The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Some Mikes are in, some Mikes are out...it's an NFL coaching update; Plus, the state of the New York Giants

Episode Date: January 15, 2025

A lot has happened on the NFL coaching carousel in the last week. Mike Vrabel is now the coach of the Patriots. Mike McCarthy is not the coach of the Cowboys, and there are Deion Sanders rumblings in Dallas. Plus, the most sought-after coach in the cycle, Ben Johnson, met with the Raiders, and somehow that actually makes sense. Robert Mays and Derrik Klassen get into all of that on this episode of The Athletic Football show.After that, The Athletic Giants beat writers Dan Duggan and Charlotte Carroll join Robert to discuss why Brian Daboll and Joe Schoen will be back in 2025, and what the team can hope to do to turn things around.RundownPatriots hire Mike VrabelMike McCarthy out in DallasMcCarthy and the BearsDeion Sanders to the Cowboys?Why Ben Johnson could pick the RaidersCoordinator movesThe state of the New York GiantsHost: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassTheme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert Mays. We'll pack show for you guys today. Me and Derek Classen broke down the latest in the coaching carousel news. Just too much stuff for us to not hit it this week. Mike McCarthy out in Dallas. Mike Vrable hired as the Patriots head coach. A couple other rumors, Ben Johnson to the Raiders, some other stuff that we dug into. After that, was joined by our Giants writers at the Athletic,

Dan Duggan and Charlotte Carroll, talking about why the Giants decided to keep Brian Dable and Joe Shane, their initial read on those decisions and what that potentially says for the short and long-term future of the Giants. So let's get to both of those conversations right now. All right, Derek, we're back again. We're doing this every day now. This is just how it's going to be for the rest of time as me and you doing this podcast. I hope you're ready to die in that chair. Listen, I've been stuck here for it feels like a couple weeks now doing these midweek shows, but you know what? It feels good. It feels this is the part of the season where it feels like every single thing possible is happening. And I have my hand in all of it, both with the podcast and

some of the writing. So I'm ready to go here. I'm ready to go dive into some of this stuff. I had a bigger picture idea that I was thinking about doing today. And it just seemed silly to do it because there's so much coaching news that we just haven't hit. You know, we didn't talk about Mike Vrable going to New England because it happened over the weekend as we were responding to the games. Mike McCarthy is out in Dallas. We haven't talked about that at all. So that's what we're going to do today. A little bit later in the show, both of our Giants writers here at the Athletic, Dan Duggan and Charlotte Carroll are going to be joining us to talk about the Giants' decision to retain their coaching staff and general manager and just some of the things that John Maris said during

his media availability last week and kind of what led to those decisions. So please stick around for our discussion with them. But let's chat about the rest of the coaching news that has rolled out over the last couple of days. And let's start with Mike Vrable being hired as the new head coach of the New England Patriots seemingly in an instant, almost immediately. Your initial impressions of the Mike Vrable back to New England news. This one I think is very tricky to talk about because in a vacuum, if you just told me ex-team hired Mike Frable, I'd be like, well done. He was probably one of the best coaching candidates that you could get on this market. I think certainly as far as Retred's go,

he is probably the best guy that you were going to get. I think we've seen him be a very good floor raiser in Tennessee. And I know offensively, it was bad towards the end of his tenure there, but he had hired some really good offensive coaches early on with, like, Lafleur, Arthur Smith. Like, he very clearly has an ability to find those guys. So I think it's entirely possible he could do that again in New England. The part of it that is, has left a bad taste in my mouth is just everything about how the firing of Mayo went and how they went about their coaching, quote, search, which obviously wasn't really a search at all. Then putting Byron Lefwich and Pep Hamilton, who have not been in the league this year on the same coaching search graphic. I thought was crazy and very obviously them not taking this search seriously and them doing it

with two African-American candidates after having just fired Mayo. All of it feels very off to me, which again makes this complicated because I still think Frables to get hire, but it's just all of the circumstances just feel very icky. The Rooney Road part of this is an absolute sham. The reason they brought in guys from out of the league is because you have to wait to have in-person interviews with coaches who are currently employed with other teams. so they had to get two guys that aren't employed with other teams in order to satisfy the Rooney rule. I mean, it's ridiculous. My favorite part of this, and again, I'm with you, I think that

there is absolutely an argument from Mike Vrable, even in New England. But I get why they did this, because if you're the crafts and you look at what just happened with Gerard Mayo, you had a guy where the job was probably too big for him, where he just could not do the job at a reasonable level over the course of this year. In Mike Vrable, you get that. You get a guy that if nothing else, we know he can do this job. We know that he's going to potentially be able to raise the floor like you mentioned and just make you a respectable football organization, even if maybe there are some limits on that, which we can talk about. Why I think this is funny is they did everything they could to move on from Belichick and just kind of distance themselves from this coach-centric model and try to build a more modern organization, build out the personnel. apartment, everything else. That goes sideways after one year, and they immediately run back to

somebody from the organization to potentially create the same sort of coach-centric model that they walked away from before. Ryan Cowden, who is the voice president of football operations in Tennessee when Vrable was there, he's already been hired by the Patriots as part of this process. You had a GM and Elliott Wolf who I think there was a lot of questions about what sort of power he had within the building. So it just feels like they've run back to a very comfortable place, which I get on multiple different levels. It's not the worst place to land if that guy is Mike Vrable, but everything about how New England has tried to change who they are over the last year or so.

I just find it kind of funny that this is the place where they ended up again. Yeah, that's why, again, the firing of Mayo. Theoretically, I understand why they would hire Mayo as like, this is our extension of Belichick, all this stuff. And then they fire him and it's like, oh, we want to move on. To immediately jump back to Vrable, who you mentioned kind of his coaching style and his coach-centric model. absolutely and then Belichick was always a guy who didn't really have a GM he was the GM and now we're talking about Vrabel who had very like open fights with the GM in Tennessee when

he was there and so you already immediately have this like very weird power dynamic that like you said is going back to a lot of what they dealt with with Belichick so I think that is another reason why this all feels very weird is that they they made all these declarations that it was supposed to be different and then they immediately jump back to probably the close candidate in terms of like the way that this thing is going to be structured to what Belichick was. You mentioned this and the offensive coordinator part of it to me becomes the biggest question. Who is going to be the offensive coordinator that comes with him? That'd be the question I would ask for pretty much any CEO type head coach, but I think it's

especially important when you have a young quarterback who is shown as much potential as Drake May has. So that's my next question. Who is that guy? What does the list look like? Why are you seeking out those candidates? if it ends up being Josh McDaniels, that would be the funniest possible outcome, not because I don't think Josh McDaniels would be a capable NFL offensive coordinator, but talking about going through all of the sound and fury to end up exactly back where you started,

there would be no better example than that. So I'm very, very curious here over the next couple weeks to see what the candidate list looks like. They really haven't started doing that process in public. I haven't seen any names really attached to them. Tommy Reese was one. that I think had been floated around because he was in Cleveland with Mike Vrable last year, he has been hired as the Browns offensive coordinator. So that's already one name that's been struck off the list.

So those names and why they're seeking out those candidates, that's my next big question for the Patriots. Same here. And again, I think it's especially complicated because we've talked about this a little bit. I don't think the offensive staff was bad last year. I thought their quarterback coach did a really good job with Drake May. I thought Alex Van Pelt handled the offense relatively well. like it obviously still had its weak points and it wasn't incredibly dynamic,

but like given what they were working with, they put that thing together, I think much better than you could have anticipated. I think to me this a lot of it comes down to, I would still like to see a guy who is going to help the run game and help the offensive line get put together. And obviously they need a lot of talent help there. But I think just someone who has a really good understanding of how to tie those things together

and make things easier for Drake May, not have to ask him to drop back 40 times a game and be in all these spread formations. I think that would go a really long way to easing him into the year two, year three of his NFL career. That's the next big part of this is what the talent acquisition looks like. And they've got a seemingly endless amount of resources. They've got a top five pick. They've got more caps based than I can ever remember a team having coming into an offseason.

