The Ringer NFL Show - The Work-From-Home Draft, Tua Breakdowns, and Hosting a President With Mike Tannenbaum | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: April 16, 2020

On this special Thursday episode, Kevin is joined by former Jets and Dolphins executive and current ESPN analyst, Mike Tannenbaum, to talk about the NFL draft and how that could work in the era of working from home. They also discuss the possibilities for Tua Tagovailoa, as well as what the NFL may look like in the future. Hosts: Kevin Clark Guest: Mike Tannenbaum Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Today's episode of the Ringer NFL show on The Ringer Podcast Network is brought to you by World Central Kitchen. The relief team is working across America to safely distribute individually packaged 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 25,000. 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. Again, that's the ringer.com slash WCC. It's the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Got a really good Mike Tannenbaum, former Jets and Dolphins executive. A couple of news nuggets coming out today. The most important one being that the Washington Post reporting the NFL is contingency planning for games in empty or partially filled stadiums or for a shortened season, if possible. They're still hoping for a full season, still hoping for stadiums with fans.

I think this is interesting because it's a turnaround from last week and the weeks prior in which the NFL basically said we're full steam ahead with the normal season, with fans in the stands, whatever. It's a step in the right direction just to have as many options as possible. This is all so unknowable that having any concrete plan is a bad idea right now. You just need as many plans as possible. We do not talk about that with Mike Tanenbaum. We talk about the work from home process for some of these GMs.

We talk toa breakdowns. Tua is the talk of the NFL draft right now, and this was no different. And yeah, it was a great interview. So let's get right to it with Mike Tanenbaum. Okay, joined now by former NFL executive Mike Tanenbaum, current ESPN. analyst, Mike, thank you for joining us. I want to start with the big question, I guess, in this draft. Normally, we're talking about quarterbacks and prospects, and we're still going to talk about those things. But the big sort of X factor is how this draft plays out from a work from home

standpoint. We've seen a couple of setups with Dave Gettleman from his house and Tom Telesco, what that's going to look like. If you were to point to one thing and say, okay, this draft is going to be different because everyone's working from home. Where do you start, Mike? Yeah, two things really jumped out to me. It's great to be with you, Kevin. One, is it's going to be, I think the trade here will be pre-packaged. And what I mean by that is I certainly had done some of those. My most notable prepackaged trade was Dorel Revis, where the night before the draft, I actually called up Marty Herney,

who's still the general manager of the Panthers and say, hey, if there's somebody at pick number 14, we want to come up. Here's exactly what we can do. We're not going to try to get that pick for anything less. And if that player is there, we don't expect you to ask for more. So I think there'll be a lot of agreements and principle with other teams ahead of time because I think it's going to be really hard to try to get trades done in real time because if we're sitting there with the 10th pick,

it's hard to go up two spots and have those conversations. And at the same time, talk to teams out 11 and 12 and talk to them about moving back a couple spots. So I think we're going to see a lot of prepackaged trades to the extent we have trades. And then the other thing that I think when we look back in two to three years, will say that there were a lot of big school backup players drafted ahead of smaller school players that we just, we didn't have as much information on. When you were going back and delving into those small school players and maybe the diamonds

in the rough or whatever, what did you look for in the last month of the draft that gave you more information? Was that just talking to more coaches? Was that just looking at more film? Was that just trusting your scouts more? What was it that leads to small school guys being drafted that the last month of visits would have helped with. Yeah, I think the answer to that is yes for all those things.

But really, it's about getting to know them. You know, you take Darius-lettered, for example, two years ago, kind of under the radar and a great job by Chris Ballard to take him in the second round. And usually you're going to send your position coach to the school. USC is football acumen. You want to see mental toughness, you know, all the things you just enumerated. So it's a big part of the process. It's an important part of the process.

