The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: Confidence in QBs, how jersey swaps work, Mike Evans’ HOF case, o-line continuity & more with Mitchell Schwartz

Episode Date: May 31, 2022

Is there a discernible difference in the huddle depending on which QB is in there? How do jersey swaps really go down after NFL games? Is Mike Evans on a Hall of Fame trajectory? Super Bowl champion Mitchell Schwartz is back to answer your Mailbag questions with Robert Mays on these topics and many more on a new Athletic Football Show. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Tuesday, May 31st. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, my good friend, Mitchell Schwartz. How you doing, buddy? Doing pretty good. How are you doing?

I'm okay. I got vacation brain. So I'm settling back in here. Sometimes that's a good thing, though. Yeah, it was great. It was great. We were gone for nine days, which is kind of a crazy amount of time. We really took advantage of the Memorial Day weekend, and we did five days.

in Mexico City and then four days in Cabo and I challenged, I probably broke a landspeen record for how many, how many tortillas you can eat in a nine days stretch. I mean, in various forms, obviously. Some just fresh, some in a chip sort of form, but we ate incredibly well. I mean, it was a food-based trip. It's why we wanted to go to Mexico and why we wanted to go to Mexico city. And we had reservations at like amazing restaurants every night and just in between interspersed, just either after before or going to grab a couple tacos here or there. I convinced myself that you can always eat two more tacos. It doesn't matter what you've eaten over the course of the day or what you're about to

eat. If you want to sneak them in at 3 p.m. or midnight or whenever, it's always possible. So we had a great combination of stuff. It was very, very fun. Yeah, there's always room. Whatever the dishes, I found that there's always room. Yeah, it was great.

All right. So let's get into this. We wanted to, we're going to do our normal mail bag again. just because of the travel schedule and also because yesterday was Memorial Day. We didn't want anybody to record a Memorial Day. We're doing this on Tuesday morning, so it's probably going to be up, hopefully around noon. You guys are listening to it, but our typical Tuesday mailbag, and really appreciate you guys sending in questions.

A lot of questions specifically for Mitch, which I love because obviously he can provide a perspective that I certainly cannot. So let's get to it. Robert Graham Gazda asks, a while back you and Lindsay talked about the car continuum and how a QB needs to be above Derek Carr to warn a long-term deal. So what an utterly amazing way to visualize the quarterback market. It got me thinking. What about all the quarterbacks that orbit Carr in the continuum?

Those on both sides of what I'm calling the Car Vent Horizon. The ones that fluctuate on the horizon, golf with the Rams, Jimmy G with the Niners, Tannhill with the Titans, and Baker maybe. All these quarterbacks have flashed and then fallen back to Earth the points, leaving teams of the top market deal and an average market player. My question is this. In this era of the NFL, where can these guys go? Should a team try a multi-deer with the guy whose floor depends on people around him?

And if so, what's worth paying for above-average quarterback play? It's a lion's fan looking at possibly two more years of golf. It's been itching at me what golf is. The reason I wanted to talk about this is that I feel like too often we talk and speak in vacuums and hypotheticals when it comes to this show and just in general. It's like, oh, if you don't have one of the guys above that line, then you're screwed. None of this matters. What are you doing? And there's all.

And Dan Arlowski tweeted a list today. and it was the car continuum list, which I thought was very funny. It's 11 guys. There are 32 NFL teams. So the 32 teams have to do something at quarterback. And I think framing it this way helps us deal in the real world a little bit more because eventually you're going to have one of these guys. So how should you treat them? I think it's an important question and an important consideration.

So I wanted to lay this on you. When you're looking at one of those guys, a Tana Hill, a Baker, a Jared Gaw. Jimmy Garapolo. How do you think about those quarterbacks in the larger scale of the league? It seems like we're going towards what should happen, which is a price tier for those quarterbacks. The problem we got into is that whatever quarterback was next up to get paid, kind of regardless of skill level and regardless of where they fall in the continuum,

they just got the next highest contract. So you ended up with the Wentz deal, the Goff deal. And now we're kind of transitioning out of that, it seems. know, Cleveland, obviously not willing to pay Baker that much. To me, the guy is Alex Smith. I mean, he got to the Chiefs. I think he signed for like four years, 60 million, signed for 15 a year when quarterbacks were making more than that.

Then he goes to Washington. He signs for, you know, 20-ish a year when guys are making into the 30s. So I think there should be this kind of middle class of quarterbacks that makes 20, 25 a year, which, again, it sounds like a lot of money, but when the top guys are making, making 40 to 50. That's about 50 to 60 percent of the top end of the quarterback. And I think at that price, yeah, these guys make sense because you're not blowing 20 percent of the cap on one guy who can't elevate the other 80 percent of the cap. And you're saving, say, 20 million off the top end deal. Well, that 20 million can go into one superstar defender, one superstar wide receiver that

makes the offense that much easier, maybe a couple offense alignment. And I think that's the place for these guys. And it's also, I mean, for GMs, I think obviously the GMs would love to have the superstar quarterback and then figure everything else out. But I feel like the kind of ideal situation is to have an awesome roster and then you can put in a quarterback and then it elevates it to being an elite roster. You know, we've seen that again with the Rams with, you know, kind of Cleveland's process taking Miles Garrett the year before, you know, prioritizing a complete roster before you plop a guy in. I think we're seeing that with Chicago a little bit, even though they have the quarterback, but the roster is not good enough.

They're kind of prioritizing the roster and then hoping that that elevates the quarterback down the road. And so if you're paying one of these guys in the 20 to 25 range, I think that's decent enough. You know, they're competent quarterbacks. They're not going to, you know, lose you games or not bottom tier quarterbacks. You know, we saw this last year with golf a little bit. Like, you'll get frustrated at the guy throughout the year because he's not quite as good

as you wish him to be. but he's still good enough to win some games. And as the roster starts to turn, he'll look better as well. So if you're paying these guys the right amount, I'm totally for it. Just for so long, teams weren't paying these guys the right amount. They were paying them way above kind of their true market value. And as we're getting into a situation where these guys are getting paid fair to what they're worth, I think it makes a lot of sense because, you know, it's pretty dreary to go into the season

and just be like, well, we got a bottom five quarterback and we're going to suck this year. That's just not fun for anybody in the organization, except allegedly Stephen Ross, but you know, it's just, it's not something that you necessarily want to do. And I think as these kind of process situations get played out, you know, over various sports, we're realizing that kind of fostering a losing attitude, a losing spirit and just being okay with it doesn't really seem to work a ton. You know, most of the teams that have success and have these rebuilds, they don't go through that. Like they have a down period or they get lucky, you know, Indy got lucky that one year that Peyton Manning was out for the year and Andrew Luck was in the draft.

But like the teams that kind of purposely lose and try to position themselves, it doesn't necessarily work out. So I think, you know, that's not the way to do it. So if you can have one of these middle tier quarterbacks and you can win a few more. games than you're supposed to because the other guys in your roster play well. I'm definitely all for that. I think that's a really good way to frame it where you have to understand what this is for, where you're getting this person along your trajectory, how much you're paying them, all of those different factors. And if you look at some of these examples of when it's worked out okay, I think it's understanding that these guys are just good enough to win with and the circumstances are

favorable. So you have to try to keep the circumstances favorable. You have to be paying them a certain amount if you paying them a certain amount at some point along your timeline as a team. I think there are a couple good examples. The Titans going out and trading for Ryan Tantill is a huge success. Like when they traded for him, what they traded for him, what they were paying him to go get that guy was huge for them. Then they paid him and it became a little less favorable. What the Niners did with Jimmy G. You look at what the Niners did with Jimmy G's contract. It was a huge contract when they signed it. They front-loaded it so much when they were terrible and they weren't paying anyone else. There's a $37 million cap hit the first year of the deal. And then he

averaged 22 for the next four years. You can live with that. I mean, you can understand what Jimmy G is at $22 million. You can build the rest of your team that way. Baker on a rookie deal. You can live with that. Jared golf on a rookie deal. You can live with that. It's after you pay the guys that it becomes a little bit more difficult. But I think what you said about having one of those guys as a way to keep yourself competent as you're trying to figure out where you're going to go from here. And that to me is what Jared Gough is for the Lions right now. They're probably paying a premium to make that happen, but they seem willing to pay that premium so they're at least functional on offense. So they and they're along their timeline, this is a temporary thing. Jared

golf is not going to be the quarterback of the future for the Lions. And I think they understand that. And it's important to understand that. So it's fine having one of these guys. I think it's just the problem comes when you delude yourself into thinking this guy is different. than what he actually is, whether that's monetary value, his ceiling, how it elevates the players around him, all of those things. Well, the interesting thing is we're kind of listing off all these guys is every team has wanted to move on from them. Like they've all been replaced at some point. So you either draft the guy, you surround him with an awesome roster, you realize like maybe he's holding you back from your top end value and you move on from him. That's, you know, the Rams.