So what they do and what that plan looks like to try to add pass catchers around Drake May and build up that offensive line, essentially from the ground up, that is the charge with this group. I'll ask you this because I think that you believe that Dry Mayo kind of got a raw deal for how this season went. Do you think this is a good situation for Mike Vrable? Honestly, yeah, because if I already believe him to be a floor raiser, you have what I believe can be a top eight quarterback sooner than later. And then you have all of this cap space to work with. And I think he is very obviously going to get a year of grace, unless it just goes completely awry, that Mayo obviously didn't get. So I think he's going to get the time to build this thing up the way that you want.

And I think he'll buy what it'll be 2026. I think he'll have this team where they want to be where they can win. They can hover around 500 and start to look like a competent team again that they haven't looked like for a very long time. So I think it's a pretty good situation. Again, maybe the Drake May alone is carrying a lot of that for me. But you don't find many young quarterbacks who are as talented as that guy. So I think he alone does make it a pretty good situation. I think that's fair.

I'm not going to be penciling Drake May into the hill. be a top top eight quarterback in the next two years thing quite yet. I'm very intrigued by Drake May. I just think we've been a little fast on that a little too often over the last couple years, where we see a guy who was good and showed a lot of potential as a rookie. It's just like, oh, well, he'll be a top eight quarterback over the next couple years. Even like C.J. Stroud, we did that with almost immediately. And I think there's a lot of context to what happened with C.J. Stroud in Houston. But whenever I find myself about to do that right now, I'm just like, Everybody just, let's just take one second before we're throwing numbers next to guys who we've seen for one season.

Let's just take one beat before we start doing this. I've definitely wish casting it a little bit, but he had one of like the best success rates for a quarterback in two decades on a team that was for a rookie quarterback, I should say, on a team that was horrible. So that to me is like, man, if that's the floor, the ceiling might be in Jupiter. There is every reason to believe. There is every reason to believe. I want to show a little bit more patience. This is about keeping myself in check more than it is anything else. I'm also, I'll say too, I would like already predisposed to being incredibly high on Drake May. So this isn't even necessarily a lot, necessarily what I just saw this year.

This is like I've already been all chips on this guy. As I think about the resources, this is way too early to start doing this. I already am just imagining T. Higgins and a Patriots. Dude, I need it so bad. Like it stylistically, it makes all the sense in the world. They have an endless pool of money. Like, we've gone away from this. And I think T. Higgins is a very good player.

We've gone away from this in free agency. This was how it used to work in like 2013, 2014, when I just started covering the league where you'd be giving guys who were like the 12th best player at their position market setting money. We've kind of stopped doing that for the most part. I think this is the case where if you wanted to pay T. Higgins like he's Jammar Chase because you can, I might be. be able to get behind it a little bit because you have to.

If you're the Patriots, like, that's the type of thing you will have to do with the excess money that you have. So I'm excited to see what their pursuit of certain players looks like with an endless pool of money to work with. For this team specifically, absolutely. Let's get to our next one here. Mike McCarthy is out as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys who dragged this out for an extra week longer than they had to, as they are wont to do.

Your initial thoughts on Mike McCarthy no longer being the head coach in Dallas. it's it's somehow both surprising and not like i did not expect them to keep him but just the way that all of it unfolded was very surprising and odd to me especially the fact that i think probably by the time we're recording this or by the time it's out it was like a week ago that they denied his ability to go interview with the bears and then they string this thing out for another handful of days and then they just let the contract run out it's like the part of this of not getting to a contract point with a coach like hiring the head coach is usually a binary you think he's good enough or he's not it's not like getting to a certain money point with with players right

like with players is totally understandable with coaches you're going to think he's good enough or not and so the fact that they dragged it out and we're trying to find this middle ground for a guy that they think maybe is good enough but we don't really know we don't care to you know you know stick to him just a very bizarre sequence that they went through here it's bizarre if you don't pay attention to anything Jerry Jones has done over the last like eight years. And the idea that, you know, he's probably not good enough. But if we can get him at the right price, it would be worth sticking for. That is very much a Jerry Jones action.

You say that about a guard. You don't do that with your head coach. Yes, exactly. But that's what he's done with head coaches. They've really been in a position over the last 10 years, whether it's Jason Garrett, whether it's Mike McCarthy, where it's a guy that they can get at a marginal discount and a guy that they can kind of keep their thumb on a little bit. Somebody who maybe isn't a coach that would be in high demand,

even though Mike McCarthy is going to be getting some interviews in this cycle. But this is not surprising to me at all. And dragging it out for another week isn't surprising because guess what? This is an excuse for them to be in the new cycle for an entire week. And when you decide to not move on from – and when you decide to not give him that contract, you're allowed to put out a statement about why you didn't give him the contract. So all of those elements are to be expected for me with how,

the Cowboys handle pretty much everything they do. I think the funniest part about that specifically with them and Jerry Jones kind of being so obsessed with keeping this team in the media cycle and stuff, they're the Dallas Cowboys. Like, you're going to be in the- People are going to pay attention out of the way. That's what I'm saying. Like, you don't need to do all this funny stuff. If you fired him on Black Monday, you still would have led every single show.

Yes, you would have been the firing that we're talking about ahead of everybody else because you're the Dallas Cowboys, because you're supposed to be winning your division. and stringing it out like this and being in the new cycle for another week, it just, you didn't need to do that. You would have been in the new cycle anyway. From a football perspective, what do we think about this? Do you think that moving on from Mike McCarthy was the right choice for the Dallas Cowboys? I think so.

I think we've seen, to me, what the ceiling can be and just some of the limitations with the offense. It is an offense that puts an unbelievable amount of stress on the quarterback to be right all the time. And I think when DAC has enough options and enough protection, he can do that a lot better than most other guys. It's just you are putting a huge burden on him. And I think when we saw this year when they really only had one skill player that you are terrified of, obviously C.D. Lamb, all the other guys were kind of tertiary options at best. Like, they didn't even have a real secondary option. Running back was as least explosive as they've been in, I don't even know how long. And then the offensive line was, I think, promising, but still obviously young and working through some stuff.

And I think you just saw Mike McCarthy's kind of inability to overcome that and reach a new ceiling with this offense again. And even the year before when they were rolling and putting up 35 points, a lot of bad defenses. And so credit to them to being able to put up those points, but it was still a lot of bad defenses that they were beating up on. So I think as far as reaching your ceiling moving on from him was probably the right call. And I think we've talked about this before. In terms of team floor, I think when you have Dak Prescott and C.D. Lamb, the floor is probably fine, almost regardless of you put in there. I think that's really good point because I actually do think that we probably underrate Mike McCarthy's ability to do this job capably. He is a very capable NFL head coach.

And we might as well do this now. The Bears are interviewing Mike McCarthy on the day that you guys are going to be listening to this. Here is my view on it. Mike McCarthy's career winning percentage is slotted between Bill Walsh and Tom Landry. He has won a lot of football games as an NFL head coach. He is a perfectly capable coach to be at the center of your franchise. He has shown an ability to do that. But that's exactly where you're going to be. You are going to be in the middle. You are shooting for the middle if you're going to hire Mike McCarthy. Again, just feeling like an adult organization, feeling like this is somebody who knows how to do the job,

and also from an offensive architecture perspective. It's not disgusting, but it's also, there's nothing innovative about it. There's nothing that's going to lift the ceiling of your team. And for the Bears specifically, I understand the appeal to somebody who can work with Caleb Williams, get him to a workable place, but I still think that shooting for the middle is wrong. They've done this over and over and over again. They've shot for the middle over and over and over again. It's like, oh, we want somebody who can capably do this job.

