The Vikings Get Rammed, Dallas’s Next Coach, and Bad NFL Owner Habits With Cousin Sal and Peter Schrager

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I don't have a new rewatchables coming for you. Tonight at least.
We're going to try to do a mailbag on Wednesday. Hopefully, the winds are not going to be bad on Tuesday and Wednesday here in Southern California.
We are keeping our fingers crossed that all the bad stuff is behind us and we can start thinking about recovery and start moving forward instead of looking backwards and looking over our shoulders here. So keep us in your thoughts.
I mentioned in the Sunday podcast that we did with Sal that we're going to try to figure out a good list of

charities and things to donate for, for people who want to help out all the people who are

affected out here. I'm going to have that by Thursday because I really wanted to get the

right list going and make sure that I trust everybody that I'm recommending because there's

been some pretty crazy fraudulent stuff happening out here. So I want to make sure I have everything

Thank you. and make sure that I trust everybody that I'm recommending because there's been some pretty crazy fraudulent stuff happening out here.
So I want to make sure I have everything in a trustworthy state before we pass that along. Thanks to everybody who listened yesterday.
Thanks to everybody who's about to listen. The top of the pod is just me and Sal reacting off Rams, Vikings, doing guest aligns for Rams, Eagles.
And then we're going to talk about the Dallas Cowboys thing. So that's the first segment.
And then, so Peter Schrager and I, we recorded on Tuesday and it was going to be the second part of the Tuesday pod. And I was going to do an NBA power poll right off of Nuggets-Sultics on last Tuesday night.
And then, you know, it happened in California and it ended up postponing the pod. But I really liked a lot of the stuff that Schrager and I talked about.
We were making a lot, it was all coaching ownership stuff and we were making predictions for what we thought was going to happen with the coaching hires, but we were talking about the model of ownership and just where things are going on that front, not just in football, but in professional sports. And I really liked what we talked about.
So it's a week late. This is a short pod.
I just thought we'd throw it at the end. Why not? So there it is.

That's going to be the second part of the podcast, a week old conversation with Peter Schrager, but I swear it's good. Okay.
That, Monday night. This is a quickie Guess the Line segment coming off Rams Vikings the good news

the Rams

an emotional win

for Los Angeles

I guess

you can feel it coming

in the hour before the game

with the

emotional

performance

of the national anthem

the Rams played great

they played out of their minds

and

and yet

I leave this game

wondering what the hell

happened to the Minnesota Vikings

where we were two weeks ago

versus where we are now

it's one of the most

stunning

Thank you. And yet I leave this game wondering what the hell happened to the Minnesota Vikings.
Where we were two weeks ago versus where we are now.

It's one of the most stunning eight, nine day collapses I can remember of a football team.

I really, these guys won me over.

I really genuinely believed in them and they fell apart.

The whole division won me over.

The NFC North.

I went into this.

I'm like, I'm going to, I'm going to key on this NFC North. The Packers are are gonna be good the vikings are gonna go far or as far as they can before they run into another team and now it's like they're looking like the sec a little bit for you college fans out there and yeah i'm with you the rams came out fighting proud of this team they brought their a game like they had them together right mindset but move them basically it felt like the game was in minneapolis like i you know they went to the sideline reporter and she's like, yeah, a lot of Vikings fans.
I'm like, well, that doesn't seem fair, but they did a great job. But yeah, you're right.
Like you and I were like, signed Sam Darnold easy two weeks ago, right? I feel bad flip-flopping so much, but Jesus, what the hell is going on the last 10 days? It's not a flip-flop. He had a whole body of evidence for the whole season where it looked like, for whatever reason, he was this year's late bloomer star QB.
And he had just come off that huge win over the Packers when he has one of the best games of his career. They have the awesome NFL films video in the locker room after, right? When they're all waiting and Darnold comes in and his teammates mob him.
They pick him up. They show Kevin O'Connell almost like near tears watching it.
Great speeches. Wow, that seems like it was just...
Now, you brought that up. That really seems like it was not long ago.
That's crazy. Well, because it wasn't.
It was two weeks ago. Yeah.
And it just seemed like, man, this is such a great story. The late bloomer Sam Darnold.
And then he absolutely sucked in the Detroit game. But I was willing to chalk it out to, hey, it's a bad game.
This team's 14-3. They have a great track record.
Detroit was fired up. They were home.
But they couldn't block the Rams. And the part that doesn't make sense to me, I was a little worried about their protection heading into the game just because of what it looked like against the Lions.
But the Rams don't have a good defense. The Rams defense was 26th on DVOA for defense.
They were the seventh worst defense in the league. It's not like this was, you know, the 2000 Ravens.
And they looked like the 2000 Ravens. So it was just a complete collapse.
Yeah, this was supposed to be a rebuilding year, at least for the Rams defense. You're right.
And then they get Jared Verse and Kobe Turner plays out of his mind his second year and Kobe Durant tonight. Anyone named Kobe.
All the Kobe's. All the Kobe's.
And it makes you think, was Aaron Donald ever good? No. Right.
It doesn't make you think that. Big legacy hit for him.
Should he go to the Hall of Fame now? Aaron Donald. Sam Donald, maybe.
The guy's hemorrhaging money every time he drops back to pass. I know.
Could he have opted out of the playoff game? Not just his contract money, our money, because we had them on teasers, the Vikings and everything. But I guess that's what we get, I guess.
I don't know. But as far as signing him again, we have to say no now, right? If you're the Vikings.
We talked about, yesterday we were talking about QBs you'd rather have than Herbert. And we were going down the list, and I said to you, what about Sam Darnold? Then you paused, which was my reaction as well.
And you were like, let's wait to see what happens tomorrow. And, of course, what happened was the worst possible game for him.
I was looking. So some of the stats for the Rams heading into this game, they were 21st in the league in sacks.
They were 28th in the league in QB hits, 26th in tackles for losses. And they were 6th in QB hurries, right? So that's the one thing where he's like, oh, I can kind of see it.
The Vikings were 23rd in sacks, given up, 20th QB hits, 24th QB hurries, 24th tackles for loss. So there were signs that their offensive line might not be that great, but nothing could have prepared anybody for what happened.
He was just under attack. And he reverted back into old school, seeing go Sam Darnold.
It was like Jets, Pat's Sam Darnold. And now you mentioned the money thing.
I don't know what you do if you're the Vikings. And we're going to kill Sam Darnold.
And we already have. And we'll probably do another 10 minutes doing so.
But yeah, I think he was sacked nine times. He was sacked six times in the first half.
And the next-gen stats can now tell you which sacks are the quarterback's fault. I think five or six of them were his fault because anything over four seconds is the quarterback's fault.
Well, we have next-gen stats, and we also have Trey Aikman who can tell no lies when he's watching a quarterback performance that he's not enjoying that much. And he just couldn't a few times.
He's just like, Joey, he has a good pocket there. I don't know why that happened the way it did because the pockets, if he steps up, he's got plays.
I don't know. The moment got too big for him, which is what happened last week too in the Detroit game.
So now there's this whole domino effect now because what the Lions did to Minnesota last week and we're like, well, the Lions are back. Their defense is back.
But then you watch the Vikings can't block again this week. Darnold stinks again this week.
And now, so when you look forward to guess the Lions, we have this Rams game. I have no idea what to make of their performance that by, like, is their defense for real? Is it not for real? What's going on there? And then the Lions, who looked so awesome last week, and were all like, their defense, maybe it's back.
They had a bye week, and now you see the Vikings can't block, and it's like, well, maybe it's not back. Maybe Washington will be able to move the ball against the trade.
This just made me more confused about round two, Sal. It made me confused about round two.
It made me confused about which quarterbacks are good. The Herbert thing you brought up and what Minnesota...
This is good for the fans, though, right? This kind of opens things up. That would have been boring if the Vikings just re-signed Sam Donald, gave him a big number.
But they're like top seven in cap space. I think like 100...
They took their medicine with a dead cap with Cousins and Danell Hunter, I think, this year. But they think they have like $160 million free, and they have to start McCarthy now.
But yeah, you're right. Going forward, I don't know what it means for any of these teams.
Well, they can franchise tag Darnold, though. Yes, they can do that.
It would just be for a big salary. How much is that, then? Is that $40? It's not worth it now.
It's definitely not worth it. I think if Darnold plays well against Detroit, they lose to Detroit by like three.
And then they play the Rams. The Rams squeak it out, but he's fine in that.
He's looking at at least the Baker Mayfield money, which I think was like three for a hundred range. Now, I had a whole losers-winners thing I wanted to do.
He was the biggest individual loser. Cerruti says $41 million for the franchise thing.
Yikes. So he's the biggest loser because I don't know what the free agent money is going to be for him.
Well, let's see. How much did you and I lose on that Vikings adjusted? I mean, I guess he's the biggest loser.
I did the anchor parlay with four games and I ended up just splitting them. So it's just like all that work for nothing.
I lost on the Chargers, lost on the Vikings, one on the other two. But I was thinking Steelers fans, Raiders fans, Saints fans.
Sam Darnold is now in their life with rumors. Right? Those are the three teams.
I don't think the Giants, just because of the Jets' pedigree, I think they would stay away. But Steelers, Raiders, Saints I think are three possibilities.
Also, they could franchise them for a year and do the whole, hey, we're not sure is J.J. McCarthy's even going to be ready for September.
They showed Daniel Jones a couple times. He's an option.
We've seen Daniel Jones. They're not going to...
It can't be Daniel Jones. I just don't know.
One way to look at it is, we're not going to do better than 14 wins. I think he can get us to 14 wins, but it's just this whole January thing that seems to be a mess.
The other way to look at it is, let's see what we did with this McCarthy with our first round pick. Let's see what we got out of him.
Yeah, they obviously believed in him. They took him really high.
He had bad luck with an injury, but before the injury, they were all excited about what he looked like in the preseason. So Darnold's the biggest loser, but the runner-up and maybe even the winner is the Vikings fans, who just, you know, I've mentioned my buddy Jeff a couple of times.
He's just, he's in, I told you so mode. He's like, I told you, this is what we do.
This is what he's just, this is preordained. Not only that they're going to lose, but it was going to be complete embarrassment.
This was, this team won more games than any other Vikings team ever, except for the 98 team that went 15 and one and lost in the NFC title game. The 69 team went 12-2, lost the Super Bowl.
The 73 team went 12-2, lost the Super Bowl. 75 team went 11-2-1, lost the Super Bowl.
The 17 team, 13-3, they lost that NFC title game in Philly, whatever it was. Oh, that one.
Yeah. But this was one of the best Vikings teams, at least from a regular season standpoint, of the last 60 years.
And just goes out ignominiously. They couldn't even score 10 points.
Yeah. This is bad.
It's shocking. It's tough.
And the coaching, they got out-coached too. The guy who's going to win coach of the year, Kevin O'Connell, got out-coached.
It didn't take a lot. I would have liked to have seen them call that Stafford play differently.
I know you and I having money on the Vikings would have also, but with that forward pass thing, the thing that was returned for a touchdown, they called it a fumble initially, and then they said Stafford. I think you have to do a little more than pretend you're sprinkling salt on eggs.
Your hand's got to go a little more forward than that. It should be like a 30-yard penalty when you do that.
If you're going down on a sack and you just whip the ball, it's like beyond an intentional grounding. I personally think it should be, I think that should be a fumble when you're just dumping the ball because you're going to take a sack, but you're not even dumping it anywhere near anybody.
It was the key play of the game because it felt like the Vikings could have momentum. Their defense in general, though, the Rams played it perfectly.
They came out in the first quarter. Stafford started out nine for nine.
They couldn't anticipate every single thing that was happening. This was the people that were making the case for the Rams heading into this game was, not only did they win earlier in the year, but Stafford was good against the Blitz.
He's good at, he's such a smart QB. He's good at reading stuff and everything got borne out.
I thought the Vikings were able to run the ball better, but in general, like the 26 DVOA defense should not be dominant. I know they had a couple of games when guys were missing, but for the most part, like that makes no sense to me.
It's a team that got carved up multiple times this year. Never could get Jefferson going.
Let's see a one-on-one play to Jefferson. Addison drops everything thrown his way.
It gets ridiculous. And again, at least half those sacks were Darnold's fault.
So winners, J.J. McCarthy, Sean McVay.
Another great win. He's got eight playoff wins now, plus the Super Bowl.
They made the playoffs in six of eight of his postseasons. He's only been a coach for eight years.
And just coached the pants off of Kevin O'Connell, who's going to win a really awkward Coach of the Year award in about, I don't know, whenever they have that NFL Honors thing. Killed them.
Not only killed them, but the Vikes were down 18 with 10 minutes left and were running the Donovan McNabb-Pats-Eagles Super Bowl offense. Just long huddles before every play and nowhere to see it all.
It was like, they really quit. It was borderline Roberto Duran, no mas, no mas.
Right. Buck, even Joe Buck and Aitman were like, does this team know they're down 18 when they're running on second and sixth? Fifth and sixth quarter? Yeah.
What are you guys doing? Very strange. Yeah.
I don't know. Yeah, McVay is a gigantic winner.
And so would LA football fans, too. I mean, really just to get this team ready, bringing their pets out and their family and bringing them out over there.
And now it's like, Todd, I mean, we'll talk about the next game against Philly, but they're flying home to LA. They don't know if they're going to be able to practice in their facility, depending on the air quality.
And then they have to go all the way to Philly. It's going to be interesting to see if they can keep this momentum going.
Rams fans, huge winner. This is such a likable team.
This was not supposed to be a team post Aaron Darnold that, um, you know, they, when they were one and four, they were talking about, could cup be, I never believed those stories, but there were trade rumors about cup and could Stafford be potentially available. Um, and all of a sudden now they're heading into the second round against a's a pretty beatable Eagles team.
Hench made a good joke, our buddy Hench. He said the crowd was so good because Glendale is a shorter ride for the Rams fans than SoFi Stadium.
Really good inside. Is that a joke or is that accurate? I think that's serious.
Six hours to Glendale, five hours to so far.

