The Ringer NFL Show - The Virtual Draft, Tua Rumors, McCaffrey’s New Deal, and the Demise of the XFL | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: April 14, 2020

Yahoo senior NFL reporter Charles Robinson joins the show to preview the first virtual NFL draft and discuss how teams are scouting prospects, the possibility of having no NFL offseason, Christian McCaffrey’s new four-year extension that averages $16 million per year, and how the lack of clarity on Tua Tagovailoa’s health maybe affect his draft position (2:00). Then, The Ringer’s Rodger Sherman calls in to talk about the XFL filing for bankruptcy (40:55). Host: Kevin Clark Guests: Charles Robinson and Rodger Sherman Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringaround NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. Their relief team is working across America to safely distribute individual package fresh meals and communities that need support. They're now serving tens of thousands of meals daily in some of our biggest cities like New York and L.A. And they're launching initiatives across America to deliver fresh hot meals to hospitals and clinics fighting on the front lines while keeping local restaurants in business as well. You can directly help the heroes and hospitals and clinics who are fighting for us, and you can help keep your local restaurants alive. Go to the ringer.com slash WCK to donate. Please, we're trying to raise $250,000, and if you have the means,

it's an unbelievably great and useful cause that helps our hospital heroes, emergency workers, and local restaurants. Please give whatever you can. The money goes directly to World Central Kitchen, and it's a charitable donation. Once again, that's the ringer.com slash WCK. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Two great guests today, Charles Robinson, senior NFL writer at Yahoo and Roger Sherman.

Charles will be talking about a whole lot of things. Tua rumors, offseason, Cam, James, pretty much everything you could think of, how the draft's going to play out and kind of what's going to happen with every NFL team working from home. Two slight notes. Number one, Christian McCaffrey signed his deal in the middle of recording with Charles. And so we react to that in real time. And second, we reference whether or not the guidelines for the virtual offseason will be struck. They were struck just after we recorded the podcast. So we kind of speculate on when that will be done.

It was done by the end of the recording of this podcast. So don't worry about that. Then we have Roger Sherman on the XFL. But first, Charles Robinson. All right, Charles Robinson, senior NFL writer. at Yahoo, host of the Yahoo NFL podcast. Charles, what has been different for you talking to GMs? Because I've talked to a bunch of GMs the last couple of weeks, and I've never had stranger conversations than I have in the last couple weeks because these guys are just, they're hanging out

home. They're seeing their families more than they ever have. It's a weird draft. What are those conversations been like for you? Yeah, I mean, it's been similar. I think probably the first time that it dawned on me that it was weird was I had a guy that I've known for a really long time. And we're talking, first off, the call was occurring like right in the middle of the day, which was a little weird. That doesn't normally happen with him. And then as we're talking, though, I hear his wife and kids in the background and never in my life have I ever. I think that was the first time on a call with a general manager where I could hear his wife and kids talking in the background. And I, oddly enough, because I know the psycho paranoia of a lot of these guys, I was like, should you

really be talking about this in front of your wife? It is amazing. The number one thing they all talk about is how strange you is to work from home because these guys take so much pride in being at the facility from 5 a.m. until 9 p.m. Now they're just eating lunch with their families and they feel so much less

football guyy. It's really funny. It's really funny to hear. I had a GM. They're so into Zoom and technology. Now, even Bill Belichick today was like, I'm learning how to use computers. And now they've learned Zoom. That's all they want to do.

I had a GM last Monday who was like, all right, well, I'll zoom me at 3 p.m. And then he's like, well, I'm not going to be my computer. Can I zoom me at 5? And I'm like, well, you know, we can just talk on the phone. And they were like, whoa, well, yeah, you're right. You're right. And it's like that's how we did things for, for, you know, decades before Zoom was invented in NFL facilities two weeks ago.

I want to ask you, Charles, you wrote a story that I thought was really interesting about how this offseason is going to go as far as the workout bonuses and all that stuff. And we'll get to that in a second. But how founded or how much should teams worry about how this draft is going to go from a technology standpoint? There was obviously the security things that John Harbaugh has talked about and a couple of other guys who have expressed that concern. On a scale of 1 to 10, how seamlessly can this go?

I think it's over. I personally, I'm what, a 2 or 3? I think it's overblown. Yeah, I mean, you know how these guys are. Like they, they, everything becomes a, you know, it's, it's like the Bay of Pigs every time there's one problem. Like, they're freaking out about it. And, you know, so I thought it was a little overblown. I did think it was funny, though, when the, what was the Boston FBI or whatever, put out the whole Zoom bombing, you know, memo.

And, and, uh, I was talking to one guy and his former franchise was still using Zoom. And he wherever, you know, where he is now, they're using Microsoft Teams. and he thought that was really funny. And he was like, you should write about all the teams. Now that it's like another reason for them to pick on each other because they're like, oh, you're so in the past if you're using Zoom versus Microsoft team. I'm like, what a stupid. Even now it's like the platform you use says something about your franchise.

Yeah, it's interesting because I think that I've talked to a bunch of decision makers and then kind of decision makers who are now in media. I've talked to, you know, pretty much as many people as I could, the last couple of weeks and everyone is pretty confident this is going to be fine. I think that there are three, there are three methods of communication to get the pick in. I think that's going to be fine. I think they'll figure out trades. Maybe you won't see as many kind of meaningless day three trades or something like that just because it might be a little harder to execute those sort of things. But I think that the fact that they have, obviously the tape, which is a huge percentage, even now with, with analytics and so many other factors and, you know, advanced.

interviewing techniques and all that stuff. Tape is still the biggest part of it, and they had a full college season. They had the combine. Most of these teams have met or talked to these players a handful of times. You have the All-Star games. And it's funny, I talked to a guy last week, and I'm actually writing a story about this for next week,

but the interactions, the most value get in the interactions when you have a guy in the building is how does he treat people? does he treat the driver well, you know, to and from the airport, that kind of stuff. That's the stuff they want to know. And they're strangely still getting that in a weird way, like on Zoom. You know, guys are late for Zoom calls or or they're, you know, they're hang up or whatever. I mean, it's not prospects who were going to be jerks at the facility are still jerks on Zoom calls. And so, and also, I'm also not even sure that you can even get much value from those personal

interactions, but that's what NFL teams want to see. Is there anything you think in talking to folks you know that it will be missing from this draft process because there were no pro days and then, you know, maybe the last couple of weeks of top 30 visits? When I talk to teams about like what are the things that maybe you miss, it's like you said, those guys aren't cognizant of the fact that when they're driven to the facility, the intern or the low level scouting assistant or whatever, then gets, you know, debriefed on what did he say in the car?

