The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Kliff Kingsbury out in Arizona, Lovie Smith fired by Texans, and the rest of Black Monday with Mike Sando

Episode Date: January 10, 2023

Black Monday is one of the unfortunate realities of life in the NFL. Robert Mays and Mike Sando break down the moves that were made on Monday (and before), and what comes next for the teams involved, on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeToday's show is brought to you by...Peloton: Try Peloton risk free with a 30-Day Home Trial, New Members only at onepeloton.com/home-trialPhilo: Sign up today at philo.tv and use promo code MAYS to get 50% off your first monthBetter Help: Visit BetterHelp.com/MAYS today to get 10% off your first monthPenrose Hill: Get your first 6 bottles for $39.95 plus FREE shipping. Go to TryFirstleaf.com/MAYS2:15 Kliff Kingsbury, Steve Keim out in Arizona11:41 Texans fire Lovie Smith24:12 Joe Woods done in Cleveland30:28 What's next for Sean McVay?37:44 The Broncos' head coach search52:40 The Panthers' head coach search59:01 The Titans need a new GM67:11 The Colts' head coach search Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. It's the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today. It's the Athletic Zone. Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I'm doing very well.

Thank you, Robert. Week 18 in the books, always a tough day in the NFL world. A lot of guys losing their jobs today, and I think that it's important to kind of set that tone early. We're going to talk about a lot of those firings and a lot of the movement that has occurred on Black Monday so far. But it's going to be a difficult day for a lot of people, a lot of their families, and we're going to have to talk about it because that's what we do.

But I think it's important to acknowledge that right off the bat. Absolutely. It's a business, but it's humans in the business. And sometimes we talk about this guy was cut, that guy was fired, this guy should be fired, and don't always acknowledge how difficult it is for them, their family's moving around all that. We'll talk about a couple guys where it might be a little bit easier than others from some reports earlier today. but not a ton of surprises so far today. I think that's my overarching takeaway from the news that we've gotten so far.

The head coaches that have been fired are guys that were rumored to be fired that we thought might be on the hot seat, some of the GM shifting that's happened, even a couple of the coordinators that have been fired. I think are guys that we might have expected their teams to move on after the season. Let's start with one of the big head coach bits of news from today. Cliff Kingsbury is out as the Arizona Cardinals head coach. The Cardinals obviously had a disastrous season after they tailed off the end of last year. Kind of always felt like this was going to be on the horizon considering the trajectory their year had taken, even though both him and Steve Kheim, who's also been fired, were given contract extensions through 2027, I believe 10 months ago.

So this is an organization that is a little tangled up right now. And I think that they're going to have a long way to get out of this with their new head coach, with their new GM, with whatever direction they take from here. Absolutely, and they're completely committed contractually to Kyler Murray. So that's where you start. You have to try to make good on that investment. This is not a situation where you're going to move on from him even in a year. So you have to find the best person you can to unlock him or help him.

And the problem is that there might not be a lot of people better than Cliff Kingsbury to do that. This thing had run its course and you needed to have the change, but you need somebody to pair with Kyler Murray and help him out. So is it another offensive head coach? There's certainly been some buzz over the weekend that they could just promote Vance Joseph to the head coaching job, which would probably not be the most expensive route you could take, and then bring in an offensive coach and just sort of move on that way. They have to make a GM hire too.

There's internal people involved in that. So we'll see how big of a spite. I know we saw Sean Payton's name in there, that sort of thing. Not so sure. So Sean Payton is the name that I think it's worth exploring to kind of get a sense of where things are with that organization. Sean Payton has said multiple times. The most important factors for him is to where he'll land are organizational stability and the state of the front office. Just the people in charge and how good he feels about the people in charge.

So through that lens, if we're looking at this Arizona job, based on the conversations that you've had, For an in-demand candidate like a Sean Peyton or like somebody else, what do you think their view of the front office and the stability in Arizona is like right now? Well, their view could be a little different than lesser candidates view, meaning less prominent, because if you're a Sean Peyton, you can come in and you're going to set it up how you want. That's part of the deal. So, hey, these guys in the front office, no.

I would like to, you know, find a general manager type to pair with me. And then we move from there. That's part of doing business if I'm, if I'm on. that level of Sean Payton. And we see that play out with some of the really big name. I'm head coaches. I have talked to some people that are in that world of personnel and, you know, are looking at that.

And their concern coming into there is, hey, love Adrian Wilson, love Quentin Harris. But are those guys, am I going to have to keep them as my assistant GMs? Do they have the owner's ear? Those would be the sorts of things to consider if you were, I think, at a lower level than a Sean Payton. Hopefully for Sean Payton, he could set that up, clear it up, and make that be conditional on his employment. Adrian Wilson is the vice president of pro scouting for the Cardinals. Obviously, a Cardinals legend play there for almost his entire career. I think he had a stint with the Bears and the Patriots maybe later in his career. But I mean, he was a legend in Arizona. He was a

fantastic player. I loved watching him. And that kind of speaks to the dynamic there a little bit. Steve Kime worked for the Cardinals for 20 years. He was there for multiple decades. And that is a family run business. The Bidwells have had that team for a very long time based on what I understand. They do things a certain way and it is a little bit insular and mom and pop feeling sometimes. So I wonder how that will ultimately dictate the search, who they can get, who they can coax there, all of those things. The comfort level with the owner is obviously huge to the owners because there were multiple opportunities on

performance, there were ups and downs during the Steve Kime era. They easily could have moved on a couple times. He hired three coaches. Yeah, hired three coaches. He had an off-the-field incident that was pretty embarrassing and with an extreme DUI. So there were moments when you easily could have changed course, but that comfort that the owner feels is really important to the owner and it really drives a lot of a decision-making. These places don't always just open it up and interview for the best candidate.

The best candidate is who they're comfortable with. So is that going to now default to an agent, has an Adrian Wilson who, like you said, is a Cardinals legend in their ring of honor? You know, is that who is going to have that type of rapport. One thing I was funny, I was talking to someone over the weekend about that, about Arizona. And they said, hey, if you watch the most recent hard knocks, they really made a big deal of Vance Joseph and how respected he is in the building. and it was almost like they were setting that up to go that route. And it's funny if I was, I think I was before we came on the show, I was checking, you know, Schefter's Twitter and Rapopor's Twitter.

I think there was something on Rapopor's. Hey, Vance Joseph really well thought of in that building, you know, which just dovetails with that. And so I just heard that from multiple people that they could go in that direction. Vance Joseph is an impressive person. I would be surprised if people were interested in Vance Joseph as a defensive coordinator, if he was a candidate for that job. It just feels like that's a half measure when this team really needs to take a long look

in everything about its operation. Yeah, I think one of the things that intrigues me about advanced Joseph or even like a Steve Wilkes, their former coach now is the second time around, I think the job is so overwhelming. And you're not prepared for that job. Some guys can just do it, or maybe you have a good quarterback or you have a great support, a great schemer, you know, on the other side of the ball who helps you out. But I think the head coaching jobs are hard and overwhelming. And when you get those jobs in bad spots and you don't have a chance, whether that was Steve Wilkes in Arizona with Josh Rosen, Vance Joseph in his situation, not having a good quarterback, maybe not getting exactly the staff right or whatever it was in Denver.