It's close.

Uh, losers, the Eagles.

I, I, it went from, oh man, I don't want to see the Vikings to, oh Jesus, this Rams team.

They're just cagey.

They're like one of those old boxers.

They've lost a couple of times.

They're like 37, but they might be 40 and they just kind of know what to do in the ring and you don't want to fight them. They don't win a lot of these matchups, right? They don't win the coaching matchup.
I don't know. I guess they win the running back.
They don't win coach or QB. They lose both of those.
QB is going to pass for 148 yards, and he's going to get pushed forward a couple yards here and there.

I feel like the defensive intensity for the receivers are not off on the sideline reading Dostoyevsky.

So I don't know.

I feel like Dostoyevsky.

I think it's really tough.

This is a tough matchup, and nobody wants him to win.

Outdoors, Philadelphia, probably not warm. Stafford in cold weather.
There's some playoff manifesto stuff with this too. There's always the, one of the best playoff manifesto rules that I have is the round two team that looked a little too good in round one.
Everybody's a little too excited about them. The Rams definitely qualify for that.
And conversely, the Eagles not looking that great in round one. So there's and I think that's going to be reflected in the...
But this opens up some nice and we talk about narratives all the time. Like that NFC championship is going to be fun either way.
You can get Goff against Stafford, right? As long as the Eagles are out, I think it's fun. You get Goff against Stafford or you get Jaden Daniels against Stafford and the LA team and the nation rooting hard against the rookie quarterback who's come from nothing.
Just step aside Eagles. Did you hear from any Eagles fans today who were like you guys were a little too hard on us yesterday.
We want to play a game. Oh, you did? Because I didn't at all.

Oh, really?

Yeah, the Eagles fans I heard from were like,

yeah, you guys nailed it.

I was fucking pissed after that game.

We won.

I'm still mad.

Yeah, well, there's always that.

But, you know, Eagle fans tend to hate.

You'll always find a few that are just going to hate you

for saying anything about them, good or bad.

That's what it was.

We're going to take a break, and then we're going to do Guess the Lions, Eagles, Rams, and we'll talk little cowboys. This episode is brought to you by the Home Depot.
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Terms and more at applecard.com. All right, guess the lines.
You already beat me. The big question, the media was talking all day.
Are you even going to play your starters here? You're in the week 18 Kansas City Chiefs thing. Do you just sit everybody trying not to get hurt? Do you try to give me false hope? Do you do the Buffalo Bills

where you tank the game to make me feel

better about where I am heading into next week?

I'm going to be down one for the first

time since 1892.

Wow. That's a long time.
I thought before

that. Well, I'll let my words

speak for themselves here.

LA at Philly,

3 p.m. Eastern Sunday.

I'm going to guess Rams by 42 and a half. So that's my official guess because it doesn't matter.
I think I'm going to win this. I have Eagles minus six and a half.
All right. You got it.
You know what? It was six and a half. It went down to five and a half.
But you are closer. Wait, let me see.
Yes, you are closer. What did you have? 42 and a half.
In real life, I would have said like three. I guess they're just counting on this just being too much of a story for the Rams.
So we ended up, I remember looking at the round one lines on like Wednesday, Thursday, whatever. Like just looking to distract from any possible way.
Like where'd the lines end? And I remember thinking like, I know we're going to have three underdogs. I have no idea who the three underdogs are going to be that actually advance.
And it ended up being Houston, Washington, and the Rams. Two home teams, two home dogs, which used to be like a playoff.
Always take a home dog. Don't even think twice.
And then the Washington team in a game that was, I could see either of these teams winning these games. Why not take the points? So it all makes sense in retrospect.
But on Wednesday, I was like, I could see all six favorites winning. And those were the three shortest underdogs, right? They were all between two and a half and three, right? So yeah, you wouldn't have even, So our money line parlays still would have hit.

I thought the Broncos, plus eight and a half, nine, whatever it was,

had a chance to keep things around.

And in the first quarter, it's in no way, and then the Bills pulled away.

The Packers were another one.

Great game plan for six minutes.

Yeah.

So it turned out to be the three short odds, two home dogs,

and we ended up three underdogs advancing round one.

And the AFC is exactly the same as last year, right?

These are the same four that advance.

Houston, Kansas City, Baltimore, Buffalo.

Well, we talked yesterday.

I was saying that that Baltimore game that's in the tic-tac zone,

I thought it was going to flip.

Yesterday it was Buffalo minus one and a half.

I predicted to you, I think it's going to flip. I think Baltimore is going to be one and a half.
It already happened. Baltimore is one and a half.
So since we did it yesterday, Baltimore is minus one and a half, Buffalo. Philly is now minus five and a half on FanDuel.
Detroit is minus eight and a half against Washington. And then Casey is still minus seven and a half and everybody and their brother is teasing them with Ohio state.
Yes. Yeah.
And, and they're probably going to take two of those three mid range fair, five and a half, seven and a half, eight and a half, and put them together. Probably the Saturday games, right? No, but people want to win money Saturday and then go over Sunday.
So that, that's going to be a popular money line parlay, Detroit and Kansas City. But as far as Buffalo goes,

and I might even end up taking Baltimore,

but that is entirely,

entirely disrespectful to Bills. They need, can we get

Louis K. to step in as their publicist?

They need a new publicist. If that freaking team

can't lay points at home, I don't

care who they're playing. They're damn

good. They can't be getting a point and a half.

Ridiculous. I think it

goes down to the Ravens

had five losses and you could easily just examine all of them and be like, ah, they actually should have one loss. Yeah.
They were the number one team in DVOA. They look like they've gotten better as years gone along, especially on defense.
Defense was the big hole with them the first 10 weeks it flipped. And I think it's the right line.
And I'll be honest, I've already put money on Baltimore. I believe you.
I grabbed it because I was worried it was going to get to like minus two and a half, something like that. I just think they're, I think Buffalo's defense is going to have a lot of trouble stopping them, but we'll see.
I'm going to look at it more. There's going to be some narrative that nobody believes in us.
If that starts drifting around Buffalo, I'm going to get nervous. Do you think, like, I know this is a regular season vote, but we saw Kevin O'Connell, like, ah, and you said, now it's going to be a weird Coach of the Year award.
It's like the Dirk and Whiskey 2007 MVP. That was the all-timer.
He'd already been knocked out of the playoffs. So they were like, here's your trophy.
Could there be an executive Goodell decision or whoever makes this decision? Give the voters their votes back. Like, all right, we're going to give you one more game.
No, can't do it. Nope.
You wouldn't do it. It's a regular season award.
I know. But if one of them throws four interceptions.
He was the best coach of the regular season. Now it's like Sam Darnold was so bad those last two weeks.
Maybe that emboldens his case. That's true.
How did he get it done? I can't believe we fell for Sam Darnold. Well, that's a great division, aside from what the Bears put forth.
And they won 14 games. It's hard to get around that.
I don't understand it. There was a number of times during the season when I felt myself being like, you know what? I'm starting to believe in this guy.
And then it was that, uh, that Arizona game week 13, he lit up Atlanta. He lit up Chicago.
He had a really nice win at Seattle. And then that green Bay game, they won, they won nine straight games and he was getting better during the streak.
And he really, I believed, I don't, I feel burned. You know why? Because we go on the podcast and it's not fun to just keep telling people, all right, just be careful with this guy.
This is not fun. Maybe we should just do the podcast and just be like Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, Eagles, Lions.
Like we just should have never wavered from those five teams. Right.
I know. And so grander scale, probably just should take the Chiefs the rest of the way.
But yeah, Sam Darnold is 27. We saw what he looked like at 22, 23, 24, 25, and 26.
But we probably should have stayed with that. I really like Sam Darnold.
I really thought that video of how much his teammates loved him, I was in. I was like, man, this guy finally, he's like a rescue dog.
He finally found a home. And now he might be your new New Orleans Saints quarterback.
Poor Sam. Before we go, so your team fired or didn't fire? What was the word? What did they do to Mike McCarthy? Broke up? I'm so bummed.
Yeah, there's just not going to be any negotiations.