Or Kyle shows up and you trade for a guy. And you realize like, yeah, maybe he's not, you know, getting us to exactly where we want to be. You know, he got him to two minutes away from a Super Bowl victory. But we need to replace them. So you trade three first to get a quarterback who you think has a better timeline. You know, Cleveland traded for a quarterback who when he's on the field is much better than Baker. You know, so as you said, understanding what you have and all these franchises realize like, hey, we kind of need one of the top five guys to win. at all or to have, you know, an 11 win floor and just know, like, we're going to be in the playoffs

every year. We're probably going to have a home game or two, and we've got a very real chance of winning the Super Bowl, not, you know, if our roster stays healthy and we can, you know, play good defense and, you know, we kind of get lucky and we play the right teams. Maybe we'll have a chance, you know, having that elite quarterback is where you want to be. So to your point, it is very specific. There's a certain timeline thing. I mean, Carolina has been looking for league average quarterback play for the last few years. And, you know, They might be a little bit further along. Like they're probably the bad example or the great example of trying to get one of

these guys, but just not choosing the right ones. Like I think they were going for, you know, they gave Bridgewater, what, 18 a year, 20 a year. Obviously, darn old, they thought maybe reclamation project. Like, they just wanted a top 12 quarterback. They could be okay having the 12th best quarterback. They just struck out a few times trying to land it. And so, you know, teams definitely understand.

And you can't really go get a superstar quarterback. I guess the landscape changing a little bit. You could potentially trade for one if a guy gets disgruntled enough. But it's just, it's exceedingly difficult to do that. And the draft is a whole other, you know, gamble. And so if your roster's at a certain level and, you know, like you said, you just want this certain level of competency. A lot of these guys do make sense.

Again, caveat for the right price. When you're saying, if we play good defense, if we get a couple breaks, we build up the rest of the roster in the right way. It's okay to think that way for a time. You can't think that way for 10 years. That's not going to be sustainable for any extended period of time. But for a couple years as you're figuring things out, I think that's okay. I think you can live that way as long as you give yourself outs from that plan,

as long as there's an end date on it, as long as you have the flexibility to say, all right, we have enough draft capital to go do this. We can make this move. And I will say, so being in the huddle, just being in a locker room, there's a stark difference between a quarterback who gets it and a guy who doesn't. You know, I was in Cleveland, obviously, I had a few guys who weren't quite as good. You know, we got Josh McCown. We got Brian Hoyer, like, even playing with those guys, you know, Hoyer just seemed like so advanced. Like, oh, my God, he got a grasp on this.

And then, like, Josh McCown, who's been around for 15 years and for 12 different teams and knows everything. It's like, oh my God, there's another level of like mental acumen. And then you go to Kansas City, you play with Alex Smith. And I was like, oh, my God, quarterbacks can like be this good. I didn't even realize that. Obviously, you play with Pat and, you know, the ceiling gets busted off of that. But there's a very different feeling in the building. Just like knowing that your guy gets to the right plays, knows what to do, can throw the ball accurately.

Like, there might be a couple frustrating plays. But just there is a confidence. There is just that that certain level of. trust and comfort with having a guy who can do those things. And I think that's what we lose sight of from the outside when we think like, oh, well, you know, Jimmy's not good enough. They can move on. But like having the trust that I can call these specific plays, he knows what to do, he'll get the ball out on time. Like you might make a bonehead player too. But like, I can do all these things and have enough trust and confidence in him. The guys trust them. They play hard. Like,

we know that every time we take the field, we can win. That's a very valuable thing for a franchise. And I think that's probably the best example right now, in my opinion, is Cousins. Because the Vikings theoretically could have moved on from him. I mean, the new regime walks in. It wouldn't have been easy. You know, a $35 million base salary. I don't know who was taking that on. It wouldn't have been an easy contract to deal.

But you're looking at Kirk Cousins. And every single coach has looked at Kirk Cousins at some point and been like, I can win with that guy. I can absolutely win with that guy. Kyle wanted him for that reason. the Rams, I think when the Rams were looking at Goff in his first year, if Goff hadn't worked out, if McVeigh had walked in and been like, no, this isn't going to work. There's absolutely no way I can win with this guy. Cousins, that was the timeline where Cousins might be available, right?

It was that 2017 into 18 season. So there was a world where maybe the Rams would have gone after Jared Gough. Kevin O'Connell knows Kurt Cousins. He worked with Kurt Cousins in Washington. He understands what Kirk Cousins is, and when you're walking in and you're an offensive coach, you absolutely. can say, oh, yeah, absolutely, I can win with Kirk Cousins. No problem. I can do that. It's about how much you're paying him. So I'm sure Minnesota was thinking, well, why wouldn't we just pay Kirk Cousins $35 million when the quarterback market is now up at $45, $50 million? So you're

not paying him top of market money. You're paying him one tier down from that. He is one tier down from that as a quarterback. It's two years. Even theoretically, we could move on next year because of the way the contract is structured and if we need an out from it, it's absolutely worth paying this price to keep ourselves at a certain level this year. And think about the alternatives that Minnesota would have been looking at if they hadn't paid Kirk Cousins. Teddy Bridgewater. Marcus Mariotta.

Jacoby Brissette. Mitchell Trubisky. Those are the guys available in free agency this year. So you're paying those guys $5 million, $6 million, $7 million. If they're your starter probably closer to like $8 to $10 million if you end up giving them that deal. So is it worth paying those guys $8 to $10 million rather than paying $0 million? Kirk Cousins, $35 million with the difference between those two guys.

I don't know the answer to that. I don't know if it's worth paying that premium, but that's the decision that a team like Minnesota had, and they went the Kirk Cousins route. I mean, you're the perfect got to ask. Would you rather have Trubisky for $10 million or Cousins for $35 million? In a vacuum, probably Trubisky for $10 million. But like you just said, like would you, in a huddle, would you feel the difference in Kirk Cousins and Mitchell Trubisky?

How much would you feel it? And is it worth paying $25 million for the difference in that feeling? I think you probably would. I think you'd feel it because, I mean, Kirk is very confident and he might just not prefer to throw downfield on third and 13 and might just want the check down. But like, to your point, all these other times he is a good quarterback and he does all these things that you like. where Trubisky, like, it kind of sucks just knowing like this ball might be eight yards offline. Like, it's that kind of inconsistency that's just like disheartening when you see a ball land five feet shorter your receiver. And it's just an awful pass.

And, I mean, Trubisky has shown that like you have to make the offense so specific to have him have kind of any level of NFL success where Cousins has been in kind of the same scale. scheme for a lot of his career and he's had good success with it. But I think you would trust him in a more diverse scheme, definitely a more diverse passing attack. And so, you know, a $25 million difference, I think, is warranted because I think Trubisky is not only kind of team dependent. He's very much coordinator dependent. And I don't think Cousins is quite the same in that regard. You're also, you know, you're banking on at this point, I mean, Cousins is my draft class. So it's like 10 years of pretty much the same quarterback play. I mean, realistically, seven to eight years of the same quarterback play.

You've got durability. You've got this very high floor of what you know exists. And I think is it that Minnesota has like the least variance week to week. Was that the deal of the last couple of years? Yeah. Like it's just it's the same every week. And coaches place right or wrong a premium on knowing what you're going to get. Knowing what you're going to get is huge.

It is so important. And that's why when they look at him, they're like, I know what that is and I find comfort in that. Yeah. And that's why, I mean, for forever, the Tulsie guys haven't been drafted as high because you don't know what you're going to get. There's not a certainty there. And we're realizing now that, you know, these elite quarterbacks have a lot of different tools and you kind of have to gamble on it. And then Josh Allen kind of broke everyone's expectations of how much a guy can improve. And now Toolsie is getting more in vogue because you just need to reach for the top end. But for a hundred years, the NFL has valued a certain level of, I know what I have in this person at the quarterback position.

And it might not be what I want at the top end, but the bottom end is good enough. And we can hope and dream on what the top end could be. And you're looking at all the quarterback deals. And that middle class still doesn't really exist that much. You could argue that now that Cousins deal is kind of the middle class. if Watson's getting 46 and Mahomes is getting 45 and Cousins is getting 35, 75% of what those guys are getting. But the deal that now stands out to me among all of these contracts, because the step down from that for starter quarterbacks is Winston and Marriota. Mario is like absolutely a bridge quarterback.

They're moving off from him. That contract is inflated. It's really $5 million this year and a lot next year when they can move on from it. The deal that jumps out to me is the Winston deal where the Saints are like, all right, he is a, marginally real quarterback, we're paying him $14 million. That's what it's going to be. And we can live with that. And I think that is not a bad strategy.