And I just think this year, Kevin, we're going to see people buy JJ stock, they're going to buy Amazon stock, they're going to buy Spotify stock, you know, really good companies and not try to hit a home run because you just don't have as much information. We encourage Spotify stock on this podcast. I want to ask you about the in-person meetings because I remember a story you told about 10 years ago now about drafting Dorel Revis. And it was about how you would ask the driver, Revis's driver to and from the airport, how we treated people. and the answer was he treated people well and that helped you in the evaluation. Is there any way to simulate that now knowing that so many prospects didn't visit teams

or any way over a phone call to just get to know these guys or is that going to be a missing part? And I also like if you can to revisit that review the story and what went into that. Yeah, who you are in life is how you treat people that can't help you. So the waiter or the waitress,

the bus driver, somebody driving you to the airport. And Dorell had an incredible visit with us at the Jets facility. and that really helped us give us comfort to trade up. So when you have more time and more money, those characteristics will come out at the professional level. So anything that you could discern, and you could do that a number of ways.

Obviously, when they come in, you want to ask them questions that will determine if they have a fixed mindset, a growth mindset, but you want to talk to people in their ecosystem, like the trainer, like the equipment guy. That's who you really are in life, is how you treat people that can help you. and if you treat those people well, that's a great sign.

If you were in the top 10 right now and you were looking for a quarterback because you've come out and said you do not think Tua should be taken in the top 10, would you reach for a Justin Herbert or would you try to trade back and try to get him or how would you approach that if you're a team like the Chargers or the dolphins and need a quarterback? Would you skip this year if you were running one of those teams? Yeah, I don't think there's anything part of like Justin Herbert that you're been. I've scouted him for a year and a half. I think he was going to be a really good player. To me, he checks all the boxes physically. He reminds me of Ben Rothlisberger. He can make all the throws. You look at the last two games against Utah and Wisconsin, he played exceptionally well. He was the MVP of the Senior Bowl. He threw really well at the combine. So someone's going to have to convince me,

what is he missing? So I think he has a chance to be really good. I think two of rings a huge amount of uncertainty because of his injury and the fact that the teams can't drill further down on it. If this was a normal year, you would want to see Tua be worked out in person and you'd want his medical records and your own team doctor looking at him, right? Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, Kevin, if this was the most important podcast in the history of your career and you knew that the people at Spotify and Bill Simmons were going to evaluate this one podcast for it to be transformative in your career, you would go through a process of being prepared and check. checking your notes and putting yourself

the best position possible to have the best podcast ever. And what we're saying to GMs right now is this could be the most important draft pick of your life. There's rigor in the process, but this one time on this critical player, on a critical injury, we're asking you not to go through any of those processes that are critically important.

And oh, by the way, make a consequential decision for your team and your career. And that's why I think a lot of people are misunderstanding the situation, which is it's really unfair. these teams and GMs to say, hey, well, go ahead and take Tua anyway because he should be okay. This is a really complicated injury that is very subjective, whether or not there's blood flow to the hip and to the socket, the ball in socket in the hip area. It's not a well-vascularized part of the body. And I think there's a real uncertainty among some of these themes.

Yeah, I mean, it's one of the most fascinating things. I remember in a draft and certainly since I've covering league in a decade and just how this changes everything. I want to ask about Joe Borough real quick because it's interesting to me that Andrew Luck became sort of the shining example of a sure thing. Everyone would always say every year, well, there's no Andrew Luck in this draft. And then obviously not even Andrew Luck became our idea of Andrew Luck. And I think that that really says a lot about quote unquote sure things in this league and especially quarterbacks now situational it can be. And that, you know, a GM or a bad offensive line can get a sure thing off track. But if you're looking of Joe Burrow, where does he rank

among quote unquote sure things in let's say the last decade? Is he the best prospect that you've seen in the last couple of years or is this more of maybe he's a, he's, you know, was just a great piece in the LSU offense that makes him look a little better than he is. Where would you rank him in let's say the last decade of quarterbacks, Mike?

