The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we doing? It is a couple hours before the United States America takes on Canada in a little rematch from last week, which is one of the great supporting events I've ever watched, so very very I've just been sitting at my desk, so many things to do, getting ready for this, wedding, bills up the wazoo, hoa fees, late fees. I'm like, let's just let's just gamble on American hockey and talk a little football. So that is what I have decided to do. So I started looking around the internet. I'm like, let's talk to some football I want to get excited. And I sent myself an article that I saw last night when I was eating dinner about something I wanted to talk about today, and I think it ties into just the booming business of football right now. A couple stories that came out over the last I don't know, twenty four hours in regards to the NFL business, and then we will just rapid fire through some other football stories on this fu gazy, as the Italians like to say, foo gazy Friday, I like to say foughazi, but fugazy Fugazi Beautiful Friday, and I actually thought about this. Listen. It was a fougazy when I was young, and it might be becoming one again because of the time. So we will dive into that, one of my favorite shows of the week. But other than that, next week we'll be exciting the Combine, which I've been the last couple of years, but because my wedding is the following week, I just I got too much stuff to do, couldn't go, So we will not be at the Combine next week, though I am excited. A lot of stories come out, so it's a fun week to record podcasts, whether you're there or not. So we will look forward to that and kind of kicks off. I've been saying it all week. Free agency, maybe get some buzz and some trades. I'm ready because I already miss the games, but like, there's nothing you can do about that, so we will just enjoy what we got when we got it. Let's start with this is I've thought about this for a while and listens, it could be factually incorrect, but I can't imagine a business has made more millionaires than the NFL over the last thirty forty years. Now, maybe there are companies that are invested in you know, like Apple, you know some of the major companies in America that a bunch of pensions are involved with. But just in terms of people actually working for that company. W two's the thirty two NFL teams, and i'd probably include the league office. The NFL business is pretty insane right now. Obviously, the players have never been richer and they've never made more money. Same thing goes for coaches. You know, Jerry Jones when he stole the show at the Brian Schottenheimer press conference, he said that the reason he didn't get into coaching because remember, you know, a lot of especially younger listeners and viewers, don't realize Jerry Jones, once upon a time was on the Arkansas team that won the national championship in college. Like, Jerry Jones has a national championship ring as a player in college, so he wasn't just some Joe Schmoe business man. Like this guy played college football at a really, really high level. Granted times were a little different. Offensive lineman might have weigh two hundred and forty pounds, but still at the time, it's all relative. He was on an Arkansas team that wasn't won the Natty, and Jerry said that, like a lot of my friends went into coaching, but I always aspired to live in bigger houses and drive nicer cars. And essentially, if I would have known what these guys are making now, I might have got into coaching because I see what we're paying them. And it's not just head coaches making eight, ten, fifteen, twenty million dollars. I would imagine it changes per team, but two to four coaches a staff, non head coach, are making seven figs. Obviously, general managers make a lot of money, and the amount of people making millions of dollars associated with the NFL, it's pretty nuts. Listen, Indirectly, I didn't make very much when I worked in the NFL, but I've made a lot of money, a lot more money, you know, being in this business just talking about football. And you know, the biggest sports podcast, I mean the biggest sports podcast right now, pardon my take, is an NFL football show, you know, Pat McAfee. It's a football driven show, like football is the cash cow. And nothing speaks more of that than the news that came out yesterday that the NFL salary cap will be somewhere between two hundred and seventy five and two hundred and eighty two million dollars. And that number one just sounds massive, But when you put it into context ten years ago twenty fifteen, so not that long ago, NFL was doing well, then the salary cap was one hundred and forty million dollars. Hell, three years ago the salary cap was barely over two hundred million dollars. It has risen over seventy million dollars in the last three years, and honestly, if you look at the last five years, it would have gone a lot higher if it wouldn't have been for twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, where the salary cap actually went the wrong way for a year in twenty twenty one because of the diminished revenues because of the Rona. So football right now, like you know these players, it is not just the super high end guys, the Justin Jeffersons, the Micah Parsons, the Miles Garretts, obviously relatively speaking, Reggie White, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Brett Fahr, Peyton Banning whoever at the time was always making a lot of money, right but it's the mid tier guy. I remember last year when guards, when good starting guards were getting eighteen million dollars. It's like, holy shit. You know, the NBA, the average salary is twelve million dollars. And clearly there are a lot of guys making thirty forty fifty million dollars. It's only twelve guys on a team, right, there are only seven eight guys that actually play, so given the size of the roster of fifty three guys, I mean the veteran minimum when you're like a seventh round pick. Even Brock Purdy, who was the last pick in the draft, by his like third year, he was making a million dollars and everyone's like laughing. He makes nothing, and relative to his position, he does not. But relative to being the last pick in the draft, even if you hadn't become the starting quarterback, if you had just made the team, you've been making a million dollars, you know. So it's it is a great time to be involved in football and the good thing. And this is why the other story I saw is that Jed York and he's not alone, but we'll just use him as example. The NFL passed the rule recently that you could sell pieces of your team to private investors, right, private equity, venture capitalism, Right, you could get Hey, you don't actually get anything. You don't get to decide when I hire a fire coach. You have no say in free agency or the NFL draft, but you get to say like you're part owner. Brady somewhat unique is that Mark Davis actively wants him to be involved. But most of these guys that are just money dudes cutting checks have no juice. I mean none. When I was at the Super Bowl, it was with somebodies from the Eagles, Like I remember, we had minority owners and they're still involved in the same guys are still around and it has been very lucrative for them to be involved with the Philadelphia Eagles for the last twenty twenty five years as minority owners for Jeffrey Leary. But they have absolutely no say. They get a little cea in the draft room. They show up to some games, but in terms of like Nick Sirianni status, no one cares what they think. And that goes for all these teams and Jed York who think about this. Eddie de Bartelow, who got the money from his father, might had some mob dives in Youngstown, Ohio. Bought the forty nine ers in nineteen seventy seven for thirteen million dollars, which I wasn't alive in nineteen seventy seven. I would imagine thirteen million dollars was a lot of money, and obviously the power of TV the revenue like it wasn't It's so easy to look back and go no brainer at the time. It's I can't imagine the NFL with some full proof business that was like recession proof and like a great viewed as a great investment. But thirteen million dollars thirteen million dollars, and that's what he paid for it. And on the current valuation, it has a potential to be almost nine billion dollars. So Jed York, who was thinking about selling ten percent of the team, is in play to get between. You know, we'll see where the valuation falls, but between eight and nine hundred million dollars of a cash infusion to his business, and he can obviously do whatever he wants with that money. And I think Jeffrey Lourry's gonna do the same. John mar is gonna do the same. The advantage of being able to do that is, and we had Jake Rosenberg on the podcast, who was Howie Roseman's like right hand man and salary cap negotiator for a long long time. Is you can get around salary cap situations when you're willing to sign enormous signing bonuses and what do you need to sign, you know, a signing bonus cash. So some teams and Jed and Jerry Jones and even Robert Kraft have taken a lot of shit up, like they actually don't spend as much cash as the wealth of their franchise. Where Jeffrey Louriy's running circles around them, he puts a lot of cash into his contracts and that's how they're able to sign all these good players because you can manipulate it. And I would imagine Jed Yorke is going to do the same. Now, it doesn't mean you can't buy one hundred million dollar yacht or whatever, but where you can really take advantage of the value of your franchise is reinvested into the business and sign players to contracts because of signing bonuses that gets them on your team even