Bengals Sign Their Dudes + Where Things Stand After One Week of Free Agency

Here's the issue, Mark.

You and I are aging, and

it's hard to stop that.

Nope.

It's problematic.

So we can't do the things like we used to do, which is like, you know, stay up late at the bar, then go get a burrito, and then wake up four hours later, and everything's fine.

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This is stuff that wasn't happening when I was young.

So this is where Terra Origin comes in.

Are you curious why I punched the door?

Yeah, I was going to say that's

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Aaron Judge grounded into a double play.

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The Heed the Call Podcast

splits the G

every single time.

Oh, an Irish cacophony.

Welcome to Heed the Call with Dan Hansis and Mark Sessler.

Hope everybody enjoyed their St.

Patrick's Day.

I split the G twice, in fact, or came close enough.

Mark Sessler, how you doing, buddy?

Do you split any Gs?

No, it was, you know, I don't do it.

When they have St.

Patrick's Day on a Monday, it kind of throws me off.

And, you know,

I'm a little out of orbit.

So it was not a very active.

Mark, you've never been at a bar on a Monday.

I don't believe it.

I'm not saying that.

It's just not.

You know, I think on St.

Patty's they to go do like the 6 a.m.

like beers out on the town kind of thing.

And it's just like on a Monday, that's not working for me.

But what is your MO on a well I was going to say like

if I would love to like pull back the camera right now of your setup and I could picture it actually being like a dusty, dark Hollywood dive bar and like right off to the left is you're like a dog-eared Kerouac book and like a glass of white wine waiting for you like the second we get off the air.

Yeah, no, I had some fun over the weekend celebrating the holiday.

I have Irish Heritage, and we have a lot of Irish listeners.

So, shout out to everyone out there.

And you know who else has some Irish heritage, if I'm not mistaken?

Let's welcome in Connor Orr.

I'm gonna

drop the Him Rub,

get them barking dogs off the floor.

They think talking football, it ain't real word.

It's real why I run my house over Carrison Bucker.

I'm Connor Road.

You're Connor Road.

We're all kind of road.

We're all kind of road.

Yeah.

What's up, Con Man?

Bluegrassy.

I love that.

Yeah,

who's that one from, Justin?

Do we have the credits to respect the creator of the content?

That was Alex Hendrix.

Thank you, Alex, for your submission.

Anyone else who wants to submit a Connor or song, we love them.

But remember to keep them around 30 seconds in length because this is a short, long podcast, a long, short.

We've almost got an album.

I mean,

that's got to be the third or fourth troop or banger.

He seems to really inspire the

submissions.

Where do people send those submissions, by the way, Justin?

That would be heedthecall football show at gmail.com.

If you're watching on YouTube, it's on the bottom of the screen.

Connor, how are you?

Thank you.

I'm good.

I'm coming off of, this is probably my least wild or traditional St.

Patrick's Day ever.

We had youth track practice.

I coach youth track and on St.

Patrick, like the day that the Sunday where we would normally have all the parades.

So I didn't really get out there.

And you got a newborn in the house.

I'm sure that puts a damper on some of it a little bit.

It does.

But I also did a deep dive, a St.

Patrick deep dive over the weekend.

And I came out kind of interested in the whole thing.

St.

Patrick, not Irish, as it turns out,

English, Scottish, somewhere in there.

And also,

only two days, his day is only like...

The Irish don't like to amplify things like that, but that makes sense.

That seems like that would agitate the Irish.

Yeah.

Right.

Didn't drive the snakes out.

That's not true.

Yeah.

Not that.

Also false.

There were never any snakes.

So we never had snakes.

And then the third thing, which

is kind of a a bugaboo, I guess, in like the saint world, is that because there's such a partying atmosphere for St.

Patrick's Day, he bangs St.

Joe's Day, which is like two days from now.

And St.

Joe is the father of JC.

So St.

Joe really gets knocked down a peg because of the celebratory atmosphere of St.

Patrick's Day.

And so I did kind of a deep...

intellectual dive into all that.

This is like inching towards the theology podcast.

And we thank Connor for that and what he gives us in terms of dimension.

But yes, we hope everybody is, and if you have a hangover right now, because you over-imbibed, we're going to take it easy.

We'll try not to yell into the mics.

Coming up on today's show, we're going to

now a week, a full week has cleared since the start of free agency.

So let's do a little bit of a quick and dirty look at where things stand,

what stands out to us in terms of teams, players, and whatnot.

And that will be good.

And we're going to have our buddy, Andrew Siciliano, friend of the show, longtime friend of the show.

He's going to jump on and talk a little bit about the Aaron Rodgers side of things and how that guy, that guy controls so much.

As frustrating as maddening as it might be, he controls a lot in terms of what happens at the top of the draft and with certain teams that are trying to figure out their game plan for 2025.

But before we do that, how about a little bit of news?

What's up, 12s?

This is Sam Darnold.

I'm so so excited to get things rolling here, obviously, starting in OTAs, training camp, and then finally getting to feel y'all's energy at Lumen Field.

I'm so excited for this opportunity and excited to meet some of you guys and get this thing rolling.

Listen, nobody loves Sam Darnold more than the old Zeuser, but he's never been a...

a fountain of charisma.

But I will say this, See,

because everyone's going to, oh, the one that everyone judges every introductory social media message up against, of course, is Carson Wentz and his ill-fated time with the Washington Commanders.

So let's now compare and contrast with that famous off-season dispatch from a few years back.

What's up, Commanders fans?

Carson Wentz here, just landed in D.C.

I'm excited to get to work, excited to come in and compete.

And, you know, as we all know, excited to really go ahead and start to take command.

Okay.

I mean,

I give Darnold, I think Darnold did one thing well here.

You don't want to come out of it with like a catchphrase that's used on a podcast for the next two years.

And so that he kept it clean and without a major gaffe and like he looked jolly and happy to me.

He's a handsome man.

I do think the beard needs to be filled out just a little bit more.

Like I think he really needs to embrace the Seattle of it all and really let that thing fly because it's like a powerful red.

And I do think that there's something to that as it materializes.

But I love now that the details of his contract are out, by the way, how much more do you love that signing?

The Seattle Seahawks can get out of this thing after a year.

Yeah.

The Jets can get out of the Justin Fields thing after a year.

Two teams that got quarterbacks with upside while all these other freaking teams are waiting for Aaron Rodgers and Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston to decide where they want to go.

Holy smokes.

Meanwhile, the Niners are like, all right, time to give Brock Purdy $50 million.

You know, it is something that I think Seattle was

unnecessarily lambasted for when the Geno move happened and then the subsequent Darnold move.