They parted ways.

Yeah.

I'm in the middle.

I know you tried to get me to hate McCarthy, but very few wanted him to come back.

Very many wanted him to be gone.

I was somewhere in the middle.

I appreciated that he won 12 games three years in a row.

That's pretty great.

I feel like it's like getting a new iPhone.

Like, you know, the one you have is old and shitty and it's got like a crack in the front and you have to charge it every three hours. But you're also a little worried about the new iPhone.
The one you have is old and shitty and it's got a crack in the front and you have to charge it every three hours, but you're also

a little worried about the new one, right?

Yeah. What if they have some bugs

I didn't realize?

Are my apps going to transfer? Is my

email going to sync up? I don't like what they did with

the photo albums. I like the photo albums

the old way. Yeah.
And so if

the photo album is going to feature freaking

Deion Sanders,

I got to be honest, I might be out. I may have to tap out on this team for a little bit.
Oh, stop it. You're not doing that.
You sound like Phenasy. I don't like it.
Phenasy is always threatening to quit the Jets now. He quit the Knicks a couple years ago.
I need a break from the clown show. Give me Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, Tomlin, Zimmer, Flores.

I don't care any of them.

Dion comes in and, first of all, he sucks.

He really does.

I've watched college.

His clock management is scheming as bad as anybody else's, right?

And he was 13 and 11 as a coach for Colorado. I'm not even going to count Jackson, F and State.

You and I could go six and six coaching with good assistance.

13 and 11.

We're going to sign this guy and pay him $8 million.

I'm psyched that can go six and six.

I'll see 6-6. That's great.
Congratulations. A lot of Madden experience.
A lot of video game experience. So listen, I don't have a dog in this race other than I love talking Cowboys with you, especially on this podcast.
I don't understand what he was doing the last 12 months, Jared Jones, where they brought McCarthy back after, it just seemed like after the playoffs he was out. It was such a humiliating loss.
They're like, no, let's bring him back. They bring him back.
They do all the weird contract stuff. There's multiple points in the first half of the season where it seems like they're just going to fire him.
They don't. They string it along.
Even if the season's over, they've lost Dak. They string along the whole year.
They lose out on multiple guys who might have been interesting hires. Right.
And then they part ways with them. I don't get it.
It's just, it's like, did he just not want to spend one more penny on a coach? He doesn't. He doesn't buy guys out.
Like, is Jared Jones cheap? He doesn't pay out. With the coaches, he doesn't.
He doesn't pay out. First of all, in the real world, everybody would be fine with this.
People should be able to play out their contract and that's it. You don't have to give everybody an extension two years before Zach.
But it's more like he missed out. Belichick and Brable were the two best guys and he missed out on both of them.
Everybody's saying Belichick might have, listen, he might not have taken that job. Maybe he'll even turn that job down, even though he has it in North Carolina.
But I feel like no matter what, whenever they announce the head coach, my reaction, this is going to be minus 2,000, that my reaction is going to be, eh, that's going to be it. No matter who they name, unless it's Deion, it's going to be a lot more vitriol than that but it's going to be a Ron Rivera type isn't it well worst case scenario is Jason Garrett that is terrible that would be the funniest outcome is Jason Garrett or Billy Bob Thornton and Landman would be the two funniest outcomes Dion I think would just be a disaster I think it's already dicey enough to just grab a guy from college and make him an NFL head coach, not having been in the league at all against anybody, but to especially do it with somebody who's a pretty green college head coach.
If you said, I also don't really believe that story. I don't think it's hard to research who broke the story.
Do they have time? Are they maybe represented by the same marketing firm as the person who... There's some red flags in general.
It seems like it's good for both sides to pretend they might hire Dion. I don't think they're going to hire Dion.
And if this blows up in my face, so be it. I pray you're right because it's, like I said, is it a shit show or a clown show? Maybe make a poll.

Let's put it out there.

What's crazier to you? Belichick

turning his back on

UNC

after already going down the road, bringing

people in, doing recruiting, and then being

like, oh shit, the cowboy job is available.

Good luck, everybody.

Thanks for everything, North Carolina. Is that crazy or is it crazier just to hire Deion Sanders? Well, coming from who? Like Belichick, I don't think that's a crazy move from him.
I would expect anything from him at this point. I think it's kind of shitty.
He stabbed the Jets in the back that, what was that, in 2000? It wouldn't be good to do to Lombardi. You would have to bring Lombardi back.
You'd have to put him on a podcast with Van Latham or something.

I don't know what you would have to do.

Yeah, Lombardi.

We're here for Lombardi if that happens.

But I don't think anything's worse than the Dion thing.

I'm sorry.

And then what?

So would they have to get Shador too?

What do they do?

They trade to the Titans.

Does Dak go to the Titans and then more picks? And then they get Shador? This could be a complete disaster. Can I gently nudge back here? Sure.
For content, the Cowboys hiring Deion is the fucking best. That's like the best.
That would be the number one thing people talked about the entire offseason. Deion in Dallas, is this going to work? People like you would be like, here's

why this isn't going to work. Other people are like,

nope, you're wrong. And we

would just be off. It would be,

if you're going to have an 8-8, 8-9,

I guess 8-9 now because we have 17 games.

You're an 8-9 team. You might as well have Dion

as your coach and not

random coach X.

Ben Johnson, do anything for you?

I'd be out of the content. I'd be out of the content business, so it wouldn't be good for content.
I mean, for me, it wouldn't. I'd be out.
Ben Johnson does nothing for you? No, it's fine. That's good.
Someone like that could deserve it, right? I think Aaron Glenn, right? Flores. Well, Aaron Glenn, I think, is actually a really good coaching candidate.
Right. But it seems like he has, there's some Jets buzz with him now.
I've heard that too. And, you know, Kellen Moore.
He played there. If you're the Jets, like you want to get somebody who's actually been a part of your franchise and is willing to reconsider going back to it versus what most normal people's reactions would be to that of, I never want to see you guys again.
I can't believe I was on the Jets.

How about no coach? How about no

coach? Like Jerry, there's no GM.

Why not? Try no coach. See

what happens there. Maybe Jerry

just wants to act after his Emmy Award

winning performance of Landman. Maybe he doesn't

care. Maybe he's got the acting bug.

When I mentioned it to you, you didn't believe me.

You were right. You were right.
I have

to hand it to Jerry when he does something good. That was phenomenal.
The crying, whatever, the fake crying, really good acting. Does it make like older, like does Sir Anthony Hopkins look at that and be like, you son of a bitch.
You're making a mockery of our business, our craft. Well, it is like if Anthony Hopkins just coached the Niners one year or

one game and had a really good

quarter, just popped in and called some plays

and was like, do this, do this, do this.

I'm trying to think of any other

candidates. I think Vrabel

would have been great, but we took

him. Pete Carroll?

Pete Carroll, they talk about.

You've kind of moved sideways with McCarthy

where you had this experienced veteran

coach who's had success who won a Super

Bowl in the past, but

Thank you. It feels like you've kind of moved sideways with McCarthy where you had this experienced veteran coach who's had success who won a Super Bowl in the past but is in his mid-70s.
I'm really okay with anyone but the Clapper or Deion Sanders. That's it.
So your DNH, do not hire list, is the Clapper. That's it.
Dave Campo. You wouldn't want Dave Campo back.
I'm ready to be somewhat disappointed either way, but it starts with those two at the top. Not that he's being considered Jason Garrett.
I mean, Jason Witten is actually, his name has been thrown out there. It's actually up there.
If there are some, you could look at odds some places. He's like third.
Really? Yeah. Was Aikman in any of the odds or no? I didn't see Aikman, no.
He's happy being upset in the booth. He's not going to move on.
Would you rather have Deion Sanders or Daniel Kellison as your head coach? Daniel would be fun. Hey, buddy! Daniel and Jerry drinking buddies.
No practice today! Come here, girls. Look at what the cheerleaders brought you guys.
Isn't this nice? They made brownies. Lemon shots for everyone.
Our friend Daniel, our old executive producer. He would be really, we'd definitely bring the 70s Cowboys back.
Yes. Maybe in the 90s.
Oh, man. So you're in the dumps with this Dallas situation.

No, we just have to get off this Dion thing.

And I think he made a statement today.

And so I think you're right.

They might be playing each other against,

but he said Colorado's my home.

Whatever.

These guys are all liars anyway,

but he said he couldn't leave.

I'm here for Colorado for at least the next five minutes.

All right. All right.
Let's wrap it up. That was good.
the next five minutes. All right.

All right.

Let's wrap it up.

That was good.

We went 32 minutes.

That's good.

Two more than scheduled.

So next time I see you will be Sunday night.

It will be after the fourth playoff game.

Yeah, we'll go a little early, right?

Yeah, Bill's Ravens.

We'll go a little early. We'll go hopefully live on YouTube and try to get that going,

try to get it up as fast as we can. All right.
So good job by you. Good job by you, buddy.
Coming up as promised me and Peter Schrager talking about coaches and owners. Again, we taped this six days ago on Tuesday and, uh, ended up not running it cause I ended up not doing that second and third podcast last week.
So there's a lot of good stuff in there. Listener if you want.
It's a little dated, but not really. And I really like some of the stuff we talked about.
So here it is right now. All right.
We're taping this part of the podcast late Tuesday afternoon. Peter Schrager is here.
You know, normally we don't have you on Tuesdays, but so much weird coach shit's happening in the NFL. I can't keep track.
It's like you blink and another coach is on his way out. Did you expect it to be this chaotic or usually this happens after Monday? Why is it happening so staggered like this? Yeah, I didn't think that it would be this timing.
I thought it would all go down Monday morning. The word I got on Antonio Pierce getting fired on a Tuesday afternoon as opposed to Monday was, well, that's Mark Davis.
He goes at his own timeline and goes to the beat of his own drum. Pierce does a presser and then, all right, that's a one o'clock Monday presser.
It means nothing Tuesday. He's shown the door.
Mayo was interesting. I go out of my way not to ever fire coaches unless I know they're getting fired.
But there was a lot of reports over the weekend that Mayo was safe, barring some sort of calamity. And I'm like, well, I guess you didn't watch what happened the Saturday game against the Chargers where the entire crowd is chanting fire Mayo and they're going up to the box.
And I think the comments by the linebacker on local radio calling out the fans matters, I think a lot of things happened in that last two weeks and then specifically in those last 24 hours. But Brave will interfere with the Jets.
Don't minimize that. I think it might have rattled some cages.
It could have lit some fires. But at the very least, it all culminated in what you saw immediately after the game on Sunday.
The Vrabel things really started going about three weeks ago. That's when the buzz started building.
I don't think it was coming from him. I just think that it was clear he was going to be the number one candidate and the Pats thing was going south.
And we were talking about it on this podcast every week. Sometimes you have the wrong coach.

