The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Sean Payton to Broncos, DeMeco Ryans to Texans, oh my!; A look at The Athletic's new series 'Between the Lines' with Tashan Reed

Episode Date: January 31, 2023

So much for a ho-hum Tuesday during the bye week between the conference championship games and Super Bowl, huh? The Broncos swung a deal for Sean Payton, making him their new head coach, while DeMeco Ryans officially took the reins in Houston, agreeing to a six-year deal with the Texans. Robert Mays and Nate Tice react to the news just moments after it broke on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Then, Tashan Reed joins Robert to introduce his new series, "Between the Lines" debuting Tuesday, February 14 on The Athletic Football Show podcast feed.Follow Robert on Twitter: @robertmaysFollow Nate on Twitter: @Nate_TiceFollow Tashan on Twitter: @tashanreedSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeToday's episode is brought to you by...Atlassian: For projects impossible alone, visit www.atlassian.comHoney: Get PayPal Honey for FREE at joinhoney.com/mays4:08 Broncos hire Sean Payton19:37 The Saints get back into the first round26:17 DeMeco Ryans, Texans agree to deal37:35 Tashan Reed introduces "Between the Lines" Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Great show for you guys today. Tashon Reed, our Raiders writer at The Athletic, is going to be joining us a little bit later. We are very excited about a narrative podcast series that Tashon has been working on for, I don't know, the better part of a year. Looking at just the history of race and its impact on the NFL at large and the structures in place in the NFL. We have episodes on players, executive coaches, And then looking at the current hiring cycle, Deshaun has done a fantastic job with Between the Lions, which is what we're calling the series.

So very excited to intro that to you and intro you to the work that he is doing. Before we get into that, though, I am thrilled to welcome to help me break down some big news today, our good friend Nate Tice. Nate, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing well. I guess I got some homework in for a pod we'll be doing at a later date because this is our first like emergency pod? Like our emergency live pod? I think it might be because we don't do that emergency pods because we record every day. So back in a time where I didn't do this every day, sometimes you had to break in case for emergency.

You'd be like, all right, it's time to react to this because we're not record until Wednesday. That's not really how it works over here on the athletic football show. But for the first time that I can remember, usually happens the other way where we finish recording. It's like 4.18 p.m. It's like, man, that was a mediocre show. good job. And then 20 minutes passes and some huge piece of news breaks. And it's like, what are we going to do now? If the show's already out and is it worth going to do this, the exact opposite happens. We're sitting there getting ready to record a podcast about a topic

that is not worth bringing up because we will discuss it later. And we get two huge bombshells immediately in a row. And then that show goes in the shitter and now we have to do this one. So good stuff. Yeah, it's Domino's. Domino's. I think literally the first podcast we ever did, it happened to us because we did emcee North preview and then the trade the Vikings traded for Yonika. In Gakwa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I remember

you guys were like, hey, we got to re-record and I had no idea what I was doing. And I'm just like, yeah, okay, whatever you guys need me to do. Sure, I'll talk about it. But that was a peek behind the curtain for the first time for me. But I know usually it's like right like five minutes into a show of news breaks or like you said 20 minutes after. So I, this is great. I felt like dominoes were getting set up.

Like literally there's that meme with the dominoes that, like I just tweeted, but there's also just everything else that falls in the NFL season. I mean, this is every sports league. So as soon as that Sean Payton news happened, it's like, oh, here we go. The bubble's about the burst. There's no dead weeks in the NFL. This is the buy week before the Super Bowl. Nah, news break.

Here we go. Now we got coaching news. Senior Bulls happening. I'm sure Moore's going to trickle down from that. So it's great that we are primed for this and ready to go. So let's talk about this from the Broncos perspective. Let's start with the Sean Payton news. The Broncos trade reportedly a 2003 first and a 2024 second and get back a 2024 third

for the rights to hire Sean Payton as their head coach. Am I wrong just to think this is a huge win for the Broncos? I mean, they're already all in like with the rest thing. I mean, they had to make this work. So yeah, I mean, this isn't originally what the compensation was going to be. And even just getting that pick swap isn't like, I mean, that's actually it kind of softens the blow. Really just becomes that 2023 first. So you traded Bradley Shub for Sean Peyton. Yes. Yes. And that's exactly what it is. That's, I do that. Considering what the price was what originally what I pictured in my head, that's not bad at all.

Even if it was multiple first round picks. And I know people were saying that and it's hard to sit there. I'm like, man, multiple first round picks for a coach when you can just hire a coach. coaches are really important. Right. It's really, really important. So I just, the idea that you're only giving up one first round pack, I know it's a lot. I know first round picks are important. But you're getting a coach who has built a winner every single year. And I think, I can't remember who it was, whether it was, it's a study that's come up a lot recently with talking about coaching hires.

And I believe it's someone who is now maybe in the Eagles front office or the Browns front office. that was in the analytics community, and they did a study on the predictive aspects of head coach success. And your success as a coordinator really has no bearing on whether or not you will be a successful head coach. But if you have been a head coach and you've been successful, it typically indicates that you will be successful again. Think about what Andy Reid has done for the chiefs. How many first round picks would you give up if you were Kansas City for Andy Reed and what he's given you?

way more than one. Yeah, I was going to say at least two. And I mean, they imagine, remember what the chiefs were right before Andy Reid got there? They were absolute shit show. And they went from and then they got Andy Reid. They traded for Alex Smith and then boom, boom, boom. Instant double digit wins. Like they just boom, boom, just like that.

And that's what a head coach does. It starts at the top. That's always the saying, but it matters more than any other sport. There's so much that you have to manage as a head coach. So getting one that not only is a good, um, organizer, identifier of talent as well. That's an underrated thing with Sean Peyton. But also on top of it, he's a really one of the original quarterback gurus.

And he's going with a guy that needs all the help that he can get right now, just to rebuild confidence and also just align their offense and get it pointing into the right direction. So I think that's a huge win. You're all in. You already made your bed with the Russell Wilson trade. So why not? Like this is a great way to like really get as much returners as you can on that investment. In Rapp report reporting now that the Broncos tried to lure D'Amico Ryan's there today.

He said no, and they move on to Sean Payton. We had this discussion with Sando yesterday. If they miss out on D'Miko Ryans and Sean Payton is no longer in the picture, where do they go? Jim Harbaugh, do they go back into the pool and start interviewing people again? I know you probably had to give up a ton for him, and that's before we even get into a conversation about compensation per year, which I assume is astronomical. I can't even imagine what he's making, but also power dynamics. That is another big question with this. I'm guessing he's reporting directly to ownership.

