The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - New Deshaun Watson case details emerge + Broncos ownership change with Lindsay Jones

Episode Date: June 9, 2022

Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones discuss the latest New York Times report on Deshaun Watson and the civil lawsuits against the Browns’ QB. They also talk about Rob Walton’s purchase of the Broncos and Aaron Donald’s new contract.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. The athletic football show. Today's Thursday, June 9th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me today, the Athletic Zone, Lindsay Jones. How you doing? I'm great. I'm about to leave on vacation and escape the shit show that is the NFL news cycle.

But one more round before I check out for a little bit. So we were going to do a show with Nate today about Kyla Murray and Lamar Jackson. We're going to push that to next week because like you alluded to, the NFL news cycle has dictated that we pivot a little bit today. I thought it was really important to check in with what's happening with the Deshaun Watson news, everything that's happened over the last 48 hours. Obviously, we've talked about it multiple times on this show over the last few months. If nobody listened or people haven't listened to the show you did with Jenny Varentis

and Mike Sando and Aaron Reese when the trade happened, I highly encourage them to go check that out. But things continue to happen as it relates to Deshawn Watson and news surrounding him. And I just thought it was really important. for us to kind of take a step back and talk about what has unfolded over the last 48 to 72 hours. So let's go through that. On Monday, the 24th civil suit against Deshaun Watson was filed. That comes about a week after the 23rd suit was filed. That one happened after the real sports interview where Watson said he had no regrets. And the person filing that suit cited that as one of the reasons

that they felt compelled to join that the group of civil suits against Deshawn Watson. in the 24th civil suit, one that has been put out the details of it by several different people. The details of it are pretty graphic. The person that was doing the massage therapy or was in that room eventually quit massage therapy as a result of this. These also all come on the heels of Rusty Hardin's comments last week, Sean Watson's lawyer, which seemed a little unhinged in the moment. And I think now if you kind of connected the dots, it makes a little bit more sense that he felt like he needed to get ahead of some of the stuff that was going to transpire this week and everything that has. So a day after the 24th suit is filed, the New York Times, Jenny Varentas, who's reporting on this subject, I want to say, has been exhaustive and truly staggering the work that she continues to do.

She writes a story in which she details that Deshawn Watson had appointments based on their reporting, the suits that have been filed, the 15 women who put out statements of support for him earlier in this process, 66 therapists in 17 months, which is a pretty huge number. and we can talk about that later on. In this story, it says the Texans set him up with a membership at an exclusive club slash hotel in Houston, which is where some of these massages took place. It details that Watson had an arrangement with a spa in Houston where he paid the owner of that spa allegedly $5,000 for spa equipment. The owner of that spa set him up with multiple different people who were not licensed therapists in Texas to have sessions with him.

It was noted that one of those people, Naya Smith, who, filed the 23rd suit, just essentially put out the idea that she could expose Watson with some of the information that he had. Later on, that same week, I think the story says, an NDA was given to Watson by a member of the Texans security staff, which is the first time we've heard about how much the Texans might have known about this entire situation. So that's where we are. And then also in that story, Jenny outlined that the Watson's attorney and the attorney that was responsible for the grand jury investigation in Houston had, I would say, fairly uncommon levels of communication during that entire process and just pointed to how much the standing of Watson's attorney,

Rusty Harden, might have had, how much that would have had to do with the way that the grand jury handled this in Texas. Lindsay, would you say that that essentially takes us up to speed here over what's happened over the last couple days. Yeah, these are certainly all of the new developments. And then we just have this really awkward juxtaposition, excuse me, of all of this stuff still happening. The NFL has largely wrapped up their investigation. They have been silent about if the new allegations, the new, the stuff that was in the New York Times report or the new lawsuits will cause them to go back to, you know, back to steps of the investigation to speak with Watson again. We don't know the answer.

to a lot of those things yet because the NFL is not commenting at this point. So we have that it's just this really odd exposition of all of this stuff still going on, while the Browns are kind of just going ahead as football as usual. They are planning to hold their mini-camp practices, kind of a tour through Ohio next week. They'll be practicing at their stadium. They're going to be going down to Canton. And Deshaun Watson is going to be kind of out on, you know, these aren't like training camp style practices with like thousands of fans.

but like this is in large part like kind of a public debut for Dachan Watson while all of this is going on. So it is very uncomfortable. It's very awkward. It's putting a ton of pressure, I think, on the Browns, you know, continued pressure on the Browns for the decision that they made to trade for him and sign him. And on the NFL, frankly, who is yet to issue its disciplinary decision. I want to get into what this all means is really it's the discipline with that timeline might end up looking like based on the new information that we've gotten. But with that new information, as you were reading it, as you read the details included in the 24th suit, as you read Jenny's story, is there anything that makes you feel differently about this? I mean, obviously, this is some of the details were a little bit more graphic and a little different than some of the other things that we've heard.