You know, how did he treat you? Things like that. I just thought, over the years, I've always heard these funny stories about things that guys do in the facility. And I feel like there are more now because of cell phones. I've heard so many freaking cell phone stories about guys on draft visits now. One of my favorite is like an elite level quarterback that was drafted like in the last five years, having a meeting with a quarterback's coach in an OC.

and the guy who was supposed to take him around, he delivers him to this meeting and then he starts getting text messages like after a half an hour, like, well, what's my next thing? Like, what's going on? Like all this stuff. And he's sitting there and he's thinking like,

damn, that was the shortest meeting that this guy was ever in. So he goes down to pick the kid up and he looks into the broom and the OC and the quarterbacks coach are like on the whiteboard and the kid is texting on the table like in the middle of the meeting.

So, you know, it's like things like. things like that. But I, you know, I've asked teams about this. Some are like it's, it's not that big of a deal. As you said, we've talked to these guys and really a lot of the backgrounding that ends up being extremely valuable to them as what they get on the campus. I, one thing that did happen that I thought was kind of interesting. I had a team hit me up, an executive, and he said, how the hell are the cowboys getting away with taking these Zoom calls? or their video conference meetings and they're plastering them up across their social media. You have seen that.

Yeah, like it's like a like a recruiting vehicle or like they basically like this guy said to me. He's like, when the hell did these become content for us? Like at what point did they begin? He's like, how are the cowboys? And he asked me, said, is the league, can you call the league and like ask the league? Like, is this allowed? Can they just take? And I said, look, I don't, I don't, other than the agents maybe objecting.

or the players objecting, I don't, I think the Cowboys just took it upon themselves to decide we're going to take snippets of these, you know, these draft meetings that we like and we're going to be able to put them up on the team website. That actually was interesting. That was the one thing that I think was sort of an outlier in this process that some people didn't expect. Between that and the report that NFL teams were concerned about Stephen and Jerry being in the same house for the draft and not, and not, and being able to be the two executives who were working together, I kind of feel like the Cowboys are living rent-free in the heads of other teams right now just by being themselves. They're winning.

They are winning the work from home by getting in the heads of other teams. I will say that the driver part is funny to me. Dorel Revis famously treated the taxi driver or the car service driver really well going to the Jets facility. And that is one of the reasons the Jets drafted him. So the all-important, how did you treat the car service guy metric, will not be fulfilled this. I have a good story, actually, for that, that I've never used. I've never, I've just completely stayed away from it. Yeah, I'll break out a good one for you.

So a few years ago, I won't name the team. It was an NFC East team. They brought in two kids at the same, from the same program. They brought in two kids. And they were both in the backseat of the car, and it was a scouting assistant that was driving them. And the scouting assistant, who eventually rose up the ranks later, he tells me the story. He's like, yeah, he's like, they were literally talking about this one time that they

committed a crime in college in a bag seat. And I'm like, are you serious? He said, yeah, you know, he said, you know, he told me what it was. It wasn't like, we're not talking about like capital murder here. But it was something that, that I thought, okay, they clearly, you didn't exist in their minds because it was something that he was like, it wasn't like they were whispering either. They're like talking about whether a third person was going to get them in trouble, like, during the draft process and the guy who was a kid at the time who was a scouting assistant is sitting and thinking like, I'm going to get you in trouble in like an hour. I'm going to tell everybody exactly what you're talking about. Yeah, that's my advice for all draft prospects going forward

is don't admit to crimes in the backseat and treat you drive away. Okay, so let's talk about what's going to happen in this office. So you wrote this piece last week. I found really interesting about essentially there's going to be no off season. Like that is the NFL, hasn't said there won't be June mini camps or whatever, but there won't be. There's just no way it's going to happen. I'm curious now, and you did some reporting on this, what happens if teams want to monitor, say, a Teddy Bridgewater, who has a bunch of money tied up in his contract to show up at OTAs and stuff? What does this offseason look like? How are they going to monitor players? How are they going to install playbooks, that sort of thing? All right. Well, so this was supposed to be figured out last week. And apparently, so when the NFL started dive into this, because the technology of NFL teams was so uneven, you know, some teams had platforms and analytics and, you know, were at the forefront of being able to, if they needed to look in on players, you know, things like that. And then there are other franchises where your general manager refers to the analytics team is like the computer folks. And there's, you know, some, some franchises that. that are lagging severely behind in the technology department.

So the NFL ran into this issue where they're trying to create something that's even, that everybody can use. It has to be a measurement that goes across the board, largely because the union is sitting there and going, well, hell, you're going to have some players who it's going to be easier for them to meet whatever the benchmarks are because the team has this infrastructure, whereas other players, it's going to be harder. So for that very reason, something that should have been hashed out last week has now bled into this week.

I think actually by the time this podcast is up, I think in the next 24 to 48 hours, there's going to be some kind of standardized measure that's passed by the league, agreed to by the union, and then set forth. What that's going to look like, I do not know. I mean, there's been talks about, you know, literally just setting up cameras and having like certain workout benchmarks where people can show up and be on tape working out. in their home or submitting workout videos with some kind of a time stamp on them. There's literally been talk about like heart monitoring equipment. I mean, just like ridiculous things. But I, to me, the craziest thing about it is just that you sit there and you go, you know, there are some NFL teams that just were not prepared for this.

