The Ringer NFL Show - The Baker Mayfield Rumor, Tom Brady's Next Deal, and the QB Landscape | GM Street (Ep. 263)

Episode Date: May 8, 2018

The Ringer’s Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier sit down to vent about the 76ers (02:00) before discussing the rumor about the Patriots trying to trade up for Baker Mayfield (06:00), Tom Brady's two-year plan (11:00), how Matt Ryan's contract changes the league (13:30), first impressions of Lamar Jackson (20:00), the quarterback situation in Philadelphia (25:30), and Jason Witten's retirement (33:15). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On today's episode of GM Street, we will talk about the New England Patriots and why Baker Mayfield was possibly the number two pick and why that story came out. We're going to talk about Lamar Jackson and his first impression with the Baltimore Ravens. And we're going to talk about the many QB contract situations that are all upcoming with Aaron Rogers, Matt Ryan, and potentially Russell Wilson franchise tagging himself in the future. And as always, we are part of the Ringer podcast network where the Ringer NBA show has you covered for all things in the playoffs. We also launched a new food podcast to Dave Chang Show, so be sure to gobble that up. And be sure to check out the ringer.com where we have Westworld coverage, spicy NBA takes, Infinity War, a Marvel movie, and more. And now let's get on with GM Street.

Welcome to GM Street, part of the Ringer podcast network. It is Monday. It is May 7th. And we are in the office of our boss, Bill Simmons, and I'm joined by Mr. Michael Lombardi. Lombardi, how you doing? I'm good. I'm good. I'm feeling all the self-declatured. loving here. Of course, you know, Simmons is saying the Sixers don't need

LeBron because, you know, I mean, there's a motivation behind it. You know, Al Davis used to do this all the time. He used to say, don't believe what they say. Understand why they say it. And, you know, Bill's saying we don't need LeBron. It's just because he doesn't want him to go to Philly because we desperately need LeBron. I mean, you have to admit that, right? Tate Frazier? The Soviet Sixers desperately need LeBron. They need some help. And we're going to talk about a lot of stuff going on the NFL today, but at the top, we know that some things have gone around in your series. Yes. This may be the last time we talk about the playoffs if the Sixers end up getting swept tonight by the Celtics. Oh, the

brooms are out, take first of the brooms are definitely out. The Celtics have not faltered at all, despite, you know, it's seeming, everyone on their team seemingly going down throughout this whole season, you know, Kyrie, Hayward, Jalen Browns back and forth, but somehow they still dominate your Sixers and they get a game three win that went to overtime. It looked like all the stars were aligning for a home victory in Philadelphia. Yeah, up by five overtime, and then we decided we wanted to put on a clinic of bounce passes. Bounce passes with spin. That was always nice. and then the Alioop. Look, I think the Celtics have a confidence about them when they play Philadelphia.

You could just see it. Like, they don't really get rattled. You know, they got rattled against Milwaukee. They haven't gotten rattled against Philly. And look, I say this tapefries. I am a huge 70. I'm a passionate 76 fan. I love them.

But I'm also realistic. And there's a lot of areas that the team, to me, has declined as not good enough as Boston. Boston plays better than they do. And Boston deserves to win the series. I mean, look, when your best player has one point. point one game. And then the great Robert Covington has one point the next week. And Sarich, has you seen Sarat. Is he on America's Most Wander? I mean, seriously. Or Croatians most wanted show. He's on the milk carton right now. Just as Dario Saras. I mean, the guy shoots more. What's the

under on the airballs for tonight? I think it's going to be six and a half. Have you ever seen a guy in the low post who can't finish? I mean. Well, that's sort of the problem with the sixes right now. We get some problem with inbound pass is the JJ inbound's pass. And I will say this. J.J. Reddick, you know, I consider him an enemy of mine. That inbalance pass for anybody else, I excuse him. If Dario Sarich makes that inbalance pass, I excuse him because it's the play that was being run. But JJ Reddick, we know, is considered one of the smartest basketball players on the planet. He considered himself to be that. So I expected more from JJ. So I wouldn't say I'm upset, but I was just disappointed. Yeah, I think the whole thing is a shame. I mean, I look, I'm enjoy

the playoffs. It gives me something to bitch about, give me something to cheer about, you know. So, I mean, I don't know. It's just, it's painful. It was a fun game, at least. Yeah, you know, you can say that. See, I've lived through Al Henry. You don't even know who Al Henry is first pick. I've lived through picking Sean Bradley over Chris Weber. I mean, I've lived through all this, like the six are the pain. You know, we picked, we picked, um, Larry Hughes. I lived through Michael Carter Williams being picked before Yonan Sancta Kumpo. Yeah. Or how about we picked, oh, we traded, nobody writes this. Of course, this is not allowed to be written. It's almost like the Russians are keeping it out of the media, you know, is that we traded

Nolan's, we traded Drew Holiday for Nolan's Noel. Like, could you imagine if we had Drew Holiday on the team? That might help a little bit. But anyway, that's not being said, I just think it's, it's, it's, but painful for the Sixers when you watch because there's the past always comes back on you. And there's so much of the past of, you know, Larry Hughes over Paul Pierce. Like at some point, I think it's a great lesson. And this is really what to me is it takes talent to evaluate talent. And all this talk about process and all this talk about everything, the draft, everything. It's an evaluation and you've got to be very good at.

And Danny Aange is better at his job than Jerry, or whatever, Brian. Calangelo is at his job or any colangelo is at his job. I mean, that's the reality. And so, that's what you have to hope for. And that's why LeBron's takes the Calangelo factor out of the 76ers, because now you just sign them. I mean, Millie can sign LeBron. You know, like, she said, hey, that's a good idea. Let's sign him, right? And you talk about mentorship on this Philadelphia team. If you do bring a LeBron James in, you have Ben Simmons there. LeBron James is someone that knows his spots on the floor. He knows where he needs to go with the basketball. He knows how to play the game. He knows how to, you know, be able to stay in the game. We've talked about.

about this. I mean, he picks his spots in games. He knows when to rest in a game. He doesn't have to sit on the bench. He is so smart with the way he's working a game. And the way he just did this, we talked about the other side of the Eastern Conference. LeBron James comes down and rips the Raptors' hearts out again in Cleveland coming down. Nobody stops ball. He goes all the way down the floor, floats up a little bank shot, and he wins a game. He's the hero. I mean, look, I feel bad for Casey because he can't beat this team. I mean, he can't, right? And Brown, I mean, people think Casey and Brown could get fired by this time next week. I mean, and that could be real.