But is this just more of the same to you? Or do you feel like the situation has fundamentally changed in any substantive way based on what's happened over the last few days? You know, not necessarily, but I've also kind of been like in it, you know? I've like read all of the suits. I've written a number of columns. So I think my feelings about a lot of this and my stances haven't changed. I mean, I wrote about it was probably right about exactly a year ago that the NFL needed to, you know, step aside from his precedent and pull him off of the field just because, you know, they hadn't

suspended a player or put a player on the commissioner of exemplist, paid suspension while facing civil suits. This is an unprecedented case. I wrote that a year ago. I 100% stand by it. I wrote in March that everything that we kind of knew from these suits and from the things that Watson's attorneys and, you know, have said publicly was that at best, he's a creep. At worst, he's could be some level of a sexual predator. And the Brown's, you know, at a minimum, his behavior with at that point, we, you know, we thought it was 40 massage therapist that he had hired. Now we know it's, you know, well over 60.

that in that in itself, I think, should have been enough to give the Browns pause and the other teams that were pursuing him. And it did not. So, but that fundamentally doesn't change. I think what maybe has changed is, you know, or maybe not change might not be the right word. Maybe just intensified is the risk that the Browns have taken here and how much people have put their own credibility and their own futures on the line for, you know, a situation that I think they hoped was going to be completely. gone by June. And not only is it not gone by June, it is intensifying. So this still feels like a pretty, you know, potentially like a career-changing franchise-designing miscalculation on the steps of the brown, you know, on the part of the Browns who just thought, you know, we're going to put it out

there that we talked to him. He said that he didn't do any of this stuff and we're going to believe him when all the evidence to the contrary is that while, yes, he's not going to go to jail for any of this, it's pretty clear that he's engaging in behavior that you should as a franchise not be proud of. High up in Jenny's piece, one of the, maybe it's a fifth or six paragraph. There's a paragraph that says, it is time Watson and his representative say for everyone to move on. And that is very purposeful. I'm sure her putting that there. It's something very easy to say if you're not the women who were impacted by this, where you

mentioned that the woman in the 24th lawsuit, the one who was filed just earlier this week, her career path has completely been altered by this. You know, she left the field. She's, you know, been considering seeking counseling. I mean, this is not like, okay, we can just forget about this and move on. And I guess I would say the one other thing when you ask like what's changed. And I don't think this has changed for me, but I've just felt more compelled to kind of talk about it publicly and figure out ways to tweet about it and talk about it on our pods and stuff. is that there's just this startling, like, lack of respect for these women and their humanity and what they're going through.

We've seen zero indication from Deshawn Watson. If anything, we've seen the opposite that he is, there is no contrition. There is, like, defiance about what's going on here. No understanding about why so many women feel hurt. by his actions. And, you know, I think that's something that I just keep coming back to is how we're, you know, more than a year into this. And there's more and more women who are saying he did the same thing to me. And while he's not going to face criminal, you know, criminal consequences for this, you know, at some point that just the volume here is just staggering.

And I can understand why, by the advice of his lawyers, he can't show contrition. He can't apologize because the civil suits are ongoing. That doesn't include defiant Instagram stories. Like, it does feel like the general tone of how he's handled this is probably even one step beyond what the people in his life are advising him to do and how they're advising him to handle it. The reason I mentioned that sentence from Jenny is because that's what everyone on Watson's side of this or with a stake in Watson's future once. They were hoping that everyone would move on and that they would be able to just move through this and endure it. My feeling on this is that the Browns and as Jason Lloyd from

the athletic reported earlier this spring, 13 other teams reached out about Deshaun Watson. The Browns were not alone. Four teams met with him. There were teams that so many teams based on the no trade clause and the very strange circumstances involved with this entire thing made overtures to go get to Sean Watson. The timing of that was right after the grand jury decided not to proceed with charges. The Browns and those other teams, I think, made the calculation, a very cynical calculation that even if he's a creep, he's not a criminal in the eyes of the court, and that's enough for us. That's enough for us to move on and to keep in moving forward with this.

And after they made that decision, their hope was, as part of this kind of Faustian bargain that they've made, eventually this will go away. We'll have to take our lumps. We will have to sit through an awkward press conference. We'll have to take some questions. But when we get to the fall and football starts and he starts playing and probably playing well, we will move through this in the same way that other people have. The Browns are not strangers to this sort of process on a slightly different level.

