The Ringer NFL Show - Brady, Rodgers, Darnold, and the NFL Draft

Episode Date: April 7, 2021

Kevin and Nora open the show by discussing the possibility of Tom Brady becoming a general manager after retirement, Aaron Rodgers on 'Jeopardy!,' and more (2:00). Later, they are joined by Mike Tannenbaum (17:00), ESPN analyst and former NFL general manager, to discuss some questions about the upcoming NFL draft, including how to evaluate quarterbacks, whether Mac Jones is worth trading up for, and whether size matters when looking at draft prospects, and more. Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Guest: Mike Tannenbaum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

The Ringer's Dave Hill takes you on a journey into the underground lives and careers of six professional gamblers. This eight-part podcast is a unique look into the gambling world that you don't want to miss. Check out gamblers on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark, drawn by Noah, Prince, Yadena. Noah, what's going on, buddy? Not much, Kevin. There is, as we are recording this, there is a new Taylor Swift song that has been released into the ether.

So I'm on tilt, essentially. It's also Masters Week. Do we have the same feelings over those two things? Basically, probably Nathan Hubbard is the person to ask that question too. But just a lot of, I commend you as well for just really spreading your wings and flying and showing a lot of range recently with the basketball, with the golf, and of course, with some football. So let's talk some football. Yeah, no, doing a bunch of stuff here.

It's all good. I'm getting my second vaccine shot this week. I'm just doing it all. It's a big week. Everybody's on tilt. Everybody's on tilt. Is that what on tilt means? That's a thing that people say, and I'm always kind of...

On tilt. I mean, it could. You're probably on tilt. But what on tilt means is essentially like in gambling terms, like an example of being on tilt, is if you lose a bunch of times and then you just start making irrational decisions. So that's probably where you're at with Taylor Swift. Shoot, that's not what I thought it meant. I just thought it was like on one excited.

Rearing to go. It just means a little bit of, it means you're not level-headed because you're taking on water, essentially. But I would say that's not a million miles away from how you react whenever there's a Taylor. That's, okay, that's fair. That's fair. That's fair. We're in a good place. And we got a great show.

We got a great show. We just turned into Saturday Night Live here. Okay. So we have Mike Tannenbaum on today. Mike Tannenbaum is here. Great conversation. he talks a lot about the process that teams go through. We talked a little about Bernard Gouldston,

talked about the quarterbacks at the top of this draft. Now we should view them. He out of nowhere took a shot at Bill Simmons Celtics knowledge, which you're going to have to listen to it. You're going to have to listen to it. We have not sought comment from one Bill Simmons, but we will get there. And there's just a lot to get there.

This is a big, big week. One thing I just saw before we started recording, Tom Brady to Michael Strayhan and Good Morning America, I still want to play ellipsis. I got a little sickness in me that just wants to throw a freaking spiral. He's so weird. You know Tom Brady better than I do in as much as that I've never really spent any time with Tom Brady. What does his post career look like?

Is it like a Beckham, like a Beckham like I'm just kind of an icon and I hang out and get three million Instagram likes every time I go to a restaurant or is it like a Beckham? it like, is he going to try to be a GM? I can't really peg it because he wants to play so long. I don't think he's actually given much thought to it. Well, so yeah, there's two answers to that, and I think you're basically

spot on. His post-playing career will be defined by TB12 and what he wants to do with diet and lifestyle and all of that. But I don't think he really knows. I don't think he knows how he is going to

respond mentally when he doesn't, have the daily challenge of football to channel that. I mean, I think in that interview, he also said something along the lines of like, he's still got a chip on his shoulder or he's still like, people doubted him and he still feels doubted and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, it's always the same thing. And I think that that, like, I truly believe that Tom Brady gets up in the morning, every morning and is like, one, I am energized by the challenge of going and playing football and two, hey, remember when all those people didn't think that I was good enough to do this? And I do not think that he really knows what his life is going to be like when that's

no longer a part of it. But he'll spend a lot of time with his family and he'll do TB12 stuff. From what I understand, it's not just remember when people thought I couldn't do it. It's a constant refreshing of that particular narrative. Like, he is seeking out things to be mad about, from what I understand. Things in the media. Yes. Yeah, like he he gets way more in the weeds than you would think for someone with a few hundred million dollars. But on the other hand, so does Michael Jordan. Like that is that that is the requirement. And if that's your motivation, your requirement is to get deep in the weeds and find something, find someone to dunk on, literally or figuratively.

He's not normal. No. No. That much we know. But I don't think anyone can get to his level of success by being normal. No, definitely not. There's no way. no way.

Aaron Rogers hosting Jeopardy, what'd you think? Fun. Just fun to take someone from one world and put them in another world. That's just a general take

about how things work in life. Always fun when that happens. Love having Aaron Rogers hosting. It would be cool. I got to say, I think that there could be diminishing returns

if Aaron Rogers was the permanent host of Jeopardy because at a certain point he's just the host of Jeopardy. Now, what could be cool would be, like if he did it for a year while he was playing,

I think that would be really fun. Because then you can kind of merge the narratives. So he told our Claire McNair, who writes wonderful in all sports and on Jeopardy. She wrote a book on Jeopardy. So she talked to Aaron Rogers last week

and he said he wouldn't have to retire in order to do this. They only film, what, 45 days a year? That's a pretty nice gig. Game shows, pretty good. They just film like 10 episodes a day and then everybody, the host just makes $60 million a year. It's wild.

