The Ringer NFL Show - ‘GM Street’ — Da Bears' QB Conundrum With Mike Lombardi (Ep. 106)

Episode Date: May 4, 2017

The Ringer's Mike Lombardi and Tate Frazier talk quarterback drama in Chicago (01:00), positive vibes for the Chargers (09:00), fifth-year options (16:00), the Broncos signing Jamaal Charles (22:00), Jay Cutler the broadcaster (24:00), and top prospects sitting out future bowl games (27:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Bill Simmons. Very excited to announce the newest podcast to the Ringer Podcast Network family. It's against all odds with Cousin Sal. So this pot is gambling, gambling, gambling, and more gambling. Yes, I have a gambling problem. I want to share it with you. I want to make it your problem. And it's not just football. NHL playoffs, NBA playoffs, baseball, horse racing, there's boxing.

U.S.S. SummerSlam? Oh, all the wrestling when we hit July. We have a hot dog eating contest for Nathan's. And some surprise celebrity guests. Yeah. All right. It's against all odds with Cousin Sal.

Subscribe to it wherever you listen to your podcast. And we're thinking about once a week, right? Yeah, let's do it. The GM Street. I'm Tate Frazier. And sitting across from me, Mike Lombardi. Lombardi, how are you? I'm great, Tate.

I am doing awesome. Week after the draft, everybody's going to the Super Bowl. You know, it's a good time of the year. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on, a lot of big news out there. A lot of people talking about football. It seems like it's closer than maybe a lot of people assume. It is the month of May. May the fourth be with you.

That's the joke that everyone's making today. That's a Star Wars joke for people. That's all we can do here, little jokes. But a team that's not joking around that has a lot of questions and a lot of people talking is the Bears. Tab Bears. The number two pick, they take Mitchell Tribusky. We've mentioned that.

We've talked about that ad nauseum. But the bigger story here with the Bears is the GM, Ryan Pace, and the head coach John Fox. There may be trouble in paradise or trouble in the winter wonderland that is Soldier Field. What's going on with the Bears? Well, I think this. I think, first of all, the Tribisky trade and all that, when you take a step back and you break it down, it really doesn't matter what they gave up for Tribisky.

It really doesn't. I mean, the reality of this is it matters whether Tribisky can play or not. And that's really what it comes down to. Whether you gave up a third or a fourth and all that stuff, it's insignificant in the total realm of it. The issue here for John Fox, and I think this is where Ryan Pace and John Fox have a little bit of a problem is how are they, they going to develop both players? How is Trubisky going to get enough reps? How is Glennon, who needs all the reps, going to get

enough reps? So that becomes a problem. And I think unless that Pace sat down with Fox before the draft, which it doesn't sound like it happened. Yes. Then I think this is going to be one of those things where Fox is saying, look, if I don't win this year, I'm probably going to get fired. So he's

going to do everything in his power to make sure Glennon has the ability, because he knows one thing. Trubisky's not going to win games from this year. Trubisky's going to learn. So why develop Trubisky for the next coach, why not get Glennon ready for this coach, for him to win so he can keep his job? And I think that's kind of where it is. The trade to me, Tate, on this was everybody's talking about it. And I went through it a bunch.

I talked about it on Twitter. I couldn't find a team that was trying to trade up. And I still don't believe there's a team that was trying to trade up to get Trubisky. That doesn't say that they overpaid because, again, if Trubisky is a good player, it doesn't matter. And we know John Fox is on a four-year deal, but it sort of seems like he's a. in a lame duck situation. And there was a lot of reports that came out after the fact

that John Fox didn't know that they were going to take Trubisky and Ryan Pace made this trade sort of behind his back. That was like the rumor. Then there were stories coming out that were saying teams weren't trying to trade up to the number two spot to get Mitch Trubisky

which was sort of the way that the bears tried to play it out as if they were trying to compete with other teams to take this spot. When you look at it like that, how does it play out just from draft night from that perspective between the head coach, between the general manager, when they draft Mitchell Trubisky

like, what's the next step? What happens after that? It's like, do we call Mitch together? Is it a separate conversation? Or is John Fox looking at this and saying, well, it looks like I'm just put in a lame duck situation and now I have to figure out what I'm doing? I think John Fox has been around. You know, the guy's been a head coach of Carolina, been head coach of Denver.

I think he knows that, you know, another bad season. And he's seen some bad quarterbacks. He's seen a lot of bad quarterbacks. Okay. So he's got to know that the next situation could be, you know, he's got to win right away. Let's talk about the pick. Okay. So Peter King wrote about it a Monday morning quarterback about there was another team.

