The Ringer NFL Show - 'GM Street' With Mike Lombardi (Ep. 88)

Episode Date: March 23, 2017

The Ringer’s Mike Lombardi and Tate Frazier huddle up to discuss Mitch/Mitchell Trubisky’s draft stock (5:00), the true value of Jabrill Peppers (14:00), Cam Newton’s injury (18:00), Ezekiel Elliot’s partying (22:00), and the NFL rule changes (25:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

All this month, we're asking you to tell a friend about a podcast they'll love. Right now, think of a friend, your mom, anyone you care about, what podcast would they really love? Got it? Now do it. Tell them about it in real life or on social media. And if they don't know about podcasts, show them how. Tell us what you recommended with the hashtag tripod, T-R-Y-Pod. Thanks for spreading the word. Now let's get into GM Street. Welcome to GM Street. I'm Tate Frasier and I'm joined here by Mr. Mike Lombardi. Mike, how you doing, man? I'm good, Tate. How do we get music to start the thing off?

Do you get any music to start off? Yeah, we need to do something like that. We need to get some people jazzed up about this thing. That's right. You need some Springsteen or something to your life to get going. Yeah, absolutely. I think that would probably be since we stole the street from, and we might as well have some like GM Street or something like that.

Yeah, exactly. Maybe he'll write a tune for us like he did Mickey Rourke and a wrestler. Yeah, you hear that Bruce Springsteen. Mike Lombardi needs some help. We got a lot to touch on today. We're going to hit some of the quarterbacks in the draft coming up. We're going to talk about some big injuries, some big picture things as far as,

some big-name guys in the league like Zeke Elliott, Cam Newton, and then just talk about some minor storylines here at the end. But first off, a name that's on the list for a lot of people. A lot of people want to talk about quarterbacks, obviously. Mitch Trubisky. His mom is now calling him Mitchell Trubisky. So to make her happy, we're going to call Mitchell Trubisky. A lot of people, we've seen him 49ers, maybe at number two.

He had all teams represented at his pro day for North Carolina. When you see Mitchell Chubisky, what do you think about the guy? He only played one year in North Carolina, but he did break all the single season records for the North Carolina quarterbacks. Had a great season. I enjoyed Washington play. But as far as you as a scout, what do you see for Mitchell Chubesky? I think when you evaluate quarterbacks, I think there's always, the past performance is always going to predict future achievement.

It's very difficult to think of a guy with a one-year wonder. I know that Ryan Tannahill was a wide receiver that got converted. But when I look at quarterbacks, and a lot of this is stolen from Bill Parcell's theory about quarterbacks, which I think is important. And, you know, Parcells wanted a guy who was a senior. He wanted a team captain. He wanted a three-year starter. He wanted somebody who had 23 wins. He wanted somebody who had 60% completions.

He wanted somebody who had a three-to-one ratio. All those things Mitchell hasn't been able to accomplish. What concerns me most about Mitchell is he's only played six games against top 25 talent, which is really not a lot to go by. You know, it's a difficult. So you're sampling into an area where you've got to ask yourself the question, why is this guy who's Mr. Ohio coming out, who's one of the most recruited kids in the country, he's not going to play, and you're down there at North Carolina, you're our North Carolina expert. He doesn't play at North Carolina. It has to wait all this time to play. Now, as a scout, you can't go by

the rhetoric, well, this happened or that happened. Two things that you've got to ask yourself about Trubisky is this. He's Mr. Ohio, but he doesn't go to Ohio State. Yep. Okay. And he goes to North Carolina. He's the most recruited player that they've ever, one of the most recruited players they ever had. And he goes to a school that's fairly friendly. It isn't like he went to Ohio State and had a beat out five people. You know, the Malcolm Gladwell theory about, you know, if you go to, if you're the top student in your class and you go to Harvard and you end up being $290, you feel like you haven't accomplished anything because you went to a really hard school. Well, Mitch did the, he followed Gladwell's profile and went to a school that he should have really shined and been a

three or four year starter like a lot of guys down there. And that's what to me worries me. He doesn't meet the criteria that I set, and past performance will ultimately always predict future achievements. So if I were a team and I see a lot of these ratings that have him first, I mean, look, Deshawn Watson is a true freshman, high school freshman. He steps out of the junior high, and goes to his high school, and where they've never had a senior, never had a freshman ever play and starts for four years. And then he goes to Clemson and he dominates. Like at some point, and he plays and he starts over 30 games, he's played. over 15 teams that are ranked in the top 25.

