The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - The nine most interesting teams of the offseason, Volume 2: Commanders, 49ers and Browns

Episode Date: February 26, 2025

The second entry in the annual TAFS Most Interesting Teams of the Offseason series features Zac Jackson on the Browns, Matt Barrows on the 49ers, and Ben Standig on the Commanders. How do the Commanders make sure that 2024 wasn't a flash in the pan? Is the window on this version of the 49ers still open? Are the Browns willing to commit to a rebuild? Robert Mays gets into all that with the beat writers, and a whole lot more.Host: Robert MaysCo-Host: Derrik KlassenWith: Zac Jackson, Matt Barrows, Ben StandigExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeFollow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Matt on Bluesky: @mattbarrows.bsky.socialFollow Ben on Bluesky: @benstandig.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Zac on X: @AkronJacksonFollow Matt on X: @mattbarrowsFollow Ben on X: @BenStandigTheme 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. It's day two of our series of shows on the most interesting teams of the offseason. We have three more conversations with our beatwriters here at the Athletic waiting for you guys today. First off, a discussion with Ben Standig, our Washington writer here at the Athletic, about a big off season for a team that made the NFC championship game last year. Also chat with our Niners writer, Matt Barrows, whose team is used to playing in the NFC championship game. Had a down year last year.

We talked about some of the pivotal decisions facing that group this year. And then rounding out today, we also chatted with our Browns writer at the athletic, Zach Jackson, about what the hell the Browns are going to do? Is this team in rebuild mode? Are they going to trade Miles Garrett? Where are they going to get their quarterback from? What does the timeline look like? Is this a total tear down? Do they want to do that?

The Browns feel like such a complicated situation. We tried to unravel all of that with Zach Jackson. in today. So really enjoyed all of these conversations. Hope you guys will as well. Let's get to it right now. Joining us now, it is our Washington football franchise writer here at the athletic Ben standing. Ben, how you doing? Robert, I'm doing well. I'll do my best to not say the name of the team. You can. That's fine. It's not a podcast dance. No, it is not a podcast dance. I wouldn't put that on somebody else, right? Like, my value system doesn't have to be your

value system. So Derek says it. I'm fine with that. Other people say it. I'm not a tyrants. I just have, I'm a principled man. Look, people in my orbit would be thrilled if this was not the name and I didn't say it, but yes, it is what it is and they've made it clear that they can tend to keep it. So that's what happens when you have a really, really good year. They had a really, really good year. And a lot of the time when you're looking at teams that have a hundred-ish million dollars in cap space, which they will if they trade Jonathan Allen. Sounds like they might, we'll get to that. These are teams that are in horrible situations. There are teams that have no foundation on the roster, they're in rebuild mode, they're in very early stages. This is a team that went to the

NFC championship game this year and has $100 million in cap space. So as we think about where that money needs to go for this to go from a really promising first year, first year that's very easy to get excited about to, we are now one of the teams in the NFL. What does that priority list look like to you? Well, let me ask you this. You cover the league. You saw this team grow. did you view them as a team that was as good as their end of the season ended up being that they were one of the best four, six teams in the league? Or did you view it as, wow, like, Jay Daniels was interested. But they got lucky, but they came out with all these one-score games. They come on a winning end and we have to see.

Where do you come out on that? It's a great question. I think that the quarterback solves a lot of woes. If you have the right guy at quarterback, the rest of the stuff starts to matter a little bit less. and I know it's pretty early to say this about him. I already think he's approaching that sort of territory. The things that he's able to solve for what he was able to do against the blitz against the Lions,

it just makes the supporting cast matter a little bit less. But if you look at that game against the Eagles, you do feel the gap, talent-wise, between them and the most talented teams in the league. I think that the offensive and defensive lines are good examples of this, right? You have nice pieces up front defensively. You don't really have stars up front defensively.

On the offensive line, that group was more than the sum of its parts the entire season. But when you have individual one-on-one matchups against the Jalen Carter's of the world, I think you realize we probably need some talent upgrades. So that's where I land is that the way that they play, the ideas on offense specifically, the maximization of the individual pieces on the roster, the quarterback, all of that stuff you can get on board with. But in order to finally get over the top, you need better players. I think that's kind of where I land with them.

Yeah, I mean, the sum of the parts line is what I used to describe the whole team most of the year. I mean, Jaden Daniels is great. And when you have, like you said, the quarterback, that's the whole point of a franchise quarterback, a real one, not a fake one, is that they raise the level of everybody else. And you can cover us up mistakes. The thing that's weird is, though, okay, so you have him. Terry McLaurin obviously had a tremendous year, his best in the league. You know, Mikey Sanders still was a second ride pick last year. It looks like a legit corner.

Frankie Louvre was a really good frangin signing. They have some guys. They also have 28 free agents. And so many of the guys that they brought in last year, that includes like Zach Ertz, who had, what, like nine touchdowns, he played the whole season. Nobody. Zach Ertz, Bobby Wagner, Jeremy Chin, all these guys who were like real pieces of what they were doing. Right.

So many guys, like they exceeded expectations or at least they showed the league, hey, we are better than maybe you all were thinking we were. But all these guys are now free agents. And the question is, Adam Peters has only had one draft. He wants to build through the draft. I know they all say this, but he, I believe, really does that. To be aggressive, possibly in ways to say we are our final four team, we need to get to the next step, i.e. making a bold trade for a Miles Garrett or something like that would make sense if you really believe that they are that one piece away.

I don't know if I can get there because of the fact. So that's why this is so interesting. On the one hand, like I said, you could, if you believe that, if you, you know, if you're buying your own, you're buying it's your own hype, yes. Yeah, yeah. Then you could talk yourself into doing that, but I don't know that they're, that they will. So therefore, I don't know that they're going to be as aggressive as people think

with the whole mild Garrett T. Higgins talks. On the other hand, Jaden Daniels basically has two years left before he's going to, he's eligible to get an extension, and you would think logically he would. So they have a window, which is why it could go in either direction. Either they say, we are going to continue to build through the draft, we'll re-sign some of our guys, we'll make some upgrades. I mean, they're going to have to do that one way or the other, and they logically should.

But to go into the degree that people think, I think people are overstating how good the team actually is because they've managed the Tennessee Championship game, but 28 guys are not available right now. I don't know how you, like, it's, I don't even know what the team is, other than you have this quarterback who looks like a tremendous asset, and you build around that, but that's different than saying you're ready to compete truly

with whoever you think the elite teams are? I think back to this time last year and where the Houston Texans were sitting. And it was kind of a similar story, right? They didn't get to the NFC championship game, but you have a young cost-controlled quarterback. You're a team that kind of come out of nowhere to make the playoffs. Now you have all of this flexibility in these resources.

How quickly do you want to try to get over the finish line? The Texans answer to that question was very quickly. If you look at the moves that they made, the Stefan Diggs trade is a short-term move, especially after they tweak that contract. The DeNeil Hunter contract is a, a two-year contract that I think a lot of other teams may not have been willing to give out. The move they made, I think, between swapping out Jonathan Gernard and Danielle Hunter was very

telling. It's like, we think our time is now. We're willing to commit to that. Well, now, you look at what happened in Houston last year, and you look at the lack of flexibility they have now, it's kind of easy with hindsight to be like, maybe that was the wrong way to approach this. Maybe you weren't as close as you think. So I wonder with that in the rearview mirror and not that far in the rearview mirror, is that a good example of how this can go awry when you're not quite as close as you think you are coming into this sort of offseason? They were building prior to CJ Stratt, right? They had already had a few drafts.

