The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Tom Brady unretires, Cowboys trade Amari Cooper to the Browns, Deshaun Watson news, Kirk Cousins & more

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Tom Brady blew up the internet Sunday afternoon as he officially came out of retirement to re-join the Bucs for his 23rd NFL season. What ripple effect will this have on the Buccaneers and the rest of the NFC? Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones react to the news and break down both sides of the Amari Cooper trade for the Cowboys and Browns, Deshaun Watson news that broke over the weekend, the Vikings and Kirk Cousins and more ahead of the OFFICIAL start of 2022 NFL free agency. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today's Sunday, March 13th. I'm Robert Mays. Joining me tonight. It's my good friend, Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, how you doing? I'm great.

Just another slow news day in the NFL. Let's go. So I joke this morning. Just one day. We need to talk about Kevin meme. Just be normal. Just be normal sauce for one day, guys. No shot.

No shot. I wanted to take my dog. for a walk. We did go for a walk. One of my friends lives five doors down for me. We walked a few miles, him and his wife and their baby, and we walked all the, like several miles, went to the record store, had a really nice afternoon. I was out like a little bit late last night. We went to a concert. And I was like, you know, I'm taking a nap. Take a little bit of a nap, wake up and do everything else tonight. And my fiance wakes me up from a sound sleep. She's like, Tom Brady is coming back. Tom Brady. I retired. And I was so disoriented. And I had no.

idea if this was real. If this was a dream, similar to the one I had last night about Matt Ryan getting traded at the Titans because my brain is just fried to a crisp at this point. It seems very real. Tom Brady from his personal Twitter account tweeted out that he's coming back. And so many reactions. The fact that the moment I saw his reaction to Christiana Ronaldo asking him yesterday at that game, are you done?

And him giving him that shrug. It's like, all right. this is probably only a matter of time and it took about 12 hours. Yeah, well, he's left this door open basically the entire time, right? I mean, he wanted to shoot down the reports when he, when it first was reported by Adam Schefter and Jeff Darlington that he was playing to retire. You know, he kind of pushed back on that right away. And his own podcast with Jim Gray, he kind of left it open a little bit when we were in

Indianapolis last week. One of the top, the biggest topics was, is Tom Brady really retired? And there were a lot of people that were like, I'll believe it when it's September and Tom Brady isn't here. And here we are, not even to the start of the league year. His retirement didn't even get to the official start of 2022, which I don't know if you can even officially consider it a retirement. It's a break. He went out of vacation. Yeah.

I mean, my reaction to this whole thing was back when he retired the first time, the only thing that was surprising about it was the timing. Right? He said immediately after the season he was going to take some time, spend time with his time. family think about his future. And it was like three or four days later. And now he actually took the time that he probably should have taken at the beginning. And if he had done that, he probably would have come to the same decision. But here we are. The landscape of the NFC is completely changed now that Tom Brady is coming back. And there's a lot of dominoes that I think are going to fall after this. It was my first thought. It was the window is there.

How many other teams are you really scared about in the NFC right now? Obviously, Aaron Rogers comes back. The Packers are going to be a contender. again. But you look at the rest of it, the Rams will be back. Hopefully they're going to bring back a lot of people, but they have a lot of guys hitting free agency. I mean, the bucks have a ton of questions that they have to answer because guys like Carlton Davis are hitting free agency. Guys like Ryan Jensen are hitting free agency. But wouldn't you think people may be a little more inclined to come back at a slightly smaller number now that Tom Brady is going to be there? Wouldn't you think that the

chances of them getting Ryan Jensen back on 80% of whatever his deal, was and them continuing to move money around. I mean, it feels like this team has a runway from ownership to make some concessions to make the most of this window. That's what happened last off season. And they're only $2 million over the cap. Like, if they want to play around with some of this stuff, Mike Evans has a $14 million base salary, Donovan Smith.

Can they free up some more money and take one more run at this? Because they have a quarterback who, despite his age, played at an MVP level last season. Like, they are very much in the mix here. Yeah. And we have not seen. And this is one of the things that we talked about when we did our breaking news podcast back in, is that February, January? I don't even remember time as a flat circle when, you know, initially he retired.