How could you possibly have Watson rated below Trubisky because the sample size is so small? Yeah, and the way that it sort of works out with the Trubisky deal is so for people that don't know this and I don't foresee a lot of people understanding the inner workings of Carolina football, Marquise Williams was the quarterback there for North Carolina. The team was rallying behind him. Larry Fedor, the head coach of North Carolina, basically tells Mitch Trubisky he won the job in the spring. The whole team is split over. It's a split decision because Mark Euse William the year before took Carolina their most wins in a long time in 2014.

The 2015 season comes around. Fodorant doesn't want to lose the team, so he sticks with Marquis Williams, the senior quarterback. And that's – Trubisky came in a couple games late, had a few big plays. But he basically sits out the whole season. And then last year he plays the full 13 games. So that was pretty much the explanation they gave that didn't want to ruin team chemistry. But like you're saying, if you're the best guy – Yeah.

Team chemistry is about winning, right? I mean, like, I'm not Jim Rockford here, but the reality of it is, is, like, that's really a lame excuse. Like, that's really a lame excuse. And to me, as an area scout or a director or somebody who's running a team, you have to be really nervous about that. There's something there that you're not being able to figure out. Like, the guy goes to North Carolina. It isn't the quarterback institute, you know. And so remember Renner?

I mean, he played. Yep, Brenner. He played for, I mean, you know, he was one of those highly recruited kids. He came in and played. And I think that Fodora's excuse, really. And remember this about colleges, and I have no disrespect to college. Their job is to promote their players. Their job isn't to tell the pro teams the truth.

Their job is to promote their players. And if you're not smart enough to figure it out, and if you're not Jim Rockford to try to figure out the holes in it. And I think that Chubisky, I don't care what he does in his workout. The workouts for these quarterbacks are the most ridiculous thing. They're staged. They're staged by, you know, and then you see the reports after the workout. Oh, this guy had a great workout. Well, of course he did.

I went to Jake Locker's workout, and he was perfect. The ball never touched the ground. He never really made a hard throw. I mean, how'd that work out for Jake in the NFL? So you have to go back to the tape, and the tape doesn't really lie. I mean, there's a lot to like about Trubisky, but to me, to pick him over Watson, and I think where Watson gets a bad break, and if you go back and really analyze the numbers, I think Deshawn Watson and James Winston are very similar.

Yep. Very similar. And this is what happens in the draft. Guys get labels, and then they forget. If you compare Winston and you compare Watson, both had some accuracy troubles, Watson turned the ball over way more. Both are very comparable in who they played against in the level of comp. I think I find it hard to believe that you would pick a guy that starts 13 games over a guy who started all those time.

And not just that. Mitch Trebisky comes from spread offense. It's very wide open. Not making a lot of checks on the line, a lot of shotgun. So he's going to have to sort of address that when he gets into a pro-stile system depending on how they use him. He's already getting in front of that talking about how he's fine to work in a pro-south system. It won't be too much of a shift for him. The other guy that's his coach, his quarterback coach, is Ryan Lindley.

And if, you know, he don't remember Ryan Lindley. I signed Ryan Lindley, and he was with us in New England, and, you know, he's been around. So, yeah. So he does have a pro-style guy that's really working with him on getting used to that stuff. So they're selling it. You're talking about selling it to these teams. But see, that's the term that kills me crazy. I mean, that sends the pro-style offense.

