The Ringer NFL Show - New York Gets Its Man, Dez Blasts Dallas, and the Endowment Effect | GM Street (Ep. 274)

Episode Date: July 30, 2018

The Ringer's Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier jump right into the Jets signing Sam Darnold (02:00) and other news around training camp (05:00), before looking at the issue between Roquan Smith and the Bears (18:45), how Todd Gurley's contract will affect Aaron Donald (24:45), Dez Bryant's beef with the Cowboys (31:00), and the passing of Tony Sparano (37:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Top is available nationwide. Find your pint at halotop.com or follow them on social media at Halo Top Premary, Halotop.com. Now let's get into GM Street. Treat part of the Ringer Podcast Network. It is July 30th. It is Monday. And on the line in New Jersey. The great Michael Lombardi. Lombardi, how you doing? I'm good day, Fraser. Sam Donald's signed. It's a big thing. It's a good day today here in the great state of New Jersey. Everybody's jacked about it. Yeah, everyone's very excited. The news came out. The big headline going in. into the week, this NFL week was the two holdouts between Roquan Smith and Sam Darnold. The big

news before we got on the air here is Sam Darnold signs for the amount of $30.2 million. A $20 million signing bonus, one of the riches in Jets history. And the contract is fully guaranteed. And then obviously, you know, Sam Darnold now gets into the fold with the Jets QB

room. This is good news for everybody that is a fan of Gangrene and just Lombardi. I know you're heading up to Jets Cam today. What do you you know, what does this mean, you know, overall for the Jets? I mean, it's obviously good news to get their quarterback in the room. Yeah, I think obviously training camp is they always go back over camp are usually what they reviewed during the last mini-camp.

So they're on time. You know, once you get past three days, then it gets to be a problem. Pretty smart knows what they've installed. But now it just comes time to get reps. We regrouping on what he did before. So, you know, and this is a good move with the Jets. I mean, obviously they need to get done. It should have happened a long time ago.

You know, there's always sticking points on language. We'll talk about that more about Rokane Smith, but the reality of it is that the Jets needed him there and he needed to be there. And now he officially will be there. We're talking about training camp. We've been out of commission for the past couple of weeks. We are back now to catch you up on everything, training camp. And one of the biggest things that comes out,

we hear all these little stories that, you know, sort of surface in terms of how people look in training camp. You know, you may have heard that Andrew Luck, you know, his confidence is up. He's looking great. You know, you've heard about Deshawn Watson, you know, looking like a star in this league. You've even heard, you know, smaller storylines like Tavon Austin is lining up with the ones with the Cowboys,

and, you know, John Brown is looking great for the Baltimore Ravens, and Joe Flacco's having the best camp of his career. And I say all this to say, Lombardi, this is all the stuff that comes out of camp. But what really matters is game reps, and that's when the talk really comes to fruition. And so how much should we take these news stories that come out in training camp? You know, I would take very little of them. I mean, if a guy makes a great catch, John Brown makes a great catch at practice, he has one catch during the practice. What a great practice he has when the game tape doesn't indicate it. Look, the reality for training camp for everybody that's involved is that you have to have good practices to help you get reps in the game.

But you better play good in the games to make the team. And I think what happens so often, two things happen. I tweeted this out over the weekend, Tate Fraser. Two things, and I've been a part of this my entire career in the NFL. You start training camp and all the scouts will scurry together and they'll all start talking and they'll say to themselves, you know, we're going to have a lot of depth on this team. We're going to have to cut some really good players. And then the next conversation will be, you know, we're going to have to, I mean,

I don't know how much more talented we, I mean, we got really, it's going to be hard to cut this team. And really all they're doing is falling into this thing, which, which, you know, has been talked about in business and economics is called the endowment effect, which is basically when you over, when you buy something that you, when you own something that you love more than anything. And so, therefore, it becomes your property. then you evaluate it way higher that it should be. And that's what's going on right now. There's a lot of endowment effects going on in the NFL

because what's happened is everybody thinks, oh, we've got a great team. For example, Olivier Vernon is having a great camp for the Giants, which I don't doubt he is at all. But for me, on the other side of Olivier Vernon would be, does that mean Nate Solders having a bad camp? Because Olivier Golden Vernon should be going against Nate Solder on every single rep. So that's got to mean that Vernon is dominating Solder,

who was the highest pay tackle up until a couple days ago. Now, to me, that's got to be the concern. So, you know, this whole, I've had good camps, I have good not and all that. It really just plays into the people's self-evaluation and their own biases. And that's why we see so many bad decisions. I mean, by the middle of September, all these guys that had great camps, they might not be on their team anymore. Yeah, and it goes back to that old adage.