And then the Bridgewater thing blows my mind because his contract was negotiated in the middle of the COVID era. Like this, everybody knew. We knew what was going on right now. And yet there was still an offseason workout benchmark put in there, which I thought, the reason why I thought it was interesting, because the union was pissed. Like the union told agents don't put in these free agent contracts, do not put workout benchmarks this off season.

You're going to run into all kinds of problems in terms of meeting those. If you have workout clauses, push them into 2021, but do not do them. this offseason and still some agents did it. Okay. So essentially the holdup now is getting all of the teams, because there are some teams who either don't want to spend the money or don't have the infrastructure or maybe have one and a half computer people or half a, you know, not even a full-time person, whatever.

Right, right. And the issue is you don't want a competitive advantage. Here's my problem. Everything becomes a competitive advantage in the NFL, like everything. And the teams that spend the most money and think about this the most, I'm not saying the Falcons are going to win 14 games this year, but you saw the report that Dan Quinn, or Dan Quinn said it,

that Dan Quinn is already, his coaches are practicing doing Zoom practices. You know, I mean, I'm not sure if all 32 teams are doing that, but they need to be doing that right now today. And it's just strange to me, and I understand why they're doing it,

but trying to legislate this and make it fair, that's going to last for about a week. And then the smart teams are going to figure out how to do this effectively. I mean, it almost, if players want to skirt certain teams' rules, they'll probably be able to if the team isn't on top of things. And so I think there's going to be a huge competitive advantage in September

with the teams to figure this out. Yeah, there's no doubt. Look, there's no league that functions on Darwinism better than the NFL, okay? because there's always like there I've never met a collection of men more willing to cheat, steal, and hide things more than the collection of men or teams in the in a professional sports league than the NFL. So I there's no doubt in my mind. I mean, Bill Belichick, he, I had someone in the franchise tell me about how every year when when sort of like the rule changes are finalized, Bill Belichick will ask for essentially the final. ironclad, here are the rules. And then also his media rules. He's like, what are the updated media rules? And he will go line by line through all of this and sit there and figure out, how can I manipulate this process? You know, what are what loopholes can I create? I don't think that's

just germane to Bill Belichick. I think that's across the board. But you're right. Absolutely. Technology, I, you know, it's how teams function now. And they've clearly figured out over the years, this is one place that we can spend, that there's no cap and obtain an edge. So they have. And so you're going to have some teams that don't spend in technology. You know, the Raiders up until this new facility weren't really known to spend in technology, the bangles. Those are the teams that steadily, I think, kind of fall off the pace or at least have the last few years. Yeah. I mean, and they're sort of proud of it in a weird way. Some of these teams, some of these GMs. And I remember there's a really good team and I was talking to a GM about their analytics and their facility last year and I said,

you know, what's up with your analytics staff? And he says, hey, you want to see the analytics staff? I'll show you the whole analytics staff. And I said, yeah, let's go. And he goes, you're looking at it. And he was just, you know, and that's, by the way, it's a good team, as I said. And they, they sometimes just take pride in their lack of innovation, I'd say, sometimes, sometimes. And that's going to start to show up. You know, it's interesting. You said that about, a bellichick i did a story a couple years ago about why the why the patriots are less penalized especially in big games and a lot of other teams and a lot of people cry conspiracy or whatever and and i understand the impulse to do that in every sport the dominant team you know there's always

these these fans who think that they're going to get the breaks or whatever um but i talked to a bunch of referees and they said they will go you know they do the training camp stuff for they meet with every single team and they'll go days at a time without any coaching staff asking a question or a GM asking a question or the, some coaching staff aren't paying attention when the referees are giving their thing. And Belichick will ask, you know, 50 questions. How is this going to be called? Where can you place your hands?

Show me where you can place your hands on this holding call, whatever, or this point of emphasis. I mean, no one exploits it like Belichick. And has he bent the rules and broken the rules? Absolutely. But he also goes out of his way to understand the rules. And so I think that it's, again, smart teams, whether that's the Patriots, whether that's the Ravens, whether that's, you know, the chiefs, they'll figure out how to run these practices effectively.

All right. Let's let, and by the way, who the hell knows it's going to go on a training camp? Because I, it is very much to be determined whether or not that still starts July 24th, 25th, 26th, and then what happens if you have a two-week training camp? Right. Yeah. I mean, I don't, I think everything is completely up in the air. And like you said, I think what's scary is that some NFL teams,

they confuse achievement as innovation. Like if we have success without analytics, we're smarter than everybody else because we didn't, you know, we didn't need this. Or if we have success because we have a shorter training camp and, and come out of the gate and we go 10 and 6, we're smarter than everybody else.

And that's not really, I don't think that's really how ultimately things work over the long term. But yeah, this entire offseason is just the lack of normalcy is, I think to me, this is going to expose more than ever the teams that are really good at pivoting quickly into small spaces and handling, you know, the crunch better than other teams versus ones that need the entire long rollout to get themselves on the right page.

I 100% agree with you. And also, there's just a tendency in this league to say, well, that's the way we've always done it or this is the way we did it five years ago. We're going to do it like that this year. And you are literally not going to be able to do that this year. There will be no OTAs. There will be a revitted training camp. You won't see these guys.

You are going to have to come up with a new plan because this has never happened before. There's never been a global pandemic since the NFL. These guys weren't around in 1918, okay? And so, in 1917, 1918. And so I think that there's, it's just going to be different. I do want to touch on one bit of news. I don't know if you saw this, Charles. While we were recording this, Christian McCaffrey signed a four-year extension,

averaging $16 million per year. We knew this was going to happen. Marty Herney signed some big contracts with running backs in the past. They weren't going to play hardball with them like some teams have with their running backs. I guess this is the broad question. What does Carolina's rebuild look like? Are they trying to win now? It seemed to me when they make, they make the trade with the chargers, maybe they're trying to take a step back. Then they sign Teddy Bridgewater. They lock in Christian McCaffrey for big money. What is the direction of this team? Well, I mean, they've taken the whole, the rebuild that we heard about going into the combine.

