The Ringer NFL Show - What Will the Coaching Carousel Look Like?

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

Kevin is joined by Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson to discuss the upcoming coaching carousel as well as a potential Jim Harbaugh return, rookie QBs, and potential protocols for the Super Bowl.  Host: Kevin Clark  Guest: Charles Robinson  Associate Producer: Stefan Anderson Additional Production Supervision: Arjuna Ramgopal Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Derek Thompson, long-time writer with the Atlantic Magazine on tech, culture, and politics. There is a lot of noise out there, and my goal is to cut through the headlines, loud tweets, and hot takes in my new podcast, Plain English. I'll talk to some of the smartest people I know to give you clear viewpoints and memorable takeaways. Plain English starts November 16th. Listen for free on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. coaching carousel, Jim Harbaugh speculation, and the biggest surprises that are going to happen this month. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark, joined today by Charles Robinson of Yahoo.

Really interesting discussion on how the next couple weeks are going to unfold, what to expect, and then some talk about the NFC playoffs with Charles Packers, Cowboys, Where It Goes from Here, Steelers, quarterback talk. Really fascinating. Let's get to it. All right. Charles Robinson, senior writer. for Yahoo. Charles, the last time we saw each other was in Cleveland.

We were so enthralled with the Browns hype. We were talking to Stefanski and Andrew Barry and Baker and we're thinking, man, this team's gonna be pretty good. Didn't happen, Charles.

Did not happen. Not even close. I should have known when I sat down with Kevin Stefanski and had a, you know, I was a real positive, had a good,

positive feeling about what I had seen. And I think I asked something about Juice, Jarvis Landry. and he was like, yeah, he can't run anymore. And I was like, what? I'm like, you can't, it can't be like the thing, you know, he, you know, and I laughed and I was clearly stunned and he was like, no, no, no, you know, like, let me reframe that.

What I'm saying is, you know, we're getting to the stage where people in the offense are going to have to take on more responsibility. Obviously, he's still, you know, it just felt like, I was like, okay, there's, I'm already, I have to recalculate what I'm thinking about this team already. I'm surprised, though, that the Baker situation has devolved so quickly, and the two camps have kind of formed inside the organization. The, hey, it's all injuries camp, and the, I don't know, he's doing some stuff that doesn't have anything to do with injuries camp.

I'll say this. I think Andrew Barry is the top 10 GM. We need more of a sample size before I put him in the top five. I think Kevin Spansky is a really, really, really good coach. and so part of it and part of the reason I was enthralled with the Brown side

for the season I picked them to think to make the wild card but I think that they have the foundation there where they're going to be able to solve this problem if you were

if you were kind of handicapping all of the teams are quote unquote going through a problem season like the Browns are in position to go forward better than anybody

because they have the best coach in GM of anybody they just got some bad luck this year the COVID game against the Raiders is crazy so I'm not

I'm actually still kind of pro-Browns coming out of the season, even though it's been quite a disaster. So it'll be interesting. All right. So I want to go through the coaching carousel with you, Charles, and then getting into some big picture NFL topics. I want to start with the Bruce Feldman report on Tuesday that Jim Harbaugh might be tempted to go to the NFL. So we hear a lot of BS rumors all the time. You just somebody's text, hey, I heard this.

And a couple months ago, I had, as right after Gruden was fired, someone was like, man, Harbaugh might want that job. Right. And I thought part of that was, I thought it was Harbaugh coming off of last year. They made him give some money back. You know, there were rumors that he was in a hot seat or whatever. And none of that came to fruition. But it seemed to me like it was an exit strategy for Harbaugh at that point.

This was October. This was before Michigan revealed themselves to be the best Big Ten team. And once Michigan became really good, and I thought, okay, well, there's a reason he went to Michigan. He likes being in Michigan. He liked being settled. He didn't like the chaos of the NFL life. That was something that we heard about it when he exited San Francisco. It was basically this was a family decision.

So once that happened, I was like, okay, well, I guess you can rule out the NFL. But Bruce Feldman is as sourced up as anybody. He's not going to put this out there unless there's significant interests in both sides. You thought what when you heard that report? I believe it 100%. It does not. It doesn't surprise me. And the one thing I will say about Harbaugh, even detractors, Jim Harbaugh,

detractors, people say, hey, he wears out the carpet in the building. Like, you know, there's a turn style in terms of, you know, people who can handle the Jim Harbaugh experience. It's only a few years before you get burned out, whatever. Those same people will tell you, he's a great coach. He's very much an NFL geared type of coach. Like he's, even though he comes off as odd to the media, he is a good leader in that locker room. And someone said to me, he and John Harbaugh are actually really close. It's just John, how to put on the public-facing mask. He's like, Jim doesn't.

He said, hey, man, behind closed doors is the same guy. He's like, John's a maniac too. And he said, he just presents better publicly. And I think probably the most recent conversation I had had prior to what Bruce Feldman reported about Jim, I was talking to someone who used to be on the 49er staff a while back. We were talking about Trent Balke and just sort of how everything unraveled. Oh, we're going to get to that.

