Coming up, football, football, and more football. We did an all football pod next. We're also brought to you by the Ringer podcast Network, where I put up a new Rewatchables on Monday night. We did Risky business. Me and Chris Ryan, Tom Cruise's breakout movie. Had a great time. You can listen to that podcast wherever you get a podcast. I think eventually it's going to end up on youtube. Com/bilsimmons, where you can find videos and clips from this podcast and from the Rewatchables as well. We are covering NFL Free Agency all over the place on the podcast network, Ringer NFL Show, Ringer Draft Show, Racillo, Ringer Philly Special, our Boston pod off the Mike, Chicago. If anything happens with that, Jason Goff will be all over it. New York, New York with John Jastremski. Anything you want with football, we have it. We have it there. We have it on the website. We're going to have it on this podcast because we're doing an all football pod. First, Shilka Nadia from The Ringer. We're going to break down all of our favorite things that we liked and didn't like about free agency through the first day and a half or so.

I have a Kirk Cousins take. I have a Jets take, I have a Washington take, I have a Saquon Barkley take, I have a Mahomes take. I got lots of takes. Then Julian Edelman, one of the greatest playoff receiver in the history of the National Football League, a great Patriot, and somebody who, for some reason, has never been on podcast. We're going to talk about all kinds of Pat stuff, Tom braided, Dynasties, and Rob Gronkowski, and goes in a bunch of directions. This is a very fun football podcast. No basketball today, just football. It's all next. First, our friends from ProJet. All right, Shio Capate is here for the Ringer. We're going to talk free agency. We're taping this early afternoon Pacific Time on Tuesday. We've had, I don't know, like 28 to 30 hours of stuff happening. Shil, I'm going to start here. You covered some of this on Ringer NFL show, so I'm trying to zag a little bit and go bigger picture themes. I realized you're an NBA fan, so you'll be able to follow this. I realized The NFL and NBA are in very similar spots right now. Where in the NBA, it's like, how the hell are we going to beat Jokuj?

And you're probably not going to. In the NFL, it's like, how the hell are you going to beat Mahomes? And if he has a good enough team, you're probably not going to. Do you think that shaped at all how the NFL teams have approaches for agency? Not just how do we get better, but how do we beat Mahomes?

I think you see them taking two different approaches. And one is that, obviously, the easiest way is to We had a guy, Josh Allen, Lamar Jackson, where you're always in... Remember those Colts teams? It was like, they weren't always in the Super Bowl, but it was like be in the mix every year. And one year, things will fall our way, whether it's injuries, penalties, whatever, another team slumping, and we'll win the Super Bowl then. So there's that strategy where if you're the Bills, that's what you do. And then the other one is you have to be creative because there's only so many Josh Allen. So it's like, if we can build the whole team well and then plug in a Jared Goff or a Brock Purdy, can we beat him that way? So I think Mahomes obviously factors into... They're just in that spot where they're going to be one of the last four teams standing every time. But there's no great formula to beat them because the way they won the Super Bowl last year was very different than how they won the Super Bowl in previous seasons.

Yeah. I mean, I'm looking at it with the pats with this third pick where I know it's a 45, 55 coin flip, whatever you want to say the odds are. But I just don't know how you don't take a quarterback with whatever is left because I have no chance in the conference otherwise. Not only is it Mahomes, but it's Allen in the same division. It's Burrow on a really good bangles team. It's Herbert if they can ever figure out what's going on with the chargers. You can't take the knife into the freaking gunfight. That's one piece of it. But then what you said about how Detroit build their team, that's the other way to do it. That's where if you're in the number three pick, you trade backwards. You try to pick up as much stuff as possible, and then you try to do that makeshift transition QB, or you roll the dice with somebody like off. But I don't know that. Even Detroit didn't work, right? They didn't make it. So I don't know. What would you pick? Would you do the coin flip on the QB or would you try to build the whole team strategy?

So it's so funny because it depends. If I'm the GM and I'm like, I have maybe three to five years, and then I'm getting fired. If this doesn't work, it's one tech. If I'm the owner, I would encourage the GM, let's take big swings on young quarterbacks, because if you hit on one of these guys, that's the way. That's the way you're in the mix and you're able to have sustained success because you're right about golf. When you do it that way, we haven't seen a team that is really... Now, golf is probably better than some of the other guys who have made it that far, but we haven't seen a team without the elite quarterback consistently be in the mix. You can get there one year, have a great run, be in the Super Bowl, be in the NFC Championship, but can you have a three to five year run where you feel like you really have a window to win one and you're always in the mix. I always encourage... I'm like, take the big swing at quarterback. It's not going to work sometimes, and it's easy for me to say because my job is not on the line and you're going to fail sometimes.

But if you do that, if you take enough dice rolls at it and eventually you hit one, now you have a nice long stretch where you can figure out how to build the rest of the team and really be in it. So that's what I would say.

Well, the Niners would have agreed with you when they traded up for Trey Lance, right? Ironically, it turns out to be pretty. Carolina would have agreed with you. They just went for the wrong guy. They took Bryce Young. It turned out if they did that for C. J. Stroud, Teper looks like an absolute genius.

Exactly. 100 %. Yeah. So they got the wrong guy. It's funny to think of that alternate universe where if they picked Stroud instead of Young, and now how we're talking about them, and maybe you're leading this with, You got to take the big swing at quarterback because look at what the Panthers did with C. J. Stroud. So there's so much luck involved that we don't like to admit it, but there's no doubt about it.

Yeah. Maybe they keep Brian Burns instead of trading him. Maybe they just pay him. Yeah. I mean, there was so much discourse about line of the last 24 hours. Any winners and losers call them if they weren't your first and biggest loser. Going back, look, that Burns story about whatever the Rams were willing to give up, whether it was two first, there might have been a second. I don't know exactly what it was, but But they kept him for an extra year. They got nothing out of it, and they traded them for 22 cents on the dollar on top of everything they gave away for Bryce Young. And then the ultimate dignity of the future first you trade ends up being the number one pick, which is the absolute ney dear if you're a football team, and if you're a fan of the football team. And we have one on staff, Steven Ruiz, Panthers fan. But you can't rock bottom out more than this, right?

Yeah, I was actually thinking of the NBA parallel with Brian Burns because you guys always talk about, Hold on to the asset. You might not want the guy for the long term, but don't just let him go. And so they had this asset in Brian Burns that two years ago It's been widely reported. This wasn't just a one per... Five times it's been reported, the Rams offer two first and a second for Brian Burns just two years ago. And then at the deadline this last year, five teams were interested in trading for Brian Burns. They don't sell high at all. Now, you have two options here. I think, one, just sign the guy long term. He's 26 years old. He's a pass rusher. He's been productive. Your roster sucks. Hold on to the good player and do it that way. That would have been a reasonable move. Or two, if you want to sell high, make sure you're getting something good for him before you move on. They do neither. What they should have done, Bill, let's say if they're like, We don't want him long term. Maybe they know something about him that we don't know.

That's always possible. Sign him to that contract. If Brian Burns has 12 sacs next year, guess what? Those monster offers are going to be back on the table. He's going to be 27 years old. So they don't do that. So right now, I was looking at all their moves earlier today, and to me, they are the dumpster fire organization in the NFL right now. Their roster stinks, their process stinks, their owner stinks. If you're a Panthers fan, this is a real dire spot. And this is for me, somebody who's not out totally on Bryce Young yet. I'm still, let's see another year with him. But man, I just don't like anything they do and how they operate.

Well, and on top of it, to try to justify the Bryce Young pick, so where did they direct their resources this year? Offensive line. You got to get a better offensive line because you're trying to make the Bryce Young pick work, right? So you take the Burns money. Now you shift that to the line because you want to put him in the best possibility to succeed. But losing McCaffrey, you lose Burns, you lose DJ Moore, you lose the first pick in the draft, you lose all the other stuff they lost. You're right. It used to be the Lynes and the Browns. Those were the dumpster fires. Those were the consistent bad teams we have. Near the end of the line, L. Davis, Raiders all the way through Gruden, I think, have been pretty bad. Maybe there's signs, I hope, now. But Carolina is like, If we're having relegation, this would be the first team we did. One thing on the Chiefs I forgot to mention. They locked down Chris Jones. You're eagles, who Every time, it's just they're always in on three big free agents. I don't want to talk about that in a second.

But these certain teams are just like, I'm going to spend, I'm going to get the blue chipper, or I'm going to spend, I'm going to keep my blue chipper. And that's just their mentality. But it seems like the smarter teams have been over and over again able to keep most of their blue chippers. I thought for sure Jones was going to lead the Chiefs. It just seemed inconceivable to me with the Mahomes contract, some of the other stuff. How are they going to continue to have him and Kelsey, all these other guys, and yet they kept them. Were you surprised by that?

Yeah. Going into free agency, it was like Chris Jones and LeJarrius Sneed. They had these two guys, made their two best players, probably on defense last year, and they won the Super Bowl with defense for the most part. That And so I was curious because when it drags on as long as it did with Chris Jones, this goes back to last year, you start thinking, they're not going to be able to reach an agreement. Then I think you win the Super Bowl. Everyone's feeling so good after a Super Bowl that it's just like, come on, we're not going call this quits now, are we? And so they decide to hold on to them. It was big money, but I always think about it from a fan's perspective. You're like, do you want the team to be risk averse and be like, oh, we don't want to pay a guy who's 30 that much money? Or are you like, Let's win as many Super Bowl as possible right now? And so it's his age 30, 31, and 32 seasons. He's a defensive tackle. I get nervous when cornerbacks are 30. Defensive tackles, it's like they can still perform at that level.

So I'm with you. The good organizations, they're blue-chip players. They never hit the market. You don't just let them walk in free agency. If you're going to trade them, that's one thing, but you don't just let them walk in free agency. So I thought the way they handled that was actually awesome. I think they might still trade Lejarious need. He's on the franchise tag, but they keep Chris Jones. And now you have a core piece in place here as you try to win more Super Bowl.

Let's talk about Saquon Barkley. I'm going to frame the question like this. What if Saquon Barkley has been awesome all along? What if he's just really good? And we had no idea because if you're going to say he comes in the league, I'm on record. Unfortunately, unfortunately, I We have some Twitter video that we cut out of one of my pods where I was like, I think he's the most talented running back I've ever seen. But you think like, All right, let's look at that Giants run, the quarterbacks that he played. Warren Sharp had this, 37 games with Danny Dimes, 20 with Washed Eli, 17 games with DeVito, Tyrod Taylor, Glenn and Jake Fromm. He tore his ACL. He tore his ACL during the season. So then you come back the next season, you're not totally the same. You're in a division with Philly and Dallas, who's always spending money and is always good. Your offensive line sucks. You've had coach turmoil the whole time. They had a bottom five offensive line last year. How do we even know if Saquon Barkley is good? So now you take him from that, you put on your team where you can plug in basically any running back and there's holes.

