The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The Bears get their man, the Jets seemingly close in on theirs, and the league has a coaching search + agent conundrum

Episode Date: January 22, 2025

The Lions letdown turned out to be the Bears opportunity, with the latter hiring Ben Johnson 48 hours after the former's playoff loss. On this episode of The Athletic Football Show, Robert Mays welcomes on Albert Breer of The MMQB and Sports Illustrated to cover the latest in this year's coaching cycle. Then, Kalyn Kahler from ESPN joins the show to discuss her story on the surprising amount of power agents hold in the head coach and GM hiring process.Host: Robert MaysWith: Albert Breer and Kalyn KahlerProducer: 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. Fun show for you guys today. It's all coaches all the time. First off, we have Albert Breer from the MMQB and Sports Illustrated to chat about the most recent news items in the coaching carousel. Ben Johnson going to Chicago, Mike Borganzi going to the Titans as the GM, chatting a little bit about the other coaching searches that are currently in progress. Josh McDaniels got hired by the Patriots while we were recording. So a lot of fun stuff that we hit with Bert, really, really good insights and a lot of those.

processes and where they are and why for those individual teams. After that, we were joined by Kaylin Kaler, now of ESPN, to discuss her fascinating story about the process of GM and head coach packaging and how some of these hiring practices happened in the NFL based on the connections that mostly coaching agents have around this industry specifically. So really enjoyed that conversation with Kalin. Before we get to both of those, I wanted to just talk about the Benjohn. thing because we did a little bit of this with Bert, but I figured I would just download a lot of

my thoughts right now before we actually dug into that. I've written down none of this. I'm doing this off the cuff just because I think it's the right way to handle it. Okay. This to me was the best possible outcome for where the Chicago Bears are right now. Every coaching candidate has pluses and minuses, strengths, weaknesses, risks, upsides, downsides. I understand everything that's been said about Ben Johnson from a personality standpoint. Maybe he's not the most dynamic guy, a little bit insular in the way that kind of handled some of the stuff in Detroit as the offensive coordinator, as that role expands what's it going to look like. There are risks associated with every single head coaching candidate.

I believe that right now, the best path to consistent success in the NFL is having a really good offense. There aren't that many candidates that have Ben Johnson's background. And I talked about this with Bert a little bit. If you look at a lot of the guys who have been hired as offensive-minded head coaches in the last five to eight years, the McVeigh effect of this. is very, very real. A lot of these guys are from staffs that have play calling head coaches.

If you look at Ben Johnson's resume specifically, he really aligns with only five, six guys that have been hired as head coaches over the last like eight to ten years. And two of those guys are Sean McVeigh and Kyle Shanahan. I think they're very good comparisons. Kyle turned the 2016 Falcons into the number one offense in the league, won Matt Ryan an MVP award. Matt Ryan was a very good quarterback, but he was not consistently a top three quarterback. If you look at the 2016 Washington team, they were sixth in EPA per play with Kirk Cousins as their quarterback with Sean McVeigh as the offensive coordinator.

A lot of these guys who get hired as head coaches from OC roles either worked with top three quarterbacks. We're talking about like Adam Gase with Peyton Manning. We're talking about Josh McDaniels with Tom Brady. Or there are guys that were not play callers and came over after they were the number two at some of these places where they were not the main architect of the offense. I have no idea if Ben Johnson is going to be successful as the bear's head coach. I know that based on his background and what he has done as an OC specifically, that is the type of bet I would make on something like this. The other comparison, I think, that's worthwhile when looking at him compared to somebody like Sean McVeigh. People are going to talk about the Bears dysfunction and how the Bears have been stuck in a rut and kind of this meandering franchise over the last decade or so.

And that's totally fair. I want you just go back and look at where the Rams were. before they moved to LA and hired Sean McVeigh in 2017. Stan Cronky was still the owner of this team for years and years before this happened. Les Sneed was the GM of this team for years and years before it happened. He was in place when McVeigh got hired. When you're that sort of franchise and you're just kind of puttering along, sometimes you need something transformative to shock you out of it.

And I'm not saying that Ben Johnson is going to be Sean McVeigh, but I think this is the type of transformative swing you need to take when you are an organization that has been stuck in neutral for so long, these half measures that they've taken recently, whether it was Matt Eberflew, Mike McCarthy is that thing to me. That was not the answer for what this team isn't where it needs to go. I have no idea what's going to happen with Ben Johnson, but I know that the upside potentially with this move is what I would have been seeking

out if I were the people in charge of the Chicago Bears. And that's all I have to say about that until we have the rest of the conversation with Bert. So let's get to that and our discussion with Kalin right now. Joining us now from the MMQB in Sports Illustrated. It's Albert Breer. Bert, how are you feeling? You're probably feeling pretty good this morning, huh? Yeah.

This was a, it's been a long day, but a good one. I, yeah, it's an unbelievable, unbelievable, unbelievable experience watching your school international championship. And I've been lucky enough to have three of these now. So it made everything that was wrong with the airport experience in Atlanta this morning. All right. It's made the way that I felt. when I woke up, all right, which was like a little tired.

But yeah, no, it's a fantastic, fantastic night. The best part about it, honestly, I know you went to a big school like I did, but like, it's like, you know, just going to a school like that, like you can go back any fall Saturday and 20 or 30-year friends are there. And, you know, that was so cool. It's like I can always, I can always count on at least like a half dozen people being and things like this with me, which is, you know, pretty awesome. And I definitely don't take that part of it for granted either.

Yeah, it's fun. We were going to try to get back for a football weekend this fall because my wife has never been down to Columbia when that's been happening. And they were obviously good this year. It's relatively close for you, right? It's seven hours. So, I mean, it's still a decent drive, but you can get down there on a Friday afternoon and still make the weekend out of it. The problem is then you got a seven hour drive back and I can't drive on Sunday. So it just becomes a slightly more involved situation than you want it to be.

But we'll get down there again soon because I would like her to experience that. She went to BU, so not exactly a locket's football atmosphere over there at Boston University. You know what? Like when I brought my wife to, so she and I went to an LSU game first, actually, because she came with me on a trip. I did Patriot Saints in 2009. And so she came, like it was last minute. She was like, yeah, I've never been in New Orleans.

She came down. And LSU happened to be playing that Saturday night. So we went to LSU, Arkansas. And after that, she was like, I don't know why anybody doesn't go to a school like this. Like, this is unbelievable. I'm like, yeah, like, people. the Northeast don't really understand, like, what's out there for them. And so, yeah, it's hopefully your wife had the same experience. She'll enjoy it. And we have, when I was at

Missou, it was not an SEC school. When I was at Missouri, it was a big 12 school scope. Obviously, you were probably, were you, you were there when they were really good, right? Chase and my sophomore year was the year was the year with the number one team in the country. Because for people who don't know, I believe, Robert, you were interning, was it the globe? I was this, I was interned the Globe in 2010, which is the year that I graduated from Bizzu. You were there with me, right? Yes. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, because we had you a, that's how me and Robert first met is I was the national NFL writer at the globe, and Robert Mays was the summer intern, which it sounds like nothing, but those are coveted, coveted internships. It's an incredible job.

I mean, you literally are just that you work in the paper. You get to cover pro sports. I mean, it's unbelievable. My third day, I covered the NBA finals. My third, my third day, I was writing a final sidebar on deadline. And it was, I've never done anything like that before. It was one of the most stressful experiences still of my entire professional career. And that's why it's a good job, because they really throw you to the wolves. And that canceled out. That canceled out all the bad stuff that I probably showed you. Listen, I was good to go. It was a very good experience. That was the past. My present is very exciting based on what has happened over the last 24 hours in Chicago. When we were going to start, when we were going to do the show, when I asked you to do the show,

I thought we would just check in on where some of these searches were. And now we're at the end of one of them. And it feels like we might be at the finish line with another. So we'll get to those. But let's start with the Ben Johnson thing in Chicago. When did you think that the dots are probably getting connected here? When did you think that this was likely going to happen? And just let's talk about kind of the selling points for both sides in why they wanted to make this happen.

Well, if you want to give me a little room to kind of take you through the timeline, I think that's, you know, this really, to me, like, started last year. You know, I think Ben, like, had it in his head. He was probably leaving Detroit last year, right? At the beginning of the process. And Chicago, I think, was the one that really piqued his interest last year. So he sees they have the number one overall pick. He sees – and then they don't wind up moving on from Iber Fluse.

Because Iber Fluse did a great job down the stretch that year. They're able to kind of play. mad into another year. And so that's sort of the backdrop for the whole thing. Now, I think, like, over the last year, some of the things that he's prioritized have changed, though. Like, I think before it would have been just like, what does the roster look like? What's the quarterback? And I think, you know, going through the last year, and again, like, kind of maybe continuing

to look inward at what the Lions have done so well, I think two things kind of became really important. him, one, alignment with the general manager, which he obviously observed that in Detroit between Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell. Absolutely. And then number two, an ownership's ability to identify its mistakes and fix them, because not all owners are willing to do that, right? There are plenty of owners in the NFL that will say, like, oh, yeah, like, we messed up this or we met, but then they won't fix it, you know?

