The Fumblerooski Podcast - Weighing Options -Ep 289 The Fumblerooski Podcast

Episode Date: August 27, 2024

Is Patriots head coach Jerod Mayo being too open with the media and on top of that, will the Patriots start Jacoby Brissett or Drake Maye to start the season? Now that the Dallas Cowboys have signed CeeDee Lamb, will Dak Prescott or Micah Parsons be extended next? Can they win the Super Bowl with their current core? Adam Wright, CJ Medeiros, and Chris Costich debate these topics and more!

quarterback controversy in foxborough and cd lamb has been extended to a massive deal i'm adam right and you're listening to the fumble ruski podcast it may not have always showed it in the staff sheet but you can see him making throws when he needs to make the throws back-to-back games where he has three touchdowns someone's gotta get that six or seven spot he's an elite wide receiver as a rookie. Truly a lose-lose scenario for both sides. Welcome to the Fumble Rooski podcast by Power 88 and Secret Weapon Consulting. I'm Adam Wright with CJ Medeiros and Chris Kostic.

This is probably one of the few times this summer that we've had three co-hosts on the show at once. It's always a good time to have multiple minds on the show, and we have more preseason coverage in our last week without regular season football in 2024 up until February of 25. So this is going to be, we're going to have a good few months coming up and lots to talk about a lot of good stuff coming out of the NFL, uh, particularly some interesting stuff in Foxborough. So Gerard Mayo is very, very, he's their new head coach currently, successing Bill Belichick,

and he has shared a lot of information about what he feels about the quarterback competition between Drake May and Jacoby Brissett. Obviously, this quarterback room has also featured Joe Milton, who was also drafted. And up until today, Bailey Zappi, who was just waived by the team. Then again, he was waived last year too at this time. And he was back on the roster a couple of minutes later, but sharing a lot of information, some of it contradicting each other. One time he said that Drake May is the second best quarterback on this roster. Another time he said that Drake May is outplaying Jacoby Brissett.

And listen, if it takes you a certain amount of time to come to a decision that's fine i think if you turn around if you try go if you go ahead and say that drake may is the second best quarterback on this roster okay fine maybe he's maybe he's not far enough along but when you say drake may is outplaying Jacoby Brissett. Forget the contradicting reports. Forget those two statements kind of contradicting each other. I think if you say that one player is better than the other and then start the player who was not as good, why should those players in the locker room follow him? What kind of confidence are they going to have in their leadership if they're not starting the guy who could give them

the best chance to win? I understand this is a bridge year, but you can't really, you can't be upfront about that. You have to sort of, you have to send the best message to your locker room in order to kind of, let's say, give your team the, to have your guys motivated, rather. We know what they're trying to do. You can't say the quiet part out loud. And I think sharing a little bit too much information, all these conflicting reports from Gerard Mayo, I think it's going to get mayo

into some trouble this year but i don't know what you guys thought i i would agree i think that's been the biggest problem is the contradicting reports and everything that you just said it's one thing that i i think that at the same time mayo also said a lot of this stuff regarding may being second best quarterback at the beginning of training camp and then it's kind of slowly progressed into oh well he's actually outplayed jacoby brissett and these preseason games have shown that drake may has been outplaying jacoby brissett as well it's just a matter of we don't want mayo also doesn't want to jump head first into throwing the rookie out there right away and like the the plan all along really was to have percent as that bridge qb and have may potentially start maybe sit out the year or uh start halfway through the

year whatever it may be and now the reports are that he could potentially start a little earlier, earlier on in the season, maybe like that first home game and whatnot, or maybe like week four, they figure out the defense, figure out the offensive line, and then they throw Drake may in there. See, I, I don't have too much of a problem with that, but he also has to make sure that he doesn't do this too consistently and you know the whole thing with you know belichick didn't provide too much information

and we now kind of appreciate that a little bit more kind of adds a little bit more mystery to what's going on behind the scenes but with mayo's case maybe you do need to add a little bit more mystery of like you don't want to play your car or show your hand this early on but at the same time maybe it doesn't really matter yeah uh cj i know you had some conflicting thoughts about that why don't what are you thinking part of me feels like it's overblown you know rookie head coach these are the kind CJ, I know you had some conflicting thoughts about that. What are you thinking? Part of me feels like it's overblown. You know, rookie head coach, these are the kind of things that happen.

