Russell Wilson to Giants, Pre-Draft Power Rankings & Listener Voicemails!

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The Heed the Call Podcast.

Our real locker room lawyers.

Hey, Gino, Max says not so fast.

This is still his team.

Psst.

Max.

P.

Carroll says guys with tattoos are thugs.

That's being a locker room lawyer.

I think.

I don't know.

I've never been in a locker room.

Heed the call.

Welcome.

The podcast.

A football show.

And I'm joined by three people who actually make a living going into locker rooms.

Connor Orr, Jordan, Jordan Rodriguez and Michael Sean Dugard.

Do I have it right?

Is that what a locker room lawyer is?

Just a real stinky Davis?

There's a lot of words.

There's a lot that's said in locker rooms.

If there were lawyers present, a lot of it would not be said.

Hmm.

Interesting.

Connor, what is a locker room lawyer to you?

I often find that whole thing,

this wouldn't surprise Jordan, very frustrating.

Like this whole thing about like, oh, we have a, in here we have a code, and like we, we, this is a code, and this is a brotherhood.

Yeah, you guys would sell each other out for a bag of potato chips.

Just go pound sand, you know?

I don't believe in any of that shit.

Sounds like somebody was on the jet speed for too long.

Probably.

Three minutes in, and I'm already worried about Connor.

I mean, listen, Money Mike, you were in, and we're going to get to Russ in a second.

Russ always had what I would deem a complicated relationship with his own locker room.

Was Russell Wilson a locker room lawyer?

He was, so locker rooms, I've only been in the Seahawks one now that I think about it, but it was very segregated, you know?

It was like very stereotypical.

It looked like high school, like the D-line guys are listening to what like music you would think the D-line guys listen to.

And over in the O-line inside, it would be very stereotypical over there.

Russ would walk around with his portable speaker with gospel blaring, kind of talking to nobody.

It felt very clicky.

It was definitely very, yeah, it felt very clicky.

And at least in the times we were there.

We're only in there for about 40 minutes or whatever, you know, and they know we're going to be in there.

But yeah, it felt very high schooly.

This is interesting and how often

pro football intersects with military, right?

The term locker room lawyer is a variation of barrack room lawyer, which originates from military slang.

Locker room lawyer refers to someone, often a veteran, who likes to give authoritative sounding but unqualified opinions, especially on legal matters within a group setting, such as a locker room or barracks.

Interests like the NFL.

Yeah, that's pretty common, too, I think.

Like,

you always got one dude or two, you know?

Kind of like the court.

You'll notice still no Mark Sessler.

I did, I know people always are curious about Sess Dog and what he does when he's not speaking into a microphone professionally.

So I did put out a call on Twitter.

You know, what is Mark really doing right now during his mysterious vacation?

He used some language that was strange.

He said he was going to meet some

relatives.

Relatives, something like that.

Let's see what some of our listeners threw out there as possibilities.

Okay.

Taylor says enjoying a human vacation, doing things that Earth people enjoy, like the beach, theme parks, hotels, and restaurants.

This makes for a truly enjoyable human experience.

Checks out.

Next.

Jaygard says he's following the trail of Kerouax, the Dharma bums, drinking nothing but absinthe and coffee, sleeping midday at rest stops and taking French baths in the restrooms upon waking.

At the finale, he'll take some hallucinogenic concoction and boot up a Star Wars on his phone.

That checks out next

Jarrett Bailey.

Oh, we like Jarrett Bailey.

The Browns accidentally included him in a group chat that included discussing their draft plan.

So he's sitting at his computer all hours of the day.

And I think an old buddy of ours added to this one, Blair.

I dream in red.

Check out the next I Dream in Red for more

around this.

Anything else?

Stealing the Declaration of Independence.

Steve.

Thanks, Rodden Paupers.

And Eric Peck adds, walking through a field of wheat, gladiator sound.

I think all of the above checks out for the cess dog.

What do you think, Mike?

As you've gotten to know Mark Sessler, at least digitally, do you think any of those check out for you?

Yeah, I think I like the Browns one.

That makes sense.

Although, instead of being at his computer, I would imagine like these black vans pulling up while Mark is at one of these rest stops sleeping and just scoops him up.

And we may not see Mark again because he has breached national security.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Checks out.

All right.

We got a lot to get to,

but why don't we get going?

We're going to do some...

totally worthless and meaningless pre-draft power rankings, which is just a vehicle to get into conversations about some teams we haven't talked about as much.

Listen, I'm being upfront about it.

We're also, we have a new segment I'm really excited about because I love interfacing, interfacing with the fellow listeners.

We're going to have voicemails, user voicemails, listener voicemails at the end of the show.

But first, as always, the news.

Hey guys, Russell here.

Yes, the typical boring, yes, Russell, the robot Russell, the one you guys love to know.

Real, real exciting.

You know, I'm real excited.

But anyways,

everybody has to have an ultra ego, right?

And I've been thinking about what my ultra ego would be.

And I think I have an alter ego.

His name, his name's Mr., Mr., Mr.

Unlimited.

Oh, that's always my favorite.

There's so many great cringe Russ

clips from social media over the last 10, 12 years, but that one gets me.

Because it goes on for another minute or so.

Sierra's involved at one point.

Mr.

Unlimited Russ is my favorite Russ.

Oh, that was so bad.

I'm working on a...

I remember, you know, I was covering the team, obviously, at the time of that, it was real bad in real time.

We made jokes about it all the time, but I was, I'm working on a project that I'll announce later, but it involved me talking to some people

about some people close to Russ, you know, for this.

And I did get a couple of people to admit, like, yeah, man, we love him.

But even that, we told him that was crazy.

You know, because he seems to operate.

as if there aren't people who tell him the truth, you know, seemed like a guy who would, you would think, surrounds himself with a lot of yes men.

And maybe he does, maybe he doesn't, but at least in that case, I can say with confidence, there were people around him who were like, dude, this is very corny.

Like, why are you doing this?

And I would say, you need a filter.

You got to go through somebody before anything goes live.

Anyway, Russell Wilson is now a member of, wait for it, the New York Giants.

Well, we predicted that for a month on this show.

Wilson has found a suitor in big blue, signing a one-year deal worth up to $21 million.

That from Schefter.

The deal includes $10.5 million guaranteed.

So there you go.

That's that's the money, the going rate for Russell Wilson at this stage of his career.

And Conman, you wrote about this eloquently.

Well, can you write eloquently or is it just speak eloquently?

I don't know who gives it.

Connor can write eloquently.

Yeah, speaking what?

I don't think so.

That

this move is tied also to the Jameis Winston move, and it speaks to a larger decision-making process by the team that turned away from Aaron Rodgers or Aaron Rodgers turned away from them.

And now this is their plan B: a Russell Wilson, Jameis Winston, with a side of Tommy Cutlett's poo-poo platter.

Your thoughts, Conman?

I think so.

This would be, I have like a three-leg Giants off-season prediction parlay, and it was a little bit more.

Oh, we call that the Olson here, by the way, just so you guys know.

This is the Greg Olson three-legged parlay.

Okay.

Wonder why.

And

what's your name?

G-Ray.

I dropped my drawers and let it see my third leg.

Chilling on the seventh flow.

I got a chicken snow.

Greg is in the house and

yeah.

The number of beats is staggering.

So many beeps.

So the first leg was to sign Jameis Winston.

The second was Russell Wilson.

And the third leg of this is Travis Hunter.

We talked about it a little bit on the show that I don't think Travis Hunter got to show the full scope of his deep ball skills at Colorado because Shadur, one thing he doesn't do well is he doesn't have that cannon arm strength.