Like Kareem Hunt's on this team. A lot of NFL franchises have had to deal with stuff like this, where you kind of sit there and say, you know, he's probably not that good of a guy, but if you're looking at the entire calculus of this, it's worth us taking on the risk. People around the NFL have done this. People talk glowingly about Andy Reid.

The chiefs don't necessarily have the most stellar track record when it comes to signing guys with checkered pass. This is a part of doing business in the NFL, but it's different when it's a quarterback, and it's different when you've given that quarterback $230 million guaranteed and traded away so much to get him. There was never any moment where people kind of had their heads down we're a little bit embarrassed about this.

No one's had to be with that way that this entire thing has gone. And I assume the Browns just figured as part of this entire thing, eventually it would go away because this stuff tends to go away over time. But with Jenny's work, the coverage from things like the real sports story and from this continuing pile of lawsuits that's happening, that hasn't happened and it's not going to happen. It's not going away. So that part of the bargain and that part of the bet that the Browns have made

is no longer happening. So now the question, in my mind, is how this affects the way that the NFL was going to handle this. Charles Robinson wrote about this today from Yahoo, and I thought it was an interesting way to kind of frame it. The idea that, all right, this 23rd and 24th lawsuit, when the NFL was wrapping up its investigation, which Roger Goodell said on May 24th, it was nearing the end of the investigation. Did they know about these? If they did know about them, then maybe nothing changes and they're moving forward. forward as such. If they didn't know about them but what's in light about them, does that change

something? If they didn't know about them at all, then what happens? Because if they didn't know about them at all, and this is new information from both the story that Jenny wrote and from these 23rd and 24th lawsuits, then I don't think they can be close to wrapping up whatever the investigation they were nearing the end of. And if they can't be wrapping that up, then I feel like there needs to be some other lover or some other mechanism the league can pull or use. in order to prevent him from playing as they're figuring this stuff out. Like you alluded to, the commissioner's exemplist has really only been used in criminal circumstances. And Goodell said that as much in March.

He said as soon as the criminal side of this was no longer in play, the commissioner's exemplist probably came off the table. But he has the latitude as part of that rule to use it. There's not the letter of the law with this that forces it to be a criminal investigation for them to use this rule. There is language that is written into the personal conduct policy specific to the commissioner's exemplist that says that Goodell or the league could suspend a player with pay if in the course of their investigation they have discovered evidence that gives them reason to believe a player has violated the personal conduct policy.

So then you have to go and look at the personal conduct policy and say, okay, well, what is a violation? And it's a very long list of things. Many of them are very specific about, you know, violent crimes, crimes with weapons, domestic violence, child abuse. But there is also some vague language about causing harm to another person. And so that's one of the areas that I think would be at play here as they're considering discipline. So Roger Goodell could use this. And it would take him breaking from the league's precedent.

And he at this point has been completely unwilling to do so. Part of that is that the Texans really did him a favor last year. And I've said this on this pod multiple times before by, they, in essence, you know, put Watson on a paid suspension last year. They paid him not to play. But we are now at the point where Deshaun Watson is leading this team. He is organizing the off-season workouts. He's taking the offense to the Bahamas.

He is going to be leading the first team offense on the field at their stadium next week. And we're only, what, six weeks away from public practices. So we're now at a different point where if this investigation is not wrapped up, if they're having to go back to other parts of it, they really need to consider the, you know, look, they shouldn't be reacting just based on public opinion here, but they very much need to consider what this looks like and what this means to the Browns, to the NFL, protecting the shield, what message it's sending to, you know, women across the NFL, female fans, all of these sorts of things over the next, over the next few weeks. And I will say one other thing when it comes to the

investigation and the new reporting and the availability of these documents and stuff is that this information is out there if you want to do the work to find it. The Browns and the other teams that were interested in Deshaun Watson, they did not seem to care to do that work. They wanted to only, it seems like they only wanted to find the information that they wanted to hear. They wanted to hear from Deshaun Watson that he was a good guy and that he didn't do any of things that any of these things that is accused of. But they didn't do the work whether or not they were advised by their lawyers or, you know, they didn't want to interfere with some other sort of processes for whatever reason it was. They did not do the type of work that the New York Times did to, you know,

talk to not just the women who were in these lawsuits, but other women who have been clients of Deson Watson and try to corroborate this information. So, you know, I think every new detail that comes out makes the Browns look worse. And it just puts a ton of pressure on the NFL in their own investigation. Because if what the New York Times has done is more exhaustive what the NFL has done, just in terms of the sheer number of people that they've talked to and the documents that they've been able to track down, that's going to be really damning for the NFL. There are two things you said, I think, are really important.