I'm using air quotes here, I guess, was that he never had that drop off. He never saw what that felt like when the quarterback hits the age cliff that Drew Breeze had, that Tom, that Peyton Manning had, that Philip Rivers was even kind of having to extent. That never happened to Tom Brady. And we haven't seen a sign that it's coming or that it's going to come in 2022 when he's He's 45. He's going to be 45 years old when this season kicks off. So there's no reason at this point to believe that this is the year that father time is going to catch up to him. There's no reason to believe that the Bucks shouldn't be the favorite in the NFC South by a significant margin.

And like you mentioned, one of the top three teams in the NFC. So go to Vegas, unless you're Calvin Ridley, place your bets on the Bucks to win that division and maybe make the Super Bowl because The NFC is pretty wide open as opposed to, or there's a pretty clear path, excuse me, in the NFC, as opposed to the AFC where it's a freaking gauntlet. You look at it. There's so many guys on that team hitting free agency. Let's just run through them. Guys that were on the team last year that are not currently on the roster. Now the Tom Brady is off that list.

Ryan Jensen, Ali Marpet, who also retired, endaman Su, Jason Pierre Paul, Jordan Whitehead, Carlton Davis, Alex Kappa, Rob Grancowski, Leonard Fournett. So a lot of guys. I mean, the list keeps going on with guys that didn't you play as much last year. But now, let's say you're grunk. Isn't there a much better chance that Grunk is back on a short-term deal? Isn't a guy like Ryan Jensen, again, more likely to sign back there because the dominoes have started to fall? And when you look at not only their division but the rest of the NFC, they're just really set up to take advantage of this, even at diminished capacity. Even if you have to say goodbye to A. Carlton Davis, if you can bring back your offense mostly intact, which it is.

right now outside of the interior offensive line and whoever's playing running back, you're automatically one of the best three or four teams in the league if Tom Brady's playing at that level. Yeah, you make a call to Ali Marpet? Come back, man? You're sure you want to retire? Let's run it back one more time. Give it one more go here.

But yeah, I mean, I think this is, look, the NFL is better with Tom Brady in it. There's a whole generation of football fans who don't know the NFL without Tom Brady, right? I mean, like you were talking about, I think you were in high school when he arrived in the NFL. I was in college. I mean, we don't know our adult lives without Tom Brady, certainly not our professional lives. So it's better with him in it, especially when he's playing at a near MVP level, which, you know, there was a really strong argument that he should have been the MVP of the NFL last year. And, you know, I don't know. I think it'll be interesting to see the reporting in the next 24 hours or so to see kind of what was going on behind the scenes. If he has a little bit more

of an explanation about why he decided to come back other than realizing that his place was on the field and not in the stands. Were the bucks making a push? Was it the bucks serving the rest of the quarterback landscape and realizing like, you know, if there were other options were what? There were some rumors about trying to trade for some other quarterbacks. Baker Mayfield, I think they were one of the teams that was checking around

on Deshaun Watson, which we're going to talk more about here in a few minutes. If they kind of realize that this window is still open, do you still want to play? This is the best place for you. Let's go ahead and do this. Tom Brady gets the best to both world. here. And he gets the Tom Sawyer. I get to watch my own funeral and then come back sort of scenario. I mean, just to see it the way that everything has unfolded over the last couple of months,

he really did get his cake and got to eat it too. So now what's going to happen when he actually retires? Are we all going to be like, but are you really? Like, are we going to give him the whole like retirement treatment? Or are we just going to kind of feel like, sure you are Tom. Sure you're retired. And I mean, remember the Brett Farve stuff? When it was, you never knew whether it was real and every offseason was like this, it always felt strange to me. The timing of it always felt strange. Everything he'd always said where he was talking about how he'd retire when he sucked and he's so far away from that. And you can understand the family thing and there's no way for us to get what those dynamics are, what those conversations are like. I mean, there's absolutely a chance

he's looking at his kids and seeing them grow up and wants to be spending more time with them. But based on everything else he had ever said, none of those things had started to happen yet. and now we're in this place where he's back. The Bucks look like a very, very different team, not only because he's there, but because of what that could attract, the gravitational pull that his presence could have for every single other person.

