The Ringer NFL Show - NFL’s COVID-19 Plans and Recap From the Franchise Tag Deadline | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: July 16, 2020

Kevin is joined by NFL Network’s Tom Pelissero to talk about everything you need to know about how the NFL plans to launch a season during a pandemic. Then The Ringer’s Nora Princiotti and Kaelen Jones join Kevin to talk about the news from franchise tag deadline day.  Host: Kevin Clark Guest: Tom Pelissero, Nora Princiotti, and Kaelen Jones Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, it's Liz Kelly, and welcome to The Ringer Podcast Network. The Ringer's got a brand new show out now about NFL player Cam Newton called The Cam Chronicles. We'll be releasing at new episodes every Monday for the next six weeks, but you can binge all six episodes right now for free on Spotify. Here's a quick trailer. From The Ringer, I'm Tala Rottines, hosted a new podcast series, The Cam Chronicles. NFL star Cam Newton has always been a complex figure. Over the past year, I've traveled to Kornado.

country speaking to coaches and teammates, friends and family, and even briefly to the man himself, trying to unravel the enigma that is Cam Newton. The Ringer NFL show presents Cam Chronicles. Listen to the full series now on Spotify. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I am Kevin Clark. Great show today, joining us, NFL Network reporter Tom Pelliserro. He has been on top of basically every COVID development in football over the past couple of months, and we have a very, very informative conversation about what the season will look like, what training camp will look like with the next couple of weeks will look like. Two teams are supposed to report this Saturday, if you're a rookie, the Chiefs and the Texans,

and this is uncharted territory. And I think that there are so many people in football who literally have no idea what's going on. I'm hearing from them. Tom is hearing from them. and there's just not a lot of answers right now. And the fact that they are going to start some rookie programs this weekend brings a sense of urgency to everything, but it doesn't necessarily mean there will be more answers.

But the conversation we have with Tom fills in a lot of blanks. I learned a ton. And then after that, we have Nora Prince Yaddy and Kalin Jones just do a little recap of franchise tag deadline day. Dak Prescott does not get a deal. Derek Henry does. A couple of other stars are going to play on the tag. this year. Really interesting discussion

there. But let's get to Tom. Okay, Tom Pellasero, NFL network star joins us here on the Ringar NFL show. I didn't know your title. And when I don't know your title, I just say star. I'll take it. I don't want you to oversell it before we even get started here and then everyone's disappointed, but I'll do my best to live up to it. Well, for the COVID reporting over the past

couple of weeks, I think you have been a star and you will continue to be a star because I think every time there's been an update over the past couple of weeks about what the NFL will look like or what the NFL is negotiating on and has been you. I want to read a part of one of your tweets the other day. NFL PA source echoes NFL GMs. We still don't have answers. Uh-oh. I mean, this is, we are about 14 days from when practices should be starting.

Saturday is the date when some rookies are supposed to be reporting. we have been doing these podcasts for three months, four months, and every time the line has been from whoever's been on, well, the NFL has a luxury of time, they no longer have that. Going into this weekend, Tom, there's an owner's meeting on Friday, there's still stuff to be hammered out on Saturday. The biggest remaining issues, and there are a lot of them, are what? Well, first off, we've talked a lot about July 28th,

because that is the date on which most teams, basically everybody except for the Texans and the Chiefs because they have the September 10th Thursday night opener. everybody else for veterans would under the CBA report July 28. But because nobody had an offseason, nobody had a spring. Almost every team that I've talked to wants to bring their rookies in, you can do that a week early. What that means is not only could the Texans and the Chiefs again under the CBA bringing their rookies this Saturday, a lot of our teams were playing to have their rookies in next Tuesday.

We're talking days. This is not weeks. This is days before they've had a variety of different calls. I mean, there's been constant communication for months with the medical staff. of the NFL and the NFLPA. You have calls going on with various committees, the management council executive committee, the general manager's advisory committee. And everybody has the same reaction, which is no one can tell us anything.

I talked to five GMs yesterday morning before that tweet that you referenced, and then was talking with people from the union. Everyone was saying the same thing. We don't know. One GM told me, he said, we told them, like, this is days away. And they went, yeah, we know, we don't have anything for you yet. And Kevin, you know this from covering the league for a number of years. Everything is so regimented in the NFL.

Yeah. There are already GMs who are stressed out because they can't plan their pre-draft stuff for next week. And that just blew my mind that we were even thinking about that. But they make calendars for the entire year. Head coaches do it. You know, GMs do it, trying to send their scouts out. Nobody has answers even on what is happening in the next few days. I mean, I just got another text while we're sitting here from somebody saying,

what is the latest in negotiations? because it's a very small group that's on these calls between the union and the NFL. It's a few members of the NFLPA executive committee, along with DeMores Smith. It is a very small group of the owners, members of the Management Council Executive Committee, so John Mera of the Giants, Arroney of the Steelers, Robert Kraft from the Patriots, the names that you would expect to be involved in a process like this. In terms of the issues, we can talk about all the different health and safety things. there's a disparity still in terms of frequency of testing.

The NFLPA just about a week and a half ago shifted and decided that they now want, based on what they say is their science, what they think is the best practices here, that have daily testing. The NFL wants to do it every other day. You have issues in terms of the waiver, what rights are players going to have to waive before they come in back in the building. A big one is whether or not if you contract COVID-19 after being in the building, whether during camp during the season, is that considered a football injury?

A lot of people will say, well, it's not a football injury, it's not a torn ACL. What that means is for injury protections, long-term workers' compensation, if it's like, you know, putting the same category of you sliced your finger with a knife, which, you know, or the, you know, you tried to jump a fence and you caught your leg, the type of non-football injuries, we always share with a couple of guys going into camp. That's different. This is what the union standpoint is we're putting ourselves at risk here. And so we want to protect our downside.

Same reason that part of the union's counterproposal, the previous one that they made last week, included these risk stipends, basically saying if people report even for one day of training camp, they should be guaranteed something. What the union doesn't want is everybody reports to camp, 2,800 guys around the league, 100 or 200 or 300, whatever it is, gets sick. And the league goes, we can't do this, we're shutting it down. And then everyone leaves with nothing. They don't want that.

They want all of them fully guaranteed money paid. if anybody reports to camp, they want signing bonuses due in full. They want everybody to get accredited in the crude season. And they want to have either $250,000 or $500,000 guaranteed to players as like, this is your ultimate downside. If you come in, whether you get sick or not, you're getting some money. And then so you got all those health and safety matters you have to work out. The opt out being another big one that they still have to work out exactly what that looks like today. And then the economic piece.