George Peyton was there. George Peyton is probably on a little shakier ground now after the Russell Wilson trade. So the power dynamics within the organization and how much you're willing to pay him, all up for debate and all of for, you know, we can talk about that. But still, I think that the end result here of Sean Peyton is now your head coach, when you were looking at having to going back to the drawing board, that is a win to me. That is a definitive win.

Remember, I've said this kind of line a million times with team building. Like sometimes going from shit to average is still like a great improvement. Now imagine going from, you know, way, way poor to very good. Excellent. And head coach. That's a huge bump. And like you said, the pool, it was, you know, it was an interesting pool. Eyes of Beholders.

Like, Ryan's was probably one of the aces of this kind of class, of this head coaching class, I guess is the incoming coaching class. So you lose out on him. All right, we already did hack it. Never again. We don't want to go down that path, getting that kind of proven guy. But Sean Peyton, I mean,

obviously this is the line, you know, from Game of Thrones. Like chaos is a ladder for him. I'm sure he loved being able to go. Like, oh, I could go straight to the owner who probably has probably final say

on roster construction, like the final 53 and all that. That probably meant a lot to him where he was like, yeah, I want to go there. And, okay, I can make this work with Russell Wilson as well. I want to be clear.

I don't think that having to go back into the pool and look at, let's throw some names out there, Brian Callahan, if he didn't get a job. Some of these got a little bit further down the list. That can work out. That has worked out. We have no idea which of these coordinators are going to be head coaches. So getting one a little bit further down the process, Frank Reich was the second choice of the Colts for as bad as the end there was. Frank Reich did a pretty solid job. The fact that he was out of work for about six weeks.

And think about what Siriani was for the Eagles. This happens all the time. So I think that's okay. I think it's more from an optics perspective than anything else that now instead of having to be like, oh, man, we struck out on all the guys we wanted to talk to. Now you get what a lot of people consider to be the crown jewel of this process. And the only sense that I got for why people were a little bit apprehensive about hiring Sean Payton is the compensation involved from both the Drapic perspective, what he was going to make

and what he would demand for his standing in the building. But if you're willing to acquiesce to those things because you're operating sort of from a position of weakness, which I think the Broncos kind of are, I think this is ultimately a pretty good end result. Yeah, they went from, I mean, a day ago or two days ago, Woody Page is cracking jokes saying like this, he was their third number one choice, Damico Rides. Like they're saying like, oh, no, that's our number one guy. They just kept striking out on it.

But the fact, so going from that with a pie on their face a little bit to now having the ace of this class. I mean, that's huge. Like you said, the optics. And we're going to talk about the other news too in a sec, but like, that matters. that builds a lot of collateral. That's like, oh, wow, confidence in an organization that desperately needs it right now. I mean, watching that Broncos team, the second half of the year, they need it.

And they knew that they're coming back with that quarterback again. So I think just as a showing face type of thing, this is huge for them, especially with a new ownership group that wants to probably make a splash and say, like, we got the guy. And we're going to show that we're going to have the resources to do it. If you're trying to win a press conference in this year's head coaching cycle, I think the easiest way to win the press conference is tried off. the guy with the Super Bowl ring. I think so. And somebody who built a consistent contender in the NFC for a very, very long time. I know Drew Brees was a huge part of who the Saints were, but if you look at their finishes

on offense by DVOA over the Sean Payton's entire tenure, like 15 years. They're in the top five every year. There's just no better way to be a successful NFL franchise than have a top five to top seven offense every single season. And you have a guy who was an architect of one for a decade and a half who rebuilt an entire franchise. Think about where the Saints were when Sean Peyton took over the Saints. It's so easy to think of them as this really successful, stable organization that's consistently relevant in a winner. That was not the case when Sean Peyton took over the Saints.

So I just feel like if I were a Broncos fan, I would be absolutely thrilled. I would be over the movie. It's not my money. Who gives a shit? I know. When someone goes, oh, he made $12 million, and? Oh, I bet it's way more than 12. Oh, I'm sure.

I'm sure. But again, it's not. Trying to take some numbers. Who cares? It's not your money. There is, what do you lose if you have the most expensive head coach in the league? He absolutely carries that weight within the building, which I guess can lead to some issues with dynamics. But there's no opportunity cost for coaches when your owner is like the 20th richest person in the world.

Who cares? Right. And also it's like, what's the difference between three million more to a head coach? Say if he sets the market, three million higher than another head coach or a bunch of undrafted free agents or a guy that you cut that's two million. Like you said, it's the owner's money. Who gives a shit? And also he has that clout to justify it. There's not, there's only a few guys where it's like, well, yeah, he deserves that contract.

Well, that's kind of. Actually, I think it helps and enables even more. If you just only recognize the name or or think that has standing, it's like, well, highest paid guy. you kind of kind of have to follow that as well. That all matters. Like you said, it's an optics thing. That matters. They're throwing an ace card down just going like, this is the ace of spades and we paid

for it too. But that's what we are. That's what we are. That's what we are. And I think the Broncos see themselves that way. And this is not Tap Bowens Broncos anymore. And I think that being able to kind of send that message is important organizationally. Think about that Thursday night game.

It would have felt like when they played the Broncos, when they played the Colts. Think about what that stadium was like. The Penters being there for the first time and that ownership group sitting there and watching that happen. This is an overcorrection from that moment and an important one in my opinion. I've told the story a bunch of times. But I was in New Orleans a decent amount in like 2017, 2018. Every time that they were semi-relevant and they were playing a playoff game, I rose my hand to take a trip down there. It's my favorite city in America.

I absolutely love it. My bachelor party is going to be there. I like, I love it. Super Bowl's there in two years. Listen, it's my favorite place. So I remember talking to Zach Lyne, who was the fullback on those teams. And we were talking about Sean Peyton and the way that practices are structured. And he was telling me a story about, I can't remember who it was, whether it was

Tric Juan Smith or Michael Thomas or somebody. And Sean Peyton would, there were landmarks during practice. And he was telling him about a route depth. He literally go out and he put his hat there. And that's how it was every single time. And the meetings that they would go through with Drew Breeze, like these famous dot meetings that they would have on Saturday nights where they would go through every single play, every single one to talk about how much do you like this? Why do you like this? What about in this situation?