And it just sets them on an entirely different path and it potentially sets the entire NFC on an entirely different path. When I said that with Tom Brady's presence made them one of the three or four best teams in the league, I meant three or four best teams in the NFC. Like then, I think comfortably they are in that conversation. All right.

we recorded an entirely separate podcast on Friday. That podcast is now gone. It was wonderful. It was the greatest podcast we've ever done. You guys, I'm so sad that you guys didn't get to hear it. As part of that conversation, we talked about the potential outcomes for the Deshawn Watson situation in Houston.

We talked about whether criminal charges we brought against him, if they weren't what would ultimately happen. That was coming down later on Friday afternoon. Obviously, we're recording this on Sunday night. That news has already happened. Can you just lay out what took place on Friday, what it means for Deshaun Watson, what it means for teams interested in trading for him and where things kind of sit right now? Sure. So Friday was a really pivotal moment for the football future of Deshaun Watson and honestly his criminal, the criminal case as well. So a grand jury in Houston heard evidence against him. The district attorney, prosecutors in Houston took their case. There were 10 criminal investigations open.

they ended up bringing nine of them before this grand jury. They heard a testimony from one of the women. And then prosecutors presented their case. And the grand jury decided to return zero indictments. So all nine of those cases, the grand jury said no charges. So as of now, the criminal investigation into Deshaun Watson is closed. So he will not be facing felony charges. charges. He will not be facing misdemeanor charges stemming from all of these sexual assault and

sexual misconduct allegations out of Houston. So really what this means is that this clears the way for a trade to happen. The NFL or NFL teams have been seeking some sort of clarity as to what his status will be in 2022. And in the absence of criminal charges, felony charges specifically, there is not a ton that is going to change for him right now. He has never been placed on the commissioners exemplist, which is a paid suspension. The Texans, in essence, put him on a paid suspension last year because he didn't play. They just played him to be their inactive third quarterback, which I think was as much due to the fact that he had requested a trade and did not want to play for them as it was that they were trying to sit him as some sort of punishment because of all of the allegations. But so the NFL's investigation remains open.

It is certainly possible that at some point in the future, whether that is six months from now, a year from now, the NFL could issue some sort of punishment. This has happened many times in the past. Numerous players have been suspended without charges. But that is now something that's kind of into the future. So, you know, as of this weekend, teams have said, we can go ahead and we can start doing our own homework into him. We can ask to talk to Deshaun Watson.

and we can start pursuing a trade. There's no certainty that he's going to be allowed to play in 2022, because if the NFL wraps up its own investigation at this point, they've spoken to some of the women. They have not yet spoken to Sean Watson himself. But the chances of him being placed on the commissioner's exemplist are very low at this point, which clears the way for him to play. And I would expect that we'll see a trade in the not too distant future.

The scenario here is complicated by the fact that he has a no trade clause. So you'd think whatever compensation that a team might be required to give up, look at what just happened with Russell Wilson. I mean, two first, two seconds. But he gets to choose where he wants to go. So that deal doesn't happen in a vacuum. The teams that ultimately trade for him not only have to convince the Texans that they should trade him, they have to convince Deshaun Watson that he should go there. and it throws a wrench into what a team might be willing to give up, what they'd have to give up, what the Texans might be asking for.

It becomes a really strange situation with a bunch of different kind of potentialities here. Yeah, and so we've already seen a couple suitors emerge reporting of teams that could be interested. Joe Person, our Carolina Panthers beatwriter, has been all over this, that the Panthers are one of the teams that will be pursuing Deshawn Watson, that they're going to ask to speak with him. You know, the Bucks were one of the teams that were kind of talked about, that obviously they had a quarterback need. It could have been a really, you know, ideal football fit.

That clearly is not going to happen. The Saints are now a team that seems to be interested in Dishon Watson, but there is a lot of layers to this. Obviously, the teams are going to want to talk to him. Just because there were no criminal charges doesn't mean that there's a lot of things that these NFL teams are going to need to know about Dishon Watson and his behavior, his behavior around women, his behavior inside the facility, all of these sorts of things. And they're going to have to understand or figure out if he's going to want to go there and if he will waive the no trade clause.