though you might not have quote unquote the salary cap space. But think about where we're at in the business of the NFL, that you can sell a percentage five to ten percent and get an infusion of five hundred, six hundred eight hundred million dollars and give up absolutely nothing. I've never been the biggest shark tank watcher, but it's just on so often. I just found myself over the years watching some episodes, and as I got older, I appreciated partnerships and business and who owns the revenue a lot more from thirty five to forty than I did when I was twenty eight, So you know, I could relate a little bit more at least to the conversations. And usually when it's like, hey, my business is worth a million dollars. If you want twenty percent, it's gonna cost you two hundred grand, And then they would negotiate back, and usually it's like, yeah, I'll give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but I want you know, say, I want board seats and I want a lot of juice. You get none of that with this NFL investment. You basically just get to say I own a piece of TMX. It's why the league made such a big deal of the Raiders and Tom Brady. When they felt like Mark Davis was giving Tom Brady a deal just because he wanted him as part of his operation. It's like, Mark, you can't sell him a lower percentage of the actual valuation and give him a higher percentage of the buy And the league pushed back on it and they had to like redo the deal. And I think part of it is Tom Brady. Listen. I don't know how much actual tangible cash he gave through, but he clearly came in with other investors that have a lot more money than him. Because the price of admission to get five or ten percent, you're talking half a billion dollars minimum. A lot of these franchise, even the shitty ones, right, the forty nine ers are obviously one of the more valuable franchises in the NFL, given the market size, given the fan base, given just the financial backing that they have in the region, with Silicon Valley literally right in there, I mean that's where they are. I don't love the location of the stadium, but that's because I'm you know, born and raised way farther up north. Right, there's a big difference. Even if it's only forty five to fifty miles from where I live. For a decade, I fucking hated driving down there, but that is where most of the money is, and Jed York was no dummy when he moved it down. And I think it's led to a franchise being worth eight nine billion dollars, But a lot of these franchises are giants, probably similar seven to eight. You know the Cowboys, obviously we were nine ten. Help the Raiders, who haven't won a playoff game in multiple decades, given Vegas, given the stadium, given the no state income tax. If Mark Davis put the Vegas Raiders up for sale, I think at minimum he would get eight billion dollars. So then, listen, can this maintain forever? I've often thought, like I've lived long enough to know the NFL probably the next forty years of my life. Knock on woods, I go that far, like when I'm eighty years old, are they still the dominant property? You'd be crazy just to feel confident saying that, But right now they feel pretty untouchable. And listen, we can go back and forth, and we will during free agency. This guy's getting screwed. This guy's getting screwed, Like T Higgins, he's really getting screwed. Well, even if they franchise him again, which listen, I think franchising a guy back to back years is moronic business. Like you're bad at the business of the NFL if you franchise a guy back to back years mainly because you clearly want him on your team. And if you franchise te Higgins back to back years, you're basically paying him forty eight million dollars and both the lump sums of twenty one and now twenty six million dollars hits all of your cap. Meanwhile, you got like the AJ Browns and these other guys making big money in their cap hit is way lower T higgins total. Like, if you would have signed him last year, you probably could have got him for seventy five million dollars guaranteed. Instead you're paying him on a yearly basis. That's impacting your Like it's just stupid. It's to me, it's just low level business. But like listen, like T. Higgins won't love getting franchised, and I'm sure like go back and forth in you know, publicly like oh this bullshit, we're getting screwed. He will have just made almost fifty million dollars and guaranteed cold hard cash in his bank acount after taxes, whatever that comes out to. But still like he will have made a boatload of money. I bet there are great wide receivers in the two thousands and definitely in the nine that never sniffed making fifty million dollars. Like, let's just let's just look up Jerry Rice's career earnings. My guess would be, I'll go forty eight million dollars. I was high. It was forty three point five million dollars and Jerry Rice obviously was drafted in eighty four, but he played at a Pro Bowl level up till the early two thousands. Now, forty five million dollars back in the nineties was a lot of money. But relative to what these guys are making, it's it's a completely different world. And like I said, franchise stagging a guy back to back years to me is just is poor management. It's poor ownership, poor GMing. Like I don't put that on T Higgins, And I don't know even if they had an offer, You never know quite know what to believe. But if you're willing to franchise him a second time, and I would say this for any player, wide, receiver, tackle, quarterback, you name it. You might as well have just signed him to the long term deal because you pay a little bit more total in the guarantee, but you're able to manipulate the cap and have a better football team. And look back in the day with Dan Snyder in the Redskins with Kirk Cousins like that was stupid to franchise him twice. You should have just extended him, and clearly that would have been the right move at the time.

The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we doing? It is a couple hours before the United States America takes on Canada in a little rematch from last week, which is one of the great supporting events I've ever watched, so very very I've just been sitting at my desk, so many things to do, getting ready for this, wedding, bills up the wazoo, hoa fees, late fees. I'm like, let's just let's just gamble on American hockey and talk a little football. So that is what I have decided to do. So I started looking around the internet. I'm like, let's talk to some football I want to get excited. And I sent myself an article that I saw last night when I was eating dinner about something I wanted to talk about today, and I think it ties into just the booming business of football right now. A couple stories that came out over the last I don't know, twenty four hours in regards to the NFL business, and then we will just rapid fire through some other football stories on this fu gazy, as the Italians like to say, foo gazy Friday, I like to say foughazi, but fugazy Fugazi Beautiful Friday, and I actually thought about this. Listen. It was a fougazy when I was young, and it might be becoming one again because of the time. So we will dive into that, one of my favorite shows of the week. But other than that, next week we'll be exciting the Combine, which I've been the last couple of years, but because my wedding is the following week, I just I got too much stuff to do, couldn't go, So we will not be at the Combine next week, though I am excited. A lot of stories come out, so it's a fun week to record podcasts, whether you're there or not. So we will look forward to that and kind of kicks off. I've been saying it all week. Free agency, maybe get some buzz and some trades. I'm ready because I already miss the games, but like, there's nothing you can do about that, so we will just enjoy what we got when we got it. Let's start with this is I've thought about this for a while and listens, it could be factually incorrect, but I can't imagine a business has made more millionaires than the NFL over the last thirty forty years. Now, maybe there are companies that are invested in you know, like Apple, you know some of the major companies in America that a bunch of pensions are involved with. But just in terms of people actually working for that company. W two's the thirty two NFL teams, and i'd probably include the league office. The NFL business is pretty insane right now. Obviously, the players have never been richer and they've never made more money. Same thing goes for coaches. You know, Jerry Jones when he stole the show at the Brian Schottenheimer press conference, he said that the reason he didn't get into coaching because remember, you know, a lot of especially younger listeners and viewers, don't realize Jerry Jones, once upon a time was on the Arkansas team that won the national championship in college. Like, Jerry Jones has a national championship ring as a player in college, so he wasn't just some Joe Schmoe business man. Like this guy played college football at a really, really high level. Granted times were a little different. Offensive lineman might have weigh two hundred and forty pounds, but still at the time, it's all relative. He was on an Arkansas team that wasn't won the Natty, and Jerry said that, like a lot of my friends went into coaching, but I always aspired to live in bigger houses and drive nicer cars. And essentially, if I would have known what these guys are making now, I might have got into coaching because I see what we're paying them. And it's not just head coaches making eight, ten, fifteen, twenty million dollars. I would imagine it changes per team, but two to four coaches a staff, non head coach, are making seven figs. Obviously, general