The volume.

The volume.

What is going on everybody? How are we doing? John Middlecock three and out podcast recording Sunday night, watch the LENCAA tournament this weekend, play a little golf, and said, you know what, let's record a podcast for Monday morning. I didn't record along with Colin. It's like, I'm kind of juicing to get some takes out there and some stuff happened. Do you want to dive into some of the dominoes that are falling with the quarterbacks and the draft picks at the top, So we will dive into that. The Bengals signing their guys claim they're not cheap, but let's dive into the numbers. And then George Foreman passed away. I didn't want to dive in because some of you a lot of cheeseburgers over the years. The George Foreman grill was a huge part of my life, and I kind of did a deep dive this weekend. What an incredible entrepreneur George Foreman was. And then of course the little Middlecoff mailbag at John Middlecoff is the Instagram fire in those dms. We will yeah, I guess the game plan this week will just be shows and we'll just fire out. So look for podcasts. Make sure you subscribe to wherever you may listen to this podcast, Spotify, Apple, you name it. We got you covered audio. Video wise, we got a YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe to that as well, a lot of content up there. And let's talk a little football. But before we dive in to Jamis Winston, I do need to tell you about my friends, my partners, and the official ticketing app of this podcast, Game Time. What do you want to do? Do you want to go to Opening Day? Do you want to go to the Sweet sixteen? Do you want to go to a concert this summer? Do you want to do something fun? That's the key because sometimes in life the not need the hamster wheel that we all find ourselves on. We need to mix it up. And that is where game Time comes in because you can do anything. Get your wife, get your brother, get your best friend, buy several tickets for your children, and go enjoy a night out on the town, whether that's a basketball game, whether that's a concert, a comedy show. Just talking to my buddy Mark, He's like, I love going to comedy shows here in Arizona, Like, I got to check that out. I haven't been to a comedy show in a long time, and I would say this is the best ticketing app I've ever used by a country mile. And I've used every single major ticketing app that the Internet has ever produced, so highly recommend it. Take the guest work out of buying tickets with game Time. Download the Game Time App, create an account and use the code John for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply again, create an account, redeem the code John Joagen for twenty dollars off. Down the Game Time App today, last minute tickets, lowest prices guaranteed. Before we dive into those Bengals who day, I did want to talk about the signing of Jameis Winston to the Giants and what I think that's signals, And I think part of the I would say the setup of the NFL. You know, in basketball, the draft comes before free agency. Now, because free agency is so much more powerful with their names, the draft usually doesn't impact you. In football, it has a big impact now. Every once in a while you see a team sign Kirk Cousins and give him a hundred million dollars and then draft a quarterback with the eighth pick and everyone is shell shock. But for the most part, you can kind of, you know, put the pieces of the puzzle together. And there are some major question marks with some teams. What are you going to do? Ed quarterback? And on Friday it was reported Aaron Rodgers was in Pittsburgh spent all day, which I would imagine with guys like Mike Tomlin, Arthur Smith and other Pittsburgh Steeler brass. I think it's pretty clear that if Aaron Rodgers he has two options. He is going to retire or he's gonna be a Pittsburgh Steeler. Now the pie chart, I would say that feels like eighty percent Pittsburgh Steeler, twenty percent retirement and maybe even just eighteen percent retirement and then holding out hope some in OTA's they freak out about J. J. McCarthy and give Aaron Rodgers a call. I still think that's pretty unlikely at this point. Well, if Aaron Rodgers isn't going to the Giants, what are the Giants gonna do? And over the weekend, the betting favorite for the number two overall pick, it's pretty clear the Tennessee Titans are taking cam Ward Like that's period, point blank, end of story. They are taking that quarterback, and you could look at the free agent moves that they did not make to go, yeah, that's gonna happen. Then you look at number two, you're like, well, the Browns the Deshaun Watson situation as a disaster. He's got a torn achilles. They got Kenny Pickett somehow now on their team. What are the miles Garrett goes, I feel comfortable with what we're gonna do. No, Miles, they gave you one hundred and forty million dollars guaranteed and he took get Don't blame you, but it doesn't matter who's playing quarterback. When they threw that type of money at you because you had just demanded a trade. I do think it's my educated guess. Well, Kirk Cousins will end up being on the Cleveland Browns, but based on the betting odds, Abdul Carter looks like he's going to be the number two overall pick. So the Giants are sitting there at number three, and now they signed Jamis Winston. Pretty clear Aaron Rodgers is not coming their way. And I think when you look at John Morrow last year in that GM off season hard knocks like, he's no dummy. He knows from a business standpoint, it's not good to lose your best players. It's why he was adamant, like, listen, Saquan's our most popular player by far. And I've been in this operation long enough to know that kind of fucking matters. We've had some pretty popular players over the years, while we've won and while we've lost, and they helped drive this business because you know what, no one likes when the team sucks and you don't have any popular players and you look at you door Sanders like, one, they're desperate, they don't their quarterback situation and since Eli Bleft has not been good, and two like it would be good for business. And if I'm John, if I'm the owner, I'm like, hey, guys, we're taking Shador Sanders if he's there at three and based on the gambling odds, and I feel pretty confident that he's gonna be there. And I saw Albert Breer say this, you know the most unique thing about Shador Sanders is like he'd go third or fourth overall, or he could just plummet in the draft. I think when the dust settles, he'll end up being the third overall pick and be a New York Giant. And I think Jameis Winston, who has done one of the great turnarounds in the history of American sports, is just like the guy you kind of want in your locker room. He's positive, uplifting, just solid backup quarterback. Now, if you have to start him every game, you're gonna have problems. A lot of jokes on the internet that look for Malik Neighbors to have like seven thousand yards. But I think the best part of signing a guy like Jameis Winston. If you're the Giants and you draft Shador Sanders number three overall, you literally can do anything you want. You can start Jamis Winston week one and just kind of let it play out. You can just say there's an open competition. You can immediately name Shadoor Sanders the starting quarterback in training camp. Nothing matters in terms of his standing of anything being weird. So I also think this, you know where I stand on skill guys really high in the draft relative to lineman. But because this draft does not have any sure things. Besides, most people think Abdul Carter is just at worse going to be a solid pass rusher. There are a ton of question marks with the offensive linemen in this draft. It's pretty clear if you watch football the New England Patriots are desperate for some tackles. But you look around this draft and you go, I don't see many Lane Johnson's and Trent Williams, So I think you would have to take Travis hunterd F. So where I sit here on Sunday afternoon, if I was a betting man on the draft, I would go cam Ward one. I would go Abdul Carter two. I would go Shador Sanders three and Travis Hunter being four. Let's dive into the Cincinnati Bengals because I saw this tweet from my buddy Jake Rosenberg, who used to be Howie Roseman's right hand contract negotiator for well over a decade. At the end of my time there, he came in and up until last draft, so a little under a year ago, he worked with Ali Rosmen and he had worked in finance before and then he got into contract negotiation and he was running point on all this stuff for a decade plus. And he had a tweet yesterday that, let me pull it up right now, that got my brain moving so we started Texan. Here was the tweet. Reducing current cap numbers through extensive use of pro ration to pro rate the numbers provides a team free options with literally no downside. To purposely decide to not pro rate is indefensible. Help me understand the other side to this if I'm missing something. He's essentially saying, when you sign a big contract and you take the signing bonus, the guaranteed money, it makes no sense to not take that fifty million, eighty million, one hundred plus million. Obviously with the quarterbacks and pro rated over the life of the deal. So early on in those contracts, the cap number like a Justin Jefferson or Ceedee Lamb last year is actually much smaller than it would have been if they just would have played on their fifth year option. That's the benefit you have of signing these massive contracts is you can push it all down. The forty nine Ers and Eagles and Browns and these teams paying massive cash for these contracts over the last couple of years have made a living on doing that because it enables you to have high priced players, but you'll have wiggle room to compete and sign other guys. But the Cincinnati Bengals. Because I didn't quite know what he meant, so he started texting about it. He said, well, look at Jamar Chase Anti Higgins contracts. Their cap number in the first year is not very low. And I don't pretend to be some capologists, so I had to do some digging. I went to guys like Justin Jefferson and C. D. Lamb, who signed enormous contracts a lot like Jamar Chase last season. Here were their cap numbers, not their actual contracts, but the way it impacts the cap to enable you to pick up five percent, ten percent, whatever, more space to do more business with other people, and you never know, doesn't mean you have to sign someone right now, but something happens in the season, maybe a trade plays itself out, maybe over the course of the next year. Because you can roll over cap space, you can make an aggressive deal. Because the Cincinnati Bengals when they nine two players and took this victory lap on social media like it's some novel concept to pay one one of the best players in the league and another guy who's obviously really good is some crowning achievement. The more and more that I thought about it was kind of fucking embarrassing. This is not money that you've had to like put in hard work to generate. You're part of a partnership that generates billions of dollars. And whether you know what you're doing or not, in the business of the NFL, if you own the team, you get a free four four hundred and fifty million dollars every year. And I don't know the last time you checked, but the salary cap has never sniffed the amount of money that they're getting from these television