NFL Stories That Could Shake Up the Offseason

Speaker 1 Nationwide is so much more than a great insurance company. They're one of America's largest financial services companies.
Like how I'm more than just Peyton Manning. I'm also motivating Manning.

Speaker 1 When I say insurance, you say financial services. Insurance.
Financial services. Insurance.
Financial services. Now when I say nationwide, you say is both.
Nationwide.

Speaker 1 Nationwide.

Speaker 1 For your insurance and financial needs, nationwide is on your side. Nationwide Investment Services Corporation, Ember Finrick, Columbus, Ohio.

Speaker 2 The Heat the Cup Podcast is counting down the days to season two of Doc on Fox.

Speaker 4 Love Doc.

Speaker 5 Dan has us heat in that call with Mark Sessler, Connor Orr, Justin Graver on the ones and twos.

Speaker 5 I don't know why. Mark, I don't know why.
I don't know what it is about Doc, which of course, if you're unaware, is the Fox series.

Speaker 6 Well,

Speaker 5 yeah, let's play a little, little of it.

Speaker 5 Dr. Larson was in a car accident last night.

Speaker 5 She suffered a brain injury.

Speaker 8 She has no recollection of the last eight years.

Speaker 2 You have partial retrograde amnesia. What are once I get my memories back?

Speaker 9 It's the brain.

Speaker 4 Nobody knows. Yeah, nobody knows.

Speaker 5 That's right. Nobody knows with the brain.

Speaker 8 I don't know

Speaker 8 why you're unable to detect why it attracts you as a vehicle, a television vehicle.

Speaker 8 The story is so dense, and it's such a rich combination of characters that there are so many directions you could go in season two that I think it's

Speaker 8 I'm magnetized to it myself.

Speaker 5 And season two is coming because as we've noted, ratings are pretty okay for the finale. So, I think we're going to get more commercials on football Sundays for Doc.

Speaker 5 And I think part of it for me also is that premise of somebody loses a large chunk of time, Connor, and then has to piece it all back together.

Speaker 5 That's actually familiar. There's another piece of media content that I love from years ago.
Go ahead. Why don't we play a little hard to kill with Steven Seagal?

Speaker 11 Steven Seagal is Mason Storm,

Speaker 3 a cop working undercover.

Speaker 5 Until his cover was blown.

Speaker 8 Whoever that is, I don't want him to get an hour older.

Speaker 11 They thought they'd seen the last of him.

Speaker 11 But Mason Storm

Speaker 11 is hard to kill.

Speaker 3 Yeah, he is.

Speaker 5 Take that to the bank, Senator Trent, the blood bank.

Speaker 5 So yeah, that thing about memories disappearing and that was eight years in the case of Mason Storm. What is it in the case of Doc? Does anyone recall?

Speaker 13 Eight years.

Speaker 5 Eight years as well.

Speaker 14 Unbelievable.

Speaker 5 And it's a true story as we get into today's show. It's based on a true story here.

Speaker 5 Fox Series, here's a headline. Fox Series Doc is based on a real-life doctor.
who lost a decade of memories. And

Speaker 5 just doing research, like tied into this episode, it's a real story based on a real-life Italian doctor, Pierdante Picciano, who endured a very similar life-changing

Speaker 5 accident. Here is

Speaker 5 a quote from Perdante himself.

Speaker 5 This new Fox drama, Doc, well, actually, give me a little music, Justin.

Speaker 5 This new Fox drama, Doc, is inspired by my life.

Speaker 5 I had a car accident 12 years ago. Lost memories completely.

Speaker 5 I didn't recognize my family. It was very, very terrible.
I cried a lot.

Speaker 5 This offensive, I don't know.

Speaker 5 So,

Speaker 15 anyway, crazy.

Speaker 5 Mark, I was thinking later today we could talk about stories that seem almost too real, too

Speaker 5 implausible to be true, but they in fact are NFL style. How about that?

Speaker 8 Well, it's a perfect fold into this.

Speaker 8 And not to go too deep down on that television show, but I think one of the critiques coming from the public was the basis here, the storyline is too fantastical, but then you find out it's just been pulled from the pages of real life.

Speaker 8 So not only is it gritty and true to form, Fox 10 did a great job there with that article. I noticed it was specifically Fox 10 that reported that article about that.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and also, now that you bring it up, it's a little strange that Dr.

Speaker 5 Piccone begins his quote with, this a new foxa drama, doc, inspired by my life.

Speaker 12 Every little bit.

Speaker 16 6 p.m.

Speaker 13 Central and 7 p.m.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 5 To watch out the story inspired by my story was very, very emotional. It was like to open up my scars again.
A lot of good quotes there from the doc.

Speaker 8 Hey, really dug in.

Speaker 5 Yeah, really dug in. Anyway, so we're going to get into that, Connor.
We'll come up with some

Speaker 5 right now fictional fictional storylines in the NFL that, but actually could be true. Like it's plausible that these things could happen, just like the story of Doc exclusively on Fox.

Speaker 13 I love it. And I look forward to you guys joining me in a Doc Watch.
I'm five Eps in.

Speaker 13 It's

Speaker 13 as a husband and wife who love basic cable sitcoms and playing our life around a lot of these things.

Speaker 5 Broadcast television.

Speaker 13 Yeah, broadcast television. It's been a really nice,

Speaker 13 it's been a nice addition to the rotation.

Speaker 5 I suppose it's odd, Mark, but that the one thing I haven't done yet is actually watch Doc.

Speaker 8 Yeah, that's the next step.

Speaker 8 You're even open about that.

Speaker 13 It's better that you don't. It's one of those things where it's like, don't go into the kitchen of your favorite restaurant.
It's just,

Speaker 13 you want doc to be what it is in your mind. And then before you actually start, you know.

Speaker 5 Yeah, it's true. Maybe we should watch like the premiere episode, The Pilot on Patreon together.

Speaker 9 That would be a fun thing.

Speaker 13 The pilot is rich.

Speaker 13 There's a lot of heat and sexuality and

Speaker 5 it's rich.

Speaker 8 She's just come off a brain injury. How involved is she with that? Well, I'll wait to see.
Yeah.

Speaker 16 Yeah. Can't wait.

Speaker 5 I'm sure there's some flashbacks and things of that nature. Yeah.
I'm guessing. All right.
Good stuff. All right.
Hey.

Speaker 5 We're going to do some news because there is a little bit of news, but before that, let's talk a little underdog.

Speaker 5 Underdog, man.

Speaker 5 They bankroll us. They're a great partner.
And it's very important that our audience does business with underdog. So let's talk about it.

Speaker 5 We're going to talk about the Cowboys in just a minute and the move that they made and how that changes their offense. Why don't we talk a little Cowboys offense? Higher or lower, baby.
Come on, Greg.

Speaker 17 Yeah, we've been talking a lot about these underdog NFL season-long plays. You can get in.
There's three Cowboys stat projections up right now. Why don't we, you guys, rapid fire.

Speaker 17 Just tell me higher or lower. Dak Prescott, 3,799.5 passing yards.
So basically 3,800 passing yards for Dak Prescott.

Speaker 5 I mean, he might clear that by 10,000 yards.

Speaker 5 I mean, 1,000 yards. Sorry.
He might clear that by 1,000 yards.

Speaker 5 Banging the higher.

Speaker 17 I say higher as well. CeeDee Lamb, higher, lower, 1,149.5 receiving yards.

Speaker 8 Well, if Dak's going to do all that, then I'd have to say I'd go higher here.

Speaker 5 You know, I love my CD Lamb, Ceci, so I'm going to bang the higher. But the way to win this game is not to bang the higher all the time.
We got one more?

Speaker 17 George Pickens, higher or lower than 950.5 receiving yards.

Speaker 12 I got to bang the lower.

Speaker 5 I'm going to bang the lower. I got to cover myself there.

Speaker 8 I'll go lower too.

Speaker 5 All right. Sounds good.
So there's a ticket. Well, we can't do all Cowboys on a ticket, but you guys can

Speaker 5 build the cowboys into your next game on Underdog and have fun doing it. And is there a code that connects it to Heed the Call or anything like that, Justin?

