The Ringer NFL Show - The Arms Race in the NFL | GM Street (Ep. 290)

Episode Date: August 29, 2018

The Ringer's Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier discuss Aaron Rodgers's new deal, Teddy Bridgewater's new team, Kirk Cousins's role in setting the QB market, and 'Hard Knocks.' Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Jeff's family life unravels and insanity is put to the test. You can catch the new series Kidding Sunday at 10 p.m. following Shameless, beginning September 9th only on Showtime. And in the words of the great Jim Carrey, that is the way the cookie crumbles. Let's get into GM Street. Welcome to GM Street, part of the Winger Podcast Network. It is Wednesday.

It is August 29th. And I am sitting across from Mr. Michael Lombardi. Lombardi, what a day. It is an arms race in the NFL. And one of the best arms in the game got signed to another long-term deal. And that is, of course, the Green Bay Packers quarterback, Mr. Aaron Rogers, Mr. Magnificent, Mr. Fourth Quarter, Mr. Hell Mary. I mean, money's flowing, Tate Fraser.

There's a lot of coin out there on the street. People are getting paid. People getting paid. I mean, this is why. I'm telling you, we're embarking on the greatest era in the NFL. I know everybody's naysayers and all this about the NFL, but you got Aaron Rogers signed to a contract. He's coming back.

You got Jimmy Garoppola, Deshawn Watson. You got the Rams offense and all the things that they do. You got Baltimore with Lamar Jackson, maybe. You got Pittsburgh still with Ben, I mean, it's a great time to be in the NFL. It really is. You didn't even talk about guys like Cam Newton, who's an MVP, when he's a quarterback, Russell Wilson, the guys who won a Super Bowl. I mean, there's guys that are all across the league.

There's a lot of talent, a lot of people. players on offense and a lot of people want to watch. Right. And you know, got Kurt Cousins in Minnesota. We'll see if Mitchell Tribal—I mean, this is a great time. And Rogers getting paid is just a testament to Kirk Cousins. He owes him a big thank you because cousins, really the thank you should go to Bruce Allen, the GM of the—this all started this. Bruce Allen, by miscalculating the Kirk Cousins situation, has driven the price of quarterbacks up. And if I were Aaron Rogers, I would probably send Bruce—well, he drinks Coors Light a lot. Okay. I'd probably send them like a truckload of Coors Light because this contract at where it got to

was all because of Bruce Allen. Maybe he can send that fridge in Cleveland down there. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect, right? We'll open that up. I mean, look, follow me on this line of thought here. The Cousins deal gets butchered and battered by the Redskins Bruce.

Continue to be franchised. Right. Because Bruce won't acknowledge the guy's a good player. And they can say what they want about them in Washington all they want. Okay. You know, but the contract, I'm not talking the player, the contract. they miscalculated the player's ability to play. So they will franchise him.

And then, oh, he played good. Oh, now we got to now all of a sudden it goes up. They continued to value him like the fifth round pick that he was. Or the fourth. Yeah, he was a remnant of the RG3 era. Exactly. It seemed like they were trying to get the stink off that. Remember, now, remember, people forget this, but they kept RG3 on the team because

they guaranteed his fifth season off his rookie contract. Why? I don't know. Well, we got him to the playoffs. I don't know. But only had the wisdom of the Redskin front office. office can come up with this. So they do this. So now Cousins hits the open market. And like that guy in, in Glorious Bastard says, bingo, there's a huge market. So that price drives up the Aaron

Rogers deal. Because look, you're negotiating a contract, right? You're in Green Bay. You're negotiating Aaron Rogers contract. What do you have to stand on? If I'm worth, if this guy's worth X, what's Rogers worth? If Cousins is worth. If Cousins is worth. what's Rogers worth? You have nothing. You don't have a leg to stand up on. The only thing you got a rope a dope, but you got to stand on it and take your punches and hope that Rogers truly wants to be in Green Bay and he doesn't want to test the market. The only thing you can say is, look, I'll franchise them, which is what they were probably saying, and then calculate it out. Rogers deserves every nickel. Don't get me wrong. And I'm happy he got the money. But this, to me, is an example of the effect of

free agency and the effect of the system benefiting the players who aren't under contract. And it's all about market value. And once you see what the market is, once you see, you know, Matt Ryan is a $30 million a year quarterback, that sets the market for everybody else. Because if Matt Ryan is worth that, then Aaron Rogers is worth this. It's a dominole of Fecker. We saw it with, we saw it with Ferris Becker. Ferris Beckham. I mean, Beckham got paid. He got paid. And well, and I again, now that we've had time to reflect on his deal, I admire Beckham. He took a deal that I think was less than I ever suspected. I thought he was going to try to get to that 19, 20 million. He took a deal, very market reasonable within Antonio Brown's deal. So it's not like it's, because Brown's deal was done earlier. Now, we're going to see the Julio Jones contracts come in. We're going to see the AJ, A.J. Green's contract come in. We're going to see these things explode. The quarterbacks are going to, I mean, Brady's sitting there saying, okay, Rogers got this. I know he just redid his deal. So now we know what the top of the market is for quarterbacks. And we all at all,

to Bruce Allen. And I think Aaron Rogers would owe a boatload of Brockworth and a boatload of Coors Light and set at the Washington. Let's do it. Let's make it happen. And let's talk about the details of the deal itself. So it was a four-year, $134 million extension. This was reported by his former teammate James Jones, which I thought was pretty nice.

At least Aaron Rogers is staying in contact. That's always good to see. Good for Packers fans. So he will receive a record $57.5 million signing bonus. And he will earn more than $80 million by the time. We get to March next year. We remember 2013, he signed a five-year, $110 million extension. Aaron Rogers, he's making a lot of money.

How jealous and how upset is Brett Farr right now? Well, you know, I mean, look, how about Bart Starr? Yeah, a lot of people were upset that this money was not flying around for Gale Sayers. I mean, look, we can talk about football being unpopular, but players wouldn't be making this money if the TV revenues weren't coming in. I mean, it's all tied to that, right? It's all tied to that scale. So football's popular.

This is another example of football being popular, him getting paid. look, I think this, I think with Rogers did the Rogers deal and what Green Bay did was the smart way to handle business because you have no choice but to move forward. You don't want this guy playing as a lame duck. And this is what the market does. The market allows you to pay the best players. And they should get paid. I mean, look, people turn on the TV, not to see Ed Hockley. They turn on the TV to watch Aaron Rogers throw the ball.