That is money rules everything in society. certainly in the NFL. And what you have here is what they're projecting right now as at least a $4 billion revenue deficit based upon, relative to the projections that they made to set this year's salary cap. So they have to either hammer out a deal or the cap could plummet from somewhere between $50 to $70 million per club next March, which really would not benefit anyone.

So I want to get into a couple of those issues. And again, there are a lot of them about to be resolved. But the bigger question, I guess I have, is the NFL is known this could be a possibility. The cases could be on the rise still in July and then into August for a number of months. Was there ever a scenario that they entertained a quote unquote bubble scenario? Or were they always going to try to be at home basis for camps, Tom? They explored the bubble idea, but part of the reason that they did not think that was feasible, besides the fact that they're much bigger than the NBA.

You know, your Orlando Magic would have how many people in the bubble? 25 people, 30 people, whatever. NFL, you're talking about, you know, 65 guys between the roster and the practice squad, plus all the coaches, plus the support. It's just a much bigger thing. So there was that, but there was also the concern that, based upon the science that the NFL, NFLPA joint medical committee has, that you have super spreaders of COVID-19, and that if you had one super spreader in the bubble who contracts it,

all of a sudden a lot of people could get sick really fast and you would have to shut the entire thing down. The NFL felt they were better served emphasizing education, emphasizing behavior, taking care of yourself, protect. You know, they keep saying protect yourself, protect your teammates, protect the game. In other words, just go to and from your house. Don't go anywhere else.

Question is, is that what people are going to do? or are people going to do other things? I had one GM yesterday saying to me, they're all concerned about the players are going to go in the clubs and get sick. He goes, what clubs are open? Where can you go right now? But this is such uncharted territory for everyone.

That is what they're doing. They're creating videos to try to emphasize what players need to do. There's a lot of these restrictions about how they're going to reorganize the locker room, reorganize the cafeterias, reinvision how they do team meetings, re-invision how they do training camp and practice.

They're taking all these different things, and it's about risk mitigation, not risk elimination. Because we all look at, okay, they're going to play three hours of a game, hitting each other, sweating on each other, grabbing each other, and then you can't shake hands and exchange curses after the game. Which became, when I tweeted that, that became like the biggest thing the players have responded to

even more so than the money, which was interesting. But the idea is just that, yeah, you have to play the game. That's what you're trying to do. Make sure you can play the game. Everything else in terms of your life and your interaction, you're trying to mitigate risk as much as possible. And so it's a lifestyle change, just like you and I and everybody listening is going through. There's a lot of things that are different.

There are a lot of things that will be different with the NFL and specifically for NFL. But they felt like this model was going to be best, but they could not have envisioned. Certainly you can, you know, they talk through a lot of different contingencies. But I doubt they envisioned that free states that house. eight of the NFL teams would have seriously spiking cases and being rolling back their reopenings just days before players are supposed to be starting to report for training camp. Tom, I will take issue.

Don't assume I'm living life any differently. I'm still going to clubs. I'm still going to club seven nights a week. You're finding, I'm finding the open ones. I'm finding the open ones. And just clubbing. I will say,

you know, obviously I didn't, I don't think I tweeted about the Jersey swap thing, but obviously I reacted to it. I would say one thing. thing about that news report is that it was, it's one of the only concrete things we know at this point. And I think that's part of the, the reason it was such a flashpoint among players, Richard Sherman talked about. A lot of guys talked about it. But as far as concrete plans go,

there aren't a lot of them. And right now we know one, which is that you can't jersey swap. So I think that was part of the- Even that the union disputes. So after I tweeted that, which by the way, and this is one place where I can tell you how that scoop came about, but the NFL sent to clubs the game day protocols. They sent, I think it was like a 12-page memo with everything. They've been doing this periodically after the NFL and NFLPA have signed off on things. So they agreed to the protocols back, you know, in April about what the virtual offseason was going to look like. They've agreed to facility protocols, testing or not testing protocols, but travel protocols, media protocols.

So when the game day protocols come out, teams are informed. This is what it is. well, there was this massive reaction. And very quickly, that someone from the union called me and go, just so you know, we did not agree to the game day protocols yet. Well, why is the league sending them to teams? This is where that frustration develops for everybody involved, because they're reading things.

They're literally having the league tell them this is the rules. And then having other people saying, no, no, no, that's not the rules yet. And by the way, even the things that are agreed to, they've been very upfront, could evolve as the season goes on, as science evolves, as testing, you know, availability, the types of tests they're using, whether it's safe to have fans in stadiums. All this stuff could be changing. And so you're going to have to be really, really adaptable because that's the viewpoint from

Dr. Allen Sills and Dr. Tom Mayer with the union is we need to be completely adaptable, follow the science, follow the data. And where we are in July is probably not where we're going to be in September, October, December, January. I did it. We did a show a couple of weeks ago, maybe months ago. about who was going to become, who's going to take the leap in the NFL this year, player, coach, GM, or whatever. And I singled out Dr. Sills and Dr. Mayor for just, they're going to be so much more famous than they

were six months ago. They're going to be our Fauci and Burks. I thought about that. Dr. Allen Sills, I don't know if you've met him, Kevin, but great guy, really knowledgeable. There's no way when he signed up for this. He would have thought that he would be like the front man of saving a season. You know, this was about making sure you had the best, player safety stuff and continuing to develop concussion protocols and things like that. It was not about a global pandemic. And that's another reason this is unique. Anything is more complicated when you have collective bargaining because you have two sides

with somewhat similar interests, but in certain places they have different interests, trying to agree on things. But also the doctors are the ones leading everything. Normally it's football ops. It's the football people. hey, we're making decisions, we communicate to the clubs. Now you have football ops saying, we're asking the doctors, they don't have the answers yet, so we can't tell you anything yet.

And that's where everybody kind of throws their hands up and says, you know, we're trying to do our best. We're trying to make plans. But nobody can tell us yet what some of those plans have to be. So you report this morning that 72 players league-wide are known to have tested positive for COVID-19 as of last Friday. that's roughly 2.5% of the workforce. Now, we know what has happened with a number of stars over the past couple of months.

The question is what happens with stars or any player or any coach or any support staff that happens in the next couple of months, the test positive of the next couple of months. That's the big question. Is there a plan right now or is there a strong indication that there will be a specific plan for what happens when a player test positive, what the isolation looks like? you know, we've seen some really interesting, uh, plans. I guess you call them from the PGA tour where guys are playing together if they tested positive two weeks ago. I mean, just really things that I feel like I'm learning new things about the virus all the time through sports.