Speaker 17 How does that work?

Speaker 17 Yeah, if you're watching on YouTube, a QR code on your screen, scan that, and that'll give Heed the Call the credit for referring you to Underdog, or you can sign up with the code HTC if you don't have access to the QR code at the moment and start playing today.

Speaker 17 If you know, new users can receive up to $1,000 in bonus credits when they deposit.

Speaker 6 So now's the time.

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Speaker 5 Bang, this is the time. Get in on it.
And yes, there you go. Underdog.
We love him. Let's get into some more Cowboys talk in the news.

Speaker 11 Sometimes being all in means you narrow,

Speaker 11 you remove

Speaker 11 the months out here that are in the future. And you narrow it down to where all we're talking about is right now in the next playoff season.
And that's it for everybody.

Speaker 6 We're all in.

Speaker 12 We're all in.

Speaker 5 We're all in. Those are words that Jarrah had to eat on some level.

Speaker 5 That was ahead of last season when the Cowboys, very clearly, the product that they put on the field did not indicate that they were all in. There were a lot of holes on the roster.

Speaker 5 Dak got hurt and everything went to hell. Well, new season, Cowboys have not made a big splash in the offseason, really, until...

Speaker 5 Wednesday, when their search for a number two wide receiver to pair opposite their Pro Bowl star, CeeDee Lamb, ended that pursuit with George Pickens.

Speaker 5 The Cowboys and the Steelers agree to a trade Wednesday that will send Pickens to Dallas for a 2026 third-round pick. The Cowboys also send a fifth-rounder in 2027 to the Steelers.

Speaker 5 They get back a sixth in 2027.

Speaker 5 So there you go, Mark. This was coming after about three weeks ago.

Speaker 5 Jarrett said the team had been working on, quote, substantive, substantive trades involving players that could be completed before or after the NFL draft. Well, they did get it done in this case.

Speaker 5 And Pickens and Lamb is an interesting combo at the very least.

Speaker 8 I really love the combo and I'm starting to like the look of this offense in general.

Speaker 8 CeeDee Lamb is a huge winner in this too. I mean, it just changes how much he can dominate games and Pickens the player.

Speaker 8 There's a Steelers side to this too, but Pickens the player is a phenomenal prospect. And like he's got one more year on the deal.

Speaker 8 And like we'll see, he's not pushing for an extension right now I think he wants to go prove what he can be in this offense before we talk about that but this is the Cowboys I love deals like this where you're giving up a couple of draft picks for someone that you would have had to draft in the first round in the draft itself and so it's it's major for them I think the question

Speaker 8 for me is that Mike Tomlin, if you go back and look at the quotes he had about Pickens over the last two seasons, it got under, he called him a pebble in my shoe.

Speaker 8 It got under Tomlin's skin and they moved on from the player. Brian Schottenheimer, this is a challenge.
Like we, it's a test now.

Speaker 8 Who is Brian Schottenheimer with a player that's going to be kind of maybe a personality attached with the talent?

Speaker 13 So I think two things. First, I think this means that.

Speaker 13 Pittsburgh is absolutely going to raid the overage of Green Bay's receiver room in order to pacify Aaron Rodgers, like maybe Romeo Dobbs or someone like that, Christian Watson, someone like that,

Speaker 13 especially since the Packers drafted two wide receivers.

Speaker 13 But the flip side of it, Mark, what you're talking about, what's really kind of interesting and not talked a lot about is Jerry Jones gets flacked for running tours through the star, but the science behind that facility and building it where he was is actually pretty interesting.

Speaker 13 It's in the middle of nowhere. It's away from everything.
Players live, a lot of them, in a development that you can get like a driverless like.

Speaker 13 robot car ride to the facility and everything can be delivered to you.

Speaker 13 And players, there's actually a, almost like a country club that's on the second floor of the star where a lot of players go after practice to work on like business deals and meet with financial planners and all this other stuff.

Speaker 13 It's trying to be this own self-contained universe where players never leave. And so if your players never leave, they can never become as much of a pain in the ass as they might be in other places.

Speaker 13 And so I think it allows them or at least encourages them to take chances on guys that other teams are just kind of like, whatever. Now, is it foolproof? No, but it's part of their thinking.

Speaker 13 And that's why I think they did this.

Speaker 5 That's very interesting. I had not heard that element of the star as also country club/slash pen to keep the players from, you know, getting out too far in northern Texas.

Speaker 5 Yeah, they can't control where Pickens goes. And Pickens, you know, he comes from a long line of knucklehead wide receivers in Pittsburgh.
And I say that.

Speaker 5 Well, it is, I was going to say, I say that not disparagingly. Of course I am.
The problem is he's always been difficult to deal with since they got him, but he's a fantastic talent.

Speaker 5 And Pittsburgh decided, as they often do with these players, to kick the tires and see if they can make it work. And when it starts to get too annoying, they get rid of them.

Speaker 5 I am very, if I'm CeeDee Lamb, I am thrilled by this because this was a glaring hole on this roster.

Speaker 5 And you really saw, even before Dak Prescott was injured last year, the pressure on CeeDee Lamb to get open and be the facilitator of the big play.

Speaker 5 It was immense on Lamb. And he took a beating last year and constant double coverage and Dak just

Speaker 5 throwing it to him and

Speaker 5 hoping that CD was going to make a play on the ball even when he wasn't open. If Pickens stays healthy and keeps his head straight, this changes the dynamic of that offense.

Speaker 5 So a little bit of optimism in Dallas, which coming off our optimism rankings, Dallas, I would have had pretty low in that exercise. This certainly changes that a bit.

Speaker 8 I mean, you also, if you're the Steelers, like

Speaker 8 you got DK Metcalf. And to me, I think that seemed like Pickens is out of here because you're not paying both of those guys.

Speaker 8 It was going to come at some point, but they're pretty light at wide receiver. They didn't draft someone.
I like Calvin Austin, but what are the Steelers actually doing on offense?

Speaker 8 Because you still have the Aaron Rodgers thing sitting out there, but it becomes less attractive for Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 8 Unless I think you're right, Connor, they go find their players from other teams at this point. But I look at the Pittsburgh Steelers and say, like, it's been a while since I feel like

Speaker 8 there's a lack of direction into what they are and what they want to be.

Speaker 5 I'm hold that thumb.

Speaker 5 That is a very good point about this, and it's going to come up later in the show.

Speaker 5 And last note, Connor, and why I love the trade for the Cowboys, because you're getting a premium talent at the cost of a mid-round draft pick. You don't have to pay them.

Speaker 5 The report out there is from Jeremy Fowler that he plans to play out this rookie deal and hit free agency in 2026. Great.
Perfect. In fact, let's see how you do here in Dallas.

Speaker 5 Let's see if you are as productive and it matches your talent level. And if you are, then we'll either give you a deal or we'll hit you with a tag.

Speaker 5 And if you're being annoying about it, we'll trade you and maybe turn it into something else. So kind of a,

Speaker 5 I know they, apparently, the reporting out there, and we had all kind of thought this, that they, Dallas wanted to go get the wide receiver.

Speaker 5 What was it? Tet was a Tet

Speaker 5 Macmillan in the first round. But when the Falcons grabbed him instead, this is their pivot, and I think it's a very good one.
So, all right.

Speaker 8 One little note.

Speaker 8 Yes.

Speaker 18 Panthers, excuse me.

Speaker 8 One little note.

Speaker 8 Pickens' agent is David Mulgetta, who Jerry Jones in the last like 10 days said that he'd never heard of the person. So, you know, a little bit more time there to get to know each other.

Speaker 5 I don't know who he is.

Speaker 5 I just like talk. I like to have a big old steak and we sit like men.

Speaker 5 My handshake.

Speaker 11 It's his first time. There's a very low percentage of this.
Very low percentage. Smiles and draw homes.

Speaker 5 Give me a big old T-bone and two men looking eye to eye like real Americans. That's how you get a deal, though.

Speaker 9 I don't need this David Mulgetta.

Speaker 5 David Mo. I never heard of David Mulgetta.