And we should say Aaron Rogers came into the league in 2005. He's 34 years old. 2008 he took over for of course Brett Farr. And he's been 94 and 46 since he took over. They're averaging about 28 points per game when he's out there. He's one of two players in the NFL currently that has multiple MVP's to his resume. I mean, he is right now the face, you know, Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers, right? Those are the two guys.

They do it different ways. But at the same time, they're the face of the NFL quarterback position as it stands right now. Yeah. I mean, look, when you play Green Bay and you stay at that little hotel out in Appleton, right? They have, which is, it's kind of a beat up old hoax. I think it's a remod or something. They have the Lombardi Steakhouse in there. Some of the most incredible, I mean most incredible photographs and memorabilia of Vince

Lombardi I have ever seen in my entire life. It's really, if you ever go to Green Bay, and I know people that listen to this podcast or football fans, you need to go to Green Bay. You need to go to Appleton and you need to go to the Steakhouse and just go through it. One time when I was in Green Bay, we were practicing against the Packers back in the early 90s. I think Lindy Infante might have been the COVID. And so I was going to do Vince Lombardi's day.

I was going to go to the church. I was going to go. I went from his house. So I go up to his house. He lived in this little ranch house in this neighborhood. You know, and I knock on and this woman sees me walking around the house. And she says, excuse me, sir?

And I'm like, oh, yeah, my last name's Lombardi. I'm a football fan. I just wanted to see where Vince Lombardi lived, you know. And she says, oh, yeah, no problem, sir. Come on in. She takes me in the house, Tate Frazier, shows me around the house. There's a giant picture of Vince on the coffee table.

right, takes me into the basement, shows me the basement where they had the parties, all that. I mean, it's a great town. It's part of doing it. But that story, that's a side story. It's just remarkable. I want to make sure, did she check your ID to make sure you were no, she didn't even check it. She took me. She trusted. It's an incredible town. I mean, what a magical place, right? So anyway, so a couple things people have to understand about these deals. And this is where numbers can get played around with. Rogers was due to make $19 million dollars this year. So when they say he's going to get 54 million this year, included in that is that $19 million. And just like Beckham, Beckham was going to make $8 million in his deal. So when you look at,

you have to value this as what's the new money. What is the new money moving forward? That's truly how you get the average. That's why Beckham deal came out. It was almost $19. million. But now that things settled, it looks like it's about $16.5, something like that because people that value the contracts, look at the new money as opposed to the total deal. Because everybody's in such a hurry on Twitter to announce the deal. It broke. We don't get the real numbers until two or three days later because remember, the agent's job is to put out the highest numbers possible, right?

The deal could be worth $190 million, you know, but it's really not worth that, you know? We never get that, you know, of course it usually does come out where we get like the secondary tweets that are three days later. But as soon as you get the headline that says you're making $30 million a year, you know what I mean? That's what people run with. and they kind of stick with it. Nobody sticks with the story.

Nobody says, oh, boy, what's really? What did he get? We got a fact check these contracts. And how can you? Because not everybody's tied in the NFLPA, and it's tied into NFL.org, where they can look at the contract as soon as it gets submitted to the league office.

And that takes a little bit of time. So it's not public record. You can't put like in a public record. No, you can't put it in a public record. I mean, it has to get approved by the league office. So what will happen is Rogers will sign his contract today. They'll send that contract. They'll fill out a sheet that shows the contract and the terms.

And they'll send it to the management accounts, the management council will approve the contract. And then it'll come up on org, which is this NFL.org site, which all teams will look at and see the contract and see how they paid it, how they broke it down, how the payment structure is. So do GMs at times, right? So if you have a similar quarterback, say you have like an Andy Dalton type and like maybe Matt Shop, so, say you're 2008, you have Matt Shop, Andy Dalton. Those guys are very similar.

Do you look at one of those guys' contracts if you're another GM to see how they were able to move that way? Absolutely. Absolutely. Is it a copycat league in that way? Absolutely. So much so. And because of the funding rules in the NFL where if you guarantee a contract for skill and injury in future years, you have to fund that money to the league office, you can manipulate that through the funding mechanism, which is maybe we just skill injury this.

Maybe we just injury a roster bonus and then we'll skill an injury at the time when it happens. So, yeah, you're looking at it constantly. Now, if you have a quarterback, Rogers is what, I don't think there's another quarterback going to get redone. Russell's probably getting closer to having to get redone. so you see him, where's Jared Goff going to be? What are they side to pay him? Those type of situation. So you're always looking at that and you're always valuing the new money.

Like, tell me as a GM, I want to know what the real value of the contract is for three years, what the new money of the contract value is, and how much guarantee. Absolutely. So we'll always keep an eye on that and we'll probably follow up as these deals get finalized. But this was just announced today the Aaron Rogers deal. So he had a little bit of an issue this offseason with his quarterback coach. leaving and then there was some some things he said about his wide receivers so there was a little bit of uh i was coach he was there were mumbles there but i love that i love that he was demanding that his team

play better i love it i mean that's what you want right yeah it's just like huge does this mean he's he's going to do more state farm car mars do we have to come up with a nickname for hugh's camp i mean it's really like a summer camp up in the cat skills we got to come up with a nickname for i mean we got to sit here and brainstorm like it's just too good to not have a nickname i kind of like he's camp i got a yacker instead of the clapper. He just yacks. He just talks. Or he's an actor. I mean, really, Danzel's in trouble. I mean, Danzel better watch out. He's in trouble. He could steal it from him.

He got game too with Hugh Jackson. I like it. Let's talk about another quarterback that has taken all the headlines today. And that is, of course, Mr. Teddy two gloves, Teddy Bridgewater. The New York Jets have decided to trade him down to New Orleans to the NFC South. This is bad news for Tom Savage fans, but this is good news for

Teddy Bridgewater fans. He will be the number two now down to New Orleans with Sean Peyton, the quarterback guru himself, learning behind Drew Breeze. What a fit for Teddy Bridgewater. We don't know the details of what the Jets are going to get in return, but obviously they probably will get something that they value over having him in their quarterback room.

I think it's a smart-ass move for the Saints. I really do. It gives him a bona fide backup quarterback. And it also gives him a viable guy for wherever Drew Breeze ends up in his career. Remember, Drew Breeze signed that two-year contract. So there's not much moving forward. And I'm sure once Teddy gets comfortable in New Orleans and he sees what he can do in New Orleans, he's going to be the quarterback for the Saints moving forward.

The Saints now have an opportunity, which is rare in sports. The Packers did it, okay? Very few teams. Pass the torch. They now have a pass the torch. How is it possible that the New York Giants and Pat Schumer didn't take Teddy Bridgewater? How did they not do it? How did they not sit there and say, hey, look, we're in this.