We've talked about that, and we'll get into other teams that maybe looks can be deceiving about where they are right now.

But let's start.

Speaking of looks can be deceiving.

The Cincinnati Bengals seem to fix everything over the weekend.

Well, they fixed.

They fixed any issues they might have with their star quarterback.

That feels pretty certain because Jamar Chase and T.

Higgins confirmed on Sunday that they have agreed to contract extensions.

Chase agreed to a four-year, $161 million deal that includes $112 million guaranteed, making him the highest paid non-quarterback in the league, as we predicted a couple days ago.

While Higgins agreed to a four-year, $115 million deal that is guaranteed for the first two years, Chase's deal has an annual average of over $40 million, as I said.

That sets the NFL record, highest average annual salary for a non-QB.

This has been a long process, Ceci, for the Bengals.

We were just talking about it that it felt like they were just dragging this out and out.

Just get it done already.

Well, they get it done.

And this is now set against the backdrop of the final piece of the puzzle.

Joe Burrow was very public in saying what he wanted.

He wanted his two wide receivers back.

They're going to be back.

He wants Trey Hendrickson, the star defensive end, back.

They're working towards a deal, as we understand, to get that done as well.

So here we go.

The Bengals are running it back with their top contributors.

I mean, I'll give them credit in one primary area.

Like the narrative that they don't spend money, won't spend money, won't make Joe Burrow happy, that Joe Burrow was probably going to ultimately want to divorce from the team.

Like that narrative was just kicked in the face because you went and spent a lot of money.

And I think they will keep Hendrickson, who wants to stay with the team.

And he's been more compliant about the contract this offseason, but he wants to get paid.

And I think they'll do that.

They'll get that done.

But my one concern, and this would have been the concern with the Bengals in general, is that the teams I like in this time of year are patting out both lines.

And I think that's that you could look at both lines and say they're a weak area for the Bengals.

So they're, you know, they're fun and they're going to go out and score a lot of points with the players that they've prioritized here, but it feels a little top-heavy.

You've got to have to manage the rest of the roster and the team.

And what are the two,

so cheapness is one of the two main kind of negative narratives about the Bengals.

The other one is that their scouting staff is too small.

And so now that you defeat one narrative, you build the indoor practice facility, you spend a lot of money in free agency, you keep getting offensive linemen, and now you re-sign your star players is you have to now use that small scouting staff to build out the back end of your roster.

You have to build out both lines.

You have to crush it this year.

And I think they know that.

But now you're sort of, the Bengals are always kind of constantly coming to terms with being the Bengals.

And there are some years where having that small scouting staff

is a big bonus.

I mean, they identified Chase in a wide receiver heavy draft, you know, Higgins, all those guys.

But can you now build out the rest of that with affordable talent?

And can you develop the defensive players that you've blanket signed or blanket drafted over the last two years?

Like, you know, Miles Murphy, all these guys.

Can they have big years this year to make you look right?

I think there's a...

razor-thin margin of error, yeah, with their scouting department and their ability.

They have to kill these drafts now.

You know, all teams have to kill the draft, but this is what the Bengals have done is different.

So to give you a little bit of context on this, Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddell are the second highest paid wide receiver duo in the NFL.

They're making a combined $175 million, which is $100 million less than Chase and Higgins at 276.

The other wide receiver combos that might be in this conversation, but really aren't, because Chase and Higgins are now in a conversation of their own.

A.J.

Brown and Devonta Smith are third at 171.

Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison, fourth at 153.7.

Fifth on the list.

Nice job by Gravedigger digging up this info.

The Cowboys, CeeDee Lamb, and

drum roll, please.

Cavante Turbin at nearly 150.

I mean, they don't have equal contracts.

No.

It is funny, though.

It's just funny.

The Cowboys are kind of funny.

I

have have been vocal about this on the show.

I don't think this is the right play, and people

can call you an idiot for saying, well, you don't get the salary cap and all this.

And like, they can make it work.

All these teams can make it work.

Well, I look at the look at the Chiefs as an example.

They had their very own T.

Higgins and Jamar Chase in Tyreek Hill and Travis Kelsey and their very own superstar quarterback.

in Patrick Mahomes, who is the connector to Joe Burrow, obviously.

And just using them as an example, like apples to apples example, they said, you know what?

To actually build a championship team, we're going to trade Tyreek Hill at the height of his powers, and we're going to take those draft assets and that money, and we're going to build around a quarterback because we believe in the quarterback so much that if we just give him a strong overall team, give him one dog that he loves, and then we can fill out the offense, it will work.

I think what happened here.

And I get it, and as a fan of a ill-fated franchise that makes a lot of wrong decisions, I get it as a brotherhood.

The Bengals got boxed in here by their quarterback who went out into the media and made a very public, give me my toys or else.

And I can only imagine what the conversations were behind the scenes.

We don't know, but he could have literally given them an ultimatum, like, get this done or I'm getting out of here.

And this is an emotionally scarred franchise that already lived through Carson Palmer a generation ago, and they probably felt like they had to do this.

Can this work?

Absolutely, it can work.

Do I think that they wasted what they have in terms of when you have a brilliant quarterback, a top five, a top three quarterback, you don't need this allocation of resources for playmakers?

And I'm going to just say

if this goes sideways and they continue to be one of the most efficient offenses in the league and win not a goddamn thing, it won't surprise me.

And Joe Burrow, last point before I shut up, don't go to the media or anybody else complaining about how my offensive line stinks and I don't have enough of a team around me me because you were the man who made these decisions and Duke Tobin was just the guy that was sent out to be the bag man here.

So let's see.

Now, I'm sorry, I'm raining on the parade, but it strikes me as an odd decision to give out this much money to these two guys.

Well,

it's different than like Aaron Rodgers forcing a team to sign like Alan Lazard.

Like these are two

top quality wide receivers.

Like it's different than the look of the money too.

Like I get that.

Yeah.

And I just think Burrow is escaping criticism that Rogers got.

One, Rogers is kind of unlikable and a lightning rod.

But I think what they did was a very similar thing, which is like,

I'll be your quarterback and I'll be a good soldier, but you better do what I want or else.

That's, that's what I, when you got the quarterback making your decisions, it's very dangerous decision making.

It just feels like a team where like the quarterback could want to leave in a year or two if they don't.

They're in a tough spot.

They were in a tough spot.

I agree with that.

I wonder if, to me, like, right, it seems a little bit short-sighted on the part of Burrow, unless the calculus here is that the one thing that this draft seems to be somewhat rich in, it's those ancillary offensive players.

So, your big people, your offensive linemen, your tight ends, and your running backs.