It happens. Sometimes a guy's not ready to be a head coach.
It happens. There wasn't a single

sign this season that year two was going to be better with the staff, with the head coaching,

with the game management, with the preparation. The team was going backwards in every way.

So it's really split in the people in my life because some people are pro Ben Johnson. And I just can't believe, if they have a chance to get Vrabel, I just can't believe, A, he's available.
B, he has Patriots ties. C, he has a relationship with Kraft.
D, he's a really good coach. I thought, I went back and I deep dove some of his Tennessee stuff.
First of all, makes the AFC title game with a 9-8 team. The next year goes 12-5 with Tannehill.
Lost to the Ravens. Good team.
Right. Tannehill, half a season to Derrick Henry.
All of a sudden, Donta Foreman was a huge part of that team. AJ Brown about to get pushed out and beat some really good teams along the way that season.

And then, you know, House and I got killed in million dollar picks, I remember, or in real life

in the playoff game, Tannehill just completely shit the bed in round one. They were like eight

point favorites. And from that point on, he never had a quarterback again.
We had Tannehill

washed up. Malik Willis was in there like that.
You know, it was QB Roulette. And then he

the They were like eight-point favorites. And from that point on, he never had a quarterback again.
We had Tannehill washed up. Malik Willis was in there.
Like, you know, it was QB Roulette. And then he eventually left because he didn't get along with the GM, who was no longer there.
He got fired today. Yeah, well, I think it's like a miracle that he's available.
I also think you're starting to see some of the stuff that was going on in Tennessee. You talk about instability.
Tennessee fired in consecutive years, John Robinson, the GM, then Mike Vrabel, the head coach. Then they hired a new GM.
And of course they fired him this year. So three straight years, they've had a firing of either a GM or a head coach, which doesn't tell me that's the most stable franchise either.
I'm not a Vrabel. By kudos to the Titans, though, because we have these incompetent male owners.
I'm glad we threw in an incompetent female. I like having the diversity of the incompetent female owner.
It's just good to have her in there. That's it.
We can only talk about the Johnsons and whoever else for so long. Now we've got Amy Adams.
Old Bridge white guys. We're getting boring.
We needed a female. Now we got white women.

Yeah.

I also am not a Vrabel apologist in that you look at the record

down the stretch those last two years

and a lot of people

who are Titans fans

have reached out to me

because I've been beating the drum

for Vrabel also

saying how outrageous it is.

And they're like,

they didn't win

and everyone in the building

was miserable under him at the end.

So you take that too and you're like, all right, well, I'm not there every day. So look, he did his year in purgatory.
He did his year with Cleveland, wisely got his contract to end the week before regular season ended, which was actually a brilliant move because he can interview in person. Whereas the rest of these guys, even if you miss the playoffs, you cannot interview in person for a head coaching job if you are employed by a team.
Yeah, that is smart. Did he do that intentionally? I'm going to give him credit.
He's very good with rules in the games if he played this one right, because Bill, it was brilliant. He can meet in person.
No other coach currently employed by an NFL team can meet in person until January 20th. And only the one seed teams, the guys from the Lions and the Chiefs, can even meet on Zoom this week to interview for head coaching jobs.
So all these other guys, the Liam Cohens, who's the offensive coordinator in Tampa, and the Cliff Kingsburys, and all these other guys who are playing this week who want to interview for jobs, they can't. And even when they can, it'll be in the future and they have to do it by Zoom.
Mike Vrabel can go on a traveling tour and meet with whoever. Now, the other guys who can do that, Pete Carroll, who we know is going to interview with the Chicago Bears this week, which is happening, and Adam Schefter was right all along on that.
And we also know that Rex Ryan interviewed with the Jets today. I can give you updates on that.
Just stop with Rex Ryan. Ron Rivera interviewed last week.
And I guess that would be... And then John Gruden, if someone...
Ron Rivera. After his Sterling run in Washington.
Let's get him another job. If someone wanted to interview Gruden, they can interview Gruden because he's not currently employed anywhere.
I don't think there's been any slips in for Gruden yet. So other than that, Vrabel's like, shit, okay, you want to interview Ron Rivera and Rex Ryan? All right.
And then interview me in person? All right. And then go interview Aaron Glenn on Zoom on Wednesday when he's trying to figure out his whole playoffs and all that stuff.
So Vrabel timed this thing perfectly. And Bill, I hear you- Well, he's the hot candidate.
There's no other who else is in. Ben Johnson would be the hot name.
And the thing with Ben that is appealing if you're the New England Patriots or if you're him is he's got North Carolina ties. He was at the University of North Carolina and you go to Drake May and you go to May's family and there's a real Carolina Chapel Hill thing.
The irony, of course, is that Belichick's there now and has nothing to do with it. And that with Drake May and $130 million in cap space, there is a lot to like if you are Ben Johnson walking into that situation as well, especially if you have a certain fondness for May.
But I think it's all but done. I would think Vrabel, I would be shocked if it's not Vrabel at the end of the day.
Well, they sped right. This Rooney rule, which was an important rule they created, and then they just speed rushed through it.
It's basically a speed bump if you know that you're going to hire somebody. And the way that they rushed into interviews today to kind of get that part over the front.
It's bad optics, and it's not a good way to do it. It's not the Patriots' fault.
That's the league rules, and they follow the rules. They interviewed two minority candidates.
He told us we had to interview two minority candidates. We did it.
And I know that sounds abrasive or whatever, but that's the rules, and they did it. And I see a lot of people saying they sidestepped the rules, and it's like, go tell Pep Hamilton and Byron Lefkowitz that they shouldn't have interviewed.
that they shouldn't have interviewed. Like, it's a shame, but they want Vrabel or Ben Johnson.
And that's who their eyes are set on. And I'd be hard pressed calling out the Crafts as, you know, as bigots or anything.
They just hired an African-American coach last year. So I don't, you know, it's a troublesome situation for the league with the minority candidates.
It's a rule that they can't really nail the rule. I think with the Crafts, I think they probably just looked at some spreadsheet.
A friend of mine made this joke. I'm passing it along.
And whoever was the cheapest flight from wherever they lived to Providence, those probably were the two they brought in. It's like, Brian Letfudge, oh, Jacksonville to Providence.
It's $289. Coach, let's get, let's get, so let's put him in.

This is my fear if I'm a coach taking over the Pats.

They don't spend money.

They meddle.

And they've been a fucking disaster for the entire 2020s.

So Vrabel, I think, can at least walk in there and go, I know this building.

I know the crafts.

I know what the Patriots mean.

I understand the Patriots way, whatever the concept of that was. It's gone now with Belichick and Brady.
They're both gone, but he at least understands it. He's a link to it.
And all that could be appealing on top of Drake May. It's the best situation of all the open situations.
You mentioned Ben Johnson. I started saying this earlier and I tailed off.
This is a very divisive text thread subject now with the Pats fans of my life. And I was going to say...
Ben Johnson or Vrabel. And here's the thing.
When are you finally going to say enough with the building and enough with the Belichick and Brady and let's really start anew because you bring Ben Johnson in. That's a guy who's been in Miami and that's

a guy who has been in Detroit. And there is no real connection to that New England universe.
And it's like, all right, I'm going to finally take a job after three years of being the hot candidate. I'm coming in.
You're going to have to pay me X amount of dollars and I'm going to want to bring in my guys. And no offense to what Mike Vrabel and Bill Belichick did in the 2006 season or what

Tom Brady accomplished in 2010

I think it's time you guys needed a new coat of paint and I'm going to bring it in. And if you're hiring me, you're giving me the freedom to do that.
I don't like your tone, Peter Schrager. Talk about it.
I don't like your tone right now. Are we not? Okay.
Vrabel obviously is in a different boat because I think it's actually interesting that Vrabel didn't choose to just go back to New England and work for Belichick. Yeah, he worked for Bill O'Brien and yeah, there's been connections, but he did it on his own.
He went to Ohio State, he went to Houston, he went to Tennessee, and he was also traded unceremoniously by Bill to Kansas City. And that wasn't necessarily his choice.
Big mistake. Well, let me throw this at you because this is one of the things I've been talking about with people in my life.
How many times does the hot play caller actually become a good coach? We've seen this over and over again. It's the Steichen, Kingsbury, McDade.
It seems like there's one or two every year and it's like, this guy's a whiz kid. Bobby Slowick last year coming up that first Houston season, people are like, oh, Bobby.
Now it's like, I don't think he has a shot in hell. But how many times does this guy actually work versus my preference would be the culture guy, the Tomlin, the Harbaugh, the guy who's like, I'm not really a specialist at anything, but what I'm good at is building a football team, coaching different types of things, running a staff, being in charge of different units of a football team.
That's my, that's my secret power. That's Rabel's secret power.
That's what he's good at. I would rather have that versus the whiz kid offensive play caller, because we already have a great quarterback.
Like I'd actually rather have a really good defensive guy, a guy who could build an offensive line around him. We already have the talent in offense.
It's, it's a great philosophical question. And it's also, you know, this year there just isn't a large pool of that.
So in recent years, Jim Harbaugh always flirted with the NFL. We know there was considerations in Minnesota and there's considerations in Chicago.
He's that guy. Harbaugh's a culture builder.
Whether you like him or not, and Kyle Brandt said it on your podcast before the season started, wake out of bed, you're going to get 10 wins out of Jim Harbaugh the first year. And they got 11.
And they got 11. And they went over, and they're one of your 27 teams that you got right because you knew.
Harbaugh is a winner. It's what he does everywhere he goes.
I know it's divisive on your pod when I go and rave about him all the time, but Sean Payton is a winner. You bring Sean Payton in, he's bringing in his guys, he's bringing in his systems.
Divisive with who? Like bots on the internet? Yeah, yeah. Those people can fuck off.
The podcast is free. Settle down.
Hey, we talk about how you're like freezing cold takes and all that. I got killed for the Jets one, but I'm going to take a bow.
I said the Broncos were going to the playoffs. I think I was the only person.
I said, they're going to the wildcard round. I'm taking my victory lap and everyone's like, we don't give a shit.
Nobody bats 100% at this. I had Scoot Henderson as a mortal lock to become an all-star in the NBA and he can't even play.
Guess what? We took a swing. You liked him.
You did a really good swing. I genuinely felt felt that way.
You saw. You believed in the Jets.
You discounted some red flags with the history of the franchise and an aging QB coming. Now we know.
Don't back an aging QB coming off an Achilles injury. Going forward, I now know this.
I had the Jets winning the AFC East. Never again.
Never again. To that though, recent years there have been those guys or there's been a college coach that's like, ooh, like Urban Meyer.
At the time, they were like, Jacksonville's in a free fall. Urban Meyer, he's been a college coach at a high level.
Kirby Smart doesn't seem to be being mentioned right now. Deion Sanders' name is not coming up right now.
Well, it's coming up with the... There's Vegas rumors with him already with Deion.
Okay. Well, that'll start coming, but then Nick Saban is not coming out of retirement.
It sounds like, and then you start going down the list and it's like, all right, well Kingsbury coach, but it wasn't like Kingsbury was Bill Walsh over there. So he's not really in that conversation and Matt Nagy coach, but he got fired.
He's not like a culture guy. We don't.
So it's Vrabel. That's the only name.
And you could say Pete Carroll. We're talking about ascending an exciting hire for the fans.
Pete Carroll might be exciting for Bears fans. He's also in his 70s.
And that's more like the Joe Gibbs bring him out of retirement. He's too old.
He got old in Seattle. I just think if you're hiring Pete Carroll, it's almost like a PR energy move where you're just trying to change some sort of bad stink around your building.
Like to me, Jacksonville, a team that's been rock bottom the last couple of years and just needs some sort of jolt. And he comes in, he's playing basketball with the coaches and he's great with the media and maybe that'll, but that it's not like for the bears, that doesn't make sense.
Yeah. And again, he's a culture guy.
So like he's got the energy of a, of a 40 year old or 50 year old. So like he'll run through, but I'm just saying this year, that pool of like leader of men, CEO, like, unless you're talking to Mike Tomlin and John Harbaugh, and I'm trying to think of Andy Reid's not good, those are the guys because they're CEOs and they run a team and they once were coordinators.
Tomlin, of course, on the defensive side. So you're more on my side now with the, you want the coach to be more of a CEO.
I'm not saying Ben Johnson can't do it, but I think over and over again, it's hard to, you know, this is something, you know, Lombardi's talk about this on the podcast all the time that being running a unit versus running a team, people don't realize what a jump that is. And you actually have to be really interested in, hey, what's going on with the special teams? Why aren't we good at this with the defense? Hey, I've noticed that when we're in nickel, this, this, and this is wrong.
You can't just be holding your play sheet. This is why McVay, who I think was a hot shot play caller, but he's not an offensive guy.
I coached the whole team guy. He's a big picture guy.
He's personnel. He's everything.
And here is your devil's advocate to that argument. So when Jeff Fisher got fired, they interviewed everybody.
They had really liked a few people. I remember they really liked Matt Patricia.
They liked Doug Marone. The Rams were in the market for a new coach and they had a lot of guys who had a lot more experience.
McVeigh was 30 and Stan Krohn keeps talking with Les Snead and Kevin Demoff, their president. And he's like, I just don't know.
He's young. And the argument that was made in the room by Kevin, Les, and then eventually Stan got on board was, okay, so he's young now and we miss on him this year.
And then next year he's hired by someone else and he's 31 and he's doing it for somebody else. Mike Tomlin, when he was interviewing, he was a defensive backs coach from the Minnesota Vikings, comes in, meets with them.
Everyone thought that job was going to be Bruce Arians