And they would dot the ones that they liked. And it just this collaborative all in effort to shape the offense in every single detail about what the offense was. I know that having Drew Breeze is great. but what they were able to do with personnel and just everything over that 10 or 15 years, if you're looking for a stabilizing force for that side of the ball, I can't really imagine a better one who would be available. I can only say it so many different ways. I mean,

and just even think about like late career breeze and when he got banged up and he was starting Teddy Bridgewater and even Tassam Hill a little bit. And they didn't miss a beat and he changed the offense. He tweaked it just a little bit. Okay, Teddy's a little better at these types of throws. Okay. It wasn't anything like remodeled the whole office. offense, but just a little tweaks. Look at James's numbers last year before he got hurt.

Yes. Another one. Yes. Launching him. Oh, but that's what he is. He understands the NFL. Like, there's a, there's a strength of that. That's a gift.

That's a really thing that you build around. Our head coach can see the game and understands how to use these guys. He finds different guys to run his little weak side choice that he's always going to run. But a different guy's run. It's Darren Sprouls. It was Kamara. Jared Cook was in there running it. Like Michael Thomas.

Like, oh. He was revamped. There's a couple of years where Jimmy Graham is just catching fade balls in the red zone. And then how many have you seen that in a decade from the Saints? No, but he understood that Jimmy Graham's really good at it. So why change this up? And you look at the Broncos roster.

And we've talked about this for about two years now, is that there's a lot of interesting dudes on that team. There's some guys that he can really work with, especially at the receiver room. They're getting Tim Patrick back along with Sutton and Judy. Greg Dolchich is interesting. You know who I compare Greg Dolchich. too coming in the draft, Jared Cook. Wow. That's kind of fun. But I mean, there is just, it's interesting. I think they could, he could really write this ship. This guy understands, this guy being Sean Peyton, understands how to run an NFL offense and he's changed what the

Saints did over the years. Another thing, too, is early career Saints offenses with Drew Breeze was heavy play action, shot plays with a strong run game. You know who is good at heavy play action and should always lean into it, Russell Wilson. Well, that. And Russ is going to love that. Russ loves Drew Brees. So instantly, I bet you they're going to just boom right then and there. I think, and also Russ is going to go, oh, I want to run empty.

And Champagne goes, no. This is what we're going to have, having clout as the head coach that in quarterbacks get a lot of say with stuff. But you have a head coach that gets a lot of say too? Like that, that matters as well for that dynamic too. Hackett came in last summer, said it to me, said it to a bunch of people. it's going to be what Russ likes. I'm not sure it's going to be what Russ likes this time around.

I am fascinated by what the conversation was about him, about how tied they are to him. Do I need to fix him? Is this a long-term thing? I think if you go out and hire Sean Peyton, it's a long-term thing. I have to imagine. And we'll see what the results are with Russ in the short-term, but also how long they're going to be tied to him with Sean Peyton now there.

Russell Wilson was the most prominent person in the building. last summer. When they traded for Russell Wilson, Russell Wilson has a Super Bowl ring. He has one of the highest contracts in the league. They made that massive trade to go get him. Again, the power dynamics shift now that he has a GM who's in his first year and the first go-around. He has a head coach who's never done this before.

Now, that changes. It changes in a big way. Totally. Yes. You, uh, when you're talking about the hack and thing and maybe think there's a Vince, Vince McMahon quote where he's yelling at the crowd and he's like, you don't know what you like.

You like what I tell you you like. And I feel like that's what Sean Payton's going in there to do. But that is such a great point. Talking about the GM who made an all in move more or less for this guy for Russell Wilson, they enabled them. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing. But that every dynamic of every building in the NFL is so wildly different between owner, GM, head coach, and quarterback.

Those are really the big names, the big faces. And every team's different. But going in, it's like, you know this. is going to be Sean Payton's show because I bet you they're going to get they're going to enable him as much as possible. On the Saints side of this, what a huge win for the Saints to get to get this first round pick for him. It's not even their head coach right now.

This is great. Because I believe that if this has gone on another cycle, they get nothing for him, correct? If it goes into next year. It's after this year. So to get a first round pick for him, especially when you consider the spot that the Saints were at. Spoiler alert. Yes.

We were going to do something today about the QB carousel for this spring. Yeah. And we were looking at, you know, how concerned are you for some of these situations? I was looking at the Saints. I was like, oh, shit. They have no money. They had no first round pick. They have an urgency because they have the oldest roster in the league by snapweighted

age. They have, I think, a real desire to be pretty good right away. How many avenues to a quarterback do you have if you're New Orleans? The answer is one more now because you have that first round pick. Now you're in the mix. If you, whoever you want. want to go get, now you have at least as much ammo as most of these other teams who might be in the quarterback market. Let's say you're New Orleans. I understand the money is going to be tough

to do this, but they also have money in the couch cushions. You can now make a call about Aaron Rogers, right? In a way you probably couldn't before this happens. Right. Right. And also just getting, like you said, it's just resources. It's just ammo. It's just ammo. It gives you avenues. It's all about avenues. That's what team building is in the NFL. It's just not the Saints, especially last year, we're like, we're doing this with this roster and we're competing. It's like, really? That's okay.

You're going to triple down on that path. Okay. But now, like you said, it just gives them avenues. It gives them ammo resources, another second rounder to work with, even though it's kind of like the little pick swap kind of thing. But still, that matters. I don't think they have their 2024 second rounder. I'm pretty sure the Eagles have their 24 second rounder. That's not a joke.

I think that's right. I know. I think you're right too. But hey, hey, they recouped it. They figured out that now they have that in the back pocket. The Eagles doesn't matter if it's 2024 second round pick. Oh my God. Yeah.

Where you go, Howie. Take a bow. God. But no, it's it's they needed it. They need as much resources as they can. We always know it's the joke with the cap with them. But the fact that they've kind of went nuclear on their picks. Like, they just need to build up the war chest somehow.

It's a team that desperately needs to figure out more avenues because right now, the path they were going on looks like another seven and ten kind of year where they're just kind of there. Just quick preview. When you were thinking about Saints and quarterback marriages, who was coming to mind for you in the old world before this pick existed? Like the called Teddy back up, Jacoby Percette, like kind of like finding one of those kind of middle, middle tier guys. eyes that you can just patchwork to get through 2023. That's how I viewed it. That's kind of hot. What do you look at their cap?

