The MMQB NFL PodcastConor Orr and Albert Breer react to the brutal schedules for the Jets and Steelers before discussing why the Dolphins should have gone after Kirk Cousins and why Mike McDaniel should get the chance to mold his own rookie quarterback. We also break down the quarterback competitions happening this offseason and which rookies should start and which ones should sit
Head the Welcome to the m MPD NFL podcast on Conror alongside al Breer.
I decided to try that out.
My kids have been took that for test drive.
Took that for test drive. Al Breer, It.
Kind of like rolls off the tongue. It sounds like you're starting to say Albert, but then you know you're finishing with my last name, which.
Is albre Yeah.
An interesting dynamic, but this would be the time of year to take that sort of thing out for test drive.
My It's one of my favorite things to do. Like me and my friends used to do that where you know, if somebody had we would either switch the nickname to the formal or the formal to the nickname, and so like you know, and anyone named Richard right was Dick.
Like we called them all dick no matter what. Right.
And then you know, I'm trying to think of, like who's like a famous So.
Like Tom Curran, my buddy up here in Boston. You know Tom right, Yeah, covered the Patriots forever. Uh, Tom is the king of the nickname you never asked for, So he'll like just start referring to people by unasked for nicknames like we did. A little bit of that in college, Like my buddy Pierce, we started calling him Bob because his name was Rob, you know, so like but but Kerran will do it with professional athletes, which is always fun. Like he habitually referred to Emmanuel Sanders's manny so like there were there were, there were, there were. I wish, I wish I could remember a few more offhand, Tom, if you're listening, maybe you can tweet at us or something like that. But in fact, I tell you what, I'll text him now and ask him for some more.
That's good.
I'm some more, some more unprompted nick names that he has awarded to people. Another one was he started calling Phil Perry the Senator, the same like John Gruden started calling Peyton Manning the sheriff, even though Peyton Marnging never asked for that. So Phil Perry's now the Senator.
So I'm trying, like, okay, so who like now I'm frozen in the moment. But like, you know, you know how like some people are like like like you know, you call like Tim Tebow, you call him like Timothy, you know, for no other reason than other than like you know, you're just taking a stab at what his actual Christian name is, in Tim Tebow's case, a very Christian name.
But yeah, I always liked doing.
That where just to throw the person off off the scent a little bit like my wife's, you know. I like to do that with my wife's first name because like everyone calls her one thing, and then I'm just like, you just throw a curveball and she's like, who the hell are you talking to. It's really funny you get that immediate reaction. We're going to recap the schedule release, we're gonna talk to h We're going to talk rookie quarterbacks. But I am still so the schedule came out on Wednesday. We are taping this on the morning of Monday, May twentieth. I'm still hot about the schedule. And I didn't realize how hot I was about the schedule until I started talking to my neighbors, who don't care about this at all. Uh, but they will just ask me things about what's going on with football. And the volume that my voice got to when we were discussing the nuances of the schedule surprised me, especially like three or four days later, and I know that you did some deep dives into that, and I want you to temper my anger here. But there are three or four things that supremely bothered me with this schedule, and it's hard. It's hard, yes, it's hard for me. It's to believe and you know, you can twist it howevery way you want it, but it's hard for me to believe that this had any This is even in the same continent as competitive balance, it's not. And my problems are as follows. The Jets schedule is an absolute joke. Seven standalone games in eleven weeks. I don't care that a couple of them are against rookie quarterbacks. Maybe they requested not to have a bye after London, but the game you gave them after London was Monday mf and football against the Bills.
In Buffalo.
Are you serious? Seven stand alone games in eleven weeks.
That was insanity.
And then to have the head of NFL broadcasting say the Jets otis one because Aaron Rodgers got hurt. They didn't know anybody anything that Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers isn't gonna make it to the end of the season because of this schedule.
That's what's gonna mess everything up.
Yeah, like I thought the front end of their schedule was and then the.
Back end is hard based on the teams that the.
I mean, like the San Francisco thing. So you think about this, like people don't realize the way NFL travel works, So you know, like they'll come out of San Francisco and probably I mean realistically, So you say that game probably ends nine o'clock local time, right, the buses are probably pulling out of there at what ten ten thirty Pacific time? Right? Okay, so now you got what a six hour flight to Jersey. You're probably taking off at like what five six am or five six am Eastern? No, no, no, no, no, no no, You're taking probably around probably around midnight. Yeah, you're probably landing around five or six am Pacific because you probably like take off around like eleven or twelve Pacific. So I'm just I'm messing the math up. But I mean that that to me is a huge beef because generally, what you would get when you play a Monday night game is you get the benefit of the runway on the front end and maybe you get to rest your legs a little. But this is the start of the season, so there's no benefit to that you're traveling cross country and then you come back and you're going to Tennessee the following Saturday.