Jags fans, we will get to that. to that. So, you know, Jim comes up and he actually said to me, he said, look, I think he has the end game from eventually, by the, you know, when his career is all done, he will make a reappearance in the NFL. And I asked why. And I took this that he was talking directly to Jim about it. And he sort of suggested that there was a lot more heavy lifting in college than Jim might have expected in terms of, right. A lot of staff turnover. It's like he's constantly replacing, you know, different coaches who are coming and going, coordinators, offensive, defensive,

then the recruiting on top of it, then the transfer portal opened. And he told me he thinks the transfer portal is one of those things that for coaches with NFL experience who were in college, they were like, wait a minute, this is a huge disruption along with NIL that we did not expect to have to deal with five years ago when we started doing this. You know, or 10 years ago when we started to entertain going back to college.

and it's sort of like, okay, we've taken a job and added 40% more effort to it, 40% more management to it, and some of these NFL coaches, like, you know, some of these coaches who have NFL experience, whether it's at the assistant rank or coordinators or whatever, are kind of like, I'd rather just go back to NFL, make more money, you know, coaching a position group, and get back onto that circuit. Yeah, I mean, the college thing is interesting because it's, there's two fronts now. You have to do the NIL thing, but then you also have the transfer portal. And I think that the NFL folks, I think Mel Tucker is probably the guidepost here if you're looking to be an NFL.

If you're a coordinator right now and you want to go to the NFL level. Sure. Excuse me. Go to the college level. It's you take a DC job or an OC job somewhere. You get a head job. You can use the transfer portal. Use your evaluation skills. Coach these guys up and get a big contract. That was the thing that I had heard a couple months ago and people were saying, well, you know, maybe now that the new thing is mega contracts in college, maybe some of these C-list NFL candidates who are not really going to get a look for a serious job.

Maybe they try to go to the college ranks to try to go to the Sabin School of Rehabilitation that all those guys are in. So it'll be interesting to see the kind of push and pull over the next five years on whether or not NFL guys want to go to college, whether or not college guys want to go to the NFL, and just what the future of that is. Speaking of, the report came out this week that maybe Bill O'Brien is a candidate in Jacksonville. and that is a that is downriver from the other report which is that Trent Balky appears to be staying in Jackson there's been a fan revolt

I don't know where this stands I don't know where it's going to stand but I was shocked when I saw that that Balky's going to be retained there were people in San Francisco writers who said as soon as the Urban Meyer thing dropped long before he was fired they said watch Balky's going to survive all of this that turned out to be true yep where does this stand right now in Jackson

We'll start with the Balki part of it. I think that Balki is, it's the Jed York experience again. I think, I hate to put it in these terms, but there are some general managers who are very representative and have wide open ears for the owners when it comes to the coaching staff, what's going on inside the team. There are some general managers who want to be a little more walled off from ownership, want to be like, hey, delegate it to me, let me do my job and kind of leave me alone. From what I understand, you know, Trent's not that guy. Like he's open to the owner being like, hey, I need to know why this was done, why that was done, what coach isn't cutting it. You know, not not, I don't want to say he's a, he's bugging the room, but he's kind of bugging the room. And so I think for him to go in with the whole Morone thing, unraveling, stick around, you know, with urban.

And then the urban thing to unravel and him once again survive and now be a part of the process going forward. forward, it's suggestive of what people thought about the worst nature of the situation, that Trent is kind of repeating some of the things that were going on with Jed York and Jim Harbaugh back in, you know, in San Francisco. And by the way, Chip Kelly and Jim Thompson, all that mess, just feels very familiar. So I think the one thing I'll say about the Jacksonville job is when you talk to candidates, okay, out there, very few who have options want to even entertain what's going on in Jacksonville, partially because of ownership,

very much so because of Trent Balke. And now I think there's even sort of an element of like Trevor Lawrence where it's like, man, okay, we've gotten a little bit of a look at them. And there are some things we are seeing with Trevor Lawrence on this level that are a little more concerning than maybe we realize. I thought it was a great job. And even when Urban left, I was like, this is going to be a huge job. but I think Trent bulky staying around

and then continuing to sort of see the runway on Trevor Lawrence and then also with what's going on with ownership, it feels a little more like a sinkhole again than it used to. And now, as you said, the fans are all showing up in clown outfits to revolt against this operation. Not great. If you're high-level can, a lot of options, probably not a place you want to be. Hmm.

Let's go on the Lawrence thread here for a second. And how much skepticism is there around the league? And even just looking at those rookie quarterbacks right now, a lot of issues, I think, in a lot of different places. And I think some people are pinning that on coaching in some situations. Some of them are saying, okay, this guy just can't play. Not Lawrence. No one's making those sort of declarations about Lawrence.

But what is the level of skepticism within the league about Lawrence? So I literally just had a conversation a couple of days ago with high-level executive in the AFC. They've faced Lawrence a couple of times this season. obviously inside the division. And I said, you know, what's going on there? And he told me, he said, look, when you look at him, he's holding the ball too long. It's like he's slow on everything, particularly when you get in the red zone, you start to look at the film. He's just taking a beat too long.