I completely understand that as a dice role when you look at the quarterback landscape in general. So that I definitely understand and it's a good price. The problem is how are you going to convince any of these guys who have played for four years? Like, hey, we're just going to offer you 15 million and you're going to be okay with it. because the expectation of all these quarterbacks, the reason they got all frustrated is they expect to be the next in line and, oh, I'm good enough and I'm better than this other guy and I need 40 million, blah, blah, blah. Like, none of the guys that are going to get paid this amount that we think is reasonable will get paid it, like coming off their fourth season and now, I mean, their extension ready after three, but like coming off the fourth season because he didn't quite trust them after three. and they had a kind of middling year. The team was nine and eight.

You know, maybe they snuck into the playoffs. They got bouncing the first round. The team's like, you know, you're just not a top level starter. You know, we value you as a mid-tier guy.

We're going to give you 15 to 18 million a year. Like no quarterback's going to say yes to that. That's going to lead to the quarterback getting frustrated and taking all the team's stuff off his Instagram and trying to force a trade and then he'll go through a couple years of turmoil. And eventually you get to the point where it's like, I'll just take this deal. It's a low level starter deal, a high level backup deal. I'll bet on myself. And again, to your point, that's a two-year window with the guy that the team's committing to. And they're going to offer two for 36. And if the guy turns into a better player in year seven,

you know, maybe then he does get the $40 million deal. And if he doesn't, he's just got, you know, a Bridgewater type of career where he just bounces around and team hopes on him. So yeah, it takes a specific situation for a quarterback to also agree to this. level of compensation that we feel is probably right for a lot of these guys. All right, let's get to our next one here. Jack Hammerack asks, as a Panthers fan, the end of last season felt very odd. The team was spiraling, being blown out each week, and the energy felt like the franchise should be headed towards a regime change when the season ended and the blowouts were over.

It really felt like the end of something rather than doing it all over again. Rule is now back for year three, and we hear a lot in the media about how Rule being a lame dot coach and a general sense of him being gone soon, something I'm desperately waiting for. My question for Mitch, as a player, do you have a sense of when a coach is probably on the way out? Heading into that type of season, does that affect your mindset at all when you're listening to them in camp meetings, etc.? You're uniquely positioned to talk about this, I feel like. Yeah, unfortunately I am. You know, I don't think it, I would hope at least that you aren't like, oh, this guy's a lame duck.

I'm not going to listen to him. I would say there's probably a couple camps in that regard. One is that he's just not a very effective coach and you've already checked out on him and you're already not listening to him. But I would say that the guy who is listening to the stuff and kind of knows the business and thinks like, hey, my coach might be canned after this year. To me, there's like a level of responsibility and a level of awareness to that that I think you'd also be responsible and aware enough to like not tune him out and to know that your job is more important in that vacuum than his job. So it's almost like opposing viewpoints that if you're concerned and you kind of know that he might get fired and you understand the kind of business reality of that. You also understand the business reality of yourself maybe being fired and not playing well and you're just going to do whatever you need to do to be successful. And it's the guys he's already lost on the team that already you're not listening to him.

I mean, I've had coaches. I'm just like, all right, we get it. Like we don't need a fifth meeting this week about accountability. like I understand time to move on. Like it's the second preseason game. Like you're giving us another new rocking speech. Like we don't need this. What are you going to do in week four when we're one and two?

And the game actually matters. Like it's not going to hold any value when you're giving us the same speech in week two, the preseason. So these things, it kind of just you're with the guy every day and you form your own opinion. It's not necessarily like the media saying, oh, he might get fired like kind of the general surroundings that inform your decision. And I mean, you should be responsible enough whether a coach, like whether you bond with a coach, whether you like his meetings, his saying, his coaching style, all that stuff. It's kind of irrelevant. Like it's the impetus is on you to prepare yourself the

best that you can and to perform the best that you can. And you also know that they'll replace you as quick as they can as well. Like they're either trying to replace you with someone, well, they're trying replace you with someone better. That's a fact. And whether that better is cheaper and or younger, like that's what a team is always doing. So the quicker you kind of learn that in the NFL and you don't get settled, you don't get comfortable, you don't take anything for granted. That's the best you'll be from, you know, kind of the personal side. Is there a playbook that you saw the coaches followed when things started to get a little bit out of their grasp? Were there more of those Newt-Rockney speeches? Or was each coach kind of individually, did each coach handle that

downward spiral in his own individual way. No, I mean, every coach has his own personality. So I think they mostly, I mean, they don't address it. It's not like, hey, guys, I know you're probably hearing that I might get fired in a few weeks. Like, we're not going to listen to that. It was not that overt. But, well, I mean, I'm sure some guys say like, hey, there's a lot of noise in the media.

Like, let's not listen to it. Let's just focus on the task at hand, you know, blah, blah, blah. But no, I mean, every coach just kind of has his own vibe, you know, has his own way of doing things and it's it's it's it's interesting to be in those situations i mean when i got to cleveland it was my rookie year and jimmy haslam had just bought the team and so you know you kind of know that unless the guy's having a certain level of success he's probably going to get fired after a new owner takes over like that's just the way things go and then the team is like four and 12 or whatever so you kind of just know that everything's going to change and there's a realistic

expectation but there's also pat shirmer i mean we know his demeanor so it's not like he's going to go in there and kind of give crazy speeches and get fired up and stuff it's just you know let's focus on the task let's try to get better let's try to win games and um that's really all you can do as cliche as it is so you you got drafted in 2012 right and then you left cleveland what year uh 15 was my last year so that was the first time i had a coach for a second year which was mike pedin and he subsequently fired. So your first three years in the league, you had three different head coaches. Yeah.

So I get drafted and Jimmy Haslam buys the team like that training camp. And it's year two of Pat Schumer. And so Schumer gets fired. We hire Rob Chisinski. So year two is Chiszynski. He gets fired after one year. Year three is Mike Petten. And he makes it through his second year.

but Kyle Shanahan was our offensive coordinator, and that was in certain acrimonious split. And so, yeah, I always like to say two owners, three head coaches, four offensive coordinators, four GMs. When Chazzynski gets fired after a year, there has to be part of you that's like, really? Like after a year? Or was it so bad that you understood it?

Because that level of dysfunction, where after one year a coach gets fired, and you're sitting there in the middle of your rookie deal and there's no light at the end of the tunnel, like, this is where I am. That has to be a pretty disheartening moment. Yeah, I mean, I was still too young to really comprehend that. Like, I just assume, like, oh, well, I mean, we're not playing as well as we thought we would and we wanted to do better.

And, you know, they're going to make a change and we're going to get someone better. I mean, I personally didn't love Chichensky's, like, coaching style. Like, it was, I just kind of want someone to leave me alone and just let me do my thing. Like, I'm very hard on myself and expectations. and stuff. And so he wasn't even like a yell or a screamer or anything, but, you know, it just wasn't something that I liked as much, you know, some of the other guys liked it. I mean, I think of those years, Joe actually might have thought he was the best of the certain amount of coaches. And I didn't like him, you know, compared to that. And I forget, I mean,

we do our coach rankings every now and again and it changes all the time because we have different memories at a certain time. But like, I would pay so much money to be a part of that Brown's former offensive why I'm in text chain. Yeah, it's a lot of scar tissue there. Jesus. Yeah, I mean, it's just like that one was, so that that story is that we had no idea he was getting fired. I mean, you don't expect your coach to get fired after a year. I think it was the morning, we were in Pittsburgh, week 17. And I don't remember specifically, I know that morning, I think Shepter, one of those guys put out like, hey, Chud might get fired. I don't remember if we caught wind of that before the game.

Like I don't know if that was tweeted before the game or during the game, but I do know we got back to our lockers after the game. We checked our phones and it was like everyone expects Trude to get fired, Chats going to get fire, blah, blah. And we're like, what is going on? And so we are busing back from Pittsburgh because it's kind of like a hassle to fly there. Yeah. It's a little bit easier to bus. So we were busing back from Pittsburgh. And all these things were happening like guys are texting like all their friends in the media world.

like, hey, what are you hearing? Have you gotten anything? Like, we're texting each other. Like, hey, is anyone on best one? Like, what's the attitude? What's the vibe? Like, did Chud said that he's fired? Like, what's going on? And so we're trying to figure it out. Like, everyone's refreshing Twitter, texting media people, trying to figure it out, texting each other on different buses. Like, hey, what's going on? Have you heard anything? And then I think by the time we actually got back to Cleveland, like they had announced that he had officially been fired or something. And so that one was very swift and it was really interesting bus ride back. And that's one you don't quite forget.

How devastating was it when Kyle left? Because that was that offense and that group in 2014. I talk about this glowing way where like the 2014 Browns offense for the first six games of the years, a moment in time that I weirdly cherish as someone who wasn't there. For you guys, I'm sure you felt the same way. where it was all this bullshit over your first couple years there. Kyle was there when you guys were healthy and Mac was there. It was healthy.