or at the time,

it might have,

Russ Grimm, I believe,

was the other one

who was interviewing.

It was going to be

one of those guys.

They hired Tomlin.

You didn't know those guys

were going to be leaders of men.

They took a swing

and they did it at a young age

and it worked out.

But there are so many other,

that list is endless

from Nathaniel Hackett

to all the other

one and two coaches. So Hackett's your worst case scenario because

that's a combo of

play caller only but also

was working closely with Rodgers

and maybe wasn't as... And was with an offensive

head coach. And was with an offensive

head coach. So that's like...

So I'm looking back at some of the coaches that have been

hired, that have just coached in the last...

Dan Campbell is a CEO type. He was a tight ends coach, never called plays, and the Lions...
But had experience, though. He had that Dolphins interim coach, so at least knew the lay of the world.
I feel like when it goes wrong for these coaches, they don't have a specialty, but they also don't know how to build a culture, which was the Mayo issue. Mayo is like, he's a defensive guy.
It's like, was he? He was never even the defensive coordinator.

He was the outside on the backers coach.

Yep.

And it's like,

is he a culture guy?

Is he?

Because our culture is going sideways

as this goes.

It's a good problem to have.

I guess Bill O'Brien

is another example of like,

oh,

offensive guru.

But the culture thing in Houston

never quite got there, right?

Well,

they gave him the reins.

He eventually grew into

a really good head coach

and then he also had

player personnel decisions.

So he ended up being that guy

and then it all came tumbling down

and and Houston never quite got there, right? Well, they gave him the reins. He eventually grew into a really good head coach and then he also had player personnel decisions.
So he ended up being that guy and then it all came tumbling down. That was like almost too much for him.
Yeah. I think it's going to be Vrabel.
If I'm putting my money down, I'm saying it's Vrabel as well. Let me ask you on a shock scale if it is Vrabel.
Josh McDaniel is OC. Oh, not shocked at all.
Not shocked at all. I mean, his kids spent 15 years living it.
Remember, he was with New England forever. And he took- He might still be living in that area.
I was just saying, his kids went to high school there. There is a lot, and he didn't end on bad terms there.
He took a job with the Raiders. He didn't leave.
He didn't get blown out the door. So yeah, I think McDaniels is a very good possibility.
John Gruden. As what? OC.
I think, so that would shock you. That sounds like a seven and a half, eight.
I'm going through the head because no, I think, I mean, I've spoken to multiple people around the league and they're surprised that Gruden hasn't gotten head coaching interviews. And the only reason he wouldn't is because of the emails from 2012 that came out or 20, I think 2012 is when they were.
And obviously they're horrendous emails, but that's the reason why everyone thinks Gruden is an elite play caller and can still be one of those leader of men culture guys. And I actually think the barstool stuff that he's been doing, where he's out there and he's on videos and a whole different generation is seeing him break down and tell stories and be human.
That stuff works. And it was what I think Belichick was trying to do this season too by doing the McAfee and the Manning cast.
Let me show a different side of me that I'm not some grump. And I think it worked to a point that he got that, that North Carolina job as well.
It's smart. Pat Riley invented it.
Yeah. Went to NBC, right? Left the Lakers, did studio on NBC for one year.
Who was he with? Who was the studio host? It was him and Costas. It was actually really good.
It was one of the first good halftime things. And what was that, like 1990? Yeah.
And then, uh, just seemed handsome and like he knew what the fuck he was talking about. then it led to the Knicks just turning everything over to him after John McCloud was the Knicks coach? Who was the Knicks coach before that? There's a bunch of bad ones What do you think the best open job is? To me, I would have said Jacksonville if they blew out the GM because the owner doesn't meddle, the owner does it, but you're inheriting a GM who is a survivor, a classic office politics survivor.
And I don't know Trent Baalke. I'm in this a long time.
And I know a lot of people say he's a fine guy, like we've met, but he has a way with this owner. And he's had a way with Jed York when he was in San Francisco that he outlasted everybody.
So I don't know if you're a head coach, if you're a young guy like Ben Johnson, who's been waiting for this opportunity and has turned down offers and has been really thoughtful and deliberate with this, if you're going into a job where a GM is getting his third head coach. So the best job? I mean, I know it sounds like I'm kissing your ass or I'm beating you.
You're not kissing my ass. The best job is the Pat's job.

The downside is the crafts, the front office, the lack of spending. But the salary cap money is there.
There's $130 million. Will they spend it? I mean, also, I think what people realized after Belichick left was Belichick was, he was the guy who was the superintendent of the building, but could also show the units, but could also fix anything that happened and also lived in the building.
And he basically was worth seven things. He was the super downstairs.
Yeah. Yeah.
He was Mr. Roper combined with an electrician.
But I think when he left, I don't think they realized how many small stuff because he was so hands-on and so all over the place. So he leaves and they had this bare-boned everything after that.
And the crafts have been super cheap in every respect for the last 10 years. What did they get? An F in that player and family thing? Yeah.
They sat on a bunch of stuff this year.

I would be, if I was taking that job, I'd be nervous.

I'm like, are you guys, how much is Jonathan going to medal?

How much am I going to be able to spend?

Are you guys going to start spending more on scouts?

Am I going to be able, like part of the reason they couldn't get offensive, defensive coaches,

coordinators, Dan Pelt was like the 12th offensive coordinator. They weren't paying big bucks for yeah it's like do you want to be our offensive coordinator here's a shitty offer and our team sucks it's like oh I can't believe we couldn't hire anyone do you do you think that year of misery and hearing fire mayo and having CBS cameras shoot to them after every bad play uh you know showing the owners and the.
And the Apple Doc. Do you think that spurs them to

now open up the wallets? Remember that one year

Belichick was able

to go bonkers with free agency, and he did

after that horrible in-between year after

Brady. Now, by the way, underrated free

agency, looking back, John U. Smith,

Hunter Henry, Aguilar,

all those guys. John U.
Smith

was an awesome weapon. I don't know what happened

to him in New England. Judon, right? Judon, yeah.
He was going to go back. And I was like, all right, not bad.
I would also say with the Patriots, they're going to now be paying. They're paying for that mistake.
Gerard Mayo is going to be paid out his full contract as an NFL head coach. So I know this is a league thing.
It's also an owner thing. Like there is, I believe the number was something like hundreds of millions of dollars.
That is just dead money that owners are spending on fired coaches around the NFL right now. That's like a strong safety.
It's like it's they've 53 rosters. I know, but for a league that likes to maximize its money and pour things into international

and pour things into flag football and pour things into women's flag football, for the

owners to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on fired coaches so they can laugh and get

paychecks and double dip with other teams, that's not a good look either.