I'm not saying they were like, that's amazing, but they already added pieces so that when CJ Stroud came in, he had some stuff to work with on both sides of the ball, right? Washington last year traded away their 2022 first round pick. They cut their 2021 first round pick. They cut their 2023 first round pick. They cut their 22 second round pick. They had already traded away Chase Young their year before their 2020 first round pick. So the only defense, the only first round picks of recent vintage on this roster are the two defensive tackles,

Allen and Payne from 17 and 18 and Jaden Daniels. That's a massive gap of guys who you don't have to build with. And that's why this gets interesting. Certainly, you know, Adam Peters will find the right pieces he did last year, especially in terms of one-year free agents. but I think they're like further behind than that Houston team was even though to your point Houston maybe to some degree went too aggressive but that's the thing like they I can almost understand why they did

they had pieces to build with including Stroud Washington has Jayden Daniels a couple other guys and then I don't know what the what's next and that's where this gets super interesting for Peters is like well how do you know make maybe he views it differently I don't think he does but maybe he views it like no no no we made real serious stride. They certainly did it with like culture and how they want to do stuff. Cliff Kingsbury was

great calling the offense. He's back. Dan Quinn overall, same things. But yeah, they don't, they're missing so many recent building blocks because of how bad the previous administration was that it's not as far along as, again, as I think people may think it is. If you look at this $100 million in Caspas they have to work with, I think there are probably a few different routes you can go and how you want to divvy that out. The extreme route is something like trading multiple picks for Miles Garrett and wanting to sign him or T. Higgins if he's available. We're talking multiple the 25 to 30-ish million dollar sort of investments. That would be surprising to me. I don't think that that's how they'll approach this. A tiered down from that is we're not shopping in the most

expensive aisle, but we're going to look at the Josh sweats of the world, these guys who are big ticket free agents, even if they're not at the top of these lists. The third route is they do something similar to what they did in 2024, where we have some flexibility, but we're going to be very cautious and thoughtful about how we're doing this. Like, Dorrance Armstrong is going to be our big splash here, not Miles Garrett. So as you think about those three potential paths and how they can wield this, which do you think is the most likely? I kind of feel it's sort of a combination of the second and the third one in that, like,

last year they did a good day. They only sent a handful of guys to multi-year deals. Frankie Louvo was one. Frankie Louvo was probably a better example. And he was a great job. Armstrong was another one. Tyler Biotish at center. All those guys did really instrumental in helping them build their core,

especially Lufu and Biotish. I kind of see like that, but instead of being only like three or four guys, maybe it's a bit more. Like, do they, I think they need another offensive tackle. Certainly the draft is there, but like a large Jackson, for example, with the Rams. Like a guy like that, he's in his mid-20s. There's still, his timeline, his age works with where this team is still building, and yet he's one of the few.

left tackle candidates that would be of interest, right, in terms of like there's potential there. A guy like that, you know, Peters obviously came from the 49ers, who Fonga was one of his big finds in the draft. He's coming off a couple of injury play years. With Jeremy Chin being a free agent, does Peters look towards a guy he knows he drafted and bring in somebody like that,

who, you know, should get some decent money but not break the bank. Like, I don't know. It's not Miles Garrett money. Right, right. Like, you know, like, I'm intrigued. by, like, I don't, you know, the Cooper Cup situation. Like, I'm not talking about trading for that deal per se, or certainly if you did, it wouldn't be for much of anything. But, like, does Cooper Cup either get cut or does he get, like, can you do it, like, the Rams or eat a lot of it? And you're talking, like, a six and they get back a seventh, that type of thing. A guy like that, though, who, like, similar to last year, like a Zach Ertz or a chin or a wagon or, like, people are kind of writing them off, but maybe they can get more out of them. I think, like, a bunch of guys, like, in that range, to me, feels more logical for where they're at than the bigger splashy types. It's funny that you mentioned Cup because he was somebody whose name I'd also kind of thought about

that makes sense pairing with a guy like Terry McCorn. Where does the Luke McCaffrey part of this fit in? Because I feel like if you go out and trade for a guy like Cooper Cup, you're kind of cutting off the development plan for McCaffrey in a way they might not want to be at this stage. I don't know where he is. McCaffrey's most impressive last year, impressive parts last year was as a kick returner. He showed good a breakaway ability, and that's good. But as a receiver, it didn't quite get there.

In fairness to him, like, you know, he'd only been a college receiver for two years because he had been a quarterback. We obviously get the bloodlines, so there's reason to be optimistic. But based on what we just saw, I don't know if we can sit here and say he's ready to get plugged into the starting lineup. Now, they had six receivers basically last year, six or seven. Only Terry McClearn and McCaffrey are back. I imagine they will re-sign some combination of Noah Brown, Dea, Dea, Brown, Alamedes, Akees, Akees, James, and Cratter. But none of those guys are like, wow, you have to bring them back.

But like I said, I don't think you can look at McCaffrey and say he's ready to be definitely a top three or four guy. I think they could see him. They used him both inside and on the perimeter. I think they still believe in him, and they should. But I don't know if they're going to make any moves to worry about him right now because I just don't think he showed enough to say he's ready to fill in one of those roles. That was kind of my question.

Is he enough of a priority where you don't want to get ahead of yourself and off that path to him getting more work. But if he's not, then I can understand that. If we're talking about position groups specifically, let's do wide receiver, offensive line, edge rusher, corner. No Binogamy is a free agent. So if they want to move Mike Yusain, we're still back inside. You need another outside corner, even with Lattimore. You mentioned Jeremy Chin is a free agent. Bobby Wagner is a free agent. So as you're thinking about just the positions of biggest need or where the biggest investments might come from, which position groups would you start with? In terms of what they have coming back. I think edge

rusher or edge defender has got to be tops on the list. Not only was the pass rush, relatively inconsistent, they got a shockingly high sack total from Dante Fowler, but he was kind of a liability in the run game. They only played less than 30% of the snaps in the NFC championship game accordingly when you're dealing with Sequin Barkley.

He's also a free agent, but he could come back. Doran's Armstrong was solid and fine, but I don't think... He's a two or three. Yeah, I mean, some way of the guys as they said, last year, we're about building, but raising the floor, not necessarily getting to the ceiling. So they need somebody. And also looked last year, they finished 30th in the league against the run yards per carry.

And if you look at the stats, so many of the yards are gained on the edge. They just had guys who were either undisciplined or just black there. So I think they have got to get that first and foremost. And, you know, we'll get more to John Allen. But if you're moving on from one of your better defensive interior guys, you've got to build that lineup. Offensive line, okay, so Sam Cosmy is going to miss least. some games you would think next year coming off this ACL tear right guard. He was arguing their best offensive lineman, although probably having Tyler Beiotic

was probably a little bit better last year. The other three spots to me are very much up in the air. Brandon Coleman, their third round pick last year. They used him at left tackle. Some people thought into the draft he was more of a guard. He gave up a lot of sacks last year. He's a rookie. I give him all kinds of passes.

But I also don't know that he... I'm still not ready to give up on him yet. Right. He still intrigues me. Well, he certainly intrigues me somewhere. I don't know if the somewhere is... the left tackle spot. And it's like, you know, particularly in the draft, if they're sitting there at the 29th pick

and there's an OT there, I don't think that's crazy to think you could do that. Even if Andrew Wiley at right tackle stays one more year, it's the last year of his deal. So they need that. And obviously, you know, the offensive tackle is going to help protect the quarterback and, you know, keeping Jaydon Daniels upright is the number one thing that matters. So to me, either one of those spots are sort of the number one priority, depending on what you think of Coleman. I asked Adam Peters earlier, what, you know, what about?

