback game? Or do you think that they're going to take the orders from John? It's a great question. I would have to assume some of the latter, right? They're not bringing in Mike Martz, right? They're not bringing in someone who's going. They're not bringing in Norv Turner who will leave in the middle of the season and tell Mike Zimmer where to go, right?

They're not bringing that in. That is not the type of guys that they're after here. All right. Let's get to our next one on the list here. You want to talk about the Chargers next, which I think is arguably the most interesting, compelling one of all of these. Mike Jones at the Athletic ranked these openings last week after talking to some people. and the Chargers were number one on that list. Getting to work with Justin Herbert for any offensive coordinator, I think, would be pretty attractive.

The list that they have so far, they also, I think, have at least requested to or interviewed Zach Robinson, who was the Rams quarterback's coach. Makes a lot of sense based on what the conversation we had with Jordan, Roderick, last week, about where they might go at offensive coordinator. They were looking at that tree even before. They ultimately hired Joe Lombardi. I think that Nate Hackett was a candidate for that job and coaches from that. spot. Greg Olson, who was on the ramp staff, long-time NFL offensive coordinator. And then the

other one that they requested is Luke Steckle, who is the Titans, tight ends coach and was a little bit of a surprise. I don't think he's been on many other lists, but this is certainly an attractive job. I think that we can all agree on that. It really is. I'm just looking at these lists. Greg Olson, now he's been around, and he's done. Greg Olson's been around, yes. Wiley, he has a wily veteran look to him, Greg. He ever hung out. He certainly does. Greg Olson, if you've covered the NFL for long enough, you've certainly talked to Greg Olson because he's coached for like 20 different teams. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think they're fascinating. I really do think they're fascinating because, you know, I was thinking

of this the other day. I was looking at, I should, I meant to do a note of this in my column, but, you know, a couple years ago, they interviewed dayball. Dayball was like a college, he's a college teammate with Tom Telesco, I think, or high school. They played high school ball. They're And I was thinking, you know, here they are. This is the argument against the defensive coach, right? And I'm not saying I agree with the argument. But hey, you're going to be looking for coordinators. You're going to lose them.

Or what if you can't find the right one? I was just thinking, what if they had hired dayball as their coach? There probably wouldn't be interviews for offensive coordinator. It just struck me as something that, wow, you know, one of those big forks in the road. And they ended up going with Brandon Staley, who's a defensive coach. So what does that entail? I think we're still figuring out what Brandon Staley's all about, right? I mean, he kind of wowed everybody with, you know, the fourth down aggressiveness early.

So he got branded as the analytics guy. Then this year, the analytics crowd was kind of crushing them, right? You've betrayed us, you know, because it was half joking. What does Brandon Staley want to be? He's a defensive coach. Does he want? Obviously, they probably need more of a run game than they've had. But you've got this quarterback that everyone thinks should be in a little.

lead passer. You have pretty good talent that isn't always on the field. I would love to know what exactly, what are we looking for? What do we want to be? What style of play under the defensive head coach are we looking for? I would love to see them run the offense that the Rams have run over the last couple years. Yeah.

And not just the 2019 golf Rams, but if they want to sit back in Shaka and push the ball down the field, they have a quarterback who is. rarely equipped, uniquely equipped to play that way. I mean, there are very few guys that have ever played football that have Matthew Stafford's arm. One of them currently resides in Los Angeles and plays quarterback in the same stadium. So if you're going to try to tap into those ideas, I totally get it. And again, if you want to have more of the traditional kind of McVeigh-Shan elements where there's the movement game and the play action game and you sprinkle all that stuff in because he can absolutely do that, I would love to see them just try to do everything they could to Xerox that.

And I think a lot of what they're trying to do is indicative of that. West Phillips, who's the Vikings offensive coordinator right now, they request an interview with him and he declined it because I think he just is happy with what's going on Minnesota right now. But he was on the RAM staff with Kevin O'Connell. They tried to hire Kevin O'Connell. So it really does seem like they're trying to tap into what a lot of those ideas were in Los Angeles. And that's before that playbook even expanded. So I get why they're looking in the place that they're looking.