Yeah, I think he's better than let's say Baker Mayfield or better than certainly Kyle Murray. The two big questions that give me some pause and I think he's going to be a good player is a urban myer the last time i checked really knows what a quarterback looks like and why could he not win the job and beat out j t barrett and join haskins and then b he had very pedestrian production at his first year at lSU so why why was that and if you're andrew luck if you're john

elway if you're dan merino the moment you walk onto campus you should be a great player and he wasn't so now with that said i think when i saw him in person against george I was really surprised what a good foot athlete he was just in terms of he can make plays with his feet against SEC speed. So that part of his game was better than I thought. So I think you're going to get a good football player at the end of the day. I don't know if you're going to get a great player at the end of the day. Yeah, I think it's interesting to me because I think Joe Burrow is an elite elite prospect, but sometimes it's really hard to separate a quarterback from the talent around him.

And I think that's a very, I think you should go number one overall and all that stuff. And I think he'll be a really good player. But man, that LSU team was stacked. You know, I think you have a really interesting story because you came into the league really cornering the salary cap and something you've talked about before where there weren't a whole lot of guys who wanted to show the salary cap back then. And there's a lot of really smart executives who got into the league like that. And I'm curious, you know, with sort of this off season, if you're young,

and if you're in the NFL right now, do you think there's any sort of entryway or edge you're going to get if you are a technological savant or you can understand this or you're in analytics and you might be able to make your case better? Do you think that there's going to be competitive edges for front offices if they understand technology better than any other team or they understand analytics better than any of their team because of just the crazy circumstances of this offseason?

You know, possibly, that's interesting. I think it's certainly from a communication standpoint, but whether or not like you embrace analytics or not, I think the teams that have, I would say, a great process, use that information year-round and making the decisions. More times than I can, they're going to have the ability to use that information to have better decision-making.

So when to trade up, went to trade back, how to allocate resources, is one to have the discipline to let a player leave. I think that manifests itself truly 12 months a year more so than, hey, just in this one event. And with that said, I think continuity will also help you know, Bill Belichick and Nick Casario

have been together for, you know, a thousand drafts. You know, that's going to help facilitate decision-making as compared to teams I've never worked together before. And I think that that's an advantage, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that would be an advantage for a lot of teams that not only have continuity in the draft process, but also on the field.

I mean, I think that the offseason is essentially going to be canceled, whether or not the training camp starts on time or not remains to be seen. But it seems to me that this would be an advantage for the Chiefs and the Ravens and teams that don't need a lot of work in the off season. Am I right there or will be a little more chaotic than we think? I totally agree. No, I think that's totally right. Hey, it's Bill Simmons.

I just wanted to make sure you were listening to podcasts on Spotify. Here's how you do it. First, search for your favorite podcasts on Spotify's app. They have a library of over 750,000 podcasts at this point. So let's say you're searching for the Bill Simmons podcast with the rewatchables or Dave Chang Show or binge mode of the ring or NFL show. Once you find them, click on the follow button. That's how you subscribe.

Then click on those letters near the top of the app that say podcasts. You can't miss it. All the podcasts you're following will pop up separated by episodes, downloads, and shows. Wait, it gets better. On Spotify, you can adjust the speed of the pods to seven different speeds. 0.5 times is the slowest. I actually sound drunk at 0.5.

Listen to this. Yeah, you can get drunk bill. You can also do 0.8 times, 1.2 times, which is my favorite. Everyone sounds like that. A good cup of coffee. You can do 1.5 times. You can do 2 times.

And if you're completely insane, you can do three times. Here's what that sounds like. Why would you do that? I think that's how we communicate with aliens. Anyway, Spotify's app, Connect. next directly to many of the best automobiles in the world. It even has a car plate feature. That's pretty cool.

It's really, really good. Best of all, it's free. Download Spotify on any device, and you are good to go. Look, I don't want to app shame you, but you should actually be embarrassed if you're not listening to a podcast on Spotify. And if you don't believe me, listen to Drunk Bill at 0.15 speed. Tell him, Drunk Bill. The Bill Simmons podcast.

Listen on Spotify. I want to talk about this game that was on the other night. The Jets Cowboys game that was re-air and everybody was talking about it. You were the GM obviously of the Jets back then. What are you rewatching right now as far as football goes? Or are you rewatching anything now that we're all just sitting around watching replays of games? Yeah, that's really funny that you mention it. President Bush was at that game and I remember having the distinct honor and privilege of meeting him.

