Hot Topics from NFL Owners Meetings

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The Heed the Call Podcast

does not endorse the blood sacrifice of baby goats at the owners' meetings.

Not anymore.

Maybe, once upon a time,

Ceci and I would be mopping up the blood.

You know, Connor would go and make the bolt gun disappear.

But those days are over.

Welcome to Heed the Call, Dan Hansis.

Mark Zessler.

Welcome back, Mark.

Welcome back, Mark.

Connor Orr.

Yes, it's NFL Owners Meetings Week at a luxury hotel in Florida.

We've moved past our

days as yes men.

Henchmen.

As blood cleaners, as henchmen.

Yes, I think, and I feel proud about that.

I think it's a step up morally, Connor.

Yeah.

Although our...

Mark, you're and I's experience at owners meetings while working for the league was only overwhelmingly positive.

Like we went the one time, and I'm sure this was like a missed line item on someone's budget, but we got to stay at like the most expensive hotel in the country.

There was a live parrot that sat on my balcony all the time, just completely enjoying the habitat.

I got that parrot was eaten later during the dinner portion.

Sure.

Fresh blood.

Yeah.

It was, I had a great time.

We went to several owners' meetings, actually.

And I think this is the

this is the my favorite, my favorite event to go to um well Super Bowl obviously for different reasons and but from pure like when you're in the machine because what you would see at these meetings you are as I said at a luxury resort a resort that it has to be good enough for the actual oligarchs that run the league to stay for a couple days right so and then just because if you're working for the league as we were back then you would just get grandfathered or just drafted in so you'd get to stay on these grounds as well for a couple of days.

And

obviously, the booze is flowing.

There is a lot of activities and things to do around these meetings that they have.

So you would end up, there's a big party at the end of it that everyone is at, owners or mostly, you know, coaches, league figures.

You would always see things that you cannot repeat.

I believe, Ceci, if I'm not mistaken, some hot water we got into last year around a New York Jets owner and a now disposed head coach that occurred at the meetings.

Yeah.

Well, that's one of the reasons that the that we're right here right now speaking to you in this format.

No doubt about it.

But you know one thing about it, because some of these would take place in these massive swank hotels, but they weren't cut off from the public.

And I'll never forget one time we were in Florida and it was one of these hotels that has like eight football fields of richly carpeted hallway.

And there was a bar where at night, every NFL head coach, every GM, and a ton of other people were just all hanging out in this central location.

And you'd have actual tourists down in Florida staying at this hotel and like the 14-year-old football obsessed kid who walks by a lobby looking at every single NFL figure.

And it was like an absolute traumatic shock to the senses.

Like you didn't know they were there and suddenly you're seeing everyone that you look at on Sundays all hanging out drinking beers.

Like the 14-year-old me would have a

stroke.

Well, well, I know you grew up in a leafy suburb of Connecticut, but I know you didn't grow grow up as an elite.

The difference here is those teenagers that are seeing this,

what I, using the example of, I referenced, if you know, the program Severance on Apple TV Plus with the baby goats, and now I'll use another premium television reference here, White Lotus.

This is the White Lotus, basically, with all the NFL's top figures, and you are here, and then all the other people that are not in the NFL picture are, you know, upper crust types.

So they're used to being around rich people like this.

And to be dropped into it, to be parachuted into this world,

as somebody who grew up in a coal town, especially.

I mean, somebody who grew up with a black.

This is going down predictable roads.

And you mentioned the parrot that you had sitting outside your balcony.

I had a bird also.

It was a canary down at the bottom of the coal mine.

And if that canary sang, that meant I survived.

So for Dan to be dropped into that, especially,

it was wild.

But in general,

I hope we painted the picture of why this event is more fun than any other to cover.

I do love the idea that

each team got six rooms at the Breakers, which I looked up before we started and goes for an average of $1,490 a night.

Oh, hey, oh,

up to

$3,500 a night.

But it just goes to show that no matter how high you make it in society, like you're the president of the Colts, but like Jim Merce gets a room, his two daughters get a room, Chris Ballard gets a room, Shane Steichen gets a room, and then all of a sudden it's just like, sorry, pal, you're at the Hilton with the rest of the losers.

Hey, guys,

without further ado, let's get into it.

Let's start.

Why don't we take a look at the annual coaches group photo,

which is always fun.

Everyone is here except for one, right, Mark?

Yeah, it looks like I sussed this out.

I believe we've got 31 coaches here.

And by my studies, and you tell me if I'm incorrect, I don't see Raheem Morris.

Well, this is how I know you are fresh off vacation, recharged and

refreshed, that you were able to immediately point this out and illuminate the situation for us.

That's why you're the sess dog, and you're ready to roll.

Yeah, it looks like we're missing one.

So it's Raheem Morris pulling the old Belichick move of not showing up to the coaches photo.

And you can check this out on YouTube if you haven't seen it.

A couple things that stand out.

First thing that stands out is the the head coach of the defending world champion

Philadelphia Eagles, Nick Siriani, who will always be a figure of fascination

for me.

He's the only one wearing shorts and a beat-up golf polo shirt, and he's got his cap at his feet.

Kind of a little bit Connor Orion in a way, but also

also kind of reminds me of your cousin who you only see at weddings and funerals.

He golfs a lot.

Maybe he's the manager or assistant manager at a Chili's, moderate Coke problem, big boozer.

That's kind of what I get out of this.

What do you guys take out of the Siriani look here compared to the other coaches?

I just, I like that he is in his own element.

He's being himself.

This is how he would dress.

Whereas we don't talk enough about this.

The appropriation of old white head coaches wearing Jordans and Nike ducks to try to relate to their players.

And they all just look like complete imbeciles.

And now it's just become part of the uniform for them.

But you're looking at this 67-year-old person on, you know, Medicare, and he's walking around with

like black and red Jordans.

He just looks idiotic.

And so I don't know if you can.

And

I'll give Sirian credit for this, too.

He has now reached the phase where he's got senioritis.

He's now won a Super Bowl, right?

And

he's going in there.

I could wear whatever I want.