So those became priorities for him when he was really looking at where do I want to go, and the quarterback thing kind of fell into the backdrop. And, you know, then at the same time with the Bears, I think when they moved on for Iber Flues, it was such a mess. They were like, we need the leader of men. We need somebody who's going to do more than just coach the one guy. So I think at that point, end of November, it was like, is this really going to happen?

Because it sort of feels like the shifting priorities of the two sides doesn't really work. You know, and then I think Caleb didn't play great down the stretch, as you know. and I think having Thomas Brown stretched thin as like the play caller and the head coach. Which you could see coming from a mile away. And that was my concern with firing that when they did. I understand why you had to do it in the moment. But at the same time,

you had just gotten him to a place that was workable for a month straight against some of the best teams on your schedule. Now you take a guy who's called plays for three weeks. You make him the head coach. You have a first time defensive coordinator. And the optics of it, I understand why you have to move on after that Thanksgiving game. But the drawbacks were very real.

And we realized every single one of the. drawbacks over the final month of the season. It's hard to be a play caller and head coach if you have the entire off season to prepare for it the first time to have to go from like past game coordinator where you don't even have a position room that you're in charge of. You know what I mean? Like you're not really in charge of anything. Like you contribute, but you're not really like the guy in any room to offensive coordinator to head coach is like, that's a dizzying turn of events in a month. And you know, to be fair to Thomas Brown, I don't think very many people could have handled it. It's an impossible task. It would. They,

We're setting everybody up to fail in the interest of we have to fire this guy because of how bad this just went over the last two weeks. Right. And so, like, I think seeing that kind of push them back a little bit towards like, okay, like the quarterback's got to be a priority too. So like we want the leader of men, but the quarterback's got to be a priority too. And then I think for for Ben going through that, you know, okay, like so you start to look at it. It's like Trevor Lawrence, like Trevor Lawrence is good, but he's making $55 million a year. and I might have to inherit Trent Balke. Vegas is clearing stuff out for me,

and I really like what Tom Brady said to me and the sales job they've given me, but how am I going to find a quarterback there? And so I think they kind of get pushed back together a little bit through that. And then, like, you know, I think it's about those sides proving to each other. Ben's got to show Chicago, like,

he can be that leader of men, which I think he can be. It's just not going to look the same way it did in Detroit with Dan Campbell, right? And then I think for the big, Bears, it was, okay, for Ben with the Bears, it was like, okay, am I comfortable with the owner? Am I comfortable with the front office? And I think it just took the process, it took going through the process to get there.

There's a guy there, Jeff King, he played tight end in the league for a bunch of years, who's the third in command there, who I know Ben's got a good comfort level with. And I think that that helped ease the idea, okay, like, am I going to be able to work with Ryan Poles and Ian Cunningham? And so I think, like, it was just sort of like, it's interesting, because, you know, it's like you start one place where like I think Ben would have taken the job a year ago if you were offered it right then you move back and the priorities kind of change and then you kind of come back together so I think in a lot of ways it's going to be good for them in that

like you have to eat they had to ask these questions that are are more than just like oh yeah Ben just go coach the quarterback and call plays you know and I think the fact that they had to ask those questions of each other you hopefully it puts Ben in a better position to succeed it's funny I don't know what they what the bear's answer to this would be, but the idea of where have we missed up before and how can we get it right? Getting this guy when you should have gone after him last off season,

to me, is how you get over the missteps and you get it right. Because the problem with them over the last 15 years has been a lack of alignment where we have a young quarterback and we don't have the guy to get the most out of him. And I understand that you brought Matt Nagy in, but this is different. And while I was looking at this,

I was actually kind of shocked if you go back over the last decade of head coaching hires, and where those guys come from. A guy like Ben Johnson, who was the primary play caller and architect of an offense without an elite quarterback over multiple years,

there aren't that many guys who actually look like this when you consider their background. So what are you trying to say about Jared Gough? Well, no, Jared is not a top three guy, all right? I know, I know. I'm drawing some lines.

Outside of like outside, but you're saying like outside of like the very elite, the Mahomes, I'm talking about like Adam Gase with Peyton Morrow. I'm talking about Brian Dable with John. Allen, like those guys. Josh McDaniels with Tom Brady. Exactly.

But even with those guys, and even if you expanded a little bit further out, most of the head coaching hires that are offensive guys over the last like eight to 10 years have been offensive coordinators for play calling head coaches. Most of them have been of that mold. So if you're looking at the guys who are really, they were the primary play caller for an offense without a top three quarterback and that's why they got this job. The list really starts to whittle down a little bit. you're looking at the current guys. Matt Will Fluer's kind of like that because he was in Tennessee

for that one single year. Stephansky is like that. Shane Stuyken is like that. And Dave Canales is like that. For the most part, these guys were not the play caller where they were. It's not the play calling aspect. It's were you in charge of the offense. So what Ben's background really does align with is that it looks most like McVeigh and Shanahan when they got these jobs. Sean had Kirk Cousins in 2016. They had the top six offense in the league in EPA per dropout, or EPA per play.

And then Kyle worked with Matt Ryan, who was the MVP that year, but by no means, was a consensus top four quarterback in the league. Yeah, so, like, I would say, so he's probably a little more Shanahan than McVeigh. I think that's exactly right personality was. He's going to have to lead his own way,

and he's got to be comfortable in his own skin. Like Mike McDaniel, very comfortable in his own skin. It's why it's worked to, in large part, like the reason why it's worked, because Mike is so comfortable in his own skin. He's not trying to be anybody else. And so, like, that's going to have to be Ben. And I think he's there.

I think having been, like, sort of had his name in the cycle three years in a row now has got him in that position where he is, like, he is comfortable in his own skin. He does know his weaknesses. And he is, he does know where he's going to have to backstop himself. McVeigh is different to me. McVeigh, I think Sean's a unicorn. Like, I- I actually-I-100-per-with-this. This is more about the archetype of coach than what they are. But you know what I'm saying?

Like, I would actually say, like, offensive play calling is probably down the list on what Sean's best. I think that's fair. He's really good at that, too. But he's just, he checks so many boxes. Like, I think Sean's, like, his emotional IQ and his, his, his personality, like, that's number one. Like, his ability, he's almost like Tomlin that way. You know what I mean? And his ability to lead and draw the most out of people.

And, yeah, he's a really good play. color. Yeah, you can work with the quarterback. So I think he's a little different. Like Kyle, Kyle is so damn comfortable with himself and so damn comfortable in his own skin and so confident that he's got the answers to the test. That rubs off on everyone around him. It's actually why, like a lot of those young guys who came up underneath him, I think are almost a little intimidated by him and struggle playing against him sometimes because they've been there and they've seen it. You know what I mean? Like, I think Ben's a little of that. I think Ben's got a lot of that, you know, to him. And so I think he has to conduct himself a little bit like Kyle.

to where it's just make sure I'm being myself, I'm presenting things my way. And I think, like, you know, guys like Amundraa St. Brown and James and Williams, like he had to deal with some big personalities in that, on that, like in that huddle. And, you know, I think being himself is going to be a big part of whether or not he makes it. I 100% agree with all of that. And I think that this is more about the archetype of coach you're choosing from. And if you look at this particular archetype, a guy who is the coordinator of a very successful offense without that MVP level quarterback or that alien level quarterback, those guys have tended to

be successful. This could always go wrong. But if you're playing the percentages, the percentages are in your favor here. And that was always why I supported this, just because I think it's the cleanest path to really good offense. And I think having a really good offense is the cleanest path to being a consistent contender in the week. And I think this was the best way to do that. From a personality perspective, that's always how I'd conceived of this. I think that Ben's resume as a play caller is the most impressive offensive coordinator resume, purely on that level since Kyle's in 2016. And personality-wise, I absolutely, based on everything I've heard, conversations with him, other people, it's more Kyle than Sean.