I'm done with it. That's not what I want. You can land in worse places with Mike McCarthy, especially over time, with newer unproven guys who potentially have a lower floor. But I just don't think that this is the type, the archetype of coach that you should be seeking out if you're a team like the Bears. And again, it's because the ceiling has been realized. And the ceiling was realized in Dallas. And I think it was probably time to try something new to see if you could break through in a way that you could not with Mike McCarthy.

I think especially too for the Bears, when you're coming off of a coach retaining decision that seemed like you were shooting for the middle with Iber Flues. And then even what they did at offensive coordinator last year with Shane Raldron was kind of like shooting for competency. And then even to me, if they want to make the, we just want a guy who's done it before. we want to shoot for the middle a little bit. I would honestly rather go talk to Pete Carroll than Mike McCarthy specifically for this team. And I know they probably don't want to, they maybe don't want to go defense again, but like, just in terms of the way that Pete. He's also 73 years old.

Right, exactly. You don't even know how long this is going to last. So I think that definitely complicates it. But even then, like, I don't know. I don't really love that approach for the Bears either. I would rather see them swing for the fences. And if it fails, it fails. But I would much rather do that than whatever they were doing this last couple of years.

That's exactly where I land. And I've talked about this a lot. The Bears thing is funny. because the place where we've reached is kind of one of those. We haven't tried anything and we're all out of ideas. Like, that's kind of where the bears are right now. I was talking with my brother about this last week, and he was asking me about, like, their head coaching history.

And he's like, had they ever hired, like, an offensive coordinator who was the play caller? And then they hired him to be their head coach. And if you look back at their post-Mike Dicka coaching history, I don't know if we've talked about this. They have never hired an NFL offensive coordinator who was the main architect of the offense at his previous stop. It's all defensive guys. Dave Wanstead, Dick Geron, Lovie Smith.

They get to Mark Trussman, who is a CFL head coach. Then they go to John Fox, a guy who has done this before. Then they hire Matt Nagy, who was not the main offensive architect in Kansas City. So if they hired Ben Johnson or Joe Brady

or Liam Cohen, it would truly be the first time in like the modern era of this football franchise that they have done what I think is the cleanest thing you can do to try to find consistent success as an NFL team. I did not realize that that has never been the case.

Because in my head, I know they've had some offensive guys with like Trestman and Nagy, but now that you re-contextualized it of like, those were not guys who were the main architect of an NFL offense, the fact that those are their attempts at trying to find offense, no wonder you guys haven't had quarterback should throw for 4,000 yards. You're barely trying. The biggest thing about this is they've either tried to galaxy brain it way too. much and been like, oh man, let's go get the CFL guy, or they've showed no ambition whatsoever. They have not done the thing that the percentages will tell you is the cleanest way to succeed

here. It just, just get out of your own way. Just do the thing that actually is probably the most boring. Well, that's the thing. One of the bears ever gotten out of their way. And requires the least imagination. You know that better than me. Yeah, exactly.

So a lot of what's been talked about with the Cowboys taking the timeline they have with this and waiting a week. to move on from Mike McCarthy, is that they miss their window to talk to some of these other coaches. So unless the Lions lose, they can't talk to Ben Johnson or Aaron Glenn, potentially until February 10th after the Super Bowl, if those teams get to the Super Bowl. Because in order to have an in-person interview, you have to have had a virtual interview in the previous window, which they did not do. But the thing is, I think Adam Schefter said this last night, well, that's less of a problem if you already have the guy in mind that you want to hire. And that brings us to all of the smoke over the last 24 hours that is involved with the mutual interest between Dion Sanders and the Dallas Cowboys. I completely understand this from both sides.

One, it's a way to, again, be the most important story in sports. Two, think of the content if Dion were to get hired by the Cowboys. This would be the first time in NFL history that the head coach and the general manager of an NFL team are members of the Producers Guild of America. Leave it to Jerry to put together the Hollywood team. That is so completely ridiculous. I don't know if that's actually true, but they are both very involved in creating their own content arms. It feels like it could be. And here's the other thing, too, that I think makes it really puts that over the line for me.

I think Dion is far in a way the most content-driven head coach that you could get. And probably just the most, I mean, he's just a very different guy. he's been this way since he was a player in the league, since before he was a player in the league. He was like this in college. Going from or going to him after you had Jason Garrett and Mike McCarthy, who were the most like conservative, just bland, like absolutely nothing. Jerry going from that to kicking it to a hundred with Dion Sanders, which be just the funniest thing, dude. But it's perfect because he doesn't want the coach to be the story unless it's the biggest story in sports. So I want a coach that's boring or I want to be the biggest story in sports for multiple years.

And it doesn't, the football is inconsequential. Like, whether we win doesn't matter. I just either want to save money on the coach or I want to be the biggest story in sports. Those are the two options here. And that's what the bucket of Mike McCarthy and Jason Garrett and Dion Sanders is going to tell you. And you know what? I guess that's kind of what Jimmy Johnson was way back in the days that Jimmy Johnson was closer to like this version of Dion where it's like, all right, he's going to be the biggest story in the sport. And it was very volatile for those handful of years that he was there.

But obviously it worked out. So now that you put it in. those terms where he has to be on either side of the extreme, well, this is a good way to do it. The actual mechanics of Dion going to Dallas and some of the things associated with that, it's probably not worth talking about, but I kind of want to talk about it anyway. So just the idea of him wanting to coach Shador and what they would potentially be willing to do to make that happen. I guess there have been some rumblings about Dion convincing Travis Hunter and Shadour to refuse to play for any other team. And that somehow he would, listen, I'm just, there have been rumblings about this, I guess, right?

So I guess I could understand that from the Shadur side of it. The Cowboys are picking 12th. I wouldn't be surprised if Shadur was like, I'm not playing for anybody else. And he slides to 12 and the Cowboys can pick him there. That I can imagine even this far-fetched reality that we're talking about. I have to think that somebody is going to call their bluff on Travis Hunter. Somebody in the top five is going to be like, uh-uh. Well, we're picking this guy.

And if he doesn't want to play, then he doesn't have to play. So, but even if they pick Shador, if this is part of the calculus with Dallas, DAC has $103 million dead cap hit if he has traded before June 1st, and he has a no trade clause. So that, just small details that you have to work out if this is how it's going to play out for Dallas. If we want to take this like two steps further, if they decided, and so the $103 million is $14 million more than his $89 million cap hit that he's playing on this year.

I always kind of assumed that they would just restructure that to make it viable for them to build the rest of the team. But if you want to make the argument, it's only $14 million that he's set to make now. That's fine. We can do that. If they decide to do this and trade DAC after June 1st, it would be $45 million in dead money this year and $65 million next year. You would have to carry the $89 million all the way through free agency. But if you zeroed out CED's contract and you signed Micah to an extension, you could theoretically create enough cap space. while trading DAC after June 1 to add a couple pieces to your roster and sign your rookies.

So if you could, if you did this and you just kind of told Dak like, we're doing this, you should probably want to be traded. It is feasible, even if I think it's probably unlikely. It seems very unlikely because you've kind of hit on before. Like how much does Jerry actually want to go all in with something like this? I guess if you're already hiring Dion Sanders, you are. maybe committing to the fact that you want to be a little bit more aggressive than you've ever been before. And so maybe this would make a little bit of sense.

But to me, I think it would be crazy. And I understand why if you're hiring Dion and you would want to allow him to, you know, call plays for or to have Schroeder Sanders be the quarterback, I get all of that. To me, so much of, and maybe this is just my own thing and not fully contextualizing what they're thinking. But to me, like so much of the appeal with the job is Dak Prescott is that you have a quarterback who has played. That's not what this is about. You're trying to describe way too much rationality to this. I know. I'm trying to like, I can't get myself into the mind of Jerry Jones, and I think that's

the problem here. It's a dangerous place to try to get into. All of this stuff, all of these things that would have to happen. Again, this is mostly silly talking about this. All this stuff that would have to happen. One of the reasons that I think it's probably unlikely is that the Cowboys have operated like a pretty conservative football operation for a while now. And Will McLeigh is like a well-respected personnel guy in the NFL.