And honestly, it's not even the first time it happened. Remember how Mayo said they were ready to burn some cash before having another modest free agency? And look, we all know why, because he said outright it's about, you know, building a floor for the team and getting a foundation. And I get that. But on the end, I get it. I understand why we don't want to say it. And again, I'm not saying the quiet part out loud.

But is it really the quiet part if it's blatantly obvious? Because our eyes are not deceiving us. Drake May has outperformed Jacoby Brissett in the preseason. The way I see it, he's saying things literally that we already know. And I know good and damn well that the players feel that way too. Everyone and their mother can see it. So, like, he's literally not telling us anything that we don't know. Furthermore, I feel like everybody in the

locker room also knew that May was going to sit. And it's not out of necessity. It's not like they have to groom him more, Paz. It's just that they have to, it's for preservation. Because you saw what happened with that offensive line, especially against Washington. What was it? Three illegal formation penalties? Yeah, one of them literally killed a touchdown. I mean, that's not something you want to put May through as a rookie. And even if he did outplay him, we know that May is going to sit. And I'll tell you how we know, because like I said, he hasn't even started a preseason game. And on top of that, I'm going to tell you something. So it's not just that they want to keep May safe.

It's that they have to lick their wounds from the failed Mac Jones experiment. Because, I mean, why would you start May with this team? Do you want another Mac Jones? Because that's how you get another Mac Jones. And I guess the reason, like I said, I don't have an issue with any of this. Okay, well, look, I kind of do. But on the flip side, once again, he's literally just stating the obvious. And a note on Belichick, I don't know many people that have a new appreciation for how he handled it, because it was just frustrating when he did it and he still made head-scratching moves and the secrecy just really rubbed most people the wrong way

because literally what's the point of having secrecy if you continually make stupid decision after stupid decision but then again i guess another reason why mayo gets the pass is because he's also not the gm which bill belichick was so there's an extra layer to add there that's kind of why i was saying like maybe at at the end of the day it doesn't really matter because as you mentioned mayo is a new coach this is first year and he's kind of everyone knows that this is a long-term plan this is not a Super Bowl winning plan in year one and everyone knows that Drake May is not expected to be the week one starter much like Mac Jones was in 2021 and I will say that it wouldn't be like in Mac Jones's case it

wasn't like him starting week one ended up working great. He had a good rookie season. It's just over time, all the bad roster management kind of finally caught up to the team. And this is where we are now. It wasn't like starting Mac Jones day one was a bad decision. It was the roster management and how they developed him over time, which was very poorly done.

Yeah. And I will say that the secrecy of Bill Belichick got old in the last two years because of how poorly he ran the team at the end of his tenure. Whereas in 2014, him saying we're on to Cincinnati was kind of like, that's Bill, you know? Whereas the last two years

just were sickening and tiring to hear. Yeah. And I will add that the secrecy, we liked it for a time, then it got old. And the thing is is when you have that unorthodox secret very somewhat authoritarian style it only works when you're winning and we saw in the locker room too players like actively showing signs of pleasure you know fighting with

coaches and stuff that was rare when they went and I just think that's what it is, is about like establishing a culture. And I'm going to speak the truth. At the last two years of Belichick's tenure, players, captains even, blatantly did not trust him. You know, and a lot of it started with the hiring of Matt Patricia. You know, you had people like Hunter Henry and David Andrews, you know, and a lot of it started with the hiring of Matt Patricia. You know, you have people like Hunter Henry and David Andrews, you know, going to him and saying, you know, this is not a great idea. And Bill's like, OK, well, F you, I'm the coach. And that's what I think Mayo is. Mayo has to build a new culture. He has to build one fast. There's a lot of pressure on him. And I get wanting to be open because at this point it's about building trust.