partners And that doesn't even factor in anything game day tickets, all that other stuff, which the Bengals aren't gonna be the highest team in the league. But that's just free money. And the other thing is that when you factor in the Bengals who always push back, we're cheap, We're cheap. That's bullshit, that's bullshit. We paid Joe Burrow again, the this his money, whether you win one game or fifteen games every year, is coming to you no matter what. And because of the partnership agreement that you're in with the players, you have to split. I forget the exact number, forty nine fifty to fifty one percent has to go to them. So like you are in a partnership not only with the other teams in the league, but then with the players Association. So like money comes in, then you got to give half of it away. Right now, you can control how much of that cash is given to certain players. It's why the crazy part about the business of the NFL is like the money has to be paid out, yet as a player and your agent, you have to fight for those dollars. But I think with the Cincinnati Bengals, you go, well, listen, you give them all this money. You're in this win now mode. You can get their cap numbers really small. You can spend, extend. Trey Hendrickson how you could trade your first round pick for some sweet player, right, you could be really aggressive. But last year, Justin Jefferson, so I did some digging. I did a little typed in some names chat GPT contracts by track, and I looked at Justin Jefferson last year signed a massive, the biggest deal ever. His cap number in twenty twenty four was eight point six million dollars. His cap number in this upcoming season is fifteen million dollars. Ceedee Lamb basically the exact same eight point seven million dollars last year and this year fifteen point three million dollars. Now, look at the Minnesota Vikings, for example, they had all that cap space, even though they're paying this guy all that money. They rolled over this year and they're super aggressive and they start buying players. Then I look at Jamar Chase's number. So those guys in their first year of their big contract eight million dollars eight point six and eight point seven. Jamar Chase is twenty three point five and in their second year, both those guys are fifteen million. Jamar Chase is twenty six million dollars. So instead of pro rating it out, they've had bigger cap numbers. Why Because the faster you get to that one hundred percent, you'd be like, we don't have any more cash to spend, We don't have any more cap space to sign any players. Because ultimately the cap space, it's less about that and more about Mike Brown just giving out more signing bonuses to people. And again it's why it's so embarrassing about that victory lap that they took on social media. It's like, yeah, guys, you signed one of the best players you've ever drafted in Jamar Chase, and you gave him a lot of money, but then you didn't manipulate the cap like every fucking team worth their salt, because you tried to like have your cake and eat it too, like hey, we want credit, We're not gonna sign anyone else. And then T Higgins. T higgins cap number in twenty twenty five this upcoming season is actually bigger than Jamar Chase. Now, T Higgins didn't sign a contract like Chase, like Jefferson or Ceede Lamb. You could compare his contract much more like Brandon Ayuk. Well, last year, Brandon Ayuk who was gonna have to play in his fifth year option the moment they extended him. His cap number last year was five point seven million dollars. And Brandon Ayuk, who's driving the Niners nuts because they think he got over on them and they would trade them, but they can't get any value back. His cap number in twenty twenty five is eleven million dollars. So Higgins, while his cap number does go down in this fall, this next season, it's still almost twenty million dollars. So what they have done is they did pay these two guys, but they've also kept their cap numbers high, so it's like okay, Joe, like, yeah, you've got enough juice, you can boss us around and we'll take care of your two guys. But we're not going like Eagles, Niners, Vikings. We're just gonna give out all this cash to all these other players because at the end of the day, we are cheap. It's in our blood. I've said this forever. Super rich people that are really frugal, and I got no problem. If it's the patriarch Sam Walton, I just listen to Maid in America. It's like the story of Walmart. Notoriously cheap, right, but like that's his baby, he started from scratch. He can still relate to the times when they had no money. Like I'm sorry, Mike Brown, this is a family fucking business. You didn't buy this team, and now you guys have more money than you know what to do with, so still doing stuff like this. You're an unseerious franchise. You really are. You're an unseerious franchise that drafts pretty well. Obviously Burrow fell in your lap nailed that one. Jamar Chase, you get credit on that one because you could have taken Pine soool. Good pick to Higgins, excellent second round pick, But you want to have like milk and cookies because gave out some money that gets handed you through the league partners, Like I'm sorry not doing that, and when you factor in the numbers, like you don't need to be Howie Roseman here to go. They're kind of manipulating the books here, not in a way to take advantage of the situation like the Eagles have done forever. Why because they're owners willing to give out big cash, which the Niners have done the last couple of years, which they went six and eleven. They're own a freaked out. The Bengals ain't doing that and they'll never do that because as long as the Brown family owns the team, they will do stuff like this. Honestly, kind of embarrassing perhaps those two guys forgetting what they deserve. But and listen, the other thing with Higgins is like I like the guy, but like you want all this credit. I think a lot of people would go, is this the right business move? Or you're kind of getting you know, bitched around by Joe Burrow, which I totally understand you don't want to piss him off, but then you do it, and then you do it in a way where your team the best case scenario of the next couple of years can't be as good as they should because you just refuse, I don't know, to pro rate the contracts. Man, it's a disease. Man. Frugality with the super rich who did not earn the money is just it's just deep in their soul. Nothing you can do to fix that disease. Okay, let's end on this. George Foreman passed away. And I think there are certain people with every generation that you know not for what actually made them famous, right, Like John Madden. I don't remember when I learned that he was actually a coach, but it was well after I knew John Madden as being the guy with the video game and that called you know, forty nine Er games and Packer games and Cowboy games. That was a superstar on Fox. Then you're like, as you get older, honestly, it might have been a decade. It might have been until I was after high school that you're like, no, this guy used to coach with the Raiders, right, this guy was a legendary Raider coach in the seventies. But when you're coming up in the nineties. All you know is like, this is one of the most unique individuals ever on my television and my favorite video game. And I think George Foreman, for people in my generation, is known as the guy with the grill, not as the guy that was part of what many would consider I don't know where you would rank it, but probably the most famous fight of all time, definitely one of the biggest fights in the history of the sport, the Rumble in the Jungle against ma I'm and Ali, and George Foreman then parlayed that to become one of the great businessmen. I would say definitely in the nineties, but you could argue in the history of former athletes, and I just want to read you that really quick. I've always still had this theory because I'm a good example of I make my money with the modern day technology internet. Because of the cell phone, I'm able to monitorize my profession. If that twenty years ago this didn't even exist, I couldn't have and make a living off what I do now. It would have been in radio and I would have had to move city to city or figure out a way, right. But because of technology, which I'm very grateful for and it has its downfall social media, you name it. But without social media, the phone and those things, I would not be sitting here today being able to do this. I've always thought that, and listen, I think the Internet and everything that's going on, like I try to be a glass at full guy and be positive with everything that's associated with and be optimistic about his future even though it can drive us all nuts. If you were famous now because of the Internet, doesn't mean you're not famous. You could have millions of people follow you on social media and you can make a ton of money quote unquote being an influencer. But you could be a person making millions of dollars that me that you have no clue even exists. I do think that was really hard to do pre internet, and the fame of people pre internet was just dramatically bigger than what it is now. Because if you were famous in the fifties of the sixties, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, everyone knew who you were. When I was a kid, people like Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, whoever, right, obviously athletes, but musicians, the Kennedy, you name it. You can go and do any walk of life. Every single I could knock on every single door walking down the street, and every person that opened their door on my block, on the block down the street would know exactly who Michael Jackson was, or Robert F. Kennedy was, or Elvis Presley was. Now there are people you'd be like, Hey, this person's making twenty million dollars, They're a Bravo star. You and me couldn't point them out of a lineup. And honestly, some of these I could now because Marias wrote me in. But there are these people in all these different walks of life because of the Internet. That has changed the world. And George Foreman's fame in the nineties is something that we don't really see anymore, and sometimes I miss it. It's like we hear about shows, and there are some shows that I would say crossover, but like for the most part in the eighties or the nineties, everyone watched the same shows and we all had opinions on the same thing that we were all watching. It's what makes football so unique. It's the only thing in America now that can consistently get fifteen twenty thirty million people all sitting down at the same time and consuming that doesn't happen anymore, which is just part of modern day society. But I saw what's funny is I don't know when it was, but maybe a week ago. I saw something on George Foreman on Instagram and it was an interview series that he did with that gram guy that has like the Internet. He's also I think, I forget what channel he's on, but he interviews a bunch of famous former athletes and they were breaking down how much money George Foreman was making off the grill, and I was blown away. I knew the grill was a really big deal. And then over the last twenty four hours, once he passed away, I kind of just did some deep diving. One stat I saw on the George Foreman grill is that it was estimated between twelve to fifteen percent of America had the George Foreman grill. And this this is just from