A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. I think that plays into some of the stuff that comes up with training camp. I mean, let's talk about Huey headlines. I mean, that's one of the big things that is coming out about. Baker Mayfield is exceeding all expectations, but it is believed that Tyrod Taylor is a shoe in to be the starter on day one for the Browns. So, I mean, it ends up being one of those like narrative PR battles a little bit too, where you're trying to get good pub for guys that come out there.

Like the first few days, Mitchell Tribusky, you know, people were saying he looks great. And then, you know, this past Sunday, a story comes out that he's been throwing too many interceptions. And now that's the headline that's coming out. And I think the best thing to do right now is just sort of keep your head in the sand and wait until you see these guys on the field, right? Yeah, I mean, it's Huey headlines to me. I mean, first of all, Jimmy Haslam comes out with a statement that we're going to see the real Huey headlines now. That's really great. I mean, after 32 games, we haven't seen them yet.

I mean, really, you know, you give any great coach a bad team. He's going to figure out a way. I mean, LaBardi took over the Packers in 1960. He found a way to win seven games. They were the laughing stock of the NFL. You know, I mean, and so he, you know, and so. He found a way to do it. I'm not comparing Huey headlines to Vince Lombardi by my tongue.

But the reality of it is, is coaches can make a difference. I mean, John Gruden's going to make a difference in the Open Raiders. You know, A, he's got an easier schedule, and B, he's a good coach. He'll make a difference there and out. Can he win a suit ball? That remains obscene. But to see the real Huey headlines, and then, Huey, to me, just puts, once that headline came out,

then he did exactly what he always does. He starts talking way higher than he could, because Baker Mayfield he's already appointed to be the backup quarterback. he's exceeding expectations, which lies into the question. Well, if he's exceeding expectations, why doesn't he start? You were 1 in 31. Why are you going to play Tyrault-Towler, who's never really done it? He's been in a one-playoff game. Why would you play him and not the guy you picked first overall on the draft? Nobody follows up with that question, though.

If he's exceeding expectations, Jay Fraser, why doesn't he just go ahead and start? And it comes back to the value. I mean, we talked about this, you know, dating back to the draft on GM Street is, you know, when you take a guy number one, obviously you were valuing him to be a guy that you are willing to start day one. And that comes into the larger question of, you know, what they did with that number one pick. But if Baker, you know, in their mind is exceeding expectations, he's obviously made, you know, the media rounds. He's done a good job with handling all those sort of press and the questions. And there seems to be some sort of positive, you know, atmosphere that's going on in Cleveland with all these guys saying they have a real chance to now contend for a Super Bowl. Obviously, this is even July going into August.

so a lot of that is just fodder. But I do think that they have done a good job at controlling the positive press coming out of Cleveland, which, you know, Huey headlines, that's always about right now, you know? Just after those first two seasons. It's just going to bite him in the ass. I mean, look, he'll go play in the first preseason game

and say he plays really well. Then how is it not the case that he shouldn't start? Like, what are you saving them for? If you're Huey headlines, what do you save them for? Because you think you have to win right away? Well, if you've got the owner's complete confidence, like he just gave you, said, we'll see the real Hugh Jackson. I mean, the real Hugh Jackson was in Oakland.

He was eight and eight, that was, had eight wins and all of a sudden everything fell apart. I think they were like six and two, and I went two and six over the last eight game. So, I mean, we've seen Gewy. I mean, I don't understand it. Yeah. So to me, it's like, if he would have been a great coach, he wouldn't have been 016. I defy you to tell me one guy, whoever. I mean, Belichick took over to Cleveland Browns in 1991. We gave up 459 points a year before, and we still won five games. you know, we won six games that year

were six and ten, but we're terrible. Like, we're just horrible. Bill Parcells took over the New York Jets. There were one in 15. He went eight and eight in his first year. And if Keishon Johnson catches the pass on the island in Detroit, they probably make the playoffs. Well, I'm going to do the Huey headline right now for what you just said.