And I also do that he was sitting with the team owner, Woody Johnson. And I said something to Rex along the lines of, you know, Rex, there's no pressure or anything. But if you win one game in the history of your career, let it be the night because we don't need, you know, our owner to host the president of the United States in a losing fashion. So no pressure, but you got to win this game. And I'll tell you, it was really funny. Just there was something funny about that game because it was one of those games where you get into your car that night. You're like, did we really win that game because we had no business money yet? And it was an epic game.

and really an epic sort of atmosphere of celebrating 9-11, the 10-year anniversary and everything that meant to that part of the country in particular. It was a really special night. Yeah, I remember watching vividly. Also, the other thing that people were talking about on Twitter was the shot after the punt return, the pump block, rather, was James Gandalfini.

The late great soprano's actor. And that's a lot of nostalgia for people as well. He was always around the Jets. I want to talk a little bit about running back value here because Christian McCaffrey gets the big contract. And I think that you can kind of spin yourself crazy by talking about whether or not a running back should be paid. Christian McCaffrey, obviously,

if any running back should be paid, it should be Christian McCaffrey. Where are you on this deal? I know that you like his production. Would you have paid him this much? Yeah, this is like a shameless plug for, if you go to my Twitter account and Instagram account, I just did a sort of like a 60-second vignette

on this running back market. So here's what interesting. If you look at Kristen McCaffrey as an offensive weapon, he was paid. It'll be a little more payout than we think. Fairly. However, if you look at the running back market, I'll give you, you know, three great examples of, you know, Todd Gurley, David Johnson, and Devante Freeman, who were three really good players that have already moved on from the teams that gave them big contracts.

And then you look at two players that are hitting pause right now, Kenyon Drake of Arizona, and Derek Henry of Tennessee, who's been franchised. transition. And then you have Sequin Barclay, who presumably will be at the high end of that market. When he gets his deal next year, it's really a fascinating situation. And then to put a bow on that conversation,

you have Rahim Moster and Damian Williams, who are the two starting running backs and the Super Bowl, who neither were drafted. So it's really a very topsy, every time in that running back market. Yeah, I mean, it's really fascinating because I don't, I mean, it's strange what has happened

Caroline in the last couple weeks where they make the trade with laws with the chargers and maybe it'll say they're taking a step back and then they signed Teddy Bridgewater and now they obviously give big money to Christian McCaffrey and I think it's interesting kind of what their path forward is. It will be very interesting. Is there a prospect we're not

talking about enough in this draft, Mike? Well, I think a guy that's been talked about, but I don't think that the liberal that maybe he deserves this well, there's two. One is Zach Ron from University of Wisconsin. He really reminds me of Teddy Bruce. He's a guy that was more of a defense alignment in college,

and I think he'll play standing up. And I think when you look at his measurable and his motor, I think he's going to be a really good player like Brucey was. But the other one to me, that's interesting, Kevin, is Isaiah Simmons, because we're talking about this new era of positionless offensive players. And I see Simmons as a guy, and I have no idea if he's related to your boss, Bill, or not, by the way. We'll check on that.

Yes. but what I am sure is he has incredible athleticism and I believe he'll be one of the few positionless defensive players and you can move him around quite a bit and he has the athleticism he has the tape, he has the measurables, I think he's going to be a great player.