wikiped but it's pretty crazy how big George Foreman turned this grill into And if you are I would say twenty five or under you have, it's hard for you to comprehend how universally agreed upon every person just had a George Foreman grill. In their house. I don't remember many people that I grew up around not having it, and definitely as you got to college in the early to mid two thousands, it was a staple of every house, mainly because it just worked and it was really easy. I mean, it's actually one of the more practical inventions in recent memory. And then doing the deep dive, you realize that, like all these other celebrities tried to copy it. Evander Holyfield had this thing like the lean mean grilling machine. Clearly that didn't work. Jackie Chan tried one, A bunch of famous people tried it, but nothing was like this. And the worldwide popularity of the George Foreman grill has resulted in sales this from wiki of over one hundred million units since at first launch. I chat gpted it because I couldn't remember and it's a long time ago how much George Foreman grills were going for, and there were different models, but basically forty nine ninety nine to eighty nine ninety nine selling over one hundred million units. Although Foreman never confirmed exactly how much he earned from his endorsement, Salton Inc. Paid him one hundred and thirty eight million in nineteen ninety nine in order to buy out the right to use his name. So in nineteen ninety nine. This invention started in the early I think ninety three or ninety four, and he had become he had gotten royalties of it over those six or seven years, and then in nineteen ninety nine he was paid one hundred and thirty eight million dollars. I mean, it's a big deal now when Miles Garrett gets one hundred and thirty million dollars, one hundred and thirty eight million dollars in nineteen ninety nine. But here's the thing. Previous to that, he was being paid about forty percent of the profits of each grill sold, earning him about four point five million dollars a month at its peak. So there was a period of time, whether it was a year, a couple of years, he was making four to five and he said on the Instagram thing, He's like, I was making five million dollars a month. And then he eventually bought out for one hundred and forty million dollars. So it's estimated he made well over two hundred million dollars from his endorsement, a sum that is substantially more than he earned as a boxer. Obviously, he didn't earn that much as a boxer because in the seventies they weren't paying big freights. But and you know, George Foreman was a guy he lost to Ali and he never got a rematch. Was kind of crazy, but beat Joe Frazier, who obviously had some legendary fights with Muhammad Ali as well. But I think when we talk about influencers, and that's just a trendy term because it's real. I mean that there are people that push a lot of product as just quote unquote influence concers on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok. I mean, there's part of our show that you know there's an influencer element, but that's that's just the nature of the business. In as a podcaster, which used to be radio of the audio medium, but just someone who doesn't have a podcast or take TV star or whatever, I'm just I'm just a human and I'm just pushing a product. You could argue George Furman's one of the greatest salesmen in the history of America and the business deal that you know, whether he decided it, whether his manager did it. To originally get that forty percent of the profits to then parlay that into the power of his name. But like, this product not only worked, everyone had it. Honestly, fifteen percent feels a little low at least in my life, whether it be growing up or whether it be in college. And the other thing that the Grill had is it like crossed all demos, Like some items in life right are for either higher income households, lower income households, like whether you were rich, whether you're a middle class, whether you're a poor Like this fucking thing was a must have and our rip to a champion, you know that back it was before my time. But heavyweight boxing, I mean, how badass, how famous these guys that were just massive throwing blows. It's just kind of it's dead, but one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the history of professional athletes. When it comes to college basketball in March Mania, one thing is for sure. Nothing's for sure. Upsets, buzzer beaters, Cinderella's top seeds, going home early, It's all gonna happen. Bet the unexpected, every upset, every day with draftkingsport book with live betting, exclusive content, promos, and parlays. Draftking is the ultimate college basketball destination for March. 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What is going on everybody? How are we doing? John Middlecock three and out podcast recording Sunday night, watch the LENCAA tournament this weekend, play a little golf, and said, you know what, let's record a podcast for Monday morning. I didn't record along with Colin. It's like, I'm kind of juicing to get some takes out there and some stuff happened. Do you want to dive into some of the dominoes that are falling with the quarterbacks and the draft picks at the top, So we will dive into that. The Bengals signing their guys claim they're not cheap, but let's dive into the numbers. And then George Foreman passed away. I didn't want to dive in because some of you a lot of cheeseburgers over the years. The George Foreman grill was a huge part of my life, and I kind of did a deep dive this weekend. What an incredible entrepreneur George Foreman was. And then of course the little Middlecoff mailbag at John Middlecoff is the Instagram fire in those dms. We will yeah, I guess the game plan this week will just be shows and we'll just fire out. So look for podcasts. Make sure you subscribe to wherever you may listen to this podcast, Spotify, Apple, you name it. We got you covered audio. Video wise, we got a YouTube channel, make sure you subscribe to that as well, a lot of content up there. And let's talk a little football. But before we dive in to Jamis Winston, I do need to tell you about my friends, my partners, and the official ticketing app of this podcast, Game Time. What do you want to do? Do you want to go to Opening Day? Do you want to go to the Sweet sixteen? Do you want to go to a concert this summer? Do you want to do something fun? That's the key because sometimes in life the not need the hamster wheel that we all find ourselves on. We need to mix it up. And that is where game Time comes in because you can do anything. Get your wife, get your brother, get your best friend, buy several tickets for your children, and go enjoy a night out on the town, whether that's a basketball game, whether that's a concert, a comedy show. Just talking to my buddy Mark, He's like, I love going to comedy shows here in Arizona, Like, I got to check that out. I haven't been to a comedy show in a long time, and I would say this is the best ticketing app I've ever used by a country mile. And I've used every single major ticketing app that the Internet has ever produced, so highly recommend it. Take the guest work out of buying tickets with game Time. Download the Game Time App, create an account and use the code John for twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply again, create an account, redeem the code John Joagen for twenty dollars off. Down the Game Time App today, last minute tickets, lowest prices guaranteed. Before we dive into those Bengals who day, I did want to talk about the signing of Jameis Winston to the Giants and what I think that's signals, And I think part of the I would say the setup of the NFL. You know, in basketball, the draft comes before free agency. Now, because free agency is so much more powerful with their names, the draft usually doesn't impact you. In football, it has a big impact now. Every once in a while you see a team sign Kirk Cousins and give him a hundred million dollars and then draft a quarterback with the eighth pick and everyone is shell shock. But for the most part, you can kind of, you know, put the pieces of the puzzle together. And there are some major question marks with some teams. What are you going to do? Ed quarterback? And on Friday it was reported Aaron Rodgers was in Pittsburgh spent all day, which I would imagine with guys like Mike Tomlin, Arthur Smith and other Pittsburgh Steeler brass. I think it's pretty clear that if Aaron Rodgers he has two options. He is going to retire or he's gonna be a Pittsburgh Steeler. Now the pie chart, I would say that feels like eighty percent Pittsburgh Steeler, twenty percent retirement and maybe even just eighteen percent retirement and then holding out hope some in OTA's they freak out about J. J. McCarthy and give Aaron Rodgers a call. I still think that's pretty unlikely at this point. Well, if Aaron Rodgers isn't going to the Giants, what are the Giants gonna do? And over the weekend, the betting favorite for the number two overall pick, it's pretty clear the Tennessee Titans are taking cam Ward Like that's period, point blank, end of story. They are taking that quarterback, and you could look at the free agent moves that they did not make to go, yeah, that's gonna happen. Then you look at number two, you're like, well, the Browns the Deshaun Watson situation as a disaster. He's got a torn achilles. They got Kenny Pickett somehow now on their team. What are the miles Garrett goes, I feel comfortable with what we're gonna do. No, Miles, they gave you one hundred and forty million dollars guaranteed and he took get Don't blame you, but it doesn't matter who's playing quarterback. When they threw that type of money at you because you had just demanded a trade. I do think it's my educated guess. Well, Kirk Cousins will end up being on the Cleveland Browns, but based on the betting odds, Abdul Carter looks like he's going to be the number two overall pick. So the Giants are sitting there at number three, and now they signed Jamis Winston. Pretty clear Aaron Rodgers is not coming their way. And I think when you look at John Morrow last year in that GM off season hard knocks like, he's no dummy. He knows from a business standpoint, it's not good to lose your best players. It's why he was adamant, like, listen, Saquan's our most popular player by far. And I've been in this operation long enough to know that kind of fucking matters. We've had some pretty popular players over the years, while we've won and while we've lost, and they helped drive this business because you know what, no one likes when the team sucks and you don't have any popular players and you look at you door Sanders like, one, they're desperate, they don't their quarterback situation and since Eli Bleft has not been good, and two like it would be good for business. And if I'm John, if I'm the owner, I'm like, hey, guys, we're taking Shador Sanders if he's there at three and based on the gambling odds, and I feel pretty confident that he's gonna be there. And I saw Albert Breer say this, you know the most unique thing about Shador Sanders is like he'd go third or fourth overall, or he could just plummet in the draft. I think when the dust settles, he'll end up being the third overall pick and be a New York Giant. And I think Jameis Winston, who has done one of the great turnarounds in the history of American sports, is