And here's the thing, there was no reason. So the Jets also have the Cardinals on their schedule, and why wouldn't you then, if you're going to give them back to back road games to start the season, why aren't the Jets playing the Cardinals in Week two? Because then they can stay on the West Coast, they can go down to wherever, they can go to Phoenix, they can stay somewhere down there. They can practice in Phoenix for the week, then they can play the Cardinals, then they can come home for the opener, so that everybody's body clock is the same. Instead, you're going straight home, you have a short week, then you're going to Nashville before your Week three home opener and against the Patriots, which is like, come on, it's just not fair. And I think too, I think if you want to know what the NFL thinks of you as an owner, and you're Woody Johnson and your first game is facing the guy who sacked Aaron Rodgers and tours Achilles on Monday Night Football the year before, that's a middle finger to you.
That's what they think of you.
All these primetime games aren't a compliment. They are a gauntlet for you to go through because the Jets sell better when they are unsuccessful and flailing in chaos, and you schedule is ensuring that that is going to happen.
Do you think ESPN asked for it? Yes, because they want the storyline because that gives them a full day, right, and what's juice here? Full day right and talking about what happened one year ago the circular. It's great for business, but it's not great for you because you have to answer questions about it now all week. Now.
Aaron Rodgers is gonna happen whatever, you know.
And it would have been that way anyway. If if the game was Sunday at one, it probably you would have been answering questions about his first game back.
But Monday night's different.
Yeah, but just so, yeah, the whole thing, like because then you get past Sunday and Monday boom ten am, like all the focuses on that game and yeah, it sucks, man like. And you know, so I actually I actually did, and you mentioned like I did a little research on this, so I went back and I looked. You know how our cats was the old schedulings are and the scheduling guys have an unenviable job and they do a great job with it, no question, right, it's I think this has more to do with the owners personally. I think it has more to do with the owners and like creating, because if you create so much inventory, you have to fill so many boxes and everyone wants their piece of the pie. And we talked about this last week, right, like, when everybody's paying close to the same rate, it was different when it was teered off, right, Like when Monday night football cost substantially less than Sunday Night football and Thursday night football was on the league's in house network. Well, then you could stash games and stash teams certain places because it was like, well, you paid a lot less than this group did. When everybody's paying a premium, which is what happened. What's happening now? You can't just put the worst. You can't put the Panthers into a Monday night slot or a Thursday night slot, right, you can't do it, And that takes options away. So what does that mean? Well, you know you're not just taking the game off the schedule. That means the Chiefs got to go in again, or that means the Bill's got to go in again, or the Bengals or the Niners or the Eagles, and so you're taxing these teams, and that's what's resulting. Is what's happened to the Jets, that's the extreme of it. But it's happened to other teams too. So I look back at my story, right, and from twenty nineteen is the first year I did it. I'd sort of taken the mantle along with a lot of other things from Peter, and so was the first time I'd really dove in and did the making the schedule story. I went and sat in the scheduling room with the guys. They were great talking about it, and so what they were most proud of, right, what they were most proud of was there was only one instance of a team going on a three game road trip, and there was only one instance of a team playing on the road on a Sunday after a road Monday nighter. Right, they were really proud of that. They were like, we're taking care of our teams, and they felt like that was an accomplishment for people who don't know Again, the three game road trip doesn't sound bad until you realize this isn't the NBA or baseball or baseball or hockey where you're just flying from one city to the other. You're going back and forth and back and forth and back and forth. So this year, so, like I said, that only happened once in each case. Right, So this year there are four teams that have three game road trips, and there are five teams that are playing on Sundays on the road after Monday night game, after road Monday night games. On top of that, there was the whole Thursday night thing, which was you don't have to play more than one Thursday night game, right, I mean, it's taxing on the body everything else. The result of it can be cumulative. Well, now you have fourteen teams that are playing on either four or five days rest, so that's less than a Monday night rest. Right, Monday night rest is six days rest. You're playing thirteen teams that are playing on like the Thursday night rest, and doesn't it's not always a Thursday night game, but the Thursday night rest. And then there's a fourteenth team, which is the Chiefs that's playing on a Friday after a Sunday and also has a Thursday night or so. It's just, you know, I think I think it's a couple of things. Connor. It's number one. It's that you have all of the different masters that you're serving now that have paid a premium rate and are expecting a premium product. So that's number one. Number two, you know, I just think, like this is my own personal opinion. They know if you put football on TV, it's going to rate, sure, and so if someone gets hurt and this sounds crass, if someone gets hurt or the quality of the game is maybe eighty five percent of what a normal NFL game is, how much do they really care? And I think the answer is, as long as it rates, they really don't, you know. I mean, I think you have more owners that aren't in the trenches like football fans a lot. I think you have more owners than you ever have that that that that really don't know if it's puffed or stuffed and don't care as much about the product. Now, that's not everybody. There are owners that deeply care about their teams, that are entrench that love it, that live for having that team. There are a lot of guys like that. You know, for all the criticism of Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft, those two guys care deeply about their teams, you know, the maris, the rooms, they care deeply about their teams. But there are people that don't, you know, like that, that that that that that aren't in that the trenches to that degree. And so I do think that that's part of it. Is like the the the quality of the product matters less than the rating they can affix to it.