I only had two years in Denver as well. Yeah. But when you get a second chance, I think that does intrigue me. How much better are you? I would love to sit down with him if I was Mike Bidwell. just learn about that. Hey, what would you do? What do you believe? What did you get wrong? And I think through those types of conversations, you might get a sense for the growth of the coach. I went to Arizona last year and wrote about Vince Joseph and about the Cardinals defense just because

they were outperforming expectations again. And I spent a couple days down there and talked to him for a while. And one quote from our conversation, he said, I think every NFL coach and every college coach needs at least three years to have a chance to see the system work and to see the players have a chance to buy in. Culture is so important when you're trying to change something. And the only way they buy in is if you're winning and showing improvement. And you need time to do those things. So I feel like he was of the opinion that if he had a little bit more time in Denver, it might have gone a little bit differently. So we'll see what happens there.

The state of the roster is not great. I think there's a reason that they're going to move on from the general manager. I think there's a reason that this team had the bottom fall out. you have a quarterback who's being paid at the top of the market. May start next season on the Pup list. You know, potentially could miss some time with that knee injury. He suffered late in the season. You know, they have some talent offensively, but not an overwhelming amount and not a lot of young guys that you feel like you can really build around.

I mean, Marquise Brown, they traded for, but DeAndre Hopkins is in his 30s. You know, a lot of the guys that they've committed to with their skill position groups are getting a little bit older. On defense, I don't think they have many foundational pieces. This really seems like a horrid reset. side of the quarterback. And you and I have discussed that. That's a weird situation. Very rarely do we have these kind of setups where you have a young quarterback being paid at the top of the market and a team that requires a total tear down around him and you're trying to sell a coach and a general manager on that process. That kind of feels like where the Cardinals are

right now. It really does. And I think they've been, you know, patching with veterans, right? And making acquisitions and it's going to, you know, they're going to get Rodney Hudson's and they're going to, you know, be, they're going to be in on all of those types of players. They got Hollywood Brown this year. You mentioned DeAndre Hopkins. They signed JJ Watt, right? AJ Green. Yeah, AJ Green.

It feels so pieced together that way as if, hey, we're on the, we're close here, guys. Let's just boost it up a couple more notches here with this signing and that signing, but it doesn't feel overly sustainable. And I think then you have to figure out, okay, what is missing and what does the owner what is the owner expectation if you're going to go in there? Does he think we should be close and we just need someone that the message is going to get through and we're going to get over the top? I think the whole thing with Kyler Murray and his contract and the language in there about having to study is hard to overcome.

I mean, I think it just colors this thing. All right. Next one here. This happened yesterday. We didn't really have time to get to it on last night's show. Lovie Smith fired by the Texans. Not surprising, given that the Texans finished with the second worst record in the NFL. Thank you, Levy.

But still surprising in that it's two years in a row where they've moved on from a one-and-done coach where I don't know what sort of real expectations you could have put on that coach beforehand. They were clearly playing hard for Levy Smith at the end of the year. This is one of the worst rosters in the NFL that was multiple years away from getting back to contention. What is your sense of just the process the Texans have followed over the last couple of years? And what have you heard about it from the people you've talked to? Yeah, so I wrote down a little summary here. The owner of the team Bob McNair dies is a few years ago. Jack Easter be fired.

The GM Brian Gain is fired. Bill O'Brien adds the GM title along with head coach. Bill O'Brien is then fired as head coach in GM. Nick Casario is hired and fired. Jack Easterby leaves. Lovie Smith is hired and fired. And here we are. So they feel like a team that you can't figure out what they're trying to do.

Even though they've hired two coaches now in the last two years, you never felt like either one of them was really going to be given a chance or was even the first choice or would have been a logical choice necessarily. And so you don't really know where they're at. Then they have the game yesterday. They're in line for the number one pick, and now they're not. You just, I just feel like, wait, wasn't the clock running this whole time for Nick Casario? Or is it just going to start running now?

It almost feels like they just, been passing the time by? How can you figure out what their plan has been? I don't understand. What's the plan? You can't figure out the plan by looking at something over a two, three, or five-year period of Houston. And to me, that just goes back that you must not have a good owner. It's really hard to figure out. Maybe if you wanted to trace it back to last year, they wanted to hire Gannon or Josh McCown. They felt like everything that happened with the Brian Flores lawsuit. They couldn't do that. So they landed on Levy who was in the building, and it was never the choice that they wanted. It was always going to be a short-term thing,

but that's not any better of a process. So no matter how they got to this point, I think it's an indictment of the way that they approached it and the way that this process has looked for them overall. Yeah, they've gone through all the stuff. They don't even have a quarterback. They don't have any direction. You don't know what they're looking for. Now, they have requested Shane Steichen. They've requested Ben Johnson, D'emico Ryan's, Jonathan Gannon, and Agero Ivor, who are all between 37 and 42 years old. So that is at least some indication that, you know, after hiring a couple of 60-something veteran coaches as their head coaches, that maybe, just maybe they want to now go with somebody younger and maybe, you know, have a little bit longer-term vision, you hope. and maybe this next person really is the hire that Nick Hacero has to vet because you're not really vetting Lovie Smith at this stage of his career, right?

I mean, everyone knows what Lovie Smith is and there's no, it doesn't take any judgment or anything new to decide you're going to hire him. Everyone knows what he is. So these other guys, there is judgment and there is maybe something we can figure out about their plan based on whoever it is they hire. I do think the GM is involved in the coaching component more than a lot of people are. Nick Casario is on the headset on Game Day. Nick Casario has had coaching type rules in the past.

So that is a little bit interesting and tells me that you're going to have younger candidates because typically an older established coach could be more resistant to that type of involvement. They were in a situation with their quarterback position. with this year's quarterback class with the state of their roster over the last couple years, where it was always going to be a very slow rebuild. They were fine rolling with third round pick Davis Mills again this year because what would it matter? You might as well see what you have in Davis Mills.

There's no reason to extend yourself too far to try to find a quarterback for the short term because this is not a short term plan. But even if 2023 was the first year, they were really going to kick this into gear, it still wasn't really fair to David Cully and Levy Smith for those guys to be hired to be fired. No, but it's wonderful for them because they get the retirement package. I mentioned those guys in their 60s. I mean, these guys, look, if as long as they know, look, everyone knows what the deal is.

They weren't given a fair shot. I don't think any less of either one of those guys. No. But if they got, I mean, if you look at, and now, Lovie's made a ton of money over his career. You go back, Illinois. I mean, Levy is doing great. But David Coley, he never was going to make that kind of money. So wonderful for him.

hopefully he's got himself a nice, you know, nice house on the lake and he's doing whatever he wants to do. On that note, before we get to the candidates, I loved Rappaport today saying that he wouldn't be surprised if Cliff was going to take a little bit of time off and you were seeing him checking in from Abitha over the next six months or so. Some other team is going to host the Lombardi Trophy here in a month. Cliff Kingsbury is the real winner. He's getting paid till 2027.