He said he feels like he's seeing some things that were similar with Darnold in New York in that there are times where Trevor Lawrence is moving around or taking off or doing certain things he doesn't have to do, just have trust. Like, you know, but he also said, look, he's, he's, he's constantly dodging

bullets with the offensive line. Line's not great. It's like, so it's hard to make a straight up evaluation. He said, but clearly, you know, he's like,

you see bad habits there, mechanically, decision-making-wise, that he wasn't making before because he was surrounded by so much talent. There was so much success. Everything was always kind of,

you know, moving in his favor at Clemson. And you can't understand and maybe some of the negative growth that's going to occur once the adversity hits and all the guys around him are failing him, is he going to be able to either raise the level of play? Is he going to be able overcome that? He has.

And, you know, so this guy just basically said, look, there's, he didn't want to compare him to Darnold, you know, as a one for one, but he said, you know, you start to see some similar things where a guy's not trusting himself. And he's, and it always looks like he's, expecting the worst thing to happen in any given snap, and you don't know how that's going to have, you know, what kind of long-term ramifications that's going to happen. It clearly did with Donald.

It has, I think he's unraveled a bit, obviously, on the NFL level, more so than what people thought he would. That to me, if I'm running Jacksonville right now, that to me is the scariest thing. Yeah. Because we've seen this so many times. And let's take the, what we've seen out of Lawrence,

just in general, let's just even put that aside. Let's call this year it to a wash. Sure. But we've seen what happens. an organization fails a young quarterback, and it's real bad. And if I'm a, to have a top overall pick, and they'll probably have high picks next couple of years, you should not be worried about anything other than developing that guy. And you should go out and try to get Josh McDaniels, some quarterback guru and say,

hey man, who do you want the GM to be? How do we solve this? I don't think, I just, it starts to upset me a little bit when you get one of the, the most important resources in the sport, which is a young quarterback on a rookie contract, who's played at a really high level in college, and you don't do everything to maximize him. And doubly so if you start to see these worrying signs that you're talking about, where there's flashes, but there's some struggles. It just, it makes me upset. You know, I, you don't want to say that Lawrence is on a bad path after one year, but when you combine what

you just said with the way the Jacksonville is acting around him, and I'm starting to get real, real worry. So it's just, I don't know. I don't know. I don't like it. Speaking of rookie quarterbacks,

compare that to the evaluation around the league of Justin Fields and where the bears go from here. It's interesting with Fields because I feel like the camps, the love or hate him kind of camps that existed when he went into the draft are still there.

It's still the same people who are like, you know, does a lot of great things, athletically, but again, people question, like, arm-wise, are you taking a quarterback that's going to be, you know, running, exposing himself a lot, or is he going to develop into, you know, a guy that augments it where it's only part of his game, sort of like, like Kyler, for example.

I think it was like, hey, look, Kyler has shown he can be a guy doesn't have to constantly run around to do things, but that definitely is a big part of his game that, that, you know, has sort of developed well, undercliff was there obviously before, but it has adapted well to the NFL level. So it's like, is he going to be a Kyler type where it's a really good part of his game,

or is it going to be, let's say like Lamar Jackson. Now, obviously, a lot of people will take Lamar Jackson in any given moment, but the reality is a lot of Lamar's game is moving around, evading, doing things that are really special, but also things that are really dangerous. And you start to weigh all the availability.

I just think the biggest thing is, like you said with Jacksonville, this is your asset in Chicago. So whoever you bring in, it's, and this is, we're not, you know, this is basically a constitutional amendment that's existed

since the foundation of the NFL. Pair whoever you have coming in with that guy and grow up. And like over the last probably 10 days when I've started to shape up head coaching list, it's, it's so heavily tilted toward offense now. I think teams just sort of think that way anyway. I like okay I'm sitting here looking right now at the list of all the names that that have come up in conversations the last 10 days and there's one two three four give it give it to us give it to us eight nine ten eleven offensive names six defensive okay and and the one thing though that I think is interesting and it even plays with the bears you're seeing and I think this is partially because of the Mike McCarthy experience I think it's partially because of the Mike McCarthy experience I think it's partially because of the because of some of what Ron Rivera has brought to an absolutely abysmal Washington situation.

You are hearing more retread names, for lack of a better term. I'm hearing a lot more veteran coaches who had NFL experience names and aren't just Jim Harbaugh. Okay, so you have Doug Peterson, we've heard. Okay, Josh McDaniels, I know people forget that he was a head coach. But I do think some people put the Denver experience in a win column for him because it went so badly. He does have something to look back on and reflect on the mistakes. Jim Caldwell is one that we're hearing a lot. Defensively, you know, Dan Quinn, Todd Bowles.