You got a good offensive line, you got a good quarterback, you got weapons. What if he's awesome? Is that possible?

It's possible. Yeah, the way I framed it, we did a Ringer's Philly special, and I was a wet blanket on the moves that the Eagles made so far. But the way I look at it, it's like, if you are an Eagles fan, your team got more fun. Sundays are going to be awesome next year. You add Saquon Barkley to the mix with A. J. Brown, Devante Smith, Jelenerts. It's going to be more fun. And then if I look at it with the Try to be a GM hat on, I'm still like, well, like you mentioned, they had a top five rushing offense last year in DVOA. They were first the year before, and that was with Miles Sanders and DeAndre Swift. So do you need to be spending 12.6 million dollars per year on a guy like Saquon Barkley? But what you said, that's the scenario that like, eagles fans are dreaming of right now. It's like, yes, the run game was awesome, but now a 12-yard run is going to turn into like a 25-yard run. And Saquon Barkley is just going to be this weapon and The defensive coordinators aren't going to know what to do when you've got another guy there.

So I think it's possible. I mean, my skepticism is only, he said what, over 600 touches the last two years and running backs on second contracts. We just see it over and over again. Oftentimes, it doesn't pan out. Now, sometimes it does. And maybe he'll be the exception because when you said that back in the day, Barkley, when he came into the league, you were just like, this guy can do things that we haven't seen a lot of backs do. And it feels like he can break off a 50-yard run every time he touches the ball, and he can catch the ball, and he can pass per tack. He's built. And so he had everything you would be looking for. So it's going to be fun. I think Eagles fans are mostly pumped about it. And then you have a nerd in every group chat like me. Like, I don't know if you need to be spending that much on a running back. So I think that's the way it's played out right now.

Wasn't it a little similar to McCafree going to the Niners, where the trade happens, then we get a first-run pick for him. He had been banged up the two years before. There was a sense like, Hey, this fucking guy can't stand the field. That's it. Then there were some other people like, No, you don't understand. This is the perfect Niners guy. You put him with Shane Hand. He's never been on a team like this. His ceiling has gone way up. The ceiling went way up. In the trade, now you look back, man, all they did was give up a second, a third, a fourth, and a fifth. They got one of the five best guys in the league. I guess the question for me is, how many runningbacks make an actual difference? You lose Swift. Swift goes to the bears for eight million a year. It's like, I'm going to spend eight million a year on DeAndre Swift, I'd either rather spend 14 a year on Saquon Or I'd rather cut corners and just get Antonio Gibson for three million a year. I don't want to be in the middle with the eight million dollar guy.

So why not take the swing?

I agree with that. I thought that Swift, I was shocked that they paid him $8 million. It was the first signing. I'm like, DeAndre Swift is the first signing for $8 million. Even the Giants, they let Barkley walk, and then they signed Devon Singletary for over $5 million per year. I'm like, If you want to just not pay a running back, don't pay a running back. But Why are you paying Devon Singletary $5 million per year? So the McAfree thing is a great call because I was probably on potting with Solak saying the 49ers shouldn't do this deal. I was probably making the same points that I'm making right now about Saquon Barkley. Now, the question is, like you said, how many people reach that level? It's possible with Saquon Barkley. I think right now, McAfree is doing things that no one else is able to do. He's probably in his own tier. But to your point, are we having this conversation in week eight next year to what you just said? Wow, Barkley now has the best offensive line he's ever played with, the best... He has a quarterback who's a run threat. And the point with the Niners is that Kyle Shanaher knew what to do with Christian McCafee.

That's where The Eagles stripped nick Siriani of all his offensive control, and they brought in Kelen Moore as the new offensive coordinator. Will Kelen Moore have a plan for how to feed A. J. Brown, how to feed Devante Smith, how to feed Dallas Goddard, how to get Saquan Barkley the ball, how to operate the offensive line without Jason Kelsie, how to get Jelen Hertz better against the blitz. This is a season where I believe, like, Siriani's job's on the line. If they don't make the playoffs, if they're out early, I don't think he's back coaching the team in 2025. I I think they thought about making a move this year. So now it's not Seriani. It's like, Well, now this offensive coordinator you brought in, does he know what to do with Barkley? It really feels like a boomer bust team to me. I'm not there where I'm making predictions for 2025, but I really can convince myself that it's going to go either way for them.

How many runningbacks truly matter other than McCafrey? That's the thing. It's like last year, James Cook, who was an afterthought for, I don't know, the first six weeks of the season. By the end of the year, he was the third or fourth best running back in the league. And next year, I don't even know if that would be the case, but it just feels like if Saquon can have a similar impact to what McCafree had with the Niners, just like, holy shit. Yeah, we had all these other guys. This guy's at a whole other level, combined with some urgency on offense and some higher and a lot. That was what we talked about this when you came on during the season. You watch the Eagles and you're like, Man, what's going on with this team? Why is the pace so slow? Why does everything seem so labored? Why is it not fun to watch a team that has these weapons? It was like looking at somebody's garage and seeing all these nice cars and then watching them just drive a beaten up Jeep or something. You have all these cars in the garage. I think with the weapons now, I'm excited.

And we're also going to get a nice little referendum on Hertz. It's how good is Hertz? Because that's another question that's up in the air.

Yeah, your body language thing I was thinking of when Jalen Hertz was on Abbott Elementary, my wife is like, Oh, he's smiling. He looks so happy. You watch It's a different game. And it's like, What is going on with this quarterback and with this team? So you saw a different side of him. Yeah, I think you're right. And what direction do they go in? Is adding Saquon Barkley? Is this like, We're going to run the football more. We don't want to put so much into the passing game? I I know for a fact, the Eagles have looked at Shana Khan and the Niners before and been like, Shana Khan's on the cutting edge of offensive football. The stuff he's doing, we need to... And this is at a GM ownership level, they were thinking. So I do wonder if they watched McCaffee last year. Maybe other teams had the same thought this offseason and we're like, All right, we haven't spent big on runningbacks in the past, but if he's making that much of a difference for them, not to say Barclays McCaffee, but if we can find some version of that, maybe it's not the worst idea when you're paying a tight end who's average, like $12 million.

Would you rather have that or would you rather have Saquon Barkley? So that might be another thing. The running back salaries have not skyrocketed, and so other positions have. And so maybe that's part of the calculus as well.

My thing is, if I'm getting one of the three or four best guys at a position, I don't mind overpaying for that. And you're seeing that even with the guard position right now. For some reason, there's been a big guard because the cap jumped. People You had money to spend, but for some reason, interior alignment this year became a thing. I remember a few years ago, people got excited about tight ends coming off like Gronk and Kelsey, and all of a sudden, there's money. The paths that got Hunter Henry and John O'Smith. Now that's fated back. It seems like safeties that market is dying and gone to a different place. Linebackers, for some reason, that seems like that's on the rise a little bit. In all It all depends on the trends. Do you feel like there's any rhyme or reason to it or just what people get a hard on for that season?

Yeah, it just changes every year. Guards getting paid this money is wild. You talked about the Panthers. I mean, they paid two guys monster money who have never made a They're fine starters, but have never made a Pro Bowl. Even the offensive line nerds, they're not excited about these two guys. The Rams. I mean, the Rams went huge after two guard. This was their priority, shore up the interior of the offensive line. And then you have stuff like pass rushers, the edge market, the trade market doesn't look like it's there. Like Brian Burns, I thought, would have got a lot more. The Eagles are trying to trade their two guys, Josh Sweat and Asan Redik. And so far, there's been no takers for those guys. Whereas a couple of years ago, remember Bradley Chubb, the Broncos, traded him to the Dolphins, and they got a first-round pick, and it was like, what's going on here?

That day is over. The Pets got Uche back for one year. And I think in the old days, Uche would have gotten like three three for 40, four for 50, when people are like, Oh, Josh Uche, look at his sacs per play. But it does feel like one of the things that shifted over the last couple of years was these specialty pass rushers, and you took one with Nolan Smith. These specialty guys, you could just run them off the field, and now they're only playing 40% of the downs instead of all the downs. To find those three, it's a little like what happened with the tight-end position. Can you find the three-down edge guy versus the specialty guy? It seems like the three down on both ends seems to be one of the trends. Can we keep this guy in the field?

Yeah, no doubt. Pass rushers, linebackers, obviously like that. Safeties, how much can you do with everyone playing two high safeties? Can they cover the tight end? Can they play back deep? Can they stop the run? Because when you try to do something and go small, now, offenses are more likely. We saw it last year. They'll say, All right, well, we're going to have a good run game, and we're going to run those guys off the field, and then we're going to put you in different personnel, and then we're going to throw the ball. It's like this ever-lasting- The Jamal Adams on Seattle.

Oh, Jamal Adams is out there. Let's spread it out. We'll get him off.

You can't hide him. Yeah, no doubt about it.

All right. I have more stuff to throw at you, including a Kirk Cousins there you might not be prepared for, Let's take a quick break. Bet the NBA with the no-sweat same game parlay from Fandil every Thursday with TNT Thursdays. It doesn't matter if you're new to Fandil or already have an account, you'll get bonus bets back if your same game parlay doesn't win on any NBA on TNT game, NBA same game parlay is the perfect way to combine your bets for a chance to score a bigger payday. Sun Celtics is one of the TNT games, and Durant had a huge game against the Celtics on Saturday night, actually. It'll be interesting to see if he does that again. But I thought the Suns were right in that game, so I'd probably recommend Suns as an underdog with some Durant props would be my pick. However you want to play, just head to fanduel. Com/bs to bet the NBA with a no sweat, same game parlay. Tnt Thursdays, that's fanduel. Com/bs. Make every moment more with Fanduel, an official sports betting partner of the NBA. Must be 21 plus in present in select states. Gambling problem?

Call 1-800 Gambler. Visit the Ringer. Com/rg. Minimum three leg parlay Required. Refund issue is not withdrawable. Bonus bets, which expire seven days after receipt. Max refund, $5, unless otherwise specified. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook. Fanduel. Com. All right, we're going to talk quarterbacks. Kirk Cousins. I'm going to plant my flag on this one. I think this was a mistake. I didn't like the signing. Kirk Cousins to Atlanta, $100 million guaranteed to a guy who's going to be 36 years old in August and is coming off a torn Achilles. This just to me, seems like the classic, We've been burned so many times. Here comes our hero. You're just not even thinking rationally. In the last three years, they had washed up Matt Ryan, Marcus Mariota, who He didn't even finish the Netflix season. Taylor Heineke and Desmond Ritter, who had an interception montage that I actually thought might have been deep faked by Falcons fans trying to get them to sign Cousins. So Cousins, he had two 10-win seasons in Minnesota. He's one in three career in the playoffs. He was the own one in Washington, one in two in Minnesota. In '15 and '16 in Washington, he had Sean McBay as his offensive coordinator.