He's going to be on a beach in Majorca somewhere. And I don't even really know him, but I always just kind of like him. I always felt like he was in a tough spot there. And, you know, he wasn't like he was the greatest head coach or anything like that. But I always felt like he was kind of enduring things to the best of his abilities. And, you know, they got better every year until this year. It really fell apart. Everything really fell apart this year.

But their record was improving. And I think for a while there, he had it going decently on offense. They couldn't finish the year, seasons and all of that. But yeah, big winner for him. And I think it felt like, I think one of those guys might have tweeted that it almost felt mutual. And I kind of agree like, this is, of all the ways that can end, this ain't so bad for Cliff Kingsbury. He just got an extension. If I were 42 years old and in Cliff Kingsbury's position in the world and I was getting paid millions of dollars until 2027, I would also be on the beach in Abitha.

So I totally respect that line of thinking with the Texans and their candidates. Oh, go ahead. No, I was just going to say some of those guys get fired. You don't see them for a couple years, you know, because the team is still paying them, five, six, seven, eight million. They drive their kids to school. You think that's where Vic was? You think Vic Fangio was partying in Ibiza?

No, I think Vic Fangio's still wearing the gray sweatshirt with a whistle. I think he goes into Safeway to get whatever he eats, his oatmeal or whatever. I think he's got a whistle on a string around his neck and just looks exactly like he's out of central casting, you know, like the old white shadow coach or something. and, you know, he's wearing that type of outfit. The gray sweats, maybe the sweatpants have a little elastic down at the bottom. They kind of gather around the ankle. And you can see the socks.

You know, the socks could be mid-cut, like partway up to the calf. Oh, yeah. They're crew socks, 100%. Crew socks. 100%. He probably buys the same kind of shoes every time. Air monarchs. He could have air monarchs.

He could have new balances. Whatever Vic does, he could have all of those. But they're the same one every time because why change it? Yeah, it's just one more thing you'd have to think about. It's like Steve Jobs used to say. You should be coming up with third down pressure packages. Yeah, Steve Jobs wore a black shirt every day, so you don't think about it. That's Vic Fangio.

The candidates that the Texans are looking at. Jonathan Gannan, you mentioned D'emiko Ryan's, Evereaux, Shane Steichen, Ben Johnson. This team is going to pick a quarterback this year, almost certain. This is a year to find one. They are in a position to take one. I think that Bryce Young is a once-in-a-generation prospect. I think they should trade this year's second first-round pick and multiple other first-round picks to move up from number two to number one to get Bryce Young.

That's just me personally. It just, I'm just trying to stoke that fire as much as I can't hear of the next go months. And you are, this is, I'm seeing through this. I mean, anyone who listens to you knows you want the bears to get a windfall.

You know those bears guys had to be like gathered around the TV watching into that game. I'm just telling you, Bryce Young's worth like 10 first round picks and the Texas should treat it that way. But for the first 10 seconds, I was like, really? I mean,

I mean, then I was like, okay. I shouldn't, I shouldn't say this stuff because people are just going to take it. quote it or clip it and just and I'll be paying for it for the next day. Our social media team is going to clip that

and put it out there. It'll be out there. Yeah, it's great. If they do pick a quarterback, it does feel like going with a young offensive coach to kind of curate the development of that quarterback wouldn't necessarily be a bad idea. We've seen it go the other way. If you can bring in a really good

offensive coordinator and create the right ecosystem for that player, hiring a defensive minded head coach is fine. But I'm wondering if they're seeing that quarterback his development, the next three or four years, and thinking, we need the right group in here to make sure we get the most out of that guy. And does that start with an offensive head coach? It could. It could for them. I think, you know, you look at Nick Casario in his, in his background. I mean, he hired a defensive one in Lovie Smith. David Cooley was on the offensive side of the ball and then

comes from New England where they've had, you know, defense the whole time, a little bit harder to tell there. But I think you just need the best leader, really, because the person is, you know, yeah, The person, I think all of these guys are interesting to me. You know, I think this is a great candidate list for the younger head coaches. I'd want to talk to all of them. Same as I said about the coaches that have been fired so far, haven't been surprising. This is the candidate list you would assume based on the way that this season has gone. Stike, both of the Eagles coordinators, what Tamico Ryan's has done in San Francisco,

a juror, did a fantastic job with the Broncos, and Ben Johnson is rightfully one of the hot coaching candidates in the league because of what Detroit's offense looked like. So if you're building a young hot coaching candidate list, which we're going to talk about tomorrow on tomorrow's show, this is pretty much the group you would start with. Yep, very promising. And, you know, is Euro Evereaux was somebody who were like, hey, Vic Fangio's leave and look out. That's going to fall off. Nope, look pretty good. Ben Johnson, I mean, there were some people that were optimistic about him coming into the year. But, I mean, you've got to say, wow, that's a great job they did in Detroit on offense.

And so Domeco Ryan's, of course, I mean, goes without saying and has been impressive. we've gotten to see him a little bit, Gannon Stike. And again, and those guys come highly recommended from other people that I know in coaching and that sort of stuff. So I love the list. I think if I'm a team, I want to talk to all of them because who knows, maybe you're going to hire one in three years. Joe Woods, Browns defensive coordinator fired disappointing season for the Browns on defense. It had a little bit of a bump over the last month of the season or so. But based on where they were for most of the year, I think it was probably trending in this direction.

So now we'll see which way they go. I mean, the guys that they're looking at so far, Brian Flores, Sean Desai, apparently, Gerard Mayo from New England. They're going on a couple different schematic trees here, a couple guys with different backgrounds. So the direction that the Browns ultimately take here is something I think that's worth watching. Yeah. And so typically this is how it goes. If you have an offensive head coach, he looks for defensive coordinators who run schemes that bother him. Okay, so this is the way of the NFL.

So I just looking this up. Stefansky has faced New England twice as a head coach or play caller. And so that's where I'm pointing to Brian Flores, and that's where Gerard Mayo is on there. So in the 73 games that Kevin Stefansky has coached as either a head coach or offensive coordinator, the seventh worst offensive EPA game was this season against New England, 38 to 15 lost. The 15th worst was last season against New England, okay? Minus 24.9 EPA on offense combined in those two. That's who Kevin Stefansky wants to talk to when he thinks about,

hmm, what do I want for my defense? I think Brian Flores would be an awesome ad for them. I mean, he should be a head coaching candidate. And if you could get him as a defense coordinator, look, we can criticize certainly the handling of the offense in Miami, the two coordinators. the two coordinators. It was kind of exactly what Bill Belichick did this year, right? We don't want that.

But defense performed, really performed. And I think my sense was that Brian Flores was a great sort of head coach level partner for Mike Tomlin this year, too. And so, you know, when you look at what's going on in Cleveland, DeDavian Clowny, you know, saying this or that, or I think Brian Flores walks. I don't think there's a lot of people messing with them. I think there's control immediately on that side of the ball. It's funny that you say that about the defense that gives you trouble as an offensive head coach. That's how Joe Woods got the job in the first place.

