Saints Church Scandal & First Time Pro Bowlers | Week In Review

Published Jun 19, 2020, 8:00 AM

Mitch, Jenny, and Conor are back for another week in review, looking back in depth at what we've written this week. We hear about Jenny's piece on the New Orleans Saints involvement in the Catholic church's sexual abuse scandal and Conor's breakdown of which players he thinks will be headed to their first pro bowl this season

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Hey everyone, I'm Mitch Goldich. Welcome back to another edition of the mm QB week in Review podcast. Back to back weeks for us. I know we always joke about our inconsistent schedule, but here we are on consecutive Fridays. Although we don't have the whole group here, but I am joined this week by Connor Or and Jenny Barentis. Connor and Jenny, how you doing, Hi, Mitch, Hello Mitch. It just occurred to me that all of our podcast that Connor and I do start with the word week, just different spellings. We do a week Side Pod one, a week Side Pod two, and then a week in Review. I was about to say, with Albert not able to make it this week, it feels like I'm like, I was gonna say, like this is a crossover episode with the week Side podcast. I was almost gonna say, like, I'm like guest hosting, but that's not what this is at all. And as soon as I even thought that, I was like, oh, don't say that out loud, and then I said it out loud, and even now I'm regretting it, and I'm looking at your faces, so we're silent. Maybe your audition makes this The strong Side. Oh I like this. Welcome to the strong Side Podcast. All we had to do was get rid of Albert Brere and Matt made it the strong Side Podcast. It's fine, we can make jokes. He's not gonna listen to this. Everything's fine, all right. Off to a rolling start here, so we always go through and for those who are new to this podcast, we talk about our work over the last week, things that we've written up at the website. And because we started this during these pandemic times, we've also gotten in this habit where we start by just talking about what we've been up to this week and what's keeping us busy. It started as movies, I think a TV shows, and then it turned into books and just hobbies and anything to help pass the time from one day to the next. So Connor, how about if we go with you first, what's been keeping you busy the last week? I've become obsessed with the apps Strava. I don't know if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Yeah, So Strava, uh is like an exercise app, um, and I'm only friends with two people on it. But um, what Strava does is it will take out portions of your run, and it will name it in your neighborhood and then uh, like it's called our Our neighborhood is west Shore Drive, so it's the West Shore Shuffle or whatever, and then it it times everybody else in the neighborhood who's doing the run and using the app. So yeah, so I've been creeping on all my neighbors to see who's faster than I am. And not that I'm even close to being the fastest person, but like, there were some people that I thought, you know, because you go around the same time every day and you start seeing people um and kind of noticing okay, well he does it at lunch too, or she runs at lunch too. But then you're curious. It's like, well, how much faster are they than me? And now I know, and I know that I have some really fast neighbors. So it was pretty pretty interesting. And so I've been creeping on their Rava. I really hope it's not like linked in where they now know that I've been doing that, because I don't know them nearly well enough for uh for me to be creeping on their Strava page, but yet here I am. So your neighbors are all getting emails like he knows where you live and how fast you could run away from him. So this is amazing. So you're a lunchtime runner, Connor, I'm a lunchtime runner. Um it's uh, that's unfortunate most days because that is the peak of the summer sun. Um, so that is like it's pretty rough. However, Um, it's it's when everything hits, it's the it's the baby's nap time. It's a downtime for my wife at work. Um, she usually gets her lunch. So then I'll either I'll eat lunch later on in the day. And you know, you gotta gotta just try to get it in when you're gonna get it in Youah nice, Connor, guess what what? No pressure. If you don't want to be my friend on strong, I would love to be your friend. You are talking I have. I am hooked on Strava as well. I just got into it last year and I love it. Uh so. I So Jenny and I who are neighbors, as comes up every week on this podcast. We live very close to Central Park and there are all kinds of running ros there. There's a four mile loop, five mile loops, six mile loop, and sometimes I'll do different parts and loop around, and I love tracking all my runs and my times. But like you said, it's very fun. It tells you when you set a pr and it has all these tiny segments, so even just this little stret sometimes it will say like this is your fastest five k you've done, or you you know, your silver medal for a two mile or something. But then even just like little stretches of the park, it will say, oh, this was your fastest time you've ever done this or whatever. Uh. Now I'm looking at my phone and I just got a new follow request from Connor. I'm so I'm set to private so that my neighbors can't see what I'm up to. And I also just have a small circle of friends who can see me. But yeah, great, Now now I'm gonna know exactly when you're running when I'm waiting for you to file stories. Uh, and vice versa, if I choose to accept, I suppose. But yeah, I'm a big fan of Strava. I tried a couple apps when I got more into running last year for the first time in a while, and this was my favorite one. I'm a big fan. Well, this helped me on my quest to walk on every path in Central Park, Like, well, we'll track where I've been and where I haven't been. Yes, it'll try to brieve been. I think it would be tough to see like a big map that