Huey headline would say, based on what you just said, that Hugh Jackson has been compared to Bill Parcells and Bill Belichick by Michael Lombardi. That's the Huey headline that would come out of that. So that's what we're dealing with, Cleveland, you know what I mean? He's going to I appreciate. I grant

you, that's a North Carolina education, despite me in the house. He's going to spin it how he can. No, that's good. He's going to spit it how he can. No, but it doesn't make any sense. And all this PR, look, I know we've got to cover the teams, but I know training camp diaries are important. And I know who looks good and who doesn't. I mean, but

there's a graveyard out in Alameda for guys that made all Alameda. I mean, let's face it, I mean, Al Davis had a bunch of guys that he hadointed after training camp, after minicamp. But you've got to be able to show it against top level competition. For example, if you're a young corner and you've watched the routes, the receivers run, and you studied after the OTA days a lot, then you see these receivers run routes. You'll cover anybody because you know the routes that are coming. But once you

get competition against competition where you don't know, then you get a little bit of a problem. For example, nine on seven drill, this is my favorite of all time, nine on seven drill. The scouts, they can't wait for nine on seven drill. They go herding over there like it's a free buffet, right? Everybody goes hurting over there, like they're going to watch something revolutionary, and they're going to evaluate. They got all their pencils out, and they're going to evaluate the nine-on-seven drill. Who did good and who didn't, which is a nine-on-seven drill, which is an inside run period. Okay, here's the problem, take Brasier.

The nine-on-seven drills are run, period, period, period. Okay, you know it's run. So you've taken away one dimension of football, which is run or pass. So now you know which run, you play the run. And so really, all you're evaluating is the player's toughness in this drill. You're not evaluate anything else. You're not evaluate where he made a tackle. where he didn't make a tackle, you evaluate and

confidence. And I think it's a real slippery slope you get on when you start going out to camp, especially when you've practiced against these guys for so long and you're really evaluate. You're trying to teach them. You're not trying to evaluate it. Evaluations have to happen in the game. Yeah, and you take out the anticipation factor of that

whole thing, and that's one of the biggest parts of football. I want to ask you about a team that they really had no news come out of camp, which is, you know, sometimes, as they say, no news, is good news, but the Houston Texans is a team that, you know, obviously we know some of the star players that are there, Bill O'Brien, you know, was very excited about this camp. J.J.J. Watt is in camp. DeShon Watson is camp. Whitney Mercilus is in camp.

They're all in West Virginia working out. Jadabion Clowney apparently is, you know, working his way back. He had off-season knee surgery, and he's looking like he is going to be ready to get back and start participating in drills very soon. So you just look at Houston, and you talk about there's really no headlines coming out of there, but all these guys are healthy, and you talk about this top, the talent that is at the top of this roster. I mean, you know, that's a team that no one's really, you know, sort of under the radar because there is no news, but it looks like all things are pulling for, you know, north for the Houston Texans right now. Yeah, I think there's no doubt about it. And when you

look at them, I mean, look, they're coming back. They got all their players back. So you know they're going to be much better just by the, just by the nature of what they get back. Right? So they get all their players back. Plus they, you know, they end up and they play, I mean, they play a schedule that I think is conducive to what they have to play with. I mean, so they play the 30 second easiest schedule in the national football league. The combined team that they play against their 116 and 140.

So to me, that team has a second easy schedule in the league is the Tennessee Titans. They made the playoffs last year. So, you know, you combine this. Plus Watson, I think, is one of these guys that is never satisfied. So he's back early. That's the other thing I think it's been pretty remarkable is

how quickly guys have recovered from these ACLs. Watson, he gets hurt. He's already back on the field. Dalvin Cook's already back on the field. I mean, Carson Wentz got hurt Tate Fraser in December, and he's back on the field. It's really remarkable how quickly they're coming back. Yeah, and then you see an injury, you know, like the shoulder with Andrew Luck and how long that took in that entire process. And you think

maybe, you know, one of those injuries may even be worse than the ACL injury now that we've had so much, even over the past, you know, five years, it seems like that injury is not as severe as it was. I mean, dating back to when Adrian Peterson came back and everyone was so bewildered by his ability to bounce right back after tearing his ACL. It seems like that's sort of become the norm a little bit. I want to talk about luck. The big thing that's coming out of camp is that he's connecting on deep strikes again.

He's throwing the long ball. His shoulder apparently looks healthy. And you talk about that division with the Texans and the Titans. And obviously, if you have Andrew Luck and the Colts come back, the AFC South is something to watch, right? There's a lot of storylines going into this season where a lot of teams are trying to get back on top of that division. Plus, we've got the great Blake Bordals down there in that defense, which we know.

I forgot about Blake. I'm sorry, Blake. You know, you left Blake out. You left the key component of the AFC South. I mean, look, everybody has told me all along that Andrew Luck was going to be healthy start of the season. And, I mean, that's been consistent. That's what they said during the interviews to coaches that they talked to. They were very confident that he was going to be a starting quarterback now.