He 17 and 14-1. Minnesota, he always had Diggs in Thielen, and then he had Jefferson in Thielen, and then he had Jefferson and Osgut. He always had weapons. They always had runningbacks, really, until last year with Madison Suck. 2018, week 17, to make the playoffs. I'm sorry, 2018. To make the playoffs, they have to be Chicago and Mitchell Trubisky, and they lose 24 to 10. 2019, they Upset, New Orleans, and washed up, Drew Breeze, in overtime in round one, get killed by San Francisco. They go seven and nine, and they go eight and nine. And then in 22, they're 13 and four. That ridiculous aberration, Oh, my God, that team should be eight and eight, but they're 13 and four. And they lose to Danny Dimes and the New York Giants in round one. What am I paying for with Kirk Cousins other than the chance to lose in round one? What am I doing?

You mentioned the Netflix show with Mariota. I I really feel like that Netflix show and Cousins Getting Injured last year, the whole thought consensus on Kirk Cousins has changed so much in the last twelve months. I mean, he used to be someone everyone make fun, like, all right, you're not going anywhere with Kirk Cousins. He's mediocre.

Yeah, he was like the line you had to get over. Is he better than Kirk Cousins?

But now, listen to how people talk about Kirk. It's crazy. What you said, I was looking up stuff earlier today. He was in Minnesota for six seasons, I think. How many times do you think they had a top 10 passing DVOA offense in Minnesota with him? Six seasons. One time. One time at a six. Now he's 36. Coming off in Achilles, like you mentioned. Different supporting cast, different scheme. In Atlanta, I think it's exactly what you said. I think the owner in Atlanta, looked around and said, I'm tired of sitting here on Sundays in the fall watching Marcus Mariota, Desmond Ritter. I can't do another year. Give me a cup of.

I can't do another year. I only have so many years left.

I'm not watching this flop. I didn't buy a team to watch those guys play quarterback. So it goes back to what you asked me in the beginning, how do you compete with Mahomes and win a Super Bowl? That's what some teams are thinking about. Other organizations are looking at it like, the last three years have been the Arthur Smith era was a disaster. I want to have fun watching my team. Maybe we'll win the NFC South. Maybe we'll win a playoff game. If we do, it doesn't really matter. If we lose in the first round, that's okay. We're in the playoff. This is not a move you make if you're like, we need to do the best thing for the franchise to win a Super This is a move you make if you say, We want to raise the floor. We want to be competent. The owner is tired of being embarrassed. Other people want to keep their jobs. And you're like, All right, we'll sign Kirk Cousin. So I think he'll operate like, I don't know, what do you think, the 12th or 14th best starter in the NFL?

I have my list. I'm glad you asked. Okay.

All right. Okay.

Perfect. My initial QB tiers. Ready? Mahomes on his own. Alan Burrow, Herbert Lamar, and Stroud, I think, are the I couldn't put Stroud lower than six. There's no way he's not going to be better. From what we saw, he'll be, I don't know, 10% better. Next tier, so that's six. Stafford, Hertz, Dax, Lack, Love, and Purdy. I think Purdy has to be on there. Now I'm at 11. Next here, Rogers, Goff, Now I'm at 13. Now I'm dropping Lawrence Cousins to Mayfield Kyler in some order. And that's from 14 to 18. What's your biggest disagreement with that list?

Well, I really don't want to be the person who is on here stumping for Trevor Lawrence, but I think there's probably a case that he's just one tier up. I don't need to put him in the elite category.

So you put him in the Roger's Goff? You'd have him as the third guy in that tier? Okay.

Wait, I think... And Purdy, would you rather have Purdy than Goff? That one, I was like...

Okay. So I can move Purdy down a tier?

Yeah. There's a lot of guys in there that were... I was like, and I'm leading the Jordan love Hype train, but I think you had him in the right tier. It's been one year as a starter there, and so I think that was fine. Okay, you have him right. You have cousins right there.

Let me do it again.

Let me I'm going to take more notes. Let me take more notes.

Mahomes. Mahomes. Alan Burrow, Lamar Herbert, Stroud. Stafford Hertz, Dack, Loves. Stoud make love number 11. Would you have love ahead of Dack?

For one year, probably not. It's a good argument. I might. I love love. Yeah, I think he's fantastic.

It's in the mix. Then another drop. Rodgers, Purdy, Goff, Lawrence, in some order. All of them upside with one thing that makes you go... So Purdy, it's like... Meanwhile, what else does he have to show us? The guys, two years in a row, led teams that had a chance to win a Super Bowl, first time he gets hurt. Last year comes down a two-third down place where the defense called a great look on him. Rodgers, I have no idea. You could tell me Rodgers is going to be too high higher, two tiers higher, two tiers lower. Goff, that's right around where he should be. Lawrence is the one. I just don't know if Lawrence is good. I have no idea.

I think that's fair. I just look at it as who are the guys who Probably the only guys you know, if you have them, you're going to be in the mix. It might only be Mahomes and Allen. Allen, they're doing all this stuff. And guess what? They're still probably going to have a top-rate offense.

I think Burrows in there for me. I love Burrows. That's the injury stuff.

Yeah. The only reason I didn't put him right away was maybe the durability. He's had a couple of seasons. But I love Burrow. I'm in on Burrow. Stroud, you could honestly make the case as high as three for me, and I wouldn't be laughing at you.

Stroud versus Herbert is like an actual argument.

I would take Stroud right now. I mean, look at what he did with that support. I think football outsiders had. It was like the most injured offensive line since they started tracking this stuff. And for other quarterbacks, you're making excuses for that, right? For him, he's a rookie. He's got Nico Collins and not a lot else. And look how good. And injuries. He can elevate and injuries. So he was able to elevate his group. So I like Stroud in that top tier. And when I do the trade value updates in the summer for NFL, I'm afraid to know how high I'm going to put C. J. Stroud there. I mean, he could be a top.

C. J. Stroud could be a top five guy.

Oh, yeah. Five. Five is the four for me. He might be top three. He might be three. He might be three for me when you factor in the rookie contract because if it's like Stroud and those other guys.

Anyway, so that last here with Cousins, Tua, Mayfield, and Kyler, I think is the right spot for Cousins at 36 years old coming off an Achilles injury. You could say, Well, why wouldn't Rogers be there? He's 40 years old coming off an Achilles. But I don't know, Rogers just has a better track record even if he's older.

Yeah, I'm probably lower on Mayfield than you are in that group. I would have him lower there. Kyler is a hard one to predict. But yeah, I think that's around the right spot where if the supporting cast is good, there's all these guys. There's probably 12 guys where you could say if the supporting cast is good and the coaching is good, you could have them as high as maybe eight, or you could have them as low as 20. It is a wide group there once you get beyond the five, six, seven, eight guys who you feel really good about. So I think that's probably where Cousins is. And now it's just a of how good is that supporting cast? What's their ceiling going to be? I would pick them to win the division next year.

How good is that supporting cast? Do you absolutely love Drake London? Do you absolutely love Kyle Pitz? I'm like, They have potential. I wouldn't say... I had both of them on fantasy team, so I watched them pretty closely. Jake London, he'd have a couple of big games, but do I think he's going to be a top five receiver? No. Then B I don't know. That's one where he might be awesome next year, and it wouldn't be shocking.

Yeah, it's so much based on just where they were drafted. And you're like, well, that Arthur Smith era was not great in Atlanta. But you're right. Like, Drake London is not Justin Jefferson. That matters a lot for the... I mean, we've watched... There were games where Justin Jefferson is just taking the game over. By himself. It really didn't matter who was throwing him the football. There's nobody like that on the Falcon. So it's a group with potential, but I'm with you unproven. I think you convinced I've been on the fence with the Cousins thing, not having a firm stance. I think I want to join you.

That's good.

Come with me, too.

I honestly think you were right about the Netflix thing. I think it shifted the narrative on him in a really weird way, and people He felt bad because he got hurt and the outpouring from his teammates. The big thing, if you're going to make the case for the signing for Atlanta, other than what you said about the owner, was he's an awesome, awesome, awesome locker room guy and a leader and somebody that can come in At least now you have somebody who can drive your car. Whether you can drive it well enough, I guess we'll find out. I was looking at, on Fandil, they have some of the division odds. This cousin thing, it surged the Falcons. They're like minus 110, minus 115 now to win the NFC South. I'm like, to me, it's like there's no... First of all, to say those are the odds at this point is ridiculous. We didn't even have the draft yet, but I just don't think them versus Tampa, them versus New Orleans. To me, that's a crapshoot. So if I'm getting over three to one value on the Saints or the Bucks, I'm just grabbing that over thinking Atlanta is going to be a prohibitive favorite.

I don't see that at all. Okay, next thing I had to throw at you, also quarterback related. So Pittsburgh, they get Russell Wilson, and Russell Wilson is weirdly like a prize because Denver pays for his whole salary. So you could pay Russell Wilson the least amount of money possible. They're paying Wilson and Picket $5 million combined at the QB position. So it's basically like lower rookie scale. So it's great. Congratulations. On the other hand, you get what you pay for. So, oh, cool. We're only paying $5 million for our quarterbacks. That's great. Your quarterbacks are Russell Wilson and Kenny Picket. They have no playoff win since 2016. They've had no good quarterbacks since 2017. They had washed up Ben Rathesberger for a couple of years, Mason Rudolf, Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Picket. This is almost like a job preservation strategy to me. Where if you don't have a quarterback or you're trying to cut corners with your QB, and then the rest of the team looks at you like, Well, man, if we had a quarterback, it would be amazing. But you know you can't get one. They took a swing with Picket. It didn't totally work out.

But And I'm not saying this is why Mike Tomlin wants to do it this way, but it is a great way to keep your job. You're never getting blamed if your quarterback suck every year. We saw Russell Wilson last year. He wasn't good. Payton was terrified to have him do anything. And what Russell Wilson did want to get hit. So why would he be good on Pittsburgh? I don't see it at all. Do you see any silver lining?

No. I mean, like you said, it's a low risk move because it's 1.2 million. If it doesn't work out, who cares? You didn't give up any draft capital. He's cheap. So there's that one end of it. But I'm with you. I wanted the Steelers, and they signed Patrick Queen, the linebacker today. I thought that was good value. I like that. I would be getting duped by, you said the self-preservation thing. I would be like, Yeah, this team would be really good if it had a quarterback. If you plugged in a quarterback who I liked, and it doesn't even have to be an elite guy, that group of quarterbacks you mentioned that were in that middle class where it's like, well, it depends on the supporting cast. If you put one of those guys on this team, I would be very interested in this team. I like their defense. I like their running backs. I like their wide receivers. I like Tom Lynn. I think Arthur Smith as an offensive coordinator, he's done more with less in the past in Tennessee. There's a lot that I like there, but this just leaves me going like what you said.