just like the guy you kind of want in your locker room. He's positive, uplifting, just solid backup quarterback. Now, if you have to start him every game, you're gonna have problems. A lot of jokes on the internet that look for Malik Neighbors to have like seven thousand yards. But I think the best part of signing a guy like Jameis Winston. If you're the Giants and you draft Shador Sanders number three overall, you literally can do anything you want. You can start Jamis Winston week one and just kind of let it play out. You can just say there's an open competition. You can immediately name Shadoor Sanders the starting quarterback in training camp. Nothing matters in terms of his standing of anything being weird. So I also think this, you know where I stand on skill guys really high in the draft relative to lineman. But because this draft does not have any sure things. Besides, most people think Abdul Carter is just at worse going to be a solid pass rusher. There are a ton of question marks with the offensive linemen in this draft. It's pretty clear if you watch football the New England Patriots are desperate for some tackles. But you look around this draft and you go, I don't see many Lane Johnson's and Trent Williams, So I think you would have to take Travis hunterd F. So where I sit here on Sunday afternoon, if I was a betting man on the draft, I would go cam Ward one. I would go Abdul Carter two. I would go Shador Sanders three and Travis Hunter being four. Let's dive into the Cincinnati Bengals because I saw this tweet from my buddy Jake Rosenberg, who used to be Howie Roseman's right hand contract negotiator for well over a decade. At the end of my time there, he came in and up until last draft, so a little under a year ago, he worked with Ali Rosmen and he had worked in finance before and then he got into contract negotiation and he was running point on all this stuff for a decade plus. And he had a tweet yesterday that, let me pull it up right now, that got my brain moving so we started Texan. Here was the tweet. Reducing current cap numbers through extensive use of pro ration to pro rate the numbers provides a team free options with literally no downside. To purposely decide to not pro rate is indefensible. Help me understand the other side to this if I'm missing something. He's essentially saying, when you sign a big contract and you take the signing bonus, the guaranteed money, it makes no sense to not take that fifty million, eighty million, one hundred plus million. Obviously with the quarterbacks and pro rated over the life of the deal. So early on in those contracts, the cap number like a Justin Jefferson or Ceedee Lamb last year is actually much smaller than it would have been if they just would have played on their fifth year option. That's the benefit you have of signing these massive contracts is you can push it all down. The forty nine Ers and Eagles and Browns and these teams paying massive cash for these contracts over the last couple of years have made a living on doing that because it enables you to have high priced players, but you'll have wiggle room to compete and sign other guys. But the Cincinnati Bengals. Because I didn't quite know what he meant, so he started texting about it. He said, well, look at Jamar Chase Anti Higgins contracts. Their cap number in the first year is not very low. And I don't pretend to be some capologists, so I had to do some digging. I went to guys like Justin Jefferson and C. D. Lamb, who signed enormous contracts a lot like Jamar Chase last season. Here were their cap numbers, not their actual contracts, but the way it impacts the cap to enable you to pick up five percent, ten percent, whatever, more space to do more business with other people, and you never know, doesn't mean you have to sign someone right now, but something happens in the season, maybe a trade plays itself out, maybe over the course of the next year. Because you can roll over cap space, you can make an aggressive deal. Because the Cincinnati Bengals when they nine two players and took this victory lap on social media like it's some novel concept to pay one one of the best players in the league and another guy who's obviously really good is some crowning achievement. The more and more that I thought about it was kind of fucking embarrassing. This is not money that you've had to like put in hard work to generate. You're part of a partnership that generates billions of dollars. And whether you know what you're doing or not, in the business of the NFL, if you own the team, you get a free four four hundred and fifty million dollars every year. And I don't know the last time you checked, but the salary cap has never sniffed the amount of money that they're getting from these television partners And that doesn't even factor in anything game day tickets, all that other stuff, which the Bengals aren't gonna be the highest team in the league. But that's just free money. And the other thing is that when you factor in the Bengals who always push back, we're cheap, We're cheap. That's bullshit, that's bullshit. We paid Joe Burrow again, the this his money, whether you win one game or fifteen games every year, is coming to you no matter what. And because of the partnership agreement that you're in with the players, you have to split. I forget the exact number, forty nine fifty to fifty one percent has to go to them. So like you are in a partnership not only with the other teams in the league, but then with the players Association. So like money comes in, then you got to give half of it away. Right now, you can control how much of that cash is given to certain players. It's why the crazy part about the business of the NFL is like the money has to be paid out, yet as a player and your agent, you have to fight for those dollars. But I think with the Cincinnati Bengals, you go, well, listen, you give them all this money. You're in this win now mode. You can get their cap numbers really small. You can spend, extend. Trey Hendrickson how you could trade your first round pick for some sweet player, right, you could be really aggressive. But last year, Justin Jefferson, so I did some digging. I did a little typed in some names chat GPT contracts by track, and I looked at Justin Jefferson last year signed a massive, the biggest deal ever. His cap number in twenty twenty four was eight point six million dollars. His cap number in this upcoming season is fifteen million dollars. Ceedee Lamb basically the exact same eight point seven million dollars last year and this year fifteen point three million dollars. Now, look at the Minnesota Vikings, for example, they had all that cap space, even though they're paying this guy all that money. They rolled over this year and they're super aggressive and they start buying players. Then I look at Jamar Chase's number. So those guys in their first year of their big contract eight million dollars eight point six and eight point seven. Jamar Chase is twenty three point five and in their second year, both those guys are fifteen million. Jamar Chase is twenty six million dollars. So instead of pro rating it out, they've had bigger cap numbers. Why Because the faster you get to that one hundred percent, you'd be like, we don't have any more cash to spend, We don't have any more cap space to sign any players. Because ultimately the cap space, it's less about that and more about Mike Brown just giving out more signing bonuses to people. And again it's why it's so embarrassing about that victory lap that they took on social media. It's like, yeah, guys, you signed one of the best players you've ever drafted in Jamar Chase, and you gave him a lot of money, but then you didn't manipulate the cap like every fucking team worth their salt, because you tried to like have your cake and eat it too, like hey, we want credit, We're not gonna sign anyone else. And then T Higgins. T higgins cap number in twenty twenty five this upcoming season is actually bigger than Jamar Chase. Now, T Higgins didn't sign a contract like Chase, like Jefferson or Ceede Lamb. You could compare his contract much more like Brandon Ayuk. Well, last year, Brandon Ayuk who was gonna have to play in his fifth year option the moment they extended him. His cap number last year was five point seven million dollars. And Brandon Ayuk, who's driving the Niners nuts because they think he got over on them and they would trade them, but they can't get any value back. His cap number in twenty twenty five is eleven million dollars. So Higgins, while his cap number does go down in this fall, this next season, it's still almost twenty million dollars. So what they have done is they did pay these two guys, but they've also kept their cap numbers high, so it's like okay, Joe, like, yeah, you've got enough juice, you can boss us around and we'll take care of your two guys. But we're not going like Eagles, Niners, Vikings. We're just gonna give out all this cash to all these other players because at the end of the day, we are cheap. It's in our blood. I've said this forever. Super rich people that are really frugal, and I got no problem. If it's the patriarch Sam Walton, I just listen to Maid in America. It's like the story of Walmart. Notoriously cheap, right, but like that's his baby, he started from scratch. He can still relate to the times when they had no money. Like I'm sorry, Mike Brown, this is a family fucking business. You didn't buy this team, and now you guys have more money than you know what to do with, so still doing stuff like this. You're an unseerious franchise. You really are. You're an unseerious franchise that drafts pretty well. Obviously Burrow fell in your lap nailed that one. Jamar Chase, you get credit on that one because you could have taken Pine soool. Good pick to Higgins, excellent second round pick, But you want to have like milk and cookies because gave out some money that gets handed you through the league partners, Like I'm sorry not doing that, and when you factor in the numbers, like you don't need to be Howie Roseman here to go. They're kind of manipulating the books here, not in a way to take advantage of the situation like the Eagles have done forever. Why because they're owners willing to give out big cash, which the Niners have done the last couple of years, which they went six and eleven. They're own a freaked out. The Bengals ain't doing that and they'll never do that because as long as the Brown family owns the team, they will do stuff like this. Honestly, kind of embarrassing perhaps those two guys forgetting what they deserve. But and listen, the other thing with Higgins is like I like the guy, but like you want all this credit. I think a lot of people would go, is this the right business move? Or you're kind of getting you know, bitched around by Joe Burrow, which I totally understand you don't want to piss him off, but then you do it, and then you do it in a way where your team the best case scenario of the next couple of years can't be as good as they should because you just refuse, I don't know, to pro rate the contracts. Man, it's a disease. Man. Frugality with the super rich who did not earn the money is just it's just deep in their soul. Nothing you can do to fix that disease. Okay, let's end on this. George Foreman passed away. And I think there are certain people with every generation that you know not for what actually made them famous, right, Like John Madden. I don't