The only team that I heard had made inquiries to go up to two, and it was not for Tribisky, was the Saints. And I'm not sure the Saints had that much of an interest to get to two for the price. But the 49ers really have to count their lucky stars because had the 49ers traded down to, say, 11 and picked Rubin Foster there, they may be looking at a guy who's hurt, all right? Yeah, the shoulder. That came out to the shoulder, yeah. And I think the untold story in this whole draft has been, and it's amazing when you have really good PR and nobody gets on you, is the Titans picking Corey Davis at five. I mean, most people that I've talked to since the conclusion of the draft had Corey Davis not as their first receiver on the board. And so to me, because John Robinson talked about trading down, you knew there weren't a lot of teams trying to trade up because Robinson's smart enough to know that, you know what, picking Corey Davis.

here is probably too much I could move down and get them. But he was stuck at the pick. He had a Turner Card in. That was the guy he wanted to pick. So that tells you there wasn't a lot of action moving up. I think the Saints made an obligatory call. They thought the price was too high. And then they made the deal with the Bears.

So that, to me, it's the Saints and no one else. Let's go back to Fox. Fox is in a tough spot. I mean, look, Fox and Pace is trying to say, look, I'm protecting a franchise. Fox's job is to win games next year. Those two alignments never seem to work. Yeah, and John Fox is on that four-year deal It's done in 2015.

It sort of feels like things, there's been a complete turnover since he came in. He came in with a team that had Jay Cutler, Brandon Marshall, and sort of a fixed formula for what they wanted. Alshon Jeffrey. There's a totally different team that he walked into, and now it looks like that they're building toward a totally different team outside of that. But just from Ryan Pace's perspective with John Fox,

does it seem like the Bears franchise in general was buying into the Pace idea for what the future should look like instead of buying into what Fox will probably be. building for these guys. What I think had to happen, and I don't have any knowledge, I don't have any evidence that this did happen, but for me, it had to happen. Okay, I can't prove it in a court of law, but it had to happen. Pace had to go to the ownership and say, look, he had to go to Ted Phillips, the president of the team, and he had to go to the McCaskey family and say, look, I think the best thing for us to do is to draft Mitchell Tribusky. I know we signed Mike Lennon

at $15 million, but Glennon allows us to develop Mitchell Trubisky. I want to pick Mitchell Trubisky, it's for the longevity of the franchise. And when you hear those terms and you hear those words and you're the owner and you're the president, those are self-preservation things that help you propel. And I think when you look at the bears, going back to when they were at the Super Bowl with Rex Grossman, it's been difficult to solve that quarterback position. They try to make the trade with Jay Cutlin. That didn't work out. Rex Grossman hasn't worked out. So this is their attempt to solve it. And I think ownership is more inclined to believe it when they've been through so many attempts at not being able to sign it.

And I think the reality was they didn't want to go down the Kaiser role. They didn't want to go down the Nathan Peterman role. They wanted to go down what they thought was the best player they could get. And that was Trubisky. And just for people that don't know this, Mike Glynon was and accepted an invite to the Bears draft party. So he was there when they made the pick for Mitchell Trubisky. If you're Mike Glennon, you see the situation, obviously, you know, you've been there,

you've been in quarterback conversations in Tampa Bay. What is that, what sort of message is that send to you? and then if you're Mitchell Tubiskey, what kind of situation does he now walk into in that quarterback room? Because it goes straight from friendly, welcome to the organization to, all right, now you're in a competition with this guy. I would think Glennon probably got on the phone immediately after that with his agent and said, like, WTF.

Yeah, what's going on here? Like, they lied to us. Like, we were the guy. We signed it. Now, look, they gave us a lot of money to do this, but they promised the words are just as important as money. And they gave us all this money, but they didn't really come through with it. So I think that's the issue.

To me, it's a little bit embarrassing when you have those draft parties and then you What was Glennon going to say to the fans? Now he's embarrassed. Now he's fielding questions because people are like, why? You just put him in a horrible situation. And the fans are looking at him and it's like, oh, we have our franchise quarterback now. Why are we giving you $15 million? Right.

And then if you're pace, you can't take him off that visit because then it tips your hand that you're possibly going to do something. So you're kind of betwixt in between. It really is an issue. To me, I think the bottom line is it looks like a lot of poor planning. But again, I think if you're a bad Bears fan, Robert Mays, Listen to this now. What matters most is how Tribisky plays.

It really matters most. And I think there's a lot of things that are going to come up between now and next December that are going to indicate, A, can Trubisky do it? And B, what does it do to Glennon? Say Glennon plays well. Maybe they could trade Glennon. Yeah. Maybe they should trade Glennon now.

Maybe they should trade Glennon now. Maybe Cleveland should call up and say, you know what? We'll take Mike Lennon. I mean, they were willing to take the heist as pay off the hands. Why not take Glennon? Here's $15 million. See if you can trade. something for him. To me, that would be a phone call worth making.

I like your idea for the Cleveland Browns to be a charitable franchise that takes bad quarterback contracts off the hands of other teams. Well, look, they're not going to get, look, the idea that Deshaun Kaiser is going to start this season. It has to be Brock, right? It has to be the highest. I mean, I don't know if they can cut Brock at this point now. I mean, I don't think they can. He's probably the only guy in the quarterback room that they are probably going to have

lean on to say, I guess we're giving you the ball day one. Yeah, I mean, I don't see how else. I mean, if you think Cody Kessler is going to be the starting quarterback for 16 games there. There's no chance. So you almost have to hang on. So if you're the Bears, why not see if you could trade Glennon now? And basically you've paid $15 million for whatever you can think you can get for Glennon. I don't know.