They have two protections. They slide left. They slide right. You go to New England Patriots. They have 15 protections. You go to any team in the league. They're going to have 20. Like, that's what kills these guys in the league is when you watch these guys in shotgun all the time,

it's really just because there's four receivers on the field and you're passing the ball, that doesn't mean it's a pro-style offense. It's about the protections that make it a pro-style offense. And who's the mic and who's the will and who's blocking who? And who's making all those checks and then being able to figure out where you're going to throw the ball? I think it's going to be hard. I think if I were a team that needed a quarterback, I would really be concerned about the look back on Trubiske's and why he didn't play

as opposed to just grandfathering him in and thinking he could fit into any system because I'm not sure he can. If Mitchell Trubisky is not your guy, Lombard. Who is a guy on the list? Mitchell Trubisky, maybe not going to be your number two pick in the draft. Is there another guy behind him other than Watson? We touched on Watson last week. If you didn't hear that, please go back to the original episode,

and we really hit on Watson pretty hard. But is there another guy that you see that you're like, maybe in the Dak Prescott vein where it's like a fourth, fifth round guy, you see a lot of upside, you see a lot of potential in them that you really want to take a chance on them, but maybe don't want to take a chance on him so early in the draft. You know, this is an interesting quarterback class because there's a lot of guys that are taking spots from somebody else.

Okay, so Davis Webb's at Texas Tech. Patrick Mahom beats him out. He goes to Cal and plays. The kid that I like is Nathan Peterman. From Pittsburgh. Who's at Pittsburgh? But he goes to Tennessee. Joshua Dodds beats him out or whatever happens at that school. And then he goes to Pitt. He plays under center. He wins a lot of games. He plays effectively. He plays under center. He makes a lot of throws. Like I could see him for me. I could see him running Carl Shanahan's offense really effectively. I think he would do, I think he is a lot like Kirk Cousins. I think he's being underlooked. I think he's being undervalued. I think he brings a lot of talent to the team.

He's 16 and 10 as a starter. He's got intelligence. He can move a little bit. I think to me he's an undervalued player. Kaiser from Notre Dame to me, I don't see this one at all. I see some people have him as the number one rated quarterback in the draft. At some point, winning matters for quarterbacks. And it isn't like, you're too young to remember this baseball player, Phil Necro.

Phil Nicroo used to win 20 games, but he lose 20. Yeah. Like, okay, because he was a knuckleball. He could throw every other day, right? Like, that doesn't count. Like, at some point, you've got to win games to play quarter. If you're a great quarterback, your team's going to be great. Like, don't tell me you're not a great quarterback and your team stinks.

Like, that bothers me. Now, I get Patrick Mahomes because I think that that offense and their defense at Texas Tech is so bad. I'm not sure you can control that. But I think, to me, my sleeper is Nathan Peterman. I have a sleeper, too, that I want to throw out there. and you're talking about guys that went in college. Gerard Evans comes in for Virginia Tech. His one year playing college football, he takes him to a coastal crown.

He really leads, he leads Virginia Tech to 10 and 4 on the season. Got a big frames, like 6-3-6-4 kid, got a big arm. Doesn't have a lot of tape in what we were talking about, the same vein as Trubisky. But he's another guy that could be fourth, fifth round that we're seeing on a lot of list that could be in the, you know, a guy like Dak Prescott that's laid in the draft and maybe gets a chance to do something. Right, but remember now, Dak Prescott was a really productive player coming out. Yeah.

Okay, he played, he fit Parcells's criteria. Go back and look at Dak Prescott. He fit all those criterias. Yeah, he put Dan Mullen and Mississippi State on another level. They put him on another level. So to me, like, I think that's really what you're looking for. And I believe this. I think when you're trying to, there's an intangible that comes with quarterbacks.

And it's that ability to lead your team. That's why the whole Larry Fedora crap about Mitch about, well, he didn't want to lose his team. The way you lose your team is to play the guy that nobody thinks you could play. It should be playing. winning helps you create your team. So I think to me you've got to look at the numbers on the quarterbacks and you've got to winning really matters. And so that's why I don't like Kaiser.