And you're like, oh, shit. You can't look at that. You can't look at that. I know, I know, because they would bite so many bullets.

I mean, there are a ways they can. I was, Nick Underhill, who does a very good job covering the Saints for his own website. It's called Doormous Football.com. If you guys are Saints fans and have not subscribed or don't check it out, I think he does a great job.

He does a great job covering the team. Great be. Always have. Yeah. So I was looking at it today and he was breaking down how they can free up like $60 million in space. And a lot of it looks insane. You know, it's converting Cam Jordan who's 33 years old, most of his base salary to a signing bonus and pro-rating it over like five years. They'd like, oh, they would never do that.

Don't say that about the Saints. Don't say they would never do that. They tried to go get to Sean Watson a couple of years ago with the no money that they had. So I don't want to overstate how much, how many levels. the saints would pull in order to get one of these things down. I'm using the same Google Doc because that's how how boom, boom, we just did this. I think I have one note on them. And it says, how should we be about them scale to one to ten?

I just said nine, but that's us. Like, you don't know how they feel about everything. Like, you don't know how they feel. Like, because a year ago, they felt great. It looked like they made a move like for a lava. And it's like, oh, wow, they're acting like that was the cherry on top. So you don't know what's going on in New Orleans. It's hard to predict what that team wants to do.

Mickey Wimus wants to do. Every single Saints fan. We're like, man, that's giving up a lot. And we love Chrysalave. This is the most pro-Crisoleva conversation in the podcast in America. Both the rookie the years. He's not going to finalists. Okay.

Every single time, Saints fan would be like, we push back on them having no picks. But, well, we're going to trade Sean Peyton for a bunch of stuff. That was always part of the calculus. And now it gets to be part of the calculus. Now you actually traded Sean Peyton for first round pick. And it gives you one more little asset to play with as you're trying to figure out who your quarterback is and as you're trying to squeeze everything you can out of what is despite their protests over the last year or so an aging roster. Everybody's a denial about their age, like all of us in real life, but the saints especially. I mean, just me and you are like, oh, yeah, our 33, 34, shit, but 35, okay.

But then they're like, they do not want to hear their age. They're just like, no, 30 is the new 20, guys. That's the Saints roster permanently. Next big piece of news. The Texans have reportedly hired D'emico Ryan's as their next head coach. A six-year deal. Good for him. That's exactly what I would have asked for after the last two 10 years and how they went.

Six-year deal for- He's probably longer in any contract he got there as a player. It's a great, great outcome for the Texans. When you think about the discourse around the Texans for the last couple years and how, It was hard to look at them and have any other takeaway other than what are they? What is the plan? Where are they going? It didn't seem like they had any discernible direction, any discernible identity, any cohesion whatsoever in how this thing was being built.

And some of that is understandable, right? Nick Casario comes in. This is a three year at minimum rebuild. The floor fell out the bottom of this thing and you didn't have any picks. That combination is unfathomable, okay? But they're starting to kind of get out of that now. They have a bunch of draft capital. They have the second pick in the draft, hell yes.

And they have it in a year where there are multiple quarterbacks available. So even with all of the messiness over the last two years, and it was off. Like the way that they handled it and that what happened with Cully and Levy Smith is just, it's a terrible look. And it's not a good situation by any. stretch. But now it's a much softer landing spot. And they got a guy that I think a lot of teams would have loved to be their head coach. He was on a lot of lists justifiably. He's one of the most exciting candidates in this entire pool, in this entire cycle. And they got him. And I think that has to feel like a huge win for Nick Casario and that entire organization. I mean, just think,

like you said, just think about where this team was at with the Sean Watson stuff. Jack Astorby, Easterby, like, oh my God, back to back one year head coaches. And now, they're bringing back a guy that as a player won rookie of the year for the Texas. He was their third ever pro bowler in franchise history. Like that matters for, yeah, really, we forget how young of a franchise it is. It's only 21 years old, you know. And the, I think it's just, it's a franchise that needed good vibes. And also it's like this, they're planting their foot and going like, this is our path now.

We are finally, after two years and just wandering the wilderness of the NFL, this is us. This is, we're finally deciding what our identity is going to be. I think it's great. The fact that Domego Ryan's turned down the Broncos because he was like, no, I'd rather go with the Texans also kind of shows you what's going on in Denver right now. But also kind of like the fact that he's like I would rather pick Houston than that. Houston's like, yes, he can do what he wants. And I think they've kind of sorted out their kind of hierarchy on their team. The roster still, you know, it's holy.

But like you said, they have their picks now. This is a team that now it really feels like if last year they moved on. Like if we just ignore what happened the last two years, it's like, oh yeah, they got their young head coaches, got a lot of picks. They got rid of their franchise quarterback. Okay, cool. This is what they can do now. But again, he can, he's young. He played in the league.

He's got name recognition. That all matters for a team that's so young. I mean, he's probably like six best Texan of all time. Like might as well just that really helps. A fan base that is, I mean, look at the crowds that were happening in Houston this past year. there there people were doing the oh this is the crowd at kickoff kind of tweets never want that if you're in charge of a team why would you be excited why why would you give a shit about that team and like what they were doing this year they rolled into the season and no offense to him but

davis mills is their quarterback it was another punted year and it was a shrug this is the opposite of punting on your franchise is going out and getting a guy like this it's planned your foot they they shrug through the last two years that's what they did and i think this matters And I think he's got some interesting, a couple of interesting defensive players. Young guys, they nailed Joe and Petrie and Derek Stingley last year. Stingley kind of battled some injuries. But those guys are valid starters. He can build this team if he has a say in things.

They can build it how they want to build it. And now they have a voice and a guy that really seems to know what he wants. You watch that 49ers team. Yes, they had talented players. They were so freaking well coached. And they adapted to who they were playing against every week. That's not an accident. It's not like Fred Warner's going in there and going like, this is what I want the game plan to be.

Wow, look at that. Stamiko Ryan's getting with his players. And you can see how much they respect him, that you can see how people talk about him. There's three actions that coming at him coming off the sideline and just the entire vibe of their sideline every single game. I want a piece of that. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good way. I want a piece of that.