I'll show up in a hat.

You're lucky I I even took the hat off for the photo.

He's giving off that energy as well.

Yeah, he's getting a little bit dinged because it's unclear to us if maybe someone else in the back row is donning shorts.

He stands out for that reason.

I would say one thing.

Like, we are in an era now where...

Like, farewell, Charlie Weiss.

Like, outside of like the sort of jolly-ish Andy Reid scenario here, this sort of has gone the way that I view kind of pro-golf, like the Walrus back in the day, like the 320-pound guy.

Like, those guys are gone.

These guys are fit.

They're dressed well, like they fit in their clothing.

Like, it's harder to pick out guys that stand out that look like total rubes compared to years of old.

Well, I'll pick out another guy who stands out.

By the way, Dave Canal is hubba-hubba.

I think he's the best-looking coach of the group, and he's looking jacked.

Um, but I also want to point out, um,

can we take a look at wait, is this an episode of Remember the Titans?

I think it is.

Hey, that's Brian Callahan right there.

I actually asked Justin, I said, hey, who the f is that guy?

He's like, oh, that's the head coach of the Tennessee Titans, Brian Callahan.

And then let's pull out the photo a little bit.

This would, I would be a little concerned.

This might be an emergency episode of Remember the Titans

because he's the only one that missed the assignment and he's looking in the wrong direction.

Yeah,

it's almost like he's staring into the future.

It's a dark one.

It's a dark one, potentially.

Speaking, oh, one other thing about the Titans.

If this is indeed an emergency episode, remember the Titans?

Graver, our producer, who is on top of everything, right?

Our rundown is so filled with content, everything that we need to do to be successful in an episode like this, a news-heavy episode.

Somehow it did not make it into the rundown.

Then the Titans have cried uncle and quietly announced on their website late last week that they will not be be wearing the Houston Oilers uniforms next year.

Victory!

Victory!

Got your ass grave, digger.

We don't know why this is happening.

There's no admission that this has anything to do with the controversy over Houston.

I think it has to do with the Titans opening a new stadium in 2027.

Let's press pause on these Oilers and make sure Cam Ward is good.

And after he has a rookie of the year type season, then we can roll him out in the trailers.

No, no, no.

I think the laissez-faire approach that your generation takes to history in general has taken a slap to the face.

And someone, someone with some sort of a compass inside of the organization, you got a sign for that.

Yeah.

Has decided

we're going to stop doing what is essentially a very silly thing each year.

We're going to stop doing it.

Not to mention they were getting their asses whooped every time they wore those uniforms, too, because karma has a sense of humor.

Only last year, the year before that, they won in them.

Dude, when JJ Watt is clowning you from the CBS studios during station breaks, it's like

I'm glad they actually,

there's some accountability here.

So I feel like this is a really good episode of Remember the Titans?

Good app.

I thought it was a good app

in other news.

Justin's furious right now.

Him and the other Justin are going to have like a 20-minute monologue on the the Titans podcast just going off.

Is that on the rundown for your next episode of

Or do you skirt by it?

Do you just

sneak by that one?

We're not going to be talking about the Oilers throwbacks on Music City Audible.

We have bigger matters to attend to.

It feels like something you got to hit.

I'm sorry.

Connor, it feels like something at least that should be hit.

It was kind of a hot-button topic for a team that otherwise is not on the national radar.

How many line items are there on a Titan-specific podcast?

This is Justin's Warren report.

We talk Cam Ward.

This will be like the seventh straight episode.

We're just talking Cam Ward.

Yeah.

Like, what else is going on?

It's like the JFK files where they just had all the lines redacted out of it.

That's the whole section of the podcast that would have been about the Houston Oilers uniforms.

Convenient.

All right.

So let's just get into it.

This is all the stuff that's going on

connected to the NFL owners' meetings because, as we said, yes, there's parties, there's drinks, there's pools, there's margaritas,

there's parrots, there's sacrifice, but there's also, well, traditionally there was a coach's breakfast that was called, but as we understand it, that has been nixed.

That was a little too human.

That needed to be wiped away as well.

And now it was just held in a big canopy, coaches access.

It began,

was it on Monday morning the access began, or was it on Sunday?

Monday morning.

Monday morning.

So

let's talk about some of the stuff that's going on here as coaches and owners speak from Florida.

Charles Robinson, veteran Yahoo reporter covering the NFL,

reports that Roger Goodell and NFL owners will discuss the possibility of adding an 18th game to the regular season at the meetings.

And if you read the Robinson report, great veteran reporter, Charles Robinson of Yahoo.

There is a reason why

it is entering a point, Connor, where they need to start getting into it because the NFL, the league, has an opportunity to opt out of their media deal in a couple of years.

And obviously, going to the table potentially with interested parties, of which there are many, with, hey, now we have it.

And the 18th game is something they're going to want to have ready to go by the time that opt-out is in two years.

So that is the motivating factor here.

Do you think it happens, Mr.

Orr?

Yeah, I think it's an inevitability.

And the reason why is because I think that they're taking a lesson from baseball and the fact that baseball was such a monolith in the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s.

But tastes change regardless of what you do to try and improve the product or to change the product.

And as much as we love football, in 30 years or 40 years, it's probably not going to be America's game.

It's not going to be the most popular sport.

And whether that, whether it's slap fighting,

whether it's slap fighting or US UFC or just Jake Paul fighting random strangers on the street, like something.

You got an idiocracy type angle here that the football is on borrowed time.

Yeah, not just football, but

I would say that

the NFL is doing a good job in terms of just being the corporation that it is, and that you have to suck this thing completely dry.

Don't make that a drop, Justin.

God damn it.

You have to completely wring this thing out and you have to gain every single dollar possible.

And an 18th game just makes complete and total sense.

Yeah, and there's no evidence that it won't do well.

Like

it's more fantasy football.

It's more gambling.

I think the plan always was 18, and this was a half measure to go to 17.

You use the word inevitable.

Like multiple people at the owners' meetings have used that word too.

Now, I think the question is, like, the players don't have to, they can battle this up until March 2031 when the CBA comes up again.