remember when I learned that he was actually a coach, but it was well after I knew John Madden as being the guy with the video game and that called you know, forty nine Er games and Packer games and Cowboy games. That was a superstar on Fox. Then you're like, as you get older, honestly, it might have been a decade. It might have been until I was after high school that you're like, no, this guy used to coach with the Raiders, right, this guy was a legendary Raider coach in the seventies. But when you're coming up in the nineties. All you know is like, this is one of the most unique individuals ever on my television and my favorite video game. And I think George Foreman, for people in my generation, is known as the guy with the grill, not as the guy that was part of what many would consider I don't know where you would rank it, but probably the most famous fight of all time, definitely one of the biggest fights in the history of the sport, the Rumble in the Jungle against ma I'm and Ali, and George Foreman then parlayed that to become one of the great businessmen. I would say definitely in the nineties, but you could argue in the history of former athletes, and I just want to read you that really quick. I've always still had this theory because I'm a good example of I make my money with the modern day technology internet. Because of the cell phone, I'm able to monitorize my profession. If that twenty years ago this didn't even exist, I couldn't have and make a living off what I do now. It would have been in radio and I would have had to move city to city or figure out a way, right. But because of technology, which I'm very grateful for and it has its downfall social media, you name it. But without social media, the phone and those things, I would not be sitting here today being able to do this. I've always thought that, and listen, I think the Internet and everything that's going on, like I try to be a glass at full guy and be positive with everything that's associated with and be optimistic about his future even though it can drive us all nuts. If you were famous now because of the Internet, doesn't mean you're not famous. You could have millions of people follow you on social media and you can make a ton of money quote unquote being an influencer. But you could be a person making millions of dollars that me that you have no clue even exists. I do think that was really hard to do pre internet, and the fame of people pre internet was just dramatically bigger than what it is now. Because if you were famous in the fifties of the sixties, Elvis Presley, John Wayne, Frank Sinatra, everyone knew who you were. When I was a kid, people like Michael Jackson, Michael Jordan, whoever, right, obviously athletes, but musicians, the Kennedy, you name it. You can go and do any walk of life. Every single I could knock on every single door walking down the street, and every person that opened their door on my block, on the block down the street would know exactly who Michael Jackson was, or Robert F. Kennedy was, or Elvis Presley was. Now there are people you'd be like, Hey, this person's making twenty million dollars, They're a Bravo star. You and me couldn't point them out of a lineup. And honestly, some of these I could now because Marias wrote me in. But there are these people in all these different walks of life because of the Internet. That has changed the world. And George Foreman's fame in the nineties is something that we don't really see anymore, and sometimes I miss it. It's like we hear about shows, and there are some shows that I would say crossover, but like for the most part in the eighties or the nineties, everyone watched the same shows and we all had opinions on the same thing that we were all watching. It's what makes football so unique. It's the only thing in America now that can consistently get fifteen twenty thirty million people all sitting down at the same time and consuming that doesn't happen anymore, which is just part of modern day society. But I saw what's funny is I don't know when it was, but maybe a week ago. I saw something on George Foreman on Instagram and it was an interview series that he did with that gram guy that has like the Internet. He's also I think, I forget what channel he's on, but he interviews a bunch of famous former athletes and they were breaking down how much money George Foreman was making off the grill, and I was blown away. I knew the grill was a really big deal. And then over the last twenty four hours, once he passed away, I kind of just did some deep diving. One stat I saw on the George Foreman grill is that it was estimated between twelve to fifteen percent of America had the George Foreman grill. And this this is just from wikiped but it's pretty crazy how big George Foreman turned this grill into And if you are I would say twenty five or under you have, it's hard for you to comprehend how universally agreed upon every person just had a George Foreman grill. In their house. I don't remember many people that I grew up around not having it, and definitely as you got to college in the early to mid two thousands, it was a staple of every house, mainly because it just worked and it was really easy. I mean, it's actually one of the more practical inventions in recent memory. And then doing the deep dive, you realize that, like all these other celebrities tried to copy it. Evander Holyfield had this thing like the lean mean grilling machine. Clearly that didn't work. Jackie Chan tried one, A bunch of famous people tried it, but nothing was like this. And the worldwide popularity of the George Foreman grill has resulted in sales this from wiki of over one hundred million units since at first launch. I chat gpted it because I couldn't remember and it's a long time ago how much George Foreman grills were going for, and there were different models, but basically forty nine ninety nine to eighty nine ninety nine selling over one hundred million units. Although Foreman never confirmed exactly how much he earned from his endorsement, Salton Inc. Paid him one hundred and thirty eight million in nineteen ninety nine in order to buy out the right to use his name. So in nineteen ninety nine. This invention started in the early I think ninety three or ninety four, and he had become he had gotten royalties of it over those six or seven years, and then in nineteen ninety nine he was paid one hundred and thirty eight million dollars. I mean, it's a big deal now when Miles Garrett gets one hundred and thirty million dollars, one hundred and thirty eight million dollars in nineteen ninety nine. But here's the thing. Previous to that, he was being paid about forty percent of the profits of each grill sold, earning him about four point five million dollars a month at its peak. So there was a period of time, whether it was a year, a couple of years, he was making four to five and he said on the Instagram thing, He's like, I was making five million dollars a month. And then he eventually bought out for one hundred and forty million dollars. So it's estimated he made well over two hundred million dollars from his endorsement, a sum that is substantially more than he earned as a boxer. Obviously, he didn't earn that much as a boxer because in the seventies they weren't paying big freights. But and you know, George Foreman was a guy he lost to Ali and he never got a rematch. Was kind of crazy, but beat Joe Frazier, who obviously had some legendary fights with Muhammad Ali as well. But I think when we talk about influencers, and that's just a trendy term because it's real. I mean that there are people that push a lot of product as just quote unquote influence concers on YouTube, on Instagram, on TikTok. I mean, there's part of our show that you know there's an influencer element, but that's that's just the nature of the business. In as a podcaster, which used to be radio of the audio medium, but just someone who doesn't have a podcast or take TV star or whatever, I'm just I'm just a human and I'm just pushing a product. You could argue George Furman's one of the greatest salesmen in the history of America and the business deal that you know, whether he decided it, whether his manager did it. To originally get that forty percent of the profits to then parlay that into the power of his name. But like, this product not only worked, everyone had it. Honestly, fifteen percent feels a little low at least in my life, whether it be growing up or whether it be in college. And the other thing that the Grill had is it like crossed all demos, Like some items in life right are for either higher income households, lower income households, like whether you were rich, whether you're a middle class, whether you're a poor Like this fucking thing was a must have and our rip to a champion, you know that back it was before my time. But heavyweight boxing, I mean, how badass, how famous these guys that were just massive throwing blows. It's just kind of it's dead, but one of the greatest entrepreneurs in the history of professional athletes. When it comes to college basketball in March Mania, one thing is for sure. Nothing's for sure. Upsets, buzzer beaters, Cinderella's top seeds, going home early, It's all gonna happen. Bet the unexpected, every upset, every day with draftkingsport book with live betting, exclusive content, promos, and parlays. Draftking is the ultimate college basketball destination for March. 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Okay, let's do a little thing we like to call the Middlecoff mail bag at John Middlecoff. At John Middlecoff is the Instagram. Fire in those dms and get your questions answered here on the show. I got a lot of them. So again I say it all the time. If you have DM me and I have missed your your question, sometimes you got to reping me, you know, getting married? I got so many dms, and it's just all it's not as fluid as it usually is in Instagram. Naturally, isn't exactly. I can excel spreadsheet where it's easy to kind of sort, so it's I kind of got to do it manually, which you know that's the toughest thing you gotta do all day. I don't I don't get to complain, but I know a lot of you guys. If you're gonna spend effort or energy to shoot me a DM with a question, I do want to try to answer it. So just sometimes reping me. We will start with with Lauren. Am I the only one who thinks the conversation around Dion becoming a coach in the NFL is a bit ridiculous. All the credit in the world for turning around an embarrassing program in just one season, but two first season didn't go that well. But I hear you, No, Sean, I enjoyed watching Colorado, but the idea of him taking over an NFL head coaching job seems kind of nuts. Schematically, he doesn't bring much to the table, and I think most of his success in college comes from his ability to recruit top talent though his fame and notoriety, plus I find it hard to imagine NFL players responding well to his leadership style. Do you think this is just immediate driven conversation or do you actually see real value in hiring him as a head coach? Also, could that affect Shador's draft status? No, uh, I don't think Dion's impact store people geta draft because I think he can play, you know, I think the Dion impacts a little overrated unless he like you know, pulled an Archie Manning, but just like him around, I don't think has much, if any impact. Uh. I would say that Dion shot that downon I mean, Dian I had