That's why I have a hard time looking at him as the number one. I think the other thing is, and you see this too, the Saints are really spent a lot of time working out quarterbacks. I think the Saints are going to draft a quarterback, maybe not with their two picks in the first round. If they, in fact, they keep those two picks. But I think in the second round, they will because I think Sean Payton realizes that you have to find the guy to replace Breeze at least two years ahead

and I think this would be a draft to do it. Everybody says, you know, Tate, you hear this all the time. This is not a quarterback draft. He used to drive Bill Walsh crazy. You know, all the scouts will say it's a bad draft. Walsh would go insane because all you have to do is find the one player. Was it a bad quarterback draft last year for the Cowboys? I don't think it was.

The key is to find what you want and then to make that work. That all makes sense. But the Saints, you know, they'll have a chance. They're working out a bunch of guys. Chase Daniel, they've had success developing some guys behind the eight ball. But let's talk about another guy in the draft that a lot. of people are talking about as a first-round talent. Another Peppers is coming to the NFL.

Gibral Peppers out of Michigan. He just trying to piss me off today, too. You really are. Jabal Preppers, obviously, was a big recruit. Went to Michigan. Claimed he wanted to be the next Charles Woodson. That didn't quite work out at Michigan. He was at the Heisman ceremony.

A lot of people are already jumping on to say Gibral Peppers are going to be some defensive star. He's going to be a first-round pick. He's got a lot of talent. You, Mike Lombardi, are not as sold on Jabrill Peppers. Can you tell me why? Well, it's pretty easy. I mean, you have to grade what you see.

Yep. You have to watch it. Okay, so here he is. He's a kid who's highly recruited, which is great. I go back and check all those five-star kids. I pay attention to it because I do believe from the Al Davis Academy of Scouting that pedigree matters. And I think that, you know, when you have a pedigree like this kid has, you have to pay attention. But at some point, you have to perform on the field.

And there's no position for him to play. He's not a strong safety. And here's why. He's too small to line up. If you want to be a strong safety, people and I read this, well, he could be a cover three in the box safety. If you want to be a cover three in the box safety like Cam Chancellor is, you've got to defend the B gap. And if you want to take the B gap on in a run game, you've got to be a man. I mean, you've got to be a real man.

And that ain't Peppers, okay? He gets touched or blocked by any of those big guys in the line, and he's out of there. So he's not a backer. He's not a safety. He can't play corner. And if you really watch the tape very closely, Tate, they hide them. Like, Michigan is telling you on the tape. They don't think he's very good.

Michigan is telling you they're hiding them. They blitz them. They run them. Here's a kid who's supposed to be a playmaker. He wants to be the next Charles Woodson. He has one interception in his career and he's broken 10 passes up. That ain't Woodson like. So if you just grade what you see and what you see is a defense that's really good that has a lot of good players on it, but they cover up for the inability of peppers

because they almost feel like they're playing peppers because they have to, not because they want to. And so for me, how can that go? I'd be a first round player. I respect his ability as a returner, but if he doesn't have a position in college, where is he going to play in pro football? And the way that he's, yeah, who knows, but

a lot of the way that he's described to people as a Swiss Army knife, and usually those guys are quote-unquote athletes in college. He hasn't quite found a position, and if you don't have a position, then that means that someone's got to cater their defense towards him, and you're basically saying that he doesn't have a position. He doesn't have a position. He doesn't do anything to make you, other than the media

making him out to be a first round player, He's got no chance to be a first-round player. There's nothing he does that says I'm a first-round talent. I don't care if he runs 4-4 tomorrow at the Michigan Pro Day. That's irrelevant. It's on the field, his performance as a football player. He's not a linebacker. He's not Mark Barron.

He's going to be the willbacker. He doesn't make enough plays in there. He's too small to blitz. He can't handle the run. He can't play in the high part of the field because he's limited in terms of there. They moved him down. Anytime a college is moving you closer to the football, what are they telling you? you're not athletic enough.