Come on, what is your ceiling with 36-year-old Russell Wilson as your quarterback in this scheme. You're not going anywhere with all those quarterbacks you mentioned in the AFC. I mean, come on, you have no chance to compete with those guys. So I'm not saying it's easy, but yeah, I went into this offseason being like, Come on, Pittsburgh, take some swing at a quarterback with upside, and let's see what it looks like. And they're not doing that. I think Russell Wilson will raise the floor, and he'll give you better play than Kenny Pickett, but he's not going to give you a great play at this stage of his career. And so you're just a limited team once again. And now next offseason, you're going to have to figure out your quarterback plan.

I don't think they should have done Minchou either. I thought Vegas getting Minchou for 12 million is in a lot of ways, almost worse. He's okay. It's a stop gap. But that situation he was in, the colds being with Steiken, I just don't see other teams pulling that same thing on. I thought Steiken was incredible last year. There's two that I thought were interesting. One is Berset that New England got, and they got him for one for eight. I just like Berset's better than Russell Wilson at this point of his career. I don't think there's any any argument. I still like Jameis as a what the fuck. I think that would have been a really interesting Pittsburgh guy. He ends up going to Cleveland. But Jameis can pull you in the game or he can take you out of it. But his teammates do rally around him, and he has had moments like, Russell Wilson, it's over. This is a wrap. I guess I would be more interested in the pick a piece of this if I was a Stewards fan, because you could talk yourself in a pick, it got hurt last year at a great preseason.

It just was the year from hell. Maybe there's something there. There's nothing there with Russell Wilson.

What did you think about the Steelers as a Justin Fields team? Nobody wants Justin Fields. I think that's clear. I loved it. Now, I don't know what it's going to take to get him. Is it going to be a fourth round pick? Is it going to be lower? I don't know. He still has one year on his rookie salary. I'm not there with everyone who thinks Justin Fields is going to be amazing, just the right situation. But I at least see the flashes, and that would have made more sense to me. Maybe there's only a 5% chance that he's going to be really good, but it's not going to take much to get him. I was also thinking about this when they sign Russell Wilson. The best version of Justin Fields is younger Russell Wilson, where he's going to take a lot of sacks, but he can chuck it downfield. He can run around. He can scramble. And so that was a team I was looking at it at the start of the offseason. I know he takes a lot of sacks and is going to fumble, but with Tomlen there, I could see it in my...

Would you be more excited if you're a Steelers fan with giving up, let's say, a fourth for Justin Fields or signing Russell Wills? Everyone would say Fields, right?

There's no question. I don't even know if you have to give up a fourth. The team that I was thinking for Fields, and maybe they can't do it because the same division was Minnesota. I don't see the Sam Darnold thing at all. At all.

At all.

Because there's some... I think a couple of the Ringer fantasy guys like Darnold a little bit. They're doing the, if you just replaced him with Purdy, maybe it's somewhere. I just cannot throw. You're either accurate or you're not. If you can't consistently throw passes to the guys in your team, it's not happening. And we have a huge, huge sample size of them. I'll never get over that Carolina-Tampa game. It just feels like teams could figure them out. If you're Minnesotian, it's like, All right, I totally get letting cousins go. But I'm going to pay Justin Jefferson all this money. He's your quarterback is now Sam Darnold. Justin Jefferson is going to be the new Larry Fitzgerald. He's just trapped with these shitty quarterbacks for eight years. I like some of the other stuff Minnesota did. I like the linebackers they got. They got a pass rusher. They're actually trying to build something. I thought Van Ginkle, he was one of my favorite free agents. He was a guy on League Pass that jumped out. But then to be like, And here's your quarterback, Sam Darnold. That's fucking crazy to me.

Yeah, they're in such a... Because they have good offensive tackles. They have an awesome number one wide receiver. It looks like they hit on Jordan Addison last year. Kevin O'Know, seems like a pretty good coach. They have a lot of pieces in place where it's like, if you could find a quarterback and they just had cousins, then the offense could be good. And then you have Flores on defense, where he was working with no talent last year, and they were still pretty good for most of the season. Now you add some talent in free agency. I do wonder, I know Solak is convinced that the Vikings are going to draft a quarterback.

I was going to ask you, as you're talking, I was looking at draft trying to figure out. So they're 11th. So they're JJ McCarthy waiting to happen then?

It feels like every team is linked to JJ McCarthy. I am just someone who watched football on Saturdays in the fall I had to ask Solak, I'm like, What is happening with the JJ McCarthy discourse here? Did I miss something? And he was like, No, I don't necessarily think so. So it seems like NFL teams love him. And it just feels like teams are the Raiders now going to make a move at quarterback. The Giants. What are the Giants doing at 6? And then the Vikings. So there's all these teams that are in that top 15 that could be interested, and the quarterbacks could go flying off the board. So yeah, I don't know if the Vikings traded back and took a penic. I haven't studied these guys on film yet. I've been in free agency mode, but I don't know. That's interesting to me.

We should mention, you're on the Ringer. Com. You have a massive free agency breakdown with reactions to everything. I think. If you go after the top three, Arizona 4, no QB, Chargers 5, no QB, Giants 6, maybe. Tennessee 7, everyone's like, No, they got Will Levis. Like, Do they? Eight Atlanta, no. Nine Chicago, no. Ten Jets, no. Eleven Vikings, twelve Broncos, 13 Raiders. My guess is we're coming out of that with the other two QBs will be gone. Somebody will talk themselves into Pennex, and they'll talk themselves into the medicals and all that stuff. But there's also a possibility, we've seen this in other draughts where it's like, Oh, all those guys will go. And then they pass a certain point and they just start dropping like a fucking rock. It's like, wow, I could get Michael Pennex with the 34th pick? This happened to Lamar a couple of years ago. The Pats passed him. I think it was Kyle and I were watching. They passed him at 22 or 23, and then he was coming up again on the clock at '31, and they traded out the pick, and Baltimore took him. I can't imagine if you're going to have Justin Jefferson and Addison.

Addison looked really good last year. How do you give them Sam Darnald. I don't get it.

I'm with you on Darnald. Yeah, I am not part of the people who think, Hold out hope for Sam Darnald. I have seen enough where I don't need to see anymore of Sam Darnald.

All right, two small things, and then we'll go. Smaller gambling things. The AFC East right now on FanDuel, the Bills are plus 130 favorites. I can't say the Bills team is going to be the same. The secondary, which was a huge thing of what made them them, it's basically, that's done. They lost Gabe Davis. They're losing people around the fringes. They brought back Jones, which is good. But Bills plus 130, that's basically, that goes back to what you said in one of the preseason pods to Solak last year. It's like, Josh Allen is just, I'm penciling in 10 and 7. That's it. They have Josh Allen, that's 10 and 7. Miami Dolphins plus 190. No question they're worse. I mean, they lost Wilkins. They already had Waves, David Howard, before the free agency started. They lost their Center. They've lost people all over the place. And then The Jets are at plus 290. Do those odds seem right to you? Bills plus 130, Dolphins plus 190, the Jets plus 290. They were seven and 10 last year with the worst QB situation in the league. Rodgers coming back. They have the 10th pick in the draft.

Easier schedule. Why are they plus 290? Because they're the Jets?

So you're saying that the Jets should have better odds than the Dolphins? I'm trying to figure out which way. You think they're going to absolutely suck or you think they have a chance, actually, to be They're undervalued.

I think this division is... I think they're undervalued.

Oh, this has to be a first for the Bill Simmons spot. You think the Jets are undervalued?

I think they're undervalued. I think plus 290 isn't undervalued.

I'm shocked. That's why I had to ask the follow-up because I listened before I worked for it. I couldn't believe that that was- Well, let me add.

Just fundamentally, who has more talent? Miami or the Jets? They're on the 10th pick for the Jets. And Roger's coming back.

They're on the 10th pick for the Jets. It's It's it might be the Jets. It's arguably, right? Yeah. The Jets have more talent on defense, no doubt about it. And then the Jets are good at wide receiver and running back. I'm with you souring on the Dolphins. I think they're taking a step back next year. They had to get rid of all these guys. They're in bad cap situation. They couldn't beat a good team last year. They lose Vic Fangio. So the case for the Jets, they were seven and 10 last year with Zack Wilson and the absolute worst offense in the NFL. And they were seven and 10. They weren't like three and 14. They were seven and 10.

With a couple of losses that were like, holy shit, how did we lose that game? Yeah. It easily could have been nine and eight.

So I don't think I'm going to talk myself into them, but I think you're right that the high watermark for them, there is a scenario. Now, their offensive tackle situation is a disaster. They need a second wide receiver. There's a lot of stuff they still need on offense. But you're right, they have the 10th overall pick, so you can address some of that stuff. Forty 21 years old, coming off in Achilles, like Tyrod Taylor's now, their backup. I don't feel great about it, but I can talk myself into a situation where what you're saying is true, that they're undervalued and the best version of the Jets with guys staying healthy, they figure out the offensive line is like 10 and 17 or something like that. I can get there eventually.

Garrett Wilson and Bries Hall. Tyreek Hill, Jalen Waddle. I don't know. From a weapon standpoint, Point, not like they're not completely over here. Like, Garrett Wilson has the chance to be maybe a top five or six receiver in the league. The other thing with Tyreek is he's getting older, and I thought he was weird last year. He's weird. It's like, are you hurt? You're not hurt? You limped off again. Now you're back. Wait, you're limping off again. Now you're done. Your helmet's off. I just thought he was really erratic last year. I'm shorting Miami and buying jet stock, and I think that division is wide open. Okay.

Wow. That's the best football take I've heard in March so far this season. I love it. Thank you.

I don't even think it's a crazy take. Yeah, that's good. What if there's three awesome receivers in the draft? What if the third one falls to them a 10. And now they have Wilson. They have the third receiver who's pissed that he went third and has a huge chip on his shoulder. And Burris Hall. I don't know. Roger's not betting against him being Decent. All right, here's my last one. You thought my Jets take was good. What if Washington's good?

All right. I don't know if I'm going to be on this one. All right, hold on. Make the case.

Can you just get in the car? I'm just going to drive around the parking lot. It seems like they're taking Jade and Daniel second because they signed Marriott. They have Cook-Kingsbury. There's clearly some angle that they're developing. Now, I would be delighted if they took Daniel second because I like Jake May. But I'd also be delighted with Daniel. I'd be delighted for any quarterback who has potential. What if Jade and Daniel, they take him second? He's good right away. He's older than May. He's 18 months older. He's explosive. We've seen quarterbacks who are exciting just come in right away and be good. New Coach Upgrade, one of our favorite theories. They had the corpse of Ron Rivera last year. Eric Biename, who, by the way, not hired by anybody. Now they have Dan Quinn. They have all these nerds that came in. Adam Peters, a really good GM. They're changing stuff. I really like their free agency. I like Frankie Louvo. I like Fowler. They got Echler for cheap. Armstrong. They got a center. They got a guard. They got Brandon McManus, who I thought was a good kicker. They made moves around the fringes to the point that Joe House noted Washington Sports Cynic just really a damn Washington fan, was like, I really liked our offseason.