You guys were playing well. And then he's just gone. I'm sure you're sitting there looking at each other being like, man, that's, that's a, that's a tough one. Like, I don't know what happens now. Yeah, it wasn't very nice to hear that news because, yeah, he was by far the best coach we had at that point. And obviously, the most offensive success. It's a fun scheme. We all liked it.

And then it's just like, well, that sucks. Like just got to, I guess, wait for the next guy and figure out what the deal is. But no, it was very different. I mean, that one year was, like I said, the most fun we had, the most success we had too. I mean, we were seven and four first in the AFC North after week 12. You know, definitely didn't have any other moments like that in my Brown's career. And it's just, it's nice to go into a game and, you know, have three dropbacks the whole game. like run and play action and feel like you have a pretty low stress game and, you know,

win and have success with it. And I mean, we would get down 20 points and we just run the ball at a fast tempo and come back and run play action and stuff. So it's like even when you got down, there was no panic. I mean, we had first game of the year. We were down in Pittsburgh by like 21 or 24th a half. We came all the way back. I think we tied it. They won on a field goal. We beat Tennessee in Tennessee, 25 point comeback. I think it was the largest road victory at NFL history at the time. And we did those just running a super fast-paced uptempo offense and just kind of our normal stuff.

It wasn't like, hey, we're going to go four wide and throw the ball and you guys got to hold up in pass protection. So, yeah, it was a lot of fun. And it's definitely disheartening when, you know, kind of your favorite coach gets the boot. And, you know, you've seen it on different levels. I mean, you've heard Rogers talked about when, you know, the guys he likes that he's bond to the quarterback coach or coordinator, they leave.

Like, he's not very happy about that. And, you know, the work. environment does matter and having trust in your coach and having a good time, all that stuff matters. And especially if you think they've also got this creative genius that allows the team and yourself to do better. It's not very fun when that happens. Could you sense kind of the tension with him and everyone else in the building? Or is that something you guys were kind of shielded to in the moment? No, I mean, I guess we didn't quite realize what was going on behind the scenes with the Johnny stuff. It sounds like a lot of kind of the things that weren't going on. I mean,

was like the Ray Farmer text during the game like they put Johnny in and you know so I I didn't get that sense we didn't quite know that I'm sure every day they were like hey you got to play them you got to play him you got to play him um the only stuff I knew is just he and pedin kind of got after her during training camp because they're both like super competitive and so Kyle would be very frustrated that peddn would put in like all these exotic blitzes on like day one we wouldn't be able to prepare for him because we didn't know what the install was and he's like I just want to fucking run a base run against a simple defense and like get you guys the easy look and figure it out. And so our walkthroughs during training camp evolved into this like whole other situation

because we weren't getting just base looks of like our simple run stuff and actual practice. Like Kyle was like, you know, you guys might see like one of these every four weeks like these particular blitzes or pressures like a corner pressure into a weak side fullback lead week zone or whatever. he's like, we're just never going to see this. Like you guys are practicing against the one-offs every second of training camp. And like, this isn't real. And then Joe formed a theory that basically no one in the Rex Ryan's coaching tree had ever had a successful offense.

And he said it's because they didn't get to practice against like base looks and training camp and form their fundamentals. Like they were basically always in like super high alert game plan mode. Everything's moving. That's fascinating. Yeah, you don't just get like, all right. go run against a base 3-4 or base 4-3 and just like get really good at the fundamentals and then you can game plan into certain blitzes and you know you know on this run this week you got to be prepared for these four looks but it's like no every day of training camp is what's drill in every

single period and it was joe's theory that you know going back to like the rex ryan um new york days and obviously pedin and stuff that you know maybe that's why that tree didn't quite have as much success offensive. All right. Kent, let's get to our next voice, or our first voicemail here. Hey, Robert. Big fan. I'm hoping you can settle a group text argument in traditional.

This is a good question because Mike Evans is the player, by the way. It was a little bit muffled, but I confirm that just to make sure that we were all on the same page here. But you look at Mike Evans' resume, and like he mentioned, he is approaching those numbers. And guys that get to 14,000 yards often get in, even 13,000 yards, that's a typical threshold for most players to make the Hall of Fame. If you look at touchdowns, that's even more stark. Mike Evans already has more touchdowns than Tori Holt, Andre Johnson. He could pass Reggie Wayne this year, all guys that are on the cusp of the Hall of Fame.

Tori Holt and Andre Johnson were finalists this year. Mike Evans has 74 touchdown catches. So if he gets six more for the next four years, he's right around 100, only eight receivers ever have more than 100 touchdowns. Seven of them are in the Hall of Fame and Larry Fitzgerald is the other one. So Mike Evans very easily, with five more, not pedestrian, but by his standards, just okay years, could have 14,000 yards and 100 touchdown catches, which would put him in the Hall of Fame or like, we'll put him in the conversation for guys that typically get into the Hall of Fame.

So these things are often pretty useful just to kind of throw out the name and what is your knee-jerk reaction? What is your gut feeling about that guy? So if I were to just ask you, point blank, do you think Mike? Evans, if continues on this current trajectory, should be in the Hall of Fame. What would you say? I'd say no. I think it's an accumulator at a very high level, but I guess to, I mean, do we really want to get into the whole all pro pro pro bowl stuff?

Sure. I mean, it's important in this, in the context of this conversation. Right. Well, I guess, you know, with me personally, my kind of history with it. But it's hard to say a guy who realistically wasn't really a top. five receiver that often. I mean, he put up the stats of those guys, but if you were doing, you know, a draft or whatever, like, he probably wouldn't go in the top five most years of receivers in just terms of who do you want to start your offense with. And so that gets into the accumulation

factor. Now, this was the debate last year with Stafford, you know, is he going to be a master accumulator? And when we look back, he's got every quarterback record, but he never really had the playoff success. That kind of solved itself a little bit. But, this conversation specifically is very different from the other sports because of the logjam with the NFL Hall of Fame anyway. So you are competing for five spots in any given year. And I do think it's going to come down to like how do we remember him? Because he's not going to be a first ballot guy for sure.

And, you know, maybe he's got to wait five or six years, 10 years. And now he's sitting there with these other guys. You know, you talk about what Zach Thomas is a linebacker is still not in the Hall of fame. And you, I mean, I remember thinking like, oh, man, that guy was always a top three linebacker. Like, he was a guy I played with on Madden, like all this cool stuff. And I don't know the voters will look back, you know, yeah, Mike Evans from 15 years ago. I remember him being an elite guy, you know, for a few years. I don't think anyone's necessarily thinking that, although the stats say, like, he had an awesome, you know, career of accumulating a thousand yard seasons, a lot of touchdowns,

all the stuff. So I do think there is, how does he stack up against his peers? and it's not necessarily like Hall of Longevity or Hall of Durability. It's Hall of Fame. And I tend towards, you know, greatness and kind of that top level. And so for me, it would be a no unless, you know, he goes on a relatively historic tear. And I think one of the cool things now, especially with, you know, all the stats and all the data is you can more easily compare guys to their generation and kind of neutralize the stats. And obviously this is only going to get worse and worse as 17 games becomes more realistic. And, you know, you're going to have a 20,000 yard receiver eventually who maybe wasn't like the best guy in the league.

He just was durable for 15 years. And he ended up with, you know, kind of all these yards and all these touchdowns. All right. I think all of that is totally justifiable and reasonable. I will just throw out this. Okay. I know the numbers are probably inflated because of the error he plays in. But even if we account for that, here are the players in NFL history who have averaged more receiving yards per game than Mike Evans.

Okay. Julio Jones, Calvin Johnson, Antonio Brown, DeAndre Hopkins, Tori Holt, Marvin Harrison, Art Powell. That's it. There's only seven guys. I mean, he's right ahead of Jerry Rice on that list. And I, again, era and Jerry Rice played forever. the guys he's right ahead of. Jerry Rice, Lance Allworth, Michael Irvin,

Keenan Allen, Andre Johnson, Terrell Owens, AJ Green, Randy Moss. So, I mean, it's, even if we account for error, I mean, he is putting up a ton of numbers. So I, the, if you're trying to make a comparison, for guys that did not make all pros, and all I think all pro is typically a very good way to understand, all right, where were you within the context of the best players

at the position in the league? Isaac Bruce made one second team all pro. He won one Super Bowl. That was it. Those were his kind of big time accolades. Mike Evans has won one Super Bowl and has one second team all pro. So it has happened. So if he wins another one, let's say the Bucks win the Super Bowl again this year.

And Mike Evans gets maybe one more second team all pro along the way and crosses all of these statistical thresholds, I do think it will become a conversation. and I think justifiably it will be a conversation. Yeah, I mean, I guess at that point, but I'm a little less inclined to say like a second ring means he's Hall of Fame worthy. But other people will say that. I know. I'm saying me personally. I just don't really love that argument.