How far can positionless football go? I mean, obviously you can never have Isaiah Simmons playing nose tackle or anything, but when you project this three, four years down the line, everyone's more athletic, how many Isaiah Simmons types if there were more than one, how many could you have on a field

and what are the limits to that going forward? I don't know. I speculated on this on TV as well. Let's take it a step further. You know, football could look like in five years. What happens if Jalen Hertz is in the same backfield as Lamar Jackson, where you have two guys that can run it,

two guys that can throw it. Imagine the pressure you can put on a defense. So I think the future of football is incredibly interesting and intriguing. And Coach Parcell has always had a great line, Kevin. He always said, just remember this. Pro football plays with the players that are put out on each and every Saturday. So the point is Jalen Hertz is going to be a really good pro player. We may just not know what it looks like quite yet. No, I'm going to agree with you. I mean, you look at even the Heisman package last year with the Ravens. I mean, teams have to start figuring out what the best use for their for their athletes is. And I think that that's only going to grow. And you get guys from the college game or you get a guy like Joe Brady coming from the, from the college. ranks just to call plays. I mean, I think there's going to be a lot more the future, whether or not it's positionless or not, it's going to be more creative. And I think that's the, the way

forward for every team. Because we love, right now, we're all in this nostalgic kick. Give us the top story that nobody knows about the Rex Ryan, Mike Tannenbaum Jets that were the highlight of the Jets for the past decade. Well, I mean, let's just start with the basics. Everything about Rex is true. you know, he could make you laugh, he can make you cry. It's all true. And he used to refer to us. I mean, you know, I'd walk in there. And, you know, I'm not exactly the best poker player in the world.

Like, he'd look at me like, oh, my God, Rex, what are you doing now? And he always used to say the same thing to me, Kevin. He's like, Mr. T, let's just get this straight. You and I were magic and logic. He goes, you know, I'm just a little bit crazy. I'm a little bit different. And the players see a lot of themselves in me. So I have a little bit of this magical touch around the players.

He's like, you're smart. You got a law degree. You work hard. You're logic. So just think of it this way. I'm screwed up. I'm magic. You're logic.

It works well together. Don't question it. And from that moment on, we were. Do you think if you could change anything about that run, obviously besides the two lost in the HGAMs game, you can't reverse those in this scenario. But is there one thing you would have done differently because you guys had that window? Boy, that's a great question. probably a million things, you know, just how close we were a couple of times.

But I would say, you know, the depth at the skilled players, you know, we were a little short there, a little thin. And I think I try to over index, you know, throughout the other parts of my career where I always want to make sure I had plenty of depth at the skill players. But I think the team was built fundamentally the right way. We had a really good offense line. I would say at one point a truly dominant offensive line. We had pressure players. We had corners that could cover. So we checked a lot of boxes.

and then obviously, you know, if Mark Sanchez played more consistently, that certainly could help. But, you know, his A game when it was on was really good. I mean, people want to minimize his accomplishments, but at the end of day, like, what he did is he beat Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Philip Rivers,

on the road in playoff games. Like, that's hard to do. So while his career was far up and perfect, and I'm not just indiscriminately defending it, he certainly has those quality wins on his resume. We have a lot of Jets fans, bosses. and the entire point of this podcast was to get Mark Sanchez vindicated for his career. So that's all we did there.

Two more. I thought it was Spotify stock. I thought that was the opportunity. No, no. Yeah, well, no. Spotify stock and Jets revisionism are the two things that we've cornered the market on here on the Ringg, NFL show. Are you watching anything or binging anything, TV shows, movies, and quarantine that you can

recommend to the folks? Yeah, you know, this is where I fall so woefully short. I am the least pop culture person that there is. And I will say I have a bunch of fantastic interns that we talk to football every day. And they keep me young. And last year when I started at ESPN, I heard a whole bunch of interns. And they talked about, hey, let's start a Slack channel. I'm like, man, that's a great idea.

And of course, like I got on the car, called my wife. I was like, what is Slack? You know, so they've done a lot of things to help lower my age between that and, you know, trying to raise a couple of teenagers here. But unfortunately, I'd be like the last person. You should be asking that question. I get it. All right.

Well, we'll ask you this as the last question. Best guess, where does Tua go? That's a great question. I'd say it's, if I had a bet a dollar, I would say the Chargers. I don't know that for sure. But I do think he'll still go on the top 10 despite the aforementioned concerns that we discussed. I think they need a quarterback. So if I had a better dollar, I would say he's a charge one.

all setting done. Right, Chanabob, thank you for joining us. Thank you.