Breaking from precedent as it relates to the commissioner's exemplist. This is an unprecedented situation. He's a quarterback who got a $230 million fully guaranteed deal. The contract is unprecedented. The trade terms were unprecedented. This sort of scenario unfolding with a player of this sort of visibility is unprecedented. And I think that the handling of it probably warrants unprecedented treatment. So breaking from the way they've handled things in the past, I think is totally understandable

because this is unlike anything that they've had to deal with before. And talking about the league shouldn't necessarily be driven by the optics of this, but they're going to be. That's what they care about. When you say the Browns didn't do the sort of digging that Jenny did, or the league probably didn't do the sort of digging that Jenny did, I think they care about the league. And that's what's ultimately going to matter here.

Are they going to look like they did the right thing? Yeah. Or not even just the right thing, but setting a new precedent when it comes to handling stuff like this. And that's why it just feels like even if they knew about this already, some of the public fallout that happened from Jenny's story and the fallout that continues to happen. The idea that this isn't going away, does this force the league's hand in a more extreme way as it relates to the suspension? Can it just be six games now after everything that's happened?

I would contend probably not. Yeah. I will say there's one other just like logistical element that we have to consider that makes us all a little bit more complicated when we're talking about what happens at the league is this is the first like significant disciplinary process since the new collective bargaining agreement in which the process has changed. Roger Goodell is not going to be the one who is determining an initial punishment and an initial suspension. There's a jointly appointed disciplinary officer who is going to take all of the information from the investigators and decide what sort of punishment, if any, there will be. If there is a suspension, you almost would, you know, it's like near certainty, right, 100% probably pretty close, that there would be an appeal. That appeal would go to Roger Goodell. So he ultimately has the decision about what the final suspension would be.

but he is not the one who's initially issuing the discipline. Can they give a recommendation? I mean, I don't know exactly how much he can make the recommendation. So it's a little and clear because we haven't seen this actually play out in practice, at least not in a high profile situation. Like there have been other players suspended since 2020, right? Although I'm trying to think if there have been any for the personal conduct policy. there have certainly been, you know, PED-related suspensions in that time, but that's a different process.

So this is another thing where, like, we don't know exactly what the precedent is going to be here in terms of having the disciplinary officer go first and then Goodell as the arbiter. And then, you know, if there's other, you know, all these other previous cases, Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson, they all went, even Tom Brady, right? They pursued, like, legal recourse, too, and trying to get injunctions. And all this is to say is that this is not ending anytime soon. I mean, for Watson, legally, this is not ending anytime soon. I mean, he's still facing, and he probably has, what, 20-something depositions, all the two new ones. He's going to have to go through discovery and new depositions. The trials have been pushed until after the season, which is certainly convenient for him, right,

that he doesn't have to potentially go to Houston in November for a trial. aisle. That was, that's lovely. But this has all been pushed after the season. So barring settlements, this is going to carry over into 2023. And, you know, if there's appeals and injunctions and that sort of stuff, I mean, this stuff is not going away, which, which is why it comes back to what you and I've talked about that like, for me, it seems like a gross miscalculation on the power of the Browns to just assume that like by the start of training camp, we'd only be talking about football. And look, there are people who only want to talk about football. There's a whole lot of people in our business that only want to talk about football when it comes to Deshawn Watson.

And they want to pretend that all of this stuff does not exist. But it does exist. And it is, look, journalistic malpractice to not consider all of this other stuff that is going on when we're talking about Deshaun Watson. And look, we can talk about it what it means for the Browns, right? Because it does mean a lot for the Browns and their on-field stuff. But to just, like, ignore every new development. I think that's not meeting your responsibility as an NFL reporter. Even if, and I had to agree with you, even if the legal aspects of this continuing in 2020 and 2024,

I think it would be wrong for the league to hide behind that as a reason to push its decision even further, for them just to trot them out week one, but like, listen, we got to let it play out. I just don't think that's the right way to handle this. I don't think that's the right message to send. I think that that's just hiding behind something they should not be hiding behind. As it relates to the football side of this, I do think that matters in some way. And I say for this reason, the Browns traded a ton to go get to Sean Watson. The way they structured his contract, we talked a lot about them giving him a million-dollar-based salary.

So if he's suspended for this entire year, he doesn't really get fined financially. But the implications of that are if you look at his deal, every other year on his contract, I think he has like a $54 million cap hit. when the Browns made this calculation to go get him, him not playing football at all this year, it's pretty tough for the bet that the Browns ultimately made. And that's what you get when you make a decision like this. But him not playing at all when you gave up so much to get him, I think speaks to how much of a gamble this was for the Browns, even as they were doing it.