Does it go in before that?

I just think it's going to happen.

And you're right.

Like,

an 18th week of football, even if you've got a bunch of backups in there and stuff, will still do better right now than any other sport that is broadcast anywhere in the world.

It is an interesting place for the union

because

although there was some language that came, this is also from the Robinson write-up.

There was some language that came from one of the union heads

recently that they were amenable to the idea idea since they've closed up ranks and have been pretty vocal about no chance, no way, we're not doing it.

Just history is instructive, as the great late Chris Wesling often said.

This used to be a 14-game NFL schedule, and then it became 16.

Okay, 12, 14, 16,

17,

18 feels inevitable.

There might be a time where, yes,

the union has to put their foot down because the NFL, if we've learned anything covering the league, will never stop.

And if you think 18 is where they're going to be eventually like, oh, this is fine.

No, they'll continue to push because their goal is eventually to have a product that covers up through the spring.

And if the NFL had its way, it'd be up against the NBA Finals in June.

So it's like, just at some point, there's going to have to be someone that's going to have to draw a line in the sand and the union would have to turn away from profit, which is the only thing they have in this is well if you want to add a game you need to give us more of the pie i think they want to get it to a 50 50 revenue split i think it's 48.8 or something like that right now uh but at a certain point you start to not just sell your soul your body and the and the health of these players away or it becomes a different sport like maybe mark i don't know if you were alluding to that where you have to have

bigger rosters and different types of teams that you use across the season and multiple bye weeks and we start to see a different sport.

The thing that I always loved about the NFL was how important every game is, that at least in the old 16-game model, like you get to the fourth game through, shit, 25% of my season's through.

It's like the equivalent of a Major League Baseball year through June, and you're like, all right, where are we at?

So the more games you get, the more watered down I get, but it's the more money that the league makes.

So it's like that eternal struggle that always goes on.

Can you imagine a world where if the season, the regular season, is so elongated that as a bonus late in the year, you're adding rookies to your roster to spice up the roster and maybe make a late season, regular season push like the draft incorporates into the actual regular season.

I have a little stunning thing.

I don't know why I thought this.

Can you fly the photo up, Justin?

I thought Charles Robinson was like a 71-year-old guy who's been doing this for 40 years.

I don't know.

Am I thinking of someone else?

Here's a photo of Charles Robinson who looks like he's in his mid-30s wearing a Tigers cap and stylish glasses.

I totally missed the boat on this.

I'm thrown asunder by this as well.

Are you okay?

Am I, are we thinking of someone different?

I thought Charles Robinson was one of those like vets like our old friend Bob Glauber or something that saw it all and has lived a life and a life and a life covering this.

I thought it was African-American.

Where we are.

Well, Charles Robinson, you have accomplished so much in a brief amount of time that we thought you've been a titan of football journalism, a paragon since

the gas crisis of the 1970s.

So, congratulations, bud.

Love Charles.

We'll take that loss.

Take a deal.

In other news, let's talk tush-push.

Who wants to talk tush-push?

I know who wants to talk tush-push.

Connor Orr this week wrote a banger, a fiery and impassioned plea to lay off the tush-push.

ESPN's Kalen Collar reports that the tush-push now has some support within the competition committee to be banned.

Okay, let's get into some

quotes here.

And before we get into the quotes, let me just say, when we first talked about this a couple weeks ago, the point I made was the Packers putting it out there as being the front of it didn't mean the Packers were going to be alone.

There had to be conversations.

And sure enough, there are.

There are people and figures and teams that want to align with the Packers.

And the reporting is that this could be a close vote.

Let's start with a quote from Stephen Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, who

is against Tush Push.

We're looking for consistency as a committee, and we don't allow pushing.

We don't allow the linebackers to push the defensive lineman on extra points, and we're just trying to be consistent.

All right, let's now take a quote from Nick Siriani.

I got to say,

Siriani, I'm glad he's around because he is constant, constant source of entertainment for me.

Who talks like this?

Nick Siriani on banning the Tushbush, that obviously it's his team that has perfected it.

All I will say about it is Gannon, Steichen, and Moore better vote for it.

They are in the position right now because of that play.

So all three, I better have those three votes right there and the Eagles vote.

I at least know we have four.

Come on, guys.

You got to at least go with me here that this is a kind of a douchey quote, that these three men that put their lives into football, the only reason they have their head coach jobs is because of the tush push.

What is he, George Steinbrenner in 1986?

Like, who talks like this?

I love it.

It's very like, it's spoken like a true Italian

wartime, you know?

And all the five families are meeting around the table, and you got to send a message and let everybody know that if you, if you don't come with the votes, you're going to wake up with a severed horse head in your back.

Well, that is a good point, Connor.

Certainly, that is basically a public threat to those guys.

And that's pretty wild that one would do such a thing.

But when you're on the fumes of a championship, I guess you say whatever you want.

But I'd argue they wouldn't make either of those two Super Bowls without the tush push.

I'd argue that's possible.

So you agree with this point that those men only got where they are because of that quarterback sneak play?

Only?

Not only.

Oh, that's what he said.

Look at his quote.

I mean, I think it's Siriani is going to take it to a higher temperature level, but like I kind of, I see in the spirit of what he's saying.

They are in the position right now because of that play.

I don't think it's entirely untrue that that's sort of who the Eagles are, but I would say this.

Like,

I think there's a little tongue-in-cheek here.

I mean, he can't control what they do.

I mean, Steichen.

I'm going to give him a lot of credit for that.

Shane Steichen helped evolve that.

Got to balance you out.

That play started with a single pusher back in 2022, and then it evolved into something that they ran out of a triple I.

And then the rugby experts came in, and Jeff Statlin and Shane Steichen worked on lowering their pad pad level.

And they were all involved in the creation of it.

Steichen tried it with the Colts and Richardson multiple times last season, not to the same level of success at all.

Yeah.

Here's a sound from Browns head coach Kevin Stefansky.

To eliminate a quarterback sneak from getting pushed.

Yeah, I don't know that it's

something that needs to be legislated out of the game.