It's wild. How good a lives game show hosts have. Kind of like the punters of television, except way better. Yeah, punters, if they never had to go to practice. If they just showed up. Like, remember when Roger Clemens, you probably don't? Remember when Roger Clemens had that deal with the Astros where he didn't have to come in on days he wasn't pitching? For the purposes of this conversation, let's say that, yes.

No, I'm just saying he's really the only person who kind of gamed it to actually have like the game show host life while playing professional sports. He didn't have to do, he didn't have to do anything, but just show up every five days in pitch. And then it turned out Roger Clemens was a huge creep. So. Yeah. I guess that's that's separate.

I'm with you. I really like Aaron Rogers. And I think he's one of those fascinating interviews in league. And I think that he has the. range for it. I agree with you in as much as like when Aaron Rogers is doing something funny or great, he's helped by the fact that he's

a world famous athlete. And then once you get into the TV world, you're competing with like, you know, Neil Patrick Harris and stuff. And so it's definitely a harder game to to stand out in. You know, I've seen

it's also a LeVar Burton petition this week. You know, there's just a lot of, there's a deep bench here. I think Sanjay Gupta is going to be one of the guest hosts at one point, Katie Kurek. It's just, there's a deep bench of, and then everyone thinks Ken Jennings is going to get it, I think, from what I understand. Yeah. Yeah. So it's just, it's, it's, it's competitive. It's it is a lot easier to assert yourself in a football field than it is to be the, an iconic jeopardy guest host. Who is the Jordan love of those fill-in hosts? Is it Katie,

Everybody hated the Dr. Oz thing. Right. Okay. Yep, that's it. But I don't think Dr. Oz is the Jordan Love here. I just think it's similarly everyone was just like, what's going on here? Kind of like the Jordan Love thing. But I think Roger says the range to do it. I think he's really funny and charming and all that stuff. And I would not be surprised if he got more opportunities.

Or he could get his own game show. Right. No, so I think that's an important point here. He could genuinely do it. Like, I don't doubt at all for a second that he could genuinely be a good Jeopardy host. It's like when a backup quarterback comes in in relief and proves he can be a starter somewhere. Maybe he's not the start. Maybe he's not the starting Jeopardy hosts permanently.

But maybe he gets his own show. Aaron Rogers is Aaron Rogers of football. Aaron Rogers might be Josh McCown at hosting Jeopardy. Okay. Which is not an insult. No, no, I'm processing that. I'm processing that. Yeah, that could be, that could be right.

That could be right. Like being a replacement level Jeopardy host is one, not easy and a pretty good gig. But he's used to being Aaron Rogers at his chosen profession, so it might get complicated. The more I thought about the Jeopardy thing, you don't actually have to be smart

to be the Jeopardy host. You have to give an air of gravitase off or like you have to appear smart, but you're not writing the questions. But you don't have to be like, Right, you don't have to know the answers to the questions intrinsically. All you judge on is like once an episode, you say something funny when someone gives a bad answer. Right, you have to be really good at like being just mean enough, which actually I think Aaron Rogers is probably pretty good at.

That's what I'm getting at. And then you have to play off of them when they give their life story, which is important. And then when they give a funny Final Jeopardy answer, you have to have a good line for that. But I would also say that, you know, the other day, someone made fun of the Matt O'Flaherr field goal, and he took it in stride. So I think there's some there there, as I'll say about that. All right. Before we get to my 10-Mond, we talk about the Darnold trade in there a lot, and we kind of get through what it means for the Jets and the Panthers. And he had some really interesting comments.

He actually had just talked to Bill Parcells about the subject that we touched on with Donald in particular in the Jets and all that stuff. But when this came true, the trade came down, what did you think? well, I don't mind it certainly for the Panthers because, and I've said this on this pod in a zillion different situations, my general philosophy for a team that needs a quarterback is just to take swings. And it's not an insignificant level of compensation that they gave up to get him, but it's not going to change the, it's not going to change the trajectory that the franchise is on not having that. $24 million or whatever over two years and those draft picks.

There is at least a slim possibility that if it is enough of an upgrade in situation that Sam Darnold turns into a viable starting quarterback, the return on the assets that you gave up to get him is significant enough that I believe in doing it. I think that Carolina has invested in its coaching staff, and this is an opportunity for them to prove that that investment was worth making. I don't think that it would be a shock to anyone if getting out of the New York Jets organization

helped a player. So I like it. I like it for Carolina. I like it for Darnold, just getting a change of scenery. I think it's, I mean, the Jets are going to take a quarterback at two. It's not that big of a deal.

I don't know. I loved what Mike said because I think he had some kind of fresh ideas about who might be interested in prioritizing quarterback to the extent that they would double dip. And I just don't know that I would always rather be in the position of gaining assets at the quarterback position than losing them. And while I don't think that it's super matters for the Jets because they have that number two pick and are going to use it on a quarterback, I don't know.

That's the part that I'm a little shaky on. What do you think? I think that I just fired up Twitter and I just saw that Shaq saw a kid buying an engagement ring yesterday and just bought the engagement ring for the kid. Thanks, Shaq. That's so nice. I think that'd be the best part of being and Stanley Rich

is doing stuff like that and putting on a video and going viral. I bought this engagement ring. Yeah. All right. Wait, you're not answering my question about Sam. Arnold. What do you think? Well, no, I have a, I had a shack midweek. You had a shack point to make.