And one of them was that these guys on the PGA tour were just able to play with each other and weren't symptomatic after a certain point. It all, again, it's all very new to me. Um, but when you think about this season, when we think about training camp and during the season, especially once they start the 16 game regular season. What is the plan if anyone test positive, Tom? So they sent out, and I was not ignoring you when you were saying that, I was bringing up the rubric that was included in the protocols. First time I've ever seen the word rubric included at anything surrounding the NFL. But basically, they're following what is the new CDC guidance. We've kind of had the idea that it's a 14-day quarantine if you're exposed.

The updated science, according to the people involved with this with the NFL and the union, is that that's not necessarily the case now. So basically, if you have close contact exposure to a symptomatic or COVID-19 positive individual, there's multiple different ways that this can be handled. If your virus test is negative and that close contact, the person who's either symptomatic or tested positive remains asymptomatic, then you're basically just monitored. You are monitored more closely. you have daily virus testing.

There's a regular testing schedule thereafter. But really, you're not taking completely out of commission. If your virus test then is positive, if you test positive, that goes into two different buckets. If you have no symptoms, then you're back either 10 days after an initial positive test or if five days have passed since the initial positive test and you have consecutive negative tests at least 24 hours apart. So that raises the possibility that hypothetically a player could have been exposed. He takes a test.

He tests positive on Monday. You know, exposed in the game on Sunday, test positive on Monday, and then still has a path to play that following Sunday. How realistic that is that you're going to get those two negative tests that quickly. You know, we, again, they're still gathering data on that. It doesn't sound like it's super likely. But certainly there's a path for you to get back within. you know, well under 14 days. If you're positive and you are asymptomatic, then it's at least 10 days of past since the first COVID symptoms appeared, at least 72 hours of past since the

symptoms last occurred, and then your return is approved by the club position and everything else. So you have different paths based upon whether the person you were exposed to is asymptomatic, but also whether if you're positive, are you asymptomatic? This is, you can see where this is extremely complicated. Yes. And then, you know, there's also going to be the questions and players have been asking this about, well, how, what is a close contact? What does that mean? And how do you tell that? Well, there's a couple of different ways. One is on game day, players already, for years now, have had these zebra technology tracking little chips in their shoulder pads that have been used for next gen stats. They've been used for some

teams employ them for different types of analytics. You can basically see where every player is on the field relative to every other player in real time. Well, if, you know, player X, a corner test positive, you can go back and see he was close to this receiver, he was close to this other corner, he was in the huddle with these guys. All those guys then would be considered close contacts and would be subject depending on symptoms, dependent on testing to different types of protocols. And then also when players are in the building, they're going to be wearing some type of a monitoring device that will also tell you how close were you to other people when you were in the building. So every single day, if the NFLPA gets its way, not only will you be tested every day,

but also the moment you're stepping in the building, you put on this wearable device, you wear it the entire time that you're in the facility, and then they have data if those tests come back positive to know who they need to isolate, who they need to test. If this sounds complicated, it absolutely is. No, but it's super informative. 70 plus pages of protocols that have gone out on one occasion, 40 plus on another. And GMs are looking at all this going, this is a lot. And you're having to designate different people in different tiers, who can go near who?

they're trying to, I mean, it is exhaustive. And they're in contact with the CDC and other federal agencies on these protocols. And it sounds like everybody's been very impressed because this is a really all-encompassing type of a plan. And it's unique relative to other sports as well. So quickly, you know, Philip Rivers, I think, brought up the point. What happens if someone tests positive the week of the Super Bowl and they're a quarterback or they're a star or anybody? I mean, you don't, you want to play in the Super Bowl. it's your life dream and then you get exposed.

It seems to me that I don't want to use this word because they would argue there isn't, but it seems like there's room for interpretation here. And there's room for almost a little bit of gray area just because there's so many different tiers. And I guess my question is who is in charge of determining, you know, let's say it's January 30th and someone's been exposed. And there's a question about whether or not they're going to, they have the path to play or they have to be in 10 days of isolation or whatever. Who is in charge of making that determination in a fair way that doesn't change the course of the season, quite frankly? It's a great point because it is somewhat similar to concussion protocol, right? Yes. You can play through an ankle. You can play through a knee injury. You can't play through a concussion. And that's where you have the independent neurologist who have to approve you in addition to being examined by the club positions and going through the different stages.

similar here, you have club physicians involved, you have other doctors involved, and you, in some cases, have the NFL's chief medical officer, Alan Sills, would also be involved. You know, that's one of the great questions, too, because they're relying in some cases on self-reporting. Again, similar to concussions. In other words, every day that you show up to the facility, and it's in the game day protocols, too, you're going to be asked. Have you had a cough? Have you had a fever in the past 24 hours? Well, if you want to play or if you want to do your job, are you going to self-report any types of symptoms?

I mean, I know I wake up some days and I'm like, you know, because you're so in tune with it. You're like, all right, it's a little tickle in my throat. Is that my allergies or is that? Do I have COVID? That's where you get into, we don't know. That's kind of the great unknown. I mean, setting them aside the players for a second,

what about the coaches? That's something that a lot of people in the league it brought up to me because coaches, you're talking an older demographic. You're talking about guys who may not be in the best of shape. And as the season goes on, there are a lot of coaches who are sick. A lot of coaches who,

I mean, one coach tell me, you know, recalling that they lost a playoff game and he showed up the next day at the facility with 104 fever because he needed to do his, you know, player grades or whatever they do, the postseason wrapups that he had to get it done. We showed up.

He's like, we're doing that all the time. Guys are always sick late in the season because we're so worn down. our immune systems are so worn out. Well, now you show up coughing your head off. Is somebody going to pull you out of the building? Your offensive coordinator before the AFC championship game shows up with a cough. Are you putting him in a phone booth somewhere?

And he's watching on closed circuit TV calling the game. I mean, there's all these different things. And some of them are the inevitable paranoia that exists within the NFL and you're inventing different scenarios. But some of it's very, very real. And I don't think anybody is going to know until you actually get into it. We can have all the protocols in the world. but how does it actually functioning outside of the

AB, you know, black and white type of stuff of a positive or negative test, which by the way, only has a 95% accuracy rate as of now. We just don't know. I feel like, and I don't want to make light of this because I'm a very serious situation. We could have a sort of hue-free situation where someone's in a luxury suite or something with COVID

and literally coaching the game from there in the same way. I mean, where... Every owner's got a box in the stadium. You put him up there and he's coaching from there. There's going to be plenty of room. There's going to be plenty of room in the stadium. I do want to ask, you know, there's a lot of, there's been a lot of updates about season ticket stuff and fans in the stands.