Okay, we didn't take, we didn't take Barclay. We took Barclay. We didn't take Donald. We are going to take them. How does Tampa watch this guy go there? Now, Tampa's more than Miami, right? Or Miami. He's from Miami. He's from Overtown in Miami.

I mean, take your, see, to me, this is why I think Sean Peyton is one of the best coaches in the league, because Sean Peyton in his time he spent with Parcells understands there's a difference between building a team and collecting players. Okay. He traded a pickup to get the defensive end Davenport in the draft. And he looks like the real, he looks like the real deal. Okay. San Antonio. All right. And now he's traded another asset to get a backup quarterback who I know is the real deal. I mean, it's just smart. It's building the team. That's the way. Look, Drew Brees can't play

forever. And now I got a guy that I can stay in New Orleans and I can get the torch pass and I have a future quarterback. Who doesn't want this? I mean, look, the Patriots had it with Garapolo. They gave it away for it too. I'm sure they don't, they would like to have it back, right? I mean, this is a great move for them. I was going to say, I think it very, it was a very similar trend. trade, right? So if you're this AFC team, you want to throw, you know how good Teddy Bridgewater is, right? If you're the judge, you're not going to trade him within the conferences, especially now within the division. So you're going to trade him to the NFC, get him away from you. I think that's the sign that they did him a solid.

Yeah, exactly. Like, it's a respect from the team. They want to put him in a good situation. It's also, we know this guy. It's a sign that shows that they understand he's a good enough player. They don't want to see him, right? It's a real solid. I mean, look, you can't. Look, we know Teddy's a great kid. We know Teddy's a great teammate. We know Greg now it gives Teddy a chance to play with one of the best quarterback coaches in football. And one of the best wide receivers in football, Michael Thomas. Right. And so they got this skill. And Camaro, I mean, this is a team that's loaded. I mean, they looked really impressive against the Chargers. They kicked the Chargers butt the other day.

Now, the Chargers didn't play all their guys at this started there, but they were impressive as I thought as the team. I love the move. I love the move. I think it's smart on how you're building your football team. Because if they got caught with their pants down and Drew gets hurt this year, they're season's over. They're seasons over. Dallas, you watch Cooper Rush. How is this kid not in Dallas? How does Dallas not trade for Teddy Bridgewater? You know, I know they got Dak Prescott, but it's a better situation for New Orleans because New Orleans knows they're going to pass the torch fairly soon. I think it's great. I take my hat off to Sean Peyton. And we should say there was that old maxim that everyone used to bring up is if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have any quarterbacks,

right? In the NFL today currently, and what we just saw last year with what happened with Nick Foles and Carson Went, you have to have depth at every position. You have to have two quarterbacks. You have to have the talent in the room that if someone does go down, that does not mean you were the Green Bay Packers last year and your season's over. Right. No.

Like, how do the Giants not trade for this guy? I mean, they sit in there. We got, they have Eli Manning. The last five years are 33 and 46 overall as a team, right? Eli has statistically gone down in every single category. I mean, it was 2015. He averaged eight five yards per attempt. He's dramatically come down from there.

He's only had two seats. in his NFL career above 7-5 or more. Philip Rivers has had eight. So there's been a decline. Now look, I'll get you. I'll grant him a pass and say, okay, we're going to go all in on Eli. For two more years, I got that. Okay, I wouldn't have done it.

I would have picked Donald or somebody else at quarterback that I thought had a future and I would have gotten a runback somewhere else. And I know Barclay is a good player. We talked about this. However, now you have an opportunity to get Teddy Bridgewater, who knows this offense really well, right? who's played for Pat Sherman in Minnesota. They kind of have a relationship. I don't understand it.

Is there any world in which the New York Jets are looking across, you know, at the New York Giants and they share obviously the metal ends with each other? Did they say we're not going to give you Teddy Bridgewater? If you are a giant, if you're Dave Gettelman, right, and say you did actually want Teddy Bridgewater, you wanted this trade to happen, is there any sort of back channeling where you try to leak that information just so that Giants fans know that you were trying to put in a bit for the guy?

Or is it not even worse? I think you would be surprised at the, at the lack of interest teams have and other teams players. Like people talk about these trade wires that are heating up. Well, it's the endowment effect, right? You see your guys in the building and you think you're great. Yeah, I think you would be shocked to see how little teams think about the future, how little they think about tomorrow.

I mean, it goes back to that whole sustainable organization and situation-based organization, and everybody is operating in a situation-based. What's best for my situation today? Eli stays healthy. Sustainably, what's best for my sustainable situation? today is get me another quarterback, at least hedge my bet, at least back me up so that when I have Beckham signed to a huge contract and I've got Barclay in the backfill, I at least have a quarterback here. Wouldn't that have been the most prudent investment you can make for the Giants

is to assure yourself a backup quarterback? Even if you think, because I'm telling what's going to happen, Tadreger, I'll bet you dinner at Tuscanos that the Giants end up extending the Eli Manning's contract. How many years would be thinking? Are we taking like two years? Two more, yeah. I bet they think he can play five more years. Who's going to last longer, Eli or Tom Brady? I think it's Eli. I mean, if you just take... At this rate, Eli just continue...

Eli's got the best job in the world. First of all, he just shows up and stands there, and then when things go wrong, he goes, it wasn't my fault. If you just take the last five years, right? Your last rug, it's beautiful. It falls down. If you just take the last five years and look at the numbers, it's not even close. Yeah. Now, look, Eli beat him in two Super Bowls and take your hat off to it.

It's tremendous. What he did in those Super Bowls, you know, is remarkable. The one in Indianapolis, I think if Brady throws a better ball to Welker, they're going to win that game. That being said, that being said, Eli played his best for those situations. I don't know. I mean, to me, it's remarkable. I still give credit to Hackeemnicks, but, you know, we'll move on. I know.

It's a North Carolina. I mean, you can't stop the North Carolina thing. We'll move on from that. Let's talk about another quarterback. It wasn't just Teddy Bridgewater that was out there and available. You're talking about backups, and we talk about good quarterback rooms. The Green Bay Packers, obviously, they have a guy like Aaron Rogers who, he's, he's He's on a mission to prove he can do what Brett Farb didn't do for him, which is mentor.