Yeah. Yeah, I just think they're, I don't know, I don't know how much more I have to add on it until we see what they actually do. But it's got to be one of the most attractive ones. It's just such a rare quarterback. They, they've been good, not great. You know, it's been disappointing. And I was reading, you know, some of Daniel Popper stuff. It does a great job for us on the beat, you know, talking about is it, is it Justin Herbert sort of,

hesitation and sometimes unwillingness to really cut it loose and go downfield? Is it that one or two of those receivers are always sort of in and out of the lineup? Is it that Lombardi is down and up that way? It's kind of a place where we think we know what a lot of the problems are, but we're not really sure 100% of who to blame or how to fix it. I mean, I think we just assume you're going to get a great coordinator in there and Justin Herbert's going to take off, but I don't know. It's similar to a Lamar thing.

from me where I just want to be able to control for some of the variables. I don't know if Lamar is going to thrive in a slightly more modern passing game, but I want to provide him with a more modern passing game to see. I don't know if Justin Herbert, we talk about this with Nate sometimes where it's certain aspects of quarterback play. Is it a feature or a bug? Is the speed at which Justin Herbert processes and gets down to his checkdowns? Is that a feature of Justin Herbert's game or is that a bug of Justin Herbert's game?

Well, I want to build a more vertical passing. game so I can more easily decide and conclude whether it's a feature or bug, whether that's just going to be who Justin Herbert is, or if we build a more vertical passing game, do we see a different version of Justin Herbert? The perfect example, I come back to it. From 2014 through 2018, Matthew Stafford's two offensive coordinators were Joe Lombardi and Jim Bob Cooter. Okay.

Over that stretch, there were 40. quarterbacks that attempted at least 500 passes in the NFL. Of those 44, where do you think Matthew Stafford ranked in air yards per target? Matthew Stafford. Out of how many? The golden arm. 44, probably 40th. He was 41st.

The three quarterbacks who averaged a shorter average depth of target over those seasons than Matthew Stafford were Drew Brees, Alex Smith, and Sam Bradford. that's it. No doubt about it. So over, let's change the page, let's turn the page. They go get Darrell Bevel the following year, okay? Oh yeah, totally took off. More vertical passing game, more play action, okay?

Over those two seasons in 2019 and 2020, where do you think Matthew Stafford ranked among 32 qualified quarterbacks in air yards per target? I bet he's in the top eight. He's second. Yeah. So he went from 41st out of 44 over that four-year stretch to second with a different offensive scheme and a different play caller. So that's my question about Justin Herbert.

If you change the details, do you see a different quarterback with a different mindset? And that's what I want to see. I want to control for some variables and get some answers on the other side of it. I think you will. I think you make a really compelling case there. And I've got in front of me. So when Lombardi was with Stafford in Detroit, 18.6 points per game, you know, in his starts, that's really a low number. I'm sure there were mitigating factors.

But, yes, I remember that area yard stuff because I remember when Beville came in there going, wow, I was kind of following it from afar. And I was just like, wow. I loved watching him in 2019 before he got hurt. I loved watching him. He was awesome. Yeah. So that would be that, if we could get that type of thing going, that would be. compelling to me. That excites me a little bit. And plus, I would like in LA to just outram the Rams,

just run the Rams offense with the quarterback that probably, you know, Sean McVeigh wouldn't mind have an eater. That's awesome. I like the idea. Speaking of the Rams just very quickly, they haven't done many interviews. Michael Fleur feels like he's the favorite for that job. I think they've interviewed Brian Johnson as the Eagles quarterback's coach and Marcus Brady, who is the Colts offensive coordinator. It seems like if you're reading that he leaves, Michael Flore might end up there and they might just kind of keep things within the family and offensive family. So I don't think we have to spend a ton of time on the Rams. Speaking of Darrell Bevel,

Darrell Bevel declined two interview requests for two of these jobs. He was requested by the Jets and Washington and declined those interview requests. So I'm always interested by that. Like if you like the job that you have, he's moved around a bunch recently. He was in Jacksonville and now he was in Miami. He's been a coach for a really long time. He just wants to stay put in one place. But I think the fact that him and West Phillips, both of whom are working in places where they had some success and by all account seems like it's a really good culture.