And to me, it seems slightly optimistic that we even know enough to know what's going to happen on September 10th. And I think that there's, I think that I'm happy at least some teams are coming up with the plans, but we just don't know yet. Do you think by the time September rolls around, it will still be the same where it's up to the teams to determine whether or not fans are going to be on the stands or whether it's going to be 20% or more? NASCAR had 30,000 fans in 160,000 seat stadium the other day. Do you think that that will remain the same or is it like everything else just so fluid? Who can be in the stadium, whether or not they're going to have fans at all, that kind of thing, Tom? They would say the doctors in the league would say everything is fluid and everything will remain fluid.

what takes place in September may not be what takes place in October. My understanding is it will be team by team. In other words, there will be no all for one, one, one for all situation where, well, these five teams can't have fans in the stand, so it's unfair for everyone else to. No, they're going to, if it is possible, if it is allowable under federal and local regulations, and you can have fans in these stadiums, not these. They are, as of now, as of now, my understanding is those teams would be allowed to have fans in the stadium. That's one way that they can potentially cut into that projected $4 billion revenue drop by having fans and stands.

They're not going to take chances. They're not going to look to override and have large gatherings in places that have banned large gathering. But there are occasions. There's other sports leagues that have sought, for instance, waivers to get guys out of the 14-day 14th when they travel to a state. There's going to be a lot of communication. Again, they got eight teams based in the three states that are three of the states that are three of the states that, currently have like the worst situations in terms of rising case rates and and everything else. You know, and I also, let's also point to this because there's plenty of people because they

tweeted me constantly, bots or not about, well, oh, they got a cold. Oh, they got the flu. Oh, they're fine in two days. Does anyone died? Well, no, no one's died because we shut down the country for four months. We don't know yet when you put a bunch of guys who have high BMI. They're talking about NFL players. A lot of them have high BMI.

offensive defensive lineman by just the actual clinical CDC definition is obese. Obviously we've all seen like Aaron Donald. He is not obese. He does have a high BMI. A lot of guys have sleep apnea. There's a lot of guys in their family who have diabetes. They are going, they're going to be guys at higher risk. Didn't they say nothing to the coaches?

The officials. I talked to Scott Green, the executive director of the NFL RA last week. He's like, yeah, our average age is 53. We got a different set of challenges here, but it's still the same thing in terms of they plan to wear face coverings. They're going to wear gloves. They're experimenting with handheld electronic whistles. Because if they, for instance, wear like a face shield, like a glass face shield,

and you pull a whistle under it, you're deaf. Like, that's not going to, that's not going to work. So there's like, there's all these different areas where we ultimately don't know. The statistical odds of somebody getting very ill, maybe not a lot of people, but someone in the league getting, getting COVID-19 and getting very ill, are not insubstantial. I mean, 2,800 players, the odds that no one in the league

is going to have complications, you know, are just, they're not great. So that's where you're going to have an opt-out clause for players. The union has encouraged agents to educate the players on what their particular risk factors are. And there's other things in development, too. There are going to be no, for instance, players are not going to stay in team.

They cannot be required to stay in a hotel for camp. they can if they want to stay in a hotel the team has to provide for them. And there's also conversations going on right now for any player who needs to isolate from their family. You've got mom at home and she's a diabetic or your wife's pregnant and you say, I just, I want to play. I want to make money for my family, but I can't live with them. There are negotiations right now, and it sounds like this is probably going to happen, by which NFL teams would be required to put a player up in a hotel or an apartment or whatever.

for the season to isolate away from their family in order to best protect them beyond the initial route of testing that anybody who's cohabitating with a player also is expected to undergo before camp two quick ones for you number one the cap i think there's so many unknowns about it that it's almost not worth diving in but i think we do need to shine some light on it so the report was the NFL wanted 35 percent to go into escrow NFLPA is obviously pushing back on this the future of the cap looks like what? Obviously there's going to be a decline in revenue, but the NFL PA wants to smooth that out, so it's not a huge dip next year. What does it look like, Tom? That's exactly it. They have an 11 year CBA. The union doesn't want the entire burden to fall on one year of players because they

had the misfortune of being in the league the year that COVID-19 struck the world and struck the NFL. I've seen plenty of both players as well as just a ton of fans say, why should the players give anything back. The owners are taking no risk. I mean, fundamentally, you certainly can say that. But the thing is, the NFL in 2011 on the previous CBA, went to a revenue sharing model. What revenue sharing means in this context is that every February and March at the combine, the NFL and the PA get together, and they project the following year's revenues. Okay. So that's what the salary cap is based upon is. We think there's going to be, let's say, $17 billion. in the all-revenue bucket for the following year.

So the NFL back this past March, or past February, like two, three weeks before COVID-19 exploded, did their projections. And they set a salary cap per club a $198.2 million per club. And that's in addition to the benefits number, which also is factored in from this all-revenue. That is based on the NFL players getting 47 to 48 cents on the dollar over the life of the agreement. So if all of a sudden you have a $4 billion revenue shortfall, what that means is 47, 48% of that, so about $1.9 billion is from the player's share. So if they do nothing, what happens is you have a true up as part of that negotiation in February to set the following years cap. If you do nothing, if you don't cut a deal, that entire $1.9 billion gets stripped out of the cap in 2021. So depending on who you ask, that could mean a $50 to $70 million drop per club in the cap.

So if you normally would be projecting because it's rising $10 million a year, 208 next year, all of a sudden that could be $158 or $138. You would have mass cap casualties in terms of players being released, guys having to restructure their deals, nobody getting extensions, everybody getting franchise tag. It would be a mess. So that's not in the interest of anyone. The difference is right now, the owners want to call.

back that money now. They want to do the 35% escrow, which is really a nice way of saying 35% pay cut. Because it's not as if, yeah, we're going to escrow it. You'll get it back in a couple of years. No, if they have the $4 billion revenue shortfall, they're going to go, yeah, so that 35% of player salaries, which is probably around $2 billion, that money we held, that is now ours. You have fulfilled your obligation. Now we just negotiate the cap as it was just based on projected revenues, but we already got our money back. The union wants to have a flat cap in 2021 and then spread out whatever that is. Let's say it's, let's say it's $50 million per club that would hit next year.

Instead, what they want to do is say, no, let's keep the cap flat in 2021. And then over the following nine years, we staggered about $5.5 million off each club's cap for nine consecutive years. At a time to remember, they're going to pull the lever and go to 17 games sometime in the coming years. You're going to have new TV deals. You're going to have gambling revenue. So the cap should be spiking anyway, meaning it will rise even with that money coming out of it.