So for the Patriots, if you're telling me that they're notoriously not big spenders,

to know all of that and still fire Mayo after one year and still pay him out his full contract tells you just how bad things were in that building. Yeah, I don't think he was making a shitload of money would be my only thing.
But you made me think of something, though. Maybe they should pass a rule that if the fired coaches then have to do media for the NFL as part of their contract.
There you go. They just have to be on podcasts.
We have you on retainer. It's like the coach franchise that Belichick started.
Now it's like, now we have Gerard Mayo and Robert Sala. The worst job out of all the open jobs, in your opinion, is what? I think the Saints job's tough because the Saints job, you still got Derek Carr on the books.
That's a franchise that still hasn't torn it all down. And you've still got Cam Jordan.
You still got Demario Davis. And it's a roster that's kind of in between.
Now, Mickey Loomis is the GM. He's been there forever.
He's got great success. And I think there's a lot to like about working in that building.
You kind of lay low. You're in your own little world.
Peyton loved it there for years. And obviously, Mickey's going to do a good job with free agents in the draft.
But it just feels like you're still in a purgatory there until they tear that whole thing down. And the quarterback position is Derek Carr for the near future.
Counter. Pretty mediocre division.
Yeah, winnable guys. That would be the case for Jacksonville, too You'd take over Jacksonville and you just look around and I'm like, ah, we could.
I think the worst job is the Raiders because you got Mark Davis who just seems like he changes his mind every five seconds. It's a different building, man.
I know all the league, there are 31 teams and there are the Raiders. There are people in that building who I really trust, good sources.
And I'm like, so I guess AP's good. They're like, dude, we don't know.
They didn't know. No one knew.
And then today he's fired. It's like, all right, on we go.
So you have the organization, complete absolute clusterfuck. I'm also in the same division as the Chiefs, Chargers, and Broncos.
I have those coaches. I have Mahomes, Herbert, and even Bo Nix.
And then I have those three coaches. And I'm just the black sheep of that division.
I also have a pretty high pick in this draft, but not high enough to really do anything. I got Brock Bowers and Max Crosby, and that's about it.
That's a brutal job. And my owner's already paying three other coaches before he started to pay me.
And they whipped on so many drafts that even hitting the Bowers pick... Do you want the crazy irony of this whole thing? So last year, I was at the Senior Bowl.
And obviously, I'm talking to Kingsbury. He took his year with USC.
He was working with Caleb, and he was working with Lincoln Riley. And he interviewed for several offensive coordinator jobs.
He interviewed for the Philly job, wasn't offered. Interviewed for the Chicago job, they gave it to Shane Waldron instead, even though he had the history with Caleb.
And then he interviewed with the Raiders job and it was all set. It was done.
And then at the end, there was a hiccup on the length of years on the contract. And there was a miscommunication.
And Cliff was like, I don't like where this is going. I don't like where this is setting up to go.
And he's like, I liked Antonio Pierce, but I didn't know what was going on. And there was a lot of people.
I met with them twice in person. Then Dan Quinn called and was like, do you want to be our offensive coordinator with the number two overall pick? And he's like, I'm in love with Jaden Daniels.
Yeah, let's do that instead. The irony is they have now fired Antonio Pierce.
So you take his salary. They fired Luke Getze, the offensive coordinator.
You take his salary. They fired several other offensive coaches.
It's about $20 million mistake right there if you thought Cliff was the guy based on length of the contract for the offensive coordinator position. So there's just little things like that that people people don't seem to like look big picture at.
And there's like, oh, they fired

their coach again, but it's every step along the way that gets you there. It's funny that every

single job has some sort of, yeah, but attached to it, right? Like the Jets actually have talent.

That's the thing. They have talent.
But it's like, how do you take that job

and know that you're dealing with the owners and all the dysfunction that's there? The Bears, you have a potential franchise quarterback. I used the word potential because I wouldn't say it was like the greatest Caleb year.
You have some weapons. You're okay.
You're in an absolutely brutal division. But that front office and that organization is a fucking hornet's nest.
There's a lot of people. Like you're walking in a Game of Thrones the moment you get in there.
Is there like a worse hornet's nest organization than the Bears right now? Probably not. Well, it's just a lot of cooks in the kitchen and they'll tell you that Ryan Pohl's, the GM, is the one at the switch, but he's got a president above him who's very active in Kevin Warren.
And it's like, okay, well, if he's the one at the switch, well, who am I reporting to? Because am I reporting to him? Then you got the McCaskies, and then there's other people in the building too. So those interviews, I'm curious to see who's at the table because there's so many different voices and you like to think they're all on one page.
I've been told, and I think there's two things here. One, Ben Johnson has this reputation that I think is actually wrong.
I've gotten to know Ben a little bit over the last few years. And I think, you know, good offensive coach obviously does all this stuff, but like good dude.
His name was dragged through the mud last year for what happened in Washington, where he went down the road with Washington and Bob Myers and Josh Harris. And those guys thought he was going to be the head coach, or at least they were flying out to meet with him.
And he pulled his name at the last second. And I think that rubbed a lot of people wrong.
And then around the league, it became like this. Yeah, they made it seem like he left his husband at the altar or something.
No doubt. He just decided not to take the job.
And he told him, I'm not going for the, I don't want to interview again. He didn't even accept the job.
We've seen Josh McDaniels accept job at Indianapolis

and then bail.

That's something that I'm like, way worse.

But then Ben's name got absolutely trashed

as some maniacal mad genius.

That's not him.

That's not him.

And it's going to be interesting to see

how the narrative of him goes

if he doesn't take one of these jobs

and goes back to Detroit.

Because Carolina was his a couple years ago

if he wanted to go for that.

I think David Tepper and those guys

were very interested in him.

Didn't interview, stayed with Detroit.

Washington was probably his if he wanted it last year.

Didn't interview, interviewed once.

Didn't interview the second time, stays with Detroit.

And if he's not blown away by Chicago

or wherever else he's interviewing,

like he doesn't need to take it.

I wouldn't take the Chicago job.

Guess what?

I know it's going to come out. Oh, cool.
I get to be in the same division as Detroit, Minnesota, and Green Bay? And I have no offensive line? He's not interviewing with the Jets. And a lot of people are going to say, why aren't the Jets trying to interview him? I think the Jets got word that he's not looking to go there.
And that's okay. And that's fine.
So I think the Caleb Williams thing is exciting. First overall pick has crazy raw talent.
And there is an allure to being the coach of the Chicago Bears. It's one of those prestige franchises.
It's not the Jaguars. It's not the Saints.
It's the Chicago Bears. And there is something to be said for when you win in that city, what a legend you can be.
Which we haven't seen for 40 years. The Bears job is like good fellas.
It's like, no, no, it's over there. It's like walking down that 9th street.
No, no, no, no. One more.
No, no, it's right over there. Keep going.
I just wouldn't go near it. Let's take a quick break.
I have to ask you, you talk to a lot of people. What was the reaction to people in the league, to the Patriots actually winning that Week 18 game? Was that in your text? Were people just like, what just happened? No, because that's the league.
And we've seen it year after year after year. I think I've told you on the podcast that there's only like, I had a handful of games in my life covering the final week where the bad team actually doesn't show up and loses.
And one of them, you have to do what... You have to physically go out of your way to put backups in and give them no preparation.
And I called a game, and I wouldn't accuse them of doing this on record, but I would just say this. The Buccaneers were playing the Saints in the final week of the season and Jameis Winston and Marcus Mariota were the two top picks in the following draft.
The Bucs had like two, and they played all backups. And I remember Sean Payton after the fact being like, for real, like that's, you guys played those guys and of course they secured the number one overall pick and they would say, well, we didn't.
We're just playing our guys. Gerard Mayo had no reason to abide by any rules.
He put in Jim Hudson. He did not.
That was part of the problem. So what would you have done? Would you have fired him on Saturday and said, you can't coach week 18? He wasn't going to save his job if he, at that point the decision was made.
They clearly knew based on how long that statement was that came out like an hour today. That takes like three hours to get that statement correct.
So they obviously had that during the week. So what do you do in hindsight? Do you fire him on Saturday and say I think if you know you're going to do it, you let him go midweek.
You have somebody take over. I don't think you play any of the starting receivers.
Even Booty playing was crazy. It should have been Polk and Baker the entire game.
They're playing Antonio Gibson. They're playing Milton the whole game.
The Bills were like, wait, Trubisky's doing too well. They yanked him.
Mike White's in. Yeah, you watch the Chiefs.
They were like, whoa, we want no part. There's ways to do this.
And the problem is they, Milton was really good against Buffalo's second string. And then Buffalo, once they realized they had a chance to screw the pass, they were like, great.
Here's Mike White. Did you know Mike White was still in the league? No, I didn't know Mike White was still in the league.
And they're punting the ball on the New England 35. And they're, you know, it's really hard to look at the coach in the face, look at the players in the face and be like, don't go out and win, even if they're backups.
So nothing surprises me. The fact the Giants lost, the fact the Giants beat the Colts is still one of the most insane things because they're in desperate need of a quarterback.
And they won that game and they played themselves out of the first or second play. I watched that game and I had money in the Colts.
Drew Locke was great. The Colts were absolutely horrific.
Neighbors was unguardable. Yeah.
This Pats thing was different because you at least have to have the OC involved. You tell the OC, you're coming back next year.
Can you just call a lot of runs up the middle on third and eight or some bad screen passes? I don't know. But you said it to Sal on Sunday night.

And I know you made the joke with Jack's shit,

but it's like,

if you were to tell me that we made this monster trade and the trade was just the first overall pick

for the fourth overall pick,

but we won that game,

and we fired the coach.

It is truly insane on paper,

and yet we see it year after year that this happens.

The final team in the final week

wins a meaningless game

and the players celebrate on the sideline because they've got pride and then they cost themselves the first overall pick. It happens every year.
I was talking to a couple of people about it this week, how crazy it is, how expensive these franchises are. Each one of them is a business worth between $5 and $10 billion.
And at least half of them are run horribly. Like the diner down the street where you're like, why did they have to shut down the diner again? What happened? It's like, oh, this guy had hepatitis B, the chef.
So they had to fire him and the hell stepped in, but it's going to be back. You'll be able to get omelets in a couple of weeks.
That's like how 10 NFL teams are run. I just don't understand it.
I don't understand how people... I know some of the times they inherit it.
It's been explained to me like sometimes the people that own the teams, the personality of whatever got them into that job is basically how they operate the team. So if you're a hedge fund guy, you look at everything, it's like risk reward, this boom, boom, what are my two choices? If you're like somebody who builds and has a lot of different people reporting to you, maybe do that, maybe delegate more.
If you inherited it because you were some rich kid, then it's the combo of, I want to prove that I'm not just the rich kid, but you also don't have kind of the history or the street smarts to know how to operate this year to year. So it's pretty rare to just find good owners, you know, and we know who the good owners are.
Absolutely. And you know which owners have gained the trust.
I'm going to find a tweet. So there's a guy, Jake Rosenberg, who used to work for the Eagles and now he's a GM.
He writes this and it was a tweet and I thought it was like pretty spot on. Running a comprehensive search for a head coach is exhaustive and expensive and generally a huge pain in the ass.
At the end of the day, not all owners prioritize winning enough to justify the expense and the time burning. Sad but true.
Most NFL GM hires are doomed from day one. And the reason is those who hire have a lack of clarity in what skills and experience actually determines success in the role, which is so true.
So you have these owners who time and time again are the ones making the decisions and they're the ones at the table like, well, I like that guy. Okay.
But we have no justification that they know what it takes week to week, day to day in the building to actually identify it. So it is a mild piece of insanity where the owner of the company is the one sitting at the table and he has the right to pick this year after year.
But the people making the decisions don't necessarily know exactly what goes into being a great coach. It's pretty crazy.
And then you have somebody who finally figures it out, like the Chargers. And they were a mess for a while.
They're like, you know what we should just do? Let's just bring Jim Harbaugh and let him figure it out. That's what you do if you're the owner.
Just overspend on the guy who could run the whole thing for you. The Broncos were such a bad place after Nathaniel Hackett.
And they basically told Sean Payton, name your price. We'll pay you the highest amount of money.
Just come in and just build this thing back. And they didn't look back.
The owner, they're Walmart folks, and it's Greg Penner. And they're, from what Sean says, great owners.
And they just let him do what he wants. It's like a $250 million salary cap a year.
So it's like, oh no, I have to pay my coach $10 million? I think they give a shit. So the Jets thing is interesting.
So this year, instead of it being

Woody, you know,

they bring in Tannenbaum and Spielman

who used to do the job but had been

removed and I'm not sure

they have casted a very wide net

here and they're doing in-person interviews

tomorrow. We're recording this on Tuesday.

