The Ringer NFL Show - ‘GM Street’ — QB Troubles, a Giant Contract, and Cowboy Coaching (Ep. 120)

Episode Date: August 2, 2017

The Ringer's Mike Lombardi and Tate Frazier huddle up to discuss the quarterback situation in Baltimore (02:15), how Gisele Bündchen's offseason comments on concussions could affect Tom Brady this season (09:30), Odell Beckham Jr.'s upcoming payday (16:45), Christian McCaffrey's performance at camp (22:00), the Cardinals signing Tramon Williams (25:00), Rob Ninkovich's retirement (26:30), and Jason Garrett's not-so-subliminal message for Ezekiel Elliott (30:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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season seven on our Twitter and Periscope that's at Ringer. Welcome to GM Street, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Tate Frazier, and I'm joined by Mr. Mike Lombardi. Lombardi, how you doing? Football's back. Tate, ain't that great? Yeah, I can't believe that. The Hall of Fame game is this Saturday. It's officially August.

I feel like football season has finally hit me. I'm starting to watch training kept footage right now, and you've actually been at the training camps. What training camps have you been to, Lombardi, since you've been out on the East Coast? Well, you know, it's fun because, you know, I don't go and report in and, like, use a media credential. I just kind of watch from the stands because it's kind of fun to do because then you don't have to worry about, you know, who's watching and who's that.

But I've been all up the East Coast from Baltimore up to – I'm going to go to Jets next week because my son works there, giants, all that. But it's early. You know, the thing I like about watching. camps is everybody makes judgments. I see people going through and saying, this guy had a bad day, this guy had a bad day. And then today I read in the paper where Shaw McVease says that, you know, this running back has really established

himself as the back. Three or four days what I've watched, nobody's established himself. Just getting through practices establishing yourself. So it's really hard to judge and evaluate these camps. But, you know, it's good to see people. It's good to react. You wear a fake nose and mustache and you go and pretend you don't know anything. A man of the people. So anyone at camp if you're sitting with the crowd. Nobody knows. Yeah, just look around. See if you see Michael Lombardi.

He'll be wearing one of those old, you know, with the big nose and the big glasses, big mustache, you know, Mr. Potato Head type. There you go. Lombardi, I want to talk about some bad news that have been coming out of Baltimore and we'll start with that. John Harbaal has tried to keep it positive. Joe Flacco has a back injury.

There's been some mixed reports on, you know, how affected his back is. We'll be able to come back, you know, early on in the season. But regardless, they have a quarterback situation in Baltimore. Ryan Mallet, there's been some bad stuff coming out of there for how he looked when he took over the reins with the first team. What's going on in Baltimore and what are you hearing on Flacco? A quarterback, and if anybody has played quarterback in the NFL,

when your quarterback has a back injury, you have to be worried about it. And there's no minor back injury. Like there's no tweak. If you have a minor back injury, it's no big deal. You know, I don't know the full medical report. I just know backs. And I know that when Joe Montana hurt his back in 1986, 87 season, you know, the next year we traded for Steve Young,

because Bill Walsh had a phobia about quarterbacks with back injury. And I've had one too. I've never coached the quarterback position. I've never really been involved in the meetings. But I think that Flacco, when you look over the landscape of what he's done since the Super Bowl, I think the Ravens are 31 and 33 over regular season games during that point. I think they're here, Tate. They've only won four road games.

They're four and 12 on the road. So this Raven team in Flacko hasn't played very well, which leads us to the big issue, right? Yep. The backup quarterback. Flacco, how hard is he? one knows. Will he play? No one knows. Okay? So now Mallet comes in, and they've watched Malad play. And I was a huge Ryan Mallet fan coming out. Coming out of Arkansas? Yeah, I thought he could be a really good player, Bobby Petrina. But you know, that thing I did about, you know, quarterbacks and they had to have

these seven characteristics. Well, Mallet's work ethic really wasn't. I misjudged that. His ability to really be the guy and want to take ownership of it. And I think that's what they're seeing in Baltimore. They see a talented guy. They see a guy who likes to turn the ball over. And so now their eyes have shifted somewhere else. And because of the Harbaugh relationship. Look, John Harbaugh listens to about three people in the world. Yeah. Listen to his brother. His brother loves Colin Copernick.