The injury data is not there for it.

So I would be in favor of keeping the rules as they are.

Here's my favorite part about this.

And I'm going to rant about this because in Kaylin Kaler's article, which was excellent, Kaylin is a former co-worker of mine.

She said that there was, obviously, there was no injury data.

The only team, the only players that were actually hurt during this were Daniel Jones and John Michael Schmitz of the Giants.

And they had never practiced the play and then tried to run it live during the game.

So of course they got hurt.

It's idiotic to do that.

And so they said that the league modeled out, they used data to model out potential injury risk.

Data.

We can't even successfully model or project an election.

How are we going to model out, you know, we can't even successfully model out a statistical

category to tell us who a good quarterback is.

Like Brock Purdy's the leader in EPA plus CPOE, and that's like the gold standard for quarterback data modeling.

And it drives me nuts that now we're modeling out potential injuries when none of it has happened in two goddamn seasons.

Like, what are we modeling?

What's the model?

Like, I really don't understand this.

I'm with you, Connor, and I think that, like, your article, along with Kaelin's, kind of paints this picture of, um, I guess the league is trying to do the old get ahead of it kind of thing.

We're creating a bogeyman, right?

In Kaelin's article, she also mentioned there were 35,415 total plays last season.

101 of those were the tush push.

That is 0.28%

of

football plays.

And so, I think it's, to me, it just strikes, I think

it is an interesting debate.

And in that same article, she mentioned that Sean McDermott and Sean McVay were in a bit of a heated conversation outside in the hallway with Howie Roseman and the Eagles assistant GM.

And McDermott, you could say, for one thing, the Bills are the only other team that have successfully...

incorporated a tush-push type play with Josh Allen.

It's a little bit of a different play, but it has worked.

And he sounds like he's even against banning it

on some level too.

Or he is, but it's like,

I think they're going to have a tough time passing this because the spirit of it to me is like, it sets a bad precedent for the next thing that a team does well that someone else doesn't do well.

There's so many bigger injury risks that we need to legislate out of the game before we get to the tush push, which has no documented injuries.

Like, let's improve the field turf.

Let's have officials call helmet-to-helmet collisions in games that aren't in prime time.

Let's give a shit about all the other stuff that actually causes major injuries.

And then you can get to the tush-push, which what?

Maybe hurt two guys in like 900 plays over the course of three years?

It's ridiculous.

This is deflategate all over again.

I mean, listen, it is a violent play, as I said a couple of weeks ago.

So is every play in the end?

I know, but this one, this one, there's a reason why there are rules about pushing other people into other people.

There is a physics side of it that I would think there's a reason why people are like, are we sure that this is even safe?

Like, I think that's fair to put that out there.

I also want to say that part of the point I made, and other people are making, it's not just about, okay, you could say you can't use the injury risk as a way to sell this to get rid of it.

Okay, that's fair if you don't have the data to back it up, but it's a pure product of is this fun to watch.

A lot of changes in the NFL occur based on things that happen in the playoffs.

That's what leads to rule changes in this league, even if it seems silly, but that's when the most eyeballs are out of it.

On the game, During the fourth quarter of the Commanders-Eagles playoff game,

on a go-line setup, there were four defensive penalties, one offsides, three encroachment on six consecutive

push-tush sneak plays that started at the one-yard line.

It got so bad that it stops down the game, and the officials had to make an announcement saying the Commanders will be.

penalized a full touchdown if this continues.

And this is also a part of the conversation that it's become a play that is not aesthetically pleasing to watch, that teams are going to try to scheme ways to stop it in a situation like that that will continue to have things like this go on.

And I think that is a worthy part of this conversation as well.

We have Chris Ballard's sound who looks totally different now, by the way.

Check out Ballard's new look.

It looks like a skin peel and a full white beard.

Well, I mean, right now, we would be against it.

I see it as just

they're really good at what they do.

and

nobody can stop it.

Unless I can see, and I'm not going to say we won't change our mind between now and when we vote, because we've still got another meeting on it.

But as long as

it's not a play where

a player's health and safety is at stake, where there's real injury, and I've not seen enough injury data to say, okay, this play really has a chance to get a player hurt.

And at this point, we haven't.

I don't know if we have a large enough

know whole data size to be able to make that determination so like give Philly give Nick give that coaching staff Shane was a part of it when they started it credit for like he has good facial structure coming up with it using it and being damn good at it I don't understand like they're good at it all right I've heard enough of this okay it is what it is but it's not we could play a hundred clips of all the people that are speaking on the record about it but my point being there's a lot of people that are less inclined to publicly speak up that are in support which is why the reporting's out there that this could be something that passes.

And that's my final thoughts on this topic.

Well, I would say one thing

about it.

Well, one quick thing, one quick thing, because we'll probably, we're going to cycle back when the vote comes in.

But like,

first of all, like his, his head coach is not going to want to vote against it because to Connor's point, he was one of the architects of it.

But I agree with that there could be more infrastructure around it.

But that commander's Eagles tussle and what happened in that with the tush push there, that was Frankie Luvu, like being a little bit extra, literally attempting, like with the game essentially lost, trying to hop over the line over and over.

And they were kind of testing the mettle of the officials who didn't know what to do in that situation.

So more infrastructure around what that all means, I'm cool with, but you can't, you can't cite this, like, to Connor's point, a boogeyman of injury.

He said boogeyman, by the way.

Isn't it even if you hold up a

if you create a fake

Is boogeyman just spelled with one O?

That's what I was thinking.

I've only heard it as boogeyman, but I think it might be spelled Bogeyman.

I think it is spelled Bogeyman, but I always pictured that as a kid as an I think.

I think it was B-O-O-G-I-E then.

Wouldn't it be?

Like you'd spell it like Booger, like Boogie?

Yeah.

Justin, can you get on this?

Yeah, we, we, we,

how embarrassing.

I'm on it.

I'm already on it.

According to Google AI results, both boogeyman and boogeyman spelled bogeyman are used to refer to the same mythical creature or figure used to frighten children, but bogeyman spelling is the more common and widely accepted spelling, while boogeyman is a variant, but I do think it's pronounced.