You know, we started this podcast talking about quarterbacks who are dependent on everything else around them. You know, as a receiver, you're kind of dependent on everything else around you to win a Super Bowl. between him and like Andre Johnson. Andre Johnson is to me a more justifiable Hall of Famer than Mike Evans is. And like what about Anquan Bolden? It's an unfair question to ask me because of the spot that Anquan Bolden holds in my heart.

I guess that's the point is like those two guys kind of fringe like Hall of Fame cases. Is Andre Johnson even in yet? No, Andre Johnson was a finalist this year, which I was kind of surprised by. the fact that he got that far? Yes, so quickly. I think that he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame.

Because it's, I think it goes back to that knee jerk gut feeling thing. Like when I watched Andre Johnson play. Because I feel like both of those guys at some point, you thought like this dude was a baller and either the best in the NFL or top two or three guy for whatever reason. And I just don't think anyone necessarily has that feeling about Evans. And I think that's kind of the knee-jerk thing that you're talking about. Like your gut says this wasn't a guy that I ever thought was among the elite at his position. Like he was very good for a while.

But it's the Hall of Fame and especially the way the NFL has it structured. It's a very, very selective and particular voting process. And there's just going to be this logjam. And I think he's going to sit at the bottom for a really long time. That's totally fair, especially at that position. I think he's comparable to the guys that we talk. talked about that have waited a little bit. Isaac Bruce is in now, but Reggie Wayne, Torrey Holt, I think he's in that conversation with those guys. And that log jam has been created

because of numbers and because of inflation. There are a lot of people in that line. Steve Smith is going to be in that line. I think he will eventually get in. But that log jam has created at that spot, I think in large part because of the way the game has changed. And I think that the same conversation is going to apply to Mike Evans is applied to those other guys. But of this era, I mean, the guy's currently in the NFL. Antonio Brown is a really complicated thing, and I don't know what's going to ultimately happen with that. But the guys currently in the league or just out of the league, like Fitz is no doubt about

it going to be in the Hall of Fame. And I think Julio is no doubt about it going to be in the Hall of Fame. But other than that, I think at receiver, it gets a little bit complicated. And we're going to see that play out over the next 10 years. Yeah. I mean, there also might be a luck factor and kind of just like when you retire what the other guys look like around you and how that gets timed out because what was it like I think there's something you know Joe's year it might be coming up even there's like three guys there's like

Joe Calvin Johnson like I forget the specifics but like you might just retire the wrong year and there are three like first ballot hall famers you get no consideration at all and then you just kind of don't get to build that momentum because a lot of these awesome guys are going to retire and you know, kind of keep pushing your name down. You think Joe gets in? I think so. I'm fucking with you. Are you kidding me?

Oh. No, I don't know. I mean, because I feel like there's so few like just true, true first ballot. They're going to look at it. So here's the thing. So he has the most incredible 10-year stretch of pretty much anyone to start a career. But when you look at Hall of Fame offensive tackles, they've mostly all got 13 plus years. So they're going to look at Joe and they're going to say, well, he only did it for 10 years.

I'm just saying that's going to be the nitpick with him. Oh my God. If Joe Thomas doesn't make the Hall of Fame, I'm going to burn down the building. I'm with you too. Trust me. But that's, I know that was a consideration for him and thinking about coming back and stuff. It's like, you know, when you do look at a lot of the guys, because the elite offensive linemen used to play for 15 plus years, just you book it and that's the way it is.

And as guys are playing less years, that becomes a little bit of a tricker situation. that his resume is pretty much flawless. So I don't know how you could, you know, pick any knits with that. But yeah, that'll be, that'll be interesting if that doesn't happen because I feel like at that point, people would just be like this, this isn't working. Like, we need to fix something because the guy like that should have no, like, he's just run through it pretty easily. All right.

This next question, I was just blown away by the politeness. Fred Liggett asks, I saw a kind request on Twitter to send it any questions that could be used in an upcoming podcast. I feel like I have an interesting question and something was said by a former NFL lineman that piqued my interest on the matter. Tim Grunhard, former KC., Chiefs, offensive lineman had a weekly radio show here in KC and 810. He was talking on this week's show about the current OTAs underway in Casey's practice facility. Gruner said that due to non-contact rules in place, the lineman can only show up and run in place

or work on their technique individually. He feels sometimes soon, lineman will not be reporting to OTAs as there will be no need. This leads me to wonder if Mitcher Schwartz agrees with Grunard's take. on the future of offensive defensive linemen at offseason team activities. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your question, Fred. What do you think about this? So the answer is no, if I'm getting the question right,

because the rules have stated for forever that OTAs are non-contact, but they're not non-contact. And this is the issue I've had the past couple years with the NFLPA and kind of what they're trying to do with changing OTAs and kind of forcing guys. to not show up like the Joanne James thing last year where you want guys to stay home, work out on their own, they get hurt, and then the team's like, well, we're not absolved or we're in absolve ourselves in that situation.

So my thing is the rules have said they're non-contact for forever. And the NFLPA checks up on every team. They watch the film. They go to all the practices. And it's a full practice. You're just not wearing shoulder pads, but you're wearing helmets. And the O line and D line are still going against each other and you're still blocking. and you're getting helmets to your shoulders and you're getting bruises and all this other stuff.

So they show up every year and they watch practice and they're just like, yep, this is fine. We're not going to flag the teams. We're not going to report anything. It's contractually negotiated that it's non-contact. Like we just haven't been pushing to uphold the rules saying it's non-contact. So you get 10 practices plus three mini camp days. So you have 13 like somewhat legit practices. feel similar enough to, you know, a helmet's only day in training camp or what a Friday feels

like during the season in terms of the level of contact. And so it's not non-contact. That's, that's something that we say. And teams only get fined when there's a fight or when some DB, like undercuts a receiver and then the clip goes viral or like they're both going for the interception and they smack into each other and it looks really bad. That's a lot of contact. And that's when, you know, things get hairy and they get fine and they get draft picks taken away and stuff. But if you were to go to like a normal OTA practice, it would just look like a normal practice just only in helmets. So offense alignment still get a lot of work.

That's why I actually am a proponent of OTAs because, you know, I felt as a player, like, what I'm doing in May and June isn't necessarily going to like be remembered by my body in August. But I think there is kind of a foundational aspect of you get like five. different installs because you have phase one, you have phase two, you have phase three, and then you have mini-camp. And some teams with the new coach have the voluntary veteran mini-camp at the beginning. So those are five separate windows where you kind of go back to day one of install and you installed fresh. And then two weeks later, phase two starts, you install fresh.

And three weeks later, phase three starts, you install fresh. And the mandatory mini-camp starts and you installs. And so getting those installs, getting practice reps, even if they're lower tempo and you know as an offense lineman you kind of always joke with the D line like hey this is non-contact like maybe don't bulrush me straight into the quarterback but you can ask any linemen there is way more contact than you think during these practices and that's been my thing this past couple years is like we negotiated for non-contact off-season practices and our players association shows up every year and watches these practices in person and the film and doesn't say a word and they see just like carnage happening between the offensive defense

align. So like we just need to actually enforce what we negotiated for and what we gave up a lot of money for. Why do you think that hasn't happened? Do you think it's not a fight worth fighting? I don't know. I'm not really sure because, you know, when they show up, we say like, hey, you know, this isn't obviously non-contact. Like, I think it's just, that's the way it has been. And my guess is that, I mean, I didn't grow up with two days and with what stuff looked like before. 2011 CBA. So I don't know what those practices used to look like and used to feel like. And maybe this is a lot lower pace and a lot lower tempo than what it was. So it just looks and feels better to them. And most of the reps for the PA obviously played in a much different era. So to them, maybe it just

looks like kind of a joke to what they're used to for offseason. But I don't know. I mean, again, that's my thing. We negotiated and we gave up a lot of money for better offseason and better practice regulations and it literally says non-contact. So I don't know how O-line and D-Lyman can go against each other and be expected to block and it not involve contact. So your guess is as good as mine. I don't really know why that's not the case. All right.

Next one here. Jim Bullock asks, yes, a couple, but I wanted to talk about the second one. It said, how important is continuity for an offensive line? Obviously, it matters to a certain extent,

but how much of a disadvantage is it for offensive lines that have not had the ability to play next to each other for multiple? years. Chiefly Bacon asked a very similar question on Twitter. So multiple people hit on it and I wanted to ask you about this. We talk about it all the time as being more important for the offensive line than it is a lot of other position groups. Can you feel that? Do you think it's really important for an offensive line to have familiarity with each other from year to year? Yeah, it is important. The better the individual offense alignment, probably the less it matters because your feel, your skill level kind of just takes over and, makes things right to a degree. There are two kind of main ways that continuity matters. So the first is physical, which is, you know, you block with the guy next to you a decent amount of the time. You have a lot of double teams. And so there's the physical element of how does his body react? What does he do when he goes to post a guy on a double team? How does, you know, his footwork impact my footwork. Is he a wide base guy and I might trip over him and I need to adjust something with my footwork or

do I need to give him a little bit more space on this particular block because he goes a little further than I go. So there are those kind of specific physical things like how do we mesh blocking or like on past plays, you know, say you've got slide help by him. Is he a guy who sets pretty flat and you know that like if you set too deep and your DN goes inside like he won't be there for you. So there's that aspect of kind of the physical, where's he going to be? How does that impact what I'm doing in my blocks? And then there's the mental, which is the trust factor of, you know, you go to Seattle, you go to Arrowhead and you can't hear anything and you can barely get the snap off.