But I'm just saying, to me that makes more sense. Kaiser makes no sense to think he's going to win the starting quarterback job. Cleveland talked about trading for a veteran quarterback. If I'm the Bears, that might be a move I'd make. Well, that makes sense. Speaking of NC State quarterbacks, we're going to jump to a team with probably one of the top five, top 10 quarterbacks for quite some time that doesn't get enough credit.

He only gets talked about when he wears bolo ties to press conferences. Philip Rivers and the Chargers, a team that you really liked, you like what they did in the draft. They added Mike Williams, who you believe is, probably the top receiver in the draft out of Clemson. I thought he was better than, look, the Corey Davis pick has me bewildered. I love Adore Jackson, the Tennessee pick. But look, these draft grades are just total BS.

and this guy's going to play good this guy's going to play good I think Tennessee should be under more criticism for picking Corey Davis the fifth pick overall in the draft. No one, to me, and this is an evaluation, I see Corey Davis as a potential starter not a starter right away from day one.

I think there were a lot of better players to pick at that pick that they could have gone in a thousand different directions if I'm Tennessee. I think Tennessee had a chance to really take a step forward. I don't think they did. Yeah. Tennessee is a weird thing with Baylor wide receivers. They did the Kindle right thing.

It was a strange pick, and it also set back everyone else in the first round. So, like, a lot of people in the Panthers continued were, like, we want to trade up to make sure you get McCaffrey. And as soon as Corey Davis got picked, it was like it was a lock. You can get him. He's going to be there. Yeah. To me, it tells me that John couldn't trade down, and he was locked on the pick.

And to me, he took his depth chart in the draft room, which is the first mistake to make. Like, don't take your depth chart in there. You're picking fifth. You earned that right to pick fifth. You trade it for it. It's a great pick. You take the best player. Yeah, take the value.

Take the best player. If it's Jonathan Allen, whomever you think is the... Jonathan Allen and Corey Davis, there's no comparison. Now, the medical might be different. But Lattimore, take the corner. I mean, look, I love Adory Jackson,

but I think you take the best player you could take there. Take Hassan Riddick. I mean, he's a better player at five than Corey Davis. Good for the Cardinals. There's many better players there. And so I think he got it where... And I think the Chargers, which I was surprised they went in receiver,

because last year, you know, Edmund played really well for him. Terrell Williams played really well for him. They had big receivers. I like Mike Williams because Philip Rivers throws guys open. I mean, that's what he does. So I think he'll fit well. But why I like the Chargers is the thing that I bitched about more than anything about the Chargers is their offensive line.

And they get Lamp, who Mike Mayock was proclaiming as a great player. I think he's a left guard. He'll play guard. And then they get Dan Freeney, a tough, hard-nosed player that can go in and play right guard. I know a couple teams that wanted to draft him, the Chargers got him in the third round. So, look, you get two starting offensive linemen in a draft. That's a great draft. I don't care what you do the rest of the day.

That's a great draft. That gives you all these draft grades. That's an A draft. You get two starting offensive linemen in a draft for cheap. That's a great draft. And I think those two players will play right away, add to a charger team that has Bosa, that has Melvin Ingram, that has Corey. They got some really good pieces here. And I think that they're about ready to take over L.A.

There's my call. I think L.A. is, I mean, to me, they're going to be the L.A. team. Because the Rams, you know, the Ram, we can go on their draft. That, you know, they got Jared Gough. That's a whole player development thing. That's a whole other podcast. But to me, I think really the Chargers are the team to watch. And it came out.

The head coach of the Chargers said that Philip Rivers plans to play three to four more years when you add guys on the offensive line to keep him sturdy and upright. That obviously helps his case. He's only 35 years old. We've seen that guys can now play. Tom Brady is debunking everything about age. His quarterback position. His arm's still good.

I mean, look, they have some skills. players now. I mean, Keenan Allen comes back, whether he could stay healthy. Antonio Gates is still in the NFL. Yeah, and Henry Hunter's still a good player. I mean, they got some really nice pieces. I mean, and look, the West is going to be hard. The Raiders are good. The Chargers are good. The Chiefs are good. And Denver's going to be good. So there's four teams in the West. I mean, that's really one of the best divisions in football. And I think that there's going to be a lot of competition. But the Chargers took a step, I think, because they fixed their offensive line. Whereas a lot of teams can come out of the draft. If you don't

draft, an offensive or a defense alignment in a draft, it's kind of hard to feel like you did good in the draft. You've got to repair those two lines, and I think the Chargers did. And now that they have those kind of guys on their team, I think they'll be pretty good. And ironically enough, Melvin Gordon, who his rookie year, a lot of people hurt, you know, for his fumbling problems and not just being able to show flashes that he showed at Wisconsin. I mean, last year he really made a step, and now he's going to have a better offensive line and there's, you know, sky's limit for him. And I think, you know, Gus Bradley might not have been a great head coach for the Jaguars,

but as a defensive coordinator, I think he'll do a really nice job. And I think that they'll simplify what they do defensively. They'll be more of the Seattle approach. They'll keep the ball in front of them. They'll be able to rush the pass. So they're using Grombosa is a blue chip type player. I think they're a corner short. I would have probably picked a corner instead of Mike Williams there.