You can't play in space. And really, Delano Hall, 44, the safety is a better player, doesn't get near the recognition, but they utilize his skill set way more. So to me, when you're watching college tape and you're studying college tape, you have to study the players and the scheme, and the two things come together. So what you do is you learn about the player from what they think of them. The team that knows them the best is Michigan. And the way Michigan uses them is the way they're telling you what they think of them.

For me, they're telling you, we're hiding them. And he was the conference linebacker of the year in the Big Ten. Just 72 tackles, 16 for loss, four sacks, one interception last season, but was up for Hysman contention. But never blocked. I mean, that's the thing is, look, he's the will linebacker in the defense. So he's got free access to the ball. I mean, this ain't Luke Keeckley now. Yep.

I mean, this is not like a guy, you know, like if he gets blocked or touched by a guard, he's going to get pounded away. If he has free access to make a play, good. Look, and I'm not trying to kill the kid. But if Michigan can't find a place for him, then why would you draft a utility infielder? It's a little bit like Tavon Austin. It's like having this expensive watch, right? And then every time you want to look for the time, you look at your phone.

Yeah. Right? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Right? So to me, I think, to me, whenever I see Peppers and, you know, these whole mock draft things are, you know, when I was in the league and people would say, help me out with my mock, they call you up. Whenever you see a guy, whenever they give you a name and you don't have to reveal one of the names you like and you can keep a name in there, it's like having a lame horse in the race. Well, yeah, Peppers, who are going to go in the first? Everybody has them in the first. It just keeps getting repeated.

Meanwhile, you don't have to give up the name of the player you really like who's going to go in the first. And remember this. There's only probably going to be about 15 to 16, maybe 20 first round grades by most teams. And there's no way Peppers would have a first round grade by any team in the league. When you think of a guy like Peppers, if he doesn't quite have the physical stuff to go along in a position or doesn't have a specific position, then people will say, well, he has instincts. He has good ball skills. He does have instincts. He has instincts, but he has the ball and. his hands. Like his mama, when his mama took him from his crib, he was a running back. He wasn't

a defensive back. He can't react. And he's what I call a card player. Okay, so here's what a card player is. A card player is when you hold up the card at practice, the card tells him where to go. So what takes away the risk, it takes away trying to read runner pass. It takes away trying to decide what the play is. You know you're going to the right. You know you're going to left because the card's telling you this. Okay. And for me, Peppers is a card player. All that speed that he has it's really based on when somebody points him in a direction. The time he excels athletically is when he has the ball in his hand as your returner. And to me, that's great, but that isn't a first-round talent.

One man that was a first-round talent, we're going to switch this up and move on. Mr. Cam Newton, the number one draft pick in the 2011 draft. Ron Rivera was out in the world saying that, one, he wanted to protect Cam Newton next year, didn't want him to run as much. He wanted to get that offensive line set and ready. He also said that Cam Newton was not going to need surgery. And now we find out that Cam Newton is going to need surgery. He's a torn rotator cuff.

A lot of people think it was suffered week 14 against San Diego, and it only get worse as the season went on. Cam Newton now going to have to have surgery. Won't be back until they're saying late July, maybe to go over to throw a football again. The good news is that last year when he heard his ankle, he couldn't stay in shape, wasn't able to condition. This year will be able to stay conditioned throughout all that.

When you hear about Cam Newton having to go under surgery, this will be back-to-back years he's at off-season surgery. Do the Panthers really need to worry about protecting this guy? I think they do. I think they really need to. I don't know. Matt Khalil is going to be the guy that's going to protect him. I mean, to me, I would be nervous.