The Vikings last season with Kevin Stefansky there, they went to the playoffs, they played that Niners team in 2019 and got absolutely shellacked by those Niners. And Kevin Stefansky looked at that and said, I want some of that. hire Joe Woods, who is on that staff to be his defensive coordinator, and that is where I think things start to go awry. Because when you look at that system in San Francisco and now with the Jets, and you look at what it is taken for that system to be successful, look at the ways they've built those rosters.

How many investments have the Jets and the Niners made in their front four as they've tried to run that system? If you're going to run that four-down defense and you're going to say, we want to defend the run this way. You have to have some banshees up there, and you've got to have a lot of them. And that is the opposite of the way that the Browns tried to build their defense. The interior of their defensive line is the area they spent the least on. And defensive line in general, compared to the ways that they've spent a lot of their other resources.

So I feel like they wanted the Joe Woods defense, but never saw that plan through correctly. Absolutely, yeah. Now Joe Woods pays the price for that. Yeah, and I think it's a combination. I don't think that they defensively did a great job, but I also think that that's the thing that separates them from the Jets and the Niners the most to me is the personnel in the way that they built that unit. So now you have this defensive group of players in Cleveland where it's not really

solidified in any way. You have Miles Garrett. You have Denzel Ward, two guys that you've committed big money to. You drafted Greg Newsom in the first round last year, Martin Emerson, got a lot of as a rookie, Grant Elbit and John Johnson are going to be on the roster next year. So you have the secondary in place. But the front seven, outside of really Miles Garrett and J.O.K. It's kind of a blank slate.

So you can rebuild that however you want to on the front end. And I think that that allows you to look at some different schemes and some different coaching trees because Sean Desai is a Fangio guy who was doing a lot of those ideas in Seattle. And then you have the two New England guys where Brian Flores is a lot of a blitzing, a lot of man. Obviously, that's where Gerard Mayo comes from. So they can go a bunch of different directions here because I think that their personnel allows them to go a couple different directions. Absolutely, yeah. Yep, I agree. I think it'll be interesting to see what they do. Obviously, going into a big year, it's going to be offseason dominated again by what can they do with

Deshaun Watson. But one of the surest ways to win, even if you're not getting great quarterback play, is just to have not the other team not scored a ton of points. So that's a luxury they haven't had enough in Cleveland. One other defensive coordinator move that will be coming here. Dean Peas, the Falcons defensive coordinator, is retiring. Not all that surprising. He came out of retirement to take this job for a couple years. I feel like this is always probably what Arthur Smith wanted,

was somebody just to come in and lay a foundation for a couple years in the way that D&Ps could. I'm not sure he could have anticipated he would have been there for five, 10 years as they were trying to build this thing. So they'll be looking for a new defensive coordinator on that side of the ball, moving forward. No real news about who the candidates are or what that search will look like, but I'm sure we'll learn more about that in the coming days here. Yep, Dean Peas. What a great name. He's all he's done good work, but I think for him, he probably knew it was time when he was getting

carted off before the game late in the year, you know? Yeah, I mean, he's 73 years old. So nothing about just a surprise. He doesn't need any rehab. He doesn't need any rehab at age 73. Yeah, I think he's going to be doing just fine here in retirement. So the Falcons will be looking for a new defensive coordinator. So that's really the moves that have been made. We'll talk about a couple of things with the Titans a little bit later. But there was plenty of news over the weekend about some of these searches and some of the things that could happen. And I want to start with Sean McVeigh and his future. A lot of people have written, talked about it.

Our own Jordan Roderig wrote a really good piece about what could be happening with McVeigh here over the next couple months if you guys want to go read that on the athletic. But what have you heard about what McVeigh could do and kind of what the outlook is here for him? Well, certainly Jordan Rodriguez piece, which was excellent, just talks about him sort of being at a point where he, you know, got to the mountaintop, but then it didn't make him happy necessarily, right? So I contrasted in my column today, the pick six column, that with Pete Carroll, who sort of found this cheery, upbeat way about doing things that works for him. And shoot, he's in it. He's in his 49th year of coaching. Yeah. And he's going out at midfield as energized as ever at age 71, shaken 36-year-old.

Sean McVeigh's hand while Sean McVeigh is feeling a little bit lost or like it's he's not sure what's going on. It just shows you that we're all different and the stresses of these jobs. People process them in different ways. And so I think the wonderful thing for Sean McVeigh is he can do what he wants. He's got a ton of money. He's recently married. He's probably just got a lot of things in his mind as, hey, I've won the Super Bowl.

My quarterback, the offense, there could be a rebuild here. my wife now has probably has earned more of my time because I'm an obsessor, right? He's in the office all the time. He's one of those guys who just can't stop thinking about it. And so I would imagine he's at a little bit of a life, career crossroads, with the ability to consider other things. Most people have to go to work. He doesn't.

So he may have opportunities in broadcasting. Maybe he just needs three weeks to kind of think about this thing. Whatever. It just feels like he's at some kind of a person. professional crossroads. And I'm sure the Rams will work with him on that and hope that he comes back. But we've been here in this a while. There was last year at the Super Bowl that they were in.

Hey, could this be it? And then at the trade deadline this year, some stories came out. And then here we are the last weekend. I love the last weekend news that comes out like, hey, according to sources, it just sort of sets the table for all of this stuff coming into the offseason. And here we are. So I don't know what he's going to do. But it sure feels like there's a chance that he won't be coaching the Rams this year.

you've had conversations with Sean McVey in your life. And you have a conversation with Sean McVeigh, it's different than talking to most people. Like the way that his brain is moving over the course of that discussion, he'll say 10,000 words in six minutes. And he's just always moving at that clip. And based on a lot of the stuff that's come out over the last year or so, with the way that he views his job,

the Seth Wicker-Champ piece on ESPN, what you were last night and stuff. of the other things we've seen. When you're moving at that sort of clip and your self-talk is as negative as Sean McVease appears to be, there's a lot of negativity rolling around in your brain. And for him to move through the world the way that he does and to take such little enjoyment in the highs and to just digest and internalize every single bad thing that seems to happen, seems like a pretty rough way to go about things.

So I understand if someone you could need a break, if that's the way that you operate, if that's the way that you operate, which I tend to empathize with. Yeah, absolutely. I think, you know, I felt like last season when you watched Sean McVeigh and his, a lot of times I watched the postgame news conferences to get a feel. And I felt like last year after the losses, he was dying. Yeah. I felt last year, I felt this year he was kind of at a piece. And I don't know what that means. I could be, look, I'm not any behavioral psychologist or anything, but I just, I wonder if he sort of got to a point this year where he could deal with it a little bit. Like, or he just, not that he was resigned, but it just seemed, he seemed a little

different in those moments. He didn't seem quite as consumed. So I don't know if he's working on it or if he just knew what was going on this year and it was going to be tougher. I just sensed something a little different with him and maybe he's been thinking about this, you know, and maybe he's working on it. I don't know. Maybe he's, maybe he needs to sort of figure out how he can be, uh, his,

the best Sean McVeigh, he can be and be sustainable, right? Because he's 36. That's nothing. 36, he could have a 25 year more career that should be fulfilling for him. And by all accounts, if he does take some time away, whether that's a couple weeks, a couple months, a couple years, he will come back to coaching eventually. He has said that multiple times. So we'll see what this break ends up looking like. Is it a full year? If it is, do the Rams do something like the Saints did last year, where Rahim Morris gets promoted to that job and kind of keeps things as is over there? Do they look outside the building for Sean McPhase replacement?