Yes, excuse me. Sorry, Kevin. Okay. So, Donald, I can't tell right now. There's a chance that Adam Gase, the gaisness of it all, that Adam Gase actually helps Sam Darnold in getting a huge incomplete grade. And then if he had more of a coach who was considered competent that he may have been not worth that kind of haul, right?

And I think everyone has thrown the Gase numbers out to the point that the whole conversation is so muddy. You know, our buddy, Seth Walter, works, ESPN, at a great point that two things can be true at once. Adam Gase can be a bad coach. That can be a bad situation. But he also should not. If Sam Darnel was better, he wouldn't have been 33rd out of 33 quarterbacks in every statistic, including QBR. Right. Sam Donald has never had a good NFL season. He was a bad quarterback.

And I think that there are still people, you know, Diana Rossini, who was on Russell a couple weeks ago, who said there's still people who saw Donald's Pro Day and said, oh, my God, we know what he could be, all that stuff. And I still think there's some of that in the league. And I feel like that hasn't dissipated as much as it normally does with these types of young quarterbacks who don't pan out because of the gay situation. So I am, you know, I joked about this a couple times,

but there almost needs to be in the same way that there's, you know, adjusted for error or whatever, there needs to be adjusted for bad coaches, statistics. And I don't know what that is for Adam Gase. I do know that Darnel will be in a better situation. There's a difference between Sam Darnel can be better and Sam Darnold is good. And we're going to find that out. I think that the weird narrative for me, there were a couple things. Number one, people were saying, that's all they got for Sam Darnold.

Well, Sam Darnold was not considered all that good in the NFL. Then there were another kind of group where there were, like said they got Sam Donald for nothing. This is a flyer. That's not a flyer. Second round pick being the top pick. That is not a flyer in the modern NFL. So I think it was fair value to answer a question and to have the upside, I guess, that we saw at USC. I'm in the same way you have to give Sam Donald a big old incomplete for for the past three years because the situation he was put in because of the talent around him, whatever. You have to give that with the trade too. We don't know what they're going to do as far as Carolina goes at eight. Maybe the

still out of quarterback as we talked about. So I just, this is, this is a long way of saying. There are so many unknowables, so many unanswerables about Sam Darnold that I am, I'm officially waiting and seeing to, to put a grade on this one. I feel like I'm having like a fever dream here because now I'm just thinking back to Sam Donald's Pro Day. And if memory serves, it rained and everybody thought that was like a huge deal because he just put on a show and it was raining and everyone was like, that's awesome.

Sam Darnold is awesome. it was raining. Is that right? Yeah, no pro day has ever mattered. No pro day has ever mattered. I want someone to find me, just is the biggest question possible. And I'm happy to change my mind on this.

I don't think a pro day has ever actually mattered. I think maybe it's matter in the perception for a little bit, but then it hasn't ever proven anything. I do think it's like guys just want to get out of the house, like scouts and stuff. Go to pro days? Yeah, see each time. Southern California?

Yeah, or Austin or Miami or whatever. I think it's a good time for scouts to see each other and stuff. It's spring break for scouts. But I don't think it necessarily matters. And I think even we talked about this a little bit later, but it's like, you know, Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch went to Pro Day for Mac Jones and they didn't ask Nick Sabin a question about Mac Jones. So even the access there can sometimes, you know, also, by the way,

Kyle Shanahan can get Nick Sabin on the phone. So I think that I'm, pro days are kind of funny to me, I guess is what I'm saying. Hot take. We got hot takes early. Let's get to Mike Tanenbaum. Join now by Mike Tanenbaum, one of our favorite recurring guests, former NFL journal manager, ESPN analyst. And now you have a mock draft, Mike Tanemab.

What was that? I guess you said before you came on, you felt like a pinata. When you release all 32 first round picks to the masses, that he, Keith you got, how would you characterize it? I felt like it was back in New York as the general manager of the Jets with incoming from any and all directions. But in all seriousness, it was a ton of fun, learned a lot. And I'm a little bit in tugging cheek, but not completely, which is, it is actually

easier to run a real draft because you have seven picks or whatever you may have, you know, five in a year, nine, whatever it may be. and you're sort of like fixated on your plan, your strategy. But on this, like the way we had set it up was I sat in the seat of all 32 teams. And really, like the draft should be part of, in a very meaningful way, obviously, but of team building. And what you did before and after the draft isn't necessarily outcome determinative, but it should be certainly significant in terms of what you're going to do. So we can get into this, Kevin, as much as you and Nora would like to.

but it made me to take a really deep dive on each and every team. What was the hardest part of it? Like what was the hardest stretch of the first round? Yeah. Nora, that's a great question. You know, a couple, like, I'm sitting there, Kyle Pitts going 12. I'm like, I don't think Kyle Pitts is going to go 12, but, and we'll get into this in a second. Like, Carolina, if they're being responsible, they're taking a quarterback at eight,

if Justin Field is there, Trey Lance, if the three of us owned and operated, the Atlanta Falcons, as great as Kyle Pitts is going to be as a football player, we should take Trey Lance. Like, there's no two ways about it. But, you know, like, nor to your question, like, it's hard to say, like, we're going to bypass a guy that could be, you know, just a dynamic playmaker. Right. Kevin, I cut you off there for a second.