These are two guys that were coached the year candidate. No doubt. You got to feel bad for them because I just, sometimes it's about the design of the team. And, you know, Toronto would have beaten Philly if they would, like Philly had a hard time beating Toronto and Boston. I mean, they were going to have a hard time beating either one of those teams because during the season they didn't.

But anyway, I'm in pain, Tate Frazier, but I'm still going back to the draft and we picked Fultz over Tatum. But that's okay. It'll work out. Look, it's always darkest before the dawn. The future is always bright. And we believe the Philadelphia is 76ers will figure something out. Just that was a sponsored plug by me, just to make sure that Philadelphia doesn't turn on us.

We have a lot of football stuff to talk about. There's been a lot of stuff going on, even though it is the offseason. And we have the New England Patriots and Baker Mayfield. There was a leak report that came out from Agent Jack Mills who said on a podcast that, you know, you make it that on draft day that he thought there may be a surprise at number two. If Baker Mayfield was still available, obviously he was not. Cleveland took him number one. What's the point of leaking this story? All right. So first of all Jack Mills. Jack Mills, one of the best agencies from Boulder, Colorado. I used to call Jack all the time, had a lot of players, had the great Tommy Vardell from Stanford when we drafted him in the first round

at Cleveland. I know Jack really well. We spent more time talking about the John Bonnet Ramsey case pretty much on the phone whenever we would talk, you know, because he lives in Boulder. So you've got to come by. And I went by Tate Fraser to see the house. Have you ever been to Boulder? No, I have not. Like I went by to see the house where it all happened. And I was like, it blew me away. Like it was like, this doesn't even look like the neighborhood that you saw on television. Anyway, Jack was an expert on. Jack's actually, Jack's wife was an expert. So I have great respect for Jack. However, in this case. And also murder mysteries. And murder mysteries too. I got to solve those. But anyway, in this case, look, here's the way the conversation goes. Jack's got a guy. He knows Mayfield was promised by

somebody. And I think it was Cleveland. He was going to be a top pick. Right. So Mills knows this. He can't tell anybody. So when the Patriots call up and say, hey, we really want to get to know Baker Mayfield. Mills is like, well, look, you're picking 23. There's no way he's going to make it to you. What's the point? What's the point? And your answer back to him is, well, we can't really decide if we would trade up until we spent time with him. So there's a chicken and the egg here. Yeah, it's back and forth. Like there's really like, oh no, we want to meet the kid because we're going to draft them. No, no, no, time out. We need to know about the kids. So if you don't let us know about the kid, then you've taken any chance that we could possibly trade up.

Now, the idea that the Patriots would trade assets to get to the top five is absurd. That's not who they are. I mean, just watch the draft. That's not who they are. And the fact that Baker May – I mean, I've had conversations with people there in New England. And I think Baker Mayfield was they liked Baker Mayfield. I think Baker Mayfield was a guy that they talked about. But I think Baker Mayfield was in the cluster of quarterbacks that they were evaluating.

And they did a lot of homework on all of them because, look, here's the thing you have to understand about quarterbacks to come out in the draft. And this is another Al Davis thing. quarterbacks have to be evaluated by everybody in the organization. The defensive coordinators on all these teams, now that's not happening in most of the NFL. Like, I promise you, they should do it, but they're not doing it. You should watch every single quarterback in the draft. Why? Because if you're going to get ready to go play Baker Mayfield in Cleveland, then you should have an idea about him what he did in college.

You need to know that. And that's the only tape you have on him. That's the only tape you have on him. So you need to study it. It's the same thing in Belichick. He probably figures he's going to play against the guy. I got to make sure I really know the guy inside and out. So when we play them, I got a feel for him.

Does that mean they were going to draft them? I would find it absolutely preposterous to think that the Patriots were going to trade up, A, and B, that they had the Mayfield was the highest rated quarterback on their board. I don't think that's true. But doesn't this cover the bases a little bit if you are representing someone like Baker Mayfield who does go number one? And there's been a lot of pundits, us here, included on GM Street, that said the value of the number one pick was maybe a stretch to take Baker there. This covers your bases a little bit to say the best franchise in football over the past, you know, 15 or so years, wanted him at number two.

Right. I think it's all PR. I think it's all to sell their pick, right? I think it's all to sell it to make sure that everybody sees it. I don't believe it's true. I think the agent's doing a good job. And I love Jack. I think he's doing a good job of making it feel that way. But look, I'm going back to what I said originally about Baker Mayfield, I have a hard time believing he was the best player in this draft. And I think the combination of he and Denzel Ward together, I think the Browns, even though everybody will give him an A or B, whatever they're going to get in the draft, I think the Browns are going to regret this draft down the road. Is it this one of the, it's one of those things, too, with Baker where he, there's so much pressure being the number one pick. And now you had this little, you know, fail safe to say, well, you know, Bill Belichick loved him. Exactly. It's like, it's perfect. And like, look, Huey headlines already announced that Tyra Tyler's going to be the start. He's not even right ahead of the curve.

He's not even letting the competition come in there. So. And then I thought it was, I thought, I mean, we didn't talk about this afterwards. Then Greg Williams came on and said that he would have picked Denzel Ward. You know, like, really, seriously. You want Greg Williams making picks for you. Seriously. That to me boggles my mind.

It would be like me going to work for IBM and all of a sudden I'm going to make decisions on the marketing campaign. Like at some point, your job is to coach the defense. Lean into your expertise. Lean into your expertise. Your job isn't to manage the draft. The draft is all about how you manage it, how you handle it.