But the reason why I think these are actually serious candidates is because you have some owners who are starting to look at what Dallas did with Mike McCarthy and how badly it looked like that was going to start last year. they made the right change with a defensive coordinator, they've been healthier. And I think you have some owners who are going, hmm, you know, no, Mike actually, there was a reason why Mike won a Super Bowl. There was a reason why, you know, he had a very successful career in Green Bay for a long time.

Maybe we should start to look back at some of these people who we know have proven it at least at some point from a head coaching standpoint on the NFL level. I would tell people don't discount. You said Bill O'Brien. That's another one. Yep. So I think, I don't want to say we're getting out of the hot assistant era.

Did you talk to Sean McVeigh at any point in your entire life era? We're not completely out of that, but. Well, strangely, that era kind of worked. It did. I think it's definitely worked. I know it's, you know, there's kind of room for interpretation on how, good some of these guys are, but Zach Taylor is going to be in the playoffs this year. They just won the division.

Cliff Kingsbury is going to be in the playoffs. I would guess that part of that is just the offense and part of that is, you know, dynamic young coaches can work now. They also have quarterbacks. I mean, like it's it sure helps. Like, Zach Taylor having Joe Burrow has sure really

helped him. You know, like having a really good quarterback. I've noticed. Yeah. So it's, you know, it's I think people don't have to read too deeply into it. have to have the right quarterback. It can't just be the genius. I mean, look, Sean was the genius, but remember, you went through the Jared Gough experience where, you know, he got everything he could out of golf, but then you had to disrupt the entire franchise to try and swap that piece out.

And same with Kyle, you know, Shanahan. It's like, oh, he's this guru. He's done all these things with these different quarterbacks. But as soon as he was kind of out on Jimmy and Jimmy was having injuries on, you know, it's never quite reached that level. So. So it's not all about coaches. All these coaches we love that have success, a lot of it has to do, obviously, with the quarterback. Is there a name that makes sense in your mind for Chicago? You know, I think Nathaniel Hackett in Green Bay

is sort of an under-the-radar name that he has a ton of experience. He's not nearly as old. I think he's been around long enough that, you know, some people are like, you know, He's 42 years old, but he has a time. I mean, this guy was getting experience at a coordinator level in his mid-30s. The thing that I think is intriguing about him is Aaron Rogers really, really, really likes him. He believes in a big believer in Nathaniel Hackett.

And Rogers is, you know how it is. He's not the easiest, you know, a player to, you know, manage or listen to. I mean, he brings a lot to the table. He has a lot of expectations. He does augment the offense, and it has been a two-way street, though, with Nathaniel Hackett. And I think the consistency that he's brought there, his ability to work with Aaron, the fact that Aaron buys into him is a pretty big deal for Nathaniel Hackett. And so he is a name that maybe I did not expect when you start making these calls who starts to come up a little more consistently. Helps that Rogers play in the MVP level two straight years.

but I think quietly he's he's maybe that name that that you know isn't going to be just the typical Brian Dayball every year you know right you know we've got a cast of you know Eric B. enemy every year gets talked about he's sort of the new guy to the party yeah I mean Hackett I talked to him when he was in Jacksonville and he was I think it was when he was the quarterbacks coach for Blake Bortals he may have been the coordinator at that point and listen that is a thankless job being being quarterbacks coach and then OC for Blake Bordals. So he did the best he could. Then he was gifted Aaron Rogers and he's done as well as he possibly could.

So I think that's an interesting name. Obviously he's got the pedigree. There was some talk this week about nepotism in the NFL. He said he is the son of Paul Hackett. But I also think that he is just in my interaction with him. He's far more impressive than a lot of the candidates have been thrown out as sort of, hey, this guy's a hot up-and-coming assistant. I really do think he has.

the personality for it. He understands a game, so I'm intrigued by it. Is there a surprise opening you think that's on the table? That's a really good question. Let me look at my list again. Let's see if there was anybody on there. Look at you throwing me the curveball that I should have been prepared for because, hey, we're going to talk about coaching openings.

There's actually to be a coach, by the way. Could be a GM. Could be anything. Anything that needs to be on our radar. I guess it depends on what you know what do you really consider to be a surprise you know if Denver opens is that really a surprise I mean I mean it's almost an answer I was actually I was texting with someone yesterday

but the Denver just Denver what's going on with them and and they were like oh yeah I think you're probably going to make a change I'm like no one's even talked about big fan you in like two months we talked about Matt Nagy every single day for the last three months and no one's even mentioned that Vic Vanjio's on his way getting fired. I'm sorry, I interrupted you. What were you going to say? You know, here's the thing. Maybe it's not a surprise to other people. It's a little bit of surprise to me that Matt Ruhle and Carolina is really after two years. And clearly the quarterback situation not being resolved. Here's the thing about Carolina.