I feel like you're going to talk about the quarterbacks, which is probably no, no, no. That's actually what I wanted to know about, about just what the hardest perspective was and just putting herself in all 32, in all 32. in all 32 shoes as interesting exercise. I'm curious, Mike, about the top of the draft because everyone's curious, but the top of the draft and how that, you talked about someone like Pits slipping a little bit.

And I think that when we look back on this, I was looking at the 1999 draft, which was kind of the most analogous in the sense that quarterbacks went one through three and then Champ Bailey all of a sudden is dropping to the bottom of the top 10. Edron James goes to Peyton Manning. When you're gaming out these guys and they're dropping,

When we look back in five years, what is the pick that you think we're going to say, how in the world did this happen because of how quarterback heavy it was, where maybe a non-quarterback slips to a team that really they should, the league should not have let him get them. Patrick Sartan to me, because when you look at Patrick Sotan, I just don't think he fails. Like someone would have to really put a compelling argument to me of why he won't be successful. Like he has the requisite measurables.

He has unbelievable intangibles. and he has great film. And he won against the best everyday practice. He won against the best, obviously, in the SEC. I think he's going to be a great player. I think he's going to be a bedrock for a long time. And he's going to go somewhere between, in my opinion, like 9 and 11. And I just think those other teams are going to be like, wow, we passed literally a short thing.

And if I could be anywhere on the planet on the first day of the draft, I'd love to be a fly in the Dallas Cowboys room. And because, you know, last year, they really should have taken an offensive line. or certainly a defensive player. And you can make an argument that, okay, it's C.D. Lamb, despite giving Marri Cooper all that money to go ahead and take a receiver. This year, what happens if Kyle Pitts and Patrick Sartan are there? Like, if they take Kyle Pitts, like, you know, how many more games do you want to lose

49, 47, Jerry? Like, do you want to keep losing 50 to 42? Like, are you going to fire Dan Quinn and have three defensive coordinators in three years? Or are we trying to win a championship here? And I just think the juxtaposition of like this megawatt offensive star in Kyle Pitts versus what they should do from a team building standpoint, that juxtaposition to be is fascinated. All right, but do you want to be a fly on the wall in the war room or in the Jerry Yacht? Well, I think the only way I'm going to be invited on Jerry Jot is if I manifest myself into that fly.

Yeah, me too. Is there any intel that he's coming off the yacht this year? Is he actually going to be in the war room? or is he just going, I don't know, we'll see. That's my number one draft storyline. I would never come off the yacht. I agree. If given the opportunity, I would just stay there forever.

I agree. I guess probably he wants to be in the mix. Do you have to pay state of taxes if you live on a yacht? It depends. It depends where it's registered. I mean, like, I'm a big Formula One fan and all those guys, they just live in Monaco. Or they don't live anywhere. And they just said they live in Monaco.

So I guess it would be, I guess you'd have to just register it somewhere. But I'm sure Jerry has found a way to pay less income tax is my guess on this particular subject. His plot has taken a turn. Yep. So I do want to talk a little bit about Darno and Carolina and all that stuff and kind of how that that game theory works out. But I want to stick with the top of the draft because I think a lot of times people who've been in the league, and this happened a little bit with Josh Allen. This is a different deal.

Have a different perspective when a guy starts to shoot up draft boards. And I need this Mack Jones thing explained to me. You have Justin Fields in your mock draft going eight to Carolina, which is really interesting. The way this has developed the last two weeks to me has been stunning and fascinating to see all the machinations of it. Nick Saban comes out this week and says that John Lynch and Kyle Shearahan, we're standing right next to him, never asked them about, never asked him about Mac Jones or anything like that. That might be part of the smokescreen. But what am I missing or what is, I guess, the media punetry missing when we look at Mac Jones versus how maybe the league views it, Mike? Yeah, I thought for months when I watched Matt Jones, he reminded me of Matt Ryan.

And that goes back to me seeing him in person being at the championship game. I think he's a really accurate quarterback. I think sometimes with accuracy, we can measure that in completion percentage. But I think another way to look at it is he had over 2,400 yards in yards after catch. Now, again, I understand that they have basically the U.S. Olympic track team at C. Bruce. So I get that. But if you're not throwing the ball, like on the upfield shoulder or in a very catchable place, like, that's still hard to do. He had 70 completions over 20 yards.

I mean, it's remarkable. And I think his functional athleticism is probably better than people think. And I think, Kevin, to answer your question, if I'm Kyle Shanahan, I think about I've had success with Matt Schaub, had a lot of success with Matt Ryan. He's better than those guys. We have a really good supporting cast. and we're going to overpay here, but this guy, within reason, may get us to the Super Bowl. That part's interesting because investing three first round picks

in a guy like Mac Jones, who maybe you could have traded a little bit later in the top 10 or whatever, does this change, does the last couple of weeks change your perception of how first round picks are valued in the league? Did you expect that much for someone like a Mac Jones at the top of the draft or the third pick in a four or five quarterback draft? I mean, did this warp it? I mean, the thing Nora and I talked about a couple of weeks ago,

Ninus fans got mad at me, but I said, if you called around the league and offered three first round picks or even two first round picks, you'd probably get a pretty good haul and maybe better player than Mack Jones. So I guess the big question here is, does this Mac Jones trade or the number three trade, whatever you want to call it?