When coaches decide, you know what, I'm happy where I'm at, that always, always pay attention to stuff like that. I think Bevel's at a different point of his career than some of the people are, right? I mean, he's been a coordinator. He's made money. He's got a family. He's, you know, there's different considerations for him. Whereas if you're 25 and you get a coordinator job, you're like, okay, I'll pack my back. tonight we're going and the whole family just has to go along because this is such a golden

opportunity. I think it's a great spot for him to absorb more of that offense. Right. It adds, that's not a bad offense to be, you know, to be associated with. No. Bevel has years ago interviewed for head coaching job in Arizona. I remember that. And so, you know, maybe he has some other aspirations and maybe if he were to be able to get that going and maybe get a coordinator job running that offense, maybe it puts them in a different stratosphere. The one that I think is fascinating, and it was a little bit further down your list, is the Jets. Just because I don't know who the quarterback is going to be. It feels like they want to be competitive right now.

And if you look at their candidate list, you mentioned do you want to tap into what the Eagles are doing? They interviewed Kevin Petulow, I believe is the passing game coordinator for the Eagles. They interviewed Brian Johnson, who's the Eagles quarterback's coach. They've also interviewed Nate Hackett for that job. and Clint Kubiak. So Clint Kubiak, who was with Nate Hackett in Denver as his quarterback's coach and then eventually took over as the play caller later in the season. So they're hunting in kind of some similar spots and maybe some spots that you would be able to predict for that job.

I think of the market there. I think that's a tough place. Yeah. Nathaniel Hackett, after what he came off of, has one bad game in the Jets. The whole media turns on them. Does that where you want to be? It's inevitable. I think that's a place where you need.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, I don't think, you know, Matt, Mike LaFleur is winning any awards for his tenure there, but 22 games of Zach Wilson, seven of Mike White, and five of Joe Flacco is not exactly putting you in position, you know, for the next job either. So I think you need somebody there with some credibility. I also don't like, you know, the job that opens and you're late in your 10 years of head coach, not that Sal is going to be out of there necessarily, but he could be, right? I mean, this is an important year. You're a little bit far down the road.

That's a tough one to hire another Mike Lafleur, right? Somebody who's younger and trying to get going. That's not an attractive job. Yeah, there's a lot of questions about it. But again, I think the candidate list makes sense to me. But if they hired Hackett, I think that a lot of people would be up in arms, even if it's probably unfair. Yeah, who's the last Jets offensive coordinator that they were happy with, the public?

Jets public. Because I've got them all right here. I did a little bit of homework here. New York Jets. I'm scrolling. The New York Jets. He wasn't the offensive coordinator, but I think the last time that they were like fun as, as an offense. So my answer is I actually liked some of the stuff they did when Johnny Morton was there in 2017.

I don't know what his public perception was, but I enjoy asking. aspects of the 2017 Jets offense. So since I did the last 20 years, okay, there's a lot of ways you can do this, but we all know that if you're zero EPA, you'd be average, right? Zero, you're not adding or taking away. You're not better or worse than average, okay? So they have had in the last 20 years, one, two, four, maybe four or five seasons where the EPA was not negative.

That means they were at least average. Okay. And that was 2015 Chan Galey, 24 offensive points per game, one EPA per game. Was he the offensive coordinator? He was listed as the offensive coordinator, 2015. Okay, okay, okay. So that would be my answer. Yep.

Now you go back before that. Brian Schottenheimer in 08 had a pretty good one, okay? Almost plus three EPA per game. and Paul Hackett in 2004. Those are the Jets high watermarks. Here's LaFleur, Dalai Langeons, Jeremy Bates, John Morton, Chan Galey, Marty Morton, Wig, Tony Sparano, Brian Schottenheimer, Paul Hackett. That's 20 years of Jets' offensive coordinators and some good football people in there. Tough place.

Here's my argument for Johnny Morton in 2017, okay? Love it, love it. Overall, the offense is bad. It's the only place you can get a Johnny Morton. This is only a place you can get a Johnny Morton testimony. Let's go. So Johnny Morton's career is interesting. He's in Detroit right now.

