The Ringer NFL Show - ‘GM Street’ — The Panthers Fire Their GM, Big Trouble in Big D, and Missing in Pittsburgh (Ep. 117)

Episode Date: July 19, 2017

The Ringer's Mike Lombardi and Tate Frazier huddle up to discuss Carolina firing Dave Gettleman (01:00), Thomas Davis and Greg Olsen's impact on the decision (03:30), the return of Marty Hurney (10:00), the Dallas Cowboys and Ezekiel Elliott (11:30), the keys to training camp (16:00), Steelers that are holding out (22:30), Matt Ryan's contract situation (26:00), a new rule for coaches (30:30), and the popularity of James Conner (34:00). 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. All right, GM Street, let's do it. Welcome to GM Street, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Tate Frazier, and I'm joined by Mike Lombardi. Lombardi, how's it going? I'm good, I'm good. It hasn't been a good summer for general managers, has it? I mean, oh my gosh, it's a good thing I'm retired on the beach

and have to just write books and write it for the ringer. I was going to say this podcast, obviously, it's named and titled GM Street. We sort of are, you know, a sympathetic, empathetic with the GM position. I'm sympathetic, you're empathetic, you've gone through the whole GM process. So we feel bad. We feel like a lot of our guys are taking some hits this offseason. Probably the biggest name that came out. Obviously, John Dorsey for the Kansas City Chiefs was the big name before.

But Dave Gettleman, the Carolina Panthers. The Panthers have been on a winning street since about. 2013 since he took over for Marty Herney. Gettelman gets canned eight days before camp opens. Just first initial reactions to that news. I mean, it broke and people just sort of started freaking out just from the jump. What happened? The Gettelman's on his way back from Cape Cod.

He's getting ready to come back to spend time working on some contracts. And Jerry Richardson informs him he's no longer needed. And I think on the surface, when you look at it, you say, it would increase regardless of the style that he built the Gettelman perceived ball being operated. and I think that that's really what caused him. He feels other positions aren't worth as much, and then he was going to manage his cap. So let's just take a big-picture look at Dave Gettelman's tenure there.

So he comes into the Panthers. He has all these guys that are already in line. Cam Newton's already there. Luke Keeckley's already there. Thomas Davis is already there. Greg Olson's already there. Some of the big names that people have heard in the off-season, obviously we remember Norman last year.

People remember when Steve Smith left in 2014. You know, people remember DeAngelo Williams. So all those situations have played out. But I think the biggest, one of the ones that has really been under the radar was the whole Jordan Gross situation. And for people that aren't familiar with that, Jordan Gross was the left tackle for the Panthers. He had been there for a long time. You know, people loved him in the community. He, you know, Gettelman comes in and restructures a contract in 2013.

And, you know, Jordan Gross isn't very happy about that. He ends up retiring in 2014, sort of handicaps the team, sort of hurts Gettelman. And that was one of the first little feelers into the fact that maybe Gettelman and this Panthers, the organization, weren't quite in line with their thinking. And then this summer, it's come out that Thomas Davis, Greg Olson, they're looking to be treated and, you know, kind of given the red carpet treatment for what they've done for this organization. And they're expecting contract extensions. And then Gettleman, from what we've heard, Gettelman may not have been on the same side as those guys, and now he's out and now he's canned. this is one of the first times I've seen players. It seems like they really had some sort of impact on the front office.

And that doesn't always happen in football. I mean, is this a rare thing to see or is this something that usually happens? But it's just being talked about more than usual. No, I think somebody was sent in there and Gellman got the job because Marty Herney's cap situation was atrocious. Yep. And he had to clean up a cap mess. And when you have to clean up a cap mess, you've got to tell some players, no. Look, if you want to be a GM of an NFL team, control the money for what they earned,

and therefore there has to be a separation of church and state. Two ACL surgeries. You know, he's been hurt quite a bit. He's an older player. I mean, you rip up and execreate some problems. And then, of course, you've got the Greg Olson situation. I think what Gellman tried to do is come in. Actually, I don't think that was, and I think Jerry Richards said, look, Marty Herney gave a lot of money away.