And a lot of his contested catches were actually coming back and having to fight for the ball against a cornerback.

And so I think Dable,

after having dealt with Daniel Jones, especially for the last two years, a quarterback who statistically threw before the sticks almost more than any other quarterback in the NFL.

Like he was not throwing to the first down marker.

Now you have Russ.

Now you have Jameis,

two quarterbacks who throw beyond the first down marker with regularity.

You're just trying to push the ball down the field and negate so many of the other deficiencies that you have.

I just like that it's a plan.

It's a plan that I understand, and it's a plan that I think buys them time to potentially select a quarterback next year and not force themselves to fall in love with Shadur Sanders.

Yeah, but I think a Shadur Sanders fit is more like what you saw Kirk Cousins do in the early days with the Shanahan tree people.

Like, I actually think that Shador will be coveted by a huge population of coaches, including, in my opinion, Brian Dable, not just because of

that skill set and ability and sort of that comp, the early days of when Kirk really made the,

set the foundation for like the ultimate bag getter of the NFL,

but also I think it's just a more efficient process.

You know, the deep ball is great.

It's gorgeous, right?

It's sexy, as Russell Wilson has said about his own deep ball,

but it also is a low probability play.

And, you know, Travis Hunter is a unicorn prospect.

And I want him, obviously, to go to the best team who's going to maximize and actually have a full and developed plan for all of the different things that he's going to need to do, not just as a corner, but as a receiver and how he's going to split his time and sort of to maximize his production in every way possible.

But I also think if you're looking at a quarterback and you're looking at a long-term vision for any organization,

you know, somebody who's not just going to get you the low probability flash play, but actually set a foundation for efficient quarterback play for multiple years.

That's why I would not rule out them still taking Shador.

I would like to see Connor eat a jar of olives, also.

So,

yes,

Connor did say on our previous program that he would eat a jar of olives if the Giants took Sanders with their first pick in the draft.

Why olives?

Bring out the olives!

Man, we had a very unhealthy

estimation of mental health in the turn of the sentence.

I was going to say, and Maury, Maury Poge didn't do anything to help that.

Oh, right, right, right, right, right.

Go ahead, Kevin.

Yeah.

I hate olives.

It's my least favorite food.

It's probably the one thing that I can't stomach.

I love eating.

It's like, it's what I live to do.

And olives are just like the one thing that is outside of that circle for me.

Can I say that I was ruminating on this Giants situation even since our last show?

And at first on Monday, I was like, you know, I see what they're doing here because we were presupposing that Russell Wilson was the other shoe to drop and now it has.

And then I thought about it some more and I'm like.

What the hell are the Giants doing?

And I'm wondering if

what this really is, what really just happened here was that Joe Shane and Brian Dable just got got their death warrant signed with the team.

That all of this is going to end with two bad quarterbacks do not create a good quarterback.

So you're going to see a lot of subpar play at the game's most important position.

You're going to see a lot of both quarterbacks, probably Russ for the first six to eight games, Winston for the next four to six games, and then maybe Tommy Cutletz to close this thing out on a three and 14 or five and whatever campaign.

And then it ends with Mara coming in and saying what you know he's going to say to both of them.

And we don't celebrate these things, Connor, but at the same time, I think they have been put in a brutal situation and not the one that I thought they were going to be put in, which is pair a veteran with a young quarterback.

It looks like this is the course they're going, and I think it's a course to nowhere for the Giants.

It could be.

And listen, Brian Dable is going to be heavily involved in the selection of the quarterback.

And whether there's someone in the later rounds that he thinks he could try and develop, I think they're going to take a quarterback in the draft.

But to me, it comes down to if you're Mera and you're overseeing all this and you believe, at least potentially, that there's a chance that somebody else has to develop this quarterback, don't you fall on some of your own biomarkers that you've counted on to draft quarterbacks through other regimes?

And you have members of your own family that are in the personnel department.

And Shader doesn't meet up with a lot of the size comps of quarterbacks that they've drafted in the past.

He doesn't meet up with a lot of quarterbacks in terms of arm strength that they've drafted in the past.

He's tough in the pocket.

He's almost like spicy Teddy Bridgewater for me.

I don't know if anybody else likes that comp, but it's not the kind of quarterback that the Giants have historically coveted as an organization.

So that's why it never made sense to me.

And that's why I think what you really should be looking at right now is how they're divvying up responsibility,

who is at these pro days, who's in these meetings, and who is leading all of this, because that could maybe also be a window into what direction we're heading.

I could see some of Brian Dable's frustration in this entire process, being someone who will have a voice in all of this.

Being, hey, what if we actually didn't do it the way we were always doing it before?

I don't think he wanted to sign Daniel Jones.

So that's the thing: is like, if he, I do think to your point, Connor, the selection they do make at this particular position and how high they make the selection is going to tell you a lot about who is perceived still as safe and who is not.

This really just reads to me

like they just don't know what the Browns are going to do.

Really, that was my first thought when they signed Russ.

This just seems like they paid about $14 million for what if they take Shadur insurance, which makes sense, honestly, to me, because you don't want to just like, even if you do like any quarterback at three, it doesn't have to be Shadur, although now that Connor says that I am a fan of the olive thing,

I hate olives too, but...

I'm not eating those.

But yeah, it just really seems like insurance.

It's like, all right, we like a quarterback, but we don't know what the hell the Browns got going.

And if you kind of read all the televised with all the leaks and stuff, the Browns are either really indecisive or just playing a fun game of telephone with everyone or some version of both.

So yeah, this really, when I saw them sign Russ, I was like, oh, he finally gets to go to New York, which was a rumored to want to do when he was in Seattle, so much so that he got himself traded to the Yankees after originally being with the Rangers.

He even took at-bats, I think, at Yankee Spring training, which was weird.

But that shows how much

he struck out against a young future yankee named max freed i just re-watched it actually oh boy poor you um yeah i remember there was like betting odds on whether he would make contact i wasn't a full degenerate at the time but i would have hammered the no he actually just missed he the first pitch he he just missed the fastball fouled it straight back and then struck out on a 2-2 count there's your deep breakdown

uh well yeah so i think I think what the Giants are doing honestly makes sense to me from a like a just not knowing what could happen at two standpoint because that is a huge variable like even yeah but my quarterback and you don't make a plan

the giants had their insurance policy i know the idea of jameis winston as an insurance policy seems moderate exactly yeah but why not sign winston wait things out and where's russ going if he doesn't go to the giants i know he met with the browns but i don't think the browns are hot for russell wilson he didn't have a ton of options i it just seems like a

if that's what it was they felt boxed in so we're just going to settle with these two guys that are not high-level quarterbacks i just think they could have done better i i don't necessarily agree with the plan but i do understand the thought if that is it if that makes sense i think winston is actually your insurance policy because he is only making four million and if you draft then you cut winston and you get the offset from another team signing him so you cut winston without ever playing him yes

right because you get an you get offset if someone else signs him and it's only a four million dollar contract so if he gets signed for the vet minimum you're only really out like two and a half million on that i think I think he's the insurance policy.

Yeah.

And then I think when you saw them reach and then fail to get Matthew Stafford, they kind of went into, okay, let's have an extra quarterback on the roster mode in case we reach and fail for somebody else.

And then we want to make sure that we have like at least two levels of that same player currently on the roster.

One of them, like Connor said, is cuttable, and then another could start for them if he had to.

I don't think that would be their first choice.

But they're basically paying both of these guys still less than Daniel Jones's current contract, and one of them might be the backup.