But they love Hayward. They love Varet. They think they've got some good young players there. So my feeling is this. I think the Chargers are a team that people are sleeping on. And I think they're a good play. and I'll give a tip to Cousin Sal for his podcast against all odds here. The reality here is, I think they're one of those teams.

I don't know what the number is in Vegas for what their overwin is, but I would bet the over for the Chargers. Well, that's exciting news for fans in Los Angeles. They're looking for something. Well, they have to. I mean, look, the Rams are still a long way from competing, and I think that's going to take them some time. And I think when they change defense with Wade Phillips' defense,

I think it's going to be a little bit of an adjustment for what they do. And I think that that's going to take some time. I think the Rams, everything's on golf. If golf doesn't play well, it's going to be another long year. And that offensive line with Todd Gurley behind it, it just makes you feel bad for Todd Gurley. It really does. By the time he gets the ball, there's three or four guys ready to tackle them pretty much every time. And I think that if you're Sean McVeyer, you're saying, look, I'm going to get the ball out quick.

Goff's going to get it out quick. I'm going to be able to compensate for the offensive line. And, you know, I know they signed Whitworth over at left tackle. That'll help. But, you know, you sign a 35 or however he's an older offensive lineman. I mean, those are tough things to do because he break down. They don't have enough debt to be able to endure. And that's where a team, when you sign an older guy like that,

if he doesn't stay healthy, things fall apart. Whereas why the Chargers, they signed two young offensive linemen that can start for him next year. They'll play every game. Yeah. And the good news for all those Rams fans out there, Robert Woods will be back in the Coliseum. Yeah, I mean, like I said, the only thing Robert Woods is going to give them,

the only Robert Woods can do for rent, he knows how to get to the Coliseum without the traffic. He doesn't even need to use ways. He can just go there without him. because he's used to go into the Coliseo. Those are the things that kind of blow me away. When you look at the Rams, I just, you know, and- That's a hometown signing for the hope that a certain demographic of plans will come out.

You think people are going to come out to the game to see because Robert Woods is at the stadium? You think anybody in Los Angeles is going to give up a day at the beach to come watch Robert Woods play? Seriously. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. Yeah, I don't think so. Another thing that's going on in the world, fifth-year options, they're being picked up across the board.

A lot of teams are deciding if they want to stay with guys that they've drafted for four years ago. Probably the biggest name and the biggest story that did not get his fifth year option picked up. Teddy Bridgewater, quarterback for the Vikings. They do not pick his fifth year option. He obviously went down last year with the really catastrophic injury, right when things were hopefully going to turn for the better. They get Sam Bradford and now it looks like the Vikings are not really banking going Teddy Bridgewater for their future. What do you see for Bridgewater? I mean, it basically means that he will probably be out. He's going to miss this year. He's going to miss this year. And I mean, look, if they would have done it, then he would have been injured. They would

but on the hook. These options are guaranteed for injury only. Which means is the teams can get out from under them before in March of next season. But if a guy's hurt by March of next year, they can't get out from them. So it was really a business decision. I'm sure the Vikings don't want to lose Bridgewater. I think they feel like, okay, he's got ability. He's a good young player.

We drafted them. But this is a business decision. If they would have picked up the fifth, they would have owed him. My man, Blake Bortles, he got picked up the fifth. Did you see all my numbers I ran yesterday on Bordles? It's unbelievable. But this is not going to be a Bordals podcast. I promise, Tate, we're not going to talk about it.

But they picked up his. He got it. They think it's a good value at $19 million, which is a whole other thing. I guess they looked at Mike Lennon with the $15 million. They're like, oh, we'll give $4 million a budget. I think they did. They said, look, for the next so, but that's a whole other issue. But for Bridgewater, to me, when he got hurt, everybody thought it was going to be a two-year injury.

I'm not sure Bridgewater's ever going to be able to play again. hopefully he has career-ending life insurance because if that doesn't happen, he can pick up all this lost money, which would be a good thing. But the Vikings did the smart play, and they didn't guarantee him. Just like the Rams did the smart thing by not guaranteeing Greg Robinson, his fifth season two. Why? Let the guy prove that you can play.

And a guy that did prove that last year, DeVion County, who was going through a lot of injuries. Last year he has a breakout season, and then the Texans do pick up his fifth year option, which is... Which was smart. I mean, they let him prove that he could do it. Yep. And Mike Evans, another guy for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They exercised.

and picked up his fifth year option. The Buccaneers get O.J. Howard in the draft. It looks like the offense is trying to figure itself out. Now they're trying to make a big, they're trying to make a big long-term deal for Mike Evans. So, yeah, it's another guy. They have a lot of good. It's all going to come down for Tampa Bay.