Does this change your perception of how first round picks are value? Well, I would say this, Kevin. I don't think first round picks is a one-size-fits-all approach. Like, if you're in the top five, that's different than a bottom five, If Ron Wolf was part of this discussion, you know, the Hall of Fame GM, you know, you're hitting 60% of the time. And I think we make a lot of it in the media of like, oh, they have X amount of picks over the next couple years. Well, at some point those picks turn into players and not all them are going to work out.

And the times of my career, I've traded up, Xavier and Howard, Dorel Revis, David Harris, more times than not worked out because we work for quality, not quantity. and look, you want to have as many picks as possible. I get that, but I don't think all picks are created equal. And I think to a certain extent, San Francisco said, like, we believe in Kyle Shanahan, we believe in the process. And if Matt Jones turns out to be a B plus or better, if we overpay and that 20, 23 should be a second round pick, but now it's a first, who cares? And I think that has to be part of the analysis.

So I think in some ways to answer your question, yeah, I think some teams in certain context will undervalue them. Does the value conversation get a little bit complicated when there's the potential, the likelihood for a run on quarterbacks in the top, let's call it top half of the first round? Because you kind of have half the league or some portion of the league that wants a quarterback and those picks end up getting valued based on the potential that they could be used on a quarterback.

And then so I guess what does that mean for the rest of those picks getting potentially traded because it seems like it drives the price up and then maybe you're not going to make a move like that for a lineman for a pass catcher unless it's someone really special. Yeah, I think it's totally fair, nor I think it's almost like two different markets, like quarterback market. But I think what will happen is before having this conversation, the Monday after the draft, I think we'll see the warm term like it'll just be a massive pivot where when we start getting into the non-quarterback part of the draft, so you know, somewhere between 8 and 10, I think we'll see a normalization in the marketplace of much more

realistic trades and not these like Uber premiums that we're now seeing. Does that mean, for the teams like, okay, Denver, Carolina, is that a little bit to your point about if a quarterback that they like, maybe it's not, you know, the guy that they have rated the best in the class, but if someone that they like is there, it's kind of you've got to use it on that guy because the potential for long-term best. value is so much higher? Yeah, I think Alicia, you know, I just think

the fundamental approach to the quarterback position is probably best exemplified by John Schneider and Pete Carroll, which is, you know, they get, they go there, they have Tavares Jackson, they get Matt Flynn, they drafts an obscure third round pick that couldn't make it at North Carolina State and turns out

to be Russell Wilson. And I think that's sort of like approach. And that's why I had Carolina still taking Justin Fields, even if they have Sam Darnham from a standpoint of like that mindset like until you have one keep going. Right. Take swings. Mike, I'm curious, just big picture the, the way you view quarterbacks because you came on this

podcast at this time last year and I made a comment about Tua being the second best quarterback and you correct to me and said no one's talking about Justin Herbert and you try out to be 100% correct. When we watched that one? We did. We did. Yeah. We can, we can do you want, do you need that for your clips?

Yeah, we can blast that out. I don't need it for my clips, Kevin. I need it for my self-esteem. So you were 100% correct. And I'm curious, for someone, maybe armchair analysts or people who are just trying to look and figure out how to watch these quarterbacks. Educate us a little bit.

What are the first couple of things we should watch when we just throw on a conference title game or a big game. We're just saying, hey, let's look at what Trevor Lawrence does well. Let's look at what Justin Fields does well or Mac Jones. Teach us a little bit on what we should look for. Yeah, look, first of all, it starts off with if we were running a car insurance company, which is if it's all about risk and value and sort of if someone had five car accidents,

they're going to pay more for insurance than someone that didn't. And football is a collision sport. And the bigger you are and the more athletic you are, the better chance you have being successful. And I know that sounds unbelievably simplistic, but that was one of the most fundamental things I learned in the formative years of my career from Coach Barselyt and Coach Belichick. Like there are standards at position. And that's not to say that there aren't exceptions. And I will tell you that I'm a big, Trow-Large fan. His weight concerns me.

If we were running a franchise, like his weight, which is less than Zach Wilson's, by the way, he has a chance of getting hurt. And that's not me like just throwing an opinion as well. That's based on data. So I start with the requisite, height, weight, and speed, which Justin Herbert checked every box. And then it's accuracy, because if you can't deliver an accurate ball, nothing else mattered. You could have a, you know, Bryson de Chambot has great power, but he gets the ball in the fairway. If he can't get in the fairway, we wouldn't be talking about him. And if you can't deliver an accurate ball consistently, nothing else matters.

So if we're watching a game for the first time, I want to see how big they are because it matters. Over time, the bigger player is going to last. there are exceptions, the Drew Brees in the world. But again, if we're trying to do something and we're looking at data and facts, that's just the way it's played out. And then accuracy is the next thing you have to have. With size, does that extend several positions? Devante Smith, obviously, the weight thing, 170 pounds.