And now they're dealing with the repercussions of that. Yeah, I mean, and if they were thinking, okay, it could be six games, it could be eight games, now it could be more. What did, you know, these are all really, really big questions. And it's just a mess. It's just a mess right now for a team that, you know, I would love to be talking about like the football aspects of the Browns. I think they're a really interesting team. I think they've got a lot of really fun players. But this quarterback stuff, not even getting into like.

Baker Mayfield, who has been excused for minicamp, needs to be traded at some point, not even getting into that mess. I mean, this quarterback stuff is really the only thing that matters. And, you know, it is going to be a dark cloud over their season. And who knows potentially seasons to come and overshadow, like really exciting stuff about, you know, Miles Garrett, who could be a defensive player of the year candidate and, you know, fun young offensive lineman and Wyatt Teller, your favorite player in the NFL outside of Justin Herbert. sorry apologies to Justin you know but we just we just can't because this is there's so much uncertainty on the field and off the field surrounding their you know most important asset

and the people that are invested into Sean Watson right now I'm going to guess they were hoping that cloud would start to get smaller and smaller as the season creep as we creeped toward the season that as time went by we got further away for further away from this that it would be easier to deal with whatever fallout existed. But as these things keep happening, as the suits keep getting filed, and as the coverage continues, and as people like Jenny continue to do the work that they're doing,

it's harder and harder for that to happen. And I think justifiably, that we shouldn't just assume that this is going to go away and we shouldn't propagate the idea that it should go away. And I think that's what's happening right now, and I think that's why it's really important to talk about it in the way that we just did. And we'll keep talking about it as there's new stuff as we get close to training camp.

You know, we'll be here to handle the tough stuff. We're not going to shy away from it here. We need to talk about it. And I think that's really important for us to talk about it. And I really appreciate the perspective you're always able to give on the subject. We're going to pivot a little bit to a couple different news items that have happened over the last couple days before we get out of here. One that you are uniquely positioned to talk about. The Broncos got sold for $4.65 million this week.

week Wednesday. Yeah, my my bid for like a thousand bucks was not accepted. Listen, that's not far off from the 78 million the Bowens paid when they first bought the team. Yeah, but so yeah, this, this is pretty major news. You know, bids were, you know, I guess initial bids. I think we're out in May. The second round of bidding closed on Monday by Tuesday night, or I guess Wednesday night, Tuesday night, Tuesday night, the Broncos had entered into an agreement with Rob Walton is kind of the primary owner, there's a group, you know, led by Rob Walton, who is an heir to the Walmart throne, I guess. Throne is fine.

You know what? I'm just really happy that somebody in the Walton family finally got a break. Finally. Finally, somebody, things are breaking right, are breaking right for them. They don't, they own one-sixteenth of the NFL with the Crunkies in play with the Rips. Yes, yeah. So that is kind of an interesting, like, wrinkle here, especially locally in Denver, because Stan Cronkey is married to Anne Walton, who is the first cousin of Rob Walton, who is now going to be the owner of the Broncos.

Such crown nonsense. Yes, exactly. That's why the throne is the right way to put it. The, you know, I think the Cronky stuff was always really interesting to me because when you combine like the net worths of Stan Cronky and his wife, I mean, it's just like astronomical. Like she could have theoretically like bid on teams on her own without like, you know, they're separate. They're separate finances. But what, you know, it is an interesting wrinkle to me that there is obviously a relationship. I do not know the family drama.

And look, rich families, there can be a lot of family drama that we don't know about. We watch succession, right? Yeah, look at the Bowens and what's happened over the last few years. Yeah, the Boland family, Stan Cronkey and his wife, Ann, they own the Denver Nuggets, the Colorado Avalanche, the Colorado Rapids. They own a lot of land in downtown Denver around the stadium. they have, there's a six, or called Eilich Gardens, I think it used to be a six flags that is right adjacent to the stadium that they own that area. There are redevelopment plans for that whole area.

So as we're moving into this next era of Broncos football, you know, obviously having a new owner can change a lot of things. We don't know how he's going to be as a professional sports owner. One of the immediate things is like the stadium issues, will he push for a new stadium in Denver, Mile High Stadium. It's had 18 different names since it was built, but it was on fire recently. It was on fire recently. 2001 was when it opened.

So, you know, it's not that old of a stadium, but it hasn't gone through like major renovations. But, you know. What's a cold mouth? Do you know? It is called Empower Field at Mile High. And the logo kind of looks like the Patriots logo, which is weird. Yeah, it's been Invesco Field. sports authority field, then it had a year with like nothing.