And I just can't imagine somebody in his seat would be comfortable with something like this, where you're just burning draft picks and money that have absolutely nothing to do with the roster you've tried to build over the last few years. Again, maybe I'm ascribing too much rationality to this. I think for Jerry, you don't have to do that. I think for the other people who are professionals working in this organization, some of this might be a bridge too far. But I think that's the thing, though. If Jerry wants to do it, who cares what they think? Ultimately, it comes down to it.

But then you take another job. Like, Will McClough has not taken other jobs in the past because I think he's well compensated and he's typically allowed for the most part now to not, he's, let's do it this way. He's not forced to do crazy stuff. I think that there are caps on what the Cowboys allow their team builders to do in terms of how much money they're spending, et cetera. But I don't think there are mandates of, you have to do this. wild thing that is irresponsible.

That has not happened with this team in quite a while, actually. That's a really good point. I didn't consider it from that angle, but that does make a lot of sense. If it's not Dion, which again, it probably isn't going to be, who are a couple names that you're interested in in terms of their fit with this Cowboys team? I think because of the way that Jerry Jones operates, I don't actually think that this is a very good job for a first year, like a first time. head coach. I actually think this spot makes more sense for someone who is a retread, especially because

I think this team, like we've talked about before, whatever we want to say about how the front office and Jerry operates, from a football perspective and just looking at the roster, they are probably closer to being a pretty good team again than they are further away from it. So I would be more inclined to try to get somebody in the building who has maybe done this before. Obviously, I think Brayble honestly would have been good, but he's off the table. I don't know exactly who would be. I don't know if they want to do the Pete Carroll thing. Like, Sarah, are you ready for Dallas Cowboys? Coach Doug Peterson. Okay, no, no, no, that's where I draw the line.

That's where I draw the line. I'm open to the retread idea here, but not, I don't think we can do Doug Peterson again. But I really don't know, because that's the complicated thing. Like I said, I just think for a first time head coach, I just don't really love this spot. There are two different ways I'm going to talk about this. The first is what I would like to see happen. I would love to see DAC in a dynamic offense with a young offensive coordinator. Like if Liam Cohen was the head coach of the Cowboys, just purely.

from an offensive design standpoint, that would be interesting to me. I would like to see Dak in an offense from that tree in that world. I think that Joe Brady would be fun, right? Like just a guy with that archetype, I would like to see Dak Prescott in that sort of situation. What I think is more realistic, the name that I just keep coming back to because of certainty, because of the choices this organization has made before, Dallas Cowboys head coach Kellyn Moore is not the craziest thing in the world to me. Oh, God.

that does make a lot of sense. So like technically that's first time guy, but because he's been there before, that does feel different. For a long time. Yeah, for a very long time. He knows that extremely well.

Was his position coach? Was his offensive coordinator? Dude, you know what? It just feels like the type of thing they would do. No, that's nails though, because if they don't go other end of the spectrum

with the guy like Dion Sanders where you're just going fully into the craziness of all of it, Kellyn Moore is probably your best bet for getting someone that's a little bit more vanilla. You're very comfortable. with him, again, you don't have to institute DAC into a new offense. Like, you already know this stuff. That is an unbelievably compelling. Now I'm good, this I think might be the one I'm ready for is that they hire Kellynmore in two weeks. Before we talk about some of the other coaching news that's come out this week,

let's take our first quick break. Let's talk about a couple other fits and just the states of a couple of these head coaching searches. We mentioned the Bears and Mike McCarthy. We don't have to dig into all of the candidates they're being talked about for these jobs, especially because with the Bears and the Jets, we'd be here for five hours. I mean, both of these. teams are talking to like a dozen candidates each. The bears are casting the widest possible met. I understand some of that. I think you could potentially take it a little bit too far, and they're probably

flirting with that line. So we're not going to do every candidate for every job. The one that I find the most compelling from a head coaching perspective that's kind of gained a little bit of steam over the last week or so, and I've seen it from multiple outlets and multiple people connecting the dots with it, is Ben Johnson to the Raiders. What do you think of this? Because at first glance, I think it seems kind of crazy, given how we stack up these jobs normally.

And if you look at any ranking of them heading into this entire cycle, the Raiders would probably be a little bit lower than most of these other gigs. But as I've thought more about it, I don't think it's that crazy. I kind of don't either. And it makes sense with what seems to have been the hang up with Ben Johnson. Like, if he wanted a job last year, he could have gotten one. If he wanted one the year before, he probably could have gotten one. just based on the way that he's been calling plays and how sought after he's been around the league. And so to me, it's very obviously not teams not wanting him.

It's him wanting to pick a very perfect spot for him to jump into. The Raiders now have a clean slate at GM and they very obviously have a clean slate at quarterback. If he's a guy who feels like he wants to jump into a thing and make it his own, this is probably the best spot because to me, if I'm removing whatever I think of Ben Johnson and like applying what I think he thinks, about the situation. To me, I would want to be in a spot like Jacksonville because to me, the quarterback is already figured out. I think Trevor Lawrence is very good. You don't have to think about that stuff. Jacksonville gets complicated because Trent Balke is seemingly not going

anywhere for whatever reason. With the Raiders, that is obviously not the case. So if that is a big part of what his selling point is for jumping into a team, the Raiders do make a lot of sense from that front. Let's talk about the quarterback thing first. I think that for some of these coaches, we think of quarterback stability and quarterback certainty. Let's say certainty over stability because Caleb Williams is certainty. I'm not sure it's stability yet. Quarterback certainty, knowing you are going to have an answer in the short term of quarterback, we automatically chalk that up as a good thing.

Well, if you're not really that excited about the quarterback, and it's not a quarterback that you picked, but it is a quarterback that either the GM or the owner spent a first overall pick on or gave a huge contract to, there's a lot of pressure to make it work with that quarterback almost immediately upon arrival. That may be something that scares some of these guys off. So I think that's part of it. The other side of it to me is some of the organizational concerns we might have

ascribed to the Raiders several years ago, whether it's dysfunction, cash flow, etc. The Raiders have sold off a decent portion of the franchise to outside investors, whether that's private equity or some of the other minority partnerships they've entered into, including with Tom Brady and his business partner. It really does seem like money is no longer a problem for them since moving to Vegas and doing some of the things that they've done. So resources and being able to kind of build what you want to practically, I think is more available to a Raiders coach than it would have been 10 years ago. The other side of this is, I don't think there is any organization in the NFL that you could walk into as a head coach with Ben Johnson's level of appeal where you could have more immediate power than you would have with the Raiders.

I think you can make a serious argument that with the Brady stamp of approval that he's going to be getting coming into this job, that Ben Johnson might be the most powerful person in the Raiders building from day one that he arrives there. And that includes the owner because of how watered down this has become with all of the other voices that are part of these decisions. And again, I think more than anything, it seems like that is kind of what he's after is that he really wants to make this thing his own. And honestly, this reminds me a lot of when Kyle Shanahan took the... San Francisco 49ers job. Like that's kind of what it, a little bit different in terms of like the ownership and all that stuff. But Kyle Shanahan walks.

That's the order. Yes. That's the order. The order of operations was changed. Yes, exactly. And I think that if he, if Ben Johnson does take this Raiders job, it would be a very similar thing where he's walking in as the offensive,

a genius mastermind, complete clean slate at quarterback, complete clean slate in terms of the GM. And so if he can pick, this is the thing that I find fascinating. If the, if the GM has to pick the head coach, obviously then it becomes like the GM is building the team in his image. If the head coach gets to pick the GM, now every player we bring in is through the image of whatever this head coach wants the team to be.

And I think that would make a lot of sense for a guy like Ben Johnson who they have built a very particular offense in Detroit. And so I think coming from where he's come from, and obviously it's taking them a lot of time to do that, getting these guys in every round of the draft, bringing in very few free agents until they felt like they needed the last piece on top. I think it would make a lot of sense for him to walk into a organization like this. If you only get one shot, I think there's temptation to make your only one shot yours, to do it in the way that you want to, to be able to carve it out in the way that you see fit. And I do think this is an opportunity to do that.