He came on this podcast a couple weeks ago, said he plays big. It shouldn't matter all that stuff. Does it matter for someone like Devante Smith, who's so good at so many things? And his one weakness is he's 170 pounds. Yeah, 100%. matters. I mean, would you invest in a company that has like historically high leverage, even though they're profitable? Probably not. You'd probably look at a company that's just as profitable with a much more balance balance sheet where they're not leveraged to the Hilt. And Devonthe

Smith could be successful. I think he compares fairably to Marvin Harrison, but why would we take that risk unnecessarily? And again, like over time, like height, weight and speed and standards for positions, they matter. And I was at the championship game. He was the best player on the field. I saw whatever he else saw. But when he has to get off of the press, play after play at the next level,

he may not be the same player. So I would try to find a player that has those sort of requirements and not take the exceptions. If I'm going to take an exception, I'm not going to do it in the first round. It just doesn't make sense. Over time, I'll be proven more right than wrong.

In addition to just height, height weight speed, does sort of build factor into that as well? Because I think about someone like Russell Wilson, you know, not the tallest guy on the field, but he's kind of, he's solid. Like, he doesn't look like someone who's going to get banged up. Yeah. No, that's absolutely. And to take that step further, or like what we would do is if you were bringing that up in a draft room, we turned to our straight coach, our performance coach and say, tell us about their frame. Like, can they get stronger? And it's interesting. And I actually did this. I spent a year and a half, consulting in the performance space and traveled all through the world. And body typing matters.

And what your build is, it matters. And this sounds very simplistic. But if you've been hurt before, your rate of being injured again is like incredibly exponentially higher. So take Leonard and Dickerson, for example. I think Leonard Dickerson is an incredible player. He was hurt multiple times in college. I would not take him in the first round if we were running a team. It just, he may play 15 years and candidly, I hope he does. But the information we would have would be so compelling that he's probably going to get hurt again.

And that's where you have to marry the information you have and then take Chris accordingly and to your question door, like Russell Wilson to throw around, yeah, that's a no-brainer because he's an exception to the rule. but and look, I've made great decisions. I made awful decisions. You can live to find another day by making a mistake in the third round, which I have plenty of. Sure. You make a mistake in the first round like Vernon Goldston, that's really hard to survive.

And I'm just telling you, like, that's the difference of in the first round, you really want to stay as close as you can to those standards. And those standards are whimsical. You know, they're really rooted in just looking at years and years. of what's playing the league successful. I wonder, you know, we did the Herbert thing earlier and we pumped you up. So let's bring you down for one second. And I'm just curious if you can explain because I was going to ask about kind of the lessons you learn from draft pick failure because, you know, I've talked to GMs who've said,

actually, I think it was Steve Kime who said that he learned to take risks because he passed on Russell Wilson and because, you know, he said, oh, this guy's too short. And you've heard that about guys who passed on Aaron Donald and they learn lessons or or whatever. And I think sometimes the picks, you can learn a lot from making a mistake. And I'm curious if you can take us to the Vernon Goldston thing, because obviously that was a high profile mistake. And kind of, you know, to let the listener into how a mistake happens like that, what happened? What did you guys see that wasn't there? And just kind of map that out for us, Mike. Yeah. And I would tell you, like, the best lesson I learned from that I still think about to this day was

I was really disappointed. Look, you obviously disappearing the mistake, Kevin. But I would even more disappointed and like getting away from our process. And George Young was a long time general man in the NFL. Somebody I looked up to, he passed several years ago, but remarkable man, really smart. He was talked about really not only in college, but in pro football, like asked players to do exactly what they did and they have a really good chance of being successful if they're doing that against good competition. And again, that sounds so simplistic. And here we are with a six pick in the draft. And Vernon Goldston had like some production in college.

He actually had a great game against Michigan. He was in Ohio State defensive end. And at the time we were playing a base three, four under coach Maine Jeannie. And we felt like he can make that transition. And there was really nothing on tape to say that. And goes back to Norris question a little bit before too, which was about, well, what about Russell's build? And again, taking Russell Wilson and third round makes a ton of sense.

if we were going to take a risk on Vernon Goldson's transition from playing defensive end to outside linebacker, no problem. Don't do it at the six pick. You know, you got to be taking, you know, Amazon stock with the six pick, or I should say,

the ringer stock at the six pick. Absolutely. You don't take startups. Spotify stock. Yeah. Excuse me, Spotify. You invested Bill Simmons Incorporated with the six pick in the graph.

Wow, this is great. Yeah. This is one. Also, I can't even get Bill a return of a call. I'm a need of mass data who knows more about the Celtics than Bill Simmons. Oh, wow.

Oh, my God. Not even close, by the way. My dog was named Larry. I mean, we could go there. I'm happy to have that conversation another time. But he wouldn't even know who I am. Are you trying to get him to do a Celtics trivia contest? Because it sounds like you're calling him out here at this point.

Does he know who, I mean, we could certainly go there. But, you know, Rick Robey, who we got for Rick Robey, for example. and how outcome determinative Dennis Johnson was for some of our championships. Wow. This is great stuff. The race to text Bill about this is on between Nora and I. Do you know who Gerald Henderson turned into? I don't.

Second pick to Seattle. Seattle had a bad year. We weren't getting Len bias, unfortunately. But that was a great trade. I feel like Bill knows the pick lineage of the Len bias pick. But we'll see. We'll see. We'll talk to Bill.

This is another pod, but it's a great pot. This is great stuff. This is great stuff. I'm ready to. This could be a weekly ring around a fell show. Mike and Bill debate about the Celtics. The most ambitious crossover event in history. Absolutely.