And so, is the thought that like we can get a lot of this at cost control in the mid to late rounds of this draft, and we just have to hit this?

They don't have a trove of picks.

They have your standard seven, I think, three picks in the top 100, if I remember correctly, or three in the top 89.

But it's one of of those deals where you know there's so many needs that still need to be addressed and t higgins for example could have been a really stout defensive tackle and then maybe you know a swing offensive lineman for example yeah

exactly and as i laid out there's veteran wide receivers out there that could have filled the higgins slot at a quarter of the price and it i just feel like maybe the roster building they'll look back at this one day but I know there's also a lot of Bengals fans that have been stuck with this team for decades that are like, let star players go out the door.

So, this almost is like an over-correction, in my opinion.

We'll see if it works in other financial news around the NFL and superstar players.

Derek Stingley Jr., oh, big news for our buddy Michael Sean Dugar.

And the Houston Texans have agreed to a three-year, $90 million extension, makes him the highest-paid cornerback in NFL history.

The deal includes $89 million guaranteed, sources told Schefter,

And the average annual value surpasses the previous record for cornerbacks, which had been set just last week by JC Horn, who got four for 100 with the Panthers averaging $25 million.

Connor Stingley coming off an all-pro season, he was an absolute monster for that team.

And the number three overall pick in the draft.

Remember when that draft happened, they take Stingley.

The Jets take Sauce, and it looked like, wow, what a huge mistake.

Well, it doesn't look like that anymore.

I think both teams came out pretty well.

I loved it.

And the Jets are saying shit.

I lost it.

The Jets are saying shit because now we have to pay Sauce 31 coming off a bad season, whereas,

you know, the Texans do this.

This is a move that good teams make, right?

You reward your young star talent early.

This is what the Eagles do.

This is what the Lions do.

And what D'Amico Ryans is trying to do is reset the culture in that locker room.

You've let go of a lot of clutter this offseason.

You've gotten some guys out of the way, and now you're empowering your young star core.

I think it's a great move.

And the short-term nature of the contract, too, I love because there's such a high variance in cornerback play.

Like you could be great for two years and then completely fall off a cliff, but you would assume that Stingley's going to be at least good through the life of that three-year deal.

But it's not a five-year deal.

It's not a six-year deal.

It's just, it's three years.

And that, that mark will be reset by Sauce Gardner whenever he comes to market.

Like, you know, going back to the like the Higgins and Chase thing, it's kind of like pay these guys as soon as you can when you find young star players because the Bengals cost them a a lot of themselves a lot of money by doing it this offseason.

The Stingley, it fits.

It's at the right time.

We know he works in this system.

He's a part of like the new brand of the Texans.

And I think your Nick Casario, like, you know, you go back four years, he looked like he was a dead man walking with a Deshaun Watson addled roster.

And now he's turned this team around in a big way.

I mean, that's one of the comeback stories

that I'd be focused on from the front office angle.

I mean, he's turned his career around.

And yeah, and connecting and roster building and how you allocate resources.

I kind of see wide receivers and cornerbacks similar.

Like you give Jamar Chase, absolutely.

That's a no-brainer.

You drafted him, you developed him, he turned into a superstar on your watch.

Pay that guy the top of the market.

Same thing with a cornerback one.

It gets a little trickier.

Do you pay your cornerback two huge money, or do you find another way around it?

This was an easy decision because Stingley is like one of those top dudes.

So he gets the money.

By the way, here's a tweet from Rapsheet.

Again, this has been a very strange time.

You know, Florio, by the way, can I see this tweet?

I have a Florio take here.

Here's the tweet from Ian.

So it's the initial, it's the initial tweet Ian sent out about how the top has been blown off the DB market.

Bah, ba, ba, ba, ba.

David Mulgetta, the agent, did the deal.

And then a quote retweet of Ian quote retweeting himself.

He deserves it, said agent David Mulgetta, who now reps the three highest paid CBs and the two highest paid safeties.

Don't need it.

Don't need the information.

The information men out there are obviously in a weird spot right now.

Connor Orr, Mike Florio, who writes a lot of stuff that drives you crazy, we've been in the crosshairs a couple of times.

He can be an agitator, but he had a great piece I thought this weekend talking about how the insider world is changing and quickly.

And you could see it and tweets like that, that to get the scoops that you need to be an insider in an increasingly crowded field,

You need to play ball now with these agents and you got to pat the agents on the head and hoist up the agents in your information tweets about the players in a way that is very conspicuous and very obvious.

And it is really, I feel like, popped up more than ever this year.

And it goes back to like an age-old question of journalism, because having been in it now for 15 years, you go through all these iterations, countless layoffs, new companies coming in and saying, we need to do this, this, this, this.

And even going back to 2010, we need to be the news breakers.

Okay.

But what value does that really bring?

Like, yes, you are connected.

And so you get to announce the news about a minute and a half before it's announced by the team or by the league or anything like that.

And there's something to that.

Certainly it shows like your connection to the beat of what's going on.

But it all depends on what fans value.

Like, you know, are you the kind of person that just wants that on your Twitter feed?

Or do you want the kind of thing where you're explaining the reasoning behind it?

You're understanding the depth of it.

So I don't know.

I sit on one side of the fence, but I know a lot of people who are like, no, I just want to look at Schefter's feed and see the five things that happened and get in and out.

And so I guess it just comes down to what kind of flavor of ice cream, you know?

I mean,

there's an sort of obscene and objectly ridiculous element to it for what you mentioned that

the person that just loves football and is excited about free agency, like the news is going to come to them.

Like the idea that in this other world, someone got it first

by 29 seconds, and then someone else tweets out essentially a duplicate of exactly the same paragraph, often with the same agent fondling on top of it.

It starts to look ridiculous to us.

But

again, it's kind of like a lot of these other situations.

They're stuck doing it.

The other option is don't be an insider.

This is

all cut out.

Right.

What happened was the agents realized they had the power now.

Yep.

And they're like, if you don't put the name of my agency or you don't mention that I've signed three guys to huge contracts or if you don't put the dollar amount that might not be accurate, but is the one that makes the contract look bigger.

And that's when, like, to your point, Connor, I start to get into a really gray area because now you're like Ian, for instance, love Ian.

I go way back with Ian.

Ian is a legit.

reporter in his prior days with, I remember working part-time and he moved down to Pearl River, Louisiana to get a job working full-time covering high school football.

And he eventually worked his way to Alabama and covered Nick Sabin and then went up up to Boston and covered Belichick and the Patriots dynasty before landing at NFL Network.

And now, as a real reporter, I wonder sometimes if it is tough to be putting in financial information that might not be quite accurate, where your editor at the Boston Herald would have killed you for it.