Marty Herney was very generous as the general manager. I mean, he's one of the few GMs who was able to survive. He gave Jake Delholm a contract with, no offset language in it. So in Hague Cut, I think you always have to look to the person who got fired. It doesn't necessarily mean there was a take-off with the media. And I think this is what he gets. And Marty Herney, for people that don't realize this, he was the Carolina Panthers GM from 2002 all the way up into October 2012 before Gettleman took over. I just want to know, from your perspective, I mean, what really got

lost in translation from, Jerry Richardson has to know what Dave Gettelman's up to. He's not making these decisions. He's not self-autonomous. He's not doing all these things. And then Jerry Richardson's finding about it in a vacuum. Jerry Richardson is very involved, and he is approving these decisions that were being made. So really the question is, and a lot of people are trying to pinpoint exactly what happened for him to completely go full 180 on Gettleman. And I mean, a lot of people in the Charlotte area and some people I've talked to have said, Thomas Davis and Greg Olson are basically, I mean, they're ambassadors for the Panthers in the city. I mean, they go out, they do all this stuff, do all this charitable acts in the city.

Richardson treats Thomas Davis like his own son and there was an interesting thing that Mike Tolbert, Tubbs Tolbert put out on Instagram actually it was like he had the picture of Trey Turner, another guy who's looking for a new contract, Greg Olson, Thomas Davis and he said the quote that he put was determined, not deteriorated and there was a lot of hoopla made about Gettlement

apparently was saying that Thomas Davis was deteriorated as a player and doesn't have the same value and Richardson didn't take too kindly to his guy, Thomas Davis being talked to like that, and that's what led to the get him when firing. So just all that behind the scenes stuff, so it just seems like, you know, over the past two years ever since the Super Bowl, there's been a lot of drama behind the scenes in Carolina, and now it seems to be cleared up at this point.

Owner buying in. I mean, typically the way ownership should run is, look, you know, he's running the team. I'm letting him run the team. I love the key park. He loved him as a team to run the team, and Bill Fills was to make a couple of people. Contra gives him that authority.

And once in his head coach, and then there's dissension within the ranks. You have to add another layer into this tape. Eric comes in, and Dave Gettleman's already, he's Ernie. Yep, exactly. Okay. And so Herney, Herney hired Rivera. Herney, then Herney gets fired, and then Rivera has to come in. And now Rivera is the giant's way of doing business, which is on the rankings.

Now he's got Herney back. You're seeing is the Panthers and Jerry Richardson, Marty Herney. I think Herney will end up getting Olson done with. At the end of the day, I feel he likes Marty and Herney. I think he likes the way he treats the players, and that's important to him. Do I think they're going to continue to win and continue to get good players? I'm not sure of that because I think Dave Geddeman was really good at his job. And that's sort of the underrated and undervalued part of Gettleman.

I feel like he's been placed as this bad guy that wasn't willing to pay the money and give people contracts that they deserve when really Dave Gettoman is a talent evaluator. He's a football lifer. He's been around the game for a long time. I mean, he was known as a guy that would be 3 a.m. in the office at Bank of America Stadium. I'm just watching tape for as long as he could at night, just trying to find diamonds in the rough. And you look at some of the defensive linemen, he drafted over the years. And some of the decisions he made, he was quick to pull the trigger to let guys go, obviously.

But it did lead to them going to Super Bowl. It led to them having one of their greatest runs in franchise history over the past four or five years. And now to look at it, full picture, I mean, it seems like, do you think it's in a position where the Panthers are content with being middle of the pack? it seems like they were going for Gettelman wanted to take him to another level in an upper echelon of NFL football, but they seem to be content with being comfortable in their position, and now they're just reverting back to the

mean, basically, and going back with Herney. And Herney's loved by a lot of people as well, but it seemed like... Herney's a former media guy, so he's loved by the media. He owns a radio station down there. He's good with the media. I mean, look, that's what he does. He was a newspaper writer that became a background. That has always been in personal things, but happy you make no one happy.