I will say, by the way, the two things. Number one is you keep saying, you keep acting like we're rational investors when I just basically emptied my bank account to bet on Xander Shoffley at the Masters. But then the other part of it is I do want to say, you know, the chiefs are really invested in body type and lean body mass and stuff like that. I've talked to Brett Beach about this a lot. And that's something that their scouts have found is pretty reliable, especially on the testing side of it, is the lean body mass and all that stuff.

Mike, I want to talk about Justin Fields because this is a guy who I think that if you were just a casual fan during the season, it was Fields versus Lawrence and the discourse and, you know, Lawrence had the edge, but Fields was right there during some parts of the year. And then it seemed, you know, this happens to a guy every year where the discourse gets ridiculous. And there's a couple people. now who have said that they've heard that he has a fourth round grade from teams. And I'm curious, A, how that happens.

Is it just the fact that, you know, no one was talking about this November? Is that just the GMs and a lot of personnel guys just weren't studying the quarterbacks like that? And then beyond that, what does your read on Justin Fields and what does his future look like? Yeah, no, this is a very interesting conversation. So a couple of things on Fields. I actually went to his first practice when he transferred, and I'm on the sidelines guys, and he goes by me, and I'm like, this guy looks like Cam Newton.

Like, talk about Bill. Like, this guy should be the first pick in the draft. And I'm thinking, like, the first thing I think of, like, Jacob Fraud must be Superman. This is like, you know, two years ago. I'm like, how could he not win the job at Georgia? And he's played really, really good football the last two years, six interception in his career.

I mean, there's a million stats. I don't think he played well against Indiana Northwestern. That would be a really big concern of my. I thought his accuracy was inconsistent. I thought he forced the ball a couple times. And this is where I think he gets so interesting. Like if I could take you guys behind the curtains and we're sitting there and we're like debating between Trey Lance who I would take over Justin Fields and Justin Fields, you guys would say like, well, Mike, you know, we're beating up Justin Fields.

are not playing well against Indiana and Northwestern, this guy's played Central Arkansas. And to reconcile those things is really, really hard. That's why the hit rate 60% at best. I just think that Trey Lance has a couple of things from an intangible standpoint, from a measurement standpoint that I really like. I like fields a lot, and I have him going eight,

and I got plenty of blowback of like, how can he fall that far? And that's not far. He's still going, you know, in the top eight. he to me would really benefit from a storm play action running game. And the other thing that's really hard to normalize is people point to how great he was against Clemson. And this may be an unfair comment, but it's how I feel, which is, I think in that game, he paid, he got a really big bump from Ryan Day, which is if you carefully watch that game,

there were some runs that Ohio State had where Clemson wasn't even lined up, like not having a body in a gap. and there were some throws in that game. There were people within 10 yards of Ohio State receivers. And I'm not saying to use that to penalize Justin Fields, but I'm just saying like, that's something that you have to account for when you try to make a decision. Sure.

But so Carolina, I mean, if he went eight, one would think that they would be thrilled to have a quarterback fall there and to get to take another swing with, you know, one of the top five guys. What do you, how does the Darnold trade fit into? to that for you? What did you think of that trade and where do you think Sam Darnold is for them? Yeah. ESPN was blown away that I had submitted my mock draft. The trade happened.

They're like, well, now you can revise it. I said, no, I'm not revising it. And they thought I was great. That's when the criticism just began. And look, David Tepper has made billions in hedge funds. And that's about, again, risk management and who, you know, investing value. risk and all the things we've sort of talked about. And how, I'm sure this, I would be floored if they didn't take fields. And here's why the only grade we could give Sam Darrow right now truly is a grade of incomplete. You know, some people are going to be higher than him than others, which is okay.

Joe Brady, Christian McCaffrey, he may turn out to be a B plus, he may not be. But one thing we do know is healing has two years, 23.6 over two years, fifth year options exercise, why not turn a weakness into a strength and have two really good quarterbacks? And guys, if we spend this story forward to 2022, there's just not as many quarterbacks next year. And why not say, hey, if Darrell plays well, we're sitting there with Justin Fields on a working contract. If Darrell doesn't play well, you have Justin Fields. And I don't think there's a lot of downside to fortifying a position that's, you know, so important as the quarterback position. Well, just what's the conversation that you need to have with the coaching staff before

you do something like that? Just to get an understanding of, okay, you have these two guys, they're both going to want to play. How are you going to manage that? Yeah. That's hard. That's certainly, you know, a hard part of the job. And candidly, like, you're going to get pushback because a coach for the most part is going to be in the moment and say, hey, you know, what's best for me for to survive. Matt Rule is in a unique situation where I don't think he has to worry about that. And that's where I think, you know,

long-term thinking like Pittsburgh, doing them certainly for the most part over the years, they benefit from longer-term thinking. And I think you just have to say that, look, Coach Rule, like, you're going to be sitting here one year from today. And one year from today, when Team X officers offers us two ones

and a two for Justin Fields or one in a three for, from San Donald, remember this conversation, or we're sitting here on November 1st, and we have a chance to have a meaningful season and having depth of the quarterback position is the reason we're still alive. Those would be the best reasons.