Maybe that's a concern at left tackle. But I do think the Panthers know that he's not going to be able to keep going through offseason surgeries. And I think the reality here is we have to redesign the team. And I think this surgery is going to lead them into making decisions on the draft, making decisions on how they set up their offense. Because now that he's had this, and we don't know how severe. severe this surgery is going to be. But now I think what you're going to see is we talked about it in how to fix the Panthers is stop running Cam. Well, I think this is going to make them to stop run. And I wouldn't be surprised. To me, this signifies that I think they know they're going

to need to get a running game. And the best way to really protect Cam is to take the ball away from in the running game. And it can't be with Jonathan Stewart because he's hurt all the time. Yep. So for me, I think when you look at their team, I think if they had a chance to draft a legitimate big-time running back, that probably would help them a lot. And I think Cam needs to understand that you can't have off-season surgery every year and expect to maintain the level of performance because last year he slipped. And maybe it was because of the off-season surgery. Maybe because he couldn't train as much.

Off-season are more important to players as you get older than people think. And I think when you have these surgeries, it really sets you back. And you mentioned Matt Khalil. Matt Kalil signed from the Vikings. His brother, Ryan Khalil, is obviously the Pro Bowl Center on the Panthers. Ryan Kalil said a lot of good things about Matt Kalil thinks that he's going to do well and protect Cam, maybe make next year a little easier for him. And a lot of people are talking about Leonard Furnett, Dalvin Cooks,

someone being those guys at the eighth pick for the Panthers. So it could be a good thing, maybe a blessing in disguise to have this come up. Right. But remember this. You always, when you evaluate teams in the draft, you always have to go to the GM and what his background is. And Dave Gettleman's a size speed guy from the giant school. So that's what's going to lead them in the first round.

Typically, they're going to be offense or defense alignment. I don't know if there'll be an offensive alignment worthwhile to pick there. But to me... Cam Robinson, maybe. Maybe if he's there. If somebody picks him there, you know, it could be. But I think what the reality is is that's always going to tell you what the team does. Forget the need.

And maybe it's because Fortinott could be a great player. Maybe they'll take the running back. But to me, Gettleman's always about size speed and the two defensive lines. Yep, which he is kind of stuck to that over the past few years. Let's get into another guy that was a first round pick. Zeke Elliott from last season of the Dallas Cowboys, taking fourth overall, NFL rookie of the year. much took the NFL by storm alongside Dak. He's had quite

an off-season. Had a great season on the field. Now in the off-season, he's sort of acting out a little bit. There's been a lot of people commenting on it saying that we need to get this guy in line. The Cowboys need to do something to address it. What do you see from Zeke and how do you get him back on the right path? Well, I think to me, I think when

you look at Zeke, I think all the stories you hear, too much going to Vegas, too much party in Vegas, too much gambling in Vegas, losing this, losing that. I think the reality here for the Cowboys is and they have to get Zeke under control. The offseason is important. I think success is the hardest thing to endure in sports.

And if you don't have an appetite for more success, you'll take a step back. And if the Cowboys don't be proactive with Zeke right here, the guy's going to waste a potentially tremendous career. He's a unique player. And I think the most important thing the Cowboys can do this offseason, since they're not moving Tony Romo and they're not moving very quickly on that decision,

is to get to Zeke. His agents don't really have the control over him. but somebody needs to get to the kid and really have a come to Jesus meeting with them and say, look, it's most important for you to train and improve and build on your success than to just stay out here and party and hurt your reputation. He still hasn't been cleared of the domestic violent or the assault charge. He hasn't really, the league hasn't issued that. We saw the St. Paddy's Day parade there.

That's still going to come up. So I think in the interest for the Cowboys, they have to be proactive in this situation. And they've got to take Zeke and really force him into becoming a more mature player off the field and keep him out of Vegas and keep him out of all that party scene. Yeah, Marcus Spears coming out saying that he just needs this quote unquote

stop being dumb, man. There's been a lot of people within the Cowboys Brass and they're trying to speak out him through the media. Right, and they know that there's not a lot of people that can control it. They know that the agents don't really have control over them

and I think that they're asking for help and somebody with authority's got to have it. I mean, Jerry's got to have the ability to go talk to him. And who's the guy in the locker room, right? So Romo's obviously not the guy that's going to be the leader anymore like he was before. Jason Witten maybe

has passed his time there. Dak is a young guy just like Azigo, so maybe he doesn't have the same weight. And he's had so much success. He's above the locker room. Now, now he's on his own. So it's got to be peer pressure, and it's got to be the owner, and it's got to be an effect. That's why you hope that sometimes the agents can have an effect, but clearly they can't.