Scott Coleman, and he's, you know, praised him and said all he's did a really good job, but I'll be curious to see if they really view him as the long-term left tackle. I think those two spots are the clear needs. Because it's also how you build through the draft. I mean, how you build a team, you build through the lines. I think Peters understands that. Everybody in the world wants him to go get T. Higgins, and I'm just like, no, that doesn't make any sense to me. You're already spending a lot of money on McLaurin who's going to get an extension this offseason.

I'm not paying two receivers an annual of like $25 million a year. That's not what I'm doing. Do they need more playmaker's receiver? Sure. But, I mean, Jay Daniels did pretty well last year with the group that he had. So I don't think you have to go. This is the big old media as a keyest podcast. So, yes, probably believe in him more than the general public would.

As like your number two or number three option. Right. And look, you know, Noah Brown, part of the issue with him his career is he just can't stay healthy. Yeah. But like, at the time he got hurt last year, he had a kidney injury. knocked him out. He was leading the league in past interference, generating

past interferences. I know that's sort of a random stat, but it just showed that his ability to get down the field to make plays. And, you know, he, look, I mean, he caught the hail to Harry. I know that that's completely a random play, but he was, like, an effective guy down the field. So they did a good job. Diami Brown late in the year was a shocking

effective guy. So my point is, like, when you have a Jane Daniels, you don't necessarily have to go high-end receiver. Look, this is what the Patriots did for many. years. This is what the chiefs have done. So there's that. They need more playmaking on offense, I would say. They need more speed. To me, that can come out of the backfield as well. It does not have to be necessarily at receiver. And then when you mention corner, look, Marshawn Lattimore certainly was not particularly sharp with Washington. In fairness to him, he was traded

hurt, got hurt again, coming into a new system in the season. You know, you can understand that maybe that's tough. And like, he missed games at the end of the year. Then they say, okay, go guard Mike Evans and your first game back. That didn't work out. So, well. Same thing. AJ Brown got him a couple times. So they need all those spots, but to me the line play is where it's got to start. And it's both a combination of what they need for this year.

But if you're going to build this team, your quarterback, left tackle, edge rusher, these are the key pieces you need going forward, and it's also what they need right now. So to me, that's where I think they should go, and I think they probably will. It's really interesting. It's much more of a blank slate than I think I probably conceived it to be coming into this exercise. Because in my mind, again, it's like, oh, they went to the NFC championship game last year. You plug in one guy here, one guy there, you spend some of this money and you're cooking with gas. But they have so many, if not even holes, they don't have a lot of barriers to adding pieces.

Like there aren't many guys on the roster where you think, oh, we can't add something here because this guy exists. And so that's why this entire offseason with all this money feels like kind of a choose-your-own-adventure sort of situation depending on how they want to approach it. Even like, and I'm going to ask you to tell me how to say it's the defensive tackle from the cap, boys, Ossa. Ossa Diggiazua. Okay, great. You would think, even if they move on from John Allen, you have Duran Payne, who has not lived up to his contract extension, but he's still a solid player, and they draft

Johnny Newton in the second round. You might think, okay, well, that's their plan. I don't think it's crazy that they would go out and sign why would they do that and not keep Jonathan Allen? Like, what is the thought process behind being willing to let Jonathan Allen go or trade him for the right price? Well, you know,

one, it's they have said, like, well, we don't view as like guys who are our guys and then the guys that we had who were already here. But you know how this goes. Yes. It always works, often works in that way. Like Terry McCorn is their guy now because he crushed it. But John Allen, look, I mean, his sack totals, he had, you know, nine and a half

sacks, I want to say in 2021. The number's gone down every year since. Now, this last year, he missed half the season with a pectoral tear that had needed surgery. He did come back in the year, which was surprising. So good for him for that. But, you know, the production has been okay. It just hasn't been as good enough when you're on the cap for over $20 million. You know, ultimately that line of Allen and pain and sweat and young never came close to living up to the hype that when you draft four guys in the first round in a row.

And then like I said, last year, their defense was fine, but it wasn't great. And again, against the run, they were just giving up way too many yards. So Allen's got like a $22 million cap hit this year. If they release them, they get $16 million in savings. and like I said, not their guy, whereas bringing in an ex-caboy who, you know, Dan Quinn worked with for years like that would, you know, he knows what that guy can do. He knows how he fits in with his system. That to me, again, it would seem odd to a certain extent, but, you know, you can do that. You can have instructor the cap however you want it, whether you want to put it up, put the money up front to knowing that you have the Jaden Daniels contract to play with or backfill it later.

But, you know, I just think ultimately John Allen, he has had a good run in Washington, but, you know, he's never turned into that one of the elite defensive tackles where you're like, wow, you got a game plan for this guy. And for there right now, I think they can move on. Like I said, Duran Payne hasn't either to this point. So they've, both guys could go, but Payne's deal extends in through 2026. His cap hits way too insane to move on from. So Alan is the one who's going to get the hit.

What do you think the price tag for Jonathan Allen is? I don't think it's much. I mean, if somebody's taking on the contract as is, like I said, it's only like $15 million right now for the salary. $15 million base. Right, and there's no guaranteed money. And that's part of the other problem is like his agent is surely saying to them, hey, if we're going to stay, you've got to give us a new deal. We don't want to go into this on an expiring deal.

He's hitting his age 30 season. He's largely stayed healthy, but again, he did have an injury this year. So I don't know. To me, it would probably be more than that like, trade him and then, you know, you get back a fifth and you send them a six or something. I don't think it's much more than, I don't think they're getting like two-thirds. I'm asking for a very specific reason. Go for it.

I'm just looking at the picks the Bears have in the idea of $15 million with the Jonathan Allen versus some of the free agent options. I'm like, I don't hate $15 million of Jonathan Allen at age 30 in the way that he can still play. I mean, you watch what he did at the end of the season when he came back, and it's like, even coming off that injury, he's got juice. He's still a good player. Yeah, yeah. And so I think that there would be some interest in him

from teams that are a little bit defensive line needy. That's how I'm approaching this. No, and that's fair. Look, yeah, he's not a bad player. It's just, you know, this is just how it is, where sometimes the cap can get some guys, and he's in that range right now, but that's interesting.

I hadn't thought about, like, from a perspective of another team in that regard. I mean, yeah, because to me, like, this news is not surprising. So I've already, in my head, it's been writing it off. but they would just cut them. I hadn't thought too much about a trade, so maybe,

maybe that's something I've got to look at. That's the thing. If the teams know he's going to be released, then there's a chance they're not willing to give up anything for him. But if you're a team that doesn't want to worry about digging into the market, if you're, like, for example, Mill Williams is five years younger than Jonathan Allen, and Mill Williams is a good player.

But if you don't want to get into a bidding war for him or a digizua, you're paying now 22, 25, $15 million to Jonathan Allen, even if he's a few years older, I can understand wanting to walk into that level of, certainty. So that wouldn't necessarily shock me if a team was thinking about it. I guess I just would imagine his agent is saying, cool, if you want to trade from him, that's cool, but we need a new deal. A new deal. But even if you give him a new deal, if you keep the number fairly low in year one,

there's a lot of things that you could potentially do where you're not spending quite as much as you would on these other guys in the open market. And if you're trading for him, you're negotiating with him exclusively. So I think that you can kind of control the process a little bit more. Now I'm just talking myself into Jonathan Allen being out of bears. It's what I'm doing. He, I mean, look, he's been a good player, and it's certainly the defensive struggles I've had not just this year, but throughout his time, but certainly not on him solely, but, you know, in terms of just being, you know how it is, like when you, when you focus on your team, the team you cover in my case, you hyper focus on everything that they do and that

they don't do. So to me, Jonathan Allen and Daron Payne have been a bit disappointing in recent years, but relative speaking to the rest of the league, they might be like, dude, what are you serious? Like, I would kill to have that combination. I promise you that there are teams who would want what Jonathan Allen brings as an interior press rusher. I understand why they don't because of the investments that they've already made, etc. But I think that there will be, I don't think it's going to be like

a raging market. I think there will be a market for Jonathan Allen's services. Even if that means teams are going to wait for him to get cut because they know that they want to move on from him, I still think that somebody will scoop him up at the end of all this. Certainly if he's cut the market, that's the trade, that's the part

I don't know what the value is, but no, he's I mean, 30's not old. he's largely been healthy. He's a powerful lineman inside. You felt his presence when he came back last year. Like what he looked like in that game against Detroit, it's just like, oh yeah, that guy can still play. Yeah.