And I think it's going to be a fascinating situation to see how they change the team. They've got a lot of good pieces in place. Max, and National National Money. I mean, they had the Angela Williams, and then they had also at Jonathan Stewart. I mean, what teams pay that kind of top-level talent to run-embacks?

People say, well, the Patriots are paying a lot of two. And I think that's what happens. And look, the situation in Carolina is Jerry Richardson. He fired him, and anybody. He likes Herney. He likes the way Herney runs the team. I think he wants his players happy. Does that mean he's going to win a super?

Another team that's trying to figure out how to get back to the Super Bowl and get back to the dynasty that they once were in the late 80s and 90s. The Dallas Cowboys, there's been a lot of drama this offseason. Ezekiel Elliott's been the forefront in all the conversations. Obviously, another incident happened at a Dallas bar late Sunday night. The police confirmed on Monday. No arrests were made. Elliott was involved.

The situation still remains unknown. Jason Garrett comes out today, and he says, that they believe very strongly, and this is in quotes, in Ezekiel Elliott, even though he has not spoken to Elliott since the most recent incident, but he plans to visit with Elliott come this Friday. This cowboy situation, I mean, we talked about a little bit last week on GM Street. I mean, Ezekiel A.A. just seems to be a guy that can't stay out of the headlines for better or worse. And now the Cowboys are trying to clean up his act and trying to get him in camp and trying to figure it out.

But, I mean, what do we see? Do we see the Cowboys really taking a downturn this year? Deke really going to be this much of a headcase all season long? Missing some time. I'm going to make sure that Darren McFadden gets a lot of reps. I'm going to make sure that Alfred Morris is ready to go this summer. Think about them in October and get them in shape and get them ready to go. Because here's usually what happens to guys that have these type of off seasons.

They pull in hamstring. They have nagging injuries. They've got it from being as productive as they're capable of being. And if I'm Jason Garrett, I'm thinking about who I'm going to build on my team for September, because the chance of me have an Elliott at 100% or even having, having them at all. I think the cowboy for them to handle it, I think when you look at what they have to accomplish, and

when you take Elliott off the field for them, all of a sudden, maybe they're not as good offensively as they could be, but for four or five games, maybe the combination of McFad and Morris can give them something. The key's going to be what season they did last year, if that's even possible. And one thing that's really

not been discussed, I mean, a lot of people are going on. How do you reach out to Ezekiela? How do you make him feel, you know, some sort of, you know, make him come out and just be a contrite about the situation and be up front about it, you know, a lot of people, you know, if he misses game, then he's going to have to repay his bonus. It's like $240,000 a game. He got a signing bonus in March of $16 million. So that'll hurt him a little bit. But I mean, is there a veteran that could come in?

I mean, even maybe a Darren McFadden himself to get in Elliott's head to talk to him. I mean, there's been a lot of, you know, people talking about ways to connect with Elliot and maybe Dax should reach out to him. But, I mean, right now it just seems like this guy's kind of on his own thing, kind of spiraling out of control a little bit, and there's no way to reel him back in. I mean, should they even be looking for a replacement, like a Jeremy Hill or someone, some other running back for another team, maybe try to make a trade just to make sure that if Elliott really does go off the rails, they have something in place where, you know,

they have someone competent enough to be behind this line for a full season. Well, I think on the offenses have good depth. And I think that that depth is with McBadden-Marst. Those two guys are going to be better than anybody that could trade. for a sign. And obviously they're going to keep their eyes open if they happen to lose a back and convince them. Remember, fear does the work of reason. And unless you can reason with them, you can bring all the old players in, you can talk about his eyes or else it won't work. Yeah, it's an odd situation down in Dallas after a great season last year. It just seems like

his entire all season has been pretty negative for them. But Jerry Jones is still positive. He's still out there. He's still talking to people. He says, you know, the Dallas Cowboys way is still holding up for him and, you know, he's excited for the season. So maybe he's still. if Dallas comes back and they win 14 games again, people really won't care about you want to bet on that? You think the Cowboys you bet? Do you think the Cowboys?