So I don't think that that's terrible.

Far be it for me to give the Giants the benefit of the doubt on like anything.

But at the same time, they are clearly trying to at least make sure that they're not like starved at the position, even putting like a warm body in it, who could actually throw the football.

Yes.

And all of this, again, continues to point toward Aaron Rodgers ending up in Pittsburgh, but...

Nothing is done on that front.

We'll continue to track that.

Another news involving former Glory teams who have fallen on hard times in recent years, the Patriots, they have been trying to improve their offense around young quarterback Drake May, and they finally made a move on,

what was that, Tuesday, signing Stefan Diggs, formerly of the Texans, to a three-year, $69 million contract.

And again, this is why the money is bullshit.

This is not a three-year, $69 million deal for a 31-year-old dude coming off an ACL terra.

It's actually $26 million guaranteed, and then we'll see where he goes from there.

You could argue that's still a lot of money for a 31-year-old that's been known of a locker room lawyer, maybe a little bit,

that has been physically banged up.

But anyway, he could be ready for week one.

The Patriots certainly hope he is because he's joining a wide receiver room that had the likes of D'Amario Douglas and Kayshawn Boute

last season.

So Diggs is a part of a piece of the puzzle there, Jordan, with more to come, certainly a guarantee.

Yeah, I don't mind it either.

I think that

when he started out in Houston last season,

you could see that he was going to have a strong season, solid.

I think he can still be a versatile guy who's in the mix.

I don't necessarily know that because of his injury history, you're going to make him like a one anymore, but he can still do a lot of different things for an offense.

And I think with Drake May, pairing him with a player like Drake May, who's ascending into like, I think, rapid stardom in the NFL as a quarterback.

I do think that that's a smart move to pair his experience and talent with a young player like that.

And I also think the Patriots are not done here.

I would imagine they're going to swing a couple more times.

Yeah, let's

stick a pin in the Patriots talk because they're going to come up a little bit later.

My one other thought on Diggs Connor, and we had Breer on the show this week, and Breer wrote about the Texans game plan and how they thought they needed a culture reset on offense.

And within that same Burt Column, I wish I got into it, but we ran out of time.

There was a lot in it about, oh, Stefan Diggs is actually a good dude.

Like, he's, you know, he gets a bad rap for

the personality side of things.

But it's pointed to me that the Texans also need wide receiver help, and they were willing to let him go out the door.

So now the Patriots.

Nobody wants me to do this.

I'm a great guy.

So it's the Patriots.

I say a great guy

that have to get him the pill.

And I think he will, at least the way the offense is currently constituted.

We We see this a lot, though, with, I think, late career receivers.

You're a great guy.

Late career receivers that may or may not have had

the best reputation in the locker room.

You do find that a lot of them see the bigger legacy picture as they start to go.

And, you know, Brandon Marshall is another guy that reminded me a lot of that, where it's like your last few years, you actually turn out to be this sort of

the gold standard

in terms of teammates.

And then that helps propel you into whatever you want to do later in life.

So I think it's a fine signing.

I don't know where they're going to play him, but necessarily.

It's going to be a slot guy.

He's going to be a wide, but whatever.

It'd be fine.

I think it'd be in a slot.

I could totally see that.

Yeah.

And that is what's happening in the news.

Pivot.

Hey, baseball's back.

I'm into it.

I'm pumped.

Can't wait.

Had my fantasy draft yesterday with my sons.

Got them their first draft.

That was fun.

Bunch of dads and sons.

Cool.

Daughters invited Jordan, but we didn't have any this year.

Maybe next year.

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audience only.

All right.

Power rankings.

And by the way,

you can't have rankings without power.

So here we go.

Let's get into it.

Starting with, you know, I think.

Unless you've got power.

Exactly.

I think what we need.

That's a Dan Hanses shout out.

Okay.

Okay.

I think what we need to do is number one according to Dan Hansis power rankings today.

All right, Paul Rudd.

Easy, Ant-Man.

Let's get into these pre-draft power rankings, kind of where we see the landscape of the league as we get out of free agency or in the deep throes of free agency and heading towards the draft.

We have Eagles, Lions, Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, Commanders, Packers, Rams, top eight.

Chargers, Vikings,

Broncos, Bengals, Bucks sitting in the Twilight Zone at 13, Niners, Texans, Seahawks, 16.

Bears, Steelers, Cowboys, Falcons at 20, Dolphins, Raiders at 22.

Interesting.

Patriots, 23.

Cardinals at 24.

And in the last quadrant, the Panthers at 25.

Jags,

the Jest, the Colts, the Saints, the Demon, the Brownies, and

Justin's Titans.

Let's go.

32

with the number one overall pick in the draft.

So we thought a fun thing to do here for each of us.

What is this?

What am I looking at here, Justin?

So this is a board that shows where everyone put each of these teams, sort of breaking it down.

You can see here, a lot of consensus until you get to number eight Rams, where Connor has them 18th.

But I don't need to dive into that too deep.

Connor, you got an issue with

the Rams over there?

I think everybody just needs to be able to handle criticism.

So if they don't like it, they gotta deal with it.

Nice.

I like that.

See,

that's how your rankings have power when you can defiant in tone like that.

And on this graphic, you should watch on YouTube.

Can we Photoshop some shades on Michael Sean Dugar, who otherwise looks hot?

Like I'm saying eight, eight and a half out of ten, but maybe throw on some pit vipers or something.

Yeah, I did a little bit of digging.

You know, all these headshot graphics I do.

I've always put all of us in sunglasses, but scrolled through pages of of Mike's Instagram and could not find a picture of him in sunglasses and didn't want to creepily text, like, hey, can you send me a picture of you wearing sunglasses?

I'd like to see what you look like in sunglasses.

I think Mike's having technical difficulties.

Oh, nope.

Oh, that's a wow.

He just put him on.

Oh, wow.

There's like a Marshawn Lynch thing going on now, and I love it.

Let's get this screen done.

I think these sunglasses are

who's DK with?

It's like the official sunglass partner that all the cool receivers have.

I think Odell's with them too.

Very nice.

So let's go.

Marketing people sent me these.

There you go.

So let's use that as his new shot.

All right.

So let's get into it.

Jordan, we each are grabbing two teams here to talk about from the top end of the power rings and the bottom.

Let's start on the top end.

Who did you choose?

On the top end, I picked the Atlanta Falcons.

I actually ranked them.

I need to see the power rankings.

I'm going to pull up my own list.

Well, they're in the bottom end.

Oh, they're in your top end.

You have them up at 11.

Holy God.

Which is why, yeah, which is why I have them.

I had a couple of head-scratching rankings myself.

I think that

that will look head-scratching on the outside based on where the season finished up.

But I really believe in Mike Pennix with this roster.

They still, to me, they still need an edge rusher.

They added Leonard Floyd.

They have holes all over their defense.

I expect them to to address those in the draft.

But when I talk to people in Atlanta about year two of this offense, moving in with Mike Pennix and with this run game that you saw the foundation laid last year with the receiving core that they have, that they could still add to as well, by the way.

I just, I really think that this could be a team that surprises people this year, especially behind this young quarterback who, like I said, when I talk to people in that building about him, I'm kind of blown away by the way they talk about him relative to his experience level in the NFL.

There are some people that are extremely excited about the way he throws the football and the way that Zach Robinson's offense can open up behind the way not only he can throw, but the way that he can basically run the offense in general, the football he's seen and the way that they can, I think, look a lot more mature on this offense and more developed on this offense than we saw, especially at the end of last season.