managers make a lot of money, and the amount of people making millions of dollars associated with the NFL, it's pretty nuts. Listen, Indirectly, I didn't make very much when I worked in the NFL, but I've made a lot of money, a lot more money, you know, being in this business just talking about football. And you know, the biggest sports podcast, I mean the biggest sports podcast right now, pardon my take, is an NFL football show, you know, Pat McAfee. It's a football driven show, like football is the cash cow. And nothing speaks more of that than the news that came out yesterday that the NFL salary cap will be somewhere between two hundred and seventy five and two hundred and eighty two million dollars. And that number one just sounds massive, But when you put it into context ten years ago twenty fifteen, so not that long ago, NFL was doing well, then the salary cap was one hundred and forty million dollars. Hell, three years ago the salary cap was barely over two hundred million dollars. It has risen over seventy million dollars in the last three years, and honestly, if you look at the last five years, it would have gone a lot higher if it wouldn't have been for twenty twenty and twenty twenty one, where the salary cap actually went the wrong way for a year in twenty twenty one because of the diminished revenues because of the Rona. So football right now, like you know these players, it is not just the super high end guys, the Justin Jeffersons, the Micah Parsons, the Miles Garretts, obviously relatively speaking, Reggie White, Troy Aikman, Steve Young, Brett Fahr, Peyton Banning whoever at the time was always making a lot of money, right but it's the mid tier guy. I remember last year when guards, when good starting guards were getting eighteen million dollars. It's like, holy shit. You know, the NBA, the average salary is twelve million dollars. And clearly there are a lot of guys making thirty forty fifty million dollars. It's only twelve guys on a team, right, there are only seven eight guys that actually play, so given the size of the roster of fifty three guys, I mean the veteran minimum when you're like a seventh round pick. Even Brock Purdy, who was the last pick in the draft, by his like third year, he was making a million dollars and everyone's like laughing. He makes nothing, and relative to his position, he does not. But relative to being the last pick in the draft, even if you hadn't become the starting quarterback, if you had just made the team, you've been making a million dollars, you know. So it's it is a great time to be involved in football and the good thing. And this is why the other story I saw is that Jed York and he's not alone, but we'll just use him as example. The NFL passed the rule recently that you could sell pieces of your team to private investors, right, private equity, venture capitalism, Right, you could get Hey, you don't actually get anything. You don't get to decide when I hire a fire coach. You have no say in free agency or the NFL draft, but you get to say like you're part owner. Brady somewhat unique is that Mark Davis actively wants him to be involved. But most of these guys that are just money dudes cutting checks have no juice. I mean none. When I was at the Super Bowl, it was with somebodies from the Eagles, Like I remember, we had minority owners and they're still involved in the same guys are still around and it has been very lucrative for them to be involved with the Philadelphia Eagles for the last twenty twenty five years as minority owners for Jeffrey Leary. But they have absolutely no say. They get a little cea in the draft room. They show up to some games, but in terms of like Nick Sirianni status, no one cares what they think. And that goes for all these teams and Jed York who think about this. Eddie de Bartelow, who got the money from his father, might had some mob dives in Youngstown, Ohio. Bought the forty nine ers in nineteen seventy seven for thirteen million dollars, which I wasn't alive in nineteen seventy seven. I would imagine thirteen million dollars was a lot of money, and obviously the power of TV the revenue like it wasn't It's so easy to look back and go no brainer at the time. It's I can't imagine the NFL with some full proof business that was like recession proof and like a great viewed as a great investment. But thirteen million dollars thirteen million dollars, and that's what he paid for it. And on the current valuation, it has a potential to be almost nine billion dollars. So Jed York, who was thinking about selling ten percent of the team, is in play to get between. You know, we'll see where the valuation falls, but between eight and nine hundred million dollars of a cash infusion to his business, and he can obviously do whatever he wants with that money. And I think Jeffrey Lourry's gonna do the same. John mar is gonna do the same. The advantage of being able to do that is, and we had Jake Rosenberg on the podcast, who was Howie Roseman's like right hand man and salary cap negotiator for a long long time. Is you can get around salary cap situations when you're willing to sign enormous signing bonuses and what do you need to sign, you know, a signing bonus cash. So some teams and Jed and Jerry Jones and even Robert Kraft have taken a lot of shit up, like they actually don't spend as much cash as the wealth of their franchise. Where Jeffrey Louriy's running circles around them, he puts a lot of cash into his contracts and that's how they're able to sign all these good players because you can manipulate it. And I would imagine Jed Yorke is going to do the same. Now, it doesn't mean you can't buy one hundred million dollar yacht or whatever, but where you can really take advantage of the value of your franchise is reinvested into the business and sign players to contracts because of signing bonuses that gets them on your team even though you might not have quote unquote the salary cap space. But think about where we're at in the business of the NFL, that you can sell a percentage five to ten percent and get an infusion of five hundred, six hundred eight hundred million dollars and give up absolutely nothing. I've never been the biggest shark tank watcher, but it's just on so often. I just found myself over the years watching some episodes, and as I got older, I appreciated partnerships and business and who owns the revenue a lot more from thirty five to forty than I did when I was twenty eight, So you know, I could relate a little bit more at least to the conversations. And usually when it's like, hey, my business is worth a million dollars. If you want twenty percent, it's gonna cost you two hundred grand, And then they would negotiate back, and usually it's like, yeah, I'll give you two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, but I want you know, say, I want board seats and I want a lot of juice. You get none of that with this NFL investment. You basically just get to say I own a piece of TMX. It's why the league made such a big deal of the Raiders and Tom Brady. When they felt like Mark Davis was giving Tom Brady a deal just because he wanted him as part of his operation. It's like, Mark, you can't sell him a lower percentage of the actual valuation and give him a higher percentage of the buy And the league pushed back on it and they had to like redo the deal. And I think part of it is Tom Brady. Listen. I don't know how much actual tangible cash he gave through, but he clearly came in with other investors that have a lot more money than him. Because the price of admission to get five or ten percent, you're talking half a billion dollars minimum. A lot of these franchise, even the shitty ones, right, the forty nine ers are obviously one of the more valuable franchises in the NFL, given the market size, given the fan base, given just the financial backing that they have in the region, with Silicon Valley literally right in there, I mean that's where they are. I don't love the location of the stadium, but that's because I'm you know, born and raised way farther up north. Right, there's a big difference. Even if it's only forty five to fifty miles from where I live. For a decade, I fucking hated driving down there, but that is where most of the money is, and Jed York was no dummy when he moved it down. And I think it's led to a franchise being worth eight nine billion dollars, But a lot of these franchises are giants, probably similar seven to eight. You know the Cowboys, obviously we were nine ten. Help the Raiders, who haven't won a playoff game in multiple decades, given Vegas, given the stadium, given the no state income tax. If Mark Davis put the Vegas Raiders up for sale, I think at minimum he would get eight billion dollars. So then, listen, can this maintain forever? I've often thought, like I've lived long enough to know the NFL probably the next forty years of my life. Knock on woods, I go that far, like when I'm eighty years old, are they still the dominant property? You'd be crazy just to feel confident saying that, But right now they feel pretty untouchable. And listen, we can go back and forth, and we will during free agency. This guy's getting screwed. This guy's getting screwed, Like T Higgins, he's really getting screwed. Well, even if they franchise him again, which listen, I think franchising a guy back to back years is moronic business. Like you're bad at the business of the NFL if you franchise a guy back to back years mainly because you clearly want him on your team. And if you franchise te Higgins back to back years, you're basically paying him forty eight million dollars and both the lump sums of twenty one and now twenty six million dollars hits all of your cap. Meanwhile, you got like