No. You know? Yeah, no. No way. There's just too much going on. It's just too much noise on the outside. Last year was, you know, it was way more than people bargained for it for two rookies. And now it just seems the sophomore slump is really kicking in. But I don't know. I mean, if Dack seems to

have his head together and seems ready to go and ready to roll, it's a lot on that defense too. I mean, just a lot of things happened to Dallas. It's not just as Ezeko Elliott, but he's taking all the headlines. I don't know. It just seems like right now Dallas is not in a good spot. Yeah. Well, we'll get on some more positive

stuff. Football's close. It's coming back. Camp is right around the corner. A lot of teams are getting ready to gear up to report to camp. Lombardi, you're going to be out in the field. You're going to be going to camps, checking out teams, seeing how everything's working out and shaking out there on the East Coast. You're still in Jersey

right now, so you've got a lot of places to go and a lot of places to see. What are like the main thing? for camp that you're looking forward to seeing some major storylines. I mean, I know you said you're going to go check out the Eagles, the Jets, the Giants, right? The Patriots, of course. So there's a lot of big teams, a lot of big ticket teams there that you're going to see.

Camp is, camp, which are those four or five games, some teams have five, some teams have four. And then there's the September season. Yeah. I heard of training camp. And September also allows you to learn who's your football team. And I think the teams that understand that, you know, if you can get two and two in September and find out about your team

and get your team ready because you can have more condensed practice season. But for me, when you go to training camps, these young players, all these guys that have been drafted, special teams, because if they're not playing and make the team, the manager, 46, probably for next year's team or for an injury. So you need to look at it in preseason when you're putting together the roster is, are you keeping that guy on 46 to 60, or is he one of the 46 guys you're going to dress? And if he is, he has to make an impact in the kicking game, which then leads you to as a fan, if you really want to understand who's going to make the team, you start by studying the punt team. You start by study in the kickoff coverage team.

And then within those teams, you start studying who the L4 and L5 are on those teams, who the backup personal protector is on the punt team and find out about if they can make the team. Training camp is about finding out and putting players in position to make the team for 50 yards and nobody touches them. He scores a touch 50-yard run. Well, a lot to make the 50-yard run, because it was against really good players. You go to camp, I want to against one another. That's the best way to view a team. You drafted having plus in terms of an evaluation, and you can get a lot out of that. And when you go into a camp, right? I mean, obviously you know about your stars and, you know, all those guys are going to be in the depth chart. But that 40, you know, 48 to 60 range,

I mean, even stretching out to like, you know, the 80 people that may open up in camp. I mean, do you have a mindset of who you expect to be on a right? Do you already have it penciled in, like in your mind, a debt chart where guys were going to fit? Or do you, I mean, because one thing is to see it on the field is obviously changes everything from what you preconceived, but I mean, do you have everything mapped out and ready to go, obviously? I mean, I'm... Right. So you have two columns on your pad when you start watching practice.

The locks, these are the guys that you know are on the team. Yep. You know, you go watch the Patriots play. You know Tom Brady's on the team. You know Rob Goncrowsechowski's on the team. You know Dionne Lewis is perhaps on the team. You know certain guys are on the team, right? And then you have these guys that you have to watch and see how they progress in camp

and see what development they are. And then you need to watch guys that you're developing, and which guys are probably not going to be able to impact any team at all. And so then you start making columns. And then every day of practice, you can move a guy from one column to the next. The column that you know guys are locks to make, you rarely touch that column. You know, you don't touch that. You know Edelman, you know Gronk, you know Brady.

How many spots do you land, not a 53 man lens? Because what happens is sometimes you may want to put a guy on practice squad and not carry him on the 53 because you can't carry him. You have too many players of that position, and the numbers don't add up. So if you could get him on the practice squad, then he works out better. So how do you do that? You don't play them in a game. Yep.