And they'll need to score points because their defense is still going to be shaky, in my opinion.

But, you know, if they draft well, I think they'll be okay.

He certainly passed the sniff test in his audition at the end of the year.

Mike, who's in the top end of the power rings for you and what do they need to do to improve from this point?

All right.

In the top end, who did I pick?

Oh, I picked the Texans.

Where did I have them, actually?

I had them.

Yeah, ninth.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think they have a good team.

I just really am worried for Coleridge, Stroud's health and well-being

because I'm still not really sure.

You asked me there for a second.

I was like, Is this the guard that I'm missing out on?

Yeah, no, I just like calling his.

I like finding out guys's real names, whether there's T.Y.

Hilton, Julio Jones.

Like, it's fun finding out their real name.

Anyway, yeah, so Coleridge, I'm worried about his health and well-being because I do think that their defense is going to be nails again.

They've continued to invest in that.

I like the CJ Gardner Johnson pickup.

I like like kind of overhauling most of the offensive line there, except for the Tunsel thing.

I was just like, wait, no, that was the good lineman.

Keep the good lineman so CJ can stay upright.

And then now you're looking at some version of like Cam Robinson, Lakin Tomlinson, who I watched all last year.

That wasn't great.

Maybe Trent Brown will play like Jared Patterson, Titus.

Like, it's just not Blake Fisher.

I'm just naming bodies, which is not like a good thing.

It seems like they're doing the opposite of what we expect teams to do when they have like the young franchise guy who's cheap.

It's like, oh, let's pour all these resources into our offense.

And instead, it's like, take away your left tackle.

Here's Christian Kirk.

God bless.

And I'm very worried.

And they need to nail like every offensive pick that they get in this draft.

Like their defense is cool.

Everything they need to use all their picks on offense.

I thought it was illuminating what Breer wrote about and we talked about this week that not that Tunsel was a problem in the locker room or a locker room lawyer, but he wasn't a solution.

He wasn't a glue guy or whatever.

And they're just trying to like turn that room over and make it a more healthy place.

And that could come with some growing pains for a team that sees itself in a window right now.

Connor, what do you got in the top end?

I have the Vikings, and I think that...

I think that they should be looking for more depth at cornerback and really should be trying to layer that Brian Flores defense with more help because you have what Blake Cashman is going into his age 29 season.

You have Andrew Van Ginkle going into his age 30 season.

Harrison Smith is 36.

And you have Jeff Akuta on the roster, which to me at least signifies to some degree that you're hoping one of these flyers hits on guys.

You had your top four corners entering free agency all on expired contracts.

And so it's one of those deals where I think you just need to replenish.

Like this, this defense is like the lawn.

It's a constant reseeding and reinvestment.

And I think that you need to really kind of invest in this because

it is the yin to the yang.

It's something that really can help J.J.

McCarthy through a lot of growing pains.

It's an aggressive scoring defense.

They're one of the best cover zero teams in the NFL last year.

So give them more bodies and more options because Brian Flores is in evolution mode, changed the way that he did things before Minnesota, and I think is going to take another massive leap forward this coming season.

I'm going to stick with the NFC North and talk about the Lions, who I have, I believe, is my number two team.

And let's see, I had a, what do I have?

The ones, I have them at three, Connor, two, Jordan, one, Mike, three.

You know, a lot of teams go into offseasons thinking they're, quote, one piece away from Super Bowl glory.

And in many cases, those teams woefully misjudge their own roster and their situation.

But the Lions are absolutely in that place.

And change comes quick in the NFL.

I feel like they've now slotted into where the Niners were the last couple of years, where it's like, okay, you're here.

Now it's time to go.

Now it's time to get over the hump.

So how do they do that?

They currently pick 28th overall.

I think it's imperative.

And I know they're going to get helped out a lot just by getting healthy this year.

That was killer, the way the football gods ruined their defense.

So it's going to be helpful.

But I still think, for instance, like expecting Marcus Davenport to hold on the other side,

hold down the forward on the other side across from Aiden Hutchinson.

We'll see.

That guy's not built to play 20 games.

So go be aggressive and move up the draft board and go get somebody to play across from Hutchinson and make that a real, like we were talking about, Connor, earlier this week, collapsing both sides of the line with two dogs and make that like kind of the

imprint of your defense.

And I looked at DJ's latest mock, and he has four edge rushers projected in the top 20 right now.

Boston College, Donovan Ezaraku, Marshall Defensive N, Mike Green, Georgia Edge, Jalen Walker, Penn State Edge, Abdul Carter, who some people think can go as high as number two to the Browns.

Go make a move, trade some picks.

They've done such a great job building out a deep roster, which is such a credit to the whole operation, that they are a team that can sustain trading their first and maybe a first next year.

What it takes to move up to get a guy that you think could be an impact player right away and really put some extra teeth into that defense.

So the Lions not being afraid to go for it in 25.

I'm all about it.

Jordan, how about on the back end of your power rankings?

Yeah, I wanted to talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars.

And normally we won't really do that because they have not been interesting over the last several years.

And in fact, we've tried to avoid watching them overall.

But James Gladstone, to me, is following a similar pattern to what I saw him do with the Rams in 2023 when he was in charge of overhauling their draft strategy during that sprint rebuild.

So basically, they're plugging the middle of the roster with cheap free agency acquisitions, nine of them, they'll fill out the best available now through the draft, and they'll probably trade a couple of picks for more picks.

The Rams 2023 draft class was 14 members, so trading picks for more picks, found five starters and tons of depth, and then they could replace those sort of plug-and-play veterans on cheap deals.

And then 2024, they had a smaller free agency class, again, hit the draft with a 10-member class, again, five starters.

So basically, James Gladstone is following a similar path here.

He signed Patch or bridge veterans to cheap and low-cost deals relative to their position markets.

He's going to hit the draft really hard to ultimately replace, if most, if not all, of them.

And a few will remain as low-cost contributors, which makes sense because that is his expertise.

And it's a strategy that does require absolutely nailing the draft, which I think the caveat here should be he just got in the building like three, four weeks ago.

And so this year might be a little bit more delayed even than what his actual full, like first full fingerprint draft will be in 2026.

But it's interesting.

I think that this is like a plan to completely rebuild this roster by really strategizing in the draft.

And another thing that told me that that's what they're going to do is he hired Jake Temi, who I'm shocked, less needlette, out of the Rams building while still under contract.

He built their JARS program, which is basically their like living computer model that helps them with everything they do in the building, including their draft strategy.

And Jake's going to go build that now in Jacksonville, probably under a different acronym.

We could probably think of some fun ones.

But it's interesting because it is one of the reasons why they were able to so quickly overhaul and rebuild.

And so I think this is a team to keep an eye on, especially as it pertains to strategy moving forward in that draft.

Like it.

Mike, how about you, bottom end of the power rankings?

All right.

My bottom end of the power rankings, I am going with the, who did I pick?

Oh, the Patriots.

Mike's still wearing the sunglasses.

I love it.

This ring light I got is super bright anyway, so this is like kind of helping.

And the Patriots, pretty low.

Actually, when I text, when I did my rankings, I sent them to Justin.

I told him, honestly, 13 through 23 could kind of go any direction you want.

Depending on, I think the biggest variable is how much faith you have in whatever coaching staff is in place.

Really applicable, I think, to the Raiders,

the Patriots,

and then obviously with the newer coaches, like in Jacksonville, too, but in particular with the veteran coaches who you think will maybe like take a better roster, take a roster we don't think is that good, you know, and elevate it or give it a higher floor, which I do think Pete and Vrabel should be able to do.