Like, do you trust that you can let your guy go inside because the slide is going your way and everybody heard it? And, you know, maybe the linebacker, maybe you've got one certain protection when the linebacker's on the left side of the line. but at the snap, he's over on the right side and you just kind of have to trust that everyone's seeing the same thing and tracking the guy properly. And, you know, he's going to loop all the way around your defensive end. He's going to spike inside. And you can trust that the guard's going to be there. I can let him go and I'll pick up the linebacker.

You know, that that's something that takes a while to gain that kind of trust and, you know, to know that your guy is going to be there. And you essentially need to see the game the same way and have the same reaction. And you have to trust that you're going to see the game. in the same way and have the same reaction. That's kind of the hard part, the mental side of it. You know, the physical side, that's what practice is for. You learn how to block together.

You double team. You do all these things. Obviously, the practice is for the mental side, but there's a lot of stuff that happens in games that can't happen in practice mentally that, you know, most of the physical stuff is similar. So getting to that point where you can kind of trust everybody and, you know, especially as a tackle, having to trust. a center in particular, you know, giving the points, giving the calls. It's just, it's kind of a full

circle thing that once someone doesn't trust anybody else, you know, you're less confident, you probably don't play as well. That guy then doesn't trust you because you're not playing as well. And then it kind of snowballs downward. So it's less important when the individual pieces are good players and probably older players who just kind of know what to do. It's a lot more important when they're young and maybe not quite as good that they have confidence and they trust the guy next to them. They trust kind of the whole unit working together. Yeah, I mean, the Chiefs last year are an example of there wasn't a lot of continuity. There are a lot of new pieces, but all of the individual pieces that got dropped in were so good that ultimately didn't end up

battering. When your center is playing as one of the best centers in the league, when you're left guard as a guy who's been around and has played thousands and thousands of snaps, ultimately the continuity becomes less important. Right. And then that's, when you kind of get excited because it's like, hey, we've got all these pieces. You know, we've got a six year left guard, a third or fourth year left tackle, rookie center, rookie right guard. You know, they started with basically a rookie right tackle, depending on how you look at opt outs. And they played pretty well. And you're just like, okay, well, they're going to get way better and they're going to start trusting each other a lot more too. And so there's going to be physical growth, obviously,

and there's going to be a ton of mental growth too. And yeah, that's kind of the best combination where you have a pretty young offensive line who plays really well and there's a ton of room to grow and they're just going to like grow into their roles more and more. But then it gets to like, why were they so good? It's because they had a certain level of skill and a certain kind of feel for the game

that they could acclimate themselves to that, you know, kind of trust and continuity factor much quicker. Next one here we got from Twitter. I wanted to ask you this because I've seen your jersey wall. And I feel like people will get something out of this. Andrew Baker says, how do jersey swaps work? When you did your jersey swap with Von Miller, was it spur of the moment or was it pre-planned? You've got a decent collection.

So you're a veteran of the jersey swap here. I am. So he just, that one, he came up to me is like, hey, man, you want to swap jerseys? Like, I try to get a jersey of the guys that go again. So I was like, yeah, that's awesome. I'd love to. I was never as good at asking about jerseys. It's not your personality.

No. I wish I had a Kalil Mac jersey. I wish I had a Bosa jersey. But like I just could never bring myself to like quite ask them. So the ones I got typically, it'd kind of just be spontaneous. And we'd just kind of be talking. And I'd either know the guy well enough to be like, hey, you want to swap jerseys or they'd ask me or a lot of them are kind of teammates. You know, I have a bunch of the Cleveland guys. I have, you know, Mitch Morris and Wiley and Wiz and a lot of the chiefs guys as well. Um, so. So, I have a bunch of the Cleveland guys. And I have, you know, Mitch Morris and Wiley and Wies and a lot of the chiefs guys as well. Um, so. So. So the guys you play with is obviously very easy. You can get their jersey while they're there or you can wait until they're with another team or you're with another team and then ask for the jersey. But in terms of the actual on-field jersey swaps, like I think there was a video in the last couple of years, right? Someone went up to like Tom Brady or maybe it was paid Manning a few years ago. Like, hey, you want to stop jerseys with me?

And they're like, no, I'm okay. Like, you know, you don't necessarily want to give that up because of that because, you know, I'm cheap and a lot of guys are a lot cheaper than you think. it actually costs money for the jersey like the team charges you for the jersey how much is it i think for us it was 250 so 250 dollars for every jersey that you give away um i know some teams it's like 800 or a thousand i think they do that just because they hate giving away jerseys and having to make new ones so it's more like punitive like we don't want you to jersey swap um but yeah i mean most teams it's you know a few hundred dollars to do that um so

For the most part, it's guys who are already kind of boys after the game. They meet up and they're like, hey, let's swap jersey. Like, yeah, that's cool. And then some of them, it's like a respect thing. You know, maybe it's the younger guy saying like, hey, you know, I love going against you or that was awesome. Like, can I get your jersey? I love to have it for the wall. So yeah, it's interesting, you know, how that works out.

It's sometimes spontaneous, a lot of the times planned, especially for the younger. guy if he's trying to get a specific older guy's jersey and you know it's it's cool to have a brady jersey or to have mike evans jersey or whatever um that's when it gets a little bit playing but you just go up to a guy after the game be like hey do you mind can i get your jersey and they say yeah all right let's get to our next one here buddy from chicago asked about the bears switching to an outside zone blocking scheme and i want to kind of condense this a little bit he said what if that can a change in an offensive line blocking scheme and o line coaching having the performance of an O-Line. The Bears are going to a wide-zone blocking scheme under a new offensive line coach Chris

Morgan, but they've lost their two best offensive linemen from last season, goes over some of the replacements that they've made. We're being told that a wide-zone blocking scheme can mask O-Line talent deficiencies. What do you think? Charles Jones also asked about the bears moving to this sort of scheme. So I'm curious, you've played in that offense before, or a version of that offense before. Chris Morgan was the offensive line coach for Kyle Shanahan for a couple of years in Atlanta. So, and you played for Kyle Shanahan the year before he got to Atlanta. So there's all those kind of tentacles that connect things in the league here. What do you think about that scheme helping mask deficiencies for offensive linemen in general?

There's a yes and a no because I do think, you know, some of the better running teams, especially lately, have featured more of the wide zone. And my theory on that is one, you know, you've kind of got these offensive masterminds who know how to scheme things up properly. but I think by nature of it being wider, things getting stretched out, the seams are wider, you know, on an inside zone, think of a traditional kind of between the tackles run. Like things aren't quite as open just inherently because you're not using as much of the field horizontally. And so having that wide zone scheme, if one guy screws up, you know, say you've got a five-yard window to make a block, you know, so you kind of missed a block and the guy gets three and a half of

those five yards, but there's still a yard and a half of space that he hasn't covered that he needed to get to before the running back makes the cut. Or on inside zone, you really just have like a yard of space to kind of make it. And so that's where I think maybe the easier aspect comes into play. I think also, you know, by having a wider, more horizontal field to cover defensively, it stretches things out, it tires out defense alignment. It's more difficult to run laterally while also holding your ground. I think that's part of it.

But in terms of like making up for offensive line deficiency, that's where I'd push back, you know, running that scheme doesn't really make you a better player. You still have to have confident players. You know, maybe what it does, mask is a guy who's 295 pounds. You're not now asking him to just base block a 320 pound, you know, defensive tackle one on one in the hole. And the running back is basically just reading that guy and making a cut off of him. you know, that's a tough situation to ask your guard to just kind of be the focal point of the run and you only have three arts to work with and he's got to move a guy who's bigger than him off the ball by himself.