This is great. One more thing, Sheil. They have the second pick. They have 36, 40, 67, 99, and 101. Easier schedule. There's a chance your team might be worse. There's a chance Dallas might be worse. I don't know. I can't rule out Washington. That's my case.

Okay. I was actually maybe six weeks ago or so, I was thinking about them, and I was like, They could be good right away. If they get a rookie quarterback who doesn't have to be C. J. Stroud, but he's mediocre, they have a chance because I like Terry McLaren. I like the wide receivers. I think they have some good defensive tackles. There are some pieces there Dan Quinn. I actually like the coach theory, especially it would work here, because no one's expecting it to be Dan Quinn. They didn't want it to be Dan Quinn right away. I like him as a retread option. He had a Super Bowl. Yeah, he had some good years in Atlanta, and then he reinvented himself as a defensive coordinator. So I like it there. My hesitation is with who's running the offense and Cliff Kingsbury. I'm not saying he's going to stink. I didn't see it from him as an NFL coach running the Arizona Cardinals. I did not see him as a guy who's going to look at all the pieces he has and say, I'm going to be able to make the most of this. We might not have the most talented group, but I'm going to get more from it than is there.

It was actually the opposite. I would watch it and be like, Oh, my gosh, other than Kyler Murray making a crazy crazy play or DeAndre Hopkins making a crazy play, this offense doesn't do anything. So that is my big hesitation with the commanders. When a team has a play collar or an offensive coordinator that I'm not sold on, and now you're adding in a rookie quarterback, now I start going, What actually would have to happen here for them to be good? So I don't think it's crazy. They have more offseason resources than any team in the NFL. I mean, it's crazy. Five picks in the first three rounds.

Would it have been crazy to say Houston was going to win division last year?

Yeah, that's true.

It would have been crazy. We would have been like, What the fuck are you talking about? But it's a lot of the same model. They had a lot of picks. They hit with the quarterback right away. They brought in a new coach, and their division was way more disappointing than I think we thought it was going to be. And those are the reasons. The NFC East odds on FanDuel, Dallas plus 115, Philly plus 135, Washington 10 to one. They They have worse odds than the Giants. The Giants are nine to one. That's insane. Washington is going to be better than the Giants. That's not right.

I agree with that. Yeah, I don't see that at all. I mean, the Giants should not be ahead of Washington. You mentioned Dallas. Let me bring up one quick thing. I think maybe the biggest story, and it's weird because it's the Cowboys, but it feels like it's under discussed and it relates to Kerr Cousins, is what the leverage Dak Prescott has right now. Are you aware? The situation here is going into the final year of his contract and contract says he cannot be tagged. So can you imagine if Kirk Cousins just got four years and $180 million, if Dak Prescott, who is what, five, six years younger than Kirk Cousins, and I think better than him You can argue how much better than him. If he were to hit free agency next offseason, what contract he would get? So now the Cowboys are in this situation where they're like, Well, we can't let him hit free agency. There's probably going to be a headline in the months ahead that says Dack Dak Prescott is the highest paid player in NFL history, and everyone's going to lose their minds because that's the only option that the Cowboys have.

So the Cowboys haven't done anything in free agency, but I'm like, What are they going to do with this Dak Prescott situation? It's wild.

Or he could study from the master, Kirk Cousins, the master getting the bag.

Yes.

And just bet on himself year after year and do one-year deals and two-year deals. That's what Kirk did basically from what, 2016 on? It was either a one year deal or a two year deal, and it was always guaranteed. It was always the maximum amount of money possible. Honestly, if you're a QB, you're better off doing that than long-term deals. That's what Mahomes should have done. Yeah, it's cool. You have, Oh, look at this giant number, and it's all these years down the road. Guess what, Mahomes? You're going to be the highest paid guy every single year unless you literally an anvil falls on you or something like... Even if you're hurt, you're going to be banking $50 million a year. Some people want to take the money. If I'm doing the cousins, what would Dallas do? Okay, here's 55 million guaranteed for one year.

I can't imagine what it would look like. Because the Cousins thing, he's getting paid this much, like you said, he knew how to play that they couldn't be tagged. He said, I can hit free agency if I want to hit free agency. That pretty much never happens with a top 15 quarterback, and he's 36. For it to happen with the guy who's 31, I don't think that's ever happened in NFL history, where if we're at this time next year and it's like, Where is Dak Prescott going to go? I mean, there's going to be some owner out there. It's going to be wild how much money he would make.

Plus, Dak and Cousins, they're basically the same guy, and they're having the same career. All right, so to recap, there's no great way to beat Mahomes, to build the team, to beat him. You just got to do what's best for your franchise. We don't know what Pittsburgh is doing. I'm higher on Saquon Barkley than you, but you're at least open to the idea that maybe he's the new McCafree. You like my Jets, maybe they're completely undervalued, plus 290. The AFCs. I pulled you in to Kirk Cousins. Oh, my God, this is a huge mistake island. And I can't win you over on Washington being confident. You're just swanting that to the side. You're not buying it.

Yeah, I couldn't give in to all the argument. The Jets one is the biggest upset of the pod, in my opinion, so far. I'm like, Oh, he's making a good point there.

All right. So you can hear Sheil on the Ringer Philly special, breaking down. The Eagles are probably done, right? They're not doing I think dramatic, rest of the way, are they?

No, I think they're going to trade Josh Sweater or Son Reddick, and then I think they'll probably still add to the defense a little bit. I think they're taking some big swings this offseason.

All right. Can you hear Sheil on the Ringer NFL show as well? And you can read them on theringer. Com com, all the free energy stuff. Plus, we got trade value coming this summer. Good to see you again, my friend.

Thanks for having me.

All right, we almost did this 17 times during the NFL season, but now we're finally doing it. There's a lot of scheduling glitches and conflicts, but now we're here. Julian Edelman is here. It's great to see you.

Great to see you, too. Jumping into this world of podcasting, being to be joined with one of the godfathers of this whole thing. It's an honor, sir.

What are your Sundays like during this season now that you're not playing? Are you watching 10 straight hours of NFL? Are you popping in and out? How into it are you?

I do the kick My Show on Fox. After that, I'll sit with Terry, Howie, Jimmy, Michael.

Oh, you stick around?

I'll stick around for the first batch of games just to learn how they prepare for their shows and stuff. It's been great to just be a fly on the wall because I'm in this world now. Then after that, I get back to my house here in LA. Then I usually have a couple of friends over and I'm just watching football the whole time. I usually have free TVs. With the new football package on YouTube, it's been amazing because you can watch multiple games at once with the Red Zone and another. I have TVs everywhere with games everywhere, just watching, trying to pick up a note. I'm on my phone the whole time. I have a team, Coast Productions, that I'll sit and I'll literally just send voice memos. That was a great play by Joe Burrow. That It was an unbelievable get off by nick Bosa, third and four. Then they write it down, and for the next week's shows, it helps me to pick from that and give what I'm thinking.

When you're watching a football game, what are you looking at? Because some people, they just look at the line. Some people look at the receiver. Some people look at just the... They watch it like I do, where they watch the quarterback go back. Some people can see everything at the same time. What are you concentrating on?

First off, I always look at the situation. What down in distance is it? Where are they on the field? Then from there, depending on the team- Are you trying to guess what's happening as you're looking at the situation?

Like, third and four, it's shaded to the left. I'm watching this receiver go to the right. I think they're going to do this.

I'm just seeing the situation, and it brings me back to what we would have done when I was playing. Looking at formations, seeing what personnel groups are in, you can to see what's going to happen. You can have a guess with certain teams. But I'm really big into the situational stuff. Then obviously, depending on what team you're watching with which players they have, I tend to watch the receivers and the DBs a lot. I actually love line play because I was always tight with the line guys. So watching the line guys pick up, if there's an Oakey front or a bear front, how are these guys going to handle it? It depends on what team you're watching and their strengths. If their strengths are offensive line, I want to watch the offensive line. If their strengths are quarterback, I'm watching the quarterback and seeing how he's getting through his progressions. If it's a receiver, I'm watching release, I'm watching top routes. I'm watching how he's stemming guys depending on if it's man coverage or zone, if it's zone, if they're finding the spots.

Who's your favorite quarterback to watch now that Brady's gone? Is there anybody that reminds you of him, or is it just pieces of different guys? Pieces of Different Guys.

Pieces of Different Guys. I love watching Joe Burrow. He processes fast. He's confident with his throws, and it seems when it's got to have its type situations, he performs. You got to like to watch Patrick Mahomes, and especially with what he did this last year, being able to have the humility to understand what his team was, take Taking what the defense gives them, understanding that they don't have an explosive receiver on the outside, and sometimes taking those easy throws and watching quarterbacks do that, being disciplined is like, I like watching that because it takes a lot for these quarterbacks because they all just want to rip and throw. But sometimes you can't do that because defense, especially with these two shells that Patrick Mahomes and those teams have been giving them, you can't do that. So you got what the defense gives you. That one time where they give you that look and they seat it in there, that's what I'm looking for. You see a lot of that with Joe Burrow, Patrick Mahomes. Athletically, it's awesome to watch Lamar. When he's really in control of a game, when he's on both levels where he's playing that calculated risk type of game where, is he going to take off?

No, that guy jumps off, he dumps it. Those are fun plays to watch. There's a lot of good quarterback play right now. A lot of bad quarterback play right now. A lot of bad quarterback play as well. Been sloppy, been sloppy, but I'm a huge advocate for the game, and I'm trying to watch and highlight the good stuff.

Yeah. I grew up as a Patriots fan, and for the first 32 years of my life, I think the most talented quarterback we probably had was Tony Eison, who by the late '80s, we were ready to drive him out of town. Then Bledso came He was supposed to be the savior. Didn't totally happen. Did take us to a Super Bowl, but braided takes his job. Then we went from this hodgepodge collection of dudes that were probably a C minus across the board till we get braided. Then we watch braided. Braided blows out his ACL. It's like, Oh, man, is he going to be able to come back? And then he goes to this second level in the 2010s, which you were part of. How many Super Bowl should you have won when you were there? You win three. What was the right Because I would say the over-under might have been three and a half. There was weirdly some bad luck with injuries and stuff. On the other hand, the Butler play, the fact that coming back from 28 to three, those are pretty, I don't want to say fluky wins, but unusual wins. So maybe three is the right number.

What would you say?

I tell people all the time, some of the best teams I played on, we didn't win the Super Bowl. Fifteen after we won 14. We started out 10-0. Week 9, Deion Lewis tears an ACL. Week 10, Nate Solder tears a peck. Week 11, I break a foot. It stumbled, and you stumbled at the end of that season. But we were so good that year. Then we go to the playoffs and we lose to Denver in Denver to lead the hurt his ham string, remember?