It is a really, it is a good job from a talent standpoint. There's a ton of talent on it. It is. I mean, they were very much loaded. I think it's a, it is a, it is a, Matt, I know Matt and ownership, they've discussed, they've talked, and I think Matt has gotten the confidence ownership that you are definitely coming back for year three. I don't know that everybody in the building believes that, okay? And I think because David Tepper has definitely revealed himself as someone who's

very involved, very aggressive, constantly going to push this. So I think, to me, it would be a surprise that if Matt, you know, Matt gets lopped off after two years and a seven years. year deal. Particularly when I do think that is one of the few teams where if you just make the right change at quarterback, which isn't going to be easy because you already kicked in the fifth year option money for Sam Darnold. But if you make the right decision or you are the winner of this offseason's quarterback

derby, even though there might not be a lot of options, that is a team that I think could swing on a dime or turn on a dime pretty quickly. It's just I don't know how financially they could go get a Deshaun Watson and pay that money and somehow offload Darnold or eat the Darnold's salary or whatever, or Russell Wilson or whoever else they want to pursue. I just think having a good, even a

if you had a top 12, 13, 14 quarterback there with some consistency, I think that that's a team that is probably a playoff team next year. What's the vibe around the league on TEPA as an owner? Because it's interesting to me, in reading Seth Bickersham's

Patriots book, there was a really interesting part there where Jimmy Johnson had told in years ago that if you just get out of the way, 20 of 30 NFL teams are going to screw it up, right? So just don't even do anything and they'll eliminate themselves. And I thought about that in the context of ownership because

someone told me this when I first started covering the NFL, I've never forgotten it, but there's really only five or six teams in a given year who are actually trying to win, who are going and spending and maximizing it, and that changes. You know, if you have a young quarterback

who got hot, you know, your timetable accelerates. It's not the same teams every year, but there's really only a handful of teams. And then it's funny because Kyle Shanahan was on flying coach over the summer. And he said that he learned that the number is probably even less. It's even less than, you know, it might be four or five, whatever it is. I forget the exact number he threw out there. But when I think of ownership, I think there's really three categories. There's the owners who know how to win and commit the resources to winning. There's the ownership where they're not really that interested in winning. I mean, in some cases, there are some owners who they'd like a Super Bowl,

but they're not going to go out of their way to win a Super Bowl. They're good taking the checks. They're good being stewards and not embarrassing themselves, but they're not going to go crazy trying to win a Super Bowl. There's some fan bases. They're not going to want to hear that, but it's true. Okay. And then there's a third category, which is small,

and it's normally owners in their first decade, where they want to commit the resources. They understand how to do it, but they don't know what winning looks like. And I kind of feel like that might be the category that Tepper's in right now, where he knows he wants to be patient. He wants to give a coach or a GM all of the resources they need.

He just doesn't know what the foundation should look like. Am I wrong on that? No, I think that's an absolutely great assessment. And I think what I might have overvalued when he ended up becoming an owner of the Panthers was I was like, okay, well, he's had, you know, it was part of a Pittsburgh operation,

but he was never under the hood, like in Pittsburgh. Like that's what I discounted was that. I think I assumed there's a lot of Pittsburgh minority arms. Yeah, and you know, he's only running like one of the most successful hedge funds in history of like Wall Street. So maybe he's a little busy. He can't, you know, study exactly what's going right

in Pittsburgh on a consistent basis. No, I think he's an extremely aggressive, first-time owner who wants to dominate. And I truly believe this. I think he wants to dominate the job. I think he wants to be the best owner in football. I think he wants to be like Robert Kraft with 20 years or he wants to be a Rooney. He wants to have just decades and decades of, you know, state of the art thinking.

Okay. And I think what has been his struggle is that, as you said, he doesn't, he has not yet learned what that looks like. And, you know, I think the part of the sauce that he's figuring out now is mixing the right personalities between general manager and head coach. who to pay, who not to pay, who to listen to when they're selling you on a certain player's talent. I'll give you an example, like Teddy Bridgewater. I think he felt like he was sold a bill of goods on Teddy Bridgewater. And I think he figured that out really fast. I think he was like, this isn't our guy.

This isn't the quarterback for us that's going to be this overwhelming leader and chariots to a Super Bowl. And once he was out on that, he was just like out fast. and I think he handles a lot of, you know, what he sees. And patience is a very, in some ways it can be very hurtful for ownership, but when you're being impatient, it can be just as hurtful as being too patient. I would say that it swings both ways. You have to find that sort of middle ground and he has not yet done that. I think that's a perfect way that you framed it, though.

That's exactly who he is. the he wants to be a Rooney thing is interesting to me because I think that a lot of rich owners get into the league and for someone like David Tepper, someone like Stephen Ross, they don't walk into a lot of rooms where they're not the most respected and richest person. And then they get into these NFL owners meetings and their brain is broken for two reasons. Number one, there's a lot of rich people in the room and they don't actually really care about money all that much. I'm going to explain what I'm going to be in the second. And then they are so low on the pecking order, even if they have $30 billion, $10 billion, $7 billion, it doesn't matter. Right. Because in that room, it's way more about being a steward of the league or, you know, the Maris and the grand scheme of things don't have a ton of money.