like has a line on all the trails, but it can definitely help you keep track. Okay, great, great, Wow, Well this is exciting and now we'll have to uh tune in next week and Connor and I will talk about each other's runs, I think, is what's going to happen. You can read my mild times live on air. Uh I could do that now, Jenny, how about you? What have you been up to this week? Well, I took your suggestion from last week, Mitch, and I watched the documentary so I thought it was really well done and I learned a lot about prison industrial complex and mass incarceration, so I think that was a really good recommendation. I can't believe I hadn't watched that one before, but while I was on Netflix that kind of then you know, even doubt the education with a mindless show. And I watched a couple episodes of Selling Sunset, which I'm not really proud of, but it's like a you know, mindless end of the day indulgence. You have to you have to, Like, I don't think I've ever heard of this show. Can you explain what this is? I mean, it's basically like this real estate firm and they sell houses in and around Sunset Boulevards, so primarily in the Hollywood Hills. But you know, they really have a lot of disdain for the valley. But one of the agents has been trying to make a foothold in the valley and um, you know, they have different properties that come up and really reinforces how overwhelming it would be to live in Los Angeles, Like how would you know where to live? Like I live in New York and that doesn't feel overwhelming because there's different neighborhoods and you could pick I don't know, it feels fine, like but like l A, it's just like there's so many hills and valleys and mountains and then are you by the beach and are you by the freeway? And how long will it take to drive from point A to point B? Whereas at least in New York, you're everything is connected by the subway. Yeah, LA feels a little overwhelming. I don't need to move there anytime soon. Yeah, so but anyways, that was my little escape, So a little bit of a little bit of both there. Yeah, you need the mindless, yea, everybody that's been tackling these gargantuan dentse and um, I'll separate that from because on the week Side podcast a few weeks ago, Jenny and I did talk about some reading that we did um to kind of coincide with what's going on in the world, and I put that in a separate category because that's important. It should be perpetual, it should be something that we're always doing. But that aside the dense like uh and really like emotionally charged like viewing of things like I just I couldn't do it, like I need I need to watch the dumbest things possible at night, and that is everybody loves Raymond Man Versus Food Guy's grocery games, Like it can't be any more serious than that, Like I can't just h I don't know, that's maybe that's just me, but yeah, I mean I've I've been perpetually rewatching the Office for the last you know, ever since it's been on the air, and that's just my go to I'm actually I'm in the final season now, and just if I need something mindless and easy to take my mind off things and help me fall asleep, I'll just watch other episode of the Office, and then when I finished season nine, I'll just move right back on to season one for the fiftieth time that I've gone through. Uh. And that's just you know, that's the way it's been for years and years. At this point there, you go, alright, well, uh, let's see what's been keeping me busy. So I actually have done something that I have not done in a very long time. My wife and I have been working on a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle. I don't think I've done a puzzle in like, I don't know twenty years. Like I don't know if I've done it since I was a kid. I mean, I've done like very small, easy puzzles with my five year old nephew, but I don't think that counts. That's not like, hey, let's do a puzzle. But um, I've got a thousand piece puzzle of Lincoln Financial Field. The Eagles have just scored a touchdown in a random October regular season game against the Vikings. I have not yet googled which game it is, but there's some pink for breast cancer awareness, and there's no Super Bowl banner up with the division title banners, so it feels like it's sometime in the range in October. At some point I'll google and see, you know more about this play. But a thousand pieces we did the lights and the sky and the field and the edge, and we're about two thirds of the way done. We have a lot of pieces of just the stands, and those are tough because they all look the same. But you know, you've got some small video screens and concrete slabs and things. So I anticipate by this time next week we'll have finished the puzzle and I'll be able to share a picture on Instagram. I have a confession to make. Early in Quarantine, I had a puzzle that I did and it was a nice escape because you can really get into it, like it's something to focus on and you know, take your mind off whatever else is going on. So I was like, I need some more puzzles, so I ordered for puzzles. Okay, but because of all of the delays in shipping and because a lot of the puzzles were sold out on places that you might normally go to get a puzzle. I just like ordered a couple off of sketchy Instagram ads, and let me tell you, I think I'm paying the price because there were two puzzles that supposedly shipped on May thirteenth, and it is now June. What is today? I haven't seen any progress in the shipping, and I get the same form reply every time I email customer service. And then I have a third puzzle that has not arrived yet, a succulents puzzle that seems to be slowly tracking, um across part of China, and so I don't know, it's only made marginal progress over the last week. So um, I'm a little bit concerned. That's the total opposite of where this where I thought this was going. I thought you were going to say that you had a stack of eight puzzles in your living room and you just decided you don't like