Where does he go? Is it a studio job? I mean, those are all the questions they're going to have to be answered here as he works through all of this. I think they will want the big name. I don't know how they could get Sean Payton if they have enough draft picks to do it, but that would be the type of person, I think, that they would, seek and I was kind of joking in my mind thinking, hey, the least McVeigh can do is get traded to someone else

and get some draft picks back for all those moves. And he got him to the mountaintop, you know, he won the Super Bowl. So he'll be in demand whenever that is. I think he's proven himself to be just a really differentiating coach. He has done a great job there, you know, his record amazing. This year, it kind of fell apart and they had a lot of injuries and whatnot. But I think he's really excellent. I felt he was a little bit rejuvenated late in the year when they got the opportunity

with Baker Mayfield. They won that game against the Raiders. I thought that was awesome. That gave me some hope that John McVeigh might ride this thing out. You know, it looked a little bit more. And his team played hard late in the year. They really did. Yeah, they almost won yesterday.

They took Seattle's overtime. Seattle had, I mean, you know, Seattle had everything to play for it. And the Rams really played tough. I was watching the post game, Gino Smith said that. He's like, hey, these guys really brought it for a team that was supposed to be out of it. So I give the head coach some credit for that. Yeah, I totally agree. And I think the big question now is Matt Stafford said that he plans on coming back.

Is he going to come back if McVeigh isn't there? I mean, there are other questions looming with that organization independent of Sean McVe. Yeah, for those, like Aaron Rogers has one of those decisions too, but those guys can just pocket like 50 million, lock it in guaranteed, you know. And I think that's a hard thing to walk away from, which, you know, that would be hard to walk away from if I was the coach, too. I mean, not that he's going to get a $50 million, but Sean McVeigh has got to be making. north of $10, $15 million a year. Coaching salaries are the most hidden thing in the league. We never really find out what they are.

But it's a lot to walk away from. They had to give him something to deter him from TV. And when the guys on TV are making $18, $20 million a year, you'd have to assume it's north of $10 million. Oh, is he like, hey, I want Romo money? You know, I mean, come on. He should be making a least no offense, Tony. I'm sure you do your homework for the broadcast.

But I think it's a lot more on your plate if you're Sean McVeigh, bringing a lot of value. Well, a lot of time to dig into what the Rams future looks like. here as we get more clear to the McVeigh's situation. A little bit more pressing is the Broncos coaching search. Their reports over the weekend from Adam Schaeffer and others that they have asked to interview Sean Payton for that job. I believe that interview can't take place until January 17th.

It was a little bit surreal to see Sean Payton on TV yesterday talking about all of this. Very rarely do we get that sort of transparency with head coach candidates, but that's what happened because he was on television all day on Sunday. Other news, it looks like they're looking to interview Jim Harbaugh. for that job. You wrote about that a little bit today. Let's start with Sean Payton. What do you think about the fit with Sean Payton and Denver? I think he really wants back in. I think the compensation part with the Saints is a big deal. I think it's a complicating factor potentially, especially for a team like Denver that's traded away so much to get Russell Wilson. I think that, you know, I think

Russell Wilson being there on that contract in the current state of how he's playing is a big consideration for whoever's coming in to take that job with new owners that you have to get a feel for. And understand, I know the owner, Penner has already said, hey, the new coach is going to report to me. That goes without saying for a Sean Payton and a John Harbaugh, maybe even a Dan Quinn. So, you know, I think, I think Sean Payton would be a great hire for them. I think that he would be really give, he would be good for Russell Wilson.

I mean, I think one of the things that you have to give Sean Payton for was setting up an offense in New Orleans that was good for a shorter quarterback. And then he's always kind of incorporated the run game. Even when they were passing for 5,000 yards, he could run the ball. He was flexible in his scheme. He could do different stuff. He sort of enjoyed and leaned into doing things with gadget players and whatnot. So I think the presence of Russell Wilson there is problematic in some ways.

And that could be a consideration for Peyton, Quinn, Harbaugh, any of these big names who could have options. But from a Broncos standpoint, I think that's what you're probably need this time around, right? As somebody who's got the name, who knows what they're doing, and is going to have a way and a plan to get it done and have immediate sort of cachet right in the locker room. I'd be shocked if they went with a first time head coach again. Shocked. And it seems like based on the pool of candidates they're talking to, that's not what they're

going to do. I am fascinated by what the Russell Wilson conversation is with these candidates when those interviews happen. And what they say about that. coach's obligation and connection to Russell Wilson. Is this a Russ is the quarterback for at least the next couple years, we're committed to Russ? Or is they say, we're taking a longer view on this?

You know, we want you to be the coach for five, ten years. Whether Russell Wilson succeeds or not is not the most important factor about your candidacy here. Very tricky because think of the new owners, okay? They have not been in this position before. They haven't been around the league. They can't know how it all works. So they are dependent on whoever they choose to trust for that information.

They don't have a five-year history with George Payton or anybody. So they're going to be interviewing all of these candidates. People like Sean Payton who've been around football forever, who know so much football, they don't know where to put all the information and have been in drafts and have been part of trades and have an evaluation on Russell Wilson. They have an opinion of whether he's good or bad. the owners don't know any of that.

So the owners are going to be potentially swayed by however these interviews go. Sean Payton or Harbaugh or one of those big names, to me, they come in and they try to make it work with Russell Wilson. If it does it in a year, you move on from us and you let these guys do their vision. I think that's the healthiest way to approach this if you want the best candidates. Now, but the issue is then what is George Payton or the people in the building saying, the people that are there that are invested in Russell Wilson having been a good trade equity? position. Their tack could be, hey, look, we screwed this thing up in the first year. Whatever reason, we had some injuries, hack it. It wasn't a good fit, whatever the offense.

But Russ is a good, let me tell you, this is still a good player. Is that what the owners are thinking? And so whoever comes in there has to make good on that. How frank can those conversations be with owners? Who all is in the room when they take place, right? Who are the owner's talking to. Is John Elway kind of talking to him? You know, part of the way, you have no idea. And those, anyone like that could be really influential in ways that you just have no idea from the outside. How tied you are to George Payton, I think is a big question. How tied you are to Russell Wilson is a big question. What sort of leeway are you going to have to remake the franchise in your image if you're a Sean Payton? But there are 32 of these jobs. The Broncos are a legacy franchise.

and they have maybe the deepest pockets of any ownership group in the league now. I mean, they can go to Sean Payton and say, here's the keys. Here's $15 million a year. Go nuts. That's not surprising. And that makes it really attractive right away, especially if you give him an indication that he can outlive a Russell Wilson and a George Payton within the organization. Well, remember Greg Penner at his news conference sitting next to George Payton said, oh, and by the way, the next head coach reports directly to me. Yeah.