Yeah, that was a barely loss, by the way.

A barely loss. We weren't even where we should have been, but that was It's a good one. I mean, three, three and a half, maybe four. But that's the game. The ball has got to bounce a certain way. You got to be healthy. The healthiest team usually is a team that wins that I've always noticed. Then in '17, or what was it? In '13, we lost an AFC Championship to Denver again. We were banged up. I don't think Gronk was there. It's one of those things where you got to be lucky enough to have the whole health the team and playing your best football at the end of the year, which the teams that we ended up winning it with were, and we were healthy. Those times we lost in those AFC Championships on the road, we didn't really have our firepower because we were banged up or something. But I think we got the perfect amount. You can never want more. You always want more, but you can never say you deserved more because 'cause it's tough to win in this league.

Was there a playoff game you felt like you guys stole? Because I can't think of three.

That Baltimore, we were down 14 points twice.

That was the first one I was going to think. Yeah, it felt like I hate saying Baltimore was better, but I actually think Baltimore was slightly better. The Pats just outthought them. They came up with these weird strategy things and just took the game from them. I'm not positive the Pats were better.

Yeah, it was one of those things where we weren't playing our best at the end. It goes to that point of I didn't play last three weeks of the season. I was dealing with some head stuff. We were trying to find our way still. Then that was a game for us to find where we were back at. We just so happened to sneak away and pull that one-off. I would say that a 2012 Ravens game where Sterling War. They knocked it out, and they missed the field goal to tie it, not win it, tie it. We stole that one.

Because Grock was banged up. Yeah, It was...

I mean, we got to- Still, we stole the Super Bowl, though. Yeah. I mean, we were one bounce away. And then probably that 14 Super Bowl. I mean, Malcolm making that play. Yeah, we studied that play, and We knew that play was going to come if they came into that certain situation, but to go out and actually execute it like he did, that was a hell of a play. So that's football.

And Belichick not calling the time out, which was not covered in the Apple documentary, the greatest coaching decision of all time. Just not mentioned. Just skipped over.

Been a lot of that.

Yeah, weird one. Have you been watching it? Because you were interviewed for it.

Yeah, I watched some of it.

I was It was super disappointed because it felt like they were steering it toward the scandal stuff and the drama and the tension, and they lost the grasp of what made the team great. The Baltimore game is not even in it. To me, that's the two defining home games of the entire braided era or the snow game in 2001 and the Baltimore game. I feel like the crowd stole that game. I feel like the infrastructure, the team stole that game. That's how you have a dynasty when you win games like that, that in the KC game in KC in 2018, same thing. To me, that's the dynasty when you're starting to win weird games like that.

Yeah, it's definitely been a little click 80 with what they've been showing. It is what it is. I don't want to get too far into it. I think they're trying to paint the picture a little weird for Bill. I don't necessarily agree with everything. A little So weird. I got people on both sides here, so you got to keep it semi-political.

Yeah, I know. But I thought the first three, they skipped over the second and third Super Bowl, which was like, the Pats went 21 straight. They're 34 and 4 over a two-year span. That's where you build the spine and the vertebrae of the dynasty. And Belichick, the coaching job he's doing for that four-year stretch is the greatest we've ever seen in the history of the league. And then you go to the second stretch when braided goes up a level. But in a lot of ways, Belichick did, too, with some of the ways he thought about stuff. The stuff that was most disappointing to me that wasn't in there was the way he thought out of the box with playing Troy Brown at D-back, playing you at D-back. And just like, Hey, we have these guys. How do we patch together the best way to win for this season versus having a system, right?

Without a doubt. I recently just watched that NFL films coverage of our 2018 Super Bowl against the Rams. I'm doing Matthew Slater on games with names coming up this week. Just to do some research and try to live in, live in it again. They're talking like, Belichick's the greatest thing ever. I can specifically remember Bill talking about the media to the team once and predicting this situation of, look, fellows, there's going to be a day where the media wants me dead and I'm not the good, they're this, they're this. And it's crazy that Bill used to say stuff like that for keys to games, to what he's going to become. And it always seemed like whatever he said was true. And it turned out when we watched the game, I remember specifically when we were doing terrible on kickoff return one year, I think it was in '18 or '17, maybe '19. And Bill took over the whole kickoff return and went player for player and told every single guy what to do on his assignment. That week, we returned a countdown for kickoff. He said, We need a big play in the kicking game.

It was against the Rams when we went out to Sofi. Gunner had that breakdown. He specifically went over with every single player, You are going to hair pin. You are going to go dangerous man to this guy. Like, called out the play and the coaching point to every single guy. Yeah, Then we went out in house to punt or house to kick. And there's a lot of that stuff that he used to do like that where guys, we'd be second-guessing them. Like, What the hell? When we cut Logan Mankens, what the fuck?

Sorry. No, we can swear on this.

Okay. I mean, everyone was like, What are we doing? He ended up winning the Super Bowl that year. He's definitely the best football coach I ever played for. I would hope so. He's been my... By far. It's been fun, funny to watch this whole documentary about this.

Well, there's so many things that missed, but one of the things was when he cut Laura Malloy heading into the second Super Bowl season, and this is right after Bledso. Bledso gets hurt, doesn't get his job back. He's like, 'Brady's the guy. ' There was a cutthroat way that he did business. It was always like, 'It's best for the team, best for the team, best for the team. ' The most interesting thing about that to me that the guy still bought into it. Even though everybody in the locker room were like, Yeah, I could be next, somehow that led to everybody still playing hard and playing together. I never understood how he juggled that line where everybody in the locker room knew, Oh, that guy would cut me in five seconds if it helped the team.

Well, I always explain it like this. Bill was Congress. The guys in the locker room, the flag carrier, and the guy who was enforcing the Tom braided, was the guy who was out there enforcing the law. Because of the rules that were in place and how the guys that were leaders in the team enforced them, that's what made the whole thing together. That's what made it go. I think the combination of Bill being what Bill was and Tom being who Tom braided is, it always made everyone feel like we had a shot to win no matter Do you have to like your football coach?

I'm going to say no.

I don't think anyone's ever liked their football coach until five years ago. Football has never been easy.

It's been the hardest- Is a football coach supposed to yell at people and hold them accountable and get mad at them when they do something wrong? I thought that was the job.

Yeah, but it's changed. Times have changed. I can specifically remember in 17, we lose that Super Bowl. I tore my ACL I wasn't there.

The Eagles fans love to forget that part, by the way, that you didn't play in the Super Bowl. It's just like this tiny asterisk.

But because with the whole camp of Philadelphia. Oh, we have so much fun winning this, that. There was guys rumbling in the locker room, and it was our literally third Super Bowl in how many years that we went to. I wrote up on this whiteboard that we all used to walk by every morning because People were talking. I'm like, Winning is fun. That's the only fun I really want to have. I want to win. No one really cares. The work that you have to put in for the preparation process to go out and put yourself in the best situation to win is not always fun. And honestly, it sucks and it hurts. And it's emotionally draining, physically draining. We used to practice so hard, but that's what made our run so good. And I guarantee you, you look at the Kansas City Chiefs, I I've heard that Andy Reid and those boys, they practice hard. They take practice very hard, and it's not always the funnest. I mean, it's different and it's collaborative, and he's an offensive guy, and they like to put in a couple of plays here and there. But I've heard it's a hard camp.

I heard it's a hard place It's a play. We get a bad rap for everything.

You and I met, I'm going to say it was the year you were going to be... It was the year you were a free agent. We met there in the offseason.

Yeah.

You were at a dinner with a bunch of people, and I We had a mutual friend there, our friend Will, and I ended up talking to him for a while. At that point, you're deciding, Do I leave? Should I stay? You started talking to me about braided. I ended up writing something about it because you were so passionate about braided at the time. I was like, This guy, I actually think he's smart enough not to leave. He might be offered more money somewhere else, but I think he understands there's something truly special going on here. I think the team was Jacksonville, right? They were going to offer you more- Niners. Or the Niners. They were going to offer you more to leave, and you ended up staying. I'm guessing you don't regret that.

I don't. This is a business, and I was a younger football player at the time. Sometimes you have to swallow pride and you have to look outside the box and think outside the box. You want to go make a million dollars more somewhere where they're going to have a new coaching staff in a year or two, or do you want to be part of something special? With Boston and being in New England, with what we were doing at that time, you could make that money off the field. I was thinking like that. Did I really want to go into a situation with a quarterback that didn't know me? I was just getting a relationship with Tom and getting to earn some reps with him. Walker Lee left. We had Amandola, but I knew specifically how hard it was to gain his trust. So I banked on, if I go there, it'll give me my best opportunity to succeed.

Yeah, because you told me that night, and I mentioned this in something I wrote for ESPN, because you were like, Tom's going to play until his mid-forties. And I think that was the first time when I wrote about it, I think it was the first time anyone had put that out there. People were like, That's crazy. No quarterback had played past 39 at a successful thing. But you were adamant about it. You were like, You don't understand the way this dude treats his body, how he lives his day. His entire life is about football. Every decision he makes is for his body. This guy is going to keep going as long as he wants. You were pretty adamant about it, and you were right.

Well, you used to say it all the time. When we would be together in the offseason in LA or wherever we were training, we'd go to Montana, and He used to talk about it. I'm playing until I'm 45. I've told this story before. I think it was in 14, he had the Arizona address on his whiteboard in his gym at his house. I go, and we both grew up in the Bay Area, so I knew how close to home Joe Montana was to Tom. I wanted to help Tom pass Joe. I was like, Tom, we're going to get four here. You're going to pass Joe. We're going to do it. And he looked me dead in the eyes with his little... He got a death stare. And he said, I'm not going for Montana. I'm going for Jordan. And if you hear after 18, I go, Jordan, Jordan, you got them. You know what I mean? And it was just one of those things where whatever he said that he wanted to accomplish, this man actually would home down, focus up, and do everything in his possibility to make that happen. More than not, it happened.

Passed Jordan.

Yeah.

He got the seventh one in Tampa.

I know. He passed him.

You're out there, the 28 to 3 game, coming back, and at some point, braided locks in, and he just becomes, I don't know, like a Jedi. I don't know what's going on, but it's just at some point everyone realizes that the Patriots are going to win. Mahomes has a little bit of this, too. People kept talking about the word inevitability. When these guys hit this point, when they're so great, it feels inevitable and the game's not over, but you're like, I know where this is going. It's like, I know they're getting this two-point. When did you know in the field that something was happening?

I would say probably after the Trey flowers sack or one of those holding calls, when we were down, we were climbing. When we were climbing back and we scored those two touch downs, and then we had, was it a Trey flowers sack?

The high tower, the high tower, whatever.