Like Greg, okay, you favor a corner over a defensive lineman. You're the only guy in America that did because you didn't watch a Super Bowl. Okay, you didn't watch a Super Bowl. You haven't watched any great, watch any of those teams. No team can cover if you can't rush. That's a fact. So, you know, but that being said, I don't want to pick on Cleveland. I don't want to pick on the 76ers either.

So we'll move on. We'll move on. We'll talk about a team that, you know, we just brought up, the team that was going to trade up apparently for Baker Mayfield at the number two spot. And that is the New England Patriots. And we have to talk about their quarterback, Tom Brady. He says he has negotiated, and I say that in quotations,

the next two years with his wife, Jazeel, about his future. And those are family talks. So we have two more years of Tom Brady. And then we're going to get to the point where it's, Is he going to be franchise tagged in 2020? What will the future look like? Is he going to get a new contract with the Patriots? They have the seventh round, Danny Atlin that came in from LSU.

There's a whole lot of stuff going on now to figure out what is the future for Tom Brady. Well, look, I think this. I think the future for all these great quarterbacks in the NFL has just gotten changed with the Matt Ryan contract. Look, I mean, Matt Ryan changed the landscape. First thing had happened, Kirk Cousins changed the landscape. And this is the whole genesis behind free agency. This is what the agents have always hoped for what happened in free agency. A free agent makes X, then a guy who's an established player will make X plus Y.

And that's what's happening with Kirk Cousins. And now Ryan got a contract. And then Aaron Rogers is going to get a contract. And I think what's going on in New England. And this is just my own instinct is I think when you win five Super Bowls and you've had as much success as they have. And they've all kind of swallowed the we're not making all this money routine. We're not taking all the coin. They've done that.

I think now is the time where they're all saying to themselves, it's money time. And Brady, for all what he's saying about how unhappy he is and the same thing with Gronk, I think it comes down to contract. And how couldn't it, Katie Fraser? How couldn't you look there and see Matt Ryan making what he's making and you got five rings? How could you see what Kirk Cousins just got and not affect you? It's just human nature, right? I mean, you can't fault Brady for that. You can't. I think the same thing in San Antonio, too. I mean, they've done a great job. The same thing with the Patriots, their locker room has kind of gotten a mess a little bit because of the finances that go on in the league. And I think Kawhi Leonard, whether he gets traded, whether he's unhappy, I don't know the deal,

but I think it comes down to at some point players get tired of swallowing their financial situation for the good of the team. And it's hard to buy in when your price point isn't where you think it should be. Right. I mean, it's just, it's so far removed. I mean, Kirk Cousins is so far. It isn't about guaranteed money. It's about respect by your peers. Look, you're the best player in the NFL.

you've won the MVP or you've won Super Bowls. I mean, look, the reality of it is is you want to get paid like the top players because you're walking around. Like, how much more can you take like that? Tim Duncan got out before it became a problem. But I think eventually it comes a problem. Tim Duncan couldn't play anymore. He retired. It wasn't a problem. Brady's still playing at a high level. It's a problem. He's still a Super Bowl contending quarterback at this point. I want to talk about just the landscape of the quarterback position. And you brought up there, Matt Ryan. So Matt Ryan is now the $100 million man in the NFL. This is the richest country. contract and NFL history. He agreed to a five-year deal, $150 million with the $100 million

guarantee. First off, who's the better $100 million man, John Gruden or Matt Ryan? That's a great question, Dave Fraser. I would think Matt Ryan would be, you know, I would think, because I think John Gruden really needs a personnel guy. I do think John Gruden need, I mean, I know Reggie McKenzie's there, but John's, John can run a rem shot over most personnel guys. I think he needs somebody strong to tell him that. That being said, you know, the coach can make a huge difference, don't get me wrong. I think the coaches are way underpaid in the NFL, because if the cap's $175 million, $179 million and the head coach is running everything, he's worth $15 million a year. Most companies that do that would pay that, okay? So I agree with that.

Now, going back to $100 million, Matt Ryan, look, the cap's at $180 million. You don't have enough good players to pay. This is where we are in the NFL. Everybody has cap room. All those teams when I was at the Browns and 13, all that we talked about was, oh, we got to save Cap Room because we'll be the only team with Cap Room. Really? They all have Caprum. Everybody has Caprum. I mean, even the Rams who mismanaged our cap now came out of it with Caprum, right? So they have Cap room. Made some trades, get rid of some money. Dump some guys, Tavon, you know, whatever they did. So like Cap Room, there's not enough good players to pay. And when you get a great player, Ryan or whomever, you got to pay them. And the numbers are going to keep going up. Where you get in

trouble, really, where you get in trouble with the cap is when you pay the Tavon Austin's the top dollar. Again, it comes down to evaluation. You can't pay the middle level player, the replaceable player like an irreplaceable player. So you have five irreplaceable players on your team. Whatever you think you have, Von Miller would be irreplaceable. You can't replace Von Miller, right? So you pay those guys. The ones you can replace, you just have to replace. They may not be as good, but you save cap room. And I think that's the approach you have to take. And that's why team, teams are not having cap trouble. And you talk about, it became like a fascination with the fact that Tom Brady would take

less to get some of these other guys paid, to get some of these other players in with the Patriots. He was sacrificing dollars to get former players in or better players in and stuff like that. Helping the team. Yeah, exactly. So everyone was patting him on the back for that. But now he's sort of flipped on that narrative a little bit. And a lot of these quarterbacks are cashing in.

And so we get Kirk Cousins is the richest man in the NFL. He gets two months of that. And now Matt Ryan's the richest man in the NFL. How much longer until Aaron Rogers? How is Aaron Rogers not the richest man? And now he says it's going to be soon, but he's the next one up. And apparently, you know, so Matt Ryan's guaranteed a hundred million. He's going to, like here's your why.