It's hard, though, because especially if someone like Kyle Pitts is on the board, that's going to be a really hard conversation. And how much are you, you're sitting in the general manager's seat, how much are you thinking about, I really trust this coaching staff to be able to get the most out of these guys and navigate that. Because I think that's relevant with Carolina, right?

Where they've both invested in their coaching a lot and they've gotten lucky in some areas just in terms of like Joe Brady still being there and not getting another job and moving somewhere else. And I ended up, I think, feeling better about the decision to get darnold than I might otherwise because I feel like they've invested in the coaching so much. Okay, go prove it. Go prove that those guys can make this a better situation for him. and, you know, try to help there.

And I wonder how much that thinking gets involved with what the general manager is doing. Yeah, Nora, I mean, that's a very fundamental part of putting an organization together. And really, those are the conversations you're having with the owner when you decide who your head coach is like, that that is a decision that the thread runs through everything you do. And player development is such a critical part. I mean, the part of the conversation that I find candidly to be the most interesting is the Woody Johnson, and Chris Johnson question, which is, and this is the one that to me really is quintessential, what did you guys give up on, in Sam Darnel from February of 2021 to today, given the COVID

rules, like, you don't know what you had. And what process you used to get there? Like, I want to let you trade them because you don't know what you have. And if we believe in our coaching staff, and I think that's the point you're making here, Nora, like go coach Sam Darnold and get them better. And we may draft Zach Wilson as well. again, we're going to fortify this position. So I would be gravely concerned if I'm the New York Jets because I don't know the process

they use to arrive at the decision that Sam Darnel can't play based on where they were, you know, just a couple months ago. And I would add to that position not subtractedly. That's actually what I was going to ask about because with Gase in particular, I don't think anyone thinks that Gase put the Jets in much of a position to win. And when you're evaluating a player coming from a bad situation, and maybe it actually helped Darnall a little bit

that he got a huge incomplete grade because he was in such a bad situation and all that stuff. But when you're trying to separate a player from a bad situation, what are you looking for?

Because a lot of times that tape will not look that good. You might have to look at something else or look at short spurts or situations where he was kept clean or whatever it is. When you're trying to figure out what to look for with a player

like Darno coming from a bad situation, you look at what, Mike? Yeah, Kevin. I asked that question, literally we're taking this Wednesday at 941. Two hours ago I was asking Coach Parcell is that exact question.

We were having that exact conversation about, you know, how do you know? Because Bill, one of the things Bill was a big believer in it is that there's always massive opportunities when a new coach and GM come in because they don't evaluate their own correctly. I'm like, what would you have done with Darnell?

He's like, I don't know what was asked of him. And he's like, it's really hard. So it's a great question. what I would do, and that's where I think COVID really complicates things, is I would put him through him. I would have him come in for a visit, and I would have coaches meet with him. Not like to test them, to test them, but to sit down and talk to him and really go through, like, what happened last year and hear your side of it. And look, candidly, like, I've done this twice in my career. Chad Payton was part of a coaching search when we ran a search at the Jets.

Ryan Tanna Hill was part of a coaching search when we ran that search at the Dolphins. And you want them to create relationships with their new head coaches. And it's for moments like this where, you know, when you have authenticity in a relationship, you can really, again, like learn and understand where other people are coming from. And I'm not saying that's the reason you keep Sam Darnel or not, but that's actionable information that you're trying to get. And I would, if I own the Jets, I probably would say, you know what? I want you to pick the best player in this draft.

And in a year from now, let's see what we have. And because I think, you know, Nora, that's where you were going to earlier, which is a very reasonable place in my opinion, which is you don't know what you have. And we don't know what the impact of this, whatever you want to call it, coaching staff, culture, environment, scheme, you know, label it however you want. But let's see what we have first. And if I'm Joe Douglas, he won't admit it publicly, but I promise you, I promise you this. He will go to bed every Sunday night looking at how good that Zach Wilson do this week and how good is Sam Darno. do because that's a decision that's really hard to escape from a GM perspective. And Ryan Pace is a great example of that.

Mitch Trubisky had his inconsistencies. I think he played better this year. But obviously, he couldn't escape the fact that Deshaun Watson and Patrick Mahomes were picked after him. Mike Tanenbaum, thanks for joining us, buddy. This is great. Thanks to Mike for joining us. Nora, excited for the weekend?

Very excited. Excellent. All right, so I'll be, we'll be back on Wednesday. You're laughing. Were you going to go anywhere with that at the end? Well, I don't know. It's Wednesday. I'm not thinking about the weekend.

Well, people listen to this on Thursday. Okay. Yeah, which is, right, but you're like, are you excited for the weekend? And I'm like, I haven't, the weekend has not crossed my mind. Is this the first time you've encountered that question in your life? Yeah, no one's ever asked me if I'm excited for the weekend. Cheers to the freaking weekend, Kevin. Also, when it's Masters Week or Taylor Swift Week, Taylor Swift's Song Week, the weekend starts whenever you want it to.

Well, the weekend starts at midnight on Friday when Fearless Taylor's version is released. That's what I'm looking forward to. Absolutely. All right. So we'll be back next Wednesday. I'm going to be on something this weekend, recapping the Masters. Just a lot of stuff. I'll be at Sloan on Thursday with Nick Casario, Kevin Demoff, and Brian Burke, talking about that.

about football analytics. It's going to be really cool. Going to have some fresh insights next week on this show. Going to know all about analytics. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer podcast network.