The Rooney family in the grand scheme of things don't have a ton of money. But it doesn't matter because they've won. They have power at these league meetings. And so I think a lot of newer owners or younger people who are involved in the ownership process, or the kids of the owners, whatever, they get in there and are like, whoa, this is not how we thought it was going to go. And there's so many head games when you get in there.

And I think that there's a mental adjustment to the whole thing. And it's interesting, I heard a story a couple years ago, but an owner calling another owner, somebody I know was in the room, and they were about to make the call. And the owner one, who was the person who was with the person who told me the story,

was like, let's just wait five minutes to make the call. Let's be five minutes late. And the person was like, why are you doing that? He's like, because billionaires just never, they never have to wait on anything. They never have to, they never have to think about anything.

Everything is delivered to them on a handbook. And if we're five minutes late, it's really going to piss him off. So let's wait five minutes. Let's be on my time. And it's like, that is what you need to know about NFL ownership, right? And so someone like TEPA,

there's an adjustment on so many fronts to becoming that, that kind of owner when you have billions of dollars, you've never heard no. And then all of a sudden, you're trying to build something where it is maybe the hardest thing to do in sports, which is a consistent NFL winner. Well, it's like it's Logan Roy, right? In succession, the president's online one. And he leans back in his chair and just sits there.

And he waits, any waits, any waits. And then he decides when he's going to pick it up. You know, as you said, it's very much a control thing for some of these owners trying to show other individuals. A, I can make deals. B, people will listen to me when I talk in the room. As you said, you have 31 ownership groups where they're used to everybody listening the second they open their mouths. And then they all get together collectively.

And it turns out most people don't want to listen to each other. But it's, yeah, I think that that's also another underrated aspect of being an NFL owner is. The one thing I think I've learned over 20 years looking at the league is, you can have a ton of money, but can you make deals? Can you broker things? Can you be the person who rallies two or three other owners to come to your cause and build a beachhead? You know, and we always talk about like Jerry Jones and he's the shadow owner and we talk about what he's done business-wise for the NFL. But let's be honest, even though Jerry talks forever in those meetings and people are like, oh my God, can you just get him to shut up? He can get Robert Kraft and

John Mara on the same page. He can, you know, figure out a way to, to get Stan Cronkey into LA. And then when it all goes bad, try to keep Stan from getting sued by everybody else for, you know, the legal fees incurred and all these things. So yeah, I mean, it's ownership in its own right is a very fascinating part of the NFL. And I think too many people assume that all these owners really do have, you know, they're all top shelf deal makers. They're all top shelf thinkers.

They're not, you know, they're just, a lot of them are as fallible. I guarantee you, you can tell me a story where you talk to an NFL owner, okay, and you were like, what? Like, really? Like, this guy owns an NFL team. Like, this is, this is, this is a billionaire. Like, I, I can name one.

I mean, I could name more than one. You can name more than one. Yes. It's, you will, if you cover the league for long enough, you will start to question all of the basic tenets of capitalism. The fact that these people have made billions of dollars. That's not even a political thing.

That's just more like, this guy has $20 billion? Huh. You feel worse about yourself because you're like, wait a minute. Like, I can be in a room with this person. Like, I don't feel like I'm completely overmatched in this situation.

Yeah. It's like the old theory about the reason some of people run for president from like random congressmen is because they get to the hill and they realize that like all of the people who, you know, are in leadership positions in the Senate or whatever, like not that bright. And then they're like, oh, I can be president. Getting in a room with an owner, you're like, oh, wait, I should be a billionaire.

I should be, wait, I can do this. Whatever he's doing, I can do this. So I'm going to start a hedge fund next week now, is what I'm saying. I'm going to start a hedge fund. All right. So I, the temper thing to me is one of the most fascinating things. I can't wait to see how that goes. Also, you reminded me, I have to catch them on succession.

I've not yet seen succession. past the first couple episodes of the first season. So that's on, that's on them to do list. You wrote about the Steelers this week. Obviously, they're at a crossroads. They have the infrastructure. Tomlin is one of the best coaches in football. Kevin Colbert is at worst, the top three GM in my book.

They do what at the quarterback session? We had Ryan Chase there on the podcast yesterday and asked him about that. And he said, well, there's what they should do. And then there's the Steeler way. Right. Those are two very different things. I think the listener will know what that means. they should go out and try to get Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson,

that grade of quarterback, but they're probably going to promote from within. Where do you see this going? I agree with that. I agree with that. I think there is, that's it. They should, frankly, I feel like they should have gone out and gotten Matt Stafford last year. Like last year was the offseason where I think there was the opportunity

to actually go and get the player. I think what happened with Ben was, it was okay well let's put this number out there 15 million dollars i mean there's no way he's going to take this contract and then ben was like okay he's like i'll play for that and i think they were like oh okay all right i guess we're going to do this we're going to do another year of this and this is the situation you end up in a draft that's you know not robust with top shelf um quarterback talent to be drafted you can't necessarily just go out and do the mac jones thing and hope that someone's there in the first round who can immediately step in and have an impact on