And I don't think it's an accident that Detroit has all these interesting past concepts. This is a guy who has worked for a bunch of different places. His career has spanned a bunch of different places. He worked in New Orleans with Sean Peyton at one point. He worked in, he worked with the Raiders over the last couple years. And he, the way that it's been described to me is he just has this kind of voluminance. of passing concepts in his brain. And he's really incorporated that into some of the offenses that he's worked for.

So in 2017, when he was the Jets offensive coordinator, their overall averages were bad. That's because Bryce Petty was dead last among every NFL quarterback in EPA per dropback that year among 44 qualified guys. Josh McCowan was 16th. Josh McCown was right there with Russell Wilson that year. So they had like a middle of the road passing offense with Josh McCown that year. but those numbers were really driven down because of what they had with Bryce Petty. So there's my Johnny Morton defense.

I love it. No, but he was with Greg Roman in San Francisco too, right? So he, correct? I believe that he was. Yeah, he was a wide receiver's coach for four years. So he has some really cool background to him. He has some cool background to him. That's pretty, I like that.

I like that. So he's got Sean Peyton, he's got Greg Roman. Yeah. It's not bad. This is the only NFL podcast you have an extended Johnny Morton talk this week. I guarantee you that. Yeah, it's really good. I want to talk about a couple of these very quickly before we get out of here.

What do you make in New England and just the way that they're going about this? How public they've been about it. Even them interviewing Bill O'Brien for their offensive coordinator job, I find so funny. Like he's had the job. He's worked there before. Obviously, you have to do it. But this idea of, well, we're bringing Bill in. We're going to see what he has to say.

Everything about this, I just find so funny. But there's process now with Rooney Rule involved. Yeah, I think you have to do it. Everything has to be recorded. Yeah. There has to be a process. So here's what I make of it. When they were going into the last game of the season, I think I did a column on Robert

Kraft and talking about, you know, what sort of craft to do here, right? Obviously, it was a bad situation. I talked to Bill Pullian about it. How do you handle a Belichick when you know that this is not acceptable in offense? the coaching staff was set up wrong, what are we going to do? And he said basically, you're going to talk to Bill, ask him what he think the problem is, and steer it that way. And then he said, and then hold him accountable on the changes.

And I thought, I kind of wondered, how do you hold accountable someone on the changes? Well, the way you hold him accountable is you put out in your press release that, hey, we've, Bill Belichick and the organization have agreed that we're going to hire an offensive coordinator. So they put it out. Remember, everyone was like, this is an unprecedented. precedent of the announcement by the Patriots. Why are they doing this? And I think it was just getting it on the record and saying we're doing it. And now they have to do it. The candidate list is really interesting. Obviously, Bill O'Brien. Keen McCartell, who has been the wide receivers coach in

Minnesota over multiple staffs. He was retained from the previous staff with Mike Zimmer to this year's group. Nick Cayley, who is interviewed with both the Jets and the Patriots. He's the Patriots tight ends coach. So he's getting a look at this job. And then Adrian Clem is the other name that I saw. He is the, I believe, run game coordinator at Oregon. He was the Steelers offensive line coach before going back to college. So pretty eclectic group of names here that they're looking at for this job. Adrian Clem, yeah.

I remember him as a player. Yep. So it just, again, them being as transparent as they are about this and Howard, this is going to play out, I think is fascinating. Tampa really has no info yet. based on everything and how it ended with Byron Lefich, I think not a surprise that they decided to move on. I don't think it's, you and I were talking about this.

To me, it's probably not the most attractive gig. You don't know what you're doing at quarterback. You're playing for a defensive-minded head coach who, at least publicly, a lot of the things he has said about what he wants from his offense, I wouldn't be super thrilled about if I were potentially taking that job. So I think that's going to be a tough sell to whoever they end up trying to coax to that gig. It's going to be a fit. going to be a fit of someone who wants to win the games and the vision of the defensive head

coach. So we'll see who that is, but there hasn't been. I haven't heard any name. Before the show, I checked in with someone who kind of is following it. Nope. Hadn't heard anything. So we'll see what direction they go. They have a lot of directions to figure out where they're going, just bigger than the