So that's the divide right now is that the owners want to get the money back now rather than giving the union what amounts to an interest-free loan that they kind of pay off in installment rather than taking the hit immediately. Now, there's other things the union wants. They want all fully guaranteed money paid out regardless of whether there are games. If players even report the camp, they want all the signing bonus money do, all those other things. But the crux of it is just how are you going to close what they're projecting as at least a $4 billion revenue shortfall if there are no fans in the stands? And maybe you come back and maybe it's only $2 billion. And if the players gave back to 35% of their salaries, they might get some of that money back. But if you believe the projections, you would not see that money again.

And then all of a sudden, the player who was due $15 million this year only gets $10 million of that. You can understand where that player is going, why is this all on me when we could just stagger this out? tweak teams budgeting a little bit and basically push this into future years. I will say I love covering the NFL because you get to say things like maybe it's only $2 billion. All right. Last one for you because you got to go. We'll make it quick.

The opt out. Is this going to be a opt out where the NFL is going to let anyone who feels uncomfortable because of a family thing or will they have to show that they are actually immunocompromised? What is it going to be? What is it, Tom? That is one of the points that's still being negotiated. My understanding is they're pretty close the league and the union in terms of being on the same page on this issue. And you're right.

There's two different ones. There's the medical opt out. There's the voluntary opt out. And they're going to have to figure out how you're going to walk that line, what it means. Obviously, any player can say, I'm not playing this year. But if they don't secure an opt out, then they could be fine for not showing up the camp. They could have their signing bonus money, taking back on a prorated basis, all these different things, just like if you retired or if you did not report to camp.

So they have to come to some kind of a deal. It's, you know, there's other ramifications of this too. GMs have been told there's likely a date by which you would have to opt out. Which GMs are like, what is that date? My left tackle opts out. I need to get someone in here sooner than later. I can't just find that out somewhere down the line. So the specific date by which that would happen, that's a big deal.

Does your contract toll? you would have if you said, no, no contracts toll for voluntary opt-outs, you could have a bunch of players entering the low money last year of the Rookie Deal who go, I'm opting out, I'm going to skip this year and I'm going to become a free agent next March. So you have to take into consideration all those possibilities. And then the other part of it that some players have raised is what happens if you report to camp, everything seems to be going fine, all of a sudden you get to week three of the season, 20 of your teammates does an outbreak, they all test positive.

You don't, but you go, I'm no longer comfortable being here. Can you opt out at that point? Let's face it, there's players every year who kind of opt out on their teams anyway. Just go, we're one in 12. I'm in a contract year. I am opting out, okay? Those are real things that occur within the NFL. So you've got to figure out how to walk out.

Those guys are in isolation. Those guys have entered isolation. I mean, some guys get an injury, you know, the first day of training camp and then just don't play the entire season under mysterious circumstances. And you'll wonder, I mean, that's an opt-out. We could be talking about anybody. We could, there could be any, there definitely isn't an NFL star who fits that description exactly. These different things happen every year. So we had to figure out is what is fair.

Everybody agrees there needs to be a fair way, especially for the guys who have medical reasons to do it. But if you have guys who just are really concerned about it, just are concerned, they're going to get COVID. 19, they might have a family history of something even if they don't have it. What if it damages me? There's been questions raised on the player's calls about what happens if I'm fine, but then 15 years from now, I develop lung disease and we realized that or, you know, some kind of lung deficiency. And science shows that was related to COVID-19.

That comes back to the waiver issue. What happens, you know, if you signed a waiver? What if it's a non-football injury? And the league can go, we're not responsible for it. Yeah. This is where they have to come to an agreement on all these issues and where it makes sense for the union to push for the safe and working conditions possible. So to kind of put a button on all this, these next few days are going to be critical because of the reporting dates that are upcoming here. And really there's three ways this can go.

One is they come to an agreement on all issues. As of right now, that seems unlikely, but they are having active conversations. And so it is possible that you come to a deal. The second one would be the league says we're pressing pause. We are going to continue working on these issues, but rookies are not reporting. Just we're pumping the brakes. Everything is paused for now. We're going to keep working with this, but just, you know, hold fire.

And then the third one would be the league could go. The union, we've negotiated all we can. We asked the players to show up two weeks early to make this calendar that they want work, which is something we haven't talked about. really the NFL asked the players show up two weeks early. Then you can have your 48-day camp. We can still have one or two preseason games. Then go into the season.

The union said, no, we collectively bargain July 28th reporting date. And now they're saying, well, we want to report July 28th. We still want to have a 48-day camp. That means no pre-season games. That's one of the points on which they're clashing. The NFL could go, we've negotiated all we can. Here's what happened. Tell clubs we're enforcing management rights.

Tell your players to show up. And at that point, you're basically daring the union. to file a grievance over unsafe working conditions. The union would say the joint medical committee recommended a 21-day ramp-up. The owners are saying, the league saying we get a five-day ramp-up, which is, by the way, the normal number you would get under the CBA, really treating this like any other season, which they don't think is fair. There would be an additional period where they're just doing strength and conditioning

plus walkthroughs. But still, shorter window than what the doctors from both sides jointly recommended, that's what they would file a grievance upon. So there's all other kinds of things, the infectious disease emergency response plans that every team has to file. No team has filed them yet. So technically under the memorandum of understanding from the spring, you can have more than 20 players in your building right now. I mean, this is, it all sounds like a mess, but it's also one of those things where it's a negotiation. We've seen them be able to find the middle ground in the past.

Whether that can happen in the next two days remains to be seen. But certainly you can expect that they're going to continue these conversations. And again, it has to go one of three ways in the coming days because the CBA dictates, X's the Chiefs Rookies, you can be in Saturday. Every other rookie, you can be in next Tuesday. And there are GMs who have flat out told me, I don't even want our players in the building.

I don't want our coaches in the building. We are not set up enough for this. We don't have enough answers. We can't move forward at this time. NFL Network Star. It's confirmed. The wording is confirmed. Tom Pellisterra.

Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me, Kevin. Pleasure. Okay, joined now by touring our staff writers, Nora Prince Yati and Kaylon Jones. Talk about franchise tag deadline day. A very strange, always middle of July day where we all sit around fantasizing about what deals would get done. Very few of them ever get done. Most guys just are okay taking the average of the top salaries of their position and moving on.

Dak Prescott is as fascinating a quarterback contract situation has there's been. a number of years. He does not sign a long-term deal despite the fact that there are reports from Jane Slater from NFL Network and others that a deal was in talks in the last couple of hours before the deadline and maybe that there was a chance to do it, but it was just too far along in the process. And he will put on the tag this year. He'll have the top quarterback salary this season ahead of Jared Gough, Russell Wilson, and even Patrick Mahomes. And now the Cowboys have long-term uncertainty at quarterback. Caitlin, you wrote about this for the ringer this week.