the AJ Browns and these other guys making big money in their cap hit is way lower T higgins total. Like, if you would have signed him last year, you probably could have got him for seventy five million dollars guaranteed. Instead you're paying him on a yearly basis. That's impacting your Like it's just stupid. It's to me, it's just low level business. But like listen, like T. Higgins won't love getting franchised, and I'm sure like go back and forth in you know, publicly like oh this bullshit, we're getting screwed. He will have just made almost fifty million dollars and guaranteed cold hard cash in his bank acount after taxes, whatever that comes out to. But still like he will have made a boatload of money. I bet there are great wide receivers in the two thousands and definitely in the nine that never sniffed making fifty million dollars. Like, let's just let's just look up Jerry Rice's career earnings. My guess would be, I'll go forty eight million dollars. I was high. It was forty three point five million dollars and Jerry Rice obviously was drafted in eighty four, but he played at a Pro Bowl level up till the early two thousands. Now, forty five million dollars back in the nineties was a lot of money. But relative to what these guys are making, it's it's a completely different world. And like I said, franchise stagging a guy back to back years to me is just is poor management. It's poor ownership, poor GMing. Like I don't put that on T Higgins, And I don't know even if they had an offer, You never know quite know what to believe. But if you're willing to franchise him a second time, and I would say this for any player, wide, receiver, tackle, quarterback, you name it. You might as well have just signed him to the long term deal because you pay a little bit more total in the guarantee, but you're able to manipulate the cap and have a better football team. And look back in the day with Dan Snyder in the Redskins with Kirk Cousins like that was stupid to franchise him twice. You should have just extended him, and clearly that would have been the right move at the time.

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A couple other stories story out of Minnesota. I saw a beat rider and I think this is pretty clear that this is gonna happen. They're gonna let it shows you like it's my favorite part about sports, but specifically like in basketball, it doesn't matter. Like I've seen guys play bad and still get max contracts. It's like, wait, you're paying him how much? Playing badly? Beailt like Zion Williamson, he's been injured constantly and can't stop eating. You're gonna give him two hundred million dollars? Is this good business? And the answer is always typically no, But they still do it in football like you gotta produce, and even then we argue about business. But the moment you show signs of like, h something off here, something a little weird. And Sam Darnold no disputing the Lions game, he was adrocious. I do think the playoff game him and the coach could have been better. The coach called a poor game. But regardless, Sam did not play like he had played most of the season. And now all signs like, we're gonna let he hit free agency and see what you get. And I would imagine that some team, even if it's just a couple of years, would give him, I don't know, two years, sixty five seventy million dollars and by then Minnesota probably just lets him walk and that's why they signed Daniel Jones. But shows you how fast that changes, because I remember doing the podcast with Colin ten minutes after he made that unreal throw to beat Seattle at Seattle on that Sunday afternoon game. You're like, Sam Donold gonna win the fucking MVP. And everyone was watching those last two games, two primetime games. Remember they played Sunday night against the Allions and he was atrocious. And then the playoff game. Now, granted the Rams defense was bringing it, but listen, I think Vikings need to figure out their offensive line. But listen, even if I understand, like regardless, Minnesota can do whatever, Like I think, it's pretty easy to justify. Listen, we drafted this guy high. Going at it, you're going to depend on a player who was on a dominant college football team, so his two years starting. I bet when it's all said and done, you will have twenty plus guys that he played with over those two years as the full time starter that will be starting in the NFL. A team that did not lose many games. Right, The only games that I can remember them losing now are TCU, which was an awful loss, and that was it. I mean, they didn't lose a game in the second year, and he was not tasked with, like, hey, bro, this is gonna be one of those games. Our defense is playing like shit and we're gonna need thirty five points. And I know we got justin Jefferson and Jordan Adison, but you're gonna have to carry us. You're gonna have to make throws, blitzes, third and longs like buckle up, Buttercup. He's never had to do that. And not saying that he can't, because he can learn too, but like they're gonna come in next season with goals of they just were competing to be the number one overall seat and now it's like, oh, we're just with what winning nine games in hell though, like you have a team that is ready made to just be competitive, and that's a lot of pressure to put on a young player who's never started an NFL game, And even in college, like the one thing with Mahomes playing on such a shitty team, it was like, bro, you got to carry us, right for us to have a shot, you got to be elite. Same Lamar Jackson, the same thing, like Louisville team, Like he had to be awesome, right, Josh Allen just got to do whatever he wanted in college. Just learn like that's not how JJ McCarthy played. It was like Jim Harbaugh. Another run outside, thirty six power, power again, power again. Let's run thirty seven power this time. There's a lot of risk involved and I'm fascinated to watch it play out because I love you know, interesting stories in the NFL. And you tell me JJ McCarthy is starting Week one coming off the knee injury where you look like he weighed one hundred and fifty pounds in that game against the Lions when he was on the sideline. I'll be tuning in Eagles in the Saints. These Saints have Doug neuss Meyer, who I love. Doug ness Meyer. I've known him my first year at Fresno State. He was our offensive coordinator, and I saw him last year at the Combine and he's always been a big supporter of me and listens to my stuff and he's the man. So it's cool to watch his son, who was I mean, couldn't have been I don't know, three or four or five Max when he was when he was the offensive coordinator at Fresno State and he was running around. So he's obviously the quarterback now at LSU. Doug was actually drafted. He was a star player in Idaho and at the time in the nineties they were like d one double a like what Montana and North Dakota State is. He was a fourth round pick and him and Callen obviously have a really really close relationship, and leaves the Eagles. I mean he went to Philly because of Kellen Moore. He went to the Charge because of Kellen Moore. Now he's the offensive coordinator and kind of getting the band back together there. And Kevin Petullo I think I'm saying that name right has who's worked with you know, Sirianni over the years, has been elevated. This is a tough job, you know. The thing with Kellen Moore, you know, I got a buddy on the staff with separate from Nusts, who actually thinks and I thought this last year, if they were healthy, they are much better than people think. Now they got cap issues and we'll have to see, you know, Kellen, what they end up doing with Derek Carr. Crazy connections. You know, Kellen Moore played against Derek in college at Boise and Fresno. Nuss Meyer was like recruiting Derek, who was a senior in high school when Doug was at Fresne State. But the thing is, like, if you keep Derek on the team, you pay him forty million dollars, And like, listen, I'm not some Derek Carr hater, even though I think he thinks, even though I've known him for fifteen years, thinks I am blocked me on Twitter. It was more like I was negative toward the Raiders than him. But paying Derek Carr forty million dollars based on the way he's played recently seems kind of crazy. So up to see. But who else? What are they gonna do? Go with Spencer Rattler? That seems pretty bold. If I was a betting man, I guess you just roll with Derek one more year. But who knows? The NFL is crazy. I think the Eagles it's a tough job, man. You know that. There's I know they've won obviously the Super Bowl a couple of weeks ago, But it's just one of those gigs where everyone's paying attention and it's just a polarizing spot. And it's an intense spot, not just because of the owner of the GM, but because of the firepower you have, because of Jalen Like he's just a polarizing player. You got you know, star wide receiver, star tight end Saquon Barkley. It's just not an easy spot to be, you know, especially when you're head coach is an offensive guy, but he does not call the plays. It just it's it's it can be good and bad. Right. We saw in three years two guys became head coaches and the other got fired and no one knows where he's at. I would imagine Ryan Johnson's coaching somewhere. But it just shows you how fast like two guys head coaches, one guy fired and like no one's making him the offensive coordinator. Shows you how like this job goes. There's no middle grounds, Like oh yuh, he's doing pretty good. He's like just solid. He's the type guy we'd want. It's like, no, this guy fucking blows and he might not even be that bad, but everyone thinks that. Or you're just like you're just gonna become a head coach. So I don't obviously blame him