to talk with Jerry Jones, who he's known for thirty plus years, right when he signed there in whatever ninety five ninety six. Dion says he has no desires to coach in the NFL. He does not want to do that, and and I forget you know exactly what he said, but like part of it, like what he brings the table is the impact if you watch, you know, I fall Colorado on social media and stuff like his His impact and the stuff he likes talking about is much closer to I don't know, the Sabans and the you know, he played for Bobby Bowden. I envisioned him being a college head coach for a long time and I actually think they were one of the more fascinating teams to watch this season now with Shador and Travis gone, Like if they are good, honestly, they go seven and five, they win eight games. I think he is getting a job in the SEC. I mean, I would guess unless Colorado just implodes, which I don't think they're gonna do. You know, he brought a Marshall Fulkes now his running back coach. Their d line was way better, while he hired Warren Sapp. My guess is he's in the SEC in a couple of years. So yeah, I just he pushed back against that what's he supposed to do now? Pick up Jerry's call, you know. I mean, but I I envisioned him. I mean, he could he get a job at Florida or Florida State or LSU or something the next couple of years pays him fourteen million dollars a year and he can pay all his buddies on his staff huge cash. So I I envision him as a college coach for a while, which I give him a lot of credit for doing this. It's one thing, the power of coaching your sons, which essentially I would put Travis Hunter under that umbrella too, And that's the way they talk about it. So Travis Chador's his sons, quarterback Shiloh now that they're gone, I mean they're all gone for him still to have the passion and if he's gonna do this, and if he does it for a long time, he does not need to be doing this, like he's pretty rich, get So I give him a lot of credit if he just does this for a long time, because he's giving back to a game that let's face it, a lot of super famous rich people don't necessarily do it. I don't blame anyone if they just want to retire and hang out. But a lot of people could bring a lot of value and they just refuse any of these Hall of Fame, super rich players that either go into front offices or coaching in college or the pros. Like that's like their love of the sport runs deep. Your podcast is a lifeline while trucking. My question for the pod is how long do bus quarterbacks bounce around the league until they just disappear. I feel like the dust has settled and only people who are gonna have a decent career is Sam Darnold and Baker Mayfield. You know, there's always a curve ball. There's always a guy that's been a backup for a while that gets an opportunity that excels, right. I mean, it's happened historically. Kurt Warner is the best example who was like a fringe nobody and then got his chance in his late twenties. Rich Gannon going back to the to the late nineties is another guy that bounced around. Jim Plunkett was a guy who bounced around forever and then won a Super Bowl with the Raiders. So I think you just never know, Like could Zack Wilson or I almost said Mac Jones, I don't even believe that. But Zach Wilson's probably a bad exam who else I you know, he's getting backup jobs now, I'm trying to think. Yeah, I mean it's it's very unlikely, so we could go through a period of time where it does not happen. But I would agree that where we sit here right now and Sam Donald like has to play well to sustain this, Like Baker Mayfield is starting quarterback for the foreseeable future. Beaker Mayfield is a really good player, Like he's done this a couple of years now, and he had one really good year in Cleveland, Like Baker Mayfield is just a good player. Like you can't even argue Donald. I'm pro Donald, but it's if he has a bad year this year, I mean, we could look back and it happened sometimes in sports like outlier used to happen a lot in the steroid era, Like there'd be a random dude that would hit like fifty eight bombs, Like where'd that come from? It's like Mexico Horse steroids, Humble Chiefs fan, It's clear the Eagles are on a whole other level with that ass whooping served up in the Super Bowl. My question is how long do you think the Eagles can keep this train rolling. We saw them offload some older defensive players Sleigh Brandon Graham retired, but have seemingly already drafted their replacements that are playing out of their minds year one. As we saw on top of Vic seemingly unlocking Jalen Carter, they locked up Barkley and have all the other notable offensive pieces under contract for the foreseeable future. I think the limit of this Eagles dynasty window is completely dependent on how long the Eagles front office is willing to keep the game together. Yeah. I mean, they're gonna be They're gonna be really, really good. I actually think the only question mark this upcoming season is just the guy calling place. You know, I don't know exactly Kevin Potolo. If I'm saying his name wrong and he's listening, I apologize, Kevin, but listen, that's a pretty big transition. Felt like Callen had a pretty good feel for running the ball and Jalen and just managing those personalities with Nick. But like the offense, I mean, there's just a lot of pressure in that city, and it's like it's one of the places where there's not like a huge celebratory You don't just get a free year, Like if they start one and two, people would be freaking out. So it's a it's a unique place with the pressure, but there's no The talent on their roster is just immense. And like you said, well they lost some depth. You know, Darius Slay is still a solid player, but you you weren't gonna pay him whatever fifteen million dollars. So I would imagine they drafted another corner right that they will need to. They'll draft defensive lineman. But like that's Vicks kind of his go to thing, the ability to coach those guys up and offensively, even if the OC is a little bumpy. Their team is just so stacked. And here's the thing. When Jalen gets a little off kilter, which he's been known to do, just hand the ball to twenty. It's like, well, who's blocking for him, I don't know, probably the best offensive line in the league. It's like, that's what they have in their back pocket. When the passing game gets weird, hand the ball off and then hand the ball off again, and then hand it off again. So my guess is the Eagles will draft defensive lineman. Wouldn't shock me if they drafted a running back at all, not super high, but like in the third round, just to give Barkley some blows and have like, get that young run. This running back class is so deep. Have him around Saquon Barkley, let him teach him. So yeah, I mean, I think Eagles are gonna be good, man, I do. I think the Lions, when they're fully healthy, you're gonna be good, you know. I think the Vikings are just one of the great wild cards just because we the quarterback. I don't I don't feel comfortable saying like, yeah, they're just right there. Like JJ McCarthy, can he just go toe to toe with the Lions and the Eagles and the Rams. I don't think. I wouldn't right up the Niners just yet. Uh, Packers too. I mean the NFC's it's not as star studded as the AFC with Mahomes and Josh and Lamar, but the teams are good. I mean the teams, let's face it, The teams in the NFC, I feel like, are better than the teams in the a FC depth wise. I mean, the Steelers made the playoffs. I think the Packers are better than the Steelers, right, and that Bronco team, Like, I like, now those teams are gonna be better. But like, the Vikings were the fifth seed, the Rams were the six. I mean the Rams were the fourth seed. Who was the it was the Who? Am I missing? Packers? The Vikings? And am I missing a team? Tampa? My brain's not working. It's crazy. You just start some of your details. You're like, well, who Tampa played? Yeah, they played them, they played the Rams. I am missing the team though, because the Rams played the Eagles, So that's the two seven. The Vikings played the Rams. That was the four to five, and I guess the Rams the Packers. It's crazy. I feel like, like do I even follow this league? Let's do a quick check. Who I miss? Oh? The Commanders Tampa? Yeah, the Commanders. I forgot about the Commanders. My bad. It's funny when you haven't been in the mix, you forgot about. They won't be forgotten about because they're gonna be good again. The older I get, the more practical I become. I don't have that third beer. I gravitate to my briefs instead of boxer briefs. I don't want my team to always make the sexy draft pick or free agent pickup. How do teams decide whether they swing for the fences first, the safe depth pick? Thanks, John, Uh, that's a good question. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer on that, you know, I think you allocate resources, whether it's free agency, it's like, would we be willing to go in on this, and then sometimes there's a bidding war and you just pull out. I think I saw, you know, the Panthers were all in on Milton Williams and then they got to a number and they're just like, yeah, we're out. And the Patriots went to a place that they weren't willing to go. And I gotta be honest, like if I was the Panthers, like, I'm not paying Milton Williams twenty six million dollars. I'm just not doing it. The Patriots, you could argue that, and I like Milton Williams. That contract's crazy. You're giving a guy. I think they gave him fifty million dollars guaranteed. He's never played more than fifty percent of the staffs. He's like one big breakout year, like that's sometimes you get money, Like I'll go back to this guy mcglinchy. I remember when the Broncos a couple years ago gave h mclinchy fifty million dollars guaranteed. I'm like, that's insane. But no one's ever said, you know what, but Glinchy only plays fifty percents of snaps. No, Glinchy was a full time starter for five years on the San Fransco forty nine ers on a teams that were winning. So it's like, yeah, I wouldn't want to pay him that much money to be my starting right tackle. Hell, I wouldn't even want to starting right tackle. But like I get it, Mounton Williams like, well, can you carry us? Can you get nine sacks in a year? Can you be a pro bowler? These aren't just unknowns, they're like unlikely. So yeah, I think there's probably a balance between like drawing a line in the sand in terms of free agency or trades, like there are probably other teams. I heard of a really good team in the AFC, a really good team that was talking about Laramie Tunzel. But guess what Houston told them. They had to pay way more than Washington had to pay for Laramie Tunzel, which I totally understand why because we'll probably see in the playoffs. Hell, we might play in the regular season, we play you every year, right, we'd have to go through you, So that team's like, well, we can't do this. It was much easier for the Commanders, right, who probably paid I don't know, thirty percent less to pull the trigger. Easy move for them. For the other teams like we really need this guy, but holy shit, that's a lot to ask. So I think the more confident you are with your operation, I think the more patient you are in some of these situations. But there's not a right or wrong way to do things, because sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I bet there were people thinking that how he gave you, Well, you're