When I talked to teams, like, who are you going to talk to at the combine? There were a number of teams that believed it was going to be like tear it down to the studs rebuild. Like, hey, everybody's available. Yeah, hey, everybody's available other than a couple of guys. And it was interesting because I did not hear McCaffrey's name on that initial list. Like, hey, maybe you can even have this guy because they're not sure they want to pay him the monster contract, you know, at the running back position. Then coming out of the combine, it was, we don't know what they're doing. Like, we don't know because the meetings of Marty Herney didn't go the way that we thought they were going to go.

The availability of guys was not as aggressive as we thought. And so it went from this total rebuild to sort of a microwave rebuild sort of on the fly. To me, what this leads me to believe is that Matt Rule and Joe Brady probably have more of a hand in this than we thought. I think they are going in there and they do want to get things moving now. They don't want to do the, hey, let's tear it all down and just build it all up and hope that, you know, two years from now when 90% of the roster is flushed, we have it exactly where it needs to be. The only thing I can say about Carolina is I, David Tepper continues to be for other franchises. He continues to be one of the tougher owners to figure out because I think people thought, well, geez, he was so decisive on the business end. now he's moving into the football end and and they're going to cut ties with cam they're going to do

all these different things and he's going to be decisive about going completely in one direction and then what did he do he brought in these new wave guys from college but kept marty herney you know he cut cam newton but then he goes and gets teddy bridgewater he pay now they're paying christian mccan so it's like what what is this like you explain to me what is this this doesn't feel like the total rebuild it kind of feels like a mixed rebuild right yeah and that's that's why i'm a little bit confused on this. I think Matt Rule, and that rule is one of the best coaches in college. I think they're giving him the time and the resources.

I mean, that's a team that we know is going to spend money on getting some sort of edge in technology or whatever. I mean, you already talked about it with Bridgewater and kind of where they go on that. So I think it's interesting. I think that it's been a long time since a running back contract aged well. It just hasn't happened.

And teams are paying a lot of, money to get out from under those contracts. And so I don't know if this is the, if this is it, or this is going to be the one contract that bucks the trend. But I don't know, mixed signals in Carolina. I think they've got enough smart people to figure it out. But right now, I'm not totally sure what their 2020 or 2020 outlook looks like. All right. Let's let's get to the draft and what this draft is going to look like from a, from a personnel standpoint, just the picks. Is there anything? what is the best rumor that you can give us right now that would surprise people? Tuotanga Viloa slipping outside of the top 10 and maybe not really knowing.

And here's, so I'm actually working on something on this right now. So I did the runaround over the course of last week, and I called a lot of executives. And it was actually to ask them, and it's funny because Mike Floreo, pro football talk, I ended up writing about this, sort of what would a 2021 draft look like, without the 2020 season. But in the process of doing that, I got into the nuts and bolts conversations about some of the things in the draft.

And what I thought was interesting, I talked to several teams that are in the quarterback market in this draft. Now, to a varying degree, some looking at potentially a first round quarterback, others looking at maybe middle round developmental guys. And what I thought was interesting was there actually was a consensus about Tua.

And the consensus was that they felt like the hip thing was not anything that that was nailed down completely. Like, like, hey, this is still something that we're not going to have the medical that's really necessary to know that his hip is going to return to 100%. I had one team tell me you cannot get that until August. I had another team tell me you cannot get that until November. But every, all of them kind of fell in that nine to 12 month range about, you know, the blood flow and whether there could be osteonecrosis in.

in that hip. And I think what was interesting about that was when you get to talking to them about that, it's, hey, the draft is happening in April. If we can't have a full medical picture on him until August, how good are you going to feel if you're sitting there and, okay, we've talked about Miami at five. We've talked about the Los Angeles Chargers at six. Then you start to get into the teens and you have the Raiders and some other teams. If they're all sitting there and they don't have a full deck when it comes to making that kind of a decision. And you know you get hired and fired on quarterback decisions nowadays. That's a little bit of an iffy. I think it's a little bit of an iffy situation. And so what I took away from that was whoever takes him is going to,

it's going to be a little bit of a dice roll. And they're going to have to feel really good about what their team doctors are telling them. But I don't believe any team feels like they really do have the full absolute picture on him. And I think this idea that he's a slam dunk top five pick is wrong. So let's play this out a little bit. So obviously Joe Burrow goes number one. If Tua drops, does that mean Herbert rises and Jordan and Jordan Love? I don't know where you consider this, but are we looking at the possibility that Herbert would drop two and then he would be behind Tua? Or how does this play out as far as just the quarterback pecking order goes if Tua starts to drop because of the medicals? So I think that Miami, I think,

that the Los Angeles charges, I think they both like Justin Herbert. Okay. And now, you know, is the evaluation between Herbert and Tua close enough that, you know, it's sort of neck and neck. I mean, I can't say that without,

look, teams lie, you know, you never know. I feel like Miami really does like Justin Herbert a lot. I feel like the Los Angeles charges really do like Justin Herbert a lot. Yeah. And a lot of their beat reporters have been saying for months that Herbert might be more well liked inside those facilities than we think. Right, than we think. And so I think if, say, Herbert comes off the board at five to Miami, you know, I think if the charges are sitting there and, you know, the injury stuff that I've heard across the league is something that plays inside

that franchise, could I see the chargers, you know, rolling with Tyrod Taylor maybe taking a post-draft look at Cam Newton and saying, you know, we take a tackle. at six. We really like a tackle who's sitting here and think, you know, we've got our franchise guy on the left side for 10 years. Yeah, absolutely. I think that's possible. Look, I think the debate really is about if Herbert ends up going at five or six or wherever and then Tua gets, if Tua gets beyond six, what happens? That's the big question to me. If he makes it past six, where does he end up? How far could he slide? And at what point does he start to fall six, seven, eight or whatever, do the Jacksonville Jaguars at nine, then sit there and go, hey, we're blessed.