your franchise. But there's going to be a feeding frenzy for the couple of quarterbacks. So if Russell Wilson is made available, there's going to be a number of teams that are willing to give up, you know, bare minimum three first round picks for Russell Wilson. You know, Deshawn Watson, depending on what happens with the grand jury by the end of this month, depending on what happens with the civil suits, if that stuff is somehow packed away by his legal camp, and he survives all that, it's going to be an absolute bidding war, regardless of the PR circumstances,

you're going to see a multitude of teams that are going to throw a lot of assets that bring in to Sean Watson. I don't see Pittsburgh being, even though I think they should, I don't see Pittsburgh being one of those franchises that's going to belly up to the table and say, yeah, sure, let's start with three firsts

and two seconds and see where that, does that get us into the conversation with some of these? I think it is a promote from within. As you said, it's sort of the Steeler way. I guess the one thing that is interesting to me is every once in a while you do see Kevin Colbert when he sees value. And I try to bring it up with the draft picks.

He's only moved up a couple of times in the first round of the draft. But it was for significant players. Like he clearly knew this is the value. This is who we're going to get. We know that this is going to work. I wonder if there is a situation with a quarterback where he says there's value here. Let's step out of character. the way we did with, let's say, T.J. Watts contract.

Hey, we're never going to give you guaranteed money past year one. Okay, we can relent on that because this is a cornerstone foundational piece. Unfortunately, I don't think that's the way it's going to go. I think they're going to have to figure out whether or not Mason Rudolph can be the guy, Dwayne Haskins, is there anything there at all? And adding probably another piece to the mix this off season just to make it a little more competitive. I suspect they'll end up drafting the quarterback. That's what I think is going to end up happening,

but we haven't gotten into that process yet to see who they're kicking tires. Fascinating. Cowboys, you wrote a couple days ago, they're at the top of the NFC, obviously. Do you have them as the favorite? I mean, I feel like the Mike McCarthy thing, I think Matt Liffvers better coached the Mike McCarthy. And I think a year ago you were on this podcast,

and I actually had asked you a bit about whether or not, and this is when the Cowboys looked real bad, but whether or not McCarthy could even be one and done. And that was around the time that Jerry Jones answered that question by saying, I want to be in the Foxhole next to Mike McCarthy. We got that part. But it's gotten a little better this year. Dan Quinn was the upgrade that they needed.

Kellyn Moore still running and good offense. Where do you see the NFC going in January? No, I mean, I think the Packers, to me, you know, I haven't gotten that number one seed, forcing everybody to come through Lambo. It is a better team. I think defensively, particularly if they're healthy, Bactiari comes back. It's a team that, weirdly enough, in January,

you're like, oh, they're making additions. Jayao Alexander is going to be out there. David Bactiari's going to be out there. You're going into the playoffs, and they're pretty healthy. They're a pretty healthy team, and the quarterbacks playing it. There's just all this harmony all of a sudden that's happening in Green Bay.

And, you know, I think that I like the Cowboys a lot. I don't like that I'm sitting there staring at them in January and going, why are they in balance right now? Like the whole idea was to hit January and be a balanced offense and now you're not running the football. You know, you're putting a lot on DAC and DAC still doesn't look 100%. Michael Gallup suffers a knee injury.

Defensively, I think they're fantastic. I do. I know some people don't like defenses that lean so heavily on turnovers. I don't mind it because I think that the chaos that Dallas's defense can create consistently, they will continue to turn teams over in the postseason. And so I think that can be an effective defense.

But just everything's going so right in Green Bay right now and so wrong in places like Tampa and feels still off in Dallas that this feels to me like the Green Bay season in the NFC. I really truly believe that. It feels like, and I would agree with you that Matt LaFleur should be absolutely in the coach of the year conversation. He surely knows how to use his timeouts a little bit. better than Mike McCarthy.

Probably pretty important in the past. Yeah, let me clue you into something. If you have not been paying attention, pretty much the totality of Mike McCarthy's career is someone else. You should have a timeout coach, by the way. You know, the get-back coach? I completely agree.

I mean, like, you know, some, some franchises do. My thing is, like, why can't Sean McVeigh wanted to find his Sean McVey on defense, right? He found Brandon Staley. Yeah. Why can't Sean McVeigh find the Sean McVeigh of game management? Why not that? I just don't understand it.

These guys, some of these guys just can't make the decision. But it doesn't mean they're bad coaches. It just means that's their blind spot. It's fine. Go solve it. If Sean McBake, hypothetically, couldn't get his run game down, he could go hire a top-notch run game coordinator, and he would feel no ego about that.

Yet, with timeouts, with going for them four-downs, and with this stuff, like, these guys just have an ego about it. I don't know. It makes no sense. Okay, so let me ask you this. Do you think can coaches, didn't, here's the thing, Andy Reid still mismanages games at times, but it does seem like he did get better at that,

at least in some phase. Are we sure that's not because he got the best quarterback football? That's the problem. I don't know. I'm like, I'm like, I this guy seems better, but I'm like, maybe it's tied to the fact that he's got the all-world quarterback, you know? It's like Cliff. With Cliff, I came to the season, I'm like, yeah, I can totally see Cliff getting fired. And then they reel off, you know, the run to start the season.