So what that is is that's signaling to Harbaugh and Peyton, hey, you know, it's you and me. You have a lot of power here. You wrote about this earlier today. What do you think about the Jim Harbaugh fit both with the Broncos and with his second go-around in the NFL potentially? I think he's just fascinating. I think he has a shelf life wherever he goes. It's four or five years. He's a meteor.

You know, he's going to burn hot and be incredibly intense. And he's going to bring that to your team. And somehow your team's going to believe it. But he's very, very dependent more than most on the coordinators and coaches for the scheming part. That's not his game. Even though he played quarterback, I'm sure he knows a ton of football, football family, all of that. He's not necessarily the one who's going to lay out the offense himself or scheme it up and all of that. He loves all the things about football, right?

He loves the toughness of the game. He loves the locker room. He loves the players. He loves the grid of the game. You get the feeling like he lives his life to an NFL philosophical. soundtrack in his head, right? That's Jim Harbaugh. But he has to have the Vic Fangio or the Greg Roman to really implement at the ground level exactly how they're going to play in his vision, which his vision is Big Ten football, right? We're going to have a fullback on the team. We're

going to hit you in the mouth. And so, you know, as I look at what they have with Russell Wilson, I thought there was irony in that of Russell Wilson trying to escape Pete Carroll for his run order to offense and then could end up with Greg Roman and Jim Harbaugh with two backs and two tight ends running 22 personnel on third down. That would be interesting to me. But I think that run game infrastructure actually could help Russell Wilson. Just don't know how much he'd be willing to lean into that. Because remember when it was Alex Smith running that,

everyone was calling him a game manager because they were running so much. And Jim Harbaugh said, no, no, he's elite. Remember that? But everyone sort of knew. I think that marriage would be interesting. But somebody like a Harbaugh is probably bigger than a Russell Wilson. he's probably impervious to all that stuff about whether we have to let rest cook or all of that. He'll give you sort of a sideways look and just it'll roll off of him.

So I would pay to see it. I think it would be fun. It'd be interesting. I'm not saying it would fail or succeed because I'm not sure. It would depend who he'd get on his staff. But I think it would be a lot of fun. The coordinator point is extremely good because back then, Vic Fangio's reputation was not what it is now. He came to San Francisco after one year at Stanford.

he was a defensive assistant for the Ravens for three years before that. He was a position coach. So even when he got to be the Niners defensive coordinator, it was his first defensive coordinator job in a while. And there was so much oxygen during that stretch taken up by what they were doing on offense. You had the personality of Jim Harbaugh. You had the emergence of Colin Kaepernick. Even if Vic Fangio was doing a fantastic job,

I think that his reputation only grew over the next three or four or five years with that unbelievable season in Chicago in 2018. and then the league at large starting to steal from his ideas. So looking back on it now, you realize how important of a figure Vic Fangio was for the next decade of professional football, let alone what he was for those Niners teams. And those three years that Greg Roman had, we've seen Greg Roman take over the league for two, three-year stretches because of how unique his ideas are with certain types of personnel.

And when Kaepernick and that group arrived with that offensive line, I mean, that was like a whirlwind. So it is funny to look back on it now and just think how central those coordinators and those ideas were to the success of those Niners teams specifically. Completely. And they had a lot of great players on defense too. You know, Patrick Willis was up for the Hall of Fame this year. They had Justin Smith. They went and got him. All-time favorite Justin Smith. Love Justin Smith. Dante Whitner, I think of him as Hittner. They called him Dante Hittner. DeVarle Bowman was incredible. Deshawn Goldson. I mean, they had some guys who would knock your helmet off, you know. I love it. that defense. Yeah, so that's a really good point.

I'm fascinated by who his coordinators would be. And after being in the college for so long, who he would chase. Well, he definitely would try to get Vic Vanjo, who's going to have options. But is Vic Fangio coming back to Denver to be the decoordinator? I probably not. I mean, but you never know if he's tight with Jim. You know, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, Jiro Everro's there now and would be a natural fit. But, you know, he was a hack.

guy. Is that how it's going to all play out? I don't know. Greg Roman would be the natural one on offense. And I think it does feel like, you know, that this might not be a bad time for a change in Baltimore. And then he could start fresh with Jim Harbaugh in Denver. But if I'm the Broncos, that's one of the things I read about today. Like, they have to know that that's critical. It's not just Jim Harbaugh. It's who can he bring with him. Because Jim's going to provide all of that intensity and leadership and the quirkiness, all those things you sort of, uh, that make him Jim Harbaugh, but he's got to have the rest of it to be implemented. Jiro Evaro's future, I think, is also something that's really interesting and worth watching.

In a normal situation, if he were the defensive coordinator, if he had no ties to the head coach, and he just had the season that he did, we've seen those guys retained a bunch, you know, Vic Fangio. When Matt Nagy got to Chicago, he kept that job because he had done a really good job as the defensive coordinator. But, you know, Jiro Evarro is pretty deep ties personally to Nathaniel Hackett. if he turned down the interim job when they offered it to him. So it might be slightly different the dynamics there of him staying compared to what it might be

in a different situation. Yep, absolutely. So those are just all questions for them to. It's funny, Sean Payton, didn't he, wasn't there a report that he's going to deliver Vic Fangio, you know? Remember that? Yes. Wasn't that a report in the last few weeks. So shoot.

Yeah, if he goes to Denver, maybe that's a little bit off the table. But if he goes somewhere else, who knows? That would be hilarious. Vic Fangio returned to Denver as the decoordinator would be. be great. It seems far off. Can you imagine? Probably the first time a coach has gone back to a place he was fired that I could remember.

Yeah, you'd have to think about it. But I think it's, I think Denver's just so fascinating for all of those reasons of the new owner, the holdover GM, you know, who has a couple strikes now because the coach and the quarterback thing, the quarterback and who he is and who he was and who he thinks he is. And then Denver, where everyone, it's rather. I mean, they've gone from John Elway, Peyton Manning. But the last five, six years, they haven't got the quarterback thing right at all. And here they are, but it's a passionate fan base, incredible.

All right. Next one here. Obviously, the Panthers have a coaching vacancy. Believe that they're scheduled to interview Frank Reich and Jim Caldwell for that job. Again, two guys who have head coaching experience. What have you heard about the Panthers job, the type of candidates they might be going for, all that? So one of the things I heard is that they're not in on job. Jim Harbaugh. So that's kind of interesting because I thought maybe they would be going for a big

name. But when I see Frank Reich and Jim Caldwell, I see voice of reason. I see like, okay, you've had Matt Rule, whatever that was. Maybe Steve Wilkes is probably under consideration as sort of a voice of reason guy too. But Reich is interesting to me because he has had success. I mean, I just think of his temperament. I think of Jim Caldwell's temperament too. That's what's interesting to me about just the names we've seen so far with Steve Wilkes, Frank Reich, Jim Caldwell, pretty even keel temperament guys, I think, and probably pretty good to work with. Yeah, I would have to assume. Frank Reck, I can certainly speak to that.