It was a mythical bean or

some sort of evil bean.

Man,

owners meeting, still almost a month until the draft.

Sometimes it feels like the NFL offseason is too long.

The good news is on underdog right now, you can build a pick'em entry out of the 2025 NFL season higher-lower projections.

Think the tush push is getting banned?

Maybe, let's talk about it.

Maybe you want to take lower on Jalen Hurts' 12.5 rushing touchdowns.

Now's the time before the draft, before these lines, that is diabolical.

You're going to get ahead of that, anticipating the banning of the touch push.

I would hold on that move, but that's an option.

You have that strategy.

Caution.

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audience only.

Now that I'm thinking about it, because everyone is so fired up about Tush Push, I just want to see it get banned just to see like Connor's next column about it and everybody just going absolutely ape shit.

That feels like, Mark, you're a chaos agent.

Like that feels like if we just like chaos, the move is to ban it and then see what happens.

See what Nick Siriani does.

I'm just curious.

Well, the other, yeah, the other the other result is anti-chaos.

I think it's what we expect.

So I think it would cause

you're going to you're going to get full throttle Siriani if it gets banned.

Maybe right down there at the result, at the resort, you know?

Yeah.

All right.

Let's get into some other sound that came out of Florida.

File this one under, hey, here's some fing bullshit to shovel onto your feet.

Browns coach Kevin Stefansky on Kenny Pickett.

We believe in him.

Yeah, I mean, I feel good.

Obviously, it's March 31st, so there's still a draft to be had.

There's still,

it's not August 1st.

So I will say this, Kenny Pickett's a guy that I believe in, that we believe in.

So we'll see how it all shakes out.

All right.

In that same category, here's Mike Tomlin.

Oh, he is totally in on Mason Rudolph as a potential QB1.

That's why we brought him back.

I'm comfortable with that, man.

We've been there before.

He's a very capable guy.

All right, Mark.

Bring some sanity and clarity to people.

Who are the starting quarterbacks in week one for the Cleveland Browns and the Pittsburgh Steelers?

If I had to wager today, I think Aaron Rodgers and Mike Tomlin

there.

I think that's happening.

And for Cleveland,

I go back to the Miles Garrett interview with our friend Andrew Ceciliano.

What did you tell Miles Garrett?

It wasn't, hey, Kenny Pickett is an option for us.

I think that they had to tell him that Shadora Sanders, who they're having dinner with this week, is a real option.

Or someone else from the draft, but someone else from the draft, because it's not going to be Cam Ward, is not a real sale point.

So I think you have to have said behind backwaters, like, it's Shador Sanders or something else that we've not told you about, maybe Kirk Cousins.

I think it's Kirk Cousins or Shador Sanders.

Yeah, I feel like if I'm Miles Garrett.

Either one of those, I'm like, okay, there's a plan here.

There's a reason to have some hope.

But Kenny Pickett or Enter Journeyman back up here is not it, Connor.

Think about Miles Garrett, right?

Because we're talking about the plan just in singularity of at the quarterback position, which I think what Andrew Ceciliano asked him.

But if Andrew Berry and Kevin Stefansky sat you down and said, okay, sign this contract.

We're going to go get Kirk Cousins.

We're going to see what's going on with Deshaun Watson.

We're going to buy ourselves some time.

And we're also going to draft Abdul Carter.

I think he's the most doubled or one of the most doubled pass rushers in the NFL.

And so maybe that gets cut in half or Abdul Carter just completely wrecks the game and makes your job and your life a lot easier.

I think I sign up for that because if you're Miles Garrett, that genuinely improves your life in myriad ways.

And you really don't care about that.

I mean, none of these quarters, Shadur Sanders isn't going to win you anything next year anyway.

Neither is Kirk Cousins, but at least any of those plus Abdul Carter genuinely improves your life in the immediate.

And I found this interesting, Mark, as I know you did as well.

I can't remember this happening before this week, but Brown zoner Jimmy Haslam, for the first time, acknowledged and put up the white flag on the Deshaun Watson situation.

Here's his quote.

We took a big swing and miss miss with Deshaun.

We thought we had the quarterback.

We didn't, and we gave up a lot of draft picks to get him.

He gave up more than that, buddy boy.

So we've got to dig ourselves out of that hole.

The trade was an entire organization decision, and it ends with D and I.

So hold us accountable.

And all due respect, Mark, to Dov Kleinman, who is banging the comeback trail for Deshaun Watson and rehab from his double Achilles tear.

But that sounds like a team that is fully ready to move on from

Mr.

Watson into fresh territory.

It is the first spoonful of honest input the Browns have given about Deshaun Watson that I can recall because it's, you know, each of these offseasons, they've been infuriating because they refuse to see what we see,

what a young fan would see with that quarterback.

And a double Achilles tear on top of everything else.

Like, they're moving on.

And

it's too late, it's too late for them to take any accountability for this trade and what a disaster it was.

But verbally said he will never play for the Browns again.

And I like your idea, Connor, about

going edge at number two there.

I see what you're going with, but it hints to me that Hasim also must be having been told or come up as a committee with a plan at quarterback beyond Kenny Pickett.

There must be something else cooking here because that is a really undigestible dish going into September.

It is.

My thing is, I think Kirk Cousins would help you you wash away the idea of Deshaun Watson faster than, and you can't make decisions this way, obviously, but Shadur Sanders comes in.

And if he's not good, then you're just piled underneath this narrative that you can never successfully fix the quarterback position.

Whereas Cousins, another year off of the Achilles injury, paired with Kevin Stefanski, who he has a great relationship with, that's possibly like a nine-win team.

Am I like kind of ridiculous in saying that?

Like you maximize the last year of that good offensive line.

Maybe you get another running back in there.

I don't know.

But I think that is so much better than taking another massive swing back to back and whiffing on that.

And right when you're trying to build a new stadium, I think that's all very, there's a lot of moving parts there.