Because this time last year, before any of these allegations were out, you know, it was almost like he was going to be in the driver's seat to figure out exactly where he wanted to go. And he was only going to go, would go places that were a perfect fit and had a winning team around him and of those sorts of things. Has he lost any of that leverage by the fact that he didn't play at all last year? would he threaten to not play again? I just, there's just a lot of unanswered questions at this point. But I would expect that we're going to see some teams, you know, really make an aggressive push to go on and get him because there is a scarcity of quarterbacks.

And even though there are many red flags and many questions about Deshaun Watson right now and as icky as it might feel to talk about this, about his football future and him playing in 2022, given everything that has happened. And the fact that these civil cases are still going, The criminal cases are over, but there are still 20 plus civil suits that are active in Texas. This is probably going to happen. And it's going to be one of the defining stories of not just this next month, but probably the entire year. For a team like Carolina, especially, a team that's really painted itself into a corner here.

They have Sam Darnold at $18 million and no real avenues outside. They have a top time pick, obviously, but in a down draft. I mean, they're in a place of desperation when it comes. to their team building process when it comes to their quarterback position, it makes total sense on that level that they would be interested in Deshaun Watson. The Saints are in a similar spot, right? I mean, this is a team with a lot of veterans on it, a team that I think has a really good defense, could be in a position to do something right now with the right quarterback. I can understand why they're interested in Deshawn Watson. On a football level, all of this makes sense.

And we have to talk about this on a football level because it's all starting to ramp up. But like you mentioned, it doesn't feel very good. And if you're one of these teams making this deal, you have to come to terms with that. And we've talked about this, you and I. I mean, I think it sends a message to people in your building. And it sends a message that, I don't know, as an owner, I would feel pretty uncomfortable with. Yeah. And I mean, if, look, Washington was a team that could have been in that mix.

It could not have happened, given everything that Washington is going through right now as an organization. it couldn't have happened you know but if you're if you're one of these teams if you're the saints if you're the panthers if you're Steelers the Seahawks I mean there's a number of teams right now that will probably be making those calls you need to talk to your female employees you need to talk to your female athletic trainers you need to talk to your massage therapist you need to have a plan in place for for a PR from a PR standpoint all of those people need to be involved in these conversations. This cannot strictly be a football we have called the Clemson coaches and his former teammates and, you know, Bill O'Brien staff to try to find out what kind of guy Deshaun

Watson is. This is a all hands on deck. What is this going to mean if we bring him in? What's it going to mean to our season ticket holders? What is it going to mean to our female fans? There's a lot of layers to this that are not just, this is not a typical trade that's going to be, that's going to be happening. All right. So it's not easy to transition from that but we're going to try to. One of the teams that was rumored to potentially be in the Deshawn Watson conversation because he had expressed interest in them earlier this spring reported interest was the Vikings. It seems like the Vikings are out of that conversation and out of the quarterback conversation,

at least this year and potentially next year. NFL networks Tom Pell Serra reported earlier today that Kirk Cousins has signed a one-year, $35 million fully guaranteed extension that puts him under contract through 2023. he was set to hit free agency after this year. This says a couple things to me. One, the Vikings did not want to carry a $45 million cap hit for Kirk Cousins this year. And they won't anymore. That drops to $31 million.

They added two voidable years onto the end of this. So it's an accounting tool. But they also are now financially tied to him for two years. So they're not only this year, but next year, I mean, it's going to be tough. They probably could do it if they wanted to, but you're taking on something like $48, $49 million in dead cap next year. So this is a commitment from a new regime to Kirk Cousins and not just to Kirk Cousins, but kind of to a certain path, right? We had a huge question of, are the Vikings going to rebuild?

Are the Vikings going to tear this thing down and start over again? And now they're paying Kirk Cousins $67 million in total capits over the next two years. That signals to me that they're going to try to make this thing work in more ways than one. Yeah. So, you know, I think this is just another testament. to what the quarterback market looks like and how few competent starting quarterbacks are out there. And look, we can discuss, and we have discussed,

and we will continue to discuss the merits of Kurt Cousins and where he ranks in the quarterback hierarchy and how good he is and how bad he is and if you can win with him. But there's a lot worse quarterbacks out there than Kurt Cousins. It's not super exciting. But when you compare it to a lot of the other options, if you trade him, who are you going to get instead?