gonna give Saquon a multi year deal last year. I bet there are people around the league that were like, that's a stupid deal. That's not gonna work out. Hey, John got a mailback question about players injuries and their recovery. It always amazes me how quickly guys in the NFL can recover well. I was at College University in the UK. I played D line and linebacker, for the team. God, you guys had a little u uni as we call it in the UK. I didn't know you guys. You guys play American football in Europe in college even though it's probably the least competitive level of American football. You can play anywhere in the world, and guys are nowhere near NFL size. Injuries are still a huge problem. After I got a pick, I got tackled by one of my own alignment and I fractured my kneecap and completely tore my MCL. This took me out about a year to recover from, and then I re injured it when I came back for my final year. Yet NFL guys will have similar injuries and recover in half the time. Is it purely that NFL guys have insane genetics which allow them to recover or is it because the top level medical treatment they receive. Would love to hear your thoughts. Well, I would say genetically pro athletes are the cream of the crop right in terms of athletic genes. So I've always been blown away by guys in college basketball, and definitely the NBA that have these ankle sprains where it looks like it blow out their ankle. I mean, Lebron's king of this, and then we'll just come back so their body can contort in levels in ways that ninety nine percent of humans cannot by far their medical treatment. When I hear of friends that tore an achilles skiing or tore their acl playing pick up soft you know, softball or pick up basketball or whatever, they go to treatment like a quote unquote rehab maybe once or twice a week. I remember my dad tore his patell attendant when I was like, I was probably thirteen fourteen years old, and I remember he like his you'd go to rehab a couple of times a week. I mean it was bad. And this was you know, mid nineties, the recovery on bad knee injuries. And this guy is just you know, my dad was a farmer, used to like play a little golf and tennis, you know, in his older age. But after this happened, he kind of set him back, and he definitely was never the same. And as he got older, his knee was really bad. He probably needed a knee replacement. But like I remember him going to just being a kid and he'd like take me to practice or whatever. I'd just drive around with him, and he'd go to do the rehab and I remember going with a couple of times, but it was like once or twice a week. When you get injured in the NFL, you go do treatment, and you hear coaches use that word treatment every single day, multiple times a day, and you bring it home to you. So I think the rehabilitation process of an injury of a normal human, let's just pick a number, is it. Let's just say it's at ten. The rehabilitation process for a professional athlete in the NFL is like one thousand in terms of how meticulous. Now, it doesn't mean everyone follows it, but like the serious people that take their job seriously and want to get back, and sometimes younger athletes recover faster, but like an older guy who's it could make or break his career, I mean probably will lose sleep over it. I mean, look at Rogers last year for his achilles, Like, you took it really, really seriously. If I tore my achilles, like, I'm not getting up at four am and you know, middle of the night to get treatment at my house. So I think that's a huge, huge part of it. Obviously, their bodies are better and The other thing is if you if you get injured. Let's just say you're a thirty eight year old playing pickup hoops and you tear your achilles or have a bad knee injury. Like what's your body type? Like you got a couple of kids, you gotta dad bod. You're in decent shape, Like when you get hurt as an NFL player, like you do have a body of armor that you've built up training, right, so it's like you are more physically your ability to take you know, a hit that might have actually been way worse. Like sometimes whenever you play that game with like your buddies, if the whole parted like the Red Sea, could you gain five yards? It's like, yeah, well some people could. But what happens when Dre Greenlaw meets you in the hole? What happens when Jalen Carter picks you up and throws you to the ground. Because when that happens to Alvin Kamara or Saquon Barkley or whoever, like they just get back up. But if that happened to you or me or just normal humans, you would probably shatter bones. So I mean there are probably a lot of hits these guys take that would cut injuries for people that aren't training at their level. I mean the physicality of the NFL is I've only been on the field of an actual Sunday game a couple times in my life, and I've spent obviously a lot of time before that at practices, I mean seeing live drills. I was on the field in college at Fresnel State, but the NFL is a different animal, and I remember thinking like this is it's crazy more people don't get injured. To be honest with you, with the speed and violence of these guys. Do you see Spy Tech and Carroll going genty? Since Carol loves running ball backs, I prefer Will Campbell or defensive line. Like I said, someone hit me up recently because they you know, not critical, but but I'm just acknowledging he's five foot eight. So how often does a five foot eight player go in the top ten? And someone said, well, you know, there was once a guy that people questioned his body and it turned out he was a Hall of Famer and it was Derrick Henry. Was he too tall? I said, well, uh, I think teams would rather lean is the guy too big than too small? Now, I do think Derrick Henry was a fair comparison, or excuse me, a fair like the scouting community, because he was so tall and upright, and he played at such a power program. It was a very unique evaluation, right. I don't think Genty is that complicated. He's a really good player, but he did play a smaller school and he is small, so I do think there were just questions that there are questions with basically like every prospect. Ever, if I was the Raiders, I one not pick him because I would just use my second or third round pick on a running back. I would pick the best player on the board, whether that's Mason Graham, whether that's whoever that is, assuming that some of the you know, Travis Hunter's off the board, a duel, Carter's off the board. The Rams running back has been third in rushing, behind only Saquon and Derrick Henry. He seems to have a fumbling issue. Do you think the Rams should entertain moving on from him? Seeing as they seem to be going all in? Some of you younger folk won't remember this, but there was once a running back with the New York Giants named Tiki Barber, and he had a fumbling problem. And I forget exactly what they did. Older giants fans would know this, but they like emphasized it hardcore, and he felt like he turned it around and he stopped fumbling as much. And I think that it is a teachable unless he like lacks grip pressure that you can do some sort of like measuring you some device to measure that, like he'll never be able to hold onto the ball at whatever the average level is to sustain decent ball security. I do think it's a teachable thing. I would just have him, you know, in some of it's not the jugs machine, but it's that device where the where the things like hit bounce off you. I would constantly be hitting it. Anyone that watched the program, you know you can basically just you carry football everywhere you go. You know. Obviously the program, he carried it to class. But there's a famous scene where they hit it out when he's falling asleep in the lecture hall, which is a great scene. And then all they're all falling down the lecture hall stairs and then somehow he ends up under the the table where the professor is and he comes out with the ball. But I would not get rid of Kerwin Williams just because I would coach it up. Why am I paying Sean mcvag twenty million dollars in his assistance seven figures? This coordinator's a lot of money. Let's let's coach these guys up. Baby. With the Cooper Cup situation, they couldn't restructure his contract and just let him get some and let him get some money back. Sometimes human beings want out of business with whoever they're in business with. Why do people break up? They didn't want to be in the Cooper Cup business anymore. Obviously the money factored in, but they just were over it. They were over depending on an older player who was breaking down. Basically, I think the easiest way to look at it is they looked at him like a stock and they just went, we're selling our stock, we're selling our shares, We're out. Obviously there's a human element to this. They like the guy, clearly, he meant a lot to them turning around the franchise. When Sean got there, didn't win the Super Bowl, MVP, high level guy in his peak, was incredibly productive, won the Triple Crown. But sometimes you have to make decisions where you go, We're just out. We're just out. Would they have had him back for five million dollars probably, but we just saw like he got more than that. So you just it's a tough part of the business. You know. It's weird. It became so emotional. But Andy Reid won a ton of Super Bowls with Joe Toney. Joe Toney has been one of the more consistent players in the NFL, and they just traded him and no one said anything. And then Andy Reid comes out and been like, this sucks. We didn't want to do this, but we got a cap And it's a shitty part about the business. And it doesn't become one thing with McVeigh, which listen, I appreciate it. It becomes and he's so emotional in the rams. He's such good friends with media people Mike Silver and Schreeger and they're all talking. It becomes like this big hooplaw. So yeah, they just fucking cut him. He didn't want him on the team. Andy Reid's been doing it for twenty five years and we don't make that big a deal with these things, So yeah, we just couldn't pay him anymore. We think I love the guy. Sean mcvacon just never do that. Like love the guy who's not paying him anymore becomes like, Wow, this isn't that. It's the NFL. Happens all the time. Eagles just won a Super Bowl, Darius Lazer starting corner. They're like, yeah, we're out. Been married myself of fifteen years and it's been great. Congrats on the wedding. When an NFL player retires at the end of a season with years remaining and guaranteed money on his contract, what happens to that money? Does he still get paid? Does that money still count against the team's salary cap in the next season. Just curious how it works and how gms might manage that situation. Well, if the money's already been paid out, remember Tony Romo when he had the back injury. Then he ended up retiring, his contract was still on the books for the Dallas Cowboys the following season. Because it's like a trade or cutting a player, all the money that you would owe them accelerates. Mike Brown's like, well, you do contracts like us, you don't have to worry about it. But Andrew luck Is a good example, retires out of the blue. The Colts could have asked for money back from the signing bonus, and I think would have manipulated the salary cap a little bit with getting money back, but they let him keep. I forget the numbers like twenty million dollars and they just they took a salary cap dead money hit. So just because