Speaker 19 What is that?

Speaker 5 Not since I started hanging my shingle.

Speaker 16 I have so many people come to me.

Speaker 8 I'm not going to be able to do this show right now, just to let you know. I don't know if you were aware of that.

Speaker 20 Do you think I'm an idiot?

Speaker 7 Do you?

Speaker 5 What's a shingle? In other news,

Speaker 5 the Eagles, the defending champs.

Speaker 5 Are they defending champs? When does it become defending champs? I think they're the reigning champions. And then effective week one, they become defending champions.
Is that correct?

Speaker 5 What's the style guide for Sports Illustrated, Connor, on that?

Speaker 13 Oh, boy. I should probably read that.
My editors would be happy.

Speaker 13 I like the fact that the second the game kicks off, you are now actively defending it. Until that moment, you are the actual world champions.

Speaker 8 No one can take it away until games begin.

Speaker 13 Super Bowl champions until second one of the NFL season, and then you immediately become defending champions.

Speaker 5 The game they are playing on that first Thursday of week one. Then we refer to them as, write this down, Justin.
We refer to them as defending champions. Okay.

Speaker 5 Anyway, so reigning Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles will keep Dallas Goddard in the building.

Speaker 5 They are finalizing an agreement with the veteran tight end to keep him in Philadelphia on a rework deal.

Speaker 5 This has been a storyline for Philly. They've lost a bunch of talent on D, but the offense is pretty much locked in.

Speaker 5 Goddard's a big part of it, but he was due a lot of guaranteed money, $14 million in cash. But now with the renegotiated deal, it comes down to $10 million.

Speaker 5 He can get another $1 million in incentives. So I guess, was this a haircut? Did he take a haircut to stay in Philly? I guess I would too at this stage of his career.

Speaker 5 What else does Goddard have to prove other than to add some more hardware and rings to his fingers?

Speaker 8 I never liked the idea of trading him away.

Speaker 8 Like, if you go back to games or quarters at a time where he was not on the offense, like, he made a, he makes a big difference to Jalen Hurts in that offense.

Speaker 8 And, like, I think your window, you're sitting here hoping to win a couple more Super Bowls. Like, don't move on from what's working.
And so they got it done.

Speaker 8 I think this sounded like they wanted to get it done, but they did dangle them for a trade at some point this offseason. I'm just, I'm thankful for Eagles.
For the Eagles, it didn't happen.

Speaker 13 Yeah, if you're Goddard, you go from working with Jeff Stoutland, who's the best offensive line coach in the NFL, to having to go somewhere else and learn a less cohesive process.

Speaker 13 You know, everything here is ironed out for you. The steps you're supposed to take, the fact that when you get to block guys, you get to do it next to Jordan Milata or Lane Johnson.

Speaker 13 That makes receiving easier. That makes getting out into your routes easier, all that kind of stuff.

Speaker 13 And so, yeah, I would probably, you know, slice off a couple hundred thou to have that kind of convenience. Well, I wouldn't, but it makes sense that he would.

Speaker 5 Yeah. And he's probably more valued by the Eagles than where he would be on the open market anyway.
So even with the haircut, that's probably maybe above what he could get anywhere else.

Speaker 5 So makes sense for both sides. How about that? A lot of makes sense for both sides stuff going on.

Speaker 5 One thing that did not make sense in retrospect is the three-year contract where $39 million that the Jaguars gave Gabe Davis 14 months ago.

Speaker 5 Well,

Speaker 5 that partnership is over. On Wednesday morning, the Jaguars released Davis.

Speaker 5 They're going to designate him as a post-June 1st release, meaning they will absorb a $5.7 million dead cap hit rather than the $20.3 million dead cap hit had they not made that designation. However,

Speaker 5 Connor, the Jaguars won't see those 800 grand in cap savings until June 1st. So anyway, long story short, Davis was a mess.

Speaker 5 20 catches for 239 yards and two touchdowns in 10 games before a knee injury. Bad fit earlier in the offseason when the Jaguars Brain Trust was asked about their wide receiver depth chart.

Speaker 5 He wasn't even mentioned. So I guess this was the other shoe dropping.

Speaker 13 It was.

Speaker 13 And the unpeeling of the Trent balky era had to start at some point, right?

Speaker 13 This guy was such a nuisance that you removed him at zero hour to try to recoup the head coaching search process and get another GM in there.

Speaker 13 So it's been interesting that we didn't see as much of a kind of a free fall in terms of roster turnover, but now we're starting to see some of his, you know, I'm not going to call it a high-profile acquisition, but something that they can do to sort of start putting themselves at arm's length from that regime.

Speaker 8 They moved on from Evan Ingram as well and Christian Kirk, other guys taken in by Balky. And so

Speaker 8 it's just pretty clear, and you can see it happening when Liam Cohen comes in and our guy James Gladstone, like they're reimagining the roster to make it fit for Liam Storm. I do wonder,

Speaker 8 you know, when Buffalo drafted him, Gabe Davis, like he had 27 touchdowns with the Bills and worked well for a period of time in the Dayball offense.

Speaker 8 Like the Giants did not draft a wide receiver, I believe. Like, would they ever go and grab,

Speaker 8 would he fit for the Giants, back with Dayball, back with Shane, who drafted him? Like, they talked highly of him. So I just wonder if, in terms of a landing spot, could it be New York?

Speaker 5 I like the idea of

Speaker 5 James Gladstone, James Gladstone calling another press conference. And then this time, instead of all of the flowers and big words and ideas about Travis Hunter, he does the opposite with Gabe Davis.

Speaker 12 He's like,

Speaker 5 as we sit here,

Speaker 5 Gabe Davis is not a Jacksonville Jaguar.

Speaker 5 And really what comes to mind for me is that it's thinking about the sport of football and the power of the game itself.

Speaker 5 Its capacity to ignite belief, belief in ourselves, belief in others, belief in achieving what many deem as impossible.

Speaker 5 Gabe Davis

Speaker 5 does not embody that belief.

Speaker 5 I will take no questions. Thank you.

Speaker 5 Something like that.

Speaker 8 Something like that.

Speaker 5 Love that.

Speaker 5 All right, that's what's happening in the news.

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Speaker 5 Thanks, Mark. I appreciate that compliment.

Speaker 4 You're welcome.

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Speaker 5 All right.

Speaker 5 Let's get to it.

Speaker 5 So

Speaker 5 the offseason, Mark, what is the biggest since we started together at NFL Media in the summer of 2010?

Speaker 5 What's like the biggest off-season storyline

Speaker 5 you could remember happening where it was like a huge story? It was almost too hard to believe, but it was true. Like, what would be an example for you?

Speaker 8 Because Bountygate was so parsed on a daily basis, it didn't strike me as unbelievable.

Speaker 8 But right before we joined the NFL, the one that stood out to me and kind of stopped time and like the case got weirder and weirder was the

Speaker 8 murder death of Steve McNair and like what and the fact that it was tied to

Speaker 8 what was her name?

Speaker 8 Kazimi, I think,

Speaker 8 Sahil.

Speaker 5 I don't recall her name.

Speaker 8 Well, no, but it was like she was a, he was, you know, there were so many layers to it, and there's so much happening that it felt as unbelievable or as surreal if you had said a year, a year ahead of time, this is going to happen to someone of the magnitude of Steve McNair.

Speaker 5 Yeah, like along those lines of unfortunate, like true crime stuff, like Aaron Hernandez turning out to be a serial killer.

Speaker 19 Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 5 I mean, that's still crazy. That's un, I mean, it's one of the best young players in the NFL implicated Connor in a shooting death of like an associate of some kind.

Speaker 5 And then you start peeling back the layers of the onion, and there were multiple deaths connected to that guy before he eventually hung himself in a prison.

Speaker 5 That, I mean, I remember working, you know, when we were working in the NFL media newsroom, just there was never another story that was more like atomically red hot. We're going to care.

Speaker 5 cover this in the most careful way possible because also it happened to be a player tied to the at that time the nfl's tiffany franchise in terms of success and and and coverage uh the New England Patriots.