So they're interviewing two GM candidates

tomorrow. Alec Kalabi, who was

kind of the strategy and analytics and also he's the assistant general manager in Philly under Howie right now. And then a guy, Mike Borgonzi, who's the number two to Rhett Veach in Kansas City.
Those are the right names. You should meet them.
They're doing it. But the room is Spielman, Tannenbaum, and then it's Chris Johnson, Woody Johnson, and then it's Jaime, who's their president, and then maybe one or two other people.

So you like to think that that's bringing in Tannenbaum and Spielman who have done this before and have hired helps, but I don't know. We'll see how it turns out, right? I'm dubious.
I'll tell you one guy. If I was buddies with an NFL owner and they called and just said, what should I do?

And it was the list of the usual suspects right you know this guy this guy's bounced around hey there's Pete Carroll I really like the Notre Dame coach dude and I barely know anything about college football I had but are we are we sure that he just can't be overwhelmed with some... Why can't he be the Bears coach?

He's already in that part of the country anyway.

Go back to November.

I reported on Fox NFL kickoff.

It blew up on all the Notre Dame blogs.

I reported...

Oh, you became a Notre Dame villain?

Yeah, because when they fired Iberfuss,

I said a name that's being talked about is Marcus Freeman in Chicago,

which it was.

And he has Big Ten connections with Kevin Warren.

He was an Ohio State player.

Obviously went through the ranks.

Thank you. Marcus Freeman in Chicago, which it was.
And he has Big Ten connections with Kevin Warren. He was an Ohio State player, obviously went through the ranks.
He was a hot name within that Bears organization. And then I was accused of being used as leverage because they gave him a huge extension in Notre Dame.
That's just what happened. But I would still call him.
Dude, he's a great coach. What does an extension mean? He could still leave.
A hundred percent. Pay him more.
Break the contract. Marcus Freeman.
I really like that guy. To me, he seems like a culture guy, which is what you should be looking for if you're the fucking Bears and you have no culture at all other than the Hornets' nest.
It was real. I mean, that was real interest.
What do you think of Deion as an NFL head coach? Does that do anything for you? Is there just too much that comes with that? It really doesn't. Okay.
I just don't think he's been a head coach for long enough and it seems too risky. I don't want to be risky with my $7 billion team.
If you're New Orleans, I would think about it. I'm going nowhere for two years.
Let him take his lumps. Let him learn on the job.
But I just think going from college to the NFL in general, there's been so few success stories. We've seen some of the best college coaches ever weren't that good as an NFL coach.
So I just think it's a slightly different skill set. That's why Marcus Freeman, I don't know, I did a deep dive on him and I was just intrigued by him.
He's awesome. And just watching him on the sidelines, I don't know, there know.
There's something about him. Cerruti, are you on this? That fourth down play where they threw the guys and they threw the punt team on and then they did the fake punt and they drew them off sides.
That was the coolest play of the college football season. Cerruti, what do you think of Marcus Freeman as an NFL head coach? He's 38.
He did play for the Bears, which is interesting. Yes, he did.
He's made notre dame like kind of likable too to the neutral you know i feel like my whole life like if you yeah like it's like ah notre dame like like you know unless you're a fan you kind of hate them i don't know i kind of like this notre dame fan because you go from brian kelly who you know yeah respect you know not not a very likable dude and now it's like wait barkis this guy's awesome so i i don. I mean, I don't know if it worked, but I think you would win the PR fight at least at the start.
To me, I'd much rather do that than some retreat or roll the dice with some offensive coordinator who's not even that hot of an offensive coordinator. So Rudy, if you could take any college coach and make them an NFL coach, who would it be? Oh, man.
Like that actually would succeed, in your opinion. Because you love college football.
You follow it. You love it.
Is there a guy that you were like, man, I bet that guy would be a good NFL coach? Man, Freeman is the... I'll give you the name that's been buzzed a little bit.
It hasn't got any... Yeah.
Sark is a name because he has NFL experience and he he's great on the offensive side of the ball and he's kind of got this bravado around him that he can dominate over him. And he was great in Atlanta for that year with Dan Quinn.
But go on, Thruity, I want your thoughts. He's like Cliff with more success like right at the college level essentially because he's actually won some games even though I do like Cliff.
You know... Is Dan Lanning...
that doesn't make sense. He's not,

that's not a specialty guy.

He's got Marcus Freeman vibes.

He's got Marcus Freeman vibes. If Lanning had won that game,

I think there'd be a lot more buzz.

Not that it cost him anything,

but like there was,

there's some,

there were some people at NFL teams asking me if I'd heard anything on him.

Yeah.

I mean,

the thing is,

it's,

it's kind of,

it's kind of fleeting though.

Cause remember Lincoln Riley a couple of years ago was like,

Hey,

this guy going to be an NFL coach. And now it's like, nobody, you going to get fired? Is he any good? So it's tough.
The name's coming. Guys.
Yeah, the offensive guys are always sexy. PJ Fleck was a name for a while at Minnesota.
Matt Campbell, Iowa State was the hottest name for about five years. Matt Rule was a hot name.
Obviously, he got one of those deals. Like Kirk Farrin's all those years.
always like, is Kirk Farris going to get a job? Are we sure Matt Rule couldn't be a good NFL coach? He might be. I don't know.
I go back to that famous picture that got floated around during this season, this year, of Darnold and Mayfield together in the Carolina. That team he put together, and then I felt like he got fired a little prematurely.
I know they weren't doing great, but then that team almost made the playoffs, the team that he did. But he was the hottest name of the past six years for college.
Now he's just not a good coach anymore because he went to go with David Tepper. Yeah, did Nebraska do anything this year? I know they had the kid that dresses like Mahomes, and they played at that pinstripe bowl.
Dom Raiola's kid. But was he viewed as a good Nebraska great this year or no? Better than...
The problem with Nebraska is of all the down historic programs, they're probably the hardest one to bring back. Because it's just...
How do you get talent there? You used to just get all the big offensive linemen and whatever. but yeah, I think it's okay.
The blackshirt defense. Yeah, that's

a huge turnaround.

I personally

would much rather roll the dice

with Freeman, Dan Lanning,

Matt Rule again versus

like, I love

Pete Carroll, but I just, I don't see it.

I don't see how that's your move when he's

75 years old or however old he is.

If we're playing connect the dots, I would say

if Rabel goes to New England, I would

imagine Ben Johnson is

Thank you. I don't see how that's your move when he's 75 years old, or however old he is.
If we're playing connect the dots, I would say, if Rabel goes to New England, I would imagine Ben Johnson is Chicago, and he just needs to just bite the bullet and say, I don't know what I'm walking into, but I want that job. I want that quarterback.
If he's going to leave, I would think Chicago. Jets, I would look at Aaron Glenn.
I would look at him as a former Jet and a defensive coach, which might not be what everyone wants. I was so impressed by him in that Minnesota game.
I thought that was a coaching win. Yeah, it really was.
So good. And he's a former Jet and he's all business and he's waited his turn and he's been with New Orleans and he's been with Detroit.
The other name for the Jets, there's two other names that I would say, and obviously I've got sources there, but it's going to go down to the interviews. I don't have an idea how these guys do.
They're interviewing 12 people. Yeah.
Joe Brady in Buffalo, interviewed with the Jets back in 19, back in that same year where Todd Munkin and Matt Rule and all those guys interviewed, and Adam Gase got the job. Joe Brady was like 30 when he interviewed with them and was awesome in the interview.
He was just too young and it wasn't time. He has since done the whole thing.
He went to Carolina, then he went to Buffalo. That could be an exciting hire.
And then Arthur Smith is a name that will not get the fans excited. But he interviewed in 21 when they gave it to Salah and really did a good job with the Jets interview there and was the hottest name.
And then he chose Atlanta. And then you've got to now build yourself up.
Now, look, I don't know if Pittsburgh's offense is worthy of a head coach being hired, but Arthur Smith's an adult in the room and you know, he's competent. It's just, he's never had a quarterback in either Atlanta.
And I would argue in Pittsburgh either. Yeah.
If I was Arthur Smith in the interview, so Rudy, they'd be like, so what happened at Atlanta? I would just be like, can you go on Pro Football Reference and look at the fucking quarterbacks I had? That's what happened. What am I going to do? I had Marcus Mariota and the Riddler.
Desmond Riddler. What was I going to do? That's why I'm surprised, Triggs, that most of these guys, why isn't quarterback almost more important? Harbaugh, I feel like the second time around, was like, all right, I'm not going to a place that doesn't have a quarterback.
Because he's smart. Yeah, Sean Payton, I think, knew that, but it was like, wait, how much money? Yeah, no, and they told him, give it a year, that's this much money.
Give it a year and you'll figure it out. Yeah.
But that's why the Pats are in such a good spot with Drake. Great spot.
Because there's seven of those guys in the league. And he's one of them.

And Caleb might be too.

So that's why I think he's a possibility.

I think they know that.

That's why Ron Moreland is difficult.

Jacksonville, the book is out on Trevor Lawrence.

Jacksonville, to me, saw the list of names.

That's like maybe Liam Cohen,

who's the offensive coordinator in Tampa.

He gets a shot.

He worked with McVay and he's very highly viewed.