I want that energy. I want that, especially for a team that needs every ounce of it that they can get. But like you're saying, the energy on the sideline, you would see some third. down blitz hit or something happened to sack or something. And they all go straight up to him. And you could tell it's because he talked about that play they ran. Like that's usually the reaction. You always see, you know, the Rogers point, you know, when he does that, like when he

wants to give someone credit, like, oh, yeah, like that. But like that, you could see that with the players. Like when they had a big play, they went to him going like, hey, that worked. Like what we, you could tell was that reaction. What we talked about on Wednesday worked in the game. Wow, way to go. Coach, thanks. That's awesome.

And that's what you want for. And he's, it's going to be a young team. team, I'm sure it will be. You want a younger coach that can build that up. I really do think this was a home run for them. I think this is the best case for where the Texas are at right now. I think Kyle Shanahan has done a pretty good job over the last five years. And honestly, even earlier than that, if you want to give him credit for building some of those staffs or helping build some of those staffs in Washington.

Right. For identifying coaching talent. He got the job in 2017. Tomiko Ryan's was immediately on the Niners staff. He was a quality control coach in 2017. In six years, he went from quality control coach to head coach of the Texans. And every single step along the way, he has shown why he deserves to be on that track. So I'm excited, man.

The fact that he trusted him, this is a real thing. You see a lot of former players, they get their first job in the NFL. And it's assistant receiver coach, assistant linebacker coach, not quality control. Yeah. You know why that shows D'Amico Ryans. That usually is a little more computer work. That's what I did, guys. A lot of data work.

It's a lot of grunt work. Drawing cards. You're doing a lot of the stuff so the other coaches can do their work. The fact that he made him that meant this guy's freaking smart. This guy actually, he's not just a former player that knows what he's doing, a former pro bowl player that knows what he's doing.

Rookie of the year, he actually knows how to do the kind of the dirty work and actually understands what goes into that. That speaks a lot. It really does. The fact that he trusted him to have that type of role. I know that sounds backwards. Well, why would a lower role be more trusting?

Like there's a lot that goes into that. And the fact that they say, no, this guy's intelligent enough to do that. That's huge. That's a huge checkmark for him. I wonder who the officer coordinator is going to be. I wonder what he's going to do to build that side out because that nineers staff is picked over, man. Oh, no. Does he bring anything?

There's not even a Mike Lafleur at this point to kind of bring with him like there was when Robert's Lowe took that job. That's a great point. I know who would he bring? And that's the thing. It's not like his coaching networking is huge. I mean, obviously there are some guys. Like, if you want to bring like a Bobby Sloick or obviously Anthony Lynn does have experience. Yeah.

You know, it. Oh, again, he's done it before. Sorry. I'm sorry, Wheelster. Keep Pep Hamilton around. Or you want to do that. I mean, that's whatever the answer ends up being. I'm curious.

Because, again, when you are defensive-minded head coach, that is the big question. What are you going to do on that side of the ball to make sure that you're creating stability. continuity. If that guy gets hired away, do you have a staff that you feel really good about? We've seen that. I mean, think about the bill. Some people don't think he did a good job, but I think Ken Dorsey did just fine this year when Brian Daible moved on. And like, can you make sure that you create that ecosystem on that side of the ball? And obviously, the offensive place they come from has a ton of success. But it's just a little bit picked over by now. A lot of those guys have just moved on. Sorry, the cherry picked. You know, like now we're on to Bobby Slowick and. whoever like is down the list of of their assistance which is a little bit different than it was when

solid took that job you also want that it does matter to nailing that higher like you said because he is a defensive head coach is if they draft a QB this year yep like exactly you want that oC to have some like you a trusting OC to develop this guy and also be his guy because you don't want awesome this we switched OCs up after a year and it's the guy we didn't even draft oh man I I had a third round grade on this guy now I have to coach him up like having that input matters a lot too as far as starting good, starting well as far as team building. They have a fresh slate. I mean, you look at this roster. There's not a lot that goes past 2023 and even 2024. You know, Brandon Cook's the one receiver. You know, and then they got John Mechie back. You know, he went through

his thing as a rookie. It's kind of a blank slate as far as a roster building. They have a couple interesting young pieces, but we kind of knew that. We said like even two years ago was a roster filled of 78 overall guys on Madden. But that kind of leaves them open to kind of choose their adventure and maybe revamp this team and what they want to do. And they have plenty of draft capital to kind of work with that too. They need players. But they got a good head coach that I really, we said coordinator success, you have no idea.

But it's like, if you're willing to bet on a guy, this is a guy I would be betting on. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, who knows. That's kind of how I put it. We never know who's going to shift to this job. Well, who's going to take to it. but his resume is as good and he is as promising of a Canada as you could possibly build from that coordinator pool and from that coordinator route.

And the fact that the Texans and where they were over the last two years are the ones that landed him, I think is a huge, huge win for Houston, all things considered. All right. Absolutely. That's all we got. I guess we got to talk about the Texans this year. Listen, give me a reason to talk about you, okay? I would love to. I will love to.

You are now taking yourself seriously. so I will also take you seriously. If you are showing me that you're not pressing SIM to end on a season, then I won't press SIM to end on your season. Help me, help you. Yes. That's what I know. Is that unreasonable?

Like I just, now that you have shown a level of seriousness about what you're trying to accomplish, I will engage with that pursuit. That's what's been great. Actually, I was just a great, but like Texas fans kind of like get it. Like they're always like,

yeah, no, I understand. Like I, like I've seen. You guys replied to me on Twitter. Sometimes I'm like, no, I understand why you said that. I'm like, okay, thanks.

So beating down. It's more people. Acceptance. Like, whatever. They just accepted what they were after a certain point, but I like that. So I'm hoping for good things down in Houston. Awesome. All right.

That is all we got, guys. Thank you for coming up with us and hanging out. Nice little random live show on a Tuesday afternoon in January. It's time to chat with to Sean about between the lines and all the great work that he's been doing. Let's get into it. Excited now to welcome one of our Raiders writers at The Athletic to Sean Reed. Sean, how you doing, man?

Pretty good, man. About to head to good old Mobile Alabama for the senior bowl. Wrapping up the draft coverage, getting ready for this offseason. Your team's got a top ten pick, so the draft season is the most important thing. And a whole of quarterback. So there's going to be a lot of fodder for you here over the next couple months. Yeah, plenty of talk about Tom Brady watch, Derek Carr watch, what are they going to do with the seventh overall pick.

Are they going to trade up? As always, with the Raiders, there's a lot to talk about. We are not going to talk about the Raiders today. We're going to talk about a project that you've been working on now for, it feels like almost a year maybe? When's the first time we started talking about this? Yeah, I think it's over a year. It's somewhere around there, but it's been a while.