The offensive line has some intriguing pieces, like the drafts that they've had. I feel like you look at the offensive line talent, and I'm sure he thinks I can work with that. And for a guy like Ben Johnson, who just helped revive Jared Goff's career, not having an immediate answer. a quarterback maybe is a little bit less scary than it might be for somebody else for good or bad. That might be the wrong way to think about it, but I wouldn't be shocked if somebody with Ben Johnson's background wasn't necessarily afraid of that empty spot on the depth chart because he thought he could get something from whoever they end up slotting in there. Yeah, that's definitely a little bit of ego talking, but most of the best offensive play callers. If you have NFL coaches have

egos? Right, exactly, especially offensive guys. I feel like in particular have a very big ego. I think, I mean, like, Kyle does the way that he calls stuff. So I think it makes perfect sense that. Because like to me, again, when I look at this, I would much rather go to the team that has Trevor Lawrence. I don't have to think about the quarterback situation. But in Ben Johnson spot where, again, you revived the career of Jared Goff and you believe that you can make this work with insert whoever we figure out at quarterback, if you believe

you're that good at your job, then, yeah, I understand why he would rather have the clean slate. I hope he doesn't take that job for unrelated reasons, but I would not be shocked if he did. I get why people have connected those dots so much over the last week or so. Let's talk about a couple other things that have trickled out over the last week or so since the last time Sando and I kind of had a considered conversation about all of this. The Falcons fired their defense coordinator, Jimmy Lake. I missed this in real time until I saw a Colleen Wolf report yesterday that Lou Aneruma was interviewing for their defensive coordinator job. This isn't necessarily surprising. You know, Jimmy Lake was a college,

coach, which is his first time as a defensive coordinator, and the Falcons defense was objectively bad. They don't have a lot of talent on that side of the ball, but based on their results, I'm not necessarily surprised about this. I'm not necessarily surprised either. I will say I'm always interested when a head coach who has, like in Atlanta's case, Rahim Morris is a defensive guy. And so for them to have to fire their defensive coordinator in the first year, it's always weird, or vice versa, you have a situation where an offensive guy immediately fires their offensive coordinator in year one. That to me is always a funny situation.

So I think it just puts them in an interesting spot. Maybe they just feel like, maybe Rahim Morris feels like now being in the head coaching position again. Because he did this before, right back with the bucks. Maybe he just feels like he wants to take on more purely of the head coaching responsibilities. And he wants a defensive play caller with a little bit more, you know, who's done this before. That's why to me, Luan Aruma would honestly make a lot of sense because this is a guy who's done it for a very long time. He's much older.

So I don't know. I always find it interesting again when you have to fire the guy who's on, you know, technically your side of the ball. But again, the Falcons defense, there wasn't a whole lot saving it outside of Jesse Bates kind of going crazy for a handful of games. So it makes sense to me. And it's not like Jimmy Lake and Rahe-Morris had worked together for a bunch of years and they come from the same defensive system or anything like that. Jimmy Lake was in L.A. for a year after being a college coach. So, again, there's not like a lot of built-in equity between these two guys, even,

schematically. So it's not necessarily surprising. Louana Ruma, Ohio, or interviewing in Atlanta takes me to what's going on in Cincinnati, where they're in the process of trying to find a defensive coordinator. They've already interviewed Patrick Graham, which I think is really interesting. I think Patrick Graham has done a pretty darn good job in Vegas, considering the talent on that side of the ball. And I think that what they've done in Cincinnati and who they've tried to be defensively, some of those ideas, I actually think translate well to who Patrick Graham has tried to be, where it's a little nebulous. He's trying a bunch of stuff on the back end. So that pairing,

I actually think is kind of interesting in my mind. I like it too, because actually he can do some of the same stuff that Lu Anirumo was doing. It's just that they, in a sense, had to fire Lu Aniromo with just how bad it had gone this year. Even if you didn't think that he was the problem, somebody had to fall on the sword. So I think you bring in Patrick Graham, you throw a few resources at the defense. You can kind of get back to the same place that you were at with Luanarumo. and bringing up the Raiders defense this year was a good point. They were a good defense this year. They were almost in the way that like,

if you might not have realized the Chargers offense was kind of good for a lot of this season, especially the passing offense, you probably didn't realize how good the Raiders defense was for a lot of this season, especially with a lot of like random no-name guys. I mean, like, Adam Butler. That goes back to 2023. It does. Yeah, they were starting to cook on that side of the ball.

And then like just random guys like Adam Butler had a career year this year. The fact that Graham was getting that out of just those kind of random type of guys, I thought was incredibly encouraging. And in Cincinnati, you're definitely going to have to do that with like half of your starting roster. Even going back to his time with the Giants, I thought that I've just been really impressed. And I talked with him about this this off season where, you know, the ideas that kind of fueled who he was in New England and even that his year in Miami, they're very different than what his defenses have looked like at times with the Giants and the Raiders. And I think he's just open-minded about like, this is the best. best way for this defense to operate with the personnel that I have. And because the personnel in Cincinnati, I think, is kind of a blank slate, that's not a bad

route to go with your defensive coordinator. The other name that I think has been thrown out there is potentially Matt Iberfluse. And this brings me to what's going on with the Colts right now. They're interviewing Dennis Allen for their defensive coordinator job. They've also, I think you're planning to or already have interviewed Luanna Rumo. The Niners are fired Nick Sorensen. They've interviewed Robert Sala. My take on all of this is, it's a good.

time to be looking for a four-down defensive coordinator? Like, there are a lot of guys who come from that world. Dennis Allen, Sala, if you want to look at Matt Burke in Houston, who's their defensive coordinator right now, Luana Rumo, Patrick Graham. A lot of these guys have history working in this four-down world when their rosters are constructed that way. So if you're a defense trying to play that way, this is the right cycle to need somebody. Like if Dennis Allen ends up being the Colts defensive coordinator, that's like a monster

home run for the Colts. Dennis Allen is a really good defensive coach. He is. Yes, because I think so much of what went wrong and kind of maybe soured us on Dennis Allen at the end of his New Orleans stint was mostly like head coaching type of responsibilities. And obviously the defense took a step back this year, but they're incredibly old and they've been getting older every single year without being able to reload on that side of the ball. But before this season, they were one of the top like eight, 10 defenses, maybe even better than that in some years, for the majority of the time that he was their calling place. And he would have these one-off game plans that were incredible. What are my top five most seasons before they started getting old? They were awesome, dude. And so I think Dennis Allen,

even if we didn't love him as a head coach, especially towards the end, he is probably to me, purely as a defensive mind of all of these retread guys is probably to me the one that I would want to be looking after, even more than Sala. Like, I think if you were actually looking for a head coach, I would much rather have Sala, but just purely as maybe a defensive mind, I think Allen would probably be the guy I'm after here. I don't disagree with you at all there. I was talking to a head coaching candidate recently about the defensive coordinator hires that he could potentially make.

And he was telling me that sometimes when you're thinking about these four down teams, when you're trying to pull from the Niners tree, that system can be really talent-driven at times. And when the talent starts to depreciate, what is your defense going to look like? I don't think you could say the same thing about Dennis Allen. I think that defense is a little bit more dynamic than what a Sala or somebody from that tree might be bringing to the table. And that's why I think he's potentially a little bit more interesting. It was incredibly well coached too, like that just in terms of the fundamentals that you saw.

I mean, the guy that like kind of came from that defense now that is going to get head coaching interviews and stuff is Aaron Glenn. He was a really, really good coach in this system alongside Dennis Allen. And part of it is because they just understand how to teach guys where to be and how to play certain techniques and how to play their stuff. So I just, again, yeah, I think just in terms of the way that he structures the entire thing. Obviously, you need talent on any defense, but I do think they get away with a little bit more of just getting smart players and teaching them the right way.