Is there anybody in the draft that you want? I don't think a lot of people in that building are super excited about Kell and Mondt at this point. This is one of those things where you kind of have to have somebody, you have to be able to afford him, and you go ahead. And look, Kevin O'Connell, he's got his work cut out for him, right? I'm excited about some of their offensive staff that they've put together. I'm interested to see what West Phillips is going to be like as an offensive coordinator. But this has got to be very driven by Kevin O'Connell and believing that he can win with Kirk Cousins.

And look, there's other coaches who thought they can win with Kirk Cousins, Kyle Shanahan, among them. And now we'll see if Kevin O'Connell can. It's a fascinating. It's just in a theoretical way, it fascinates me. Okay. You're looking at this saying, all right, we can move on from him after this year. We can hit the reset button. We can go a different direction with whatever our quarterback situation is.

But it's $45 million in 2022. We can lower it by 15 and then we're committed to him for two years. And I get that. But this is just him. and Derrick Carr. I think they're right in that same little sliver of the quarterback world, where you have these new regimes coming in and they have to say, all right, is it worth committing to this guy when you consider the alternatives? And is it worth committing to this guy at a certain price? With Carr, it's relatively cheap this year. And if they want to extend him,

that's a different conversation. With Cousins, you're paying $35 million for a non-elite quarterback in a world where the elite quarterbacks make $45 to $50 million. I guess you're you can talk yourself into that, but it's a razor-thin margin to me. And I'd rather have Derek Carr, I'm just saying. I think I would too. But I just think both of those guys sit in that little middle ground of the quarterback hierarchy. We're like, can we really do better than this guy?

And you look at the price and you compare it to the market. 35 is a lot more palatable as a cap it than 45. And I think spreading, but now you're spreading it over two years. And I can totally understand as a guy like Kevin O'Connor, we're like, I can win with this guy. But those are famous last words when you're devoting this much to a quarterback who maybe isn't the difference maker that you need. Yeah. And especially since what it means for next year and what it's going to do when it could be a completely different quarterback market next year.

Could be a different quarterback market and your roster is in flux. I mean, this is a, it's a choice. It's a swing. By the way, Kirk Cousins. Okay. Career earnings as of this moment. 161 million. After the next two years, it will be $230 million. dollars. Kirk Cousins will have made $230 million playing professional football.

I mean, look, he came into the league at the right time. He came into the league at the right time. And the way that he and his agent worked it back when he got his initial fully guaranteed deal with the Vikings, the way that they played out those franchise tags in Washington. There's not a lot of guys that are going to be comfortable and confident enough to do that and kind of take that chance. But Kirk Cousins has done it. I mean, good for him. Man, he's going to go into that. Andrew Brandt from Source Illustrated, the former Green Bay, exactly. He has his business Hall of Fame, right? He does that where, you know, Chase Daniels always on that list. I think Sam Broadford is kind of on that list for their career earnings.

Kirk Cousins is going to go in there, considering he's a guy who came in after the rookie wage scale, and he's been able to put together these sorts of contracts and contract. Basically playing on like one-year extensions, year after year after year. And good for you, man. At this position, it's worth wielding the franchise. tag as a weapon for yourself. We saw Dak Prescott do it. We saw Kirk Cousins do it.

It has typically worked out well for guys at that position specifically. And they've done a really good job. Which is wild that a guy like Kyler Murray then would play the like, I need a contract extension 10 days after my window opens that you couldn't drag this out and play that franchise tag game to your benefit. But every quarterback's different, right? You know, if you think you're going to get hurt or you want the long-term security. But I don't know if everybody should model a lot of their lives after.