Is their team better? I don't know. I mean, obviously getting him back makes them a lot better. Are they going to be better on defense? That remains to be seen. There's still a long way to go, and they've got to protect him. I think they'll be smart with the football with them, and he's got to be smart, not run it. Because one thing about that shoulder, he hurts that thing again, and it could be a career-ending type of injury.

So Drew Brees went through this. He was able to endure. He came back from it. Remember, he funked the physical in Miami, and he's been back ever since. I often wonder, Tate Fraser, what would Drew Brees have been like if he would have signed in Miami and Nick Stable would have stayed how history would have been rewritten? That is a very, you know, very bizarre thing to think about. because Nick Saban doesn't get much credit for being a guy that develops

quarterbacks either. So if you have one of the best quarterbacks in the game, Drew Brees, with Nick Saban, maybe he has a whole different... Well, it would be good for the SEC, right? Everyone in the SEC would be very happy if that's how things worked out. I would think so. I mean, less miles probably still be the head coach at LSU. Absolutely, absolutely.

A lot of people would have jobs. Mark Rick would still have a job probably with Georgia, of all things played out that way. But, you know, that's history. That's how it played out. I want to ask you, is there anything else from camp? You've been driving around to camps, talking to some people, just seeing how things.

are rolling out. Is there anything different this season with the NFL? It seems like there's a little bit of a newfound excitement with some of these guys. I've seen a lot of positive press coming out of camps with guys saying, I mean, from Cam Newton on down, you know, saying how excited they are to be back on a football field. Obj is one of those guys going into a contract year, but still

talking about how excited he is to be out there on the field. Is there anything that really stands out to you from what you've seen and what you've heard just going around camps? I mean, I was talking to somebody who's in another sport. He's a coach in basketball. He went to the Vikings camp the other day. He went to the walk through and then he went to the practice and he just was talking to me about what he was,

what, you know, he was observing. And he was stunned by, A, the amount of fans that were actually standing. And then he was even more stunned by the amount of fans that went to the actual practice. And he's like, it's like one of these things that people just don't want to talk about, but obviously football is really a popular sport. I mean, when you can get people to come to walk through and you can get people to come through a practice in the middle of July and the heat and all that. It's pretty remarkable. I mean, look, New England, I mean, you couldn't, you can't, the first couple of weeks in New England, you couldn't get an empty seat in the stadium in that little field there when they practice,

just to watch the guys practice and hope to get an autograph. I mean, the great thing about football being back, the Hall of Fame games this weekend. From now on until it freezes here in New Jersey for a long, long time. We've got football every Sunday, which is great. I want to ask you about Patriots camp a little bit, and this is one little note. Tom Brady, you know, ended a press conference abruptly when asked about Julian Edom and his personal trainer, Alex Guerrero, and that became sort of a big story.

It seems like drama just follows the New England Patriots Lombardi. I don't know how they avoid it, but it seems like every single offseason, there's something that comes up, and this seems like the new thing that Tom Brady will be answering for the rest of the season.

Yeah, I don't think it bothers them, no. I think they just move on to the next one. I mean, you know, people keep asking Belichick about whether he's going to talk about Malcolm Butler. And look, my view on that is just move on. I don't know what would happen. I don't think anybody really knows other than Malcolm Butler and Bill. And Malcolm Butler saying he doesn't know.

You know, my sense of it is, is, you know, the things, the noise that comes out of there, they do such a good job. I mean, that case, you know, Brady kind of got mad at the reporter because he tried to link Alex Barrero to the suspension for Julian Edelman, which, you know, that's a hard thing to do. So Brady just kind of walked away from that, which I understand. But the reality here is that no matter what's played out of New England, they're just really good at dealing with. if they get coached on it every single day. You know, I talk about it in my book, about how they're in the media. You know, that's part of their daily job. And to be able to educate the players on the media is part of how you help the players

become more professional in what they do. And if you just let them start talking, like you get some guys, we're going to Super Bowl, we're doing this, we're doing that. All it does is hurt your team. You've got to control the message just like Huey Headlines does. He does a really nice job. He controls the message. Yeah, always.

It's not quite like when Rex Ryan and, you know, 2009, 2010 was yelling at the opening press conference that they were going to win the Super Bowl. It's a little different than that. But I want to talk about the Chicago Bears and what's going on with their number eight pick, Roquan Smith out of Georgia, the linebacker out of Georgia. They're going through a contract dispute and head coach Matt Nagy this weekend, let it slip that it was over the league's new helmet rule, that this could subject players to ejection for initiating contact with the crown of the helmet.