The high tower, sack fumble, whatever. Yeah. Sack fumbled. But then flowers had a holding call as well that knocked him out of field goal range. They had to punt. Once they punt there, I was like, We're going to win this game. Which the only thing that was making me think that it was going to be tough is that we already executed a two-point play. That week of practice, we put in three or four two-point plays. We knew that it could potentially come down to that. So thank God we actually prepared for that situation and we were able to execute two-point plays because those aren't easy. That's what people don't realize. There's less space. That two-point play is a lot tougher than what people think. But it was After that holding call, that sack fumble, those huge defensive plays, when I felt like it was almost like that tiger effect on the back nine of a masters when he's down one or two strokes. Those guys are shit in their pants. That's when he's performing at his best. That's what happened. You saw how Tom was distributing the football to everyone. Malcolm Mitchell, rookie, Chris Hogan, Danny Amandola, James White out of the backfield for 15 catches.

Having that discipline to take what the defense is giving you and not having that clock where you're like, Oh, I got to make something happen. That's the pro-quarterback That's what he was doing, and that's what he did in the best moments.

Well, and then the Belichick piece of it where he thinks Atlanta is going to score points. This was also not in the documentary. So let's put in a bunch of two-point plays because we might need him. We might need him for overtime. Who the fuck knows? Without a doubt. The Pats, I think they got three two-point plays in that game. Is that possible? Two. Two plus there was another one. There I want to say there was three, but- There was one that Danny. Yeah. That quick out.

It was a quick screen. It was a quick string where we had to block the two most dangerous. Then there was the fake We did the fake, James White. That was like Kevin Falk. We all see that where if it's blitz zero, we got a blitz zero beater. If they're light in the box, we do the fake, and we did the fake. We've done that fake so many times.

In the Seattle game, you ran that that you used to run a bunch of times where you would cut in and do the 180 spin move to the outside. Return. Yeah. Then you ran it back. I think you did it twice in the same game.

We missed it. We missed it the first time, and then Danny scored on the little seam in the red area. Then we came back, too. We actually put that play in pregame because we felt like we were going to get a little more man coverage in the red than we anticipated. It was called X-Return Spin. You have the return by the single guy, and then you have Amandola on the spin, which if that safety comes down and they try to take that return route, you dink We were right over the head of the Amandola, and then you have an in-cut on the backside. We put that in. We missed it the first time, and then the second time we got it. It was awesome. It was awesome. We knew because they had... With that whole Seattle Six program, they had long, lanky corners, and we were shifty receivers, and we knew that we could get them at the line of scrimage. You got to get those guys moving. Don't let them get on you. You get them moving, you can win. We tried to play to our players' strengths, and it came out, we executed that bad boy.

Yeah, my son started playing football a couple of years ago. He was playing receiver, and I was like, You shouldn't go watch Edelman. Watch some of the footwork stuff he does. He's like, Why? Because he's a white guy. I'm like, No, because the footwork. But one of the plays we were fascinated by was that spin, that move we just talked about, the return of the 180, which is really hard to do if you actually are just trying to do it in the backyard. It's almost like a dance step.

Tell them the one coaching point that you always have to get is if you're doing it to your right and you're coming out back to your left, that top foot, that toe has has to point back to the quarterback. Oh, interesting. It allows you to transfer your weight. A lot of guys will slip on that because they try to cut without that foot and you slip. If you can get the guy moving like an under route and you put that top foot and you point that foot to the quarterback, you have to point it to the quarterback, it gives you your angle to get out.

That move's unstable. The two plays that are unstable or that play, if somebody does it correctly and it's wide open on the side that you do it, too, because there's just no way for the D-back to react in time. Then the weird... Kc started it with Tyreek, and now Miami does it where he's in quick motion and then just sprints out, and they just throw him like the two-yard because there's just no way Nobody's fast enough to realize in real-time, Oh, shit, Tyreek is now in full motion. So now KC runs that. I think they ran that with Rice a couple of times. It still works, but the way- In free access. Yeah. Tyreek, it's the most unstable, but it seems like that's been one of the trends this decade is this quick motion stuff, people moving, people moving fast. I don't know how you stop it.

It's very hard. The teams that always had the best shot of stopping it were the teams that were physical with it, and that would probably just try to hold you. Because what you're doing is you're making the defense communicate when you're coming to a stack or a bunch. When they're communicating and you get quick snap and you go, you're gone. Especially with a guy like Tyreek Hill who has got world-class speed. Those plays are really hard to stop. Very hard to stop. You got to get physical with them. That's the only way.

Who has the best footwork for you now in the league? What receiver?

I'm I'm really impressed with Justin Jefferson because of his length and his ability to get in and out of breaks. Cooper Cups, very smooth, and he's always on balance. You never see him fall on a route or anything. He was The guys that cut off the right feet, they don't rush their route. I used to rush my route sometimes, and it messed me up. But these guys, they're all pretty damn good at it with the information that they have now to be able to train it. I I think the receiver position in general is just so much further ahead than when I was coming into the league. Jamar Chase, his footwork's unreal, and he's really explosive. He's got real strong, lower ends, so he can power through things, but he's also fast enough to outrun guys. You're getting total package with a lot of these receiver. The receiver right now is pretty fun to watch.

Well, when you came in the league, what draft were you? Were you nine or 10?

2009.

That was basically the last year. That was the Steelers, Ravens, the vicious playoff game when four guys got knocked out. They started shifting the rules. Then, I'm going to say, 2012 range, they really started shifting it. I don't know, it took about a decade. But one of the things that changed was the wide receiver over the middle, just not getting being violated by the safety. That was happening in real-time as you were playing. When did you start to feel like, actually, you probably never felt safe going over the middle, but when did you feel like it was a tiny bit safer?

It's funny that you say that. I remember after each season, I'd always watch every single play that I would play in. It was probably '15 or '16 where I sat and watched and I had probably 35 catches over the middle where earlier in I'd be decapitated. I'd probably been out. I probably wouldn't have had the catch. Probably in that span of window from 2012, I was still getting lit up by Ed Reid, Brian Dawkins, and all these guys. Then by the It shifted was probably 15, 16. I think they got into the farm systems with all these seven on seven camps. And the DBs, instead of going for the big hits, were going for the interception. And the game changed just because you remember who was the safety with the Niners? He was a hard hitter. He was getting fined a bunch. I used to train with them, too.

He's going to get mad at it. Shit, I'm blanking. No, I know who you're talking about, but I'm blanking.

Goldston.

Yeah.

They were the hard-hitting safeties. They were getting fined so much where it's almost where it was killing the defenses where they were picking up these penalties. Those types of guys were not getting picked up as much. And the safety positions really changed. They're really a hybrid type guys. When I first got in the league, the safeties were 235 pounds. Now, they're about 205, 210, and they can run, and they're trying to get these guys to be able to cover the tight ends. They got to have some ability to cover in space. That's completely changed from when I first got in the league. It's more of a space game, and we're seeing that in all sports. You look at basketball with the three-pointer, it spreads the game out, and you can be a smaller guy. In football, it's more of a space game. They're winding everything out, and they're making big guys playing space, and it's really defeating the guy. It's pendulums. It'll probably go back to a running game here soon just because the linebackers and the safeties are getting so small in the box where you could play your 12 personnel group, and you can go block them.

And if they're playing these money situations where they're bringing in another DB, or if they're not, they have a linebacker, you can still block them with the receiver. It's crazy.

Denver, there's one safety left that still does the hits, Eddie Jackson, who got suspended multiple times. And then at one point got suspended for four games, but he was the last guy trying to keep the old era alive.

It's It's tough because I grew up watching Roni Locke. That's why my favorite play of my career was the third and 14 against Seattle when Cam Chene to lit me up. That was like when you were a kid and you were catching a football on the street with your dad or with your friends, I remember my dad specifically said, You better be able to make that catch. You're going to get hit anyways. You know what I mean? And that's what it was. It's I mean, there's still some violent hits. Don't get me wrong, guys are really fast and big and strong now still, but it's just it's changed.

See, I think that was your greatest catch because everyone else would say the Falcons catching the ball that got the fucked in the air. But I think eating the third and 14 camp Chancellor hit, but then going like seven more yards. And I don't know, you're probably seeing stars for at least a second or two on that one, right?

I really wasn't. I I really wasn't. I've been hit where I saw stars. On that specific one, I wasn't because I took the punt return from that series. I took a hit pointer on the punt return.

Oh, interesting.

If you have a hit pointer, in between plays without the adrenaline, your whole hip singes up, and you're just sitting there and it's pulling, it's pulling, and then you muster up energy during the play where you can go. If you see at the end of that play, I tried to get up and my hip singes, and I grabbed my hip. Was it a hard hit? Yeah, it was a hard hit, but I braced for it. It was late over the middle, so I anticipated that hit because they had the middle field closed with Cam Tom, and you're going to run a 22-yard in-cut. You usually get hit on that number away from that safety. But Tom stepped up, and you knew it was going to be a big bang, bang, bang throw because by that time, I was in at the hash. So if you see, I raced up.

You and Walker used to do the same thing. If you knew you're going to take the hit, you would catch it, and then you would go to the ground underneath the hit, so you wouldn't take the hit because you could get tackled anyway. So you're trying to figure out immediately self reservation.

One of the best of that was Deion Branch. Remember Deion? Oh, yeah. He knew how to get down. I remember him coming back to the Patriots. When you're a younger football player, you're young, dumb, full of calm, piss and vinegar, you're trying to go for the extra one yard. You end up spraining the ankle because you're getting hit by four other guys. Deion said, Dude, just you got to get down. You got to get down. You got to have calculated risk. He always watched Deion. He was always in control, catch the ball, see two guys slide under him. Welk did it well, too. But I've seen Welker get hit a couple of times where I was putting my chin strap on thinking he was out, and that dude was tough. He was able to muster through.

Branch, that cost us the Super Bowl in '06. They couldn't figure out the contract, traded him for first-round pick, and should have beaten the Colts that year. Every time I hear his name, my mind goes to that. It was one of the rare. Balchick made some mistakes over the years. That was a good one. That was a good mistake to bring up if you're going to bring the mistakes up because he tried to cheat without having a number one receiver, and it just wasn't going to work.

Who did Who did he get with that first-round pick?

I think he ended up spinning that for... He did the Balchick thing where he traded backwards and got more stuff. The other time he did, it was Seymour, which led to May. I remember that. That was a little more defensive Yeah.

That was a crazy one.

Wait, can we do three minutes on Gronk?

Yeah, we can.

Because I know you're working with him now. I love seeing the old pats on Fox, but I get really mad when people even try to a Gronk versus Kelsey combo, because to me, Gronk is unequivocally the best tight end of all time. I don't say that as a Patriots fan. I just say that as it's common sense because he's doing all the receiver stuff, and maybe his career wasn't as long as Kelsey's was, but he was also the best blocking tight end in the league by far the entire time he was Gronk. And the Kelsey piece of it, I think Kelsey's amazing. He's a first ballot, whatever. He's one of the best clutch receiver as I can remember. But to me, he's more of a receiver than a tight end. I think that part gets lost with the gronk versus Kelsey thing. Where do you stand on those two against each other?