And he's going to get 110 million guaranteed. So here's the problem is what do you pay? The guys like Carson Wentz, to me, after what he did last year, he deserves to get paid in that category. Do I think Jared Goff deserves to get paid in that category? No. And that's where you got to decide where you want to be. Cincinnati's got a hell of a deal with Andy Dalton because they know he's not as good as those other guys and they're paying them modestly. Okay, it's the same thing with Flacco.

Now, you paid Flacco like he's a star, and he's still getting paid in that top category. You've got to do something about that. I want to talk about one other quarterback that's an interesting wrinkle in his situation. That's the Russell and Bustle Russell Wilson. It came out that there's a plan in Seattle to franchise tag Russell Wilson to sort of go about the Kirk Cousins route of thing instead of giving him a long-term deal. You find that a little interesting because, I mean, everyone talks about the college atmosphere

that is in Seattle, that Pete Carroll runs me. kind of warned us walk about a little bit, hasn't it? Could that be something that happens with Russell Wilson? Yeah, I think Seattle really, Seattle needs a tear down. I think Seattle needs to really go through. I think this season's going to determine what Pete does. I think if Pete thinks he can coach his way and manage this team to the division title or playoffs, but if he doesn't make the playoffs and if he doesn't take this step forward, I think it's a tear down. I think it's time to go in. Forget about, you know, remodeling. Like, we're going to tear this thing down. Let's go. Let's use Russell Wilson as the centerpiece. Let's pay him. And then let's get everybody else around. because unless we do this, we're not going to be able to do it. Maybe it's time to trade Earl Thomas at that point. There's no way they're going to extend Earl Thomas.

There's no way they're going to do that. I think they've got to get their cap in order. And I think the one thing, and I've said this repeatedly about Seattle, until they get back to who they were and start hitting on some of these players, I mean, they've lived off of one draft, Tate Fraser, and they've got to find a way to come back and do that. And I think that's really key. And that one draft was coming from Pete Carroll knowing these players being in college football and being able to scout them face-to-face in person.

and that's why a lot of people say that draft went so well for them. Exactly. And that's what they don't have right now. Their talent pool isn't as good as they needed to be. Now, they changed a bunch of coaches. So, right? So, you know, we're in the veterinarian business when you're in football, right? So the patient doesn't talk to us.

So it's either players, coaches or scheme. So they fired a lot of coaches on offense, right? They kept some of the players and they're going to change a little bit of the scheme. If that doesn't work this year, then really it comes down to saying, we don't have enough good players. That's going to be the key. And that's why I'm saying it's a remodel. It's time to rebrand. it's time to rebuild as opposed to remodel.

And right now it is the 2019. That is the year that we're looking at it for all these quarterbacks coming up, talking about Brady, talking about Russell Wilson, and you're going to see what happens in that 2020 class. Maybe if Russell Wilson is that situation, and it's like you choose me or you choose Carol, if not I'm signing this franchise tag. And we're going to figure it out every single year.

And at some point I think Pete's got to look at his long term too. Where does he want to go with it? I think Pete's at the point where he built it once. I think he's going to want to build it again. I don't think he's going to want to leave. And Paul Allen's got, I mean, we saw Paul Allen. in the draft room, which is rare. You never usually see Paul Allen around. So I think there's an anxious moment up in Seattle. And this year, because of the 49ers, because of the Rams, being so much

improved and better, I think it's going to be a hard fight for Seattle to come back. And I think it's going to be, this year is going to be a very telltale sign. That's a team that you have to watch and monitor because it can go really, it can, maybe they can turn it around or maybe they can't. And I would say that just because Russell Wilson, I mean, he has said that he wants to play on one franchise. He wants to be like Derek Jeter in football. But why would they get rid of them. They're not going to replace them with somebody else. I mean, that's going to be the hard thing. But he's also left for greener pressures before. I mean, we saw it in college at NC State. Yeah, he got tired of T-O-B. That's why they were going to play Mike Lennon came in,

and they were going to play Mike Lennon at quarterback. Well, Tom O'Brien. That's the way he wanted. He was like, you can't tell me if you're going to play baseball, you're out. And Russell played baseball. And the rest of history, let's talk about another guy that just got drafted out of Louisville, a quarterback that we're enamored with. He is the number 32 pick. And that is Lamar Jackson. He was at Ravens Camp. And I have a little tidbit from Hayden Hurst. He said it's pretty cool having a Heisman trophy winning quarterback throwing you the football. He's going to make plays. That's what he does. I'm excited to get open for him. His first day on Saturday comes in. He's throwing strikes down the middle of the field to Hayden

Hurst and everyone's very excited what they saw. What do you think about Lamar Jackson? You know, just talking to some people, I think Lamar impressed a lot of people with their camp. I think when you look at what he's been able to do through the deep ball really well at practice, I think he gives him a lot of life. I think Lamar's made the coach is nervous. And why? Because I think fans don't really understand that when you're a coach and you got Flacko and you got Lamar, it's not an easy, it's not an easy room to watch tape, right? You can see the talent in Lamar. There's tension. There's tension. And Flacco knows there's tension because he knows he can do the mathematics, right? So this summer when he's on Avalon Beach and he's hanging out, you know,

he knows Lamar's breathing down his neck. And Lamar can do some things that he can't do. And I think it puts a lot of pressure on the coaches offensively. This whole rhetoric that I've read, well, they're going to run the same offense. No, they're going to put in an offense in that fits Lamar. And he can throw the ball vertically down the field, which is what Flacco could do really well at one time in his life. Not sure he does it as well as he used to. But I think this Lamar move, I love Lamar coming out.

I think Lamar went in there, and I think Lamar sold them on, A, his work ethic. B, he's more accurate than they thought, and he can throw the deep ball really well. And what someone told me was he's really, really fast, which we all knew, but he didn't time. For some reason, the kid decided not to time. If he would have timed the 40, I think that would have probably helped him a lot more than not running, but he's fast. But it also could be one of those things where maybe that's a decision that was made up top, or maybe you fall to a better team like the Baltimore Ravens, and now you have a real chance to be the starting quarterback. I think he's sitting in the driver's seat.