You don't play them in a preseason game. You kind of like hide them. You're the only one who knows he's having a good camp. Last year, the Patriots never really played much of Woodrow Hamilton in a camp game. He's a college-free agent, made their team, got cut, bounced around. Now, he's a run-down defensive tackle, so there's not a lot of people that are going to go after him. But the reality of the situation here is who's not playing, and then those columns start to fill up every single day. And then once you do that, you can come around to your 53.

I've always just found it very interesting because, you know, obviously a lot of guys are already penciled in, like you just said, untouchables. But just all the variables I go into, there are just so many guys on a football team that you have to figure out. And, I mean, you know, all the way down to conditioning and you don't really know what guys are doing. I just feel like going into a camp, there's such an overwhelming process just to make sure everyone that's already, you know, supposed to be slotted in is right and they're ready and trying to make sure that you have those secondary guys ready and the guys you want to grow. I mean, there's just so many incremental shifts

that happen across the board. Any volume of offense and defense. And so, you know, what you think of those players in column two or three in week one, by the time you get to week four of camp, because of the volume of offense that's been added to the volume of defense, those guys in column two that had a chance, they go to column four

because they can't quite get it all. So they've eliminated themselves. And if you're just objective with it, Tate, if you don't try to force anything and you just let the plus easy by the tape. A guy that's high volume on offense that will not be or at least right now will not be reporting

to training camp until he signs his franchise tender. Running back Lavian Bell for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Bell 26 right now will actually turn 26 in February of next year. It's at a career average of 128 7.7 yards per game. That ranks first in the NFL amongst playmakers

over the last four seasons. He's a free agent in 2018 coming up. when you look at the Laveon-Bell situation and what that means for the Pittsburgh Steelers in their future, I mean, he is their future, or at least they hope he's their future. When you have this thing weighing over training camp, I mean, that's obviously the biggest storyline. How does that affect, you know, Mike Tomlin and the rest of those guys getting ready for the season, not having Bell in there? I mean, the preseason game, you know, Bell's not playing in a preseason game. You know, Bell needs to be in a condition, and Bell needs to be a pleats on and do that.

But for the most part, you don't want to injure him in a preseason game or you don't want to take reps in that. that. So it's more about fine-tuning. And for me, Mike Tomlin's pretty good at this situation. He's just going to ignore the whole Leveon Bell's thing. You know, when that gets resolved, and he knows it'll get resolved by week one, the kid's not going to miss a game check. We all know that. The one thing about the enophatic in July, okay, let's be real honest. And that's why I said earlier, September becomes really part of the preseason because if you count September in your preseason configuration, then Levyon Bell is going to need September to get ready for the full run of the season, which is fine. tornado him. I never mind that running back's holding out. Yeah, but another guy on the Pittsburgh Steelers team, a guy that you really do need in camp, left tackle Alejandro Villanueva, he's still waiting to see

he wants a new contract, obviously. He's holding out. He was in OTA as a minicamp because he signed a waiver that protected him against injury. But when you have that situation too, I mean, those are two integral parts of the Steelers team. I mean, obviously left tackle to protect Ben Rothesberger, a guy that

is taking a lot of hits over the years, and then obviously Levyon Bell. Is that even more important than the Levyon-Bel situation to have your left tackle in camp? He needs to get ready to go. The only way he's going to get a big contract is to keep playing. I mean, here's a kid that they've turned around. He was an army guy. It was a defensive team. He flipped them around. He made them. And he deserves a really smart. He signs his tender. Another team, you know, Villanueva, he came to the minicamps. So he told the team he hits and plan on if he starts, you know, they start to lose money because they have contracts. And so the only leverage they have is pretending they're going to hold out.

I don't think anybody will, and I think that they're going to move forward, and they're going to just get the guy. Well, a guy that has all the leverage in the world right now, that's Matt Ryan, the quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons, of course, 32 years old, he's still got two years left, 35 million remaining on his five-year deal that he signed in July 2013. It's just right now it's sitting in this position. Matt Ryan basically has come out and said he's going to let the business side,

all that stuff work itself out. He's not really thinking about it right now. But we saw Andrew Luck get the big deal where he was the highest paid quarterback. Derek Carr then trumps him. Matt Stafford's probably the next guy up to get the highest paid contract in football. And then Matt Ryan would be right after him. With Matt Ryan's situation, I mean, should he be pressing to get this contract done after what he did last season? Or is it one of those things where Matt Ryan is who he is and can sit back and relax and just do what he does?