But here, it's part of the agreement to have this connection with this agent to get the scoops.

It's saucy each.

A little impromptu old Zeus or Media Minute there

with Connor doing a lot of heavy lifting.

Con men, you want to get in on this IP?

I don't want to challenge you.

You know, I think you have the foothold here.

And what Andrew Marchand says is that everyone wants to cover sports media, not me.

But I do think that, like everything else, it's, you know, where do you put your foot down and say, for example, like football itself has changed from a sport to an entertainment entity?

And are those of us who cover the sport also becoming more of an entertainment entity than we are journalists covering the sport?

And I don't know.

It's a question I ask myself every day.

Like, why am I writing this?

Who am I writing this for?

Why am I doing this?

And it's big picture, but it's also like the train's moving 100 miles an hour.

And sometimes you just got to grab on and hold on.

All right.

Pivot.

Hey, man, first dates.

It's been a while.

I have to say, I've not been on a first date since the mid-2000s.

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Clover Woods, St.

Patrick's Day.

Mount Fuji, or Pro Sport.

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What was that, Mark?

Mount Fuji.

I want to know what that smells like.

Absolutely.

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All right.

I think this has changed, but

I remember back in the day that a lot of people, like I have a couple of friends that came over from France and they were never raised to wear

under, like to wear scents.

There was, you know, they would just ride

on that direlle.

That probably was changing.

I'd love to the French to update that.

I mean, if that's a thing.

Do we have French listeners out there, Justin?

Justin's nodding his head, yes.

I would say certainly we have French listeners.

The French listeners on our show do not have body odor to our show.

They are very sexy.

They got the...

Just, can we get Andrew Cecilian on the show?

This is spinning out of control.

They have the French, the French that listen to our show

have the big, like full head of dark hair and the smothering good looks.

Right.

Luxurious types.

And they smell like heaven.

Speaking of men who smell like heaven, here he is.

I know it because I've smelled him real close.

Andrew Ciciliano, welcome back to Eat the Call, buddy.

I'm making a face, and I know I often make faces on television.

I've been told that I, yeah, you know, I just subconsciously do it, or I don't know that I'm making these faces, grimacing on camera.

That was an actual grimace brought about by your awkward intro, Dan.

Have I made you feel uncomfortable?

And if I did.

No, you haven't.

I apologize.

It's just awkward.

How are you guys?

We're good.

Okay.

Andrew's got a show, by the way, on YouTube, the At Siciliano show.

So make sure you check that out.

And Andrew, that show is a must-watch.

But what also must watch is, and the reason why we're having this conversation right now, I'm scrolling through my Instagram in bed this morning, and up pops Andrew doing what I imagine to be, because it seems like a very Siciliano thing.

Up, time for my walk down Hermosa.

And you're getting your steps in, and you do a great little setup talking about how Aaron Rodgers controls things.

And I nobody wants it, because nobody wants Aaron Rodgers in 2025 to control shit.

But here we are, Andrew.

Explain to the audience, but you explain to your social media followers how that man is in control, even after a very lackluster two years in Florin Park.

You know, I think I'm giving him too much credit, but I do think, and I think we could probably all agree, that his indecision, and I think part of, do we all agree that he's probably enjoying everyone waiting for him?

Oh, he.

I would think so.

I'm not to suggest that makes him a bad person.

I mean,

revel in the attention, if that's what you like.

But his decision really does control the top 10 of the draft.

Let's say he goes hypothetically to the Giants, which now seemingly feels like a long shot.

But the Giants then at three, you would have to think are out of the quarterback business come the night of April 24th.

Maybe.

Look, if Shador falls to them, maybe they think we can't pass on it.

But if you sign Aaron Rodgers, And it's an act of desperation in my eyes for Joe Shane and Brian Dayball, then you're all in for 25.

And you probably, if he's there, go get Travis Hunter.

And you go, we are hitching our wagon to Aaron Rodgers, throwing to Travis Hunter and Malik Neighbors and hand of the ball to Tyrone Tracy.

And Theo Johnson's in the mix as well as a second-year guy.

And we are all in and we're praying.

They're not going to go Kirk Cousins on him or Jordan Love on him.

I just can't imagine that they would do that.

And if he does that, if he goes to the Giants, then the top of the draft feels a little bit different.

And the only team truly you would have to think trying to get to one potentially would be Cleveland.

If he goes, Aaron Rodgers that is, to the Steelers, then you have both the Browns and the Giants potentially competing for the affections of the Titans at number one and jockeying between each other perhaps as to which quarterback either would get.

If he, however, goes to the Vikings

and goes down that fav rabbit hole, then you have all of those teams and you could potentially throw in the Raiders at six if we think they're still in the quarterback business or even the Jets at seven, potentially, although maybe the $30 million guarantee that Justin Fields takes them out of it, all competing for the affections and potentially the interest of the Titans and maybe getting up to one.

And he just kind of is that missing chess piece right now that I don't know that we can have the quarterback draft conversation yet until we know where he is going to be.

Does it really prevent the Giants from drafting someone?

I mean, Aaron Rodgers to to me feels like a one-year patch

that maybe buys time for day ball general manager, and maybe your owner wants a big name like that after what happened last year.

I think they're desperate.

I do think, by the way, Joe Shane,

so much has been made, obviously, of the Saquon thing.

But if you look at his draft class last year, it was really good.

Not just Malik Neighbors and Theo Johnson and Tyrone Tracy, but Andrew Phillips as well on the defensive side of the ball.

He had Tyler Newban.

He had a really good draft class.

But the consensus is this team doesn't just need to win this year.

They probably have to win by like November, right?

Like if it's going downhill, then

they just might

pull the cord and get out in front of everyone else and just blow the whole thing up early.

That's why you go get Aaron Rodgers because you don't think you have time and you think there's a chance that you don't get the rookie quarterback and you don't have time to develop them.

They, to me, look, the Browns seem urgent, the Giants seem desperate.

And I know it's semantics, but to me, there is a difference there.

And, you know, on the Vikings side of it, so we had Ari Fassan on last week who's very plugged in with that team.

And he saw it from his perspective and who he's spoken to, that the Vikings, you know, they're...

They're kicking the tires on all their options, but the Rodgers thing isn't at the front of their mind or it's not on the front burner.

And then a report comes out over the weekend in the athletic.

It's a triple byline, Silver Rossini, and Alec Lewis.

And this is something I kind of had thrown out there last week: that I bet Aaron Rodgers really wants to go to the Vikings, and it's confirmed in this report.

Indeed, that's where Aaron Rodgers wants to go.

And then it comes down to whether Kevin O'Connell thinks that's the right guy for this franchise.