I really do, Treyfrager. I think he's in a perfect spot because he can come in there and Flacco will come in and he can change the pace of the game, and he can create some problems. And if you're not fast on defense, like New England's horizontal defensive speed is a problem, where if you go down and you play Cincinnati or one of those teams that doesn't have great speed at lineback and you put him on the field for a few plays, especially in the red zone, wow, watch out. And you talk about John Harbaugh, after watching him on Saturday, he said the thing that was

really impressed with was, I thought he was accurate. You read reports and stuff about him not being accurate, but he was out here and he was making the throws. I thought it was a big plus. So if you had John Harbaugh, watches him one day, says he's making the throws they expect him to make as a professional quarterback, which is, you know, somehow became the knock on him that he wasn't going to be able to do this, even though he ran a pro-style offense. Right.

And I think Harbaal realizes it's, you know, talk about another team. I mean, Seattle and Baltimore, I think, are parallel teams in the sense that they are... 2013 was about their prime, and now we're trying to figure out what the next chapter is. Exactly right. And so I think that Harbaal sees this. And it's a good move for Harbaal because when you take a young quarterback and you get behind them, all of a sudden you're going to go high and low with them. And now you get yourself to extend your career a little bit.

You know, I mean, this is a make or break time. I mean, look, we talked about three billboards in Ebbing, Minnesota, right? There's three billboards in Baltimore, Maryland, where they want to make the playoffs. They expect to make the playoffs, you know? and the owners put a lot of pressure on them. So my sense of this is, is look, unless they do it, John could be out of work.

And if John gets behind a quarterback like Lamar Jackson, that's a job saver right there. That's a smart move to make. That's why you should always draft a quarterback whenever you get to a new job. The reason you usually get fired from a job or you get hired by a new place is because they don't have a quarterback.

You know? So that's the time to pick one. And now John, this point in his career, I think it's a great opportunity for him to build off of it. And it could be similar to what we saw Jim Harbaugh do when he had the Alex Smith and the Colin Kaepernick, and you have a standard prototypical quarterback, but then you have a playmaker who you can put into the game

and change things and add a dynamic asset to your offense. And that's a great point. And I think this, I've always believed it takes 20 games to really evaluate a quarterback. And those 20 games, it allows you to see, you know, what that quarterback ultimately strengths and weaknesses are. And that's where I think Kaepernick has struggled because once people took away what he wanted to do really well,

which was run and do all that, and then he didn't run, he became not as good a player. I think the same thing's going to happen to Lamar. He's going to show the NFL what he's capable of doing, and teams are going to try to take that away. And then he's going to have to change and be able to still play when they take it away. The Sean Watson did that quickly.

I mean, they tried to play him a certain way. It didn't bother him. He went on. And I think that's going to be the key. The first year with Lamar, when he plays that first year and a half, it'll be hard to defend them because I'm telling you, Tate Frazier, the speed of the game is going to be hard. to simulate when you get ready to play him.

And you talk about at this point, Joe Flacco and Lamar Jackson apparently have not connected at all. They have not spoken to one another. So we're in the situation where, you know, there is a quarterback that is already in place. There is an heir apparent sitting there and it'll be drama in Baltimore.

I think too much is made of that. Look, we're not running a T club or a book club here. Okay, like we don't have to get, like, we're trying to win. It's a competitive situation. Like, we don't, you know, the key is, is Lamar knows his role and Joe knows his role. And you know what?

It's all up for grabs. All right, Lombardi, we're going to get to your beloved Eagles and talk about their quarterback situation and what's going on with Wintz. But first, we're going to take a quick break. This is J.J. Reddick, here to talk to you about the J.J. Reddick podcast, part of the Ringer podcast network. Currently, I play in the NBA for the Philadelphia 76ers, but you may know me from my previous teams, the L.A. Clippers, Milwaukee Bucks, and the Orlando Magic, or from my college days at Duke University.

Being a professional basketball player, I have a great opportunity. opportunity to talk to a lot of interesting people and the podcast is a place where I can share those conversations with you, the listener. On my show, I sit down with athletes, celebrities, and a variety of other special guests. If you haven't already, please subscribe to the JJ Reddick podcast on Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Now to Philadelphia. We've got Nick Foles and Carson Wins. I think this, you know, the one thing after thinking about the draft and going back to it, if you're a team like, you know, you've got a really good opportunity, perhaps, to, if you didn't get the quarterback you need. Now, they won't trade them

to the Giants, obviously. But Foles will be, you know, but there's a good opportunity that if Wence is back throwing and playing, you could seize the moment and maybe make a trade and get your quarterback of the future. But what year, you know, last year was the year of the quarterback who resurfaced, the Case Keenoms, the Nick Foles, right? Who's that quarterback this year? Who's that guy going to be? Who's the guy going to come in and resurface? Christian Hakenberg. No. Sorry, that was too easy.

Are you jumping? Are we going to Chris? No, no, no. We'll go. We'll stick with wins. I have some commentary on that. We'll save the Christian Hagenberg talk because we don't want to waste it on this segment. I just want to say Carson wins, very confident, he says, and that's in quotations that he'll be ready for week one. We all know he tours ACL and LCL December 10th. That's a nine to 12 month recovery usually. But Carson wins seems to be ahead of schedule.

And he says that he and Nick are happy. And, you know, he knows Nick won the title. He wants to get back in there. It may be one of those things where we see a drop off usually after a champion. but if you have Carson Wins coming back, who is hungry to make this run, it helps the Philadelphia. Yeah, I think the hardest thing is going to be, you know, look, all this rehab and all this stuff is great, because there's no live bullets going, and there's nothing really fast happening. Once that game, I mean, he's got to change the way he plays.