The Falcons offense. I'm trying to figure out how they're going to work with Steve Sarkees. who replaced Kyle Shanahan because they know similar offenses. But I think Steve Sarkeesian had a challenge in front of him because what Kyle Shanahan did with that offense and what Matt Ryan did with Kyle Shanahan wasn't a career year. It was a career squared year. I mean, it was remarkable.

When you look at the numbers and how he played, it was the third Tate. It was the third least amount of passes he threw in his career. And yet he had career 9.3. The best in his career was 75. I mean, it's remarkable what he's been able to accomplish. down that path because, you know, they got the offense and everybody's back. Maybe they're going to change a full better offense is back and they can get going.

I think Kyle's scheming and his ability, and I think Matt Ryan probably knows it. That's five. Maybe he comes in at 30. But all of a sudden, that just raises everybody else's number up. And he could say, hey, look, if you don't want to pay Mexicans have yet to disseminate, who would be their quarterback? It's not Colt McCoy. They don't draft one. And yet they don't want to pay it. It's absolutely fascinating.

It should be pointed out that Matt's, Stafford and Matt Ryan both have the exact same agent, Tom Condon. So Condon's going to be able to work a little magic there, maybe get Stafford a number, and then that'll help boost up Ryan's value when he actually does his negotiating later. Because what happens here is these contracts are not hard to do, because when you're in a top five player at your position,

the whole reason Levyon Bell is holding out is only because he wants to set the market. He wants to blow the market away. When you're in those top five contracts and you know what the market is, It's fairly easy to get a deal done. What really becomes the most concerning factor is how to structure the contract and how to give the guarantees. And remember, on all these contracts, including Derek Carr's contract, you have to value them over three seasons.

You can't guarantee for three years. What is it? Guaranteed? Never works out that. 80 to 90% of the first three years. Never works out. And I think that's what you're going to see here. Stafford's going to set the market.

And I think he was a remark to watch. Absolutely. The Atlanta Falcons, a lot of people will have their eyes. Turn to those guys, especially after the 283 debacle in the Super Bowl, and to see if Matt Ryan and those guys can bounce back. Lombardi, let's get to our final segment. Word on the street where we talk about sights and sounds around the NFL and the major storylines, and we get your reaction on things.

First up, the NFL has announced that they will eject coaches for two unsportsman-like conduct penalties and games. My question, you, Lombardi, who will be the first coach to get ejected for two unsportsman-like conduct penalties? I have a few thoughts on my mind, but I'm hoping it's Jason Garrett. I hope he just loses his mind finally. I don't see, other than clapping, what does Garrett do? I mean, how could you ever even think that Garrett's going?

When do you ever see him? I mean, he gets a little weird. I think he's been hypnotized for like 30 years. I'm hoping that he finally breaks the curse. I don't see it when he gets, you know, like, I don't know. Like, I mean, Jack the wheel seems to get fired up, I would think. But to get two, that's a lot. I mean, that would be a lot.

I know, I think this is kind of, is ever going to be in this. I got Zimmer. Zimmer. probably my number one on the board. I'll go with you. He's a fiery guy. He can lose his mind. Especially if you're watching Sam Bradford throw interceptions and get sacked and fumbled, I mean... No, I think he gets more mad

when Sam Bradford throws those completions for two yards after it's third and 12. That would drive me... That would make me jump off the bus. Absolutely, absolutely. Maybe Andy Reid gets to just for bad, you know, just clock management. They just give him penalties for the fact that it was just so bad. Now, that could...