This also comes after Mary Kay Cabot reported that the Browns trading up, Andrew Berry said trading up to one for Cam Ward is, quote, unlikely.

So that's obviously not the plan either.

But I have a question for you guys because at the end of that quote, Jimmy Haslam said, hold me and D accountable.

What does that mean?

They're the owners of the team.

How are they going to be held accountable?

Are they going to get fired?

Are they going to be not allowed to make football decisions anymore?

Give me a break.

I think accountable is like how, let's say, like Woody Johnson had his day of reckoning in the public discourse when everything went to hell with Rodgers last year and he got buried publicly repeatedly.

Like he, he's, I guess he's saying, you know, don't put it on anybody else, but ownership.

I guess that's what I'd want my owner to say.

I know there's no actual, there's no consequences, but you know what?

That's also, that's one of the benefits of being the boss of all the bosses.

If I were him, I would have said hold D accountable.

Yeah.

Speaking of Mike Tomlin and the Steelers,

Aaron Rodgers met with the team for a few hours last week and hears some sound from Tomlin from Florida.

He's a free agent.

As you guys know, he came to visit last Friday.

We had a really productive day.

He's been in this thing a long time.

I've been in this thing a long time, but it's no substitute for, you know, intimacy and spending time together and getting to know one another in a non-competitive environment.

And so that was really good.

But I don't have any new updates in terms of where the process is.

We'll see where it leads us.

What a botch job by the league.

They took it out of an air-conditioned room for breakfast and

outside?

It's not even breakfast anymore.

Yeah, I mean, they put it outside in Florida where the humidity, you know, on a bad day, maybe inside a tent trapping everything.

I've now seen Chris Ballard and Mike Tomlin looking like they were about to pass out from dehydration.

They look Patrick Ewing on the foul line.

Yeah, you've got like 35,

you know, typically not in shape beat writers, like body sweat and heat surrounding you.

And Tomlin's a bit of a sweater, so it's not a good stitch.

That reminds me, Mark, the one year when they did do it outside when we worked there, and they gave us those, like the NBA boys underneath the hoop with the mops that would have to come out and clean out the key and wipe away all the sweat.

We had to do that once, and I thought they would have learned from it, but apparently not.

Nope, they don't learn.

All right.

Rap sheet, Ian Rappaport, NFL Media Insider, for now anyway, says on the Pat McAvey show that Aaron Rodgers and DK Metcalf had a planned throwing session, and it went very well.

My general feel is that he's going to be a Pittsburgh Steeler, but we'll wait and see until it's final.

So

that looks like it's a done deal, more or less, unless something crazy happens.

And then, what, does that make,

let's leave out the Titans because we seem to see where that's heading.

Does it make the Browns the last real domino in terms of quarterbacks at this point?

Yep.

I think so.

My question is to

the point.

Do they even qualify as a domino?

No, it does.

As bad as the Browns are organizationally and have been, man, they were in the playoffs the year before last.

They've had some success in the last few years.

They're one good quarterback away from being interesting again.

And I know we've talked about cousins, so I'm not going to belabor it, but

he's well worth a dart throw, I think, especially at the right price to come in there and see if he can still play the guitar.

That could be a fun season.

I'm still in a hot seat.

Like, I can't imagine that

Andrew Berry, if you take away the Deshaun Watson situation, Andrew Berry has been a forward-thinking general manager, and he's done a lot of good things along with some iffy draft picks, but it's like there's no way anyone inside the organization says this is where we're sitting.

We're going to sit and spin with this as our quarterback scenario.

There's another chip to fall here.

On the New York Jets side of the ledger, I continue to be happy with the state of their offseason and that they are just the temperature has turned way down with Aaron Glenn in charge.

And Glenn spoke on that a little bit

at the owners' meetings.

I want want to move in silence, man, and

just go about our business to go win some games because you don't win in the offseason anyway.

You know, I mean, I know everybody has these grades on free agency grades.

They have grades on draft grades.

And when you go back and look at them, they don't really mean crap.

So the only thing that makes a difference is what you do during the season.

Thank you.

I just, I don't know what's going to happen with the Jets.

I don't know if Justin Fields is going to be able to play quarterback, but I actually see a plan here a little bit.

I see an adult at the steering wheel of the ship, and I go into this season feeling like the stakes aren't so high, and the percentage chance of abject humiliation as a fan.

It just, everything feels like it's more in a stabilized place.

And as a fan, I can live with that.

I can live with, I don't need to be Super Bowl or bust.

I just want to be a team that's getting better and making smart decisions.

And I feel with Glenn and Moogie there, maybe that's where they're going right now.

Again, I mean, it goes back to what he's allowed to say and what he's allowed to do.

And we talked about that, but to have that kind of offseason, I thought that was my favorite quote for any coach that I've heard from all offseason.

And just lowering the general temperature of this entire situation is so smart.

And I think that Glenn has probably done as well as anybody in terms of just setting the stage for what's to come.

And if you talk about like ownership accountability, I found this interesting.

The Jets have offered buyouts, I read, to 170 of 250 of their employees.

So I think that they are looking at foundational change org-wide, and they've got the right coach tenor-wise so far to do it.

Like, I think he's proud to be with the Jets, and that's different than some of these clowns from yesteryear.

Yeah, that was, I read about that buyout offer, which, you know,

seems like messy business.

They're looking to do a cultural reset of the whole brand, which again ties into the idea of some level of self-awareness that everything that they're they're doing is wrong.

So

let's kind of reset here.

And hopefully, Woody is in the deep distance with all this.

And by the way, Woody Johnson did indeed have a very animated discussion with Robert Saleh a year ago at the same event.

Correct.

And it doesn't matter what people were told to say, what people were forced to say, statements by league officials

and media officials, it happened.

And that's the truth.

I stick to my story.

But that's all in the past.

You know what's in the past also for the 49ers, thank God, the 2024 season.

Just missed this prediction.

I had said that just wait until the summer of 25 when they start writing the

preview stories of the 49ers and the quotes start coming out about, man, we actually were really tired last season and we were beat up from all the playoff runs.

And this is a fresh start.