And apparently that was the big reason for the holdup that's going on right now. out with Roquan. He is now the only guy that's really holding out because of this with Sam Donald's signing earlier in the day. We mentioned at the top of the show. I want to just talk about what this means, like just in general with Roquan and what it means for the Bears and how this is not really controlling the message,

right? This is all getting leaked out and it's getting a little ugly. Well, I think what's happened here is this very simply is to protect themselves against suspension, which is their right. It's, you know, like Josh Gordon, for example, you know, he's been suspended and missed so much time that whatever signing bonus he's got from

Browns, he owes that money back. So it's an offset clause in the contract. All players have an offset. So if I give you $5 million for a five-year contract, tape freezer, and every year it counts a million dollars of that five-year contract. Now, after one year, if you start missing games because you get suspended, you owe me a pro-rated bonus of that money back. We'll deduct it from your salary, we'll deduct it from future. But whatever it is, we're going to deduct it because you violated the rules of the contract over the proration of the signing bonus, even though we gave you the signing bonus initially. Now, what the bears are trying to do, to me, it sounds like they're nitpicking.

It sounds like they're trying to get money back for a call that happens on the field, a suspension call with the helmet rule, which I think is really going to be hard to officiate. I think it's going to be hard to play. And I think it's going to be creates a huge problem for how Rokon Smith plays. He's so physical in terms of what he does with something that's creating a problem that shouldn't be a problem. And, you know, I understand where they're coming from. They want to protect themselves.

If the guy misses the game, he should give his money back, you watch it every Saturday afternoon, watching college football, there's some of those guys that get thrown out of the game for calls that we're not quite sure of. All the other players in the area don't have it. And when other players don't have it, that kind of lends itself to believing that the bears are the outliers here. Yeah, and it's trying to set a new precedent with this decision by the bears to put this in the contract. I mean, this is sort of a new thing I mean, under the new CBA.

Before that, you know, we saw guys like Phil Rivers. I remember he had to hold out for a little while. There was some rookie contract stuff that was a little strange under the old CBA. But now since 2011, we haven't seen many of these things. And this is something that the bears are doing that has to do with the new rule in the NFL. So it's something to keep an eye on.

I mean, obviously, Roquan's now missed eight days of camp already as a rookie that he's already behind the eight ball. In that sense, Nagy seems to keep putting it out there that, you know, guys are getting rep. and they're just trying to, you know, whatever coach is going to say in the situation, which is we're going to play with who we have out on the field, and hopefully that will get figured out by Ryan Pace and those guys in the front office. But, I mean, do you see an end in sight here, or is this something that will keep going back and forth?

I think there's got to be an end in sight. I mean, I think the bears are digging their heels in, and if they want to dig their heels in, that's fine. They can. I think there's got to be a compromise here. I really do. I think to me, I would, to me, I don't think it's fair for the player. but even if the bearers dug their heels, then I would say after the second time

where the first time he's suspended, let's at least review it. Let's have something to where we can have something. Because you're trying to do crystal ball this thing. You're trying to look into the future and make a prediction. I don't think is accurate, and it's going to screw it all up. So I would take a step back and say, okay, after year one,

we're going to put the language in and we're going to review the language again after we do that so we can have an ongoing conversation about this. To me, to put your feet in the on this one without really having all the information. There's an old saying people equally informed seldom disagree on contracts. I think this is one of those cases.

Yeah. And if you're Roquan and you're his agent in this situation, no one has seen how this rule will play out. I mean, there was a, it came out of a statistic. They looked at over, I think, 40,000 NFL plays from last season, and I think three of them they deemed worthy of suspension under this new helmet policy. So it is few and far between the plays that they believe will be worthy of suspension, but like I said, we have not seen this actually play out in an actual NFL season yet.

So it's hard to already, you know, agree to something when you have no idea what it's actually going to look like. Absolutely. And I think that's where they can find it really where they're coming from on this. And we have seen the NFL rule change has become a topic of discussion plenty of times before. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come back and we're going to talk about how Todd Gurley's new deal will impact the future deal of defensive tackle Aaron Donald. Quick break to get aware from our sponsor, UDEMI.

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And make sure you download their app for your phone so you can stream your studies wherever you are. That's Ude.m.m. slash NFL. Ude. my slash NFL back to GM Street. All right, we're back. We're going to talk about Todd Gurley. He gets a four-year, $60 million extension with $45 million in guarantees that was reported last Tuesday. This is obviously, you know, kind of resets the running back market as things go.