Speaker 5 That was wild.

Speaker 13 That was wild. And then when I came to the NFL, there was obviously an increased focus on concussions and head trauma after the movie came out.
And then, I mean, Kaepernick, too.

Speaker 13 I mean, that was the ultimate where as soon as the sitting president weighs in, there was like the directives from the newsroom being like, we're not going to talk about this.

Speaker 13 You know, like, and just to like, those moments, like, they just, I i mean hernandez is obviously i think the most significant but they're those moments where you just kind of step back and you're like oh my god like this is this is insane i didn't uh you know i didn't sign up to do this

Speaker 8 this is this is not football yeah yeah yeah that's true the ray rice situation unveiling was another uncomfortable moment dan and i were once grilled on british television about the uh kapernick situation which you know you could just see like the sweat coming down our faces

Speaker 8 what does colin kaek's situation say about both pro football and America? Dan, you want to take this one?

Speaker 5 And then it was like, we were downstairs in the headquarters of Sky News, and then upstairs,

Speaker 5 Wes and Greg were talking to this beautiful fantasy football reporter. And she was like, guys, what makes fantasy fun to you?

Speaker 8 Dan and I get destroyed on like an actual news channel.

Speaker 5 We came back up from that in that elevator and we just, we looked like two guys that had seen too much in war. I'll never forget that.
All right. With that said, let's get into it.

Speaker 5 So let's throw out some

Speaker 5 unreal

Speaker 5 but plausible scenarios in this NFL offseason in terms of big stories. Connor, get us going.

Speaker 13 All right. How about this one?

Speaker 13 Before the end of this calendar year, like maybe perhaps it takes place during a busy time where everyone's able to slide it under the radar or something like that.

Speaker 13 I think, what if we see the repeal of the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961?

Speaker 13 And if this seems or feels obscure, let's just, I'm not dot connecting, but let's take this all the way back to last week when the sitting president was at the White House with the commissioner of the NFL, the owner of the commanders, announcing that in 2027 the draft was going to be in Washington, D.C.

Speaker 13 This shows a complete kind of erasure of the fears that the the NFL has had about this person

Speaker 13 in this office. And since then, we've had Ted Cruz, the

Speaker 13 senator from Texas, try to defend the Sports Broadcasting Act. And we'll get into that in a second.
But also, we've seen Congress,

Speaker 13 I think it was in the upcoming fiscal budget for this year, a dramatic.

Speaker 13 decrease in resources being provided to the study of traumatic brain injury, which affects high school football, college football, stuff like that, youth football.

Speaker 13 And so you wonder if the NFL, just like any other place, is realizing that they can get what they want if they kind of get in bed with this administration and play ball.

Speaker 13 And, you know, I don't know if this is stuff that they've wanted for years, but the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 is one with very direct implications in terms of fans.

Speaker 13 It's the thing that prevents the NFL from competing against high school football on Friday nights and then college football on Saturday from a certain window of time.

Speaker 13 I think that could be one where next year at this point, I mean, we can see tons of Friday night NFL games and it just doesn't matter.

Speaker 8 And that Eagles-Packers game,

Speaker 8 because of the early nature of it,

Speaker 8 fell outside of the zone of when you couldn't compete against the East.

Speaker 13 And it was streamed, I believe, too. That's their other trick where it can't be, because the big bugaboo was

Speaker 13 that Senator Cruz had specifically was the Black Friday game on Amazon.

Speaker 13 And Black Friday is traditionally, you know, a very historic high school football day, especially I think in the South and in Texas, which is why he's making a big deal out of it.

Speaker 13 But the fact that it was streamed exclusively has been sort of their little tiptoe window around it.

Speaker 13 But you know that CBS and NBC and ABC, these places are salivating to make money on Friday nights on broadcast.

Speaker 13 Nobody watches anything on Friday nights, right?

Speaker 5 This is a great, yeah, it's not TGIF anymore. There's no family matters

Speaker 5 anymore. But listen, you're nailing this one because it feels now just hearing you talk about it,

Speaker 5 it feels almost inevitable. Like we kid on this show about the NFL having almost like a boundless appetite to take over the week.

Speaker 5 The only thing now stopping them, they've kind of almost reached the limits to what they can do.

Speaker 5 Like we talked about, they played, I think, on every day of the week last week, except for one, the Chiefs did as an example.

Speaker 5 This would be the hurdle.

Speaker 5 And I think you're dead on about, and something that I was thinking about it after our show on Monday, because we were playing the clip of Trump in the Oval Office with Roger Goodell

Speaker 5 and Josh Harris, the owner of the Commanders, who's also kind of like the conquering hero amongst the owners right now.

Speaker 5 all together with Smiles. You are the ultimate commander, so.
Yeah, with Smiles

Speaker 5 and working together on this big announcement about, I guess, the draft coming to Washington in a couple of years and how different that is when you compare it to eight years ago when Trump was elected the first time and how it wasn't just the NFL.

Speaker 5 Everyone, a lot of key in the business world

Speaker 5 and culturally were like kind of stay away from Trump eight years ago.

Speaker 5 And now you've seen so much different, whether it's Jeff Bezos or Apple or the NFL are much more open about being in Congress with Trump in one way or another. So, will that Curry favor?

Speaker 5 One thing we know about the sitting president is that yes, if you get on his good side, he will work with you. And if you get on his bad side, he'll try to destroy you.

Speaker 5 So, eight years ago, the NFL was in a war with the president who was sending out information about how the ratings of the NFL were down.

Speaker 5 The NFL was terrible because they don't support the flag and all this stuff around Kaepernick.

Speaker 5 Look at where we are now and what the NFL, now NFL is going to say, hey, we're standing with you in the Oval Office. Now, what are you going to give to us? And maybe it's Friday and Saturday nights.

Speaker 13 Think about specifically the idea that, I mean, we don't know what the landscape is going to look like politically in 2027 when there's a year left on his term.

Speaker 13 At this moment in time, again, I'm not, this is not a political thing, but I'm just saying that he has discussed breaking precedent and running for a third term.

Speaker 13 We could be legitimately a year away from him discussing running a third term and having the largest stage in sports where he's going to be involved with the draft.

Speaker 13 You know, he's going to be on the stage. You know, he's going to be out there.
And you know that you're not going to be able to control what he says.

Speaker 13 And I guess the NFL is, has decided that whatever they want politically is worth the risk of having him basically be intimately tied in with the result, you know, with one of their tentpole events.

Speaker 8 It's I mean, really from one other angle, too, like the television infrastructure deal that was created in 1961, that's like

Speaker 8 Mesozoic eras of Earth.

Speaker 8 It's so long ago and has nothing to do with what we're experiencing now that I, part of me is like, I don't have a, I don't think that the NFL should be beholden to college football or high school football.

Speaker 8 I can understand the traditions there and other parts of the country are way more into that. But like the NFL is as a, is a take-no prisoners operation right now.

Speaker 8 And I think the thing, the idea that this old law, this this old rule is about to be blown up. I totally see where you're coming from.

Speaker 5 I think it's just a- This will be a very bad thing.

Speaker 5 It'll be a very bad thing for the football fan. We've already talked about it, who likes the idea that believes that Sundays are

Speaker 5 important and a holy day, not even in the religious form, but in the pro-football world, like that's the big day. You have a full slate of games, and then Sunday night football,

Speaker 5 and then Monday night football as the dessert. And now we have Thursday night football, and now we have the different other spotlight games.
and this would just be the next step.

Speaker 5 And they would break that up, and they'd sell to more streamers, and you would just have the schedule broken up.

Speaker 5 And again, like the player health angle of it all, like that, that will be forgotten about because there will be money to be made. So,

Speaker 5 all right.

Speaker 8 Mine might fold in nicely if you wanted with this.

Speaker 5 Okay, go ahead.

Speaker 8 Um, because it's connected, and in general,

Speaker 8 we in our careers we've viewed this as a positive element of growth for the NFL. But the schedule is coming out next week, and

Speaker 8 we would already know if this was happening now. But I do believe that a year from now,

Speaker 8 part of this world domination is going to be the announcement.