you retire Drew Brees same thing, doesn't mean the money just goes away. It is the equivalent if you have set up their contract. If a guy retires and he's just like a free agent, you know in his contract could just run out and they had all been accounted for in the contract or the cap, no issue. But I think it happens a lot where a guy retires and his having a Brady Brady's impact was still on the books. So yeah, it just gets accelerated, like cutting a player or trading a player. Question for the bang, if you were a coordinator in the NFL, which side of the ball would you coach? Let me say this, I any coaches listening to this, what they do and their knowledge of football, I could never do, never thought I could never desired to. But in a lot of respect for the effort, the hours, and just the intensity of that profession, it is. It is hard, at least for the people that are solid and good at it. A lot of people faking their way through, making a lot of money stealing. But if I was coaching inside of the ball at one offense, to be a defensive coach, I think you got to be like if life would have gone a different path, like you could have been like a UFC fighter, you know, you could have been like a bouncer at a bar. You could have been something that just violence ensues. Offense is a little more, there's a little more art to it. It's a little chiller. I think, maybe not the line of scrimmage of the offensive lines offensive line coaches, but I think there's more of an artistic side to the offense. It's just a different, different vibe you go into the defense. Google if you forgot about this, kill the head, the body will die. That one pretty viral and obviously the Saints got in big trouble. But how do you think, what do you think these guys talk about in these meetings and defensive meetings. It's not usually the way offensive meetings goes as much. Not saying that they're not crazy guys on offensive side of the ball as well, but my personality, I'm just not angry enough and I'm not violent crazy enough like to be a great like Vic Fangio, Like he's just an angry old school sob just belong on defense. You know. Jim Johnson was dick Lebou like you gotta be Monti Kiffin, like you gotta be fucking nuts on that side of the ball. Offense is a little more like drawn plays and scoring touchdowns and high five And I always gravitated more towards the offense, though I probably like watching defense more. Just listen to the last podcast. How important are tangible intangibles like leadership, mentality and work ethic and evaluating players, particularly when stats might not tell the full story. I think it makes makes or breaks guys in the draft, the all the stuff that you cannot measure, how much you like football, how hard you study football, how tough you are, how smart you are, And when I say smart, I don't mean like academically, how good of grades you have, how your football i Q is really high? It is. I would say people do not fail in the NFL that meet the physical requirements, that have a high football IQ and are tough, they're lazy people. Make it. But if your football IQ's high and your talent is high, like you can make it, it's really hard. I remember Jim Washburn taught me this. He's like, you can be lazy, you can be dumb, but if you're both, we got no shot. So I just think, no matter what you do, certain positions factor in. Like it's impossible to play middle linebacker if you don't know what's going on. It's impossible to play quarterback if you don't know what's going on. Safety, there's some positions you don't need to be like brilliant football IQ, like a guard, but you cannot excel at guard assuming that you have the proper strength, athleticism, arm length, all that stuff. If you're soft, like you just you have no shot. You will get fucking ruined and soft. There's a big difference like soft into society and like football soft, Like you could be like tougher than most people, but if you're like not like your toughness, I think it's borderline impossible to not be like a nine out of ten. You don't have to be that a wide receiver. Say, every position's a little different. I guess the more I think about it, But the intangible Stuff's really really important question for the mailbag. When looking at running backs available in this year's draft, what's the difference in the value you see with the top five prospects. I want the Bears to take a back, but in the second or third round, is jent really that much better than the prospects like Caleb Johnson or Hampton? I would say, over the next month, I'm gonna look a little into that. I've watched some cutups on Hampton. He's clearly really good. He's the North Carolina running back. Ohio State's running back is really really good. I think a lot of people would say, like the dude from Iowa. There are a lot of guys that you're just gonna be able to get a pick like sixty or seventy or eighty, they like are gonna start in the NFL. I just think you look at it historically. You know JENTI, I don't think he can be viewed as the same level prospect some guys got drafted really high recently at five eight in coming from Boise State. You know Bijon Robinson, Saquon Barkley, or Christian McCaffrey. Let's chuse those three guys. An example, if you were the Bears or even the Raiders, and you told me that Raiders took Saquon Barkley or Bijon Robinson or Christian McCaffrey, be like, I get it. I wouldn't love it, but I get it. This guy is not on that tier. And it feels like I'm hating on the guy. I fucking love the player. I just don't think you can take him really high. And what are the Bears drafting ten? I do not think you can do that, and I don't think they will. I really don't. If I had to guess right now March twenty third, things can change, I would guess he goes after pick fifteen. Maye I'm wrong, but I would guess when the dust settles. I have a hard time seeing someone pull the trigger on a five eight running back in the top fifteen. Every year, before the start of the season, it seems like a majority of the media covering the NFL picks the Raiders to be the worst team in the AFC West. The Chiefs obviously rule a division, but since fifteen, the Raiders are five hundred, ten and ten against the Chargers and the Broncos. They're thirteen and seven. The criticism we receive is well deserved, But why do we seem to take more shit than the other teams when they haven't done any better than us? With spy tech and Carol in the building, proven coordinators in Chip Kelly and Patrick Graham and Tom Brady now having skin in the game, who's to say that Vegas doesn't have as good, if not better shot at getting closer to Kansas City than Denver, LA. Well, that's fair like Brandon Staley era and some of the previous erows with Denver that I think there were people arguing that the Raiders were better than people thought, you know, going into seasons. I think now it's pretty hard. Listen, Pete Carroll's resume speaks for herself. At seventy three, he's going all in on Geno Smith against Harbaugh and Herbert, which are better, and we're just the fifth seed in the In the AFC, they were the fifth seed and the Broncos who now have Sean Payton and a quarterback. So I think that's that factors in now, I hear if you want to argue, like when some of the previous coaches were running the Broncos like the Vic Fangio era, Sean Payton and Jim Harbaugh. The Raiders team just isn't that good, Like those teams were playoff teams last year. I just think Gino tough spot. But I hear you like, I actually think you guys got dramatically more. I don't think anyone's kicking the Raiders like they were four or five years ago. I actually think they're talked about pretty highly, myself included, Like I know spy tech a little bit, stud I've watched Pete Carroll's career for twenty plus years. Like no one's acting Tom Brady's best football player of all time, clearly just a high level guy. I think most people go, yeah, the Raiders feel a little more normal now, but they felt like that at different times, Like Mark Davis still owns a team and shit just gets weird there a lot. You can say the same thing with the Chargers, and it usually does, and then Jim Harbaugh comes in, and then just all Jim Harbad does is ever he just wins Chargers year one, fifth seed boom. Just like that question for the bag. You know, Veitch and Andy, they've invested multiple picks on the tackle position and flamed out every time? Why do teams struggle to evaluate the position? I'm gonna feel like a Homer here. Even though I'm bet against the Chiefs. I think like three of the last four or five big games bet against them in AFC, in the Super Bowl, with the Ravens and the Niners, and the Bills this year. So I probably need to stop betting against I don't know, guy, pretty good coach Andy Reid and bred veach, pretty good GM and a team that just wins a lot. So I apologize to a Chiefs kingdom for constantly betting against them and just losing money because they always win. Here's the thing with the Chiefs. They draft at the end of the first round, and they have not been flushed with cap space. And even if they were, like who are you signing? Like what are they? I just don't know what they're supposed to do. Like it is very, very difficult to find a starting left tackle at pick thirty two or pick sixty four. It's just that's usually not where these guys are going. Look around the around the league. Tristan Wurf's you know, I go back to these guys because they're the two best players when healthy at their position, like Trent Williams, Lane Johnson, like most high level tackles go really really high in the draft, Tyron Smith Forever. It's you know, you have some outliers. Yeah, Jordan my Lotta from Australia who never played football in his life, right, I mean I remember the forty nine ers Forever Joe Staley was an incredible pick, and he was a pick like twenty seven I think, but he was like a former two. He was kind of like JJ Watt of tackles. He was picked twenty eight. That's like unheard of to find a guy that's like going to Pro Bowls that picked twenty eight. Usually you got a draft him pretty high. So I just think it's difficult. They're in a tough spot. They could have traded for the Laramy Tunzel, the Texans would have wonted their first round pick. It's like, wait, why are you trading this guy? Why? Why? Wait? We'll give our first round pick for a player, but you're trading your left tackle when you're old line sucks. I do get like Washington, It's like we'll give you third now, second later, and it's hard. But it's like Hey, yeah, we want your first round pick. That's the only way we will trade this player to you. Like, h it feels a little weird. We're desperate here kind of. I mean, we're just in the super Bowl, but it's like, you're gonna make us trade a first round pick. Because the Texans could not have done that deal with the Chiefs right that they did to Washington, I think it's fair to assume that they wanted their first round pick. If you're the chief You're like, what do you do our second, our first for a guy you're trading who's gonna want thirty million dollars a year? And like, again, why are you trading them? A couple of days after DK was traded to the Steelers, I read a headline along the lines of Pickings was not among the players to welcome DK at the Steeler facility. A day later, another article saying, George Pickens traded. Rumors are picking up. My questions is, if this is true, what would you trade.