for taking It wasn't even a choice, Like you want the head coach, you want the offensive coordinator job. Hell yeah, last story on football, you know there was a meeting they had, like a conference kind of get together convention of all the heavy hitters in college football. I think this last couple of days in New Orleans and clearly trying to figure out, like how do we do better with the college football playoff and the nil contract situation. Like, let's face it, two things can be true. No one cares if these kids get paid, Like, no one that matters, like just pay the kids whatever, but nil this And I've seen Dionce say this, like nil's bullshit, we need to stop calling it nil. He's like, I see like three total kids on commercials, right, this is just a salary. Like I'm just giving you four hundred grand to be a wide receiver. You're not on commercials. I'm not using your name, image and likeness. I'm just paying you to play. But like, for example, you me most people in a lot of industries. I guess some of you listening aren't on quote unquote contracts. You might be an apt Will employee, so you technically get fired whenever. But for example, like I signed a contract and we have parameters to the deal, and for whatever reason, all the industries I've worked in post college have been like that right, A one year deal, a two year deal, three year deal, five year whatever, And you can't just leave after you I couldn't just go to the competition, right, I couldn't justa hey, they're offering me five X. Maybe I could, but I have to go to court if they wanted to fight it. And that's clearly not the way that's happening in college football. Like I can just be like, yeah, I'll take your six hundred grand and then I mean, I've heard of stories from people around college football that a guy will take the nil early in role and you know, so for the spring, this will be a high school kid and then be in the transfer portal at the end of spring ball. Like this we got to fix somewhat, Like you don't need to just stay forever. And if your coach ever leaves to a better job or gets fired, no problem with you being allowed to leave. But if I give you eight hundred thousand dollars, I can't sign you to a multi year contract. That's the way it works in the NFL. So clearly they got a lot of work to do in spring ball, which is important, you know, in college football because you wear pads and especially for your younger players that have not played that might become starters, like or even guys that are just backups that are gonna be starters in the fall. Arch Manning, this is an enormous spring. But Texas and USC and I'm probably missing a bunch of other programs are not having a spring uh spring game. Not because they don't want to have a practice or a you know, simulated scrimmage, because they don't want it to be on television for you to watch and scout their players. Not because we're gonna play you in the fall and I want to know the strengths and weaknesses of the new right guard or what what's the outside linebacker? What's he look like coming off the edge? No, because I will poach that guy and try to get him to go in the transfer portal before the summer starts. So when that starts happening, it's like we got we got fucking problems. And college football for is awesome and the explosion and its importance, and obviously it's the second biggest sport in America. It's just in a weird spot and it's just it just doesn't feel healthy, even though financially it would say otherwise, Okay, let's uh, let's end with my fugazi gayzy Friday. I was thinking about this because when I was a kid, and I've talked about this for a long time, like it was right in between the time of the Internet. You know, computers were kind of hitting the scene, but the Internet wasn't really strong, and then the Internet really took off kind of righte my senior year in college or senior year in high school, and then when I went to college, but even when I was in like online classes and stuff like that didn't really exist like they would ten years later and definitely now. But I remember like in high school writing papers and stuff that were like incursive, right, instead of like I'm not a great typer. Luckily my business, like I don't have to type a lot in most of my notes that I do for this business, I use on hand or just like a note app on my phone. But looking back, if you could have been forward thinking, everyone in my high school classes, like in the majority of high school classes should have been very singular focus toward technology. But it was honestly kind of the opposite. And I was listening to a podcast the other day, the all In Podcasts and they're like, can you imagine how outdated? And listen to some of you that have like junior high kids and definitely high school kids, the just regular curriculum is in school for what these kids are gonna do. And normal people have been saying forever like shouldn't we teach like financial literacy in starting in like junior high and high school? Like why should we wait till college? And then the answer is always, well, no, they kind of want little worker beasts. They actually don't want you to know that. And I think there's some truth to that. But like with the explosion of artificial intelligence, which I like most people in one way or another use all the time, do we need to know what we used to need to know when I can just type in a question and immediately get the answer and listen. There are some professions like becoming an architect building a bridge where levels of math are geometry, calculus, Calculus one calculus are going to be very important, right, No different than being a doctor. There is a level of focused school that you are going to need to go on to, you know, repair my meniscus or if I you know, break a clavicle or have a heart attack, you'd be able to work on me, but most of us are not going to do that. I remember my senior year in high school there was a class called APR history. The class was a fucking joke. Every single person got an A. But in ap classes you would get like an extra point, so it would be worth like, instead of a four, I'd be worth a five, so it would, you know, boost your GPA. So my GPA when I was applying to college, instead of being like a three four with the extra AP class and I remember, boosted up to like a three eight, I was really probably more like a two to five student. And I just look back, like, why one this class was stupid. I don't need to know any of this stuff, and if I did, I could just look it up. So one thing we are going to have to figure out is and listen, I probably have kids here pretty soon, or at least attempt to. We'll see if little swimmers can swim. But uh, we got to rethink all this and technology, and the thing they were saying on the all In podcast is like, and listen, these really smart people way smarter than me and clearly are in different worlds and use this AI way more than me like it is going to wipe out and make a lot of the stuff you learn in school pretty irrelevant, and I think we got to embrace it and embrace it pretty fast. So I've often thought and listen, education for me, you're talking with a guy with multiple degrees, pretty irrelevant to my life. And besides, like going to college and socializing with people I do not know and trying to date girls that I have no background with and didn't grow up around, I learned little to nothing that I apply lie to in my adult life. So I and that that's college, let alone high school where I learned nothing. Beside again, I'm not anti like learning to read, right, there are a lot of studies coming out that almost like half of eighth graders can't read at a basic level. Like obviously that's a problem, right, I mean, there are some basic fundamentals that you need to learn in your youth, and we need to teach kids. But there is a lot of complete waste. And I was on this early because I remember sitting in class like fourteen sixteen, like this is so stupid. But I couldn't get bad grades because my dad probably would kicked my ass, So I had to attempt to try in high school or hustle and find a way to get with good groups and group projects. But I remember thinking it was BS twenty years ago. I can't even imagine now technology like if you are, If everything isn't technologically based for most of these people, I think we're wasting our time. So you talk about a fugeesi. If the ain't and let's face it, a lot of these people they don't like to change, We're gonna have problems coming down the pike. Okay, let's dive into a little thing we like to call the middle Cough mail bag at John Middlecoff is the Instagram firing those dms, Get on the show again mail bag, just my name at John Middlecoff, firing those dms, get your questions answered here. Let's start with Garrett question for the bag. I'm a Cowboy fan that understands how much of a disaster our team is right now. But I have a lot of confidence in Dakota Prescott. It just seems to me that even though we have problems, people forget how good we can be when he's healthy. His last full season, he was the runner up MVP to Lamar. He had much better stats and we had twelve wins. So my question is where do you rank Dak out of all the quarterbacks in the NFL. He's the highest paid quarterback, and even though he shouldn't be, he's paid large for a reason. Yeah. I mean, I think the problem for Dak Prescott is he had the three year stretch with McCarthy where he was really good and I'm pulling up his stats right now, and then he shit the bed in the playoffs. I mean, those two Niner games were pretty bad, and the Packer game wasn't great either. So basically from twenty one to twenty three, he was thirty seven and ten, twenty two, Actually