Kirk Cousins and the decisions that he makes, but look, quarterbacks, there's a lot to learn. Financially, I would think you can. We'll talk more about this, and I want to sit with it a little bit longer to kind of think about the actual financial realities of it. But if it goes to 235 next year and he's at 36 million, you can talk yourself into that. I mean, I completely understand how you get here if you're the Vikings, but who boy, I can also understand being frustrated if you're a Vikings fan. All right.

last thing we wanted to chat about here, the Mari Cooper trade happens this weekend after we recorded. I recorded a little intro to the show that would have been that is now also scrapped. It's been a wild week, man. It's just been absolutely crazy. It's one thing after the other. The Browns trade, a fifth round pick and swap six round picks for a Mari Cooper. That doesn't seem like a lot for a player of Mari Cooper's reputation. But when your guy is carrying a $20 million base salary and the team,

had already leaked or someone had leaked that they were going to release him if they couldn't work something out to get a fifth round pick for him seems like a win. Yeah. I mean, it was pretty clear that his time with the Cowboys was over. They were completely noncommittal about him very recently at the Combine last week or I guess not two weeks ago. Stephen Jones was like, it's too soon to, it's too soon to know if he's going to be on the team, which means he's absolutely not going to be on the team. And it just shows you that there was basically no trade market for him. They didn't have a ton of leverage. And look, but the Browns make a lot of sense.

I mean, one of the things that we talked about on the podcast that will never air was that the Browns were going to be kind of an interesting team because of their Mari Cooper team, which I feel pretty good about that. There are receipts. Yeah. And it was because of their kind of past catching questions of what that was going to look like. And, you know, the money they could save if they decided to move on from Jarvis Landry, those sorts of things. And I think it's a good landing spot for him. assuming Baker Mayfield will be your quarterback, which feels a little dangerous to make any sort of assumptions at this point.

That's good news for Baker. I'm not sure if it's still good news for the Cowboys. They save a lot of money. But Dax been at his best when he's had Amari Cooper. So I'm not sure how I feel about it for Dallas. I think that's true. I think their offense has absolutely been its best with Amari Cooper. But if you're looking at this, it's always about opportunity cost, right?

So Amari Cooper is $20 million. I think they save like $16 million against the cap. I would assume around 16, 17 million is about exactly what the cat figures for Michael Gallup and Cedric Wilson, both of them, would be if you brought them back. And the Cowboys have already, according to Adam Schaefter signed Michael Galap to a five-year, $62.5 million deal. So that's what you're looking at. Like, would we rather have Mari Cooper or both of these guys? I think it's not overly simplistic to frame it that way. And we'll see what else the Cowboys do.

I mean, do they trade Lyle Collins? because that could also open up some space for them. And they could tweak a couple things, maybe sign a couple guys on defense. Because they have a lot of defensive free agents, right? Randy Gregory is hitting free agency. A lot of their safeties are hitting free agency. Jaron curse is somebody that we talked about.

I mean, they have spots on defense they need to fill. So that's how they're looking at this, I would assume. Why would we dedicate $20 million to Amari Cooper when we can split that money up over three different players in 2020 and fill out a roster in a little bit more of a complete way? It's just kind of a reminder of, you know, over the last few years where they handed out a bunch of those massive deals. You know, first it was Ezekiel Elliott and then Amari Cooper got his big deal. And then obviously, Dak Prescott, that at some point is going to catch up with you.

And the window to have that many elite players on those massive deals, it's small. You just can't keep up with it for a long time, even as the cap goes up. And, you know, they never won with that group. Whenever, when they had the big three, they were trying to be the new triplets or whatever. And it didn't work. You know, they never even, what, advanced, did they win a single playoff game? with that group once they were all back together. You know,

obviously the doc injury played a big part in that. But, you know, it's just just another reminder of how difficult all of this is and to manage your cap and to sign the right guys at the right time. And now they move on to kind of the next phase of what this offense is going to look like. I mean, to pay Zique,

I think his cap at this year is $19 million. And to be paying that and then having to say goodbye, Amari Cooper or Lyle Collins or whatever, just depth in more depth in quality at more, at more important positions is really rough. From the Cleveland side of this, I can understand wanting to get ahead of the market a little bit, right? So instead of negotiating with Amari Cooper and Free Agency,

you're paying a fifth round pick to just secure the fact that he's on your team. $20 million might seem like a lot for Marri Cooper, considering what the market could end up looking like at that position. Let's say on the market is getting $17 million annually a year. We'll see what happens with the accounting, though. Are they going to convert that $20 million, our base salary is a huge base salary. The Cowboys like doing that because they kick the can down the road and they restructure

this stuff all the time. They borrow from those base salaries. Do the Browns do that? Because there's no more guaranteed money left on his deal. So let's say you convert $15 million or whatever the number is of that base salary into a bonus. You prorate the bonus over the next two years. Then you're only looking at $10 million of debt cap next year if you want to move on from him.