So I'll be curious to see what the market is for him. Any other parting thoughts here about just like what you're keeping an eye on as we walk into what is a pretty pivotal offseason for this team? You know, it's, again, last year felt like a Disney movie in so many ways. I mean, you know, they won five games in a row. all the way up through the Tampa win in the Wildcard round on the literal last play from scrimmage. Like that's insane.

Their quarterbacks they faced last year, they faced Kyler Murray in week four. The next quarterback, say, at that level or better, that they beat was Baker Mayfield in the playoffs. They face a litany of randos starters, backups, third stringers. It's not to say that they got, they were fortunate, but they were kind of fortunate in so many ways, but they also took advantage of it.

They blew out bad teams. They weren't just eking by. They won, they beat, they don't care what the lions were missing on off or on defense. They smashed them on the road in the postseason. They did a lot right. But when half the roster is missing, I just don't know what it really means. But at the end of the day, to me, there may be some quibble because the Eagles won the Super Bowl. But Jane Daniels, to me, is the best quarterback in the NFC already.

I think the only question. I think the only question is like, maybe it's too soon to say he's in the Mahomes, Allen, borough Lamar category, but it's, to me, he might be the next guy. That is such a great spot to be from. And whatever else is going to go on with this team, whether they make a bold move like a Miles Garrett or they go a little more conservative, they are just, it's insane how much of in a better spot they are on the field, emotionally, off the field. The fans are excited again.

And, you know, as long as they can keep up that, I think they will keep up the culture, kumbaya vibes, then it's just a matter of does Adam Peters find the right, is along the way and based on his track record with the Niners and what happened last year, there's no reason to think he won't. So, you know, they also, by the way, of course, face a much tougher schedule just coming year, right? So that's going to be another component as well in terms of this year. But the trajectory is going nowhere but up. And the only matter is it going straight up or is it going a little bit more sideways this year

because of all the changes they may have? But it's certainly exciting. And yeah, I'm really fascinated to see what level of swing Peters wants it to take. It's going to be fun to watch you over the next couple months. Stan, standaic. Always appreciate the time, sir. Great to chat with you.

Thanks, Robert. All right, before we get to Matt Barrow's, let's take a quick break. Joining us now is our 49ers, writers, a writer here at the athletic. Matt Barrow's. Matt, how you doing? I'm doing well.

Nice to see you. Nice to see you, too. It's really nice to be doing all of these in person. I love being able to see everybody and have, like, in person real conversations versus doing everything remotely. So it's one of my favorite parts of this week.

The last time we were together was, uh, for the Super Bowl in Las Vegas. basically, I don't know, 12 months and two weeks ago? So let's start there. Okay. Things feel very different now than they felt at that moment. I'm rested now. Yeah, your year was much shorter.

Unfortunately for the Niners, theirs was as well. Right. This team is very different than a lot of the other teams were including in this exercise. If you look at the other teams that we have, you know, there are certain, like, the Rams or a playoff team last year, but they have a huge quarterback question that could go either way. The chargers from yesterday, they have $90 million in cap space. The Raiders are a team that's starting over. For the most part, the teams we're talking about as part of all of this,

are the teams that have a lot of resources to wield because they're young in their development. The Niners are not that, but I still find them to be a really intriguing team in this offseason in particular because it feels like a crucial offseason given where they are and where they want to get back to. So as you think about where this team is and what they need to accomplish over the for the next two months to get back to that moment playing for another Super Bowl. What are the most important things on that priority with you? I think that they're a team that is transitioning into a different phase.

They were in the phase of we've got a rookie quarterback on a rookie deal, a very, very inexpensive rookie deal, and we can surround him with expensive talent. They are going to start phasing into a different, you know, setup. They're going to have an expensive quarterback. They're still going to have some expensive pieces, but they're not going to be able to surround him with quite as many. So that's sort of the question this team has moving forward. And, you know, the defensive line, for example, used to be the pride of this team.

Back in 2019, when they went to the Super Bowl in Miami against the Chiefs, they had Nick Bosa and DeForest Buckner and Eric Armstead and D. Ford. it's a shell, a shadow of that now. So they really have to do a lot of work there. Debo Samuel is probably not going to be on this roster by this time next month. So they have to figure out, I mean, he's been a huge part of this offense. He's been synonymous with the Kyle Shanahan offense. Kyle Shanahan is the guy that you can run or pass out of any formation. Debo Samuel is one of those guys that do that,

along with George Kittle, along with Kyle Youth Check, along with Christian McCaffrey. So it's a big question about how this team will pivot without that iconic player on the roster. Let's talk about Debo first. So this is an interesting situation where he right now, if they were to trade him before June 1, he would have a $31 million dead cap hit. He's currently slated to count against the cap for about $16 million. But if they cut him and they make him a post-June first cut, they don't lose any cap space in 2025.

So I think the calculus, as I understand it, is that the Niners probably have to decide, is it worth losing that $15 million in cap space in the short term for whatever mid-round pick we would likely receive for Debo Samuel? He also has an option bonus that's due at the end of March. They probably want to get this resolved before that so they don't have to pay out that cash. Is that, do you feel like an accurate representation of the things that they have to weigh right now as they're figuring out how they want to handle this? Yes.

I mean, I think that they probably would. would trade that cap hit for a third round pick? The question is, would they get a third round pick? Yeah. Is it a third round pick? Is it more like a fifth or a six-round pick for somebody who's been going in the wrong direction pretty steadily since that epic 2021 season? I think that he can still have good seasons.

He needs to be really motivated to do that. 2021 was the year where they basically put the whole offense on his back, and he succeeded. And they got all the way to the championship game against the Rams. He did not have a good season this past year. It was exacerbated by the fact that there was no Brandon Ayuk on the other side. He does things that Brandon Ayuk doesn't do and vice versa. But it put Debo Samuel into a spot where he had to be,

a number one receiver. He had to run routes like a number one receiver. They started playing a lot more press man coverage against the 49ers. And he couldn't do it. So, I mean... It was so interesting because sometimes we see that where a defense will do something

against an offense. It will give them a lot of trouble at the end of a season. And we always wonder, our team's going to try to copy this heading into the next year. And the Chiefs did that in the Super Bowl. It worked. And then the degree to which other defenses adopt those ideas early out in the year was crazy.

Like it was at a level of man coverage and a rate that I hadn't seen since I started thinking about professional football. And it was exacerbated when Brandon I.U. got hurt in week seven. Because he's your man coverage guy. He's the man guy. I mean, that's sort of the Ying Yang dynamic that the 49ers always had. If a defense is going to play zone coverage against us, we're going to throw the ball

to Debo. Debo is great against zone coverage. If they're going to play man coverage, we're going to throw the ball to Brandon and he does really well against man coverage. Debo does not do well. I forget. I think it's PFF ranks wide receivers versus man coverage. In 2023, Debo Samuel ranked 94th among wide receivers against man coverage. In 2004, he improved to 92nd. So he was still at the very end. And so defense has just kept playing more and more and more. more man coverage. I do think that Ricky Pearsall got better at it as the year went on.