And then now it is, I think the last years it's been in power field. But like, look, if you live here, if you grew up here, you call it mile high. It's just mile high, which is fine. Sorry to the people who paid billions of dollars for naming rights. But look, yeah, I mean, look, this has been a big question. You know, the Broncos ownership has been really, really messy for the last five years. I mean, Pat Boland was not in, was not running the team on a daily basis. since 2014.

You know, Joe Ellis, who's kind of been the voting representative. He's the team president was, you know, Boland's like kind of closest football executive. Like I think he's done. He's there forever, right? Yeah, he's been there forever. Yeah. And he started in the league office in the 80s. But so he will be formally stepping back once the new ownership group is in place.

You know, but so it's going to impact kind of every level of the way that this team operates. You know, we don't know if he's going to be a super hands-on owner, if he's going to be spending a lot of time in Denver, if he's going to want to get involved in personnel decisions, if he's going to want to come in and change a bunch of facilities. I mean, the Broncos facilities are pretty good. They built a brand new field house a couple of years ago. They did some major remodels of their practice facility. But, yeah, I mean, if they're going to, you know, change the way that they want to, you know, run all of their different departments. You know, I will say one thing is they have the Broncos have been invested very heavily already in George Payton. He has a long contract. They really very much believe in him. So there's not a ton of reason to believe that, you know, at this point, Walton's going to come in and like blow this thing up.

The Broncos, despite the dysfunction within the Boland family over the last five years or so, they've still been one of the, you know, kind of the teams that's looked out around the league is like they do this the right way. there's their stability and they're well run. And Pat Bowlin was so respected as an owner. He sat on a lot of the major committees. You know, he treated players really well, all those sorts of things. So, you know, the hope is that, you know, Walton will invest in the team, that he'll, you know, do good things in the community that is not going to come and start asking us for money to build a many stadium.

As a Colorado taxpayer, that is one of my, I would, we've seen your net worth, man. Like, don't come asking me for money. I'd like that money to go to my child's education. But anyways, so that question is answered. It still has to go through some like formal approvals at the league. But there's no reason to believe that there'll be any like holdups in getting the sale completed. And Walton being firmly like formally in place as the owner by the start of the season. I will say this.

There's a few different things that differentiate this sale from others. Like you just said, this team's not in a bad spot. They just traded for a franchise quarterback. They have a general manager in place. I think a lot of people are excited about. They have a first year coaching staff. I think there's a lot of justifiable optimism surrounding the Broncos right now. And if you look at recent NFL team sales, that hasn't really been the case.

The Panthers in 2018, we know why that happened. Controversies surrounding Jerry Richardson, he was forced to sell the team. The bills were sold in 2014. They were picking in the top five that year. The Browns were sold in 2012. They picked in the top five that year. were sold in 2012, one of the worst, most dysfunctional franchises in the league. That's every single instance since 2010, since the new CBA was signed, that a team in the NFL has changed hands.

The Broncos are not like the other teams in that group, in my opinion. And I think that the Walton's are taking over a situation that is pretty darn good when you compare it to other teams often in transition. The other differentiating factor between this sale and the other ones that have happened recently is that the Broncos literally sold for twice as much as the Panthers sold for four years ago. There are a few different reasons for that, I would have to assume. I think it was Jonathan Jones of CBS, who was recently promoted. Congratulations to Jonathan. Reported this today, I think, that one of the reasons that the Panthers' sale price was so low

is that it came the day after the Supreme Court legalized sports betting in the U.S. So you look at the sheer amount of money that is pouring into the league right now and the idea that four years after the last franchise was sold, another one can be sold for twice that. And what that means for the financial security of the league and all of the revenue streams currently pouring into the league, and it's kind of a ridiculous number when you sit back and think about it. I mean, that is an unbelievable jump in a four-year period.

for that to happen. Yeah, I mean, this is a ton of money. And it's important, you know, not just for like the health of the NFL or whatever when you see that this is what, you know, teams are going for. There could be other teams that will be up for sale in the not too distant future. Seattle is a place to watch, despite, you know, we heard recently for Roger Goodell that he doesn't expect any sort of sale. There are some questions with the Allen estate.

And if there eventually could be a sale there, what would the Seacock? given the like Seattle tech market, what could they be worth? Yeah. The Washington commanders, who knows at some point, depending on what is the next level of drama to come out of the Dan Snyder stuff. So this is really just kind of pushing up the potential value of any other teams that could come up for sale for whatever reason in the not-to-dust future. For the next member of the Walden family to buy.