We got lucky. And this is a guy we have to take. So it's just to me, I am intrigued by Tua. I'm like this, I don't think there's any guarantee at all that what we thought was going to happen. This guy was going to go in the top five. I don't want to get into the workout tape that was distributed, the individual pro day workout tape. But I will say this.

There were thoughts. There were definitely thoughts by some. teams when they saw that footage. And I would say that in general, most individually recorded pro-day workouts are not very meaningful, no matter who it is. No, I agree with that. I will say the one argument against what we're saying here, and this is, you know, the medical concerns are still fairly large in some facilities. The one argument is that we have about 100 years of evidence that NFL teams just completely lose their minds when it comes to quarterbacks who might be elite.

And I just start to think if he drops, I think, and I get what you're saying. I'm just saying when you get to, you know, six, seven, eight, at some point there's an owner who just says, ah, we got to have them. Like, let's just do it. It doesn't matter if you have a quarterback or not. It doesn't matter if you're, you know, you just signed a guy, you do a hundred million dollar deal, whatever. Owners just lose their minds.

some GMs do too, some coaches do, some offensive coordinators. And I just feel like when that kind of talent is in the top 10 and he starts to go to the back half of the top 10, that rational decisions stop being made, even if you don't like the medicals. I think Tua's talent is amazing. And I think it'll be a little interesting to see how that works if teams aren't sold to the medicals. I do agree with you. I will say, though, about Tua, not everybody out there. There has been, you know, it's, I think overwhelmingly most people really like Tua. quite a bit, you know, the talent and everything. But even before we got into the hip stuff,

I mean, I heard a lot of people complain about trying to do the evaluation on it, on the tape, just because they're like, clean pocket, clean pocket, clean pocket. This wide receivers open by five yards. That wide receivers open by seven yards. Like, it's all these different things. And then guys who really like, say, Russell Wilson were just, they just absolutely had their nose out of joint that people kept saying to was so much like Russell Wilson. They're like, no, I had one guy who said to me, spent a lot of time evaluating Tua. He said, look at every single time he goes down. It's a train wreck.

He said, the kid does not. He said, it's the weirdest thing. And he said, I'd never say it publicly. But he said, every time the kid falls down, it looks like a train wreck to me, like a disaster. You know, he doesn't know how to fall, which is crazy to think about. But he's had a lot of injuries. So then you're kind of like, ooh, do you, like, is that part of the evaluation now, considering his injury history?

I think that it was Joel Embedd, who famously, fell really poorly, and so he had to learn how to fall. Seriously, I think that was a thing. Because in basketball, it's huge. You know, you have a ton of ankles. You have a ton of whatever. So he learned to effectively fall. So if that is a concern for Tua,

we can get him a falling coach. And we can get that all sorted out by September. I believe in Tua. I think it's, I have a hard time thinking he'll slip. I think the dolphins are a fascinating case if he gets there. And if Herbert's still on the board, I mean, the five, six thing is just really interesting to me, just in general, just two teams.

And, you know, the Chargers rolling, I guess, with Tyrod Taylor this year, if they don't get a quarterback, and Cam Newton and James. And that that brings us to our next thing because I think that the fact that there's a oversupply of quarterback is something that just hasn't happened in this league ever since I've been watching it. And the fact that Cam and James and even Andy Dalton, who's expendable, don't have starting spots, is really strong. strange to me. They're all in different categories. They all have different things to do in their career. If you were to pick homes for all three of those guys, where do you go? Can I, I mean, do they have to be backups? Can they be starters? No, they can take you there. They can be whatever. Right, right. I mean, I can tell you where I would put them where I think they should go. Like I actually, I have a pretty, yeah, I have a strong opinion on this. I think

to me, I think Cam Newton, I would want Cam Newton to go with someone who offensively is creative, you know, can probably mold things around a quarterback, likes to try different things. I like him with Sean Payton. And here's why. I think, number one, Drew Breeze is, I think this is it. I think Sean screwed up and he did say that, you know, this is Drew's. I think this is Drew's last year. And I think-

Well, this is signed a deal with NBC. Yeah, yeah. I mean, so this is, this is, yeah. That's usually a bad sign as far as longevity when you have a job for after your career is over. By the way, Kevin, how do we get our next job before we leave our current job? Like, is that possible to sign that? Yeah, exactly. Just sign a deal for whenever I'd like to leave my current job.

I get to go work for another industry, essentially. He's going into media whenever his career ends. I just found that extremely funny. Tom Konda needs to be a media agent for me next. Exactly. Exactly. But I let, you know, okay, so knowing that Drew's probably out the door, you know, Tayson Hill, the thing about Tayson Hill is he's not young, you know, I mean, he's approaching 30 quickly. And so I think if Cam Newton's got anything at all left, I would like to see him with a guy like a Sean Payton or Kyle Shanahan or whatever, someone who would bring him in as a backup and go, let's see if you got anything left.

So, yeah, that's kind of how I feel about Cam. James Winston, I've seen people bring up Pittsburgh before. I'd like to see him in Pittsburgh because I feel like there are certain aspects of that offense that suit him well. I think that he would be capable of being a guy who would go in, back up Ben Rathesberger, maybe learn some things from Ben in terms of cutting down on mistakes, being resilient in the face of criticism. I'm not going to champion Ben Rathesberger here. But I mean, he was a guy who went through a little bit of a meat grinder there. And I also think Mike Tomlin is a guy who figures out a way to connect with most players not named Antonio Brown.