And I think the thing that Kyle has done very well, outside of instilling that confidence, which makes total sense, I think that Kyle found the right defensive coordinators, not only schematically, but personality-wise, to bring a little bit of juice into that building. If you think about what Sal was, what DeMico Ryan's, was. So that's why if you're going to be a little bit more, I don't know if reserved is necessarily the right way, but you're not going to be that just lightning rod of energy in the building like Sean is. The staff becomes very important. And so him coming out and potentially getting Dennis Allen, just from like, I have a defensive head coach that's going to handle that side of the

ball. It's less for me to worry about that as a starting point for how the staff gets built. That is interesting to me. Well, it's also like having a guy who has experience, having done the job before, which I think is huge. Like having that guy. a resource there. I would say like some of the guys who struggled, like I don't, I don't think Gerard Mayo had enough of that on his staff in New England. I don't think Brian Callahan had enough of that on his staff in Tennessee. Like, and I think Sean would tell you that. It's the Fansky getting Schwartz, I think was important in that way, where you have a guy who'd done the job before. There's just a little bit more support on that side. Yeah, and he had, he had Bill Callahan, who, I mean, Bill's with Brian

in, in Tennessee, but that's like a little different when it's your dad, you know? Like I, and I think with the Rams like, you know, Sean having Wade Phillips at the very beginning was huge for him, because it's just a guy who can be that resource to you where it's like when you need to see around certain corners, he's going to help you see around them. So I think DA's a phenomenal higher from that standpoint for sure. Any thoughts on the offensive staff and what that might look like based on what you've heard over the last couple days? Yeah, I mean, I know he's got, you know, he's got a relationship with Josh McDaniels, which I think Josh will be off the board pretty soon. You know, and there's some carryover there in what,

in, you know, in Ben's background and go in, if you really dig through it, you see, like, he coached for Adam Gase, which is like the, like, there's Patriot roots with what Gates, Gase does. So you certainly could look along those lines at guys. I don't think he's going to go in and raid Dan Campbell's staff. Like, I think there's a reason why, for example, for both Aaron Glenn and Ben Johnson, like Lance Newmark was the guy that was circled as the, as the potential GM. Now, Lance is really good, but you're also not robbing from Detroit if you do that. You know what I mean? Like if Aaron Glenn goes with, if Aaron Glenn gets the Jets job and then Lance Newmark winds up there, like Aaron Glenn's not affecting the Lions by going and getting Lance Newmark because

Lance Newmark's not in Detroit anymore. So I think you're going to see him, I think you're going to see him add some more ideas, guys, to that stuff. Does that make sense? Like, you know what I mean? Like some guys who I think he thinks will, we'll bring some ingenuity into the room. You know, then I think even like if they can land Darren Rizzi,

which that's going to be a little bit of a fight. But if they can land Darren Rizzi, that would be huge too. Because he's another one who just has so much experience in the league. And now it's been a head coach. And, you know, I think that like you could look at that. And Rizzi was with Ben in Miami for a bunch of years. Like you could really see where, like, you're talking about like what Sala.

added from an energy standpoint, right, to Shanahan staff. Like, I think Rizzi could be that guy for Ben. The last thing I wanted to talk about just with how Ben's wired specifically is that my understanding is that delegation can be a bit of a concern where it gets a little bit insular with the process and kind of how he he likes to dot the ties and dot the eyes across the tease with everything. That to me becomes one of the biggest questions. Because if you're a head coach who's also the play caller for your team, you're not going

to be as involved in the game planning process as you would be otherwise. You're going to be pulled in a bunch of different directions. You have to have people that you trust. And it's why hiring an offensive coordinator for a play calling head coach is very different than hiring an offensive coordinator. The skill sets necessary to do that job well as part of a larger staff, that changes. So how he moves into that role and how he learns how to do that, I think is ultimately going to be one of the main concerns, even to go along with all the personality stuff

that people have talked about. So I think like it's sort of interesting. We'll get to Tennessee in a bit. but I think it's sort of like the way Tennessee set it up for for the new GM, Mike Borgonzi, is like they didn't want it. They wanted to fill that role with somebody doing the job that they had done before. Essentially saying like, we're hiring you because we're really good at doing this and we want you to keep doing it. And so, you know, I think that's one thing that, you know, Ben's been really self-aware about is I know what I'm really good at.

and I want to do that. And so I'm going to set things up in a way that's going to support my ability to do that. And I think it's, you use the word delegate. It's like I do wonder, like, you can delegate a certain percentage of it, right? So does he delegate less of the offensive load and more of the other parts of being a head coach? In other words, does he bring in a chief of staff who's going to be able to handle some of the day-to-day stuff that a head coach does? Like, there's ways to do that, right? There's ways where you can delegate some of it where, okay, like now I'm delegating 80% of this and 80% of that and 80% of that.

So I only have to delegate 20% of the offense. You know what I mean? I think that's going to be the equation of Ben's head because I do think like he knows, again, he knows what he's good at and he wants to give the bears what he's good at. And so I think they're going to set things up in a way where he's going to be able to do things. do what he's good at, which again, like the bears have the example of what happens when you stretch somebody, somebody thin from the last two months, right? So they know exactly what that can look like. So they should know where the potholes are. Just kind of taking this from a big picture perspective and like my feelings on this, which I haven't really made public at all since it happened. It's the best outcome in this cycle, in my opinion.

For where you are as a franchise and where you're trying to get, this is the type of bet I would make every single time. From a football level, I think so many people have talked about this in ways that are a little bit confusing. to me where there are these discussions about how Caleb Williams struggles to play on time. And is Ben Johnson the best coordinator for him? He wants to play on time. He wants to play in this sort of offense where I think Ben Johnson can be a really good voice for him. And as I've thought about Ben Johnson in this cycle and specifically for the Bears, I keep coming back to this conversation I had with Jared Golf this summer about the dialogue that him and Ben consistently have and about how well he understood the outlets built into the offense and the intention

behind what they were trying to accomplish. That dialogue between your coach and your play caller, or your quarterback and your play caller, it's a necessary component of success in the modern NFL. And if you can get the cleanest possible path to the best version of that dialogue, you should try to take it. And I think this potentially gives them that.

Yeah, and I think like the creativity will help too because I think it'll remind Caleb a little bit of, you know, what he was used to, you know, both at Oklahoma and USC. That's also a way to create energy. Like that's like what Lincoln Riley does. You know what I mean? Like there's stuff that Ben does that I think is going to like Caleb's going to look at. It's a different system obviously.

But Caleb's going to look at some of this stuff and be like, oh, like, this is just like, we may not like call it the same thing. But this is just like what we did at USC in 2022 or whatever. So I do think like that's going to be there for him. And, you know, again, like I think Caleb, the interesting thing about Caleb is like, you know, I think it's going to be a matter of like trying to figure out what he does well. And then I think, like, that sounds simple, but it's not. Like, you know, you have to really kind of drill down and figure out, like, what he can do best. Because he was further behind than the coaches thought he would be when he got there. And that was part of the reason why they were so aggressive in trying to ramp him up and making a decision to take him so early.

It's because they felt like he needed that. I think the one thing to watch is, like, his, you know, the holding the ball thing, like, that's your internal clock. You know what I mean? Like, so his clock. hasn't caught up to the speed of the NFL game yet. And when a guy's so wildly talented, you don't want to take away his ability to create on his own. But he has to figure out when he can use it and when he can't. And because he's so supremely talented, in high school and college, he could almost, he almost

always had that escape hatch. Well, you know, like if this doesn't work out, I can go make something happen. I think what Ben's going to have to do is teach him, okay, you can't use, like, here's where you can use that escape hash, and here are four other plays where you can't. I think that's going to be a huge part of getting him where he needs to be, because it's something Mahomes had to do, too. You know, like Mahomes had to figure that out too, and he had a year when no one was watching to start to develop that. The last thing I'll talk about just from a football perspective, I know the people are going to mention the Bears' offensive line does not have a talent that the lion's offensive line does. That's 100% true. And I think that has to be a priority for Chicago this off season.

It's not a controversial take. It's not. But I also think that the lions and the thoughtfulness behind their protection plans constantly allowed that offensive line to look as good as it was. The Bears offensive line looked worse because they were on the other end of the spectrum. And so having an offensive coordinator and an offensive coach that is as good at protections and plans for protection as really any coach in the NFL right now, that to me is. another very, very key difference for what this offense is going to potentially look like. You need better personnel, but the nuts and bolts of it are going to be significantly better than they have been. Yeah, I mean, having Taylor Decker and Pne Sewell and and

it's important. It's important. But if you look at how buttoned up those guys are, the backs are always going to the right place. It's, it's going to be a big change and I think it's going to be a necessary change. Let's stick in the NFC North, the coaching news there. Kevin O'Connell, this just happened right before we started recording. signs a multi-year extension with the Vikings, nothing surprising about this. The ultimate no-brainer. I mean, he's done such a good job.

And look, like a lot of people are going to focus on what happened in the playoffs. But I mean, if you're talking about a coach for the next 10 years, or the five guys you would take over him? Probably not. Probably not, right? I mean, we could do it. We could go through the exercise. But you probably, you're right there.

Yeah, you're right. I mean, he's got to be. He's probably in that group. If not, he's like right, like the next one, you know? So, like, what was interesting about this to me, is I do think there was a thought there. Do I do what my old quarterback Kirk would do? Do I go to the market?