It was, you know, something that, you know, a kind of pitch when we first started doing our narrative podcast, which I think was over a year. year ago and I've been chipping at it ever since and finally starting to finalize it to come together here. So it's nice to see it, you know, come to life from from idea to reality. So the week after the Super Bowl, the Tuesday after the Super Bowl, we're going to be running the first episode of your series, which we're calling Between the Lines, which is a podcast series about essentially the history of race in the NFL from a variety of different perspectives. The first episode, which is fantastic and

includes a lot of, I think, some of the most prominent voices that have been a part of this entire history laying out what their experiences have been like. It's kind of tracing it from the beginning. When Black players are first introduced in the NFL, some of the issues with integration early on in the NFL, how the AFL-N-FL merger impacted that. Doug Williams' experience all the way up to the Rooney Rule in about 20 minutes. It gives you a very good kind of quick primer, but also a really interesting history and perspective about how some of these issues came to be, what the history with them has

been like into what started with Colin Capardick in 2016 and kind of how that shifted the conversation around race in the NFL. And then the rest of the series goes into episodes about players in the NFL and their experience, coaches, and which obviously is a huge discussion point and should be as we hit this time of year, executives and more and more. So just I want first things first. When you started digging into this, obviously we know why this conversation is important. What would you say is the most interesting thing?

thing you learned early on that maybe you didn't know about this discussion at large. Yeah, I think, you know, sort of, you know, just because we, I think we kind of boil it down every year to, you know, the ownership level. Yeah. And just, you know, they just don't want to hire, you know, black coaches or executives or they don't, they don't want these conversations about race and activism to go on in their building for whatever reason that may be. But it really is multi-layered.

And I think that became clearer as I dug into it and also was the entire time, you know, as I'm doing a series. I'm like, how can this get solved? Is there a solution? Like, is it possible that this can get better? And it's like there's so many things that need to be fixed for it to be, you know, just for example, the coach entry or the lack of black coaches is, you know, a lot of it is on hit coaches just because they don't give, you know, black coaches typically those opportunities at offensive coordinator, defense coordinator, quarterback coach, those positions that tend to. lead head coaching jobs. And that's something that, I guess, by proxy, it's the owner's fault because they hire, you know, non-diverse coaches and then they tend to hire people that look like them for those positions. But whether it's that or the league office hasn't always been the most cooperative

when it comes to. I know there's suddenly, since 2020, they're like all about diversity and inspire change and all that. But throughout the history, the over a hundred year history, they haven't, you know, been the most supportive in that area to just the culture of football. I mean, even when you take out race of it, you know, race out of it. I mean, it's almost just like you're supposed to, nothing else matters except for football at any time. And anything else that's not football is a distraction. And whether you're a player or a coach or executive, whatever you may be, like, that's the only thing that you need to be concerned with. At least that's the way it's, you know, presented. And obviously throughout the history of the league, there's been things outside of

football that have gone on, whether you go back to the civil rights movement or more recently what happened with George Floyd in that summer of 2020 or the Colin Kaepernick moment. These people are all people. I think this kind of gets forgotten and they're not going to be able to separate who they are from what they do. And they shouldn't have to. But typically they have had to because that's just how the NFL has worked. It hasn't been a choice about it.

And if you went against that brain, you risk losing your job, losing your career. And, you know, nowadays, you know, these guys are making, the salaries have jumped up. And so there's this image that they have more security. but even though they make more money than they used to, like the average NFL career for a player is still three years. You know what I mean? It's not like these guys have the most secure jobs in the world. And so there's still that hesitancy, you know, from the players all the way up throughout the organization to speak on certain things. And it sort of all just stems back to something that almost seems to be innocuous, that culture of football of just do your job and just focus on what you're doing. Like you wouldn't necessarily make the leap from that to race. But it really starts there. And that kind of has. contributed to this being an issue really the entire time the league has been a thing. Well, I think that you can make that jump to race in part because it's built as a meritocracy and the best guys get the best jobs and all that when that absolutely isn't the case.

And one of the most telling but also I feel like frustrating aspects of even the first episode is that so many of the examples that you lay out from the past 40, 50 years have echoes right now. Doug Williams being told by his head coach while he was with the box after answering our question about the National Anthem about the lack of black coaches on the sideline was told, you can't do that. You can't tell a newspaper that you're worried about the lack of black coaches on the other sideline. And he'd like, well, why not?

What I found really telling is that you talked to Janice Madden, who was, I believe, an economist that was hired to do research about the success of African American coaches in the NFL compared to the coaching population at large. And she saw that there was a gap. They were more successful by getting few opportunities. and this was in the early 2000s when the Rooney Rule was being established. And something that she said was that, well, the league and people in it, their response is there's just not enough talent in the pipeline. It's not our fault.

We're not actively going out of our way to limit these opportunities. Well, 20 years later, when we're having this discussion about the lack of black offensive coordinators, about the lack of black head coaches, everyone always goes back to, well, there's just not enough talent in the pipeline. And the fact that we're decades removed and not only has there not been enough progress made, but the reasons and the discussions around this sound the same, I thought was an incredibly telling moment from that first episode. Yeah, it's almost like this endless cycle that the league is stuck in, but they're really stuck in it by choice. That's really the only, this isn't something that happens by accident.

And that's something else that was my main takeaway from this is this is intentional in terms of the structure, the power structure of the league. Like, that's really the only explanation people just don't want. it to be diverse for whatever that reason may be. You know, you can insert several, but, I mean, it's in their hands. Like, they have a choice to change this if they want to. We've seen other leagues. I mean, the NBA had issues with diverse head coaches for a while, and now almost over half of the league's coaches are black now. And it happened in the span of a couple of years. Like, it doesn't take long if you really want to do it. And so that lack of intentionality,

you know, you have to question the reasons behind that. And the pipeline thing, it's, you know, it's always been a farce, but especially now. I mean, like, There's no shortage of qualified black candidates. They get interviewed every year for these jobs, so they must be solid. I mean, we see them lead some of the best units in the league, D'Amico Rines with the 49ers, at the best defense in the league this season. So Eric Bian and me with the Chiefs, one of the best offenses. And so it's not like, they get these positions and they suck, you know what I mean?