Your thoughts on DAC are what? It's interesting because especially with the last-minute report from Slater, mentioning that, you know, DAC's team reportedly wanted to get this done. So it makes me wonder whether or not, you know, they have faith either in the cap or in him moving forward. I think the question that Dallas definitely posed is, you know, prove that you aren't an elite quarterback or, you know,

worth the money that they would. want to give to them. Obviously, you know, recent history suggests that, you know, even paying a good to, you know, above average or even great quarterback on, you know, a high, higher salary is, you know, what NFL teams are going to do, you know, franchise quarterbacks don't grow on trees. So it's just an interesting setup just again, because I think the last little nugget again, the back's team trying to get this done at the last minute really makes me wonder whether or not, you know, they wanted, you know, whatever was on the table or if they were kind of, their bluff was kind of called. Yeah, I mean, I think that what he's doing is very interesting because I think he's going, he is the best possible version of the Kirk Cousins route, which is he's looking to play the franchise tag to his advantage, which Kurt Cousins did.

He's looking to probably a shorter contract and that obviously the years have been a sticking point between the Cowboys and his team. And they haven't even talked. I mean, that's the strangest thing where the fact that they didn't get a deal done is the byproduct is not talking for seven months. And I think that if they just had more conversations that they would have been in a better situation. I think the main difference between Cousins and Prescott, number one, as I think Prescott has a higher ceiling.

But I also think that Cousins was getting out of a tire fire in Washington. And we know that. And I've talked to a lot of people in Washington. I've talked to Cousins about this. I mean, who wouldn't want to get out of that situation as a quarterback? Why would you want to be, even if you're getting a lot of money, why would you want to be stuck there for three, four, five years? And with Dallas, listen, man, that's a good football situation. And I understand why you would want to get to truth for agency.

I would want to get to truth for agency if I was a quarterback. It is very rarely done. But it is not the same necessarily as the last guy to hit Truffery Agency in his prime. And that was Kirk Cousin. So, Nora, when you look around the league at these deadline deals or lack of deals, your main takeaway is what? Well, just that very few of them happened. Yeah. I mean, so Adam Schaeftor posted this.

This year, 12 players are going to play under the tag, which is the most since it started in 93. And that's a direct product of the fact that nobody knows where the money is coming from in future years and what's going to happen to the tag. So there's a lot of reluctance for teams to give long-term deals because they just don't know what percentage of future caps those deals are going to end up taking up. But I think it's sort of bigger than that in some ways because it's not just this mathematical calculation of, okay, if the league and the PA can't come to a deal and the cap drops by 50 million next year, this is going to really screw us up. I think it's just this general sense of what do we do? What is the future like? And I think that even applies to DAC especially because this whole thing was just kind of weird. I don't know if you guys felt this way too.

But there were a lot of reports that they were not really that far apart money wise, but that the main sticking point was just that the Cowboys wanted it to be a five-year deal and Dak wanted a four-year deal. The Cowboys love longer deals. for cap purposes. I mean, Ezek Eliy, it's signed to like 20, 26 or something.

And that's smart. You know, if you have a good young quarterback like Dak Prescott is, absolutely try to lock him up for as long as you possibly can. We were just talking about this with Mahomes,

obviously different scale and different player, but we were just talking about the value of that long-term cost certainty. However, one year when you're talking about getting yourself out of, a situation where the tag number is going to be 37.7 million next year. And then you're talking

about him either, you know, hitting the market or having to trade him or having to pay him a crazy amount of money or whatever. It just doesn't seem like it should have been quite as big of a sticking point as it was. And I think, you know, this is just an educated guess. I think that's a product of just everybody feeling a little bit frozen in time right now. Yeah. So I think in the way that we saw a lot of deals not get done, the Prescott situation, which could end up being, you know, that's a lot more potentially destructive for that franchise down the road than not locking up A.J. Green long term is nobody knows what to do. Yeah. No. And I was going to make that point a little bit earlier about Prescott, too, which is that maybe with cousins, the cousins route, the difference is cousins went into a normal. the cap rises $10 million every year environment in in 2017, 2018. And Dak Prescott might not.

We just had Tom Palisarawan who said that if they don't smooth it out, there could be a $50, $60 million cap hit cap dip next year that remakes the league. And what happens then? Is anybody, you know, is every veteran who's not a quarterback getting cut this time next year? I don't know the answer to that. The NFL will probably figure that out so that's not. not a financial cap apocalypse. But I think that there's just a lot of questions.

And it's possible that Prescott plays this right and doesn't get the bonanza. I think he's going to get just because of bad timing. I just looked up the Ezekieliot deal just to look at the long deals that the Cowboys give. In 2026, he's due $16.6 million. I'm taking the under. I would take the under as well. Just one more point about the cousins thing. The other difference is that I,

I have fond memories of sitting in that room with a bunch of other reporters when Bruce Allen slid pieces of paper with the deal that they were saying they'd offered cousins across the table. And it was a terrible offer. So that's another difference is that what Washington cousins had talked about, he viewed as just, come on. Are you serious? Which again, it's interesting to see Dak bet on himself, as everybody likes to say in these situations, one, when there's just so much uncertainty about what football is going to look like and how much money there's going to be to go around in the future. And two, when the cost would not have been, you know, the difference was not, the gap was not

as big. So he's really going for it. And I think it's smart. I think it's usually smart when players choose to go that route. But he's going for it when there's, you know, potentially less incentive to just get out of a bad situation and a bad organization. and also more uncertainty about the future and less sort of immediate cost of taking a slightly lower deal. So, you know, he's really going for it.

Don't. I guess the lesson is if someone's leaving Washington, they have no, nothing in common with somebody leaving any other team. It's just completely different. Well, leaving Washington is a different category. Leaving Dallas is something different. Kaelin, speaking of running back contracts, we're talking about a Zika Elliott. So Derek Henry signs a four-year deal worth $25 million. dollars guaranteed 50 million overall with Tennessee Titans. I got to be honest. I don't hate this.

I think that this is what you probably should be doing if you have a superstar running back. He's getting his potential out in 2022. You're just giving him a bunch of money. I understand. And if I was a GM, I wouldn't pay running backs. But I understand a rewarding guy like this. And look, last January, he looked unstoppable. And there are certain characteristics of the running back position that mean that that might not be sustainable long term, but I'm betting that he still is able to just completely dunk on people come September. And so if you have the money, if you have the flexibility,

I'm okay giving him the upfront money and rewarding him and seeing where it goes. The Tanna Hill deal was a lot. that might end up being a slight overpay. But again, if you liked what you saw in January and you want to keep it together and there were questions about whether or not they were. I remember I was in the locker room in Kansas City and Derek Turner was crying. And he was saying, I love you guys. And I talked to a couple people and they were basically saying that they thought that this,

a lot of people in that locker room thought this was at the end of the road for that team. And you weren't going to be able to, there were too many free agents. It was just too many questions. And I understand the concept of overpaying both Henry and Tannahill relative to perhaps their market value just to be able to give it a go two more times. I think the Titans are a great organization and I'm okay with this. Where did you fall? Caitlin on the Derek Henry deal. Yeah, you know, I liked it.