And but also puts expectations on them that are very real that if they don't, you know, perform and get it right, they're going to be out pretty quickly. Whereas Bruce Ariens was just like, just, hey, man, just keep throwing it, keep throwing it. And then all of a sudden, Bruce Aaron is like, geez, man, this guy just keeps the interceptions. Right. And then with Andy Dalton, you know, that almost happened in Chicago. Like it was really close and had Nick Foles not ended up in Chicago, Andy Dalton would ended up in Chicago. I know people have painted the picture with Andy Dalton and the Patriots before.

It does make, it makes an element of sense to me because I think that offense, the way it was built around Tom, I think, you know, Andy Dalton could step in there and function reasonably well pretty quickly there. I haven't thought as much about Andy Dalton, you know, other than the one thing I think that is interesting about Andy Dalton, I think he could be the Sam Bradford guy, where it's like we get into a camp, somebody like Teddy Bridgewater suffers that horrific knee injury in Minnesota, and then all of a sudden they're scrambling and going, hey, we could be a playoff team.

We need a quarterback we know can function for us right away. So they flip a first round pick to the Eagles for Sam Bradford. I would not be surprised at the Bengals smartly, which is probably not really their style always, hanging on to Andy Dalton and seeing if maybe something develops closer to the season, whatever the season is. Yeah, I think that they're all, again, a different stage. I think Cam needs to go someplace where he can start by 2021 or even 2020.

He's a starter in this league. James just has to work on, you know, obviously Bruce Ariens' offense a little bit different. but I just feel like the interceptions and the stigma around it are such that he's got to go to some great offensive coach. It's a shame that a place like Kansas City is probably full. You know, as far as a backup quarterback market goes, New Orleans, not really any reason for him to go there right now with Payson Hill. He wouldn't be the heir apparent like a Cam Newton would be. So I think he should just go to some place and just have good practices for a year and then try to, to get another job next year. And then Andy,

you know, listen, Zach Taylor said this last week. He said, listen, this is such a strange offseason that there's a value to be had and having a guy like Andy Dalton is going to be able to tell Joe Burrow what to do. And, you know, that might be worth the third round pick you would get from. And I agree. You hold on to him. Maybe you get a first round pick, whatever. If somebody tears an ACL in August, this is the strangest offseason of any of our lifetimes. And so I think that I think maintaining flexibility is probably important. Charles, I'll get you out on this.

I went to University of Miami. I was mad at you for four years. How often do you hear about the, the Nevin Shapiro scandal from Miami fans, Charles? Still, at least a few times a year, which is surprising because we're almost 10 years removed from it at this point. So I would think that people have kind of... Well, can I tell you, well, the other thing is that it's so apparent

that the misfortune of Miami football was just going to happen anyway. like the scandal is just come and gone and Miami's just still mediocre. So I think for like three years who were like, man, if that story hadn't dropped, Miami would be riding high. And it's like, nah,

we were just going to be bad no matter what. It's fine. I'll give you this. I did, got to be very careful of exactly how I described. I had a run in with a player last summer who I assumed it was over. You know,

you get far enough away. I've come across other guys and it's been okay. You know, You kind of, you know, some former coaches, whatever. I mean, the story was correct. Yeah, I mean, I can just tell you this player was not pleased. And it was, it was a dicey, very, probably one of the dicier situations. Wow.

Which is saying something, going back to sort of what happened in the initial aftermath of it. Someone who was, who he held on to it. He has held onto it. And I'm pretty sure that he will hold on to it until he is no longer. walking the earth or I am no longer walking the earth, but I could tell you I was steering clear of him the rest of my life. I love it. Charles Robinson, awesome, awesome stuff. Thank you so much for coming on. Absolutely. Thanks for having, Kim. Before we move on, let's take a quick break. As the novel coronavirus pandemic escalates in the U.S., public health officials are encouraging those who are experiencing

signs or symptoms of COVID-19, such as coughing or fever, to seek medical guidance remotely. If you or a loved one are feeling sick or are just feeling worried, there is a way to get help without leaving home. Roe is offering free telehealth services for people seeking guidance and information on COVID-19. The service is available free of charge in all 50 states in Washington, D.C. Roe's free online assessment will help determine if you are at risk, and if appropriate, Roe will connect you with the medical provider for a free consultation. The assessment was designed by doctors and infectious disease experts and is based on guidelines from the CDC and the WHO. Visit row.co slash coronavirus on your phone or laptop to complete a free online assessment or just

learn more. If you're worried that you may be experiencing symptoms, go to row.com slash coronavirus to start your free assessment today. That's row.com slash coronavirus. Okay, now we're bringing Roger Sherman, our beloved, XFL correspondent. Roger, it's been less than a week. How you process in the news, the XFL, is not only shutting down, but declaring bankruptcy. And now apparently the name is for sale. Are you going to get in on that? How much are we talking here? There's only one way to find out. How are you processing the news that the league is no more? You know, at first I was hit hard by the AAF closing last year. Thought I would never recover from that. Life went on. The XFL

re-inspired me. It rejuvenated by belief that there is something good to come from having a second-tier football league, that there are benefits here, that they're exciting players, that they're exciting innovations to be had. And now it's just gone. And they didn't seemingly do anything wrong. It just happens that there's a pandemic that's making everything closed down. So it's kind of a bumer from that perspective, yeah. All right.

So you wrote a column as soon as the XFL shut down. just talking about how they did everything right. And as you said, they just got caught up in the pandemic. And there's about to be a probably a really bad financial time for a lot of people. And the XFL was wrapped up in that. What did the XFL do right?

And one of sort of my pet theories is that minor league football is a good thing for the NFL because they can steal ideas. So when we talk about what they did right, what can the NFL learn from the XFL experience and in general, what happened here that made football better? I mean, absolutely, when you say that the innovation from having another league there, I think, is critical. Because making changes in the NFL is a process that takes years.