Juan Jennings was sort of a revelation, you know, generally speaking, but specifically against man coverage. My point is that wherever Debo Samuel winds up, he needs to have a prototypical, you know, number one type wide receiver opposite him. And then that dynamic that he had with Iyuk would would work there. Like Washington, I just asked Adam Peters whether they've had any contact with Debo Samuel or his agent. And he gave me, well, Debo Samuel's on a different team. I can't comment on that. But they've gotten permission to shop him around.

But that would be a good situation, I think, because you've got Terry McLaurin, great route runner on one side. And then you would have Debo on the other side. Adam Peters helped draft Debo Samuel back in 2019. show there's familiarity there as well. Another team that's interesting, I just thought of this, but like Houston, potentially, with Nico Collins being there, like that's one where if they're trying to revamp their receiver room,

if they want a different skill, so that makes sense. And I think the other important thing to mention here, when we talk about price tag and we talk about what team would be willing to trade for Debo, he has a million-dollar-based salary. Like, anybody can fit him in into their financial plans right now. And I think it's important to remind people of that.

When we're looking at compensation that comes in trades, what you're paying in salary is a huge part of the sliding scale of what you're willing to give up in draft picks to go get that guy. If you guys make a $20 million in base salary, you're not going to give up as high of a pick as you are for $1 million where anybody can fit him in. Right. Houston, obviously, D'Meico Ryan's is very familiar with Debo Samuel. Debo Samuel is a great guy to have on your team.

At the right price. At the right price, but I'm just talking about more of a locker room. He's the first guy out. He has the swagger. He brings you some of the stuff that maybe. Maybe D'Amico Ryan's would like on his offense. I'm curious just from a big picture perspective, if you look at the Niners' cap right now, almost independent of the Debo thing, they have $50 million in cap spaces this year,

but they're slated to have about $23 million, and it would be more without Debo, but less next year in 2026. I think you could look at this two different ways. You could look at $50 million in cap space and think, oh, they're going to be aggressive. But then you look at the 23 next year and think, how aggressive can they be? So what do you think they're, how do you think they're conceiving of their like two-year financial timeline and how it should fuel the way they approach this offseason? They like to backload these contracts.

So you've got a Brock Purdy contract coming down the pike. It's going to be huge numbers. But the initial cap hits could be small. They could be bigger in, you know, 27 and 28. There's a chance it's like $7 million next year. Yes. So even that $23 million is less daunting if you're still not really paying the quarterback. Right.

though is that they've been doing that you know with other if you go through the list of highest paid players at positions the 49ers are on like six of the different positions it's it's tight end it's middle linebacker it's left tackle

it's fullback it's wide receiver now with with brand and iuk so i mean all of these chickens are coming home to roost so um i just i just don't know whether they structure it a little bit differently than they normally do.

George Kittle right now is one of the highest paid tight ends in the league. He's coming off a really terrific season. He's only got one year left on his deal. So there's talk about him getting a contract extension. There's talk about Fred Warner's contract all of a sudden being obsolete and Fred Warner wanting to redo his deal. At this time last year, for example, everybody knew that the Brandon Ayuk contract was coming down the pike,

but it also turned out that Christian McCaffrey and Trent Williams wanted their deals redone as well. And, you know, more power to them. They were coming off of really sensational years. The deals probably needed to be redone. But these are things that just happen every offseason to good teams with talented players, but he wants more money all the time. And last offseason was a bad off season for the 49ers.

All of that stuff leaked into the regular season. They got off to a slow start. It sort of exacerbated, you know, obviously when IUC tore his ACL. But, you know, IEIC was not having a good season to begin with. He really wasn't. As a Brandon I, Yook fantasy manager, I could tell you very much that Brandon IUC was not having a good first month of the season. And it's all related to him.

It was extremely frustrating. Him not having any sort of offseason whatsoever. So, you know, they want to really avoid all that, but they've got just as much business, probably even more and bigger business, this offseason. So that's sort of, this is where the ball gets rolling in a lot of this stuff. You know, they'll probably sit down with the agents for some of these guys. Certainly Brock Purdy's agent. The question is, you know, how long is this going to take?

they went into the last off-season thinking that they could get the IUke done lickety split. Like it was not going to be anything that lasted into even training camp. They were wrong. So the question is whether they can have a better off-season this year. They need to have a better off-season than they did a year ago. You are talking about the Brock Party thing like it's a foregone conclusion, which I think makes sense.

If you listen to anything they've said about him publicly, I don't think anyone should be shocked that they're willing to pay him and pay him a lot. what do you think the benchmarks are numbers-wise in terms of what they're willing to spend and what he's probably shooting for at the end of all of this? Last year we all thought the Amon St. Ra' wide receiver contract would be something like, you know, it sounds like good numbers for IEU, kind of similar type guys, similarly important to their offenses. And it turned out that the numbers were pretty similar at the end of the day.

It took all freaking year for it to happen. But early on, we thought, okay, 30 million. That's what Ross A. Brown got. That seems like what Brandon Ayuk should get. Jared Goff contract is around $55 million. There are similar players in a lot of ways. I mean, you can scrutinize it and come up with all sorts of differences. I realize that.

But that seems like the sweet spot for this deal. And I don't know whether, you know, You take inflation and the growth of the cap and you add what, what, 2.3% or whatever it is so that it comes out to 57 a year. I mean, personally, I wouldn't quibble between 55 and 57 a million. If you want to pay me that a year, I'm fine with either number. But I'm just saying that that seems like maybe shy of the, the, the, the, Dack Prescott number, but in sort of that mid-50s range seems right to me. I think that makes sense.

And I think that's the biggest question to me is not between 55 and 57 or 53 and 57. It's do they want to reset the quarterback market or are they comfortable coming in as a natural progression of the golf deal, the two-a-deal, Jordan Love, Trevor Lawrence? And if the answer is the latter, I think that's a reasonable place to land if you're Brock Purdy in the 90s. I agree with that, yeah. But the question is, does Brock Purdy and Kyle Strongen, his agent agree with that um you know brock pretty talked a little bit about this on locker room clean out day and he seemed to suggest he wanted to come in for the offseason program which is usually

mid-april and have you know most of his teammates there and he wanted to kind of lead this team he didn't want this looming over his head that's to me that's extremely optimistic uh mid-april to get this this deal done but if he's motivated to do that then Maybe they come in and say, you know, we're looking for one of those mid-tier, the Jared Golf-like deal. And it's not problematic. It's not contentious like the last few have been. What do we think happens with Christian McCaffrey this year?

Are we just in a mindset where, okay, last year was last year, he wasn't healthy. With a full off season, things will just be back to normal? Or is that a naive way to be thinking about this? I mean, I think you have to be prepared for another kind of, of, I mean, you're hoping that he's injury-free like he was in 2023. But, you know, going back to Carolina, he has been fairly routinely injured. And the 49ers have really gotten hurt at that position because once one guy gets injured for them, the whole lot of them get injured. So they need to have a deep class. They've got a really interesting situation coming up with

Jordan Mason, who's a restricted free agent, who was essentially their top guy last year. And he ran like a top guy. He averaged over five yards of carry and at one point was leading the league and rushing yards. He ended up getting hurt. They played with Isaac Garendo a rookie last year, and he looked good towards the end, but he got hurt a lot. I wonder two things about that position. What kind of restricted free agent tender do they put on Jordan Mason? Because even the lowest one is like around $3.5 million.