This is the last thing I'll say about this. I feel like the Saints overall have not been an organization that we've really pulled from for coaching talent or ideas. I think if you look at the examples of when it's happened, it's kind of working, right? So Joe Brady is a Saints guy. And just it's been a circuitous route. after that, but he's a Saints guy. Dan Campbell is from New Orleans. Even if Ben Johnson is not,

some of that DNA in that offense from a dropback perspective, some of that comes from New Orleans. We're seeing what Sean Peyton is doing right now. And Dennis Allen on the defensive side, Aaron Glenn on the defensive side, a lot of those guys who kind of cut their teeth in New Orleans over the last 10 years or so, they've done okay when given promotions and given more opportunities. So continuing to mind that a little bit more over the course of this off season, just something to keep in mind, right? If you're looking for an offensive coordinator, do you want to go talk to Davis Webb or some of the people who have been involved in what that Broncos offense would look like? I would. I would want to have the conversations with those

people. And I think that extends to Dennis Allen. I think it should. Like, they didn't win a whole lot of, like, they didn't win a whole lot of trophies, I should say. But during that like 2017 to 2021-ish era, They won a lot of football games, man. They were a really, really good team on both sides of the ball. All right. That is all we've got for this show. We're going to be back with our divisional round preview. Same as last week.

We're going to cut that into two shows, release it on a similar sort of schedule. So the Saturday games will be coming to you guys overnight on Friday. The Sunday games will be coming your guys' way early on Friday afternoon. So just be on the lookout for both of those. Now we're going to get to our conversation with our Giants writers here at the athletic, Charlotte Carroll and Dan Duggan. Before we get to that conversation, let's take a quick break.

Joining us now to talk about a team that retained its head coach this offseason is our two wonderful Giants writers here at the Athletic. First off, it's Dan Duggan. Dan, how are you, man? I'm doing great. How are you doing, Robert? Doing okay. Doing okay.

Excited to dig into this with you both. Also joining us today, it's Charlotte Carroll. Charlotte, how are you? Doing good. How are you doing? I'm doing all right. The last time I saw you both was a training camp first for me. It is the first time I pulled.

the plug on a training camp practice because I had to go inside. Yeah, it gets a little steamy in the metal lands. It was so hot that I had sweated through my clothes and I had like a five and a half hour drive to Boston in traffic in rush hour on a Friday. And I'm like, you know what? I'm out of here. Like there is nothing more I can gain from this. I talked to coaches before practice.

I'm leaving. So I really gained a lot of respect for both of you that day. The fact that that's what you guys have to endure for an entire month out there. It's not great, but I'm kind of wishing for those days right now as I'm freezing my butt off over here. And training camp at least allows for some semblance of hope. And I think it's a little bit harder to find that right now if you are a Giants fan and somebody who is covering this team day to day. Dan, I want to start with the story that you wrote about John Mara's media availability after the season and just some of the contradictory elements of what he was saying and what the results have looked. like for that team. And I think there is a feeling, and the word that he used that I thought was

instructive was instinct. He had an instinct that things were headed in the right direction, but there's really no tangible evidence that it's heading in the right direction. So as you were listening to him that day about why they chose to retain Joe Shane and Brian Dable, what did you make of the reasons that he laid out and why they're justifiable in terms of why they're sticking with the status quo here? Well, I mean, that was the problem that he couldn't point to anything to it, just kind of be vibes, you know, like he referenced David went in coach of the year in 2022, which, you know, that was very real, but, you know, that, that trophy's gathering dust, you know, in his office on the shelf. And then with Shane, you knew he would point to the 20, 24 draft.

And it was certainly a good draft. I mean, obviously, Malik Neighbors, you know, home run, six-pick, Tyrant Tracy, you know, good day three running back. Other guys played a lot, you know, I mean, there was definitely promised there. But still, I mean, this was the hundredth year of the Giants. It was arguably their worst season ever. So it was tough to really, latch on to anything he could really portray as positive. So again, it kind of just felt like it's this feeling, you know, like trust me, behind the scenes, we're doing things, you

guys can't even imagine. It's like the best player evaluation process we're ever head. And again, it's like in the same breath, he gets asked, is this roster better than the one they inherited three years ago? And he to his credit, honestly, I can't say that because if he did say that, we'd all kill him for that. There's kind of no right answer to that question.

But you inherited the mess left from the Dave Gettleman, Joe Judge, regime. They had won four games in 2020. one and he were three years later and you win three games so again he couldn't spin it that way so it's more just like you know i like the feeling in the building the staff chains assembled there was nothing tangible to refer to so that's why i think a lot of it was he's done the tear downs the quick in and outs he just didn't want to do that again you can't really say that although he kind of did that john mara for all his faults i mean he is honest to a fault like he will tell you the truth and

what's on his mind so i do think a big part was like man i just don't want to tear this all down again and start over. So I'm going to just hold my breath and hope somehow these guys can pull an inside straight. We're going to land our quarterback. And all of a sudden, the hope word you said that is so far removed from the situation right now by next August will be returned because their rookie quarterback will be dazzling in training camp, whatever it may be. That's obviously what they're putting all of their faith in. But it's just really hard, you know, in the wreckage of last season still so fresh to get there. Anybody besides maybe John Maurer and those inside the building.

I love you pointing out that specific. example, because that's the one I zeroed it on as well, where he's touting how great the process is for player evaluation and acquisition. And then he gets asked point blank, is the roster better than it was three years ago? And he's like, I don't think I can confidently say that. Charlotte, when I listen to him, I listen to a man who is really trying to make rational decisions. I don't think he wants to be seen as rash in the same way that the guy who shares his stadium is seen as rash. And I think there is like a rationality and kind of a measured approach to all of this. But I also think that there's no vision associated with it. And so rationality without vision only gets you so far.

When you listen to John Merritt that day, what did you hear in kind of that conflict and what he was trying to tell you both? Yeah, it sounded like there was a lot lacking for all the belief that he has in this coaching staff in the front office, he pointed out a lot of things that need help. I mean, he had issues with obviously the quarterback is the number one thing that they need to solve. And that's not an easy overnight fix. It might be for some teams, but there's no guarantee that's going to happen. He also had issues with the play calling situation, which has already gone through a major shake-up last off season when Brian Dable kind of took over the reins from offensive coordinator Mike Kafka. And he also had issues with the defensive performance, which when

you look at the stats wasn't as bad as it could have been. Other than how is the play, Mrs. Lincoln? Exactly. So you're like hearing him say all that. And again, it's one of those things he didn't, to Dan's point, he doesn't have to say these things, and yet he does. So it gives us stuff to write off of and stuff to examine. And you know what's going through his head and his thought processes is making these decisions. And yet he still sticks with both of them. Dan, the quarterback conversation part of this is very interesting to me, because I think he's trying to sell people on the idea that if they get the quarterback fixed, it will solve a lot of their other issues. He literally

said that verbatim. Here's part of my issue here. The people you've chosen to retain are the people who decided they wanted to stick with Daniel Jones, at least in part. And he's done nothing to diffuse that idea. He's done nothing to come out and say, no, this was partially me. I think he's allowed people to believe that this was a Joe Shane Bryantable decision, at least in part. And I know when you look at the finances of the Daniel Jones move, it's not catastrophic, right? It's $22 million in dead money this year. It hurts you a little bit in terms of team building. That's not that bad. But he had a $47 million dead cap hit after you moved out from him in 2024. That's not nothing. My issue with this is also that by keeping him, you cut yourself off to other avenues to find a quarterback.