So even if the average annual value of that deal is $20 million looks the same as the Mike Williams deal, you're on the hook for a lot less than that for a lot shorter period of time if you were the Browns because of the money that's left on the contract. So I can understand thinking about it that way. And from a football level, they need a number one receiver. I mean, they are going to move on from Jarvis Landry almost guaranteed. I would assume they release case Keenham. They have some other contracts that they can tweak. I mean, this is a team that was going to have a lot of financial flexibility. And I'm not sure they would have found a better wide receiver on the market than Amari Cooper.

So making sure you secure this guy, I totally get that. I also don't think they're done. I wouldn't be surprised at all if they went and picked a receiver with the 13th overall pick. I mean, this is a team as long as Andrew Barry is there, as long as this power structure is there. It's going to be an offense first team. They spent a lot on defense last year, but they had the most expensive offense

in football last season. Think about the commitments they've made to their tight ends. The offensive line, resigning Joe Potonio, resigning Wyatt Teller, bring Jack Conklin in a free agency. Even with a guy on a rookie contract, they were the most expensive offense in football last year. They're going to keep spending on that offense. And now, you know, they have a little bit of wiggle room if they restructure the Mamari

deal to maybe bring back Jeddivian Clowny to figure out that second pass rush or spot. But a lot of their defensive players are young and cheap now. Greg Newsom is on a rookie contract. Obviously, J.O.K. is on a rookie contract. I mean, they have a way to kind of build around this thing and afford everybody while Baker is still making $18 million a year. The Baker question and who's going to be playing quarterback for that team next year, this year, I think is still worth asking.

It's hard not to look at this and think if they are a Deshawn Watson team, does this make Cleveland a more attractive destination? But, I mean, that's a question that we can ask a little bit later here as that starts the heat up. Well, I would just like to congratulate the NFL for dominating the week before free agency. Every single day. It was supposed to be there a year. So MLB got like 15 minutes after their CBA passed before the Khalil Mac trade. The Tom Brady News happened like half an hour after the March Madness brackets were released.

So good job, NFL. You have owned this. And I can only just anticipate what sort of fresh hell this next week is going to bring us. And it's going to be awesome. And we're all sickos and we'll be awake, you know, 22 hours a day following it all. It is currently 9 p.m. Eastern. in less than 24 hours, we will have our first live free agency recap. We're going to be doing these live every day.

Mondays is at 4 p.m. Eastern with me and Nate. You're going to be joining us at 4 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday. Sheel is going to be talking to us at 4 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday. And then Nate is going to be back at 3 p.m. Eastern on Thursday. I'm actually going to be in Louisville for my brother's bachelor party. And we're going to wrap that up a little earlier in the afternoon. so I can be an attentive bachelor party guest and help orchestrate all of that stuff. So that's what we got this week.

I'm very, very excited. We also had live recaps to news every single day over the last five days. It has been a wild week. It has been a fun week. But I really appreciate you being around to help me out with this tonight. It was fun. Can't wait for next week. All right, guys.

Thank you very, very much. Please rate interview the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. I would really appreciate that. Please subscribe to The Athletic. theathletic.com slash football show. You need an athletic subscription. You're going to have to be keeping up with news and analysis and reactions to all of the signings that happened this week. So please go get yours if you do not already have one.

Also, the athletic and the athletic subscription is a great way to listen to the football GM with Mike Sando and Randy Mueller. If you guys have a subscription, you can listen on the app as well as Apple Audio Plus. So again, that's worth the price of an athletic subscription for the month. period is the show that those guys do on Saturdays. It is fantastic. So I highly encourage you guys to go grab one of those. We'll be back on Monday afternoon with me and Nate. Until then, appreciate you guys listening.

Talk to you later. This was the Athletic Football Show.