offensive coordinator. Absolutely. So Tennessee's group of names, I believe that they've requested both Matt Nagy and Eric B. Enemy. So trying to tap into whatever the, the. chiefs are doing over there. Charles London, who is the quarterbacks coach in Atlanta. And so that means whatever Arthur Smith is doing, which is an offensive system that they're

pretty familiar with, they've interviewed Justin, or at least requested to interview Justin Outen, who is the Broncos offensive coordinator for a position on their staff, not necessarily the offensive coordinator. I think that he's been a name that's come up for a lot of different coaching staffs. He was a tight ends coach. So, and he was with Green Bay. I think that he's somebody that, you know, a lot of people have been looking at. And then Tim Kelly would be the in-house candidate for that job.

He was the Texans OC for several years and was the passing game coordinator for the Titans over the last, I think, season or two. Could you find a better fit for Greg Roman? If you wanted to ride with Wake Willis, probably not. Yeah, I was just kind of thinking in general of even with Tannahill, if you had him in the mix. I don't know what their immediate plans are. That will be a fascinating place. I think they're just interesting on all fronts. the GM fired, bring in a general manager and Rancarthon who, you know, probably is going to be doing things Mike Vrable's way, which, you know, is good.

You're going to fit with your head coach. But what does Vrable want to do offensively? Be interesting. And then the last thing, Washington is interviewed, a bunch of people or at least requested to Charles London again on this list. Eric Sudesville, who I believe is the running backs coach for the Dolphins. Thomas Brown was a tight-ends coach and assistant head coach for the Rams. And then Pat Schumer is the other outside candidate that they have talked to. And then Ken Zampeze, who Albert Burr wrote today, that it feels like Zampeze might be the

favorite to get that job. He is currently Washington's quarterback's coach. Well, that would actually make sense because there's no reason. Ron Rivera fired Scott Turner because he had to do something. That's what that is. There's no reason, I'm not saying that Scott Turner reinvented the game, but there's no reason at this stage of things to bring in a totally new offense. So if you did do Zampesi, you would at least have some continuity, especially if Sam Howell is part of this thing. It's not like there's going to be a three-year runway to learn a new offense for Howl with Rivera.

I mean, this is a possible one-and-done situation. I talked earlier about who these guys have a quarterback. So I'm going to name all of the starting quarterbacks that have been coordinated by Scott Turner. Okay. It's shocking. I did this for all of the guys who got fired. This is shocking. This will count.

Where else was he a coordinator, Carolina? Carolina. Here's what Scott Turner's worked with. 24 games of Taylor Heineke. Seven of Carson Wentz. Six of Latter-Day, Alex Smith. Six of Dwayne Haskins, rest in peace. of Kyle Allen, two of Will Greer, one of Garrett Gilbert, one Ryan Fitzpatrick, which I think was just part of a game, and one of Sam Howl.

Heineke, Wentz, Smith, Haskins, Alan, Greer, Gilbert, Fitzpatrick, and Howl. And I ask you, Robert Mays, how good of an offensive coordinator do you think Scott Turner is? I had no idea. I think he did some really interesting things. I think he actually did a pretty good job. I was intrigued by some of the stuff that Scott Turner did with that offense over the last couple years. understand that, you know, the sequencing and how it would all fit together. There were some concerns about that in Washington, even among some of the players. It's fine. I do think that when you're

dealing with that group of quarterbacks, it's hard to be successful, even if you're one of the best play callers in the league. You can really say that he hasn't had a starting quarterback, because Taylor Heineke right now in the market doesn't get a starting job. Yes. Carson Wendke's been arguably the best starting quarterback that he's had over that stretch. Carson Wence is not going to be, and he may get to compete for something, but he's not going to be someone. No one's going to solve their position with him. Where Alex Smith was or Dwayne Haskins were at their stage of their career, they weren't going to be a starter.

Kyle Allen, Greer, Gilbert, Fitzpatrick, Cal, he's never had a starting quarterback. Never. If Fitzpatrick was like two games, one game. Right, right. But even Fitzpatrick is a tier four bridge, get you through the year. So I'm saying he's got 54 games of an offensive coordinator without having a starting quarterback. That's amazing.