The Patriots went out and spent a bunch of bread, including most recently on Stephon Diggs.

I'm with you, Dan.

The number is BS on the Diggs contract.

I think he got the same amount Diggs did as Cooper Cup in terms of guarantees.

And his like first cap hit with Seattle is like 9 million or something like that.

Yeah, so it's not that crazy.

Also, on Stephon Diggs, I'm not refuting anyone's reporting because I don't haven't asked anyone about Stephon Diggs, but I do find it very funny when it's like, oh, yeah, yeah, I liked him.

He's a great guy.

It's like, sure, man.

He's been around the league forever.

You know, people he's encountered, you know, some people probably like him.

Some people probably don't.

I'm sure Deshaun Watson has had dates that went well.

You know, like,

that doesn't mean you're just unanimously a great guy.

You know, I I don't know on digs.

I just always find that

kind of funny.

Again,

when I did this Russ project, or this project that includes Russ, it was very similar.

You can find teammates that love Russ, teammates that hate Russ, teammates that don't care.

It just depends on who you act.

So I find that very funny on Diggs.

If you have to tell people you're a great guy,

probably not a great guy.

Just don't

can we can Mike can we keep sunglasses Mike forever and always listen sunglasses Mike don't give a

oh yeah

deshaun is listening to this like thank you someone finally's like exactly

he's a good guy just misunderstood yes the good guy stuff is like yeah whatever man tunsel thing same things like oh maybe he's a good guy maybe he wasn't in locker rooms like come on man he'd been in the league forever you know it depends on who you ask i'm sure with literally every player in the nfl anyway uh the patriots kind of did the thing everyone says not to do usually when you have cap space is just blow it on a bunch of players um but i actually when i looked at the dollar figures, particularly guarantees, I actually like their moves because if you watched the Patriots last year, I'm sorry that you did that.

The second thing is that they just kind of didn't have NFL players on the field most of the time, particularly like when injury started to pile up.

And now at the very least, they have NFL players.

And like, that's huge for, again, a coach who I think can is a floor raiser in Vrabel.

Like, if you just give him NFL players, his team won't suck, just like generally speaking.

So I thought that was actually really good.

And the ones they spent the biggest on, I mean, Milton Williams thought that was fine.

Like you have to pay to get people to move to Foxborough.

Like that's, that's, you pay the Foxborough tax in that way.

I went there one time and I was like, oh yeah, I would need a lot of money to get out here.

But in terms of their, in terms of their draft stuff, I actually think they're in a good spot.

They need like all the premium stuff.

They still need a number one edge rusher.

I'm not going to try the Boston College kid's name, but Dan, I believe, said it right.

I did.

Go get him.

I looked it up.

It's Ezaraku.

Yeah, you get a guy like that or the old mis kid.

I think his first name is like Prince.

You draft Will Campbell.

Short arms be damned.

Maybe with your first pick, you go get my guy Kyle Williams from Washington State, who was killing it at the Senior Bowl, like with his routes.

Go get that

DT from Kentucky.

I think I just fixed the Patriots there.

I think they're really

in the Vrabel floor raiser thing.

I do.

I'm buying Patriots stock right now on March, whatever day it is right now.

All right.

Connor.

It's for my back end team.

I like Connor's buying stock because he has the Patriots all the way up at 16 in his power ranking.

That's a good coaching staff bump.

Like Mike's point, I think we all did that, at least in one area.

Like mine is the Raiders and Connor's, I think, is the Patriots.

And Mike's, you forgive me, you had one.

Was yours also the Raiders, the bump, that coaching staff bump?

Yeah,

I think so.

Yeah.

Maybe even the Panthers, depending on where I had them.

I believe in Canales, too.

Yeah, yeah.

Culture Schmulcher.

It's a good point.

It was a really good point.

Yeah.

I did the Bears and the Patriots because one of those two quarterbacks is going to become amazing, right?

And it's going to just take over the league this year.

For my back end team,

this time I had the Indianapolis Colts, and I think their...

One singular, I mean, they have many needs, but their most glaring need is so obvious that I do wonder if another team would even like trade up if they like the same player.

If they don't come out of this draft with Tyler Warren, I think it's an absolute disaster scenario for the Colts.

Anthony Richardson needs to be in more 12 personnel, 21 personnel.

He needs to be in more bigger sets where he doesn't have to just exclusively rely on all of his talents.

And some of his best games last year were some of the games where the Colts played their heaviest amount of two tight end sets and two running back sets.

And with that second running back, Warren could be that guy.

He could be a fullback out of the backfield.

He could be a tight end.

He could be an H-back.

And I think that's incredibly important because you have to make it work with this guy.

You You have to.

And more 12 personnel, more 21 will at least force the defense to play that game where it's like, okay, well, we're going to guard Tyler Warren with the linebacker.

Are we going to guard him with a cornerback?

If we put a cornerback out there, is Anthony Richardson just going to run us over?

If you're Shane Stike, and this is kind of the area that you need to live in at this point, and you need to make this guy work, nobody wants to see Daniel Jones over the back end of the season.

And so I think that making the game more manageable, allowing you to take more bite-sized chunks out of it makes the most sense.

I would do what the Packers did, if I'm being honest, during the craft and the Musgrave draft and take two of these guys in three rounds because Mo Alley Cox, I think, had a career-best, like 53%

catch rate last year.

And it was terrible.

There's no dependable,

what do you want to call it, mid-range targets for this poor kid.

So let's do that for him.

Daniel Jones would also benefit from such personnel as you described, which could get a little complicated down the stretch there.

GC.

GC.

Good call.

Finally, I want to talk about the Raiders

who are still

buried in the back end of the NFL and maybe the toughest division in the NFL.

We have them collectively at 22.

I have them at 24, which is the Pete Bump culture.

Connor, 29.

Jordan, 10?

No, that's a typo.

That's a typo.

Nope, I did that on purpose.

Yep.

What?

You are saboteur 23 for Mike Brown.

Living dangerously.

All right, well, we'll talk about that.

So it seems like an insane place to put them in the top 10, but I want to hear you out, Jordan.

But I just want to say that the problem and the reason why they're not a top 10 team is because

they have had such a horrendous, horrendous operation when it comes to drafting in the past five or six years.

Prior leadership has decimated this roster.

I read this from Barnwell, which I had to, I did like a double take, a double read, because I was like, there's no way.

They have had 14 first and second round picks between 2018 and 2023.

Only one of those picks will start for the team.

It's Colton Miller, their left tackle.

He's turning 30 this year.

That was way back in 2018 that they took him.

And so, because of their poor drafting, beyond poor, the worst drafting in the league, there's no bottom end on this roster.

There's no depth on this roster.

So this is such a big year and a big draft for Pete Carroll and John Spytek and Tom Brady, I suppose.

And I'm just interested to see how they approach it.

This is our Spytech drop.

They could use some work.

Do they take the best

available player at six and just get themselves a dog and add another high-end piece?

Or is this a wheel-and-deal situation where they want to build up the roster and try to get more picks to try to fill in all the holes that they have on both sides of the ball?

Well, They can't fill them all, but start building something.

There's been a lot of talk, Jordan, about how the idea of Pete Carroll is a good one, but it's also one that's made with the idea: like he's not here to be in an extended rebuild.

He's 70-something years old.

So, how does what does that mean if that's indeed the course where they're looking to get better quickly?

How do they do that?

And what is the strategy they take?

I'm just very interested in how they handle their draft.

Yeah, and

I know I'm out on a limb here with this.

I totally understand that.