Yeah, how many other errors are there? I say this all jokingly, but it is just kind of like, it just makes you roll your eyes. Like, all right, just same old stuff. Like $60 billion net worth. Like literally a member of an American, American royalty is really. It's the business. Like, all right, guys, great. Sounds good.

All right. Last thing to hit here. Aaron Donald, speaking of large amounts of money. Well, I say that flippantly. And money that the Kronkis are paying. Well, yes. It's all connected. I say that flippantly.

Players do not make enough. of the pie if teams are going to go for $4.6 billion. I'll just say that in a blanket way. Any time that you watch that sale happen, no person should criticize the amount of money that players want, ask for, get, and what they're worth as part of this entire calculus. I just want to say that before we move forward. Because I don't want to connect these two things.

Because Aaron Donald and Rob Walton are in two very different stratosphere when it comes to money. And I think that's important to understand. All right. The Aaron Donald contract, though. The Rams rip up his old deal. They give him $95 million over a three-year stretch with two void years tacked on to the end of it. That's an incredible amount when you compare that to his peers.

Okay. The cash flow of that is $95 million. Just like kind of mechanics of NFL contracts, okay? Aaron Donald, his new money average is about $31.5 million per year, which makes him the highest paid non-quarterback in the NFL. Tyree Kill was at 30 a year. But if you look at Tyree Kill's contract, in the fifth year of that deal, he's making 50 million bucks.

There's an out that the dolphins have before that. He's probably not going to get there. And Tyree Kill has a four-year cash flow of $95 million. There's nothing fake about Aaron Donald's numbers. Like those are just real. He's getting $95 million over three years. That's the seventh highest three. year cash flow in the NFL, which is how a lot of, which is how agents look at deals like this.

For reference, when Ryan Tannenhill signed his deal, he had a $91 million cash flow over three years. His people at CIA were puffing their chests out about that. Yeah. And that's a quarterback. So for Donald to get $95 million in cash over three years, we've said unprecedented a lot on the show, that is an unprecedented deal for a non-quarterback in the history of the league.

And he deserves every goddamn sentiment. dime because he is a one of a kind all-time player and he deserves this every single metric every single way that we look at guys every single way that we evaluate players he is in his own universe and now he has a contract that at least to a certain extent exemplifies that he's probably worth more than they gave him but now his contract is in line with what he deserves relative to his peers. Yeah, I mean, he's he's the best football player on the planet. He's the best player, regardless of position in the NFL. He is our favorite player to watch just on a like a snap to snap basis. So we all win. All of us that love watching football win by Aaron Donald getting

this deal because we get three more years of Aaron Donald. And this probably guarantees that he'll retire as a ram. Like, you know, he doesn't seem like the type of guy who wants to just like, you know, play until he has to be carded off the field and has interest in, like, racking up big contracts elsewhere. So let's just enjoy the hell out of as much Aaron Donald as we're going to get and just watch him just like wreck shit in the NFC West for the next couple of years. I can't wait. The Rams are just, they're the flaming Elmo meme now when it comes to finances.

They're like, you know what? We'll figure all this out later. It's kind of fun. Aaron Donald has a $38 million cap hit next year. I mean, they're just letting it all fly. And it's not like they don't have other expensive players. Yeah, I think are they the only team? I think Jordan put the stat, Jordan Rodriguez, Rams beat writer.

I think the Rams might be the only team who have two 30 million dollar cap hit players. I think they're the only team with two players averaging $30 million. Okay. Because I say this because I was looking at the numbers and I'm pretty sure Stafford's cap hit next year is only 20 million. And then starting in 2024, that's what goes up to 49 or 50-ish. But if you look at their cap next year, even though Stafford's sitting there at 20, which isn't super cheap. Ramsey is in the 20s. Alan Robinson's making $18 million.

I think Leonard Floyd is up there near 20. Cooper Cup. They're going to have to do something because they're already, based on a projected cap of $20 million. They're $4 million over the cap. This is all fine. When you have the Walmart money and you're willing to throw it around, you can keep kicking the can down the road and keep showing out the cash. and the Rams seem more than content to do that. So they're hopefully going to outrun all these problems financially,

but they're definitely into saints-esque territory when it comes to some of the gymnastics that they're going to have to do to get this done. Yeah. And it's just going to, I mean, to build your team this way and to function, you obviously need your superstars to play like superstars, those guys who are playing, who are making $30 million plus. And then you just got to hope that your coaching staff is going to just get the most out of the really cheap guys, the cheap young guys you have.

on the roster. And that when you're cycling through new young coaches, this is another year where Sean McVeigh is having to retool his staff, that you can kind of keep on winning with really, really high-price veterans and then really young, talented mid-round draft picks. That's really their formula. I think a lot of teams in the NFL would love to replicate it, but I'm not sure if anybody else, one has the cash flow, two, the Sean McVeigh of it all, and the Raheim Morris of it all.