So Aaron Rogers seems to be active in the quarterback room with these young guys. So you have a guy like Brett Hunley who's in this room. He's had to play some games obviously when Aaron Rogers was out. You know, we saw signs at UCLA that he could be a guy, you know, maybe a red chip, blue chip type guy in the future. And the Seattle Seahawks, like we're talking about, they need depth in that quarterback room. They want to have a guy of Russell Wilson. He's hustle and bustle. He takes some big hit sometimes.

They want to have a guy that has similar skill sets and can help them win games in case Russell's not out there. They make the trade for Brett Hunley. Right. And it's all because Huey sends Kaiser there for basically nothing. So they get a quarterback for free in Kaiser. And they like Kaiser. I mean, Kaiser looks like he could be a pretty good player. And now they trade Hunley, which is going to become a free agent at the end of the year.

Up to Seattle, they need a backup quarterback. Look, I thought Huntley got better last year. I don't think Huntley's a starting quarterback in the NFL. I think Huntley's a backup quarterback. but he goes from an offense that he's run for four years in Green Bay to an offense that's very similar in Seattle. So it's not going to take him much of a transition to learn what's going on. Look, I think these teams that take the chances like the Cowboys with Connor Rush as a backup where the Giants with Davis Webb as a backup, they take these chances. Joe Webb would be a better backup than some of these guys.

Look, they take these chances that your whole season could fall apart. I mean, I think the dolphins could be the first pick in the draft based on what I've seen in the preseason. But if just... They have the worst Super Bowl odds for the record. Yeah. So Vegas believes that. Okay. Just I don't doubt it.

Just pretend they lose Tannahill. Who's not a great player by any means? If they lose Tannahill, where are they? They're nowhere. I just think this. To me, the more I watch the NFL and look, I'm critical of the NFL. I'm critical of the helmet, the sum of the things that happens in the NFL. But the one thing I'm here to tell you, this is going to be an unbelievable year to watch some of the play in the league.

I think it's going to be great. And I think if I were an executive of the league and I had an older quarterback and I were the Patriots or the Giants, the child, if I don't have my back, if I don't have a young guy, this arms race is passing me by. Because there's too many good young arms. And by the time I get one, I might not be employed anymore. I better get one now. The time to draft a quarterback is when you have one, is when you can develop them. And, you know, I just think to me that's probably the biggest chance. Because you know why it's so hard. for GMs to do that because they feel like they're giving up an asset for a guy who's never really going to play. You know, it's the whole life insurance policy. You know, why would I buy a car insurance if I'm never going to get an accident? You know, really, how dumb is that? Yeah, you don't need it until you need it. You don't need it until you need it. And then when you need it and teams know you need it, they have leverage and you're actually giving up more.

And you're lost. And by the time you recover, you're out of work. Which is why the Saints right now, we have Drew Brees. We're okay, but we're going to get ahead ahead of the game. We're ahead of the game. Now we got, now we got, I'll tell you what, AFC South, we got you right there. There's not to be no lull period in New Orleans. We're going to keep winning. We're going to keep winning because we'll put this guy in, and he'll do the things that we need him to do, and I'll coach the hell out of a smart move. And you look at the NFC South and just how competitive it is with those three teams.

Obviously, they were the two wildcard teams last year. And you have Cam Newton. He's an MVP of franchise quarterback. You have Matt Ryan. He's an MVP is a franchise quarterback. You have Drew Brees. He's the MVP Super Bowl winning quarterback. You've got to keep up, right?

It's an arms race. I mean, in the NFC alone, there's so many good quarterbacks. I mean, I'm not in love with golf. People are, okay, and give him credit for what he did last year. But the Rams have one. They think they do. Okay. Seattle has one.

San Francisco. I know they do, right? To me, it's like you may not love Tony Parker's game individually, but in that system, it's going to work out. I think that's a great comparison. I really do. I think when he can run play action and he's got girly catching screens and doing all that, no doubt.

I think that's right. But let's go to the South. You mentioned all the quarterbacks in the south. Let's go to the north. You got cousins in Minnesota. I'm not in love with Trubisky. We'll see how that works out. But it could, right?

And then you've got Detroit. What's Matthew Stafford? Stafford's almost a forgotten entity in this world. And he has a huge contract and he is a franchise winning quarterback. I mean, and he has a team that he won nine games with. I mean, it's remarkable, right? It's truly remarkable. So I think it's a great time in the NFL.

And I think that you better have a, if you're not in this arms race, you're going to get left behind. I think the Patriots, not drafting Lamar Jackson, is going to, they're going to regret that. Because they had a chance to maybe, now they know they were going to have to change their offense and it was going to get complex and all that. I get that.

That was going to be hard to do. But it wasn't a typical Patriot move. I think Wynn's going to be a really good player coming off the Achilles. I think there's no doubt. Sonny Michelle with a knee injury, perhaps he'll be a good player. He's back in practice. I'm sure they got two really good players,

but they don't have a quarterback in the future. I will say there is like two different schools when you look at these quarterback rooms. There is the Tom Brady, Brian, Brian, Ryan, veteran way to look at it. There is the Matt Ryan, Matt Scha, veteran way to look at it. You get a veteran behind Mark Sanchez. Just get a veteran guy in the room with these guys because you know who your quarterback is. And then there's the Baltimore Ravens with Joe Flacco and have Bridgewater behind him.

And then there's now Drew Breeze, you know, with, I'm sorry, with Lamar Jackson, then with Bridgewater behind Drew Breeze. So it's like two different schools off. But, you know, it's basically doing the same thing. I mean, in Baltimore, Baltimore wants to trade RG3. I mean, I don't think Archie Tree has any value at all. But, I mean, if you're Denver and you're sitting there, Chad, Chad Kelly's going to be your backup quarterback.

I mean, in Paxton Lynch, by the way, put his house up for show. Did you see that on Twitter? I did not. He did say he wanted to stay in Denver and that he loved Denver. So I don't know. It doesn't look good if he's got his house for sale. It's this house for sale. I mean, it's amazing.

You can't get away with anything in this country. I mean, you put your house up for sale. It's on Zill. We can all tour it if we want. Should we go take a break? We should take a break. We are, before, I want to talk about. We're going to get to Michael Kendricks and talk about hard knocks.

And, you know, this is what this episode has usually become. We're going to take a quick break, but we're going to come back. We're going to hit Michael Kendricks because there's a little bit of a newsy storyline going on there. People probably should listen to him instead of Carl Naziv when he was talking about all that money stuff. But we'll come back. We'll hit everything with Huey headlines, Bob Wiley, Josh Cribs, and the many, many, many celebrities of the Cleveland Browns, quick break. Quick break to get a word from our sponsor, DirecTV.