he wasn't great twenty three and five, but he got injured that year, and then then he was thirty six and nine. So like two of those three years twenty one, thirty seven and ten and thirty six and nine, like that's a really high level season, it really is, like that's that's really good, and then they lose in the playoffs. So I think the problem is he can have stretches. Remember was it two years ago when did he beat Philly at Philly the year that they won the division. I think it's the playoffs just really leads. Leads leaves a bad taste in people's mouths. And so it's like when we talk about Dak, it's hard to talk about thirty seven and nine or thirty six and ten or whatever his great seasons under McCarthy, and it's more like what happens in these big games when he looks like a shell of himself and he turns the ball over a lot. I mean to go in twenty twenty three, thirty six and nine, and then it wasn't all his fault in the Packer game, but the thirty seven and ten year, I think he threw two picks, so he threw He's thrown five interceptions in that three year stretch with McCarthy making the playoffs. It's pretty bad, it really is. I think when he's right, yeah, he's somewhere between six to ten ish, he's good, and then he just turns into a different player in the playoffs. Like that's not really debatable at this point. Griffin, What up? Diehard? Trojan fan fight on got into your podcast? Listen to you on the Herd. I hear a lot of people asking the question about Sam Darnold, and as someone who has always supported him and the program enough. So where I get Tommy Trojan tattooed on me? Wow? Where do you see the trajectory of the program going up compared to other powers in the sport, Oregon, Ohio State and other contenders? One thing? Living in Arizona. Your lips just get destroyed here. Very dry, you know, very very dry. I would say you guys are in a bad spot, no way around it. When you bring up Ohio State and Oregon, they feel like they're in a different universe than you guys, like a different universe. I think the Trojan situation is not good and not good at all, so I have little faith, to be honest with you, I think one main issue is in this new world that the Trojans find themselves in. I mean, in their last two years eight and five and seven and six, you were six and six this year before the bowl game, I would not be very excited. And Colin and I have talked about this. There is an energy and an effort that Ryan Day, that Sark, that Dan Lanning, that Kirby bring to recruiting. Saban brought this. He was very serious about recruiting. I feel like Lincoln was pretty serious about it at Oklahoma. But Oklahoma, like when he took it over, it was kind of like a you know, it's like a tesla drives itself and he puts some effort in, but they were just recruiting the league guys, no matter what. And then he goes to USC like this program's in disarray. You kind of got you gotta fucking grind, you gotta get in the mud. Like when Pete Carroll took over USC, like it was bad. You know, you gotta take it to the next level. No, you got to just get it rolling again. And I just don't know if he knows how to do that. So I'm not very confident. I'm really not that conference. Oregon's rolling, Ohio State's a juggernaut. Michigan that's gonna be their worst team in years moving forward. Penn State is loaded. So at the high end of the conference, it's just so good. Let me let me look up USC twenty twenty five schedule. The hard part is, even if I you know, give you like win win win, you guys lost a lot of games that most people would have said that this is such a joke. And I'm not blaming USC, but to open up against Missouri State their first two games, Missouri State in Georgia Southern. I mean, give me a break. That is this is where college football needs of someone to step in. Purdue, Michigan State at Illinois, Michigan at Notre Dame, at Nebraska, Iowa, Oregon, UCLA. I would say nine and three feels like a pretty good year. A disgruntled Cowboy fan, My question is should the Cowboys move off Parsons and stock up on draft capital to strengthen to strengthen their weakness levels of personnel. Would think you could get at least one one first round pick and some later round pick. No, you would get multiple first round picks. If you trade Micah Parsons, the minimum you would get would be two ones in a two. Anyone that doesn't want that, you hang up. Michah Parsons nets you two ones in a two. How old is MICHAEH. Parsons twenty five years old? Michael Parsons is twenty five years old. He is one hundred percent. I would say, uh, I mean thirteen sacks, thirteen sacks, fourteen sacks, twelve sacks. I mean he's just an elite pass rusher. He's just a really good player. I mean, I think he's two ones in a two. I think that's what you're getting. So you know, I wouldn't be in the business of trading Micah Parsons like players. I mean, the whole reason you draft is to land guys like him, And looking back, you got pretty lucky that a guy like him, because you know the COVID year he sat out and and fell, you know, out of the top ten. What was he eleventh pick? I think Michah Parsons was the twelfth pick in the draft. And now it's like, who's his comp? You know, a dual carter like his comp is Micah Parsons. A lot of similarities Penn State eleven, bend the edge, It's like, where's that dual carter gonna go one? It's like number one overall. I think clearly if you redid the Micah Parsons is a top two or three draft pick if he's playing. And I know he was like off the ball a little bit, but still I would say if you trade Micah Parsons like it's I wouldn't even entertain it. If it two ones a two and a player would be like my minimum. I think Zach Martin I just saw retired, So two ones, A two and maybe a guard. Absolutely love the pod. Have a question for the mail bag. Do you think we'll ever see more crossovers between gms of different sports? Am I thinking back to last year when the Commanders hired Warriors GM Bob Myers to help lead their head coaching search, and even back a few years ago Mickey Loomis ran the Saints and the Hornets. Going off of that question, how long do you think it would take a good NBA GM to become a good NFLGM? Well, Bob just helped you know one thing. A good at an NBA, A good GM in general, they can evaluate people, whether that's a player, whether that's a coach, whether that's an executive, whether that's a scouting director. Like they're just around those people all the time. So like Bob Myers, he's a people guy. Bob Myers was an agent, right, Bob Myers represented like Andre Gudala, you know, I mean he was representing players, so he knows how to negotiate and he knows people. Now, you do have to have some idea of football players and football value, so it would take a long time, Like there's not a player in the NFL. I would say every single starter, like Howie Roseman or John Lynch or Less Sneed or John Spytech or Jason Light could tell you something about like a lot about. So it's like you developed this war chest of information that that would be really hard to accumulate. The relationships with agents you could develop relatively quickly, but the contracts are a lot different. Dealing with players are a lot different. I actually don't think there are that many similarities. My buddy Ethan Strauss, who runs one of the best substacks and all the sports, sometimes I'll just calin pick his brain. He's got good ideas and like he's tied into the NBA world, and he knows a bunch of gms, including Bob. He's like, all these gms are miserable. It's not a fun job because basically the role is just completely different. What like how much roster do you really do in the NFL, Like you have massive turnover a year to year massive, So it's I would imagine baseball and basketball gms would have an easier time than it would like if Bob Myers just became the GM. Like if let's say Let's say Washington had just hired Bob Myers, Like, I don't think he could do the job. I think he could attempt to to build around, but like a huge part of the job is like setting boards. Now, you could argue he could just hire the best quote unquote like scout and make him his pro personnel department. But then that guy would essentially be picking the players. You know. The one thing with Howie is like how he not only watches tape, like he just knows players pretty well. Like how how could Bob not that Bob would even want to But I think it would be difficult. Lifelong Steeler fan, at this point, I know better than to expect Pittsburgh to do anything exciting in the offseason. I've suggested blowing the whole thing up and seeing what we get for what Micah and Pickens. It's been a full three year since Roethlisberger retired and we still have done nothing to find a long term answer at quarterback. With possibly both Wilson Field's gone and some recent reports linking the Steelers as a potential landing spot to Kirk Cousins, Daniel Jones or forty one year old Aaron fucking Rogers, I added the effort in there. Sorry, kids, it's just more of the same Patrick Roster building year after year. Am I too extreme? I don't think you are. Man, It's just I guess you could catch lightning in a bottle on Rogers. Like to me, Cousins makes no sense. He can't move. Cousins can't move. I would not mess with Kirk Cousins. Rogers in theory makes some sense. But like he does not want to get hit, he wants no part of contact. I don't blame him. Tom Brady the last couple of years didn't want to get sacked. They're in there, they're super rich, they still feel and look good like you. You don't want to take these huge hits from Michael Parsons. I mean it's you don't want Jalen Carter slamming you into the ground. Totally get it. Well, when I think the AFC North