It's significant. He might not take it. him at all. And so he becomes an unrestricted free agent. And then this is like the greatest draft in the history of the draft when it comes to running back. So all these teams are going to be looking to kind of augment their running back room. And I wonder whether the 49ers would be part of that as well. Two years from now, if you look at the Niners cap, George Kittle's contract will be done by that point over after this year. Fred Warner's deal will be done. Trent Williams's deal will be done. Debo, Leonard Floyd,

Javon Hargrave, Kyle Uscheck, Colton McKivitts, Malie Collins, Jowan Jennings, Jake Brendell. Two years from now, how similar do you think the Niners roster looks to what it looks like right now? I mean, I think that they'll probably pinpoint a few of those guys.

Like I said, you know, Kittles' contract is coming up. I think they'll probably extend him. I think they'll probably extend Warner. By the way, Fred Warner is a guy who's been playing since 2018, and he's missed one start in that span. So, I mean, it's money well spent on those two guys. But, yeah, I mean, the rest of those guys, absolutely, I can see them moving on from that group.

You know, every now and then you go back and you look at, okay, what was the starting lineup when they played the Chiefs in the Super Bowl in Miami, and then the Chiefs in the Super Bowl in Las Vegas? And you're always stunned by how many players are going. It's a really good point, actually. I don't think, in my mind, I probably think of the 2019 and the 2023 teams as much more similar than they actually are if you were to stack up the depth chart side by side. Yeah, there's a few guys because, you know, prominent guys will transcend all of those games.

You know, your Nick Bosa, your Fred Warner's, but, you know, it's a handful. And I think Brock Purdy will end up being one of those guys. I think that they hope that Brandon Ayuk is. But, you know, we're talking about, you know, half dozen guys that transcend, you know, every two years. But, yeah, that's the NFL these days. There's just so much turnover. And, you know, when you're talking about a team that has so many high-price contracts, it's this. The combine and the draft, this is where you really need to, you know, hit your picks.

The chiefs do a good job of this all the time. and the 49ers have as well the last couple of drafts, but I think this draft is very important for them. If you look at it, Trent Williams wasn't on the team in 2019. Brandon Ayuk wasn't on the team in 2019. Christian McAfre wasn't on the team in 2019. So this, in my mind, I think I've kind of built this up as like, oh man, the window on this thing is closing.

Like they're going to turn the page eventually. This is going to be like a new chapter of the franchise. And maybe that should be a little bit less daunting than I'm making it out to be because we've actually kind of seen them do that already and still maintain a pretty high level of play throughout that transition. They did return one piece to 2019 when they rehired Robert Sala to be the defensive coordinator. So that's sort of been the joky motto,

certainly among the media, it's been it's the return to 2019. They want Sala back, they want to have that great defense, which really lapsed last year. They want to have something closer to what it was during those peak solid years, which was 2019. The last thing I'll ask you, how aggressive do you think they'll be in the next month? With that cap space that they have and kind of understanding that this might be the last vestige of this version of the roster, could you see them going out and trying to find one or two defensive line pieces to see if they can jumpstart this? Or do you think for the most part, they're going to be a little bit more reserved because they understand the financial situation?

they're going to be walking into next year, carrying the party contract, and some of those other big deals that we talked about? I'd say the latter. Okay. But I've been wrong on that before. They're hard to pin down. They do like to be aggressive. I mean, the J. Von Hargrave won from two years ago, which in hindsight is a bad deal.

They're going to cut him so that he can become a free agent this year. But they do like to do that. And they do think that their window is open. One guy who makes a lot of sense to me is Drew Dalman. the center for the Falcons. Kyle Shanahan has spent big money on centers in the past. Weston Richburg got a huge contract. Weston Richburg, I wasn't ready for that.

Many years ago. And then Alex Mack before he even got to San Francisco. There you go. There you go. And so, Dalman is a Stanford guy. His dad played for the 49ers. There's a good pedigree there. And it's a position where they could probably stand to use somebody. I think that this draft is shaped.

keeping up to be a really good defensive draft, and they can pretty much count on bringing in at least some contributors on defensive tackle, especially a defensive end, the offensive line not quite as deep. So if you're going to spend money, that probably makes more sense to do it at that spot. All right. Really interested to see how they approach all of this, because I think you could make an argument for going at it a couple different ways, and there are a team that does usually do some surprising things. Matt Barrow's, sincerely appreciate the times. We're always great to chat with you. We'll do it again very soon. Yes, thanks

for having me on. All right, before we get to our conversation with Zach Jackson, we're going to take one more quick break. Joining us now is our Browns writer here at the athletic, Zach Jackson. Zach, how you doing? I'm back in my comfort zone, covering a team that needs a quarterback and picking really early in a draft. Yeah, this is where the Browns belong. It feels like. They should get used to it. I want to

have the Browns as part of this conversation for a few different reasons. One, they have the second pick in the draft. They potentially need a quarterback. That's interesting in and of itself. But I find their current situation fascinating because I think that there are a couple divergent paths that they could potentially take. This is a team that was in the playoffs a year ago with the best defense in the NFL. Now they're picking second overall, and I think that are teetering on the edge of a team that you could justify rebuilding. And so which path they choose and kind of how they go about this to me is very interesting. The first question I want to

ask you, and this is a hyper-specific question that I think will kind of point us in the right direction. The Browns right now, as it currently stands, are $24 million over the 2025 salary cap. There are some things they can do to fix that situation, including restructured Deshaun Watson's contract again. So if you're looking at where the Browns currently stand financially and how they can get cap compliant even before this thing gets going, is that the lever that you expect them to pull or are there other potential things that they might need to do? Well, you say fascinating. I use another word that starts with F. But yeah.

Yeah. So in late December, Robert, they did a restructure of Watson's contract. And although that mostly affected numbers that are down the road, it set the stage for them to restructure it, take it basically in half here at some point before the league year. And so then if that will get them, with the cap being higher than most projections, that will get them into healthy territory. And then they'll still have moves to make, right, because they have a lot of guys to sign and a lot of bridges to cross. But that will be the move that kind of gets everything started. So he's not going to play for them again. but they're going to continue to pay him for years to come.

And at this point, it's tough because that $40 million, let's say they restructure most of it, right? I think it's a $46 million-based salary. That has to go somewhere. But at this point, it's like, what's another $40 million spread over the 26 and 27 caps? But the fact that that's where this team is, while they're probably in a position where they need to be getting younger,

they need to be investing in the draft, they kind of are in this rebuilding mode, the fact that they're continuing to have to borrow from future years to even get back to zero here. I think kind of speaks to the morass that they found themselves in. Yeah, it'll go from 73, the cap number. The cash, the 46, is guaranteed. He's still getting $90 million.

Yes. But the cap number will go from 73 down to about 36, so that'll put them out of the red and into the right side. But yeah, the pipeline is fairly dry with young players, and some of that is bad drafting. Some of it is giving three picks away, right? And then they've pushed money forward to make it fit with him. And the way they always saw it was 24 and 25 were going to be the years that they were going to go for it.

And he was going to be the quarterback. And when they got back in the first round this year for the first time in three years, it was going to be the left tackle of the future or a true number one wide receiver. Instead, it's basically a clean slate. And then their best player has now called them on it and said he wants out. So, yeah, intersection, morass, all these things that comes to this. The Browns need to rebuild. The Browns are a rebuilt.

The folks in charge resist it because they know they will. won't be here for it, right? And, you know, they have Miles in his prime. They have Denzo Ward in his prime. They have this offensive line for at least one more year. Jerry Judy exploded at the end of last year. Like this, this is different from previous Browns rebuilds and that it's not completely barren, but what is it a year from now? And when do you move past this? Well, you know, right now they're going to be paying Watson for four more years. It's just such a tough situation because even though most of the offensive line is back right now, they're not back beyond this year. The number that really jumped out to me beyond some of the contract stuff that we can talk about,

I was shocked by this. I was looking at their 2026 salary cap, and the number of players, they just have under contract, period. It's 21. They have 21 players under contract for 2026. Petonio's contract is done. Wyatt Tellers is done. David & Jokos is done. Poachish's is done.