Speaker 8 I think this is already being worked on, of 21 to 23 international games, including 17 straight games in England. And I'm thinking that put games in Greece, South Korea, Pakistan, Sydney, Beirut.
And,

Speaker 8 you know, there will be, we are, the days of a three-slate of games, a 1 p.m. Eastern, 4 p.m., and Sunday night football.

Speaker 8 It will be fundamentally and comprehensively replaced for the rest of time with a four-slate Sunday.

Speaker 8 But also international games played all over the map and all over the schedule. And I just think that

Speaker 8 there is enough rabid interest in it. And that part is good.
Like, we've had like the UK fans that we've met are very serious about football.

Speaker 8 And like I'm not dumping on that, but the world where we talk about Sunday alone being the sort of special outlier where pro football is played, you know, in Dallas, like, nope, it's going to be

Speaker 8 what we experienced last week, whenever they test you with like, it's going to be every day of the week if you're the Chiefs, except for one, like it's just a test case where no one rebelled, no one went crazy.

Speaker 8 Fantasy football is bigger than ever. Gambling's bigger than ever.
And it's like, it's just going to be more and and more. And I think that we are going to have,

Speaker 8 it's not a London team, but it's 17 games in London slash Germany slash UK.

Speaker 8 And we'll never look back. We'll never look in the other direction.

Speaker 5 Friday night football from Beirut. Jaguars, Titans, come get it.

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah.

Speaker 5 Yeah, that's one thing, a big change in the whole international thing, which we have been kind of on the ground floor of, connected to our podcast over like a decade now, is that the question used to be:

Speaker 5 is a team going to move to London or wherever? London, obviously, the most obvious option.

Speaker 5 And now it's becoming more clear, or at least it seems like the NFL plan is not necessarily setting up a team there because that would

Speaker 5 logistically would be difficult.

Speaker 5 And, you know, how many players want to spend that much time out of the country and all the other challenges that come with it, but actually just playing as many games as possible with all different teams at different areas around the world.

Speaker 5 That feels like that is the strategy now. And I think it's a good strategy.
I think it's cool. I just, it has to be done with a level of

Speaker 5 responsibility and restraint, which that is, I guess, kind of going back again, Connor, to what

Speaker 5 we question the NFL's ability to use restraint in these realms where money is involved.

Speaker 13 Certainly. And I mean, you guys know my thoughts on this.
I hate playing internationally.

Speaker 13 I think it's ridiculous.

Speaker 13 But I think my actual question is,

Speaker 5 and this might be a double-38% of our audience just turned off the podcast. Okay, go on, Connor, with your point.

Speaker 13 No, it's like you guys can have Jags Titans, but like, you know, if we're going to give you guys, you know, Jets Patriots, then we get the Manchester Derby this year.

Speaker 13 So Manchester United and Liverpool have to play in Lexington, Kentucky on like a Tuesday to entertain me. So that's the trade-off.
So if you want to do that,

Speaker 13 yeah. So that's, you know, that's what we want.
That's what we're going to do because this is our thing. It's, it's, you know, no offense, but you can watch it on TV just like everybody else.

Speaker 13 What's the benefit? Because this is going to sound like a dumb question, but if you're an owner, why do you want to give away a home game? Why do you want to give away a home gate?

Speaker 13 I mean, are you seeing that much coming back in terms of future fans, in terms of interest, in terms of traffic to your website, in terms of all that stuff, jersey sales?

Speaker 13 Are you seeing that much come back that it feels worth it to you? I don't know the answer to that question.

Speaker 16 That's why or they're pressed into sell.

Speaker 8 I think you have to, like, if you're an NFL owner, this is when you go to those strategy, off-season strategy meetings, like what are we doing about in-game experience, in-stadium experience?

Speaker 8 What are we doing internationally? What are we doing to create new fan bases that are not white men, like women, everything? It's such a push that

Speaker 8 you're not going to be a renegade owner that says no to this.

Speaker 8 There's been a couple that have shown less interest, but the same way that Roger Goodell sits in the White House, currying favor with someone, the owners have to play ball with Goodell and the league, too.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I think also, like,

Speaker 5 if the major league initiative at these various meetings is like the growth of the game internationally, yeah, it's all tied into it. And it's like we all have to be part of it to make it happen.

Speaker 5 And if it works, holy shit, we're going to get even more rich. And I think these owners, we've always talked about it, kind of like the teams are their little playthings.

Speaker 5 If you get to go over to another country and you're the owner of the team and like, look at what I have, like, maybe they like that too. Cause

Speaker 5 it's just a fun thing.

Speaker 13 Very quickly, I want to clarify. I want to just like.

Speaker 6 It's too late.

Speaker 5 They've already turned it off and they've looked up your information. I know.

Speaker 13 I'm like, I see the post right now.

Speaker 13 But I just very clearly,

Speaker 13 there are how many games? 256 games every year? About that, yeah.

Speaker 5 Okay.

Speaker 13 You can have the worst 20. Like, I have no problem.

Speaker 19 This isn't helping. You're not helping.

Speaker 13 No, no, no.

Speaker 8 But they can't be good.

Speaker 13 They can't be good games. I'm sorry.
Like, that's not fair. It's not fair.
It's not fair. Like, having, and we talked about it last year, and I'm all.

Speaker 5 Were you a child, Connor, that didn't want to ever share his favorite toys? Is that like the human man figure never got passed around?

Speaker 13 I don't think anyone who listens to this podcast thinks I grew up normal and well-adjusted.

Speaker 14 You know, like, there's clearly like there's clearly

Speaker 5 if this is to actually work,

Speaker 5 you want to send the best of your product over there to sell the game broadly rather than

Speaker 5 sending the Falcons out there or whomever. Sorry, Falcons fans.

Speaker 5 I don't know why they came up, but they did.

Speaker 14 It happened.

Speaker 5 All right. Anything else? Any other last

Speaker 5 addendum there, Connor?

Speaker 13 I mean, it's already, it's beyond saving at this point.

Speaker 9 Matt out of the bag.

Speaker 5 All right, let me get away from,

Speaker 5 at least temporarily, from the NFL is like

Speaker 5 an evil

Speaker 5 corporate behemoth for a moment, although no problem talking about that here.

Speaker 5 Let's talk a little football and talk about the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 5 Yes, this is going to feel implausible, but it is possible. The Pittsburgh Steelers, just as a brief refresher, have not suffered a losing season since 2003.

Speaker 5 This is an incredible achievement. They've averaged, even in the, you know,

Speaker 5 not so distant past now, nine and a half wins over the past four years, nine, nine, 10, 10.

Speaker 5 And that is proof that Mike Tomlin can coach a winner even without stability at QB. And that might be the greatest magic trick you could pull off in pro football.
Let's face it.

Speaker 5 But, of course, this is not all sunshine. The Steelers have not won a playoff game since January 15th of 2017.

Speaker 13 Holy shit.

Speaker 5 They are never bad, but also never great. The Steelers are parked in a cul-de-sac, sitting in a car, trying to turn over an engine that won't budge.

Speaker 5 Yes, this is the era of elite mediocrity in Pittsburgh. No easy escape from this neighborhood unless...

Speaker 5 Okay, now let's picture this.

Speaker 5 Unless Aaron Rodgers says no.

Speaker 5 Hear this from Steelers minority owner Thomas Tull, who was asked about the Rodgers situation on CNBC this week. By the way, they let minority owners talk.

Speaker 8 Well, I don't think they were planning for him to talk about this. I know what this is.

Speaker 5 Yeah, in fact, I'm here to talk about AI,

Speaker 5 and that, the Rodgers situation, is a more complex issue than artificial intelligence, Tell said.

Speaker 5 Holy shit, by the way. How annoying is Aaron Rodgers that he's that for the minority owner of the Pittsburgh Steelers to

Speaker 5 come out and say that this is a very complex situation?

Speaker 7 Hey, you're either playing or not, Aaron.