It's going to come down to, is their offensive line going to be able to play well enough? And Winston cuts down on the interceptions. If he does that, if he protects the ball better, and they've got enough skill. I think with the two tight ends they have with Brate and O.J. Howard, they can be an 11 personnel. They can be in 12 personnel. They can do a lot of different things.

And if Winston cuts down the interceptions, this is going to be a really good team in the South. The South is improved too. The South is one of those divisions that people kind of mistaken. But when you look at it, Carolina is going to be much better. I think Atlanta's still going to be a good team. I don't know how well they'll be on offense losing Kyle Shannon. It's a huge loss. But Carolina and then you've got New Orleans and then you have the Bucks.

I think there's four really good teams in that division. And I think it's going to be a challenge. The Bucks, to me, this is their year. And now that they have hard knocks covering them, this is one of those years where this is going to require Dirk Codder to have his best season as a head coach. Yep. And there would be a lot of eyes on them.

Another receiver that got his fifth-year option in that same division. Kelvin Benjamin. Right. They decided to pick up his fifth-year option. And a lot of reports, there's that Kelvin Benjamin right now weighs 280 pounds. So they're hoping he gets back in shape for this season. but he did get his fifth year option. I mean, look, they call it the off season because that's what people do is they take off.

Okay? And obviously, Kelvin Benedgeman stretched that off further into a – I think he's enjoying. He's on my diet, so he went that way. But look, I think this for Tampa, and I think this is a really big point for Dirk Cotter, when you have all this distractions and you have expectations, the hardest thing a head coach has to do in the NFL is handle the expectations. And this is a really young team.

And if I were Dirk Cotter and I was advising Dirk Cotter, I would make training camp the hardest camp it possibly could be. This team needs to have a mindset of mental toughness. And with all those cameras around, and that's going to be a distraction, they have to have the best training camp they can have. They have to have a great offseason because everybody expects them to take the giant step. And what happens most of the time when teams are expected to take a step, they never do. So to me, this is going to test their codder skills as a head coach beyond anything he's ever done.

And I was looking at the over-unders for the NFC South that just came out. And they have, I think the Falcons were 11. half, the Bucks were at 10, the Panthers were at 9. All those teams are like around, they're hovering around 10 wins. Yeah, that's a hard thing to do. Like to me, to think the bucks are going to be able to be mature enough to handle the 10 wins. I don't know.

What's San Diego? Do you have that? 7 and a half. All right. So the charges at 7 and a half to me, I think, now the reason I think it's low is because the division's so strong. Yep. But the chargers with, you know, they have a quarterback.

Their offensive line should be better. I think they can win more than 7.5. I think they'll simplify it. I don't know what Anthony Lim will be like as a head coach, but I think offensively with Wizard Hunt running the offense and with Bradley running the defense, I think they got a chance to win more than seven and a half games. And say the Broncos are eight and a half,

so they're all hovering around the same. I think the reason they're lower than the South is because people respect the division. I mean, when I say people, Vegas respects the division more. But to me, Dirk Cotter, if I'm him, from this day forward, there's got to be a complete different mindset within that building. It can't be everybody, everything's going good. It's got to be a lot of pressure.

He's got to put the pressure on the team to succeed and he's got to block out the distractions. He's got one of the hardest jobs in the league right now. There's quite a few hard jobs in the league. Funny enough, no one has a superstar quite like LeBron James, but it did come out that Tyron Liu. I don't know if you saw this, said that he had the hardest job in the league. So coaching's hard.

Always remember that coaching is hard. I think what Lou is trying to say is it's hard to coach expectations. Yes, yes. I think that's what he's saying, and I think he's right. And I think when you read about these guys that have these great players, fans just assume that the old Alan Iverson think practice don't matter, you know, when it really does. And the great teams and the great players, I mean, Jeff Van Gundy has the greatest quote of all time when it comes to this,

is your best player must set the tone of intolerance for anything that gets in the way of winning. That's what the bucks I'm not sure do they have. Is Winston going to set the tone of intolerance for anything that's in a way of winning? The Patriots have it. some other teams in the league have it. Aaron Rogers can do it. There are other teams in the league that Seattle kind of has it

in a way. But I think that that's really where the question mark comes in. And Lou does have a challenging job. He's managing egos. He's managing all these different variables that come into play. It's hard.

It's not just roll the ball out, fellas, let's play. No, you have to have like a pillar, like the same thing, like a Tim Duncan on the Spurs. You have to have a pillar. So if you're the Seahawks, you have Russell, who is a pillar on offense for your team. It's going to come in every day and set the tone for everybody else.