Yeah, no, I agree. And so.
My one closing point here on the Jets, I just feel like defeatists because primetime games, to me, should be earned through performance.
You should have to play your way into primetime games.
And now, okay, I get it, you're not going to not put Aaron Rodgers in primetime. But Aaron Rodgers is now forty, he's coming off of his last season in the NFL was not good, okay. And so the Jets this year have the most standalone games and are tied for the most primetime games in twenty twenty four with the Cowboys, who have won twelve games in each of the last three seasons. The forty nine Ers, who are in the Super Bowl last year. Teams that have less primetime games than the Jets, the Ravens who won thirteen games last year, the Eagles, who were in a Super Bowl two years ago, the Packers, the Chiefs.
Who won two super Bowls in a row.
Like, all of these teams should have more primetime games than the Jets, and you should have let the Jets to work their way into a situation like that. You are pre baking this team to a point where they are never going to reach their potential.
Do you think it's like do you think it's the NFL betting people are just gonna turn and look at a ten car pile up.
Yes, that's what they want.
But that's like, like I I'm like.
Trying to chase everybody.
I would be.
Yeah, I'm sure they are, but like I don't know how to shake anything. Yeah, yeah they are, But how do you how can I shake the normal person? Because here's what really sucks about being the Jets. It's gonna be and you know, I hope they do well right and that defense could be good enough to just pound the crap out of a bunch of the rookie quarterbacks earlier in their schedule and survive all the primetime games, and then they could be humming by the time they get to the divisional schedule.
I don't know.
I'm not putting that against them. I think that they're well coached. I think it's a good roster, all that stuff. But here's what's probably gonna happen. It's gonna be Week ten and the team is gonna be like four and six, and there's gonna be something that's gonna happen as a result of everyone being tired and frustrated from all these road trips, and then all the fan at home with their remote control flipping through the channels is going to say, is a typical Jets, this is always what happens. But really, what we're doing is putting this team in a pressure cooker for eleven straight weeks, and we're being like, Haha, don't screw up, don't screw up, don't screw up, and then as soon as they do, we're gonna jump on them. Without the perspective that the NFL has basically put them through.
What's the what's the thing at the end of American Gladiator, the end thing that you have to go through important.
Now you're asking me to like dive away.
Like Nickelodeon guts.
Remember the agro Crag At the end, they had to go through the agro crag. We're putting the Jets through the agro crag.
Was like the culmination of everything.
It was like you had to put together all the skills that you had competed against. So there was like the you have to climb and then you have to like repel, and then you have to like run, and you know, we're putting that.
You know what the Jets are.
The Jets are like like the lay person in American Gladiators, and then the NFL are like those two beefy guys and leotards firing tennis balls. Remember the tennis ball cannon and American Gladiators.
That was my favorite. All right. The second thing that bothers me about the schedule, and I I am.
I can be entertained at the idea that this could end up being a benefit somehow, But how the Steelers have all their divisional games between week thirteen and week eighteen, and they play like six of seven I think against divisional opponents, are six of eight in the hardest division in football, and so like, why that doesn't make any sense. And you know the reason it's like that is because they had to sandwich all these other puzzle pieces together. And then they're sitting there in the room and they're being like, well, the Steelers play the entire AFC North slate in the winter starting Thanksgiving, sorry, you know, and then they end and then after they're done with that, the reward is the Chiefs on Christmas on short rest. If I'm Mike Tomlin, I'm kicking down the door of that place and ringing next like this is insane.
Now here's here's where.
You could argue, Here's where you could argue, my god, I'm.
It's insane.
Mike.
Uh, there was there was one. I saw one good point. Okay.
I think it was Mike Florio PFT, who's great and who I love, and he said, okay, maybe it's an advantage if you're the Steelers because you're playing in the AFC North. Joe Burrow hasn't made it through It has only made it through one complete season. Lamar Jackson gets hurt, no offense, and Deshaun Watson is Deshaun Watson. So maybe you want all of your divisional games backed up towards the end of the season because you have a better chance of not but maybe you have Deshaun Watson at peak strength at the end of your schedule.
I just I mean, it just seems like such a cruel twice.
That you throw the Chiefs Christmas game in there.
The Chiefs and the Eagles in there too.
Yeah, like, come on, like, you can't again, you can't.
The Chiefs are another one. The Chiefs are another one? Where there last? Here? Hang on, I have it? Where did I put it? Here? The Chiefs have it? Where where is it? They're okay, So they're week twelve to seventeen, Sunday, Friday, Sunday, Sunday, Saturday, Wednesday. It's a joke. I mean, I don't know. I don't know. I just you know it's they're one. So here's here's where the issue is going to be. Like people are like, I've heard a lot of people say two bye weeks, right, So just so people know the reason that they won't go back to two bye weeks. The reason why it's never become a serious conversation is because the networks. The networks don't want the extra bye week because they feel like it'll dilute the Sunday.
Product, you right, Saluting the Sunday product.