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Yahoo Fantasy is also the only app where you can manage all of your season long and daily fantasy teams in one place. create or join a league now at Yahoo.com slash GM Street Fantasy Football. That's Yahoo.com slash GM Street Fantasy Football. Back to GM Street. And we are back. And it is the typical Wednesday for us. We're going to talk about everything that we saw in Cleveland on Hard Knocks.

First off, I just want to start with a motivational quote from the great Hugh Jackson, Huey headlines, formerly the artist known as Huey in the news. But he said, do it the way we say we're going. going to do it. And Hugh Jackson says a lot of things. And he says a lot of the right things, but, you know, it's a show and tell game. It's a lot of tell, not a lot of show. And here we are episode four. It's fun to be back in Cleveland. I'm telling you, I'm having a great time. It's remarkable. I mean, like when you watch it and you wonder, like, if you're saying this to the team, then why is Todd Halley later in the episode telling Jarvis Landry that he's got to

coach the team? Like, look, maybe they should pay Jarvis Landry five extra million to coach the team. Everybody seems to go to him to want to get things worked out. Like, I don't know. It's just remarkable. I keep saying all the time, this is not typical of an NFL operation. It's just not. I mean, for me, it's not. But I want to dive into that a little bit.

So we've seen Todd Haley and Jarvis Lander, those seems to, those are the two stars, right? These are the two guys on offense that Haley's running the show as the offensive coordinator. Jarvis Lander is his point man on everything. So we saw early and we talked about it. It was a good sign. Haley goes up to him at one point and goes, you need to. to be like Larry Fitzgerald. You've got to lead these guys.

And he's talking about Antonio Callaway, a guy that, you know, had some problems of Florida. He's trying to get himself together. He's unfortunately not playing right now because of a little bit of an injury. And then we see Landry sitting in the room with Callow. He's watching tape. He's telling him how to rub a guy off. He's telling him, like, I'm stepping outside, but I'm actually going to come back

into the post, watching tape with him, which is good to see. I like to see two players watching tape with each other. But what I want to ask you about is, why do I see two players watching tape, breaking down tape? But all I see is the coach is yelling just the same, you know, I hope it's like the NBA where they're doing the sideline and you don't really know what the real plan is. They just show like the motivational talk. But we don't get any motivational talk.

We just get criticism, criticism, what the hell are you doing? Make a catch, run your route. Get off your route. Get off your block. You know, it's just good. Is there any constructive criticism in Cleveland? I mean, look, and then we saw the scene where. Can we teach?

Then we saw the scene with a backup tight end is teaching the other kid how to block. Like where's, Caduce? Like, where's the coach? Like to me, this is, you know, when you have a message that you need to portray to the organization, it's got to be one voice. And even though other people are going to talk, Josh Cribs is going to say something, right? Or, you know, Greg Williams is going to say something. It's really one voice saying it.

And that voice has to come from the head coach. If you've got a bunch of different voices speaking out, how do you control the message? Yeah, and platitudes and just, you know, it's just all can't line. Right, like, look. But what did Cribs say? He's like, I don't believe in participation. Yeah, like, you could have a great camp, but you might not. make the team. Okay, great. You're probably right. Like, it's a little bit of that. But the reality

here is, like, the message has to come from the head coach. And the head coach is going to say, hey, here's what I want to talk to the players about today. And I don't want Jarvis Landry coaching Callow without a coach in there because he might be saying stuff that we don't really teach. Remember, you're either coaching it or allowing it to happen. I mean, what's going on here? And so even though it looks for the fans sit at home, oh, God, Jarvis Landry being great, teaching that kid thinks, great, love it. The coach needs to be in there with him. He needs to be in there with him. he needs to be in there with him so he knows what's going on. And then Landry, and then Halley's on the sideline yelling at the coaches to get on Landry

because nobody's yelling at Landry. Like there's got to be a theme of the message, right? And then later we saw on the sideline, he's talking to Landry and he's like, I'm sorry for yelling at you, but you got to set the tone for these other guys. You know, if you do it 100%, they're going to do it 100%, which is. No, if we demand it, they're going to do it at 100%. If we're not demanding it, we're not going to get it. Like, we can't beg them to do it.

We can't beg them to do it. It's all about like it's so. far into me to watch it. It's one of the reasons I'm not in the NFL because I'll admit this. I'm indoctrinated into one way of doing things the Patriot Way, Belichick from Cleveland, what he did, how he did it. I'll admit that. When I watch it somewhere else, I mean, I know there's other ways to do things, but to me, holding players accountable and demanding have nothing to do with being in New England, it has everything to do with being a good leader. And you're not getting that right there. I don't see it. To me, it's almost comical when you watch it. It's almost like everything's got to fall into

place, you know, and then you got Bob Wiley over there. Don't cut yourself, said Bob Wiley. That's really good coaching. That's really good. Don't cut yourself. I mean, that's what I'm asking you. So I don't know if they're not showing things that are being discussed. I mean, but instead.

Maybe they are. I don't know. Bob Wiley. And we, you know, we've been, you know, duped by the HBO cameras before when apparently, you know, Des had this other meeting that we did. They didn't show the cameras, right? So we were not saying we see everything that's going on to this show. But instead I'm seeing Bob Wiley talking about how Sled's having changed.

since 1932, that the human body has an advance of self in 200,000 years. And that's actually good intel. I wish you'd share that with some of the players and said it's just don't cut yourself. I thought the most telling scene was Hugh had a write-up of the coach's evaluation. Yes. And gave it to Dorsey, you know, and it's kind of like gave him what he thought, what they thought. And then it seems like Dorsey has control of the roster of who he's going to cut and who was going to keep.

And I will say this. I thought one of the most impressive things I saw was, Dorsey was down on the field with the tight ends. With the joke, he's working them out. That never happens to me. Like, okay, let me. Is that for the cameras? I don't know. Like, for me, like, the job of a general manager is to be seen and never heard. Okay. Like, I never go in the locker room. I wouldn't, that's the player's place. If you controlling the money, don't go into their home. Don't ever go in their home. That's their place. It's not baseball. I'm not going in the locker. I'm not going on to coach the team. I'm an executive. I watch the coaches. You know, if I have,

have a problem with something like, I'll give it. If I saw something on the field, right, I would make note, hey, Bill, you know, do you think we could do? And that it's either his job to decide whether I want to do that or not. Yeah, exactly. Right. Like, I'm not going to go up to Brian Dayball, the tight end coach, say, you know, Brian, I think you should work on the second step getting on the ground quicker. Like, no, that's not my job. Like, my job is to get, stay in my lane. But the one thing that's clear in Cleveland, nobody knows their lane. Nobody knows their lane. And that starts with the top. I mean, You think Greg Williams knows his lane? You think he, he think anybody is controlling what Greg Williams does?