He can't play the way he play last year. He's going to get hurt again. And so he's got to change how he plays, and they've got to modify that. But I think the guy's great. I think he'll change how he plays. And I think the way he improved from year one to year two, if he takes that same improvement, the sky's the limit. And you talk about, I think a lot of people, that's been the conversation that Carson has to change the way that he plays football because of the hit he took and some of the other hits he's taken that didn't get him hurt, but, you know, we're dangerous, quote unquote. Is he similar to a Cam Newton where he can take these big hit?

I mean, he is a big guy, he's six foot five, but Cam may be a different type of animal, honestly, to be able to handle all those hits. No, I don't think you could take 16 games and taking those hits just wear on it. It's just too hard. I mean, you put yourself at risk, you put your team at risk. He's kind of talked out of both sides of it. I've seen him do a bunch of interviews. he did like an ESPN feature. He was on NFL network. Whenever they ask him, you know, he does a thing where, yeah, I'm trying to clean up, but I'm also not going to change the way I play

because I'm an aggressive player. So when you talk out of both sides of your mouth, I think this. I think he can't change how he plays. I think he can change how he ends plays. I think the way he moves around in the pocket, the way he buys time on third down, the way he can get away from people, but there's a time he needs to slide. And there's a time he needs to just live for the next play and not do that. And I think that's really the coaching point here. It isn't like we don't want you to become less aggressive. We want you to still be aggressive, but be smart aggressive. Like go out of bounds. Step out of bounds. Don't take on. Don't lower your head and take on two linebackers coming right at you. That's not smart. That's not good for the team. And I think

that is really what he has to work on. And the other thing at Das is, is there a rush to get him back? He keeps saying he wants to be back for week one. He wants to be back in the huddle. He wants back on the field. But you do have the Super Bowl MVP who is sitting right there. What is the rush? I mean, I think he's got to go in a live bull. I think he's got to go in a game where the speed of the game is a little different. I mean, the third preseason game to me would be when you want Carson Wentz back out there a little bit, just so he'd get a feel for the game. I don't think you won it week three of the season where he's not played against anybody and all of a sudden he's out there. I think you want him out there when it's time to feel the

some of the speed of the game in the preseason when people are flying and get his feet kind of accustomed to it and let him get used to the game and then kind of see where he is from that point and kind of integrate him into the game. I don't know if you can just go cold and not have any preseason games and just put him right out there. I think it'll be hard. I think there's a guy that may be going out there cold and probably needs to work on his footwork and some other things. And that is quarterback Christian Hakenberg. Why is he still on the jet? Like, why are the Jets? See, this is the perfect example of a team won't admit they made a mistake. Like, there's nothing wrong with saying we blew it. Like, okay, the media is going to make fun of you. The joke of all time. Okay,

Christian Hakenberg's had Bill, Bill O'Brien coached him at Penn State, right? He said Jeremy Bates was a good quarterback coach. He had Chang Galley, I think, one year at the Jets, right. So he's had three really good guys that know how to coach a quarterback. And a lot of history of football. We talk about something like Chang. And now some guy who's never coached in the NFL was going to change his mechanics and is going to make him more accurate. Are you kidding me? And this guy's getting stories written about him in the paper. It's a joke. Yeah, the Jets had no idea that he was changing his throwing motion. Of course they didn't have any idea. Like, why would they have any idea? Like this guy, what's his track record? Like, you know, Don Henley's song,

expert witness? Like, who is this guy? Like, where's he come from? So to me, the reality of this situation is, like, if you're Hakenberg, people don't understand that the NFL is a mathematical problem. There's only so many reps you can have. If you want Sam Darnold to be the starter, he needs to get all the reps, and then Josh McAwell needs to get some of the reps. And then Hakenberg can't get any, every rep Hakenberg takes, you're hurting the team. You're hurting Darnold. You're hurting Darnold. Like at some point, Mike McCagan, as a GM of the team, has to just sit there and swallow and say, I blew it. Didn't work out. I'm happy to have Darnold. I got to do everything in my power to make sure Donald gets ready to play.

What's wrong with that? We all make mistakes. Like there's nothing wrong with it. The more you don't, like they finally cut petty, right? Uh-huh. Okay. But the more you keep hanging on to this, like the more you're just like, all of a sudden sells a, you're protecting your draft picks.

And that goes into the locker room. The players in the locker room are like, wait a minute, why is Petty? Why is Hackenberg on the team? Why is it taking a roster spot? Why is he taking a roster spot? We need, you know, we need more linebackers. We need more safeties. You're just trying to save a draft pick is basically. But you're also trying to.

to protect that value too. I mean, it seems like this is one of those things. What value does he have? I know, but it seems like they're trying to, not the Jets. I'm saying Christian Hakenberg, whoever is running his party is trying to get his value back up on the market place. Like who, okay, would somebody trade a seventhth for? Maybe they would. I mean, because look, let's face it. I mean, the Brown's got a seventhth for Kevin Hogan. You know, so I wouldn't say he wouldn't get, but at some point, I don't think Bill O'Brien's sitting there calling, hey, why don't you try me Hakenberg? At some point, you have to admit the picks a blown pick. The guy can't play. that's the reality of it.

Like if he could play, you would have traded all those assets to go get a quarterback. The good news is there is a team down south that we'll try to figure out if he can play and give him a contract and that is the Miami Dauphins. And we saw that with Bryce Petty. Bryce Petty goes down the dofons? That's because the great Mike Tanibov said that all those young quarterbacks have are young. Do you think Mike Tanimam just watches the Jets and that he thinks he can only pull from those players?

It's just like a little bit of arrival. Now, look at that, look at the quarterback situation in Miami. Tana Hill. You got Tana Hill's coming off of injuries, right? You got the heist. Brock. You know, you got him down there, right? So you got him.

You got David Fells. Yes. And now you got Bryce Petty. All one thing we know for sure, three of the four. This may be tough news for David Fales. I mean, three of the four aren't going to, I mean, if they got to go to any one of the three. I mean, did they watch the Jets play? Bryce Petty is a great kid.

Did they watch the Jets play last year when Bryce Petty had to come play? Seriously. I think, I hope they did. He's a good QB number three. Yeah. It doesn't have, like that drives me crazy. He's a perfect three. If he has to play, he can't play.