puzzles anymore, and you were wondering why at all. The fact that you're eagerly awaiting all these puzzles and they're not arriving that I just feel bad for you. That's just that's a sad story. And I hope they arrived soon, Mitch, I think they're not arriving. Yeah, yeah, I think I got I think I got some. I think I made a bad decision purchasing the succulents puzzle off of Instagram. I think I learned a lesson here. So glass half full. I think they're coming, but you know what they're coming. They're going to come at the right time. That's the way you have to look at it. Maybe maybe you were not ready to receive them at that moment, and maybe maybe you are now ready to receive the positive sounds like you're talking about love or something, you know, love puzzles, it's all, yeah, it's all the same. Connor sounds so confident. It's like he's tracking your delivery drivers on Strava when they're falling up with them. Maybe all right, that was That was a long intro. Albert's gone. I think we made up for it on lens. Let's get into the meat of the podcast and talk about uh, some of our work this week. Jenny, you had a a great story, an important story, one that I know you've been working on for a long time, and I know you already did talk about this with Connor on the week side podcast that went up Thursday. But um, for our audience, can you I mean, I'm sure it's a lot of the same audience, but for people listening today, can you tell us a little bit about your investigation into the Saints. Yeah. So it took a couple of months to work on the story. Kind of weird how it dropped off of the radar after there was initial surge of reports in January that the Saints had worked with the Catholic Church in some capacity related to the handling of the clergy sex abuse crisis. And I remember reading those early stories, you know, in our hotel in Miami when we were there covering the Super Bowl, and thinking like, I gotta read more about this, learn more about this, maybe start reporting after the Super Bowl. Um. So that's what I did, and just tried to take a deep dive into the central question of why would the Saints be involved in any capacity and what was their role? And in the reporting, the thing that really stood out was that they had disclosed essentially a very narrow scope of involvement with the church. They said that one of the executives on the team, their head of pr Greg Bensil, was contacted in the weeks leading up to the release of a Credibly Accused Clergy List, and the team described their role as minimal in terms of just facilitating the release of the list and media interviews surrounding it. But if you look at the communications that came out, and this all came out through a civil suit, a former altar boy filed a civil suit against the local Archdiocese of New Orleans, and through the document production in that suit, there were emails with the from the archdiocese that involved the Saints official bencil and so that was kind of what the plaintiffs lawyers said, Hey, what's going on here, Let's subpoena the Saints, and ended up getting this collection of a hundred or so documents pertaining from the Saints pertaining to the handling of clergy sex abuse in New Orleans. And those documents are still under seal, but they've been cataloged in some parts in court record or referenced. And one of the big takeaways was that the Saints involvement started months before they had acknowledged and continued months after. And so I think that gets to the central question of transparency. And you know, if the Saints timeline did line up with what they presented. Is there other stuff that they haven't been fully transparent about? And I think a lot of people in New Orleans are wondering it, specifically those who are survivors of clergy sex abuse, and many of whom are also Saints fans or season ticket holders or have a tie to the organization. One is the daughter of a former Saints linebacker, and so they're speaking up and asking for the team to face a full public accounting, which they haven't yet. The Saints chose to file these emails confidentially and fought in courts to keep them confidential. UM, but at any point in time they could decide to change the confidential confidentiality designation. And it's interesting because the archdiocese filed for bankruptcy in early May, which is something that we've seen archdiocese across the country do when there have been mounting clergy sex abuse cases and UM and a lot of a lot of times experts say it's sort of to prevent a full document, want release, full transparency of a release of everything that's going on. UM. So the timing was interesting. There are a bunch of different cases going on against the church. The cans in which the Saints emails came up. Was just one of them. Um, it was against one deacon who's been accused multiple times of um sex abuse with miners. Um. There were a ton of other cases as well, some involving other priests and deacons, etcetera. And so those are all frozen by the bankruptcy and everything is kind of being handled in federal bankruptcy court, but the lawyers and the survivors and advocates are still pushing for a release of those emails and pushing for that full public accounting. You beat me to something I was going to say, which is that I thought I appreciated how you told the story, um, because you know, there's one way to write this would just be very sort of dense and looking at the emails and public records. But I thought the way you framed it talking to survivors and local people who love the team but are disappointed in their actions and want to know more about them, and even the fact that one survivor was, like you said, the daughter of a former player, I just thought that was a good way to tell the story. Um. But I mean, what do you think is the the fallout from here? Either from this story or from continued reporting. Is it that the Saints will be forced to, you know, share more detail about what happened, or um, you