I don't know Jim Caldwell very well, but he's always seemed like a pretty even-keeled guy. I'm wondering what the support for Steve Wilkes in the locker room, if that has an impact at all on what the Panthers want to do and how they move forward here, because multiple players have talked about him deserving that job. They played really hard for him at the end of that season. Again, I can understand wanting to hit the reset button, wanting a clean slate. And if you draft a quarterback, wanting potentially an offensive coach to kind of create that infrastructure. But I think that Steve Wilkes acquitted himself very well at the end of the year in Carolina.

It's kind of like the Oakland thing or the Vegas thing last year. Rich Passatchie, everyone wanted them. And then the owner says, I really want to get Josh McDaniels. So, you know, in the end of the day, I think I don't know how much of a factor that is with owners who have can do whatever they want because of the money that they have. But I have found it interesting that they're not, they don't seem to be all over the place with a bunch of names yet. And shoot, maybe that's an indication that Steve Wilkes is really in the mix. We'll see. Yeah, what they have shown over the last couple of months is that this team has a lot of intriguing players.

they have a lot of young talent. And they're sitting there in the top 10 still, even if it's a little bit of a lower pick that we might have anticipated. But they are probably within striking range with that ninth overall pick and then some of the ammo that they've accumulated in the McCaffrey trade to draft a quarterback this year. They have, I think, four fifths of their offensive line is under contract for next year. It was a group that played really well this season. D.J. Moore obviously coming back, Teres Marshall is going to be in his third year, had some flashes this season. They have some pieces on defense, whether it's Derek Brown, Brian Burns. We talked about Frankie Louvo on our all-pro pod that's going to be coming out on Wednesday.

I mean, they've got some guys, J.C. Horn. So this job, I would have some eyebrows raised if I was a real candidate and they had to plan a quarterback. You know what I'm laughing here, Robert, is because you're describing the team that Frank Reich thought he had a couple years ago, except they just needed a quarterback. Right? The Colts. The Colts, pretty good offensive line, had some good young towns. defense, you're sort of excited, and then can we just get the quarterback? Well, you know, they tried to get a, do you want to bring in Frank Reich to get the next

quarterback? And I think Frank Reich is excellent. But that will be an interesting one. That will be an interesting one if they go down that path. The roster is pretty darn good. I was looking at some things yesterday. There's not a lot of old guys on that roster. They have some young talent.

Very young. I was looking at like number of 30-year-old starter. next year and something. It's like hardly any, you know. That's pretty cool. So maybe Scott Fitterer and Matt Ruhl did a decent job with getting some of these players and now you just need to get the right captain, you know, and look pretty good for Steve Wilkes if they can, you know, get a little stability of quarterback. Barnwell tweeted today by snap weighted age, which is an interesting metric that looks at by the snaps that your team took, who's the oldest, youngest roster in the league. Carolina was in the bottom five as some of the young, one of the youngest teams in the NFL.

And the difference between this Carolina team and those Colts teams, those Colts teams had elite players at off ball linebacker, left guard, defensive tackle. The Panthers have elite players at edge rusher, corner, wide receiver, like some of the highest value positions in the NFL. And again, they could be in a position to go get a quarterback. So I think it's a pretty decent job, all things considered. There may be people who are looking at it and thinking they don't appreciate how haphazards some of the decision making from Tepper has been, the impatience, and they see that as kind of a less

solid, less stable ownership scenario than some other teams around the league. But in terms of roster talent, I do think that there is some allure to the gig, for sure. You know, and all these places have their weird things, right? That's why they're available. Think of this. I think of two general manager candidates that sort of bided their time and waited for the right situations. it's Chris Ballard and it's George Payton. These were guys who had options for years.

So Chris Ballard goes, hey, Indy, Andrew Luck, man, this is the job. I'm going to take it. Well, then Andrew Luck retires. Jim Mersey goes off the deep end. He's sitting up at a press conference being compared to Michael Jordan. Okay, that is, and that was waiting for the right job. You go to Denver, like you said, legacy franchise, make the move, get Russell Wilson, and you're sitting there with a new owner going, oh, my.

gosh, I fired my coach after one year. So all of these jobs are potentially fraught. They really are. Unless you're going to get, you know, with the Rooney family or something, they all have the potential for going off the rails. It's hard to be picky, is what I'm saying. Yeah. And there are only 32 of these gigs.

And again, I think that the Panthers job, there has some real upside and some real benefits that we might not have even fully understood when Mount Rule was running this thing into the ground a couple months ago. All right. Last one here. Kind of forgot about this because it's been so long since they made. the move, but the Titans need a general manager. So that is starting to heat up a little bit.

They have requested Ian Cunningham from the Bears, their assistant general manager, who is also interviewing in Arizona, potentially. So he's only been there for one year, but this is a guy who was in Baltimore, he was in Philadelphia. You hear any interview with him. He's somebody that I think is really locked in, understanding the modern demands of the job and the way to go about it. I think that going, working for the Ravens and working for the Eagles for,

a decade combined is a pretty good education for the way that an NFL team should run right now. So I'd be sad to see him leave Chicago, but not a surprise that he's garnering some interest. Quentin Harris, who we talked about, who is the vice president of personnel for the Cardinals also getting a look in Tennessee, apparently, along with Malik Boyd, who is the pro-personnel director for the Bills. So those are the three candidates I have heard about so far in Tennessee. There's, yeah, there's five others that I went through and found Glenn Cook from Cleveland is one. The two in-house candidates Ryan Cowden and Montiaston Fort and then Adam Peters and Ran Carthon of San Francisco were two others that I picked up just going through the Schaefter and Ian Rappapoor and all those

guys Twitter feeds. Seems like those guys from San Francisco are probably going to get one of these jobs sooner rather than later based on the way that roster looks. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's amazing. I was thinking of that yesterday as they're going to go play Seattle and you go, well, you know, Seattle's had to turn it over with the quarterback here, so they're a little bit behind. Wait a minute.

The 49ers are on like their third quarterback that no one had heard of, and they're favored by 10 because of the roster they put together. The funniest part about the Niners is there's no offensive coaches left to poach. The defensive coordinator is going to go this year, but their entire offensive staff is in year one of those jobs, and they don't really have an offensive coordinator. Hey, the ball boy who runs out and places the ball out there is going to get like some OC interviews here, probably this off season. It's remarkable that we see this all the time and how much brain drain affects these franchises. And when you have multiple assistants hired away over the course of several years, it tends to wear on you as a team. The Patriots are a good example. I think it's, you know, the Packers had multiple coaches hired away this offseason.

You think about what the Eagles were like after they lost Reich and some of those other assistants after that Super Bowl run. The Niners have a first-year quarterback coach. They do not have a named offensive coordinator. They have a tight ends coach who's in his first year. The offensive line coach has been there for a couple years, Chris Furster. But almost all of their assistants are either in their first year or in new jobs this year. And they have arguably been the scariest NFL offense in the league over the second half of the season. So, Koshanaan, doing a decent job.