And when you look at just that, the Ryan Mallet situation we obviously saw in Houston, he was given a chance to be the starter there, you know, under a guy that was his coordinator in New England, didn't quite work out. He had some problems with showing up on time. All that stuff reflects itself and worked itself out. So Ryan Malice is probably not going to be your best option behind Joe Flacko. Colin Kaepernick is obviously the big name. You mentioned the Jim Harbaal relationship.

John Harbaugh, I saw him this morning. He was on ESPN getting asked about the situation. And he said some flattering things about Kaepernick. He said he wasn't worried about distractions with the team. He was always impressed. He was like Kaepernick was a couple of plays away from winning a Super Bowl. I saw it firsthand. If Kaepernick does come in that Baltimore locker room,

I mean, they obviously have had to deal with some big storylines, you know, over the years, obviously with the Ray Rice thing. Do you think that, you know, Harbaugh and that team has the infrastructure in place in Baltimore to be able to handle Colin Kaepernick, even if he is, you know, a three to four a week kind of stop gap between, you know, Joe Flacco getting recovered. Well, I think this, I think, look, you know, he's got Greg Roman who coached him in San Francisco. I think if you're Steve Bichotty, you have a couple of work. Yep.

And you know that if the reason why they're doing all these poll studies, remember this, nobody's ever dedicated a monument to a committee. And the Ravens are holding committee meetings now, Baltimore, to see what the reaction would be to Colin Kaepernick. And when you do that, you're not going to make good decisions. They're doing it. And why are they doing it? They're doing it because they feel like.

and this has been millions of dollars on their suites if they sign this player. Now, for me, I think it's a football-only decision. You have to look at Kaepernick, and you know how I feel about Kaepernick, the player. He's not a West Coast quarterback, even though he's played that way for Jim. And I could see how Jim feels about him because he played well for Jim. But he hasn't played well since Jim left. Jim's not in Baltimore. His brother John is that his brother John has Marty.

Morning Wing is his coordinator. He's got Greg Roman and Kaepernick. So what I see the ownership of the Ravens saying is, do we take this risk? Because they can't see it on the tape either. If this is a slam dunk football decision and Kaepernick was great on tape, then Bishat with what he does on the field. But because there's such uncertainty, you want to sign them, and that's why they're doing the committee thing, and you know, committees don't work.

Yeah, committees have never been a thing that's really worked out of the quarterback position and sort of finding your main guy. I mean, is there another quarterback that's on the market? I mean, there's a Jay Cutler out there. I'm sure they call Jay Culler. Look, look, they probably will deny it up to the heavens, but look, if you're doing your job and you're in the Baltimore front office, you've called Buzz Cook and asked if Jay Cutler would quit Fox Sports after

and making no game appearances and come play. 7-11 the last two seasons. The show is on John to win. That Super Bowl in 12 isn't going to count for anything. Remember, this owner Fion and Bribeilich, he went to a Super Bowl and won one. So you're working for a team that has fired a Super Bowl winning coach. You know you've got to win, and they've got some pieces in place to be a good football team. But if they don't get play from their quarterback,

they don't get consistent play, which Flacco hasn't given them. And I'm a Flacco guy. I think they've done a bad job of building the team around Flacco. Puryman gets hurt again today. The guys always hurt. He's a first round pick. They have receivers that don't fit the offense. I mean, Flacco's best year was with Gary Kubiak.

And for whatever reason, they go back to a West Coast system instead of an outside zone play action pass system, which is what he's most effective in. And I think that's the disconnect in Baltimore. And I think when John, if John has a great year, great. If he has a bad year and it's not the coach of the Ravens, he's going to look back and say, you know what, I didn't fix this offense the way I needed to fix it. Yeah, and we've, you know, even with Dennis Pitta, Tavon Young, there's just a lot of stuff going on in Baltimore with injuries.