Like, why am I carrying a, wouldn't you be better to have a guy on your practice squad? You know, then you're going in the game. You're preaching the choir to every single player on defense right now. They don't want to see four quarterbacks walking up to practice. I mean, it's ridiculous. Like, I love the Miami. Well, you know, they all have a bright future because they're all so young. Did he watch, you think Tanibon watched Brock Hospital while they play?

Do you think he actually watched them? Probably at Arizona State. Wow. Tate Fraser. It's a tough time. Let's talk about a guy that is leaving the game of football, a guy that is respected pretty much everywhere as far as football circles go. And that is Jason Witt in a guy that steps away from the Dallas Cowboys.

He goes from a Cowboy to a Cowan. He finally waltzes away. Jerry Jones looks him directly in the eye and tells him how much he means to the Dallas Cowboys franchise. He will be a part of the Dallas Cowboys forever. It was a sweet ceremony. Jason Garrett right in his climax of his main story about how much Jason Wooden means. to the Dallas Cowboys. They cut him and then they go to the commercial, I believe, and they just cut them out and didn't let them finish. I felt bad for the clapper.

But otherwise, it was a beautiful ceremony and we wish, you know, Jason Whitten all the best. I think it'll be great for Jason Whitton. I think he did the right thing because, look, if he had come back and play, look, the Cowboys were slow, slow, slow, last year on offense. And Jason Whitten is a man's man. He's a great player. He'll be honored. He'll be remembered as a great player with great hands. But at some point, the career comes to an end. I think he did the right thing. And I think the reality here is starting to set in on Des Bryant, tape Fraser, because Des Bryant isn't generating any interest. I mean, here's a guy who's on the cap for $12 million, $16 million cap charged, $12 million, and no one's interested. There's nobody beating his door down.

What does that tell you? People actually watch tape in the NFL. Like nobody wants it. And I think Dallas is late to the party here, Witten. They probably should have done this in February with Des. They should have done it in February with Witten. But Jerry, for whatever reasons, and you can criticize Jerry all you want, he's a loyal guy. I mean, he didn't want to really, I mean, they would have brought. These are more emotional decisions than they were personal decisions. Exactly. And when you bring emotion into the situation, it's not going to be good for you.

So I think Jason Witten will be great on television. We also have Bougar McFarland's going to be the Cyron report. Did you see that now? No, I did not. Congratulations, Bougar. Well, they haven't decided, ESPN hasn't decided who will actually be the sideline woman. I think it's Lisa Salter's role last year. She could come back in it.

I think they're going through the process of interview and other people. That being said, they're also going to have an on the field analyst. So there's going to be four people. This ought to get funny now. This will be hilarious. I hope it's Rex Ryan. Please be Rex Ryan. Oh, no, it's going to be Booger McFarland.

He's going to be the on-the-field analyst. He's added to the team. No, I'm saying let Rex Ryan be the sideline reporter. Oh, no, no. He's the new Lisa Salters. No, I think they'll probably leave Lisa down there to tell us, you know, what we're reading on Twitter that, you know, this guy's hurt and he's not coming back in the game. Maybe you just read Twitter down on the sideline.

Maybe that's what they should do. I always thought that role was a good role. Like I think Todd McShay does a good job on college when he's down there on the field because you can see some things if you, especially if you know what's going on the sideline, you can give the fans some insight into what's happening, especially coaches that, you know, as they're going over and making the adjustments. But it's going to be fascinated to see how these games go on Monday night as they try to recover and how Witten does. I think Witton will do a good job. It's going to be interested to see how Bougar does with this role. Yeah, absolutely. And Jason Witten is very excited about his TV.

There was the weird period where no one, you know, came out who's going to do Monday night football. and then there was some time that Jason Garrett apparently was trying to convince him to come back. Why would Garrett want to? I mean, seriously. Did he watch? I mean, I know you want, I know you want on your team. I want a team with Witton. But seriously, you know, I used to say this at the Raiders all the time. We're a couple injuries away from having a good team, you know. And so like, they needed a couple retirements before they get faster. Like, you don't really want to just fire Witten because he's such a great player and he's such a, you know, but you got to make some non-emotional decisions. And you need to get faster on defense. I mean,

offense you needed to but you know everybody gets emotional everybody gets emotional every once in a while let's talk about Deshaun Kaiser a guy that had to go through some ups and downs and probably an emotional roller coaster under hewing headlines uh last year with the cleveland browns he is out of town he's now with the green bay packers and some people were saying they consider his agent mike mccarthy a qb one yeah mike mccartney said that he felt like he could be a he would have been a first round pick in this draft and you know i don't know if mike thought that he should be a first round pick in this draft based on if he would have gone to nondon for another year or based on his experience working under Huey headlines, you know, which I'm sure you could write a book about

that. But anyway, that being said, I do think Kaiser has a chance to get away from Cleveland and kind of get his career going a little bit better, you know, because there's enough talent, just not accurate enough. Like to me, when you watched it, the difference between Kaiser and Jackson when you watched him in college, Jackson wasn't as bad inaccurate. He was inaccurate at times, just like Deshaun Watson was. But Kaiser's like really badly inaccurate. And I think, think that that's always going to be why he was never going to be a first round pick. And he always looked very young and, you know, it seemed like he needed to develop more. And obviously, we remember Kelly saying that he wished he would have to come back to help him develop more.

I think he should have. And I think, you know, but now he's in Green Bay and, you know, he'll have the preseason and get the game going underneath of him. And I'm sure he's going to get, feel a lot less of the pressure on him having to be the guy in Cleveland go to Green Bay. And we've seen guys in that system like a Matt Flynn, like a Brett Huntley, that when they are surrounded by those genius offensive minds, they can make things like. I think being with Aaron Rogers, I help the kid. I really do. Like, I think that's a good trade for Green Bay. I really do. And John Dorsey dumped him.