like, you get hit, and you get hit pretty hard. So like the younger version of Rogers, no doubt about it. This version, I don't know. So I think you're screwed. But I'm done saying like you know, I think, uh, I think Tomlin and the Steelers should just get a healthy divorce and start dating other people. You get a new coach, Tomlin, you coach someone else. I'm done saying that because it's never gonna happen. So it's like pointless exercise. And like you said, should they do it? Yeah, are they going to? No chance they're gonna keep doing the same thing like see nine games. Well, yeah, we get it. You're you're a well run business. You are never going to suck. No one thinks you are ever gonna win. Be the Jacks, You're never gonna draft third. Overall, we understand that, though, like you said, it'd be hell if you did one year. I feel like I'm like many other people. I love playing golf. Maybe go once a week during the summer. I'm twenty three, gotta work. I feel you, Doug, but hate watching it on television. I'd love a weekly segment on good bets, bets you're making to get me interested. Maybe a season long record on how you've done predicting things. Try to include that into the golfing. We try to include golf gambling. I dabble a little bit on the Mexico Open this week based on your personal experience and what you've heard through your connections in the league. Can you give us a bit more inside of what we normally hear that happens behind the scenes in the offseason, particularly the draft, the combine, free agency, etc. Second part, do you think there's any reason why it seems somewhat often players leave their team to join someone in the division. I'm sure every signing has layers and reasonings, but just curious if you had any thoughts on the first part. I think we'll dive into that at each stop along. Try to kind of look inside the combine, the draft, the free agency, try to give, like, you know, the inner workings of how these things work. I mean, there are a lot of layers if you want me to like break down like how teams meet and go over the board, set the board, free agency, well kind of we'll discuss a little bit of that next week probably And your second question, money, I mean, it's just the almighty dollar. It has always and probably will always unless we just go to digital currency and it just becomes a bitcoin, which essentially be the same thing. You know, people do things for more money. That's why people leave jobs, that's why people move, It's why people you know. I remember thinking when I was looking to buy a house, and everyone's like, well, it's just the interest rates are too high. You can't buy. Is like, And I remember had a buddy that has been in business a long time. He's like, John, things always change. People die, people have kids, they need upgrade, people change jobs. There are circumstances in humans' lives that change no matter what. Just because you have a four percent interest loan, I'm never leaving. Well, all of a sudden, you have you have one kid, and then your next kid is twins, and you like, we don't have a big enough house. You don't have a choice, right, Or maybe you or your wife get a job offer for triple the money and you leave. So all of a sudden, it's like we're never moving. All of a sudden that house is on the market. So I think things change really quickly when more money is involved. Now, sometimes you make a decision not based on money, and sometimes you make a decision based on your family where you're comfortable. But in an NFL free agency, the only reason to leave a team if you like your spot is because that other team is offering you wait more money. And in football, where your career can end literally any moment, it's really really hard to not take the most money possible, So I think that's why it happens. A question for the mailbag. You mentioned recently you were somewhat neighbors with Dontrell Willis. Was an existing connection through the sports business or did you one day see him around? Definitely a cool story. He likes something one time on Instagram, probably like a year ago, maybe something me in Colin did. Then I followed him, he followed me. We DM back and forth. And a mutual buddy that is a member at the country club where Dontrell is that works out at the gym that I go to, Jeff, who's listened to the podcast. I actually haven't talked to Jeff in a little while. Is He's good buddies with him, and I told him, like, I want to play golf with him. He gave him his number and I hit him up. I haven't talked to him. I haven't texted him in a while. I need to do that. I think Dontrell's daughter plays soccer at Colorado Shocker. He's got good genetics athlete. Uh so, yeah, I gotta try to make that happen here. Maybe after the wedding play some golf on camera with him. I think he's a pretty good player. It's crazy. I mean, there are just a lot of athletes that live in my general area. I mean it's Scottsdale in general, but a lot of them, you know, baseball players and hockey players, a lot of them here. A lot of them here, baseball players because so many come for spring training, right if you play, I mean half the league comes here for spring training, and a lot of them buy houses here and when they retire they just live here. And obviously golfers as well. It's kind of a hub. It's kind of why. You know. One of the reasons, you know, that inspired me to move here is there was like from the business I'm in, there was like this energy. I remember coming here like five years ago, and I mean I didn't know anybody, but you could just kind of feel it. And then you start kind of doing the research and following different people on Instagram, like there's a lot of shit going on. It's like Silicon Valley for athletes and sports and obviously golf bigger reason. I picked up my shit and I came here. Loved every minute it was that a couple of summer days when it's a little hot. What are your expectations for the new England Patriots. I have a lot of respect for bra Bull as a coach, and I thought May showed a lot of potential in his first year. I think they could be a playoff playoff competitors right away because of the coach and quarterback. Do you agree or you think nine to ten wins is too ambitious? Well? Whatever would they win this year? Where they drafting third or fourth? Fifth? I mean fourth? Maybe? Obviously your season last year was a joke. I mean it was probably most unwatchable team in the NFL. You had moments when Drake May was playing pretty well, but I would say that Jacoby Brissett time when he was playing unwatchable and there were games Drake May was like this, this is bad. So I just if I just go. I believe in Verrabel. I think you can be really competitive next year. Eight to ten wins not unrealistic. Now, who is on the team right, Like, what's your offensive line? Who are your skill guys? Does the defense dramatically improve? Who do you draft? I mean, let's face it, these next couple of months are pretty big for the Patriots. You were gonna have I don't know, six seven. I would imagine like impact guys and definitely guys you pay some money, guys you draft high. Who are they? Then I think we can have a better idea of like, Okay, this team could get to nine wins, but right now we're just going nine wins. We got to know who clues on the team. We're just betting on Vrabel and Josh McDaniels. I recently had an argument with my friends about Jalen. They don't understand what makes them a good quarterback, and they'll point to other quarterbacks who have better stats and so forth. After being in scouting for a bit, do you think that the average fan doesn't really know what quote unquote talent is at quarterback? What would you define this talent? That's a good question, you know. I think a lot of times talent is not like how many touchdown passes do you throw? It's more like, well, how big are you? How strong are you? How fast are you? How strong is your arm? Right? Like, Josh Allen has a has a insane amount of talent, right, Lamar Jackson has an insane amount of talent RG three before his leg snapped or whatever. Crazy amount of talent. Michael Vick insane amount of talent. I think Jalen is talented because he's a really good athlete. He throws a good deep ball, but he doesn't have a great arm. You know, it's weird. He's a good runner, but he's not like a you know, like a twitchy fast you know, Lamar and Kyler are much more explosive. There's like they're changing direct you know. Jalen's just a smooth runner. I would say he's he's a talented player. Obviously you're in the NFL, but like he was a second round player for a reason, right, I mean, I wouldn't say he has elite immense talent relative to the elite guys. Right, mahomes very crazy arm, excellent thrower on the run, right can make crazy throws at every level over the middle, outside, Like, Jalen's a great deep ball thrower, but he's not great over the middle. He's accurate. One talent that he has that is like I don't know if it's all God given, but he clearly works at it in the weight room. Like that strength that he possesses is pretty special. A long time listener cannot stress how big of a fan. I am of you. I usually agree with ninety percent of the things you say. However, Aaron Rodgers to Amazon as a play by play guy is your worst take by far. Herbstreet is the best play by play guy in the world at the moment. He does the biggest college game every week, and he does an NFL game that is twenty million viewers each week. He's smart, he's professionabal, he's likable, and advertisers love him. Economically speaking, it would be suicide to hire Rogers. He attacked Big Pharma, who's let let's be real runs the world. I don't think we have to be real. I mean add a lot of fucking