And I'm just fascinated to see if that ever does happen. You know what I mean? Like, because we've always talked about like, you know, with quarterbacks, like, would a team churned the quarterback position? Rather than paying, would you like keep drafting them and try to like kind of keep the advantage of having a rookie quarterback? But no one's really got the, no one's really got the stomach to do it. I mean, because the McCarthy thing is different. It's not the same. That wasn't voluntary.

You know what I mean? Would a coach ever voluntarily play his contract out knowing I'm going to be able to drive the market to the moon if I make it to my walk? To make it to the end of my walk here. That's a really good question. I wonder if the price tax. I feel like this is as close as we've gotten. You know what I mean? Like, I don't know.

It actually became a story. If you look at the highest paid guys in the league, almost all of them. have either won a Super Bowl or been to a Super Bowl, correct? So it's Andy Reid, it's Mike Tomlin, it's John Payton, it's McVey, it's Shanahan. And so I assume Harbaugh. And Johnson probably comes in at the lower end of those guys without having done that. I wonder if there's any sort of gamesmanship there about, well, Ben Johnson gets 13 million. That's what I want, even though I'm not as accomplished as the other guys in that range.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I know I think that's it. And I think it's, you know, I mean, look, like, I've always said this. Like, I'm like, there's no salary. a cap on coaches and you can, I mean, if you're paying 15 million for your coach, like, equate that to a player.

It's insane. Go to like over the cap. Go to the cap or whatever. Just scroll down. You'll see what level of player. And no offense to those guys. But, but like your third receiver is not as important as your head coach. You know what I mean?

The idea that these coaches are getting darnel Mooney money and we're balking at it is insane. I'm okay. Like, we can't give them $11 million. What? Like, you're spending, like, $270 million on your roster. And you're not willing to go to 12 on, like, a coach who's clearly doing the job at an incredibly high level. I mean, we could use the C word here, too, because I think that that does come into play with this particular topic, too. Which, I mean, look, the league keeps a database.

I've I I there are stories about hidden money so the other owners don't see what you're paying for your coach there's all kinds of skull dougery I think might be the right word for it that goes on with how coaches are paid but I mean if I'm an owner I think you know I look at it and I say like that's that's that's a that's a place where I can gain an advantage it's not against a salary cap you know what I mean like so um you know in Kevin's case I think it was just you got a I mean you have to pay him. You know what I mean? You have to take care of him because he has been such a huge part of what they've done

the last three years. And it looks like the future for him is even brighter than the present. Let's get to the last hiring, that last hire that's actually happened here over the last few days. Like we alluded to, Mike Borganzi goes to Tennessee as their GM. Just walk me through the thought process there. Why is he a solution for what that organization wants to be in a way that the setup

with Chad Brinker, their president and Rand Carthoff was not? So I think it's like, I think the setup there is it's looking at it and saying is the NFL in general behind other sports. And I don't know enough about the NBA or Major League Baseball or the NHL to know exactly how front offices are structured. But I do know there are a lot of smart NFL people who feel like the NFL is behind those other sports in the way that they're just set up and structured where it's really hard to put your best scouts. which ostensibly should be your GM in charge of everything. So, you know, a lot of times these guys get in these jobs and it's like, oh, my God, you mean I'm responsible for the grass getting mode? You know what I mean?

Like, why should that guy be in charge of it? Why should that guy be responsible for that? I think is what this is doing, you know? And it's putting somebody at the top of the masthead and Chad Brinker and then saying, like, I think we almost create like a board of directors, right? So it's going to be like we have a GM, you know, like a head of performance or, like, the performance would be under the GM. So I think it'd be like analytics, football ops, coaching, scouting.

Those are like different departments. And then you have your GM is like run scouting. You know what I mean? Like and the president of football ops is sort of oversight to make sure everything is aligned properly. It's an interesting idea. And it's a pretty big departure from what they used to be like. It's a huge departure. It's a very, very small shop.

And they were very traditional and very old school. And, you know, you've heard for years have the people. Patriots were always small intentionally because they're insular and because they just wanted everybody wearing every different hat. And I think that's that's the way with John Robinson and Mike Frable, they were structured. And so, you know, I think a lot of it's trying to modernize it and try to trying to get the team, get to a place where like you have a guy over the top who is basically overseeing the vision for the whole football operation. And then you have, you know, you have your GM, you have the coach report into the GM, so they're working on the types of players you're bringing in the building.

And then you've got these other departments that are backstopping it. Football ops is backstopping it. Analytics is backstopping it. I'm fascinated by this one. Like, and I know it's the Titans and it's a small market and no one cares. And you're probably, your producer's probably not going to clip this because it's the Titans. You know what I mean? But I think it's, I think it's going to be fascinating to see the way this turns out because I will say, like, I think, Chad Brinker, Mike Borgonzi, and Brian Callahan are all really, really smart, really, really capable. And I know that didn't show last year in Tennessee with Brinker and Callahan. But Mike Borgonzi is one of these guys.

There are a couple of them. John Spitech in Tampa is another. Will McLeigh and Dallas, if he ever wanted to leave, would be another. Where it's like, how is this guy not a general manager already? So they were able to get that guy into this job, which some people would already. argue is that a real GM job? No, it's going to give them a chance to be a traditional GM. And then the guy on top of them has got oversight over the other areas. I'm just fascinated to see how this all turns out. It's funny, the chiefs have now kind of been picked over. It took a while. But a lot of

their guys who are like their second and third lieutenants are now either running a franchise or number two's elsewhere over the last few years. Poles goes to Chicago. Brent Tillis is in Carolina. And now Mike Porganzi is in Tennessee. So if you look at like the masked head for the chiefs in 2020. Those are the guys now who are not running their own shops. Which is how this works, but it did take a little while. Maybe I think, so I think the guy who's going to be next up that, like, I don't know if we'll get the assistant GM title might be Mike Bradway. He was Terry Bradway.

Remember the old Jess GM, Terry Bradway? His son, Mike, I think might be the next one that kind of moves up the ladder underneath, underneath Brett Veach. But obviously, I mean, why wouldn't you want a piece? And people will just, people will say like, oh, it's Andy and Mahomes. It's more than that. Like, you look at that defense. Like Chris Jones has been there a long time, but other than that, they've got a bunch of guys on rookie contracts that are ballers.

The way they've remade that thing and the way that they consciously remade it after the Tyreek trade, I think was smart and it was inspired. And I think that there's a lot to be gained from how they run things over there. Now there's a lot of big decisions. Obviously, they'll have the number one pick. I'll have to assume they'll probably be looking at a quarterback to like kickstart this thing. And we'll go from there. And that's going to be fast.

The quarterback things would be fascinating. too because I don't know that there's one worthy of going first overall, which would, you and I have plenty of time to discuss that over the next few months. And that becomes an entire conversation about even if he's not, do you have to do it because you have to take multiple bites at it? Is there you're going to have a better opportunity than this? Like there's always those conversations. Yeah.

Well, three months to have them. All right, before we keep going with this conversation, let's take a quick break. Let's run through the remaining jobs, the head coaching jobs that are still on the board. Let's start with the Jets because it feels like that one might be getting close to the finish line with the Jets and Aaron Glenn. We're recording this at about 5.40 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. Where are we at with Aaron Glenn and the Jets? Yeah, I think my guess would be this one gets pushed over the finish line.

Not positive, but I think that this one does get pushed. You know, I think that what the Jets were looking for, the Jets were looking for a program leader first, but I think they were also looking for somebody who would embrace being there, who'd embrace being a part of it, who'd embrace coming in and like, yes, like this is, you know, I, like, I want, I want to be in New York. I want the pressure of it. I want to be the one that's going to make this, turn this around, and it's not going to be a circus anymore under me. And so I think, like, A.G definitely embodies a lot of that. And, you know, their whole, their whole philosophy and building this whole thing out. And the Saints really like him too, which I think is like a really, if you're the Jets, like that makes him more attractive because the Saints know him really well, you know?

Yeah. It's funny because this is going to be one of those situations. If he is just a monster home run for the Jets, the Saints are going to be telling stories 10 years from now where it's like, remember that snowstorm where we couldn't interview Aaron Glenn to have him be the head coach? Like this is one type of thing that we'll go down in like a terrible sports team lore way if Aaron Glenn becomes a really, really good head coach for the Jets. and the Saints miss on whoever they go with next. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it is. And it's so, like, and I, the, the jets, the way the Jets were going to do this all along was like,

we're going to go find the best person, whether it's the head coach or the GM, and then we're going to build out, right? So it's like, if it was the head coach, pick a GM that aligns with him. Same thing the other way around. If they pick the GM, head coach. So, so, yeah, like, I think in this case, it's like, I think in this case, you know, you would look at it and say, okay, you have Aaron Glenn in, Lance Newmark, comes in as the general manager, and like we said earlier, he's got the alignment, and that makes sense.