Yeah. I was, so looking at the, I will say that the situation with Mac Jones was handled fairly well in year one. Year one, I thought it was a lot better than people would say it would be. At least looking back. Back then, everyone thought it went really well because he was the runner-up for Offensive Rookie of the Year. But looking back, a lot of people say they should have started Cam Newton first. Maybe you could say that they could have started Cam Newton, but I think as long as you have a functional offensive line, that you can start whoever you want and not have to worry about them ruining the player because you won't have a defender in your face

every other play. This year, it's very different. They don't have that offensive line that's going to keep Drake May safe. They're going to get him hurt. Now, the psychological issue is a little bit, you meet a lot of disagreement there because a lot of people might say, well, if he's really the guy, then he'll have the mental toughness to get through it. On the other side, he's just a kid and he's trying to learn how to be an NFL quarterback. It's hard to do that when you're always looking out for a defender on your blind side and on the other side as well. So looking at that, I don't see a scenario where I believe that Drake May should be the starting quarterback at any point in 2024.

I don't care too much about the psychological issue. I get it. If they, if they have it, then they have it right. So a lot of quarterbacks have actually made it work while getting their, getting their faces kicked in. Um, but I also don't want them to get hurt. Um, and there's no development that there's going to be had with him always avoiding the rush. He's supposed to be learning how to find the open receiver, learning how to roll out, when to throw it away. If you're always on your ass all the time,

there's nothing good that will come out of this year if Drake May is starting. This roster is as bad as i've seen it in recent years well said i mean i agree like you you hit the nail right on the head in fact in the words of well you i think we agree on more than you realize which happens like every single time that we have a disagreement it It's that we agree, but we end up disagreeing with our agreement because we're so passionate about what we disagree, the opinions that we disagree on that we end up disagreeing because we just

argue about things that we agree on. That's the whole thing. And CJ mentioned this five minutes ago like this whole thing or however long ago it was at this point that we've been recording that this whole thing is probably just overblown and i'll say it again maybe at the end of the day it doesn't really matter because everyone knows drake may is outplaying jacoby persett it's just a matter of when they decide they want to throw him into the fire.

Yeah, I'll end with this before we move on. Almost every single time a starting quarterback enters the league as a rookie, when they start year one, it's usually because they have a good offensive line. And in the times that they don't, then that's when you see things go south pretty fast. The Bills with Josh Allen,

they had a decent offensive line when he first entered the league. C.J. Stroud had a very good offensive line. Got hurt a little bit towards the end of the season, but Jalen Hurts had one of the best offensive lines in the league with the Eagles. So, I mean, they just don't have the line to start them this year. And I put that on the Patriots for this past offseason. They had a modest offseason where they should have signed more for that offensive line or at least made some trades, did something. They didn't do any of that. So they kind of tied themselves down to this being

a bridge year because let's say Drake May was ahead of schedule and we decide to start him. We can't do that now because they don't have the pieces on the offensive line to keep them upright. If they actually got some players this offseason through free agency or through trades, maybe they would have been able to do that. Maybe they would have been able to start May and he would have been ahead of schedule. And we get, I don't know, we don't, maybe we don't get a CJ Stroud type season, but we get a good season out of them, a good start. Then you get them a weapon over the offseason and then you're back in business. You're ready to contend eventually. They can't do that this year. They can't do either of those things.

So that's what I'll lead off. That's what I'll lead with, rather finish with, to transition into our next segment, which is CeeDee Lamb being extended by the Cowboys, second highest paid non-quarterback in NFL history. We're going to get to that next. This is the Fumble Rooski Podcast. It may not have always showed it in the stat sheet,

but you can see him making throws when he needs to make the throws. Back-to-back games where he has three touchdowns. Someone's got to get that six or seven spot. He's an elite wide receiver as a rookie. Truly a lose-lose scenario for both sides. Welcome back to the Fumble Rooski podcast by Power 88 and Secret Weapon Consulting. I'm Adam Wright with CJ Medeiros and Chris Kostic. So after a very long standoff this off season, CD lamb has officially been extended by the Dallas Cowboys. It is four years, $136 million. Now they still have two other players that they need to sign to long-term contracts, including Micah Parsons, the guy who throws the ball to CeeDee Lamb, Dak Prescott.