But it also, the big discussion that came out of this was not really about what it would mean for Levi-on-Bell and what it would mean for possibly David Johnson or Ezekieliot or Alvin Camarra, any of these guys. What really came out was, what does this mean for Aaron Donald, a guy that they really, the Rams have been trying to figure out a massive long-term deal for him, and they're trying to figure out what the market would be for a defensive tackle? Just looking at this and what it means for Gurley, you know, what is Donald's, what is the money that is there for Donald now after this Gurley deal? Look, right? Yep. And they gave him a deal. They gave him a deal that basically guarantees three and a half years of the money. So he's two years from it.

And so he didn't have to wait like Donald's had to wait. And then he gets three and a half years of guaranteed on sudden. Now look, I'm a huge shot. Gilly fan. GERley made this offense go. To me, Gourley is the key to this thing. He made Sean McBade's offense go because it was so heavily on play action passes. It was so much about how to get the ball out of Jarrett Goss's hand quickly.

Gurley was great average over 10 yards on a pass catch way more than Tavon Austin. Who, by the way, Tate Fraser, having a good camp down in Dallas. He was running up with the ones. just say, yeah, just saying, having a great camp. Tavons had a great camp,

you know, anyway, that was just, it was just kind of how they used them in Los Angeles, you know, like Sean McVe does

know how to use them. Anyway, that being said, so, you know, like, for example, Brandon Cook's got a new contract too,

but he only has $2.5 million of new money in the overlap of years and pushing most of his money out of 2019. So it's like two different contracts. But for me,

if I'm Donald, and I see that girly deservingly so, got three and a half You guarantee $3.5 years of guaranteed money. I mean, when he signed the contract, you got $21 million signing bonus. Okay. And so they converted 2018-based salary into it.

So he's got all that guaranteed. And I just think to me, now you can work that way and say, okay, for me to sign a deal, I've got to have at least four years of guaranteed money. Now, what's been yearly average? That remains to be seen. And I think this is why you're having a problem up in Oakland as well, because I definitely think Kaleel Mack's not going to sign a deal. knows what Donald's going to sign for because he wants to be the highest paid defense

player. And so it's basically this is a Donald domino effect. So once Donald finally gets, you know, the deal that he expects to get from the Rams, I mean, you know, less need has been, you know, pretty vocal about, he understands that they have all these big contracts coming up, you know, cooks, you just mentioned him, and then obviously they do Gurley, Goff still in his rookie contract, and that goes through 2020, and then Sue's probably not going to get a long-term deal in Los Angeles, we wouldn't expect, you know, Peters, sort of the same deal.

So Donald, I mean, they have, you know, it all set up for Donald to get this big money. But there is no market, you know, there is no precedent right now on what he should get, right? I mean, Sue did come out and say that he thinks Donald should get more than he got, if that means anything. But what is that number? You know, what is that guaranteed number for Donald? Well, you know, look, Fletcher Cox is the highest paid defensive tackle in the league. You know, he's got, but he only got 35.4% of his money guaranteed. So he's made, he got $102 million.

He averages $17 million per year. So that average is where Donald wants to start. And I would say Donald's thinking of the number in the 20s. Yep. So say he wants $20 million a year. He's going to want $20 million a year. Four years, he's going to want $80 million guaranteed. And he's probably going to want $120,000 a year.

And that's quarterback money there. And then you're going to bang it right back and say, oh, but Von Miller got or, you know, Von Miller, he's making 19 a year, so that takes him above Von Miller. Now, Kalil Maq's going to want 20.5. See how this all works? Yes, yes. See how it all kind of stems and works? And I think that's really what you're looking at.

And because of the way they did the girly deal and put so strong guarantees, now everybody has to understand that the guarantee in a contract is usually for skill, the first two years of skill and injury, but there's always a mechanism in the contract, roster bonus, dates on the contract, where the contract becomes fully guaranteed, not because the team doesn't want to pay the player, more because the team doesn't want to have to fund the money right away. So what they do is they go ahead and they put an injury guarantee on it, and then it triggers into a skill guarantee later so that it becomes fully guaranteed so that they don't, the team benefits from not having to fund that money immediately to the league office. This is why all these contracts now are kind of getting a little bit more difficult to deal with and why there's whole, why there's problems.

because of the funding element. This funding element goes back to the early 60s when teams can only fund, teams can only defer a million dollars of guarantee money. They have to fund everything else. Well, it's stupid, right? If you owe a player, say you owe a lot of money and your cash flow is not great,

you've got to go to the bank and borrow money to pay him. It doesn't work, but that's the way the league's operated. Yeah, I want to talk about just what that girly contract, because it's probably going to end up being a bargain in the end, right? It's sort of similar to what Gronk at, because he had two years left on his deal, and they just extended it out. And now, you know, Grankowski, everyone, you know, he even brought it up this offseason.