And in that report, and these are, you know, big-time reporters that are plugged in in the NFL

here.

And I'll throw this one to you, Connor.

The Vikings are strongly weighing the possibility of Rodgers

stepping in for Darnold, essentially, and keeping J.J.

McCarthy in the background.

So that's the other big piece of it, that this Rodgers-Vikings connection,

it's not dead.

It's very much an option in here, and it keeps the intrigue at somewhat of a high level for me.

And why wouldn't you do it if you were the Vikings?

Because to me, at this point, the landscape, the quarterback landscape is such that this is a talent accumulation game because

there's no certainty.

There's really no such thing as year-to-year certainty anymore unless you have Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes.

Even Lamar Jackson has some high-variant seasons.

There's very little certainty and there's very little inventory, which is why it's stunning that, like, for example, the Rams were able to get Jimmy Garoppolo back at 11 million when he probably would have been the Giants Plan C at that point because he worked with Brian Dable, knows Brian Dable.

And so it's one of those things where if you're Kwazi or you're Kevin O'Connell, it doesn't really matter.

the semantics and the narrative and the 30,000-foot look.

It's just like, I need as many guys who are capable of throwing the ball to Justin Jefferson as humanly possible on my roster.

And then I really don't give a shit how it works out after that.

You know, something will happen.

And I think that's the mindset that you have to have.

I also think you have to look at it because everyone says, well, what about J.J.

McCarthy?

Okay, you drafted a guy because you were desperate last year.

Kirk Cousins left and you had to fix the quarterback situation.

But he had one preseason game.

He looked nice.

He hurt his knee in that game and whatever.

But the top three teams in that division want to combine 40 games last year.

40.

And the Bears, I think we all agree, have at least on paper

gotten marketably better.

So if you're Kevin O'Connell and you look around, do you really think that you can compete in that division with J.J.

McCarthy?

Maybe you can, right?

But your situation now feels a lot different.

than it did last year before the draft when they were shaking every single quarterback tree possible to try to replace Kirk Cousins.

Now it's like, can I win the division with J.J.

McCarthy?

Or

is it at least worth calling Aaron?

Because, I mean, heck, if we sign up and it doesn't work, then,

you know, Connor, go ahead.

We can just, you know, say it doesn't work.

And hey, or JJ, take over in October.

You have one year left.

If you're Minnesota, you have one year left of Brian Flores being there.

You have one more year left of that being a potentially generational defense.

We've said this a million times on the show.

It's so much harder to keep together a generational defense, but you have Harrison Smith there for one more year.

You have all those little pieces that seem to work together so well.

And you just spent all this money on both lines.

Exactly.

There's no reason to throw the.

And the other thing, too, that we keep forgetting, J.J.

McCarthy was like three or four years younger than all the other quarterbacks that were taken in that class last year.

The bar for maturity physically and mentally is higher because of NIL, all the transfers.

Let him sit.

Let him keep sitting.

It doesn't matter.

But do we agree?

Hold on.

Can I push back one thing, Dan, a little bit?

Like, and I read the article as well, and I trust Diana, and I trust Mike Silver.

I just,

I'm not going to call BS on their reporting, I promise you here.

But the idea that we're not waiting for Aaron Rodgers, we're waiting for Kevin O'Connell to decide after all these days.

Yeah.

It was framed that way.

Yeah.

You know what, Aaron?

I've thought about it.

I took the kids skiing this weekend.

You know what?

On the flight home, I I said, what the heck?

I'm sorry.

I don't buy that

it's not us waiting on Aaron.

It's really Aaron sitting in Malibu, meditating, hoping for a call from Kevin O'Connell.

Yeah, that's fair.

Hey, before we

let you go, Andrew, I mean, you are...

The voice of the Cleveland Browns, succeeding the late, great Jim Donovan.

You grew up,

died in the wool, Browns guy.

By the way, this is a Syracuse helmet here.

It has Jim Brown's name on it.

That's really confusing, but it's a good one.

It's a Syracuse helmet with a Jim Brown window.

But that you just,

if Connor didn't love you already, now you're deep in his heart,

fellow Q's J school guy.

So the Miles Garrett situation, you were on the best podcast available.

It's a Browns podcast recently, interviewing Miles Garrett after that huge decision he made re-signing or signing the extension with Cleveland to make him

wildly, generationally rich.

And we can get into that a little bit here now because we got Ceci here who is a little conflicted about the Miles Garrett decision.

I saw your tweet last week.

Yeah, so anyway, let's play a little bit of that because we enjoyed the sly look for Miles Garrett as Ciliano, as a true journal, digs in trying to get info on what the Browns will do at the top of the draft.

In all seriousness, do you know who the quarterback's going to be?

I mean, do you have an idea?

After conversations, i do have an idea okay do you like the idea

i like it enough to to uh you know be here smiling in front of you because i think we have a a good chance of of that happening and making the most out of it all right what does that mean andrew let's start there uh let's back up the timeline is this miles had done the uh the podium and then he uh He sat down.

I was sitting here in this chair to do the interview with me.

I thought a couple of times during the press or during the podium, which got a little contentious at times because basically the media said, and I get it, and we talked about it in that interview as well.

Come on, dude, you just did it for the money.

A couple of times, I got the impression that Miles kind of knew something might be in the works, like something.

I'm not saying a tray, it just,

what's the line in 2001, Sessler?

Like, something amazing is going to happen.

What is it?

Whoa.

I will look that up.

Hold on.

I'll look it up.

2001.

This is

Space Odyssey.

Something wonderful.

Something wonderful is going to take place.

I believe that is the line.

Remember that?

Something is going to happen.

Right.

Something like that.

Something wonderful.

Right.

And I just got the impression that he kind of knew something.

So I asked him, and obviously, you know, fun little back and forth.

If it were in person, person, if I were in Berea and then maybe, you know, we could have had a talk walking down the hallway after we got done.

This was a Zoom in which there are other people on it and the door was open.

I wasn't going to just go, all right, dude, can you tell me what it's going to be?

So that did not happen.

You know what's wild, though, is the comments, like the comments, whether it's on IG or Twitter or whatever from the fans, because everyone thinks that he's suggesting something else.

Some people think that he's saying they're going to get Russell.

Some people think he's saying they're going to get Kirk Cousins.

Some people think that they're going to get Aaron Rodgers or draft Cam Ward or draft Shador or draft Jackson Dart.

There are a bunch of people, and this is bonkers, that mean, that say, oh, they're going to trade for Kyler.

And I'm like, what are you talking about?

No, that would go great.

Right.

Like, what are you talking about?

Just like I get all these people in my comments.