How does that happen? Wouldn't you at one point be somewhere where you have? had. It's unbelievable. It never happened for them. But think of all the conversations, think of all of the conversations that have built up. Think of all the straight-faced, serious analysis of of Scott Turner that's gone on in the last two years, where you're talking about it as if it's the same thing as someone else who has a starting quarterback. And we know that the situation is bad, but when I look at these types of things, and it's funny you mentioned Ken Zampezi. because his dad was Ernie Zampesey.

Okay, Ernie came up with John Madden. And Ernie used to have a great saying, which was if you want to be a good quarterback's coach, get yourself a good quarterback. Awesome quote. But it's so true. Like, they have to find somebody. Maybe it is Sam Howell.

But if you're going to go with Sam Howell next year, should he have to learn a new offense, the whole thing? When really, I think Scott Turner really was fired because Rivera had to appease somebody. The people that you have to appease don't know whether the offense is good or bad. It could be Dan Snyder, whatever. They don't know what the problem is.

Because who knows what they've been told about Carson Wentz or this or that. But so something had to change. And it wasn't going to be Ron Rivera. He didn't resign. That's just crazy. Ken Zampezi for this job, I think, is indicative of the fact that it's maybe not that great of a job.

and who knows what's going to happen with Bronner Rivera after this year. You don't know who your quarterback is. I think there are a lot of questions about how attractive that opening would be. Yeah. And then we'll see what Howell is. But the continuity would make some sense to me there. Last thing I want to talk about before we get out of here, there have been rumblings over the last like three days or so about an idea that the NFL

based on what was going to happen with the Bills and the Chiefs potentially playing a neutral site AFC championship game would consider them. moving forward as another revenue stream for the league. I wanted on record that I think this is the worst idea that I potentially ever heard. Of all the ideas, we've heard some bad ideas. Have Sando on every Monday? I mean, that's a bad idea. This has been fantastic.

It's the opposite of how I feel about this little balloon floated out by the league. I have been to a lot of football games in my life. Yeah. The most memorable ones I've ever. been to. Outside of a couple exceptions, I was at the Minneapolis Miracle, and I've been to some fun Super Bowl. Wow, that's awesome. But that was, that was a hell of a game. That was a hell of a moment. But

the ones that stick with me have always been the conference championship games. I remember walking in to Patriots chiefs at Arrowhead during my home's MVP season and what that was like, even like to walk into the stadium. Being in Philly after the 20s, 17 season when they beat the Vikings and what that was like. Being there when the Seahawks came back to beat the Packers in 2014 and that onside kick game, just that crazy, crazy game at CenturyLink. There is nothing like those environments. There's absolutely nothing like that.

You can feel it from the moment those games are about to kick off, especially in the real stadiums. I've been to conference championship games at Lambeau Field. There's nothing like it. There is absolutely nothing like it. The Super Bowl is fine. the Super Bowl doesn't have that environment. It doesn't have that feel to it.

It doesn't have this thing where you get to watch a home crowd with a single game where everything is on the line. There's nothing like this in American professional sports. Game sevens are great, but they're games seven of seven. There is one game, one day, where an entire fan base gets to congregate in this place and watch their team play with a chance to go to a championship game on the line. It's unbelievable. You kind of dream about getting to the Super Bowl. there's something about it that it's like, I'm not saying that's better than winning the Super Bowl,

but knowing you got to the Super Bowl is an amazing thing, isn't it? Yes. And you feel that. You've been in those locker rooms after those games happen and down on the field in those moments. There is nothing that can replace that. The idea of having like the NFC championship games sponsored by Nabisco is somewhere in Atlanta where you have, you know, a third Niners fans and a third Cowboys fans and a third executives from some nondescript company you've never heard of before that does some sort of clean energy.