There's opportunity cost involved in it too. By having Daniel Jones, you can't go try to sign a Baker Mayfield or a Sam Darnold who had a bad two weeks, but he had a better 17 than Daniel Jones did. So when you think about the quarterback process to this point, is there anything about the decisions they've made so far that would lead you to believe these are the guys that should be trusted with choosing the next one, whether it be a veteran or somebody in the draft? Yeah, you hit on a lot. I'll say John Maris, the line with us, because I believe that's what he's being sold by

Joe Shane and Brian Davel. Because, you know, Drew Locke somehow, I don't know what happened to that Colts game, Week 17, you know, has like an all-time performance. And Brian Davel at the podium is like, see what happens when we get good quarterback play? It's like, well, who's been in charge of getting good quarterback for the last two years when it's been the worst in the league? So I thought that was very transparent. And Brian Daibble, who doesn't say much impressors said a lot after that one,

because I think he finally could say, like, just give me a good quarterback. It's like, well, that's been your job and Joe Shane's job for the last three years. And I think Joe Shane is not hidden from that fact where when he had his bi-week presser right before they benched and obviously released Daniel Jones Without saying it, he put a lot on the feet of the quarterback But again, it's like that meme of like, you know, who's responsible for this? It's like, you signed this guy.

And listen, I know we don't have to relitigate everything that happened in the offseason after 2022 where like, you know, you'll get people, well, they're supposed to do, let him walk? No. But there were other avenues to take aside from, you know, making a commitment where he's going to be your unquestioned starter for, I was going to say two years, but I guess a year and a half because they even pulled the plug, not even all the way through a year two.

Also, let him walk. They were not going to do that. So again, I don't want to relitigate it, but franchise tag him, whatever may be. But once you make that commitment and to your point, John Mara definitely has not just fallen on the swords. Hey, listen, that was all me. I put my thumb on the scale. I think we all know he was very much in favor of that. But I even asked him that specific question, like, are you absolving?

Because that was the biggest failure, obviously, of this regime. Whatever I was saying with Sequin or, you know, signing Daniel Jones, they just punted two years. I mean, these were two horrendous years. That's the problem. It's not the finances involved with that decision. It's the punting on the two years as part of that process. Right, because people will say, oh, it was only two years. Like, at least they're not tied to him for three years.

Like, okay, it was like the two worst years you could have imagined when you signed that contract. So how do we just hand wave that? Hey, two years, no biggie. I mean, these people endured it. It was a long two years. But so, yeah, I asked them, like, do you absolve them to that? Because basically how much did you put your thumb on the scale? And he said, like, no, I don't absolve them.

Like, you know, I was in favor of it, but, you know, they own that mistake. And then your other question there, I asked Joe Shane that, you know, when you look at the product you put on the field this year, a quarterback and the investments you made, and not just Daniel Jones at a $47 million cap it, but also Drew Locke. There was other options out there. He gave him $5 million guaranteed. You know, you could have been more aggressive to triump being Tyrod Taylor. We can list, you know, the Sam Donalds, all these guys that were available to all 32 teams last off season. You decided to go, Daniel Jones, Drew Locke and Tommy DeVito, no rookie, no even mid-round flyer. That's the room you went in with.

And again, it was the worst quarterback playing the league. And maybe Raiders fans, you know, people could argue it. But it was definitely bottom three. And that's where this regime got them in their third season. So now we have to have faith that, oh, hey, wipe the slate clean. They're going to get it right this time. And the part where, you know, Joe Shane has some comments where I said, John Mara, you know, can't help but tell the truth. Joe Shane creates some interesting truths where he was like, oh, well, we look around at all the quarterback we've evaluated in the last couple of drafts.

And they've all been good. Like, okay, just trust me, bro. because like, oh, you like Jaden Daniels, you like C.J. Stroud. Like, that's cool. Like, what was your grade on Bo Nix? I mean, listen, I'm not even saying they should have drafted Bo Nix, but did you think he was going to have that type of rookie year he did. So I don't know. That's where it's like, it's kind of blind faith, I think, if in the outside, I mean, John Marrow almost says blind faith for him in some ways. I mean, obviously he's more informed on their process, but you're just trusting that, like, they'll get it right.

And there just isn't any evidence based on the three years of how they've handled the position that they will. I think that Daniel Jones being in place part of how that influence is six overall. is telling. They obviously tried to make a big swing for a guy like Drake May, but maybe if Daniel Jones isn't on the roster, are you more inclined to say, oh, we'll take JJ McCarthy here with the six overall pick. Like, this is our best chance. Now you painted yourself into a corner in a quarterback draft that is significantly worse with fewer options than the one that you just bypassed. So Charlotte, this entire behind the scenes dialogue is clearly happening between Joe Shane and John Mara, I find fascinating. Where you hear John coming out and he's clearly parroting the points

of these guys who are telling them these things to keep their jobs. And I understand that. You want to empower your people. But Dan, you wrote about this. And Charlotte, I'm curious by your opinion of this. You mentioned it with the Drew Locke thing. The idea that, well, the free agent class was good. And that's one of the reasons that we're keeping the front office.

There are so many things involved with this process where you'll hear John Maris say something. And I'll kind of nod for a second. And I'll be like, wait, what? And the free agent class is part of this. So when you think about all of these things that John is saying, with influence from the people who are trying to keep their jobs, Charlotte. What do you think that dialogue has looked like behind closed doors? It's a good question of what that actually looks like.

I imagine a lot of, you know, leading your case and kind of pinpointing and seeing what happens. But I think based on just what we were hearing, that Joe might have been safe from a lot longer than Brian Davel was, just the way that the tea leaves were kind of reading and what we kind of anticipated with the coaching kind of higher and who knew what was going to happen there. So I feel like his case was being made a little bit better for longer, and that could just be the time that he has with him in that space versus the coaching staff. Well, I would say, too, the funny part when I was talking about that free agency calculus, it's like, okay, Jermaine Illuminaur, that was like a great value signing.

He was a really solid. You can play him right, tackle, left tackle. You let two first team all pros walk. That has to factor into the equation. And listen, I'm the biggest running back don't matter. And trust me, this last offseason is making me change my mind on that. But you still can't ignore the sequel. Markley went to your hated rival had like an all-time season still playing you know who knows how far

that'll go and how bad that'll continue to look but still you let like the offensive player of the league walk and a guy who a first team all pro and Xavier McKinney who was at one point like a candidate for defensive player of the year you can't then just say well we got john runyon and he was a pretty good right guard like that uh left guard that just doesn't that doesn't add up so that's again where it's like i feel like it's all kind of spin there where you know joe change like can't look over here but don't look over there and it's like you know like you said when you hear john Marra said, like, yeah, free agency was pretty good. Like, none of those guys were bad.

Like, John Runyon was fine, and Illuminaur solidified the right tackle spot. But you let two guys who are young, who are superstars, walk. And now it's like, oh, we're going to talk about their cap space next year. It's like, well, then that means you could have afforded Xavier McKinney. Like, you didn't have to let him walk because it was always too expensive. You need good players. Listen, positional value, I get it. I think Joe Shane's been a little bit of a slave to that.

And it's a little bit like GMing by the book. It's like, sometimes you've got to work with what you got. And if you have a really good safety who's like 24 years old, it's okay. hey, to go over your, you know, whatever line item you have in your budget of this is what it said in the GM handbook. So that's the part that I think has to be factored in. Because even the other one they hold up is Brian Burns. Brian Burns was exactly what you thought he was going to be this year.

A very good player. Was it worth at the point they were at in their build, their rebuild, how if you want to term it, giving up two draft picks, including, you know, obviously a second rounder, that enormous contract. And he was a very good player. And he's young. He'll continue to be a very good player. But could you have used those resources? differently. So I think it's just a little more complicated and say, hey, we brought some good

players in. So free agency was good. Again, that's where I feel like it's a little bit of these kind of straw man arguments are like, no, everything's good. Like, we did this well, but you don't acknowledge all that went wrong kind of the other side of the coin. I'm 100% with you on all of that. When you trade the 39th overall pick and you give him market level contract to a player, it's no longer just the contract. He's now a $32 million a year player, not a 25 million year player. And he performed pretty well for a $32 million a year player. But there's a lot of things that go into that. The running back positional value side of this,

Devin Singletary has the 16th highest APY in the league for running backs. He didn't play by the end of the season. The quarterback you signed to a $5 million deal didn't play by the end of the season. Combined, the money allocated to those two people is the Saquan Berkeley bill. So there's so many elements to this, even the John Runyon part of it, you move on from Ben Bredesen, who think was probably better for the bucks for $3 million than John Runnin was for you at 10. So even all of those decisions, there's a lot of layers to it.