And there's a push for you to hire people that are lesser than or don't perform as well. That's not the case. Like there's plenty of people that excel in these positions, and they still don't get the jobs. And when they do get the jobs, and that's something. them that Janis spoke to is, you know, even though they're typically, you know, on average, more successful. Obviously, it's a smaller sample size. I understand that. So the numbers may be skewed a little bit, but they tend to get fired when they perform, like they get fired off of doing better than the white counterparts. They tend to not get second chances. And they have

a shorter leash. And so it's almost like you have this double standard of you have to be even better than the other candidates to get the job in the first place. And then even if you are better after you get it, you still might get fired quicker. So it's like you almost have to be perfect. Like Mike Tomlin, essentially never have a losing season ever to have some sort of security. And even he, like sometimes, and it's the craziest thing to me is like sometimes there's questions about his job security. He's never had a losing season. And it's, and so it's the bar is so insanely high. And it's all abstract. There's no reason why it has to be that way. It's just the people that make the decisions choose to make it that way. Think about how quick the hook has been for some of the

one-and-done blackhead coaches over the last three or four years, and how different that is to their white counterparts. Steve Wilkes won and done in Arizona, Lovie Smith and David Cooley. Steve Wilkes not getting that job in Carolina after doing a really good job as the interim head coach there. But even before that, Steve Wilkes, after having that defensive coordinator job in Cleveland, had to go back to college after taking a year off and then finally got back into the NFL. And then when he kind of stumbles into this interim, coach role because Matt Rule's tenure was an absolute disaster, he does a really good job. But think about how so curious that route has to be for a guy like Steve Wilkes to get back

to even an interim job compared to so many of the other coaches that we're talking about here. Yeah, and that's another layer of it is, you know, you tend to see a lot of black coaches get those interim jobs, kind of clean up the mess, you know, is kind of how it's framed. And even, like I said, even if you do a great job at it, you know, I know, six and six, It's not like he, you know, lit the world on fire necessarily, but that's way better than you would expect for them trading away CMC and having Sam Donald at quarterback and have some of the issues that they have with that team. And it's like even when you excel after getting an opportunity, oftentimes it's still not enough to get the job. And so it's for coaching candidates, it's almost they don't know what to aim for. They're confused. Like honestly, it's very hard to identify because every time they think they figure it out, the goalpost moves. You know, it's like if there's a bunch of defense coordinators now. So it's now, oh, now you got to call plays on off, or you got to be offense coordinator. And then if you become an offensive coordinator and you're successful, if you don't call plays, then suddenly issue, you know, is like Eric B.

B. End in me, like we, even at that same franchise, like we've seen offensive coordinators who didn't call plays, get head coaching job elsewhere and do well. Like, it was like they, you know, some of them, some of them didn't plan out, but some of them did very well. And so it's, it's, is, it always seems like the goalpost is moving for them, from that standpoint. And obviously, based on the numbers right now, they still haven't been able to figure it out. I remember probably the most poignant and affecting conversation I've had about this was with Harold Goodwin, who was the run game coordinator for the Bucks and was a longtime Bruce Ariens assistant.

I went down there to Tampa before the 2019 season. Half of the league had changed over their offensive play caller before that year. And the only black offensive play caller in the NFL was Byron Lefwich. And a lot of the guys on that, Buck staff, you know, we know they had more, more all black coordinators, a lot of black assistants, something that Bruce Ariens was intentional about bringing back to that comment about intentionality. And talking to Harold, he just said, like you mentioned, there's no roadmap. You know, we're being told that you need to call plays as an offensive head coach, but then you look at some of the guys, their example, because it was the most recent example at the time,

was the McVeigh tree, where you have Zach Taylor, who wasn't an offensive play caller on those Rams teams, gets the books or the Bengals head coaching job. A couple years later, Kevin O'Connell wasn't the offensive play caller. He gets the job in Minnesota. So, sitting there looking at it, Bing. Well, I thought you had to call plays. So if you don't have to call plays, then what do we have to do? And that entire question about the lack of black offensive coaches in the league, obviously we've seen tweaks to the Rooney Rule. I mean, it seems to be this continuing ongoing conversation as more and more and more of these reasons and more and more of this lack of clarity pops up. So I wanted to ask you, just the voices that you spoke to and the kind of the voices you feel like are most prominent and kind of define this series. What are the couple conversations that are going to say? stick with you that you feel like people should be excited to hear? I think to stem it from the coaching conversation, Clarence Sheldman, he really jumped out to me when I interviewed him. He was, people may not remember he's a Chargers, offensive coordinator during those heyday years with Ledany and Thomason when he won the MVP and Philip Rivers and they were, you know, clashing with the Colts and the

Patriots and the playoffs every year. And he's, he's another example of what we were just talking about. He's the offensive coordinator, obviously, you know, he didn't call plays there. And, and, you know, So even though they were top five in scoring pretty much every year and had one of the best offenses in the league. Like, not only was he not getting head coaching jobs, like he wasn't even getting interviews. And so he was just, and he was, you know, he was an experienced coach, but he was still a relatively young man. He was in his 50s and he retired. He was like, I'm done. Like, he, they didn't fire him.

Like, he could have kept coaching there or elsewhere. He had other jobs. And he was like, I just can't do this anymore. And it wasn't so much about a pride thing, you know, or financially. was fine enough to walk away from it, but he just, he literally was like, I couldn't look myself in the mirror every day and go to work and know what I'm being blocked from achieving. And, you know, maybe he wouldn't have been a good head coach. Like, he's just like, I just went to find out. Like, I just don't have this opportunity. And it was like crushing him like Bailey. Like,

he wasn't happy anymore with life, you know, because of this. And that's, I think that sort of stood out to me because it's more than just a number on a page. You know what I mean? Like, it's not just, oh, there's only two black head coaches. There's only three or there's only four. We talk about it every year because the number sucks. But it's also, we got to remember that these guys, these are people, like I said earlier. I'm like, just not getting this job can have a bigger toll on somebody, you know, then you think. Like, this is their livelihood. You know what I mean? And so he really stood out to me. Doug Williams, of course, just because the wide range of his experiences from being a player, the first black quarterback to win a Super Bowl, the things he had

to go through, then pursuing a career as an executive later on in a league. He said when the Buck's job came open for GM once John Gruden got fired down there. He thought he might have an opportunity to get for it. And the owner called him was like, oh, actually, the GM's going to be this guy. And they hadn't interviewed anybody yet. It's one of those situations where like these interviews, you know, a lot of times they don't matter. But his experience really stood out. Jason Wright from the commander is their president. He was the first black president in NFL history. And that franchise has had, like, you know, the most, the worst track record you can have in terms of off the field issues the last few years from the name of the team to some of the

scandals the owner has been in and he's had to step into that. And even from a financial standpoint, like their fan support has gone down and things that nature. He talked about, you know, just the weight of being the first and it taken 100 years for him to become the first and how he believed that it didn't take long for teams to change, you know, the makeup of their diversity if they want to. And we have seen since he's been hired. There's been more black team presidents. There's been more black GMs. And so it's interesting you've seen it, some progress in some areas. Like I think there's a record eight GMs right now. There's a record at five black team presidents right now. But there's only three black head coaches, if you include Mike McDaniel, whose dad is black, we identifies as biracial.