They don't give a shit about the game. I just can't stomach that. I can't stomach that when you've been in those moments before. And I just, it's awful. And that goes beyond what you're going to do to the pursuit of the number one overall seat in these conferences when home field advantage is part of it. I know the buy is important, but the idea of you getting to play at your home stadium all the way through, coaches sell that, players talk about that.

aspect of this to me is a travesty. Like, I just cannot get over how bad of an idea it is. So you can make a few more dollars for these coaches or for these organizations who put millions in their pocket every single day. Yes. One of my personal favorite AFC championship game stories was it was actually 20 years ago this week. It was the Raiders were playing the Titans down in Oakland to go to the Super Bowl and they went to the Super Bowl. And you know those Raider fans. if you've ever been in that parking lot before the game. I mean, it's a Hells Angels rally. It's, uh, and there's guys riding around a motorcycle,

Harleys with leather vests and, and dragon stuff. And, and it is, it is an unbelievable scene. It is really unbelievable. It's, it's really like here at, uh, what, what's the, uh, big Harley event in South Dakota, you know, um, Sturgis? It's like, it feels like you're at Sturge,

a combination of Sturgis and something else. So John Clayton, rest in peace was a good buddy. mine and we were going, we were in a rental car and we were trying to park at that game. And the Raider fans, unbelievable. They're everywhere. It's just a sea of black shirts and hats and people drinking and barbecuing. And I realized as we pulled up that I forgot the parking pass. I did not have a parking pass.

So it's me and the very tough looking John Clayton in this like, whatever we had rented, it was like something out of a gangster movie. It was like a Mercury Grand Marquis. It was like a big car, like a big car like that. And so we're pulling in and I'm like, shoot, I don't have the parking pass, you know. Well, there's security, big security guys there. So I'm thinking, am I going to be responsible for not only me, but Clayton not getting into the game? Well, the Raider fans were so great.

They recognized Clayton. They start surrounding our car and chanting his name. I mean, Clayton, Clayton, let him in. let him in. And so the security guys were like, fine, they waved us in. They waved us in. John gets out. He's just completely sworn by Raider fans because at that point he was really at

his peak on ESPN on TV. Everyone knew who John Clayton was, couldn't turn around. One time we were to Super Bowl, Evander Holyfield's representative came up and asked if John could come over because Evander wanted to meet him. That's how well-known John was. So it was awesome. It was totally awesome. We got into the game.

The Raiders didn't end up winning the game going to Super Bowl. losing, but that scene of that parking lot, hard to beat. And that ain't happened at the Nabisco. Yeah, you would lose that. You didn't happen at the Nabisco bowl. We wouldn't get in. I would have to go back to the hotel to get my parking pass.

I just want to tell Nabisco, I love your products. If you ever want to advertise on the athletic football show, we would love to have you. I've got a box here is, uh, is Triscuit's Nabisco? We're just, we're fucked. There's no way Nabisco has ever given us a cent after this. Is this? I don't even know. My very quick John Clayton story is that my first time ever going to the combine when I was like 20 years old, they would give a credential to literally anyone back then. It was 2009.

Oh, yeah, they would. I was a college kid and I went. I was credentialed. I think I was 20 years old. And I remember they used to have the media center in the old club level in Indy. It was before they put it in the convention center. I remember walking in and I saw John Clayton. I was like, holy shit, that's John Clayton. He's got like a polo shirt tucked into jeans, but he's the baddest motherfucker in the room. He really was something. He's also just incredibly kind. I probably said something to him because back then, I was just, you know, I was young and I was ambitious and I wanted to like talk to everybody. But he was a very, very gracious man.

John was just the best. A lot of John Clayton stories and Johnny Morton defenses for you guys today. You never know. You never know. Edition of the athletic football show. You never know what you're going to get, you know? It's all we got today. We will be back a little bit later this week.

week. Barnwell is going to join us. Me and Nate for Wednesday's show. We're going to talk about the lessons we learned from the final four teams left in the NFL. We did the show last year, loved it, running it back. Mike and Randy will be back on Thursday with the Football GM podcast. Got a lot of fun stuff coming to you guys this week. In the meantime, please rate and review the show on your podcast platform choice.

If you want to just leave us to review on Apple Podcasts, I would really appreciate it. It would mean a lot to me if you could do that. You guys, a lot of you have done it. It's been great. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theethelic.com slash football show. It's where you can read Mike Sandow's pick six column and all of the other great stuff that we have up there right now. We will be back on Wednesday with me, Nate and Barnwell.

Until then, appreciate you guys listening. We will talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.