Charlotte, you mentioned the play calling part of this, and I find this very interesting as well. This kind of back and forth with Brian Daible and Mike Kafka, and you laid it all out in the story that you were out last week, where eventually Daible didn't want to call plays. It didn't go well, so now Daibu took it back. Well, Kafka was getting an interview for offensive coordinator jobs last off season where he could be a play caller, but they blocked him from doing that. And now they're not sure who's going to call plays. What do you make of this entire process and what it says about just the state of the coaching staff in New York right now? Yeah, confusion. Your guess is as good as mine as who's going to be calling plays come next season. At this point, it kind of just feels like it'll either be dable or Kafka.

But it's just so kind of running in circles. And then the idea that they're blocking candidates, you know, from optics perspective when they have the offseason of coaching change that they had last year. And then this year, you know, Shane Bowen, when you have John Merritt criticizing the defense, his name comes front and center of like, okay, is this another coordinator that's going to be gone? and you're on to your, what is it, third DC in four seasons. And then you look at it. And do we know anything about that? Is there any clarity about whether he's going to be back?

Yeah, all signs point to him back. So that's another thing. The owner just actually threw him in the crosshairs. Like, he said, I mean, he was asked, I think you actually asked the question, like, what did you talk about me and what needs to be better. It wasn't just like, oh, the defense didn't play well. It was like, he crushed the defense. I'm tired of watching teams coming down the field on our defense that needs to be addressed.

He's like, oh, boy, Shane Bowen. His seat is scorching hot. And then Daveo comes out like, no, I haven't even thought about coaching change. just had this meeting with your owner three days ago to just explain your vision for the future. Didn't even consider, like maybe we make a change of defense coordinator. And listen, I think that would be scapegoating. Shane Bowen in the defense was not the problem on this team. But once the owner throws him under the bus like that, okay, he's out of here.

And now all of a sudden they're pushing back hard. Like, we're not going to let him go. We're happy. We want to run it back. And Joe Shane's talking about continuity and how important that would be for players. So, yeah, I think he's obviously they control the rights. We haven't even really heard that I think the obvious connection was Rabel and him because they're time in Tennessee. We haven't even heard that Vrabel wants him necessarily.

He might want to change things up. It's a new start for him. So, yeah, I fully expect Shane Bowen to be back. And again, that first press calls be interesting. Like, what was your reaction when your boss basically said you're terrible at your job? Like, that's going to be a little awkward. Yeah, we're in for an interest in off season. It'll probably amount to nothing.

And it'll just be running it back and we'll be right where we started. And the question of who's a play caller? I don't know. I feel like it's, for me, it's 50-50 at this point because it's like you can justify either way. And you can just, Dave, can say, you spent the off season, you know, making changes. And when you think about what table was brought in for is that he's this offensive guru who worked with Josh Allen. If you're bringing in this quarterback, why do you want to hand that back off when you're supposed to be the one who's trusted with this? It's like,

okay, I'm doing this. I'm going to show it's me. Here's my guy. I mean, as Dan said earlier, just give me a quarterback. So if they're bringing in a quarterback that can do this, I don't know. I will just tell both of you to take a quick look at the recent history of the Chicago Bears alignment when it comes to coaching staffs and quarterbacks and what it looks like when you don't get that right. And so the idea of potentially empowering a coaching staff and a front office on the hot seat with picking a quarterback in the top five, good luck with that. Just just just just good luck with that based on the history of how it's typically gone. And that's the last thing I'll ask you guys. I'm curious, Dan, what do you think they do at quarterback? What do you think they want to do?

And what do you think they ultimately do when it comes to using the third overall pick on one or potentially going to the veteran route? Yeah, well, I was going to say it's so much message. in Chicago because, you know, I could have picked Caleb Williams. They're in a much trickier spot here. At number three, and potentially a two first-round quarterback draft, again, we'll see where, you know, sometimes we all think everyone's going one, two, you know, at this point, and you get a little deeper and it's like, well, no, no one even thinks Shador-Sanders is a top 20 pick.

I'm not saying that will or won't happen. That could, but let's just say it's Cam Moore's Shuror-Sanders. Like, obviously the idea would be you get one of those guys, but there's no guarantee that they can get one of those guys when you're picking third behind two teams that easily could take quarterbacks. So I think the idea is you get one of those guys, but you still need to get a veteran, whether that's a bridge or that's actually going out and spending some money on one. Because when you have John Marr basically saying, I'm running out of patience, again, going to go back to the contradictions. It's like, you know, we need to build this thing the right way.

But when I'm sitting here in a year, this fed up, you know, I'm not going to be happy. It's like, so there's obviously some pressure on them. They can't just kind of go the Jacobi Reset, Drake May model. They can't just say, we're going to bring in a little caretaker here. And if we go four and 13, who cares? Like, they're going to need to go get somebody in free agency or a trade, whatever maybe, who can, they feel like can win games. So, you know, it's like the Sam Darnold, J.J. McCarthy model maybe a little more like, you know, even though Sam Darnel wasn't, no one knew he'd do it, he'd even when I turned out to do this season. But I think it has to be something like that.

Like, they have to make a legitimate investment in a guy who's won games in the league. And they feel it could be the starter to win games. Because, again, their seats are so hot. But also, you have to get a rookie quarterback in here. They cannot possibly go into year four with still never having drafted a quarterback. under their regime. So I think it's going to be a double-barreled approach. I think the thing will be most telling is how much they invest in that veteran because it's going to be, you know, obviously you get somebody in here, but I think it's going to be a little higher tier when you consider

that, again, the owner's saying, like, I'm running out of patience here. So you can't just kind of pump next season. They're talking about punting seasons. You can't punt three in a row. So I think ideally they get one of those guys at three or even if they have to trade up to get one of them, but they're also going to have to invest in a, you know, a proven veteran quarterback. And then that what's that do to your funds and your means to fill out the rest of this roster that still has so many holes? Joe Shane came out and explicitly was like, I'm not going to make a lot of self-preservation when now moves to sacrifice the future. And it's like, okay, but you might have to. And I think that's the problem here is that when you get into a situation organizationally,

when you have so many competing motivations and competing timelines, that's where you're putting yourself at a really difficult position. And it feels like that might be the case with the Giants. And it's just a difficult spot to start your offseason. Or it's like, all right, this group has to win now, but we don't really have that much talent. So should you be trying to win now? It's going to be very interesting to see what the Giants moves in free agency and the draft. Tell us about those motivations and tell us about what they're trying to accomplish in 2025. Charlotte, Dan, sincerely appreciate the time from both of you. Really appreciate the insight. We'll talk to you both soon.

All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you so much to Derek. Thank you so much to Dan and Charlotte. sincerely appreciate all of their time, sincerely appreciate your time. A few different housekeeping things that I always forget to mention, but the show is a little shorter, so it's on my mind. Please rate and review the show on your podcast platform of choice. If that's Spotify, if it's Apple, if you've enjoyed the podcast over the course of the season, I would consider that a personal favor to me. It would mean a lot if you would take 30 seconds out of your day to do it.

If you watch the show on YouTube, if you're currently watching it, please subscribe, like, do all of those things. If you've never seen the show on YouTube, we do it there. So if you want to check that out, encourage you to do that. We do live recaps at the end of every slate of games on Sundays. So we'll be doing that again at the end of the divisional round games, which is going to be an awesome collection of games. So please be on the lookout for that.

For now, that is all we've got. Derek and I will be back later this week with the divisional round preview. Appreciate you guys, Lessa. We'll talk to you soon.