And I'm like, oh, no, actually, I guess he's coach of the year. And I'm like, but is he really? Is it like the quarterback? It's, you and I are always, I think we're always in that same boat where we're sitting there trying to figure out the chicken and egg with the coaches and the quarterbacks and the talent. Right. It all goes together. It all goes together. Like, I mean, Mahomes was helped by Andy.

Andy was certainly helped by Mahomes. Fred Beach helped them all with some of the talent. It's all, all goes together. If Green Bay gets in the Super Bowl, what do you see happening with Rogers? I think if they take that extra step, I mean, they might not even have to get to the Super Bowl to take the step.

The one thing I will say about how we all feel about Green Bay right now, it seems to be going pretty well. Rogers is saying some positive things about his relationship with the front office and things being listened. Tune in to Pat McAfee to see him have The closest thing to like Joe Biden going on CNBC or like Trump when Trump was going on Fox.

Like that is, he has found his platform and his megaphone. And this is it. Now that said, they made it an NSC championship game and the last couple of seasons in every single time. You know, both of those instances where they lost, it felt really bad on the other side of it. And there was a lot of Aaron Rogers, people jumping off the Aaron Rogers bandwag saying,

change him, which is never going to change, we can't get over the top. If that happens again, if you falter, you can't tell me if they go into the NFC title game in Lambo and you lose a game 42 to 24 or something, that there's not going to be a backlash about constantly hitting your head on the same ceiling. Now, that said, I think if they make it to the Super Bowl, they've already they've let it be known that Devante Adams is going nowhere. That's a big deal. Like to me, that's a huge signal to Rogers, hey, don't worry. We're not letting him out the door. It's never happening. They've already told Rogers they're ready to do the contract and structure it in the way that

opens up cap space makes things easier because they're going to be in some salary cap health. They don't do that. I think the components are there to keep it together. But I also can't ignore that we've seen them in this position before where things look really good and then all of a sudden they lose the most important playoff game. you know, the last one to get into the Super Bowl and people are suddenly off it again.

So we'll see. I don't want to count that as being resolved completely until I see what happens in the, if they make it to the NFC title. That's probably safe. Saying anything is resolved with Rogers is usually, yeah, it's tough. Resolution's not his thing.

Charles Robinson, what do you got going on to Yahoo in next couple weeks? well as you know i mean it's the it's the coaching carousel we're going to wait and see you know who gets hired who gets fired um other than that just hanging on for dear life you know i don't know i'm curious um seeing what has happened obviously with covid i'm i'm fascinated to see if it happens surrounding the one most unmovable game which is the super bowl everything's ad space is sold the infrastructure's in place. You can't move Super Bowl Sunday

to Super Bowl Monday or Tuesday. I want to see what the league office does when we find out who's playing in that Super Bowl. Because I have a sneaking suspicion that maybe we'll find out about it. Maybe it won't. But I have a sneaking suspicion that there's going to be a dialogue

with the league office where it's like, hey, you know your quarterbacks, keep them all away from each other. Don't let anybody go near your quarterbacks. You know your left tackle, you know your defensive end, your marquee wide out. How about you just take all these guys

and separate them as much as possible. Yeah. I want to see how the league approaches the the Super Bowl and trying to keep these teams safe because the way the season is gone, I expect

that it's going to happen at the worst. We're going to have the Kurt Cousins moment for the Super Bowl. Well, the good news is for the NFL is that they won't have to worry about Kirk Cousins playing in that game. They're all set. That problem has been resolved. It's interesting because Philip Rivers, I'm sure you remember, last summer on the NFLPA conference call, had raised a point.

Like, is there some apparatus in place here where if there's an asymptomatic player who test positive on Wednesday before the Super Bowl? Like, what happens? I mean, and Rivers was probably asking that because he's a guy who had wanted to go to a Super Bowl his career and, you know, was just thinking the worst-case scenario. And what happens if he test positive three days before the game? And so it's going to be fascinating to watch. It's going to be fascinating to see the protocols put in place, the changes, the rule changes, what they allow. I mean, the CDC guidelines now leave the NFL quite a lot of wiggle room where they could even, you know, test on Monday and then guys get out of it by Friday or Saturday or whatever. But even then, losing a week of practice on Super Bowl week can still be important.

So it'll be fascinating. Charles Robinson, senior writer of Yahoo, thanks so much, buddy. Thank you for having me. You've got to come on our podcast, all right? Now you have to do a home and home. A home and home. A home and home. A home and home.

I'm coming. All right. Thanks, buddy. All right. Thank you to Charles for joining us. Thank you to Stefan Anderson for production help with additional production supervision by our Joanna Ramka Paul. Next up on this feed, Nora and Mallory for the Thursday show.

I'll be back on Sunday and then obviously next week with the playoff episode. This has been the Ringer NFL show on the Ringer Podcast Network.