You know, and you can't replicate Aaron Donald. It just, it's impossible. You can't. I mean, he has a one-of-one all-time player who is so critical to everything they do. And I'm just glad. I'm glad that deal is done. I think we were pretty confident all along that this wasn't going to be like a long-term, you know, standoff or anything going on there.

He's at mini-camp now and we can just enjoy watching him. The contract's for Donald and the contract for him, the extension for Stafford, all of that. It's like, okay. Yeah, I can totally get on board with that. It's the other ways they spent this year that are a signal to me and a message to me like, we're going for this. We don't care. We're going to try to do as much as we can here.

And it's the Joe No Boom contract they handed out, giving him $15 million. He's set to make $15.5 million in 2023 and the Allen Robinson contract. They're not skimping on some of these other spots. They're trying to pry this thing open as much as they can while McVeigh is still there and while these guys are still on the roster. And I can't fault them for it. Good for them. If it all comes off the rails. They were prepared to pay Von Miller.

exactly if it's if it gets to 2026 and it all falls apart and they got a couple Lombardi trophies in hand I think he'll be willing to live with it yep it's exactly right so Stan cronkey is going to have gazillion dollars because of the stadium that he built and all the TV deals and all that stuff and they'll maybe have a couple trophies and who can and Sean McVey will walk away he's going to be doing broadcasting and going to Cabo and you start over right who cares I did Cabo a couple weeks ago. I'm not sure I did it the same way Sean and his now wife do it. Did you see, by the way? Did you see the costume change halfway through the wedding? He changed tuxes and she changed dresses halfway through the wedding. Well, so women do that regularly. I mean, I did not. I clearly live in a different tax bracket. I don't know if your fiance is

going to be changing dresses. Well, I told her this week. But now you probably need to change. Are you going to change? You probably need to. I was like, listen, now that this is a good thing. We should take notes about this. We got to change halfway through the wedding. I don't think. Did Sean like, change his hair? Did he like gel it up a different direction or anything? I don't think his hair. I don't think his hair changes. I think it's just like that 100% of the time. But he did change jackets. And I'm getting one jacket. And I think I'm going to stick with it. But I thought that was funny. That's a solid choice. And I do, I did see that, uh, Odell Beckham crashed the wedding, uh, which was fantastic. Yeah. I got we, we had wedding crashes. We were nowhere as cool as

odal Beckham's wedding. You had wedding crashes at your wedding? We did. Man. And the best money I spent was this is veering into weird territory was hiring a wedding planner. It's like advice for anybody's out there. Spend the money on the wedding planner because they will also serve as a bouncer to kick people out who are trying to get drinks at your open bar. Yeah, mine is up on a rooftop. It's not really accessible from anywhere else. So thankfully, I don't know if we'll get wedding crashes.

I would take wedding crashes though. At a certain point of the night, a little injection of energy, that's fine with me. I'm okay with that. Yeah, we just had we were like, I mean, you could walk into our venue from the street in downtown Denver. And it was not like a, it was not at a bar. It was at like a ballroom. But it had an entrance from the street. It was not at inside a hotel.

And people are like, sweet, open bar. Let's go. And eventually we had to look. It's paying for that shit. Buy your own jokes. I'm a year away from my wedding about. So anyone has any unsolicited wedding advice, including what sort of different jackets I I should wear at various points in the night.

I'm all ears. All right. That's all we got. Lindsay, thank you very, very much for taking a time. Right. And now I'm going to go and vacation. So we'll see what sort of fire the NFL is lit on by the time I get back in a week. But I'm going to mute a lot of these words.

I appreciate you doing this as you're supposed to be packing. So it means a lot that you take the time out. The suitcases will pack himself, I'm sure. I'm sure. All right. We will be back tomorrow. Nate and I will. We're going to do a little roster reset tomorrow.

I think it's a good time to do that. There's such a flurry of moves that happen in March and then with the draft. I think it's important to slow down, take a step back, think about where are these rosters are with a couple moves left to make. You know, we mentioned Odo Beckham. Guys like that are still out there, but I think for the most part, these rosters are set, and it's time to kind of take stock of where everyone is at at this point in the offseason.

Until then, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform choice. I'd sincerely appreciate that. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show where you can read all of our fantastic writers. You can go check out Jordan's work on the Aaron Donald contract and all the other fantastic team writers that we have. All right, we'll be back tomorrow.

Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you soon. This was the Athletic Football Show.