And I'm just wondering, because we touched on this situation between the Cowboys and the Eagles, which team is under the most pressure to win the division, potentially win a Super Bowl? That's obviously the goal here. But which of these teams, now that the dynamic has changed a little bit the eagles just traded for johan dots and they got they got jalen hertz another weapon after a very down year and the cowboys did have contract issues with their top three players and that was going to be their motivating factor in order to have a very good year that their players they had a fire lit under them cd lamb doesn't quite have that anymore what kind of dynamic sort of changes in this rivalry guys i don't think anything really changes because the fact of the matter is that the eagles are looking to take the throne from the cowboys again and the Cowboys are trying to not to actually make it to the NFC championship game.

And look like Jerry Jones signing CD lamb that this he had to get this done. CD lamb is a top two receiver in the league, potentially not to. And like Jahan Dotson going to the Eagles like that's great and all. He didn't really he didn't do a ton over in Washington they didn't use him correctly and he didn't do all that well and it shows with the pick that they ended up getting for him especially with Dotson being a first round pick um so Jahan Dotson is going to be a wide receiver three or wide receiver four it's going to be one of those two so we'll see if that even we'll see if johan dotson even makes a splash in philly to begin with but i don't think anything really changes besides the fact that everyone hates

each other yeah so cj the thing with chris is that that I wholeheartedly agree. And when you look at his numbers from two years in Washington, he's very okay. In fact, I'd say he's aggressively okay. With just over 1,000 yards at 1,041, he's got 11 touchdowns, once again, just over two years, and 84 grabs, averaging 12.4 yards a catch. That's good, but I would call this a non-factor in their relationship between Philly and Dallas, and the reason I call it a non-factor is because, let's be real, he's the wide receiver three. There is no conceivable reality where he is considered better than A.J. Brown or Devontae Smith. And as for Dallas, that is interesting, but not for any divisional reason.

I still think C.D. Lamb is going to have some kind of fire under him, so there's that. But he, ideally in the minds of Dallas fans, is the first domino to fall. Because Parsons and Prescott, as Adam mentioned, still need their extensions. And unless you are willing to chuck your team down the canyon to the depths of cap hell, you probably can't sign them all. So now, is it going to be Dak or is it going to be Parsons? On one hand, you need a quarterback like an upper tier guy to win the Super Bowl. But Prescott's never even been to the NFC Championship game.

And Parsons, on the other hand, is literally like a top five minimum, top three, probably, defender, at least edge rusher in the league. And I just don't know how much money there is to go around. And what CeeDee Lamb just went through, I think, is going to have a ripple effect. Because there are grumblings from northward of Dallas, in Cincinnati, Ohio, that Jamar Chase may or may not be unhappy. And after he saw CD get paid, there might be a growing hunger on Chase's side. Great, I don't know how true that is, but former Bengals wideout Chad Ochocinco outright said he would not be shocked if there was a holdout at some point which were two years that's pretty weird but you know who am i to judge but at the end of the day it's just for dallas they're just reinforcing you know these big mega deals for receivers and if you're new to the show then

we specifically adam have a good point about point about these upper echelon receivers, when they're hogging up all this money, how often do they win? And if they do win the Super Bowl, look at who's throwing them the ball. So if I had to hedge my bets, I genuinely think Parsons is going to be the odd man out here because I think it is the least likely scenario that they retain all three. And if they do, they're going to be Saints levels of cap screwed. You know, I might actually disagree slightly on that in this scenario, and I'll tell you why.