They got hurt every day. I mean, you know, Tavon Young gets hurt, Dennis Pitt is out. And then we see, I mean, they lost a tight end. They had the rookie guard, Nico. Yep. Yeah, I mean, so they've had some real injuries. And I think that's going to be an issue for them as they move forward. And 11 team, and when you've won only four road games in the last two years, there's problems with your team because if you're a general manager, you evaluate your team on the road. You know, it's one thing to be seven and one at home and you could steal a win at home because of the crowd noise and all that. But winning, the best thing about winning is what makes things matter.

When you beat somebody, like if you go into Kansas City and you beat the chiefs and people who all were red to the game and you're leaving and you're walking off the field and they're not saying it, there's no greater feeling in the world. Look, they've only won four road games. Two of those road wins were going to one stowed win in the last two years. The other three, they're expected to beat those teams. And they've lost to Jacksonville down there before. So I think to me you evaluate your team on the road, and this is where Baltimore is fell flat. When you were mentioning teams that always thrive and like to silence crowds, the one name that came to our mind was Tom Brady.

And, you know, all fair, you actually just brought up an interesting point. When we're talking about quarterbacks and injuries, you know, Flacco is going to be watched, you know, from every single thing about his back. People were going to have their eye on that moving forward even when he does return. And a guy that people are going to be watching now also that, you know, you mentioned during your time of camp is Tom Brady. Tom Brady's wife, Giselle comes out in the offseason, talks about some of the undocumented concussions that he's dealt with over the years playing football. And now that we're going to New York and there's going to be a review process, do you see that could be a trend that's, you know, upcoming this season with quarterbacks? I mean, could you see Brady being flagged by the actual league office and taken out of a game? just because the way that they're going to treat quarterbacks

the season, the security of those guys at a premium level at this point, especially what they're... Right, we see the Boston University report that comes out where they say, you know, 99 out of 100 players have some form of brain damage that played football. And John Urshall, I think his name is retired from the Ravens because of it, a smart kid that really had probably some other things going on outside of football,

but this made his decision easy for them. I think this really is going to be a huge factor because the commission, they're going to be watching games, games in the league office. And just hypothetically, you know, there's no record that that Brady had any concussions because he never reported any. And I'm not disputing to sell and I'm not disputing anything and I'm not trying to stir anything up here. What I'm simply saying is this, quarterback's going to be watched closely by the league office. And because there's communication between New York City and those game fields, it's easy

for them to buzz in and say, hey, send a neutral physician and just check out the quarterback. okay. Because if Goodell is responsible for player safety, that's something he has to do. You can say it's not fair. You can say it's not right. No, if you look at a player, and we've often watched games, and we've often seen quarterback's faces, and we've also seen guys, that guy looks hurt, even though he's playing. They see that. They have a duty to at least ask it, and I think that's one of the things that teams have to have two quarterbacks because because of this mechanism that they have now, it's also going to be to protect the quarterbacks. And I think what you're going to see is a guy like Cam Newton gets hurt.

Like the Cam Newton hit in the opening game against Denver. Everybody knew he got hit hard. He stayed on the field. If that play happens to get him, hey, can we send a neutral position guy over there? Now, everybody will say no. That's not his jurisdiction. It's in controlled referees. I think they're going to make a call.

And a lot of this came back up the rookie for the Jets. Number six overall picked Jamal Adams out of LSU. He was next to Roger Goodell. It was a fan forum for the Jets on Monday, and he was asked about CTE, and he said he preferred to die on the football field over anywhere else. And it flew up this whole controversy, which, you know, every single time that CTE has mentioned, it's going to get people rubbing in talking about this whole situation. So if we have those canned mutant hits or Brady takes a big head or even Flacco comes back and takes a big hit,