Have you heard this one yet?

Steelers fans saying we're going to trade for Brock Purdy.

Have you heard that one from Steelers fans?

That's all over my comments as well.

So it is like crazy speculation season.

And the short answer is, I don't know what they're doing.

But seemingly Miles was given some scenarios and he likes at least one of them.

I mean,

it's got to be like a string of options because like to the, you know, the Aaron Rodgers domino falling, like we just, Cleveland isn't guaranteed the rookie they want based on where they sit.

Um, and there's no absolute guarantee they're going to get a veteran.

Here was my one thing with this.

Like,

I didn't like the way this played out with Miles Garrett at all.

I thought he went from a really kind of lovable team hero to, this just went in a different direction.

I mean, this was their chance to trade a generational player, get a ton of draft picks, and kind of course correct from what happened with Deshaun Watson, I thought.

But they clearly value him enough to pay him this, to do this.

But the process to me was just kind of like, it made the Browns,

it didn't, it just was another kind of Browns type story to me where the way it played out was

unfriendly to the team.

I'll say this organizationally, Mark, I could tell you from top to bottom, they were steadfast.

They're not going to trade them.

They had another year on the contract, plus a dummy year, really two years, plus throwing franchise tags.

They're like,

we're not going to trade you.

Just period, full stop.

We're not even going to.

talk to anybody.

And that was their opinion.

They feel that they are closer than others think.

That's a whole different show and a whole nother conversation.

We can go hours on it.

But they feel that if they get the quarterback right at number two, you know, the last two years, you guys know this, Washington and Houston before that, they drafted a quarterback and they made the playoffs.

They think they could find some of that same magic and they didn't want to let them go.

Now, as for the trade, listen, if Chicago called with 10 and said, we'll give you 10 and next year's one.

Then maybe you listen to that conversation.

But all the teams that were being thrown out there, like Philly, I don't want 32 and say maybe 28 next year.

Washington, I don't want 27 and 26 next year.

To me, those are good picks.

But

now,

did they listen?

I don't know.

Were their offers made?

I don't know.

But like, I want a top of the draft haul.

I don't know that they had that this year.

Yep.

Maybe?

Like, where's the trade?

Like, the Niners, you you look at what they've done.

I would have loved the Niners pick that kind of, hey, Miles, Big City, maybe a championship close team, but then they tore it down.

They have 11.

Like, that doesn't fit.

Like, the Bears are the one, but I don't know that it ever got that far.

Yeah.

Well, I would, to trade Garrett, it would be one of those like two number ones, one this year, one next year.

Sure.

Yeah.

You know, maybe that works out for you in the way it's worked out for so many teams in the past where, oh, look at all of a sudden the team, that second number one, that guy's quarterback,

Achilles Blue, and all of a sudden that's a top five pick.

You know, sure.

You let fate step in.

Not that fate's ever been kind to our football teams.

Andrew, here is the clip from A Space Odyssey.

Okay.

You see,

something is going to happen.

What?

What's going to happen?

Something wonderful.

Can I tell you how much that freaked me out when I was a kid and I saw it in the theater?

I could see that.

When I was in high school, it freaked me out for whatever reason.

And then, like, the giant monolithus.

A lot of people are freaked out by a Space Odyssey.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Got to start, Andrew.

Thank you, buddy.

Your traps look on point and you smell good.

Now we're inching into really increasingly uncomfortable territory.

Push-up in years.

You guys are very kind.

And good job, Graver, finding that clip as quickly as you did.

Cheers

to you and yours.

Thank you, Andrew.

Thank you, sir.

And there we go.

Yes.

Great job, Justin.

All right.

Ad read, Mark.

Got his ass.

I sent it to you.

Mark, I sent it to you four minutes ago.

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audience only.

Well done.

Okay, let's, before we say goodbye, yes, one week is told since the start of free agency, eight days now.

And this would be a good time to come up for air and see where things stand.

So let's do that.

Mr.

Orr,

I'll start with you on this one.

take it wherever you want what's something that jumps out to you right now

so um

in our prompt uh one of the uh questions was which teams have you asking questions and we've reached the point in free agency where i think i've overthought everything um but i want to put this to you and see what you guys think so Dallas Cowboys, take everything out of the equation.

Take Jerry Jones out of the equation.

Take everything out of the equation.

This year, they tied for the lead in the NFL in compensatory picks because they came out ahead in the formula last year.

They seem to be playing a similar game.

They let go of a bunch of 30-year-old guys.

They will probably be close to the lead in compensatory picks again next year.

If this were another franchise, without Jerry Jones, without all this stuff, without Brian Schottenheimer, all of this, would we be standing and applauding just like we do the Baltimore Ravens every year for nailing the middle rounds of the draft, just like we did the 49ers?

And is this Jones recognizing in some way, shape, or form that the one thing that this team has done consistently well always has been draft players?

They've been able to find good players.

And so I'm wondering, you know, again, here's this buffoon saying, oh, we're all in.

And like, that's just something he has to say to get his face out there.

But like, let's just imagine that he was shipped to Mars for a week and we really examined what was happening.

You're tearing down bad salary.

You're sending away cynical 30-year-olds.

You are shaping up your cap so that you can offer a record-breaking, world-breaking extension to Micah Parsons.

And through all that, you're probably going to have 10 or 11 pick drafts this year and next year to be able to be ready to compete by the time, you know, whatever this is that comes around.

Is there a world where you can get on board with this?

Yeah.

And it's something like the Cowboys are such a big target and they make themselves a big target.

And

they get killed when they don't make a lot of moves, right?

As happened last year.

And this hasn't been overflowing either.

Let me just take a quick look at

what they've done so far.

They added, yeah, running back Javante Williams, Edge Payton Turner, guard Robert Jones, Solomon Thomas, Kair Elam,

linebacker Jack Sanborn.

That's my guy.

Linebacker Kenneth Murray.

These are not the juicy signings, right?

And they lost some guys, like, for instance, DeMarcus Lawrence, Rico Dowdle,

Chuma Aduga to the Jaguars.

These are losses that...

Every team incurs losses.

But if there's perhaps something to take out of this, I think what you're saying, Connor, right?

Like, maybe they're doing something a little bit more less splashy and more just trying to get their house in order.

And they're in a bit of a transition.

And maybe they deserve a little bit of a benefit of doubt because they have drafted well.

There's a lot of big-time players that they brought into that building that allowed them to be a top team, even if it didn't end with Super Bowl trips.

I think you're really right that if you took the star off the helmet and they were a different team, we'd look at them with unbiased eyes.

But there are questions out there.

Can Brian Schottenheimer coach?