Some breaking news, hitting the wires here at 4.40 p.m. Which is why it might have sounded a little distracted there, but yeah, yeah. Ian Rappaport reporting that Josh McDaniels back to New England is the offensive coordinator, independent of whether this is a good or bad move, to me, this is the funniest possible outcome. Why is it funny? Because you went through all of this to like make a show of moving on from Belichick and wanting things to be different. And now you land in the exact same spot. It's very funny to me.

I get it. It might be your best option. But the fact that this is the place they landed after all of that, I just think is really silly. It's really interesting. It's like, and I think they did consider some different stuff. They brought in Grant Yudinsky, who I think got a chance to be really, really good up in the Vikings. and they've kicked around some other names. I think ownership is a big fan of Josh.

So let's start there. That's number one. So I think that that part of it is a factor. There's also like the you're not going to lose him thing, right? Because he's probably not going to be a head coach again. So you don't need to worry about we're going to bring in this young guy and he's going to kill it. And then in three years we're right back at square one. We've got to start over again.

Josh is like rooted in the area. like isn't going to be probably isn't going to get a third shot at being a head coach so you're going to have an opportunity for drake may really to grow with them and then you know I think the other thing is Josh did take the year and look at a lot of different things like just as far as like how do I have to evolve my offense he met with college programs he met with he met with NFL teams and like I think one of the one of the main focuses for him was like how do I make my offense more user friendly I think that's one thing he got from looking at college offenses was like, okay, was the bar for, was the barrier for

entry too high? They always struggled like getting young receivers going in New England. And they were able to get quarterbacks going. That's the interesting thing. It's like they got Mack Jones going. They got Jacoby Brissette going. They got Jimmy Garapal going. So they're able to do that. But in other positions, the barrier for entry seemed to be really high for young players. So that's the question. It's like, can you, you know, can you pull that? Are you, are you going to be able to pull that off. It's going to be interesting. I think the barrier for entry to quarterbacks is also extremely high. And it's kind of unique in the way that most modern offenses work, what they put

on the quarterback pre-snap. And a lot of those guys have been okay with it. But I wonder if even that took some reflection. And there might be some tweaks there with like maybe we don't put everything on the quarterback in the system. Well, and yeah, I mean, I would say this. Like one thing he did with Mack Jones is like we've talked a lot about like the Jared Gough, Sean McVeigh thing, you know, that where Sean was in Jared Zier until a 15-second cutoff? That's the other side of it. Josh did the same thing with Mac Jones when Mac was a rookie. So I think Josh can be creative about that with the quarterback.

Like I think the bigger question is like, okay, like, what does this look like for the other guys? If they draft a young receiver, are you waiting a year before he can play? You know, I think that's something that Josh has put a lot of time into working on over the course of the last year that he's had out. What do we think about Lance Newmark as the potential GM with the Jets? I don't know a lot about him other than just the details of his background. I mean, he's really well respected. Obviously, it was a big part of them building it up in Detroit the last few years. The flip side is he was in Detroit a long time.

You know what I mean? So he saw a lot of – he was there for a lot of the bad years, too. And, you know, like I think everybody who came – everybody who went through there had a ton of respect for him. Like so over different regimes, shared an ability to work. work with all kinds of different people. Low ego. I mean, there's a reason why Adam Peters went and tapped him in Washington.

And obviously, like, he saw a very, a very swift turn around there. Like, no one saw that coming. Even the guys in the building didn't see that coming. So I think Lance is, I think Lance will align with AG. He'll know what AG is looking for. And, you know, I think the thing, I think if that's what it winds up being, then it has a real chance to work. I'm excited about Aaron Glenn as a head coach.

I just think it's hard to walk away from a conversation with Aaron Glenn and not be excited. No, I mean, like, it's like you sit down with with with with with with with Aaron Glenn for five minutes and it's like this guy's a head coach. So he has a vision for how he wants his teams to play. And I think if you're going to be a defensive head coach or you're going to be even like a CEO type of coach, that's important. It's simple right, but it's simple right. But it is like it's a lot of the same strengths Dan Campbell has. Yeah. It's packaged differently.

You know what I mean? Like he's not the same personality as damn, but like I think a lot of the strengths are exactly the same. And I think one thing you can say for him, like that defense was able to get the most out of just about everybody. Like they were able, the way that they were able to use different guys, I mean, just maximizing every single player that you were responsible for, I think is a huge, huge draw. If you're another, if you're a team looking at Aaron Glenn as a head coach, because he's going to be. be able to draw that out of all of your players. And I think maybe the best example is Amic Robertson, right? Like who was a scrap he'd pick up in week 18.

He's on Justin Jefferson, right? And then in the playoffs, they lose him and it's devastating. Like, can you imagine thinking that like in August or September? Like Amique Robertson's injury is going to be the one that breaks the camel's back for Detroit. Yet they had him playing at such a high level. That's exactly what it became, you know? There's so many guys. I mean, you watch like Chris Nowwaski.

the back half of the season or Pat O'Connor, the way that Al-Qadine Muhammad was playing. It just, again, there was a certain energy to every single guy who stepped onto that defense. And I think that's exactly what you're hoping for. And I fell apart at the end, but it didn't fell apart for two months when it probably should have. And I think that he deserves a lot of credit for that. So if he goes to the Jets, who do we think goes to the Saints? So I, I, there's a part of me that still thinks is Mike McCarthy. you know, at the beginning of the process, again, these things can change.

But Mickey Loomis, I think, wanted some experience. And I think just because of where they've been and what they've been through, maybe somebody that he had some background with. And so Mike McCarthy and Loomis, for people who don't know, were together for five years. And it was Loomis' first five years in New Orleans from 2000 to 2004. McCarthy was the offensive coordinator there. I think he does make some sense if you're looking to win with the Corps as presently constituted. And I don't get the feeling.

I think they should tear it down. You don't get the feeling they will. Shocker. I don't really get the – I'm not sure that they will. But if you want to get the most out of Derek Carr and bridge that to the next quarterback, like Mike McCarthy is a sensible choice. Like I don't know. Like I've had like this thing the last couple of weeks from, like, what's the difference between Mike McCarthy and Mike Tomlin?

when you look at their resumes. Sensible choice is a very good way to put it. And I think that's kind of how I was framing the McCarthy thing when people were talking about it with the theirs. And I actually think McCarthy's like acquitted himself pretty well. I agree with that. Like three 12 one seasons. Then this year, everything that could go wrong does go wrong. You're in a contract year, which is really rare.

All of your coaches are in contract years, which can create real tension. And he was able to manage all of that. And they were still competitive at the end of the year. I know they didn't win win. But like to have that team like in the chase in December, on everything that had happened, I think was pretty remarkable. I don't disagree with that. And I actually think that he's sensible, capable, all of those things, I think, apply to what

McCarthy has done in Dallas. Yeah. My concern there is just that I was really hoping that they would potentially do something that changed the direction of things. That was a little bit more aggressive and that was a little bit more pronounced. And it was like, this is clearly a signal that we think we need to do something drastic because we're stuck in a little bit. I think Joe Brady would be much more.

It's an interesting name. It's an interesting name. They do have background with him, of course. Maybe a tad overblown. It was like, what, a year or two, right? Like so. Yeah. They do have, they do have background with him. And, you know, obviously, like, he knows the bones of that place. So, like, he would make some sense, too, if you want to middle it a little bit where you're bringing in a young guy who's going to bring new ideas and everything else, but still have, like, some level of, of background and experience with the organization. If I were the Saints, I would be frustrated if I were a Saints fan, I'd be frustrated if it was Mike McCarthy simply because I don't think you're at that point of your franchise. The idea of like we need to just get a steady hand on the wheel because we're headed in the right direction. That's not really how I feel about the Saints. And I don't think Saints fans feel that way. I think they understand that they need to take a left turn here somewhere along the way. And Mike McCarthy just doesn't scream that to me.

Right, right. And I do think like that's the one thing to watch. with like, you know, Mickey's done a great job there, obviously, over the years. It does make you wonder, is like, is Mickey just in it to try to win right now? You know what I mean? Like, because he's an older general manager and does he have the patience for a rebuild? Because I do think, like, you know, at some point, at some point, like, we always say that, right? Like, at some point, don't you have to hurt the bandaid off?

You know what I mean? You'd think, but they're going to keep proving us wrong, I think, as long as they can. You know what's funny about that, though, is people, like, do. like, oh, it's magic. Like, they've done a good job drafting and developing over the years. But it is what cost them Trey Hendrickson. It is what cost them Alex Anzolone. You know what I mean?

It is what cost them Marcus Williams. So, like, doing it this way has, like, actually had an effect in that, like, they've had to let, like, good players walk because of their cap situation. To me, the cap situation is not as important as the way that they've approached the draft. Having these over and over again, making these huge swings. Big swings. Trading away future draft capital and monstrous future draft capital in service of trying to get the right pieces and win right now. That to me is a bigger problem than the cap stuff is.