We're a brand new team this year, and we're ready to retake our place amongst the top elites in the NFC.

Brock Prady got ahead of it, and he did acknowledge on the Built for More podcast that, yes, the Niners were run down by the beginning of the 24 season.

And then last year, man, guys were tired.

Like that season, dude, is no joke.

And when you go from July of training and everything all the way to the end of February, and then you really get five weeks off or so, and you got to report back, and then you're going again, it's like, dude, guys are tired.

They're still beat up.

Their bodies, for these guys that are getting older, like, it's not easy.

And then last year, we just had a lot of things go crazy in a while, like with injuries and whatnot.

I'm not going to make a big deal of it, but you know, who else played exactly that long?

The Kansas City Chiefs.

And it didn't stop them from going back to the playoffs.

I like what he said at the end was way more accurate.

I thought, we had a lot of

injuries.

And I don't know, maybe that's tied to the long season before, these deep runs we've been on.

But,

you know, don't make any excuses because the Chiefs are proof that you can go back year after year.

The 49ers just couldn't do it last year.

I mean, I'd say, like, so they played nine extra games over the past four seasons.

And two of those games were excruciating Super Bowl losses versus Super Bowl wins and an excruciating end of the title games.

Right.

And if you think about, like, I mean, Purdy specifically, like, he got married last offseason, which can be a distraction, but he got hurt in an NFC title game that put him into an off-season of rehab versus, you know, just growing and going through the normal, the normal modes.

So I think

it's a fair thing to say that that happened.

But, but you're right that we, it was a predictable thing for them to say.

But

like, that's why I think like kind of rebooting the 49ers with a lot of new players makes a lot of sense.

There has been this sort of not league-wide, but it's interesting that D'Amico and Kyle Shanahan have worked together and have been tied at the hip.

And both of them have teams that can conceivably win their divisions this year, but both of them unloaded some of their best and most popular players.

And you're wondering what is behind that.

And really, if they are, they're betting on the culture.

They're betting on the energy in the locker room.

And it is going to be interesting because we're going to have these sort of live test case scenarios.

I mean, who fares better, the 49ers and the Texans, or someone like the Commanders, these guys who are just scooping them all up and saying that they want these bodies.

Other Niners news.

Yeah, Purdy, obviously, a lot of talk about the moves they've been making because they got to sign Brock Purdy to a long-term deal.

According to John Lynch, the general manager, Purdy Niners, quote, not too optimistic that extension will be completed by the start of the offseason program.

Doesn't mean it won't be completed.

And Lynch also said that Brandon Ayuk signed to the big contract extension last summer, then had a bit of a nightmare season with a slow start and then a bad injury.

He's expected to remain with the 49ers.

I can't imagine with that contract and that injury that he has a big market right now, but maybe a year from now, they'd be in a different position if IU can come back and play the guitar.

Other nugs.

We mentioned Shane Steichen, the Colts coach.

Thank God for the tush push.

He's a head coach.

He says that Daniel Jones and Anthony Richardson will split starting reps between a beginning in OTAs, and the most consistent quarterback will be the regular season starter.

I don't know if I buy that one, Connor.

Tell me what you think.

I think they're going to give Richardson a head start or kind of have him in pole position and hope he finds the way.

And then Jones comes in as the backup plan.

But at least publicly, they're stating this is an even battle.

Well, it's difficult, right?

Because everything that Shane Steichen had mentioned about Anthony Richardson for years has been he just needs repetitions.

And now in in a situation where in the offseason and in training camp, when rep when repetitions are at their most precious and their most valuable, if you're taking even a percentage of those away, you're giving a massive advantage to the guy that you brought in to theoretically compete with him.

And I think Daniel Jones with reps is going to beat out Anthony Richardson with reps, with fewer reps any day of the week at this point, just because, you know,

I think he's more experienced in the league.

I think he could run the offense probably the way that Steichen wants him to.

That said,

we did see Anthony Richardson respond to a benching last year.

We did see him change a little bit.

And so I do wonder if this is all a little bit part of the offseason game that he's running where it's like, hey, wake up, pal.

You only got half your reps and you better make them count.

Like, let's see what happens here.

I think it's an interesting locker room, too, because you had veteran players trying to get into the ear of Richardson last year about habits, about process, about preparing for the week.

And this is a locker room that you can't fool this offseason.

Like, if Daniel Jones outplays or just looks much more consistent than Richardson, you've got to sell this to a veteran roster.

And so I think that Daniel Jones right now, you're kind of telling us that Richardson needs to win the job back.

I'd favor Daniel Jones to go in and be the week one starter.

In other news, the Ravens, they still have Justin Tucker on their roster.

And Ravens president Sashi Brown.

Whoa, Sashi.

Ravens president, sessed.

What a heel turn.

Said it's going to remain that way until the NFL finishes up its internal investigation of the former all-pro kicker.

Remember, 16 massage therapists from eight Baltimore spas have accused Tucker of sexual misconduct.

Sashi told Baltimore reporters at the league meeting, from our standpoint, I think we want to make sure that we have a great understanding of the facts, an actual understanding of the facts here both sides of the situation, and that we allow the investigation to properly be conducted and concluded and make decisions based on the full information.

According to Jamison Hensley of ESPN, NFL investigators have begun interviewing some of these masuses who have accused Tucker of the inappropriate behavior, and the Ravens have received, quote, periodic updates.

I'm of two minds on this.

On one side, Sessler, it's like,

just get rid of the dude.

Obviously, there's something doesn't smell right about this, and

this many accusers points to obvious misdeeds.

On the other hand, I guess from a timing standpoint, waiting for the NFL to release its findings does logically line up with a decision to be made.

I don't think

when this all ends, I think there's about a 0% chance Justin Tucker's a kicker on the Baltimore Ravens or anybody else.

But let's see how it plays out.

Yeah, I mean,

we don't have all the findings ourselves.

So it's like, I'm with you on the two mindsets.

Justin does, but he has not shared any of them.

He does.

He does.