Speaker 5 What could be so complex? What a mess. Anyway, so here's the implausible, but possible scenario.
The Steelers are starting to realize

Speaker 5 they exist within a sobering reality. Aaron Rodgers has been toying with them this whole time.
Aaron Rodgers is unserious. Aaron Rodgers will never play a down for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 5 And as a result, the entire conceit of this 2025 team, which is very similar to the last team to get hoodwinked by Rodgers, where the New York Jets were like, you know what?

Speaker 5 We got all these good pieces on our team. All we need is like a good quarterback, and we could contend.

Speaker 5 Hell, maybe we could go to the Super Bowl with Aaron Rodgers behind a really good defense and good skill players. All that, okay, that entire conceit as a contender has been imploded with dynamite.

Speaker 5 Aaron, you've done it again.

Speaker 5 You monster.

Speaker 5 Now we watch the Steelers pivot in stunning fashion. Step one, dismantle.
Dismantle this atomic bomb.

Speaker 5 George Pickens has already been moved. I came up with this before the Pickens news came out this morning.
But interesting. George Pickens traded.
He won't be the last guy. Cam Hayward, D.K.

Speaker 5 Metcalf, T.J. Watt.
No one is safe in this new plan for the organization. Yes, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 5 A different enfranchise. Are about to tank.
The goal is simple. The number one one overall selection in the 2026 NFL draft, the arrival of Arch Manning or some

Speaker 5 similar gilded sun, a celebration and rebirth for the franchise on draft night, my birthday, April 23rd, 2026. The site of this baptism.

Speaker 16 Oh.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 4 Oh,

Speaker 7 Pittsburgh PA.

Speaker 18 Okay.

Speaker 5 I love this.

Speaker 5 I got to should absolutely do this, by the way. I don't know if they have the guts to do it or if Tomlin would stand for it.

Speaker 5 Maybe the other part of this is that Tomlin quits mysteriously in the middle of the summer. But

Speaker 5 yes, this would be the very aggressive

Speaker 5 pivot, the jumpstart to the engine that gets you out of the cul-de-sac.

Speaker 8 The only thing that I, because you've got the same owner, you've had forever, the same family, like I can't, I was trying to jog through my memory of any time that the Steelers have willingly burnt anything down.

Speaker 8 Like, they, like, in my lifetime, they, they've had, back in the 80s, they had some bad teams, um, right, but it's not in their DNA. Um,

Speaker 8 I've got one, like, that we can get into in a bit. Um, it's, it's, there's some similar tentacles to it, but the Steelers, that would be a hard pivot from everything the Rooney.

Speaker 8 Of course, that's the whole idea of why it's also harder to do than it's just, it's hard to do because you can end up with the fourth pick. Like, it's, I think, blowing up a football team.

Speaker 8 We've seen teams do it, and they can say whatever they want. It's hard to pull off.

Speaker 5 You don't have to land the number one pick. You don't have to.
You'd like to, right? Right.

Speaker 5 Like, the part of this would be you trade assets and you, if you have to make a charge to the top of the draft bar, you'll be armed with, you know, if TJ Watt, for instance, fetches you a first-round pick.

Speaker 5 Now, I know that's very implausible.

Speaker 5 They trade the face of the team, but I'm just saying, like, it is something that if Aaron Rodgers indeed is messing with them and the fact that he's more complex than deep financial conversations around ai and and its place in the in the current landscape of culture um tells me that things are not going to plan and if that happens who's the who's on the depth chart right now in pittsburgh is it mason rudolph yep and will howard i think right who they just drafted and will howard a what day three draft pick yep That team is going to be really bad and maybe they can make themselves intentionally bad and change this situation.

Speaker 13 I liked it because I thought you were going, like, you tricked me a couple of times. Like, I thought the reveal was going to be, oh, they're going to have a losing record.

Speaker 13 And I was like, damn, that's good. And then you're like, and then it went all the way to, holy shit, they're drafting Arch Manning at Pittsburgh.

Speaker 5 I love that.

Speaker 13 I was very, I got chills a little bit at the end there. That was good.

Speaker 5 And I know, Justin, you've jumped in a few times in the past few weeks.

Speaker 5 Justin took a monster rip from his vape, by the way, as I was bringing him into the combo. And now he has to put it in the show because I mentioned it.
I love it.

Speaker 5 Justin, that is a good chance that Arch Manning is not

Speaker 8 coming out in 2026 for the draft.

Speaker 5 However, what if, and maybe this is a piece of this, listen, the Steelers are one of the great organizations with a rich history that do it right, that they send some of their minions, or maybe it's a Rooney, or maybe who is this other fellow I mentioned?

Speaker 8 They send this Thomas Tull fellow to I don't think they wanted him talking about this on CNBC

Speaker 5 manage to kind of screase the skids. Like, hey, just so you know, we'll treat you right, and you will be a hero in Western PA.

Speaker 15 Come on out.

Speaker 17 I can't say it's totally out of the question. I just know what he and his family,

Speaker 17 his very famous Super Bowl-winning uncles and his equally famous grandfather have said about how they want to handle him, you know, his college journey, which is to be there for four years, to start for two years, to get as much experience as possible in college so that his transition to the NFL is a little smoother.

Speaker 17 And maybe they change their minds there, but if it's an organization like the Steelers, but I is his dad Cooper? Yeah, his dad is Cooper, yeah, the wide receiver.

Speaker 5 Is Cooper the guy that was going to be also a star and then he had a neck injury that ended his playing?

Speaker 17 He was Peyton's high school receiver, who, yeah, is.

Speaker 8 I'd say he's the best-looking Manning brother.

Speaker 5 Okay, he's the hottest Manning brother, brother, but also a cautionary tale to the idea of like hanging around when you can go be the first pick in the draft.

Speaker 17 The other factor in the equation now that didn't apply to the other Mannings is that he's going to make millions of dollars staying in school, not as much as he would make being the first overall pick in the draft, but still,

Speaker 6 it's not as big of like a rich.

Speaker 8 That's true, but he's already excessively wealthy.

Speaker 8 Arch Manning has been rich since he was born.

Speaker 17 Well, in some ways, but he also did a thing where he said

Speaker 17 he wasn't going to take a dime of NIL money until he became the starting quarterback. And he held true to that for a long time, and he was not in the initial edition of NCAA 25 or whatever.

Speaker 5 Now we're reading from a press release that Justin wrote on spec for

Speaker 8 State Texas.

Speaker 17 It was like a very small amount of money just to be included in NCAA, in the NCAA video game that came out last year, and he declined it. And then I think they went back and he said, Okay, fine.

Speaker 17 Can you imagine if, like,

Speaker 5 integrity was at the heart of that decision? Yeah, imagine if the Jaguars drafted Arch Manning, like what James Gladstone could have a field day

Speaker 5 with that.

Speaker 10 It's like four scores and seven.

Speaker 19 Let me have that music again.

Speaker 10 Here's a boy that

Speaker 5 had people throwing money at him.

Speaker 5 Archie said, No.

Speaker 5 Archie said, I will not take a dime

Speaker 5 of your NIL money until I am QB1.

Speaker 5 And that's the integrity that will lift his family,

Speaker 5 this team,

Speaker 5 and America to a higher place.

Speaker 5 Thank you. No more questions.

Speaker 13 Can I just put a bow on the fact that

Speaker 13 because I think that both of you guys, like where we've worked,

Speaker 13 the fact that we've all worked in the same place and kind of had similar life experiences, like when that, when the Steelers minority owner says that and then it's aggregated, it's hard how hard the shit rolls downhill there.

Speaker 13 And like there's someone at nfl.com who aggregated that that just got their absolute ass kicked.

Speaker 13 And there's also some mid-level PR person who either didn't warn him that he was going to be be asked football questions or had a question asked anyway.

Speaker 5 And there is,

Speaker 5 you know, like whenever

Speaker 5 the poor part-time guy they got writing the articles in the NFL media newsroom getting pulled into the

Speaker 5 news bosses of like, listen, Tom, like, I get it. I get why it's newsworthy.
I get why you wrote this, but we got to be thinking. We got to think.

Speaker 8 I once had a, yeah, I had one of the more sinister

Speaker 8 news chiefs there call me a child

Speaker 8 for something that I had printed.