Maybe that's the Jacksonville guy. And it's like, all right, it's his first year.
He's a quarterback guy. He'll work with Trevor Lawrence.
We'll see, but I don't know if anyone's banging down the doors to work with Trent Balky and Trevor Lawrence. Trevor Lawrence would be.
Sarita, do you admit defeat yet on Trevor Lawrence or no? Still hold on? Absolutely not. That's a Jaguars problem.
I think he's going to be fine. Yeah.
I don't know if he's be like a top five guy. Sarita never admitted to feed on Jonathan Isaac, so he's got a good track record.
That is true. I refused to trade him for years.
He held in. He was turning down every Jonathan Isaac trade offer.
Crushing the Knicks last night. I was watching.
Look, on the one hand, I'm a big quarterback. Has to be in the right situation with the relatively right coach guy.
On the other hand, I just don't see it from Lawrence. I don't see it.
Like the way Sam Darnold played in that Lions game when he was sailing the ball and everything that Lawrence does that every game. And Darnold, at least you could make excuses for him.
It was like the hostile environment. It was probably the biggest game of his career.
You know, he got off to kind of a iffy start. Like I'm, I've watched him all year.
I'm willing to excuse it. I just, how many times can Lawrence just suck? But that's why I think the best job, Shrags, is like if Ben Johnson wants the Jags job and he goes, hey, I'll take the job if you fire Balky.
Yeah, which I think there is a window because Shad Khan, I mean, Balky's on the Zoom and Shad Khan, they asked him about it and he's like, if the head coach comes in and says he wants me to reevaluate the GM, I will. So that's why I thought it was such an appealing job from the go because the Khans really do not meddle.
They're one of these owners that are super wealthy. They've got a million different interests and they're like, we're hiring the coach to do what he does.
And the son's running a wrestling league. I'm so glad you brought this up because this is another friend because I was talking to a bunch of people this week and this friend said the single most important thing a coach should look for is the medal scale with an owner.
And it was like, Washington, they barely talked to, there's also 20 of them. Josh Harris talks to them like 15 minutes twice a week and that's it.
And they just, he basically delegates because he's got a million things going on. The cons are like that.
The crafts are not like that. The crafts are in your life.
You take that Pat's job, you've got to deal with them. Jonathan's going to call.
Robert wants to go. He's just going to be around and wants to know shit.
I'll tell you, there's a job that is not currently vacant, but a couple coaches ago where every Monday morning the owner the owner would come in and the head coach had to justify three different play call decisions to the owner. That's hell.
You don't want to go through that. That's not the cons.
They don't do that. Josh Harrison doesn't do that.
Stan Kroenke doesn't do that. You have to figure that stuff out.
But the GM being bulky there now, that would be a red flag just because I don't know the guy. And I've been very picky and very selective.

The Jets job is actually intriguing because it's a blank slate right now.

So if you're one of those guys,

you're like, all right, well,

maybe if I was saying with Vrabel,

Vrabel can come in and be like,

I want to bring in Ryan Cowden,

my friend who works for the Giants,

used to be at the Titans.

I want him to be the GM with me.

If you take both of us,

then I'll consider it.

Like, I think Vrabel could do that.

But it sounds like he's going to New England,

and it sounds like Elliott Wolfe is safe up there.

Yeah, we'll see.

With the Balky piece, Ben Johnson should just tell Shad Khan,

you realize that when Harbaugh left, he hired Jim Tomsula.

You realize, same guy.

By the way, your team's way worse now.

Maybe there's something here with Balky. I wouldn't say the track record's great.
I want to give you two more names because I know they're pulling around. For GM? No, for head coach.
Does Mike McCarthy, as a free agent, he can't interview with anyone until at least January 14th, and they already denied his ability to interview with the Bears,

but they can't do that after January 14th

when his contract's up.

Does Mike McCarthy, a CEO, leader of men

and 12 wins all these years, Super Bowl,

but also Mike McCarthy,

does that interest you at all, Bill,

if you're a team looking for stability?

Yes, if my team sucks

and I'm like the Raiders

and I just want some sort of

professional franchise again.

If I'm trying to win the title,

I'll be terrible regardless. At least take a swing on somebody who has upside.
I know what Mike McCarthy is. Mike McCarthy went to the Cowboys press conference and basically said he didn't do any homework on the team.
It didn't, like, this is not a guy,

well, to respect, like, if I'm the Raiders,

I'd hire Deion over McCarthy because at least, like, you're kind of entertaining

and people are talking about you.

And maybe his son goes there and maybe it works out

with Mike McCarthy.

Like, what are you getting?

Who has more leverage in that situation

if it's January 15th and they don't come to a deal?

Jerry and the Cowboys or Mike McCarthy

who might have options to go elsewhere?

Because I think...

Mike McCarthy, there's, like, seven jobs open.

I think you're right.

Thank you. they don't come to a deal.
Jerry and the Cowboys or Mike McCarthy, who might have options to go elsewhere. Mike McCarthy, there's like seven jobs open.
I think you're right. I think you're right.
I think one of them. That's one of those where it's like, well, at least he won't drive the car into a tree.
Dion, I have no idea if that guy would be... It'll be really fun.
I hope he comes into the league. Just from a content standpoint, it'll'll be awesome but i don't know if you're in the same spot and two like like the raiders are

going nowhere so what's two years if it doesn't work out in two years you're probably at the same

spot you are now what about if you're the jets who just went through this tumultuous thing and

you're like does mike mccarthy interviewed for the jets back in 19 i believe and he was like just

fired from green bay and no one in new york wanted him and it didn't happen but like i don't know i

Thank you. Mike McCarthy interviewed for the Jets back in 19, I believe.
And he was just fired from Green Bay and no one in New York wanted him and it didn't happen. But I don't know.
I thought the Dallas era of McCarthy is like 12 wins, 12 wins, lost his quarterback, didn't win 12 games. I don't know.
And the team kept playing hard for him this year. I was surprised.
The one appeal with the Jets is if they hired McCarthy, that's a final FU to Aaron Rodgers. There it is.
Pack up your locker, buddy. That's it.
This is a wrap. Does Rodgers play next year, by the way? It sounds like it's over.
You know? It sounds like it's over. I didn't speak to him.
We have a relationship, but he wouldn't tell me. But, like, it's just the way he's talking.
And he gave those quotes the day before the game. And then, you know, the Pam Oliver said, like, I big hug.
It felt like this is my goodbyes. They'd have to be a perfect situation.
I don't know if it exists. What do you mean? I say no.
He's got too much competitive spirit to end it that way? I think he's going to want to try to latch on to a really good team where he could just steer the car. What do you think, Suri? Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rodgers in Vegas?

Who says no?

With Tom Brady as the owner?

That is, if you showed Aaron Rodgers like 10 minutes of

Brock Bauer's tape,

you might like him.

The guy's a freaking absolute animal.

He can live in Vegas, nice living,

no taxes, it could be alright.

I actually think the worst job is the Giants job of all the jobs.

But it's not open.

Because Dayball took it back.

No, I just, I thought that one was going to be open up.

And maybe they hired or brought Dayball back because it's like,

who the fuck would want this job?

It's like, we have no quarterback.

We suck every year.

Our cap space is kind of screwed. Do you want to be our coach? No, thanks.
So they're better off just bringing him back. Can I give you another name that Glazer mentioned on Sunday, but this has been bubbling a little bit.
So Mike McDaniel got a big contract extension this year and he was hired the same year as Kevin O'Connell. The Vikings opted not to give Kevin O'Connell their extension before the season, meaning next year is the final year of his contract.
So they can do it whenever, but there hasn't been an extension done. So Glazer threw out there.
He's entering the final year of his contract. And I don't think the Vikings after this season, and he's going to be coach of the year, would be willing to do a trade for just a normal trade.

Why would they ever get rid of Kevin O'Connell?

I don't think they will. I think all that stuff

that's out there, they're going to step up.

They're going to pay him. But

if you're a team, do you offer

three first round picks? Do you offer

if you're the Jets? No?

You don't even go down that road? You don't even entertain it?

No. Because they wouldn't

entertain it back? Belichick was only worth

one first round pick when Kraft, the only

great thing Kraft ever did other than keep

Thank you. you don't even go down that road? You don't even entertain it? No.
Because they wouldn't entertain it back or it's not worth it. Belichick was only worth one first round pick when Kraft, the only great thing Kraft ever did other than keeping the pats in New England when he traded a first rounder for Belichick.
I think a coach is worth one first rounder. Okay.
I don't know. You disagree, Sir Rudy? That's what Sean Payton went for.
Yeah. This reminds me a couple years ago.
It's actually many years ago now. Remember we were having the, like, would you rather start your franchise with Brad Stevens or Giannis?

Right. And people were actually like, oh man, Brad Stevens,

you know, culture, like you never know. Giannis wasn't quite

Giannis yet at that point. It was a good

argument though. I love

KOC, but that's insane.

Yeah. One pick?

Would you trade? What do the Jets have?

I do one pick. Jets have the seventh

pick in the draft.

That seems intense. It's a lot a lot real quick Schrager yeah the Rex Ryan thing is that is that a thing I'll tell you it happened today it happened so Rex flew down to Palm Beach and he and Woody and Tannenbaum have like a really bond.
And Rex comes in there and he basically is like, guys, I don't know if you're going to give me this job. There is no person on this earth who wants to be the head coach of the New York Jets more than I do.
There is no person that wants to turn this organization around more than I do. I have been involved with the game on ESPN.
I watch it all. I want to be the New York Jets head coach.
I don't want to be the Saints coach. I don't want to be the Dolphins coach.
I want to be the Jets head coach. And I think it was refreshing for them to hear somebody not just come in and be like, all right, yeah, no, I want to be a head coach of an NFL team and here's my credentials credentials.
Like Rex went about it a totally different way. And you will not find someone more passionate in that interview.
Will he get the job? No, I don't think he's going to get the job. But I do think it was worthwhile for him to go down there.
And I think they enjoyed the meeting at the very least because they can't meet with anyone else in person anyway. It wasn't a waste of their time.
And Rex gave them a little bit of fire today. And I think they appreciated what Rex had to say because there's no one else who's going to come in there and say, and honestly mean it with the passion that Rex does.
Like, I don't want to be the coach of the Patriots. I don't want to be the coach of the Lions.
I want to be the coach of the Jets. And I want to work with you guys.
Maybe they should schedule more interviews with people who have no chance of being an NFL coach, but really want to coach the Jets. Like, are there? Are there actors? Could Larry David go in there and say Larry David, Bobby Cannavale, Ralph Macchio.
They've got a nice little group of Jets fans. He's had a good run here.
Maybe you get him. Yeah, you could do it.
That would be great. Yeah, you could do it.
That's it. When are we getting him on the pod, Bill? What's the...
That has to be happening. Is it not Apparently, he's overseas and hopefully we will get him later this week.
If he doesn't come, I'm going to be super upset. Seriously, there's no one who...
I mean, I think he's following three people and you're one of them. Just come on the pod, Sheldon.
What are we doing? All right. Thanks, Rudy.
I got one more thing for Schrager. Is it about your Netflix cameo last night? No, no, no.
I thought you handled that great, dude. Thank you.
What else do you want to do? Everyone in my life felt I handled it perfectly. Very impressed.
Schrager, it's good to see you. Thanks.
You're the man, dude. Thank you.
All right, that's it for the pod. Thanks to Cousin Sal.
Thanks to Saruti and Kyle and Gahal for producing as always. I'm going to be back probably with a two-parter on Thursday, at least a one-parter, hopefully a two-parter, assuming that everything goes well in Southern California on Tuesday and on Wednesday.
I'm trying to be super optimistic. So next time you see me, Thursday.
And then maybe rewatchables on Wednesday too,

if we can do that mailbag podcast on Wednesday

that we're hoping for.

So let's hope for some good weather,

some decent weather,

some non-windy weather in the next two days.

And hopefully when you hear my voice on Thursday,

things are a little bit better

and we're headed forward here in Southern California.

Stay safe, everybody.

See you later in the week. On the wayside I'm a blue sun

Never on

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