I mean, basically what you're saying, there's going to be a time where New York and maybe the field officials or the teams themselves are they're in a position where they don't know. really know what to do. It's about the product, or is it about safety of the players? Right. And it's not meddling in the game, but it's clearly there. And I'm saying, if you don't prepare for this inevitability, you know, then you end up with Joe Flacco who gets hit. Say Joe Flacco gets hit, and you can feel it, you know, or say you could just see him spit up blood outside. You know, Yuri, he goes back in the huddle and you can see it. You know, maybe he doesn't want to take himself out of the game, but you see that. You're going to,

you're going to alert yourself and do that. And I think you better have to, two really good quarterbacks on your roster now. I don't see teams being able to survive and win games and maintain excellence without having at least two. Now, I know some teams don't have one, but I think that's the Paramount thing you must look for us to find a way. And that's where if I'm Baltimore, I don't think the answer to the Joe Flacco problem is going to be Colin Kaepernick. I think the answer to the Joe Flacco problem is probably on another team somewhere. It's to make a trade for a guy. From a GM perspective, as you were saying, I mean, do you feel like you would have more respect from your players by being able to maybe let them know that, hey, it's not just New York that's going to be looking out for your safety.

We as a team are going to be looking out for your safety and make sure that you guys, is that something that you would want to address on your own terms? I mean, you're always talking about player safety. And I think you can't have it out of both sides of your mouth. If you're talking player safety, look, I've always been from the belief that if a player's hurt, if he's 60%, that's why we have them backups, because there's no sense in a player who's half hurt to put him out there. He's only going to mess up the team. you're better off playing a backup. Now, most people don't believe that rhetoric. I do.

I think that that's why you have depth on the team because you don't want to play a guy who's half hurt. But when you have a guy who's perhaps a little busy, but he doesn't want to come out of the game, this is the area, this is the great. Hey, my husband had a bunch of he didn't report it. What I'm saying is if you're a coach, you better make sure your backup quarterbacks ready to play

because at any moment that could happen. Yeah, that just adds value to guys like Derek Anderson, just, you know, big-time backup guys guys that seem to be ready to come in at any point. to contribute to a team, a Chase Daniel type. It's one buzz. All it takes is a buzz. Hey, just check it out.

Just check it out. I mean, we saw it. Look, remember the last playoff game in Pittsburgh had? Back Matt Moore of Miami. We saw him get hit. Everybody saw that he was hurt, right? You think that buzz isn't going to come in earlier than what it did? Of course.

All right, Lombardi, I have some questions about OBJ wanting to be the highest paid player in the NFL. But before we get to that, a quick word from our sponsor, Flea Flickr, Training camp is a time of optimism for NFL fans. It's also the time to set up your fantasy leagues. And if you're looking to take your league to the next level, yes, the next level, check out Flea Flickr, the platform that both serious commissioners and beginners rave about. League sizes range from 4 to 24 teams,

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season. All right, Lombardi. OBJ, O'Dell Beckham Jr. comes out and says he wants to be the highest paid player in football. He's probably one of the most likable players as far as marketability. The guy's making supposedly $10 million off in endorsements this season heading into the season. But he comes out, makes this claim that he wants to be the highest paid player in football. When you look at that, just from a GM perspective, the cap allocation that has to play out for him to have that, what do the Giants have to do to get O'Dell Beckham signed and meet his demands?

Because that's a lot to go. I think, look, we're trying to do a contract for O'Dell Beckham. You write down three numbers. You write down the number that he's owed this season. You write down his opt-aigneur, and you write down his franchise number. And then you look and see that Des Bryant's due to make $17 million. Yep. So now, basically, you've got the framework of a deal.

You're saying, okay, you think you better than him. Do you think that where do you justify 25 minutes? It's like, if you want to sell your house, and say you think your house is worth $5 million, but you're in a neighborhood that the house is only worth $2.5 million for it. When the Giants can add the numbers up and they can franchise them and move along. So I think a lot of it's just a bunch of hot air, but that's what Odell does. He gives you a lot of hot air. I think he's got to produce more.

Look at the playoff game. I mean, you know, if he's your best player, he drops some balls in that Green Bay game that typically shouldn't be dropped. Now, we know he's got great hands. Sometimes they're inconsistent, but they're great. I'm not picking on Odell. I think the Giants have created a little bit of a situation. I've never seen an owner of a team come out and say, we plan to pay a player this much money and have the team really have it not effective.

I think it's really a difficult challenge. And Des Bryant's, you know, first on that list, 17 million, that's a little bit less than 10% of the cap. If you're taking 25 million, I mean, you're getting in the double digits of the cap numbers. I mean, what does that do for the rest of the team? How can they find the money? It's not like basketball where, you know, someone can make $25 million or whatever it is, $30 million.