know, be held accountable in some way, Like where do you think this story goes from here? That's a really good question, Mitch. There's a lot of different routes that the plaintiff and plaintift lawyers can go to still pursue the release of the documents through the court. They could still try to get that resolved in civil court, even though that case has been removed to the bankruptcy court. Sometimes documents come out as part of an agreement made in the bankruptcy settlement. So there's like a council of survivors who make decisions and would ultimately agree to a settlement for all survivors, and that could include some kind of document release. Um. There haven't been any indications at this point in time that the Saints would choose to share those communications. Um, but you know other people who are on them. You know, if you have an email in your possession that you're a part of, you can release it at any point in time. So it's really hard to know how and when the documents will come out. But the one thing that in the story the plaintiffs lawyers said was, we will continue to seek the release of the documents. I think that's really important to them, It's really important to the survivors. They represent the plaintiff in the case where the Saint's emails came out, he's represented by a group of lawyers that have about two dozen survivors in New Orleans, and they've been advocating on their behalf and they've really taken this approach in court to push for full transparency. Um, often you know, annoying the church and now the Saints um in the process. I mean the church lawyers at one point said that that they were on a witch hunt because they were pushing for transparency in these cases. So, um, it's it's really been an interesting back and forth that's gone on in New Orleans. And um, you know, the Saints adds this other element because a lot of times certain issues don't get as much attention as if a sports team was involved. But even with that, it kind of fell off the radar, right the story story breaks in January. There's a pandemic in our country. Um, there's the bankruptcy by the Archdiocese, and I got the sense that people on the side of the Church and the Saints kind of thought that this had receded from uh public consciousness. Yeah, I saw the we you know, you tweeted it out and tweets from the MPB account, and some people responded like, oh, yeah, I forgot about this or I was wondering where this would go, And you're right. I mean, just so much has happened in the world that it's you know, it's easy to lose track of things. Um, last question from me, and then I don't know if Connor has anything if he wants to hop in, but I know you reach out to the Saints for the story, obviously, and you also had a quote from an NFL spokesperson. But we've seen the NFL investigate teams and players for all kinds of things and aggressively during Goodell's tenure. And you know, we've seen the NFL come down on the Saints before, although obviously bounty gate is something totally different. Um, but you know, do you think this is something where the NFL would investigate or uh, you know, either their own investigation or just you know, if something even more horrible than we already know comes out. Um, you know, do you think they could be in trouble with the league or have any possible penalties coming from that end? Right? And there's of course the Personal Conduct Policy, which applies to owners, could lead to a suspension or a fine of up to half a million dollar Excuse me, yes, half a million dollars right, Um. But at this point, the NFL says it is not investigating the Saints. And this is interesting because it kind of falls into this time period where the NFL is kind of pulled back a little bit on being aggressive with the personal conduct policy. Right after ray Rice, we saw them say we're gonna have our own investigations and we're going to do our own thing independent of law enforcement in the courts. And now in the last year so they've kind of receded from that, and now they're saying in the Saints case, they said, we're going to let the judicial process play out, and they said they're understanding was the Saints said cooperated fully and they were going to let the judicial process play out before they decided if there needed to be an investigation. And so I think that's probably dissatisfying for some I know that certain survivors who belonged to an organization UM called SNAP. It's the Survivor's Network of those abused by priests. They had sent a letter to the NFL. The NFL said it did not receive it. UM. I'm not sure how that happened. They sent the letter in January. UM, and you know, maybe they'll continue to follow up on that front, but UM, it's it's interesting. The other thing is the emails were sent from team email addresses, and email addresses are on the NFL server. So when the Saints were subpoena at the lawyers representing the plaintiffs let the NFL know because it's a Saints dot NFL dot com email address. But the NFL didn't take any involvement at that point either. So they've really kind of been hanging back. Um. You know, I think we see so many times that the NFL is subject or acts according to public pressure. Right, They're very reactive, and the thing that they react to is public pushing them one way or the other. And so if more things were to come out, if this issue were to continue to be on the on the forefront of people's minds and continue to be something that's that's the NFL is hearing a lot about. Then maybe they would take more interest, but I think they're kind of hoping that it fades to the back and they'll just wait and kind of let the judicial process. At this point, right, it's hung up. It's in bankruptcy court, so that plays in the Saints favor as well. Yeah, and it's easy for things to fade because again, just how much is going on, um, you know, even at the league office, just all the things they're dealing with related to the pandemic and possible changes to the