So even though the offensive line is there right now, it's not there beyond this season. And so this is kind of one of my biggest things with the Browns in general. there was a time when Stefansky got there where you looked at what the Browns were, and it was very easy to decipher what they were supposed to be, right? They were a team built on the offensive line. They were built on the running game. We understood who the Browns wanted to be at their core. Who are the Browns now?

Well, defensively, but the best guy wants out. Yeah, that's really just it, right? It's him. And if they re-sign Greg Newsom and they have Denzo Ward, Martin Emerson is hit in free agency after 2025, there just isn't really a core of this team right now. And that's why it just feels so complicated because it just seems like they could go any direction they want,

including a totally blank slate. But like you mentioned, I can understand why the leadership doesn't necessarily want to embrace that. You're like who they are. They want to be that Schwartz defense, right? And obviously, Miles is the headliner and they have other guys. We don't know if J.O.K. It's going to play.

He had this serious neck injury. You know, other guys have gotten older and haven't worked out. They moved on from Zadaria Smith at the trade deadline last year. their case is that the offense was so bad that the defense couldn't fully reach its potential, right? Especially the way they play. But to go back to what we said, we're not even sure Betonio is going to play this year. He's only under contract for one more year if he does. And I'll sum it up like this, all these names you mentioned.

However you look at it, who are the Brown's 10 or 12 best players? Well, it's Petonio, it's Teller, it's Ward, it's Garrett, it's Najoku, it's these guys, regardless, right? They were acquired before Andrew Barry, and it's year six for Barry and Stifansky. So that's not good. And that would be not good, even independent of the absolute mess that they got themselves into a quarterback. If you look at the drafts over the last five or so years, the third round picks are just, it's brutal. Like it's just absolutely brutal. Taki Taki is no longer on the team, even though he was semi-productive when he was there.

Jordan Elliott, Jacob Phillips, Anthony Schwartz is a really tough one. See, David Bell, Siaki-Ika. I mean, that's, Cedric Toman, obviously, had some flashes last year. But, and the problem with that is, well, look at other teams, it's like, oh, well, your third round picks don't hit. Like, that's a 50-50 proposition. But when you only have third-round picks, those picks hitting becomes extremely important, and none of them have. Right. And they've totally not even been NFL players, let alone just like Benegat, in multiple cases, and that's bad.

And then in the fourth round, they took Perry on, Winfrey, they took Kate York. That was a miss. Like, it's gone on and on. So Martin Emerson was clearly this regime's best pick, and he was sitting on a big contract year. And then he's done class year, too. And you talk about Newsom, I mean, then the $13 million they owe him. I don't know that he's going to be on the team. I mean, he's not a starter, and they own $13 million.

I just don't know what the right path forward is. Like, if you were trying to chart the best 12 months for the Cleveland Browns between right now and that moment, where would you start? I would trade Miles Garrett. And if I was Andrew Berry, I know why he doesn't want to, right? But I would look at that and maximizing that, my chance to save my job. And you look at the whole organization.

They're trying to build a stadium. They want variance Defansky to work, clearly. But this group is not working. This group is two really good drafts away from being back as a playoff contender. And where it goes with these older guys, retirement, contracts, performance, the Joku just didn't perform last year. He wasn't in shape. He didn't perform.

He wasn't healthy. Like, yeah, I mean, where do you go? I think you have to go get younger. And obviously the easy way to say it is nail the quarterback. And then that way if you only win five games, but you have a quarterback going forward, you finally have that. So I think that's the simplest way to say it because the simplest way to say everything else is this Watson thing just killed this run of it. And it's going to get everybody fired.

It just is barring drafting the right one right now. What do you think is the main deterrent to them trading Miles Garrett right now? Is there an admission that this is so f*** we have no other options? Yes. So that would be one A. one B is the immediate cap hit that it would be. Would put them, you know, $17 million more than he's like right now. Correct.

Right. And so then you'd have to sacrifice other guys. But the thing with that is you are sacrificing other guys because if you move on, you move from him. So I think it really comes down to the human nature of Andrew Berry does not want to be the guy that acquired Watson and traded Miles Garrett. They don't want to trade Miles Garrett. But I think Miles Garrett has made up his mind. And I think the path forward for this team is to maximize that. I don't know that they'll get two ones, Robert.

I know that they'll get a package of picks and potentially a young player. They need both. They need to move forward. If they wait until after June 1 to lessen this cap hit and push for the future, I'm fine with that. It's going to require some long-term planning, and we don't know who's going to be here calling the shots. And also you feel like there's more uncertainty with the draft picks that you're going to get.

The return is probably going to be less than it would if you trade him before the draft. So there are so many different factors to weigh there. Yeah, one thing on timeline, like coming out of the season, here's what I thought. Okay, they know that they're not ready, but they're going to pretend, they're going to put out that they are. So they could kind of wait until October and see. Are we on to something with our Rookie quarterback?

Are we on to something with our stopgap quarterback, whomever that's going to be? And then see, and then maybe hold an auction in October. But I think Miles has said, I'm not coming back, guys. And I think especially if Betonio walks away, they're going to have to say, where are we really? And aren't we best looking two years down the road? And I always feel like, this is anecdotal, but if you look back on the bigger trades that we've seen in the NFL over the last 10 or so years,

Not all of them happened pre-draft. Kaleel Mack was right before the season started. That was two first-round picks. But I still feel like the biggest returns you're going to get are probably earlier in the off-season before teams have settled. Think about it's a different situation, but they got nothing. They got a third-round pick for Amari Cooper.

So two first-round picks in October feels like it's probably a bridge too far for some of those teams that are looking to acquire Miles Gair at that point in the season. Yeah, I agree. Right now, every team is here, and every team is ready to go with their plans. A and a plan B, right? And so before that heavy spending and huge commitments,

if some team is legitimately a Miles Garrett contender, and I think five or six teams legitimately are, they want to know because that's their plan A, right? They don't want to commit to other things, and then see Miles Garrett. I think he still would be available. I still think it could fit, but you're right. Ideally, I think the Browns are entertaining offers here.

And the timing is on their side. I think they have the leverage in some respect because they can say, hey, this is going to kill us. You know, this is a really generational player. Like, you have to up the Annie. and say the Packers or the bills makes them an offer. They can go to Detroit and ask for more. So I think they can do that, but you're right.

It doesn't have to be before March 10th, but I think there's a case to be made and you made it pretty well for doing it sometime in these next two weeks. So obviously there's a price for everything, right? And I think that's an important consideration here. If I'm the Browns, I'm not just trading him to trade him. I think you have to get the right return because you are making an admission that this entire era is over.

You're trading the best player in the last two decades of the franchise, pretty definitively, right? I don't even know who else. Outside of Joe Thomas. Yeah, Joe Thomas, yes, correct. So Joe Thomas, like Nick Chub, Miles Garrett,

are like the iconic players you've had over the last 10 to 15 years. You're about to trade one of them away. That's very difficult to stomach. So I think you have to get over a certain bar to justify that. In your opinion, is the two first that bar that has to be cleared.