I tend to think

he deserves a higher, like, coming in here, I think he was, you know, waxed as like a F-minus pick.

Like, we don't know that.

He could wind up being much better than we hope.

Like last year, the non-spending thing, the non-adding one thing, it put them into a jam.

And so it's like some of the stuff has been, there's been some malfeasance, but I love the idea of any team stockpiling double-digit picks two years in a row when there is a history that they can draft young players and develop them.

How about you, Mark?

What's something that's jumped out to you?

It's same state.

There was one move that really kind of threw me.

Because if you are a year ago, the Houston Texans went big in free agency and added a bunch of guys, and they were kind of the darling team.

But what happened to the Texans?

Like, the offensive line completely unspoiled the offense, and it made us think differently of C.J.

Stroud.

He couldn't get out of their own way.

You your big move outside of signing your safety, your cornerback, is that you went and traded away Laramie Tunzel and added very little along the offensive line.

It's like that's one where like you're going to have to go nail the draft.

You might be putting yourself in a position where you've got to over focus on one position because that was the one position group on a team with a you know Ethereum AFC championship champion championship type window that you can't go trade away a position that's that hard to find.

And I know Tunzel's not as young as he was before and all that business, but I just thought that was a bit of a hazardous move that stood out for a team with big visions and dreams.

It is interesting to me, though, Mark, that you bring in Nick Caley, who's from New England and is going to change up the way that they block.

You know, you might need a new, different left tackle.

You might want something different out of him.

Maybe that's what you do in the first round.

But the hallmark of all the Patriots years was eliminate costly throws and get rid of the ball in two and a half seconds or less.

If you're Houston, if you're Nick Casario, who knows all this really well, knows how it works, are you like, hey, I can use the picks and do something something else?

And, you know, not that everybody needs a good left tackle, but do you need one a little bit less if the goal here is for C.J.

Stroud just to get rid of the ball?

And I'll just say the sub-bulletin here, because I actually liked the Texans offseason a lot, was it?

Was there some there there?

And whether that's rumblings of C.J.

Stroud being unhappy or Laramie Tunsell being unhappy or something.

I mean, D'Amico Ryan's is so in tune with

the, whatever you want to call it, the culture, the attitude, the vibe that I'm wondering if

guys like that just don't come on the market.

And I'm wondering if

we would come to find at some point later on that there is more of a reason and maybe you get something back, more back than you do losing Laramie Tunsel.

Yeah, and

that's one thing we somehow sometimes overlook in this process is, okay, nobody knows that player better than that team.

And is there more slippage with that player?

Or maybe it's an attitude situation.

He was, as we've talked about in the show, the most penalized offensive lineman in football last year.

He is now entering into his 30s, and maybe they saw him as a guy in decline, and they got rid of him a year too early rather than a year too late.

That's what good teams do.

So let's see.

Or he'll be a stalwart for the next five or six years, and they will look back and they'll have egg on their face.

We shall see.

You know, the Vikings, to hit on them quickly again here, because I know we talked about them last week, so I don't want to dwell on them, but I thought they made another really nice move over the weekend trading for Jordan Mason, formerly of the 49ers, who I thought really flashed.

He couldn't stay on the field, and that's something, obviously, you have to keep in mind because your number one asset is your ability to stay on the field.

And that has not been Mason's forte.

At least it wasn't with the Niners last year.

But I think he showed explosive traits.

And

when they brought back Aaron Jones to the Vikings, it was like, okay, that's solid.

That makes sense.

But he needed somebody else to pair with.

And that feels like a potential pairing that could really pay off.

I can absolutely see Mason being a dude and maybe being a sneaky fantasy pickup for teams in draft season.

And we talked about how they addressed their offensive line and they addressed their defensive line.

And I still stand by it.

The one thing they could do that could undermine this is getting, falling to the temptation of the Rodgers.

I think if they stay the course here, the Vikings have had close to a perfect offseason where they didn't go crazy spending, but they made important decisions.

And teams with a track record of smart decision-making, which they have had under Quezy, I feel good about their offseason.

If they could just stay the course and give the kid the chance that you believe in so much.

That's one other thing that, Connor, that

Arif said on our show, that they rave about J.J.

McCarthy.

All right, like put your money where the mouth is and put him on the field and put him on a Super Bowl contender, and let's see what happens.

So, if they don't, because this got me thinking, one of the other prompts that you said was, what's a narrative that you hope dies in free agency?

And it's an app that we had Andrew Ceciliano on before, too, where the Browns, Paul D.

Podesta, and Andrew Berry, and then the Vikings, Kwazi Adofo Mensa, the two biggest kind of crowning achievements of the analytic movement are these two GMs, right?

And so what happens if the Vikings sign Aaron Rodgers to try to complete this win-now window, right?

What is it telling us about the culmination of this movement where it's all this data and all this research?

And then what do you end up doing?

Both teams, you just sign the best goddamn quarterback that's out there.

And there's really, it demystifies the secret.

And we talked about this with Tom Brady, too, where it's like, you know, he's theoretically there to help.

find another him, but what did he do?

As soon as free agency opened, he traded for one of the best quarterbacks available.

And to me, it's like, it's just, it's a talent accumulation business, like we said before.

And we need to kind of stop overcomplicating all this stuff and talking about how there's this process and this analytics and this data, which are all valuable in some way.

But the prince and the king of the analytic movement are looking at Aaron Rodgers and Deshaun Watson when they're desperate.

Geno Smith, like all these guys.

And, you know, really, that's what it boils down to.

And I think it's kind of funny that we, we just, we, we, it's like a kaleidoscope.

We make it so much more complex than it actually is.

Well, that, that, that, that, that gives us a lot to write about and discuss, though.

That's the

quiet benefit there.

But do you worry at all?

Like the whole thing about this Viking situation is like, to your point, like you just go out and get Rodgers versus their whole plan was to get on a rookie quarterback contract, build the team the right way, a way that we can respect.

Does it get into

JJ McCarthy has been awesome in the interviews I watch.

I really dig him, and I think he's like a true dog.

But like, does it play with him to go, you know, looking around, sniffing around at other veteran quarterbacks when the plan was to put him in here

a year ago.

You know what I think, Mark?

I think, I don't think they thought, just like none of us thought, they were going to go 14-3 last year.

So it kind of accelerated their clock.

And now they're like, do we have the, is the quarterback the right guy right now for this team, which is why the Rodgers conversation makes sense, but is it more trouble than it's worth?

And is Rodgers worth that type of investment?

Apparently, he wants to be paid like Darnold, and money, according to that athletic report, is not the issue here.