They've been changing the kickoff bit by bit for what seems like a decade now. And it hasn't gotten more interesting or safer that you're just doing it less often. the XFL comes along and it has an entirely new way of doing the kickoff that's simultaneously safer. It has less high high velocity collisions and also had touchdowns sometimes, which doesn't really happen on NFL kickoffs. So the XFL kind of had this opportunity to innovate. They took, you know, big strides in not just the rule book, but also, you know, incorporating live sound from officials into the game so that you can hear what's going on with officials.

there's a little bit more transparency there. The NFL never in a million years will interview players on the sideline or broadcast their live sound during the game without editing it. I mean, the NFL went into a tizzy over the Sam Darnold seeing ghosts thing. And that was something they had time to edit, whereas the X-Fel was just like, let's let it all out there. And it was awesome. It was an enjoyable experience to watch.

It taught us about the game. And those things just don't happen in the NFL because there's no, need for innovate, they just kind of want to keep doing the same thing over and over again every year. And the XFL was fun to watch. They had a, like, what I liked about it was it had, you know, the lighthearted, you know, feel you'd expect from a secondary football league. They did a lot of dumb stuff. They interviewed players who had immediately failed 30 seconds earlier.

They celebrated the fact that people were getting hammered in the stands in a way that the NFL just probably for the best, But they also provided quality innovations that I think could make the game better. And now no one will push the NFL to do that. Because no one's going to have the funds to launch a league like this. I don't necessarily think that they won't push the NFL because the XFL closed down it for one year in the first time. And they were still able to steal the SkyCam and some sideline access and stuff like that. And I think that the NFL can just take the ideas. You don't necessarily need to be pushed from a competition.

standpoint. I think that, you know, Freddie Goodellie, the NBC producer, a legend, he has talked a lot about how many things the NFL is borrowed from the XFL from a broadcast standpoint, because that's what they had to sell the first time, was that access exactly what you're saying this time around where they're interviewing guys who would just throw an interception or whatever and you're getting raw emotion and it was just completely different from anything in the NFL. I think that as someone who went to the first ever XFL game in Orlando to see the Orlando Rage play quarterbacked by Jeff Brom. I was hoping that this was succeed.

I just think that there were, I just think that there were a couple of problems. Number one, this is my, I don't know, this is, are you okay? The Orlando Rage. So one of the problems I think happened and tell me if I'm wrong. They should have skipped away. week between the Super Bowl and the debut. I was not missing football when it debuted.

Yeah, you got to hit it in in April, you know? Or March, whatever. It was just like, it was the Super Bowl. And then I was like, wow, what a crazy Super Bowl. And then I slept for a couple days because I was tired after the Super Bowl. And then the XFL was on. Yeah, they, I think there are still questions about the demand. You know, it did seem like there were fans at these games.

But we still haven't gotten really to see what sort of demand there is for a football league like this because the AAF had funding issues right off the bat and just could not, the guy who bought the league did not want to lose any more money. But the XFL had the funding and seemingly Vince McMahon said he was going, he was willing to lose money on this at first to see if it could develop a fan base. You know, maybe a couple of years down the line you'd, you know, get more money in the TV deals. if you can actually turn out fans like that to the same. We're just not, we just didn't get to find out whether that experiment actually worked in reality because, you know, this major external factor that closed down the league halfway through the year.

Do you think there is demand for a spring football league? Do you think this could work in a couple of years when everything resets? It's, I'm not sure it can sustain itself like just off of, it's more of a thing that you watch because there's nothing else on. right now. But it feels like

you're talking about 95% of television products here. That's true. That's everything that exists. I've always thought... My wife and I watched something called Belgravia last night. It's the new Julian Fellow show.

I was paying like 10% attention to it. Like that's, come on. I'm not putting that on in a normal time. Was it better than the Orlando Rage? I would rather watch the Orlando Rage. The Belgravia? My wife probably

disagrees. Wow. I was not expecting anti-Belgravia podcast. London during the London during the Napoleonic Wars. I assumed it was about a fictional country called, but anyway, back to the point. Belgravia is the most expensive neighborhood in London. Oh, good to know.

So they just fired up a show about it. Go ahead. I suspect that in the long run, the thing that will need to happen for there to be a league like this, when you look at other successful minor leagues, I feel like the G League in the NBA has been a huge example. The support for it comes not necessarily from fans, but from teams willing to lose money on the developmental factor and the NBA being willing to lose money on experimenting with rules

and trying out officials and stuff like that. And the NFL just hasn't shown any interest since NFL Europe in trying something out like that. And I'm not sure the support, there's enough there for this support to be there to, you know, generate enough income for a league on its own. But I wonder if there's enough interest for there to be a football league combined with like a little bit of sponsorship from a billion dollar organization like the NFL,

like just a little bit of money to see this like existing thing. I think that's what it would have to be in the future. The XFL, because it had such deep pockets, was probably like the one shot to try something independent and see if it could in a few years exist and, you know, now we're just not going to have that. Yeah, I don't think the NFL is interested in funding anything that's not going to get them, if not immediate revenue than a profit than near immediate revenue and profit. So I think that the XFL was in a position to sort of float the money for a couple of years.

in normal circumstances and sort of see if there was an appetite for. And I think that we probably lost a fairly good shot at seeing if there's an appetite for spring football. If this had been funded for three years to see if there was an audience there or whatever. I do think that there is like this sort of urgent need for football innovation that we don't really like talk about on a day to day basis. A hundred percent. It's a sport that.

Well, also just like the scheme, the scheme stuff like the AFL and even the USFL. so many scheme things were first tried in professional football in those leagues and then were adapted from there to the NFL because people were seeing 27-year-olds run them. It was mostly kind of college stuff, whether that was the, you know, there were a couple defensive formations that, I think Hank Straham has talked about how many AFL formations

and defensive formations found their way to the NFL, wrote that about that couple years ago. And then, you know, no huddle up-tempo stuff. was hugely successful in the USFL. I mean, these are labs of innovation. A lot of it barred from college. Then NFL teams see pro teams run,

even if it's not an NFL team, then they can steal it. You know, it was interesting. I remember someone telling me during the AAF, trying to make sure I have my acronyms right, when the AAF existed, that they were told that NFL teams were really excited because you had to go for two.

or you were incentivized to go for two. Did you have to go for two in the AAF, Roger? I don't remember that. I pushed that league's funny rules out of my head to get the XFL rules in there. Yeah, to get in the new league's front. Yeah, yeah, I got to see, I remember pro coaches had told this person I was talking to that they were so excited to see just a bunch of Steve Sproyer's two-point conversions.