And, you know, there's, you know, 15 people at most on a roster. I mean, there's 53 people. You're going to add it in the practice squad. I mean, there's just so many people. And for one person to dominate that much of the cap, it seems like it's a tall task for anyone in the Giants front office that's right now trying to put a package together for Odell. And that's for sure.

And I think what the Giants are saying, but they're not going to have a quarterback. And so they'll probably have a cheaper quarterback because they're going to draft one. And if they have a cheaper quarterback that works out, and maybe it's Davis Webb, who they drafted. Maybe he ends up being a cheap contract with him, and then they can kind of exchange between the quarterback and the receiver. But eventually it catches up to you. You know, it's going to catch up to Dallas, too. I mean, they're going to pay Prescott some money once his contract they're able to redo it. And then it's going to balance out. You pay a great receiver. You just can't pay a great receiver like I don't see it. And we've seen guys, you know,

filtered through this Giants team that are quote unquote, the great receivers. You know, we saw Hakeem Nix. We saw Victor Cruz. I mean, even Manningham had, you know, the, obviously the Super Bowl year when they went in 2011. But from Eli's perspective, if he hears OBJ demanding this much money, that obviously means he's kind of, he's a lame duck almost at that point. If they're already willing to say they're going to give him that kind of money, I mean, what is the Brandon Marshall, Eli Manning veteran relationship? I mean, do we get one of those things where Eli Manning could freeze out OBJ

just knowing that he's going to end up losing his money to the guy eventually in the next few years? Got to be the guy for the Giants to be great. But they have some other receivers. you know, and everybody's talking about how good Ingram is, and to me, he's going to go on the field, and he's going to help in the passing game, but once people realize he's a receiver, not a run, not a tight end, if he blocks a little bit, he could be great. If he doesn't block, then it's going to be a match-up issue. So I think a lot of pieces are in place for the Giants, and I think they're counting on Eli to be a really good player, and they're counting on Odell to be a better player than he was in the Green Bay game.

And then you got guys even like Sterling Shepard, a young guy that, I mean, sort of had a breakout year last year, and who knows? I mean, if he blows up, then maybe OBJ becomes more expendable, not to say that Stirling Shepard. Yeah, I just don't think the Giants can afford to. The Giants are all down the street with Odell. I mean, they love them, the marketing, New York. I mean, there's capture the market. I don't see how anybody, the giants are trapped to pay them. I think they know it, and they've admitted it so.

So, I mean, what you're saying is good business and theory, but it's not going to happen in practice. That's interesting stuff. I'm intrigued to see how that all plays out. Obviously in New York, we'll get all the drama that we could even ask for. That will be up all the time. Yeah, I mean, since the Knicks got rid of Phil, we have more drama now. We can find a way to get it. Talking more football because the Jets, you know, it's just sad drama over in Jets.

Oh, easy on my Jets. Yeah, you know, my son's there, so go easy on the Jets. Hey, I grew up a Jets fan. I'm a fan of Gingering always. And let's just talk about some other storylines that around the league. Christian McCaffrey has captured a lot of headlines. in Carolina. Jonathan Stewart came out and said that no one.

He doesn't think anyone can guard the guy one-on-one. There's been a lot of reports. A lot of people are saying that he's too small, but then, you know, Kirsherstam McAfri is, you know, 20010 pounds. He's actually maybe a little underrated with his size. When you just hear all this McCaffrey stuff going on, I mean, do you feel good about that for him,

or is the spotlight getting a little too bright for him? I'd really be an effective offense. And then shift players around. And when you shift players around, you change your personality. But key, when the Patriots have a really good team, they have two tight ends, they have Gruncowski, and they have whether it was Hernandez or they have Martellus Bennett. So they can be a 12 team, but at times they can be a 10 team, which is no tight ends,

because they take Bennett and Gronk and flex them out. They can be a 12 team, which is two tight ends. They can be an 11 team, which is one tight end and flex Gronk out. And as a defense, you have to match up to it. Well, McCaffrey is kind of that kind of player. He's in the backfield, you know, and he's in the backfield with another back, and they're in, say, two, so they have two backs in the backfield, tight end, and then two receivers,