Trading away a future first for Marcus Davenport. Trading away everything you did to go get Trevor Penning. Like that's the type of stuff where you need to take it easy because no one succeeds doing it that way. There are teams who balance moving money around with draft app. You're eliminating your margin for error. That's exactly right. hard. And so by doing the money the way that they do, you increase your margin for error, right?

So look at the Eagles are the perfect example to me. We don't notice the mistakes the Eagles make because of how much cash they're willing to spend. But one of the other reasons we don't notice the mistakes that the Eagles make is they're constantly finding second round picks in their back pocket because the Saints are giving them to them. So you have to balance those things together. Well, the Eagles quietly have the cap is the Eagle. The Eagles cap is like, you look a couple of years down the road just like, you know what I mean? Like the Eagles aren't talked about the Saints. And rightfully so, the Eagles have been very successful and have sustained success and everything else.

But if you start to like really look hard at like where the Eagles are going to be in a cap standpoint. From a cap standpoint in a couple of years, it gets a little sketchy. Well, that's the goal is can you can you outrun it? And with the Saints, if the pandemic had never happened, there's an argument that they still could have outrun it. You just can't combine that with giving away draft picks and consistently missing on them. I think it's interesting, too, because it's like, you know, if you go and look at like this year's dead cap, some of the best teams in the league are leading the NFL in dead cap this year. That's what I mean.

You can outrun it. It is possible. But you have to hit on draft picks. Exactly. You have to offset it. And if you give away draft picks, you have less of a chance of hitting on them. The Rams ate it in 23. You know what I mean?

They ate it from a cap standpoint. But they were able to make the playoffs. why? Well, because they drafted Pooka Nakuwa and Kobe Turner and Byron Young. And this year, they've still got some dead cap they're dealing with. They draft Jared Verst. They draft Braden Fisk. You know, that's the way you outrun it. You do it like Buffalo's replacing, you know, what is it? Mike and Pott hides, I guess, back in the practice squad, but you're essentially replacing him, Jordan Poyer, Tradavius White, you know, Mitch Moore, Stefan Diggs. It's because you've continued to feed that pipeline. And you're doing a good job of

bringing up young guys where, hey, we're going to have $60 million on our cap this year that counts for no players. Well, okay, but then we've got this guy making $2 million who's starting for us. Two more coaching searches before we get out of here. What do we make of the state of the Jaguar search right now? Yeah, I think Liam Cohen would be the name to watch and Robert Sala. I think those would be the two.

Liam is interesting because Liam has been now an offensive coordinator they pretty much four times, if you think about it. So Kentucky the first time, Rams. Kentucky the second time, Bucks. He's got to work with a variety of different types of people. And I think one thing that's interesting about him is quarterback seemed to play really well under him. You know, he's the one who got the great year out of Will Levis at Kentucky. He is the one who got Baker-Mayfield up and running in Los Angeles on short notice.

and he was able to get a great year out of, out of Baker Mayfield this year, despite the fact that Baker Mayfield has played in how many offenses over the last three or four years where everything could be all jumbled in his head about like, what am I looking at? What am I doing? So I think Liam is an interesting one. Robert Salas in the mix there too. And, you know, I think Salas' background with the organization helps him there. It's just what's interesting to me about that one is just the presence of Trent Balki and kind of how that's hovered over the whole search and how I think, I think it hurt them with Ben Johnson. You know, I think it hurt them, you know, with, you know, an ability to go and try to get a Mike Vrable. I just don't get that part of it. You know what I mean? There's no way you could explain it to me in a way that makes sense. Yeah.

Yeah. Liam Cohen always was the name I was looking at there. Purely from a, you look at what he did with that buck's offense. And I just think that sort of that approach and how transformative it was. was for the run game, just every element of who the bucks were this year. And we talk about guys with that background where you're a coordinator for a top five offense without a truly elite quarterback. He also fits that mold.

Like that's exactly what he did with Baker Mayfield this year. So him with Trevor Lawrence and with that offense and the personnel that they have, I would be very excited to see that. So that one makes total sense to me. Let's, before we get out of here, let's talk about the Dallas Cowboys. This is, it's awesome. This isn't like a five-minute conversation. conversation.

But it kind of is, though, right? Because the fact that we've landed in a place where the names are Dionne Sanders for reasons that I think we all understand. And then we get back to a place where the names are Kellyn Moore and Brian Schottenheimer. This is the Dallas Cowboys. Like, there's nothing about this that should be surprising to any of us. Yeah. I mean, it's just like the back, I mean, look, like they went in the, like, I personally think

that if McCarthy has term left on his contract, he's still there, which makes this whole thing wild. So you don't have the head coach that you really wanted to have because of a contract and because you wanted to make a point about coaching contracts and not having dead money and all the rest of it. So now you put yourself a week behind everybody else, you know, in the coaching hiring cycle, and you're scrambling and it doesn't feel like there's real direction on where they go. I mean, I think Dion, like, I think Dion's misperceived a little bit. He's actually, like, really old school coach who's demanding on his players, who's tough, who I think is a good fundamental coach.

Like, it's weird to, like, think because of all the flash that he's that. But I think if you surround him with the right people, he could actually do the job. But is that the reason that Jerry would hire him to be the head coach of the Cowboys? No, it's not. No, it's because of, what was that line? If you want, you've seen the Netflix trailer, right? What was the line? I try to avoid it.

Go watch the Netflix. There's a line in there where he says, this is much bigger than football, which is like sort of the problem. You know what I mean? Like so. If I were a Cowboys fan, I would throw my TV out the window. Yeah. So it's like, you know, I think that that part of it is, you know, like I, doing it for that reason is wrong. I don't think like, I don't think he'd be incapable as a head coach in the NFL.

Like, because look, like, what do you do at Colorado's? I mean, you know, you went to, oh, you went to school arrival of Colorado. That is mind-blowing what he just did in Colorado over the last couple of years. He deserves credit for it. He brought along a young quarterback who happened to be his son, so he gets points for that too. You know, and so I think that that has some merit. To me, I still think they probably wind up landing on Callan Moore because you have, he's a good football coach. He's interviewed well, the places that he's gone.

he's a quarterback's guy, which is, you know, always a plus. And then there's that part for Jerry that he had with Jason Garrett where, I think part of the reason why, you know, Jerry hung on to Jason Garrett for as long as he did. He sort of viewed Jason Garrett as his creation. You know what I mean? Like I'm the one who let him in the game planning meeting when he was still a player. I'm the one who, you know, brought him back and made him an offensive coordinator before a lot of people thought he was ready. I'm the one who put him on a track to become a head coach.

I'm the one who paid out the nose to make sure that he didn't go somewhere else after he had some experience as a coordinator. But Kellan Moore is in a lot of ways sort of that guy for Jerry. And I think that that appeals to Jerry. Like the idea like this guy could be this guy's sort of my creation. Whether that's fair or not, I think it could be part of the equation. So you're saying that Jerry would be rather, Jerry would rather be right than win football games. I'm not saying that. I'm also not not saying that.

I'm also not not saying that. Yeah. So the fact that we've gotten here where it's Kellynne Moore and Brian Schottenheimer, I can understand where it's frustrating if you're a Cowboys fan, but I find it not the least. I think Callen Moore's really good, though. Listen, I think Kelmore could be good at the job.

That's not what I'm saying here. I just think that the fact that Kellan Moore, that happened almost immediately, it's just very predictable. It's just how the Cowboys operate. He's a known quantity. I'm sure there is some of that where it's like, you know,

he was raised here. We know what we're getting. It's just how they've operated for a long time. They've operated on these weird set of principles that I don't totally understand, but that's just how they've been. Yep. All right. Albert Breer, thank you very, very much for the time, sir. I will let you get to all of the stuff that you have to worry about right now.