He had to because he needed to get rid of the past. Absolutely. It's hard to bring that back into the locker room after what happened last season, going O for the entire time. Let's talk about a guy Sherman Williams. Yeah, this is the wrap up of the show here. The wrap up of the show. Do you know who Sherman Williams was? No, you were enlightening me.

The name sounds sorry. I thought you said Sherwin Williams at first. So this is the 1990s. draft. We're in Cleveland and we had gotten a phone call from the league office about we had the ninth pick overall in the draft and we were going to pick Kyle Brady or, you know, and Warren Sapp could have been there. And for some reason, the Jets who already had Johnny Mitchell, who was a good tight end from Nebraska at one time, was on their team. And then they picked Kyle Brady ahead of us. And people thought we panicked and went crazy. Well, the reason we didn't, which was complete lie. All those stories about what happens at a draft room is usually, so what happened was a fabrication.

Fabricate. We couldn't pick, I mean, Warren Sapp had some stuff that was being spread around them, not true at all. But it was on that draft day. So we traded down and we let the 49ers come all the way up to pick J.J. Stokes. And we ended up getting a first round pick the next year, which ended up being Ray Lewis. Okay, Belichick and I both got fired. It ended up being Ray Lewis. But we traded down. And we're sitting there in the bottom of the first round. And we thought we were deciding between Craig Powell and Curtis Martin. And we thought, well, you know, Curtis Martin was hurt quite a bit at Pitt, and his durability was real issue. And we felt like Dallas was going to pick him at the top of the second. And then we heard late that day that they were going to pick Williams, Sherman Williams, at the top of the second. So we made the decision, all right, we'll pick Powell here, and we'll get Martin later. And five picks before we're getting ready to pick Martin in the third round, because we didn't have a second that year, the Patriots pick him and we lose them. So every time I see Sherman Williams's name, I think about that unbelievably dumb decision we made to pick Powell over Curtis Martin.

Even though we had them graded right, we still made the wrong decision. And you just got to face the reality. So when I read today that the kid came out and he got his college degree, that kind of reminded me of a horrible day. That day I went home, I was, every clothes I had on, I told Miller, you burn everything I have. Burn it. I'm never wearing this again.

This is like the worst thing ever happened. Because we just couldn't get any rhythm. We wanted to pick Tamrick van over. We wanted Curtis Martin. We had like really a good draft plan. And we just couldn't execute it because we just didn't. that we just kind of misjudged where they were going to go. Yeah, and it's one of those things.

We should say congratulations to Sherman Williams, gets his Alabama degree after 14 years in prison and gets out and gets his degree. I will say, it reminds me of your Sixers a little bit, what you're talking about. You try to get a little too cute, right? Yeah, we get cute. Well, the Sixers, yeah. We traded an asset to get false. Did I mention that to you before in the podcast?

No, I just want to create some empathy, you know, some understanding between us and sixers. You all make mistakes in a draft. I mean, there's no doubt. And the thing you have to do is admit you make them, But the reality of it is is you can't make them twice. Yep. And so we did there on that day. And unfortunately, we had the right guy.

Scott O'Brien coached Curtis Martin at Pitt. We knew a lot about Curtis Martin. We went down to Texas and spent time with them down there. We were going to pick them. And then, you know, we just, and it wasn't a decision that we were, you know, we just thought the linebacker was going to go earlier. And we went on it, made a great trade, did a lot of really good things, except the execution wasn't very good.

And it comes down to the story. You've got to evaluate correctly. If you don't, all this process, if you're not evaluate, waiting right, even the process isn't going to get you there. Tate Fraser? Well, we are, we try our best to evaluate as best we can here on GM Street. Before we get out of here, I want to say, and give you some time to give your final NBA thoughts.

If you look at it right now, are we expecting to see the Cavaliers and LeBron James taking on the Golden State Warriors? Oh, I think there's no doubt about that. I think it's a great series. I wonder now if everybody, because it seems like all these series are going to end early, will they move up the finals? I believe so, yeah. The hardest thing for me is now that, you know, I go back to New Jersey at the

end of May, it's just staying awake for the finals. You know, because now you're on the East Coast time. That's the worst part. It's about the West Coast games or you're on the East Coast. It's the hardest thing. But look, I think LeBron has proven beyond a shadow. I mean, he's amazing. The guy's just really amazing what he's done with the team.

I find it very strange that it seems like every time LeBron James does something, we have to have the conversation of the validation to say that he is great. I think we all know LeBron James is great. Every single time he does anything, we have to have this same conversation. It's ridiculous. Like just like just get out of the guys back. Yeah, he's great. Come to Philly.

Please, LeBron. Come to Philly. This is the recruiting. I'm going to leave a sign in here. I'm leaving a sign in here. So when Bill comes back, he sees that we want LeBron back in Philly. That we need LeBron and Philly. Yeah, come on.

Will Chamberlain play there? You see these commercials here in L.A. where the guy's taking credit for putting the billboards up? Yeah, what is that about? It was a very bad billboard. Honestly, if I was LeBron James, I would see that and say, I am not going to come. Like, if you're going to do that, you have to tell everybody you're doing it? For people that don't know about this, there are signs that say L. L.A. Bron, LeBron,

LeBron, please come to L.A. And it's a lawyer and it's a lawyer. Yeah, it's a lawyer who's like an injury lawyer, injury settlement lawyer, like an ambulance chase lawyer type guy. Yeah, an ambulance chaser. Exactly. Like, if you're going to do that, you don't have to tell him. It's like tipping somebody. Like, do you have to tell people what you tip? Like, no, just leave a nice tip. Yeah. And you also, I mean, the people that are going to recruit LeBron James

and come down. It's going to be Magic Johnson or someone like that or maybe Bob Eiger, you know, someone with a lot more power than my man on the billboard but you know we talked about three billboards this is one billboard you never know what will happen this has been another edition of GM street part of the ringer podcast network i am tate fraser we'll be back in two weeks tay fraser and yeah we'll be back in two weeks uh that is the new rotation here for the summertime we know it's thanks for listening