He's on the short list of coordinators that do the run game and the past game. So he's less vulnerable than others when somebody leaves. because he does the whole thing. So he better not get sick or decide he wants to take a season off or something because then the whole thing changes. There are more changes coming in Tennessee as well. They fired their offensive coordinator, Todd Downing earlier today. Todd was on Arthur Smith staff.

When Arthur Smith was the OC there, I believe he was the tight ends coach, which Arthur Smith also was. So that was just continuity. They'd had a lot of success under Arthur Smith. They were some of the most efficient offenses in football for those two years. I think they wanted to keep that. I wonder what it's going to look like now. Tim Kelly was their past game coordinator. Do they go outside the building?

Are they going to revamp that side of the ball? They fired Keith Carter, their offensive line coach, as well. So is this going to be a back-to-square-one thing for the Titans offense, or are they going to potentially look inside the building for his replacement? Yeah, we heard so much about does Bill O'Brien come back to New England? Well, does he go to with the Rable? right or something like that. I think that will be very interesting to see who they get.

I think their whole thing is interesting because, you know, the GM thing now is that Vrable interviewing the GM? And now Vrable becomes a bigger voice and what they're doing in a personnel with a partner where he's kind of the stronger of the two partners. I think that will be very interesting. And from the names they've got there, it's not like they're, you know, interviewing a three-time GM who, you know, is going to come in and tell them how they're going to do the draft. necessarily. We'll see how that goes. And then the coordinator thing, they've had such a style of play. You know, I think Todd Downing's been criticized for, you know, running the ball so much. But I don't know what you're going to do when you got Joshua Dobbs in there.

And the state of their offensive line. The state of their offensive line. I mean, I almost was getting a little tired of the criticism of Downing from Titan fans and stuff the last month or so. Because it's like, what would you do with this team? What this feels like to me is that the Titans and Mike Vrable are looking at their offense and saying, this has run its course. We tried to get every ounce we could out of the infrastructure that we had in place over those couple seasons after making the Tannahill trade. We had a very good offensive line.

We had a very good run game. We had this downhill aggressive play action passing attack. And we were a really good offense because of it. And that has run its course. They now have really, they spent a first round pick on trail on Burks, but I think they're going to have to remake their entire receiving core outside of him next off season. The offensive line is probably a total tear down as well. They can move on from Taylor Luan after the season.

Ben Jones is getting up there. They have a couple young pieces, but I think that there's a lot to be remade there. So I feel like they're just kind of moving on from whatever the plan was over the last couple years and just saying, we're hitting the blowup button here. We're going to start over on that side of the ball. Because with the state of their offensive line, with the state of their receiving core by the end of the year. Honestly, for most of this year, I don't know what you really could have expected from them offensively.

Yeah, I think when you put all those things together that, you know, the offense was going downhill, the injuries, all that. Remember, he also had the DUI thing on the way home from the Green Bay game. So that's obviously affected the equity. And so when you get to the end of a disappointing season, you know, a really disappointing season where this thing was, they were in the driver's seat and then they lose out. almost always things have to be done to show that we are addressing it. Sometimes they make moves that don't even make sense. It doesn't even address the problem. But you know what?

We're not standing for this. So when you look at who is vulnerable there, obviously John Robinson was. That's at the discretion directly of the owner. But if you had to look at who else is vulnerable there as change, you know what? We are not standing for this. We're going to do something else. Clearly it would be the offensive coordinator right now, even though like we said, hands were pretty tight. I don't know what he was going to do. It would have been a miracle if they had a

great offense down the stretch. When you're signing quarterback off someone else's practice squad because you don't want to play the guy that was drafted, tough, tough sledding. Big questions for me with whoever gets that job. What is the hierarchy with Rabel like you alluded to? And that's a big one to answer. And what happens a quarterback? This team now, because they lost on Saturday, the Jags are picking 21st, the Titans are picking 11th. they are going to be within striking distance of trying to find a quarterback in this draft potentially. And can they kind of hit the reset button at that position a little bit quicker than we might have thought because of where they're picking? Yeah, or do they bring back Tannehill for another year?

Do they look at another veteran? Do you do both? Did you draft quarterback and keep Tannhill for this year? I think that that could be on the table. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know that Mike Rable is going to want to just take his chances rolling the dice with someone who's a 50% hit rate quarterback, you know. Yeah. Yeah, do they think a veteran is in the cards because they can get back to relevancy quicker than we might think? So those are the biggest questions to me is who's going to get that job?

What is his role within the organization? And then who's going to be the quarterback of that team, both next year and moving forward? All right. Last thing here, the Colts obviously have a head coaching vacancy. Haven't really heard any news today about their candidate list, who they're looking to interview. I assume they're just doing that because they want to give Jeff Saturday a little bit of interest, a little bit of time, interview him before they start rolling out an entire list of a wish list. But we haven't really heard anything on that front for Indianapolis so far.

No, we haven't. It's been quiet. I mean, shoot, we heard about them every week during the year, right? I mean, it's been an adventure. So I think with the Colts, what is interesting is just the potential fit with Jim Harbaugh. And what relationship might already exist that doesn't have to be drummed up or doesn't have to develop between him and that organization. He's in the ring of honor for his captain comeback years in the mid-90s.

I think he has relationships with other people in the building there in the front office. And so they may know him. They may have talked to him. They may have told him, hey, look, do whatever and every you want. Make sure you talk to us. I don't know that, but that would be somebody who would give them an instant identity if they wanted to go that route. And it's been reported. Tom Palisera reported today.

It's kind of been the rumbles. that Jeff Saturday is a serious candidate to keep that job. If that happens, I don't really know what to say about it. But that gets what we're talking about earlier with Arizona. You know, the comfort level that the owner has with that person is sometimes everything. Sometimes it's too much. So, yeah. Owen lost the final seven, right?

He won his first one and then lost seven in a row. Yeah. So. Yeah. So, yeah, if they want to go that route, interesting. I always sort of thought that, you know, Saturday might emerge as an advisor or that sort of a thing. But if he goes with him as the head coach, it will be interesting to see what they do. All right.

Mike Sando, thank you very much, sir. If people have not, please go read Mike's pick six column, wrote about Jim Harbaugh, Sean McVeigh, a lot of the other news over the last couple days or so. I highly encourage you guys to go check that out. We will be back on Tuesday in the afternoon. We're going to be releasing that show a little bit early because we have two. all pro shows coming away on Wednesday. Tomorrow, I'm going to be chatting with Connor Orr from Sports Illustrated about

the candidates for some of these jobs. We alluded to it a little bit earlier today, but Shane Steichen, Jonathan Gannon, Adjero Evereaux, Dimeco Ryan's, Ben Johnson, all of these guys who are going to be the big names, the hot names here over the next couple weeks, what their candidacy looks like, what they may look like as

head coaches. excited to chat about that with Connor. In the meantime, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. I would really appreciate that. Please subscribe to the The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show is where you can read all of Mike Sandoz's wonderful work and the work of the rest of our great team of NFL writers.

So we will be back tomorrow on Tuesday for now. Appreciate you guys. Let's talk to you soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.