So in most scenarios, we've already talked about this, when an elite wide receiver wins a Super Bowl, it's always, not almost, it's always because they had a future Hall of Fame quarterback throwing to them. But is Dak Prescott a future Hall of Famer? No. Not at the moment. And defense does help win championships. defense itself but balance so i i don't want

to make any predictions here but i wonder if they're lighting a fire under dac prescott here and hoping that he can come through with something because i wonder if i mean a lot of the league has lost lost trust in dac prescott to actually win a team a Super Bowl, especially when it matters most. I mean, in regular season, he plays as good of ball as any quarterback in the league. But then he turns into a pumpkin in the postseason. And I think they're getting a little sick of that. I'm not saying Dak can't play, but I'm saying when it comes to the postseason, it is really night and

day to see how these teams play. Now, I've always believed it was the coaching that really screwed them over, their execution of the talent that they have, but you can't excuse Dak either. Again, I'm not calling for anything. I'm not calling for a trade. I'm not predicting anything. I'm saying maybe, maybe they're prioritizing the right guy in this scenario because yes, the elite quarterback doesn't win the Super Bowl without the, the elite wide receiver doesn't win the Super Bowl without the elite quarterback, but the elite wide receiver definitely isn't doing it with the guy who can't play in the post season at all. The above average quarterback, the guy who you're just overpaying through the teeth and ends up screwing you over? Do you really want more of what we've gotten

in the last few years? Or do you want to mix things up a bit and maybe, again, not calling for anything, maybe you're going to the draft and going and getting somebody else and trying to find the guy for CD land to receive the balls from. Yeah, I mean, at the same time, you could also see. So to Adam's point at that point, maybe Micah Parsons isn't going to be the odd man out.

But that's the tough decision that Dallas is going to have to come up with at this point is do they see, because Dak is their franchise quarterback. We can all agree to that right now. Right now he is, yeah. He's been their quarterback for about, I mean, eighth year since 2016 when he took over for Romo. So he's been their franchise guy this entire time.

So they now have to come up with the tough decision of do they stick with their franchise guy, which many organizations will just stick with their franchise guy. Look at the Steelers. They stuck with Ben Roethlisberger for all these years. Aaron Rodgers, the same thing. Tom Brady. Joe Montana was the franchise guy for San Francisco

until it was finally time to move on. And that's going to be a tough decision for Dallas. Are they going to decide that they need to move on so they can actually get to where they need to go? But the other problem is they move on from Dak. You got CeeDee Lamb for another three years. Are you going to come up with another Super Bowl contender in three years after that?

So it would be five years including this year because he's still under his last contract. So, excuse me. So are you still going to be a Super Bowl contender by the time the next rotation of CD's contract comes up? Or maybe the next big guy that you have coming around for the team? Because if you do go through the draft or you do make a big splash on a trade or big splash in the off season in a free agency are you going to be able to contend for a Super Bowl title for the next four years after that because cd lambs

cd lambs top two potentially not number two and you want to make sure you keep them happy and if you want to have the best receiver on your team for a very long time, then you got to keep them happy with something. Yeah, that's, that's a pretty fair point that you make, which is that, you know, they, you still have to develop that quarterback and that's in at best, the best case scenario is you find them next year and you still have to develop them for two, three years. That's usually the years that's usually the that's usually the threshold it's two to three seasons they usually they rarely succeed within their in

their rookie year um that's the best case scenario which means at best you'll have two years left of cd's contract so you also have to want so you have to wonder maybe they do extend a deck but it's to a shorter term deal and do they even want to do that yeah um yeah they'll never move on from the they'll never try invest in head coaching and think that's the problem because that's what because that's what jerry jones does he has two he has too large of an ego to just just give the reins to a competent head coach, or at least one that is more than just a body to throw in there. He has too big of an ego for that. So you have to think that maybe they're looking at the talent there with Dak

and maybe trying to reevaluate if he can win them a Super Bowl. I think he's a good quarterback. I'm not disputing that whatsoever. But is he winning you a Super Bowl? That's the question you've got to ask yourself. The only way he does is with a good coach. And once again, if how long they're holding on to Mike McCarthy and how long they held on to Jason Garrett literally serves as any indication,