juice. One of the only countries that let him advertise on television, and they make a shitload of money. Advertisers would not run to Amazon to back a product run by Rogers. He's extremely controversial. Nobody knows what is going to come out of his mouth. Aaron Rodgers, while not great, is still a top twenty quarterback in the world. He would be an upgrade for a bunch of teams. Blah blah blah. Okay, let's hit each one. Herbstreet is not the best play by play guy in the world. He is the best college guy. Totally agree with you. Professionaal likable, great for advertisers, but like he's not great on the NFL and twenty million people like you or I could call the Amazon game this notion that like Tom Brady obviously's really famous. It's you know, he's the most famous guy. Probably do you ever call football games when you factor in, like Michael Jordan ever called games Tiger Woods as a new broadcast. I think they tried Joe Montana back in the day and it failed. But if Tom Brady did not exist, even if it wasn't Greg Olsen, let's just say they threw Mark Sanchez on Eagles Cowboys, it wouldn't change the viewership at all. I feel pretty strongly about that. Maybe it helps on some random games, but all the playoff games doesn't change it one iota. I think that now Tom's impact for business advertisers totally agree. But like from an NFL standpoint, I think Collinsworth is better. Troygman's definitely better. They're just better at the NFL, and that's no. I like Kirkharbstreet Collins College. I don't really love them calling the NFL. Aaron Rodgers just played for Woody Johnson. Johnson and Johnson, Now I get it. It's different, right, Woody Johnson's not an advertiser. He's trying to get him to win games. I honestly don't think it really matters. Amazon's in the business. You're looking at it like from a broadcast television standpoint. Amazon's in the business of getting you to sign up for Amazon Prime and you to spend money on what I would say is the most impressive website in the history of America. I can press a button and have everything from a fucking razor to a vacuum cleaner to you name it delivered to my house within potentially five hours to twenty four hours. It is incredible how dominant they are. I one, I haven't liked going to the store in a decade. Now, why would you go to the store beside getting a couple things you do not need to They have dominated because of their efficiency. That is the business there in And I would say this about Aaron like he does. He's just he's an easy listen, now, I'm with you. He could say some off the wall shit, but like this is entertainment and Amazon is not dependent on Pfizer advertising on a streaming service. They are dependent on John Middlecoff and you and Bill and James and Craig and Julie buying things on that thing constantly. So I think it's less. I would agree on Fox. Yeah, it could be a problem if he said something and they an advertiser left, it would not be good. That's not really the business amazons in, are you gonna stop using Amazon? What are you gonna do? You want to walk your ass target and go sit in fucking line with seven million people in that thing on a Tuesday afternoon. Well, I'm gonna press the button to have it delivered to my the front of my house as I eat a sandwich. But I hear you, and I'm maybe he wouldn't be good. I mean there's but like I said, I don't think it necessarily matters because I don't think Tom Brady's any good. The same amount of people watch Okay, a couple more questions, diehard Green Bay Packer fan, and I wanted to know your thoughts. Honestly, I want more controversial people on television. I want more people like sometimes you watch these games and this is why, like Akman, like you know, Gruden was like this bad, and they'll just say some romo. I just appreciate every once in a while saying some off the wall shit like I'm trying to be entertained. Some of these guys say nothing. It's like, I can't tell you how many texts I get from buddies in the NFL scouting buddies that are around like watching games, like this guy doesn't even know what he's talking about. It's awful. It's just bad. And I don't mean just controversial to say something off the wall, to say something off the wall, but have some balls, like have some fucking stones to say like that was awful. And Aikman's one of the rare guys who will be critical of things that happened that we're all watching and things everyone else it's like a love fest. I mean, let's face it, you couldn't pay Tom Brady to be really critical, and I know he's not really allowed to, but even if he was, I don't think he would be. That's kind of what the consumer wants. And at least Rogers potentially might say some crazy things about like eh, that was stupid. He might rip some coaches That's all I want. You don't even need to rip the players, like guys fumble guys, throw a pick? Can you rip some coaches because we're all doing it some business we're in all the fans. None of these guys do it. It's like, ah, I love the offensive coordinator. I've known him for decades. A great guy. Yeah, terrible play caller again, probably not gonna happen. So mood point uh, Packer fan, honestly done. Wide receivers. Packer fans, you guys, You guys are living pretty good. Your team's good. Your wide receiver room yeah, drives you little nuts. Still really talented. I know we got an ACL injury and a concussion problem. You guys will be fine. Like your problems compared to the Steeler problems, like two historic franchises both consistently win. You guys feel like you are much closer to competing for Super Bowls than they are. So you ey are gonna be okay. I promise Packer fans you're gonna be okay. If the Packers were a stock, I think technically they are the way they're invested in with the fans, but you know what I mean, Like if I could buy them on the Nasdaq or the S and P. I would purchase Packer stock. They would actually have been one of the more lucrative stocks the last like thirty years. Every year it kind of works, Okay, last question. The earliest I can remember listening to the show was when I was a sophomore at UGA in twenty eighteen. I appreciate it. Uh, I'm a huge Falcons fan. If you're obviously from Georgia, go dogs. It drives me absolutely that they seem to refuse to build the defensive line, even though that's been a glaring problem for my entire life. I was wondering why you think teams refuse to build from the lines out and what do you think their main issue is. It doesn't seem like Blank is some crazy medaling owner or an idiot, and I can't figure out why they can't figure it out. Also, I understand their dogshit franchise in general, but recently they've been pretty close to making the playoffs, but they keep putting themselves in cap hel hiring mediocre coaches and old players. They went through that stretch. I think last year with the Pennix Cousins thing is one of the more head scratching moves in recent memory, and to me it just shows how from an organizational standpoint, no one's on the same page. Like one of the big advantages the Super Bowl teams, the Eagles and the Chiefs have is like and listen and even how he defended Sirianni, He's like, I work really close to this guy for the last four years. Like that, there is a pretty strategic Jeff Larry Howie whoever the coach is like philosophical belief, Andy Reid veach hand in hand. The Ravens, Harbaud, DaCosta, Ozzy whoever like big time like one vision, but the Buffalo Kyle Shanahan and John lynch worked really close less need Sean McVay feels like, is there any cohesion the Cousins. Michael Pennock's thing was laughable. Now, thank god they drafted Like I was never against drafting Pennix, but they never should have signed Cousins. They should have used that money to sign a couple defensive alignment. Christian Wilkins. I know he got hurt, but like that would have been a guy to sign. So I think it just gets back to listen, you can't convince me, and I understand guys can still be sharp of a as attack like in their eighties and nineties. You know, the Charlie Mungers, Warren Buffetts, most human beings like You're just not gonna be the same. And you can't convince me that the owner's age, the amount of money they've made that it just doesn't feel like their standard is quite as high. I mean, the guy put himself in the Falcons Hall of Fame last year. Honestly, I thought that was a pretty embarrassing moment, especially in a season where you just pay a quarterback off an Achilles one hundred million, you got to bench him by the end of the season. I would just I would sell stock in the Atlanta Falcons. I bet against it from the jump last year. Now I picked the Saints instead of the Bucks. But my whole point was everyone is picking this team. How in what world? The other thing is? Like being a good defensive coordinator when Sean mcvay's your head coach does not mean that you're gonna be a good head coach. Brandon Staley, Raheem Morris, it does not mean that you're gonna be a good head coach. Now Raheem seems infinitely more likable down to earth than a normal human than Brandon Staley. So if I had to pick one of the two, I would take Raheem Morrise. But like when you work for Sean McVay, they draft well, they have good players, and there's just a well run operation. So it's like that doesn't just equate to you kicking ass and taking names when you leave them. It's really difficult. So I guess it's a long winded way of saying I'm not trying to be Debbie Downer here, but I would not be very bullish on your guys operation. Have a great weekend and enjoy yourself. Just have a smile, have a few cocktails, maybe you're not drinking, get a good workout in, go for a walk, enjoy your loved ones. Talk to you soon. Peace. The Volume