And, you know, like you mentioned, just the fact that Derek Henry, you know, is a superstar running back. The fact that you're literally just paying him and guarantees, I think it's 25.5.5 minutes. million, essentially two years. Yep. So you're paying him for two years of, you know, what literally will be his prime. You know, Mike Santa from the Athletic actually tweeted out like a really good graphic, like comparing him to other guys who are over 220 pounds like Ricky Williams,

Larry Johnson, Gerald Riggs. The similarity between all those guys that they peaked, you know, in year four in terms of production. But by year seven, they were drastically falling off. Like none of those guys were nearing the same type of production. And so what Tennessee is doing is banking again. I think Robert May has really spelled it out really well in his article yesterday. And, you know, like about, you know, Derek Henry really being a key cog in what they're able to do and setting up play action. And again, it will come down to whether or not Ryan Danahill can, you know, take that next step.

I don't know if that's necessarily sustainable. But if you can get similar type of production out of that, you know, like, why not run it back if it's possible? Because, again, they were able to dominate, you know, literally the most dominant team in the league last year in the Ravens in the playoffs and then obviously out of the Patriots and then took Kansas City. They gave them a run for their money initially. So I don't think it's a bad idea. And again, as far as like running backs are concerned, I know that, you know, recent deals for a lot of those guys that haven't gone well.

But again, I think just because you're getting, really, you're only essentially paying for the two years of Derek Henry's deal and the type production that you're going to get out of those next few years. I think it's worth it. Take, when you were writing with the deadline deals, is there any deal that if you were a G. any of these guys who did not get a deal. Is there any,

is there any guy you'd say, if I were a GM, I'd prioritize getting this guy done, whether that would be someone like Justin Simmons or Harris in Minnesota. Is there a guy you think teams made a mistake on not just locking up no matter of the cost, In Gokwe and Jacksonville,

Matthew Judon in Baltimore? I thought Ingakway was the big one, but again, he kind of wants out of Jacksonville. So, right, he certainly does. So I can see why they didn't do that.

I thought it was interesting that Washington didn't resign Braminscher, but again, their recent history with Trent Williams, that track record there, as far as making sure that their star players are happy financially, doesn't seem like a priority. Their track record of making massive mistakes is only, is shading this conversation a little bit.

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, like, I'm not sure, like outside of those two, I mean, as far as like long-term deals, like Nora mentioned, It's strange that there's so many players who didn't get, you know, a restructured deal. And I don't know, like outside of that group, I wasn't too surprised, especially like the Leonard Williams, like the fact that he has leverage right now over in the Giants is very confusing. So I saw Leonard Williams on a hike the other day, a couple weeks ago. No kidding.

He's much better at hiking than I am, much more in shape. Say more. I want to say, I don't want to say where it was. It was in the Los Angeles area. And I was with my wife and we were a hike, Nora, you would love that. I was hanging up my wife. And as we've discussed this podcast, yeah, as we've discussed this podcast, I like to do that. And we were on a hike area in suburban Los Angeles.

And there was Leonard Williams. And, yeah, he's not a guy that you have to be like, is that Leonard Williams? Because he's huge. And you pretty much know it's him right away. But he looked like he was handling the hike very well. It's a hot day. And so Giants fans, he's. in shape. He's ready to rock. Hey, Leonard Williams, what's up? I've actually never met Leonard

Williams. So I didn't, I would say there's a handful of players. I'd be like, oh, hey, what's going on? And Leonard Williams is not one of them, even though he's from Central Florida. And maybe he watches slow news day. Maybe he watched. You should have just talked about the magic. Yeah, if I had stopped him on a hike and talked about the magic, I don't think you would have taken that very well. Also, I don't know if you've known this. It's really hard right now to go to people you don't know and just get close to them and start talking to them. That's true. I don't know if you've checked out what's going on in the news, Nora.

Once or twice. But again, you and I have spoken before about how wonderful it can be when you are spending time with your lovely wife and people get to, you know, come up and introduce themselves to both of you. Leonard Williams was just in hike mode. And let's just let him be, I guess, is the moral of the story. He's going to make some nice money. Let's hiking.

I saw, by the way, the Giants, because obviously he's locked in now at that cap number, I saw their cap the other day, Blake Martinez of $14 million, all that stuff. I got to be honest, I'm not totally sure what's going on with the Giants right now. I mean, I feel like I have, we dunked on Dave Gettleman so much that I almost basically stopped doing it because I just felt like it became a little bit of a cliche, but man, I don't know about that one. They hired like six analytics and crap people

this off season. So maybe one of them has... Let the young guys do it. Maybe one of them has an idea. All right. Anything... Nora, was there any deal that surprised you that you think will make an impact in 2021? Because I think that you start looking at some of these bigger guys. I don't think

that Dr. Prescott's going to reach true free agency next year maybe a j green will although the you know the the the brown family loves him so much that they're probably going to pay him a lot to keep him around in gacquay obviously would be a trade candidate matthewoodon would be a trade candidate um but they're trade candidates now quite frankly um is there anybody worth keeping an eye on in this franchise tag group that you think down the line uh might end up being a big signing or a big trade for somebody else so tuny um i don't know if this is the direction you're going in that i just i just I'm curious, it seems like since there was so little movement overall, it does seem like

Justin Simmons was a guy who there was at least a little bit more conversation about. So my sense is just that he's a little bit more part of their long-term plans or they would like him to be and there's some eagerness to eventually figure that out. I guess, you know, that was one that was towards the more surprising end of things that didn't happen. So I would keep an eye on that relationship, I guess. And, you know, they're, they're trying to have young guys that can be the future of that team. So we'll see there. I mean, Gawkeway is going to work itself out one way or another.

But I don't know that a ton of these other than Prescott, obviously, are super impactful. I would just say that I do think when you look at the ones that did get done, I think because we've been talking so much about people being sort of frozen in time and not knowing what to do, there is a chance that if the season doesn't end in disaster and they come to an agreement about the how to deal with the salary cap and things do go back to something resembling normalcy, I think then all of a sudden we might look at the chiefs and the Titans and just say, wow, they weren't paralyzed by the uncertainty of this off season. They still managed to get some stuff done and keep moving along. And that's going to be a bigger advantage than it normally would be just because everybody else didn't do that.