And so it's interesting to see how at the different, you know, steps at the NFL, it kind of varies sometimes. And there's these fluctuations. But I think overall, you know, everybody that I spoke to, whether it was a former player or a coach or executive or all three, you know, They were focused on the lack of sustained progress. It's hard for them to feel optimistic really at any time because you do see these flashes every dollar man. I mean, once back in a day, it's weird to say back in the day now, but when Levy Smith and Tony Dungey faced off in the Super Bowl, like that was like a landmark thing. It was two black head coaches for the first time ever. There was like seven, I think that was a year, Mike Tomlin got hired that next season and there were seven black hair coaches in the NFL and it was the most ever. And it's like, oh, wow, like maybe this is it.

Like maybe it changes. And obviously, as we see now, no, it wasn't. And so even with these, you know, black GM hires and the black team president hires, it's hard to feel good about it because we've never seen it sustained. And until that changes, I mean, it's going to kind of be a pessimistic, just kind of air for really anybody who's black in NFL, regardless of what level it is. I don't know if it's worth exploring this in depth right now. But I think that when I've looked back at that history, it's, in my opinion, there is a way that you can kind of trace it over the last 20 years. I think one of the reasons that we had, I think six or seven black hat coaches, in 2006 and even all the way through 2010, teams wanted Tony Dungy.

I mean, Tony Dungy was the modicum of success in the NFL as a head coach. So that's what teams were modeling their practices after. And that's what they wanted to chase because owners can just say, well, that's what I want. I want to model what the successful NFL teams are doing. Now, when you have all these young white offensive coaches, like the McVeves of the world who are having success, that's what now owners are pointing to. That's what I want. And there are not nearly enough offensive black players.

callers and coaches in the NFL. And I think that's kind of what has created this disconnect 20 years later. And that's just a whole other issue. Every single time we do this, there's one more layer to the problem that seems to pop up. Yeah. And I know now they have the, as you said, they kind of tweak some of the Rooney Rule and Diversity policies. So now teams have to have a diverse position coach that's, that's focused on the offensive side of the ball or works with the quarterback. And they have extended to the Rumi Rule to apply to coordinator positions and not just head coaches. And you have to interview more of them now, but, you know, it almost feels like it's, it's too much of a reactionary thing from the league office because really by the time that kind of stuff has an impact,

maybe the, the preference moves again, you know, maybe in five years it's, oh, we want defensive guys now. We want it to be like this coach or that coach, you know what I mean? And so it's almost like you're trying to play catch up and you never get there. You're always playing from behind. And really what we've seen with these, whatever rules that the league mandates, um, You know, it still can't make, though. Like, eventually these people are going to hire who they want to hire regardless. Like, we see this oftentimes, unless that candidate that they want just doesn't want them. It's almost told a lot of these interviews are just farce interviews.

And we see that. That's why you see, you know, Brian, Brian Flores, you know, starting that lawsuit. And people like Wilkes, you know, joining that lawsuit is because it, they know what it is. Like, nobody's, you know, has any illusions about this. Maybe when they first get in the league and they're just figuring it out. but anybody with any sort of career, like it becomes very apparent. And that's a very hard thing to combat because, I mean, even if nobody comes out and explicitly says, you know, yeah, I want to hire this guy, this whole interview process. It doesn't matter. Like, you know, I'm just interviewing these black guys

to check a box. Like, even if they don't say that, that's just what their actions say. And it's really hard to mandate that. You almost can't mandate it. And I mean, outside of ownership change, which, you know, rarely, rarely happens outside of a family. And when it does, it costs an amount of money that diverse people in this country typically don't have at the same rate. And so it's very hard for people to find a solution outside of people suddenly having a change of heart. And that change of heart has not happened in a hundred years. So it's kind of hard to see it happening. But, you know, at this point, it might be what it takes. I think that's why it's important to examine the entire structure and the implicit aspects of that entire structure and how those need to

change. And that's exactly what you get into. over the course of this entire series. So just a reminder, the first episode of Between the Lions will run the Tuesday after the Super Bowl, and then it will be coming out on Tuesdays weekly on the athletic football show feed for the next four weeks. And I think there will be one week where there's two episodes, which I think is the last, the first week in March, correct? Yeah, the fourth and fifth episode will drop on the same day.

So be on the lookout every Tuesday after the Super Bowl for each episode of Between the Lions. highly recommend that you guys check it out. Deshawn did a ton of work. It is a fantastic piece of journalism. It's a necessary piece. And I'm very glad that we're going to be having it on the athletic football show for all of you guys to hear. So, Deshaun, thank you very much for the time. And thank you for everything.

Appreciate you having me, ma'am. All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you so much to Nate for joining us, breaking down all the big hiring news from today. Thank you to Deshaun. Really appreciate you guys listening. If you have not submitted a mailbag question and you want to for the show, show that we're doing with Mitchell Schwartz a little bit later this week. Please get them in by Thursday morning.

Let's say 9 a.m. Eastern Athletic Football Show at gmail.com. It's where you can do that. I do not know the voicemail number off the top of my head, but it is in my Twitter. If you guys want to go take a look at that and give us a call, we'd appreciate that. We'll be back with Nate on Monday doing some Super Bowl related content. So be on the lookout for that. Super Bowl is here. Very excited about it.

If you have not subscribed to The Athletic. Theathlet.com slash football show is where you can do that. and if you want to, go leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. If you like the show, if that's where you listen, it would mean a lot to us. It helps us, so please go do that. And for now, that's all we got. I appreciate you listen. Talk to you soon.

This was the Athletic Football Show.