Now, I wouldn't bet against that. I mean, the league officer would come and say, look, Andy, the clock, you just you know, somebody in Switzerland operating a clock and you're doing it way wrong. Yeah, I could see that. I've said awful long. Andy should just outsource it to India. Or maybe Ron Rivera speaks for the first time and then he gets to, you know, they're so taking it back

that he actually spoke that they give him two unsportsman like conduct penalties. I don't know. You're right. You're going through it. I mean, maybe Adam Gates gets all fiery and pissed off. Maybe he'll do that. But I mean, most of the guys, guys are pretty stoic, which is the right thing to do because you're trying to play chess in your head. I mean, that's where I think, I mean, if you're a true head, you need to

make to put your team in the best position and to get all emotional, you lose your thought process. Would you ever see a chess player go nuts? No, exactly. I mean, could you imagine Bobby Fisher getting pissed off at a move and going crazy? Maybe you could because Bobby Fisher might have done that. But most of those guys just stand there and keep staring at the board, I think that's the way you've got to approach it.

I know who will not get this. It'll be Jim Caldwell. There's no way Jim Caldwell will ever get to unsports some light conduct penalty, and that is a fact. And if you brought a lip reader in to figure out what Jim Caldwell was saying in the microphone, I defy him to find it. I think he would just say, I can't believe I have this job still. Another big story.

NFL teams are coming out with a little story that I thought that you would find fun. NFL teams are saying that they should let their quarterbacks to the punting. Like Randall Cunningham back in the day, Randall Cunningham, for people that don't know, has the third longest punt in history, 91 yards back in 1989 against the Giants. Would you like to see quarterbacks be punters? I mean, obviously that takes a position away from the specialists out there. But I always enjoy it. And also, it plays in the fort.

I think it would be fascinating. Yes, it would be fascinating to stay. You know, I mean, to have them back their punt. I mean, typically most of the, most quarterbacks have ability to punt. They're usually the best athletes on the team. Tommy drafted by the Arizona, but really became a punter goal. Yeah. He could kick field goals like you couldn't believe.

He had this long leg and it whipped around. It was never a problem. And frankly, if you watched him, Puss and hitting golf ball, I always admire the fact that Randall Canningham could punt, and the fact that people don't realize that he did that makes me a little upset. So I'm glad that we could bring that up today. Another storyline, James Connor has come out. He is the NFL's best-selling rookie jersey.

People remember him. He had cancer. He was a running back at Pittsburgh. You know, has an amazing story. He's a great running back, obviously a great tradition of running backs at Pittsburgh in general. But what does that say for James Connor to have the best-selling rookie jersey? I think that's pretty cool. I think it's great, but I think it says a lot about the Steelers.

I mean, Steelers fans, the Steelers Nation strong. I mean, that's the one thing is when you play the Steelers Nation, they're all over the place, and they travel, they come to games, and they're powerful and they buy their jerseys. I mean, that's, everybody's in a jersey. I mean, some of them are in Frenchie Fuquoise jersey. Some of them are in Ben Rothersburgers jersey. Some of them are in Neil O'Donnell's jersey.

I mean, but they're in their jersey. Every single time I go to a Panthers game, there is someone in a Pittsburgh Steelers jersey or an Oakland Raiders jersey just sitting around me. For no reason, they're not pulling for anyone. They're just sitting there just to let people know, hey, we're still here, we're still fans. It could be Freddie Bolitnikov.

It could be some of the old Raiders. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Right, Lombardi, anything else? Any more thoughts about the league right now? No, I'm just, I think next week we get going into this whole thing. I mean, we finally get football back, and we'll at least have some camps to talk about. I just can't wait until you report from camp and tell me how everyone looks so great. I'm going to, and what I really want to do is we've got to get our boss, Bill Simmons,

on board, but I think Joe House and I should take it on tour and do diners and camps all in the same day. Like, go to a couple diners, evaluate them, and then go to a camp and evaluate them. I mean, who wouldn't want to see that? Crab cakes and football. That sounds like Joe House. That'll be good. That sounds like ours. Yes, sir.

All right. Thanks, Tate. And thank you all for listening to GM Street. And that's part of the Ringer Podcast Network. Keep supporting. Keep commenting. Keep reviewing. Keep doing all that you're doing.

We really appreciate it. And we will be back next week.