Everybody's going to follow. how he plays. I mean, that's the key to football, is to get everybody to buy into the program. And when you have a little bit of doubt and people think they can cut a corner, then all of a sudden those corners that you cut early in May, June-July, let's say Malcolm Butler, okay? He went to training. He's reporting the awesome. Smart play for Malcolm Butler, because why? Malcolm Butler needs to stay healthy. How do you stay healthy during the season? You train really hard in the off-season, so you can't do it by yourself. It's hard to do. Train in the off-season. You get yourself healthy. You get ready to play football. You have the best year ever you can possibly have. And all of a

sudden you control all the cars. No one else does. You can earn the 16, 17, 18 million for a cornerback contract. To me, it's a smart play. Not going would be stupid. Well, let's get to our final segment of the week. That is word on the street. Sites and sounds and things that are happening in the world of the NFL. First up, Jamal Charles running back, a long time running back for the Kansas City Chiefs, been a free agent, been looking for a deal. He signs a one-year deal with the Denver Broncos. How do you feel about that? What do you see for Jamal Jones? I have a hard time with veteran running backs, especially guys that, you know, we don't know. know the medical of this as well.

But there were flashes of him last year of kind of coming back a little bit. I don't think it'll be fullback. But it depends on the role that Mike McCoy decides to use for him with the Denver offense. I think that'll be the most important thing. And they have C.J. Anderson, Devante Booker. They have other guys. So it'll be a more specialized role.

And if I'm the Broncos, I'm keeping this kid Charles healthy for the last eight games of the season. I'm going to do the same thing that the Raiders, I recommend that the Raiders do with Marshaun Lynch. Treat them like Mariano Rivera, make them their clothes, or bring them in later in the season as a specialist on third down to help the quarterback win those third down matchups because he can do it, whether he's running the ball or catching it out of the backfield. Does it intrigue you that the Seattle Seahogs valued Eddie Lacey, aka of fat

Eddie over Jamal Tarles for their backfield? No, because I think what they wanted, they want more of that pounder guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think they feel like they could get the other elements in their offense. I think they wanted some more pounders in there. CJ Pros is certainly a guy that does it for Seattle, and he makes some plays and he's kind of a loose play player. Seattle to me is another team I thought had a really good draft. Nobody

talks about it because Seattle added to their offense and defensive lines. Seattle finally, thank God, they finally stopped picking defensive linemen and converting them over to offensive linemen. They picked Ethan Posick from LSU who will start, he'll be a four-year starter for that team at left guard

or right guard or center, one of those three positions and he'll end up making a lot of money four years from now in free agency. Great pick for them. If they get Malik McDowell to come in and play really well, a defensive lineman that they need desperately. I think Seattle really kind of went back to their roots. I think John Snyder kind of went back to what really made the Seahawks so good,

which was being able to win with their offense and defense lines. That's all good things for Pete Carroll and company. Next up, Jay Cutler, a quarterback that's still looking for a job, says, I may not want to be a quarterback. Instead, I may want to be on TV. He's exploring a potential career in TV broadcasting. Jay Keller, the man of many scowls and not many smiles. now wants to be on television.

What do you see for Jay Cutler in his TV career? Look, if body language doesn't mean anything, how is Jay Cutler unemployed? His body language is horrible, right? So like Jay Cutler's better than, like you tell me a quarterback on Cleveland's roster right now, it's better than Jay Cutler. They don't have one. Exactly. Right?

Right? The Bears, do we think they have a quarterback better than Jay Cutler? Not from a talent skill set standpoint. Not from a talent. So, look, Houston, they draft Deshawn Watson. I don't think you want to bring in Jay Cutler to be around to Sean Watson. Not that I think that would matter. But body language matters.

And I think how you control you as a quarterback, how you do it. Jay Cutler, if nobody wants you by now, then you're getting a phone call in September when somebody gets hurt. Like, nobody's going to bring you in now. If they don't want you now, then they don't want you in June or I want you in July. The only way they're going to want you is injury. I think the best thing that could ever happen were Jay Keller to be in the booth calling a game,

some quarterback to have some small injury, like a thumb injury or something. And then they sit out and then Jay Keller is like talking junk about them. not playing through the pain, not playing hard. And then Caleb Haney's like somewhere in the crowd just staring at Jay Culler. And it's like, are you kidding? That would be hilarious. That would be hilarious. Like I don't like, to me, if I'm Jay Cutler, like you, this is, and I like Jay Cutler,

and I think Jay Cutler, when I was around him, he just has an aura that he doesn't care, but yet he really does. And it's just his body language is so bad. And he doesn't protect the football. And by his body language of showing he doesn't care, it translates on how he protects the ball. So, I mean, this is his own bed. going to have to look is there a better quarterback on the jets than jay cutler no no okay not even close not

even close right now maybe hackenberg can turn it around but for me you're basically saying jacchan's better than jay color which is impossible yeah but nobody wants to deal with the personality that's why character really matters character is a big deal uh especially a quarterback i mean you really want this guy influence in your organization that's the thing with houston i think houston would have been a good fit but you can't have him if you're going to draft a young guy you cannot have him around trying to tell them the deal. Another big story, a big thing that's going around is that a lot of these guys are talking about

how big-time prospects are going to sit out of bowl games for next year. And that's the big phrasing. I think there's no doubt it's going to happen. We saw Fort Nett do it this year. Now people are saying next year Penn State's running back, Sequan Barkley will sit out and Sam Darnold from USC if he's, a lot of people think he may be the number one pick.