Not a chance. You know, Huey comes out and tells him that he doesn't want him to be talking about the play. He tells the media that he doesn't want Greg Williams to talk about Denzel Ward that way. Yes. Okay. So we see Denzel Ward goes down on this episode, and it had already come out. I think, you know, Greg Williams has said, I don't like the way he tackles. Right.

Denzo Ward was the fourth pick out of Ohio State. Isn't that a conversation you should have with Denzel, word. Why does it have to be a public conversation? And that's what I go back to constructive criticism and showing some sort of, I don't know, connection or bond to the players. He's on the ground. He's heard. And he's like, get number 21 out, next man up. Yeah. I don't have time to Lolliday. I mean, to me, I mean, Greg is all for the cameras. I mean, he should, I tell you, at the end of the- Is he trying to show toughness? He's trying to show, he's trying to get a head coaching job. He's trying to show himself as this

guy. He's become a cartoon character. Him and Wiley have become cartoon characters to me. Haley's the only one who looks like he understands what's going on. on an NFL team. I mean, first of all, when you took Denzel Ward, though everybody in the league knew Denzo Ward wasn't a physical tackler. He was a cover guy. So like you knew you're going to have some issues with his tackling. I'm not saying he's not tough enough to tackle. I'm saying he was not a physical tackler. There was an issue there with him at Ohio State. We talked about that when he got drafted fourth overall. That was one of the knocks on him. But he does have ball skills. He's an athletic kid. Right. And he has a lot of upside and potential. But, but now when you're putting it down,

But he's played in three preseason games, two of them he couldn't finish because he's tackled. He's come off the field. I mean, let's put that in perspective, right? He's played in three preseason games, two of them, he's come off the field because he hasn't been physical enough to tackle. Which I want to take that back to a keep to leave, right? He's talking about, he's doing an interview on the sideline during one of these preseason games. And they're asking about Wade Phillips. And he's going to put me in a position where I'm going to look good because he knows what I'm good at.

And I know what I'm good at. And we're going to put me in those positions. It doesn't seem like Greg Williams really cares what you're good at. He's going to play his defense. Greg Williams cares about Greg. Williams. And that's very clear. And when you announce stuff to the paper, that's all you care about. Like that conversation about Denzel Ward, whatever you think of him, that's not fair to him. That's not fair to him. That's not fair to him. You can't do that.

But I will say this. And I do like Hugh comes out and defends and says we don't need to say that about a young kid. But let's go back to the season. And this goes back to the preseason talk, season talk. What happened when Deshaun Kaiser were struggling and he was getting benched halftime? you know what I mean so a year ago our head coach who's our leader and that's where we're talking about the message so there's a met even though Greg Williams wasn't there last year he was yeah you've already seen this he's seen he behave it yeah so it's that's my point like you got to have an you have to have an orchestrated way of handling things it's not that case in cleveland yeah it really isn't I mean look we can pick on them all we want if anybody's if anybody's watching this

and thinking that this is a well-oiled machine I would think again I mean miles Garrett you can't get any more impressive. You can't get any more impressive than Miles Gare. We saw a little clip with him. He just shakes his hand and says, you know, you got it. I thought Baker Mayfield got a great compliment from Jim Schwartz at the end of the thing and said, hey, if I was a player, I would, you know, want to play like you. I want to play like you play, which is encouraging. But, I mean, to me, there's so there's a- I think Baker showed some sight. We saw him in the meetings. They're asking him questions. He's getting everything right. I thought that whole meeting with Fox was like, like, really. I mean, seriously, like, that that was so staged. I think that Baker-Mayfield's slow-motion pass that they had for

about, you know, two minutes of the episode. I think it might still be going on. I think they were running out of things to talk about. I think they're probably getting bored with it, too. I mean, how much more can you have with Huey? Well, I mean, I will say, one of the things that really stuck out to me is the defense for the Browns, right? I mean, they do have a lot of town on that defense. Miles Garrett is the front man for all of that. We see Greg Williams again. I mean, he said, let's go hunt, you know, and they're talking about the four takeaways. And I mean, just that whole interaction. And I mean, with his given history, I mean, some of the things, like, let's go kill him.

You would think he would have been more sensitive, right? I mean, and I'm not saying, you know, I understand what the game is. It is the game of football, and these are football. This is a football talk. But I do feel like the awareness of that has been completely a lot. Let's go hunt as our chant. I mean, if you're the league office, you think that's a good thing? What do you hunt for a bounty?

Right. I mean, that's not good, you know? I agree, Tad Frazier. I mean, I don't understand how they let that happen, how they let it on the air. Yeah. Exactly. So I'll leave that as it is. I want to talk about Josh Gordon. So he says, you know, we see him. We have a little moment where, you know, he says, you know, it's a nice moment. He says, you know, you got to love yourself. I feel like I'm coming back home. I'm excited to be back on the football field. We know he's dealing with the hamstring stuff. I think it has been impressive to get a little bit of an inside look into what, you know, Josh Gordon, this supreme talent has been going through in the world of football. And I think that that story may get lost in the shuffle of all these crazy characters that are going on in Hard Knocks. But it is good to see him back on a football. At least he was the only guy in the episode that was taking accountability for his actions. Yes.

You got to give him credit for that. I mean, look, when you're in rehab, whatever kind of rehab you're in, the first thing they teach you is about accountability about yourself. You can't be blaming other people for your own problems, right? We all do that in life. You know, it's not my fault. It's this or that. And at least he did that.

You know, and I think that's the first step. You know, now, you know, he's looking at the playbook. Like, okay, for example, he's looking at the playbook. If that just hypothetically, say Josh Gordon was in New England, you know, whether he was on NFI or whether he was on the team, there would be a plan in place for him to have classroom time, meeting. Now, maybe there have it, but it sure didn't look like it when he was examining his play sheets. I know these plays already, right?

So, like, it's, how does he know these plays already? It's Todd Haley's offense, right? It's a completely new offense. It's a completely new terminology. They're yelling Detroit on the field. That's an old giant person. L group going back to Ron Earhart when Ron Earhart coached the Giants. And that goes from Pittsburgh. And it was in Pittsburgh. And that's where he learned it. And so the terminology is

Ron Earhart's terminology that has come through the NFL world and landed at Todd Haley's life. And so there's no way he knows the, he might know what the plays are and they look similar to other ones, but it's completely different. So to me, I don't, you know, he's got to have a plan. And there got to be somebody there to mentor him with that plan. And who's going to going to draw up that plan. I mean, and that's the other thing. I know it ain't going to be Huey headlines. Because no one really knows what the plan is. I mean, we'll use the example of Baker Mayfield for this for this whole thing. So Baker Mayfield, he's saying all the right things. A lot of people are, you know, are very much in his corner as far as they want him to be the guy for this team.