well, then they put them in the slot, and all of a sudden they're in 11 personnel. If you stay then they got the matchup they want. If you go nickel to that, then they've got to be able to run the football effectively. And if you do that, then McAfrety becomes a different player. And then they can do all sorts of things. If you go nickel to it, then they'll take

a slot formation and put McCaffrey away from the slot and make you have to defend the box, and if Storch running the ball hard, that's a tough matchup. So they substitute without substitute. That's the key to basketball. basketball, that's the key to football. And so, you know, the bulls, when they were great with football, and they can do that with Carolina.

A lot of people killed Cam in that Super Bowl because they were running these blitz basically where if Stewart was staying in to help block, whoever was garden, Stewart was blitzing every time, and Cam wasn't picking that up, and they got him three or four times on that. And with McCaffrey, McCaffrey's kind of like a Keeckley type, you know, he reads coverages and calls out stuff too. And if you have McCaffrey, Stewart, and Cam, and they're lined up in those two, you know, running back sets. I mean, it's one of those things where it's really going to help Cam out, and it came out that Cam wanted McCaffrey there in

Carolina. I've heard a lot of good stuff out of camp that they're getting along really well. And I don't know, I feel like that's a sneaky addition and a sneaky steal for maybe rookie of the year if McCaffrey has a big year for Carolina. To protect. Yeah, he's going to have to protect a little bit, but here's the thing. You don't want to blitz them. If you blitz him, if you blitz him and... Yep. So, yeah, he's on Darren Sproles, Danny Woodhead type thing. But he gets compared to Woodhead. Yeah, but he's bigger, exactly.

He's 210 pounds. It's a lot bigger than Little Danny Woodhead, who is an amazing guy. Another storyline, Lombardi, Tramon Williams signs with the Arizona Cardinals. When you look at Williams, that addition for the Cardinals, what will that do for that defense? That's a pretty big signing for them. Yeah, I think the Cardinals have had been the corner opposite Patrick Peterson. And they have been able to fix it.

Tramon Williams is not going to be in the playoff in the first game of the season when New England went after their rookie corner from Texas A&M Williams. I mean, it's not the fault. Sometimes you want this guy. You can't get him. Try to sign this guy in free agency, you can't get him. But to me, when they signed Tremaine Williams, it tells me they haven't fixed it and get ready to keep watching it all preseason because he's not going to solve it.

When he was in Cleveland last year, people were going after him, and I think people will go after him if he's in Arizona. Yeah, well, hopefully the Cardinals can flip things around, Bruce Ariens. Obviously, very lovable guy, enjoyable guy, funny guy. Yeah. Good book. I mean, book, if you want to talk about quarterback, it's an interesting book. book. The quarterback whisper. That was a nice plug.

I'm actually reading that right now. Rob Ninkovich, your boy from the Patriots days, finally decides to retire. He was actually on first take this morning talking about his decision that went into retiring. He went out on top. Phil's pretty content with his career. When you look at Nikovic and where he's at right now, he said he probably got out of football

a year or two early and he feels pretty good about that decision. What is, you know, what is his impact on the Patriots and now in retirement? What do you see for I love Rob. Rob was one of those guys. Rob in a team meeting, and he could take it, and he was a good leader, and played hard. He could play multiple positions, and I think he did the right thing. I think it was starting to slide a little bit, and could he play five games?

Sure. Could he play eight games? Yeah, pounding. I think it was going to be difficult for him. So great pro. He was always ready to play. Played hard. Overachiever type of guy played smart, sneaky good, make clutch plays when he had to make them,

could win games for them. The Wise kid they drafted in the third round, really good player. Conan Nippers, he's got to jump up. But I think this Wise kid, I think Wise is really going to be a surprise. He was a talented Russia at Arkansas, hurt as a senior. And then as a junior, he could flash and make a lot of plays. He's really, I think they found himself a really good player. Could he make the team?