I'm in that same category. The tight-end position has changed. The tight-end position now are big Hs. These guys that run great routes. They're great out of the backfield. You can't argue with Kelsey's savviness, route running ability, longevity. I mean, it's ridiculously impressive to see how he's been able to take care of his body and perform at the highest level, and he's never hurt. This year, he's probably a little banged up earlier, but they're at the point now in their little dynasty where you're not really playing for the regular season. You're trying to hold everything, getting ready for January. That's something we used to hear all the time. He used to tell me, he used to tell Gronk, you get banged up. I go up to Tom, I'm trying to get out there, and he'd come, Hey, babe, I just need you in January. I just need you in January. That's what it is. When I saw a Gronk play, man, it was a force when he was playing. When he was in his prime, it literally looked like a high school football player playing against second graders. This is a national football league. I remember guys just bouncing off him.

When you ran next to grunt when he had the football in his hands, he sounded, you could hear his feet, and you could hear his arm thing, and you could hear him giggling, and guys literally just trying to tattoo him and bouncing off. I mean, it was a pure dominance when he was in there. They're both unbelievable. But for the true tight-end, guy who goes in blocks. I mean, Gronk used to block the nine technique. Gronk, his rookie year broke Van Bosh's neck, blocking him. When Van Bosh was Van Bosh. I remember that to this day, we were getting on Gronk all week. This guy's going to eat your lunch. He had to motivate Gronk with that stuff. Billy O would get in on me. You can't let this guy beat us. He goes in and hits this guy. I mean, He was just a monster, an absolute monster.

Do you feel like he got officiated differently?

Huh?

Do you feel like he got officiated differently? Yeah.

After a while, if you look at the Panthers, there's this route called the Panthers route where You spread everybody out. You got the in cuts and the end lines. You got the outs, and then you have the guy at the three who goes in and you bounce. You get the matchup against the middle linebacker, and you get physical, and you come out of it. You see a lot of tight ends do it now. Would just go in, get big and physical. For a while, he would get away with it, and then guys would be flopping and stuff, and they'd call a flag on him. He definitely got officiated a little differently, I think. But, Kelsey, it's pretty crazy, man. He's still going. He's still going.

Yeah, I think about him more as with the great receivers.

They're best receiver.

What he does for the Chiefs isn't really much different than what you were doing for the Pats during the last three Super Bowl and the Eagles one that we lost. But that whole stretch of the seasons, you were like the big ticket. Oh, it's third and eight, third and 14, whatever. You were probably going to be involved in the play. It was you or Grunt. For them, it's Kelsey every time. You just know he's getting the ball. But I almost think of him like a 6'6 right off the line semi-slot receiver more than a tight end. I know he blocks people, He blocked.

Like I said, Grunt. I'm a grunk guy.

Yeah. Team Grunt.

Team Grunt. Nothing but respect for Kelsey and what he's done. I think he's a flat-out stud Like I said, savvy route running. But when it came down to nitty-gritty block, we used to run too grunk. You know what I mean? A lot of times you run away from the tight end. We used to run too grunk.

Did you take the Mahomes GOAT stuff personally at all when that started after this last Super Bowl? When the braided versus Mahomes became an argument, or you just think that's part of the sports discourse.

That's part of sports. They're playing really good football, but they haven't really hit a real adverse situation Tom did it with three different types of teams. Mahomes, these last couple of years, lost Tyreek Hill and everything, but he still has his safety blanket in We got to see how it goes when Kelsey leaves and when Kelsey retires because he's going to outplay a lot of these guys like Tom did. And so I think there's so much to the story that's unwritten. It's too early to say, But if he keeps his play up, he's putting himself in a good situation to go out there and do some fire with this whole thing. But it's a little too early for me.

This will be the last thing. The paths, they have the third pick in the draft, right? There's three quarterbacks. They're probably getting who falls third, which I think is going to be Drake May, which I'm actually excited about because I think he's a tank. If you were helping somebody scout quarterbacks, especially at the high level, because it's basically 50/50. It might even be 45/55 hitting on a top five pick with a quarterback. It's actually probably more likely the guy is not going to work out than it is that he will. For every C. J. Stroud, there's two guys that don't work out. It's starting to feel like. What would you look for? What are teams doing wrong that they can't do this? Or do you feel like it's really more situation than anything and there's no way to predict I think it's situation, ecosystem.

I think it's... I would always go into the scouts and I would say, I want to sit and look at the guy in his eyes. Send me out. When I was playing, send me out, and I want to sit and look at a guy in his eyes. I want to talk football with them. It's one of those things. Can they command a huddle? Do they have the leadership skills? Because every guy can Can you make the throw? But can you make the throw when there's a 6'6 defensive end down your throat? That's the stuff you look for. It's honestly probably the hardest thing to evaluate, and that's why I'm not a scout.

Well, I'm with you. To me, and I've been saying this forever, to me, it's a charisma leadership position as much as anything else. I'm really into this draft because I feel like if you miss the pick, it set you back three years. If you hit the pick, you're set for 15, right? So there's real stakes. So I'm reading all the Drake May stuff and trying to learn more about him, and there's stuff in there like, Oh, he got this NIL commercial, but he insisted his offensive lineman, they all split it five ways instead of him just getting the money because he wanted to get his offensive lineman paid. And I'm like, Oh, that's a good one. All right, put that in the plus box. The fact that his coach and the team around him was like, This guy's a leader. This guy's a leader. He's changed the culture at North Carolina. I'm like, All right, that sounds good. That's a positive. I don't want to overrate it, but it is the things you want to hear when you hear this guy's going to be the caretaker of your franchise for 15 to 20 years, potentially.

He has to be a culture guy. There's no other way around it.

No other way around it. When you look at C. J. Stroud and his best game in college, it was against Georgia. Remember?

Yeah.

When it was nut cutting time, he was making big plays. You watched braided when he was in college in the Orange Bull. He got his team back. He still wasn't Tom braided of what he became, but there's always that clutch gene or that one thing where when it's the worst possible situation, what does that player do? That's what you got to look for.

Will the guys believe in them? You have all these guys throughout different sizes.

If you got guys that could do that, if you got guys that can do that, they're going to believe in them because they're going to see it in practice. That's where you gain the confidence of your teammates. That's why Tom was always practicing so hard because he felt like he had to earn his teammate's trust every time he went out on the field. When I got there, he already had three Super Bowl. But he practiced so hard because he really cared about being a great teammate, and he wanted to prove everyone that he was who he was. Guys that continually stay hungry, that don't get satisfied, those are the guys you want to play with.

Well, one of the things I always love hearing about you is, especially as you got in with Tom and you're like, Where are we going? It's like March, it's April. It's like, Are you going to Mexico or the Bahamas for 10 days, I'll go, too, and we can throw every day. You were just attached to him for two reasons. One, it was good for you because it made you better and it deepened the connection. But also, it's going to help you as a player. I got to know that shit.

Not even that. With that time, I always made myself available to him because when you're a receiver, you're dependent on someone, especially the quarterback. The more time you spend with the quarterback, The more time you guys learn each other. When we go out and run routes in off seasons, I was learning what he wanted, but he was also learning my body mechanics. He was learning when I would drop my weight, how I got in and out of breaks. He was learning my strengths, my weaknesses. We were learning We were learning each other. That's what you have to do if you want to try to get on a page with someone. Not only was I learning him, I was getting a master class in how to How to be a professional. How to be a professional football player. How in the offseason, when I was younger, you go out, get hammered, and you get so out of shape your first couple of weeks after the season. It takes you three weeks to get back in the shape. You never saw that with Tom braided. When I started hanging out with him, it was like, All right, we work out.

Now you go, We eat a healthy dinner or healthy lunch. Have some almond. Almonds. Then after that, now it's family time. How do you schedule out your life? How do you try to get gains out of your life with the practice that you put in in the offseason? Because you're never the same. You're either getting better or you're getting worse. That's just what football is. Getting to be a fly on the wall and having Tom allow me to train with him in the offseason, it taught me so much on how to take care of my body, how to recover my body, how to be a good family man, how to compartmentalize certain things, not letting things from the work field go into your home. I learned so much from him as a professional, and it helped me get to where I was at.

Well, now you're one of the great playoff receives of all time. Give me 10 seconds on Mayo. I'm excited. Yes, no, maybe?

Yes, It ultimately comes down to the quarterback they draft. That's where his fate will probably be, I think, right? Isn't that how it goes in the National Football League?

Unfortunately, that's how it goes.

That's how it goes. He's an unbelievably smart guy. I remember specifically when I was playing defense, I would look at Mayo just to get... I knew what I was doing. I just wanted to hear it from Mayo because you knew Mayo knew everything.

Oh, interesting.

He's that type of guy. He was always a great locker room guy. He's very personable with guys. That'll be something probably a little more new than what they're accustomed to there. I'm really excited for Mayo and his opportunity that he's going to have. I think he's going to do well. I really do. I think the guys are going to accept him. He's someone that's done it. He's someone that's done it at a very high level. He got hurt at his tail end, but Gerard Mayo was one hell of a linebacker. I mean, Belichick used to love We used to call him Gerard Belichick for a reason because that dude knew everything about football, and he was sideline, sideline fast. He could make all calls. He could handle the pressure. He was just a guy that could handle things. I'm so excited for Jirad.

All right. The podcast is called Games with Names. I'll make an appearance on there at some point. Got it. Am I invited? Okay.

Yeah. Whenever. What game would you do?

You want basketball or football?

Whatever game you want to do. All right.

I'll think about I'll marinate on it. Marinate on that. There's a lot of games that I've enjoyed over the years. All right. Good to see you. Julian Edelman. Thank you. Great to see you. All right. That's it for the podcast. Thanks to Shio Capadia and Julian Edelman. Thanks to Kyle Creighton and Steve Serruti for producing as As always, don't forget everything on youtube. Com/bilsimmons if you want clips and videos from this podcast and from the rewatchables. I'll see you on Thursday. On a Must be 21 plus in present in select states, Fandil is offering online sports wadering in Kansas under an agreement with Kansas Star Casino, LLC. Gambling problem call, 1-800 Gambler. Visit, fandil. Com/rj. Com/rj. In Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia, and Vermont. Call 1-800-Next Step or text next step to 533-42 in Arizona. 888-789-7777 or visit ccpg. Org/chat-in-connect. 8009 with it in Indiana. 800-522-4700 or visit ksgamblinghelp. Com in Kansas. 877-770. Stop in Louisiana. Mdgamblinghelp. Org in Maryland. 800-gambler. Net in West Virginia. 800-522-4700 in Wyoming. Hope is here. Visit gambling helpline ma. Org or call 800-327-5050 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts. Or call 1877-8 Hope-Ny or text Hope-Ny in New.