Obviously, he doesn't care. He's saying to Rod slash Tyrod that Troy Eagman calls him Tyrod is the number one guy. But Baker, you know, he has this, this interaction with Huey on the sideline. When Tyrod goes down and he's got his, you know, the pinky injury and he runs the locker room. Baker's sitting there and he's already warmed up. He's looking at the play sheet. He's about ready to go. And he walks over and goes, you lose? You ready?

In the most casual way. And you can just see Baker kind of look like, of course. Yeah. Like, I'm ready. Like I'm ready to go. I still don't know why I put Tyrod back. I know Tyrod wanted to go back in the game. But like at some point, like, why put Tyrod back in the game?

I mean, first of all, we weren't blocking them. So like, this is a perfect. Look, you're my starter, Tyrod. Why are you going back in the game? I didn't quite get that. I know, look, players want to do some things, but it's your job to protect the organization. Like, I don't think that was a smart move either. I think that wasn't really well played.

And I know that Tyrod is trying to send a message back to his team, right? So we did see that. And I will say, you know, Hugh Jackson starts that episode and they ask him about Baker being, is he going to get any first team reps and go, no, no, no, no, you know, just keep saying no, no, no. I don't understand it to me. To me, I don't understand. I don't think Baker's ready. But I don't understand how you can pick the first guy in the draft.

and not just go with it. I just don't understand it. And I love Tyrod, Taylor. I mean, I think he's great. But to me, the organization, it just doesn't, it doesn't, again, once again, there's not, there's not a plan. There's not a plan. Let's talk about a guy who had a plan for the Philadelphia Eagles and a guy that has gotten

wrapped up in. This is a fascinating story here. It's a very fascinating story. It is a very, I mean, this is Wall Street in the NFL, basically, right? So we got some Michael Kendrick, obviously, the Super Bowl winning quarterback for the Philadelphia Eagles. We see him in this meeting. He's given the book on the Philadelphia Eagles talking about, you know, I thought it was some great insight, honestly. I was, I was impressed that.

So he talks about Nick Foles and the teardrop deep ball. Actually, I mean, you saw that in the playoffs. A lot of guys were mistiming jumps on those balls because they do hang up a little bit more in the air. That was nice to see. And then he talked about Zach Ertz and you got to hit Ertz. That's how you get him out of the game. You can take shots at him. So we see that from.

Because what he said was Ertz. He really, now people say, well, he criticized. No. He said it was the best. And he used the word receiver. Okay. And that's what we have to understand. There's certain tight ends in the NFL that are not tight ends.

They're receivers. And so when they're on the field, if they're in 11 personnel, one back, one tight end, you're really in 10 personnel. So that's the way people treat Ertz. I thought what he said was really good. I think he had a good scouting report on everybody. I'm sure he knew every detail about how to handle everyone on their defense and what he did. I thought it was great.

And again, who's coaching the players? Like to me, like, okay, right? So he's in there giving this detail and Greg breaks the meeting up. Like to me, once he gives the report, okay, now it should follow up with, okay, here's how we're going to handle it. He said great tips, great visual evidence. Thanks, guys. Break. Let's get out of here.

Yeah. One more break to get a word from our sponsor, MyBooky. People always ask me for advice. Usually it's what team to bet on this week. It's the preseason, folks. Don't bet. Just wait for the real season. The truth is, I don't know who's going to win, actually.

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that's M-Y-B-O-O-K-E. And don't forget to use the promo code ring your NFL when creating your account to claim the bonus. You play, you win, you get paid. So we get Michael Kendricks. You know, we get the great scouting report for the Eagles, and then it comes out today, which we'll make for a very interesting episode

as we get into things the next couple of weeks with Michael Kendrick. So allegedly there was some insider trading with him and a guy that used to work at Goldman Sachs ended up being a writer in television for the show. Blackish was probably one. one of the biggest shows he wrote for. Kendricks, it ends up being about $1.2 million.

He's made, you know, $20 million in the NFL. A lot of people were making that comment about, you know, having this money. But I'll say this. He went to Cal Berkeley. Yeah. This is white-collar crime. This is big-time stuff. Well, he hasn't been, he hasn't essentially been charged.

He's been charged. He did say that he did not know what the deals with that. Right. Did he plea bargain this out? I think that they said that they're going to plead guilty. And then. I think the bigger issue here, like most of the, Of course, I've been trained by Al Davis.

So whatever comes out, you always ask another question. You know, it's that false duality. Is he guilty? Is he not? No, really, there's other things here. How long is the NFL known about this? Like, these federal indictments and these things that are going on. These are a drawn-out process.

It's a drawn-out process. I mean, you know, Tony Soprano had Neil, his lawyer, always looking, you know, you're not involved in the indictments. Can you make all those kids? Like, they're paid to kind of find out what's going on. And I think to me, when did the league know this could be happening? When did the Eagles know this could be happening? When did Michael Kendricks know that he was under investigation because he was going to have to give up some things?

Did he sign with the Browns and didn't tell him? Did the Browns not know? Did the Eagles not tell him? Did the league know? Did he play in the Super Bowl when he was under an investigation for this? And so what's the role of the league in that situation? If he is a free agent in signs from one team to another team, the team may be privy to that private information. The league obviously is privy to that private information. Do they feel like he's

going to jail? If he's going to jail, he's going to have to give his bonus back. If he's going, if he has to do time for this, he's going to have to give his whatever money he got back. The Eagles could be entitled to something. I mean, I don't know the whole implicate, but to me, I think the biggest question here now that we know the details is when did everybody know? Did they know? Because this isn't, they just started investigating him in April. I don't believe that's how the FBI works. I think that takes some time to build a case. And how about the FBI? I mean, they have had a hot street getting involved in sports. We've got to go back to NCAA basketball this past fall leading into the spring. And now they're involved in. And look, you know, and look, you know, and when I was at the Browns, I mean, the owner of the Browns, Jimmy Haslam was under investigation by the FBI for price fixing with his company pilot flying Jay. And he's obviously settled a bunch of those cases and settled with the United States government. So, I mean, that's public record. That's not something that didn't happen. So this, and that was an ongoing, long, drawn out process. I think the question is...