Maybe. Could he have not made the team? Maybe. And I think he did the right thing. And I have nothing but great respect for Rob. Yeah, he was great this morning. Stephen A. Smith was trying to go at him a little bit. you know, Max, Max was getting after him about the Giants game, and, you know, he was taking it all in stride, and it seemed like he was pretty content with his career.

And it was cool to talk about, like, that second iteration of the Patriots dynasty, you know, not the early 2000s, you know, Brady hung around, but then they pretty much reinvented themselves and made this secondary run, and he was a part of that second run. I mean, they've had two players that were 50. Mike Brable and Rob Nickyves, both really good players. I mean, Brable was outstanding different than New Orleans Saints to get him in Miami, he had them in Miami. The coaches didn't want to keep them.

And then he ends up in the England and he ends up being a really good player. And I think one thing, you know, Stephen A. Smith or Max Kellerman coming after you, I mean, Rob's taking it from Belichick in a team meeting. I've heard it. Shoot, those two guys, that's like small potatoes for him. Yeah, he was enjoying the moment.

You can tell that he's one of those guys that'll go to me. Hey, if you could take it from Belichick in a team meeting, then you could take it from anybody. I ain't going to bother you. Absolutely. It was funny. I saw a video today.

have Bill Belichick like throwing a dummy at Tom Brady while doing drills. And I was like, Bill Belichick is never going to stop coaching football. There's no hope. The reason he's doing that is because what people don't understand is when you go back and watch you read all these practices, all the guy had a good seven on seven. Well, you know,

none of that is really like the game. He's throwing the dummy at him because there's bodies flying around your feet when you play quarterback. And if you look down and see where the bodies are, you're going to miss a receiver and get hit in the mouth. So he's trying to simulate games on the field. And it cracks me up when I watch these practices and the games the practices are so perfect that they have nothing they remind that there's nothing like the game itself and so that's what he's trying to do yeah i've seen a lot of reports

out of patriots camp i feel like every time on ESPN or fs one or NFL network whatever you're watching everyone's like it's a it's a well-old machine up in new england you know it's pretty much the proper term so they're doing well tom brady still figuring it out and the final point of today final story that i just want to get your thoughts on as a gm jason garrett he finally speaks. He comes out of the woodwork today and he says Ezekiel, it was almost like a message through the media to Ezekiel Elliott. He was like, if you're a big

sponsor and you're doing endorsements right now, you're looking at the Dak Prescott's of the world or the Jordan's piece of the world. You're not quite looking at Ezekiel Elliott. And he has a potential to be one of those guys that, you know, has his cue score his way up and is a great endorser of brands and makes money off the field.

As a GM, I mean, do you respect your coach going out there and doing that first off, and do you think that actually could speak to Ezekio Elliott, and that's something that he'll, you know, it'll make him rethink sort of the off-the-field stuff that's going on. To a player, the best thing is to call him in and close the door and tell him to his face. Yep. I think subliminal messages don't work. I think that if you're talking about leadership in one of the areas of leadership, you're talking about management of trust, the players have to trust

you that you're going to be honest. And when you start doing passive, aggressive things like that, it won't work. I think this is a challenge for Jason Garrett, his team. You know, I admire him for putting the Springsteen music in there. I'm loving that. I think it's going to be a challenge. I think he's going to have to do it. The personality that Bruce took, whether it was the brilliant disguise out, this is going to be a challenge all season long to balance this team from the highs of the 13 wins to the bumps in the road.

They could be the better team and still only win 10 games. We're going to find out what kind of coach Jason Garrett is this year. This is really going to be the defining moment. Yeah, I think Springsteen was a better story. I should have ended on that. That was a much higher note. Way higher note. Way higher note.

But look, you know, but look, here's all I could say. always can't be. That is the perfect way to end this week of GM Street with a nice little Bruce Springsteen line from Lombardi. I wish you were to sing it, though. That would have probably been... No, I can't sing it. Every day I ride my bike to work,

I've been playing a ton of a love album, so I got that song cold. Don't worry, I got it, Tate. I'll play it for you next week when I'm back in the studio. Mike Lombardi, born to run, and that's what he's always doing. And always with a hungry heart. This has been GM Street,

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