So

I see that and I see how it looks on the outside.

I just think John Spytak's done this before.

He did this with Tampa Bay when they did their complete overhaul and rebuild and had to not only take on a ton of dead money, but also find a new quarterback and then also draft and develop and get key players and key positions who could help the team win way faster than expected.

And he was one of the architects behind that.

And I know that everybody wants to like match this team with a running back at six.

And I think you know, you could you could definitely argue for that.

And Pete Carroll, I would imagine, will argue for that, especially with Janti, who will be probably available at that time.

But if you trade that pick back even later in the first round, not only could you get a damn good running back because it's a good class, but also you could get an edge rusher, another edge rusher.

You could get help all along your offensive line.

They have a couple of interior linemen who they like a lot.

And I think that the combination of Pete Carroll, John Spytek, Patrick Graham, who's one of the best defensive coaches in the league, in my opinion, and Chip Kelly running this team with Geno Smith, Brock Bowers, and Max motherfucking Crosby, I do think that this is going to be a team that will surprise people.

Just my opinion.

I just, everything you say makes sense, but when you put a team top 10,

that to me is like,

here's the group of Super Bowl contenders.

But maybe we have differing opinions of what a top 10 is.

I also put the Broncos at nine, just saying.

So

is this your

Chargers from last year team, like the team that maybe we didn't love the talent going into the season, but they go hire Jim Harbaugh, and it's like, all right, they have a quarterback.

Jim Harbaugh is going to just raise this team so much that that's sort of like, they go get Geno Smith, they hire Pete Carroll.

They're going to surprise people.

Same division, by the way.

Maybe.

Are you asking me?

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

No, I mean, like I just said in my rant, I do think that like the combination of all of these things that I mentioned does raise their floor quite a bit.

I don't know how high their ceiling is, but because that will depend on their draft, but I definitely think that the combination of all of the factors I listed 100% raises the floor of this team.

And I think they've finally got people in the building who know ball.

Pivot.

That is our pre-draft NFL power ranking discussion.

We did this now because it's never too early to look ahead to next season.

In fact, on Underdog right now, you could build a pick'em entry out of NFL season higher lowers for 2025.

Jordan, if you're so high on the Falcons, you probably think Michael Pennix is going higher than his 22 and a half passing touchdowns line.

And guess what?

You could add that to an under.

What's that?

Pause for reply.

Put that in the copy next time, Justin.

Pause for reply from colleague.

What does that mean?

I don't know.

He's like, gonna, Mike, explain.

Oh, yeah, throw 23 or more touchdowns.

If you feel like he has that in him, then you can make some money.

You're an underdog.

Lock in these pre-draft lines by building, and don't play Koi.

You're a very intelligent woman.

You know what that means.

Now, you paragon of journalistic integrity, you know what an over-under is.

We've been down this road before, Rodrigue.

Higher-lower, not higher-lower, excuse me.

Just scan the QR code on your screen to get started, or sign up with the code HTC, and new users can receive up to $1,000 in bonus credits when they deposit for our U.S.

audience only.

And now we head to a new segment called

Listener Voicemails.

Hit it, Justin.

First one.

You have reached the official hotline of the Heed the Call podcast.

Please leave a message after the tone, and we may use your message on a future show.

We thank you for your loyal hedonism.

Hey, Dan, Mike, Jordan, Connor, all the guys, Justin.

So

my question is, what is a realistic trade that you might like to see before the draft?

It can be based on reporting or based on just team fit.

Big fan of the show.

Thanks, guys.

Anybody want to jump in on that one?

Can mine, not to immediately change the parameters of his very specific question, but

can it be like day three of the draft?

Is that okay?

Go for it, dude.

Okay, you know, give me Kirk Cousins to the Browns.

I think that makes the most sense.

So nice.

Yeah, I think Kirk is just watching and being like, please don't draft another young person.

That's going to make me so mad.

And then once the Browns don't do that at number two.

Man, you want to talk about battle scars, Connor?

Like that reporting from Albert we read, like, he's terrified to force anything right now because he doesn't want to get penixed for the second straight year.

But I guess I get it.

I feel the same.

I got the best.

No one wants to pennex to the face, you know?

And

some do.

That is what penix it is.

Anyway,

yeah, I think he's worked with Kevin Stefanski before.

This is one of those situations where, especially if Dove Kleinman is right, you know, maybe Deshaun Watson comes back in 2027, ready to go and be a dog.

But until then, Kirk Cousins, I think, takes this, it allows you to...

It allows you to make life significantly easier for Miles Garrett by taking Abdul Carter.

I think that's something that probably is attractive to him.

Like, you know, you're double teamed at least a little bit less over the back end of your career, and the defense can take a step forward.

And Shaddur, you know, not drafting Shaddur, I think, prevents the optics from absolutely raining down on you in terms of like you suck at this developing this singular position.

Kirk Cousins can come in and just hold the fort until you're ready to figure out what's going on with the Shauner to get your next ticket.

Connor, I think it makes a lot of sense.

I like it.

And even more so, I like your Kirk Cousins voice.

I wondered, could you do that again?

I thought you nailed it, honestly.

What was it again?

Something like, oh, please don't draft shit or

I got one that may not be as realistic, but it's like fun.

Actually, it involves the Seahawks.

I would send a third round and a second round pick.

Maybe one of those is a future one to the Bengals for Trey Hendrickson.

And then I would send back Boy Mafe,

their young pass rusher who's an expiring contract, a good young player.

I think he had like nine and a half sacks last year or something like that.

Send him to the Bengals, send a second round pick, third round pick, which is basically what they have extra from the Gino and DK trades.

But again, if you want to make one of those 2026, like a 2026 three and then this year is two or something like that, and then send them Boy Mafe, get Trey Hendrickson back, and then pay Trey Hendrickson whatever it takes to make him like a top three edge rusher by average annual salary or something like that.

Boom.

I just made the Seahawks defense better.

You're fixing multiple teams today, Mike.

Yes,

it's the Pit Vipers.

Yes, I am.

And while we're here, since it ties in with my power rankings team, we talked about and mentioned the Hutchinson getting a running mate, and Hendrickson does come to mind.

Hutchinson and Hendrickson.

I kind of like that.

How about a first and a third plus Davenport to the Bengals to get Hendrickson up in Detroit?

And let's

fly.

All right, next.

Hey, Edenis, first time long time.

I'm in my mid-20s, and for my entire life, the Dallas Cowboys have embarrassed and frustrated me.

I guess what I want to know is, is there any hope for me in terms of staying a fan while Jerry Jones and family own the team?

Or should I just resign to a life of mediocrity?

So many of us do.

What's to stop you?

If you are in your mid-20s, you were born right around the time of the Maury Povich show, not understanding mental illness, so like 99, 2000 era.

Jordan, so that is, you've had a bunch of winning seasons in Dallas, but yeah, never getting over the hump.

Do you think it's an ownership issue?

What do you think about the Cowboys right now?

Yeah, yes, I do think it's an ownership issue.

I think it's a

vast...

corporation style of family-run business issue.

I also think that there's a lot of things that we've seen over the last, especially as I'm reporting out over the last couple of years about the business elements being prioritized versus the on-the-field product, even though the on-the-field product has not been terrible.

It's just been not what it could be and not maximize some of the resources and some of the decision-making that is possible.

So, you know what?

I actually, I don't remember, I'm going to look at it again.

I don't remember what I ranked the Cowboys.

this year.

I think I had them in the top 20.

Yeah, I had them at 20.

I don't think they're going to be terrible.