I know you're a very busy man. Congratulations again about the Ohio State win yesterday, and we will talk to you very soon. Thanks, Robert. I appreciate you having me. All right, before we get to Kaelin, we're going to take a quick break. Joining us now to discuss her excellent story on just the idea of coach GM packaging and some of the way that the coaching agent world works as part of this process is my little colleague from the athletic now at ESPN. Kael and Kailen, how are you? Hey, Robert. Thanks for having me. Doing well. Very excited to have this conversation with you. This is a world that I've long been fascinated with. And I think that this is something that I think some people understood from afar that was happening in the NFL where there are a lot of these decisions that were made for assistant jobs. head coach jobs, general manager jobs, because of proximity to other candidates based on who your

agent was. And you did a fascinating job, just kind of really digging into that world and providing some details on how it works. The first question I want to ask you, and this is more for my edification than anything else because I'm curious, what sent you down this road? Because I'm always interested in that when it comes to like a reporter sinking their teeth into a story like this. Yeah, so it originally began probably three years ago. I did a story about nepotism hiring, which is similar to this, but different. So I was counting like how many coaches were actually related to each other by marriage or biologically, like father-son, duos, uncles, grandparents, whatever, all of that because we know that's a huge

part of how football hiring works as well is, you know, oh, as a father hiring his son or the familial connections in that way. So when I was reporting for that story, I'd obviously talk to a ton of people. And when you start digging into the hiring, process, you know, people are like, well, why don't you look at this? Why don't you look at that? Like, what about, you know, because one thing I didn't get into in this story is how agents who represent players and general managers, how that can be a conflict of interest as well, because that happens all the time. And I didn't even get into that in this because I was like, okay, this is 5,000

words. This is way too long already. Like, that's a whole separate story. So when I was doing the nepotism story, someone told me, hey, you should look at the agent. connections because that's honestly a bigger influence than even nepotism is or it's an equal influence. And I was like, okay, that's interesting. But again, that sounds like a separate story because the nepotism story was long enough. So I was like, all right, I'll save this one for later. Circle back to that another time. And then last year when the Bears hired Shane Waldron, and I'm not sure how I found out, but I heard somehow that like he was an athlete's first client. And originally I thought he was actually directly represented by Trace Armstrong, but he's not.

Trace is so that it's interesting. So Shane's direct agent is Kyle McCarthy at Athletes First, but Trace is the guy who runs the entire coaching division. Yeah. So when you talk to people, when you say, well, Trace isn't his agent, people would be like, but like he, come on, you know, they all work together. They're, they coordinate. And actually, I mean, I will give athletes first credit for that.

They are very coordinated. They have many different coaching agents. They work together to, to cooperate and like. pair their guys together, get their guys jobs together. Like they do a very good job at that. And so when the Bears hired Shane Waldron and they had interviewed a bunch of other people that seemed like better fits for the job, such as Cliff Kingsbury, I was like, huh, that's weird.

And then you find out that he's athletes first. And then you start thinking, wait a second. So Trace Armstrong represented Matt Nagy. He represented Mark Halfrick, who was Nagy's first offensive coordinator, which was not a very successful pairing. And out of the box type hire where you're wondering how do you make that initial connection? And then the answer is very simple and easy. Exactly.

They hadn't worked together before. And then wasn't Tom Herman involved in that staff somehow? Yes, he was. He was like an analyst on that staff for a second. Yeah. I didn't even like mention that in this story. But somebody texted me after this came out and they were like, you forgot about Tom Herman. He's also rep by Trace.

And I was like, oh, interesting. So you see that. And then you see he represents Ryan Poles. and then Ryan Poles gets hired as general manager. He interviews three finalists, head coaches for the position. He picks Matt Ibrflus, who he describes as knowing right when he walked in the door that that was the coach. And it turns out they have the same agent.

And it turns out that they likely, I was not able to confirm exactly when they first met each other. But like in the story, the Bears website, the team website reported that Iberflus and Poles, the first time they met was they shared a tea time at what the website. called an NFL growth and development summit. And I was like, hmm, sounds like an athlete's first summit that they do every off season. solely for the purposes of networking with other clients. Exactly.

Which again, a great feature of being represented by an agency. Like there's nothing wrong with that. They are doing a great job. So I reach out to the NFL and I'm like, would you guys have any growth and development summits in 2020? that sounds like it meets this description. And they were like, it literally was like in Orlando or like in a Florida golf course,

the Bears team website. And the NFL said, no, we didn't have anything like that. And so polls and Iberflus didn't talk to me. So I wasn't able to confirm with them that like that, that an athlete's first summit is where they met. But I'm,

I'm just inferring that it is because I had a source tell me that that's where Getsy met Eberfluse. They never worked together before either. They met at an athlete's first convention. And I got the 2021 program, which lists like all of the attendees. Now, that doesn't mean the person necessarily was there, but they're listed as, you know,

confirming that they were going to go. And 2021, so that's six months before everybody was hired on the last Chicago staff. And Poles was there, Iberfuss was there, Getsi was there, Shane Waldron was there, Richard Hightower was there, you just go down the list of everybody on that staff who was represented by athletes first.

And so I thought that was very interesting. And actually, Carrie Joseph was not listed as an attendee, but I did confirm that Carrie Joseph, I confirmed with Carrie himself that Gary Joseph is represented by athletes first agent Nick Polk. So it went all the way down to the quarterback coach in the construction of the Bears. It goes all the way to the bottom. Literally. And like the construction of the Bears offensive coaching staff this year just made no sense. Brad Biggs did a really good job of breaking it down earlier this year in a column in one of his columns in the Chicago Tribune.

And he was like they didn't have anybody who had proven experience developing a rookie quarterback that they hired. and, you know, not to criticize Carrie Joseph, but he had not been an NFL coach for very long. He was an assistant quarterback's coach in Seattle. I don't know. It just didn't make really a lot of sense when you're putting your entire franchise. Like, this is the biggest thing you need to do is develop Caleb Williams. The hiring of their offensive staff just didn't make a ton of sense to me. So long answer, that's how I got interested in it because I was like, okay, I think now is finally the time to write this because everything was going wrong in Chicago.

And then I was like, okay, let's see how it is a Chicago problem, but it's not a uniquely Chicago problem. It's not at all. It's a need wide that this is happening. I can't tell you how many times I've asked a coach when they were putting together a staff when it was a decision that seemed a little bit out of left field or one where you can't make the immediate connection. And I said, how did you land on that guy?

How did you get in touch with that guy? Oh, we have the same agent. It's kind of shocking how often it happens. And so this brings me to, I think, the biggest. question associated with this for two different reasons is this about backdoor dealings and some puppet master stuff where this is some like ingenious planning by the agencies or is this a very bad process and a lack of information from the teams making these decisions because i think it's probably a little bit of both i tend to lean towards the incompetency side rather than the

malicious scheming side and that's because i just don't think there's a very good infrastructure in place for organizations to find these people and for teams that are five, ten billion dollar companies to make choices the way they do when they hire assistants especially but often head coaches and general managers how truncated the processes and how limited the scope is it's truly shocking to me. It's one of the more truly shocking parts of how the NFL works as you get a little bit more proximity to it. I agree it's definitely more the incompetency and the the flawed process because

I talked to Rod Graves, who is actually used to be a Bears personnel executive, then was the Arizona Cardinals general manager for a long time, and now runs the Fitzpollary Alliance, which is an organization that tries to help the NFL with improving diversity hiring and equitable hiring practices. And so he said, I think his quote in the story was like, it's a really unsophisticated business or an unsophisticated process for a billion dollar business. And the reason that is, and he said agents, his quote was, agents are just filling the void. And the void that he describes is what you just said is that when owners enter the hiring process, not all of them, but most of them don't have a great idea of what they're after and what they're looking for in a head coach candidate. And you can sort of see that in the breadth of interviews that people are requesting of like, you know, and you do want to request people of different backgrounds.

So it's hard to read into that specifically. But I talked to one former head coach who interviewed for more than 10 head coaching positions. And he was a head coach, but he has experience in these situations with 10 different owners. And he said only one of them, which was the Eagles Jeffrey Lurie, actually told him that he remembered specifically. Like, this is exactly what I want. And Lurie told him he wants an offensive coordinator. And here's why. And he kind of walked through all these different things that he felt could derail someone from becoming.

a good head coach. And this ex-NFL head coach said that was a departure from most of his interviews because most of them weren't able to tell him exactly what they wanted. And so Rod Graves points out, well, agents are just filling this void. And the NFL has tried really hard. I will give the league officer some credit. They've tried really hard to also fill the void. But there isn't, you know, they don't credential NFL coaching agents.

Like the NFL Players Union, Credentials Player agents. but there is no governing body that is overseeing coaching agents. So there's a lot more leeway, you know, there's a lot, there's no regulation essentially or oversight of what's going on here. So the league can put out all of this information. They publish a ready list with candidates that they think are ready for jobs based off of research at the league office has done. They obviously have the accelerator program where they are inviting minority candidates to

have face time with ownership so that owners can get to know people that they would otherwise not really be aware of or ever get to meet. They put out a best hiring or best practices hiring guide every year that they update. And in that literature, they're telling team specifically, there's a part in there that says, be aware of where your referrals are coming from, particularly when it comes to coaching agents and media. They put media in the same sentence as coaching agents, which I think is very valid. I would 100% agree with that. I think those two bodies are leaned on more in this process than the general fan would have any understanding of? Completely.

So the league is trying their best and they're tracking the agent representation themselves so that they can stay up to date on like, okay, who's controlling this? Like who has the most influence in this process? And like they also are tracking with each agent. How many minority clients are they representing who are getting interviews? Because in the case of Bob Lamont, who is the grandfather of coaching agents in the NFL, he's like the guy who basically started the whole business and everybody everybody sort of went into it after him. And a lot of what they do is modeled after what he's done.