Is what they're doing here, right, So like by not diluting the Sunday product with the second by and making it safer, they're diluting the Sunday product by making the game more dangerous, you know. So it's just it's again like you know, and I just think it's everybody has somebody the answer to. Everybody has bosses for the owners, the network heads or the bosses. And I just think as these as the price of these packages has escalated. You know, if you're ESPN or your Amazon, you paid what you did to get those packages. Hell yeah, you should be asking for great you know, because that and you remember how long like how these things got dragged out right because the NFL was searching for top dollar. You don't think it came up at some point when the NFL was asking for more and more and more, like ESPN saying well, you got to give us a Super Bowl then, right, like Amazon saying well you got to give us a better package. Then you got to give us better games. And because they were chasing that the dollar, right like they kept chasing the dollar, well, you gotta let us flex, right, So I mean I just think in this case, it's again it's a matter of and I don't know if I don't even know if I used this on the pod. I used a couple places last week. But it's like, let's just say, let's just say, like, so the Sunday Night package costs twenty five bucks, the Sunday package costs twenty, Monday Night Football costs fifteen, and Thursday Night costs ten. Right, So then if you went to like Amazon or ESPN and said, well, you know, courser package doesn't look as good, you know, like because look like NBC paid twenty five dollars and you guys paid fifteen and ten. Right, But which is sort of the way it was before. But if all of a sudden, then ESPN and Amazon are paying twenty three bucks apiece, what are they going to say? Right? You know? So that's sort of the way you have to look at it. Like I think that's where this has happened. Is that to get that, they want to get different carriers in, and they want to get different people involved, and they want to have the price escalate, and as the price escalates, to get the price where they want it, they got to promise more things and the collateral damage here I think becomes the players in the quality of football.
By the way, speaking of terrible stretches, because I did the five teams who got the screwed the hardest by the schedule, the Steelers are one of them. Obviously, the Jets were number one. Look at this Cardinals schedule, by the way. Week one on the road at Buffalo ten am body clock, Week two home Rams, Week three Lions.
So week forty of.
The Commanders, you think that's a winnable game? Probably Week five at forty Niners. Week six at Green Bay Packers, Week seven Los Angeles Chargers, Week eight at Miami Dolphins.
When is that team winning a game? Like, yeah, I mean, now, they'll they played hard last year. This team's better than people.
They're better than people think think. Yeah, they're better than people think.
But still, if you're Jonathan Gantton, did you look at that and you're like cool, cool, Like I.
Mean, I guess like your hope if you're a Cardinals fan, now is you spring an upset somewhere in the first three and then you beat the Commanders to get out of September at five hundred, right.
Like the back end of it Okay, I got I got Michigan or Minnesota, the quarterbacks for Michigan.
You got JJ McCarthy.
On the back end, you got your two Seattle games, which might not be as daunting. You got the Patriots, You have that beautiful Panthers game, which I'm sure everyone's going to be looking forward to so much at the end of the season. But then you close out the season again with the forty nine ers. My last rant is that. And this was another thing that Mike Florio brought up that he noticed in the schedule, which I've thought it was really interesting. The Lions could end up playing fourteen of their first fifteen games indoors. They may not play outdoors until well into December.
Wait, who is this the Lions real?
Is that crazy?
Well? That division? Well, yeah, that division, because I mean that's crazy.
Yeah, I mean think about that.
That typing everybody hears is me googling things furiously as Connor brings them up, because they don't have the schedules memorized. But yep, yeah, so rams home.
And some of them are are multipurpose stadiums, right, so they.
Could open the roof in Arizona, they could open the roof in Dallas. Holy crap, you're right, but look at that. The packer of the packers is a ack. Green Bay November third, right.
So that's the one I believe, because Houston, Indianapolis, and wow, how wild is that Week sixteen at Chicago, right, could be there outdoor game, which.
You know, maybe it's not an advantage. I don't know, but.
By then, this is that crazy that a team one who can team a team from Detroit might.
Be by never play outside.
A massive disadvantage going and playing cold temperatures in December. I mean that might be the only like, but if you look at it, like, that's the only cold weather game because San Francisco will be whether I'll be fine there in December, right, so they have one cold weather game the whole year, and so I mean green Bay. I guess green Bay could be dicey in November, who knows, but probably not.
You're gonna have all these anomalies and I could keep going like for Okay, I mean.
This isn't but this is this has nothing, but this this is like a little bit more like a schedule and quirk, right, because it's the formula. Spit this one out, yeah, all.
Right, Here's here's a non non quirk one okay, out of since two thousand and five. Since two zousand and five, ESPN has compiled net rest differential, right or not? Since two thousand and two, they've been doing net rest differential. So how many more weeks of rest does one team have going into another team? And then they rank it cumulatively throughout the season. The twenty twenty four Ravens have one, two, three, four more weeks of positive rest differential, four more weeks than any team since they started tracking that metric. So okay, the Ravens have like plus sixteen rest differential plus sixteen. The previous high was a plus twelve over the over a twenty two year sample size.
Okay, So part of that would be that they get to one of their longer trips is to Kansas City that's on that Thursday night, So that helps.