I think Schottenheimer actually, I really liked Mike's argument or the case of Schotty a few weeks ago when we talked about some of the new hires.

I think that could work.

If they fumble the Micah Parsons situation, you might just have to go sit in a corner and cry.

Put on some Nirvana.

Something in the way.

It's Jerry Jones.

I said it a couple weeks ago, though, I don't have a problem.

They're playing the comp pick game.

They have a lot of picks this year.

I think they'll have a lot of picks again next year.

It's the one thing they do well as a franchise.

They seem to be able to draft and identify.

As a matter of fact, I wanted to be a coach.

Yeah, they do play the comp pick game well.

You need to do more than that well in order to be a successful franchise, and you have to sign your ultra-talented, like top two in the league players, and that's what they need to make sure they get to play.

They will.

They'll just pay an extra $10 million for it, like they always do.

And they just want us to talk about it all summer.

They get that money back on the other side.

Exactly.

All right, next.

I like first-time.

Hey, heroes, I have two questions for you all.

One, would you prefer your team's quarterback to be a gambling gunslinger or a check down Charlie?

And two,

if you had a personalized two-topping pizza, what would you put on it?

Bonus, what do you think Sessler would put on his totally normal pizza that humans eat?

Thank you.

A lot there to digest.

Also, can we cut the way that man said check down Charlie for a future drop?

Is it weird that that almost sounded like the New York Giants depth chart now, a quarterback, that they have?

Not that Russ is a check down Charlie, but he's been running some pretty conservative offenses or been part of them for a couple of years now.

And then you have like an out-of-control maniac gunslinger in Jameis Winston.

I don't think either brings you what you want, right?

Which is a deep playoff run.

But if

I've watched so many boring offenses, give me the guy that's going to mix things up.

And maybe maybe you get the good version of a gunslinger, con man, like a Baker Mayfield, for instance, and we're having some fun out there.

We'll start with that question.

Okay.

Yeah, and I want to clarify my earlier stance.

Like, I'm not saying that the Giants should line up in a eight-yard deep shotgun and just fire the ball into the end zone on every throw.

I understand that some of the passengers.

Connor getting ahead of his criticism.

I understand that some of the passes need to be like three, four, five yards.

So let me just, you know, I'll start with that.

I'd rather you try to push the ball down the field because I don't think that a defense respects a quarterback that doesn't have, you know, I don't know, whatever you want to call it.

I think that it keeps a defense honest, and especially if your offensive line is god-awful, at least take some people out of the box and alleviate some of the pressure on you sometimes.

So I don't know.

Give me, give me a gunslinger.

Give me one with some.

you know, alcohol problems or something crazy too, where he just comes on the field and it's dangerous and just vomiting everywhere.

Like, that's what I want.

This guy's f ⁇ ed up.

Put him on the field.

Hell yeah.

Todd Marinovich, God, God bless him, threw 10 touchdowns in a game one time while on heroin.

Did you know that?

In the arena league.

His dad was a little bit more.

Awesome.

Not awesome, but like, I'm just saying.

Yeah.

And also on the topping side, Sessler, I've had pizza.

It's the one thing, it's the one food that I've ever been able to kind of enjoy with Mark.

Mark is kind of a famous fooditarian, not a big fan of food, but he will eat pizza.

And he has a cheese slice, totally human stuff.

I, and I, I, as a native New Yorker, Northeast guy,

I'm disgusted by Southern California, and I don't know if it's other places in the country, this idea that you need to pile on a pizza to make it something worth eating.

If you tell me a topping, all right, put some Italian sausage on there.

Um, but that's it for me.

I don't know what you guys think with your pizza pies.

Yeah, I'm pretty simple on the pizza front, um, but I also can sort of picture you and Mark sitting there eating pizza together, but Mark's cutting his with a knife and a fork.

The knife and fork guy.

Yeah, no, I hear that.

I hear that.

Anybody else?

He doesn't, though.

Fairness to Mark, he's not, because that is the biggest red flag any human could ever

throw up.

It's to show that he knows what human utensils are.

That's the thing.

Yeah.

But it's actually a spoon and it's upside down.

He's a classic alien mistake.

There is no spoon.

Yeah, there is no spoon.

Any other pizza takes before we move on?

Pineapple belongs on pizza.

You said what?

Pineapple belongs on pizza.

They were

just

a great country.

All right, next.

This is a two-parter.

The two different callers with a similar topic.

Pineapple and f ⁇ ing pizza.

What's up, heroes?

I noticed that the Bears...

have better odds to win the Super Bowl than the Vikings.

After 14-win season.

I think that's pretty ridiculous.

So, I'm just wondering if you think there's anything that they could do in this draft to swing those odds.

Thanks.

Bye.

What's up, everybody?

Longtime listener, first-time caller.

My name is Eric.

I'm a Bears fan, and I just want to know: do you guys think I'm wasting my time every season getting excited that the Bears might have finally turned the corner?

Or are we just destined to always be kicked in the teeth year after year after year?

Do these line moves that the Bears have made this year actually make a difference?

You know, they won the offseason last year, so

it didn't matter.

Are they going to win the offseason this year, and will it matter?

I'll hang up and listen.

I'll hang up and listen.

This is the only show I've ever wanted to do in my life, so I'm enjoying myself right now.

Yes, here's the thing.

What doomed the Chicago Bears last year is something that I've seen doom many teams, including my own last year.

You could do anything you want.

You could slap as much lipstick and mascara and blush on the pig as you want, but if you have a shit coaching staff that's overmatched, everything's going to go to hell.

And I think that was the number one issue the Bears had.

Now the question becomes, do you think, do you think the new guy, Ben Johnson, is going to fit into that spot well and that staff is going to take a obviously talented roster and an improved roster and take it to a place of relevance?

It's too early to say because I don't know what to make of Ben Johnson yet, but I reserve the right to be optimistic because, as I've said on the show before, Jordan, it's a great sports town, Chicago.

It's a great football town, and Bears fans deserve better than what they've got the last, say, 20 years now.

I think if you're talking about like the odds, right, then I think it's more like Ben Johnson is getting a bump.

Jordan's like, what are odds?

Me no understand.

Me just replace.

Someone explain.

So I think that you,

I really did not know what a push was, by the way.

So genuinely, thank you for explaining.

We got it.

We got it.

So

I think they're getting the Ben Johnson bump

in terms of, and also like the overhaul of their offensive line, the fact that they still have a young quarterback who we did actually see play football a little bit last year, a lot last year, but some good football mixed in there, along with a lot of disastrous things that happened all over the field.

Still a good defense,

way better coaching staff.

And I think the win-the-offseason

just is so much flatter when you have a coach like Eberflus who had come in the year prior.

And yes, they did good things in the offseason structurally, or so they thought.

But then also, it was not, it was just a meh situation with that coach and with his staff that he went out and hired.

And so I think that that's where you're seeing this bump come in.

in combination with the fact that we have not seen J.J.

McCarthy play.

If he is indeed the Vikings starting quarterback next fall, there's going to be a learning curve.

I think we all know Kevin O'Connell can maximize a quarterback talent, but at the same time, we just have not seen it.

That combined with the fact that if they don't get younger in some areas on defense, they will essentially waste a year of that defense while trying to get the offense up to the same pace as it.

So I do think that that's kind of why you're seeing the odds shift around the way that they are.

I like both teams.

I think both teams are going to be competitive.

And Eric, I think it's okay to feel things and then let yourself be hurt.

I think it's okay.

That's important.

That's great advice.

Maury Povich, if you're listening.

Next.

Hey, heroes.

My name is Katie.