But when you get to this many,

when it reaches this sort of like crest of accusers,

I don't know why you can't internally suspend them and say, look, we're shelving you until something tells us otherwise.

But there's nothing to suspend him from right now, like the league, the timing right off.

The Ravens, like, historically, have kind of turned a blind eye to player malfeasance.

Oh, they have a terrible track record.

Right.

And so this only adds to that.

And like, you can say whatever you want.

Sashi Brown can whistle Dixie, but it looks bad.

It looks bad to your fans.

It looks bad across the league.

Yeah, I wonder if he's, yeah, I guess you could ban him from the team facility pending the results of the investigation.

But again, this is a team that has never taken the extra step when it comes to things like this.

That's 100% how a normal corporation would handle it, right?

If there was like six complaints to HR about this, and maybe some corporations do have a no-nonsense approach, but if there is, like, if you're a union employee, for example, and this stuff has to be investigated, that's exactly what would happen.

You just wouldn't be allowed to come to work until the completion of the maybe that has happened, and maybe they're just not talking about it publicly.

But

we'll see.

And the Ravens, one more bit of information.

They reach a three-year contract extension with head coach John Harbaugh.

Hard to

have an issue with that.

At a certain point, the John Harbaugh Ravens are going to have to win something again beyond the AFC North,

but it'd be a pretty bold move to

part ways with Harbaugh, given their consistent track record of success, which is outside of perhaps the Chiefs

is pretty much unmatched in the league in the past 10 years or so.

That was sneaky.

We talked about that, remember, on the hot butts episode with Palmer a couple months ago.

That was sneakily just hanging out there, though.

The fact that he was nearing a decision point on his contract and really wasn't brought up, really wasn't discussed all that much.

But it is interesting that it just was very kind of quietly happened behind the scenes.

When Mike Tomlin came towards the end of his, remember, we talked about, oh, is he going to get the commanders going to go get him?

Is Penn State going to go get him?

Is USC going to go get him?

There was nothing like that with Harbaugh this year.

It didn't seem like he needed to leverage the situation at all.

When I sent this in the group chat yesterday, the news as we were putting the rundown together, I believe your response, Dan, was win or go away.

You bore me.

Any comment?

I guess I stand by that initial reaction.

I feel like John Harbaugh has been the coach of the Baltimore Ravens for a million years.

It's a good thing Michael Crabtree didn't

make that catch on fourth down in the Super Bowl blackout game, Mark, because then he would be like the longest tenured head coach ever to win 10-plus games

like 30 times and never win a Super Bowl.

But he's got that chip from 2013, but also like, you know, 2013 was a long time ago now.

Well, he might not be there if you had not won that Super Bowl.

But like, I'd also say he was the coach that fully backed the concept of Lamar Jackson.

Like he's brought in great assistant coaches.

You don't have to make the case.

I agree with you on everything.

I'm just a little bit bored.

I mean, you'd take him as the Jets coach in a New York Minute.

yeah, I'm saying like the idea of the John Harbaugh Ravens.

I mean, okay.

Tell me, did it fill you up?

Did it light up your Christmas tree when you heard the news?

Did it light up my Christmas tree?

No, it had no effect on my emotional bearing.

How are your emotional bearings as we say goodbye?

But we want to check in.

How was your

What was it, Connor?

How was it labeled by Mark before he left us?

What was his vacation plans?

Mark said he was going to meet a relative.

Well, okay.

I wanted just to clear a few things behind the scenes.

Like I went

dating someone very important, and I went to visit her parents in like the deep wilds of Missouri,

a small little town with like 4,000 people.

And I had a great time.

Like I've dinged the Midwest

over and over on this show.

It's kind of like, give me a break with the Midwest.

But like, you know, yeah, because it's like, I just kind of always felt like it's somewhere I wouldn't want to move.

But like, you take these walks up this street, like in this little countryside world, and there's like goats and sheep and like horses and hens and like dogs chasing you.

It was fantastic.

So I had a wonderful time.

Great to meet her parents.

And we're so happy you got that time for

your own mental reset there as we all need one.

I'll be going out of town next week.

But the audience, you should know, is you're a huge fan favorite, Mark.

Very curious about

all your

plans or what was going on while you were gone.

Right.

Someone, Ravens fan91,

posted a book called How to Fit Into Society When You're an Alien from an Alternate Universe.

Was that the book you were reading?

I don't think so.

I don't think you're an alien.

So I think that's probably not it.

I've noticed this

impression of me has crept up in recent months.

I think I'm pretty emotional.

I'm trying to be emotionally attached to people and to care about them to some degree.

So I think it's the way I really think it's a classic human move to be connected emotionally to people.

Yes.

I agree.

Classic move.

I agree.

But we're happy you're back.

Thank you.

Big week, by the way.

We got a lot coming up this week.

We got

multiple shows.

We always do multiple.

We're going to do three shows

this week.

And in addition to the Friday fun show,

Patreon exclusive.

And thank you to everybody who checked out.

It came from the subreddit on patreon.com/slash.

What a hit that was.

Yeah,

that led to a uh enormous amount of uh as my dad would say hey danny an enormous amount of discourse over on the subreddit

so check it out if you want to if you want to know what's going on the true thoughts of uh what happens behind the scenes uh here

on heed the call check that out we also have a new episode of rolling thunder dropping this week with mark sessler and jason zumwalt can't wait for that.

And yes, an extra episode this week covering all the happenings at the league owners meetings.

We'll have James Palmer joining us this week.

We'll also have Connor Rogers of NBC Sports to talk some draft later in the week.

So yeah, we are heading towards the last big poll event of

10-pole event of the league calendar with the draft.

And we'll be all over it as we always are.

Final thoughts, Mark Sessler.

Well, I missed you guys.

I just say that.

Like while I was away, you know, a lot of time to think about the past year and I'm glad to be back with y'all during a busy week.

I'm glad it wasn't this week I missed because I would have felt irresponsible.

There's a lot happening.

Beautifully timed.

And I know you study the calendar and you pick the exact moment.

That's how we're going to suggest how that went.

All right.

See you soon.

Till then, heed the call.

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