That's wild.
Yeah, good for them, I mean great for them, But like a lot of this shouldn't be happening, you know what I mean, Like a lot of this should not be happening, right, Yeah.
Well, the saws imbalances, where again, like this is I mean, like it really is that simple. It's like the more games you put on weekdays, the harder it becomes to put the jigsaw puzzle together. And I just again like it's it would take the players banding together to stop this from continuing, right because who else is going to stand in the way of it, or like people not watching anymore, which isn't gonna happen. I think we've pretty well established that I did.
It didn't pick up steam.
But I advocated for in my teams who got screwed column the Jets to just not come out of the locker room week one.
Just don't come out.
Boycott boycott, and here's the thing, and I'll wrap it up with the Jets and then we'll get onto other stuff because I've complained.
I've been complaining about the or they could let their charter leave and just hang out on it, to just stay on the tarmac.
Stay stay at Teterborough or Morristown, wherever the Jets take off from. They have a cool little airport in New Jersey that's not Newark.
But they don't fly out of Newark.
I don't think maybe they do. But there's there's two little I know. Woody Johnson's private jet goes in too.
I know, I know they have like the private airports around there, but I didn't think I mean, because it's New York, maybe there is a private airport that's got like a big enough run way.
To Yeah, maybe then is not big enough.
I don't know. I mean because I think that that's why most NFL teams, like I know, like so the NBA team, like so the Celtics here they fly into air Force base near where I grew up, called Hanscombe, right, But they can do that because it's a smaller plane. I don't think the Patriots could do that because they need a bigger plane because it's more people.
Obviously they need plane to Huh do they need more than one plane to or can they prove all that on one plane team?
Yeah?
So I know normally there are normally it's one plane. There are instances like where they will have like a friends and family plane or a corporate plane. You know, I know that exists where like the team will do you know, the team might make like say like you're playing out in Arizona and you turn it into like a golf trip for your sponsors or whatever. They may send charge or another plane to go. You know, like sometimes they'll do that, but I think generally, like all the people that are involved in like the week to week that are there, like on the trip every week or on one plane, I'm pretty sure people are learning a lot about NFL travel logistics on this podcast. They are.
It's kind of interesting. One more weird scheduling quirk.
The Lions not only play fourteen of their first fifteen games potentially indoors. Guess how many short weeks they have short road weeks?
How many?
Zero?
They're one of four teams that do not have a short road week.
That's crazy.
And guess how many short weeks period they have the whole season short rest once one? And that is I don't know when it is.
I just know that, but that is unbelievable.
Let's get into some other stuff because I can't tell you like how hot I got with this schedule. Like my wife is like, why do you care? And I was like, I don't know. But I think like part of the problem is, like we cover the NFL, we write about it all year, and then you're writing something about a team in December and someone like about some really interesting thing that's going on, and then on X or Twitter or whatever, someone's just.
Gonna be like, well you suck, who cares?
But the reason they suck is not because the reason they suck is because of the schedule. A lot of it has to do with the schedule, you know, That's why they suck.
So we're given to coaches and quarterbacks crutches on this podcast too. That's it.
Take it, baby, that's all we need. Albert has some really interesting stuff up this week, and I encourage you guys to go look at it, and I want to talk about some of it here. Let's start with TUA. They're in an interesting spot now where listen. I think old Boss Peter King used to have a great line in meetings where he would say, if you gave if you gave Mike McDaniel sodium, what is it?
Sodium pentather.
He loves. Peter is a big, big sodium pentathal guy.
He doesn't say truth serum, he says sodium pentethal, which.
Is truth serum. Right.
Yeah, I believe I would think if you gave Mike McDaniel truth serum and you sat him down and you said, would you've paid that for Kirk Cousins this offseason and would you have felt better about it.
I think Mike McDaniel would say.
Hell, yeah, absolutely, and instead what's happening is that you're running into a situation where you almost have to give to the Daniel Jones contract, right, which, yeah, is not what you want to do.
I'm sorry, it's not.
I think my guess would be So two is expected to be there on Monday. The news might already be out there. I'm not sure, but it is. It is, okay. So he showed up today and like my understanding is like he's been doing some stuff off site. So he's been working with John Beck. That's you know, hiring a quarterbacks coach for the a personal quarterbacks coach for the first time in his life. So that's new. So there are these different things that he's doing. And the team, for their part, has started to operate like a team that's getting ready to pay its quarterback. They got rid of Zabian Howard and Jerome Baker, and they let Christian Wilkins walk, and so it definitely feels like a team that's operating like one that is preparing to onboard a fifty million dollar contract, you know, Like I I've always felt like with these like do you wind up being after you pay a guy who is maybe a B rather than an A at that position, like the forty five win NBA team who paid it superstar too much, And it's just always going to be competitive and knocking at the door, but can never quite break through. And I think that's the question confronting the Dolphins now. And I think that's why if you're them, do you do a deal that's got like healthy numbers, but that you can bail from in a couple of years?
You know?