Speaker 5 The same man, if I recall correctly, that hated Damashek for doing his 420 bit in the newsroom.

Speaker 8 Didn't like that either.

Speaker 5 Yeah. All right.

Speaker 5 Let's do real quick before we sign off. So those all three I thought.

Speaker 5 were plausible. Maybe the Jags Titans in Beirut.
That's a toughie.

Speaker 5 But otherwise, I think everything else felt like really in line with something that could happen based on what we've learned about the league. Let's take it out just a little bit further.

Speaker 5 Let's get a little deeper.

Speaker 8 So, this was a classic case of Mark maybe not providing enough detail to Justin as we gave these topics out. But I want to, I'm going to keep this quick because we just dove into this.

Speaker 8 But in an alternate universe, to your Pittsburgh Steelers situation, that Connor, you once

Speaker 8 did a very nice job explaining the true nature on our old show, the true nature and the power of the Manning family in general.

Speaker 8 That I believe that what is happening behind the scenes, as we speak, the NFL, it ties into everything we're talking about. It's got to be the biggest show on the planet.

Speaker 8 We've got to make things make sense. Things need to be poetic and beautiful, and they've got to be marketable.
And

Speaker 8 we've got the worst team in football right now down in New Orleans with a head coach who doesn't have a quarterback that he likes right now.

Speaker 8 They are, I think, that the league and Mickey Loomis, who is, Mickey Loomis is a good old boy down there. And I think that they have been working.

Speaker 8 The NFL and Mickey Loomis, in conjunction with Kellen Moore not getting in trouble no matter what happens this season, that the Manning family has basically said behind the scenes, Arch Manning.

Speaker 8 will play where his grandfather played in New Orleans. And it begins next season.
They've got a very good chance to tank, get the number one pick.

Speaker 8 It's just an alternate universe to your Steelers, but I see them. For me, it's the Manning family pulling the lever and saying, this makes all the sense in the world for the NFL.

Speaker 8 Archie Manning was the only good thing those Saints teams had back in the day, and he was wonderful to watch.

Speaker 8 But this would be a completely different setup with basically the NFL's royal family saying this must happen, and the NFL saying we agree.

Speaker 13 I like it.

Speaker 13 And I think that we can, it's hard, right? Because there's that conspiratorial line that you have to walk.

Speaker 13 But I think it's insane to not think that the league in some way, shape, or form has not at least had a conversation about preferential destinations for this person, right?

Speaker 13 I mean, we are in a little bit of a quarterback abyss beyond Mahomes and Allen and Lamar Jackson.

Speaker 13 And the NFL was built basically in post-2000 on the golden age of that, you know, Roethlisberger, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, you know, and Peyton Manning. And and, and that formula,

Speaker 13 you know, it generates everything, right? It has something to do with fantasy football. It has something to do with gambling.
It has something to do with jersey sales. And so

Speaker 13 I'm glad both of you guys brought it up because,

Speaker 13 again, I'm not trying to sound like a crazy person, but they absolutely had to have had some sort of a conversation about like, this is where we'd like this to go, right?

Speaker 12 Yeah.

Speaker 8 And also he did with Eli Manning.

Speaker 13 Openly. He can't wind up in like with the Chargers, right?

Speaker 19 I mean.

Speaker 5 And you gotta, the key to everything here is we keep on bringing up Arch Manning, and he's in addition to being like, I guess, Justin, you know more than me, but one of the top quarterback prospects to come out of college in some time in terms of the hype around him.

Speaker 5 You have to back it up and be an elite, elite player to...

Speaker 5 to then have the juice for the family or reps or whatever to be able to steer him. Like, that was the thing.

Speaker 5 And I think some of that got lost in the Shador Sanders drama of like, why is there a double standard here that Dion can't play Kingmaker,

Speaker 5 but you know, Arch Sr. was able to do it with Eli once.

Speaker 5 He can't, no, Dion could do it. The problem was the kid wasn't good enough to be able to play that game.

Speaker 5 He's a middle-of-the-road NFL prospect who was a good but not fantastic college football quarterback. And that's a big difference.

Speaker 5 So if Arch turns out for Justin and the rest of texas to uh to be as good as potentially advertised here yeah then it gets very interesting because the mannings have a history of playing that role the king's ransom

Speaker 17 he's thrown 95 passes in two seasons at texas so far that's not a lot we don't really know yet what arch manning is and after the draft all these analysts are looking ahead to the 2026 draft and there's been like multiple breakdowns written about what arch manning currently is right now and a lot of it is kind of skeptical that he's going to be the next great thing he's got to go prove it to your point he's got to do that over the next season or two I also said king's ransom I meant queen's gambit so

Speaker 6 right like the king's ransom note

Speaker 10 king's quest if I didn't know what he's going

Speaker 5 um all right my last one is really wild And it's not something I hope to happen. I just want to make that very clear, but it's also, it just popped into my head a few weeks back

Speaker 5 as something that would be crazy. I looked at this article.
Here's the article that I came across a few weeks back: Mike Florio sounds alarm on NFL's antitrust exemptions.

Speaker 5 And then a little pull quote: this is from Awful Announcing, I believe. It would blow up everything.

Speaker 5 Okay, and then I got to thinking, like,

Speaker 5 all right, here's something that would be a crazy, huge story. All right.

Speaker 5 What if

Speaker 5 one day,

Speaker 5 and of course Florio is a former attorney

Speaker 5 who runs pro football talk and kind of has a nice kind of story. Yeah, kind of, I would say that,

Speaker 5 how would you label Mark Florio? He's like the unofficial ombudsman of the NFL in terms of the moral ombudsman in a way. Like

Speaker 5 he's made it his duty to try to keep the NFL in line and report on what he perceives to be things where they cross the line.

Speaker 5 Like he's usually all over the NFL in various ways when he thinks that they've stepped out of the proper line of conduct. Is that fair to say?

Speaker 8 I think that's fair. I mean, I don't think he's alone in that role, but he stands out as like

Speaker 8 he's always been independent. of the league.
Like he's always been very down on NFL media. He was a sharp critic of the way that the league ran its own television station and media empire.

Speaker 8 And so I think, yes, he gets in there crosshairs and vice versa quite a bit.

Speaker 5 He could be at times a thorn in the side of the NFL. Safe to say? That's correct.

Speaker 5 All right. So how about this as a scenario?

Speaker 5 And this antitrust thing we've been talking about at the NFL Sunday ticket situation and the idea of how the NFL packages all its teams for media deals, but what would happen if that got broken apart?

Speaker 5 And

Speaker 5 as an example, the Dallas Cowboys could sell the rights to all their games.

Speaker 5 And then on the other side, a team like the Jaguars trying to sell the rights to their games, and how that would destroy the economic

Speaker 5 conceit of the NFL.

Speaker 5 And here is Florio reporting on this and banging the drum that the NFL might not be able to keep their business the way it is. What if one day, after multiple reports from Pro Football Talk,

Speaker 5 and Mike Florio, a strange email lands in the inbox of Josh Alper

Speaker 5 from Florio. Hey, hey, scrub all the antitrust content, ASAP.

Speaker 5 That's it. That's the entire email.
And then Florio

Speaker 5 goes missing.

Speaker 5 Whoa.

Speaker 5 And then people start turning over rocks and trying to figure out what's going on here.

Speaker 13 Got a little too close.

Speaker 5 And then maybe

Speaker 5 michael david smith

Speaker 5 starts you know

Speaker 5 looking for answers and he comes across uh a voice note

Speaker 8 whoever that is i don't want him to get an hour older

Speaker 5 and this thing goes all the way to the top all the way to park avenue and there's some red tape

Speaker 5 connecting the disappearance of Florio to the NFL itself.

Speaker 5 Pretty big story.