I think Donald probably, you know, Darnold will be a red shirt sophomore next year. he would be eligible to come out. I think you look at Lamar Jackson at Miami. He would be eligible. You look at the kid at UCLA, he would be. There's a lot of good quarterback that potentially could come out next year. Maybe that's what Cleveland was doing with saving all these picks.

They feel like maybe one of those guys. But it's the Sam Hanky program, and it's going to be another year of losing. But when you look at that if you're a GM and you see a guy set out of a bowl game, do you dock him a little bit in your mind? I don't because it's a business. It's the same business. Do you dock the Vikings for not paying Teddy Ridgewater for the injury? Exactly. Yeah, yeah, I mean.

Okay, no, we can't. They're making a business decision the Vikings. It's okay for them to make a business decision, but it's not okay for Sam Darnold to make a business decision. Like those, now, if it's a national championship game where it's one of the final four, I'm going to have a problem with it. But if it's the Liberty Bowl or if it's the Music City Bowl, and I'm not disparaging any of these bowl games. I'm not. Your favorite bowl, the Belk Bowl of Carolina. You know, like I'm not disparaging any of the bowls. My point is this is he's done enough for his university. Yeah.

Like, this game is really more about the university making money than it is on anything else. And if you've got a history of playing and you've got a tapestry of games that you can evaluate, what could play one more game or six more weeks of practice really going to do for you that's going to benefit you? I think we have to change how we view this. This is a little bit about dealing with millennials. When I was with the Patriots, we spent a lot of time trying to educate everybody on what millennials do and how they behave. And if you don't make that shift, if you try to evaluate the behavior of kids today based on how you perceive it to be, you're going to get angry and make these judgments about these kids not playing when it's okay for the Vikings to make a business decision.

But it's not okay for Sam Darnel to make one. I think you have to change how you view it. I don't have a problem with it. Yeah, players have a lot more autonomy. And they have a lot of, you know, they're basically taking it upon themselves to make decisions for themselves and try to do the best by themselves. Right. And look, I mean, Jake Butt got drafted. and yes, he got an insurance policy,

but the reality here is Jake Butt had to overcome those things and he had to pay for the insurance and all that. But that bowl game that Jake Buck played in wasn't for the championship. If it's for a championship, I'd say, you know what, you're putting yourself in front of the team, which I would hate. But if it's for a game that doesn't

evolve the championship game, because here's what happened. The NC2A has made it very clear. These other bowl games are meaningless. They're just moneymakers for the leagues and the colleges. They're not going to be in the final four rankings, so why would you keep playing? Yeah.

I mean, didn't they do away with the Final Four, the loser game, the teams that lost? The consolation. They did away with that game, right? Because it was meaningless, right? Same thing. Exactly. No, that makes sense. Final thing for this week, the 49ers regime in general, they seem to be all in good spirits.

They made this great trade. John Lynch is getting a lot of credit. Kyle Shanahan, people were patting him on the back already. Jed York came out and said that he wants to have a meeting of the minds with Jim Harbaugh and squash the beef between the two. I think he reached out to his brother John, the coach of the Ravens, and said that he would love to sit down and have a nice lunch with Jim Harbaal. Jim Harbaal's a happy man.

He's at Michigan. Just saw the Pope. Yeah, he's got a Jordan contract. He just met the Pope. All good things are happening for him. Debril Breppers got drafted. I mean, it looks like they're both in nice worlds and they're both happy. Can they get together the York family and Jim Harbaugh and just squash this beef for this little,

this little wedge between the relationship that ended up ending, you know, they're running together? I think this. I think if you go spend time with the Pope, what's the whole thing about being a Catholic? It's about forgiveness. We have to wash away our sins. Isn't that what Springsteen tells us in all songs? So maybe Jim would have a meeting with them. And then wash away the sins of the past and move on. Look, it doesn't do any good. Jim's happy. The 49ers are happy. It doesn't usually work out this way. So they should both be happy. It wasn't really pretty. It wasn't really pretty. But to me, you know, what's one phone conversation moving forward? I'm not as in love with the 49ers draft. I mean, they're patting themselves on the back for what the trade. they made, great. But Ruben Foster, if he has to go under the knife, if he has to get operated on, which a lot of teams think he will,

that doesn't look like a great pick. And if C.J. Bethard is going to become an eventual starter for them. Everybody's now talking he could be the next Kirk Cousins. I don't see it. I don't see it. I don't think anybody really saw it. It's a little bit like when Cody Kessler got picked last year in the third round by the Browns.