Because Steve Spurge is a really smart guy, and I was going to go for two a bunch, and the NFL teams can just steal that. And I think that's the kind of stuff. And then maybe NFL teams are more likely to go for two. That's the kind of stuff where you don't notice it maybe, but it is pushing the NFL in the right direction. But I also think it needs innovation from like, you know, football has this sort of existential thing moving over it with concussions and what's going to happen to people later in life. And if no one's thinking about ways to make the sport different, it's just going to keep going on.

But that's its own, that's its own complicated thing. Yeah, I'm not sure more football solves that specific problem. Yeah, that's okay. Backfired. Give me your highlights of the XFL season. It was the beer snake. You know, easy beer snake. It was the beer snake.

Did you see the like the beer steak that took up an entire section of the stands? I did see that. And that was after coronavirus that started to spread inside the United States. Yes, yes. That's true. And it wasn't so much that it was there because fans have consumed alcohol at sporting events. for at least 20 years that I know of. And it's just that, like, during the game,

the announcers in a one possession game of the fourth quarter spent, like, a lot of time talking about it. It was, like, more interesting than the game itself, which maybe is it a great sign for the XFL, but also just the fact that they were open to spending large swads of a competitive game discussing the very dumb things being done in the stand. ends. It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon that I, in these troubled times, I yearn for moments like that. What about on the field, Roger? Oh, I don't know what you're talking about.

The kickoffs were great. The first kickoff return for a touchdown, which was off of a trick play, off of the already unusual formation that they had. It was just like for me, It was this moment that showed that, you know, things can be different and still be interesting and unique and fun in their own ways. And that the league successfully tried out. Are you saying the XFL taught you was okay to be weird? Shut up. God damn it. Keep going.

My point is, you know, we can, it was such a, like, God, now I hate you so much. The XFL tried out the new kickoff, implemented it, and then you started to see the ways teams innovated off of that, the way teams tried out new things, and when someone ran a reverse off of the unusual play and it succeeded for a touchdown, I was going nuts. and I did not even care about any of the teams involved or for that matter really like the existence of the league I guess I'm still surviving over here now that there's no XFL but that moment it was just like so beautiful to see someone try something

different in this already different fields and it worked and it was like I just hope the NFL was watching who's going to end up being the best NFL player from the XFL is going to be PJ Walker or somebody else so PJ Walker is now competing for that second job with the Panthers. With Carolina, yeah. And he played for Matt Rule at Temple. So that's already like a great situation for him.

Like I wonder if he might have been signed, even if the XFL thing had it happened. I'm like still a huge Cardale Jones stand, but he ended up getting benched during the DC Defender season. So that's not working out. It really seems like PJ Walker was the best play. that they had and he's in a perfect situation to succeed and he's a backup right now because they signed Teddy Bridgewater too but he can just develop slowly and yeah it was it was nice to

see a player like that get actual playing time though that's not a thing that we really have a way of making happen right now yeah I mean like you had Tommy Maddox from the original XFL a couple of those guys he hate me had a had a nice little run there with uh did he put for the Eagles rod smart I feel like he was also a panther He played for the Eagles. He played for the Eagles first. He played for the Eagles first. Then he played four seasons for the Panthers.

And then the Raiders and then he ended up in the All-American Football League. Remember that one? He was more than just a nameplate. Do you remember when, do you remember what the AFL was? That was a legendarily bad idea. I believe it never actually had a game. It was where they were like all of the players who played college football in Texas. Yeah.

Yes. Yeah. And so like there was team Florida. But the problem with team like team Florida, I'm looking at the plans right now is it's like it's Chris Leak, but then it's also like Peter Warwick. And so like if you're like a Florida state fan, are you supposed to cheer for the gators alongside the Seminels? What about like? They had an Alabama team I feel like, which which had Auburn players on it. And UAB players. I'm looking at the Ross and Troy. There have been so many garbage football. I did. is over the past 20 years since the XFL. So many people have thought I'm going to be the one to revolutionize this untapped space for a football league underneath the NFL. And it's just so expensive and also a lot of the people who have tried it are very dumb. And Vidsvik Vand was one of those dumb people 20 years ago. And this time around there was so much more thought to it. They were so much smarter about it.

It was like it warmed my heart and then it died. Do you know what the best competition for football has been in my lifetime? What? The original arena football league. RIP. I think now none of the arena football leagues. I think they literally just folded. They kept splintering and consolidating.

They kept breaking up and then they would consolidate. There were like four teams left. Yeah. Well, no, it would go to like, it would be like four different leagues and then there would be some problem. and then they'd go back to one league and then they'd split again. All I just, all I want is Orlando Predators to win some more rings. That's all I need. Can I tell you a fun fact about the Arena Football League, which went defunct after the

2018 season? You, you are, you have a captive audience here. The final MVP of the Arena Football League is a quarterback named Tom Grady. You got to kidding me. I'm not making this up. He was a, you know that the, he was a backup for. Jason White at Oklahoma. You know that the huge president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame

was the longtime commissioner of the Rayne Football League, David Baker. Oh, yeah, and then I think it folded after he did something back. Yeah, I think I think that he over leveraged it or something. I don't know. This is the natural ABA situation. Yeah. Kind of, just from a financial mismanagement standpoint and not anything else with Isaiah Thomas.

All right. He's so huge. The Hall of Fame guy. Roger Sherman, thank you for joining us. Is the Hall of Fame going to fault? I say Roger Sherman, thank you for joining us. Okay, thank you to Charles and Roger for joining us. We'll be back later this week with more Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.