You know, that that's where it gets tough. That's where allowing that space, that side to side agility, that movement, you can make up for lack of size with some quickness. And it kind of gets back to, you know, the force equals mass times acceleration. Like the 290 pound guy, he might not be quite as like. purely strong as, you know, Kevin Zeiler, who's, you know, the freaking tank and works out 18 times a week. But at 295 pounds, he still is pretty strong. And maybe he's got a little more for, or a little more, you know, acceleration behind him. And he's able to time up his movements with,

you know, quick twitch. And he's able to have the same force output. But that's not unlocked in, you know, that inside zone base block that's unlocked with a wide zone where he can kind of use his agility. So you still need, you know, good offense alignment. You can't just have bad offense alignment and, you know, just say, hey, we're going to run wide zone. You're going to be good now because if a guy's not strong, if he doesn't have good technique, like the thing that kills wide zones is penetration, especially on the edges. And so if you have a tackle who's not super strong and gets kind of bookended off the edge, like those plays aren't going to work. If you have a guard who gives up two yards of penetration every play like wide zone still not going to

work so it is a bit more forgiving of a run scheme i think by the horizontal nature similarly to what we're seeing with the past game you know teams that have a vertical threat that opens up much more of the field to work with i think that's a good way to think about what wide zone does for the run game you know having that horizontal stretch um opens up more space and allows for a little bit more margin of error. All right. Next one here is something I've thought about a lot in the past, and I'm glad someone asked about it.

Peter McAluso says, after the Super Bowl, when it looked like Tom Brady was going to retire, and there was all the Stafford Hall of Fame talk, it led me to a weird thought. Since it currently feels like getting a ranking catapult, someone who's pretty good into being a Hall of Famer, what do you think happens in a post-Bradie world where all of these guys might be able to get a ring?

Can you see a world in which Bro, Herbert, Alan, Lamar, and even Kyler and Mack Jones each get one since Brady isn't there, to play in half the Super Bowls anymore. We all tend to think Mahomes is going to fill that Brady role of always being there, but we've seen with Rodgers, it's really hard to get there. I think there's a chance there's a lot more parity moving forward, because there's so many guys now capable of dragging their team to a title. Long gone is a decade plus, where it's basically Peyty, or Pady,

whereas basically Peyton, Brady, and Ben trading off ASC championships. I think it'd be good for the sport if we end up with a few legit contenders every year, new legit contenders every year, even it makes those Hall of Fame benchmarks a little bit more muddled down the line. Here's why I wanted to talk about this. I've always been fascinated by this idea. What would happen if the Patriots never existed? What would the NFL look like over the past 20 years of the Patriots just weren't a thing? And there are several different things you could look at.

Peyton Manning would probably be the greatest quarterback of all time. We would talk about Peyton Manning as the best quarterback ever. Late career, Peyton Manning in Indianapolis, did not lose to the Patriots as much as you think he did. But early on, that like 0-3-04 run, the Colts could have won like 3-0-4 run. the Colts could have won like three Super Bowls in a row if the Patriots were not a thing. The other one I always come back to

and I think that the Steelers of Ben Rothesberger probably would have won more often. The Chargers. The Chargers lost to the Patriots twice. Phil Rivers again. In 2006 and 2007, we would think of Phil Rivers

totally differently, I think, if the Patriots never existed. But also Matt Ryan would have a Super Bowl. There are so many different guys that would have won them. And I think that, now we're going to move into a place where that type of league probably happens where Mahomes is going to win a couple more I'd have to assume they've been a four straight

AFC championship games that's going to continue to happen but if there if there is no team that has that just outlier type dominance like the Patriots we are going to see more teams and more quarterbacks win them like it's almost inevitable that that's what's going to happen so I do like the what if game I don't think it's fair to say what if they didn't exist because that that leads into way too many things that could happen. But you could say, what if he wasn't historic? What if he just won four? Yeah, that's kind of what I mean. Like, what if they were just a normal team? Right. So if they were a normal team and they only won four, well, that only opens up three rings. So you can't say Peyton would have had two or three more and Rivers would have had one or two,

and Matt Ryan and Rathusberger. Well, that's not as fun. There's only three rings to go out. Yeah, I know. But I had to have some. semblance of realism in this. So you're really just looking at three rings over 20 years. Maybe Peyton has one. I don't know about Phil. Maybe we'll give two to Peyton. Now, the 2006 charges would have won Super Bowl.

What happens when Justin Herbert faces Philip Rivers? Your brain explodes. I do think to the original question, it is going to be interesting. I think we're going to go back towards a much more difficult Hall of Fame process because we're going to have guys with a lot of stats, like these next 20 years are going to be pretty nuts for stats, and say you've got 13 quarterbacks to win 20 Super Bowls. Not all those guys are probably going to be Hall of Famers.

Not all those guys should be Hall of Famers. That's probably going to be true. And it's going to make for a much more difficult process. I mean, you've got the quarterbacks that have won Super Bowls, you know, a Dilfer who kind of gets thrown about as like the quote-unquote but worst quarterback to win a Super Bowl type of thing that, you know, you just know that guy doesn't have a Hall of Fame career. You don't have to really have that conversation.

You don't have to worry about it. And then you've got, you know, the Flackos, you know, is he a lead? Is he not? I think we kind of all agree that Flacco is not a Hallfamer, although I'm sure there's a certain segment of the Northeast that's now upset with me. But we're going to get to this point of, you know, does a Super Bowl mean you're a hallfamer? And if these 10 years go that way and say we have eight quarterbacks win over.

over the next 10 years and we've got quarterbacks with one Super Bowl and Goddy stats that almost might downgrade staffer down the road. And you might think like, all right, well, he kind of did have more of an accumulation career. He had one crazy postseason where they won a Super Bowl. Other than that, you know, maybe he only made one other NFC championship game or championship game. You know, does that really look like a Hall of Fame career? And it does get to be more muddy. And that's where, you know, the NFL voting process is going to become really tricky because you're going to be voting for guys with very similar resumes, similar statistical resumes, similar Super Bowl numbers. And it's going to come back to kind of the knee jerk, the gut reaction of does this guy feel like a hall of famer to me? And it's definitely going to muddy the waters down the red.

And with Matthew Stafford, the question, the answer at this very moment is absolutely no. Like, he's just not. he's never been to it. He's never made it all pro team. He's been to one pro bowl and he won one Super Bowl. I think that's the way we feel, but I think like nationally or the way people talk about it, I think a lot of people do feel like this validated his career and kind of prove that he just had 10 years of poor situation and that this is more his true level of quarterback.

Like, I'm with you on what you're saying, but I guess we can't really pull the Hall of Fame voters. I don't know if Peter King's written about it or kind of what he feels. But, you know, if you were able to ask those guys. Your conclusion at the end of this year can be that Matthew Stafford is better than we thought he was for a very long time. It doesn't have to go from Matthew Stafford is better than we thought he was to Matthew Stafford is definitely a Hall of Famer now. That jump is not necessary based on what happened. I'm with you, but that's, I feel like you don't understand your business in 2022. too. I understand why the conversation is happening. I just don't need to engage in it.

That is, that's, that's the right way to think about it. Yeah, that's like, I mean, that's a whole other tangent, but all these things, like, we just don't need to declare these types of things. Like, it's just not necessary. Let's just wait for the guy to finish playing and see how things unravel and go from there. But it is a really interesting question. It's, it's a really interesting point. And it's going to be harder for quarterbacks to distinguish themselves because a lot of guys are going to have really good numbers. And I think a lot of guys are going to have a decent amount of playoff success. And it just becomes like, how much do you value one or two extra games that a guy had better success versus the other? And some people value the

crap out of them. Some people don't. It's just kind of eye of the beholder. All right. Last one here. And I wanted to get into this because I know the answer and I know the story. And it It's kind of a football-based story, and that's why I wanted to talk about it. Patty Dyer McMurray-Memory asked on Twitter, Mitch, how did you develop your love for cooking? If you guys don't know, Mitch loves to cook. You should follow him on Instagram. You should check out all the things he does. Mitch and I both love food in a pretty deep way to the point where last time we ate dinner out together,

I think the server was like a little bit horrified at the amount of food that we ordered at the barbecue restaurant. But I want you to talk about this because I think that the story says a lot about the type of team you guys had in Cleveland. and just the type of interactions you can have when your position group is awesome. Yeah, I mean, in general, I was a big kid and I was hungry a lot and I liked to eat. And I kind of stopped watching cartoons and I started watching Food Network and I started watching cooking shows and I just enjoyed it and started trying to cook at home. You know, probably my favorite dish to make still as pizza. You know, I started that as a teenager in my parents' house. You know, looking back now, those were disgusting compared to what I can be.

make now, but I thought they were awesome at the time. And I was so excited about it. And, you know, you go to college and it's helpful if you can feed yourself, especially as a football player, when you got to be there for summer school and you're not getting meal points and meal credits, and you got to feed yourself. And then get to the NFL and just keep getting more interested in it. You know, I've got more money than I've ever had. I've got more offseason time, more time off. And it's fun to be able to cook. And then I land in Cleveland with, you know, Joe and Alex and John Greco. And Greco is like, I mean, certified chef in my mind, he is awesome. And so we used to, you know, get together after games. You know, we all live within about eight minutes of each other. And

it was easy to, you know, we also had the 1 p.m. Eastern game pretty much every week. So we could get home by about 4.30 and have the rest of the rest of the afternoon and night off. And, you know, we could gather at one of the guys' houses and, you know, cook together and stuff. And so I think the year before I got there, McCoy had gotten all the O'Limon green eggs. And, you know, I remember we'd make pulled pork and all the stuff. And Greco made a crab mac and cheese. No recipe just off the top of his head. It just whipped it together.