schedule and TV contracts and just you know, you can easily see how something would uh you know, just fade or be put on the backburner much easier than in off season's past. Yeah. Absolutely, so I think it'll be interesting to see what's to come. But it's it's strange sort of writing about a story where you know that there's a significant amount of information there that you just can't get to write all these emails that are under seal, and um, there's a whole other part of the story that is included in those emails. All right, Connor, should we move? I don't know if you have any questions again, I know you and Jenny have already talked about this, but I don't know if you have anything for or if you want to just move on. You you had a busy week. You wrote about a few different not that Jenny didn't. That came out sounding wrong. Jenny hadn't. Sometimes I say things that I'm just like, man, Mitch, what are you doing? I do? I do have a comment though, and we did. We did have a really great discussion about the piece on the week Side podcast. But just a reminder, I think that you know, um, how incredible the lift is to do a story like that, and so just kudos. I mean, I think Jenny did an awesome job with it, and UM, you know, it's just always so great with topics like this UM that involve you know, thought and UM and personality and empathy UM. And so I don't know, I was just really happy, um to have it, even though the subject matter was not happy. Certainly, I'm glad that we have someone like Jenny to write it. So that's all. That's all I gotta say. That's a nice thing to say. So, Connor, you wrote a few things this week from that. Let's talks speaking of things that take thought. No, so you had you had a few good pieces, get you know, yeah, kind to yourself since we've learned something done this podcast. You talked about weaknesses for all thirty two teams. You wrote about ten contracts across the league that will have a significant impact for the players and the markets and their teams and all kinds of things. You wrote a little bit about five storylines from Hard Knocks, and then I think the story we're gonna talk about today on the podcast is one that just came out on Friday, or possibly if you're listening to this at five o'clock in the morning over your coffee, it will be up in a few hours, you know, if those people are cones to you for being up this early good morning, or if they're in London, and yeah, you know you never so many Australian, Australian. We've got worldwide listeners here, this is the strong Side podcast. We've got people all over the Connor. You wrote about uh players who are not rookies who will be making their first Pro Bowl this season. Now, I forget if you said players who could make their first Pro Bowl or players who will make their first Pro Bowl. I don't know. How confident you were in these picks. So can we put on record in your confidence on these predictions and then maybe run through some of the names on your list. I mean, I think it's really up to you as the person who writes the headline. You know, However, we get more eyes on this, Mitch if I if I need to say will, then I'll say will. I say, let's do it, you know, let's let's let it roll. Let's like, so Connor, give us your thirty players who will make you know how many players are on your list? Final? Is it ten? Ten? Yeah? And I have to say that with Mitch as an editor, I I do like saying that, hey, I'm gonna do this, and he's like, okay, cool on them to say it's a list with five people, and then MITCHELLI says seven would be better, and then and then we end up with ted every time, like every single list that we do. Uh, so, thank you for you said you pitched it, I'll do five, and I was like, there's no way we're gonna publish this with five. And then you sent in and then you sent in seven, and I thought we could use a couple more guys on defense and then here we are with a list of ten do you wanna Why don't you run through the whole list, and then maybe we'll have a couple that we want to press you on. Okay, cool, um, all right, let's pull up the um. Okay, so because I sent it to you in two pieces, so the beginning of my list, and I don't know anyone just stopped me. If there's like a lot or if you want to talk about it at any point, we'll just we'll go over it. The first one was Josh Jacobs of the Las Vegas Raiders. I think that's a pretty um, pretty obvious one gets a ton of touches. I think if he would have played a full sixteen game season last year, he probably would have UM made it Oakland runs or Las Vegas runs the ball a lot drink, I said Oakland. Justin Simmons from the Denver Broncos, I think is one of those guys Vick Fangio when he finds that safety um that fits in well with his scheme. That guy always seems to excel statistically. And Simmons was a big blitzer and now they let him do a lot more UM in that defense. So I think I got a lot better there. Ryan ramsack Um, who kind of illustrates the stupidity of the Pro Bowl because he's been first team or second team All Pro each of his first two years in the NFL and as yet to make a Pro Bowl. Uh, you know, so I think that uh you know, I I compared this to uh Ryan saying that Ryan Ramsay will make the Pro Bowl finally is like saying that someone who won a Grammy will finally get to appear on the Masked Singer, you know. Uh so so uh he we already love you, Ryan, I we think you're a great player. Uh. Kyler Murray Um was one that almost feels painfully obvious. Um, just because I feel like everybody's hot in the Cardinals. Now I was first, but now it's like, you know, now everybody's on them, and so it just doesn't feel right. You know, I can vouch for that. Yes, you're very early on on the Week's Side podcast, and I was a little bit surprised because it was so out of character. I mean, also like you're leaving your list with like a Raiders player. So I mean, just a lot of things I'm trying to process here about there's gonna be another Raiders player on this