I think that's the get in the door price. You know, does it become a one, a two, a player in some fourth round swaps, probably something like that. Can the Browns, for a quarterback, they probably won't get one. But yeah, I think two ones is the price to get them to have a serious conversation. I really do. There was a part of me at the Super Bowl where I was like,

why would they do this? Right. The cap situation doesn't make sense, but as I thought more about it, it's like, this is just run out of road. Like at some point, you need a get out of jail free or breaking case for emergency, whatever forced metaphor you want to use here to kind of change the direction of this. And this is probably the best way to do that, even if it's really tough to swallow that pill. The really strange thing about this to me, we're talking about before we started recording, when you see this, when you see a team go from, all right, we pushed all the chips in, we did everything we could to try to win, it did not work out, now we're taking a step, or in this case, two or three steps back to kind of redirect where the franchise is headed.

For the most part, those processes are overseen by different people. You choose to move on to a different regime, a different coaching staff, a different front office. They chose not to do that. And so that part of it is even a little bit quirky when it comes to how a lot of teams would handle this and how the Browns would handle this. I get the Haslams landing in a place where they say, you know what, this version of it didn't work, but we still think we have the right people in charge. It's just a unique place to land as part of this whole thing. It is, and everything about this is unique because even if you didn't think the Browns were ready for prime time to use another cliche, you didn't think they were going to be 314 and crash like this, right? I think in Cleveland there's a little bit of an angle that Haslums are owning up to the Watson mistake like it was theirs and they don't want to get rid of them. I think they don't trust themselves to hire the right people mixed with a belief that they do think that these guys can still do a good job.

And they've done such, the amount of organizational structure in Cleveland, like the amount of executives, the amount of layers of leadership. People have no idea. It's a business, right? It is built like a modern Fortune 500 business. And so the idea of blowing that all up, there are more moving parts associated with this organization than there is in a place like, I don't know. If the Cardinals were to fire Moni Aston Fort and Jonathan Gannon, they'd have to hire two people to replace them. If they fire the general manager and the head coach in Cleveland, it now becomes a situation where there's like 20 new people you probably need to think about in filling those jobs. It's just a much more, it's a much bigger undertaking in Cleveland than I think it would be other places.

It's the biggest front office. It's the biggest analytics department. Organizationally, they're building a city. They're kind of their own mini star behind it. They're trying to build a stadium up the road two miles the other way. Yeah, just the number of people and then the commitment they've made over these years. There's been some changes under Andrew Barry. It's mostly the top of the organization, his state, right? And they went all in on Watson.

And then they went all in with roster and cap moves behind Watson. and he killed him, right? And so here they are, and the roster is not good, and the coaching staff has changed, and it's like in a lot of other places, they would just be out of time. The part of this, the front office part is, I think, a very good point. Like the side of the Elinick staff, all that other stuff.

For me, the coaching staff part of this is funny. It's like last year you make these moves where it's like, all right, we're going to do some stuff that we think is best catered to the quarterback to try to get the most out of this. And then when it didn't work, they essentially moved on from it immediately and went back to what they wanted to do because they no longer have to cater to the quarterback. I just can't remember anything like this.

So many times I've just beat my head against the wall or my desk in the media room. But I remember, like, they were trying to sell Ken Dorsey. And the only thing they could say is, man, you should see how competitive he is at lunchtime basketball. And I was just like hitting my head. And you can't like, no. And then I watched the offense, right? And it's Watson throwing these three-yard passes and taking three seconds to look.

And seven on seven, he's holding the ball. I'm like, this is a disaster. And then they had to joint practices with the Vikings. and it was so clear that the offense was broken. It was like, okay, they have to make some admissions here. Like, it's only August 16th. You don't panic, right? But like, this is broken.

And then nothing changed. And then they finally played a game against Dallas. And it was like, holy shit, this is bad. And you just saw all the Cowboys, the first two drives. Everybody keyed in on their cues and their assignments. And after that, the Cowboys defense was kind of like, well, these guys can't do anything on us. So we're just going to hang back here and let this happen. You would hope that with better offensive line health early in this season and a more

cohesive vision that aligns with the value systems of the coaching staff, things can be a little bit better this year. Yeah, or just whatever the 2025 version of that is, where he's not trying to square peg round hole because he feels like he needs to cater everything to the quarterback. The other side of this is who's playing quarterback, and I think that becomes the last big question we have not hit yet. So if you're looking at the available options, either the number two overall pick is a kind of way to really reset this thing, or you go cheap in the veteran market to offset where you're

having to pay Watson, and then you figure out the last. long-term option in 2026. Which of those two options do you think is more realistic? I think it's more lean on the veteran for now and draft a guy in the second or third round. That's what I think. I think that's the best plan. I don't know which is more realistic because we don't know what they're thinking. And if they are really insisting on trying to be competitive this year and keep this thing together and sell Miles Garrett on changing his mind, then who knows what they're going to do? What do you think would do that? What do you think would most accomplish that? Do you think Kirk Cousins on a million dollars or Cam Ward at number two, is it better sell to Miles Garrett? I truly don't know.

I don't think Kurt Cousin sells Miles Garrett on anything. I really don't. And, you know, the same question comes up. We know the free agent options are few. So if they can convince Miles Garrett, how are they going to convince one of these guys that it's a great situation? You know? They can pay them anything in year one and work it out. So the money really isn't it is, but it isn't an issue. But yeah, I think the best plan is to wait. Because then if you do trade miles and you have extra ones, now you're back in the quarterback business. Especially for next year. And I think that's a really good point. If you do trade miles, then the quarterback acquisition timeline potentially changes for you because you have ammo next year when it might be a better quarterback class than it is. And you're obviously still trying to hit in free agency and you're still trying to hit on whoever that guy is. You take it 33 or 67 or wherever it ends up being. Because if you do that, then you really run it.

And if you take a guy in the third round, he ends up being your backup quarterback, whatever. Yeah, for sure. fine way for this to all end up for sure it's again i find it's just a fascinating situation and one of the things that's so striking about this is just how different it feels than the conversations i was having with people in that building at this like last summer about like the quality of the roster and what they expected to accomplish and everything else the fact that we're going from that to okay now we're in potentially full scale or rebuild mode it's just how bad it was just how bad the ending of the Watson thing was.

And it was bad throughout, but, I mean, it just crashed landed. They couldn't get a first down. They didn't go over 300 yards in a game until James came in and did it in garbage time. The day you got hurt. And James was the number three QB that day. The backup got hurt. I mean, it was a shit show of a season on so many levels. But really, the offense was just so bad.

And, I mean, this team was built for these two years and for Deshaun Watson, you know, to be the guy they've been waiting on. And then he was the complete opposite of that, and that's why they are where they are. in town, what is just the general confidence level in the people in charge? Zero. Is it zero? Okay. That's my question.

Is this a situation where they understand that maybe the Haslams had their thumb on the scale when it came to the Watson thing? And we move past that there's a chance that these are the right people in charge? Or does most fans think this is a lost cause? This is not we're pursuing anything. Yeah. I mean, you'll have the fans who are loyal and say, and like I said, they can point to some players who this team just hasn't had before, right?

But I think most people are saying this as a rebuild. Like we know these guys are older. This hasn't worked. Like to get a quarterback, it's going to be a journey. How could we compete? That's kind of the main prevailing thing. Makes this a very, very important and very pivotal offseason for those Cleveland Browns. Zach Jackson, sincerely appreciate the time, sir.

Always great to chat with you. Appreciate the insight. Thanks. All right, guys, that's all we got. Thank you so much to Zach. Thank you so much to Ben. Thank you so much to Matt for their time. Really appreciate all of them joining us.

appreciate you guys listening. We have one more of these coming tomorrow on Thursday. And then Friday, we're going to do a little bit of a scuttle butt recap from the combine. What sort of stuff's been kicking around, what the rumor mill looks like. So that's what the rest of the week looks like. And then Monday, me and Dane are going to be recapping the combine. So just some stuff to keep in mind here over the next few days. For now, that's all we've got from Indianapolis. Appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you soon.