Speaker 8 I think you've singled out of any media person,

Speaker 8 you've singled out the person this would happen to. He's also, he's written a couple of mystery novels himself, but he is the one that I think

Speaker 8 goes deeper and it's more intrigued. Like even this morning, I was checking out PFT, and he said, like on his eighth article about George Pickens, like Mike Florio was like

Speaker 8 an avid um like compiler of data and news and like I think this kind of stuff is the thing that he wants to be vote zoned in on where other reporters would skip it and like so

Speaker 8 he's yeah I think he's I think he's like you said a thorn in the side and to be very clear

Speaker 5 we've We just saw Florio at the Super Bowl. It was cordial.
We've been in the crosshairs a couple times ourselves. But this is nothing I wish upon him, Connor.

Speaker 5 But it is the idea of the NFL getting bigger and bigger and more and more powerful in what the league would do to ensure that their conquest of the globe

Speaker 5 goes undeterred.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I finished watching the Tim Donaghy thing the other day,

Speaker 13 the documentary on Tim Donaghy, and there was the whole pending lawsuit against the NBA.

Speaker 13 And there were people who are going to testify that essentially, you know, David Stern wanted preferential treatment for certain stars so that they could stay in the game longer and what a kind of paradigm altering moment that would be for the league.

Speaker 13 And I just started thinking to myself, like, holy shit, like, I sit in my kitchen and I write, like, this billionaire is a dumbass. This billionaire is a dumbass.

Speaker 13 And I was like, what's, what's going to stop a car from just running me over while I'm walking my dog every day? I mean, and how close are we to that moment? You know, and it really did like hit me.

Speaker 13 Like, and I had that same thought that, like, Florio's kind of amazing, like the fact that he works for a league television partner and he's just always like, let me just, you know, get closer to the octopus at the center of this thing, you know?

Speaker 5 Yeah. And then the obviously the Alpers and the MDSs of the world are asking, did it get too close to the mouth of the beast?

Speaker 8 I really hope Josh Alper's listening to this.

Speaker 13 Good man. By the way, you're not going to, like, MDS, if you like, that guy's jacked, man.
You know, he would go in and he would.

Speaker 13 He'd figure it out.

Speaker 5 He'd pull Florio out of there.

Speaker 8 He went through a bit of a body transformation.

Speaker 8 Like, he did get jacked.

Speaker 10 I don't think he's a good person.

Speaker 5 I think there's one thing we know. MDS would be like a dog with a bone on this story.

Speaker 5 With the help of Alper and others.

Speaker 13 That's why I love PFT.

Speaker 8 I think they do a great job.

Speaker 5 Exactly. They're doing important work.

Speaker 5 Maybe too important for the league.

Speaker 8 Like Fox 10. Don't leave Fox 10 out.

Speaker 8 Great work being done over there.

Speaker 5 Fox 10's asking the hard questions.

Speaker 5 Wait, was Fox 10 the one that... Oh, no, that was.
I was saying CNBC got the

Speaker 5 money quote from the minority owner.

Speaker 16 Yeah, Fox 10

Speaker 10 Tommy Tush.

Speaker 5 What was the minority owner of the studios?

Speaker 12 Tommy Tush.

Speaker 5 Tommy Tall.

Speaker 5 That's a good job by CNBC. The business reporter is like, oh, what about Aaron Rodgers? And then all of a sudden, Tommy Tush is lighting the NFL media newsroom on fire.

Speaker 8 Thomas Tull. Yeah, caught off guard.
Caught off guard.

Speaker 8 The Fox 10 was the, they did the

Speaker 10 doctor who also had the memory loss.

Speaker 8 It was also a trenchant story.

Speaker 5 Remember,

Speaker 5 there's nothing to be examined further about this quote from a real-life Italian doctor, Pier Dante Picconier. The new Foxa drama, Doc, is inspired by a Maya Life.

Speaker 5 I had a car accident, lost 12 years of my memories completely.

Speaker 5 Only on Fox.

Speaker 5 Sundays on Fox.

Speaker 5 Learning about the Maya Life of Story.

Speaker 5 All right, should we end the show?

Speaker 3 Yeah.

Speaker 5 This might be our last show.

Speaker 5 We'll be back on Patreon on Friday. The Friday Fun Show returns.
We'll be hitting all of the things that interest us. Anything else? Let's get some more plugs in there.

Speaker 5 You got, Connor, you over on the SI front, you did,

Speaker 5 as expected, write your column about why retired numbers should not exist.

Speaker 5 I'm very,

Speaker 5 I respect, just like Mike Florio, I respect your right to share an opinion and get something out there, however unpopular it may be.

Speaker 13 Popularity-wise,

Speaker 13 I don't know. I mean,

Speaker 13 this is a a very,

Speaker 13 this is like a very Biden-Trump sort of situation where you have cornered an unmovable part of the population, and I too have cornered an unmovable part of the population.

Speaker 13 And at this point, we're just trying to see what happens in Michigan and Wisconsin.

Speaker 8 Well, it feels very generational, too, because,

Speaker 8 you know, off record, there was a subset of Americans by age that

Speaker 8 you slammed verbally over text Connor. You don't seem to be very into the

Speaker 8 adults over the age of 70 who had it easy coming off of

Speaker 5 their youth,

Speaker 8 houses left and right.

Speaker 8 These vacations.

Speaker 13 It's funny because this stuff will start relatively lighthearted and then

Speaker 13 it will get to a point where I'm like walking between the island and the dining room table in the kitchen and my wife's like over on the couch.

Speaker 13 And I'm like, how don't people see that it's not, you know, and i get i'm really upset about it and she's you know it gets to the point where i'm i'm angry and i guess this is the beauty of the nfl like this a tentacle this small and irrelevant in in early may could fire me up this i think you just basically like um also describe the internet as a whole something that starts out fun and innocent innocent turning wicked and dark yeah Yeah, I'm not, I'm not looking forward to what happens when like, you know, the people who we make fun of in there read it.

Speaker 5 And then, you know, know i guess the demographic of the retired numbers debate um and if you missed the last show i am in favor of retired numbers and connor is against them i was unaware that outside of this country like none of the other

Speaker 5 like major sports or i guess soccer in the uk and and surrounding territories as an example nobody does that so i'm seeing a lot of support from our overseas listeners for your take because they don't it's another thing that's like oh stupid americans uh but but if if from the people around these parts, I feel like I'm getting a lot of respect and support, including from the great Michael Sean Dugar as an example.

Speaker 5 Yes. The great Jason Zumwalt as an example.
These are the real tastemakers of American society. So I feel like I have the continental U.S.
on lock, and you got maybe the

Speaker 5 other side of the pond.

Speaker 13 So quickly, I mean, obviously, Jason Zumwalt would be in favor of it because the Cardinals are never going to have to retire enough numbers where it actually becomes an issue.

Speaker 5 But

Speaker 13 at risk of, you know, this is one of those like, you know, don't keep talking situations, but it's one of those

Speaker 13 at risk of further alienating myself from our overseas fan base. I do hate the fact that their suggestion is just like, well, over here, we name the stands after players.

Speaker 13 And it's like, you're going to have the same finging problem where you're going to run out of stands and then you're going to have to build a bigger stadium, you know?

Speaker 5 Honestly, overseas listeners, this is the man that you want to side with. Can you listen? Do you hear what's coming out of his mouth? Even in this episode, he denigrated you earlier

Speaker 5 saying, We're not going to share any of our best games with you. We're going to send over our trash bag games.
That's the guy that you're siding with. Just think about it.

Speaker 13 But it's the same world.

Speaker 13 I love all of you in a very personal way.

Speaker 13 I don't like the fact that you're like, we have an easy solution. Like, like, how many times, and again, like at the MMQB

Speaker 13 in the hundreds at this point of letters being like, the NFL should just relegate teams. And it's just like, it doesn't work that way.

Speaker 8 Stop sending me that.

Speaker 13 Like, I understand it doesn't really work for you.

Speaker 8 You only have like four teams.

Speaker 5 I think we got to turn up Connor's mic. Yeah, we just before he gets himself in any more trouble.

Speaker 4 All right.

Speaker 3 Bye.

Speaker 5 All right. We'll be back Friday on the Patreon.

Speaker 5 New week of shows next week. Heeding that call.
Thank you to everybody.

Speaker 10 And remember, yes, you do what you must do.

Speaker 1 Always heat the call.

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