list, so get ready for that. So the rest of the list, Hayden Hurst from the Falcons, who I think is kind of the biggest risk. They're not totally thrilled with that one, but I can make it work in uh, in my imagination. Darren Waller from the Raiders, who uh great blocker last year as well, but highly productive and I think he'll he'll continue to get a lot of targets. My biggest wild card I think there was Evan Ingram from the Giants, who I think is hyper athletic but has been injured. And then you infuse the Giants with two coaches who come from systems that heavily um benefit the tight ends, the Cowboys and Jason Garrett. Jason Witten has been a hundred plus target guy for years and while he's Jason Witten, that also I think has something to do with how the offense works. Joe Judge obviously with the Patriots for a long time and how they utilize the tight end heavily UM. Baker Mayfield from the Browns again kind of an obvious one. I think that he'll he'll end up having a better year, and then my last to Quentin Dunbar from the Seattle Seahawks and Eric Armstead of the Fortys. Eric Armstead, who h Jenny wrote a great piece about this week too, so and that's worth checking out. So there's the list. What do you think a lot of tight ends there, Connor, I was gonna say the same thing, really, yeah. I mean it's interesting because you figure, uh, and I know obviously you're splitting conferences, but Kelsey, Kittle and Art's I think most people look at them as the three top tight ends, especially for like Pro Bowl purposes, because uh, you know, I think people who vote for the Pro Bowl and Peckham they're gonna pick based on receiving yards a lot more than blocking um. But then also, Gronk is league and he's all they should. I'm just talking about what happens Gronk is back in the league. It just feels like there's there might not be enough room for three tight ends. They think about that though, is that Kelsey and kill both played in the Super Bowl last year, so they had to dip into the replace Smint pool and put in some alternates in the Pro Bowl. So maybe if you're picturing even either of those teams are back then, or you know, or the Eagles and Bucks. Maybe they dip into the alternates, but it feels like it's gonna be tough for all three of your tight ends to make it there. I agree, but I think Ingram is bolstered by the fact that he plays in a big market that is used to pushing mediocre talent into the Pro Bowl and has has done so for I don't know ten or fifteen years, but um, anyway, So I think that that I think will help a lot um in the visibility factor there um and I don't know. I I wrote about in the contracts piece on Monday, how I think that George Kittle, his blocking in particular, is going to help bridge the gap between the tight end salary a P A P Y and the wide receiver salary, which the gap between the two has become gargantuan when in reality your tight ends are doing more work, uh, and they're getting paid less to do way more work, especially the guys that are as productive as Kittles. So I think maybe with his new contract that will be become a heightened awareness of the blocking. I think we all need to think more about blocking. Well, that I agree with, But we we have to talk about the quarterbacks. To you, uh, you said Baker Mayfield, that's an obvious one, and then you moved on from that very quickly. And that's fine if you want to say that he could make it, but I'm gonna have to press you on who he's going to make it instead of because you're looking at the a f C and you'd figure that if Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are healthy and are anywhere near as good as they were last year, they're both showings. And then I know Tom Brady's gone and moved to the NFC, although I think he actually he missed the Pro Bowl last year for the first time in like fifteen years, if I remember that right. But you've got to tell us you're who you're So are your a f C Pro Bowlers just Mahomes, Jackson and Baker Mayfield? Is there no one else in the conference you'd put above him? I don't know. Oh, that's a good question. Um. I would say that my positivity on Mayfield Moore has to do with watching a little bit more of Kevin Stefanski's offense and having done a few deep dives on the Browns offense last year. It's just to me so obvious that there were so many very simple mechanical things that were wrong with the Browns offense that are going to be fixed by nature of just doing a lot more too tight end personnel. There's gonna be less stress on Baker Mayfield in the pocket if they want to do those deeper routes with Odell and Jarvis. There's gonna be more time for these plays to develop. There's gonna be more options for him to throw, and I think that he was already on his way. I think if he had progressed last year, I think this would be less of a controversial statement. But I'm kind of just asking everyone to delete twenty nineteen from your memory because I think that was one of the most obviously dysfunctional offenses that we've seen in the NFL and maybe the last five or six years. Yeah, well, it was an interesting cake. I think it was just made bolder by the fact that you were just like you made it seem like it was an obvious selection, rather than being like, hey, you know, I'm kind of kind of going out on a limb here or whatever. Did I like it? Let's I don't know, let's pull up the end of Sometimes it helps to have a list of the teams in front of me, which is like, not the best thing. I guess that uh an NFL reporter would probably have to say, but I'm looking at the so I'm looking at the a f C. And obviously Lamar Jackson is someone who in Patrick mahomes like we talked about. But other than that, Deshaun Watson is probably a shoe in type player there. One of those three you would have to assume is going to be playing in the super Bowl, right or is going to be competing deep into the season, or god forbid, knock them wood, you know, might sustain some kind of an injury. I'm