And I was like, oh, my God, how's that possible? Like, it was the most amazing thing I ever saw. And like, we had the pulled pork and it was amazing. And I was just like, okay, like, there's way more to like this food game than I realized. Because, you know, I kind of made simple stuff. stuff, like the stuff I didn't need a recipe for, I'd made a bunch or was like very simple. Like I couldn't comprehend making, you know, a bechamel and making the cheese sauce from scratch.

No recipe. It's a very satisfying process. Very satisfying. It's amazing. And, you know, so I got a lot of inspiration from John. And, you know, he, he sent me this whole PDF list. It was like a four page thing of like barbecue sauces and like barbecue rubs and recipes and stuff. And just like the dude creates his own barbecue rubs and sauces.

Like he had like an Alabama white sauce and he had all. I was like, dude, this is awesome. And, you know, we made like carnitas. Like he had the sauce that he made and the recipe and all that stuff. So going and being with guys who have a similar mindset and obviously other 300 pounders who enjoy eating as much as you do, just really kind of stoked the flames there and led me to, you know, much larger appreciation of food and really seeing what else was out there and knowing, you know, hey, I mean, if John's this good and then he can whip up stuff like this and, you know, Alex can make some stuff. Joe can make some stuff. Although now these days, Joe on Twitter with his food, like, it's either keto or it's suvied. And it's just like, come on, Joe, he got to branch out a little bit. We get it. You hunt, you suveed your duck. You eat keto lavash and you make pizza out of it. Like, cool, dude.

But no, I mean, that's the kind of thing. You can see we all kind of enjoy food. We like cooking it. We like the preparation process. And then I really wanted to get more into barbecue as well. You know, I lived an apartment in Cleveland. I wasn't allowed to have any grills on my patio. So I one time set off the smoke alarm.

I think making sausage is either making sausage or making pizza or maybe doing both at the same time. So I was like, well, I guess I can't really make pizza the way I want to. I can't like grill inside the way I want to. So my next place I knew I really wanted a grill. I really wanted to learn how to like barbecue and smoke. And then I landed in Kansas City, which is the best possible place. And it's really just kind of continually taken off from there. And, you know, obviously I like sharing the photos.

I like sharing, you know, kind of what I'm doing. And people would always ask like, hey, what's the recipe? How did you do that? You know, especially barbecue. People just like need to know what your process was. Well, you're my barbecue resource. I mean, the amount of text I've asked you sent you about like barbecue technique is a majority of our offline communication.

Yeah, and that's the thing is I kind of go down rabbit holes with the stuff I get like really passionate and into, passionate about and into. And so if I haven't made something myself, I've probably seen a video or I probably have read some forums and people discussing the best way to do whatever or some theory about it. So yeah, it's definitely something I have a lot of knowledge about. And I think both of us too were curious. And I always like to know the why behind things. And so when I did start watching food shows, you know, it was very much like good eats with Alton Brown.

Like all the informative like this is what's happening. This is why this is happening. You know, I like the Emeril. I like Wolfgang Puck. And those were a little bit more kind of for show. But I think they also did a good job of kind of teaching as you went. But if you want to go off on a super long food tangent, which I won't get into, the death of kind of the studio cooking show and the informant of cooking show. And now everything is just like, here's a bunch of.

random ingredients go you got 10 minutes uh that's just not my jam i still like kind of the the traditional like this is a dish i'm going to make i'm going to show you how to do it these are the ingredients and let's go yeah i i'm not into it the same way you are but i i am into it like i love to cook and i i came to it a little bit later and i think it's important every like six months to a year and i've gotten more to this as i got an older kind of sitting back and be like what do i like to do i like to do i like to spend my time just because that's just because that's that stuff shifts as you get older. And for me, it happened in a pretty crystallizing way around the start of the pandemic. I was like, I love to cook. Like, I just love food. And I really want to

start getting into this. And I really did. And some people love to make things. You know, they love to build a piece of furniture. I just never liked that. I never got any satisfaction out of that process. When it was over, I didn't look at it and say, look what I did. Isn't that rewarding? I've just never gotten that. But with food, I do. And I think it's driven, large part, how I was raised. Like, my mom was like that. Like, we would just, every time people came over, my mom made food for 100 people. It didn't matter if 10 people were there.

It didn't matter of 50 people were there. That's how much food she made. And she loves seeing the satisfaction on other people's faces. And that's how I feel. So when people come over, I cook. You know, if we're having a dinner party, I cook. I cook everything. I love doing that.

And I think it's partially driven by the part of my personality that needs just constant affirmation, which is the reason that I wanted to be a writer. I just need. That's what I need. And I think that food also drives that. And I just love the process of it. I just, there's mac and cheese is a perfect example.

Like, making that first batch of mac and cheese when you're making the bechamel from scratch and everything else. Like, there is something super rewarding about that. And I'm just excited about the summer. Like, I cannot wait to just,

I just went to Mexico for nine days and just ate like I've never eaten before. And we're going to buy a tortilla press this week. Like, I'm very, very excited about getting. into that because I'm the same way you are. Like, I just love catching waves like that food-wise and just like riding them until I'm bored of them. And that's just, it's a really, really fun, rewarding process.

That is awesome. Yeah, I've looked into the tortilla press stuff before. It's pretty easy, right? It's just very easy. It's very easy. Yeah, it's, I think it's about making the right masa and about getting the mass of the right consistency. But that's, it's fun in itself to do that.

It's the same way with pizza dough. I mean, like getting your pizza dough right. is really fun. So now I'm really, really looking forward to what that's going to be like this summer and just like figuring out different meats to make on the smoker and use them in tacos and just everything that goes into that. There is something so rewarding and fun about that entire thing. And we're getting right into the time of year where you can just do a shitload of that. Yeah, my pizza story is I was watching Food Network. I was watching Wolfgang Puck and I saw him make pizza dough and I was like, that's not that difficult. I could try that. And I just did it.

like you just mix the ingredients for like 30 seconds and you need it a little bit and you let it rest and all of a sudden you got pizza dough. I've seen that about tortillas a lot. I mean, I feel like if you go to any restaurant that has tortillas, like if you walk in and you see them slapping down tortillas onto a flat top and you're like, oh my God, they make fresh tortillas, like no one has ever been disappointed in a restaurant that makes homemade fresh tortillas. No.

It's just, that's never been the case. Now, the thing I'm curious about is whether it's scalable. whether you can just make, you know, five tortillas and not have 20 of them left over and feel like you got to eat tacos for a week, which again, it's probably the best way to get rid of leftovers anyway. But if you're trying to go a little bit lower carb and you don't necessarily want to have tacos every single time, you know, whether you can just make a small batch for like one meal, that's always my thing with like desserts especially or bread or, you know, other things that I'd love to make a lot more is I just don't want or need that quantity of it. And I wish

you could do, you know, a quarter of a full recipe. Yeah, that's my problem is I typically try to eat fairly healthy during the week because we go ham on the weekend. We go out, we go out for dinner once a week. I mean, exploring restaurants and exploring food in Chicago is one of my favorite things to do. So I mostly eat fairly well during the week so I can just eat whatever I want, whenever I go to a restaurant on a Friday or Saturday night.

So this summer, I think it's going to be about finding the balance of cooking and doing fun stuff while also being able to do that. and not weighing 300 pounds by the time the summer is over. So that's always the challenge. I'm feeling at the not weighing 300 pounds thing. Well, yeah, you have a, I think it's a little bit, you wear it a little bit differently than I would. So it's going to be okay.

All right. I could lose some, though. I think the majority of people kind of feel the same way. But as you said, we're getting into cooking time of year, so it's hard to do that. It's going to be great. I'm very much looking forward to it. Very much looking forward to the next time we do this,

because this is very fun. Really appreciate the time, buddy. and really, really appreciate the questions from all of you. We do this because you guys do such a good job with it. We will do it again next week. I'm hoping with Sheel. I'm putting him on the spot. Now he has to do it because I said that he's going to do it.

So we're going to do it next week with Sheel. Very much looking forward to that. We'll be back this week with our normal programming. I'm back. We're back. Appreciate you guys listening. Thank you to Lindsay for doing the show last week. Really enjoyed that.

I hope you guys did as well. We'll be back with Lindsay and Nate and Sando and some other great guests. this week. So please check back on Thursday for now. Appreciate you guys listen. Please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform with choice. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theafetic.com slash football show. We'll be back on Thursday. Talk to you guys soon. This was The Athletic Football Show.