then I highly, and I do mean highly, doubt that they're on to Jason Garrett literally serves as any indication then I highly and I do mean highly doubt that they're gonna and Dallas also has to prove that they can even beat a team over 500 to begin with yeah I mean I think I think they will they have a good enough offensive line. They have Cee Lamb now. We know that. As far as they know, Dak and Parsons aren't planning on holding out. But their team is good enough for them to at least be a playoff team this year. The question is, does Jerry Jones think that's enough? And if they hesitate this much on giving Dak this much money,

the amount of money that he wants, then it makes me wonder if maybe they are trying to reevaluate what Dak really brings to the table. I think, again, good quarterback. I'm not saying that he sucks. I'm not saying that they are going to do anything. This is just, I'm thinking out loud here. What if they are looking at things and saying,

maybe we made a mistake committing to Dak for this long? I don't think Jerry Jones is humanly capable of admitting that. I'm not even joking. I genuinely don't believe that. So do you think that he'll just end up letting him go and then it'll just be an abrupt thing? No, I think they're probably going to keep him if I'm being real. Yeah.

Probably will. I could be just shooting things out. They'll probably keep them the way that they kept Romo, and then the cycle's going to continue. They're going to find their next guy that takes over when Dak gets injured by some freak injury, and the next guy's going to take over for him, and the cycle's going to continue.

Yeah, that's a good chance to happen too. Honestly, yeah. Happened twice to Dallas already. Yeah. Bledsoe, Romo. Yeah, but that's very hard to happen. There's a reason it very rarely happens. And you just don't find...

At least with Bledsoe and Brady, they found a Super Bowl winner. They found a guy who can actually take you all the way, which is very hard to find in the later rounds of an NFL draft. But you're never... It's very hard to do in general like what you found with romo to dac um it's not a plan is that's the way i would put it it's not a plan for somebody to it's definitely not a plan but you know i mean look at the cowboys drafting dac in the first place in 2016 they knew that he was going to end up being

Romo's replacement at some point or potentially Romo's replacement and there he is he's now the franchise guy and that that's the thing at the end of the day is you know these teams are going to find a quarterback that they can rely on to be their franchise guy and be competitive at the very least. Like Kirk cousins was able to make the Vikings competitive for the last. However many years Dak's been able to at least like the cow, like the Cowboys for all it is worth have been competitive and have made playoff appearances. They just haven't been able to get over the hump to make it to the NFC

championship. appearances they just haven't been able to get over the hump to make it to the nfc championship and you see other teams like the like the packers they only won one ring under rogers but they were able to maintain being competitive and rogers was their franchise guy um i'm blanking on other examples right now josh Allen, Josh Allen. The Bills have been able to be competitive since 2019 with or without Josh Allen being able to lead them to a Super Bowl appearance. Stuff like that. It's true. Yeah.

So we'll see what they end up doing. My money's obviously on them they end up biting the bullet and signing they're signing the the remaining uh the the remaining players of that big three but i mean well we'll see what happens um yeah all right let's all schedule what's that they got ze, so it's all right. We're eight years late to the Zeke hype. That's all the scheduled content we have for today, but do you guys have any

other thoughts before we end the show? No. Just happy cut-down day, America, to all those who celebrate. We do have some breaking news. Kadarius, Tony, what's up? It's nothing

crazy. Rams finalizing a trade to send Ernest Jones IV to the Titans. The Titans just got another guy. Holy crap. The Titans are taking over the world this offseason well let's see if they can live up to the hype it's literally all on levis but we've been over this

we're going to find out very fast if levis can play or not that's that's the whole that's the whole gif with uh this guy i mean with this titans, um, they're doing what they need to do in order to surround Levis with some weapons. And we'll see if he ends up turning into something. There's a possibility here. That's my sleeper for this year. Yeah. He's not too bad.

I mean, he looked, he looked, he looked nice. Just we'll see. Even if he's average, we're going to see a competitive Titans team. Yeah.

All right. Well, that'll do it for us tonight. Thank you for listening to us. We have new episodes out on Tuesdays at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Standard Time. Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We have all our episodes available on Spotify, Spreaker, Apple Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Google Podcasts, and so much more. Also, be sure to follow our Instagram at FumbleRooski underscore podcast

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