So Lombardi, let's wrap this up. Let's do some quick storylines before we head out of here. First things first, Robert Aguai, the kicker for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a guy they traded up for last year, had a really, really tough season, missed a lot of big kicks. They bring in Nick Fulk to, you know, the former Jets kicker to sort of like give him someone to push behind him. The GM for the Bucks comes out and says,

Aguayo was not very good last year, just basically sending the message to him. What does this mean for the Buccaneers? Right. And then they guaranteed $750 of Fulke's contract. And what fans don't understand is that's really kind of a gratuitous thing. Nick Fulke is going to kick somewhere next year. It might be for the Bucks. It might be for the Panthers.

It might be for the 49ers. So that guarantee of 750 will offset no matter where he goes. So it's almost like they're sending a message to Agraio to make sure that he knows that there's competition. And Falk knows that he's got a guaranteed protection for the league in the year. And it's really going to end up being no offset for the Bucks. If he makes the team great, if he doesn't make the team, somebody else will pay the $750 and the bucks are off the hook. And the funniest thing about that story, we'll move on from here is that Nick Fulke said he would be sharing, quote, of course, sharing no secrets with Robert Aguayo.

Well, yeah, I think that's good. I think he's a competition. I mean, he's got, Arroyo's got to know that, hey, man, it's time to do it. Yep. Another thing, NFL comes out, Roger Goodell announced all the rule changes, says he wants to speed up the game, says he wants to make it more watchable. He wants to player safety is a big issue. They ban people from jumping over the line to block kicks. Were there any big rule changes that you saw that really affected the league in a major way?

No, I don't. I think speeding up the game is a good thing. I think speeding up the game, speeding up the timeouts, speeding up the instant replay stuff. I think if they did control the instant replay more in New York City, it would be beneficial because they could see it quicker. The referee wouldn't have to go over. An example of that is like in the NBA there in Sikokka, New Jersey. Like central headquarters is making the call on the officials.

There's nothing wrong with it not having to be. The technology allows it to be in New York City. And if you have somebody looking at it all the time quicker, I think the game's got to go with more of a flow. I think anything we can do to help the game. Look, I know the league's obsessed with sock height and making sure all everybody's socks are pulled up in the celebrations. I think it should be really about football.

And last story of the day, Brandon Williams, nose tackle for the Baltimore Ravens. He signs a five-year deal worth $54 million. When that happens, what does that mean? What's the domino effect for that defensive line for the Baltimore Ravens? Well, I think you've got to look at this just like the Malcolm Butler situation in New England. Okay, they give Gilmore all that money. Okay, is Butler available.

I think Timmy Jernigan is the next guy. Jernigan's going to command a huge salary. It's really one of their best defensive linemen. Does Ozzie Newsom want to trade him or does Ozzy Newsom feel like he can sign him? He can't get him signed. Does Ozzie trade him now for, say, like a third or a fourth round pick, I suppose to waiting for the compensatory? or does he just hold on to him and play him for one year?

I hear they're talking about moving Jernigan. I think Jernigan's a fabulous player, but they can't afford to sign them. So if you're a team like Jacksonville and you can know you can afford them, to me, why not give up a third or fourth round pick for Jernigan and get another defensive lineman and do it before free agency and keep the kid? I think that's really would be something good. And Tim Jernigan is a big catalyst for the Florida State National Championship team. If we went back to Florida, I'm sure the fans would be very excited about that.

Lombardi, this has been a great episode of GM Street. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm excited for your North Carolina Tar Heels this week. I was worried about you last week. I thought you were going to lose. I was going to lose you. Yeah, I almost had a panic attack, but it's good to talk about football and keep my mind away from all that stuff. We'll be back next week. More GM Street, more football storylines, and more Mike Lombardi. Thanks, Tate.