Like is that the pun? Yeah? I mean I like, do you pay a premium? So like, let's say you do a deal that's got like ninety million dollars in the first two years, but it gives you the option to bail after twenty twenty five, Right, So that way, like you know, he's your quarterback this year, and then theoretically you could draft one next year. Right, you can get aggressive and draft one next year, and you know you could move like you can wind up moving him after the twenty twenty five season or just cutting him. I think that there's some merit in that idea. I don't know if you want to it to be your quarterback for the next ten to fifteen years. But clearly they've done a lot to invest in him over the last you know, over the over the two years Mike McDaniel has been there, and like you look at that again, you look at like their actions over the course of this offseason, they've really done a lot to to to to accommodate the contract that everybody thinks is coming. Boy, what would you do? I mean, what would you do here?
I mean I would have I would have leapfrog the Falcons for Kirk Cousins.
Unless I mean, if Kirk was always going to go to the Falcons.
I know his wife is from down there, you know, maybe, but like, clearly the Falcons were interesting.
I mean the interesting the interesting thing is Mike was in Washington, was Kirk the same way that Raheem was right, you know, so they had that they were both there for that they had been obviously we yeah, and I do think like to some degree Kirk would probably be able to open things up in a way that maybe TUA hasn't been able to and give you and and like the thing is, if you pay to uh, are you drafting one next year? Like realistically, like.
You have to. But the problem is, like.
I hate how much second guess Mike McDaniel's second guessing there's been. I mean, that guy has been great in Miami, really like really and truly great. And we look at what Tua was under Brian Flores and like five different of his different offensive coordinators to what he's been under Mike McDaniel, which is at times an MVP candidate just based on numbers if you took everything else out of it. But time and time again, when the entirety of the game is on his shoulders, when maybe Tyreek Hill is off the field, which you almost have to at this point assume that, like it's going to be hard for him at that age asking him to do what you're doing to assume that he's going to be close to full strength in December or January.
And so.
You know, you that's when Tua needs to take over and he doesn't. And that's okay, like you know, very few quarterbacks do. But get my like, Mike McDaniel is getting the most out of people, and I would love to see him.
It would be very sad.
For me to see a situation where everything gets cleaned out in Miami and we never get to see Mike McDaniel with like a dude under center or even a rookie of his own choosing who has all of those attributes that he values, you know.
Right right, And I and I think like the other thing is like you're, you know, obviously, we're all a product of our own experiences. And Mike was there for you know, when they moved up and went and got Trey Lance and they moved off of Jimmy Garoppolo, and so he got to see all of that, and like, so I think he also knows like that the draft isn't always the answer, you know, and that what's behind door number two can be pretty scary because you don't have like the same floor that you would have with Tua. With Tua at least, you know, if he stays healthy, you're going to get a pretty competent level of NFL quarterbacking. And it can be scary for these guys sometimes, especially the ones who've been through it, like Mike went through it. He saw the Robert Griffin thing fall apart, you know what I mean, Like, so does that affect you in some way? He was there for Johnny Manzel in Cleveland, you know, So does that affect the way you look at it and being like, yeah, that sounds great. Like we go back in the draft and we get one and we're all in and we got a quarterback on a rookie deal, but a guy who was there for RG three, for Manzelle and for Trey Lance. Is the is the outlook a little different? Like, Hey, you know, it's not that easy to get the tenth or twelfth best quarterback in the league, you know what I mean? So I know what you're saying right like, which is it would be great to see him with like this top shelf guy. But there is a flip side to it. The flip side to it is like, man like, if we take the wrong swing and we've screwed up what we already have, then I'm in big trouble. I and the Niners. I mean, the Niners obviously got tremendously fortunate to wind up with what they wound up with at the very end of the twenty twenty two draft, which of course was after after McDaniel was gone.
Yeah, I I hope that Stephen Ross is smart enough to realize that he lucked into a really good head coach. I mean, the Dolphins were across the board number one on the NFL Player Survey and the NFLPA Player survey.
And I think a lot of that has to do with Mike, I really do. Yeah.
Now, obviously they have a beautiful facility too. They have a nice facility and you know, great people working there. But those people, I mean, Mitch Golden.
Has a lot of like a lot of guys like living in South Floor. I don't think that hurts.
That doesn't hurt.
Yeah, Mitch Goldish and I did a story on a lot of those people are great at what they do, but are also super empowered by Mike, you know, And I think that that has you know, I don't know.
I think that has a lot to do with it.
It's crazy. It's crazy too to think about that, because, like I don't think anybody would have said, like in twenty eleven when Steve Ross was was getting on the gig, getting on the private jet to fly out to to Stanford to go meet with Jim Harbaugh and uh and without telling God rest his soul, Tony Sperano, I don't think very many people would have been would have would have guessed that that Steve Ross would be one of the of the better owners in the NFL. But like, like the evidence is now that he's set up a good operation there for sure.
Speaking of good operations, we have teams now that are breaking in rookie quarterbacks. There's a lot to this process. You in your takeaways for Monday have brought us inside that process with a few teams.
Tell us what you know.