Everybody said, whoa, wait a minute. And then people tell me that they almost picked Cody Kessler in the second round. Did you imagine that? And so I think we should temper down this 49er excitement. I think Kirk Cousins took offense to Cowshahan saying that because that basically is saying that Calh Shanahan made Kirk Cousins and moated Kirk Cousins into being a pro bowl quarterback. Yeah, look, I mean, I'm not disparaging C.J. Bethad. I just didn't see that. To me, I thought Nathan Peterman from Pitt was better than C.J. Bethard.

But I think before we say this is a great draft, there's a couple elements that you've got to look at this draft before you can annoy it. A, can Foster stay healthy? be can C.J. Bethard actually become a viable competitor for starting quarterback. If C.J. Bethard ends up being a backup quarterback for four years, okay, fine, no bad with the pick. But that doesn't make it a great draft. It doesn't make it a great draft. And when you look at their draft, like I talked about, they're going to have to make sure that they hit with some of these players. I think Ian Williams, the running back they picked, I mean, Joe Williams, the running back they picked in the fifth round, I think, or fourth round, I think he would be ideal. He's going to be a good player for him

because he is that one cut running back in the zone offense. I think he'll be an outstanding pick. But there's a lot to be proven here before you just all of a sudden annoying him. Can Kirk Cousins just get involved in some trade talks of the 49ers? Why can't that happen? Well, that's ridiculous. I mean, look, first of all, when that rumor came out, it had to be wrong. Yeah, the Browns rumors.

So it came out that the Browns were trying to trade for Kirk Cousins. Then they laughed it off. They laughed it off. Because like, okay, here's the question. Who's going to play quarterback for the Redskins? Colt McCoy? Terrell Prior. There you're going to bring him in?

I mean, who's going to do it? That's why the rumor makes no sense. They're going to trade Kirk Cousins and then who's going to, are they going to re-sign RG3? I know that. Follow through, don't believe the rumor. Like, fill it out. Like, okay, if they trade Kirk Cousins, who are they taking back?

Are they going to take back, you know, they're going to take back the rights to Colin Kaepernick who we didn't even talk about in this podcast. He still doesn't have a job. Nope. No job. And now all these teams that have quarterbacks, the Jets aren't calling them, right? We talked about Kirk Cuc, Jay Cutler. Same thing with Kaepernick.

to me, those rumors, when they get out there, you've got to analyze them closely. Like, where is this guy? Who's going to play quarterback for the Redskins? I mean, Dan Snyder is all about winning the moment, right? So why would he trade away a guy that could help him win the moment for what? A future pick? When is Dan Snyder ever look six months in advance? No, never.

Ridiculous. Yeah, not going to happen. I think Kirk Cousins will be with the Redskins this season. I think it's a good bet. Yeah, and that's a pretty fair bet. Unless Cow Shanahan wants to trade CJ Burthard to the Redskins for, Kirk Cousins, you know. C.J. Bethard?

Yeah, yeah. They want to make it happen. Any more thoughts this week? Mike Lombard, anything else standing out to you in the NFL world? No, I think this will be interesting. Now, this weekend, there's a lot of teams that have free agent tryouts. This is where teams take a look at their rookies and they take us some guys that come in. Remember this.

I think before you can evaluate these drafts and really realize the draft grades, two things. Some of these over 50 of these kids that try out or college free agents, they're going to be on NFL rosters next year. Yep. So the draft doesn't necessarily always produce the best players. I know that when we sit there and watch seven rounds of the draft, everybody's a good pick. Like there's no bad picks. Like there's going to be some bad picks in this.

And I think that this is the weekend where you start to see that. And we'll start to find more about it. There was quite a few names that when I was looking through the guys that didn't get drafted. It's sort of astounding to see some of the names. Big name recruits and guys that you remember when they were going to school that were not drafted this weekend. Yeah. And I think that that's always a good thing to do. What we used to try to do in Cleveland and then in New England is,

with those four and five-star guys that don't get drafted or have had shady kind of like careers where they bounced around a little bit, those are the guys that always end up kind of finding a way to make some roster. There's a pedigree about those type of players and I think you'll see it. I think so too.

This has been a great episode of GM Street. I've really enjoyed this Lombardi. I love that we just get to bounce around and talk about. Because I brought up the Bulk Bowl. That's why you liked it. Yeah, that was great. Modern Southern style. Can we do like a GM Street once the,

I want to do a GM Street once the lottery. I play the lottery. lottery every day for the 76ers, and I've yet to get the top pick in the draft on that lottery pick. So I want to do a GM street after the draft picks come out. I will go ahead and give you your prediction of what's going to happen. Jason Tatum is going to go to the 76ers out of Duke. You think so? I think so.

Oh, man. Calangelo, he's seen too much. Team USA basketball, too many connections there. Coach Kay. There's too much stuff going on in Philly. All right. Tate, you're depressing. All right.

Second round pick, though, Isaiah Hicks. I hope they take him. There you go. Go for the 76ers. I believe in it. Thanks for listening. This has been another episode of GM Street. We'll be back next week and we'll be talking more NFL and maybe a few Sixers things.

Yeah, we're going to have so. No doubt.