And still is a massive roster, by the way. Yeah, massive roster. And he has for a long time paired his clients together. And he likes doing that because, you know, he thinks he represents the best people. So why not put the best people together and have your clients who have shared values working together? Anyways, Bob Lamont, the league's data for going into the 20, 23 season. He represented 22 people who were in supervisory roles, which the league defines as head coach, general manager, or coordinator. And of those 22, zero of them were people of color. So the league

is tracking this because they are noticing there's a disparity here. And you know, you can cut it, you can slice it a lot of different ways. And you're never going to be able to say, oh, packaging of clients and like agent the consolidated agent representation is hurting minorities you can never definitively be like well here's the data that shows that because like minority hiring is impacted by so many different factors at the NFL level but this is one of those factors in the league office is tracking it and they had a meeting at the 2023 combine with Goodell and the diversity equity and inclusion staff and six coaching agents that gathered it was a closed door meeting the first of its kind because as you know coaching agents have kind of intense

rivalries and don't often really get along with each other, but they were all in the same room. And the purpose of it was to talk about what could be better about the hiring process. And in that conversation, Goodell asked the room, how many minority candidates do you represent? And he also, they started talking about the package deals. And some of the agents in the room said, yeah, these are a problem. And some of them said, is it even real? Does it exist? And so it's something that like nobody wants to talk about in the reporting for this was so hard

because I was like gaslit in every direction about, you know, people were like, we're not doing anything. Nothing's got, you know, and then other people are like, oh, totally, you know, it was very, it was very hard. It was an extremely hard process. Um, exhausting, difficult because agents like don't want you to know how the, how their job works because it doesn't benefit them if people know what's going on. Yeah, the numbers on the minority candidates were staggering because if you looked even beyond Bob Lamont, the numbers that you published, Tracer Armstrong has. one of his nine clients and supervisory roles and Jimmy Sexton at CIA has two of 12. It's just a very small percentage.

Like you said, it's a multi-layered thing as to why fewer minority candidates are getting head coaching opportunities. The lack of them in the offensive pipeline, the lack of guys getting opportunities to call plays. It's coming from a million directions. But this is absolutely one of them and it's just such a consolidated world. There's six agents who represent more than one head coach based on the story that you wrote. Those are the six agents that essentially make up this body that represent these

people. Just one quick thing that I just want to say, full disclosure, I am a CAA client. So I just wanted to mention that before we got into the rest of this discussion. I felt like it was worth bringing up. CAA has been doing this for decades on the Hollywood side of it. On the sports side of it, I don't think it's as intentional. I just think it is about filling a void. And that to me is just, I can't believe that you have these organizations where coaching in the NFL coaching football is so important in determining team success. It is such a strategic base game because I believe a lot where the talent is flat. How do you not within your organization have somebody as part of your football operations

where their sole job is to keep tabs on what this world looks like? Who's good? Who's bad? Where do they come from? What are their personalities? Is this somebody that if we get a coordinator poached away and we have to promote someone, should we bring him in as our quarterbacks coach? The fact that there's no ready made process for this in all of these places where they like to

think they're operating like some black ops, seal team, six team is so, so, so funny to me and I've never understood why it is such a vacuum on the team level specifically. Yeah. And retaining and developing talent, like not your on field talent, your front office talent and coaching talent is so important. Like the lions. It's a massive, massive thing. Yeah, the lions have been a great example of like built success because they retained

talent for a long time there. Like, you know, so I do think that you're right. there should be someone who's whose responsibility is to like literally do the research on this and like put values on the people and like self scout your own people in a way that I don't think a lot of teams do. And I will say that like the bears in particular, the last two like big searches they did where they were hiring GM and head coach, they brought in Ernie O'Roursey in 2015 and Bill Pulley in 2022 who are both old former general managers who did great jobs when they've been were in the position. I don't leave for 10 years. Yeah, but the bear is like bringing them in because they needed them to be part of the process because they felt like they didn't have whoever they, you know, internally, they didn't have the football expertise and they needed to bring these guys in.

And the Jets right now are an example of a team that's doing that too. Mike Tannenbaum and Rick Spielman are running the process over there to former general managers doing that. They're both a little bit closer to the game than Pauline and of course he had been. but those guys, too, are almost as, I mean, they have almost the same influence as an agent without being agents because I talked to a front office executive who's interviewed for general manager roles, but hasn't gotten the job. And he pointed out that those people and those types of roles, like their list of candidates, they're obviously doing like exhaustive research as well and updating their list every year. But when the owners rely on those people, then they're just getting whoever that person thinks is qualified, which. which is limiting the scope of people again.

And Bill Pullian in particular, one of my favorite parts of the reporting of this story was I talked to him and he was very adamant that he doesn't speak to agents during the process of being involved in a search and in the bearer search in particular. He never talked to an agent. He made that very clear. And I was like, okay, thank you so much. You know, he was on the record. Not many people were on the record in the story. So I really appreciated him like being so forward. after I talked to him when I got the program for the 2021 Athletes First Coaches Summit,

which again is six months before the Bears hired polls and Ibrose and then Getsy. I look at the scheduled list of speakers on this conference and Bill Pullian is a featured speaker. And I was like, okay. So obviously I had to call him back and he was not happy with me. But and it doesn't mean that he's lying. Like I totally believe him when he says he doesn't think agents bring anything to the process. He didn't talk to an agent in the bear's search 100% does not mean that that is not true. The fact that he went to an athlete's first summit and was a speaker there does not mean that that's not true.

But I just thought it was really valuable to point out because it just shows that like everyone in this business is connected to each other in these ways. And it's really hard. And it might honestly be impossible to run an impartial process. because you have all of these relationships and the agencies are a huge part of it. And the NFL calls agents essential stakeholders in the process. And again, it's because the process has allowed them to be that. The world is incredibly insular. And I think the agencies have done a very good job of controlling the flow of information.

And by controlling the flow of information, they ensure that they have an influence on this process. the last thing that matters here is that the Bears who had Ted Phillips and is a team president role for a very, very long time and he had influence over a lot of these searches previously. He was not a football person. And so I think he leaned on Trace Armstrong probably more than somebody in Ryan Poles' situation might because he was further disconnected from this world. Ryan Poles being the one who, by all accounts from people who I've talked to that interviewed for the job and everything else, Ryan Poles was the point person on this search.

and having somebody who's a little bit more attached to the football world, in the end, allowed the bears to land on a person who was not represented by Trace Armstrong. And that's what really matters here. Yeah. And I will say, like, Kevin Warren, I mean, that's interesting because I haven't talked to anyone to be like, oh, was Ryan Poles really in charge here? So that's interesting that you heard that.

Based on my understanding of how an individual interview went. Okay. He was very much the main voice as part of that interview. Okay, that's really interesting because I know we all had the sort of the perception that Kevin Warren was going to be having a big role in this too, the president who replaced Ted Phillips. And I mean, I think his influence here was probably helpful because like he, you know, he wasn't part of their past processes. He was new to it. He had not made any hires previously. And I think he probably brought something different to this situation.

and he himself has more of a football background than, you know, Ted Phillips did. So I think that's an interesting factor into this as well. And I did get to, I didn't get to interview, Kevin, about this concept of coaching agents and their influence. But I did get to ask him just very briefly. I told him what I was working on before a game this season. And I was like, hey, you know, I'm looking into, you know, Trace Armstrong's pattern of representation in Chicago.

And just as a whole, the influence that coaching agents have in the hiring process. And I'm like, I'd love to talk to you about it sometime. And in response to that, he said, well, I just want you to know, I don't have an agent. I'm not represented by anyone. And I thought that was interesting because I didn't specifically ask him, does he have an agent? Because I actually wasn't even thinking like a team president would have one. But I guess, I guess some of them probably do, honestly. So I was like, wow, interesting. And I know, I mean, Kevin Warren was a player agent at the very start of his career. So he's, he has a law degree. So like he probably, you know, doesn't functionally need an agent either. But I thought that was interesting that he like made that

point. And I sort of was like, okay, I don't want to read too much into this. But like, the fact that he wanted that known, I thought was sort of telling about how this bear's process was going to be different than past ones. And we can see that I think it was, um, since Ben Johnson is represented by Rick Smith. I hope so. I hope so on multiple different levels. Kaelin Kailer sincerely appreciate your insight on this. It is a fascinating discussion and you did a fantastic job digging into it. So thank you very much for the time and hopefully we'll talk again soon.

Thanks, Robert. All right. That's all we got for today. Sincerely appreciate Bert and Kalen joining us. Really appreciate their time. Really enjoyed those discussions. Hope you guys did as well. We'll be back on Friday with me and Derek previewing the conference championship games.

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