just saying that there's a lot of spaces that might be in flux here, and that's true. Guys could pull out of the game even if they're not in the super Bowl. They could just decide. You know, I've been here a couple of times and it's a you know, it's a tough year and had a deep playoff run. I think that's enough for me. Also secretly concerned, Mitch that you're Cam Newton to the Bills scenario is going to happen, and then that really bogs up that that log jams up the a f C. Well, that wouldn't take off a spot because Cam Newton would be in the super Bowl with the Bills. But that would mean then that Mahomes and Lamar Jackson are not and so they'd be in the Pro Bowl. I was just gonna say that we should look at Connors picks as essentially teams that won't be in the super Bowl. So he's basically saying the Browns won't be in the super Bowl, the Raiders won't be in the Super Bowl, Falcons, etcetera, etcetera. Yeah, and then how the okay you've because you put Kyler? And I'm with you, a lot of people are high on Kyler and that second year breakout which we've seen from a bunch of guys, but to put him in the Pro Bowl. You know, the NFC has Russell Wilson, Aaron Rodgers, uh Wentz versus dak in whatever order. People love to argue about them. Tom Brady now in Tampa could be the fan vote based on his jersey sales. Um, you know, who are you squeezing out of the the NFC to h to make room for Kyler. I don't know, because I do think that Seattle is going to be a Super Bowl bounder, if not very close. Um Russell Wilson, I think has been one of the most exceptional quarterbacks in the league for the last few years. I would say the same thing about Dark Prescott Um. I think that they're going to make a deep run this year. But I don't know. I mean, I think that Kyler has got the uh, he's got the youth vote cornered. You know. I think the kids kids love them some Kyler. I think that's going to help in the Pro Bowl. And I think that, like the Cardinals are going to be that fun Madden team. They run four wide receiver sets like thirty percent of the time, which is I think the next closest team to run four wide receiver sets runs at like four four to six percent of the time. I mean, they're a fun team. They're gonna add DeAndre Hopkins, They're gonna be super visible. So I think that there's some room to you to shift in there. I mean not to say he was a bad quarterback, but four years ago, five years ago, Tyrod Taylor was in the Pro Bowl. I mean, you know, some of these second tier guys make their way into the game. You know, it's not just like this bastion of the two or three elite players, even though I do think in a year or two Kyler Murray will probably be talking about him among those players. So there, yeah, I mean everyone's on the Cardinals bandwagon. So I'm with you. No, but Mitch, you're not acknowledging that Connor was really early on this. I think we need to make sure to acknowledge this. Okay, we can go our producer Shelby Royston. Maybe we'll send him back and cut out a clip if you guys remember when that was, and maybe we can get the original Connor clip of first hopping on the Cardinals bandwagon. Don't make Shelby go back and listen to all that material. That would just be that would seem awful. That would be such a punishment assignment, and Shelby deserves only good assignments. So some weeks Shelby has to record Connor and I three times. That's a lot. That is a lot. Oh yeah, but Connor and Me is what I should have said. That was bad grammar, But you know we'll fix it in post. Yeah. There you go. All right, Um, should we head on out of here with our traditional ending of one good thing from the week. Let's do it, alright, Well, Connor, you're so enthusiastic, do you want to go first? Okay? I got to two good things for this week. So the first one is UM. One of my best friends in the world, UM, also named Connor, is that we went to high school together. Is a geologist and so he loves geology, science, any of that stuff. And he stopped by on his way out to a UM to a site that he's working in Idaho, and we had a great lunch and just got to catch up before he went away because he works in places for like six months at a time, so we don't get to see him as my UM anymore. And I was asking him because he loves bugs and animals. I said, you know, my daughter was getting into butterflies. Where do I find caterpillars? And he was like, well, you know, you can look here and here and here. All of a sudden, yesterday at my door arrives UM a box full of sixty caterpillar larvae. Uh, big enough for a two children's classrooms, Like this is what he ordered it from. Like a site that supplies like butterflies to schools, right so, uh and then in the instruction manual, it's like you have to get these guys set up like right away, like you have to. You have to get to get it going right now. So in the box, you get this big, big old jugget caterpillars, and then a big old juge caterpillar food, and then like forty one ounce plastic like shot glasses essentially, and you you have to fill up the little glasses with the caterpillar food and you gotta put the caterpillars into two a glass and then you gotta put the tissue paper down and you gotta put the cap on and uh so yeah, in ten days or so, we should have um a bunch of butterflies. So that that's cool. Yeah, it was very labor intensive. My wife and I had to like you know, we both they're working full time and you know, there's no childcare, and this morning we were just like setting up a conveyor belt of Caterpillar home productions. Uh, you know, and we're like we gotta get this done because you know, you have to. I mean, it's cruelty not to uh to give these guys the best chance to survive. So that's what we're working on, you know. And then what happens once they're butterflies, because I imagine you can't keep them in captivity for too long, so they probably I don't know if hatches the right word, grow, they grow into butterflies and maybe you have them in a somewhere for