I think that that's kind of the funny counternernernerner that's emerged over the past week since the Mahomes deals. We all talked about the lack of deals and the fact that only three. veterans had signed them since March since COVID lockdown began, McCaffrey and a couple other guys. And then Mahomes gets his deal done. Chris Jones gets his deal done. Mahomes and Jones get their deals done with a team that at one point earlier this season had a $177 in cap space. Okay. That's not $177,000 at the $177.

Okay. They couldn't buy AirPods. And so that's that they literally thank you, Nora. They could not buy AirPods. And now they have Chris Jones and Patrick Mahomes in her long term. deals. Miles Garrett gets done at $25 million a year. So I think that these things are deemed impossible until they're not.

Maybe until other teams are like, hey, this is possible. We're just going on. Life is normal. Justin Simmons, by the way, highest graded safety in the regular season last year by PFF. I think that I understand where that, why he would want a,

to play on the tag and, and negotiates them more lucrative. John Elway is a history of an assaple with Von Miller to where essentially guys, he likes to win the negotiation. That is a John L. He's a competitive person. He always has been. And he likes to win the negotiation.

I'll put it that way. Kaelin, Dak Prescott in 2023 is playing where? I think the Cowboys. You know, like it's weird because his brother tweeted out about how he doesn't believe that or he's not sure, like if he'll be a Cowboys fan long term.

Yeah, that was weird. Tad. Tad is his brother's name Jack and Tad and Tad said I don't know I don't know I didn't he say

he didn't root for the Cowboys beforehand does know if he's gonna root yeah I you think so Caitlin you think it's you think it's the cowboy I do too only because

if Jack Prescott didn't play for the Cowboys yeah exactly and he reached true free agency where he would sign with the Cowboys do you know what I'm saying like the best fit

it's the best fit It's the best fit. They, there's, there's no one. Again, Kirk Cousins got $84 million fully guaranteed. And I think if, I think as he gets closer to true for agency, Jerry and Stephen Jones will get more aggressive in their deals. But the fact that it's gone this long, it, for me, would worry me as a Cowboys fan. But I don't know. I just, I feel like with all the things that come with being Cowboys quarterback,

with all. I mean, if you want to make real money, yeah, be a cowboy star. Be a cowboy star. Be a cowboy star because that is, that is a very lucrative thing to be. And if you want to get a ton of guarantees and you want to get a huge contract, you can sign with Jerry Jones, but if you want the sponsor money and all that stuff, and listen, Patrick Mahomes, I remember Veach telling me this last year, Patrick Mahomes wasn't flying commercial after, you know, his rookie year, you know, and he was making what, $3 million?

He was not making private jet money from the chiefs. He was making it from everybody else. And I think that if you're a quarterback, you tend to now look at the marketing opportunities outside of football as just as lucrative. I mean, it's almost like golfers. It's almost like NBA guys where, you know, they're making $25 million on a shoe deal or whatever. And obviously the shoes are not as big a deal in football.

But listen, Dak Prescott can do pretty well. in Dallas, I'll say that. Nora, anything else to watch for from this that you're surprised by that we need to be watching the next, I don't know, the next year or so. Jack's got all that yogurt money, right? Yes. Yes. Is it Danon yogurt or somebody else?

I always said it Danon. Danon. Yeah. It's Danon. I don't know. I'm not a big yogurt person. I am a big yogurt person. But I don't go around pronouncing it.

when do you ever, when do you have to be able to say it? I mean when do you pronounce yogurt? As much as you pronounce any other kind of brand. I'm not going to the store and being like, where is it? I know where it is. I've never heard a commercial for it. Am I wrong? Okay. All right.

No, I don't think you're wrong. I think the pronunciation was wrong. How often do you say brands of milk? I can, probably about the same as you say brands of yogurt. Yeah. I don't know. I'm not a big yogurt eater.

and I've always called it Danin, but again, I'm not planting my flag here. Anyway, go ahead. I think Dak gets traded to the Patriots. Yeah, so that's what I was looking for.

I was looking for someone to make an insane prediction, whether that's, but is Bill Belichick really, I guess the first step towards having Dak Prescott on your team is being really aggressive about spending at the quarterback position and doing a structure, that is, as with the Cousins deal, is not normal. And when I talked to Rick Spillan about the Cousins deal, he basically said it wasn't like

we were trying to change the game or it wasn't like we were saying, hey, we're going to do this and everyone else is going to follow suit. It's that if they didn't do it, somebody else was going to do it. That's how truth for agency works. And we don't necessarily see it all the time because no stars ever get to truth for agency. So you don't see these sort of contracts. That's why we will not see any time soon a contract tied to percentage of the salary. recap or with a certain MBA style provisions that we've seen in the past.

Aaron Rogers had those talks a couple years ago with the Packers, and they didn't want to have those conversations, probably because they could have controlled him for, you know, one more year, two more years than, than more tags. And I just don't think, I think the leverage part for DAC will be fascinating and what teams will be forced to do. But, you know, I know you're kind of half joking about the Patriots thing, but one of the reasons I don't necessarily see that happening is I just don't see Bill Belichick saying we would give you fully guaranteed 100, you know, three year deal worth $45 million a year. I just, I think that that's still, I think it would have to be an owner who is a bigger risk taker.

And I don't know who that is necessarily. I mean, it screams, if Dak were a worst player, it screams Jets. Yeah, that's good. And by 2023, in 2023. What I was going to say is that, yes, you're right about the way that the Patriots don't like to do contracts like that. However, if we go back to the point about being able to make money from outside sources and marketing and sponsorships, what is more marketable than a star quarterback who's been the star quarterback for the Cowboys and the Patriots? Steers.

Maybe, yeah, we're, well, yes and no. I mean, Drew Bledsoe was both of those. And he has a wine company now. Yeah, Drew Bledso's, this is, we can't get into this because I have so many thoughts about this. Drew Bledsoe's life is so great. Well, what a way to end. Drew Bledso's life is so great. Nora Preciati, thank you for filling us in on Drew Bledso's life. Kaelin, any thoughts on Drew Bledso's life?

he signed a 10-year extension 10-year deal yeah yeah I was like six years old so yeah good wine it's good wine he signed a 10-year extension and was almost immediately replaced

by Tom Brady yeah but it's good wine I don't necessarily see it happening with Patrick Mahomes in his over-tenure extension all right thank you so much guys it's been the runner our fellow show and the Linger Podcast Network

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