He may be looking for a new deal. That seems like a similar in the same vein that will happen with Todd Gurley at this point, right? Well, I think it is, but look, Gurley's got some injury history to him, and I don't want to change the poor kid, you know, but at running backs, I think you can never predict where they're going. I don't think running backs you can predict at all. So I think you have to be real careful about how far out in advance you go. girl, he's always had a little bit of a durability issue with them.

So I think that, you know, there are similar in the sense that if he continued to play at this pace, he would probably outplay himself. But I don't think though in this case, I think the same thing with Barclay. I know Barclay's having a great camp. Everybody loves them. But the one thing about a running back, the more time they're playing, the less effective they can become because of the wear and tear on their body. Yep, absolutely.

Let's talk about Des Bryant. That became a big story over the past weekend. He came out and ripped the Cowboys for their play calling, and then he called a linebacker, middle linebacker, Sean Lee. He called him Snake Lee. And this all got picked up, and it kind of just shows, and it sort of explained the process behind Dallas and the Des Bryant breakup and where we sort of are right now.

Des is still trying to find a team. There's been some rumblings that the Browns had a little bit of interest at one point, and then Antonio Brown comes out and says that he wants him to play in Pittsburgh with him. but at the end of the day, at the end of the day, Des Pryant still does not have a team at the moment, but just coming out and doing this against the Cowboys and against Sean Lee, I mean, it's just become

a whole situation with with Des and the Cowboys. So what does this even mean right now and what does this do for Desmond's market, just doing this sort of stuff? Well, I mean, look, here's the thing about Desmond. You know, nobody wanted to hear it, but when we talked about it last year, Des has been, you know, Des has been a jump

all receiver. It can only line up in one spot. Now, Des was critical of the scheme, saying, We came out in the same formation all the time. True. But most, some of that is because Des requires to be in one spot, because he's not great at learning the offense. Remember, they covered up for Des. Late for meetings quite often, they covered up for him, all right?

So that being said, you know, he couldn't, you can't move Des around. And so this is another part of the endowment effect here. This is another part of the Cowboys over-evaluating their own players. I mean, last year, Jason Witton, probably be great in the boot. That's probably where he needs to go. It wasn't the same receipt, but couldn't separate. And what happened to the Cowboys from one year to the next is what you have to watch about the ramps is team study you in the offseason.

You're so good on third down. You're so effective doing different things that you say to yourself, okay, you know, and then the Cowboys came out with the same stuff they ran the year before that was so successful, didn't quite work. And they're players who they've over-evaluated. I mean, look, they don't cut Des until, what, the end of April right before the draft. They cut them then. Beginning of April before we had the bonus.

I mean, to me, it was an obvious thing. They should have cut him after the first day. And now Des is learning the reality that people don't view him in the league. Now, ex-players view him the same way. He says Brian. You know, you're going to hear all that all the talk. Oh, man, he says, Brian, he can play. But you put the tape on, he can't separate.

You know, you put the tape on. It's a jump ball. Can he run with the ball? Yeah, sure he can. Can he do some things? Absolutely. Is he worth $16 million a year? Well, we know that's not true.

Okay, what is he worth? The Browns are sniffing around. I mean, the Browns are going to pay Jarvis. Flandry, 16 million they're going to play him on the outside. This is quickness. But Des can go outside. People are just going to jump, walk up on jam them.

I thought they're going to separate. He's going to be in tight coverage. You're going to make jump ball catches. And he didn't make the 50-50 catches. To me, this is all playing out the way we thought it would play out. Des over-evaluated himself. The Cowboys, for their own mistakes, over-evaluated Des, up until a certain point.

And now both of them are unhappy. But is there a team that takes a chance with Des and just says, at least I know a team has to match. up with him on the outside just for fear, maybe even just in the red zone. You know, if he's just like he has special packages that are put up for him to go in and do those 50-50 jump balls and that's all he does. He's basically a red zone threat for a team. And I don't know what that value is, but is there a team that takes a chance on DES?