Yeah, I think it's interesting because like they're taking very different approaches, and you know, like the Bears obviously, being you know, in pole position, having the number one overall pick and being able to control everything allowed them to be very aggressive and assessing Caleb Williams, and they took advantage of that by you know, making the decision early because they were able to consider all their options to know they would be able to pick whichever one they wanted. And then they actually started working with him on the offense in their zoom meetings with him. So, for those who don't know, teams are allowed to do three zoom three one hour zooms with each draft prospect, and so they max those out with Kleb and they basically went through an install over the first three over the three zooms before the draft. So they put in the terminology with them in the first zoom, they put in their normal downplays on the second zoom, and then on the third zoom they put in third down red zone. So when he was drafted, he already had like a baseline of knowledge in what he was doing. And that was a result of conversations they've had about like let's just start him, you know, and like let's go forward with this and not screw around and not throw up the throw open the door for a competition, and with the idea being it would really help if you it really helps to get the amount of reps he'll get, and also for the veteran players to see him that way, and you can see how they emphasized that and the dinner they did with him before the draft and everything else. So that's one way to do it. Yeah, the the other two teams is there in the top three, the Commanders and Patriots are having competitions. With the Commanders it's very focused on you know, Jayden Daniels and Marcus Mariota, and they're doing like the two platoon practice system where they have simultaneously practices on two fields so they can work guys. We work those guys with both the ones and the twos and get the most out of their time, you know, and then the Patriots are basically saying, like, we're gonna throw all four guys into the competition and let the best man win and hopefully we have a better idea at the end of the spring. I think with the idea that at least probably the start of the season, Jacoby Brissett's going to have the leg up as a guy who who knows the system already, who knows the market, and who's been I mean, like, you look at the awkward situations that Jacoby Brissett's been in, right, Like, he got his first NFL start as a result of Tom Brady's to Flight Gates suspension, right right then he became the cult starter after Andrew lux like out of nowhere retirement, and then he was the stand in for Deshaun Watson during the Sean Watson's suspension. Like you talk about a guy who's like seen everything and can handle any situation no matter how awkward it gets, Like he's your guy, you know what I mean? Like and so like, I think that the likelihood is they start Jakobe at the beginning of the season. So my guess would be we know Caleb's starting in Chicago. My guess would be it's being set up for Jaden to win the job in Washington, and then in New England you're going the other way, where you're probably going to at least start the season with Drake May on the bench.
So given all that, Albert, who do you think, who's your not rookie of the year, but rookie quarterback of the year.
We've got in the best situation.
J J.
McCarthy. I think that's pretty pretty well established. I'm not positive he's going to start, though. I think Kevin O'Connell's gonna be very disciplined about that, and I also have gotten a sense that O'Connell and Wes Phillips, their offensive coordinator, and Josh McCown and all those guys are very comfortable with Sam j Arnold. So I think JJ McCarthy will start at some point. I'm just not sure it's going to be early enough for him to have the best season of any of these guys. So I really want to go with Jayden Daniels just because I think scheme wise, they'll be able to cook some things up that'll catch people off guard, and they're gonna be really hard to defend, but it's hard not to pick Caleb Williams. So I think I go with Caleb because I think Caleb is got a pretty good situation around him with Darnell Wright is a high draft pick and an anchor for that offensive line, and he's throwing a Dj Moore in Roma Dunze and Keenan Allen, and they've and Cole Comet's there at tight end, and they've got you know, a stable of backs. They signed DeAndre Swift. Like I just I think that they've created a really nice situation for Caleb Williams where I think he'll have the best year. I wouldn't be surprised if Jayden Daniels winds up, you know, with three thousand yards through the air and a thousand yards on the ground, though, I think I think we could see something crazy from Jayden Daniels because scheme wise, they'll be able to stay ahead of everybody else. As far as the other two Panics is gonna sit and are the other guys Panics is gonna sit? I think May sits at least to start the year, you know, McCarthy, I think says to start the year. But maybe comes in somewhere middle of the season and bo Nicks is the wild card. What do you think the Broncos do with him? I mean, I think he almost have to play him, right, yeah. I mean he's twenty four, he's got he's got sixty college starts. Like on paper, he's like, should be prepared.
I say that with all due respect.
I mean, you know, I talked to you know, we did Bo as part of the covered package we did, and I had a great conversation with his dad, and his Dad's like, Bo's married, He's got a house, you know, Like I mean, he's you know, he's ready to go.
You know.
It's and not that marriage and home ownership automatically make you mature. I'm probably the best proof of that. However, it does certainly change your focus and you're you know, it brings you into a kind of a narrower place in terms of, hey, these are the things I gotta get done to take care of my family.
He played in college against Joe Burrow.
His first start was against Justin Herbert. Justin Herbert, Justin been in the NFL for a while.
I believe Michael Pennix played against Dwayne Haskins. I'm not in college, which I think that's right.
Now, started as a refreshman in Indiana.
Yeah, so I don't know at some point he did. I just hold on a second. I'm not sure if he because I think he got hurt that year, so I'm not sure if he made it to that game. But he would have been, he would have Here. This is great podcasting here.