a little bit, and then how long do you keep them for? Yeah? Not long? But we it did. It did come with a net that sprung up like a springy net, and so we can keep them for a little while and you can watch them kind of fly around for a little bit, and then we'll very quickly uh let them go, um to make sure that they have, you know, enjoy the rest of the summer like everybody else. You know. I want to see this journey on Instagram. These caterpillars to butterfels don't work forward to uh just being document I encourage you to put it on the m m QB Instagram feed in addition to your own. Absolutely yes I will. And my second good thing just a quick shout out to uh the newest member of the extended or family, not my family, but my daughter's godfather and his uh new newly born baby daughter, Emma Mary uh seven pounds four ounces at two forty three pm. Beautiful baby girls. So I love you guys, and uh glad everybody's happy and healthy. Awesome congrats who great news? All right, Jenny, how about you one good thing from this week? Alright? So I went on my first socially distanced hang out recently last Friday. I met a few people, a few SI colleagues in the park for a socially distanced lunch. So it was it was good. Um in the great lawn and um, yeah, it was my first conversation with people in person who don't live in my building or work in my building. Um all of my conversations or you know, I guess at the grocery store. But anyways, it was it was nice to sort of have some you know. So everyone sat six ft apart in a little circle outdoors, so it was kind of nice. That's a major milestone, even just the mental hurdle too. I mean, I know people are listening from all over and it's it's hit different parts of the country differently, and some places that our lives have been less affected. But for where we are in New York and how seriously we were forced to take it and uh, and how seriously I know you have taken it and not going outside and make sure you're doing the right thing. That's just like a big mental barrier to get over and finally feel comfortable making plans. So congratulations on doing that. That's safe. That's cute. Yeah. Um, and I assume it it went fine, and you'll plan to do this again. Yeah, right, exactly, exactly good? What about me? Man? Good things? This week? You know, there have been fireworks every night in New York City. Have you seen this? People talking about this on Twitter. It's crazy. They are right outside my building. It's literally I can like see them going up. It happens every single day. And the first few days it was very fun and exciting because I'm just sitting there on my living room couch and there are fireworks starting from the ground and I live on the nineteen floor in my building, and they just come up like basically at eye level and they're just exploding and you get a little fireworks show for like ten fifteen minutes. Um, not like constantly, but it's like every little bit, for like ten minutes, We've just been seeing fireworks every night, and it was a lot of fun at first. Uh, now it's getting a little bit old because it's like every single day, and now they're some of them start earlier and some of them it's like I'm trying to sleep and I'm literally like laying in bed and there's fireworks going off outside. So it's at the point now where I'm like, Okay, that was a nice little treat, but now I feel free to stop whenever, because part of it's like, did these people get fireworks specifically for for this? Do they have? They've been stockpiling fireworks all along, and now they just feel like it's time to set them off. I don't know. I have more questions than answers, But for at least a few days, it was nice to just sit there and enjoy some fireworks on a nightly basis from the comfort of my living room. Very interesting. I've heard some noise, but I haven't seen anything, so I must be facing the wrong direction. Yeah, there, I face uptown and some of them were literally just like two or three blocks you can see like where they're setting them off, and it's just been wild, a little excitement in the neighborhood. Some fireworks there you go. Yeah, I'm being an optimist and calling it my good thing, even though the last two day you can tell from the way I'm talking about it if they're still going off, if they're going off every day between now and next Friday, it will no longer be my good thing. But I will see the glass half full for at least the first first half of this week. All right, I think that's it for the week in Review podcast this week known as The strong Side Podcast, Connor and Jenny. Anything left from you guys to add that we didn't hit on today? No great job is hosting as always Mitch. Oh you know, thanks, great job Mitch. And hanging there everybody, and we're we're all still we're all still cooking. Listen, interact with us, send us emails and and stay positive definitely and thanks. Yeah. It's always fun hearing from people, So feel free to tweet at us or say something in iTunes if you like the show, if you're enjoying the Weekend Review, and make sure you subscribe to if you get all of our podcast, because you can get Connor and Jenny three times a week now, which hill doing? I mean, uh, stop you guys. Well, thanks everyone for listening to another episode of the What's it called of the Weekend Review? I almost said the week's side podcast of the week in Review podcast on the m m q B NFL podcast feed. Make sure you subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so that that you get episodes five days a week. We promise Alba career we'll be back next week for his normal podcasts, even though he snubbed us today and texted us the minute that we were starting that he was out. Thanks Albert again, he won't hear this. It's okay. I'll keep talking about it. But thanks everyone for listening. We appreciate you hanging in all the way to the end of the podcast here, and we will catch again next week

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