I'm from Joplin, Missouri.

Which player from the past would you like to see play in the modern NFL era?

Thanks.

Now, as I often say, and thank you, Katie, always good to hear other people.

This is an easy one.

If you were born, as I say on the throwback podcast with Bob often, like I was in exactly 1980,

you just default to Bo Jackson just immediately.

No one to me was more fascinating an athlete than Bo Jackson, his ability as a two-way star, that he was the most explosive running back in the country and perhaps the greatest like dual-threat power hitter, center fielder in baseball.

And for that reason alone, and then the way his career ended with the dislocated hip in the playoffs in 91 and how that just changed his life to see Bo young and healthy again, because I think he would kick ass no matter there.

It's not like when you took like Dizzy Dean and then you'd be like, oh, how would he fare against Barry Bonds?

Well, not well.

No, I think Bo would kick ass on

the modern era just like he did in the late 80s and early 90s.

So Bo is my answer.

Marshall Falk, put him on the Chiefs.

Mm,

spicy.

I would go OJ Simpson as long as I'm allowed to change other stuff, too.

And then kind of make it a double.

I know it's a bit, but also, yeah, OJ played for like bad Bills teams forever and was like the greatest running back who ever lived.

Yeah, also, just like make him born in 2000, and then we don't have a lot of the problems that we had with OJ Simpson.

Are you?

This is an interesting, this is a very interesting butterfly effect right now

Because is he still wired as OJ was?

I think if you're born in 2000, you kind of referenced it with the Moripovich thing.

Maybe we just have more resources available to deal with your frustrations.

Wow.

So you're actually trying to save lives, literally.

Two, yeah.

Two in particular.

Yeah, specifically.

Wow.

Oh, wow.

OJ's a good one.

Dan, if you want to kind of

feel old,

I was in the seventh grade when Jerry Rice played for the Seahawks.

He'd be a fun one to bring up.

But my real one is actually Seahawks related.

Cortez Kennedy, right now, we got inside.

Pass rushers kind of like on fire right now.

And I think

he was defensive player of the year, I believe, the year I was born, 92, on a Seahawks team that I think lost 14 games.

So I was just like imagining how badass you have to be as a defensive tackle on a team that was just totally garbage to be recognized for your excellence.

He'd be fun to pop on pretty much any team,

honestly.

But I would love to throw him on a like a front that's like loaded currently, like the Rams or like the Eagles or something like that.

Good one.

All right.

A couple more.

Hey there.

My name is Eli Newman from Atlanta, and I'm one of the 10 Pampers fans we'll send to this pod.

My question is for Jordan specifically.

As someone who's familiar with the Panthers organization, do you believe in the vision so far of Dave Canalis and GM Dan Morgan?

If so, how well do you think they will improve this year after the focus on defense and free agency?

And if not, what do they need to do differently to get the Panthers from being a consistently below average team to a contender?

Thanks, guys.

Panthers talk.

I like this.

And Jordan, if you are not aware, the former beat reporter reporter for the athletic of the Carolina Panthers.

Yes, and an organization still very near and dear to my heart.

And I want them to do well.

And I really love that fan base.

And I want them to thrive and be happy because they have been miserable for quite some time now.

So, yeah, okay, first of all, I like actually

some of the direction their roster is taking.

I love Bryce Young.

I've been high on him forever.

And I love their offensive line.

I think that they're looking at a couple of the receiver positions in a a more modern way than they had typically in that organization in the past.

And I think that they're balancing a complement and looking to, again, add to that position in the draft to continue to balance a complement of players around what Bryce Young's skill set is and how he can sort of distribute the ball.

What I think, in terms of the organization as a whole, I think you really saw positive progress with Dave Canales and how he coaches, how he makes decisions, not only for the structure of the offense and for

psyche of the offense as a whole, for the culture.

I do think there's like some positivity permeating through that building, some good vibes for the first time in a while.

And I think that now the challenge with himself and Dan Morgan is to adequately communicate the types of players specifically on the defensive side that best maximize and fit with Adgiro Everett's scheme.

I think that Adgiro Everer gets a lot of like negative talk about obviously a horrible defensive performance, historically bad defensive performance last year.

But I also think you could make the argument that a ton of those players, especially after they lost Derek Brown to injury, were just not adequately up to not only the talent level that they needed to be, but also they just did not fit or match sort of schematically what that was.

And this is a product of a front office that has seen so much turnover, that's changed their pro scouting, that's changed their college scouting, that doesn't even have like functional algorithmic programming in place to log and ascertain what these players are doing and what their outputs are.

And like, there's not even a basic organizational system when you change turnover that fast.

So I think that's Dan Morgan's challenge is to not just be able to put some actual, like some modern programming in place and like a language of their scouting and talent identification system into place, but also have that marry with Dave Canalis, which again, because of all of the turnover, they just have not been able to do to get on that same page where you're communicating effectively the scheme you want, both offensive coach and defensive coach, and how specifically it matches with the talent ID process.

That's, I think, the biggest problem that they've had, the biggest problem that they do have right now, and something that over time, you're going to start to see them attack.

And continuity will help with that.

So it's good that they hit the head coach correctly because you have to have continuity in order to actually build that programming.

So I am optimistic.

I'm also like an optimist by nature.

So take that with a grain of salt.

But I do think that if they like legitimately dig deep onto that functionality of the organization, that is where you are going to start to actually see like tangible progress on the defensive side.

Functional, algorithmic programming.

Took the words right out of my mouth.

That's what the Jaguar system will be called.

All right, one more, and then we say goodbye.

Good job, Jordan.

That was beautifully done.

What up, Dan, Connor, everyone?

This is Jordan from Green Bay.

Just come to say that I think if I had to choose between

farting into the wind and listening to Nirvana, I think I would turn around and swallow my own farts.

Or whatever.

I don't know.

Life is hard.

Yeah!

Are you okay?

Yeah.

Jordan, send me your address.

Add this other Jordan to my worry list right behind Connor.

I'm going to send you some real music.

Yeah.

Yep.

These are our listeners.

Beautiful.

That was fun.

Thank you to everybody who sent in voicemails to our toll-free number.

I don't even know if it's toll-free.

Who knows?

But we appreciate it.

And we'll do that again down the line.

All right.

One station note before we sign off for the week.

Patreon.com slash heed the call.

It's premiere week.

It came from the subreddit.

Premieres on Friday.

So make sure you're there where I go through how brave can one man be to go to the depths of the subreddit and see what you serpents are talking about and confront the difficult questions around the program and the fun ones as well.

So make sure you're there for that.

You have to sign up to be a part of it.

Patreon.com slash heed the call.

It came from the subreddit.

Jordan Mike Connor, great work,

Holding it down.

SestDog's doing what he's doing.

And we made it through the week.

Any final thoughts before we say goodbye?

I am really excited.

I actually have

a programming note scheduled to make sure I catch the earliest version possible of your Patreon.

I said,

Patreon episode.

It came from the subreddit because...

As you guys know, I used to be a subreddit lurker back, especially during COVID, because it was like a really funny, nice little community hang, right?

right and uh now I've been so terrified like I'm I have a Reddit account and I am so terrified to even go near because I'm like

if I see something even one word that is just it could destroy me spiritually psychologically like Connor and I have talked about this like I'm so scared to even look at this point because I'm like oh my god like

this is not

this is this is not for the meek of heart this program and I'm I'm taking on the battle head on and we'll see if it changes me fundamentally as a person.

But check it out.

Thanks, everybody.

We're back with another week of shows, and we appreciate your support.

Until next time, heed the call.

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