Maybe that's why he hired Michael Kendricks, you know, get some help, get some other people, get some bodies in there. I think it's going to be fascinating to see Tate Frazier, what actually, who knew what, when, where, and how. So Michael Kendricks put out a statement. He said, while I didn't fully understand all the details of the illegal trades, I knew it was wrong. And then the other individual that was involved that was helping set this whole situation

up, a guy that he trusted because he was Harvard educated went to Goldman Sachs. He threw his attorney, Mark Wilson, says that he is working, he was working as an analyst, and he overheard information and he passed it on to Mr. Kendricks. So all of that is being put out right now, this will obviously play out in the media and obviously play out of the game. He wasn't going to play. He wasn't going to play. He wasn't going to play. I mean, they weren't going to play any of their guys. I mean, to me, I think it's going to be interesting to see what the league's involvement it is. If he's pleaded, what charges he comes out to it and does he have to go to jail? What's he have to do? Those kind of things. I mean, I think it's

fascinating to see who knew what, when and where. And I think that remains to be seen. Absolutely. You know, we've seen athletes. I remember Elio Castronovus, if you remember him, a race car driver, indie car driver that was involved in some offshore. Oil accounts? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, I mean, we've seen this sort of stuff happen and come up. Michael Kendrick's a very interesting personality we saw him for the first time in full form on this episode of Hard Knock.

So all that happening behind the scenes will be interesting to see what we see next week and what they show on HBO or what they can show on HBO. I want to wrap this up with a little bit of a happy note because a lot of people say that we don't have fun with this show and we were criticizing and yada yada yada we're having a lot of fun i have fun i don't know about you i mean look i'm just you know i don't understand people like i know fans if you say something bad about their team they get so upset like i don't hate their team yeah i don't i know it's like i don't hate their team it's like at some point like i think the cowboys we talk about this i think they're really good i think they got a chance to be really good i don't hate the cowboys i don't hate the

giants i mean if you're a giant fan aren't you a little worried about eli like all i'm doing is stating what you should think about, not I'm an anti-giant. Like, you know, it's like we, I have a rule. We say this on my other podcast with Mark Titus. I'm not attacking the person. I'm attacking the narrative. That's right. That's all I'm trying to, thank you very much.

That took somebody from North Carolina. See, that's my Hofstra education. I couldn't quite put that together. There you go. We got it. So Jarvis Langer, we get a contagious parody. This was the rookie show, of course, that we're talking about, that all the rookies put together.

We saw Baker Mayfield do his full John Dorsey and impersonation. finally got some laughs from the room, which was great. You know, it's good. I think a lot of times when you're, you know, they showed him with the, you know, with the underwear. He was like, you know, how many people you wear underwear and he shows the picture of Baker. And, you know, it's tough when you're the franchise face quarterback because a lot of guys will give you the groans. And nobody really wants to be in on the joke because you're the poster boy anyway. We're not going to give you, you know, petty laughs.

It was good to see when he did the Dorsey impersonation. People seem to, we got, we got guys standing, and Joku stood up and gave him a little clap, you know what I mean. So it's good for the rookie quarterback to have that. But I thought the best part was the Jarvis Landry, the contagious parody where they kept up in the ante putting on the boots. I thought that was good too. Getting in a golf cart, you know, doing his arms always sitting in the back of the golf cart. And I honestly, you know, as much as we gripe about this Browns team and all the things that maybe aren't going so great there, they do seem to have a bunch of characters and a bunch of guys that are willing to laugh at themselves, willing to have a good time. I mean, Bob Wiley, I mean, all those guys.

Bob Wiley is a cartoon character. They were just having the best time ever. I've never heard an offensive line coach watch the sled and not screaming about getting your second step down. Like the most important thing for fundamentals for offensive line coaches is the second step. Hit the guy second step. Got to get it on the ground quick. I mean, when you're evaluating the offensive line, it's that set. That's why they run 40 times to measure your speed because you want quick feet.

You want to measure their foot speed. So you want to be able to see. Got to chop. Chop, chop. Anyway, I got to look at my. I always get like during hard knocks, I get a bunch of texts from people about, you know like Britain Colquitt well Britain prayers for no injuries

well and how about the guy going was the backup quarterback going up that Aaron Aaron and he was just on the show the other day yeah he was excited it's all right you know I thought it was nice to see to see Aaron Andrews go up to good juice you know a guy that trying to make the team I thought that was good I got a couple so anyway I got a text

from a guy I said I want I want Clyde Fraser in a group chat this is can't miss TV which I think is brilliant you know and so I just think it's hilarious. And this guy, one said, you know, we've got to come up with a name for, for Hughes Camp. And then the other one, I think, was fairly, John Dorsey must be fantastic at fantasy football. He sees all talent and zero chemistry. I think there's something about that. I think there's something about that. Absolutely. I will say, my favorite part also was when they were kept up in the ante because, you know, we kept seeing Greg Williams' defense hit the

quarterback. And they kept going back and forth, like stop hitting the quarterback. Well, block, somebody's got to block him. Somebody's got to block him. Somebody's got a block. And then. and throwing the hat down. It was, it's just a lot of fun. It's fun. This Cleveland Brown's team, I mean, say what you want about the NFL. I know there's a lot of serious topics that continue to come up and sort of compound the narrative. But if you watch the Cleveland Browns, they're for everybody.

It's just pure entertainment. And they know their own camera and they're willing to have a good time with it. And I think Hard Knocks needed it. So I'm glad we get to see it. I think it's really helped Hardinard. And it hopefully helped the NFL because, again, I'm going to say to this again, the NFL's, don't give up on the NFL. The NFL is going to be a great time in the NFL. Well, we pushed ourselves to the finish line here on GM Street.

You know, Hugh Jackson won't be very proud of us. And we should say we will be back Monday. We'll be back to the same routine. There's a lot of stuff going on this weekend. We'll watch all the games. We'll break on the tape. We'll break down the big stories, the big headlines, see if some more guys get paid. Anything else before we get out of here?

I'm excited. It's last preseason week, one week from tomorrow. We got football. That's great. I'm looking forward to it. College football starts this week. Nice. A lot of people are very excited about that.

Monday night, next Monday night, Virginia Tech, Florida State. That's a game to watch. I'm excited. I'm excited for all college football. It's going to be fun. So we'll get all the football stuff ready. We'll maybe even touch on some college guys that stand out the opening weekend. And we will be back on Monday. Thanks for listening.

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today. Go support Jim Carrey. Thanks for listening to GM Street.