It's more about, as Andrew was kind of sniffing around, does KOC want to tie himself to someone as

huge in good ways and bad as Aaron Rodgers?

Finally, last word goes to the great gravedigger who made

a fine point

or an interesting one.

It was a fine one.

A fine and interesting point about a team that's catching a lot of flack lately and a narrative he doesn't buy into.

Justin?

Thanks, Dan.

Yeah, I just think every year we do this thing where we look at a team that has been good for a number of years and they have maybe a subpar free agency or it's a changing of the guard, contracts come and you have to release players and you don't add a lot of guys in free agency.

And we look at these teams, I'm going to say the Bills last season.

I think...

None of us on this show even predicted the Bills.

Maybe one or two of us had them as a wildcard team, but none of us predicted them to win their division.

We all saw a major falloff coming for the Bills because their free agency wasn't great.

This year, that team to me is the San Francisco 49ers, who obviously they trade Debo Samuel.

They've had, it feels like with the Brock Purdy contract coming up, they've had to sort of remake the construction of their roster.

But to me, this is still a team coached by Kyle Shanahan.

It's been very competitive each of the last few years.

Last year wasn't a great year for them, but Brock Purdy is a good enough quarterback.

He's not Josh Allen with the Bills who's going to carry you like Superman.

I just think there's been an extreme overreaction here to what the Niners offseason has looked like and that everyone's now writing them off as like, oh, their window is closed.

It's time for the Niners to rebuild.

I heard someone say this recently, I can't remember, but someone was talking about this with the Rams a few years ago, how

when they ended up winning the Super Bowl, and then Aaron Donald retires and it's like, well, the Rams are toast now because Aaron Donald.

Remember, Justin, oh, the Rams, they built that Super Bowl on credit.

It's like, what?

All right.

And then what do they do?

They go out and add a couple stud rookie defensive linemen and go back to the playoff.

They were a passaway.

Maybe this was Damachek talking about this the other day.

I don't remember who it was, but they were a passaway from beating the Eagles and going to the Super Bowl.

The Niners are a well-coached team with a very good,

if not a well-run, well-coached team with a very good, if not great quarterback and Brock Purdy and still plenty of weapons on that offense.

If they trade Jordan Mason, it's probably because you think Christian McCaffrey is getting going to be healthy again this year.

And the Niners, who draft a running back, it feels like every every year, if not more than one, are coming up to a stacked running back draft class.

They're probably going to add a guy who's going to step right in and be a stud for Kyle Shanahan from day one.

I think we are severely overreacting to what has been a lackluster offseason for the Niners, but it doesn't mean they're not going to be competing for the NFC West.

And remember, Justin knows.

10 wins won the NFC West last year.

This is not the NFC North where you're like, shit, I mean, all these teams win like 12 or or 13 games.

What are we going to do here?

No, like the Cardinals are the Cardinals, with all due respect to Jason Zumwalt.

The Seahawks, we'll see.

We'll see if this works, where they, you know, move on from Geno and

DK Metcalf and bring in Darnold.

And did we talk about Cooper Cup?

We didn't talk about Cooper Cup.

Cooper Cup

signed with the Seattle Seahawks.

So they essentially swap out

Geno and Metcalf for Darnold and Cooper Cup in terms of that.

And then you have, yeah, so you have the Rams who are a team on the rise, but also with Matthew Stafford, a quarterback, that can go any direction at this point of his career.

The Seahawks, the Cardinals, and then the Niners just had to, they went 6-11 last year, but let's not put them underground just yet.

And to Justin's point, I mean, it is the middle of March.

There's a lot more that happens over the course of an offseason.

And I think the draft and what teams do with the draft and how they approach it can turn this, what looks to a lot of people.

I think the problem is we grew up watching the offseason, a different type of offseason, where if your team didn't go sign a bunch of people, you're in the losers column in the next day's paper.

And that's not simply how this works.

I think NFL, good teams, find a way to rebuild and reload in two offseasons now.

It's not like you're going into the darkness for half a decade.

And we look at the, it's Shanahan, it's Lynch.

It's like there's a reason to trust these guys, and they've gotten out of the way of their own mistakes.

Like when you go take Trey Lance and it goes south, they don't crumble.

I think that the Niners to me felt a little past

due last year, a little tired, and they'd been through a lot of offseason work, like refreshing, getting some fresh water in there and getting this thing going again.

I don't have a problem with that.

You've convinced me on that front because I would say I was concerned about some of the players that have left, but you've got to find a way to move on and move forward.

And I think they can.

Yeah, and on the subject of winning the offseason, like I had a Jets fan tweet me last week.

The Jets aren't doing a lot.

Are you worried?

It's like, no, I've won the offseason before.

Like, we've done that.

We've held up that chip.

We've held up that trophy a couple of times.

And it don't mean Jack once you get to September.

The teams that are smart and prudent always seem to win out in the end over the ones that make the big splash.

By the way, remaining free agents at this point, last point here.

Let's see.

Tackle Cam Robinson was on the Vikings last year.

Amari Cooper with the Bills last year.

Rasul Douglas, also with the Bills last year.

Stefan Diggs, formerly of the Bills, but with the Texans last year.

He's still out there.

Tevin Jenkins, interior lineman who was with the Bears last year.

Asante Samuel, cornerback.

Those are the top names, the veteran names out there.

Look at J.K.

Dobbins that we mentioned.

I think that's an interesting person.

Zadarius Smith has been good everywhere he goes.

There's value out there still, and we'll see who comes down with those players.

They'll all get jobs before this is over.

All right.

Good stuff.

Fun stuff.

Did we mention Andrew Ciciliano at Ciciliano on YouTube?

Check out that program.

At Ciciliano Show.

At Ciciliano Show on YouTube.

Thank you, Andrew, who on short notice said, yeah, I'll come on and chop it up with the boys.

And we love Andrew.

He's one of the dudes that we ride with here at Heed the Call.

Connor Orr, any plugs to get in?

Hit us, guy.

We have, okay, yes.

So the one-on-one issue came out this month for Sports Illustrated, which is awesome.

It features a lot of in-depth one-on-one interviews and also an illustrated version of a story that I did on a one-yard quarterback sneak, which is very cool, very awesome.

And then the draft preview issue comes out next month.

Please subscribe.

Physical media.

It's all the rage.

Everyone's talking about it.

Yeah.

And if you can't, if you need more Connor Orr podcasts, he does one with Bert Breer.

I mean,

I have not in any way, shape, or form heard anybody who said I need more ore.

But if

that's something that is interesting to you, the MMQB podcast should be right up your alley.

All right.

Thank you to everybody.

And until next time,

do what you must.

Eat the call.

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I might have just set the hushing record.

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