This is like when Mike Franciless used to just go on Baseball Reference in the middle of the wf BAN show and he's like, uh, Aaron Judge's bedding in the month of October.
Sorry, sorry, no Penix that week? That was Peyton Ramsey started that game for for the Hoosiers that day.
Who could forget?
Yeah, yeah he was. He was a a pretty good college player, that Peyton and at Ramsey. From what I can remember, Pennix was on the roster though. So do we want to wrap it up with some some unasked for nicknames.
By the way, Oh yeah, give me some more the.
Tom curR and yes, unasked for nicknames. Celtics legend, Bob Parrish. Oh that's so good, Celtics d legend Bob Parrish. Thought that was good exactly.
What I'm talking about.
Yeah, apparently he got he he he started calling Chris Stapptis Persingis, who was new on the Celtics this year, stops he it's pretty good like that one too. And then his boss at NBC Sports Boston, great guy, Kevin Miller's the I don't know what his title is exactly, executive producer or whatever. Kevin, who's from the great state of Illinois, from a town called Greenville. He calls Kevin Miller the Greenville Flash.
We were we used to do a.
Thing, and I swore, I'm texting with him and Phil right now and I'm trying. He brought up the Senator too as a as an unasked for a nickname, and uh, I swore to him. I'm like, you have so many more of these in the holster and I just can't remember them.
It's hard. I'm like, going down the list.
Of Bob Parrish is a pretty good one. That's an all timer. Yeah, there's got to be some Williams that we referred to that that you could refer to as Bill that you would definitely not be a Bill, you know what I mean.
I mean, the one of the closest home examples was always Bob Glauber, who is a legendary Hall of Fame NFL columnist at Newsday for a very long time.
I call him Bobby Football, and uh.
I like that. He used to do football.
He used to you know, our our former love coworker, Jennyrentis, who's now at the Times. Bob Glaber used to always walk.
Into the building and look at her and say Jennifer.
And he used to walk by and to the point where I had assumed her real name was Jennifer.
But I never thought about it.
You know, And then you know, it's just funny too. It's funny to do that, you know. I really I'm a big fan of it. I'm a big fan of it. Just the unasked for nicknames are always excellent. I'm trying to find a William here that would be good. Like I thought of the old forty nine Ers fullback William Floyd right, who was a star back in the day. Kind of sounds like a guy, sounds like a guy from accounting, you know what I mean. There's no Williams in the NFL. Oh No, there are William Golston. So there you go, Bill Golston there's only three Williams in the NFL right now, according to.
This the actor, you know, the actor, Richard Gear.
Yeah, so there's a rumor.
That he lived Dick Gear.
Yeah, he lives in my Uh there's a rumor that he apparent late because he bought a Thanksgiving turkey in my hometown once, and so there's a rumor that he has. Like, uh, there's this secret property that we've never been able to access, and I think it's just owned by some crazy person that it's covered in barbed wire. But we always when we drive by it, we're like, that's Dick Gear's house. Dick Gear lives up there.
Dick Dent is a missed opportunity from the past that would have been a great one. Dick Dent. Oh man, was he the Super Bowl MVP? I think he was, right, Yeah, old Dick Dent.
I'm on Rankers ninety five people named Richard, Dick Gervaise.
I'm googling Rick, NFL, Dick Sherman.
Dick Ruby, Nick Seymour, and then you would have to call Dick Clark, Richard Richard Clark.
Dick Seymour. I don't know why that's Oh, dude, this one's.
Oh, there's so many good ones. Yeah, Dick Lent, Richard Lane, Dick Branson, Dick Petty, Dick Petty, the famous NASCAR driver, Dick Petty.
Dick Petty. I like that. I really that's a good one.
Dick Petty, Dick oh Man, Richie Ramirez is Richard Ramirez was the Nightstalker, the famous serial killer, Dick Ramirez.
Dick Simmons, Richard Simmonsons. Come on, oh, I like that. I like that. Dick Simmons, Dick Simmons.
All right, we need to end this before we get our Fromkowski.
Bob Griffin the third.
Oh no, there you go, Bobby Griffin. God bless Bobby G. Bobby g. All right, that's Albert.
Actually actually think that the last one, Tonyan, I think that is one where they call him Bob and he never, like the Packers players would all him Bob, and he never asked to be called Bob. That's good back in the day. So Bobby Tunyan, Yeah.
Bobby Tunyan, Bobby Tunyan, all right, that's al Breer.
I'm con or.
It doesn't doesn't work because my name my first day the second half of my first name is just my last name. So it all just runs in together. So it's there's nothing very uh phonetically pleasing about it. But thank you guys for listening. Uh, if you're listening to this, we will be back probably like tuesday. You know, we're gonna enjoy a Memorial Day weekend. We're gonna hang out, we're gonna cook some hot dogs, not together, but we'll talk about it on the podcast next week. Please enjoy your Memorial Day weekend and uh come back and enjoin us in a little bit