Or do you see the sort of, you know, the stuff coming out now with him going back at Sean Lee and some of these guys and that makes you, you know, defer and not go after him? That's sort of the question. I think Dez, I think teams are rich than Des. and I think people put tape on and said, well, wait a minute, time out. Are we really going to think about doing this? I mean, he can't separate.

I mean, it's like a little bit when Eric Decker last year saw after the Jets got to be signed with Tennessee and Tennessee thought they were getting, a guy never could separate against cover two. You know, when you can't separate and you can't show explosive movement in your rounds at the top of your route, the top of the stem, it's hard.

Quarterbacks don't want to wait for you to get open. We're not playing in the backyard. You've got to be able to make all the throws. When you see the guy's coming out of its cut, that's not theirs. I think to me, I'm interested in this. They put the tape on the other team that just didn't think it was going to be worth it. Because now, normally you have to manage Des, you know, his intelligence factor of what can he learn in the offense?

Is he going to be out of time? Is you going to be a good team guy? All those things. Finding a young receiver, we're better off finding somebody else than we are going with that direction. But does that go back to the endowment, you know, a fact that we were discussing earlier, whereas some of these teams have these young guys in camp and they've sort of fallen in love with them? but then once the season hits, you know, the market and the value for a guy like Desme may go up

if some of these young guys aren't able to step up. I mean, that's the both sides of the point. And I think that's what Des has got to hope. He's got hope for an injury and he's got a hope for a team that's counter on a young player that didn't come through. Yeah. You know, and I think that's what he's going to hope for. Somebody that knows him, knows him from Dallas time,

that will come in there and say, I think this guy can do that. He's lost weight and it's more explosive, yada, yeah, yeah. I think it's going to be a tough road. And I don't think he's going to be as, I don't think it's going to be as it'll be popular received in the media like you got Des Bryant. I mean, look, we signed Reggie Wayne when I was doing it.

We brought Reggie Wayne in for a workout. He looked half. It was pretty clear Reggie Wayne couldn't do it anymore. We made him a horrible mistake by doing that because we gave them money and we thought we needed a receiver when sometimes when you do that, you're better off just being patient and just letting it go because the name sounds good. Hey, we just signed Reggie Wayne, but the reality of the player can't play anymore. I think Dez can still play to a degree,

but the other issues make it even more difficult to manage. Yeah, and you've got to find the right fit for a guy like that. Those are all great points. So we're going to wrap this thing up with one, just a somber note, Tony Sparano, a guy that is, you know, I mean, you can put your sunglasses on now. I mean, a guy that has been synonymous with that look and that no-nonsense outlook on football,

a guy that, you know, won the AFCEs with that 11-5 record in 2008, the one time in the past 15 seasons that the Patriots didn't win the division. Tony Spirano was at the helm for the Miami Dolphins running the Wildcat. He's the first coach in NFL history to take a team to the playoffs after a one-win season. You know, Huey headlines should maybe

take some of that and see if it could happen. There you go. There's a probary. I rest my case. Yes. Tony Spirano is a man that loved the game of football and a man that on this program. We really respected what he did and brought to the table just for the game in general. So we just wanted to say that. And I know Lombardi, you have something to

say about Tony as well. Yeah, I mean, it's horrible. I mean, it got 56 years old in any profession that's too young. You know, I think what happens to a lot of coaches and coaches that listen to this podcast, I think it's really important that, you know, the one thing I learned in my life it took me to the end. It took me to them, so I actually wrote a book to learn the value of this, but it is really important to spend an hour away from your desk. You get more creative. You get more positive and you stay in better shape. Your mind works better. And unfortunately for Tony, you know, I remember when Tony was walking. around the field before games when he was the head coach and he got himself in shape.

And unfortunately with the heart condition that he had that he didn't know when he went to the hospital, which is remarkable, Trey Fraser, because when you're in the league and you have the doctors at your availability that you have, I mean, it's really, you've got great doctors, you've got the first care treatment. You check yourself into a hospital because you have chest pains. I mean, usually the team doctor's coming over to check on you. And I feel badly for the whole family in this case. But I think the bigger message here, is our condolence of the Tony and his entire family. But the reality here is you've got to take some breaks.

You've got to get away from you. You've got to work out. You've got to take some time. I think most people think, well, if you're away from your desk, you're slacking off or you're not working as hard. Well, you've got to make sure that you do that. Because if you don't, you'll get better ideas by doing it. You take an hour and invest in yourself.

It's worth three hours of work. Absolutely. Absolutely. This has been another edition of GM Street. And I'm very excited for season two with you, Michael, buddy. Me too, Tate Frazier.